From SIM: Beauty World Centre/ Bukit Timah Shopping Centre

I only update this space once in a while, I guess I'm just going to talk about a few places to go after class from Singapore Institute of Management (SIM).  From SIM back to my house in Teck Whye, there are quite a handful of places to stop by, visit and explore!

Bukit Timah Shopping Centre and Beauty World Centre are located along Upper Bukit Timah Road, located opposite of famous Cheong Chin Nam Road (click here for list of restaurant shop houses). From the bus stop right outside SIM, take bus 75 or 184 (alight at 4th stop) and you will see yourself opposite these two buildings as shown below:

(Picture 1 credit)(Picture 2 credit)

Bukit Timah Shopping Centre

Lets start with Bukit Timah Shopping Centre. This is a place filled with lots of maid agencies and printing services but I'm just gonna talk about ONE interesting shop right here.

1. GOOBYCAKES

Located at #04-19,

Operating from 11am to 6pm

I guess you would have seen their lovely creations on instagram: http://www.instagram.com/missgoob and never knew it located in this humble building! And you should follow Missgoob on instagram to see the lovely creations on those cupcakes!  Just look at Missgoob's great portfolio of customised cupcakes:

Interesting concept for Goobycakes is that,

Missgoob will post flavours of the day on instagram and all you have to do is to Whatsapp her to place your order and inform her of your estimated collection time. I did order from her, took a bus down from school and I love how cosy and comfortable I felt when collecting from her! Oh yup, and if you did remember, her cupcakes were sold out in SIM's bazaar by early afternoon already!

Her cupcake sizes were relatively smaller than other cupcakes out there but easy for consumption, not too filing since they sell in groups of 3 cupcakes and you can mix the flavours. The flavour was light and fresh, best consumed within first few hours after collection :)

All pictures of Goobycakes in this post were obtained from: https://www.facebook.com/goobycakes

Next up..

Beauty World Centre

This is one of the coolest shopping mall many years ago. My nail academy classmate told me she used to shop here and would be proud to boast after her visit. Over here, there is a very famous doctor in..

2. Nam Seng Clinic

You must be thinking that I'm crazy to introduce you to a clinic. Haha, I guess this piece of information will be useful to you one day. That morning, I made a trip down to Beauty World Centre to help my mum obtain a queue number from the famous Nam Seng clinic here and source here provided their operating hours.

Nam Seng Clinic Pte Ltd
144 Upper Bt Timah Road #01-22
Beauty World Centre Singapore 588177
Tel No.: 64620082
Operating Hours:
Mon - Sat: 1000 - 1300; 1545 - 1700; 2000 - 2200,
Sun & PH: 1000 - 1400

I started blogging this post from Beauty World's McDonalds and I reached the clinic at 9.30am with queue number 16. Queue number is distributed from 9am and consultation will start before 10am. You should't be surprised from this because I had seen his clinic yet to close at 11pm to clear the night consultation queue. This clinic is famous for its long queue and high commitment level but I can ensure you that your visit is definitely worth it. He has a "scanner" in his clinic and he fully utilises it for consultation. My mum needed a scan for her bladder and he scanned the whole area including liver, kidneys and womb just for her to feel safe about her health. This is the kind of differentiation so go consult him if you have pressing health issues or enquires.

Dr Koh, the General Practitioner(GP) of Nam Seng Clinic, was my saviour when I had a facial boil between my eye, at the side where my spectacles was lying on. The boil was so bad that my face was beyond recognition when the infection spread outwards all the way to my cheeks. I couldn't move my facial muscles and other GP I saw, told me it was merely a pimple. I was hesitant to admit into hospital. The hospital could probably just operate on me to suck all the infection out. After much thoughts, I headed to consult Dr Koh and waited for more than 2 hours. Empathy and professionalism was what I needed. He saw my face and immediately flipped through a book to show me a picture of someone else with the same condition. He told me the severity that any later, the pus will enter my brain and I can die of it. It struck me when I recalled two small boys that I know from my previous hospital stay, who passed away after I was discharged because of brain infection from similar conditions. He gave me a jab to clear the infection, cheered me because I was scared of needles and I went back again the next day out of anxiety and he gave me a second jab. On the third day, I went back again and he drained the pus out. No pain, no hassle. It took me more than 5 hours of queuing time and spent around $250 to recover fully with no scarring in that 3 days. Can you imagine how much I would have spend if I got myself admitted to hospital?

