Batam Getaway - Part 2

October 11, 2014

Continued...

Last week I gave you an article on a short trip to Batam, please see below link:

http://gforce-guru.blogspot.sg/2014/10/batam-getaway-part-1.html

After the frolicking and lazing around on the first day at the resort, we have to move out of base camp. I had them all arranged well in advance, thanks to the Singaporean friends who knew Batam so well and friends in Batam, I could easily get my transportation needs fixed and travel to recommended places.

We found it about a fishing pond and I asked our driver to take us there. We had a look-see and moved on to town where the big shopping centres are so we headed for Nagoya Hill.

We found many things in Batam that resembles Singapore or other famous brands like BFC.

Which means .....

It is not just finger-licking good. It's tongue-crunchy good.

They even love Bruce Lee.

I saw a few frightened faces of children there and found the reason why when I saw this frightening mermaid.

They even have a vivo here with identical fonts.

For those vertically challenged, these are really helpful.

Trendy and brooding mannequins too.

I love this place for the jeans as they carried all the favourite brands of jeans of my youth. Do you remember Wrangler? I could even sing to you the advert jingle to you now - "Leaving for the Wrangler range, won't you come with me. Say goodbye to all you know and let your spirit free!" I am a free spirit and I promise to sing it for you when we meet. Once you get the tune you will remember if you were my age.

What about Lee jeans?

Lois jeans too.

And finally Lea jeans.

I didn't purchase any this time as most of us have too many clothes anyway but some day I might. We love these jeans because we love our jeans but could not afford Levi's. They have lots of eating places her at Nagoya Hill at the food street.

These powerful forces unite. Roaring business for the young vendors who were carving out names after names not only for them but for their friends but I got nothing. Forgotten. Only remembered when it was time to pay.

My son asked me for $5. I said, why don't you just take 50,000. I think $5 is better for if it were 50,000 I may not see him for a year or two.

Now, it is not just Bintan that you have to use Rupiah. Singapore dollars were commonly used in both Bintan and Batam. I want to share with you that it is also happening in Batam where some shops of vendors do not want to transact in Singapore dollar, only rupiah.

Finally it was time to eat again. We were not late but others were early. We had to wait for at least half an hour.

They are not called Grand Duck Restaurant for nothing. It was solid duck. A must have if you come here.

I find this to be a good restaurant. Even the vegetables tasted so good. Dishes may be a little salty though.

This was a champion. A very well done chicken with salted egg.

An excellent black pepper beef.

I like the Mapo tofu because it was spicy. I do not like toned down mapo tofu.

Deep-fried squid were fried and served the same way as silver fish, which is a fish and not those that eat your books.

We ordered an omelette that never came so I cancelled the order as we already have too much. Then a waitress came over with a plate of salted egg fried chicken. I explained that we already had ours but she could not understand and sent another waitress. This time the waitress took a menu along and pointed at the picture and the plate insisting that I have to take it. I thanked God we have cell phone cameras and I take lots of pictures with it and so I whipped out my cell phone and showed her a picture of the same chicken we had as the first dish. She finally got "the picture''.

We walked around a little and we have to come back to this place. The very first fast food restaurant that came to Singapore and set up at Dunearn Road. Your parents may have killed you if they found you spending your money there.

Of course, they were popular for their root beer, root beer float, hot dogs and...

Ice-cream waffles. All for 7,500 rupiah.

We got out into the open and visited real non air-conditioned market place to get keropok. Thus french fries keropok (prawn crackers) are the best. Get them when you are here.

The shop owner was persistent in getting us to try this - turtle eggs! These in the blue tray are raw. The cooked ones are in the green pail. I need to understand more why do people eat turtle eggs.

I think some of you will grab lots of stuffs here.

Colourful stalls of fruit vendors. I found out later that the mangoes from Batam are very good. I was looking for avocado. In Indonesia they call it apokat but could not find any. I learned that the Indonesian apokat is very good.

It was getting late.

The sun was going down.

We had originally wanted to visit Golden Prawn 933 restaurant but was advised by the driver to come to Harbour Front Wey Wey instead. Among all the seafood restaurants there, this was the most crowded. Either their food is very good or their marketing.