27 February 2013 (Wed): When they say P2 is no longer a honeymoon period, you've got to believe. Weekly spellings, homeworks, both online & given ones, tests, assessments, projects, it is never ending. Lionel had just done his Maths test yesterday, has English spelling today & then, Chinese test tomorrow, Show & Tell on Friday....omg. We have just managed to complete the recent "homework" given by MOE Excel Fest on a written topic: Every School A Good School Contest. Lionel got to write on why he love his school. His teacher downloaded some photos taken at the recent school trip to GBB (Gardens By The Bay) of which Lionel got to choose one & attached along with his story. And this is emailed to MOE via the Google Apps under Mconline.
Next, Lionel has been asked to enrol into a Chinese Writing Competition organized by Fo Guang Shan(S). This competition is open to all levels from primary to JC/Poly students & any kind of writing tools from a normal pencil, a marker or even tree branches are allowed. You can choose any of the following passage(s) to copy ( I cropped out a few below ) & submit to Fo Guang Shan by 13 March 2013. About 20 - 50 participants will be chosen (& notified by post) from each category to compete against each other at Fo Guang Shan itself on 13 April 2013. For the primary school category, 1st prize of $200 cash, vouchers & a certificate will be given. But the competition topic will only be given at the grounds & all participants are to prepare their own writing materials.
Lionel claimes that this is not his best hand writing...haha.
21 February 2013 (Thurs): Lionel returned home with a Show & Tell Presentation Form, informing us parents to prepare, help & guide them. The presentation is on next Friday, 01 March. Daddy suggested to Lionel MacDonalds but is that consider a favourite dish??? That is more likely a favourite fast food restaurant, isnt it? Unless Lionel can say that his favourite dish is French Fries, but that is more like favourite food... So which is which?
Enclosed: A script , a checklist for the pupil / parents & an assessment rubrics.
16 February 2013 (Sat): No worries. I did not get the date wrong. There was practically no activity yesterday on the 15 Feb. After arriving into Malacca on the 14 Feb night, we stayed 1 night & was off to the temple yesterday. Its a sure visit whenever we are in Malacca during the CNY. Daddy then suggested to our friends to bring the kids to LEGOLAND. They rejected initially but their kids begged them to. Its not always they get to venture out of Malacca (their hometown), other than Genting. But with us, they get to go Sunway Lagoon, to LEGOLAND & Daddy even asked them to join us to China this Sep school hols.( that is, if time permits). Then we stayed at our friends' relative place in JB for the night since LEGOLAND is on our agenda this morning. I did not take much photos of the place as we have been there last yr. Oh, yup, we got our annual pass already & hope to be able to visit it again when the waterpark opens this yr. Hopefully soon...
Not as crowded as last year when we were here during Xmas. Perhaps the unpredictable weather stops the people from coming in, eventhough its a Sat. This is the year of the water snake, so lots of rain is definite.
There is a LEGO snake where visitors are encourage to contribute to the body using LEGO bricks.
All below photos are snapshots of our 2 monkeys & our long term friends.
And these, are our Annual Pass.
We left LEGOLAND at 5pm, heading back to Singapore in the rain again. Traffic was smooth at Tuas Checkpoint. We unpacked, took a bath & was off to the airport, no, not to another vacation but to pick up my ils who returned from their vacation to Taiwan.
So folks, this marks the end of our CNY vacation. Back to school & back to work. Adios!
14 February 2013 (Thurs): Happy Valentine's Day To All. :) Breakfast @ Mac which the kids asked for the upteempth times. Thereafter, they will be embarking on flight A320 to a new environment where they would learn how to earn & how to spent $$$.
Flight A320, departing from KL to Kidszania @ 0930hrs. Please get ready Air Asia Boarding Pass for verification. Kindly remember to change your currency into Kidzo (z) on arrival.
Kidszania National Colleage welcomes you onboard. Please register & pay your school fees of 10z. Upon completion of this course & a 100% attendence, you will receive a cert in Bachelor of Health Science (B.H.Sc).
