Morning folks! We got off to a pretty early start today cos we wanted to squeeze in a couple of activities before K had to head off for a wedding lunch at W hotel.

Breakfast was included in the stay so K and I went to try the breakfast that was catered for in the cafe. I’m not sure about K but I was pretty impressed with the spread!

Other than the usual cereal and fruit, they had

bread and some pastries

both western and asian breakfast, such as some akin to economic beehoon, including fried beancurd skin, an egg station, nasi lemak and even a section for Japanese breakfast.

They even had beancurd and soya bean milk!

So naturally I had to sample abit of everything. And this is my toast with kaya, nutella and chunky peanut butter.

After breakfast, we headed up to try the Tiger Tower before it closes at the end of the year. Tickets were going at $8.80 per person and the view is pretty spectacular!

After the tower, we headed to the hotel lobby for…

a guided heritage tour of Amara Sanctuary!

yeah yeah, I know it’s a job hazard but what can I say? I thought since I was already staying there, might as well go and check it out.

Our guide was pretty interesting and the tour gave pretty interesting facts about Amara as a company and the hotel itself. Plus I like how they managed to weave some of the stories about Sentosa into the tour itself.

Our hotel room block, which was apparently houses for the military personnel stationed on Sentosa with their families, had these 2 structures in front of it.

On the tour, we also had a chance to go into these structures and we found out that they were…

air raid shelters!

I thought it was really cool of the hotel to keep 2 of the structures on the grounds so that people can go in and experience what the shelter was really like in the days of WW2.

We also spotted a peacock that was just roaming around on the grounds of the hotel!

Pity that he didnt want to show off his tail!

Overall, I have to say that the whole stay at Amara Sanctuary was pretty okay. The location was decent, but still a bit of a walk from the Merlion tram station (vs Le Meridian, which K and I stayed at when it was still Movenpick). The room was pretty good but not as new as those in RWS, but I suppose that might be part of its charm. Oh there was also a lizard in our room, which I suppose is unavoidable as you’re staying in an area surrounded by vegetation. This didn’t bother me and K so much, but if this bothers you, you may wanna take this into consideration if you guys wanna stay here. From our room, we could hear the roller coaster at USS at night as well as the screams of the riders, so if you’re a light sleeper and this bothers you, maybe you might wanna get some ear plugs or stay in the rooms that are further away from USS. The tour was a pretty nice touch for visitors to get to know more about the heritage behind the hotel, which I thought was pretty neat but might not be for everyone.

In short, we did enjoy our stay at Amara Sanctuary and had a ton of fun on our short staycation on Sentosa!

Heya folks! K and I finally got down to going for our staycation at Amara Sanctuary. I had booked the stay awhile back for K’s birthday (which was in Sep) but we hadn’t had the time to fix a date since it was kinda like an open ticket until the end of the year.

We were staying in the Verandah Studio and it had a 4-poster bed! I’d always liked the idea of having a 4-poster bed when I was a kid cos that’s what they said they had in the dorms of Harry Potter.

But as I grew older, I realised that it wasn’t the most practical of beds cos imagine the amount of dust and dirt that would get stuck in the netting around the bed. Which would mean more washing and laundry for me -.-

The room also came with a bath tub which K really likes

We also got the pass to go to 2 attractions + unlimited rides for the day on the 2 cable car lines. So one of the attractions we went to was the Merlion cos K had never been and I had only been once, a long long time ago.

Now they have this interactive digital display where the Merlion will “chat” with you and tell you abit of facts about itself.

They still have the usual viewing areas at the head of the Merlion, which is supposed to face the CBD area of Singapore, symbolising that the Merlion is supposed to be the guardian of Singapore and how it watches over Singapore.

They also have a viewing platform at the mouth of the Merlion with a photo op point.

The other attraction K and I went to was the Flow Rider at WaveHouse. The ticket allowed us for 2 tries on the Flow Rider but we realised that our entertainer could give us a 1 for 1 for 60 mins on the Flow Rider. So we just used that as well.

It was a really fun experience but it was super tiring. Mainly cos I suck at it hahaha. But the more experience riders were pretty nice and would give us tips on how to ride the Flow Rider properly. It was pretty fun to watch them though!

I thought it was pretty fun but K LOVED IT. So much so that he’s thinking if he should go and get the membership there LOL.

Our hotel stay also came with 2 tickets to the Wings of Time show and since K and I hadn’t been, we decided to go check it out.

I have gone to the previous iteration of this show, before they renamed and redesigned it to Wings of Time.

Overall it was pretty okay. The storyline was so-so but the effects were pretty good.

