Amora's second birthday - Many new experiences at once - PART I

Hello dear friends,

It has been a while since I posted my last blog (it has become my usual opening for all my writings nowadays). Sorry, we've been busy paying bills, enjoying lives, and finally,,, On one quiet night, I was browsing on my laptop and realized that I have a bad memory and there are so many good things in my life that I don't want to forget so I was thinking to start this habit of writing down all the things because I want them to last longer and when I read them again later in the future, I can still be familiar with all the good feelings.

Credits: Pinterest

Alright, so I think I wanna start with Amora's second birthday. I know it was like a very huuuuge gap from the last post but I feel like writing this first and maybe about something in between later on.

Amora's birthday is on February 11, 2018. To be honest, we weren't really planning a trip for her birthday. We had wanted to have a grand birthday celebration on a restaurant or a hall (she never had one). We already decided the restaurant, estimated the cost and the guests, etc. It was almost 60% fixed.

Credits: www.adventureinyou.com

But one fine evening, Surya and I had a discussion. I said to him why don't we just give her a travel birthday. Something that she would remember in the future, "On my 2nd birthday, mommy and daddy took me to .... I had a nice time there. It was a great birthday, etc." hehehe and he felt exactly the way I did so yeah we cancelled the plan and thought of Singapore would be a nice place to have her birthday. For some reasons:

• We've talked about going to Singapore for a while but never going
• She likes Minions so we can go to Universal Studio and see those cute little Minions there 
• His aunty and a good friend live there so thought to visit them as well
• We cannot take any last minute leave so we can go to a place that we can visit and go back in a weekend

So, yup, we booked the ticket around 2 weeks before the date. But my husband needed a visa and being a happy go lucky kind of person, he applied it only a week before going and my perfectionist inside me was screaming to him. How could you he do that? What if the visa got rejected? What if they asked for more doc? Arrrggghh... I hate him when he does this.

But fortunately, we got the visa ready 2 days before the departure date (I won't spare him next time he does it again). So, yeah! We are all set.

Did I mention that we were going there by bus? Yes! Bus! That's why we were more excited because it would be our first experience going to another country by bus and for Amora too. (Turned out, it was quite adventurous - keep reading).

So we started from KL on Friday, Feb 9. We had to go to a meeting point in Berjaya Times Square. The pickup booth was quite challenging to find and we had to go on a staircase carrying Amora, bags, and stroller for 2 rounds until finally we found it. Gosh.. *sweating*

So we found the booth and checked in but since we came pretty early and we didn't have anything before leaving the house, we decided to grab something but we ended having a full meal on an Arabic restaurant called Hadramawt Palace. I hesitated because I was afraid the taste would not suit but the food was suprisingly yummy.

OK I'll leave unnecessary details there.

So, we got on to the bus at 12:00 am. The bus company was Star Mart and it was a double decker bus and too bad I didn't take any picture. It was unique and we got our seat on the lower berth.

One thing that was quite surprising in going on a bus to a different country is that we have to get down 2 times from the bus for immigration checking. And trust me, it is quite tiring especially if you are traveling at night time when your body is supposed to sleep instead of standing in a queue. During our time, there was a huge group of Chinese tourists joining so the queue was a bit too long.

For Malaysia immigration, we got down in Johor Baru and for Singapore, in Woodland (CMIIW)

We reached Singapore at 5.00 am, tired and sleepy. Thank God that Amora was able to sleep on the bus and continued sleeping on the stroller. We had planned to visit his aunty from the bus stop but he could not reach his mobile phone nor we knew her address (another thing that I hate about him. He should have asked for the address days before so that we could just go, right?)

Just reached Singapore (Golden Mile Tower stop)

So, change of plan, we visited his friend instead in Tanjung Katong. We went there by Uber because we just wanted to rest for a while. We could not really figure out a bus or MRT route to go there.

Yes, finally, we met his friend and he took us to his nice home where we could rest and had a local Singapore noodle for breakfast (God it was spicy but nice).

At a friend's house. I was gone out already on the sofa. Amora was excitedly playing

That's all for now. If you are interested in more stories about our trip to Singapore, stay tuned!

Oyasumi!