Monday, June 06, 2011

Summer Vacation 2011 - Part 2 (Singapore - Ipoh - Manila)

From Budget Terminal Changi Airport, Singapore, we had to take Firefly to fly to Ipoh, Malaysia.

We arrived at the airport about an hour before the check in desk was opened. So, we had to sit down and had our breakfast at the McDonald inside Budget Terminal.
At around 8am, we checked in our luggages and proceeded immediately to clear immigration and go to the waiting area. In the immigration desk, we had to clear one by one. But since my 2 children are still too small to walk and present the passport by themselves, I cleared together with them.

After that we just waited to board the plane in the waiting area. The kids were busy playing in the children playground. My dad checked his Facebook and email while my mom watched television. I had to monitor everyone... :) About an hour later we boarded our plane to Ipoh.

The flight to Ipoh took about 1.5hours from Singapore. The kids dozed off right away inside the plane because we had to wake up too early for this trip. I enjoyed the fruit juices distributed for free plus a piece of bread and a sachet of peanut. It's quite a straight forward flight.

When we landed in Ipoh, it was nearly noon already. We had to open all our check-in luggages to be check by the immigration in Ipoh Airport.
After we were clear to go, we took a taxi to go directly to my house in Ipoh. My house was quite far from the airport. It costed me RM55! I never expected to pay that much though. This trip was my 1st time to stay in my own house in Ipoh. The house was completed last year but since we live in The Philippines, we only got a chance to visit the house on this trip.

At around 1pm we entered the house. We were so sleepy, tired, and very hungry. The house is still empty. There's no food also. So, we took the same taxi to take us to Tesco so that we could have lunch and buy our necessities to stay in my house. We missed the food here in Malaysia. The kids were super excited again. They run here and there. They were charged during the flight, so they were full of energy to run around Tesco spacious aisles.

For a month, we stayed in my house in Ipoh. I had a duty to monitor the minor renovation of the house. My mom had to cook everyday because my house is far from the city so there is no McDonald delivery. No Pizza hut delivery either. Even Domino's Pizza doesn't cover our area for delivery service.

Every weekend we went to church in the Ipoh downtown. We booked a taxi that has become our regular. We used this opportunity to buy more food supply. We also used this opportunity to enjoy the food in downtown Ipoh. From the church, we walked to the Greentown Corner food junction to have our favorite char kway teow and wonton noodle. Sometimes we took a bus from the bus stop in front of Ipoh Parade Mall directly to Greentown Corner.

Since we didn't have a car, we learned to take bus to go to Ipoh downtown from my house. It was a very interesting journey riding the bus. On our 1st trip to take bus to Ipoh, we had to ask the bus driver where we had to stop if we wanted to go to Ipoh Parade. The nice bus driver told me that he would send me directly in front of Ipoh Parade and he even asked me what time I finished shopping so that he could pick me up and took me back home. Huaaa!!! What a nice bus driver!

Finally, after a month and all the renovation works have been completed, we had to go back home. My parents had to fly back to Jakarta, and the kids and I flew back to Manila.
My parents took Air Asia and the kids and I took Cebu Pacific. Both flights departed on the same day from LCCT, Sepang. I'm glad the summer holiday went well. Everyone was healthy and happy. We definitely look forward to have the same happy and healthy vacation again together with my parents. Thank you God and please listen to our prayers...Amin