Heya! Back to another post again about just another trip. Hope you don’t get bored as much as I’m worried abot being bankrupt due to putting quite sum of money recently for lots of trips and fun activity. Anyway, here’s a little bit of the trip.

Day 1: Sep 19, 2009 – Arrival, Christ Church, Dataran Pahlawan, Jonker Street

It started for me with no bad feeling at all. It was 7.40 AM and we were already gathering at the Bugis MRT, and a bit later found ourselves walking our way to the Golden Mile Complex. Apparently we were a bit misled by I-was-not-clear-whose idea that Golden Mile was closer to Bugis instead of Lavender, no issue here yet though. Things started to get worse when apparently our coach was nowhere to be found even after we saw the ticket seller and then asked to run with a taxi to Rochor. Wrong bus, the person said! We were almost at the brink of thinking we got left by our bus, and thanks to Meke’s sister who stood up nose to nose on the phone versus the ticket seller, we managed to sit comfortably on our coach on the way to Melacca. Safe.

It took like 4 hours to reach Melacca, that we finally got there close to 1 PM. The hungry group – us, after a toilet session at the nearby hotel- Mahkota, finally found ourselves having our first lunch in Melacca in the Old Taste restaurant – close to the Dataran Pahlawan. The food was just okay – ordered Nasi goreng, the dessert was nice though. The best thing they had free wireless so I managed to ease my addiction to facebook recently. The total cost of the food for persons was at RM 55. Afterwards, we took a cab to our hotel, Emperor, 10 minutes away by cab for RM10, a bit rip-off to be honest for the distance.

The hotel was ok, the toilet was a bit old but clean, at least for our room though as the girls room had issue’ with the water, breakfast buffet was not really variative though and it was at RM 150 per night. Anyway jumping a bit, we started our real adventure on Melacca – all trip was on foot. We visited St. Peter’s church which happened to be pretty nearby. First impression by Meke’s sister’s friends, Stephen, “What the heck is this?” Yeah it was short of everything to be called “interesting”, still we happened to cam-whore though.

Fast forward the story, skipping some other photo-sessions shoot-out, we walked like 20 mins to our second site of interest called Christ church, near to the central of Melacca. The red church was built by the dutch at 1753 and in the surrounding, a still working clock tower, a mini-windmill, water wheel, were also built – which I thought to be cute. Many beca’ decorated with flowers also happened to be in the vicinity which could attract foreign-tourist who never took one, it’s a triwheeled-vehicle cart, cycled by a man on the back in order to move. Afterwards, we were moving to other sites like the Maritime museum, encompassing a big ship and of course the museum. Bad thing that many museums on the day were closed since it’s just a day before the Eid Al Fitr. Then we’re hitting the Melacca Mega Mall at the Dataran Pahlawan area which happened not be so “mega”. We had a bit of dessert there for 4persons at RM 25 before then going to Dataran Pahlawan.

Christ Church - the Red church

At Dataran Pahlawan, you could actually find more historical sites, or cultural symbol of Malaysia. The Malaysian proclamation of independence memorial, the Sultanate Melayan-house, and from here you can access the St. Pauls hill where the Portal de Santiago, a Portuguese fortress and the ruins of St Paul church were situated. The reknowned Spanish missionary. St. Francis Xavier, had his final resting place in the of St Paul church before finally exhumed and moved to Goa India. As a commemoration, a statue of him was built but the statue lost one of its arms after strucked by a falling tree.

Malaysia Independence Memorial

Ruins of St. Paul

From Dataran Pahlawan, we were hitting Jonker Street, a heaven of food, snacks, cheap stuffs, and clothing in Melacca. The street was crowded and actually it was somewhat like a market. We had our dinner in one of the restaurant called Formosa Chicken Rice ball, the rice ball melacca was famous of. We ordered steamed and also black soya chicken, and of course the chicken rice ball. I didn’t find actually the rice ball had any difference with the normal chicken rice except the fact that the texture was softer and was shaped like a ball which actually made my disliking worse towards chicken rice. The steamed chicken was nice though. The damage of dinner was at RM 52 for 4 persons. After dinner, we bought some stuffs in the Jonker street. We actually wanted to try the Satay Celup which Melacca was also famous of but in the end we skipped it because somewhat it looked just like a normal steamboat. It’s just that the stuffs were put in the Satay like-wooden stick.

Jonker Street

After Jonker street, we decided to go home. After a joking and quiz sessions after bath in the boys room and then hitting the nearby hawker center for supper, we went to bed. End of Day 1.

Day 2: Sep 20, 2009 – Mahkota Parade Mall, Banya restaurant, Departure

It’s apparently a lazy day that we got up quite late, had our breakfast, and finally leaving the hotel for our last few hours of sightseeing after 9. We hit the biggest shopping mall, still in the Dataran Pahlawan neighbourhood called Mahkota Parade. Apparently the biggest shopping mall was actually small that nothing much to see as well that we didn’t even have our lunch there.

We finally hit the nearby restaurant which we actually had wanted to try the day before but was doubtful in the end, called Banya. The food served was Peranakan food – Malay/Chinese mixed food which happened to very nice. It’s in fact the best feast I had in Melacca. It costed us like RM 85/4 persons. I believe if I ever return to Melacca, I would dine here again.

Peranakan Food

After lunch, we didn’t have anymore time that we just hurried back to the hotel and took our stuffs to checkout. In just 45 minutes time, we already found ourselves on our bus that would take us back to Singapore. Melacca was ok but I mean it’s actually nothing so much to be excited to see thinking that it’s inaugurated as “World’s heritage city”. One thing that would make me to revisit was only the food. But still, it’s the kind of great feeling that I’ve finally visited one more place in the world. Have a good day!

P.S.: Lost another my lock and lock bottle here, sigh!