Butterfly Farm, Malacca

After the Bee Museum, we went to the Butterfly Farm. Errr... I am not exactly sure if "Farm" is the correct word to use cause in Malay it is Taman Rama-Rama, which means Butterfly Garden. Oh well, I've always refered to it as Butterfly Farm.

Anyway, when we got there, we were asked to pay RM3 for each camera. I didn't think there was much to take so I told them that we will only be using one camera, that is Eunice's.

Ice-cream greeted us and both En and Brian chose theirs. I made them pay for the ice-cream. I think the ice-cream lady was surprised that I didn't pay for them. In actual fact, before we left for Malacca, I had given them each RM3 to spend. I jokingly told En that I was giving her money so that she could spend me!! Upon hearing that, she asked her mum for more money!!! Ha!

Anyway, it was nice seeing the pay for their own ice-cream. Gotta teach them to pay for their own meals at some stage!

There was this huge cylindrical cage with lovebirds in it. Eunice took many pictures here but most of the time, the birds weren't that cooperative :)

We got En and Brian to take a picture with a huge iguana. I didn't know it was a live one and asked Brian to step closer to the creature. He knew it was alive and I saw the look of terror on his face when the lady petted the reptile. A live parrot was placed on En's left shoulder and the picture was taken!

After that, we looked around and saw some birds and a cage full of monkeys swinging from one end to another.

We then went into a souvenir shop and saw the sign saying welcome to Taman Rama-Rama. We went through that and came to a little garden. We saw very few butterflies. In fact, I think we only got to see FIVE butterflies in that little garden.

We followed the sign saying "Insect Cave". En was so afraid when she saw the sign. She expected to go into some dark cave full of insects (like the beetle, flies, ants, etc). We managed to persuade her to continue walking.

I expected to see more butterflies but instead, we saw other animals - crocodiles, leopards, peacock, snakes, tortise, otters, emu, etc. It was like a mini zoo.

I certainly wasn't expecting to see anything except butterflies. I guess we got more than we bargained for :)

We had to be "chased out" because the farm closes at 5.30pm. The tail end of the walk was rather hurried. We didn't really mind because all the walking plus the humidity made us feel weak and exhausted.

We were contemplating whether to bring them into Malacca town because that was what we planned earlier but I figured that it might be too late by the time we leave Malacca, so we headed for the Ayer Keroh toll instead.

We stopped at the overhead bridge rest area to have something light to eat. En wanted her KFC rice but was out voted by the rest of us who wanted A&W. We ordered 3 large rootbeer floats, 1 waffle, on set pancake, curly fries and french fries to be shared by 5 of us.

Both the waffle and pancakes turned out to be yucky. It tasted as though it was cooked ages ago and reheated when we placed the order. The pancake tasted bland. I told Tusi that she makes better pancakes.

After A&W, we packed En's KFC rice. I also wanted to try their pop corn chicken. We had to wait a long time at the queue because there were so many school children in front of us. We must've taken about 1/2 hour to get the food.

After that, we left. I managed to stay awake while driving back to Seremban, though I was feeling a little tired.

I hope both En and Brian enjoyed themselves cause I certainly did!!! :)

Bee Museum, Malacca

From Mini Malaysia and Mini Asean, we went to the Bee Museum, which was only about a minute's drive away.

The rain was slightly heavy when we got into the little building. We were immediately being attended to by a friendly chap, who took us around and explained the different types of bees and hornets.

At the end of the building were some square aluminium containers where the honey bees were busy making honey. These bees, according to our friendly guide, do not sting people. Both En and Brian were afraid to go near these containers. For En, I think it was because she was once stung by a bumble bee and had to be taken to the hospital for a jab. For Brian, maybe he has seen too many shows (or cartoons) on how dangerous bees are.

The mini tour ended very quickly and we were each given a tiny plastic cup to sample the different types of honey. There was the royal honey, manuka honey, honey with procolis, honey with vinegar, etc. I ended up buying one bottle of honey with procolis, what the man claimed was good for people who are coughing.

Thankfully, the rain stopped just as we were about to leave the place. :)

To be continued (Part Four : Butterfly Farm)

Mini Asean, Malacca

Continuing from where I left off .......
. . .

We went to Mini Asean which is also part of the Mini Malaysia site.


The first thing we noticed was the suspension bridge. That was new!! The last time I was here, there was no suspension bridge at all. Brian and En were excited and walked across. There was a group of high school students who were behind En and Brian. They jumped on the bridge, making the whole walk more exciting.

I thought that with the suspension bridge, they must've upgraded the Asean houses. I remember the last time I were here, the houses were so badly maintained, I was so embarrassed because I was playing tour guide to a foreigner.
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Right after that bridge, we came to a pool with a man made beach at the end. This reminded me of the huge man made beach right in the heart of Brisbane city area. Of course, this was a much smaller version of it. The pool looked clean and well maintained. Perhaps, I thought to myself, the management did maintain the Asean houses.


We came to the first house. A huge mansion. The Singapore house. Sad to say, it was not maintained at all and we couldn't even go in. The whole house looked spooky and there were puddles of water all over the floor, plus we saw some rotten dining chairs right outside the house. Gosh! It was a sight for sore eyes!

We walked on .... and found that most of the houses were as bad as the Singapore mansion, if not worse. So we just walked around the place, looking at the facade of each house. The children were by then feeling very tired and restless. They wanted excitement, not just a long walk back to the entrance.

En kept saying that the place stank. We saw people burning leaves nearby. Gosh!! Polluting the air right in the middle of a tourist site. This is certainly not good at all!!!

Needless to say, the Mini Asean was a great disappointment and embarrassment. I would prefer if they quadrant off this whole section and concentrate only on Mini Malaysia until they upgrade the whole area.

Well, I guess they did do something to it ... by adding the suspension bridge, the pool and some other challenging stuff for the youth to do but I do wish that the would do something about the houses. Those houses actually looked haunted.

Right before we left Mini Asean, we were at the suspension bridge again and Brian & En jumped on to it, walked to the other side and back again.

It was drizzling slightly and we hurried off to go look for ice cream at the entrance.

There were ice cream for sale there but we didn't buy any because the selection was not great.

............to be continued (Part Three : The Bee Museum)

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)