CNY Shopping in Johor Bahru

Hello readers! My first new post in 2018! It's been long since i meet JJ and JY so we decided to go in JB together, my MACS lane has expired and despite expecting crowds due to the upcoming CNY festive season, i thought i wouldn't be visiting JB so often so i didn't want to renew my MACS lane. 

However after the trip with them the other day, both SG & Msia customs were pretty crowded so i changed my mind by deciding to renew my MACS lane for this year again. Hahaha. It was a good decision that i renew my MACS lane because i was visiting in JB more often for cny shopping and it's help to shorten my waiting time at the Msia customs. 

We went to KSL mall, just a normal casual hang out day and we had blackball dessert!

Since we can use Grab in malaysia, it was really convenient for 3 of us to hail the grab instead of taking the RM1.50 ringgit bus back to city square. For our dinner, we cabbed back and Jieying brought us to this cafe called that she has visited previously, sharing with us the speciality of this cafe, their authentic thai boat noodles'  The cafe is located near the Jalan Dhoby, which houses different cafes but we were looking for this cafe called Amphawa.

We were too hungry by then and i forgot to take a photo of the boat noodles, it cost only RM 1.90 per bowl, each of us ordered about 5 bowls and i remember they add on the quantity because it can get quite addictive and since the serving is meant to be small for each bowl so look at the numbers of bowls we have cleared. This was before they add on the quantity of the bowl noodles!
We ordered the chicken boat noodles and the tom yum prawn boat noodles and 3 of us preferred the tom yum more than the chicken boat noodles. The chicken boat noodles soup broth taste is not to our liking. But the tom yum one was really good.

We add on this peanut butter toast after the dinner, this is good too!

If you are interested to check out the cafe, the address as stated below. 

Amphawa Boat Noodle Restaurant

40, Jalan Ibrahim 

Bandar, Johor Bahru

80000 Johor Bahru

On another separate JB trip, this time round with my auntie, cousins, lm & Jieying, we booked a mini van to bring us around for our annual shopping trip. I think we paid total $35 per pax for a day trip to go around the few places that my auntie has arranged.

It was the first time Jieying joined us, we had to wake up early as we want to skip the heavy traffic jam upon entering msia customs.

We went to this shop that sells all sort of tidbits, noodles, drinks, sauces and i would strongly recommend anyone that drive to visit this store. (Because you might end up buying too many that you it's more convenient to have a car instead. However due to time constraint, i didn't have time to slowly browse through all the items as we were heading to the Bee Cheng Hiang factory outlet.

This time round, i was smart to bring a hand carry luggage instead so i can throw everything inside and pull instead of holding so many different plastic bags after each purchase. As it was about two weeks before CNY, i guess most of the drivers was booked to bring customers around so our driver was actually the driver wife that was activate to bring us around.

However the driver was not familiar with the route and i don't have mobile data with me and it took us more than 1 hour to reach the place that disrupt our entire schedule. Her driving skills was quite scary too because i saw when she was reversing, she didn't check her blind spot and it was such a close shave that she almost knocked down a passerby when she was reversing.

After driving round and round, we finally found the Bee Cheng Hiang factory outlet. We were kinda of hungry and tired by then. Beside selling the Bak Kwa, there were other goodies that were available for sale. 

After that ,we went to Paradigm mall for our free & easy 2 hour shopping here. 

This is a newly opened mall and it was my first time visiting and this mall is pretty huge, though there were some shops that were still not ready yet, so this was another mall to consider visiting next time beside going the usual city square, KSL mall or even Sutera mall. We only had two hours over here so we went for our own late lunch and within the short shopping time, i bought my akemi bedsheets over here too! If you are a fan of akemi bedsheets, their store in Paradigm mall is bigger, and has more variety of the bed linens plus it's way cheaper compared to purchasing in sg. Just for an eg: a S$200++ akemi bedsheets purchased in singapore include the duvet cover, same material, same thread count is sold over here @ around S$135. 

We had this @ Awa Mee Bar, the price is still quite reasonable for a restaurant in paradigm mall!

After our brief short time in paradigm mall, we went to Sutera mall which was the last place to visit before we go back to Singapore.

My auntie had make a reservation of two tables, it was a 8 course meal, but we were actually pretty full since we had our late lunch. We couldn't finish most of the dishes and we tried to get them packed for us and see if we can clear the customs.  I couldn't remember the name of the restaurant, but it's walking distance that can connect you into sutera mall. 

After our dinner, we went to Sutera mall to buy some of the cny goodies. Usually before the cny festive season, there will be a food fair setting up gift hampers, selling all sort of CNY goodies in Sutera mall. We bought a few too, however do remember to make your own calculation for the conversion rate as i find sometimes the price may cost about the same if you were to purchase in Singapore. 

Guess this shall summarise my day trip in JB for cny shopping.
Till then!