But before landing a job in the health industry, you may like to try out other jobs first. How about being in the delivery sector; a courier service agent? You will need to deliver the orders to the designated companies & get them to chop & sign their name. Thereafter, you will receive 10z.
No interest in being a courier service agent? How about the construction industry? Its in great demand now. You can choose to be a brick layer, a house painter or a house decorator. You will be paid 8z for each project completion.
That was hot, isnt it? Okay, you may not like working outdoors, how about an indoor environment? You like to eat? Then the cooking school is just the place for you. But bear in mind, you need to pay 10z for learning to be a chef.
Do not like to sit still? You are such a fussy job hopper! How about a reporter or a journalist? No? Hmmm, you rather be a newspaper delivery guy??? But you only get paid 6z for that. A journalist gets paid 8z. Alright. Your wish.
Hey, an air conditioned environment. You love it ya? How abt working with DELL? Easy job. Good pay too. 10z. And you will receive a cert as well. Cool.
Oh, trying to eat & work at the same time... You love the Oreo Cookie Factory? Eat as much as possible? Trying to make up for the loss of 10z? Haha... You did your maths well.
Hmmm, it seems you ran over to Cadbury Chocolate just next door too. And paid 10z for it. But knowing u, you ate quite alot too, didnt u?
You love excitment & adventure? Then the KKLFD is js the place for you. You are on duty 24hrs of the day & must be prepared day in day out. You will be paid 8z for all your hard work.
The alarm goes off... there's a fire reported in one of the hotels. Now go, prove yourself to be useful to the society. LOL.
Oh, you applied for the position of a surgeon as well? I didnt see that. Excuse me! Perhaps I was drinking coffee in the cafe. Oh, and you earn 10z too.
Now, u know what life is like out in the real world? Not as easy & smooth-going as you think. Buck up! Studying hard is your main priority now. How much have you earned? Changed those kidzo into gifts.
Till then, see ya. :)
The kids did not get to try out all the different occupations inside Kidszania. There was always a long queue for the more popular ones. There were many occupation to choose from, such as being a DJ, a judge in a courtroom, a fashion model, a supermarket cashier, etc.
A day well spent. We drove down to Malacca after this as our Malaysian friends were just coming downhill from Genting & heading home.
13 February 2013 (Wed): Deciding & searching for a place to have breakfast was a chore each morning. Before coming to Penang, I did some research & copied down the add of each individual makan item but when u are in Penang itself & with only less than 2 full days, we did not managed to cover those recommended ones. See, even places like Long Beach or Chowrasta Market, we did not visit. Instead, we would js drive along & stopped by to whatever place we felt comfortable with for meals. So in the end, we had breakfast this morning at a local neighbourhood housing (kinda like those old flats you see in HKG, where u sit in the compound & when u look up, anything would js fall out of the corridors). But this place was equally crowded too. Char Kway Teow seems to be the "hot" order & they even serve westernised breakfast ( toast, sunny side up, hotdogs & baked beans). Other than that, they have Chee Cheong Fun, Mee Chiam Kueh, Tim Sum, etc. Either there was a lack of staff or everyone was too busy, no one cleared the empty bowls & plates. We did what the locals do; piled them up along the edge of the sidewalk. :P Heading on to our next destination - Bukit Merah Laketown Resort; abt an hours' drive from Penang. I was comtemplating on whether this place is worth a visit or not. From the website, the place looked soooo nicely done up. The hotel rooms was super inviting. The themeparks was great. BUT, this place received many NEGATIVE reviews, mostly on the rooms - cockcroaches, cracked furniture, stained towels & bedsheets, musty smell in the room, poor reception service or no service, tripped power, nosiy air con, etc.... I did not want to believe the comments. I send an enquiry on one of their rooms promotion in mid Jan but received no reply. I send another thru their reservation email & again no reply. I was half hearted. In the end, Daddy said we could have a look ard first & if okay, we would js book a room on the spot.
Bukit Merah Laketown Resort. Looks good; CNY atmosphere, warm reception; smiles & greetings..
