by Penny on August 31, 2010
Last Friday we brought Ryan to Genting Highlands to celebrate his 3rd birthday. We had a total of 9 of us, including Ryan. He went on a couple of indoor theme park rides, nothing at he outdoor theme park though, but it’s just as well because it was a rainy day and the rides were still wet when we were there. We just walked about the outdoor theme park and Ryan played for a while at the playground. Not worth the money we spent on those tickets, really.
We brought along birthday cupcakes for Ryan and bag loads of birthday presents and he had a really good time opening them one by one that night. He received all sorts of wonderful new toys but his favourite were clearly the Batman and Joker figurines, which we bought as an additional present just because we saw them at some carts selling toys. Good thing we did because he likes them more than the “main” gifts! Haha.
I also want to mention that the queue to check in for the hotel rooms were really ridiculous. We waited for 3 hours for our number to be called up so that we can get the room keys. Don’t know why it was such a packed weekend there. Or maybe it’s always packed, huh?
I sometimes wonder how many people are actually up there. I heard that the number of staff in Genting itself is more than 10,000 people. I think the number of visitors there will easily be 3 or 4 times the number of staff, right? Hmm…no wonder Genting is making so much money, people who hold management jobs with the company must be making handsome bonuses!
Well, crowd and rain aside, we all had a good time. Including me, first time entering the casino there! And not too bad for beginner’s luck to triple my capital placed in less than 5 minutes! Hehe. I quickly cashed out with that winning and happily walked out of the casino.
The pictures are still sitting in the SD card in the camera, haven’t downloaded them. Will do so one of these days, so no photos to share for now 
by Penny on August 26, 2010
Recently I was in the area and decided to drop by Book Xcess to check out their 3-day anniversary sales. I picked up a few good buys but the one that I’m most impressed with is this space station book for Ryan. Look at the pictures below.
The first image below shows the hardcover of the book. From a recommended retail price of RM94.90, this book retails at Book Xcess for RM17.90. It’s a real good buy, not to mention you may even sometimes get a discount on top of that low price!
Now when you open up the book, this is what it becomes…a really cool pop-up book. Check it out and tell me if you are awed.
A 3-dimensional space station!! It’s got lots of fine details printed on it and the way it is made is simply amazing. We adults stared at it in awe. Imagine how a book can turn out to be this cool.
This book also comes with some press-out characters and space ships for you to place on the space station. I guess this is a boy’s version of playing dress up paper dolls. I’ll be visiting Book Xcess every now and then to see if they will stock up more of such books. I’d be the number one fan for such amazing pop-up books.
Nowadays, children’s toys are getting so high-tech and fascinating. Soon, they will be expecting all kinds of cool gadgets rather than the simpler toys we used to have as kids. Nowadays I think a regular mobile phone won’t be quite the in-thing for children, they’d be asking for at least an iPhone (with additional iphone warranty too!), don’t you agree?
by Penny on August 25, 2010
Ryan’s birthday is coming up this Friday. He’s turning 3 years old then. We’re all excited and looking forward to spend the day with him. He’s also quite excited as we have been bringing him out shopping for birthday presents. We’ve also been shopping for jackets for him as we intend to bring him to Genting Highlands to enjoy the cool breeze for a change. Because of that, the mummy is also on the look out for women’s sweaters (excuse to shop, ahem!).
I hope he will enjoy himself there, going on some kiddie rides, playing at the outdoor playground, and whatever else the Genting theme park has to offer. I think the cool weather itself should put us all in great moods to start with.
This will be Ryan’s second visit to Genting Highlands. His first was almost 2 years ago, so I bet he can’t remember much about it. Hope this time around he will remember it better.
Looking forward to it already
by Penny on August 17, 2010
We’re planning to send Ryan to a play school next year. The thing is, I don’t know where to start looking for suitable schools. Should I just ask for recommendations from friends and then go to those schools to visit one by one? How did you get started looking for play schools for your kids?
I also have no clue as to what is the average fee for such schools. Any parents out there can help to enlighten me a little? How much do I need to spend on average for a kid going to play school at the age of four?
It didn’t seem this hard for me to find my own university back then, or even browsing around for Online Schools to pick up some additional classes. But when it comes to play schools and kindergartens, I seem so lost…anyone in the same boat? Come and join hands with me and hopefully some of the more experienced parents who read this plight will come to our rescue. Hehe…
by Penny on August 15, 2010
Have you heard of the cool e-book reader called Kindle from Amazon.com? I’ve read raving reviews of the e-reader and it has even been scored better than the iPad as a reader. That must be something, to be placed ahead of iPad!
It’s sleek and slim, weighs a little less than a paperback book, comes with great looking accessories and the battery can last for weeks on end after just one full charge. It’s an amazing reader to be carrying around with lots of capacity to store countless books in. It comes with wi-fi too! Look at the latest generation of the Kindle pictured below, isn’t it so cool?
I was very keen to purchase it and after many weeks of thinking it over, I decided to give myself a treat and purchase it from Amazon’s website. But to my disappointment, I found that Amazon doesn’t deliver electronic products to Malaysia. Well, actually not just electronic products, there are some products they don’t send to this part of the world too.
After chatting with a friend about this, I was further enlightened with the “challenges” of trying to purchase a Kindle into Malaysia. Apparently shipping is only the first hurdle to cross. I was told that Amazon won’t even accept my credit card to pay for Kindle simply because it is a Malaysian credit card. I think due to the history of credit card frauds in this country, the USA has banned our credit cards for specific types of purchases. How sad, huh?
But it’s been quite long since this kind of credit card frauds have been happening here. I think most banks have already taken steps to beef up security of the cards to make it more difficult to clone them. Perhaps the level of security is still not as technologically advanced as compared to the US. We can’t be compared to the US where they even have rfid blocking wallets which are easily available to consumers.
I just hope that there will be some easier way for me to get a Kindle. It’s so sleek and useful. Such a pity we can’t enjoy such a gadget here. Anyone going to the US anytime soon? Can help to buy me one when you are there? 
