Pineapple Tart (Rolled) - Tart Nenas Gulung

I am always in search for the best Pineapple Tart recipe. For this round I tried 2 tart pastry recipes found from other blogs. Thank you.(w^o^w)

Pineapple Tart (Rolled)

Filling/Pineapple jam

Ingredients
2 medium size pineapples
half cup water
castor sugar
yellow coloring

Methods:

1. Peel pineapple and cut into medium-small chuck.
2. Blend pineapple with half cup water
3. Pour blended pineapple and cook in big pot with medium-low heat. 
4. Stir continuously until half dried, add sugar and taste. Approximately 1-2 cup sugar to desirable sweetness.
5. Continue to cook until become jam thick consistency. Let it cool and keep in fridge.

Pastry 

Ingredients

Recipe 1 - using 3 types of flour.
Based on original recipe from Spices Journey with my little twist.

200 grams butter
50 grams ghee
3 cups all purpose flour
2 tablespoon corn starch
1 tablespoon custard powder
1 tablespoon icing sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla essence
1 egg yolk

Recipe 2 - using only all purpose flour
Recipe from HaSue

115 grams butter- 115 gram
115 grams Ghee
1 egg ( B size)
450 grams all purpose flour
a pinch of salt
1 tablespoon cold water
egg yolk (put a drop of yellow color)


Methods:

1. Combined all ingredients and mix pastry dough with hands
2. Using Nastar Roll, press the pastry. Add pineapple jam on top and slowly roll the pastry over it. 
3. You can round the pineapple jam for easier process.
4. Brush with egg yolk
5. Bake at 180 degrees C for 20 minutes. 
6. Let it cool before store in airtight container. Cautions :Storing warm tart may cause your tart to grow mildew..
7. Check this useful YouTube video showing how to roll the pastry with the pineapple jam.

Recipe Review :

Both recipes are equally good and yummy.  I would personally prefer Recipe 1 as it melt in my mouth but it's quite difficult to roll because of the soft pastry. Recipe 2 pastry is firmer and easier to handle, but it doesn't melt in mouth as Recipe 1 . If you don't like the feel of pastry stuck between your teeth and palate, Recipe 2  is better. 

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Hari Raya Cookies ~Honey Cornflakes ~

Does this consider as cookies? well, there's butter, so maybe it is.

Crispy & yummy, honey cornflakes. It is such a simple recipe or  but spooning it into the paper cups was quite tedious task (^^;).

Baked this for last Eid-fitr celebration. I took the recipe of Cornflakes Madu from Masam Manis the awesome cooking blog, but I'd opted raisin out in my version. 

Honey Cornflakes

Ingredients

1 box of 325 grams cornflakes. ( I used Kellogg's Cornflakes)

100 grams butter

3/4 cup honey

1/2 cup brown sugar

100 grams chopped almonds

colored chocolate rice for decoration-optional

small paper cups

Methods:

1) Preheat oven to 150°C.

2) Melt butter, brown sugar & honey in sauce pan with low heat.

3) Pour cornflakes and almond into a bowl.

4) Pour melted butter+sugar+honey into the bowl with cornflakes. 

5) Mix well. Spoon cornflakes into small paper cup. Sprinkle with some colored chocolate rice.

6) Bake for 10 minutes. Let it cool before store in airtight container.

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Chocolate Cake - Malaysian style :) - Kek Coklat

I have a lot of Chocolate Cake recipes, including from Mum's blue recipe book. But this one I get from HaSue blog, said to be originated from Chef Zubaidah recipe is really good and easy. If you live in Malaysia or Indonesia, this recipe is easy for you because one of the ingredient is Condensed Milk. It's not easily available in other country though (can be quite pricey to get one). In Japan, condensed milk usually being sold in tube, to be eaten with bread or strawberry. Not much variety compare to condensed milk sold in Malaysia.

Condensed milk sold in Japan. Isn't it cute? (^o^) ( picture Google d)

If you can get condensed milk, try this recipe. Original recipe call for the cake to be steamed. I tried both, steamed and baked, I prefer baked version. No electric mixer required for the cake.

I put my super multipurpose chocolate filling in between the cake at photo below .. (^o^) enough to satisfy my sweet craving.

