The Batam Siao-March

I went to Batam, with the people from the bygone days of NYJC Community Service Club 2002, and their friends. We grew up, decided not to do much community service anymore and therefore hauled ass for Batam, not to build schools, but to relax and throw money. Now rupiah is so small that me and liang can afford to say things like, "a few hundreds change? nevermind, keep it". We won't do that anywhere else (unless i strike Toto). Anyway just like the HK trip 2 years back, this Batam affair of ours is full of anecdotes it can qualify as a full-blown (lousy) novel when written down.

Anyway to intro the old time folks who went Batam together.

There's the random Wei, champion shopper, ntuc auntie, etc. Currently into Japanese. Turning into a Jappy Babe.


Then this is Mi Xiao (michelle). I did not come up with this nickname (wei and lz did) cos it really sounds too wrong. I prefer to come up with things classier, wittier and far less explicit. But not bad la, the ongoing joke is that she is really from batam. Her checkered shirt is the same pattern as the curtains in our room.


Then there is Frag (Fen Fang?). Anyways she really looks the part of the bodyguard, you know? the one in The Man With the Golden Gun. Don't mess with her. She'll frag you.


The same. Me and Liang. With a few hundred thousands changing hands between us. CASH.


Few more pics that do us more justice.


The Imigrasi (immigration) place at Batam


The Lobby of our place, Harris Resort. The folks there serve free bandung.


We went crazy (ok only the girls went crazy) at the first shopping place, which is a little bit like Plaza Singapura over here. While the girls went crazy over clothes, lingerie and other stuff, me and liang went on to chillax like rich people do, at their local TCC clone...


Two nice TCCish coffees, a fried anything platter and a dessert cost around 10 sing each for us. Really a bargain. When we were choosing a regular dessert, i think the manager thought us to be extremely adventurous folks, or that he had a twisted sense of humour. He recommended to us this "FERMENTED CASSAVA DESSERT WITH CHEESE AND CHOCOLATE". Sounds very dangerous but we tried it anyway. Not too bad. It tasted a lil weird, but overall is quite nice. See pic below.

And after chilling out at TCC clone for an hour or so, the girls decided that NTUC is not a good bargain at all. Some batam hypermart is even better.

And so they shopped for one year's worth of skin products there. Wei, you became a traitor to NTUC. And oh a nice shot of the adverts they have there... "Rider: The Power of Underwear". Damn power i think. So big.

Dinner was takeaway at A&W. The coolest thing is that the cabby who brought us shopping waited for us for like 4-5hours? And a two-way ride costs 30 sing per group. Not too bad.





Random shots at the resort






Indonesians have a weird sense of humour... Step into what that is so fun?



The shopping is great at the PS clone and Nagoya Hills. The girls did their hair there too while me and liang went to buy some tees, and then went for coffee again for the lack of something better to do.

One of the highlights of the trip is the KTV experience. Now ktving at harris takes a lot of skill. it is dirt cheap, 4sing per person per hour, but nothing beats the quality of the MTVs. The music is in Midi format (so retro!) and the mtv is better than those Kbox stuff (english songs) starring those random ang moh babes strolling around chinatown or beaches. Their mtvs don't have any people, just mountains and the Han River. Sometimes they even tweak the lyrics. i attempted a commie version of 十五的月亮. It is really very funny.

So there you go, the batam trip. Something worth remembering...