Pastel Pink and Purple: February 2011

We never really celebrate Chinese New Year as we are not Chinese. But Singapore do and that means I get additional 2 days off to my regular weekend rest days. So I thought why not go on a trip to Malaysia? I arranged my sister to fly in late on the 2nd of February. Slept a few hours in our flat and at 0645hrs we were on our way to Kovan Hub Station where the Citiexchange Express terminal was located.

Melaka was our first stop in our trip to discover Malaysia. though Kuala Lumpur is our main destination for this trip, I didn't want to pass up the chance to visit one of Malaysia's UNESCO's World Heritage Site. The ride to Melaka Bus Sentral Terminal from Kovan was comfy as the bus we took was actually a coach and the seats were big and roomy similar to a lazy chair. As we were crossing borders we had to go down twice at the Singapore Immigration pass by a long bridge to cross to get to Johor Bahru (the state of Malaysia that is nearest to Singapore). Go down again to get our Passports stamped by the Malaysian Immigration. Here we saw the Malaysian Tourism Center and got a ton of brochures!

Now they say it only takes about 3 hours to get to Melaka from Singapore but our trip lasted more than 4 hours! Later on I found out that this was the case if you go travel to a place where it's a public holiday as most Malaysians who live in the cities and Singapore would go back to their hometown on these days. It was already 1 when we got to the Melaka Bus Sentral. From there we took a taxi to get to what my sister and I called 'Melaka proper' as the bus terminal was a bit far from where the tourist spots were. We told the driver to take us to Renaissance Melaka Hotel. The facade of the hotel was not that elegant but the exterior was nice. Maybe because they were located in a tight space with other buildings surrounding the hotel.

After freshening up {courtesy of Renaissance ;) } . We looked around for a place to eat. Lucky we saw the Famosa Restaurant who serves one of the famous dishes in Melaka - the Chicken Rice Ball. So we ordered the Roasted Chicken with Chicken Rice Ball, drinks and Cendol for dessert!

Roasted Chicken with Rice Ball

Famosa's Menu

our cendol in two different angles

The roasted chicken tastes like the Filipino's Lechon Manok - only a bit blant for my taste. While the Cendol is like latik with crush ice and candied coconut. But that's not the reason why our lunch was unforgettable though. It was more because of the drink my sister ordered. She asked for lime juice which sounded pretty much normal until the drink was served and Cat took a sip. My sister's face turned from normal to puzzled. She expected her juice to be sour but found it too salty instead. I took a sip and true enough it was salty. We were both confused haha then she noticed that something was floating inside her drink so she opened the cup and found out that the floating object was actually kiamoy (or salted prune preserve). No wonder it was salty.

After lunch, we crossed Jalan Munshi Abdullah and walked along Jalan Bendahara until we saw the red buildings which if you search Melaka on the net you will finds pics of. At this point the street name changes to Jalan Laksamana (check google )

Parallel to the street full of buildings made of red brick walls is actually the Malacca River, where you can ride this boat that takes you to a cruise and see the town from a different angle.

A few meters up the road and we reached the Christ Church Building another attraction to which Melaka is famous for. From their we walked around and found the other UNESCO Heritage Sites such as The Stadhuys, St. Paul's Church, St. Paul's Hill, and Melaka Islamic Museum .