Johor Bahru City Square: Sushi King + Fast & Furious 8 Movie Review + llaollao + Season's Cafe

Saturday 15/4/17

Ever since I came back from Bangkok, I keep having the urge to travel again.

Hence, I decided to visit Johor Bahru (JB) for a half day trip to have a sumptuous meal and movie during this long weekend.

We headed in to JB at a slightly later timing so that I can spend some time on my assignment before enjoying my day.

We cleared the custom in JB at about 4.30pm.

From Kranji to JB, we only spent 45 minutes. If you don't really have much stuffs to do in JB, coming in at a later timing is good as it was not so jammed.

We immediately went to mmCineplexes to purchase Fast & Furious 8 movie tickets for 6.15pm showtime. The movie costs RM18 per pax.

I have dinner at Sushi King again, but different outlet this time round. 

Sushi King is located at B1. There are 2 escalators leading to B1, remember to find the right one because the other one lead you to the carpark. The makan place at B1 is really a hidden gem.

We picked some of the sushi from the conveyor belt while waiting for the dishes to be served.

Tamago sushi.

Salmon Skin Piri Piri.

I have tried before fish skin, but this is my first time trying salmon skin. It didn't taste as crispy and as good as fish skin.

California Maki which includes crabstick, cucumber and omelette roll topped with fish roe.

I love the Salmon Teriyaki the most. 

The salmon is juicy and delicious, it is grilled to perfection and drizzled with sweet sauce, making every bite tasted flavourful. The kitchen took quite a long while to serve the cook food. We were done eating and just purely waiting for our ordered food to be served. They took nearly half an hour to serve the food.

We have Soft Shell Crab Tenpura again. 

We love the deep-fried soft shell crab served with tempura gravy.

Nevertheless, we have a delicious dinner and the dinner cost was RM102.

Time checked, we still have 15 minutes left. We decided to go to Secret Recipe for a cake.

Feeling full, we ordered one slice of white chocolate cake for sharing.

With tummy filled, we were ready for the 2 hours 18 minutes movie.

In this instalment, a mysterious woman who turns out to be a cyber terrorist. She got Dom Toretto (Vin Diesel) to work for her and bring him into the world of terrorism. He turns his back on his family and betrays their trust.

The movie started off with a action packed car racing in Cuba when Dom is in Cuba for his honeymoon trip. He has a race with the Cuban loan shark and they become friends after the race.

One can expect a lot of action packed scene from the movie. From the start to end of the movie, it will keep your eyes glued to the screen. There is a part where Cipher (Charlize Theron) controls the whole town vehicles and make them move in sync all at the same time. It is a sight that I never see before.

This is a movie where all racer expert with different skill sets come together to prevent a cyber terrorist from destroying the world.

Rating: 4/5

**

It was nearly 9pm when we finished watching the movie. We dropped by Hui Lau Shan (許留山) for dessert before coming back to Singapore.

Ordered a mango ice with coconut juice for sharing.

We have learnt my lesson, it is not a wise idea to leave at some a late timing. The custom and bus was packed with lots of people. A safe timing will be to leave before 9pm so that there is no need to worry about catching last train home.

Saturday 22/4/17

Johor Bahru (JB) is a place that I never get tired of visiting. I have become a regular traveller to JB ever since I knew the way of going in. If you ask me how regular I visit, the probability is about once a month or whenver we have nothing in mind during weekend.

Today, we went in slightly later and by the time we reached JB custom at about 5pm, we were surprised to see the queue after we came out from the toilet. The queue was empty. We cleared the custom in less than 5 minutes. 

Upon reaching JB City Square, we stopped by along the bridge to buy Xuan Tea. It's been a long time since I drank bubble tea, so we purchased a taro bubble tea to quench our thirst.

Decided to have a little rest and enjoy dessert after I was done with shopping, we stopped by llaollao to have a cup of frozen yogurt. For topping, we selected white chocolate and oreo chips. These toppings added sweetness to reduce the sour taste of the yogurt.

We decided to go Season's Cafe for dinner. Season has a store in JB City Square that sells breads and cakes. In my previous visit at the start of the year, I purchased their macha and salted egg cheese tarts, and it was very delicious. Hence, I decided to give their cafe a try.

A selfie while waiting for food.

Since we just have dessert earlier on, we didn't order too much for dinner. We just ordered a main course each.

I got this checkered boyfriend shirt from GF, a gift from her during her KL trip. Thanks GF (:

Boyfriend shirt is one of my favourite fashion style because the shirt is very versatile and it creates different style depending on how we wear it.