We bought tickets for the Orang Utan (OU) Island; a very much talk abt place, a very much recommended place to visit. I was WRONG!!
Upon arrival on the island, we had to take a boat ride across, we saw only 4 miserables ones roaming abt. They were more keen on their keepers than on the visitors. We were then taken to the school, the nursery & the ICU - BUT with only a view from outside, which means there is the glass panel between us & the OUs.
NO OUs in the school; we saw only swings & branches, NO OUs in the nursery, where were the babies? People were talking abt seeing them wearing diapers ( on the internet reviews), NO OUs in the ICU; okay, that's gd news!
The whole god damn place did not even seem like an OU Conservation Island to me. Talked abt helping them to get accustomed when they are released back into the wild.
Daddy was irritated; a waste of time. We should have bought the combo tickets for the EcoPark & Waterpark instead.
This is the EcoPark. We saw many animals; rabbits, deers, pocupines, peacocks, hamsters, snakes, etc.. Its looks like a mini zoo. We even caught an animal show but with only parrots performing.
We took a chairlift across the waterpark & I caught some snapshots of it. Kinda small. The Lost World of Tambun in Ipoh would be much worth the visit compared to this.
All in all, I would not want to recommend this place. Luckily, we had no agenda & were free & easy on our time. We left the place at 4pm & head on to KL where the kids would be embarking on a new journey of their lifes - the working society :)
We reached KL & had a late dinner. Reason: The journey from Perak to KL was slow; traffic was heavy & it was raining heavily. The stretch along Ipoh was filled with fog & all vehicles had to travel very slowly. We saw many traffic police road blocks along the way; we did not want to take any chance. But apparently, it seems they were there for show only.. :P Oh whatever!
12 February 2013 (Tues): We didnt know where to have breakfast. I remembered my friend told me she had hers along Gurney Drive & so we went over.
Not knowing which ones were good; we based the level of popularity on the crowd shown. This is located at the corner of Jalan Birch but I am not sure the name of the restaurant. Judging from the waiting crowd, the food must be good.
Lots of people ordered noodles but Daddy wanted to try the Bak Kut Teh instead. We ordered a set & another plate of fried bee hoon. And yes, we waited quite some time for our food to come. Boy! Were we hungry.
Our 1st POI for the day: Penang Butterfly Farm. RM27/adt & RM15/chd.
There were many variety of butterflies; colourful ones too. They were everywhere. We joined a guided tour & marvelled at the different types of species. The guide taught us how to spot the camouflage ones, how to peek at those mating (LOL), showed us the actual life cycle of a butterfly; from a caterpillar to a cocoon & then emerge as a butterfly. Lionel told me he learned abt this in class too. Its good to have the kids see the real thing as they learned along :)
One butterfly chose to land on Rachel's nose & stayed there. It got transferred from one child to another. We even got a chance to release butterflies. See below video.
The Escape Adventureplay was just next doors but as we were not in appropriate wear ( sports wear, socks & sports shoes required), we did not enter the grounds.
We passed by the factory outlet & did a little window shopping. Factory outlet but not factory prices...
Passed 2pm, we were again in for a late lunch. We had ours at Magic 1 Restaurant.
We purchased tickets for the Tropical Spice Gardens. While inside the garden, I was casually asking Daddy how is that with so many cars parked outside, it seems very quiet inside here. Daddy can only shrugged.
We ended up in this Tree Monkey cafe & ordered mango with sticky rice, banana splilt & Sunrise Paradise (drink). We enjoyed the atmosphere, the breeze, the view (facing the beach). But the weather is threatening to rain.
While waiting for Daddy to drive over the car; we parked quite a distance away from the Spice Garden, i can now answer my own question I post to Daddy earlier on. Yes, there were many cars but the people were all on the beach. Gosh! There were people on the sands, in the waters, up in the air (parasailing)...
