Batam F&E Day 2 (Nov'18)

Day 2: Hotel 89 > Pasar Penuin market > BCS Shopping Mall > Hotel 89 > Sekupang Ferry Terminal

Click here for Day 1 of our Batam Trip.

Rise and Shine! It's our last day at Batam. We arranged for a visit to their 'local' market and shopping mall before boarding the ferry back to Singapore.

View from Level 6 Hotel lift lobby @ 7.30am

Hotel 89 serves free breakfast to all guests and breakfast is served 6am - 10am. Just tell the buffet breakfast counter your room number will do. We went down at 7.30pm for breakfast and there's quite a number of people already!

There's a wide spread of cooked food and an egg station where you can choose to have sunny side up or omelette!

Cereal and beverages section

lontong

kuehs, fruits

hokkien mee and fried rice

Though Hokkien mee was missing at the time the photo was taken, however food was replaced quite frequently. During our time there (approx 1 hour), the mee was replaced twice. It was really nice!

interior of the breakfast buffet area

interior of the breakfast buffet area

We had a very sumptous buffet breakfast, so it's time to work off the calories by walking to the Penuin wet market and subsequently the BCS Mall. We left our hotel at about 9am and it just take a slow leisure 10 mins walk to reach our first stop - Penuin market.

Google Map - Hotel 89, Penuin Market and BCS Mall

As you can see from the google map, the total walking distance is only 900m for both destination from our hotel which is also why we chose to stay at Hotel 89 for its accessibility! There is a popular A2 foodcourt near there too however we did not have the time to visit it during this trip. No time probably!

Pasar Penuin Market

Pasar Penuin Market is a wet market that sells fish, kampong chicken, vegetables etc. There's a few cooked food store selling wanton mee, carrot cake which looks delicious. It is supposed to be more of a local market however we noticed on that Sunday morning, majority of the patrons were Singaporeans!

Our driver from Day 1, Mawardi told us that in general, Batam import fruits. They do not have any homegrown fruits except dragonfruit which can be found near Barelang. So since they are imported fruits, it would not make sense for us to buy since we could also get them in Singapore.

We walked around the market and left at around 9.45am for BCS Mall. Note that the market can get a little stuffy in the day!

When we reached BCS Mall it was about 9.55am. Golden Truly department store was opened but not the JC supermarket. We headed for the department store first and this time round we managed to get some women shoes with prices at a steal! Similar to Matahari, they have plenty of discounts such as (50% + 20%) or buy 2 pairs of shoes at IDR 100,000 (SGD $10) only. We feel that prices at supermarket and department store at BCS is slightly lower than at Nagoya Hill shopping mall, probably since Nagoya Hill is more popular with tourists and hence they may charge at a higher price.

Once again, we got some cheap toiletries from the supermarket before we head off for our early lunch. However note that not all toiletries are cheap. You may want to compare the prices to singapore's valu$ shop or venus beauty before buying. Some of the cost saving is not substantial and hence may be more convenient if you just purchase them in Singapore instead!

We had an early lunch at Grand Duck (just opposite BCS Mall) as we are checking out of our hotel at 1.30pm to catch our ferry due for departure at 3.15pm.

Image courtesy: Google (Tripadvisor)

interior of Grand Duck Restaurant

We reached there at about 11.40am and we were their only patrons. However when we were done at around 12.30pm, the restaurant was full house - filled with Singaporeans. This is a contrast to the dinner place on Day 1, where it was filled with Indo chinese. We thought that the food was highly raved on tripadvisor it must be good, however we must say, we are quite disappointed with the food served. Also, their serving speed is definitely slower than Liang Kee 888 Restoran (Day 1 Dinner).

