'Joey's Blog'

To be continued for our second half of Batam day 1.

Boy, we spent so long at the arcade to revive our childhood till we nearly lost control of the time. When the dawns sets and the skies turning grey, we hurried took a cab from the streets back to our hotel for our dinner buffet that we saw from the Hotel lift.

It stated moonlight BBQ + Steamboat dinner for 196,000 Rupiah which I found it not affordable but Bf insisted on trying since we are here. We thought that we would be having our dinner under the moon-light but to our great disappointed, the receptionist told us there won't be outdoor dinner due to the bad weather and escorted us into the indoor cafe area.

I wasn't pleased with the food after walking for my rounds. Those photos taken were all they had on that night. And yes, this is how pathetic the ingredients are. I found it not worth the money! 

They have soup ingredients to add in into our steamboat but the choices were so limited and I have to fight for my food as they ran out fast by other people.

Cooked food were ready for those who are waiting for their steamboat to arrive! 5 choices for you to choose from. They have nacho potato, fried chicken, butter fried rice, mee goreng and vegetables. Since its a buffet style, we can scoop as much food as we like because they will be re-filling it every other minute.

Since the main dishes weren't much of my liking, I focus more on their dessert booth! Pastries/ tarts and fruits are laid on the table and we can help ourselves with alot of servings. I helped myself with 5 fruit tarts because the cookies crust were so crunchy. I even want to bring back some to my hotel room. Hahaha.

They claimed that there is BBQ so we expect that we will be cooking outdoor but due to their arrangement, the waiters prepared the BBQ dishes for us instead. We simply choose whatever meat that we want and hand it over to them to whip a good dishes for us. I was glad that the food served arrived shortly.

Since Bf and I aren't a fan of seafood, we didn't left with much choice so we had their chicken and lamb chop.

I guess this will be the last time I am going to dine at Hotel cafe. Not that its not up to my standard, their service was SUPER slow. Our steamboat wok took us 20 mins to arrive. I see myself repeating and asking them but they shoo me off by saying 'COMING/ ON THE WAY!' without feeling apologetic.

After dinner, we went down to the basement to have a stroll and witness a Indonesia Wedding Ceremony. They have pretty photo booth outside the ballroom and the place was decorated to a Fairy tale theme.

The receptionist were crowded with guests and the couple's sisters and brothers who are busy tendering the booth and also to entertain the rest of the guests.

We were curious so we asked the security guards for permission to enter into the ball room to take pictures. The guards were so friendly and nodded with a yes. Without hesitation, we stepped in and photo-ed our memories here.

We even caught 10s of firework outside the Hotel lobby to commemorate the newly-couple special occasion. With then, we decided to head back to the room to rest!

Day 2 will be up soon.

Till then.

Both Bf and I had the same intention of letting down our big burden (throw aside work and other things) and simply enjoy our private time together so throughout the whole Batam trip, we shopped, we eat and shop and eat all day. It was a blissful kind of feeling that I received once in a while.

Upon checking in and had our mini tour around the hotel, we thought that it is time for some food! So we headed down to the lobby and call a cab. Cab at Hotel lobby charges way expensive so if you have a tight budget, you may want to walk out of the streets to call a cab. One thing that I love would be the flat rate that each taxi driver will charge you. You won't get cheated as it is part of their policy to set price of a same standard. You can actually sue them if they increase their fare.

Another +1 point would be the comfortably level of the taxi seats. Taking taxi from the hotel lobby would entitle to a good treatment. They will have chauffeur to open up the door for you and the cabs are all new and comfortable. Our trip from hotel to the mall costs us 50,000 rupiah.

First of all, you have to inform the bellboy the location that you want to head to. Afterwhich, they whistled and call a driver to pick you up. Our first destination was Nagoya Hills shopping centre and we thought that it would be good to have our lunch and massage there. I had relatively high expectations of Nagoya Shopping Mall after reading reviews and hearing recommendations from a number of people.

Nagoya hill was known to be the biggest shopping mall at Batam and I can't deny that! It divided into two different dividers and one would easily spot the eatery house when you are there. They categorise all food and beverages at one part and on the other side would be apparel, handbags and souvenir stores.

Nagoya Hill Food Street provides a wide range of cuisine that you can try. Among of them is a variety of fast food dishes like that commonly exist in malls, such as KFC, A&W, Pizza Hut. And also the restaurants those are popular in Batam as Solaria (Chinese Food), Happiness Restaurant (Indonesian Food). Also available specialties from various regions in Indonesia such as, Padang Food, Meatballs (bakso), Chicken Noodle, Soto, and others. And there’s more Japanese food.

For those of you who want to enjoy the bread and cakes are widely available outlets are peddling bread and cake. If just want to unwind after shopping or just want to hang out you can enjoy a dish of coffee in the cafes at Nagoya hill Food Street, such as Godiva and others.

The disadvantage would be the words that we can't read and identify as they were all in malay language.

Headed to A&W (main reason why we were here) for a ‘tea-break’. Gosh, I really do miss A&W – please bring it back to Singapore! One of the happiest moment to tackle A&W waffles. I should go my waffles with a packet of curly fries and root beer float but I was too full for that and not being greedy at the same time. 

26,500 rupiah (S$3) for my waffles! Tell me worth it or not? They even come with a scoop of Vanilla ice cream drizzled with chocolate sauce. Excited being excited but I felt that A&W has dropped its standard. The waffles wasn't as crispy as it should be but no complaints because I fulfilled my task.

While waiting for the bus, I decided to had my #ootd shots outside the garden.

I would say that the service is mediocre at best. I took a 1 hr therapeutic massage with ESSENTIAL OIL but requested to only do the back, shoulder and neck. After 30mins hour, the masseur did not know what to do next and just kept rubbing the same old points. I was very disappointed.

Bf said that her masseur was not very skilled either but he fell into a deep sleep while the masseur was acting force onto his body. The only thing he can remember throughout the whole session would be the voice of the masseur as he kept asking him to turn here and there.

Our package cost us 180,000 which is less than (S$20).  In addition to spa and massage services, Eska also has a whole range of beauty and hair services spread out over its 3-4 levels – Manicure, pedicure, facial and a hair salon on its first level. The treatments are mostly carried out in curtained partitions. I think the men and women massages are conducted on separate floors. If you book the spa package, which consists of a bath treatment, for example the 3-hours birthday retreat package, you should get a room that comes with its own tub. Otherwise for non-bath packages or ala carte treatments where you have the body scrub, they are mostly conducted in the curtained partitions and you will have to make your way to the common bathroom at the end of each floor, to shower off. 

While the receptionists at Eska are conversant in English and Chinese, in addition to Bahasa; most of the therapists are fluent in Bahasa only and speak at most, a smattering of English. But no matter, arm yourself with a few useful Bahasa phrases and you should be able to enjoy your sessions.

After our massage would be our food time. We crossed over to get a cup of milk tea from Tee meister as they are having a buy 1 get 1 free promotion. Both us got this treats for 23,000 ($2.40) for two cups but threw away after drinking because it tastes disgusting!