Trip to Malacca during June holidays (part 1)

WL had been trying to plan for a trip overseas for the kids for their June holidays. But due to many recent accidents in the news that am a bit paranoid of travelling.  For example, the missing of MH370 in Mar and till today the authorities have yet to find the plane!  And Korea sinking of the ferry that took the lives of the students on board who were on authorise school trip! And I remembered some tour buses accidents in Malaysia. And recent many kidnapped children cases in Malaysia. So I thought it would be better to travel on our own.

Anyway, the kids always loved staying at their gong gong's house in Melaka and I thought that would also save us the $ staying in hotel to buy more things for the kids and to eat more food! Haha..

Our first dinner was trying out a Chinese restaurant at the newly renovated Pahlawan shopping mall. I can't recall the name of the restaurant, something dragon I think... hahaha...

Food wise, ok, at least the kids are eating and enjoying them. Drinks were good, tried their sweet corn drink and vegetable drink and I had some tea with wolf berries and Ginseng, which was finished by my Alvan!

The newly renovated Pahlawan shopping mall was big. And many new shops found, with this interesting sweets shop. It's becoming a trend to customise sweets and the kids each bought a lollipop, which was very tough and sour... :( anyway, we thought the shop was very nicely decorated! 

And we finally had the chance to buy this big Putu Pering from Melaka.  As it's a weekday so basically there's no queue and WL had ordered 20 pcs of them!!! Don't worry, we didn't finish all, half were for my aunty's family!  Haha.. but we all enjoyed it and my Ashley was loving it. So we had this for supper on our first and last day for this trip! Haha..

We went nearby coffee shop for breakfast the  next day. And it had become my Alvan's habit to ask for his bag of cars the moment he sat on a table! 

We ordered food from most of the stalls except for chicken rice! Haha.. never been a habit of us to have chicken rice for breakfast!! The kids had wanton noodles, helper had laksa, I had fried kway tiao (which I liked cos it's Malaysia's style of eating with sweet sauce! ) and WL had mee hoon kway. Everyone was full and so we decided to head to the nearby shopping mall for some shopping.

These cartoon characters were recognised by my Alvan and he happily stood next to them waiting for us to take a shot for him! Hahaha.. and WL happened to be in this shot as well... lol...

We head back home after some like shopping and bought some pizza buns back for lunch!! And see my 3 monkeys having pillow fight here!!! All were snatching to sleep on the cars bed!!!

And we decided to pop over for the famous satay celup for our early dinner before we proceed to our walk at jonker!!!  Lucky for us, we reached at about 5:20pm and it was not very crowded and most important, we were the first to the pot of satay gravy!!!

I must say it was really yummy after sooooo many years not having it, for me!!! I really missed this food especially when this was a must eat food for me before married, every time when we head back to Malacca,  we must go for this at least once. But after having kids, my kids could not stand the heat and no patience to wait for the food to be cooked, so had never visited it since then. Of course, the one I used to visit is not this outlet. 

Ashley helping to pick up our ingredients to be cooked.

After our Dinner, off we went to our must visit place again, Jonker walk!!  Kids taking pictures with those steel structures during our toilet break!!! Lol...

Ashley's frozen face painting

Ashley is beginning to really like face painting recently.  Since her first face painting done at the LTA carnival, she would gladly queue for one if she got a chance.

And during the June holidays, most of the mall would come up with kids activities so parents can spend their money and kids can enjoy! Hahaha...

And so happened that SSC (Sembawang Shopping Center) was having the frozen theme activities so we brought the kids over for some fun on a Saturday evening. And I was aware of their face painting activity so managed to bring the kids over for fun and dinner.  And see how happy my Ashley was having her face painted with the frozen theme!  And she was so patient in queueing for the limited slots that she was in the queue at least 30 mins before they started asking for the children  to queue! Haha.. kiasu... who cares so long my kids get what they wanted! Hahaha...

Singapore Sports Hub

WL decided to bring us all to visit the Sports Hub on Youth day PH! And since it was opened like about a week, so everything was still very new or rather many shops were not open too!! Maybe I would say about 20% opened with a NTUC supermarket! Hahaha.... With some of the popular cafes... Needless to say, there was not much crowd!!

We went into the Kallang Wave mall after parking our car at the Kallang Leisure Mall as we can't find the car park to the Sports Hub!!! Lol...

There were a few climbing walls at the center of the mall.  But non of my children were interested!  Lol... but it does kind of welcome the active shippers to come here for some shopping and some workout! 

Am wondering if this center small court a permanent item here. As they have different time slots to introduce shoppers to the many games they were playing here. Mainly to attract people to sign up for the lessons being held at the top floor of the mall. And I remembered hearing the guy mentioned that the classes here are free to sign up for but I guess distance does play a part!! The games we saw here for the afternoon were badminton and netball.

We went exploring other parts of the mall and finally found the way to the stadium! This is really a huge stadium!! 

