Dear Diary,
Day 2 - 15th November 2017
Even though we didn't order the breakfast buffet this time,
D and I decided to wake up at 7am in the morning because I wanted to catch the beautiful sunrise again. Not that often I get this kind of up close view of a sun rises right before my eyes.
We then decided to do an in-villa breakfast dining in our balcony since we were both hungry. And lunch will be quite some time to wait.
We ordered this Local Breakfast - Nasi Lemak set at RM35 that came with 2 drinks, pastry dish and fruits for both of us to share since we wanted to eat heavy lunch later on. Plus we were planning to go for swimming and eating heavy breakfast won't be a good idea.
Infinity Pool
So mostly D and I spent our time relaxing and chilling here. After breakfast + chilling, we decided to explore the infinity pool. Okay hold on your horses people! Hahaha! Yes, I have actually watched this video by Channel News Asia regarding the amount of ammonia present in swimming pools. I know it's ewwwwwww but...I can't help it seeing swimming pools. But this time I was careful not to swallow any amount of swimming pools water inside my mouth, which I used to. Hahaha! I was very careful this time. Hehehe! But come to think of it, there are germs everywhere, not just in swimming pools, so you can't be 100% sure that you are bacteria-free even if you're not in the swimming pool.
View from the swimming pool, that is villa opposite is the gym area.
View from the swimming pool at low tide
Another picture taken from the swimming pool
We were lucky that the swimming pool wasn't crowded as well. I even got a good picture taken in the infinity pool. D and I swam for almost an hour and we showered to get ready to get back to our room to bath and changed because we wanted to catch the shuttle bus at 2pm to head down to Sunway Pyramid. I have been to this shopping mall before once with my bestfriend last year when we had a KL staycation together. So, I wanted to bring D around here this time round. And have lunch at Tony Romas for the first time too.
More shot taken while walking back to our villa. These at low-tide,
If in Singapore we have O-bike, Ofo and Mobike via mobile apps but in here they have such things too, almost similar. The black bicycle can be used anytime and they are free. You can just basically grab the black bicycle to ride around Avani, while the red bicycle (not in picture) are bicycle that requires rental fee.
We had to be at the lobby by 1.45pm for the shuttle bus, so at 1.30pm, I called for the buggy service, till 1.40pm, the buggy didn't come, we gave up on the buggy, so end up D and I walked down to the lobby for a good 10 sweaty minutes because it was freaking far and freaking hot as well.
Shuttle Bus at Sunway Pyramid at 2pm
Okay this part whereby not many knows or ever mentioned any feedbacks about this. Because in most blog when I google or even in tripadvisor everyone just vividly mention that there is a shuttle bus provided at Avani to Sunway Pyramid Shopping Mall but here is what nobody actually knows or no one mentioned. I guess not many actually took the shuttle bus because most of them who stays in Avani drive here.
There are 2 shuttle bus timing heading to Sunway Pyramid at 8.30am and the other one at 2pm and the fetching back time to Avani from Sunway Pyramid is fixed at 5pm. Thinking that if
D and I were take the shuttle bus at 8.30am, just for lunch + shopping, we will have a crazy amount of time left before the shuttle bus can pick us back at 5pm back. And don't even think about taxi unless you're willing to spend an amount of 135RM just for grabbing back to Avani. So of course, we took the 2pm shuttle bus hoping to have just ample time for lunch and leave back to Avani.
But what we
do not know that it takes
2 FREAKING HOURS to reach to Sunway Pyramid. It could have been lesser time BUT, the bus will head off to Mitsui Outlet Park first for at least an hour journey and then another hour journey to reach Sunway Pyramid. Provided if there is no jam, but if there is traffic jam, the journey could take up more than 2 hours.
Mitsui Outlet Park
Mitsui Outlet Park
I was SUPER restless in the bus. As if 5 hours 20 mins ride the day before wasn't enough from Singapore to Avani, now we have to beat another 2 hours feeling of bus ride to Sunway Pyramid. Plus the Indian bus driver was a bit rude. Okay, maybe he wasn't rude but the way he talked to us wasn't really polite, telling us that it will be such a waste to take the bus to Sunway Pyramid at 2pm because we will only be left with 1 hour 40 minutes to shop or do anything compared to taking the bus at 8.30am. Still, I thought 1 hour 40 minutes is ample time for
D and I to eat at Tony Romas for lunch and head back to Avani. What will I do at Sunway Pyramid so early morning if I were to take the bus at 8.30am anyway? 😔
We reached Sunway Pyramid at 3.50pm sharp! And then when
D and I was about to alight, the bus driver just kept reminding and telling us to be back here by 5pm.
D and I felt agitated, annoyed and lost and so was there another Caucasian couple who felt the same way plus it was raining heavily too. Ridiculous! This really spoil my day. At one hour what can we do? Plus the bus driver drop us further from Sunway Pyramid shopping mall, walking there took us 15mins, the moment we enter and looked for Tony Romas, 20 minutes was already gone.
