Our first family overseas KL trip - Random Ramblings

Yes, this mother has been dying to go on a trip and has been lamenting how she has not travelled since she was pregnant and is "Singapore"-bounded for close to 2 years... :p There were lots of discussions about where to go - would it be Taiwan (a country mummy wans to go so badly), Hong Kong, someplace in Malaysia or Bangkok?

TADAR! One week before the trip, it was decided - KUALA LUMPUR! We decided to skip Genting since it would be too cold and I did not want to risk the little one catching a cold while up there. Before I continue, let me say 3 things I cannot stand during the trip:

1. KL TAXIS DO NOT RUN ON METERS!
We booked The Federal which was located at Bukit Bintang (the shopping strech of KL - and seriously, taxi drivers there chopped us like carrots because they would say "Sir/Mam, there jam lar... I need to do detour..." And yes, I am disgusted because they will charge us 2 to 3 times more (imagine the trip there is 7 dollars and they charge us $25 just to get back to hotel!

2. THINGS CAN GET REALLY SLOW!
And having stayed in a fast paced country, it is a torture to stand in line and watch the service staff give you quality service... Haiz, the bane of staying in a country where efficiency is equivalent to the snap of your fingers...

3. THE FEDERAL IS LESS THAN THE 4 STARS IT CLAIMS!
a) The shower sucks - Yes, I had a terrible time trying to wash little girl after she poos (if she so happen to be in the hotel). The water that comes out from the shower is miserable. It's like a "trickle"... Maybe it's a tatic to save water?
b) The sound proofing is horrid - I could hear the traffic going on the road. I could hear kids 2 rooms down screaming at the top of the voices. I could hear people talk as they walk down the corridor. AND YES! I could hear my neighbouring room occupants draining water after taking a soak in the bath tub and then taking a shower (I could hear the water hitting the bath tub!).
c) The mini bar was pathetic (was there even one in the first place?) - There were only 2 packs of Lipton tea in the bar... No coffee and anything else. Not even soft drinks or others in the fridge! *GOSH!*
d) Complimentary bottled water was only given during the last night - It seemed to me like an afterthought. "I better give them complimentary water so that they will write good comments about us."

With the above, I swear I will be more careful in future about the hotel I book. Hubby felt it was not worth the price to stay in such a hotel. I could only agree that the only saving grace that it was along Bukit Bintang (situated extremely near Sungei Wang - the shopping centre which has Giant supermarket and Jalan Alor - where you can get cheap and great assortment of non-halal stir fry food).

Our first family overseas trip - Day 3 - Kuala Lumpur

It's a day of shopping... shopping and MORE shopping... :) Hubby and I walked down from The Federal to Lot 10. The shops were not opened yet so we just took photos...

Little girl is walking walking and walking... 

  

For girls who want to look thin... remember the angle of photo taking eh? :p

A photo at the Pavillion... The Pavillion is a very nice shopping centre! I feel it's nicer than KLCC. If you do visit, do apply for the trourist privilege card... And if you go early enough, you can see the security guards marching outside the Pavillion just before the shopping centre opens...

  

Another photo with daddy n the little one smiling... :)

 

Beautiful christmas trees!!! :) Such a Royale Christmas!

  

Little one having her lunch happily after a nap at Pavillion. PS: We had our lunch at pepper lunch!

  

Little girl's favourite distraction... "Hmm... mummy can i use this credit card?"

   

It's another one of daddy's creations... Mag Mag is darling's favourite item for drinking water from...

   

After lunch, little girl is happy and moving around... There are little seats around the area, so she's walking around those seats...

  

 

Here are more pictures... :)

  

After Pavillion, we took a cab down to Chinatown... It rained heavily so we were stuck at Popular book store. So after walking around Chinatown, we took a small walk down to Central Market! :)

   

Dinner was at Jalan Alor! So far the best KL Hokkien Mee I have had for the entire trip at KL! So we decided to have a photo taken.   

Afterthought: 
The last day in KL was the one which I enjoyed the most... Little girl was eating well and we had a very good dinner at Jalan Alor. We also had foot reflexology at about 9plus at night. Little girl went along and she SO refused to fall asleep! We were done by 10plus and by then little girl was beyond sleepiness. She fell asleep immediately after her head hit the pillows... :p Hubby had a good sleep after the foot reflexlogy too!  

Our first family overseas trip - Day 2 - Kuala Lumpur

After some good rest at the hotel, we decided to set out to the tallest twin tower in Asia - Petronas Tower. Although the guide books did rate KLCC and Petronas Tower lowly, nevertheless we decided to take a look. A taxi sent us there (no meter but the fare was reasonable - RM 10 from Bukit Bintang).

