I saw this Kidzania building last year when I drove to Ikea. From the look of the building, I know that this is another new kids’ thing in town. My supplier told me about it as they were one of the sponsors for their program.

Basically your child can earn money by doing the job roles in Kidzania. You can be a firefighter, police officer, judge, post master, doctor and many more. Each job they do, they earn Kidzania money. They can use the money to buy stuff, play, learn certain skills, enter Kidzania University or rent a car.

For this holiday, I decided to let my kids try it. Emily was very enthusiastic but Tim was reluctant. I bought the tickets online. Tip number 1, if it is a school holiday, make sure you book the tickets online. You do not want to queue for ticket there. However, once sold there is no refund.

Next tip, plan what your child wants to do. There are those popular jobs that require long wait time like Firefighter, police officers, CSI agents and hospitals jobs. Most of them are 20 minutes per session. For firefighter, they only allow 8 children to go at one time because there are only 8 water hose. Here is something, Kidzania can improve. Although there are 8 water hose, they can arrange 8 child to hose for 5 minutes and next 8 to go for another 5 minutes. Now you can have 16 children to go at one time. It saves a lot of time!

My kids love the CSI and secret agents. My boy had to jump from a 3 storey building with secure ropes which frighten him a little. However he made it.

My girl tried many jobs like firefighter, CSI, secret agent, bank security officer and flight attendant. She got enough and told me now I want to drive a car. She went to car rental only to find out she needs a driving license. In order to get driving licenses, she needs to buy insurance and go for eye test. With the little time that we have, we just couldn’t do all that. Poor gal, she didn’t get a chance to use the money she made. However she banked it in and told me, next time she will use it.

Yeap, it was a great experience for them and me. However 5 hours definitely wasn’t enough as there were lots of children and long waiting time. There were lots of preschool and kindy children which I believe they were too young for it. Most of the time, they just do what they are told. I am not sure how much they understood.

At 11:30pm, a call for my girl. Wow at this hour, her friend call for her. My girl is already asleep. I told her friend that it is late to be calling your friend. Then she asked me what time my girl will be free tomorrow. *faint*

I wonder does her parent know she is calling at this hour. Fortunately she is not a boy, else there will be 101 questions from me.

It is really amazing how girls start boiling porridge with the phone at such a young age. First call received on May 15, 8pm and I must record this down.

I took these pictures a while back when I was in KL. Every country has a bear and my children were picking the country they like to take a picture with. They are really cute but we cannot carry any home.

Emily was rewarded last year for her good exam results with a guinea pig called Dash. She was requesting for a girlfriend for Dash if she do well this year for her exams. Yesterday, we were at the pet store and found a bigger cage. We got it.

The new cage is so much easier to clean because I can separate the top and bottom. It is so much bigger for Dash to run around and do some exercise on his own. He doesn’t like to come out of his cage. Every time I changed his cage, he will like to crawl back inside.

This cage also has a bottom compartment for him to hide himself. He loves to be in the dark. I also can put a litter box for him to do his business. However I learnt that Guinea pig cannot be toilet train.
One more thing is that this cage does not have holes at the bottom. Bedding or poop will not fly outside of the cage when Dash jumps around. Yeap he jumps around when he is happy.

By the way, Dash greets me every morning when I walk down stairs with his squeaky sound.

I am happy and Dash is happy.

Old Cage:

I got into playing this additive game called Draw Something. You draw and your friend will guess. You can invite your friend through email, username or Facebook. I started will playing with strangers but more of my FB friends join in.

This is the toughest picture I had to draw, guess what it is?

There are people who do not know the meaning of the game and kept putting up questions for me to guess. One stranger drew a girl with no clue and expected me to know the name of the girl. Hello! There are thousands of artist out there. Another one, typed out the whole song and asked me to guess the singer. I had to call Google for help. Now I will pass those who ask me questions. One person called me an idiot because I passed. Really funny people out there!

Well, now I just stick to playing with friends. It is much more fun. Like once I really played till very late, probably sleepy. I drew “wink” but the word was kangaroo. However my cousin could guess it and she SMS my picture to me. LOL.

If you are looking for a fun app, you should play this. My kids also love to help me draw.

Last Dec, we went up to Penang Hill early in the morning. I am glad that not many people and the queue were short. The train came very fast. In fact the operator told us, the new train only takes 5 minutes to go up. Compare to the old one, it is so much better. Adult ticket is RM8 and Child ticket is RM4 for Malaysian. Remember to keep the ticket for return trip, unless you want to hike down.

The view up there is breath taking. We paid RM30 for a buggy to take our family of 4 round the hill. We saw many luxurious bungalows, a broken bridge, lots of trees, plants and a very old postbox dated 1818.

I will definitely go up there again. The air is really fresh!

The Funicular Railway

Breath Taking View

The Tea Cafe

The Old Train

The Hill Map

The Oldest Postbox Dated 1818

Happy to receive this from Hasbro!