- - -

The long waiting time of at least more than one hour suggests a good timing for a manicure/pedicure treat at..

3. Beau Essentials

Beau Essentials is opened by my friend, Sophia, who has been encouraging me and advising me in my nail education. Her numerous achievements, outstanding performance, outgoing and friendly personality did set a good role model for me to be a good nail technician. The mall is generally quiet but I'm sure you won't be bored in such a fun environment here at Beau Essentials.

Some examples of her works and her being featured recently:

Facebook Page: https://www.facebook.com/beauessentialsbwc?ref=br_tf 

After the wonderful pampering session, your stomach must be growling.. Take the escalator up all the way to..

4. Beauty World Hawker Centre

Sounds typical with Bak Kut Teh, western food, fruit juices, kueh, teochew porridge, home-styled economic rice, but these stalls have been here for a really long time. You see many regulars - senior citizens, office people and families coming here to enjoy good food at affordable prices.

(Picture source here)

Top One Homemade noodle store has one of the most obvious queues in this hawker centre and I found a review here: http://www.missingavenue.com/2013/08/top-one-is-only-one.html

Honestly, I'm getting sick of the modern hawker centres where you can only find overpriced food that taste really awful or just alright. The number of traditional hawker centres is declining really badly. I recalled the days of my internship at Raffles Place where I pay $6 for a bowl of prawn noodle and $5 for noodle soup which is merely maggie mee with ingredients that you can find at home. Nothing special about the taste and the queue is so freaking long. Golden Shoe Food Centre is the only place where you can find economic rice less than $3 and western food at around $4, but the queue can choke you.

Now, it's probably time to do some (window) shopping around this mall but you might want to buy some pastries home for your family members. Right beside the hawker centre, near the escalator, you see a simple-looking..

5. Oishii Bakery

(Picture source here)

There weren't exactly a lot of reviews available online but I love their cakes. There was once my mum randomly bought a Blackforest cake home and we were amazed by the taste of it! Yeah, blackforest cakes were so mainstream in the past but Oishii has one of the best blackforest cake!

For our best friend's recent birthday celebration, Swing and I got one for her too :)

Now you can head off to go around this mall in search of those traditional hardware shops, Shop&Save, lots of tuition and enrichment centres, florist shops, retail boutiques, shops for the Koreans etc. It is a rather unique place because it is kinda "ulu" and very different from the heartland malls. In a couple of years' time, this place is gonna be very convenient with the new MRT line.

Shall think about the next place to depart from SIM :)

Crazy impromptu trip up Genting!

*This entry is going to be wordy but useful for any young drivers who wants to drive up Genting, to hear what you can expect from its tropical weather.

For the first three months of this year, I've arranged for three Genting trips, exactly once a month. Sounds pretty crazy! February with Swing's family as a CNY trip and March with the Zhous as our first overseas trip!

The Zhous actually had a planned trip to Genting in January but WTS quoted me a wrong price and we decided to just abandon the trip. Both Swing and I took leave already so we decided to just rest at home instead. On Thursday, Swing's Aunty and Uncle decided to drive up to Genting and we were asked along. So after my last lesson on Friday, we went up to Genting around 8pm. It was a rather interesting experience.

Custom jams
We left at 8pm but we were caught in the custom jams for almost 2 hours. We had dinner at our favourite abalone noodles near the lok lok van we frequently patronise (http://zombieriddled.blogspot.sg/2012/03/late-night-lok-lok-jb.html), pumped petrol, set our GPS and off we headed towards the highway, it was almost 11 already.

Raining along the highway

On the route to Genting, your vehicle will be in the highway for 2 to 4 hours depending on your speed. Along the highway, the rain poured and it is impossible for Swing's uncle to drive fast at all. Only certain parts of the highways have lamp posts and mostly were just relying on the reflective plates along the road. To be safe, for around 2 hours, we were going between 80 to 90km/h. 