Tony Romas, Sunway Pyramid
D and I sat and ordered our food. I told
D, we have to leave the place by 4.45pm by hook or by crook, since walking back to the shuttle bus pick up point was a distance. The view from Tony Romas was nice, we could see Sunway Lagoon from there.
We ordered our food and of course the drinks and sides came first.
I asked the Tony Romas staff, what time will our food come and he had no idea. Well, he wasn't the one to blame. So when it was 4.30pm, I told
D we have to leave and if we could pack our Tony Romas food that we ordered because there is no way I could finish my meal in 15 mins time. Probably
D can, but I eat like a tortoise, so I'll take forever to finish. Plus I want to enjoy my Tony Romas for the first time, I really don't want to spend so much (RM133 for our food) to rush and end up wasting the food if we cannot finish. The food came just in time at 4.30pm, as the staff was about to serve the food on our table, I told them to help us pack because we were rushing for our shuttle bus. I apologized and really felt so apologetic since they already placed it nicely on the plate. SO SAD WE HAD TO RUSH!
The Tony Romas' staff helped me pack our food fast and we apologize to them again before we left. With 15 minutes before 4.45pm, we walked around to grab Coffee bean drinks.
D bought regular sized Double Chocolate Ice Blended and surprisingly they had Cookies & Cream Ice Blended there, so I got a regular sized one as well for the Cookies & Cream. Singapore had it once last year but it's no longer available now and it's really nice. Not forgetting Auntie Anne's whenever I'm in Malaysia since the one in Singapore is not Halal.
Seaweed & Garlic flavour
Just nice at 5pm, we managed to rush back to our shuttle bus pick-up point and the shuttle bus was already there.
5 people missed the bus I think. They took the bus at 8.30am apparently, because the bus driver tried to make another u-turn to wait for these 5 people but at 5.15pm when they didn't turn up, the bus driver just left.
The bus drove past Monash University, Malaysia. I finally get to see Monash' Malaysia.
I still remember telling myself before that if I can't afford to study in Monash University in Melbourne, I don't mind studying the one in Malaysia.
I didn't know it's really near to Sunway Pyramid, so students here can just come there for entertainment, lunch, movies etc. Not so stressful or isolated like some universities are.
It was a 1 hour and half journey ride to Avani since the bus do not stop at Mitsui Outlet Park to pick up passengers. 5 minutes before reaching Avani, the bus make a rough turned and our drinks overturned and spilt inside the Tony Romas paper bag. My Tony Romas burger was soaked with Chocolate Ice Blended and at that point of time,
D was so mad and furious because it was my drink + food that got wasted. I was fine actually, just that
D felt bad that it is
his wife's food + drink and
he knew I wanted to eat Tony Romas badly + the cookies & cream drink.
He almost threw the whole paper bag away and before I could save it from spillage again, the bus made another turn and the drink topple again.
The first one was already bad and the 2nd one was worse. 3/4 of the drink was gone and
D kept telling me to dump the whole thing.
He was so mad with the bus driver.
When we alighted from the bus,
D kept telling me to throw the paper bag away but I held on to it because I know somehow I can still save some of the drinks + food. We went so far & go through so much for me to just throw the drinks + food just like that. I remembered telling
D off while waiting for the buggy to pick us up, to stop being so mad for things that has already happened. We are here on a vacation to be happy & have fun! Besides, I wasn't mad about the spillage, I know
D felt bad and sorry about my drinks + food, but I was okay, I promised I was.
When we reached our villa, I was tearing away while cleaning up the spilt drinks because
D was being mad like that. I just want us to be happy when on vacation, not to spoil our mood like that. My burger was super soaked in Double Chocolate Ice-blended, so I threw the bottom part of the burger's muffin away and left the patty + the top muffin. Surprisingly,
D's food was fine. My Cookies & cream drink left 1/4 and
his Double Chocolate Ice blended still had 1/2 left. I served the food on our balcony dinint table while still tearing away,
D then felt bad and
he hugged me to apologize.
He told me
he wasn't mad at me just that
he was mad at
himself + the bus driver because
he wanted me to enjoy my food nicely and not this way. But all I wanted was for us to be happy and it's okay because things have already happened. I mean I'd rather lose or not eat the food I wanted for as long as my
love ones are safe. We apologized and we dig in for dinner. All things settled! My
husband must have
love me that much to be upset just because I didn't get to eat what I wanted.
Hehe!
After dinner, we sat down to watch TV together again and pack our stuff here and there since we will be departing home the next day. Meddle with the TV again to see what other things they have. Lol!
Day 3 - 16th November 2017
We woke up earlier than yesterday and I asked
D if
he wanted to have breakfast buffet at the restaurant but
he wanted to just dine inside our villa. So we had room service again on that day.
