At first light or pretty close to it this morning, I was up and out of bed, on my way to Anytime Fitness Marine Parade for a workout. With three clubs to get around today, I'm not wasting any time!
Marine Parade is another nice new club but I can't say that it has the same vibe as the other two I visited. Whether that is because it was unstaffed when I visited or because it had a very different layout, I am not sure. However, it was a nice workout and a very clean club.
Next stop was the Fair Price supermarket across the road for some breakfast and a purple travel umbrella. I love checking out supermarkets in foreign countries to see what their prices are like compared with back home in Melbourne. Singapore is pretty bloody expensive BTW.
I jumped in a cab and gave the driver very clear directions to AF Macpherson, but he wouldn't listen and instead took me over 2km out of the way before I lost my temper and demanded he pull over, then let me out. He dropped me off at a childcare centre, nowhere near where I wanted to go. I had the GPS running on my phone and he still got it wrong. Imbecile. I was really, really angry and it was over 30 degrees with a feels like temperature of 43, so I was in no mood to be stomping around Singapore but had no choice.
I stomped down the road and flagged down another cab, who actually listened to me, took me to the right place and apologised for my previous experience. I explained that was the first bad taxi ride I' ever had in Singapore and hopefully, the only one!
I jumped out at the community centre where AF Macpherson is based. I went upstairs and into the club but really wasn't all that taken with it. It feels like a community gym but I felt like I was intruding somehow and it just didn't have the vibe I was expecting. It was, however, absolutely spotlessly clean and despite its small floor space is well-equipped and was nice for a short workout. I like the fact that it is a community centre gym and that so many members of the local community were in there and training.
I jumped in another cab and went back to the hostel, where I had about 5 mins to pack my stuff and check out. I gave my red travel pillow to some hippie guy named Ben and headed for the MRT station to make the long journey to AF Woodlands.
To cut a long story short, I stopped for breakfast, caught a bunch of trains, then took yet another cab to AF Woodlands where I met Joanna and Abu. They are awesome and I loved their club - it was friendly, welcoming and the same colour scheme as mine, so I felt at home immediately. We chatted, compared notes, took funny photos and got to know each other. They will both be visiting Melbourne soon so I let them know we will roll out the purple carpet when they come to visit!
A short bus ride, train ride and two more bus rides later with two immigration stops, a lunch stop and a suitcase buying stop, I arrived in Johor Bahru (JB). I whacked my bags in a left luggage locker and headed for the mall next to the immigration centre.
After a quick walk around the mall, I went to the ground floor and was confronted with a wall of messages to the passengers and crew of MH370, the flight that disappeared en-route to Beijing five weeks ago. Reality jumped up and bit me on the butt - hard.
In Singapore I had been shielded from the reality, but here in JB where some of the passengers were from, it was right in my face. I lost it - a sympathetic security guard just nodded at me with a sad look in his eyes, as he could feel my sadness and I could feel his with just one look. With tears streaming down my face and a heavy heart, I took a few photos and left.
Many people have made stupid, insensitive and flippant remarks about my trip to Malaysia since the plane vanished, like "I hope you're not flying Malaysia Airlines" right through to "are you STILL going THERE?" Why yes, Einstein, I am still going THERE. I love Malaysia and your stupid diatribe of insensitivity is not going to change that.
I think KL is going to have a totally different vibe this time around, as it has been six weeks now with no sign of the plane or any wreckage. I land in KL on Sunday 27th April and although it signals the end of my trip, KL will be a very different city now, with a different vibe and I'm not sure how I will feel about it when I get there.
I grabbed an iced coffee and my bags, then headed back to the bus stop to take me to Senai airport to fly to KL. I had a debate in Manglish (a mix of Malay and English) with the bus coordinator who was trying to make me take a later bus to the airport, but I was insistent that I know JB traffic and I need to go now. He finally relented and stuck me on a bus back to JB Sentral where I hopped off, hopped on the Air Asia bus to the airport and settled in for a 90-minute ride to Senai.
At Senai I wanted time to re-pack my bags, have a snack, maybe a massage or reflexology treatment and just chill before flying back to KL. My flight had been re-timed later by two hours, so I would be getting in VERY late to KL (nearly 11pm) and then had to fart around trying to get to the airport hotel.
The uneventful flight to KL arrived late. I was offered a hot seat upgrade for $10 AUD to the front five rows of the Airbus A320 so I took it and was first off the plane. We were parked up at gate 100 and something which is a VERY long walk to the terminal building, so my baggage came out pretty promptly when I finally got to the carousel.
I had another snack at the airport, jumped on the shuttle bus to the hotel with the world's rudest shuttle driver, got in the check-in line at the hotel where as the only farang (thai slang for white person) in the queue the world's rudest hotel "security guard" decided to interrogate me as to my intentions and did I have a booking (note that he didn't ask this of anyone else in the line, probably because they weren't white!). Then the world's second rudest hotel receptionist then gave me attitude for not purchasing any add-ons for an eight hour stay (Tune hotels make you pay extra for aircon and WiFi).
I finally got to my room feeling like I'd just run the gauntlet through Petaling Street at 9pm. Then I discovered that the safe in my room didn't work, so it was back down to reception where rude receptionist and security guard gave me more attitude before the world's nicest maintenance man came up, diagnosed a battery problem, got fresh batteries, installed them and was super nice and apologetic about all the drama. Seriously, this was the first Tune I've stayed in where the staff were so rude. Thank goodness for Maintenance man and the fact that I'd paid an arm and a leg to stay there or I'd have gone back to the terminal and slept there instead!
I'm only staying here the night as the flight to Langkawi is at lunchtime tomorrow and I booked that for $8 AUD before my other flights. Even with this overpriced "hotel" stay, it is over $300 AUD cheaper to do it this way than it would have been to fly direct MEL to Langkawi tomorrow - and that includes the flights, accommodation and other expenses (tax deductible) related to the Singapore side trip.
Time for some sleep - off to my favourite small Malaysian island paradise tomorrow!
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