Chocolate Cake 

Ingredients

A:

100 grams Cocoa powder

200 grams Sugar

1 can (400 grams) evaporated milk / Full cream milk

200 grams vegetable cooking oil

250 gram Condensed milk

B:

4 eggs - whisk with fork to lightly foam

C: 

150 grams all purpose flour

1 teaspoon baking soda

1 teaspoon baking powder

Methods

1. Grease and line a 9x9 inches square cake pan with baking paper.
2. If you choose to bake in oven, preheat oven to 180°C. If you want to steam it, setup the steamer with boiled water.
3. Combine A in a sauce-pot, slowly stir with low heat until combined and sugar dissolved. Remove from heat to cool. Do not heat until boiled.
4. Let the mixture cool to room temperature. Add whisked eggs.
5. Add sifted C gradually until combined.
6. Pour in cake pan and bake for 45 minutes.

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This cake is good to be eaten by itself but for my son's birthday last June, I baked this chocolate cake and layered with orange Krimwell frosting and frosted the top with Chocolate ganache. Chocolate cake with twist of orange flavored cream balanced the milky chocolate sweetness.

 I had very little time to prepare this at night, hence the simple deco with M&Ms. Chocolate ganache frosting wasn't so smooth though. I'm not good in frosting yet... shaky hands..(^o^;) Still, kids love this cake, M&Ms stolen their view and they don't seem to care about the frosting flaws...

Krimwell Frosting 

Original recipe  from NinaMirza

Ingredients

250 grams Krimwell ( you can buy this from bakery shop)

icing sugar 

1 tablespoon orange Sunquick  or squeezed juice from half Orange - optional or you can use any flavor

Methods

1. Beat Krimwell with electric mixer-medium speed for 1 minute.
2. Gradually add icing sugar to desirable sweetness. I think  I had put around 3 tablespoon icing sugar.
3. Continue beating until light and fluffy. Add Sunquick or squeeze orange juice to taste.
4. Layer cake with Krimwell frosting. 

Chocolate Ganache

Ingredients

250 grams cooking chocolate

200 gram UHT Whipping cream

20 grams butter

Methods

1. Cut cooking chocolate into medium-small chuck; set aside.
2. Place whip cream in a small saucepan over medium heat and bring to a simmer. Turn off the heat.
3. Pour cooking chocolate and stir until combined. 
4. Add butter and stir until smooth. Let cool slightly before using.

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My Mum's Orange Cake Recipe - Kek Oren

When I was 12 and started baking, this orange cake was the first one that I'd baked. (^o^)

It was written in mum's blue recipe book, probably passed down from generations. This is mum's favorite cake until now. 

This simple and delicious cake will do good without any frosting and great with cuppa hot tea.

*Choose your butter. Cake baked with Buttercup won't taste the same as baked with Anchor or SCS butter. 

My Mum's Orange Cake Recipe

Ingredients:

8 oz salted butter

8 oz all purpose flour

8 oz icing sugar

4 eggs ( A Size)

1 tsp baking powder

4 table spoon Orange juice (or juice from half Sunkist orange)*

Sunkist orange zest (shred the orange skin for fragrance)

*opt with 3 tablespoons of orange Sunquick if you don't have any fresh orange around.

Methods

1) Preheat oven to 180°C. Grease and line an 9x9 inches square cake pan with baking paper.

2) Sift flour and baking powder twice.

2) Using an electric mixer, cream butter and icing sugar ain a medium bowl on medium-high speed until light and fluffy

3) Add eggs, 1 at a time, beating to combine. Add half the flour. Stir to combine. Add orange juice. Stir to combine. Repeat with remaining flour. Add orange zest and stir to combine.

4) Pour in cake pan and bake for 30-40 minutes. Depend on your oven.

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Simple Baked Apple Pudding

Girls get together yesterday evening for Iftar at my place. It was working Monday so we decided to order take away Yamenian food, rice and grilled meat from Sana'a @ Cyberjaya for our main dish.

