Wednesday, September 30, 2009

Our Trip

We've been back from our short trip for more than a week but I was too busy with some other stuff to update.

The idea of going to KL together came up out of the blue... guess all of us needed a break. Very quickly, we reached a confirmation & booked our tix with Tiger Air, that's a month before our trip. Morning (0720h) flight for us as we like to start the day early while Con & Ivan chose to leave on a noon flight.

On the day of departure, we reached the Budget Terminal @6. But the lady at the check-in counter referred us to the Customer Service section after taking quite a while on our booking. Then this was what happened at the CS counter:

TA staff: "Sir, are you sure you've booked this morning's flight?"
Us (worriedly as with this question asked, we knew something's very very wrong....): "Yes ..."
TA: "I've got bad news for you (looking at both of us)... you're not on this morning's flight."
Us: "Are you sure!?"
TA: "Yes. And the worst is... you've missed your flight, that is, yesterday morning 17 Sept..."

That's the nightmare for any traveler!! Upon hearing the bad news, I wanted to faint...! We'd doubts in the said mistake as when booking online, we're talking to Con/Ivan to confirm on the dates. And 2 pairs of eyes (mine & hubby's) checked the booking details. But the staff said it's in their record & our fault was that we didn't print a copy of the booking. Our printer at home was spoilt & we saved a soft copy in our PC (& our PC is now in the warehouse). Hubby thought of printing a copy from his office's printer but lately he got so busy at home & at work that he'd missed it out. I was wrong for not reminding him too :(

The staff was quite helpful though. He told us that it'd be costly to get on that same flight by then (S$400+ for 2) & that the cheapest walk-in fare would be by Air Asia. We thought of giving up the whole holiday plan, just forfeit a night's accomodation but eventually decided to try Air Asia since we're already all prepped for the trip. Then we paid S$7+ for a cab, just to move from BT to T1 where Air Asia is. Sigh! Air Asia quoted S$360 for both of us including all taxes & an additional 15kg for checkin luggage. We took it. The only consolation was the departure time wasn't too far apart from Tiger's.. @ 0750h, meaning we'd still arrive early morning. We also had to call our driver in KL to change our ETA timing :( So we paid a total of S$525 to fly Spore-KL & return. We just got to think "Ah Q-ly" that it's still cheaper than taking SQ, ya? Such a dramatic morning..... I've never met such screwup in my life of traveling so far.... :(

By the time we arrived in KL, we've kind of got over the unpleasantness.

Checked in to the Orchid Club room @ Parkroyal.
All thanks to the Prestige card we have, we paid only S$107nett/night while Con & Ivan paid S$94 for a deluxe room. But frankly the deluxe room was nice enough, newly renovated with an open concept... unlike the one we got during our previous trip.

Ready to shop! Before that, have a dose of hubby's fav Green Tea Latte :)


We spent the afternoon in Sungei Wang... got the items in my shopping list :)

Back in the hotel... redeemed our tea & cake for 2 (1 of the vouchers we'd from the membership package) while waiting for the arrival of Con & Ivan. Their flight was delayed for 2 hours & adding on to it, it started to rain since late afternoon which led to heavy traffic.
By the time they finally arrived, which was 3 hours later than original plan, they're already quite lethargic.
When Con called & informed us from Singapore, we told them their situation wasn't the worst :\

As it's raining since late afternoon, we'd dinner at a noodle house in Sungei Wang followed by shopping.


We shopped till almost all the shops were closed. Then returned to the hotel to freshen up before meeting up again for drinks.

Club Quattro @ Avenue K is the latest club in town, which is located just across the Twin Towers. A cool place to chill out. It carries the name of 4 seasons - Spring (Lounge), Summer (Restaurant), Autumn (Club) & Winter (Bar). Interesting.

Having drinks in Spring :)



Happy happy after a few drinks ;)


Nearly 2am... all of us were already quite intoxicated by then. Wanted to check out the popular Autumn Club... but we're not willing to pay for cover charge (patrons from the other 3 'seasons'
weren't exempted) as told by the waitress. For some fun (under the influence of alcohol I guess), we wanted to try again at the entrance with receipts we chalked up from the drinks. Con & I talked to the 2 ladies at the door.... & yep, the 4 of us managed to get in for free! We're so proud of it;) Who says girl could only charm man to get her ways, huh? Haha.
It's really crowded inside.. so we left in less than half an hour & after some dances to try to work the inebriating effect off.

3am. Having supper nearby...
It's been a long time I haven't drank like this... not a lot (2 mugs of beer, 1 vodka+cranberry & 1 Kilkenny) but already got praises from hubby.. hee... as nowadays I'd usually doze off after a bot of beer at home, in front of the tv. So he'd try to not let me drink when we're watching something interesting. Haha.

Looking fresh again the next morning!

Brought Con & Ivan to our much craved Char Siew. And this was our 2nd visit for this trip. They liked it too! ;)

While Con's doing mani in Sungei Wang, we went for foot massage just a level down, the 1 I went during our last trip. Hubby doesn't enjoy massage, so he waited for us. Quite cheap... @ RM35 for 40mins.

Krispy Kreme!

A pretty fruitful shopping trip @ Times Square. Were looking forward to the 大排档 dinner. We're greedy, especially when we didn't get to eat the previous night due to rain, & planned 2 stops in a night... opposite Ritz Carlton (our usual treats of the delicious 鸳鸯, yong tau foo & 蜜糖金吉 drink...) & Jalan Alor. But very disappointingly, it rained heavily again. So we proceeded to Pavilion instead to have an early & light dinner, then street side hawker supper later.

Dragon-i Restaurant, Pavilion.
Very nice Shanghainese & Szechuan food yet cheap (for restaurant standard)... eg. a big bowl of ramen was only @ RM12. We ordered so much that it wasn't a light dinner anymore....

Clockwise from top left:
- The only dish I didn't really appreciate.. beacon wrapped veg?
- 四川担担面. Looks spicy but actually not. Nice... like the peanut soup.
- This dish seems intimidating with the number of dried chilli outnumbering the meat. Con thought it's too spicy for me but nope.. I don't find it so at all. Hmm... My (chilli intake) level has improved huh :) Anyway, the deep fried chicken was crispy & tasty.
- This hubby's & my fav! Deep fried prawns coated with salted egg paste. Very special & yummy!
- Very good 小笼包 @ only RM8
- The french beans with minced meat was as delicious


In the end, we didn't have supper. There went my 鸳鸯.... Sobs~ Hubby hit the bed straight after returning as he'd been having headache for the whole day & got worse at dinner. I stayed up till 2am as I was too engrossed in battling with my mobile phone game :P Only the next morning I got to know I was actually the last 'surviving' party as Con & Ivan couldn't beat the exhaustion & slept @ 10.30pm, all 3 of them went to bed without showering. Hmm... Quite a hangover they having.. Hee..

Breakfast on the last day. We missed the previous day's due to the boozing.
Can you see the heavy-weight couple in the background? They're really good... I first noticed the girl when she's busy digging in a mountain size of rice & meat. Just then, she got up leaving their table, totally full of food including a plate that contained 5 pieces of danishes/crossaints, to get some more food! The guy had similar capacity as he busied himself with the food on their table as well as the spread out there. From their conversations, they're most likely Singaporeans. Hmm.

Holiday is always nice. But I'm not very contented with this trip... we paid S$300+ more but unable to enjoy the usual indulgences (if not more) whenever we're in KL.. the big one gotta be sans 大排档.

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