Enjoying my short day trip to JB.

Coming to JB always make me feel relax and enjoying, except the custom jam part.

I have chicken baked rice.

The rice tasted very normal, nothing fantastic. But good thing is the charging is not expensive either, about RM20.

Total dinner cost is about RM50. In total for all our food spending, it cost us about $25 after conversion. Now you know why we love coming here to spend our weekend?

JB, see you soon again.

Bangkok Day 3: Chatuchak Weekend Market + HOPs The House Of Paws Cafe

Good morning day 3.

We woke up at 8am to start our day early since we were heading to Chatuchak Weekend Market. A trip to Bangkok will never be complete without heading to their famous shopping paradise at Chatuchak Weekend Market that is only available on Saturday and Sunday. That's why it is called weekend market, the must visit place during weekend in Bangkok.

Breakfast was again settled at 7-Eleven with their toasted sandwich. I don't mind eating sandwich for everyday breakfast whenever I come to Bangkok. It was cheap and delicious. We don't need a very full breakfast as we will be eating here and there while shopping.

We purchased our train ticket via the machine. 

Just look at the fare information, note the train station you are heading to and click the button. The number indicated in the button will be the fare amount we have to put in.

We took BTS from Nana station to Mo Chit station which was along the same line. We just need to take all the way to the end which was 11 stops away.

Chatuchak Weekend Market is marked as a must-visit place for tourists. It is home to more than 8,000 market stalls selling food, clothes, merchandise, bags, shoes, plants, furniture and many more. There were so many stretch of stalls like the photo above like it's never ending. You can really shop till you drop, totally spoil for choices.

The merciless sun was making us sweating like crazy. We stopped by a stall for their coconut ice cream. Coconut ice cream is a must have when coming to Chatuchak.

This 50 baht coconut ice cream was the best coconut ice cream we have at Bangkok. The coconut ice cream was very smooth and rich in flavour. We can choose the toppings we want to add on. No idea why, but we were so addicted to the coconut ice cream from this stall . It gave us energy boost to continue our shopping under the scorching sun.

We passed by another coconut ice cream stall by the name of Coco JJ. We decided to try their ice cream because of the stall name. 

Their coconut ice cream just tasted normal, a bit disappointing. After eating the best coconut ice cream earlier, the others really cannot compare.

The weather just make it so dreadful to shop around. I didn't really shop much over here too as the price was more expensive than those selling at Pratunam market. I try to control by not buying anything for myself that is above 250 baht because it is not worth it. Anything above 250 baht, I might as well buy it in Singapore. So in the end, I only got 1 top at Chatuchak and bought their local food merchandise.

We spent 2 hours at Chatuchak. The parking lots were full of cars, I wondered how they are going to drive out later. We then made our way back to our hotel via BTS to unload our stuffs and took an hour of rest.

Chatuchak Weekend Market

587/10 Kamphaeng Phet 2 Rd, Khwaeng Chatuchak, Khet Chatuchak, Krung Thep Maha Nakhon 10900, Thailand

Operating hours: 9am to 6pm on Saturday and Sunday

Nearest BTS: Mo Chit Station Exit 1 (10-15 minutes walk)

It was nearly 2pm when we stepped out of hotel to proceed for our lunch. But before that, we stopped by 7-Eleven to have a sausage. One thing that Bangkok is lacked of is dustbin, you can't really find dustbin by the roadside. So usually we just quickly eat and hand it over to the stall and ask them to dispose the rubbish.

We have our late lunch at Margarita Storm Mexican American Bistro, which was just right at the entrance of the lane to our hotel. The restaurant is a place for anyone looking for a drink or meal while watching the latest football match on television.

The bistro has a nice and pleasant ambience. One can choose to dine inside or al-fresco. No al-fresco dining at such a hot weather, we need the air-con. The temperature was about 37-38 degree Celsius.

Here is how the al-fresco dining area look like, it's a very small area. For people who want to smoke and drink at the same time.

Feeling refreshed after the rest, now I need food to replenish my energy level to let me continue my shopping later on.

Self entertained with taking photos while waiting for food.

Yay, our lunch was finally here. 

We enjoyed dining here because the food was delicious and also at reasonable price.

I was having classic quesadilla for 240 baht. The quesadilla was very tasty and filling, the chicken tinga were nicely chopping and filling with cheese made it very appetizing. The portion was too much for me and I couldn't finish it.  