The taxi driver told us to quickly queue up as there was a limit of 300 visitors to the skybridge... Well, expectedly, there were no more tickets left!

So... instead of taking pictures from the inside of the skybridge, we took some photos outside instead.

The sky was downcast and it did rain heavily that afternoon...

  

Mummy got into a photo snapping mood. So the different poses... And finally mummy caught one with dad and little girl staring at the camera! :)

  

Our breakfast at KFC so took the opportunity to feed little girl. As I mentioned in the previous entry, little girl was not in the mood to eat because.... SHE DID NOT POO!!! (so no out means nothing goes in...) As you can see she is struggling to get out of the seat while I was trying to get her to finish her food. Anyway, mummy lost cos she fed her food to her dress... *SIGH...*

  

In KLCC... Daddy laughing at little girl's eagerness to have a taste of Gingerbread Man and the houses that are made of sweets... Luckily she's not named Gretel. 

 

Done with the milk feed, little girl at the diaper changing room in KLCC Isetan... The rain kept us in KLCC longer than we wanted. KLCC was not such a nice shopping centre to spend the entire day. Once the rain stopped, we made a dash for the hotel... 

Little girl had a swim at the hotel. After the swim, it was bathe time... 

 

Caught on camera! :p

After the bathe and her dinner (which she ate with lots of noise - cos she hasn't poo-ed yet), we went out for our nice stir fry at Jalan Alor. We had very nice grilled stingray! 

Afterthought:

Seriously, no one would have thought that not poo-ing for a day or two would affect the little one's appetite. She refused her own solids and yet she was willing to take adult food like A&W waffle, etc. What sort of rationale was that? Hubby and I could not understand. The decision to buy a pack of blue berries from the supermarket (it was almost SGD 5!) was surely wise. Expensive but worth every cent!

Our first family overseas trip - Day 1 - Kuala Lumpur

The day started at ICA. We collected little girl's passport, fed her lunch at Macdonalds and made our way to KL via the Tuas Checkpoint. Traffic was smooth, the weather was great (a little downcast but not rainy...).


We decided to risk it all and drive up to KL on our own. Hubby was armed with maps printed from the internet because we did not have GPS (Should have gotten one since that would have made things easier for us).

Lucky for us, little gal slept about 2 hrs (equals to half of the trip)... 

  

She however... Decided to stay awake during the next half... And this means TROUBLE! for mummy and daddy... So we had no choice but to make a pit stop near KL (this is the stop over place after the one with A&W and KFC)... :) Me and hubby decided to have our late lunch there while little one gets her chance to STREEECCCCHHHH...

  

Left: "Papa, I take the spoon and feed myself okay?" Right: "Papa since u dun let me take the spoon, I point to you what I wan from your plate? Can I have the errm..."

  

Hubby had yummy nasi lemak (do not look down on the chilli paste, it didn't look good but tasted damn nice!). I had laksa (Penang style) - slight tinge of spiciness with sourness. It was so refreshing I felt like having another bowl. I did not even stop to take a photo until I was almost done with the entire bowl...

   

As you can see, how gleeful little girl is after the small streching session at the canteen. We were on our way to the diaper changing room... :) 

 

Little girl after she was done changing diapers and I sat her there to wash her hands. 

PS: I was really impressed, even in this little stop over on the highway, there is a diaper changing room! It seems most places in Malaysia (or KL) has a diaper changing room with a small chair for breastfeeding mothers! I really hope to see this change in Singapore too!

3.30PM - WE FINALLY REACH THE FEDERAL IN KL!

We finally checked in! Featuring little girl as...

  

The Crawler...

 

The Happy Explorer...

  

The receptionist... 

And so... All was well and good until dinner time...

 

Either she hated my porridge or she hated this high chair. A combination of both = two adults trying to have a peaceful dinner with a wailing baby trying to climb onto the dinner table and grab whatever utensils she could reach... 

And so this scene repeated itself the next day (and mummy realised why during dinner the next day - check out for the next post). 

Afterthoughts: 

I was stressed about leaving a place where I was comfortable to have her (i.e. at home). The stress of travelling with a baby for the first time overwhelmed me as I recollected the many horrer stories of how babies acted up when they travelled. 

When she refused her dinner, all I could think of was how terrible I would be feeling (knowing that my girl is not feeding well because this mother for her own selfish reasons wanted to go travelling). I could tell that hubby was worried that I would not be enjoying this highly anticipated trip and tried his best to placate my daughter at the eatery. 

Thinking back now, I would like to apologise to my hubby and little girl for blowing my top. Stress is no excuse... And hubby is right, this is a trip, we should 

ALL BE HAPPY!