We woke up specially early on our second day of the trip, to get ready to visit the legoland. We were told that we need to be super early to reach the legoland before the opening hour of 10am, to get in early, so that the queue for the rides and stuffs would not be that long.

Quick getting ready, and we took a 10-15 minutes drive, towards Legoland, and reached the mega carpark after we saw the legoland on our left. We reached the car park and we were shocked, there were little cars there. We managed to park our car at the first lot, just at the walkway towards the legoland (centre of the carpark). We were glad that we decided to come on a weekday, as there was little crowd, and hopefully our stay here would be nice (indeed it was, there were little patrons inside and almost 0-5 minutes waiting time for all our games/ rides.

From the carpark area, it was another 5 minutes walk to the entrance of legoland. Do note that the car park accepts TnG card, and along the walk to legoland, you will see a top up machine, in the middle of a round-about.

For those whom did not buy the tickets in advance, the ticket counters are just located beside the entrance/ exit point. As you can see from the photo below, there were totally no crowds for the Friday.

A quick tip, you should look up Klook for legoland tickets, as the site is reliable, and the prices are cheaper. Also, it is more convenient in the sense that you do not have to queue up to purchase the tickets, if just so happened that the queue was long during the weekends.

Ok now, watch out for the several attractions that we went to for the day! Do note that the attractions are not posted pretty much in order, as we were lazy to re-arrange them as we have already added the information and photos on them. But pretty much, they are located just side by side and our guide will provide a sequential approach to clear legoland in an anti-clockwise direction.

Some quick information kits before you all depart on your trip to legoland.

Resort map:  Visit the link here.
Lego 4D live show timings: Visit the link here.

There will be lego characters roaming around the entire legoland. I do not have any ideas what are their appearance timings, but you should always keep a lookout of these figurines, and there will be a friendly staff to help you take photo with your camera phone. Nonetheless, if you did not bring your camera (well, who doesn't have a camera phone nowadays), the staff will take a photo with their DSLR (by default), and you will be given a tag on your hand to allow you to purchase these photos before you leave legoland.

So for the start of the trip, our google map navigation guided us to go by Woodlands Custom as there was lesser jam. Well, still an hour and a half to pass the custom.

Looking for lunch, we found this highly rated cafe for its design and food, slightly off the central of JB at Mount Austin area, a good 15mins drive. We were welcomed by the nicely decorated entrance, full of flower. We were so glad to start off the journey from woodlands instead of tuas, or we would have missed this place.

The interior is also nicely decorated with dry flowers, projecting a very cosy feel which we love it alot, compared to the other Mok Mok that we went to, near the JB central. The beauty of going to malaysia in the weekday is that there are little crowds in the cafe, getting a seat wasn't an issue. Made our orders, and off to take photos in the cafe!

Starter, we ordered the coffee and tea (refillable with hot water) and the onion chips. A good start to the nice meal that we will be having over here.

The trip was planned as we gotten ourselves a set of free tickets when we purchased more than $100 in DFS, during our trip from Hokkaido. The voucher had to be used up by Jan 19, and we decided to utilize it just before mamaTan gets too bulky to move around!

Majestic Ferry Service 
Although you can book their ferry service online, there was no where to indicate our voucher number for the redemption. However, a simple email settled the booking. The service personnel replied fast, and asked for our details, selected ferry timing, and also our voucher number. Another email, and the service was booked. Thanks for the prompt response.

We took the ferry from Tanah Merah to Batam centre as we stay in the East, and Harris Barelang offered free shuttle service from Batam Centre Ferry Terminal. The timings were kinda limited for Tanah Merah, but nothing too hassle. The ferry journey was about an hour or less.

Batam Ferry Terminal

So we took the 1030 ferry, and we arrived at around 1100hrs (Indo timing). Immediately, we went to Majestic Ferry Reception and booked our return trip. Everyone was doing the same thing, and i guess you should as well to avoid disappointment in inability to secure your desired ferry timing back to SG.

