For once my insomnia worked in my favour wherein my normal nocturnal wake ups meant that I actually got up at 630am, having had 5 and a half hours of uninterrupted shut eye. I woke the kids at 9am and it was quite funny to watch their confused waking up faces readjusting to their new surroundings.
We explored the complex to find the pool which is on level 4 and on top of the shopping mall. Clearly the whole complex is very new, as our tower appears to be one of just a few currently inhabited. Johor Bahru seems to have reinvented itself over the last five years, shaking off the often negative border city connotations and embracing its opportunities: namely being a gateway for cheap housing and shopping options for the Singaporeans. La Linea could certainly learn a thing or two from here.
On the downside, that means that construction is in full force around us even on a Saturday, but the upside is that we had the pool to ourselves, albeit against the crane concerto…
We took a cab to a place called Danga Bay which is a man made beach and marina. Aside from a few quirky statues, it was pretty underwhelming. The general consensus is that it used to be great until developers took hold and started to build towers on the ‘beachfront’ land. Afterwards we spent a couple of hours in JB City shopping mall which was decent. I had to track down some dry shampoo as the humidity is killing off my hairstyle #flatasapancake. Elsie found it amusing that instead of toilet roll you got a hose in the cubicles at the mall, the whole thing was sopping wet!
My favourite part of the day was going to the night market near to the apartment. It had a really good atmosphere, and was cheap as chips. Elsie and I got matching henna tattoos for one pound apiece, and Owen got an avengers lego set.
Speaking of chips, that was our dinner after the pizza delivery failed to show up (their Uber equivalent ‘Grab’ seems to be great for taxis but terrible for food delivery). Cue an emergency family meal at midnight, consisting of oven chips, bacon and scrambled egg (couldn’t do fried as even when improvising without oil and spatula, the hob Gods were not smiling down on us). We know how to rock and roll…