Friday, April 19, 2013

Final thoughts: Family Trip to Singapore and Malaysia

It was a short but very eventful weekend in Singapore and Malaysia that involved a lot of firsts. It was my brother's first time in Singapore. We passed through Terminal 2 at Changi Airport for the first time as a family. We feasted on the Singapore classic dish Chili Crab in No Signboard Seafood for the first time as a family. We also tried Four Fingers Crispy Chicken (I think I like Bon Chon better) and Twelve Cupcakes. We got on Transformers: The Ride in Universal Studios Singapore for the first time. It was our first time in Legoland Malaysia.


I have to say that the restrooms in Legoland are pretty interesting. They have really cool lego art on the walls. Usually it's bad form to take photos inside a toilet but I guess this case was a bit of an exception as I wanted to take a shot of the wall-mounted artwork. :)


Another interesting first was getting to travel from Singapore to Malaysia via bus and going through immigration twice on the same day. I have to say it's a quick trip through immigration. Considering that everyone on the bus has to get off the bus, go through immigration, then get back on bus, it didn't take very long for us to be on our way again.

One thing that stayed the same was the fact that we stayed again at Royal Plaza on Scotts. I really enjoyed staying at this hotel back in 2011 so I decided to stay there again. Thankfully, I booked our accommodations about two months before we got there because the room rates were still quite low at the time. I recall checking a few weeks later and the rates had already increased! Even better was the fact that I saw this small link on the Royal Plaza on Scotts website indicating a free gift, so before booking my room, I decided to check it out. The free gift: SG$5 buffer breakfast for everyone in the room. Wow! That's even cheaper than breakfast at McDonald's and about the same price as a coffee at Starbucks

Another thing that stayed the same was us flying to Singapore via Cebu Pacific. Which reminds me of a borderline rude joke from the lady who checked us in. It seemed funny at the time but as I stepped away from the counter, I realized it was actually quite offensive. Once we had completed everything, the lady asked us if any of us was pregnant, then she pointed at my stomach and then smiled. If it was a friend or someone close who made that joke, it would have been fine. So my initial reaction was to smile. Then as we walked away, I was like, "okay, we aren't close so from a customer service standpoint you shouldn't be making jokes like that." Anyway, water under the bridge.


I guess to make up for that, I did win an iPad case while on the plane during the Cebu Pacific inflight game. Since it was still February, the game involved the flight attendant giving clues about a popular couple, whether real or fictional, and the person who answers correctly gets a prize. The question I got? "He's immortal, she' mortal." I recall raising my hand when no one else did (I could see easily because we were seated at the back of the plane). I actually almost forgot the answer - I just knew it was the lead couple of Twilight - but thankfully after a couple of seconds I remembered their names. "Edward and Bella!" Haha.


My mom commented that we've been to Singapore a couple of times now but we haven't really been able to check out a lot of the other parts of the city. Maybe the next time we go, we can spend a significantly longer time there so that we can visit a few other parts of Singapore that we wouldn't get to see during a short trip.

No comments: