Extended Family Malaysia Road Trip 2019 (7th June to 9th June) Day 1

We woke up at 4am the next day and prepared ourselves for the drive to the pickup place, which is another aunt's place nearer to Woodlands Checkpoint. When we reached at 5.30am, the tour bus had not arrived but many of my relatives were already there. My dad and some other relatives came from Sg but it was just a quick drive into JB so early in the morning.

The comfortable luxury tour bus

After all my relatives had arrived at our meeting place, the tour bus and the tour guide turned up. We loaded our luggages in the rain and boarded the place, it was a pleasant surprise that it was a VVIP bus, very luxury and comfortable. A good start for our trip! The weather was rainy and cold but the atmosphere was happy and warm, it happened to be the Dragonboat Festival 端午节 that day so one of my uncles had brought rice dumplings for all of us. It was really early in the morning but all of us ate the rice dumplings to fill up our stomach before we would stop at Yong Peng for breakfast.

We stopped at a small eatery near Yong Peng for breakfast and continued our journey all the way up north to Colmar Tropicale 法国村, only stopping at some rest stations for toilet breaks. We also stopped at a Chinese restaurant for lunch, the food there was quite nice but I cant remember exactly where that was anymore. I've not heard of Colmar Tropicale in Malaysia before, but apparently it is quite popular among the locals, with really instagrammable European backdrop. Everyone was excited when we reached around 2pm and could not wait to take lots of photographs there. The weather was cooling when we reached as the whole place was on a mountain some distance away from Genting and KL.

Weather was really cool when we arrived

We did not have to worry about group photo as the tour guide kept asking us to take them

One for the ladies

Another group photo

At the Japanese Garden

Another one just for the ladies

It was still too early for check-in when we arrived, so we took the free shuttle to a higher point in the mountains. There was some walking to be done, and it was quite nice to do a mini trek up. However, we did not really like the attractions at the end of the road, the so called Japanese Garden and Botanical Garden were small and uninteresting. We got tired after the walking and lots of photo-taking and the sun came out so it became warmer. We were ready to get back to the hotel to wash up and just rest, so we did exactly that after taking the shuttle down.

The french inspired village where we were staying

Many European style building

Mama and Papa

Extended Family Malaysia Road Trip 2019 (7th June to 9th June) Pretrip

My mum is part of a big family with 8 siblings (my maternal grandparents had 9 kids, and mum is right in the middle being no. 5) and she had been working hard to organise a family trip for her siblings for the sake of bonding and getting together while they are still fit enough to make the trip. They had made the first trip 2 years ago but the timing was not right for me then, and I was quite regretful that I did not join them. Even though I had signed up for the Phuket Marathon on the same weekend this time, I've decided to give mum my support instead. I was careless when I did Agoda booking for the Phuket hotel resort and had paid for two nights of stay which were non refundable. Usually I'll check carefully for such advance bookings and would chose the free cancellation option sigh...

Even though the trip started on a Friday, Mum wanted to travel to JB a day earlier to enjoy some food at Aeon Bukit Indah, I had heard about the mall long ago as it's quite popular with Singaporeans, but I had no idea one of my aunts is staying nearby. However, I was lazing around and only woke up at 10.15am that day, I packed my things in a hurry and left the house to meet my mum who was already waiting for me at Bishan MRT station. We took the train to Jurong East MRT station, went to the bus interchange and right after I hopped onto CW3 to bring us to Tuas checkpoint, I shockingly remembered that I've forgotten my passport. All the passengers were looking at us as the kind driver made one big round before he dropped us off at the same boarding point again. I felt so tired and angry with myself by this time as the trip from Bishan to Jurong East was already 45min on train and we've wasted so much time taking the train, now we had to go all the way back. Mum and I decided to eat something at the nearby food court as it was already 1pm and we had not eaten anything (we were planning to save our stomach for JB food). We took the train back to Bishan and I got back home to pick up my passport. I insisted on taking Grab to Jurong East interchange this time as I felt too tired to take the train again, the only saving grace was it was a rainy day for the whole island and the weather was not bothering me. It was almost 3pm when we finally made our way to the checkpoint, this is the first time I'm entering JB from Tuas on a public bus.

We only ordered 2 pax meal as we just had Starbucks before this

My very happy mum

Inevitably, we always convert everything to SGD when we make purchases in Msia, and with our strong currency, everything seems really cheap. We had an really enjoyable steamboat session and Mum requested for durians after that as it is the season and she was really craving for those. She managed to get very good and cheap durians at a nearby stall (serving many Singaporeans) and she was really happy about it for the rest of the evening. We got to Aunt's place about 6pm and we decided to hit the sack early at 9pm as we had to wake up at 4am the next morning. However, all three of us only slept a little and woke up at 11pm again as it was hard for us to sleep so early. Mum and Aunt went to the living room to watch Korean dramas and I went back to bed shortly after that when I felt sleepy again. 

Life is good

Filled with happiness in my life.. 

Some good things that had happened today.

• P got his LTVP today
• I left school to go ICA, but took a cab back to meet my friends from work for lunch back in the north. The travelling around was bad, but it was worth it when I could catch up with them even for a short while
• I had haidilao for lunch, almost didnt want to join P and his friends for dinner (previous housemates from sembawang) but I'm glad I did and I enjoyed the evening
• It's a public holiday tomorrow and we are released for school holidays after a few hours of meeting today. Yeah! 

June holidays

Happy...

Other than the December holidays, this is the best time of the year for me. I just came back from a overseas trip with the kids to Xi'an, I'm doing a family trip with my parents to Malaysia this weekend and I'm really looking forward to the Japan glamping trip with the destress gang next week. P is joining me this year!