Must be some sort of record for group trips in terms of trip planning speed, even if it’s just a weekend in KL.

The CVE kakis wanted to visit MHEH in KL after the latter gave birth to their second child late October. Well actually she pre-empted us well in advance but nobody took the lead haha. So we actually just really started talking about it about a month before and two weeks before decided on that one weekend where everybody is available and started checking for tickets.

I honestly thought it’s not gonna happen already coz tickets were really expensive by then but surprisingly everybody is ok with a bus ride instead so that’s what we settled for. Bus trip up to KL on a Friday night (shudders) and flight back on Sunday night (coz everybody want to be back early coz need to work the next day, except for me who smartly cleared Family Care Leave hehehe). Airbnb is in good abundance so that wasn’t an issue.

But problems getting there in the end coz firstly not enough people on buses so company combined bus trips and we got pushed back to 8.30pm, right into checkpoint peak (still had a small chance of avoiding it if it was earlier at 7pm). Bus was not exactly in good condition but since it was dark in the lower deck where we were seated I think we kinda just ignored it. Stuck in the jam as predicted and only cleared both sides of customs at close to midnight. Doesn’t help that driver took his own sweet time (which is partly why we got stuck in jam for longer while I kept seeing other buses whiz past us) and drove slow so we reached TBS at....4am wtf.

Though the good thing is I slept almost throughout the ride (I think the rest caught some sleep too though maybe not as much) so clocked in some hours there, and once we were at TBS surprisingly we managed to get a Grab ride almost immediately so we checked into our AirBnb at KL Gateway Premium Residences by about 430am. Then actually contemplated about just freshening up and head out for breakfast and the first item on our itinerary which is Big Bad Wolf (a mega book fair which is open 24hours wow) hahaha. But in the end decided to just catch another few hours of sleep and woke up for brunch at about 830.




猪肉粉 for brunch at Peter’s Pork Noodle at this kopitiam near NUSentral, then Grabbed to The Mines where BBW is held. Dropped the reading habit years ago and if I were to read these days it’s probably ebook but the rest were very keen on it so joined in the fun. I do find myself being interested longer than expected though, mostly coz of the scale of the whole thing and the prices, so in the end I do have a bit of 收获. We also had this intention of buying kids books for MHEH’s firstborn and I think half of the site is for kids books, so mission accomplished.

About 2pm by the time we finished, and early dinner with MHEH is at 4.30pm so we walked over to The Mines for a quick snack at McD, and because we were carrying so many books we headed back to deposit our stuff first. Dinner at Siong Tong Gai Restaurant at Kuchai Lama which they insisted to pay of course, followed by dessert at Snowflake nearby coz we still had a bit of time to kill. Food was not bad, company was great as usual as we caught up.



Left at about 630 and went separate ways. Hadn’t envisioned this part when we planned but saw KH selling JJLin concert tickets (it had belonged to KM but she is pretty heavily pregnant by now and had to give it a pass) and so happened that I am in town so I took up the offer. There are quite a number of his songs that I liked and he is apparently good singing live, and it’s in RM so opportunity is too good to pass even if I had to ditch the group for a night. C also ended up ditching the group that night to meet up with his friends so W and ML ended up doing a bit of shopping on their own at Midvalley.

Had to pay RM3 to exchange paper tickets because they don’t accept e-tickets (apparently cannot scan wor) and the other three (KH, CH and CH’s ex colleague) were very late (wow surprise) and I didn’t want to go in late (I myself barely made it in time coz got stuck in jam heading into Bukit Jalil). But didn’t harp on it coz even JJ was half an hour late hahahaha.

Anyway, good decision to catch JJ. Stadium was too huge so even at that price, wasn’t very close to the stage so can only rely on the huge screens. But he was good. Songs were good. It’s the end of the concert that was nightmarish. Could get Grab, demand far outweighs supply, wanted to catch train but missed the last train while queuing to buy tickets (KH didn’t have a touch-n-go enabled IC) and didn’t hitch CH’s car for some reason. Didn’t want to call Val even though we were literally under her block coz paiseh? In the end CH’s brother who also caught the concert came back to pick us up, had to go supper with him (the dim sum was really bad) and after that he went back for a third time to pick up two other friends who were stranded before sending us back one by one. So reached back at like 130am.



Which wasn’t too bad coz still caught about 6 hours of sleep which is what I managed usually anyway. Sunday’s initial agenda was to hang out with MHEH first, checked out early and went for Prata breakfast at Bukit Gasing with them, then we Grabbed over to Pavillion where we had like 40 minutes of shopping time ahahaha. Don’t know how our trip became that packed but managed to buy something even within that short time frame.


Had a lunch reservation at noon. Buffet lunch coz group decided that it’s Christmas (and also coz it’s RM). Went to Lemon Garden at Shangri-La KL, and MHEH made a last minute decision to join us coz MH’s parents are back from their weekend trip back to Ipoh and can take over the firstborn. Spread wasn’t the biggest but overall good quality.


Post lunch, another short shopping stint, this time 1.5hours at KLCC before a Grabbing back to MHEH’s, collecting our luggage and off to KLIA we go. Flew back in MAS coz it’s similar price as compared to budget airlines at this point zzz.

Labels: holidays, travel