COT Trip to Malacca 18th - 19th February 2012

Melaka(Malacca) - Malaysia

18th - 19th February 2012

Preparation :

Started with our usual few person meet up, and we started asking Andrew, "Hey Andrew, when are we going to have our next retreat"? and next we turn to Timothy and ask, "Hey Tim, when are you going to bring us for Live band"? So one thing lead to another, and finally, we come up with this idea of going for just a weekend short trip to Malacca

We started with Hayley and myself in 1 room, Andrew and Karen in another room, problem is with June and Timothy, so we ask if Joel would like to join us and room with Timothy, and also Christina with June. Unfortunately both Joel and Christina is not able to join us. so end up Timothy and June take a standard room each.

Type of Trip : Free and Easy

Traveler : Timothy, June, Karen, Hayley, Andrew, Kirk

Bus Ticket and Time : 5 Star bus at Golden Mile pick up point, departure at 8:30am, total cost of Bus Ticket and hotel stay is about $115 X 2 + 25, which is $255 per couple, for Timothy and June $165 + 25 each.

Hotel : Holiday Inn

Transport : 5 Star bus to malacca and Walk.

Language : English, Mandarin, Malay

Currency : Malaysia Ringgit

Meals : Only Sunday breakfast is provided, lunch and Dinner on our own. mainly Paranakan food and street food(Penang laksa style).

Camera Equipment : Nikon D7000 with Tamron 18-270mm f3.5-6.3, 50mm f1.4, Lensbaby Composer Pro with Sweet 35 and Fisheye Optics.

Day 1 - Singapore to Malacca

Early morning at 7:20am, we confirmed with everyone that we will meet at Golden mile food centre for breakfast, unfortunately almost all stalls were close as it was too early, except for 1 "Wanton noodle cum fried noodle(economic noodle) stall, 1 pastry stall, and 1 coffee stall", so all of us had our breakfast there and then after that proceed to Golden mile complex to get our tickets.

Our pre-departure group photo before we go up the bus.

All were filled with energy and anticipation towards this trip. Andrew showing the "Yeh sign"..

After we arrived at the Singapore custom, Timothy suggested we have a group photo there, after I took 1 of the photo, our driver rush to us and warn us not to take photo here, if spotted by the custom officer, my iphone will be confiscated. so we stop here.


Here we go, from Singapore to Malacca, stop at "yong peng" for a 1/2 hour toilet break. End up, we had Mee Soto.

Arrived at Holiday Inn

Can't remember how many hours we slept, but we finally arrived at Holiday inn safely around 1pm.

Flowers displayed at the main lobby.

While waiting for our rooms to be checked in. took afew shots at the lobby.

The girls sat at the side resting while Karen went to check in for us. Karen came back and told us that we only had 1 room which is ready, so we have decided to all go to that room 1st. After we comes back from lunch will collect the keys for other rooms. Timothy had a bad stomachache, so decide to go to the toilet at the lobby while we put our luggage and bags in Andrew and karen's room.

Opposite our room is an island with quite alot of nice private houses, amongst them lies a mosque, the quality is not good as I shot through the glass window in the room.

We were all tired after the long journey, we almost forgotten that Timothy was still waiting for us at the lobby.

 After we met up with Timothy at the lobby, we decide to go hunt for food, their local peranakan specialty.

Holiday Inn to Mahkota and Dataran Pahlawan

Some pictures I took along the way while looking for Peranakan food.

A photo taken there and converted to black and white.

We asked around the locals, 1 malay guy told us there are no peranakan food nearby, have to walk further away. but June remembered somewhere, and after abit of walk, we finally found here. the restaurant name "Wen Sheng".

Took a picture of the interior of the restaurant.

 Group photo before we start our meal.

Some of the food we ordered - Fried fish, Otah, Omelet, Kang kong and Rendang

Timothy presenting the dishes to us.

June became our model with the food.

After our lunch, we came out and can't stop praising this restaurant, Good food, good ambience....

The ladies were happy also.

 After that we walk to Makota and then to Dataran Pahlawan, a relatively new shopping centre. There we see a group of youngsters do alot of dance.

During the dance, 1 guy and a girl came with a basket and hand out packet drinks(Yeos - Justea), and with a friendly greetings - "Happy Valentines day".

Andrew and Karen pose with their drinks.

Inside we see 2 Vintage car for weddings.
After that, we went to a factory outlet shop and bought some mickey mouse T-shirt, each of us got at least 1 different design, except for Andrew and Karen who also bought "Sesame Street" couple T-shirt. Timothy bought a few other designs as well.

June brought us to Nadeje cafe, where we had fantastic cakes.

