Batam!

LISTENING TO: Oh!Forever - BrakesBrakesBrakes

HELLO! I'm back from the ruins of Batam. No, seriously. The place looks like.. a tornado swept through it a few decades ago, and nobody has bothered to clean up ever since.

Convinced (heheh) xy to come on this because it was cheap, and I was craving a holiday (Clearly, exchange has spoilt me). We got this off Deal.com.sg, and we were supposed to be lodged in some crummy hotel (Golden View?) so when the woman told me it was Mercure Batam, I was like OKAY :D

And then they took forever to confirm my tickets, and I read an exclassmate's blog about how excruciatingly boring the trip was. Like her, I expected to be able to skip the day tour and be able to just... fester in the hotel room + soak in the pool. Thus I got a little apprehensive about the trip and contemplated backing out (haha and saving money for Shanghai's economy) :b But the Xymeister insisted it would be okay, and so at 10am on an overcast morning, we found ourselves at Harbourfront Ferry Terminal -.-

Everything you heard about Batam being a nice little getaway from Singapore? Truth! But I don't think it's justified by the crazy customs queue and the boat ride. The net happiness (haha Singapore's phrase du jour) = 0 because all the trip did was undo the damages done by customs. Really, you have upwards of 200 people in the queue and you open ONE COUNTER?

When we reached Batam, it was raining, and we had to wait in the bus for over an hour, while the rest of the people on the boat cleared customs. How bloody boring! And we had no data too! Could have activated data, but the cost (SGD15) was equivalent to a nice wallet in China. FOR MY CHINESE BUYING TRIP, I PERSEVERED. And played with my camera... haha

Some of you might've seen that mobile upload on Facebook. Well this one's more true to colour (on my screen anyway). Mermaid Tears by OPI, POTC4 collection
Our first stop (when it finally came) was Yong Heng Dried Goods. Have I mentioned how much I adore Dried Food? To take a leaf from Lady Gaga's book, I had a "Kegel-exercise vaginal reaction where I clenched and had to retract immediately" when I tried that weird sugar-coated cuttlefish that Xy got. The flavour was just too strong :s And what the hell, there were seahorses as well.

Yellow seahorses are cute when they float around in tanks, buffeted by the water current, but not when they're dried and black. They look quite vile.


Then again, if this were an authentic Indonesian apothecary, and I weren't on a tour, I might've been more intrigued than repulsed.
Lunch was quite okay... Only it was seafood, and all I could think of was how in the moments before my departure, all TheMother could rant about was how I was "not 乖 (disobedient)" and "不听话(stubborn)" for wanting to seek out Food Poisoning from The Source itself. Haha but it was okay! Only no photos because it was so strange. We were eating with strangers at a round table. i.e., Look up and you see someone watch as you devour the head of a prawn. Then do you make small talk, or not?

After that awkward lunch, it was all the factory outlets which made me miss those in the United States. I was so not going to pay for a fake polo if it didn't even look real. And then the massage. No photos for that, obviously. But we were brought to Sawadee massage, where I received the worst massage of my life. Hana (if you know her) and XtotheY the Amateur have done better jobs. The nice masseuse did everything To The Right. Meaning the right half of my ribcage got prodded too hard and too much at the sides, while the left half was half untouched, and my spine felt like it was getting run over.

After that..experience, we visited the Nagoya Something, which really failed to impress because it was all fake goods. OH BUT THERE WAS BASKIN' ROBBINS! Baskin' Robbins is special because I've only ever eaten it in the company of loved ones. Once or twice in Sydney with the Sydneysiders + JAL & Nab, and then another time in Montreal with XtotheY enroute to Marche Hawai. So the pleasures in consuming a cup or cone with the BR label isn't limited to the palate.

Green Tea & Peanut Butter (Dark) Chocolate

And then we adjourned to the hotel, which had CARTOON NETWORK. You have no idea how much it made my day. Almost made up for them giving us 2 single beds. (Seriously, tour agents, which part of 2 unrelated people of the opposite gender did you not understand? Of course I should have clarified, but the bill said 1xDouble..and the hotel website said they either had 2xsingle, or 1xdouble. :T) AND EVEN SO, I think it's stupid to give single beds! They're not even wide enough for people to sprawl sideways on! But okay, at least our hotel was clean and...green. Every 5 reused towels = 1 tree planted.

"You mean their towels will grow mould ah?" - XtotheY, upon seeing this.


The Soap Bar! This is such a good idea (not sure whether it'll work though)! So the hotel guest tears the packaging open, reads "Mercure and Me", and feels an instant connection with the hotel. A certain warmth, and then begins rubbing the soap all over, thinking "Mercure and me... : ) ". The guest thus reels the hotel in closer to his heart while physically slathering the hotel all over himself. AND VOILA. A BOND IS FORMED. Next time he visits Batam, he'll think of Mercure Batam first.
Or as Xy declared, Tarzan Style, "MERCURE IS ME. I AM THE MERCURE. HAHAHAHAHA"
So did that work out for Xy and myself? Errrrr I'm looking into Bali as the next stop. Or a real resort. :p Hahaha. But we thought the Mercure was okay! Very efficient room service too :)

Felt peckish later that night, so we headed to Windsor Foodcourt for some Rojak! Batam's streets are quite creepy at night because they're cracked, have strange ropes lying across them, and the pavement can suddenly disappear, forcing you to rethink another solution to your destination. Despite Batam feeling less dangerous (from a rational perspective) than LA, walking Batam's streets at 11pm felt way creepier than doing the same in LA (Sin City) at 4am. :T


Ah but the rojak was heavenly :p It had fruits, and a hand ground peanut sauce. And none of that weird ngoh hiang shit.

For the record, XY also declared the chendol "Good", but I didn't take photos of it because it just looked like a pool of mud with gummy bears soaking in it.

I LOVE HOTEL BREAKFASTS! They're COOKED, and almost always better than the rubbish I forage for on mornings spent at home. Breakfast in Batam was included in the room rate, and surprisingly not bad :) Better than Malacca's. Haha


Round #1: French Toast (tough), beans(hard) and sausages(too soft) with Maple Syrup..or Honey


Round #2: Chicken Congee with Peanuts and Green Chilies (I THOUGHT THEY WERE DRIED PEAS OR SOMETHING)
This was a mistake! Xy brought round this bowl of congee overflowing with Yew Char Kuehs, Chicken, and Spring Onions. Very delicious looking! Since I hate spring onions, I thought I'd be different and put long beans. Only...they weren't long beans. Well THAT WOKE ME UP.


Xy's Round #2 (see above for description)


The Rest of our Trip!

Batam, as I mentioned earlier, was largely undeveloped. If you still remember Rostow's Five Stages of Development, I'd say that the little island fits in Stage 2: Preconditions for Takeoff. Think I'll let the photos speak for themselves. Some were taken from inside a moving bus, so some blurring's...inevitable.

As for the food, there was food everywhere! Would've loved to try the local street food, but decided to be cautious since even my brother returned from Batam with a very bad case of food poisoning. Poor boy was knocked out, and in no condition to protest when the Mother subjected him to an hour of Channel 8. Therefore the most adventurous dish I tried was the rojak, which was from the food court.

Not bad, walked away relatively unscathed, with just.. a painful stomach ache (yesterday) and diarrhoea (yesterday, today, and hopefully not beyond) , which I honestly don't mind since it legitimizes staying at home on a Monday. If I don't eat, then nothing will come out :)

By the roadside

After School


Kittin is high

What's blue with pockets! (All xy needs is a large, golden bell)