MizReeney: Batam Trip, September 2015

Thursday, October 1, 2015

Batam Trip, September 2015 - Day 2

Day 2 of our Batam trip started with the complimentary Harris Hotel buffet breakfast. The spread was not bad, not like a posh hotel spread but then again this isn't the Hilton, but what was there was adequate. There was a lot of local spread which tasted pretty good, the let downs were the western spread like waffles which were soggy, etc.

After breakfast, we decided to explore another shopping area called Nagoya Hill. We took a taxi from the hotel for about Rp70,000 - Rp75,000. There are plenty of people touting and offering transport outside the hotel, but I think I feel safer taking a taxi from inside the hotel premises. Nagoya is about 15-20 mins drive from the hotel. When we arrived, we tried to pay the taxi driver with a Rp100,000 note and the driver claimed he had no small change. I'm pretty sure he was trying to rip us off and hoped that we'd just let him have the 100K, so luckily we had exact change. So just word of warning if you go to Batam make sure you have some small change for taking public transport.

So the first thing we did was go to this Massage place. We had a massage here the last time we were in Batam and thought it was pretty good. The shop faces the entrance to the mall (it's just right in front of JCo donuts). All the little kiddies also got their feet massaged. The 3 of us if I remember correctly paid SG$36 for a 90min foot and shoulder massage. So that's $12 each, bargain right? (But you can actually get cheaper one in Jakarta).

Food Street - Nagoya Hill shopping mall

After the massage, it was then lunch time and we ended up eating at the food court. I didn't even know there was a food court here when we visited the mall on our last trip. The food court is on the top floor kind of hidden in the corner, but the food was pretty good. Same as most foodcourts in Jakarta it works by using a card system to pay for your foods. You go to the cashier to get a card, you and whatever amount you don't use up you can just get it refunded from the cashier. It's not a big foodcourt but had enough things that excited me :)

This is Gudeg. It's a combination of rice, coconut and young jackfruit cooked in a coconut cream, and a few other side dishes. Yummmm....

Empek Empek. This is fried fish cakes with some noodles and a spicy sweet sauce. I love it, one of my favourite Indonesian dishes.

Siomay Bandung, basically minced meat with fish paste and stuffed into tofu, potatoes etc. Eaten with peanut sauce with a drizzle of kecap manis. Another one of my favourites.

Es Teler. Um, not sure the translation for this one. It's shaved ice with sweetened condensed milk and jackfruit pieces and I think coconut milk.

This is what the Es Teler looks like after the ice has been mixed up.

After lunch we walked around the mall and came across this interesting shop selling a round hollow bread.

Tasty! Oreo biscuit flavour I think.

The biggest surprise find from this mall was a hidden FREE playground inside Ace Hardware shop! If you have kids who are getting fidgety and bored on your shopping trip here, be sure to stop by this shop to let them release some energy. At the same time you can check out the shop :)

After a full day out, we went back to the hotel to take a dip in the pool again. We were then too tired to go outside to have dinner so we ordered room service! Caelyn was so excited, I know it seems silly but we've never ever ordered room service before! So this was what we ordered, the food was delicious! Only downside was there weren't enough chairs in the room for all of us to sit and eat in the room :(