@h PhEn's Confession Room: One week in Johor

Day 1 (Sunday)

Here's an update for my first ever outstation job with another 2 MALE colleagues. The flight was scheduled at 815am but there was a slight delay which was rather predictable.

Can see the rainbow?

Thick white clouds

Estates

After 35 minutes, we reached the Sultan Ismail International Airport which is also known as Senai International Airport. This airport is much better than LCCT as they have MarryBrown, Lavender Cafe&Bakery, Dunkin Donuts, Coffeebean, Famous Amos compared to LCCT's only McDonald's and Asian Kitchen.

We couldn't start working on that morning because the manager wasn't around to assist us so we decided to check into our hotel first. The name of our hotel is Sofitel. I thought Sofitel is some 2 or 3 stars budget hotel but I was so wrong. We headed straight to the taxi counter to purchase a coupon which cost us RM 10. Actually for 3 person with luggages, RM 10 is cheap lar but bloody hell, the taxi ride is only 2 minutes. So freaking near.

Sofitel Palm Resort is a 5 star resort hotel with three distinctly individual 18-hole championship courses and voted No.1 in Johor.

The reception

This is one of Sofitel's restaurant. This Japanese restaurant caught my attention once I looked at the name, So Ba Sei. If you can read chinese, the last word means Star. If you translate the words into Cantonese, this restaurant's name is SOH BA SING. Still don't get it? Your Cantonese sucks.

The swimming pool from different views

By the way, they also have an Olympic size swimming pool, sports facilities, bowling, snooker, gymnasium, jacuzzi, sauna and etc etc.

The bar

The garden... Oops, I mean the view of the garden from my balcony

Ok, let's proceed to my crib. I am going to stay here for 4 nights. Each of us has one room. It's impossible for me to fall off with a bed this size.

Spacious bathroom

Feeling jealous? Yea, I probably will as well but guess what. We are only entitled to free buffet breakfast everyday. That means our lunch and dinner will be on our own. Fair enough. But this resort hotel is far away from the town and the nearest is Kulai. We can't afford to travel there every evening just for dinner. The price of one way journey to Kulai from Sofitel is RM 25.

For the first ride, the hotel called a taxi for us and we had to pay RM25 and we reach Kulai's shopping complex which is also called the IOI mall. It's something like Summit USJ shopping complex but the USJ one is better.

We had our lunch there and went shopping for grocery. These are my meals from tonight till Wednesday night.

That's all for now. I am going for a swim before I get my ass to work tomorrow. Thank God, Man Utd won Tottenham 1-0 that night.

Day 2 (Monday)

We were entitled to free morning breakfast everyday at the Ishwara Cafe. Bacons, fried kuay teow, nasi lemak, buns, nestle koko crunch, honeystars, cornflakes, pineapple juice, guava juice, manggo juice etc etc. The nicest part is having your breakfast facing the swimming pool.

After a long day at work, the kind station manager brought us to Johor Bahru for seafood dinner. The journey took us around 30-45 minutes and according to him, the food is delicious, cheap and atmosphere is way above average.

The chefs are all Orang Asli

Dining above sea waters and facing the Singapore port.

Too busy eating and forgot to take pictures of the food. =_="

When we reached the hotel, the time was already 10pm. I took a quick swim as the hotel restricts customers to swim from 11pm to 7am. From 8pm to 11pm, you swim at your own risk.

Day 3 (Tuesday)

Today is the official launching date for AirAsia flights from Macau to Johor Bahru. The lucky passengers who reached the arrival hall were greeted by Dato Tony Fernandes and a few more big shots. The goodies bag contain souvenirs and postcards given by Malaysian Tourism Board with the tag VISIT MALAYSIA YEAR 2007. The funny thing that I noticed was that almost all the passengers look like Malaysians and Singaporeans who just came back from gambling in Macau. Welcome, my fellow Malaysians and Singaporeans to Malaysia!!!

(L->R)

1) YB Dato' Haji.Latiff bin Yusof; State Secretary Johor Bahru

2) YBhg Dato' Tony Fernandes; Group CEO of AirAsia

3) YAB Dato' Haji Abdul Ghani bin Othman; Chief Minister of Johor

4) YB Encik Freddie Long Hoo Hin; EXCO for Tourism and Environment, Johor Bahru

5) YBhg Dato' Kamarudin Meranun; Deputy Group CEO of AirAsia

During the press conference, I too joined in the fun and

I was this close to them and managed to get some nicer angles compared to other reporters. LOL

Better get back to work since I sneaked out for almost an hour already. That evening, my senior who was engaged in another assignment in JB came to find us and took us out for dinner. We had...

Tom Yam Fried Glass Noodle

Malat super spicy steamboat

Cheese baked rice with sliced turkey ham

After dinner, we went to play 2 games of bowling at Ampang Superbowl. My senior and I were very confident in beating the other 2 colleagues who only played a few times in their life. Guess what, both of us were humiliated by the 2 amateurs. I have never gotten so low marks in my life before since my early secondary school days. Anyway, I blamed the lane as it wasn't flat, the bowling ball wasn't round enough and the bowling pins were too heavy. Felt so much better after that.

When I reached back my hotel room, I wasn't feeling very well and vomitted my dinner out. I guessed it was food poisoning as my other colleague experienced the same thing as well. Yummy!!

Day 4 ( Wednesday)

For the whole day, I don't have any appetite to eat and only had bread for lunch. We finished our Johor task early and went back straight to hotel to rest. Since it was our last day in this wonderful hotel, I went straight for the jacuzzi, a 15 minutes sauna session and 30 minutes swim. By the way, it's so relaxing to soak in the bath tub filled with hot water and lie down for 30 minutes. I did that everyday.

Day 5 (Thursday)

All good things come to an end eventually. Originally, we were supposed to leave on Friday but we had to be in KL on Thursday to attend a meeting but due to some miscommunication, our flight itinerary wasn't changed from Friday to Thursday so we had to take a bus back to KL from Skudai. We bought the VIP seater bus which cost RM24 for each ticket.