20121208 Long Long Ago

One of the music pieces that she is learning.

The song is called 'Long Long Ago'.

 



20121204 Pandas in Singapore

K went to the zoo with po po, san yee yee and Janice.

Taking a picture with po po while waiting for san yee yee and Janice to turn up.  Doesn't she resemble po po slightly?

We went early but as san yee yee and Janice was not there yet, mommy bought the panda tickets for 11am.

K's zoo admission ticket.

Mommy rented a motor scooter for po po and K to ride on.  In the end, Janice was also fighting to ride it. :P

Outside the otter enclosure.  We stayed for the otter feeding session.  The panda enclosure is just next to it.

We are allowed to queue to go in about 10 minutes before 11am.  After we went in, there are some enclosure with no creatures inside before we reach the other checkpoint (have to check ticket again so don't lose it!) which we have to queue again.  They have a large TV for the visitors to pass their time while waiting.

The first panda.  Just lying there.

The enclosure is long rather than deep so that the vistors can see the pandas easily.

The next panda (don't know if this is Kai Kai or Jia Jia) who keeps walking around.

After visiting the pandas (each group is supposed to view for only 15 minutes, with a 5 minute buffer before the next group goes in), we went to the Panda cafe for lunch.  The restaurant is not crowded as it was before lunch and only paid visitors (with the admission ticket for the pandas enclosure) can come in.


panda bun (red bean bun)

panda cappucino (which is so bland)

After visiting the pandas, we visited the rest of the zoo (including watching the elephant show which an elephant pooed, and the rainforest fights back show which the gibbon pooed).

Last visit was to the Fragile Forest where K gets to stroke the smooth fur of a lemur.

It started raining at about 5pm (luckily the motor scooter did not stall) and we quickly left the zoo to go back to AMK for KFC (Janice's request) before going  home. 

It was a very tiring day but K enjoyed it very much (especially when she did not have to walk much) ! :)

20121201 Caelan' 6th Birthday

Auntie Nancy invited us to Caelan's 6th birthday which was held at the Bedok CC's Rock Climbing.

 

 

Mommy and K had not seen this group of friends for months so its a good time to catch up! :)

 

First, the people played some warm up games with the kids. 

 

Then, they let the kids start climbing on the small wall inside the air con room.

 

K fell (when mommy was busy catching up with friends!) and hurt her fingers (Thanks Nancy for consoling that cry baby when mommy was not around!).  But the staff checked and it seemed that nothing was injured.  The fingers did not even swell.  So mommy persuaded K to put on the harness like the rest of the kids so that she can try the wall climbing outside.

There are three walls with different levels of difficulties outisde.  K tried the easiest wall (yellow in colour).

K being guided by the staff

She tried 3 times on the yellow wall and manage to reach the 'mountain' level (there are 4 levels on the yellow wall - slope, hill, mountain and peak).

K managed to climb to 'mountain' level

The kids can give themselves a sticker whenever they reached a particular level

 Caelan's and Ping Heng's daddy even joined in the fun and go for a round at the wall! Bravo! (OK, at this point, K who is sitting next to me asked me to highlight that her daddy did not climb the wall :P)

After that, it was time for singing the birthday song and eating the cake and other yummy food.

Then, last but not least, a group photo for the Dec babies!

(from left) Magdelene, Kathleen, Ping Heng, Denise, Ewan and Caelan the birthday boy

K enjoyed herself very much and mommy enjoyed catching up with the mommies again! :)

Here are some videos to share too! Very noisy as it started raining heavily.

21021102 Legoland

On Friday, the family went to Legoland Malaysia.

 

Mommy had bought the tickets via Groupon which included 2-way coach service via WTS.

 

The meetup point was Singapore Flyer and so the whole family got up very early in order to make it for the 8.30am bus.

 

The journey to the Tuas 2nd link was alright, but the coaches were jammed at both the Singapore and Malaysia customs.  Seems that the coaches were unable to clear quickly as there is only one lane, and the coaches had to drop off their customers and then go to the other side and wait.

 

After passing through the Malaysia customs, the coach took another 15 minutes and then we reached Legoland.

 

Not knowing what is fun and what is not, we decided to proceed in a clockwise direction.

 

First we visited the Lego Technic area.  The first thing we try is the TECNIC Twister (aka cup that turned round and round). 

  

After that, we wanted to try the Project X (one of the three roller coasters that Legoland has) but the wait is 30 minutes and so we moved on.

 

Mommy wanted to try the Aquazone water next but K refused to try (see grumpy face below).

 

Grumpy face as she does not want to go on the water ride

So we moved on to Lego Kingdoms.

In front of the castle for the Dragon's Apprentice

Lego dragons on the way to the Dragon Apprentice's roller coaster

The Dragon Apprentice is the smallest of the 3 roller coasters in Legoland (we only found out later).  Mommy let K sit with daddy so he can take care of her. 

In mommy's opinion, this one is less scary than the one in Hong Kong Disneyland.  It only go for 2 small rounds. 

The entrance to the scarier roller coaster which we didn't try

Next, we go in search of the pony ride that we saw while queuing for the roller coaster.  The name of the pony ride is called the "Royal Joust"

After the pony ride, we moved on to the sector called Imagination, which had the most Lego structures in the whole Legoland.

First, Daddy and K tried out the Kid Power Towers, which required them to pull themselves up or something like that.

Then, we went to hide inside the 'Build and Test' room which had many Lego bricks for playing.  Even though the Legoland was not crowded, all the booths inside were occupied.  So we moved on after reapplying our sunblock.

