Reminiscing My Last Trip to Singapore

My last trip to Singapore were around last year July, to be exact, utilizing long weekend in Indonesia around those period. I went to Singapore with 2 of my friends, and we decide to do some fun in Singapore, even though there was not as much entertainment that we can choose from.

We went for a really "typical" Singapore trip: Garden by the Bay, Universal Studio Singapore, Orchard Road shopping (walking.. to be exact), Art and Science Museum, and food hunting.

There were some highlight that I REFUSE to forget; making this one of the best trip I've ever felt for such a long time:

Had our first lunch in Boon Tong Kee and I've had THE MOST MINDBLOWING ever fried tofu in all my life. Try to recreate them at home but fail miserably. The rest of the meal? Standard. I'd go crazy for the tofu all over again.

After lunch, we went to the most touristy spot in Singapore imo, Gardens by the Bay. We went to Both of the main attraction of course!! Flower Dome and Cloud Forest. What a best way for tourists to enjoy Singapore to the maximum.

Despite the sarcasm, great timing made us swooning over all the beautiful tulips in season, though.

My friend's minion polacamera match well with the yellow tulips.

Not to forget to take wefie as well.

Satisfied with the tulips, on the other weird side of the flower dome where the tulips are, however, were lots of weird shaped succulents all over the place...

and with some of them weird shape, we refuse to comment furthermore. "Just enjoy the nature", they said.

Finish with the Flower Dome, we continue straight to the Cloud Forest side. Not finding anything interesting, we've decided to do some weird pose photo shoot all over the place.

Flower Dome still is the winner from this whole garden-y setting.

Aaand that's it for the first day.

For the second day, we went to the USS, and take our typical photos of USS too! by forcing other Indonesian group to take pictures of us (in exchange for them as well of course! We're not that bad..)

Real holiday proof? Checked!

Not to forget inserting here my friend's weird angle photos that I took that day as well hahahha making them look like minions. In a good way of course!

One of the highlight of my USS trip this time was that I able to conquer BOTH of the roller coaster after chickening out on one of them several years ago. S-A-T-I-S-F-I-E-D! Not that scary though, come to think of it.

The rest of our USS trip were fun, but just okay. One of my friend were very satisfied with the amount of minion statue that she can take picture of.

We had our scrumptious dinner afterwards at Tonkotsu King Ramen, which was very famous in the area and we queued for around 1 hour if I'm not wrong.

It was good, confusing whether it was really good or we're just ravenous. Haha. Either way this meal satisfied our longing for a warm good food after one long day playing in USS. And that's it for the second day!

On our third day, we finally found the winner lunch of them all: Swee Choon Tim Sum.

Appearance-wise were not as good as we've expected, but taste-wise?? MAJESTIC. Tim Ho Wan go away la. This one's very, very nice with reasonable prices for their whole menu. Me and my friends agreed that this place were the winner of all the meal we've ever taste in Singapore this time. Can we go back again, please??

Super satisfied with our meals, we continued our final trip to Art and Science Museum before our flight back. It was...just ok.

Nice, but it was everything you've ever seen on the internet, so it was a little bit underwhelming. Some installation were quite mesmerizing though. 

Will we go again? Don't think so.

The downgrading mood from Art Science Museum was well closed by my repeat share of Oyster Omelette that I ate in the airport.

Must have one in Singapore.

And that's the wrap for whole of my Singapore trip last year!! 

It was such a long trip ago (blame my lack of updates, again), however I feel that this one was the most exciting and fulfilling one as well until now, since this was my first trip WITH my friends after I've gotten used to do solo trip to every other country that I've been to. Solo trip has its own perks though, but having a trip together with the right people and the right amount of people (this! is important) will make those trip far much more unforgettable as well. And I'm very, very grateful for this one.

So, when will be our next trip again??

Sugeng Rawuh Ing Ngayogyokarto

November last year, or, 2 months ago to be exact - (am still refusing it to become “last year”), I’ve had the chance to explore more of Java which is Yogyakarta, to be specific. 

Went there with my buddies, it was such a nice trip. What excites me the most was my visit to Borobudur Temple, which is one of the 7 wonders of the world.

Finally here!!

The sun was BRUTALLY shining and It was quite a stupid of us as well, visiting this temple in the middle of the afternoon, like around 13.00ish, which successfully burned our skin off. My makeup’s melting as well. But it was all worth it.