Lunch + Shuttle Bus

After booking the return tickets, we went to search for the Harris Barelang's service personnel. For your note, the service personnel will stand/ sit near the arrival gate, and they are wearing orange. We saw and approached them, and our names were made on their list of patrons. We were told that the bus would only left at 1200hrs and hence, we made our way to the Mega Mall for our breakfast. There is a walkway at the level 2 of the Batam Centre Ferry Terminal that directly links to the Mega Mall. Since we only had about 30 mins or less left, we decided for the favourite fastfood that we could no longer find in Singapore, and that's our All American Food, the A&W.

The food aint really cheap in Batam Shopping Mall, it costed us about 160k for the two sets of food. And honestly, i think the next day lunch (Wendy's chicken) tasted better than the A&W. Nonetheless, quick lunch and we were back to the ferry terminal, and was ushered to the shuttle bus.

The shuttle bus was kinda small, with about 13 passengers capacity, and the seats are FCFS. If you are slow, you could end up sitting separately, or taking seats that the leg rooms are smaller. So you might want to take note of this! The journey was 30mins, and the journey was kinda smooth after the initial heavy traffic after the ferry terminal. Along the way, not much scenery and you can see the famous Barelang Bridge just before you enter the Harris's compound.

Once you de-bused, we felt welcome-d by the big lobby. We made a fast pace to the counter, and somehow it took us pretty long to settle the administrative papers, at approximately 20mins. It could be because we booked the package with the BBQ Seafood Dinner, and 2 x SPA Massage, and hence, a few more forms to be signed.

Reaching at around 1245hrs, the room wasn't ready and we were told to take a walk around. As the lobby was kinda empty then, took the opportunity to take some of the memorial scenic shot of mamaTan!

The lobby itself had a bar (you have to pay for the drinks) and a mini-mart. The mini-mart is not very well-equipped, but you could find your necessities if you have forgotten them at home. Together, it sells cigarettes, ice-creams, titbits, swimming toys, and most importantly the beer. You should buy the beer from here instead of ordering from the room service. The beers are selling at the range of 20k to 35k whilst papaTan ordered a beer through room service for about 85k. So yea, do remember this if you are going to drink.

Booking of Spa Package

There is a counter located just directly opposite the reception, and we were able to redeem our spa voucher there. The timeslots were surprisingly taken up fast, and you should book your spa right after your check-in. We captured the menu for your quick reference. For PapaTan, he took the Rejuvenating Therapy, and MamaTan took the Relaxing Therapy. We must say that the massage was good. The strength was consistent throughout the session, body parts were massaged in balance, and the ambience was good. Despite the price, we still recommend you to go for the spa and massage.

The Walk  Around Harris Barelang
- took a walk at the surrounding while waiting for the room to be ready.
- huge area with alot of nice places for photo
- was hot, walked for about 20minutes and went back to lobby to wait for the room.

The walk around the resort is pretty short. You would be walking through alot of greens, which beautifully decorated the entire resort. At the left, you could see the level one of resorts, and total there are three levels of resorts, depending on what you have booked.

The weather wasn't forgiving that day, and we didn't walk too long and returned back to the lobby for our wait.

Day 1: Chitose
Day 2: Noboribetsu - Date - Hakodate
Day 3: Hakodate
Day 4: Lake Toya
Day 5: Furano
Day 6: Biei - Asahikawa
Day 7: Asahikawa
Day 8: Sapporo
Day 9: Otaru - Sapporo
Day 10: Sapporo
Day 11: Chitose

Since our hotel had no breakfast for us, we only can aim for the cafe nearby to have our breakfast, and tabao some stuff for the road trip. Quick glance around the area for food in the AM, there was one obvious choice, the Morimoto Honten.

Located just diagonally opposite our hotel, there is this nice cafe. It has an abundant of breads for breakfast, and they are apparently famous for their local produce. For the purchase of  breads, they come with a few sizes of box, whereas you pay for the price of the box, and then you get to pack whatever bread you wanted, from the counter. With whatever you bought, you can top up for a cup of coffee, where you can make the coffee from the coffee maker at the cafe counter. Definitely, then there is also cafe style seats in the shop, where you can enjoy your purchase.

Personally, the place is great, as you can also pack some stuff for your impending road trips.

Morimoto Honten
もりもと 本店
+81 123-23-4181
8AM–7:30PM

Located beside the cafe, there is babyTan's favourite playground! This is the place where he spent most of his time while his parents enjoyed the breakfast in peace! 

*He met his first japanese gf here!

