“How about we go to Johor today?” Catherine mentioned to me casually as we were packing our bags to go out for my mother’s birthday lunch on Saturday. I was momentarily stunned upon hearing it as the suggestion came kind of sudden.

Yes, we have talked about the possibility of making half-day trips over to the nearest state in Malaysia but had not expected this plan to materialise with such short notice. Furthermore, it might be quite late already when we had finished our lunch if we were to make our way over the causeway then. Still, I packed our passports along just in case.

After our lunch at Yishun SAFRA, we took a walk at the neighbouring Yishun Town Park where Darius roamed happily, eager to take a breathe of some fresh air after his meal.

It was a bigger and more natural park than I had expected, with long roads leading deep into the park filled with thick, rustic vegetation. We even spotted a squirrel wandering around on the ground on our way out.

By the time we left the park, it was around 2pm but we were still keen to take on our last-minute, adventurous trip across the causeway. We would be expecting it to be quite a challenge as we would be getting there taking public transport while carrying Darius’ strollers and bags.

“Let’s just treat this as a trial run.” I told Catherine, trying to reassure ourselves that even if something did go wrong along the way, we would be cool with it and laugh it over, since this would only be a so-called  trial, experimental trip we ambitiously took up. ^^|

And so our journey to the peninsula began, starting with a MRT ride to Woodlands. Before that though, I had to get some Malaysian currency at a money changer in Yishun Central, which I did so on our way towards Yishun MRT Station to board the train.

We had two options to choose from if we were to reach the checkpoint by public bus: Bus 170 opposite Kranji MRT Station or Bus 950 from Woodlands Bus Terminal.

Though we’ve heard about the lower frequency of Bus 950 as compared to Bus 170, I thought it would be easier for us to board the bus with our stroller and stuff since we would be boarding from the Woodlands Bus Terminal, which is the first stop for the bus. With this in mind, we dropped off at Woodlands from the train and waited for the bus to arrive, which came after around 10 minutes.

Catherine and Darius were able to find an empty seat without much trouble, while I stood in the open area near the middle, placing the folded stroller by the side of the bus.

The bus was crowded with passengers filling up to the entrance area but since we were early in the queue at the bus terminal, it didn’t really affect us much. Furthermore, the bus was air-conditioned so ventilation was not much of an issue. I could imagine how uncomfortable it would be if buses were still non air-conditioned under such hot weather and with such crowd on the bus.

The bus ride took around 15 minutes and we soon reached the Singapore Checkpoint.

As passengers rushed to alight after the bus had pulled over, Catherine and I took our time to disembark after the crowd had cleared. Opening up the stroller, we placed Darius in it, who was still wondering where he was and where we were heading to.

Lifts were available for our way up to the customs, which we passed through without any issue. The processing was swift with many counters made available. There wasn’t much of a queue either.

That done, we headed back down to the ground floor where we would board a bus to the Malaysian customs. We headed back to the queue for Bus 950 since our Ez-Link cards had already recorded our earlier trip when we alighted earlier. Boarding the same numbered bus would allow us to continue our journey fuss-free.

Our original bus had of course left while we were at the customs, so I guess only those passengers that were really quick would have made it in time to board the same bus (that’s why they were rushing to alight and head for the customs earlier). In front of our queue, I recognised several faces who were with us on the same bus earlier, so we knew we were not the only ones who chose to take things easy. ^^

The next Bus 950 came just 5 minutes later, contradictory to the low frequency of the bus. It was most probably we were just lucky then.

And so we boarded the bus, once again with Catherine and Darius sitting while I stood by the side with the folded stroller. The journey across the causeway towards the Malaysia checkpoint took quite some time while the bus got caught up with some traffic jams leading to the checkpoint. With only two lanes shared by buses and cars, it wouldn’t be a surprise that the traffic flow was slow.

When we finally reached the checkpoint, Darius had already fallen asleep during the bus ride. We gently transferred him onto the stroller and proceeded towards the customs. On our way, we tried looking for the ‘white card’, a declaration card which we believed was compulsory for all foreigners entering Malaysia.

We were told to get it from the customs counters themselves when we checked with a female officer. We were quite surprised that the place was quite deserted as we had expected many people to be heading for Malaysia from Singapore on a weekend. Probably it was already quite late (around 3pm plus) then.

We walked over to one of the counters, asking for the white card. Instead of handing the cards to us, the customs officer simply asked us to pass him our passports, which we did as instructed. From there on, he cleared us without any need for the white card!

Catherine and I looked at each other confused but of course we followed his instructions and crossed over the customs to officially entered into Malaysian grounds. Well, looks like their customs weren’t very particular over the white card after all…

Anyway Darius had woken up while we were at the customs counter, and he got that just-woke-up look on his face. ^^

Following this, we walked quite a long distance within the checkpoint complex via some corridors towards City Square, a shopping mall situated in Johor Central and connected to the checkpoint.

After a 10 to 15 minute walk, we arrived City Square. Some areas could only be accessible by escalators since no lifts were around.

As for the shopping mall, just when we were about to go up the mall using the only escalator there, we discovered it had been rendered out of order!

In this case, Catherine carried him in her arms while I carried the stroller with our bags up the escalator. We would have expected them to at least install a lift leading into the mall here as an alternative route.

