visiting malacca: episode VI: the finale - we came back full circle!

And finally *drumrolls*....We have reached the finale episode of my Malacca Adventure!!!

DAY 3

Today we all had decided first thing in the morning what we are going to do - Shopping, of course. Disappointed by last night when all the shops were already closed by the time we had our dinner, all of us girls (except Val) was itching to spend our money badly!

Suz C and Mel finally tried the hotel breakfast. Since there were not enough coupons, I and Suz C shared breakfast whilst WY shared with Mel. We ordered the larger version of my breakfast set meal the day before - this time it came with a jumbo size sausage and instead of yoghurt juice, we got orange juice!

So then we told the rest our activity-of-the-day. KT and Jino decided to joined us (Jino is such a sucker for Body Glove stuff. We saw one as we walked around Dataran Pahlawan yesterday). Surprisingly, KT wanted to follow us girls as well. Hehe. Phak Hoe, meanwhile, wanted to spend some zzzz time alone in the room, Ben and Val went to see other attractions in Malacca, like the Sultanate Palace and Phon and Len went to Jonker Street to get pineapple tarts as requested by Len's Mom.

So, after breakfast, I was filled with energy and excitement, all ready to shop and shop!

Dataran Pahlawan Megamall, just opposite Mahkota Parade

At Dataran Pahlawan, where they had this huge fountain monument dedicated to the independence of Malaysia.

We started at Padini Concept Store. Ok, I love sales but I hate it when everything is so messed up - I cannot find the sizes that I want! Plus, people are all blocking me when I am looking through the hangers! I did not manage to find anything I like in there so I wanted to look elsewhere. Unfortunately, I could not find any of the girls or the 2 boys. When I finally saw a familiar face, WY, I told her to tell the others that I wanted to shop elsewhere. But WY told me she wanted to go to other shops as well, so both of us left the others and went scurrying to other shops.

There are not many shops in Dataran Pahlawan, unfortch. And many of the shops here are the same shops you get back at KL - Baleno, Samuel&Kevin, MNG - Stuff that I can get in Times Square or Sungei Wang. Eventhough the ground floor is really huge, there were no other boutiques or accessories shops upstairs! And they only have 2 floors!

I did see some boutiques that sells really cute dresses. But they were so expensive and I did not have that much money on me. If I go back to Malacca, I would surely go and maybe get those cute dresses that I had my eyes on!

After buying nail polish from the The Face Shop, I saw some shop-stalls just across so I went and take a look. They were selling these cute bags! I saw some of these at Times Square before, nope, not any la-la bags - They were selling for RM45-70 back in KL but this guy was selling them for half the price! And he even had the tag to show it is a genuine bag!

I had my eye on this cute sling bag with a huge drawing of a Jap girl on it. The original price tag says RM65.90 but he was willing to sell it to me for RM32.00! Later, WY joined me and she also had her eye on another smaller handbag that was from the same collection. After bargaining our bags to RM30 each, I copped the sling bag and WY copped the smaller bag!

Ok, so it is no LV or Gucci, but who cares? I am not rich and I don't pretend to be either. Sales and bargain are so okay with me!

WY's new bag is so dope...makes me want to get one as well!

We went to check out more of these shop-stalls. Copped a cool-looking cap since I don't have many stylish hats/caps. WY copped a wallet from the same shop-stall. After that, Suz C called and said they had enough so met up with the rest and make our way back to the hotel to meet the others for lunch.

But it started to rain as we make our way back. That sucks but I was glad it rained on the last day instead of the 2 previous days when we were sightseeing in Malacca.

As usual, we took the familiar path back where historical artefacts and buildings lined the road.

I took this pic of The Shopping Gang against a replica aircraft. The boys did not get anything but the girls got stuff from Padini and FOS. WY had already started using her new bag. LOL! Don't they all looked more jubilant after shopping?

When we met the rest, they had already help us checked out and all our luggage have been moved to storage. I went to the storage room to placed my newly bought items into my bag (which cannot be zipped! LOL! I had to ask WY to help me zip up my bag!)

Nearby the hotel's storage room, I saw this cute finger-like sofa and asked Jino to pose for me. Did he do a good job? LOL

Because we all had yet to try the chicken rice balls, which everyone says is a must-have if you go to Malacca, we asked Phon and Len, who went to Jonker walk to 'tapau' them for us, knowing that the famous restaurant is always so overcrowded by lunch hour. They were so nice to carry our lunch meal back for us but the hotel does not allowed outside food so we had to go elsewhere to eat our lunch.