I arrived home about  90 minutes before time for iftar and managed to bake this super easy apple pudding (no eggs) for dessert and thank god it turn out good and was a hit.:-)



BAKED APPLE PUDDING with vanilla ice cream

Ingredients
3 apples (green or red)
half cup / 110 grams butter
1 cup flour
1 cup brown sugar
1 cup milk
2 teaspoon baking powder
half teaspoon cinnamon powder(optional)
vanilla ice-cream

Methods

1. Heat oven 180 degrees.
2. Peel and cut apples to square bite size.
3. Put cut apples into microwaveable bowl, sprinkle with cinnamon powder. Microwave it for 3-5 minutes.
4. In separate bowl, melt butter ( put in microwave for 10-20 seconds), add sugar and mix with hand whisk/spatula.
5. Add milk and gradually add flour and baking powder. Mix batter to combine. Add apples into batter.
6. Pour batter in baking dish, and bake at middle rack for 35 minutes.
7. Serve warm baked apple pudding with vanilla ice cream. 

Prep time : 15 minutes

Bake time : 35 minutes

It's as easy as ABC, right? (^o^)

Gluten Free Dessert - Sum Sum

Sum Sum (rice pudding with syrup) is one of my favorite traditional Malay dessert also known to be originated from Javanese food.  It's can be served cold or as warm dessert. I prefer it cold...it's soft, coconuty milky, sweet and refreshingly delicious. 

Sum Sum is easy to prepare and also Gluten-Free food and it's way healthier than cheese tart when you eat in moderation..(^o^) It's made from rice flour and coconut milk, serve with some brown sugar or palm sugar syrup.

What is Gluten-Free?

A gluten-free diet is a diet that excludes the protein gluten. Gluten is found in grains such as wheat, barley, and rye. Basically rice flour is gluten-free, but if you're sensitive to gluten or having celiac disease, be sure that you purchase rice flour that has gluten-free mark on the packaging because gluten might get transferred if the same mill was used also used to produce wheat flour. <source: Google>

Basic Sum Sum Recipe

Ingredients

A: for the rice pudding

1 cup of rice flour (white rice flour, if you're using brown rice flour the color will be brownish)

1 cup of coconut milk 

3 cups of water

a pinch of sea salt 

2/3 pandan leaves for fragrance (optional)
you can put a drop of food coloring if you want the pudding with color.

B: for the syrup

half cup brown sugar ( adjust to preference) / I used palm sugar

1 cup water

1 pandan leaves ( optional)

Methods

1) Combine all ingredients in A together into a small pot. 

2) Bring to boil with small heat. Stir continuously.

3) Continue stirring until rice pudding cooked. It becomes silky and thick (image below). This will take around 15- 20 minutes, and you will see it make a small pop. Remove from heat

4) Transfer into baking pan or pudding mould and let it set to cool. 

6) In another small pot, combine B to make sugar syrup. I used palm sugar as it is easily available here and have the coconut fragrance.

7) Refrigerate both pudding and syrup. Scoop pudding into cup and pour syrup to serve.

Cheese Tart ~ Blueberry & Chocolate Cheesetart

Cheese tarts.. they are cute and yummy...
One of Malaysian favorites sweet desserts are Cheese Tart. You can find it easily in bakery, usually sold in 3" diameter size ( about size of a palm) with Blueberry filling,  Blueberry Cheese tart.
Blueberry always match with Cheese, but this cheese tart can have other fillings too. I tried Blueberry, Apple, Kiwi,Strawberry and Chocolate. I personally prefer blueberry & chocolate.

Making it is not difficult, but might be little bit time consuming for first timers. But, trust me the outcome is worth rewarding.

My recipe has been twisted and changed to adapt with my super busy lifestyle. Recipe cheat in making it tastier, easier  and still look great in presentation. 

You never bake before? no worries with detailed instructions below, anyone can whip a whimsically awesome cheese tarts~~ (^o^)

There are 4 steps to make this cheese tart and you can make one step at a time.

To complete from step 1 to 4 in one go, you may need around 2-3 hours, depending on how skillful you are to make the tart shells (^p^). Optional, you can buy ready made tart shells at baking store ( but it won't taste as nice as making it from scratch.)

