Legoland Johor Bahru

No doubt, Legoland is a must visit place in Malaysia. Legoland has been a strong magnet that attracted us to visit Johor Bahru for the second time, even though we were not big fans of Lego toys. That is the first Legoland in Asia. The Miniland alone was built with more than 30 millions of Lego bricks. Seven fun packed themed area with more than 40 rides, attractions, and shows. All these magical statistics have lures massive crowd into the park.

The entrance fee for adult (12-60 year old) is RM 140 (USD 47), and RM 110 (USD 37) for child and senior citizen. Online ticket is available with 25% off but booking has to be done 7 days in advance. So, why not book the ticket online? Click here for more ticketing information. We stepped into the Legoland around 10:50 am and had stayed until 6 pm.

Hot and humid. That's the price to pay in order to get some fun, besides the entrance fee. Hat, umbrella, comfortable clothes and footwear, small towels, sunblock, extra clothes, enough drinking water (or enough money to buy drinks inside the theme park), we brought all of them. We advise that you bring at least a few of them, if not all. An umbrella, at least. The theme park just started its operation few months ago, the trees and the shrubs were not grown big enough to provide shades. There were limited shelters as well. So, an umbrella is necessary to protect ourselves from blasting UV or soaking rain.

Now, we would like to walk through the Legoland with our photos. In clockwise direction, the areas that we visited in were The Beginning, Lego Technics, Lego Kingdoms, Imagination, Land of Adventure, Lego City, and Miniland.

This is the main entrance of Legoland 10 a.m. in the morning. As you can see, massive crowd is fluxing into the park.

Long queue formed in front of ticketing counter (upper left), with many of them have to wait under the hot sun for their turn to buy the tickets.

The beginning in fact is a small square right after the entrance, with several shops selling food, souvenirs, and providing other services.

 We visited Lego Technics as our first station.  Mindstorms and Lego Academy are two attractions for the kids (not for us). Other than that, three rides and a cafe. There was a giant red octopus fighting with several Lego heros at the middle of area (upper left). The entrance of Mindstorms and Lego Academy is marked by a huge Einstein sculpture, made by Lego (lower left). Two robots were standing in front of the cafe (lower right).

The photos showed two of the rides that we took- Technic Twister (upper left) and Project X. Project X is the roller coaster with 4-passenger cars (lower left). We queued for almost one hour for just a ride- the longest waiting time in Legoland.

 

This signage on hill from Lego Technic area (this photo was edited with Photoshop).

Legoland Kingdoms is a medieval themed area.

Lego Kingdoms is well decorated with different Lego characters. The area housed two roller coasters- Dragon Apprentice and Dragon. We took a ride on Dragon Apprentice, which is a junior roller coaster (upper right). We left Dragon, which is more intense and thrill packed aside.

The royal castle at the deepest side of Kingdoms.

The Lego Castle doesn't host Sleeping Beauty, but serves as an entrance to Dragon roller coaster.

Lego Imagination was the third area that we visited, where we went for 4D movie (lower right). We missed the observation tower as the ride was closed due to the technical problem.

  Musical fountain at Lego Imagination area.

Next to Lego Imagination is Lego Adventure. The Lost Kingdom Adventure (inside the building with Pharaoh's sculpture, upper right) is the ride that we would recommend to all.

Lego characters on the Dino Island in Adventureland.

Dino Island ride is somewhere that you will get wet.

Lego City is designed for kids. This photo was taken from The Beginning, showing a scene of Boating School.

 Legoland Express offers a five minutes ride around Legoland. However, we couldn't really see much nice view along the ride.

The Market Restaurant is the most interesting eatery in the theme park. It was decorated by many cute Lego chefs, busy preparing food for the customers.

The last area in Legoland- Miniland was built with more than 200 millions Lego bricks. Can you imagine they actually built the mini Putrajaya with Lego bricks?

Mini Kuala Lumpur. The streets were decorated in details with little Legoland citizens and cars.

These are the models of the attractions in China (upper left), Cambodia (upper right), Indonesia (lower right), and Brunei (lower left).

Clarke Quay Singapore. Photo taken with miniature mode.

We stopped for a while at Castle Games booth, tried the shooting game, and smiled all the way out with this big cute sheep.

Legoland is definitely a must visit place in Johor Bahru. There is still room for improvement, and we really hope that the park will get better in future. For instance, starting from 10 am sharp, we joined about 60 others in the ticketing queue. We should give more chance for the newly established theme park to improve. However, we really felt that, as an international theme park, wasn't 45 minutes too long for them to serve a crowd of 60? The car park is very much exposed but we think, the condition will get better when the shrubs and trees grow bigger. Revisit? Yes, of course. But hopefully, with some of our family and friends. 

