Sunday, March 22, 2009

Mini Malaysia, Malacca

About a month ago, I was asked to take a one day leave during school holidays. I chose Thursday because that was En's free day (as in free from tuition, kumon, piano practice and all her extra activities).

About 10 days ago, I was informed that En had Chinese tuition and choir practice and plans to go to the PetraSains Centre disappeared instantly. We needed one whole day if we were to go visit the Science Centre. En will only be free after 12.30pm. I calculated the time for her to get back, change and have lunch .... and by the time we leave Seremban, it would be at least 1.15pm. There's NO way we could go to the jam packed city so we headed south instead.

We brought Tusi along, just so that she could see other parts of Malaysia. She was a little reluctant at first, partly because VF made her feel guilty for leaving the house to have some fun with us. (I didn't know about this until after we came back from out little outing)

We were still not sure where we wanted to take them, even when we got onto the highway. We asked En and she decided on Butterfly Farm. I, on the other hand was thinking of Mini Malaysia.

We went past the Ayer Keroh Toll and missed the Butterfly Farm turning cause it was almost right after the toll.


We ended up in Mini Malaysia.

It was not my first time visiting this place. The last time had been about 2-3 years back, when we played hostess to a friend's friend from the US.

Mini Malaysia consists of 13 different "kampung-like" houses from different States of Malaysia. Each house had its own unique-ness even though they all looked almost the same on the exterior.


We went from one house to the other and I played the tour guide, explaining to the kids the different wall textures and the layout of each house. Of course I half the time I didn't know if my explanation was right or not (haha!) I know for certain that the Malacca house focuses on the broad coloured stairway leading up to the house while the Negeri Sembilan one has the Minangkabau roof structure. The building material used for the Sabah and Sarawak house is made out of bamboos.


At first Brian and En were happily going into EACH house until it came to a point when they realised that there was nothing much to see inside the houses, except for a few pieces of furniture. Moreover, some of them didn't have lights inside the building, making it very spooky and scary. There was one house which was leaking so badly, they had to quadrant off two rooms with some red and white tape.

After about the 6th house, they started getting hot and restless and was moving on very quickly. But when they came to the Sabah & Sarawak house, they were fascinated with the bamboo wall and flooring. Both En and Brian loved the narrow stairs made of one huge tree trunk. Personally, I thought En would not dare go up one of these. But to my amazement, she was the first to experiment these stairs. What a brave girl.


Brian followed suit, after seeing En bravely climbed up the stairs.
And soon, all of us went up to see what was there in the attic. Nothing was there, of course. But it was a fun, open space for kids to play around.

It started to drizzle a little when we got to the last house but the children were optimistic that it would stop soon because they prayed to God for good weather.

It was getting rather humid and En wanted ice cream but there was none in sight. I think she was a little disappointed but I told her that we could get ice cream on the way out.


.............. to be continued (Part Two - Mini Asean)

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