(this happened on) Sunday 30th August 2009

The Gap Year Gang From Singapore To Malaysia

The Tropical Inn, Our Temporary Home

Today we are heading to Malaysia and upon waking up and looking out of the window we are greeted with a very grey sky and decreased visibility, many of the buildings in the distance have disappeared from view.

Sofia woke up and was in the bath by 7:00am enjoying a good soak before our trip over the causeway.

While I headed over the road to the mall to change some Singapore money to Malaysian money and, also I got a couple of Coffees to go for Sofia and I.

While I was doing that Sofia went down and talked to the boys at the porters desk and they ordered a large cab to collect us at 12:30pm to take us to Johor Bahru.

While I was checking us out of our room, Sofia got the porters to pick up our bags and load them into the MPV,

The journey as it always is around these parts was with out incident and within an hour we were through the customs checks points and booking into the Tropical Inn.

They dropped us at our hotel and home for the next few days, the Tropical Inn, the same place we had stayed in on our last visit to JB.

This time we had a smaller room with one double and one single bed.

Once the bags were sorted we set off out to the City Square Mall just down the road from the hotel.

We needed to get a mobile phone and find Basty some new shoes as his have split all the way down the side. We managed to find some black slip-ons that he liked.

He is usually so picky about shoes and it is really hard work to please him, so it was a good find, they put his old shoes in the bin, he has had them since Bondi Beach in Australia.

We ate supper at the Stone Grill a chain restaurant, I had Tom Yum soup and Basty had Stone Grill Chicken while Sois had Tuna salad and tom yum soup.

After further walking around and with Basty still hungry we stopped at a McD’s for him to top up.

Next stop was the book shop where Sofia bought an Art pad and another book to read, this one about Mary Bennet after Pride and Prejudice, we also bought a good local map.

We walked back to the hotel and Sofia settled down to read her book, but not until Basty had told her all his ideas to write a book in conjunction with his friend Connor.

Once again no bloody Formula 1 on the TV and the BBC once again will not let me listen to the commentary in Malaysia, what the hell is the point of the internet if it does not cross borders?

So, I was stuck again with text updates on the BBC site, I did manage to find a website which allowed me to watch the race live (with of course lots of stutters due to slow internet speed) albeit without sound.

Sofia had time to have a good long read, she is loving her book ‘Mr Darcy Vampyre’.

Johor Bahru

wolrd travel, gap year, singapore, johor bahru, malaysia, gap year, gap year ideas, gap year holiday, world tour, asia, australia, new zealand, hawaii, las vegas, america, usa, fiji,