And so, after a long journey (more than an hour), we had finally reached Johor! Looks like a journey with a toddler in tow over the causeway with public transport is definitely do-able! ^^

So was the trip worth it?

Well, from the looks of it, the mall did not look much different from those in Singapore. We had actually been here once or twice before so we already knew how it was like, but coming here was still quite a novelty as were were out of Singapore and buying things using a different currency. ^^

First of all, we needed to bring Darius to the restroom to empty his bladder, and that’s when we realised we had to pay 20 cents for each entry. On the bright side, this meant that the restrooms were more well maintained by the staff manning the place.

We then started moving around the mall, doing window shopping and checking out the shops available. The first shop we walked into was Anakku, a Malaysian company manufacturing baby products. We had often come across its products in places like Kiddy Palace but this was the first time we visited an Anakku store, since it isn’t available in Singapore.

Unfortunately, there wasn’t much in the shop that had caught our eyes so we left soon after, ending up next at Popular Bookstore.

The store looked pretty much the same as the ones we see in Singapore, though we did noticed there were more chinese books available, especially those meant for children. Apparently chinese education was more popular in Malaysia than Singapore.

Catherine browsed through the collections while I watched over Darius as he roamed around on foot, after having been constrained throughout his journey here.

We found some books which Catherine had been very keen to buy for Darius, but was unable to find them in Singapore. However, as we had already made an online order for these books last week, we could only wait till they are being delivered to us instead of buying them from here. We had not expected to find those books here at Popular in Malaysia, else we would have wanted to buy them here instead.

We then headed for dinner at a shop specialising in Portuguese roast chicken; we had eaten there before and quite liked the food there. As we settled down with Darius in a baby chair, Catherine proceeded to feed him the porridge we brought from home while I went ahead to place our orders.

When I started eating the dishes though, I was disappointed to find out that the meat was at best just lukewarm. Roast chicken should be served warm or hot to taste nice so it was such a disappointment that they did not bother with this most basic thing.

After the unsatisfactory dinner, we were starting to feel tired and were planning to head for home. However, when we passed by The World of Cartoons, a shop selling many Disney clothing, Catherine got all perked up again. She had always enjoyed shopping at the store (e.g. when were in Genting Highlands) as the clothing there are nice and reasonably priced.

While she was browsing through the clothes, I carried Darius out from the stroller and he excitedly started roaming around the shop. As the shop was large and relatively deserted, Darius could run amidst the shelves to his heart’s content without creating a fuss.

As for me, I decided to play some hide-and-seek games with him, popping up behind shelves and surprising him. This got him very excited and he started laughing non-stop while he ran around, preventing me from ‘catching’ him and giggling when I did catch him. Looks like he had gotten all energized from his porridge meal.

While Darius and I were engaged in our games, Catherine had done choosing a number of nice clothes for Darius. She had wanted to pick up more as there were really quite a wide variety of nice clothes but she felt these would be enough for him for now.

As we paid for the merchandise, I was expecting to pay by credit card as I had only exchanged for S$100 worth of Malaysian Ringgit earlier. However, I was surprised that my available cash was still enough for the bundle of clothes we had bought. We were indeed getting quite a good bargain here!

With that, we began to search for the exit from the mall to the checkpoint and it took us quite a while to figure out as there wasn’t any clear sign directing us to the right direction. We couldn’t find any directory/map of the mall too.

When we finally did find the way out of the mall, the sun had already set and the checkpoint building was lit up by some multi-coloured lights and it was quite a scenic view.

We walked for another 10 minutes before we reached the customs and passed through them without problem. As we started heading towards the bus platform, we noticed that the design of the Malaysia checkpoint was to make us walk one big round in the complex before we could reach the counter, after which we needed to walk back in the opposite direction from the other side before we could reach the bus pick-up point. Our logical explanation for this design was for the crowd of travelers to be spread out so that the counters wouldn’t be overloaded by a sudden surge of people.

We waited for at least 20 minutes before Bus 950 showed up. Guess we were indeed lucky in the afternoon for the bus to arrive within short periods. While we were queuing, we were already regretting taking Bus 950 since Bus 170 could be a better choice with its higher frequency. Unlike the case where we came here from Singapore, we would now stand a better chance of finding empty seats even on Bus 170 since we were boarding straight from the checkpoint.

Anyway, the bus ride back was much more smoother as there was less traffic along the way. When we arrived at the Singapore customs, we went through some stringent checks by the officers. Though a little inconvenient for travelers, these stringent checks were necessary to make sure our country’s safety is not compromised.

After we passed through the customs, we noticed a sign pointing towards a taxi stand. We believed this would be more convenient for us as we won’t have to wait for the bus again (especially Bus 9-5-0…). With that, we followed the sign to pass through some corridors before arriving at Old Woodlands Central after a 10-minute walk. From there, we boarded a cab from the long row of empty cabs.

Phew! This was a much easier way home, and we couldn’t imagine ourselves waiting and boarding Bus 950 with our tired bodies!

Looks like if we are to make another trip to Johor again, we will likely consider taking a cab over to Old Woodlands Central first before grabbing a bus to Malaysia from the checkpoint. ^^

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