Monday, February 02, 2009

Belated Birthday at Bintan

This post is going to be super long as there are so many photos to upload! Took me almost the whole night~

Anyway, the Horny Devil treated my Goddess to a birthday getaway to Bintan. Woohoo~
But she has to get up like 4.30am in the morning so that she can take the first bus at 5.40am to the MRT station. Yawns~ So early. Somemore it's the day after their super long and tiring hike!

They reached Bedok MRT station at 6.45am and they were super duper hungry!

Sleepy & grouchy

Zzzz

The boat ride was at 9am, I think, and so they have to reach there at 8am for check-in.

Stoopid Horny Devil and his signature adventure move

Singapore Cruise Centre @ Tanah Merah. It's such a small and pitiful place. They should renovate it and have more shops and eateries!

Checking in


After which it was breakfast at Killiney! It was damn crowded, and the food not nice but so super expensive! They spent $14 for a toast set, cup of milo, chicken noodle soup and mee siam.



Their boat to Bintan

On the boat

The boat ride was super unsmooth. Even though my Goddess fell asleep halfway, she woke up 30 minutes before touch down and felt like puking! Luckily she reminded the Horny Devil to buy giam giam.

After an hour plus of shaky ride, they finally reached Bintan! The wedding shot on the bottom ride corner looks nice

A coach brought them to their resort at Nirwana Gardens and they reached at 12noon (SG time).

Cheers to a good time at Bintan - no work and all play!

The Horny Devil doing all the work - good!

Beautiful scenery taken from the resort

Their luxurious resort room

There's even a flat screen TV to boot!

There's a minimart at each resort

With nothing to do, they decided to take the internal shuttle to travel around Nirwana Gardens.


Unfortunately it's the monsoon season and they can't go snorkelling as planned (like their last Krabi trip) - darn! so they decided to hop on a bus that cost $6 to Pasah Oleh Oleh.

My Goddess thought it should be some nice market, but it turns out to be a really quiet place selling some handicrafts, 3 cafes, 2 spa outlets and minimarts.


After checking out the prices of the 3 cafes and their food offerings, they decided to settle at one of the nicer and cheaper looking place for lunch. All the cafes had steamboats and set meals for 2 starting from $40 plus dollar! That's really set fire robbery!

A hungry man is an angry man

Lunch time!

There are some nice handicraft and paintings for sale inside the cafe. Cool!

Avocardo Juice

Don't know if it's the slow place of life of the people there, their food took extremely long to come!

Traditional spicy Indonesian chicken rice, though it's more sweet than spicy

Realised Indonesians don't cook their vegetables. Raw cabbage - I'm sorry but yucks!

The Horny Devil so hungry that he can hardly wait to tuck in

They finished every single bit of their lunch, except for the raw vegetables

After lunch, they headed back to their resort. The wind was extremely strong and the weather hence pretty cold. You don't even feel hot or perspire under the sun.


The red flag that says do not swim in the sea.

After some sun tanning, they decided to dip in the pool.


The pool is really cool. It has a pool bar.

and an infinity pool


A life-sized chess set in the resort

And a life-sized snakes and ladder set.


Dinner was at the famous Kelong Restuarant.

The place is really nice and romantic.


Can't decide what to have

The food was really fresh and yummy! But it's very expensive too! The dinner cost the two of them $80!!!


And the two of them were really full but happy.


Next morning

The Horny Devil met his relative on the way to breakfast at the Coffee House

Breakfast is an internation buffet spread. Yummy again!



Being a typical and greedy Singaporean, my Goddess wanted to try a bit of everything.

First it was Western breakfast of pancake, omelette, sausage, baked beans, potato and quiche - the nicest breakfast there

Then, chicken bee hoon soup. Bland.

Third dish - Teochew porridge. Not bad but could do with more liaos

Next dish to try - nasi goreng. Before this, my Goddess had a taste of mee goreng off the Horny Devil's plate

Cakes and bread after which.

And finally ending off with fruits, which has a sad variety and a hard rock pudding.

The Horny Devil falling asleep while my Goddess was still munching away on her cakes and bread

How can they leave Bintan without taking a stroll along the beach?


Fooling around

And finally, they ended their trip off with a relaxing spa session.




Caught in the act


The masked mummy

Two and a half hours later and all refreshed!

A cup of ginger tea to end the session off

And then it's back to Singapore


Goodbye Bintan. It'll be a very long while till I see you again.
From this trip, my Goddess can tell that she's not a resort type of traveller. She likes her travelling trip to be fulfilling with missions and objectives to fulfill. Otherwise it'll be like spending money to waste time, and this, she can do easily at home.
Furthermore, Bintan is a total tourist trap! The things there are super duper over-priced, and there's not much night activities except more spending on wine and liquor at their bars, another tourist trapping activity. Would prefer Krabi and Phuket much more as there'll be more things to do, like night shopping. Maybe they didn't try any sea sports or adventure trips that's why.
But oh well, till then, it's another torturing boat ride back again!

Sunday, February 01, 2009

Birthday Trek

28 was the day of my Goddess birthday. The Horny Devil was romantic enough to plan a birthday surprise for her. He lied to her that he has to play game while she was on her way from the CNY visitation. Then he drove to her home at midnight with a Swensens ice-cream cake (slurps)!




And a bouquet of (free) flowers


The next day, the two of them went on a trekking adventure. It was a trek along the Southern Ridges, something they have longed to do together. If you don't know what's Southern Ridges, it is a series of bridges linking all the parks along the southern ridges together.

12.30pm: The trek started off with lunch at a kopitiam along Bukit Timah Road

The not-so-nice Mee Goreng

1.30pm: They reached their starting point at West Coast

1.45pm: After some searching, the actual starting point - Clementi Woods

Having some fun at Clementi Woods

2.45pm: NUS

You can actually see Orchard Road from here!

3.40pm: After a super duper long winding and downhill hike, Kent Ridge Park



Didn't they say no feeding of monkeys in the park?

There's a cotton tree in Kent Ridge Park!

4.05pm: Canopy Walk

4.25pm: A break at Reflections at Bukit Chandu

5.00pm: Floral Walk - as winding as Lombard Street in SF!

5.10pm: Hort Park - where there are greenhouses and many nice garden displays

And they saw a friend of mine!

5.30pm: Alexandra Arch


5.35pm: Forest Walk - this is one of the coolest bridge my Goddess has came across as it's super duper long, and it's very high and scary with slits to show the ground below

5.55pm: Telok Blangah Hill

They saw a sign to indicate Telok Blangah Pond and thought it's some fascinating nice pond. They walked about 300 plus metres downhill only to find out that it's this pond. So now they have to trek back uphill.

6.10pm: Hilltop Walk - and if you think they are walking downhill for this part of the walk...

You are so wrong

6.20pm: Henderson Wave

It's a wavy bridge, and hence the name. Another cool bridge to visit. The scenery is really good too!

The Horny's Devil's interpretation of Henderson 'Waves'

My Goddess' interpretation of Henderson 'Wave'

6.45pm: Faber Walk - What beautiful scenery with the sunset in the background!
And they went into Jewel in the Box for a peek. The place is really splendid - a place for atas indeed


A romantic shot of a couple viewing the sunset


7.00pm: Marang Trail - the last route marker before the end!

7.20pm: Finally, they've reached the end!
My Goddess and the Horny Devil took about 6 hours to complete the 20K trek! They ended the trek off with dinner at the Hawker Centre opposite Vivo. It was a tiring but memorable birthday trek for my Goddess!