It's been the most fattening weekend for myself, just back from a 3D2N stay at JB!


I know, I know. 3D2N IN JB?!
When I told my colleague, she was like - what're you gonna do there? Got so many things to do there meh?

Well, there really is! From stocking up on your necessities at their local Watsons / Guardian to exploring pretty cafes, the list is endless! But the real reason we're there - we wanted to stock up on our camping gears before heading to Sydney next month, and KSL has a super huge sports store called Sports Direct that has super affordable sports wear and camping gears!!!

We chose Holiday Villa Hotel (or Holiday Villa Johor Bahru City Centre) which has just opened not long ago this year, and the location is perfect - just right next to KSL Shopping mall, with Holiday Plaza and yummy food nearby the hotel as well.

Btw if you happen to come on a Monday, there's a Pasar Malam going on along the entire stretch from KSL all the way to Grand Paragon Hotel.

How to go
We arrived on a Thursday night, took the CW2 bus from Bugis (Queen Street Bus Terminal - $3.30) right to Johor's customs and that only took around an hour. From there, we took a bus from JB Sentral (take the escalator down when you exit the customs) to the a bus stop nearby Holiday Villa.


About Holiday Villa
Checking in was a breeze. Considerably fast, staffs were friendly and nice. Since we were (kinda) hungry, we had some desserts at a Vietnamese coffee cafe - Doi Chaang just right next to the lobby. By the way, there's a few other restaurants including Chicken Up at Holiday Villa too!

THE ROOM
Here's a couple of photos I took of our room in the day, and during the night.



The amenities were quite okay, everything is pretty new since it's a new hotel. Our king sized bed was HUGE! (I think can fit 3 people)

I thought it'd be perfect if they had a bathtub, but the bathroom was quite decent with basic toiletries and a built in rain shower head.




THE BREAKFAST
Okay, I am extremely particular about breakfasts. It's complimentary (I booked it on Booking.com and it comes with free breakfast - yay!) and from what I read on Tripadvisor, it seems like the breakfast spread is pretty promising.






THE POOL
The main reason being why we booked this hotel was their infinity pool! I guess it's the one feature that sets them apart from all other hotels in JB - coz their infinity pool overlooks the entire city! Their gym is also the same level, which we didn't get to use because his priority - BREAKFAST. *rolls eyes* hahahaha.

1. Cats Cafe (Cats At Their Sanctuary)

 My colleague recommended this place to me, she says their cats are really cute and it's super affordable! There's no entry fee and all they require is for you to order a drink / anything from the menu to play with the cats.

We used Uber, booked a car from our hotel to here, and it only costed us about RM10!
This was one trip that we learned, to save money since the taxi drivers on the road are always over-charging people.






It's like a heaven for kitties, and I'd be a happy cat if I get to stay here too! So many things for these cats to do. Some of the cats were wearing Halloween costumes too.. Awww~

You get to feed these kitties at just RM 1 for a packet of their dry food.





 Yes, the CATS Cafe serve yummy main course, desserts (like waffles, cakes, ice-cream) too.


Anyway, we were quite hungry by then and decided to order their main dishes to try. I've always been skeptical of ordering food in themed cafes like such, since food is not much of a priority in such places. We were wrong! The food was really good at the Cats Cafe :)


This is the bomb. Super good, though a tad expensive (RM23.90) but their portion was quite generous :)

2. Lavender Bakery

Try their Hajuku Cheese Tarts. (RM6 for one)
Of course, it can't beat the cheese tarts back in Japan but this is really unique too. Filled with generous amount of egg cheese custard, I promise you - it's worth the calories!

3. Century Claypot Chicken Rice

And their famous Claypot rice!

Omg. It was so good.
I'm not sure if we were just hungry but we finished within 10 mins coz it's really good. Especially the tofu!!!

The next thing I'm going back again - It'll be straight for this claypot rice.

4. Get your massage and hair cut at Holiday Plaza

So many hair and beauty salons at KSL mall and Holiday Plaza, but honestly I find the prices at Holiday Plaza a lot more affordable!

We did our 90 mins thai massage at Thong Thai only RM90 per pax, and their skills are imo, better than Thai Odyssey's. So many spots they pressed - super shiok . After the massage, we felt so much better and a lot more energetic as well! So good that we heard other customers screaming. In a good way, hahaha. Their masseurs are mostly Thais too!



