Since it was announced that the Tanjong Pagar station would be closing its doors for good sometime next year, a few friends – Betty and Jason in particular - have been talking about bringing the kids on a train ride on the KTM Railway from the station. Well, we finally made the trip today!
We arrived at Tanjong Pagar station bright and early just after 7am, to catch the 8am train. Looking around, it was apparent we were amongst a number of like-minded people – all armed with cameras to snap sights and scenes of the station and the train journey.
Hence, we shouldn’t have been at all surprised to find out then that what used to be a $3-ride from the Tanjong Pagar station to Johor Bahru (JB) now costs a whopping $13 for adults and $11 for children – prices were adjusted upwards on 1 November 2010. By comparison, it costs just RM3 (S$1.30) to return from JB to Singapore! We wondered if it would’ve made better economic sense to take the bus to JB and return via train instead (we would find out later that that’s probably not the best idea given the high frequency of delays and irregular departure times – but more on that later).
Our sleepy kids – dragged out of bed a tad too early, especially for the holidays - were soon awake and exploring, quite fascinated by the whole experience. They were quite thrilled with the “different kind of train”. Our kids have really only been on the MRT – they declared that they liked the allocated seating and not having other passengers crowd around them!
The customs process is always a bit cumbersome when travelling by bus and train – this is especially so when travelling with young kids. That said, it was a fairly easy and comfortable journey. It was only my second time doing this ever – I think I still prefer the creature comforts of going by car.
We arrived in JB at about 930am and sat down for a slow breakfast at Old Town Coffee at City Square Mall. We had their popular Ipoh Horfun and Roti Prata … and coffee, of course!
We spent most of the morning walking around City Square – a typical retail mall, with clothing boutiques, optical shops, etc. Our quick spin into MPH found us a Malaysia guidebook which gave us some great recommendations for lunch and tea (we really hadn’t planned much for this trip, it would’ve been like we were taking a MRT ride had it not been for the passports!) ….
Our lunch stop was Restoran See Kee (30 Jalan Segget). Famous for its pork noodles, the yellow noodles and horfun were equally good, both springy and smooth, to accompany the slivers of liver and pork which were done to perfection in the tastiest of broths. Prices start from RM4.50, and can go up to RM 21 if you order abalone or oysters. Our lunch for 4 adults and 4 kids cost RM45 (S$18). Slurp!
Our next stop was Hiap Joo Bakery (13 Jalan Tan Hiok Nee). Apparently, this traditional bread shop is more than 80 years old and the bread is still baked the same way as in the 1920s - in a wood-fired oven. Seems they are one of only two surviving firewood bakeries left in JB. Their bread is excellent – not sure if it’s the oven or the fact that they do not add any additives – it’s amazing what just plain wholesome wheat flour, water, sugar and yeast can do! As the buns come out of the oven piping-hot, the smells are mouth-watering – we couldn’t resist eating one on the spot, it was simply scrumptious!!
They have an amazing variety of buns - butter, kaya, curry, otak, cheese, sausage, red bean, coconut with brown sugar, etc. A hot favourite is their banana cakes – unfortunately for us though, that’s only available after 230PM… guess we’ll have to time our next trip better!
Right next to Hiap Joo was a surprise find… An eclectic little boutique with homemade Thai/Nonya desserts for sale – we couldn’t resist bringing home some delicious Mango Sticky Rice, Kueh Salat, Ondeh-Ondeh for supper!
We doubled back to Restaurant Ya Wang (28 Jalan Segget) to buy some roast duck home for dinner – it was a steal at RM48 for a whole herbal duck. You can’t miss it - the restaurant signboard includes a huge hanging duck!
Final stop: back to the airconditioned comforts of the mall – actually Macdonalds – so that the kids could get some ice-cream and snacks whilst we waited for the train.
Final note: We didn’t go back on the KTM train as the 3:39pm train as planned only because it was delayed by over an hour. We opted instead to try the bus service. Everything seemed to be going very smoothly until the bus reached Whitley Road and the engine decided it would go no further. The driver tried to revive it but to no avail – so we did the next best thing: we hopped off and hailed a cab to bring us to back to the train station to retrieve our car. We concluded then that if the intent is to take the train, then the most reliable thing would be to pay (much) more to catch the train from Singapore – at least the window for delay is significantly reduced and you actually get to go on the train ride 
Now, how about a train riddle for a last laugh……
Question: What do you call a train carrying a full load of toffee?
Answer: A chew-chew train!!!
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