Utterly satisfied with this! We hired a tour guide to walk us through the temple to hear some of the temple's history and fun-facts; and it is a must do, actually, rather than just strolling around and taking photos like most of them tourists do.

Our guide became our cameraman too! Since he knows some perfect spot and angles for the best pictures, we gave quite a generous tip afterwards to him.

Melting afterwards.

Aside from Borobudur Temple, for another museum and cultural trip, we went for a museum called Museum Ullen Sentalu, which told us stories related to the history of Yogyakarta and its monarchy. What surprised us was that this museum’s was not governments’, but private’s owned. No wonder it was so well maintained.

We couldn’t take much photos because it was prohibited in the most areas, however the museum have prepared one photo spot for all the visitors to get. 

This was one of my most memorable museum visits all the time, since the tour guide (included in the ticket fee) explains everything so well and detailed you’ll be longing for more at the end of the trip. This is one of the must visit place, I believe, and If you interested, please do your homework here!

Aside from those 2 main places, we’ve enjoyed ourselves well too from culinary trip, cute hotels, and beautiful natures.

Dangerously beautiful Jogan Beach.

Dinner at Jejamuran, where all the foods here are made from mushrooms!. "Jamur" means mushroom, fyi.

The legendary Sate Ratu, best for their spicy chicken satay. Super yum omagah. The place were famous between foreign tourists as well they have a wall full of photos of people from around the world.

Yogya's must eat: Ice Rojak.

And not to forget our cute and comfy hotel as well!

It was called Oemah Njonya Bed & Brasserie.

Delish Indonesian breakfast included!

It was a short 4 days 3 nights trip, however all in all, it was so fun and am glad to have this chance of holiday to be the closing of my 2018 trip, especially with these guys here since most of our holiday plans usually were not executed and ended up in another café-visit only, somewhere in Jakarta.

Hey, you two.

Hope we can explore other places as well in Indonesia soon!

What to Eat in Disneysea (or What WE Eat in Disneysea)

Just so you know that last month I have this amazing chance to go to Disneysea again!! It’s not a big surprise really, as maybe this was already my 5^th or 6^th trip there however this is kinda more special as it was the first time I went there with my brother! It was quite an achievement at least for me, as this year, I managed to bring one family member to my most favorite place on earth (currently) and hopefully I can bring my mom and dad too. Hopefully next year?

However! This time I would like to focus on what kind of stuffs we ate there. Disneysea is quite famous for their food, either heavy foods or finger foods, and bringing my brother definitely gave me chances to try them all especially some of the famous one, as we can share some of the foods together (and a growing lil boy’s stomach is bigger means more variety of food that we can try).

So here we go!

The 1^st food that we tried is this 3 Little Green Men Mochi from Toy Story.

Price: 380 yen
Location: not fixed, around Toy Story area until Barnacle Bill’s (still inside American Waterfront Area)

*At the same time, introducing my lil bro, which will be the model for some of the photos.

You know that usually cute stuff didn’t follow with good taste; however this is the best dessert mocha that I have ever had in Japan! 3 pieces of soft and cute green mochi with generous vanilla, strawberry and chocolate filling. The trickiest part of this cute mocha is that the wagon location is somewhat keep changing. I usually found it in front of Toy Story area (around  2 times), and most of the times I didn’t find it at all (maybe sold out), but this time we found it in the front of Barnacle Bill’s wagon, it was right before the big bridge to Port Discovery area. We were lucky enough to notice a long queue in front of a wagon and bam! We saw that the green men was being sold was and directly queuing for it. Yumyum.

Finished with The Green Man, we went for a wagon called Seaside Snack to hunt for our 2^nd food called Ukiwah Bun.

Price: 500 yen

Location: Seaside Snack Wagon in Port Discovery

This is a swim-ring shaped shrimp filling bun that wrapped in a cute swimming Donald wrapper. The filling is quite a lot, and the bun is very soft. I read good reviews about this, and we can't deny it. It was pleasant and fulfilling. However me and my bro agreed that this was not the best food that we had here. There are some seats available around the wagon, allowing you to enjoy the bun and the pleasant view from this area.

After this, we didn’t find so much good stuffs around Lost River Delta, so we just continued our way for lunch in Arabian Coast, as we were quite starving at that time.

Our 3^rd food is our lunch, which is Curry Sets. If I remember correctly, it was available in Chicken, Fish, Beef and Combination of those 3.

Price: varies from 600-800 yen.