Thanks Phon and Len!

As we went in search of a location to have lunch, we passed through this park, which had another well! Is it just me, or does Malacca have an obsession with wells? Hmm...

Finally, we returned to Cultural Food Village where we unpacked our chicken rice balls!

(Clockwise L-R): Our lunch of chicken rice balls and steamed chicken; Yummy rice balls; I ordered ice-blended mocha to quench my thirst; I was so clumsy with my chopsticks that I dropped one of the rice balls to the ground...Boohoo=( ; Laushu enjoying our lunch; Suz C, Mel, WY, Laushu, Jino and I shared a table for lunch

After lunch, since there was a little more time left before our taxis come to pick us up from our hotel, we decided to make a short detour to Jonker Street to get some souvenirs!

As we were walking towards Jonker Street, we passed by a playground and could not resist releasing our childish sides...

The 7 girls having a go at the merry-go-round - It kinda make me sick and dizzy afterwards!

Ben wanted to try the merry-go-round too and then later on the see-saw with KT

We went to Jonker Street and saw the famous Chicken Rice Balls restaurant. Luckily, Phon and Len had 'tapau' for us earlier, otherwise we would be caught in the crowd madness!

It started raining cats and dogs as we walked through Jonker Street so I did not take any pics. There were also crowds everywhere, probably because it was a public holiday. Since it was pouring down heavily and time is short, we only visited a few shops, mainly the Banyan Gallery and Orang Utan House. Few of us bought cute T-shirts from Orang Utan House but I have too many T-shirts already so decided to skip it. Each T-shirt is RM30, btw, all featuring works of the famous Malaccan artist, Charles Cham.

Banyan Gallery was filled with souvenirs that I had such a hard time deciding what I want! Also, we were almost running late, so I quickly copped a fridge magnet and a small present for a friend's birthday. *Sigh*, now I kinda regret it. Should have copped more stuff from that rad place. Wish there had been more time!

We had been to these two shops on our first day. To see photos of these two shops: *click*

Then, we had to rush back to the hotel under the heavy downpour for the taxis that are supposed to bring us to Melaka Sentral. Just as we arrived, the taxis arrived too. Since everything was kind of chaotic then (our luggages, the heavy rain, etc.), we just dumped all the luggages into the 3 taxis and Val asked us to get into the taxi according to the same group that we had on our first day - So it was Jino, Ben, Mel and me again!

Along the way, we saw this poster about sales at a shop called "FIONA". But because of the rain, the photo turned out fuzzy and blurry

Mel, yours truly and Ben in the backseat of the taxi - Taken by Jino!

As usual, Jino cracked us up in the taxi with his blur statements:

"So, are we going to have lunch?"

No Jino. We just HAD lunch! What were those Chicken Rice Balls for?

Then when we reached our destination, Melaka Sentral, Jino asked:

"So, do we like, need to pay?"

*Sweat*

Don't be offended Jino. We all love you for your cute blurness...You have reached a mind level of thinking that none of us can ever accomplished;P

We waited for our K.K.K.L. (In honour of KKL - Khor Kah Loong who did not come! Haha!) bus which was leaving back to KL at 3.45 pm.

Inside the bus, sat with Malau, who looks sad because our trip was ending and because she has developed some rashes or allergic reaction whilst we were in Malacca

Along the way back to Pudu Bus Station, we passed by VI. That was a great moment..To realize we have all come full circle. If it was not for VI, we would not have met each other...

We all reached the KL bus station safely, all in one piece, and separated as we left the bus.

Shopping in Malacca - My buys;)

Info cards that I took from the hotel lobby. All the info in this blog about the places we visited came from these sources

I REALLY LIKE THIS TRIP A LOT! IT IS NOT ONLY MALACCA THAT I LIKE, BUT MAINLY IT WAS THE COMPANY I WAS IN. THERE WAS NEVER A DULL MOMENT WHEN THE BF MONKEYS ARE AROUND! THANKS FOR A LOVELY TRIP AND HOPEFULLY WE ALL CAN HAVE MORE OF THESE TRIPS IN THE FUTURE!!!!!

THE END

So, that was the end of my journey to Malacca with my BF classmates - the coolest and funniest people around! Here are more photos taken during our trip - courtesy of Suz C and Mel's camera!

Phak Hoe as a beggar. LOL

Me trying to touch a giant model ship on display!

Len, Mel, WY and me trying to pose as mannequins in the museum. Check out WY! She is a super cool model!!!!