Cheese Tart 

Tools needed
1) Tarts mould 
2) Small knife
3) Hand mixer
4) Plastic piping bag ( u can use normal plastic bag as well)
5) Microwave or Stove (optional) & Oven of course. :)


Step 1) To make Tart shell  - sweet pasty

Ingredients
125 gram salted butter  - cut to small cubes
70 gram icing sugar
250 gram all purpose flour
1 egg yolks ( Size A-Large)
1 tablespoon of iced cold water
1/2 teaspoon essence vanilla

Methods

1) Mix and sift flour and icing sugar. Use fork to cut butter into sifted flour and sugar until it resemble bread crumb alike.
2 ) Put egg yolks, essence vanilla and cold water.
3) Continue to mix the pastry dough with your hand until well blended.
4) Wrap in plastic and keep in fridge for 30 minutes. ( you can prepare this pastry dough and keep in fridge day ahead)

5) Place the pastry inside the mould. Press pastry with your finger to spread the pastry to mould the shape.
6) Cut the excess pastry with small knife to get a nice clean edges.
7)  Prick some holes with a fork on the pastry shell.
8) Bake at low rack at 180C for 10 -15 minutes until it's golden brown.

Tips 
*  keep baked tart shell in airtight container. 
* if you want to keep it for months, store in airtight container and freeze it in freezer. Reheat in oven for 5 minutes before using it. 

Step 2) To prepare Cheese Filling 

Ingredients ( this recipe is to make fillings for just enough tart crust prepared above)
250 grams Cream Cheese
40   gram butter ( I used Buttercup)
60 grams icing sugar
1 egg ( A Size)
1 teaspoon essence vanilla /lemon juice

Methods
1) Beat cream cheese, butter and icing sugar with mixer until combined for 3 minutes with medium/high speed.
2) Add eggs, lemon juice and essence vanilla. Beat with low speed for 1 minutes.
3) Transfer cream cheese into piping bag.

Step 3) To combine tart shell with cream cheese and fillings

Fillings:

- Blueberry fillings or ( you can make or purchase this from baking store)

- Chocolate fillings ( click for recipe)

Methods

1) Transfer fillings into piping bag. Cut small holes to pipe the filling.

2) Pipe filling into baked tart shell pastry.

3) Pipe cream cheese on top of it until full

4) Bake at low rack in oven at 180C for 10-15 minutes. Do not over bake until the cheese crack.

Step 4) Decorations 

There are many ways to decorate topping for cheese tart. Some create swirl pattern with blueberry jam on top of the cheese tart before baking. But I found it's too time consuming..leceh laaa. Below is my cheat decoration. You can complete it in just few minutes. 

What you need:

~200 grams cooking chocolate

Methods

This is my cheat steps to melt cooking chocolate in small quantity. Instead of using double boiler, I used microwave.

1) Cut cooking chocolate into chunks, put in microwaveable bowl, I used ceramic bowl.

2) Heat in microwave as steps below: 

• Microwave for 10 seconds.
• Microwave 10 seconds again. Take it out and stir with spoon, at this time the chocolate has melted half.
• Put back into microwave for another 10 seconds. Take out and stir. It has already melted. Transfer into piping bag for easy handling.
• After sometimes, the chocolate may get harden in room temperate. When this happened just throw the piping bag with chocolate inside microwave and set for 10 seconds. Ching! it's melted again. 

       

3) You can now decorate  cheese tart top. You can write or draw with chocolate. 

4)  Let the chocolate harden and it's DONE! Chill this lovely tarts in fridge for better taste. 

* If you  refrigerate in airtight container, cheese tart can last for 1~2 weeks.

Still looks too difficult to make yourself? well you can always order it from WhimsyBake (^o^)
Delivery to pick up area available at Cyberjaya & Puchong area. 

Chocolate Filling/Spread

This is my favorite, super easy basic recipe to make chocolate filling for buns, tarts pie etc.  or chocolate spread for your toasted bread...also suitable as chocolate dip for biscuits.

If you prefer nutty taste like Nutella, you can add hazelnut paste or grind some hazelnut into the mixture.

