A First Trip Abroad

On 6th Sept, we made our first family trip abroad - out of Singapore!!! YAY! It was a short getaway to KL, with the main aim of personally giving an angpao to one of our friends, whose wedding was on that Sunday.

On Saturday morning, we drove to the CCK park to meet up with the other friends who would be driving together. We reached there at about 8.50am and did not see anybody. Slowly, one by one arrived. When everyone was there, our "tour leader" briefed us on the "itinerary" of the drive. After that, all 9 adults, 2 toddlers and 2 babies, began on this journey, northwards, with the aid of 2 sets of walkie-talkie in case anyone was lost.

We took the Tuas link to enter Malaysia. There was no jam, fortunately. It rained on our way but everyone was driving at 110-120 km/h. This was considered slow by the country's standards. Thankfully, Ian slept most of the time in his cosy seat. He only yelled in the car after our lunch break, but when all things did not work, a pacifier did the trick.

Sleeping prince

By the time we reached Melia Hotel, it was around 4pm. It was most unfortunate that only our room was not ready. So we had to wait until 5pm before we could check in. (Dissatisfaction #1)

We were so glad when the room was finally ready. However, the feeling was shortlived, for the room smelt of cigarette smoke. It was on a non-smoking floor, but the whole lobby was so smoky! We endured with this smell for the 2 days of stay. The room did look as pretty as it appeared on websites, but pictures would not tell you anything about the smell. (Dissatisfaction #2 - poor air quality in hotel) Perhaps, the only redeeming part of the stay was that the view was not bad. It faced the Berjaya Times Square, so at least there was something to see.

View from our room

By the time we finally settled down, it was almost 6pm. We only managed to walk around the first three storeys of Times Square before we returned to the hotel to meet the rest for dinner. While waiting for some, we had our welcome drink in the smoky bar. The fruit punch they served was rather good though.

Since it was drizzling, our group split up for dinner. The childless group went further to enjoy some 'hawker' food, whereas the rest of us crossed the street to Times Square to search for food. We randomly picked a Japanses restaurant - Sushi King. It did sound impressive, and the service was excellant (something that probably some local restaurants could take a leaf out from their book). But, the food itself was probably worth only what it costed. We had sashimi, sushi with some exotics like the Ikura, and chawamushi, and the bill came up to only 40 ringgit.

We spent some time checking out the indoor roller-coaster just outside the restaurant, before returning to the hotel. It was a challenge of arms muscle to bathe Ian. Hubby held Ian under the shower while I applied soap on him.

On the next day, all of us had Bak ku teh at a coffeeshop-like place, about 10 mins walk from the hotel. The KL version tasted very differently from our local ones. It had a herbal fragrance and was not spicy at all.

After lunch, the family-group proceeded to the famous KLCC. It was humongous! After an hour, we only managed to cover some parts of the 1st two storeys. However, we did not buy anything because everything could be found locally at the same price. We wanted to ascend the twin towers, but never did we expect that there was a daily quota for visitors. It closes on Mondays and thus we had to give it a miss in this trip.

We took the train and transferred to the monorail to get to the hotel. One good thing worthy of mention, was that when we entered the monorail train, a couple of people gave up their seats to those of us who were carrying our children.

It was almost 5pm when we reached - hardly enough time to get ready for the wedding dinner.

Twin Towers, seen from the exit of the train station

Attending the wedding banquet in KL was truly a different experience. The dishes - suckling pig, giant promfret, roast duck, cereal prawn, cheng tng - were hardly what we got to eat in banquets here. The dishes were served fast, which we liked. We also met up with many ex-colleagues.

On the way back to the hotel, I caught a glimpse of the KLCC, glittering in the night. I must admit that it looked beautiful there.

The next day, we took our own sweet time. We only started out for the return trip at 11pm. Hubby was exhausted, but everyone drove very quickly, much faster than the way here. Just before reaching the customs, all of us took one last chance to fill up our petrol tanks, at half price. Hubby bought the V-power oil to 'clean up' the oil tank.

All of us went our own way once we exited the customs.

In this trip, 2 life-saving gadgets to keep Ian quiet were the pacifier, and the Little Einstein Takealong Tunes. It was a good experience. Travelling with a baby is not easy.