Not a walk in the park
Had a nice lie in today, no need for an alarm. We wanted to do our laundry, but the host was no where to be seen, so we had to leave it for the time being. Since we have a whole day, we decided to explore Johor Bahru using the map that the host gave to us. En route to our exploration, we visited a restaurant that we went to yesterday, and had some more roti for breakfast. Just can’t get enough of roti! Once we’d finished with our roti, we walked to a park/botanical near the coast of Johor Bahru. It turned out it wasn’t going to be so easy to go for a walk in the park, because the gates were locked.
We kept walking around the perimeter, when we stumbled upon the Johor Zoo. As I’ve said before, I’m not the biggest fan of zoos, but as the park was closed, we nipped in for a walk around. It was exactly what I’d expected, a lot of exotic animals in fairly overcrowded/small enclosures. I suppose it doesn’t help that me buying a ticket is helping to fund it. To be fair, it only cost 2 ringgit.
For a look at my zoo experience in Thailand, check it out here.
Access denied
After we’d squeezed all of the time wasting we could out of the zoo, we nipped across the road. There was a large, luxurious looking mosque, perched on the top of the hill. As I’d been studying a little of Islam during my journey, I thought it’d be worth a visit. However, as we reached it, took off our shoes and were about to go in, we were turned away by the nice security lady because we weren’t Muslims. We did, however, enjoy a walk around the mosque outside, as the gardens were nice and we had a great view of Singapore and the river between.
For more info on Johor Bahru, check this out.
We walked along a main road and eventually got back to one of the large shopping centres we’d visited yesterday. McDonald’s was to be today’s menu, when in Rome and all that. Then we had some Subway cookies for dessert, we always love to dive into other countries’ food and culture. After we demolished the cookies, we walked back to the hostel.
Cleaning up
When we got back to the hostel, the host had made an appearance. We dumped our laundry with him so we could smell fresh when we left Johor Bahru in exchange for Singapore tomorrow. I also took this opportunity to call my parents, as it had been a while. We were able to catch up on everything that had happened in Asia/UK.
After the call, and chilling for a bit, we went out for dinner, a few streets down. The food was okay, but it was goat on the bone with rice, and I’ve never been terribly fond of bones in my food. We returned to the hostel afterwards, slightly underwhelmed from dinner, and chilled out for the night. After I had a shower, I called my friend Elva for a bit. When it was fairly late, I turned in for the night, excited to move onwards to Singapore.