Chocolate Filling 

Ingredients
A:
400 grams Evaporated milk  / 450 ml full cream milk    [ I used 1 can of  Ideal/Carnation milk)
130 grams sugar
60 grams coco powder
50 gram cornstarch
1 teaspoon essence vanilla
1 teaspoon hazelnut paste ( optional for hazelnut taste)

B:
60 grams butter

Methods
1) Combine A together. ( I used blender to blend it all)
2) Pour into saucepan /small pot.
3) Heat in saucepan with low or medium heat. Continue to stir mixture until it becomes thick.
4) Removed from heat.
5) Put B (butter) into the mixture and continue to stir. Butter will make the chocolate mixture shiny.
6) Let it cool before storing in container. Keep in refrigerator, it could last for weeks.


Notes:
* The longer you cook the chocolate mixture, the thicker it gets 
* Chocolate filling/spread will be thicker when it's cool down/refrigerated.

Product Review

This is our personal product/gadget reviews. We write based on our experience purchasing and using the item.

Recipe * Resepi * Resep

I started baking when I was 12. At that time one of my favorite past time reading was my mum's recipe book. It was a notebook with dark blue plastic cover. Mum would put side notes and draw on how the recipe would look like when it was done...we had a camera but taking food photo was not something common in those years.  There was no internet, no blog or websites with free recipes.

Recipes was like treasure, inherit from generation to another generation. I remembered during our visits to relatives or friends, mum would politely ask if they can share the recipe of the cookies, cakes etc that was served by our host. Some would be happily share their 'secret' recipe, while some hesitate.... it's a 'secret' anyway.

With an internet evolution and abundance of TV programs with Cooking Show, sharing recipe is become so common. I collected & adjusted some basic recipes for over 20 years. Some was from mum's recipe book and some from recipe book, websites and blogs. Here I will share those recipes in my collection for easy reference for family, friends and myself...well I can't remember it all :).  Recipes that was tested and proven to be one that meet my taste bud and enjoyed by people around me.. Feel free to try it, copy it and share in your blog if you wish to (with your own photo, of course, plagiarist is a No No ya) .. and with reference to where it originate would be nice (^o^)...

Perhentian Island .. a quick gateway

The last time I went to Perhentian was on Apr 2010, for my Open Water Diving license.
12 Apr 2010 to be exact.
After some incident being carried away by strong underwater current while diving in Phuket in 2011, I kinda have little bit of phobia towards sea. I had not touch sea water since then.

Well, now is 2014, hallooo... we have to keep going. What happened in past is past. :)

So for my son's 7th birthday, we off for quick 3 days 2 night stay at Perhentian Island, to celebrate brithday and to overcome some fear towards sea.

This is our first oyako vacation - to mark the beginning of ultimate Mum & Son travel adventure (^^)

Camera : Sony Xperia ZR phone camera ( 2 photos were from GoPro Hero3)
Mode of Travel : by Car, ERL, flight, taxi & speedboat.

4:15 am  - Drive to Putrajaya Sentral, parked  at the covered parking. ( Cost for 4 days : RM16)
4:50 am  - KLIA Transit to KLIA2 (Cost for 1 adult, 1 child : RM9.20)
6:20 am  - Air Asia Flight to Kota Bahru ( we had some promo ticket for RM250 for 2 of us)
7:30 am  - took airport taxi to Kuala Besut Jetty ( RM78, nice comfy Nissan Sentra cab)
9:20 am  - Speedboat to Perhentian Island (it's RM70 per/pax 2 ways and RM5 for Marine Park fees)
10:00 am - Arrived to Abdul Chalet - Check in time was at 12:30pm, so we decided to leave our bag, took out swimsuit and straight into the water! no time wasted at all.
* price shown here for reference purpose only, to see how much inflation has affected for our next trip. :P

I definitely love this mode of travel compare to long night bus ride from KL to Kuala Besut that I used to had.

Perhentian. It is still a magnificent place.... quite over developed though ( I saw a white big mosque is being built at one part of the island)

This time round we stay at Abdul Chalet, at the big island. Neverbeen to Perhentian Besar or big island of Perhentian. Always read about this chalet at Tripadvisor, ranked at No 1, so why not check it out myself. Quite lucky, still managed to book a Standard Garden View Chalet for RM160/night ( actually I was hoping to book for the Deluxe Seaview room)

The room is at far better quality compare to those at Long Beach. It comes with 24 hours electric, aircond, fan, hot water, fridge and timber floor. Room quality is similar to Shari la resort at Coral Bay, at the small island, but Shari la's room are quite far from beach, you have to walk a bit.

