02-122012KL

Given the choice, I would have rather we took the afternoon coach and arrived in Singapore sometime at night and checked into a hotel. But I wasn't the one calling shots, and hotel rates at Singapore during December was out of my mom's budget.

We were like nomads in Berjaya Times Square. The nine-floored building may seem like a vast, endless place where you can walk around for hours, with food stalls and clothing stores, and all sorts of boutiques that mom and I liked. But dad was there, and generally, men hate walking around malls. And because we were in a foreign land, he doesn't believe in the 'divide and conquer' rule. I would have loved to check out Sasa while waiting for the coach and perhaps bring home a couple of cosmetics, but hey, when you're with family, you can't really do anything but to follow as they say.

For those eight hours, Berjaya Times Square became our home. We went to the Taste of Asia food court, where we stayed back and forth, eating noodles and drinking teh tarik. We roamed around the basement and amused ourselves at the squishy purple floors and tacky Christmas decors, where my parents and my sister had their pictures taken. 

But home base for us was at the sixth floor, near the service elevators, with a glass window overlooking the Petronas Towers at the distance. If you looked down the glass, you could see the Monorel track going left and right, people probably getting down at Imbi station. It was a cool place to hang out - there was a single socket where I could charge my iPhone and my sister's tablet, and the view was kind of nice. Not a lot of people stay there, which was good. But it gets boring after three hours of staying there.

After a while, we grabbed dinner at the food court again, and ran errands at Cold Storage. We stocked up on snacks and water, since we probably couldn't find somewhere familiar to eat when arrive in Singapore. After staying at the food court and taking advantage of their wifi, we headed back up to the sixth floor for one last time before closing time. 

The view completely changed. The Petronas Towers were outlined in light in the distance. It was the most beautiful cityscape I had seen in a while. I thought, if I could have this view every night, I would be happy. All that waiting in Berjaya Times Square made it worth it.

(photo taken by me)