Lego Wonderland

Our first visit to Legoland Malaysia was marred by the super heavy traffic at both the Singapore and Malaysia customs. The supposedly short journey to our holiday destination turned out to be a 7-hour excruciating journey of waiting to clear customs.

All frustration was forgotten when we reached the Lego Hotel, which was every child's dream and every adult young-at-heart's fantasy. Lego, Lego everywhere. Even the facade of the hotel looks like it was built from Lego blocks.

The hotel itself was very child-friendly. Even the room has a child-sized sink, toothbrush set, bathrobe and room slippers for the little ones. The Kingdom room is quite spacious for our family of three. Our girl chose the upper deck of the bunk bed, which has a pull-out bed at the bottom. The king-sized bed for the adults is very comfortable and spacious. There is even a sliding door for privacy.

The hotel's pools on the 5th floor comprise of an adult pool and a kiddie pool with huge Lego blocks floating around in the water. It was fun watching the kids having a whale of a time playing with the Lego blocks in the pool.

Since the theme park and water park close rather early at 7pm and 6pm respectively, there are special performances and movie nights on every night to entertain the hotel guests. Early bird catches the worms. Be sure to go for breakfast before 8am to avoid the long queue. The breakfast buffet at the Bricks Family Restaurant was a sumptious spread, with great varieties, ranging from Asian to Western. You will definitely find something for your taste buds.

Hotel guests have the privilege to enter the two theme parks half an hour before opening time at 10am. Surprisingly, there were not too many people queuing at most rides, so we were able to catch most of the rides, and even watched a 4-D Lego movie at the Lego Studios. Don't miss getting a bird's eye view of the entire Legoland from the Oberservation Tower!

We wanted to try the seemingly exciting Dino Island ride which features a towering steep water slide but it was closed for repair, much to our disappointment. But the thrilling roller coasters - The Dragon and Project X more than made up for it. As the weather got hotter in the afternoon, we went back to the hotel to rest and shower.

After a brief rest, our little girl was raring to go for the Water Park. It was much smaller compared to the main theme park. It was wet everywhere. We especially loved the water slides that plunged you down twisting and swirling tubes into the water! Also loved the man-made wave pool, if only the weather wasn't that hot.

Overall, it was a great escapade from the busyness of our mundane life. I was overawed by all the great Lego brick works in various designs. Star Wars fans will be delighted to know there are a lot of Star Wars-related miniature displays.

My favorite part of Legoland is the Miniland -- where a myriad ASEAN countries in miniatures
are displayed. We took several pictures at the Singapore miniature in all its SG50 glory! It was amazing how those Lego creators/builders are so creative and skillful with their hands.

Legoland is definitely a happy place where all childhood dreams come true! Even if you don't grow up with Legos, seeing so many Lego brick works in various shapes and designs will definitely put a smile on your face.

Malacca Magic

As this year's church camp was in Malacca, we decided to drive up instead of taking the coach. It took us about 4 hours, after clearing immigration customs and with only one rest stop, to arrive at the Equatorial Hotel in Malacca.

The Premier Suite was larger than we expected. It was very spacious and comfortable with a queen bed and a cosy day-bed by the window for Sweet Pea. The day-bed even came with drawn curtains for added privacy!

After checking in and freshening up, we immediately headed to the nearby Pahlawan Mall, which is just across from the hotel, for a late lunch. The mall was having a Peranakan themed promotion, so there were interesting displays of Peranakan's historical artefacts like the colorful beaded slippers and hand-weaved basket.
 

After dinner and sermon service, there was satay and chendol supper. Even though we were still filling full from the dinner, we could not resist the yummy chicken satay and chendol.

The second day was filled with sermon service and discussion sessions right up to 4pm. After that, it's free and easy and we headed to the famous Jonker Street for some sight-seeing.

As it was already late afternoon, it wasn't as scorching hot as the previous day, so we were able to take a leisurely stroll to the Dutch Square or Red Square as the historical structure and surrounding buildings are painted red. It is also known as the Stadthuys (which means city hall in Dutch). We also strolled past the Malacca river which had old houses alongside the river. If you had time on your hands, you could take a river cruise to have a scenic view of the old Malacca town.

If you were in the moods for a ride on the good-old trishaw, you would be spoilt for choice. We saw several trishaws heavily decorated in Disney designs such as Frozen complete with Elsa, Anna and Olaf plush toys. There were also Hello Kitty and other popular Disney characters. It was an interesting sight seeing these trishaws zipping around with light flickering and music blaring in the background!

Jonker Street was actually like the Ladies' Market in Hongkong. It got very busy and packed with both locals and tourists in the late evening and night. The street stalls were aplenty, selling all kinds of goods and even local foods like barbecued cuttlefish and even yoghurt ice cream. We stopped for dinner at the renowned Peranakan Nancy's Kitchen, and had to queue to take a seat inside. And what better way to wash down the spicy meal than with a bowl of delicious chendol!

One gem of a shop we discovered along Jonker Street was a pretty boutique named Sweet Summer Cottage that specialize in handmade soaps of various scents and designs. They also conduct classes for those keen to learn how to make soaps from scratch.

If time were not an issue, there were many interesting shops that can be explored at Jonker Street. But it could get very crowded when night fell.

It started to drizzle after dinner, and we had to quickly made our way back to the hotel. As the night came on, the crowds became thicker and it was really sardine-packed and sweaty to walk in the crowds. We were relieved to finally reach the hotel to have a nice, warm shower.

Malacca is a nice quaint town if you like its Peranakan history and culture, and of course the rich Peranakan foods. I would like to be back.