Abdul Chalet's located right on the beach. Although our room is called Garden view room, it is actually just about 10 steps at the back from the Deluxe Seaview room :).

We had a great time with extreme sunburn due to sunblock malfunction!... We saw a turtle, 4 baby sharks and lotsss of colourful coral fishes...

these 2 photos was taken by boatman using GoPro Hero3 during our snorkelling trip.... and this made me so inspired to get one GoPro for myself...hehe

Here's some photos of the room... the bathroom is spacious, you can sleep 4 people comfortably inside the bathroom.. lol.

Night view at the chalet's restaurant. They served BBQ, but not as nice as Shari la's BBQ option. Still, my son enjoyed his BBQ prawn so much that he had that for both dinners. Oh ya their Manggo Lassi is very nice too.

 The beautiful beach right in front of the chalet. You can snorkel to the platform, where there's still  some corals and fishes.

Abundance of fishes under the jetty, next to the chalet. My son, love this spot. He spent most of the time here. He even fed the entire pack of Gardenia bread for these fishes.... and I see a lot of visitor brought along Gardenia bread to fed this fishes... quite worry if the chemicals in the bread might turn these fishes into some sort of mutation... (^p^;). 

 

we got the second floor room, so we can still enjoy see partly seaview from our balcony...with some green roof of the seaview room.

Sunset evening shot. Yes, that is my son in the water. :) He wanted to sleep in the water if possible.

We left Perhentian for 1 night stay at Kota Bahru. The initial plan was to visit the town, to go to Kopitiam Kita for breakfast and try the famous Roti Titab, visit the museum and to see some art performance at the cultural village. But my son had fever from the 3rd day and the weather was extremely hot in Kota Bahru. We stayed at Tune Hotel, KB which is located about 20 steps away from KB Mall. Quite a big shopping mall in Kota Bahru. It has everything. :)

Quickly, we're back into the town people mode and start to shop some stuff at KB Mall and laid on the bed watching TV whole day. :P

Notes to myself for next island vacation with my son.

Essential items to pack for my son:

1) Fever, sea sickness & allergy medicine

2) CoolFever patch (helpful when kid having fever due to exposed to heat for long time)

3) Gamat oil/cream

4) Some heated ointment/oil for body massage..minyak urut :)

5) Water bottle, mark with my son's name.To measure that he drinks enough water.  

6) Good sunblock that is suitaable for our skin.

For myself :

1) Cucumber / Aloevera collagen mask from Skin Recovery. This is reallly good to sooth my skin after a day exposed to the sun.

2) Aloevera gel.

Till the next trip...  :)





Legoland Malaysia

owh it's the latest frenzy in Malaysia. Legoland!!!

I have been to Tokyo Disneyland, Tokyo Disney Sea... I've seen lots of photos of Universal Studio ( haven't been to any yet) but to be honest I never heard the existence of Legoland as an amusement park until I watched a TV program showing about how the Malaysian talent assembling the Lego bricks for Legoland. I am not really a theme park kind of person.

So to further celebrate and welcoming 2014 we off for short trip to Legoland & Johor Premium Outlet. I Googled and search for info's before going so I am all geared up for the trip.
I purchased our tickets online 7 days earlier and get the 20% discounts. RM112 for adult & RM88 for kid. Booked a stay at KSL Hotel for 1 night.

11 Jan :
We depart early morning at 5am sharp, with approximate 4 hours drive I arrived at the Legoland entrance at 9:40 am, good enough to watch the opening dance. :) but to my disappointment only 1 Lego Chima and 1 Lego Brick were there. I was hoping like many characters to be there dancing like at Disneyland.

To get to Legoland from KL via North-South Plus Highway, take the exit Senai Utara. From there head to Nusajaya/Kota Iskandar. You will see the signboards of Legoland after that. It is located at the middle of nowhere. Make sure you fuel up your tank or have enough fuel for 100 km before entering the area.