It started when I bought a Kreo-O Megatron Lego set for Timothy when I was in Hong Kong. However I discovered there were 2 pieces missing and we cannot build the Megatron robot. Sigh. I hopped on to the Hasbro website and found the customer service web page. I wrote to them using their online form. After a few weeks, there were no replies.

One night while I was working during US time, I tried out their CS online chat service. After a few tries, it failed to connect me to an agent. Being persistent I never give up. I decided to put United State as my location and wah la…it connected me to an agent. I got to chat with her online and because I am from AP, she will ask the AP manager to contact me.

The Hasbro manager did email me and I got a surprise. He asked me to send back the current set and he will send me a new replacement set. However, I just told him that I needed the missing pieces. He said that he will need to open up a new set and find the missing pieces. It was better for him to send me the new set. Hey how can I argue with that, right?

Here is the package and my children can make the Megatron again! This is what I call great Customer Service.

One day, I decided to surf the net to check out some local vacation spot for my children. It is very simple for them, all I need is a hotel room with bathtub, a TV with cartoon network and a big nice swimming pool.

Anyway, I stumble on Hot Springs in Ipoh. That will be a good relaxing spot for my hubby and me. I got a special deal for the hotel and a free voucher to the Hot Springs for 2 with breakfast. The Hot Springs is just opposite the hotel.

My family loved it. The Hot Springs only start at 6pm and the water is of course very warm. It has 8 different pool and 1 suana cave. Entrance fee is RM15 per person. I felt refresh after soaking for a good 30 minutes. There are also water jets to do some massaging as you soak yourself in the pool.

Next day, Emily pestered me to bring her to the Petting Zoo. Actually I have no plans to go into the Theme Park as entrance fees for the family is pricey. It was a hot day too and I rather stay in door. After much pestering, we decided to go.

The Petting Zoo was great as we got to feed the animals. Timothy enjoyed feeding the parrots. The parrots were smart, they use their beak to pick up the kuaci, crack it, take the seed and leave the shells on our hand. I liked feeding the smaller birds. I put seeds in my hand, lifted it high and the birds land on my hand and start pecking all the seeds. However there was a huge bird flew by and took all the seeds away. It was fun for my children and I.

My children went for the water fun after that. How can they resist? We allowed them to play for a while before we head back home.

Enjoy the pictures:

On the second day of Chinese New Year, Emily developed wheezing at night and a slight fever. Due to public holiday, most clinics were closed. I resort to bringing her to the hospital (Pantai Medical Cheras), at least they have emergency wad open. Oh boy, there was a queue and we waited. Everyone has to wait, no difference whether emergency or not.

It came to our turn and here is the conversation with the MO.

Doc: What’s wrong with her?
Me: She has wheezing and need the nebulizer. She also has a slight fever.
Doc: You doctor? *taken back by his sarcasm, I went speechless*
Doc: Does she have flu?
Me: Yes, started with runny nose 2 days ago.
Doc: What color what her phlegm or nose discharge?
Me: Don’t know because no discharge, she didn’t even blow her nose.
Doc: I don’t mean to be rude but I need to understand her situation…bla bla..bla.. *yeah right*
Doc: Is she asthmatic?
Me: Nope. But she is allergic to certain type of food like M&M and Japanese biscuit. Every time she takes it, she will get wheezing.
Doc: I believed she is asthmatic. Did you take her to see a specialist?
Me: Yes, in fact her doctor is a pediatrician.
Doc: Did she do a test?
Me: No because her wheezing attack is not frequent. Once or twice a year.

He kept going on about her being asthmatic. Well next time, I go to my pediatric doc, I will ask her. I still don’t believe my girl is asthmatic. Maybe she is allergy to certain food that causes the wheezing. I read in the web that allergy is not asthma.

After she had a cause of nebulizer, she felt much better. Note to self, I need to bring the nebulizer unit with me the next time I travel with her. In fact after 1 day, she totally recovered with no fever.

That’s not the end. I went to the pharmacy to collect medication. Guess what? The nurse gave me 2 bottles of fever medicine, 1 bottle of antibiotic, 1 bottle of ventolin and 1 bottle of cough mixture. I was shocked to see 2 bottles of fever medicine as she only have mild fever.

I rejected 1 bottle of fever med and antibiotic. I believed it is not necessary. I got a refund of RM$60. Make sure you check the medicine that your doctor give you. Not all are needed.

However, they couldn’t give me a bill with refund taken out. Some more the officer dared to ask me to claim more from my company. *rolled eyes* Really where is the ethics here?

That’s it, no more Pantai Medical Cheras for me. The first time, the MO failed to put an IV and now this. Hrmm, wonder how they train the officers there.

I must say that Hong Kong people are very creative. As I was there, I saw different creation of Christmas Trees. They must put lots of thoughts into attracting people to see these trees. Let me show you the different types of Christmas trees here. Aren’t they creative?

Chocolate Tree:

Recycle Box Tree:

Glass Tree:

Colorful Tree:

Huge Normal Tree: