Posts Tagged ‘Holidays - Malaysia’

Talking about Lunar New Year……..For the last 3 years, we have spent the “before” and “first part of Lunar New Year” overseas either in Hong Kong or Malaysia.  Others joked that we are trying to avoid giving red packets or ang baos.  This is definitely not the case because we still visit our relatives and friends in the remaining of the 15th day of Lunar New Year, red packets are still prepared and several reunion sessions still take place.

The fact is when we have close relatives spread in different parts of the world, paying them a visit during Lunar New Year becomes common. And when the best time for my family to take a short break overseas is usually during the festive occasions …..especially without having to be disturbed by Papa Ed’s overseas job commitment…

One word I would like to use to describe this year’s Lunar New Year is “RUSHING“!  This year’s Lunar New Year is like the last 2 years, somehow “HAPPENING” and “OCCUPIED”.  After rushing home from our little visit to China,  we had to rush through our home spring cleaning. THEN we drove a long distance to Malaysia before the Lunar New Year started and had our family reunion and some fun time and yet another cooling season there with our boys in Genting Highlands, Malaysia.  THEN we rushed home to have our several reunion sessions and visiting. Mum-in-law flew in from USA to join us for this year’s Lunar New Year celebration but ended up with a bad fall:( So, mum-in-law was rushed to hospital (fortunately she is feeling better now). THEN we had to rush through our children’s huge pile of homework and then rushed back to office again.

[The official Lunar New Year holidays in Singapore this year is only first three days. I am also wondering why can't the boys be spared of the huge piles of school homework ...for once...even on special occasion? We could not really enjoy our overseas trip and Lunar New Year celebration without remembering that "Hello, Brendan has to finish his countless school homework before he returns to school."]

So, it is really “RUSHING”, right? *haiz*.

We are planning more Lunar New Year visiting over this weekend.  For now, here are the happy moments that we had just a week ago at Genting Highlands, Malaysia…just the four of us, finally having a peaceful time without being disturbed by work:)

Rest and Relax….

My little one enjoying his little moments with his legs soaked in warm water, preparing for leg massage:)

Accomodation….

Our spacious lodging at World Club Room of First World Hotel, Genting Highlands Malaysia.

Fun moments….

Enjoying their rides at the indoor theme park

Thrilling moments at the game arcade

Enjoying our cooling moments at the outdoor theme park

Beautiful blooms…..

Beautiful blooms..so lovely:)

Shopping…..

Gong Xi Fa Cai! The best thing is that the shops in the First World is OPEN during the Lunar New Year holidays:)

The reality about having a short vacation break is, it is too short to feel recharged.  And….I came back busier than ever…trying to make up for lost time. So, I have been unable to share our experiences till now.

As my regular readers will know, we like to expose our kids to nature and most importantly, the kids love it! Yes, especially ANIMALS.  So, we ventured into the “little” wildlife park when we were at the Sunway Lagoon.  The wildlife park is not too big, but I like the open concept, where most of the animals (except for the smaller ones) are roaming around freely <I mean the harmless animals, of course>.

Here are some snapshots of our moments at the park and also collection of the animals. BTW, this post is specially featuring the WILDLIFE PARK only:)

Hey! We were here at Wildlife Park, Sunway Lagoon!

Animal gallery

The kids, especially Brendan, and mommy were so excited! Our favourite Chipmunk, real in action! Have never ever seen this in Singapore before.

Hi old friend, Joey! I miss my favourite Aussie animal. Never fail to look out for one "hopping" across the road while in Australia.

Bird Aviary

Making our entry into the bird aviary. Was quite an experience because most of the birds were flying or strolling around freely…and we could even have close eye contact with the OWL and EAGLE which were resting peacefully on the trees while we walked down the steps. They did not seem disturb by our photography either.

Strolling freely............Not abit disturbed by our presence.

The wise OWL....

The sharp EAGLE

We like our close encounter with animals..though I am not so confident that I dare to hold them though (errr..except for the pets that we keep at home). What about you?  I like these photos too <Thanks to Papa Ed who had to multi-task as a photographer.>

To me,  it is always an eye-opening experience to be able to visit new destinations. However, the most important is still the company that you are travelling with and my preference (at least for now) is choosing an enjoyable destination for the young kids.

During the short break that we had, we drove up to our neighbouring country, Malaysia.

We have visited Malaysia countless times but this is the FIRST TIME that we visited Sunway Lagoon in Petaling Jaya. Why is this trip so worth mentioning?  Well, it is the FIRST TIME that Papa Ed planned the destination and also did the reservation [I guess I have been performing the planning of family trips for too long and it feels great to have someone else take over] *phew*.  So it came as a pleasant surprise two days before departure when I received the call from him in office that he had made reservation for a short trip - somewhere where the kids could enjoy the amusement park, water park and wildlife while I could take a short break from work, at last and of course ….shopping at the  mega shopping centre (Sunway Pyramid Shopping):)

So, how’s our travelling journey?

We took the North South Highway from Tuas Link and went on our journey. The journey was slightly longer (about 7 hours!) due to the long traffic jam along the Tuas Link. Usual time taken from Tuas Link (without the traffic jam) would be about 3-5 hours. With a GPS, the direction was clear. We took the exit at Sungei Besi and drove along Shah Alam Expressway. There are clear signages along the way to direct us to Sunway Lagoon. It took about 15 minutes to drive from the exit at Sunger Besi to our destination. And…the travelling journey was pleasant afterall ..(though tiring for the driver)..because the boys were well-behaved. [Well done boys! ]

What are the accomodations in Sunway Lagoon?

There are the Sunway Lagoon Resorts Hotel and also Sunway Pyramid Hotel. Papa Ed chose the latter hotel and we were lucky to be allocated a room with great view (it overlooks the theme park.  For the particular room package that we have booked, we were also provided with a complimentary bed and theme park admission tickets for the family.

Then, what are the comments or tips that I would like to share?

Hope these are useful tips if you are also making your trip to Sunway Lagoon.

1) Avoid going during public holidays or busy weekends. The tourist attraction is so packed that you might have to squeeze or join long queue. Room service is also delayed and I guess that is normal when occupancy rate is high during holidays.

2) Be early. The parks are opened from 10am to 6pm (closed every TUESDAY except during Malaysian school holidays, public holidays) and re-entry, even within the same day, is not allowed.  Hence, you would have to complete your trips to all the different parks within 10am - 6pm.  Though we were in house guests, we were required to join the long queues with many others for almost 2 hours for our admission wrist watches. So, when we finally managed to collect the wrist watches, it was already noon and then we had to go back to the hotel because we were told that water bottles were not allowed into the park and that we could not gain re-entry later. So we had to go back and collect our swim suits. Hence, effectively we had lost 2.5 hours.

Then we noted the long queues for the breaskfast buffet as early as 8.30 am in the morning and thank goodness we were hungry enough to be at the restaurant at 8am.

3) The Pyramid Hotel charges a day’s rate for internet usage beyond an hour of usage. So the best thing during vacation is just enjoy and relax and so why bother about the internet? However, why do we feel so handicapped when we have a PC without internet access? Do you feel so too? [Haiz... it has become a habit for Papa Ed to bring a notebook when we travel].

Finally, we will share our family experiences and some photos for our trip in another post. The trip was brief due to our work commitment but it was certainly a well-spent time with the companions that we enjoy:) Here’s a snapshot of us in holiday mood! We are already looking forward to our next overseas trip in two months’ time:)