Location: Casbah Food Court in Arabian Coast

We ordered 2 Chicken Curry Sets (780 yen each), Salad (350 yen) and Original Lassi (350 yen), totaling 2,260 yen. We notice that the chicken cut was quite big, and the curry was delicious. What we curious about is the double carbs in one set as it have both rice and roti prata altogether (What’s wrong with Japanese and double carb, they eat ramen with rice too...).  Apologize for not taking proper photos, as we were both ravenous at that time we just remembered to take photos when our food was already damaged haha.

That lunch last for a good 2 hours more or less, and we continued to our 4^th food, which is Potato Churros, since my bro asked for one.

Price: 380 yen

Location: Churros Wagon in Mysterious Island

The least food that we liked here. As it was potato churros, the taste resembles French fries however this is like the big version of it, and the texture is softer than regular churros. However since it was quite a unique kind of churros, this is worth to try too. Maybe some of you will like it?

Since my and my bro were not satisfied enough with this churros, we went straight for our 5^th food, which is Cotton Candy Churros.

*Last photo so blur, forgive me

Price: 380 yen

Location: Open Sesame Wagon, in front of Sindbad’s Storybook Voyage attraction.

This churros is better than the potato version, and it was saluted with purplish sugar which taste like cotton candy (they said). This version of Churros is limited as it was part of the 35^th year celebration of Disneysea at that time. I assume that the wagon will be selling original churros when there’s no event of it. This was nice and we liked it!

Nearby the wagon is the Sultan Oasis area, which is like a small cafeteria that sells some snack. That’s where we buy our 6^th and 7^th food at the same time:

Easter 2018 version of Chandu’s Tail

Price: 500 yen

Location: Sultan Oasis Cafeteria

Chandu’s tail is one of the infamous foods in Disneysea, and this time they serve it Easter Special with pink ribbons (I can’t figure out what’s the form actually, rabbit?) and curry fillings. The normal version one has chicken cream fillings and orange in color with black stripes, but I liked the curry version as well. Should be considered one of the best food in Disneysea.

Vanilla Smoothie and Coffee Jelly Drink

Price: 500 yen

Location: Sultan Oasis Cafeteria

The vanilla smoothie taste like regular milk shake with coffee jelly toppings and choco powder. What I like is that it was not as sweet as I expected, and it balances well with the Chandu’s Tail. Perfect for hot summer weather. Oh, and this is the specials for 35^th Celebration Food too!

Not stopping there, before we went for our final show in Mediterranian Harbor, we went for snacks that will accompany us to watch the show:

8^th food: Garlic Shrimp Popcorn

Oh helloooo, Nemo!

Price: 350 yen

Location: Mermaid Lagoon

We are tempted to buy this because of the MSG aroma that lingers around Mermaid Lagoon, which area we have to pass in order to go to the Mediterranian Harbor. Couldn’t complain anything about the taste as it was good! Just FYI, the Curry Popcorn in Arabian Coast is much more famous compared to this one, however this time I’d prefer this one to try.

9^th Food: Gyoza Dog

Price: 500 yen

Location: Nautillus Galley

This one, I think, was the best bun that Disneysea’s have. It was a looong bun with lotsa gyoza filling, and most of the people hunted this bun a lot that they decided to move the selling place to a bigger area which is the Nautillus Galley. Since it IS big, I think this should be enough for dinner for most of the people.They have a lot of signage of this Gyoza Dog around Mysterious Island so I think it will be hardly missed. Nautillus Galley itself are quite hidden, as you need to go downstairs to get to the café.

Aaaaand that Gyoza Dog became our closing food that we ate in Disneysea. Since we are NOT like most people, in the end we went to convenience store around our hotel too to grab a very proper late dinner which was around 23.30.

Like I said before, I never had the chance to eat THIS MUCH before as usually I went there with my girl friends, which usually were not a good foodies. However, with my brother and his deep stomach pit, it was glorious! We got the chance to eat most of it and realize we spent 6,130 yen or around IDR 800.000 for all of this. Expensive, indeed, but all in all it was worth the experience! And taste, of course.

I can proudly say that most of the stuff that we ate here are some of the top items that people usually hunting for, so feel free to note them, hunt them on your next trip to Disneysea and share your thoughts!

Tips: don’t forget to take Entertainment & Information called “Today” Brochure when you take the Guide Map in front of the gate, as it has all of the information especially limited edition goods, foods, and special parade according to the event during your visit.

See you on the next post!