All discussing what to order.

The 3 cakes we ordered, and out of the 3, the original flavour(last picture) still the best. and the chocolate is probably the least impressive out of the 3.

Another group photo at Nadeje

 Hayley enjoying her mocha

Couples shots infront of Mahkota

Timothy and June also took a picture.

After this we proceed to the portuguese museums and church, but half way through, the ladies were being distracted and decide to visit Brands Outlet, where June and Karen bought some clothes from there. Hayley sat outside trying to take off her compression socks, while I go to the park and shot some "failed" macro pictures.

This tree is at the park just outside Brands Outlet. Hayley and June gave me the inspiration to use a fisheye and shot this tree.

2 of the macro shots taken outside Brands Outlet.

Makota to Jonker Street

Sky is turning dark, after the ladies paid for their clothes, we walk on to Jonker street, pass by the Red museum, a water fountain and Christ Church.

Before we enters to jonker street, saw this bridge and decide to take the river and the moving boats. to enjoyed taking to see the streak of lights created by the boats. The group went ahead without me initially, after I finish taking, ran over to catch up with them.

 

Walk along Jonker street, browsing all the goodies that were displayed along the 2 side of the bank. Both Timothy and my objective is to get some cartoon T-shirt, my objective is to get Transformers T-shirt and maybe Marvel hero T-shirt, but end up didn't get any, only managed to get 3 T-shirt. 1 of them is "Filter Heros", think not many people know abt that, its all the description of Camera effects filter. The 1 T-shirt which I wanted to get but yet don't have my size is "The Beatles" with 4 beatles crossing the road.

Finally arrived at "Jonker 88" to have our dinner, took penang laksa, fishball noodle and prawn noodle. Unfortunately the only highlight, "Melaka Chendol" was sold out. pretty disappointed actually.

Request from June to take this painting on the wall of Jonker 88.

 After we got to the end of Jonker street, we saw this guy performing some kind of magic with a little worm like toy, call Magic Wiggles, where he is able to control it just by voice command, took awhile before Andrew found his trick, after that we took a taxi to get back to the hotel, when we were on the Taxi, we asked the Taxi driver how he does that, and the Taxi driver leak to us
1) the guy place a card in his pocket,
2) the string is attached to 1 end of the card and the other end on the worm,
3) the Guy will use move his leg and body movement to control the worm.

Jonker Street to Holiday Inn Hotel

After we arrived at the hotel, we gave ourselves 1/2hr to shower, then we meet up again to go to the lobby to listen to live music and drinks there. All of us agreed to wear our colourful T-shirt to go for live band, strange as it is very casual, but nice as it is really colorful and nice.

 

Our main live band singer for the night. Assistant singer took a rest at the side.

 Above is our Guitarist.

At the stroke of 12 midnight, Karen turn to Andrew and say to him "Happy Anniversary dear", and we realised today is their ROM anniversary 12 years ago. An honour to celebrate with them on their anniversary date.

2 more of their pictures taken.

Brother Timothy propose a toast to Andrew and Karen congratulating them on their 12 years anniversary.

COT Group pictures before we went back to our rooms and retire for the night. See all our colorful T-shirt.

Day 1 - Singapore to Malacca

Agenda for today will be - Breakfast, Swimming and Lunch.

So early morning I took a quick shower, and then realised no phone calls from either of them, so decided to call June, and we agreed to meet at the lift area to go down together.

 

Took their food and ready to eat, Hayley and Karen was still waiting for their Omelet. I waited there to chop seats.

  Some of our breakfast menu. unfortunately no bacon.

A picture of some of us at the swimming pool.

After this, we went back to our rooms to showered and we discuss, what should we eat? so these are the places we have in mind. 

1) A&W

2) Nandos

So after that, we all decided to go A&W, reason being that there were no more A&W in Singapore, some want to eat Curley fries, I want Coney Dog, so we went to mahkota, but there were no A&W, so we ended up at Nandos.

Nandos Peri peri sauce

Nandos Chicken and side orders.

After lunch, we go back to our hotel to checkout, and wait for our bus to send us back to Singapore.

Picture of Holiday Inn hotel.

Group photo before we depart back to Singapore.

Timothy suggest to take a brothers photo. so we went to the middle and Hayley took for us. hmm... guys are guys, we can't really pose, can we?

We waited not long before the bus arrive. On our way back to Singapore.

Arrived at Singapore around 7:30pm to Golden Mile complex, our trip didn't end here, we went to TCC at beach road for our late dinner before we head back home to rest. A good short trip, but guess its abit too short. Andrew suggested longer next time, apply 1 more day in future... good suggestion Andrew.