Fly Me To The Sun (Way Lagoon)

We just returned from our 4D/3N KL-Sunway Lagoon holiday last night. This was the third time Jaimie has gotten her passport stamped on; the first two times had been trips to Genting Highlands. This time, however, was this little girl's maiden ride on an aeroplane. Not those kiddy aeroplane rides that Jae had till now associated "taking a plane" with, mind you, but the real deal (Note: Since her Genting Theme Park experience, whenever being asked "Have you ever been on an aeroplane?", Jae would always respond with a resounding "Yes!").

Like the previous two holidays in Malaysia with Jae, this one had been both fun and tiring. Those ocassions when you wanted to do something or get to somewhere but an overwhelmingly disruptive force was at work to foil your every attempt to do so were especially trying. You wanna go east, she'd be breaking loose and making a dash towards the west. You wanna stay put for a peaceful meal (Wow. I just realised as I was typing that this is one thing we havn't experienced in a long time as a family), she'd be performing a Houdini from the high chair. It's like wadding through quicksand. Nevertheless, it wasn't as if these were anything we hadn't come across prior to the trip, nor not know how to handle. It was a good thing that this was one of those free-and-easy holiday, and the fact that we had absolute control over our programme made it very manageable and therefore more enjoyable.

Armed with my trusty Canon 400D and the up till now grossly under-utilised Olympus mju-790SW, the total number of pictures taken with these two shooters throughout this trip was a respectable 326. Took me a long while to sort through them - deleting really blurry, CMI and duplicate ones.

Here're some highlights of the trip~
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After checking in just one piece of our luggage and having received our boarding passes, we had dinner at Popeye's, cleared the immigration counter and very casually proceeded to the designated gatehold area. Along the way, we stopped to take souvenir pictures with the characters from Disneyland, currently putting up as guests at the Changi Airport. Unlike those displays at the publicly accessible areas, these hardly had any crowd and there wasn't a need to hustle in queue for an hour just to depress that shutter button in front of that talking rodent.



These are the ticket stubs of Jae's maiden flight. I've saved them so they can join the other items in Jae's Time Capsule. We flew by JAL. The flight from Singapore to KLIA was really quite empty, as you'd be able to tell from one of the pic in the collage below. Ok, that the pic showed not a single soul is a little exagerated, since we got priority when boarding (travelling with kids has its priviledges~) and the shot was taken shortly after we'd boarded, but the fact was the plane took off with really few passengers on it.

Before take-off, a Japanese air stewardess brought a tray-full of goodies to Jae, and offered the little one to take her pick. I ended up grabbing the plush toy plane (the detachable engines are binoculars and they actually work!) on her behalf and got to pry the deck of playing cards from her fingers. The journey by plane was a short one, lasting only about 40 minutes. Jae was quite excited especially during the taking off and landing sequences, when I would give her a running commentary of what was going on and what she would be expecting to come. Mommy had prepared ample supply of haw flakes snack, which she generously offered to Jae just prior to and during taking off. The little one didn't have any complaints due to discomforts from pressure changes, so that was good.

It wasn't surprising that she told us later that she'd enjoyed the rides on the aeroplanes.


Our first destination was the Berjaya Times Square in KL. The tour agent had arranged for a limosine to pick us up from the KLIA. When we reached the hotel, it was already past Jae's regular bedtime, so it was hitting the showers and then onto the bed. As you'd be able to tell from the pics below, the girls liked the bed in the deluxe suite that we'd paid an extra S$30 per night to upgrade from the regular rooms. Oh, the other thing that Jae enjoyed was the bathtub. My only complain was that the water took forever to heat up during one of Jae's bathtubbing sessions.


Berjaya Times Square. The shopping complex is located just adjacent to the hotel tower. There was a convenient linkway at the 14th storey, so we could traverse from our hotel room to the retail sections (relatively) quickly. The shopping complex was HUGE, but according to Angie (after an hour of window shopping during Jae's afternoon nap on the second day), it was like a gigantic This Fashion outlet. She returned empty-handed, and sorely dissapointed.


The highlights of our 2-night stay at the BTS was of course the playtime at COSMO'S WORLD. A signage there proudly proclaimed it to be "the largest indoor theme park in Malaysia" (which isn't saying much, actually). Thanks to meekfreek, who gave us vouchers from her previous visit to that place, we didn't have to play for the entrance tickets. We realised we only needed two vouchers, since the staff informed us that Jae could enter for free. We quickly found out that that wasn't a good thing at all. This place had a very stringent safety regime that prohibited visitors below (or above for certain rides) the stipulated high limits from taking the rides. This meant that Jae could only get on 4 of the rides, which she ended up taking over and over again.


