Citrus Hotel & Johor Bahru Chinese Heritage Museum

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Saturday, 2nd March 2013

Determined to start our day early, I linked up with SJ at 10am in the morning before heading into Johor Bahru. My visits to this southern gateway of Malaysia had became relatively frequent over the past year. During the lull periods when I'm not travelling, we would slot in some visits over the weekend for our usual haunts.

For this weekend, we decided to head to Jalan Tan Hiok Nee where the Chinese Heritage Museum was situated. Located within the historical core, it took about fifteen minutes of footwork from where we started at JB City Square. The museum is housed within a restored four-storey shophouse. Admission to this place was recently revised to RM5. But the interesting exhibits that traced the origins of Chinese culture in Johor Bahru made our ringgits well spent!

Once the everyday items of yester-years, some of the old cola bottles and vintage advertisements on display brought back fond memories of my childhood days. The gallery depicting World War II in Malaysia was engaging since this topic was seldom discussed outside of Malaysia. I was happy to spend my time on an educational visit to this fine museum.

Citrus Hotel that we were going to stay for the night was a real gem in my opinion. Great prices aside, it was strategically located next to the massive JB City Square and the upcoming Galleria @ Kotaraya Mall. I liked that the service staffs were courteous and they never failed to greet all guests. Service during breakfast hours was top-notched too. I would certainly be checking into Citrus again for our future trips.

F & YP came by this evening to join us for dinner at one of our regular spots - the 24-hour Old Town Coffee joint @ Taman Sentosa. The quiet evening passed by quickly within the relaxed atmosphere of the cosy cafe as we chatted about our travel plans and the usual jokes.

Jokes aside, the massive jam that plagued the evening was probably the worst we had ever experienced. The roads leading towards the downtown were virtually impassable. For the next 3 hours, we were stucked in our car while waiting for the annual temple procession to complete its rounds within the city. I read in the papers the next morning that closed to 350,000 people took part in this year's event which explained the major congestion throughout the city.

Certainly, this was a unique experience to end our Saturday evening as we braced ourselves back to our room after midnight for a good night's rest.

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