The weather was good to us on the very first morning in Hokkaido. The nice clear blue sky, accompanied us through the road trip to Jigokudani! What a blessed start to the trip!

Day 1: Chitose
Day 2: Noboribetsu - Date - Hakodate
Day 3: Hakodate
Day 4: Lake Toya
Day 5: Furano
Day 6: Biei - Asahikawa
Day 7: Asahikawa
Day 8: Sapporo
Day 9: Otaru - Sapporo
Day 10: Sapporo
Day 11: Chitose

FamilyTan woke up 7 early 8 early to catch our flight at 7+ at the airport. This couldn't be helped as we redeemed our krisflyer miles for this trip. If you frequent the krisflyer redemption system, you would realise the you really have to book 6-12 months in advance to get a good flight to your desired destination. Looking at the fact that we only booked our tickets in May, we were already blessed to be able to get a flight to Hokkaido, despite it was on a Thursday morning flight.

A series of unfortunate events for the start, we forgot to take BabyTan's chow chow, in which we had to hire a grab just to specially bring the chow chow to the airport. All these unfortunate events were dismissed by the nice flight of Singapore Air, with good food and in-flight entertainment. We were also blessed that babyTan continued another 1-2hours of sleeping time on board the plane. This gave us some freetime to enjoy the in-flight entertainment.

We reserved the child meal for babyTan and both mama and papaTan took the japanese lunch. We had no regrets, both the child meal and japanese lunch were great!

We arrived at the Haneda Airport and was welcomed by two ladies whom held a card with our names in it. They informed us that we need to clear the immigration, retrieve our luggages and then to check-in at the domestic side. 

When we were retrieving our luggages, we discovered that a similar luggage was floating around. PapaTan could identify that the luggage despite looking similar, was not ours as it did not have babyTan's usual stickers on it. After couple of minutes of waiting, the airport staff approached us and asked about our situation. They were helpful, helped to call the owner of the luggage, and found the guy. He u-turned back to exchange the luggage, which we were happy this happened, as the initial option given to us was to deliver to our hotel in Chitose/ Hakodate.

Really grateful to the friendly staff of Haneda Airport (the guy and two ladies) for all the help. The two ladies even accompanied us all the way, till we check-in and boarded the shuttle bus. Thank you very much!

Naughty BabyTan spotted a playground at the domestic airport and decided to spend a good 10mins of our time to play there. Playgrounds are really killer to us!

This time round, we managed to put babyTan at the GrandmaKwan there for their care taking. THereafter, we went to the sports deck. There are basketball, table-tennis, flowrider, minigolf, and rock climbing over here.

We picked to go for rock climbing, and the queue was nearly an hour. No choice, we have to wait for the free climb. Before the climb, we felt the reception was rude. We were given the ipad and was told to take a read. Just went we were about to take a read to see what is it about, the guy immediately pulled back the ipad. When papaTan asked him what is it about, he just said it is the terms and conditions for the game, and whether we want to read it at all. Before we could reply, he said that if we want to read, the hardcopy is actually pasted at the reception there. We were quite stunned about his attitude, we thought the staffs all were quite friendly one.

Nonetheless, doesn't stop us from trying the rock climbing which we had queued an hour for. There are three walls to climb, and what mamaTan heard from the gamemaster is that the first wall (nearest to reception) is the hardest. Unluckily, both of us were allocated to that wall. If you did not climb high, you could be given the second chance to try again. Once you hit near the first bell and fall, you do not have the second chance. So much for the hour wait =/.

Issued daily when the caretakers come to make up the room, they will include the compass for the next day. Today's special, nothing much actually. Hence, we only picked the following activities that we were interested in, for the day.

For our trip, the ship docked to Port Klang at 0700hrs (do note that casino will be closed when docked) and leaving at 1830hrs, back to Singapore. We did not want to de-embark the ship as, obviously, we paid the money to enjoy the cruise, and not to go Port Klang!  However, there weren't much exciting activities also lah!  We picked the following to do for the day!

1. Meet Alex the Lion
2. Royal Bingo
3. Swimming
4. Chill
5. Dinner
6. Casino

Everyday, we had two sets of breakfast. We always order one set of room service (its free during the non-silent hours, so why not!), and then prepare for the day, and after that leave for windjammer for another round of breakfast.

