17th Oct 2022, Monday
Woohooo!!! Finally decided to go JB with my friends with KTM train today. We bought the train tickets a month ago to avoid not getting the date we wanted. We all woke up around 5:30 am to get ourselves prepared and met up in Woodlands Interchange. We had took Bus 911 to go to Woodlands Checkpoint but the bus was going round and round and round within woodlands. It eventually went back to Woodlands Interchange again and it went another BIGGGGGG round before it actually reached Woodlands Checkpoint. It took us about more than an hr to reach the checkpoint in the end.
When we went up to the checkpoint, there was already a queue waiting for the customs to open for departure. Apparently, the customs will only be opened 1 hour before the train's departure time. And it actually took about a hour to clear both Singapore and Malaysia Customs before boarding the train. Luckily, it wasn't really very very crowded in the two customs but there were still a large number of Singaporeans travelling to JB today. There was still a 5 or 10 mins wait before the door was opened for boarding. The train carriages were having seats facing in opposite directions, so you may be facing backwards. We were lucky to get seats, there were people standing at the train doors cos they don't want to seat separately or not able to get the seats they wanted.
 |
| KTM Shuttle Train |
The train left the station slightly later than the actual departure time and it just took 5 minutes or so to reach JB train station. By then, it was already 10 am and everyone was just dashing out to start their day in JB. We too figured to exit out and walked to our first stop - Restoran Hua Mui in Jalan Trus area. The walking journey took us about 15 minutes to reach the place and we could see a long queue outside. So we decided to give up eating there and we went to Flowers in the Window cafe nearby. Their signboard is so small and we can't make out the cafe name on their signboard. And, their menu was quite limited and decided to go for The Replacement cafe opposite the street as it had more choices (Slightly expensive than Flowers in the Window). It wasn't crowded and the customers were the ones who got the same train as us.
 |
| Flowers in a Window Cafe (Quite creepy, right? >_<) |
We decided to share the food and go over to Restoran Hua Mui to try their Hainanese Chicken Chop after that. So we ordered a big breakfast and a French toast with hot chocolate, latte and coffee for each of us. The food arrived quite fast and we took our own sweet time to finish the food while chatting. The food was quite tasty. After that, we decided to walk Salahuddin Bakery which we thought there was a distance to digest our bunch. But it was just like 50 or 100 metres away from the cafe. ^_^. It was a old looking shop owned by an Indian, selling breads, cakes and curry puffs. Ended up not buying anything. After that, we walked around the area and walked past Hiap Joo Bakery which was famous for their banana cakes. We decided to skip buying too as the queue was crazily long and had to stand under the big sun.
 |
| Hot Chocolate |
 |
| French Toast |
 |
| Big Breakfast |
So we decided to go back to Restoran Hua Mui and there was no longer any queue but the place was still crowded with people. We sat a table near the window and discussed what we should order there. We initially wanted to order 2 plates of their "famous" Hainanese Chicken Chop as we saw a lot of the customers ordered and it was recommended by other bloggers online. But we ordered 1 plate of the chicken chop and a plate of Otak Nasi Lemak. By look, the nasi lemak wasn't appetizing and the otak was quite small. Whereas, the chicken chop was big and it came with potato wedges and colesaw. It turned the batter of the chicken chop was not crispy enough and it doesn't taste good to what we were expecting. And the potato wedges were all cold. It was quite disappointing for us and it felt like it was over rating for the chop. We found the nasi lemak is much better than the chicken chop. However, these were just our own personal preferences on the chicken chop.
 |
| Otak Nasi Lemak & Chix Chop |
After that, we took a grab car and headed to KSL shopping mall. The grab driver took some time to reach our waiting point and there was a long queue of cars on the road we were waiting. The driver told us it was his first day driving grab and keep apologizing that he was being slow in the driving. We walked around and did some shopping in the mall when we arrived. After walking around, we crossed the road outside the mall to Avery Day Convenience Concept Store which was just opposite the mall. It was another disappointment to go to the store where it was just selling some normal tibits and the prices were not so much cheaper too. There were some food carts at the last basement of the mall too. There wasn't anything interesting there, so we took a grab car back to City Square mall after buying Auntie Annie's.
 |
| Avery Day Convenience Concept Store (Opposite KSL Mall) |
When we reached City Square mall, we walked around and i was glad my favourite BBQ shop (Kimdo BBQ) had not closed down. So i just went ahead and bought 3 chicken wings to satisfy my cravings. After which, we went to buy some breads from Lavender and there was a queue of customers buying the cookies and breads. I went over to another bakery shop named Seasons and bought two red beans breads and a croissant which cost around $8 plus ringgits. After buying the breads, we went up to the last level and rested at Miyakori Coffee. There, we ordered some drinks and rested our feet from the walking.
 |
| Kimdo BBQ |
 |
| Hot Chocolate...Again!! |
We rested till around 4 pm, then we headed around the mall to get to Meng Meng Roasted Duck restro for our dinner. It was located very far inside of the mall and there were only 2 or 3 shops remained open. We wanted to order some dim sum but to our disappointment, the items we wanted were all sold out. In the end, we ordered 3 roasted meats (duck, char siew and roasted pork), a dumpling soup and a veggies with rice. I personally found the roasted pork quite salty but the char siew and duck were not too bad. The dumplings soup was also tasty. After that, we made our way slowly to the entrance to the Malaysia Customs and to board the train. As usual, there was already a long queue waiting for the gates to open. We just sat down and waited. The gates were only opened around 5 plus and the queue moved slowly as the people tried to scan their passports on the gantry for entry. As there were people who did not know how to scan, there was only one KTM staff and he was walking to and fro to help the people to scan successfully. After that, we had to clear the Malaysia Customs and it was dashing and queuing for everyone again.
 |
| Meng Meng Roasted Duck |
Once we cleared the customs, we headed to the train and some of the carriages were already packed with people. Some were even standing inside the carriages. So we walked towards the carriages behind where there were more empty seats. We reached Singapore 5 mins before 6 pm and we had to clear Singapore Customs when we alighted. There were quite a lot of people at Woodlands Checkpoint as people had knocked off and were rushing back to JB. Some were like us, rushing back home after coming back from JB. We went and boarded the same bus number 911 to go back to Woodlands Interchange where we went on our separate ways home. It was a fun and relax day after 3 years of no travelling. Taking trains to JB is really easy and less squeezing than buses. Hopefully, it can remain like this and no more lockdown globally.... ^_^
Places visited:
2. Salahuddin Bakery
