City Square, Johor Bahru, Malaysia

In the very last of the previous post, I mentioned about JB and I am back with a spanking new post about City Square, Johor Bahru. I can't proclaim I am a know-it-all when it comes to JB because god knows the amount of day trips Singaporeans take to Malaysia every single day.

Anyway, my memories of JB is backdated to at least 5 years back, which was the last time I step foot into City Square for Stonegrill.

This time we went straight in without expectations. In actuality, its in name of taking time off work.

We started from the top level of City Square and noticed a new, spacious food court cafe chic-like interior.

We shopped around and I realized some of the brands like Truimph is about 20% cheaper than in Singapore. I got a bag from Mango Touch and paid around SGD $63 while it costs SGD $69 back home. The rest of the smaller apparel shops are not exactly fashion forward so we mostly watch out for brands.

Here are my loots:

Back home, NARUKO is only available in Watson's store but having a walk in store meaning more variety and possibly cheaper prices, since we are talking in terms of exchange rate. I usually get my skincare fix at Qoo10 but this time my moisturizer got lost in the mail and I ran out of mine. Thus I have NARUKO's in exchange for moisturized skin. Price range is between SGD $20 to $30 for this product I singled out, and a pore-minimizing moisturizer sounds awesome.

I will try and squeeze some time for a review, okay?

Apart from shopping, food is also our priority. We settled for dinner at Canton-I for some dim sum.

For recollection sake, we had a total of:

1) Four plates of noodles (choice of 2 meats such as roasted pork belly, char siew, chicken ecetera)
2) 3 baskets of salted egg yolk buns
3) 2 baskets of siew mai
4) 1 chee cheong fun
5) 1 plate of fried prawn dumplings
6) 1 plate of beancurd wrap
7) 2 drinks

It is sufficient for 4 people, and the bill came up to only SGD $18 nett per person, and we were sold. Anyway most of the food are average or better and definitely considered cheap. I can't single out a dish that is exceptionally good or bad, but overall experience is satisfying. (Food serving came fast too.)

In the later part we walked pass Dragon-I, the parent company of Canton-I and saw extra large xiao long bao with a straw raised from the center! We look forward to try those out on the next trip.

We stopped by Hui Lau Shan for some sweet treats:

 
Macaron from Lavender Bakery:

Here's the SGD $2 Pizza Hut pizza I have been telling people about! I wish I have extra stomach space to contain more of these...

There is a new mall located beside City Square by the name of Komtar JBCC so we went in to find reasons to spend money on. (That is where the pizza came from.)

We walked in a 3CE store, got nothing in exchange for money and moved on. The variety is limited and there isn't anything for us.

I also managed to check out Charles & Keith and prices were much higher than in Singapore probably because it is a Singaporean brand? Sephora items came in slightly cheaper though.

For a happy ending, we top our trip off with a few rounds of Lasertag and skipped movies since it was the first time for all of us. Although the game rules were simple and foolproof, there were a fair bit of workout for our lazy bones. It was fun while it lasted.

Alright, there you have it, that's my combination of food, shopping and fun in Johor Bahru, Malaysia. I hope most of you gained some tips. Remember to dress down, and if anything fails, there is $2 pizza!