To end of my post, check out what we found in the area near USS while we were looking for food: Twelve Cupcakes. Yeah I mean, it’s common on the main island but I was pretty amazed at how nice the store looked on Sentosa!

Hiya folks, so today K and I went to the Christmas Wonderland at Gardens by the Bay! Apparently Grab was having a promo whereby you could change points for a pair of tickets into the event. So K went to change his points for tickets.

The queue to redeem the tickets was super long though! I guess everyone took advantage of the same promo 😅

K and I tried the tacos. It was okay, though the taco shells tasted like it was left out awhile after it had been baked. It was a little soft, while the filling itself was nothing much to shout about.

We had the popcorn chicken one and the bulgolgi one I think.

After queuing for Rosti and ordering, we were tempted by the churros at the next stall so I went over to make an order!

They also apparently have some version of butterbeer which we didn’t try.

Our food!

Our churros was pretty good, and came with torched marshmallows, ice cream and a cookie. I enjoyed it, but K found it a little too sweet for his liking. The stall has a couple of combinations so you guys can check it out if you guys are heading to the Christmas Wonderland at GBB!

The Rosti (in the background) was not bad either, with a crispy outer coating and with the inner potatoes done just right. I had the plain one without any other sides but that’s cos they were all sold out by the time I got to the counter to order. I wanted to try the spicy rosti too but they were all out of that as well that day. The rostis are all cooked on the spot so it can take quite some time before you even get to order cos they’ll stagger the ordering in order for the chef to cope with the orders.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

View from Surfer’s Point! We didn’t really see any surfers out today though.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Hiya folks! It’s our first full day in Perth!

Weather today looks pretty promising!

 

As we had to leave the hotel early to go to catch our ferry to Rottnest Island, we just grabbed a quick breakfast at the cafe that was in the hotel. The breakfast was kinda like priced at cafe prices back in Singapore, was about 20+ AUD?

The breakfast itself was okay, pretty standard western fare. Though as usual, portions in Australia are generally bigger than what we’re used to so K and I just shared one portion.

 

This is the ferry company we bought the tickets from! We bought it online though and we were given an e-ticket, so we didn’t have to go queue to collect our tickets again. So that was pretty awesome and fuss-free!

That also gave us some time to wander around the area while waiting for our ferry!

Take touristy photos…

and awkward photos like this one! LOL

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Hiya folks! This kickstarts our trip to Perth. I’ve been to Perth with my parents a couple of years back (about 12 years or so? hahaha) but K has never been. Since I had a break from work, and we were deciding between Perth and Hong Kong, we finally settled on a Perth driving holiday with my parents!

Scooting away to Perth!

Our rental car for the trip! It was pretty high tech but was a pretty good ride.

Our hotel while we were in Perth: Comfort Hotel Perth City!

Our room was a little odd, like it was a full furnished apartment with one separate bedroom and a living room with only 1 door to enter from. Apparently it’s like a staff room from when the hotel staff need to spend the night or rest?

This was the walkway to the living room and a queen bed for me and K.

The fully equipped kitchen attached to the living room

Along with a fringe, washing machine and dryer!

Here’s what the rest of the living room looks like with the bed for me and K.

A random house near the hotel that was converted to something like a Bed and Breakfast?

We saw this while we were walking to go and get dinner!

A pretty cool brick building we saw on our walk

Finally at our dinner venue!

This was on the menu! A super HUGE lobster that was made into…

Lobster noodles!!!!

I thought the noodles were okay but the lobster was damn meaty and juicy!

BUT I do need to put a huge disclaimer here that the lobster here is pretty pricy, like 80/90 AUD per kg. So just a fair warning okay. But the portion was pretty huge la, we were so super full after that! On hindsight, we should have just ordered this for dinner.

But we were kinda greedy (plus first night in Perth mah), so we also ordered fried rice, duck (which kinda tasted a bit gamey. My dad thought it might be a mix of duck and goose meat instead) and veg fried with 3 kinds of egg.

Overall, the meal was pretty okay. The fried rice was not bad but the other dishes were so-so. If you guys are interested in eating here, my advice would be to have either the lobster noodles alone or to just get the other dishes without the lobster noodles, depending on what you guys wanna eat!

But if you guys wanna have all the dishes, please don’t let me stop you! The service staff here were pretty friendly and nice to us, and the environment is pretty similar to a traditional canto restaurant.

After dinner, we continued with our walk. And the Christmas decorations are out already!

We also came across an old post office which was repurposed into a H&M store!

In case you’re wondering what the temperature is. Not too hot for late spring early summer!