In Kuala Lumpur

The thing about entering Kuala Lumpur is that, after paying toll (ERP in Malaysia) with your "Touch & Go"card, your GPS might not be clear enough to direct you to the correct road to enter because there are a few different directions. I missed the correct one with my Dad's first trip to Genting and we had to go up Genting with the old mountain road with NO LIGHTS AT ALL. After entering into Kuala Lumpur, there are a few short roads where you can easily miss from the GPS because the GPS will overlap its instructions due to the short distance. Your first drive might take a longer time, but once you manage to remember the correct way, the route to Genting will be very smooth.

Going up the hill
You can see crazy cars zooming all the way up, overtaking many cars along the way. You have to be on a low gear to "climb"up. Unfortunately for us, there was a thick fog covering the whole hill and our visibility was so low that even with high beam, we couldn't see more than 3m. We had to go really slow.

Below, I have embed 3 videos from a Lamborghini's carview. I guess there were some event at Resort Hotel that there were around 10 Lamborghinis driving up to Genting. The sight should be very magnificent! Best is that this video shows the view from one of the Lamborghini!   

First World Carpark  

We often chose First World Carpark because it is going a little "downhill" whereas the Resort Hotel is going "uphill" into the carpark. Still, the carpark was covered in thick fog. In the carpark, we couldn't see more than 2 parking lots ahead. We had to drive slowly to look out for a lot as well as any person who could be walking across the carpark. Phew, we found a lot and managed to end the drive.

From 8pm to 5am; 9 hours to get to Genting.

It was so freezing cold at 12 degrees. To keep ourselves really warm(I was in shorts for the whole journey), we "camped" inside the casino for most of the time. They went to Genting without booking any rooms and all the rooms were already fully booked.

This view was in the morning around 9am where the mist was clearing. Degree check: 16 degrees.

Had some really blissful comfort food, chee cheong fun at the small coffeeshop beside Old Town White Coffee.

And some Marry Brown goodies :D

We dined in Fortune Kitchen, one of the few restaurants in one of the Casino, using 3 Genting Points each to redeem a meal daily. This was the really awesome view from Fortune Kitchen. You get to see cable cars and scenery.

Not much activities because it was either we were in the Casino or sleeping inside the car. Haha. For 2 days 2 nights, you must be thinking..

Did you even bathe?

Oh please! Yes we did! We spent RM5 to enter the swimming pool and got ourselves clean in the shower room. We took a really long warm shower on the last morning since the pool was not packed at all. I think it is a really good idea if you really can't book any rooms, you could just bathe in the shower room for less than SGD2.50; provided you bring your own shower gels and towel along.

I shall try to blog about my next Genting trip where I can elaborate more on the journey too.
Tata for now!

4D3N Kampur, Ipoh, Cameron Highlands, Kuala Lumpur, Malacca, Kulai

This post has around 400 photos, so I have decided to post this entry first :)

Day 1 ♥ 

Kampur

Wa, it is a super long trip to Kampur, which is further away then Genting. 

Here is our language-proficient tourguide!

So we stopover for a breakfast :)

My abalone kway tiao soup! RM5 only!

Continued our long journey until we reach this restaurant for lunch:

Super tiring place!

Next up, we went for hot spring at Felda's.

It is outdoor btw.

The water is pretty much filled with algae and fallen leaves..

On the way out, the journey was filled with durain fragrance and the aunties in my tour group can't resist temption!

Finally in the evening, we reached Kampur 金宝! We dined in 家好月圆restaurant.


Kampur's signature Chicken Curry in a bun!

After I finished dinner, I strolled along the shophouses and snapped some shots.

Club siol~

Kueh stall!

The white mochi is super delicious! Only RM 50cents!

Interior of our Hotel :)

Sorry, I have forgotten the hotel name :x

Room Service because I can't sleep. We were left at the hotel since 8pm.

Day 2 ♥ 

Kampur, Ipoh, Cameron Highlands

Woke up to great breakfast!

We continued our way to Ipoh before Cameron Highlands, and stopped by cave temples.

Our kind tourguide!

Adorable stray dogs!

The Monkey Man~

Along Ipoh..

Calm and peaceful..

Old style lorry!

Another temple: Perak Cave Temple..

Lunch with famous hor fun!