Located in the room, there are sets of breakfast menu. You will have to fill in what you want for the next day breakfast, and then leave outside your hotel room door by 0300hrs. It's kinda of simple spread of breakfast available, but then we felt that it was a good meal to kickstart the whole day of activities.

After we prepared for the day, we went down to Windjammer for the second round of breakfast. The windjammer is available for breakfast till 1100hrs daily. The international spread of breakfast is good, and we strongly encourage you to go for this breakfast.

MamaTan saw a great promotion earlier this year, and we decided to go for the cruise as we had no prior experiences in it. The total cost was approximately $1,500, inclusive of babyTan, whereas he had to pay the travel tax only.

This trip was joined by grandmaKwan, the brothers, and Nicolette's (neighbour) family. The boarding time was 1130 for our Deck 9, so it wasn't that bad, just that the grab was pretty expensive as we had to travel in a family ride for our strength. The ride was about $40 if i'm not wrong about it.

The terminal was pretty empty. I believed it was greatly contributed to the staggered timing that was assigned to passengers from different deck.

Since ours was the suite package, we were able to go for the special queue and we cleared the immigration without much queuing. We saw DFS inside the terminal, but do note that they only sell perfumes, there was no cigarettes nor liquor to buy. I pretty much guess this is their trick to ensure you spend in cruise.

*Quick tips: The cigarettes are cheaper compared to Singapore's price if you purchased from the casino.

At the entrance, there were two queues. The longer queue was for the accompanying kids to get the safety armbands, and the other shorter queue was for passengers without minors, to enter the cruise.

We cut through the casino and made our way to windjammer. However, we were guided by ushers to level 4 dining room for our lunch. Thankfully we followed the ushers, as we were made known subsequently that the windjammer was full, but the dining halls were pretty empty. The lunch was a buffet (pretty down-scaled version of what you will be eating at windjammer for the next few days), but it sufficed our stomach while waiting for the rooms to be ready.

We had a hard time trying to reach Starbucks @ Taipei 101’s hotline for reservation during our recent trip to Taiwan last year. We have been calling for weeks but no one pick up, but we do have some friends who have managed to call through and make the reservation. This time round, we managed to get a friend’s friend of mine who is working in KPMG (within the same building) to bring us up w/o any reservation. Staffs working within the building can visit the Starbucks at any time w/o reservation.

​Lucky us as we waited at the lobby for the friend to bring us up to the Highest Starbucks. Surprisingly, those who are working within the building do not understand what is so great of an attraction this Starbucks is. HAHA! As for us, WE ARE FINALLY HERE!

Taiwan Itinerary – Air Tickets And Hotel Bookings

​We managed to grab promotional Air tickets via Jetstar for our Taiwan trip. We paid S$359 for a return trip for both of us including checked baggage. As for our hotel booking, we booked Via Hotel Ximending via Hotels.com because there is additional credit card promotion. We paid $380 for 3 night deluxe room with bathtub & free flow snack bar. Yes, this time round we are not bringing Little terror along and will be spending couple time for the next 4 days in Taipei! ​

​We have engaged Luggage delivery service by Klook and head straight to 阳明山 to start the day trekking around. Chanced upon the Airport luggage service where we just need to drop off the luggage at the Airport before 12PM and it will be delivered to the Hotel after 6PM. The whole process is fuss-free and there are photographs given by the agent to show the pick-up and delivery of the luggage which makes you feel very safe with their handling. This gives us plenty of extra time to explore Taipei without having to drag our luggage to deposit at hotel first. I will recommend this service again because it is just sooooooo convenient. Furthermore, it is only at a mere fee of SGD $15.80 per luggage! 

P.S: From now till 31/DEC 2017, enter promo code “KLKVISA17” at the check-out page to be entitled for some discount when making payment with VISA CREDIT CARD.

​To Note: Personally, we felt that the WIFI egg is not as durable as the Changi Recommend ones. We have to use a portable charger to specially connect to the WIFI rented from Changi Recommends usually battery flat after about 8 – 10 hours of the journey. We believe it is because of the battery size hence the lifespan is shorter for the TW rented ones.

