Batam Getaway (Pacific Palace Hotel)

I've been wanting a getaway for such a long time. In fact I haven't been overseas ever since I enlisted into army. (Yes that includes even going to Malaysia). So here I am with the best buddies I could ever ask for in my NS life and we're off to Batam, land of the sleaze.

I'm somewhat of a selfie addict or maybe a "we-fie" addict so prepare to see lots of our handsome photos throughout this post. So here we are boarding the ferry in the wee hours of Saturday morning.

Hyperactive us decided to head up to the smoking deck and catch the welcoming Batam air. Having been to Batam for 3 times, I was pretty skeptical of the tour because Batam is really small and they have centralised tours that bring you to the same places.

It was pretty lucky we had a good tour guide who cracked the lamest jokes that totally kept us chuckling throughout the day. It was even funnier when we compared her jokes to our self-proclaimed lame jokes king and he was totally beaten hands down.

So like any other Batam tour, we were brought to Golden Prawn for our seafood lunch. Considerably delicious but it's really insane how every taxi driver automatically blurts Golden Prawn when we ask for a good dinner place. There must be some hidden gem somewhere but unfortunately we didn't manage to find out this trip.

Tried the Go-Kart for the first time and surprisingly it was really fun. I used to avoid any sports activities here because Batam being really close to Singapore has a tendency to overcharge for any adrenaline rush activities. That includes activities like water sports and paintball shooting.

My advice: Don't ever go for the paintball because it's super overpriced and you can get cheaper sessions in Singapore. Unless of course you have money to blow.

Did I mention I dropped my phone on the concrete track while trying to capture Zhiyong in the previous photo? It was so embarrassing because the Go-Kart has no reverse gear and I had to wave desperately at the linesman to get him to pick my phone up. It was fun nevertheless because Zhiyong was forever slower than anyone else.

After several other uninteresting tourists traps, we managed to check in to our hotel slightly earlier. Pacific Palace Hotel was really grand both on the outside and the inside.

Pacific Palace Hotel is also shaped in the form of a ship which makes it really interesting and also the main reason why I chose this hotel. The lobby is actually located at the "back" of the ship. The front of the ship is actually right at the other end.

The rooms are kept spectacularly clean and are pretty big. Ignore Asaph's glaring ass right there and just admire the beauty of the room.

The only thing that is lacking here is the bathtub. Nevertheless they have 2 very exquisite Jacuzzi to make up for that. Notice the door mat hanging on the handle of the glass door? We'll get to that soon.

The really cool thing about Pacific Place Hotel is that you have a balcony that is overlooking the swimming pool. Pretty awesome isn't it?

Enjoyed the facilities for a while before we headed out for dinner. Like any other Batam trip, A&W is a must. We had that for dinner and it was really disappointing. However we knew that after dinner, that's when our trip really started.

We headed back to our hotel and went straight to the back end of it. I guess that's probably the reason why Batam is famous for sex tourist and all the sleazy stuff you can think of. Pacific Palace Hotel has it's own disco called the Pacific Discotheque. It was literally empty when we went in at about 10pm.

After some probing we managed to find out it only gets busy after 1am. Therefore we decided to explore the other levels. Level 2 & 3 were somewhat KTVs but level 3 had a special vibe to it. There were seemingly more plus plus services being offered there. To top it off the lighting there was really bad and all you could see were several shadows of Indonesians playing arcade at the side.

I can't remember what the other floors had but on the top floor lies Octopuss which is a men's executive health and spa parlour. It was so creepy that the moment we went out of the lift several hosts came to welcome us. We went back into the lift so quickly that Calvin being the last time come out didn't even catch a glimpse of the place.

So for you people deciding to go to Pacific Place Hotel, the back end of the hotel is where all the sleaze occurs and the front end is where all the proper businesses happens. We wanted to go back to the club at 1am so we decided to catch a nap in our hotel rooms first and viola, we were woken up by a call to go down for breakfast.

Breakfast was not that bad but it could have improved loads. Had a quick breakfast at 630am and went back to nap again till checkout.

Best checkout story ever - Remember the doormat in the middle of the post. Our dear Calvin took the doormat to wrap his wet clothes despite repeated warnings from Raphael. What a quickfix. So when we checked out, the receptionist was puzzled to find the doormat missing from his room which resulted in the most embarrassing moment of his life as he walked sheepishly towards the front desk double confirming that he has to in fact return the doormat.

In fact he was so embarrassed, he just passed it to Zhiyong to return it for him. I guess we need a round of applause and this can go up to the top ten stories of what to tell your friends not to do when you go overseas with them.

That's about all for my Batam 2D1N getaway! Looking forward to another trip to Korea this year with Petrine!

Recruits to Privates

Heyo, after much procrastination, I have finally moved from wordpress to blogger. It's an awesome fresh change cause I'm pretty bored of wordpress already. I hope blogging become more fun with blogger. Besides, I'm going to have much more time to blog right now since I'm no longer a recruit.

After two months of grueling training, okay, maybe not grueling but tough, I'm officially a recruit. I had my passing out parade at Sembawang camp cause I'm Pes C but it's still a proud moment for me and every other recruit out there.

I swear being in a parade is the last thing I want to do in my life. Standing still there, stomach in chest out with your perspiration trickling down your nose and itching the hell out of me. Luckily my sergeants taught us several things to do while you are standing still there.

1) Wriggle your toes
2) Make butterflies with your fingers
3) Scratch your ass
4) Count the number of pretty girls

So there I was, standing in the first row trying not to laugh at the funny faces my girlfriend made. So I was pretty much occupied throughout the entire parade until the speech came in. It was pretty annoying cause the guy spoke really slowly and every time we thought he was coming to a conclusion, he had something to add on. Other than that, I'm glad my prayers worked cause surprisingly my perspiration wasn't as itchy in the actual parade as compared to the rehearsals.

The best moment cause we finally could fidget and move around. My mum doesn't know how to wear a beret, but she did a pretty good job for a first try.   

 There you go, PTE TAN with the messiest beret. 

and that's my lovely girl who came down all the way despite being sick. 

*ok edited, she wanted it removed

Look at all the happy faces of my airforce mates. 

I didn't take much pictures cause we were really tired after endless rehearsals and all I wanted was to rush home and lie on my bed. I really did that.

Early next morning, I went for the marina bay POP where all the combat fit recruits would pass out. There were so many soldiers there that I didn't manage to find all my friends. Nevertheless, I did snap a few photos with some. 

I was really lucky cause I managed to rush over while they were taking the group photo, way to go CSCC people! 

My secondary school friends. We're all privates now except for Ardy on the extreme right, ORD-ed last month, bitch. 

So that concludes the start of my block leave, I have another 7 days to enjoy myself thoroughly before going back to slog at the airbase. Then again, a private's life is going to be so much easier than being a recruit. Till next time folks!