We made our way to Butterworth on the mainland & it was raining heavily along the way. One of Daddy's clients' Dad own a restaurant here - Zi Wei Yuan Steamboat. This is also a heavily recommended place for dinner which opens from 6pm - 11pm only.
But alas, we did not know the restaurant was closed from the 09 Feb ~ 15 Feb so there goes our hope of trying the steamboat. Even the restaurant next to it, Tian Tian Lai was packed as well. The service staff told us due to the number of customers, we have to wait at least 1.5 hrs if we wanna have our food.
Okay, that was not what we expected. We drove on the road again & settled our dinner at the food court again. The same concept as yesterday's dinner place. Notice 2 little pigs? Cute, isnt it? I had to snap a pic of it quickly before they were pinched by two little monkeys. Not the real ones; I mean the 2 kids, Lionel & Rachel. Haha.
Daddy bought dessert @ Tang Bo Fu ( aka Tang Bo Hu). Tasty & cooling.
11 February 2013 (Mon): We had breakfast & were on our way towards.....
Breakfast @ Akoko Noodle House, just beside our hotel. Since it was quite crowded & it was the only nearby eatery that was opened on the 2nd day of CNY, we assumed the noodles must be good. Verdict: Not too bad. :)
We were on the road again.
Penang Bridge. Yes, our destination for the day ~ Penang. The drive took us about 2 hrs.
Our hotel for the next 2 nights.
No particular recommedation, we chose to have our lunch at this restaurant. We wanted to have porridge but only Tze Char style food was available. We were fine with it.
Our 1st POI, the Clan Jetties along Pengkalan Weld. This is where our GPS comes in handy. There were many cars on the road & no parking lot was available. We managed to find one after going round once.
We visited the Chew Jetty ( 姓周桥) which was one of the recommended ones in the travel forums.
We walked along & the kids were fascinated by what they saw along the way. The souvenirs, T-shirts, the surrounding water; they peeked inside the houses, in between the wooden planks, zig-zagging here & there, wondering & guessing what's behind every turns & corners; we saw police posts, salons, shops selling favoured crush ice - oh so cooling on a hot, sunny day.
And because we bought a few street art T-shirts from an old couple, they very kindly allowed us into their house to look around. Penang is very well known for its various street art in & around Georgetown.
Their home reminded me of my kampong days in the old Paya Lebar settlement. Very similar style. :P
They even have newspaper cuttings on the various drawings, its whereabouts & the completion date. All very interesting.
We saw a lion dance performance at the temple inside Chew Jetty & even see fire crackers. Loud deafening sound, making me jump. See video below.
Yup, that's a fire engine u saw in the picture. No doubt abt that. :)
We went towards Khoo Kongsi, another forum recommended POI. Admission: RM10/adt & RM1/chd.
Yup, these are the street art I mentioned earlier. Haha, the kids tried their best to imitate the drawings.
We wanted to visit Dr. SYS's base but it was already closed. It was already after 5pm. So we walked along the streets & came to this Ben's Vintage Toy Museum. The owner was preparing to close too but he allowed us in. Please pay RM10/adt & RM6/chd.
We debated on whether to go up Penang Hill as it was already in the evening. A check with the children & they were not hungry, so we decided to make a trip up. Keying in the destiantion on the GPS, we soon came to the foot of the hill. Penang Hill or as the locals called it, Bukit Bendera.
The rates were a great difference between the tourist & locals. For a standard ticket, it costs RM30/adt for tourist but for only RM8/adt for the locals. As Rachel puts it, "SO UNFAIR".
Even for a family package for 2A/2C, it costs RM70 for us.
The Owl Museum is another attraction on the top of Penang Hill.
We stupidly believed that the wood carvings tools & unfinished product were left behind by the staff. Daddy tried his dumbest to pick up the carving knife & this was when we realised they were all props; for show; not real. Duh...
It was a long queue for the tram ride downhill. We waited like almost 2 hours & therefore, we had a late dinner at the foot of the hill. Its a food court selling many varieties of food, from char kway teow, tim sum, satay, bak kut teh to noodles, tze char, ice kachang....