After travelling to Taipei numerous times, the Taoyuan Airport express has finally launched on 02 March 2017 so it means that for this time round, we will no longer need to switch between bus and train to head to Taipei City. The Airport express provides quick access between Taoyuan International Airport Terminal 1, 2 and Taipei Main Station in Taipei City. We can also use the EasyCard (悠遊卡) to make the express fare payment. This is similar to how we tap our ezlink card when we take MRT in Singapore. See HERE for more information on the Airport express train. 

​​It takes about 35 minutes to travel from Taoyuan International Airport 1 to Taipei Main station via express train. We surfaced up to the main road with the aid of signboards directing us to take bus # 260 from Taipei Main station to 岩山里站 as our first stop is to have breakfast at Zhicheng famous soy shop至诚豆浆坊 before heading up to Yangmingshan阳明山. Do take note that bus # 260 can head straight up to Yangmingshan main stop阳明山总站 so travelers do not need to take MRT to Jiantan station剑潭站 or Shilin士林站 before taking公車紅5 (往陽明山) or bus # 260. Something useful while taking bus in Taipei is that we can monitor the bus situation – which bus stop we are at now, how long more to arrive and how long more it takes to destination via their e-bus website.

After breakfast, we walked back to the bus stop where we have previously alight to take either bus # 5 or #260 to go to Yangmingshan Main stop. We did some research on the seasonal route to travel for November period and understood that it is the best season for lalangs in Yangmingshan. We selected the route to cover “小油坑 - 七星山 - 梦幻湖 - 牛奶湖 -冷水坑 -擎天岗”. There is free hot spring to soak the tired legs or to go for naked hot spring at冷水坑.

​After alighting bus #260 at main stop, we went to join the queue to take the tour bus #108 (１０８游园公交车). The tour bus is a mini bus with limited seats and many tourists started squeezing up the bus standing tup because the waiting interval is rather long, about 15-20 minutes interval. The tour bus queue was horribly long and we had to wait for 3 buses before it is our turn to board the bus standing up. The journey up to小油坑 was really uncomfortable because the road is very bumpy and nothing to hold onto while standing. Will not recommend this mode of transport if you are an elderly or pregnant.

​Sadly upon arriving at the Xiao You Keng (小油坑), it became all foggy and there is little scenery available for photo-taking. The place is filled with strong smell of sulphur as you see sight of bubbling water and smoldering fumaroles.

We wanted to hike up to Qi Xing Shan (七星山) but the road up is extremely steep and I wasn’t geared to climb such steep steps so we gave up and went back down when we were about ¼ way up the mountain. ​We headed down to take the bus #108 again to next attraction point, feeling kind of disappointed because the weather is not being nice to us. Spoken to some of the locals while sharing our disappointment to them, they recommended future trips to come up even earlier at about 7-8am for optimal view.

We headed over to Leng Shui Keng (冷水坑) which is a popular rest spot for hikers because there is a visitor centre, café, a hot spring area as well as an outdoor foot-soaking hot spring pool. The hot springs are free for the public and we enjoys the good soak to our feet after some long walk.

​After soaking our tired feet, we felt refreshed and started walking up to Ching Tien Kang (擎天岗). 

Because we are rushing to meet our schedule and the bus interval becoming hourly, we did not complete the trekking as we needed to head down to Café # 19 - '19號咖啡館 for lunch before heading to Xing Beitou (新北投) for hot spring. At Cing Tian Gang (擎天崗) we can take bus #15 straight down Yangmingshan to Jiantan station剑潭捷运站 but because we are going to the Café, we need to take bus #15 and transit to another feeder bus at bus stop山猪湖 before taking bus #303 to “International TV Station” (國際電台). The direction provided by the café is to travel via Jiantan station剑潭捷运站 instead which is really time-consuming because we are already at Yangmingshan Luckily with the bus system readily available online, it allow us to check on the possible similar bus stop for connection instead of going down the mountain and up again.
​
After alighting, we walked another 800m before we reach the café. Gosh, the place is pretty and just like how I read it on the blogs. Despite it was inconvenient to visit this café, I felt we made a great choice because the place is set-up making one feel so mythical like I walked into a fairy-tale land. There were limited main course choices but the drinks selection is decent. I am guessing that those who patrons are usually there for high-tea and desserts instead. See HERE