Dim Sum menu

As we are still feeling full from the buffet breakfast, here's what we ordered to share:

Quarter Duck IDR 88,000 SGD $8.05)

Mie Goreng Seafood IDR 35,000 SGD $3.20
Mie Sua Seafood IDR 35,000 SGD $3.20

Clockwise from top to bottom:

- 3 steamed prawn dumpling in chili oil IDR 23,000 (SGD $2.11)

- Chicken claw with black pepper IDR 23,000 (SGD $2.11)

- Fried Turnip cake IDR 23,000 (SGD $2.11)

- Steamed BBQ Chicken Pau IDR 23,000 (SGD $2.11)

- Chicken siewmai IDR 23,000 (SGD $2.11)

- Steamed minced chicken glutinous rice IDR 23,000 (SGD $2.11)

We also ordered chinese jasmine tea (IDR 9,800 /pax = SGD $0.90/pax) and a 3 eggs chicken congee (IDR 33,000 SGD $3.02)

The total bill came up to IDR 454,300 (SGD $41.60) including service charge/tax. There was no service charge or tax at Liang Kee 888 for dinner on Day 1.

Receipt @ Grand Duck

Both Day 1 Dinner and Day 2 lunch were approx same price, however we actually still prefer Day 1 Liang Kee 888 restoran dinner than at Grand Duck.

After the lunch we walked back to our hotel 89 with our loots. It's time to pack our luggage and prepare for check out. The hotel was kind to grant us a late check at 1.30pm for both rooms upon request. We reached back our hotel at about 12.45pm and check out at around 1.20pm. We contacted Mawardi who was free to give us a lift to Sekupang Ferry Terminal. Although he said that we can pay him at any price we want, we paid him IDR 90,000 (SGD $8.24) + IDR 10,000 (tips). IDR 90,000 is the rate quoted by the taxi counter at our hotel.

Hotel lobby 

There's free mall shuttle service (BCS mall and Nagoya hill) at our hotel. However as there's only afternoon timings and we have Mawardi as our driver for first day, we did not use this service.

Mall shuttle service by Hotel 89

We stayed at both 6816 (VIP Silver Triple room) and 6825 (Superior - 2 pax) room during our 1N stay there.

Hotel room card (front)

Hotel room card (back)

Our driver, Mawardi arrived punctually at 1.30pm despite being given last minute notice at 12.45pm to pick us up. Traffic was smooth and we reached Sekupang ferry terminal at 2pm. Our ferry is due for departure at 3.15pm with gate open only at 2.25pm, we had some ice cream first!

Ice cream - cornetto and magnum are especially cheap here. They seem to be legit and it says for distribution to Singapore too. In total we bought 2 magnum and 3 cornetto.

Yum yum ice cream

Price board for ice cream @ Sekupang ferry terminal

Magnum s priced from IDR 8000 (SGD $0.73) to IDR 17000 (SGD $1.56) while cornetto is priced at IDR 13000 (SGD $1.20). In SG, 1 magnum probably cost about SGD $3-$4! In total for 5 ice creams, we spent about IDR 73000.

So if you have some remaining loose change, you can have a good ice cream treat before departing Batam!

Batam ferry ticket - Majestic ferry

waiting area to board the ferry

There's certainly lesser people here at Sekupang and ferry frequency is lower than at Batam Centre. Though it is far from central, we prefer here due to its lesser human traffic.

Ferries depart here on time too and we were allowed to board at around 2.40pm.

Sekupang ferry berth

However probably because it is not as popular as Batam Centre, there's lesser people and hence the ferries are older. Although we are on majestic ferry, we were not allocated with the new ferry as when we arrive. Instead we got an old ferry (wavemaster) which we took back during our trip to Batam in 2013, December.

relatively older ferry - Wavemaster

On our way to board the ferry

The ferry was on schedule and departed at 3.15pm sharp. It was a relatively calm ride back to Singapore and we snoozed on our way back after a tiring but enjoyable weekend getaway. As Singapore is one hour ahead of Batam, we reached Singapore waters at about 5pm.

Sight of vivo city and its christmas tree from the ferry

Disembarkation from the ferry and custom clearance is swift.

Overall, we do not think Batam has changed alot since we last visited in 2014. It is definitely enjoyable and ideal as a weekend getaway, but probably due to its relatively expensive transport cost (ferry ticketss) as compared to travelling to Malaysia JB (bus) where transport cost is minimal, we may not consider travelling there that frequently.