All About Your Child

Yesterday’s post was on the mundane stuff : Ferry and Accomodation. Today let’s get on to the fun we had on the first day there!

We were not interested in Mega Mall nor BCS Mall anymore, since we had been there on our 1st Batam trip. This time our focus is solely on Nygoya Hill!

Nygoya Hill Level 1 ~ Shop Shop Shop

The place is bigger and more exciting compared to the previous two malls! You can find a supermart at level one. Level one is basically shopping and there is even a section that reminds me of Sim Lim Square with all the electronics stuff.

Nygoya Hill Level 2 ~ Eat Eat Eat

Nygoya Hill Highest Level ~ Play Play Play

There is ONE Arcade at Level one…..

My playful ‘BIG BOY’ started picking games to play too! *laugh*

and TWO Arcades at Level two!

After shopping at the Hypermart at level 1, the kids were hungry. We totally could not resists going to A&W!!!

The boys loved Sand Art after they tried it for the very first time at my friend’s Toys Rental office on last Saturday 9th June (will blog about that happy event soon).

Thus when they saw Sand Art was available on the highest level of Nagoya Hill, they were drawn to it like a nail to a magnet!!! *giggle*

FIRST TIME DOING FISH SPA!!!!

Fish spa is available at level one. Not a shop but a promotional space in the middle of the atrium in front of the Hypermart.

I have heard that fish spa is ticklish and all 4 of us are afraid of being tickled, yet, the price is so affordable that we think its a Great Opportunity for us to try. Worse scenario would be we gave up before the 20 minutes ended. *bleh*

OMG!!!
It was hilarious!!!

The first dip:
Binbin LAUGHED SO LOUDLY!
Keatkeat GIGGLED SO LOUDLY!
Allan CHUCKLED NON STOP!
I HAD TO SLAP my face with two hands to keep my mouth shut!!!

After about a minute or two….

Binbin stood up because he could not stand the tickles under his feet anymore but was ok with the nibbling from the tiny fishes on the top of his feet and calf.

Allan was doing REALLY WELL!!!
Calmed down totally and started snapping photos of his feet and us.

Allan’s feet must have been full of dead skin! So much so that majority of the fishes went to his feet and only very few left swimming around Binbin’s feet. (They were in the same tank)

Allan’s hairy legs. *giggle*

Binbin’s ‘fishless’ legs

I learned from Binbin and started to put my feet down onto the tiny pebbles so that the fishes could not get to the sole of my feet. Only then could I truly calm down….

As for my drama king Keatkeat, Hhhhmmm…. it was money down the drain. He refused to put his feet down at all. After much persuasion, he agreed to put his feet down, but he kept moving his feet in the water, and NO FISH could have a PROPER Nibble on his feet. *eyes rolled*

Watch drama king in action here:
So don’t be fooled by the video. Though his feet are in, but they are constantly in action, so none of the fishes were on his feet at all. Only a couple on his calf.
(Allan did not know that he needs to hold his phone horizontally for filming. So the video is compressed. Well, cannot blame him, he was with his very first Samsung phone for 4 days only. )

While the kids were at A&W earlier, Allan spotted a big ‘Massage’ signage just opposite the road diagonally facing the restaurant and went off to check the price while the kids ate.

We agreed that THAT would be our last stop for the day! Thanks to the awesome rates!

This is the first time I had a full body massage ON A BED. It was small and made of wood. When the masseuse was with me on the bed at the same time for certain moments during the massage, I fear that the bed would break!!! ‘Cos it creaked so loudly with every move she made! *laugh*

Full Body Massage 1hour and 15min (but only lasted for 1 hour), total bill for four of us was 280,000. One person cost SGD$9.59 only!!! Soooooooo affordable! It was THIS reason that made us want to come back to Batam for the second time! *Super Duper Grin*

After a great massage, we went back to Nagoya Hill to ‘ta-bao’ (take-away) our dinner. While we were ordering our pizza at the entrance of Sarpino Pizza restaurant, their neighbour, Pizza Hut crews were twisting balloons for my boys!

