Short Trip South

Disebabkan terpanggil untuk pergi Retrolicious Concert, maka kena la pergi Singapore. Nasib baik ada Jetstar flight yang murah. RM60 nett per person. Dah la naik dari KLIA. I like! Lagi murah dari naik bas. Well... bas yg executive tu la. Bukan yang RM30 dari Pudu tu. Pergi je murah, balik mahal. So balik, plan naik bas pulak. RM75 per person kalau tak salah.

Hotel pulak, nak jugak duduk area Bugis, sebab nak pi makan di Wak Pariaman. Kalau boleh nak duduk kat dapur dia. Hahahah. Nak cari hotel murah, yang walking distance dari kedai tu, tapi tak sanggup nak duduk kat baackpackers hostel. Macam mana nak jadi world traveller ni? Surf punya surf, jumpa la hotel ni. Takde la murah pun. Tapi sebab nak dekat punya pasal, book je la.

Santa Grand Hotel at Jalan Kubor. Our verdict? Biasa je. Plus point, it's very near to Wak Pariaman (tapi jauh sket dari kedai murtabak), 5 mins walk to bus stop nak pergi Orchard Road and boleh la nak jalan pergi Bugis MRT and Bugis Junction. Facilities dalam room biasa je. Landmark Hotel tu lagi nicer, but mahal sket la. Satu malam je kan, so tak kisah la. Skang ni sangat suka naik bus dari MRT, sebab tak payah bersesak dengan orang and susah payah nak figure out to buy the ticket. Bus nak ke Orchard tu every 15 minutes. Bus no 7. I think the fare is about SGD 1.20. The bus stop is called Before Sultan Mosque on North Bridge Road.

Of all the days in the year, we choose to be here when people are eager to be married on the special date 10.10.10. Sudahnya, Wak Pariaman tutup pulak sebab ada wedding reception. Huk alo. Never fear, every dark cloud has a silver lining. The silver lining comes in the form of Kedai Hjh Maimunah.

It prepares authentic and delicious Malay lauk pauk. Sedap and murah. My lunch was only SGD 3.30. Pastu stress sendiri sebab menyesal tak ambik banyak2. We were watching the guy at the cashier punching the numbers and estimated roughly that a family of 5 can eat a big feast at an average price of SGD15-18. Semua lauk hidang and tengok gaya orang order macam esok nak start bulan puasa. No wonder the shop had to be extended a couple doors down and siap ada 2 tingkat tu. Unfortunately, Sunday the shop is closed. Melepas la nak try benda-benda lain pulak. Next time la ye.

We wanted to go to Universal Studio, but decided against it. Dah penat berconcert, ada pulak muntah kang naik rides. The hotel also told us that there might be possiblity that ticket were sold out because it's the weekend. Being the wuss and lazy we are, we like to agree with that very much. KIV for next time. We will plan a special trip just for Universal Studio. Duduk dari pagi sampai malam buta.

So now, where to go since we have the day to kill? Pergi Mustafa lagi. Tah apa benda nak beli pun aku tak tau. And true enough, I've run out of things to buy. Almost bought a PSP, but senses kicked in. Almost bought a new headphone, but yup inner senses said no. Damn you, inner voice! Jadi beli apa? We went crazy at the food section. My sister star purchase was a bottle of Nescafe. We checked the price in Malaysia it was RM24. She paid about RM11. Bangga gila. Lepas tu ketawa sendiri sebab, why the heck that we travel this far and end up buying Nescafe.

At 6.30pm, we boarded First Coach at Novena Square. Bosan jugak nak menunggu sebab there's no proper waiting area. Aku memang dah kiasu nak tengok movie onboard. Lama pulak nak tunggu pakcik tu on server dia. Only after the Custom check in JB baru boleh tengok. Nasib kat Kastam takde check and takde orang.

The movie choices were not that great, but I haven't seen 40 year old virgin, so layan je la. Mother of all horrors, cerita ni gila babi tak censored. Nasib orang keliling aku semua dah tidur, if not depa ingat aku tengok porn ke. By the time we stopped for a toilet break, news start to spread that there's a massive traffic jam from Simpang Ampat onwards. Ada accident. Alamak.

Turns out, it was a fatal accident. 13 people were killed. All the while we were stucked, we could see ambulances and police cars rushings from both side of the highway. After almost 2 hours of slow crawl, we reached the accident scene. It was too dark to see anything clearly, but we can see that a bus had overturned, a flatten vehicle and a banged up divider. The traffic from KL was at a stand still. Rupanya the accident occured sometime before 7pm. It was already 11pm when we passed by. I was thinking seteruk-teruk semua orang yang terstuck dalam jam ni, teruk lagi orang yang mati and injured dalam accident ni. Semoga yang meninggal tu sentiasa dicucuri rahmat. Read about it here

It was sad to read that those who had died are mostly teenagers, colleage students. It reminded me of the University days where we were the normal bunch of people taking these buses, for either a fun weekend in KL or going back home to Johor. Pastu sebelum naik bas nak kena tapau burger extra mayo dulu (patut la gemuk). Suka kalau driver tu drive laju-laju, supaya cepat sikit sampai. Mujur la umur ni panjang lagi. Alhamdulillah.

We reached KL around 1am. Nak terkencing yang amat. Nasib sempat sampai rumah. Nampaknya lepas ni idea naik bas ni akan diabandonkan.

Stay safe people.