As advised by many bloggers I am all ready with SunBlock, RainCoat, drinking water and some on-the-go snacks. Legoland staff did check on bags, but they check on bigger size bag like backpack. I saw family in front of me was stopped for bringing in like 10 cups of instant noodles. hehehe

Overall experience was good. The facilities, the place are rbeautiful. You can see how much effort are being put to create all those masterpiece from Lego bricks. But the staff maybe a little bit turn off. Unlike other theme park I have been to, I think they are not friendly enough or not in the character of theme park staff.
Nissan Driving School for age 7 above attraction was closed when we approach the place and the staff didn't know whther it's going to be close for entire day or temporary. That was a turn off. Luckily, it went up running after we queue for Boating school. Overall there were not many people. From the view of their huge car park, only about 100 cars were there. Still I can feel the waiting time, especially at Boating school. I cannot imagine how it's going to be during peak time. Other attraction was smooth. No long queue. But as I mentioned earlier, the staff need to smile more and doesn't make the face like being forced to do the work.

The weather wasn't really hot, it was cloudy but it was hot enough to make my face reddish. No major sunburn.

we played almost all the games except Beetle Bounce because my son wasn't interested. We finished touring the park by 3 pm. It wasn't really big and the real attractions were not many.

we had lunch at Knight Feast at Lego Kingdom. RM20 for Grilled Chicken set. Not bad and most important it tasted good. AI wants some Lego and after shopping we left the park.

We checked in at KSL Hotel. It says that we can get free entrance to KSL Dinosaur Alive water park ( that is another reason why I didn't purchase Legoland Waterpark ticket). So we went there after hotel check in.

I think the KSL waterpark is overcharged. RM50 for adult per entrance. Only 1 small slide and 3 other very small slides. 2 water buckets and 5-6 Dinosaurs that moves, yeah they moves their tails, made some sound and splash water from their mouth. That's it. Lucky it was complimentary with the room fees.  Even if it's RM15 per entrance I would feel expensive, RM50??? you must be kidding me..

KSL Hotel is attached to shopping complex. It's big and packed like Sg Wang plaza. A lot of booths selling watches, smartphone cover,  accessories, clothes.. almost anything at very reasonable price. There's Tesco there but  limited place to dine for Muslims. The food court cater only Chinese food. Nice place to do shopping though.

12 Jan
Next day - Johor Premium Outlet. Wow so many people. the car park was 3/4 full. Maybe due to Chinese New year, people were doing shopping there. By 4pm we drove back to KL. Traffic was clear. Arrived home at 8pm.


My legoland tips
1) Bring own Raincoat to survive for Dino Island attraction. You will get completely wet inside out. I brought with me super cheap raincoat that I bought at RM 2 each for 1 time use.   Or you can purchase Legoland raincoat at RM 12 each.
2) As advised by others, SunBlock is a must.
3) Since it's very hot, few attractions do splash water, like Aquazone. I think sport shoes may not be wise enough. Go with comfortable sandals that easy to dry out.
4) Non peak time, can buy themepark & waterpark ticket in a day - enough time to play all at both parks.

Next Mission : Legoland Hotel stay + themepark + waterpark experience.

No photos taken during this trip because I left my camera at home... lalalalala

Welcome 2014

a bit late for new year celebration, but it's better late than never.

I have many plans and wishes for 2014. One of it is to start writing this blog. So I can have a piece of memories of what had happened or places I had visited.

Nothing much accomplished in 2013, so I am hoping for 2014 to give a colorful and memorable event in my life.

Kicked off with 1st January celebration; I watch Dinosaurs movie with my son. Started with nice breakfast Nasi lemak + Teh tarik @Teh Tarik Place at IOI mall, overlooking the lake view. Then we had awaken our senses with the 6D movie. I had mistakenly chose the Natural Roller Coaster ( well I wasn't sure what is 6D movie anyway). For 10 minutes long we had been shaken on the seat, as if we were riding a Roller Coaster. Wait, normal Roller Coaster never took that long...10 minutes is very long for roller coaster experience...lol.. we may not go for that again.

My son, AI is seven years old! it's a big event for any parent, I feel like I had passed one of the milestones of motherhood. Good luck my son.