Next, we tried the observation tower which is basically a 360 degree glass walled room (air conditioned) that went up and then turned 360 degree for a view of Legoland and its surrounding area.

See the 'sniper' on top of the castle?

Toilets are conveniently located at the corners.  The toilets are brightly painted in Lego yellow and red.  There is a children's sink in each toilet and a diaper changing table.  Watch out for the logo outside the toilet though - Mommy had to take a second look to see which is the girl's toilet and which is the boy's toilet as both logoes are blue in colour and the words are in Malay.

Lunch after that.  We had lunch at the Pizza place.  Two pizzas, a cup of Fanta and a bowl of soup costs about RM40.

We had wanted to watch the 4D movie at Lego studio but there was some time to spare and so we went around taking photos of the Lego structures.

And even time for a train ride in Duplo Express in Duplo Playtown.

We joined the queue for the 4D when we see the queue getting longer (about 15 minutes before the show started).

The 4D show was the typical 3/4D show - with glasses to make the picture look 3D, and water spraying, lighting effects and foam..

K looking cool in her 'sunglasses'

Next, Mommy and K went on the Beetle Bounce which is like the Frog Hopper in Hong Kong Ocean Park.  There are two beetle bounce machines here, individually controlled.  Perhaps the staff took pity on mommy, so he made the machine moved gently up and down, while the other machine (with a rowdy bunch of boys) zoomed up and down very fast.  Thank goodness!

 

Next comes K's favourite place in the whole Legoland - the Pharaoh's Revenge.  It is a two storey structure with many foam balls and some machines for shooting the balls into the air.  On the second floor, where are 'shooting guns' in which the children could put the foam balls in and then shoot.

Daddy helping her to collect the balls

Shooting from the second storey

Next was the Lost Kingdom Adventure.  K saw this advertised on Okto channel many times and was very glad to find it.  We went for two rounds and Mommy got higher points than Daddy in the second round (she could not find her 'laser gun' in the first round)

 

After that, tired Mommy decided to go for a ride on the Legoland Express which will go one round around Miniland.

Great Wall of China - one of the Miniland's structures

After the ride, we go to Lego City and joined the queue for the Lego Rescue Academy.  The participants have to board one of the rescue vehicles and pumped the lever to make the truck moved a short distance to the buildings that were on 'fire'.  The participants then had to go down and turned the lever on the fire hydrant to spray water onto the building until the picture of the fire was replaced by the picture of a smiling Lego character (which mean that the fire had been put out).

Queuing for our turn

A Lego structure near to the rescue academy

K on the truck

Turning the lever to spray water at the 'building' on 'fire'

After leaving the Rescue Academy, mommy and K went for a 'plane ride' at the Lego City Airport.

And then it was tea break at the nearby Market Restaurant which sold western food.  Do note that Singapore currency are accepted in the restaurants and the rate was quite good (S$1 to RM2.47 on the day that I was there, which was comparable to the exchange rate we had in Singapore).

'Lego men' in the restaurant

Next was the Junior Driving School.  Mommy tried to get K to join the Driving School (for 6 -12 years old) since she would be turning 6 in 2 weeks time but the staff disagreed.  So we tried the Junior Driving School which was for 3 - 5 years old.

Too big for the baby Nissan

Guess she inherited Mommy's driving skills :P

 

Next, we went for the Remote Control Boat ride.

 

Last place to go - Miniland. 

Lego florist stand!

The dragon dance can move!

Boat Quay! So cute!

Mommy's obession with SMRT buses....

... and SBS buses

There are buttons around the structure which can activate some of the legos.  The 3 buttons below, for example, will start a snake charmer's music and make the Lego snakes in the rattan baskets (see beige roundish thing near to the buttons) come up (one button for one snake).

Another button will start the propeller of this aeroplane.

KLIA

Putrajaya....

They even have minatures like workers on a gondola cleaning the walls of a building.

K posing ala Arnold Schwarzenegger in front of the KLCC minature.

The KLCC fountain which everyone was so obessed with the last time we went to KL

a typical Legoland dustbin

After we had visited Miniland, there is time to spare and so Mommy went shopping to buy Janice's Christmas present and then we went back to the Pharoah's Revenge for K to play for another 30 minutes before we left.

At the coach pick up/drop off area, Mommy saw the public bus LG1 that was supposed to travel betwen JB Sentral (or was it Larkin Terminal?) and Legoland.  There are also taxi drivers waiting outside who are hoping to get passengers go to JB Sentral.

The return journey took almost another 2 hours with the jam at the customs again.  By the time we reach Singapore Flyer it was almost 9pm (we took the 6.45pm coach from Legoland) and everyone is tired and K felt asleep on the MRT on the way home.

Mommy's verdict was that children, especially those under 12, would like it (there were some rides that were only for children below 12).  The staff were friendly (waited for me to finish taking photos before starting the ride etc) and they have standby staff for some rides (eg, one staff to help to rescue junior drivers whose cars got stuck on the 'road' in Junior Driving School).  

For those with small kids and perhaps who drove in, the annual pass will be good as they can treat it like a zoo pass - that is, go there for half a day and just concentrate on a small section.  The sun was hot (like Singapore) there which might turn off some people, and cause some kids to fall sick after a day trip there.  Many of the seats are open air (no shelter) and are not in use as no one wanted to sit under the hot sun. 

The restaurants were not full when I was there, but I went during off peak season (weekday during school term).  However, I highly suspected that the queues will get longer (we only had to wait 5-15 minutes for each ride except for the Project X which had a waiting time of 30 minutes - please note that these timings are based on that was stated at the entrance, mommy did not really time the number of minutes that she queued for each ride) and restaurants will be full with no seats once the school holidays start.