Johor Bahru, or better known as its acronym : JB, enjoys the closest proximity with the richer and developed neighbouring region and country, Singapore. As I indicated sometimes back then, Johor Bahru residents had tendency to go to Singapore to find earnings due to the higher salary and stronger SGD. One of Meke’s colleague even work in the downtown of Singapore while living in the far north Johor Bahru which takes no less than one and half an hour travel time, even maybe more if it jams in the Causeway (the connecting bridge) and immigration. For the very same reason, Singapore citizens love to dine and shop in Johor Bahru due to the fact that their money becomes more valuable in JB.

First off, in the very late time frame due to various reasons which are not far from the common tardiness of Indonesians haha, we arrived at Woodlands on 3.30 PM. From the interchange, we took a super cheap cross country bus which costed no more than 1.30 SGD to cross the border from Woodlands to Kotaraya terminal in JB. In the middle of the trip, the bus stopped twice for each of the immigration office of the two countries. Too bad, we forgot to bring any pen, that we had to borrow a pen from the very nice officer in immigration of Malaysia to fill our forms. Actually,if you’re too lazy, in the MY immigration there’s someone who offer the service to fill your form with an exchange of some Ringgits. But such cheapskates like us though, of course will never opt for that.

And finally, after the super crowded Malaysia immigration that took us like half an hour away, we found ourselves standing in JB Kotaraya terminal around 5 PM.

Knowing that we don’t have much time, we spend all our efforts in JB for dining and shopping. We rushed inside the City Square mall in JB which was very close to Kotaraya terminal with western dining at Fig & Olive. When I felt nothing special, Meke and Dimas admitantly mentioned that the taste was nice. Overall, it was quite costly but it costed far cheaper than the same menu would cost in Singapore.

Fig and Olive

Afterwards, we went to shop in Padini. Here, Meke bought two shoes at price no more than 40 RM per pair. The shopping was followed with us having some desserts at Secret Recipe in the basement: Banana chocolate and Marble cheesecake which were sold at RM 6.20 per slice, the very same slice that I believe would cost no less than SGD 5 in Singapore.

Cheese Marble and Banana chocolate

We walked our feet outside of the City-Square when it’s already 8 PM plus, which clearly it’s not possible anymore to head somewhere far hence we decided to have a walk within the vicinity. Dimas stopped at a Bee Cheng Hiang store nearby. Funnily, the box he bought had “the taste of Singapore” printed on the box, kinda losing its point to buy Singapore’s stuff at Malaysia. Soon after, we walked more a bit and gave glances on all the yummy hawker food on the street that we could’t resist and ended up sitting in a hawker nearby and ordered Roti Prata, Roti Canai and three glasses of teh tarek. The price was super cheap! The taste was definitely good! A glass of teh tarek and Canai kosong would cost only 50 cents, while Egg Prata only costed at RM 1.50. The cleanliness is also acceptable.

The hawker

The final session of the dining marked the end of our journey as it’s already 9 PM. In summary, what we did was nothing than munching, munching, and munching within the short four hours, but that was totally enjoyable and satisfying. We all agreed to come backfor more one day. I myself still wanna try the waterfront dine with Singapore’s view from JB at night, see their largest mall Aeon Tebrau and visit some of their historical momuments.

Weekend is still left with today, so I’ll see what I can do to fill the day. Good afternoon and happy weekend.