Hey Hive!
It's been a while but we're back with more travel logging, this time about our short getaway just across the border to Johor Bahru, Malaysia! This was back in July 2023, when it was too hot to visit any other country in North Asia so we decided to just go across the border for a few days.
15 July 2023. Saturday.
Johor Bahru (JB) is directly linked to Singapore via a causeway so it's just a short bus ride over that takes about half an hour. Now there's even a train that will go across that only takes 5 minutes! It's really quick and some people even live across the border and travel into Singapore to work, which is makes a lot of financial sense given the currency exchange.
Source: scmp
On a long weekend or the causeway is commonly very crowded due to people traveling across the border for short getaways as well.
We live quite close to the border, so it doesn't take us very long to get to the checkpoint. We had to take a public bus to get there, just a few stops away.
Soon enough, we arrived at Woodlands Checkpoint. From here, we needed to go through customs and immigration but if the queue is short it's pretty quick.
We thought most people would be going there on a Friday but it was Saturday afternoon and the bus station was packed!
Thankfully there are quite a few buses that will head across the border. We did end up waiting quite a bit though.
Eventually we made it on the bus and were cruising across the causeway!
Once we arrived at Johor's checkpoint we had to go through Malaysia's customs as well.
But it didn't take very long and soon we were on our way to JB Sentral, the shopping center connected to the checkpoint.
We were still in the throngs of the crowd here since it's pretty much a one-way street into JB.
JB Sentral is also where you'd arrive if you took the train in, but I think back in 2023 it wasn't so established yet and was prone to frequent delays. It's gotten a lot better since then.
This is normally the scene in JB Sentral, a lot of small shops selling snacks and souvenirs, as well as last minute meals you can get before you leave. There would also be salespeople for various things like housing.
We headed straight for the connecting mall since it was very warm and we needed to cool down.
There are two malls here connected by this bridge, one is called JB City Square, another is Komtar JBCC.
On weekends you'd find a flea market of sorts here, where people would peddle their wares like homemade jewelry to desserts and snacks.
We managed to dodge most of the crowd once we arrived in Komtar JBCC, thankfully.
One of the first things I saw was the Genshin Impact collab with Pizza Hut that they were having only in Malaysia! I was still playing the game back then and it does look nice but unfortunately they were all sold out.
We ordered a car to take us to the hotel and waited outside the mall for it to arrive.
While waiting, we thought we'd get a snack from Auntie Anne's first since they have our favourite kind of pretzel here!
I'm not sure why but Auntie Anne's in Singapore has discontinued the pepperoni pretzel! I was so disappointed since that was my favourite topping from them. Thankfully they still had these here in Malaysia but since it has to be halal it's chicken pepperoni. Still yummy though!
We munched on our yummy savoury snack while browsing the mall and waiting for our car to arrive since he was going to take a while. The atrium always had some sale and this time it was for winter wear, right in the middle of summer, of course.
Once our car arrived we were on our way to the boutique hotel we decided to try out for one night.
It's called Midori and is located in this little shopping district surrounded by a bunch of cafes.
The lobby actually looks not bad, with a marble countertop and greenery wall, with nice shiny marble floors.
They even had some plush leather sofas. I think it was probably fake leather and marble though, but it still looked kinda fancy.
Once we headed to the upper floors the hotel looked quite old and traditional.
The rooms even had these cushioned headboards and old-style furniture. It still looked quite pleasant though.
The bathroom was quite small and I remember it also had an opening to the outside so we had to make sure the door was closed so the cold air from the air conditioning wouldn't get out.
Overall it was still a nice room but everything was quite old and outdated. I guess that's why it was so affordable.
The hotel also had a huge black horse statue out front, for some reason.
There were quite a few cafes and small shops along this stretch but we weren't particularly hungry at the time.
Walking along we saw this cute kitty outside one of the restaurants!
Since we weren't hungry yet, we decided to go visit one of the bigger malls in JB to walk around and shop. We booked another car to take us to AEON Mall!
There was some kind of car show going on at the time. It looked like there were a lot of unique cars being showcased but whether for sales or some competition we weren't sure.
We headed into the mall and it was so huge!
The Supermarket looked very promising, but we could tell this was a fancy supermarket.
The whole place looked like it was full of other Singaporeans here on a short trip.
We came across one of our favourite bakeries and we couldn't resist buying a few more snacks.
Lavender is a Malaysian brand that Sean remembers from his childhood when he used to come to Malaysia a lot. When he introduced it to me, I really enjoyed their egg tarts so now we always make it a point to stop by whenever we visit.
They're very popular with a lot of Singaporeans and I'm sure Malaysians as well.
Lavender has quite a variety of different breads, buns and pastries.
Everything looked and smelled so good! I was really tempted to buy a whole lot of them!
They also have a bunch of cakes, cookies and other things like tarts.
One of Sean's favourites from Lavender is this bread called Luo Song, which is a Taiwanese bread that has a slight crispy crust and soft on the inside but is not flaky like a croissant.
We bought their very last Luo Song to go and while it wasn't warm, it was still delicious.
This Lavender branch is actually pretty big; they even have a patisserie and adjoining cafe. We wanted to walk around the mall though so we bought ours to-go.
But I think that's going to be it for today! Tune in next week where we continue on our trip in JB!
Thanks for reading!
To find out more about me, check out my intro post here!
Check out my previous post in this series!
Catching F1 Fever - TacoCat’s Travels #296 (SG)