Margarita Storm Mexican American Bistro

Sukhumvit Road, corner Soi 13, Khlong Toei Nuea, Watthana, Bangkok 10110, Thailand

Operating hours: 24 hours

Nearest BTS: Nana Station (2 minutes walk)

After our lunch, we took BTS and head to Pratunam Market for last round of shopping. My second visit coming back to Pratunam Market during this trip to get myself more clothes. The clothes I saw here was those types that we will see in Bugis Street but at cheaper price. When it comes to fashion, Pratunam Market is still my favourite place to shop among all the places I have visited these few days. They have a wide range of cheap and chic clothing along the stretch of stalls that suit my liking and pocket of money.

We stopped by a roadside stall to purchase a cup of sweet corm. Bangkok charmed us with the street food which fascinated us more than anything.

The sweet corn tasted good, but I'm not really a fan of sweet corn so I didn't eat much.

Drink was something we in need of. We need to constantly hydrate ourselves with water because of the hot weather. We bought this pomegranate juice at 20 baht. The juice is also a must try in Bangkok, it was so refreshing and cooling. So nice to gulp down the cold drinks down, and the juice was sweet too. I have also tried the orange flavour. 

Satisfied with the shopping, we then made our way back to the BTS. We need to head in to air conditioned place because the weather was just so hot outside. We went in to CentralWorld for a walk.

We chanced upon this at the atrium - 9DVR Cinema Simulator where we can select the movie we want (easy, medium and hard) and experienced 9D Virtual reality movies. Bf chose a horror movie - Dread Eye (hard). Not my type of movie, I chose Helix (medium).

The most common colour found in my wardrobe - black.

I just love black so much, I can never have enough of black top.

We spent the remaining night at HOPs The House Of Paws Cafe, located near Siam Square One. Animal cafes are on a rise worldwide, so we decided to take this opportunity to visit dog cafe during our trip. After doing some research, we chosen HOPs The House Of Paws Cafe which was near to us and located in Bangkok City. Many animal cafes are located at the outskirt of Bangkok which require you to cater in more travelling time spent.

HoPs Cafe housed a variety of different breeds of dogs which includes samoyeds, alaskan malamute, golden retriever, beagle, huskies and etc.

Upon entering, we bought the a packet of dog snack at 50 baht. Holding the dog snack in your hand will attract the dogs to you and you can feed them with it. But once they are full, they will not come to you anymore. They will find a corner and sleep.

A rare opportunity for me to get close up with the doggies, this was one of my memorable experience from this trip.

We were required to change into their slippers when we entered the cafe for their hygiene purpose.

Bf petting 2 dogs at one go. The dogs seems to be enjoying the time, we are enjoying too.

Our food was here.

Our set comes with a drink and a cupcake. Bf had the soda drink while I have green milk tea. The total cost inclusive of the dog snack was 588 baht ($24).

This was what we have for dinner. We were still feeling full from our late lunch. Do note to eat something full before coming to the dog cafe as they only have cupcake and drinks in their menu.

The cupcake was too adorable to be eaten. The cupcake was fluffy and not too sweet,  though it was filled with lots of cream on top. Seeing it cheer us up and made us forget that it was our last night of this trip. 

I love this furkid the most but it is also the hardest one to get along with people. He was very scared of strangers because of his past. He always like to hide at one corner or in the embrace of the cafe staff when he felt safe at.

Travelling was a great experience with the right travel partner. So glad to have him with me during this trip. We love this vacation.

Don't be scared okay?

You are in safe hand now and sheltered in the cafe.

Make yourself at home with lots of paws around.

The memorable experience we got while spending time with the lovely dogs was definitely worth the price paid. Remember to visit at least one animal cafe while you are in Bankgkok.

We left the cafe at 8.40pm since we were already the last few last and the cafe closed at 9pm. Time to head back to pack our luggage for our flight tomorrow.

HOPs The House Of Paws Cafe

Siam Square Soi 8, Pathum Wan, Bangkok 10330, Thailand

Operating hours: 10am to 9pm (close on Monday)

Nearest BTS: Siam Station (8 to 10 minutes walk, to pass by Siam Square One)

Waiting for BTS at Siam station.

After which, we got sausage and sandwich from 7-Eleven back to hotel for supper since we did not have a proper dinner.

Our loot of the trip. So happy, I'm back with new clothes to add to my wardrobe and more different colours to add to my wardrobe instead of just dull black.

4D3N trip seems so short to us, leaving us wanting for more. We shall plan a longer trip next time round. For now, just enjoy the last night and forget about everything else.

Good bye.