But it was closed to visitors so I can only take a picture of the white and red seating from outside!

After exploring the stadium we went back into the mall for a break with smoothie!!  And here's another picture of the mini court showcasing netball!

Accidentally, we saw a library at the side while leaving the mall. And the his library is not linked to our NLB!!! But the books here are really new and all are related to sports!!! As mentioned, this Sports library is not related to NLB, therefore, membership shall not be shared and all borrowers will need to join as member before they can start borrowing. And WL decided to sign Adwin as a member!

Adwin enjoyed this super huge chess game here. And WL was surprised that he had some knowledge of the game!!!  Adwin had always been a really observant boy, he always stand aside and observed what others are doing before he put his hands on them. 

There are a quite a no of TV and DVD players around for visitors to catch their DVDs.  And here's my Alvan having fun with a headphone!  Hahaha... cool huh??

A naughty shot of him!!!

My super expressive Alvan

Never did I expect to have a super expressive boy!!! He's always trying to imitate his Jie Jie and kor kor and many times, his expression will make everyone laugh!!!

These photos were taken when he followed me to my office last week, all taken within a minute! Lol...

Marine fishes and French dinner

My dear hubby suddenly bought a tank to rear marine fishes one day!!! After all his shrimps went to heaven, he had initially let the 2 turtles to stay in that big tank, they did look happy enjoying the deep pool of water and stay on top of the artificial rock once awhile. But too bad, good times do not last long! Their heaven was gone after a good 1 month or so?

The initial marine tank was a home to 4 marine fishes, but after our short 3D2N staycation at Stamford hotel, 2 passed away and all left in the marine tank was 2 lonely clown fishes aka Nemo!! Lol... And our kind daddy thought they would be too lonely and he had been cracking his head to find marine fishes,  besides the aquarium shop he got all these marine tank settings, he can't think of other aquarium to get new marine fishes!!!

So, over the weekend, we went to the ulu fish farm area to look for marine fishes!!! And happened to find this place, Jireh which sells many different marine fishes, jellyfish and corals!!!  And we were not aware that such a chart existed which help the buyer to know what type of marine fishes to buy for their tank!! Which we though was really good as the 2 fishes which passed away on the 2nd day actually belongs to the advance level fishes!!!

Anyway,  we left after seeing what they had to offer, hoping that the next door big aquarium shop would sell marine fishes!!! Yes, am talking about Qian Hu fish farm, but sadly, they do not sell marine fishes!!!

But we saw 2 interesting tanks which was set up due to the world cup recently!!! They had put in these 2 super expensive fishes to predict which team would be the winner!!! Hahaha...

Though they do not have marine fishes, my kids and daddy were happily buying new fishes for the other plain water tank!!! Sigh...

And since my Ashley's 2nd turtle was gone, time for her to get another new one to keep adwin's turtle company!!! Lol...

Since there's no marine fishes here, hb decided to pop by the earlier shop we went to buy new spices and corals for his marine tank!!! While daddy was choosing his corals, I spotted this mouse trap outside the shop and showed the 2 kids what is a mouse trap!!! As they hardly get to see one living in a flat!!!

After all the fish shopping, we went over to West Coast Plaza for some of mummy's shopping and dinner!!! It was a really quiet mall and we happened to see this The French Table restaurant on the 3rd floor. And of cos, my love to eat hb decided to pop in for dinner!!!  And my Alvan was happily playing with the new car he bought! He was soooo insistent on buying this buy remote car, as he had many red cars and lorries at home and refused to let go of the car till he confirmed we paid for it and it was in the bag before we leave the shop for dinner!

And I finally got my Ashley a really cute hello kitty inspired spectacles frame! Haha... She looked so good girl here.... Lol...

A shot taken by my Adwin!

Here comes our food.... A half roasted chicken with onion sauce... This main taste abit bland? Or rather nothing special to talk about, just another roasted chicken! Lol... But their fries was kind of good, as they had drizzled some truffle oil onto it and it's really full of the mushroom smell! Maybe not so good for people who doesn't like mushroom? :p

Their mushroom soup, this is really super yummy. As per what my Adwin said, this is the best mushroom soup he ever tasted! Hahaha... Plus a salad we ordered, nice and refreshing...

This was supposed to be kids meal, baked pasta, but Ashley and Alvan didn't like it due to the mushroom soup as base!  So, I think it's not so child-friendly as not all children likes mushroom!

These desserts were nice! One is the caramelised banana and apple, I think, with crumbles and ice cream, it's warm at bottom and cold on top, nice! The other is poached pear with mix berries... Something new and interesting.

And here's the bill and total for our dinner!! I guess it's consider really affordable for a family dining in a French restaurant! And good that it's opened in a mall where it's easily assessible by many families and affordable for all to go for French dining. 

My kids in front of their big menu...

Can you see the words, The French Table?

Another shot by my children, Ashley....

Our well spent Sunday! Considering we only left our house at about 4pm...