Finally on the way up Cameron Highlands!


Stopped by a chocolate factory with strawberry farm in it.

Stopped by a huge flower garden!

Cameron's famous corn! Can be eaten raw and is super sweet!

Cameron is famous for their vegetation which amounts the most for Malaysia's economy. They export to all around the world.

Finally on Cameron Highlands~

Pasar Malam in Cameron Highlands!

Here is our hotel!

As hot pots are famous in Cameron Highlands, hotels "force" you to pay for your dinner in their hotel restaurant if you want a night over; if not, the hotel will not leave any room for you.

Lousy photo snaps of the pasar malam!

Nice!

Tapioca Balls! Must-eat!

Day 3 ♥ 

Cameron Highlands, Kuala Lumpur

Woke up every early because the night is too active over at Cameron Highlands. The hot pot shops and Prata shops are still heavily patronised in the late night.

But I still prefer Genting to Cameron Highlands because it is super stuffy! We woke up in the night a few times because we were sweating -.- Despite Cameron being higher then Genting, the economic activities had been killing the cooling weather over at Cameron. And the hotel has not been upgraded with a fan despite the increase in temperature there.

My window faces the kitchen of a hot pot shop. My whole night was filled with mumbling of the workers :(

Breakfast :)

Parking is a disaster at Cameron, really anyhow park as you want.

We heard that in Cameron, the polices are very relaxed because there had been no crimes reported for the recent 3 years. Residents sleep with doors unlocked.

The first hotel in Cameron Highlands for the rich.

There are 500 over turnings down Cameron Highlands so the photos will be messy :)

Stopped by Cameron Valley Tea House!

These tea trees are around 70 years old.

My most valuable experience in this trip.

Meeting the mountain people of Cameron

They live in Cameron mountains. They used to be naked. They hunt for animals in the wild, pick fruits and vegetables in the wild too. They had no education, no proper housing, no communications with the outer world and no transport. They climb around the mountain.

But the opposition party which takes care of these mountain people is very kind to provide them free education for the young and teaches them how to do trading. Cameron tourists and tour guides pack old clothes for them to wear. They now sell wild products to earn money and go downhill to buy television and motorcycles. They are given filtered water to drink too, But despite the long persuasions, they refuse to move down to the cities.

Many businessmen looked up these mountain people for durians and herbs that are difficult to obtain but grow in the best environment at Cameron. They are paid to take care and supply these wild products that can only be obtained by these agile people who can climb easily within the forest.

One of the closest village.

Check out the awesome scenery they had enjoyed~!

Then we reached this famous waterfall along Cameron:

Finally, we reached the foot of Cameron..

Reached Kuala Lumpur and we went to a chocolate factory!

Granny bought a carton of chocolates worth RM400!

Jam towards Kuala Lumpur..

I didn't managed to go Sungei Wang :(

Headed this famous Bak Kut Teh shop at Kuala Lumpur for dinner.

Went Petaling Street for pasar malam!

Very famous and opens 365 days! :)

Famous Petaling Street Charcoal Hokkien Mee!

Day 4 ♥ 

Kuala Lumpur, Malacca, Kulai

Woke up at 5am for Petaling Street Famour Porridge!

Then we headed to these famous temple that is on a short hill with great view of Kuala Lumpur. This is also the temple that is used for Chinese New Year songs MV. The registration of marriage is also here so you can see lots of Chinese couples here for wedding and shoots.

Then we came to a temple in Malacca,

This well was poisoned since many years ago.

Off to a famous Honey shop!

Walked over to a Peranakan restaurant for lunch :)

Nyona Chendol!

Check out Malacca's pretty coastline!

Arrived at Jonker Street!

Early 2pm at Jonker! Nothing to walk around!

Then we had hours of coach ride to Kulai for dinner. The guides managed to check our passport dates and decided to celebrate June babies' birthdays! Just me and another da jie!

It's Ya You Da Jie and my birthday month!

This is apparently the best and happiest part of this trip! Nothing much I memorised about the places and trademarks as I had the responsibility to take part of my granny and grandaunty. Nevertheless, I had learnt many things about Cameron Highlands and I hope you did too! :)

Sorry for the super undetailed and rushed entry!