Just a brief sojourn in Johor Bahru

After our late arrival into Johor Bahru, we found our hotel, The Citrus, very easily - just around the corner from the Central Train Station, where we alighted the bus.

The Citrus was a pleasant surprise. I still can't get over the fact that the less you pay for a hotel - the more you seem to get. We paid just under $50 a night and we had a big king size bed, excellent wifi and a slap up breakfast. 

We also got upgraded, so we were able to use the club floor and our room had great views of the Malaka Straits, across to Singapore.

View of Singapore and Melaka Straits from our hotel

We had a lovely if brief stay in Johor. It's not the prettiest of cities and we didn't really do any site seeing. However, we walked around our area which included a mosque, a Sikh temple and a massive Hindu temple - all in one block. We had a bit of a rough massive in the huge City Central Shopping centre - our first for this trip.  The massage was done by men, so it was really strong - it was just on the edge of painful but my neck felt fantastic afterwards !

Hindu Temple

We had planned to have a slap up Indian, but surprising couldn't find an Indian restaurant. There were a lot of Indian stalls but we weren't in the mood for street eating so we decided to have Chinese instead. 

All the nicest restaurants were actually in the shopping centre. We ended up at a lovely restaurant that was packed with families. Food was gorgeous - we're trying to order different things on this trip to expand our food horizons. Amongst our vast array of food we had rice steamed with egg and pork - delicious. 

yumm!

The waiter recommended Shanghai SM dumplings  - also delicious but I didn't realise they were the dumplings with liquid inside - so I just bit I to mine and liquid kinda went everywhere - I later spied someone delicately sucking the liquid out of a little hole they had bitten into the dumpling - so I know for next time.

I also had a bottomless cup of Chinese tea - which the (12 year old, Justin Bieber, Chinese, wannabe) waiter nearly poured over my head as he was ogling some cute girl and got caught in the headlights!

Funky old shophouses, Johor Bahru

We went for a stroll after dinner. Behind our hotel was a funky area - with some very groovy Shophouse conversions. We had coffee at the Faculty of Caffeine, Rich always maintained people take their coffee to seriously - I think he may be right in this instance! 

Serious coffee

There was also a surprising number of ladyboys and ladies of the night around - maybe because JB is close to Singapore - who knows?

I had Skype meeting with Curtin, on the morning before we left. The Club lounge was really a great facility to work in. 

working 9 to 5 (not really)

Soon as my meeting finished, we jumped a taxi it the Larkin bus station, bought a couple of cakies and caught the 1.30 bus to Melaka.

on the road again

Lovely big, air conditioned and quiet ride through the palm fields. I know I sound more and more like Willy, as each year passes - but I LOVE bus travel!