I felt so uneasy because we did not order from them. Then again, we are in a different country and different culture, so maybe its normal for them to do such things, even to non-customers. *shrugged*

Some reviews on Nagoya Hills said that its a bore, I don’t know why. *shrugged* We totally enjoyed our time there! Same place, different people, different views. You must experience it yourself before you know if you like the place. *wink*

We loved it so much, we went back again the next day and spent the whole day there! Find out what we did in the next post. *wink*

2nd Batam Trip during the School Holidays

Adults and Kids alike, all of us missed the massages we had during our first Batam Trip. Read blog post here: “Children on Holiday – Batam Day 1 (Part 1)”

Over 100 photos were taken during our 3 days 2 nights trip, so I would not be putting all here, but will upload all over at my Facebook.

Alright, here goes day 1:

11th June 2012

It was a pity that we could not visit Nygoya Hill in the previous trip. This time, our Swiss-BelHotel apartment is very near to the big shopping mall, its only less than 5 mins drive. Whoo Hoo! *clap clap clap*

Don’t get mix up with Swiss-BelInn, which is nearby too. They are both under the Swiss-BelHotel International group and both are in Batam. So their name cards wrote Swiss-BelInn as well, which could be quite confusing. Hhhmmm….

It cost us 855,000 rupiah per night staying in this 2 bedroom apartment in Swiss-BelHotel. About SGD$117.12.

We had a guided tour during our 1st Batam Trip. This time, we decide to go free and easy. We searched for an accommodation on the Internet which has a room big enough for two queen size beds and our search ended with Swiss-BelHotel. Instead of queen size beds, we had KING size beds! *thumbs up*

It is very much like the 3NG type of flat in Singapore. The only difference is, the rooms are much bigger. So this time, Allan finally have a proper bed to sleep in, compared to the last.

Two Bedrooms with King Size Beds, Two Toilets, Living Room with Dining Area and a Kitchen with a rubbish chute. Having the rubbish chute in the apartment makes it so convenient to throw things that will give off bad smell after a night. So that is a super thumbs up, in my opinion.

Toilet 1. Not attached to any bedrooms.

Toilet 2, attached to one of the bedrooms

Swiss-BelHotel is less than 10mins drive from Harbour Bay Terminal in Batam, we paid 40,000 rupiah for the taxi ride from there to our apartment, with our rate of 1:7,300, its about SGD$5.47. After being there twice, we feel that the taxi fares are pretty much the same as Singapore.

The difference is, the taxi in Batam, Indonesia does not run on meter. You need to agree on a price first, before hoping into the taxi.  There are taxi drivers who quoted really high, thinking that we were tourist and unfamiliar with Batam taxi rates.

As we had been to Batam before, we ‘roughly‘ know what is considered a reasonable price. So we are saved from being ‘ka-tok‘.

Bedroom 1: Bedroom with attached Toilet

Bedroom 1 : I forgot to take another shot from another angle, so the wardrobe on the left is not captured.

Bedroom 2 : The bigger Bedroom. Probably because there are no toilets attached to this one.

Bedroom 2

Kitchen

I was hungry when we reached there at 12 plus Indonesia time. Since we could not check in yet, I went to the restaurant for a bite. To my surprise, the waitress told me that I cannot order any other food except this:

Due to the many customers who bought the Groupon deal came on the same day as us, the waitress ASSUMED that we were one of them, so she insisted that I had to take this set lunch meant for the Groupon customers.

It was after my food has arrived and had taken a few bites, then she asked me for the Groupon voucher. *sigh*
Only then did both of us realised that it was a BIG misunderstanding. I did not notice the word ‘Groupon’ on the menu and she did not check if I was a Groupon customer first.

As a result, I had to pay cash SGD$5 for this meal.

Anyhow, the food was nice. So long as it can fill my stomach, I’m fine with the misunderstanding.

My Fruit King gladly helped me finished the whole plate of fruits. *laugh*

After food, we were still not able to check-in, so we went around to explore Swiss-BelHotel and the kids had an opportunity to see how the swimming pool is kept clean:

Think I will stop here for now, be prepared for MORE photos in the next post as we venture Nygoya Hill for the first time. *wink*