D ordered the local breakfast - Nasi Lemak again, while I ordered some western breakfast for RM28. I remembered clearly that it comes with hash brown, hot dogs, mushroom, grilled tomatoes, bacon and 2 eggs of my choice. 2 EGGS of my choice. So the moment I put in the order via the TV, the staff called. She asked me what kind of eggs I wanted, is it boil eggs, omelette, scrambled etc. I told her I wanted 1 omelette and the other poached egg. She took in my order and the next 45 minutes, I clearly remember the bill was supposed to be RM63, when the staff brought our order and said RM91, we just paid blindly. After the staff have left, I asked
D, "
How come it's RM91 and not RM63 eh?" Then we realized, we had an extra plate.
My omelette and poached egg was a DIFFERENT set. What zeeeeeeeee.......
The problem is not only about how much we had to pay but who is going to finish all of these food?
It took us hours to finish and we finally did, stuffing everything down our stomach. LOL! Besides it will be a long bus ride home, so we need to refuel ourselves with food. Erm..but maybe not too much food like this. Hehehehe!
I took a picture of our family villa,
The living room when both room is closed
The living room when both door is opened
Room 1 with balcony and toilet with bathtub
Room 1's toilet
Room 1's toilet with bathtub with blind
Room 1's toilet with bathtub without blind
Room 2 with dining chair in balcony
Room 2's toilet window without blind
Room 2's toilet without bathtub
At 12pm to check-out, I called in for the buggy and it took them 10 minutes to reach our door but it was okay, because we weren't rushing to anywhere. Our driver will only pick us up at 1.30pm. So, D and I hang at the lobby for a good 1 hour and half and I spam my phone with more photos.
Avani Resort have their own private beach too which we didn't get to go over because either it was raining or it was too late/too dark for us to go. We could have visited the private beach if we stayed another day. We didn't try the Perahu Restaurant from Avani as well which again we would have tried if we were to stay another day. Apparently, the restaurant look quite romantic, dining by the sea in an outdoor romantic setting. Hehehe! But it was raining most of the time, so I don't think dining in the open will be a good idea. Besides Perahu restaurants only serve seafood menu, which D and I are not so much of a fan off but of course, we don't mind trying.
The taxi driver came to pick us up at 1.30pm. This time another Indian driver, but the younger brother of the driver who drove us the on the 1st day. He didn't speak anything bad about Malay people because probably the brother already mentioned to him that we are Malay. He got confused when he first saw
D and I, and thought we were both Phillipino
(
I feel offended actually) because the brother mentioned to him thay we are a Malay couple and he kept saying we both don't look like one.
But he was also nice to ask if we wanted to stop anywhere for food, but we didn't want to because we just wanted to be home. LOL! We were alighted to the same bus stop where the coach bus alighted us the first day and we boarded our Golden Coach bus from there. We tipped the taxi driver as well, since they were brothers. Imagine one brother say, why we tip the older brother, but never tip the younger brother. LOL! I know it's not our concern but....we just tip anyway. Hahahaha! The taxi driver even left his contacts for us if in future we need him to drive us around or even if we have friends who wanted to.
Sidetrack:- The taxi driver mentioned the first driver who drove us was from Selangor and the driver that is driving us back to Singapore is from Perak. His pay is slightly special because he has been driving quite a while in Singapore. He even said to drive or become a coach bus driver to fetch passengers to and fro from Singapore to Malaysia requires you to have a certified Singapore driver's license. That is how strict Singapore rules is.
The taxi driver also kept telling
D and I to come back and try Lexis Hibiscus in Port Dickson next time, since that place is new. He mentioned only Singaporeans can afford to stay there but Malaysians can't really afford. In my
heart, sometimes they really think Singaporeans are that rich.
The going part felt forever to reach Singapore. Because from our boarding point, we actually went in to Port Dickson at least an hour ride to pick up the rest of the passengers to head back to Singapore.
For that matter of fact, I was so happy to step foot here even for a short while because I really wanted to go here one day. Yes it's true, the place is here is beautiful, the water look clean and blueeeee.
We had 1 stop in Yong Peng Town, Johor for like 15 minutes toilet break as well as quick and light bites before continuing another few hours to Singapore.
Singapore,
We reached Tuas checkpoint safely at 8.30pm.
D and I chose our drop off point at Geylang, City Plaza instead of Concorde Shopping Centre. We thought we would reach Singapore late afternoon and can have early dinner at Arnold's but it was already so late when we reach Singapore and we were no longer hungry to eat. I was telling
D if only we could just leave from Tuas to head home since it will be nearer to our house then having to ride all the way to the East side in Geylang and coming back again to the West side.
But I think I kinda jinx it because suddenly, while waiting for our bus, one of the ICA officer approached us, the passengers and told us that he can't release our driver because he had traces of drugs. Well, it's not confirmed yet or whatsoever because they still need to do further testing and investigation, but we were told to head home on our own because the company can't provide us any driver at this hour.
Well, either way it was a blessing in disguise, D and I end up taking the bus back to Jurong East MRT station and head back home by public transport instead having to travel all the way to the East side and coming back again to the west side. Hehe!
And I really hope the bus driver is okay.
Till I blog again.
XOXO,