The rides that Jae was allowed on were those that permitted kids below 3ft (91cm) to get on with an accompanying adult. They were (clockwise from top left): (1) Crazy Bus, (2) Botanic Drive, (3) Fantasy Trail and (4) Buddy Go Round. In case you are wondering how was it that Jae was unaccompanied in (3), well that was quickly taken after the ride had stopped and mommy had hopped off the carriage.


Consistent with her preferences exhibited during her previous trips to the Genting Theme Parks, the ride that Jae enjoyed the most was the merry-g0-round (called Buddy Go Round here). She went on this many many times, and tried all the different mounts they had e.g. the catepillar one, the revolving cup one, the space shuttle one and the velociraptor one (I'm guessing here, since the creature looked like a cross between a chicken and a dinosaur).


Thankfully, besides the kiddy rides, there was also a playground area that Jae could have fun in. Oh, there was also a Kids Theatre that screened children movies. When we got in, they were playing "Finding Nemo". Jae didn't seem to be very interested. After around five minutes, she clammered to leave, so we proceeded out for dinner at Sushi King. Maybe she was hungry.


Ok ok....fast forward to Day 3, and to Sunway Lagoon. Even though we didn't upgrade the room for the Pyramid Tower Hotel, we prefered this over the BTS one. The overall ambience was better, and it didn't have that irritating card-activated lift (that failed to work during one of our trips in it), nor an emerald-coloured vanity top in the toilet (which Angie disliked enough to voice it out to me). These pics below were taken from our hotel room window.


We'd found out beforehand that there were many theme parks there, including an amusement park, a wildlife park, something called "Extreme Park" and of course the water park. Since we had only one day at the Sunway Lagoon, we could only settle for one of these, so it was decided that our afternoon shall be spent frolicking in the water park. The entrance was per entry and children below 90cm enter for free (the staff actually made Jae stand at the height chart to ascertain her height).

Ah, this is where my Olympus mju-790SW shock and water proof digicam came in handy. Since I'd known we were going for this trip, I'd gotten this second-hand camera off ebay, but had until now little opportunity to put it to the test. As you can see, it worked really well both above and under water. Before this trip, I'd also come across posts in online forums where netizens griped about how lousy Sunway Lagoon was, about how poor the maintenance there was and how dirty and murky the water in the pool was blah blah blah. Well, I was glad that the water wasn't so murky as to ruin my underwater shots, afterall.

Pictures of Jae having fun by herself...


With mommy...


With daddy...


We spent close to four hours in the water park, after which we headed back for a quick shower and then out again to the adjoining Sunway Pyramid shopping mall. If I'm not mistaken, this was even larger than the one at BTS. The place was ENORMOUS! One could quite easily get disoriented in the many interconnected branches and sections of this place, which I think would very accurately be categorised as a shopping complex. It even had an ice skating arcade on its basement level.

It was while traversing the very large footprint of this place that my sandals decided that they had had enough. Angie convinced me to buy a pair of Reebok sandals (pictured in top RH corner) as a replacement before they fell apart completely.

That smiling lady pictured below is Ella Koon. She was doing some promotion for the Follow Me line of products at one of the atriums (yes, they have multiple atriums there). We didn't know who she was until I googled her up and found out that she's some HK actress-singer.

We had Sushi King for dinner two days in a row.


Even in the shopping mall, there were plenty of activities to kept the little one occupied. The animal rides were cheap at 3RM, and lasted quite a long while (unlike those in Singapore). The mini ferris wheel ride was FOC. Angie had only got to flash her Master card, that's all.


Finally it was time to leave Sunway Lagoon. Jae stared wistfully out of the window, wondering when we'd be coming back here again.

The Sunway Lagoon leg of the trip had definitely been more fun than the one over at BTS. If we were to come to KL again, we'd just skip BTS and come straight here.


After a fully-packed four day trip, it is now time to rest, rest and rest. (Clockwise from top left: on bed in BTS hotel room, inside limosine enroute to airport, on bench in arrival hall of KLIA, at dining table in Sushi King of Sunway Pyramid)

Sweet dreams my dear....