Legoland Malaysia

Boy is very fond of Legos. He wants them for birthdays, Christmases, and also buys them with his allowance. Mommy is a little tired of looking for, stepping on, and picking up Legos. It feels like Legos are quite pricey in Singapore, compared to the US. It doesn't stop people from spending on them. This past Christmas, we found this specialty Lego store at Great World City, and people were dropping BIG bucks on Christmas gifts. The Toys R Us section looked cleaned out.

With the recent opening of Legoland Malaysia, ads were splashed all over the place. So naturally, Boy requested to go. We arranged to share a taxi with another family, one that would be door-to-door on Sunday, October 14. It would be about hour and a half each way, taking into account immigration and traffic.

We had already been to the one in Florida, so had some expectations. I think the park does cater to adults too. There are coasters, and the Miniland is usually fascinating. The rides are similar to the European amusement parks to which I've been (Linnanmaki and Sarkkaniemi in Finland, Grona Lund in Sweden, and Tivoli in Denmark) and not too taxing. The one difference was that they did not allow parents to ride along with the toddlers on some rides - I was surprised at Royal Joust when the attendant blocked me from getting on and let Girl (3) on her way. Luckily, she handled this first experience (and subsequent rides) like a trooper. Boy and pal could not be dragged away from Build & Test (building and racing cars). Mommy enjoyed shooting stuff at Lost Kingdom.

Miniland

Build & Test

The facilities seemed to be still half functional (they were operating only one out of two machines for many of the rides). The restaurant process needed work - patrons were not routed efficiently. Probably growing pains that would be sorted out soon. We will likely make more trips. One thing we would do differently is to dine at the Mall of Medini before heading back to Singapore (traffic jam made for a late dinner).

School

Gosh...Boy is in Primary 1. It has not been the easiest journey. Being foreigners, we were the last allowed to register (in phase 3). Okay, we could have decided to send him to an expensive international school, but we want him to get the local experience. Don't remind me that if I had kept my citizenship and arranged citizenship for Boy we might have gotten into the primary school across the street from the house. At least we put him on the waiting list.

I was actually surprised how many foreigners were registering their kids in the last phase. I selected 2 closest schools with vacancies. It didn't really matter what time you arrived to register as the way it worked was that as long as there were more applicants than vacancies by the end of the day it went to balloting. The first school I went to I was handed a registration ticket number 80-something for 11 spots. I left immediately for the other, where I was number 18 for 30+ spots. There I experienced my first problem with information dissemination in this whole process - I was told I needed the parents' passports for registration. I had looked twice over the documents I needed and did not take "Parents’ travel document/Singapore NRIC/Entry or Re-entry Permit/Employment Pass/Work Permit" to mean I needed passports - I had employment passes. Don't the rest of the world read "/" as "or"? Summoned hubby to bring passports. Still plan to write a complaint to MOE. There ended up being more applicants than vacancies and we were fortunate to end up with a spot at balloting. Else we would have been assigned a spot at one of the remaining schools with vacancies - could have been anywhere.

I took Boy to orientation. The actual start time was earlier than stated on the invitation. When I tried to purchase uniforms, the sale location was different from the info supplied. All this misinformation made the process more painful and time-consuming than necessary.

So our weekdays start earlier to accommodate the 7:35am start of school. Boy enjoys buying food from the canteen, and his one-a-day soft drink allowance. Other than the early start, he seems to enjoy school. We are still thinking about after-school care arrangement, but for now he comes home with the school bus (stable times now after a rocky start - we declined the morning bus as the assigned pickup was 6:15) to the helper. We are still working on the routines, but it's nice to have one-on-one time when it's my turn to take him to school (okay, it's a lot of nagging - do this, remember that, don't do this...). When it's Hubby's turn to drop off, I get time with Girl. Not bad, not bad...