After that, we went to a hair salon located at the corner of the same level as Thong Thai. Bear had his hair cut at only RM30, I got my hair treatment at only RM150. Their service is really good too and we were super satisfied :)

5. Eat their local delicacies (also at Holiday Plaza!)

ASSAM LAKSA. 
I used to hate assam laksa so much when i was younger, but all that has changed now. Super love it so much I don't mind having several bowls per day and the best Assam Laksa is at the basement of KSL City Mall - D'Laksa. 

We also had our lunch at the basement of Holiday Plaza, a quiet little eatery that serves local cuisines at super affordable price. Forgot the name, but they've got Sarawak Kolo Mee, Wanton Mee, Assam Laksa and many more as well and it's really good! Their Avocado Milkshake with Gula Melaka is literally the bomb. Hahaha.

6. Visit a pretty cafe 

Among all the cafes in JB, our favourite cafe has got to be Flowers In The Window Café! 

We've never tried their main dishes before, but their cakes are already amazing. My favourite is their Chocolate Beetroot Cake! Never fail to disappoint :) Their cakes are freshly baked in house everyday. Some cakes are gluten-free, dairy free too!

There's free WIFI in the cafe as well. We spend the evening watching Westwood while enjoying the cakes :)


We explored JB mostly via Uber and Grab, and that really saved us ALOT of money. It'd have easily cost us RM30-RM40 from Bukit Indah to KSL (as quoted by taxi drivers since they don't turn on their meter after 6pm) but with Uber/Grab, it only costed us less than RM20! So long as you have Wifi, just request for one! :)


I can't wait to explore more of JB - heard they've got farm stays and nice places to trek as well.

Yay!

DAY 3
Tsukiji Fish Market Day
Address:5 Chome-2-1 Tsukiji, Chuo, Tokyo 104-0045, Japan

Okay, so we woke up really early (at least to me, lol) at 7am just to wake it for this Fish Market. Apparently, it's a MUST visit here in Tokyo, and I love food okay so go la!

We reached the market at about 8am-ish, and WE MISSED THE FISH MARKET.
Yes, the auctioning and all that live action. By the time we reached, they were already packing.. Shucks :( But there's still lots of restaurants and shops around though!

Anyway, too quick to say that everything in Japan is good. Because we did encounter some sucky food at the fish market as well. Like the below sushi.



We were queuing for the super famous sushi shop at the fish market, but they cut off their queue at around 8.30am, saying that they were not serving anymore :( What a bummer! So we had to find the 2nd best, but most of them were crowded so we walked towards the wet market.

Stumbled upon one of the shops, and while their sushis looked good, it didn't taste as good as it looked.

Well, it's a hit-and-miss! Just make sure your calories and money are well spent :)

Next, we ventured out to the wet market and there were so many things going on! All the small little food stalls and they looked better than that sushi restaurant.

The first thing we really wanted to try was the seafood, so we had one of their scallops and oyster!


I don't eat oyster, but they say that the oyster was really amazing. So was the scallop too!! Omg I love scallops for life :)


Next, HOKKAIDO MILK ICE-CREAM!





Evening:
We spend the entire evening walking nearby the shopping malls and areas at Tsukiji Fish Market.
So many cute little toy shops everywhere! And there were lots of outlet stores for Nike, Adidas, and other branded sports wear as well! Spoiled ourselves silly with all that shopping :P





Anyway, it's really dangerous to venture out to the basements of shopping malls, because they have soooooo many amazing food around! And for people with a sweet tooth especially. There's temptation everywhere.




I love the fact that the Japanese take pride in their products, regardless of food, merchandise, service, everything :)



Anyway, we were craving for tempura dishes so much that we relied on our Tripadvisor guide to bring us to the best restaurant that serves tempura!

 I forgot the name of the restaurant, but it wasn't too far off from our hotel. I believe it's in Shibuya area :)




In total, we waited for about 20 mins before getting in. It was soooo cold and I had to borrow his cap to keep warm! Hahaha but I'm not complaining. I really love Japan's weather!


While we were seated by the staffs, we were ushered to the counter table whereby we could see the chefs in live action!


It's lovely to see how the chefs prepare and cook our dinner right in front of us :) We placed ur order with the waitress and the chefs got down to work! There were about 3 chefs right in front of us, all of them doing different tasks - coating with flour mixture, deep frying, etc.








It was a interesting experience, but we thought that it was much better in Singapore, lol. Though I must say the whole dining experience was really good. Staffs are really polite (which we won't get that in SG much) and that the quality of food and ingredients are plain awesome.

Read more about Day 4 here!