Map, detail about ticketing and entrance fees, operational days and hours, and other information about Legoland is available at Legoland official page. We will write more JB's food in our next post. Stay with us.

Our older post about Johor Bahru is available at Southern Tip of Peninsular- Johor Bahru. Or click here to go to all our destinations.

[Nice Food in Johor Bahru] [Southern Tip of Peninsular- Johor Bahru]
[All Our Destinations]

A Great Experience with MASWING

We were so close to it, but yet missed our first chance to fly with MASWING last December. Out of a blue change in our itinerary. However, we grabbed our first experience flying in this twin engines 68 seaters in January 2012, from Sibu to Kota Kinabalu. 90 minutes in the air, we crossed the territory of Bintulu, Miri, Brunei, and Labuan, before we landed at Kota Kinabalu. It was an unexpectedly enjoyable trip.

Far back in 1990s, our experience with twin propellers Forker Friendship was terrible. Rocky, hot and sweaty, narrow and suffocating cabin, and the list went on. Time passed and things changed. Now, the ATR 72-500 aircraft offers a far much better experience. Although it is propeller-powered, the aircraft is nevertheless less noisy, relatively stable (thanks to the good weather), wider cabin, nice and sweet stewardess (as consistence as other Malaysia Airlines services), and above all, very comfy seats, which fit well to our average Asian sitting posture. The air conditioning system worked well and it was cooling in the craft (although it was quite warm in the first five minutes after boarding).

17 thousands above the sea level, we were served with delighting refreshment, followed by a cup of tea. While munching our sandwich, we enjoyed a 30 minutes videos presentation, mostly focused on the tourism and information about Sarawak and Sabah.

Video presentation is the last thing to expect in this twin propellers powered flight.

Our refreshment on the aircraft (upper row). Cannot be considered spacious, but there is definitely enough room to stretch.

Beautiful? Sweet? The definition might be varied. However, the stewardess defined herself with good service.

The scene 17 thousands above the sea level.

Kota Kinabalu can be clearly seen in this steady aerial view.

We were unexpectedly greeted by two cuties a few minutes before the captain announced the descending.

Although it is a domestic airline, providing flights connecting cities and towns within Sabah and Sarawak, with a very humble-looking fleet, MASWING is indeed a world class airline. No doubt, we will fly with the airline again, and again.

For more information about our trip in Sabah and Sarawak, please go to All Our Destinations. More stories about Kota Kinabalu and Sibu are available at:

[A Day Tour Around Sibu] [Sibu Attractions] [Sibu Accomodation and Food]

[Kota Kinabalu] [Labuan] [All Our Destinations] [Our Travephoto]

TravePhoto @ Malaysia Bird Parks

KL Bird Park is one of the must visit places in Kuala Lumpur. The open aviary concept of the bird park ensures close encounter between human being and the flipping cuties.

We have visited the bird park few times last year, and, for sure, we will visit the park again in future. With our Nikon P100 super zoom, the beauty of the birds escapes no more. We would like to bring to you some of our photos taken in the park. Hope you enjoy them!

These photos can be viewed at highest resolution on Ling Shing's flickr.

Special Notes:
-While keep the slideshow playing, keep your mouse out of the slideshow "screen" to see the "full-screen" photos.

Go back to Our TravePhoto page. Or read more about our experience in KL Bird Park at:

[KL Bird Park] [All Our Destination]

Penang Batu Feringghi Beach

If you think to put your feet down the beach with blue clear sea water, a touch of gentle wind with the hued evening sky is an experience of a lifetime, then, you might agree with us that Feringghi Beach is a place for you.

We heard many unpleasant news about the beach before- dirty, full with trash, accidents that brought injuries to visitors, and the list went on. However, the local authorities have their job well done, which recently had transformed the beach into a vacation paradise.

 This is the prove- no sign of trash on this beach. We could see couples were enjoying their romantic moment while the thrill seekers were busy with their parasailing and jet skis (far left).

Parasailing is popular at this beach. The rate was RM45 per person per trip.

The rates of the water sports.

 The lifeguards are on duty during the daytime.

We took our opportunity to take a walk from Bayview Beach Hotel to Parkroyal Hotel through the beach. Slowly, we made it in 30 minutes. Halfway down the beach, we enjoyed this beautiful sunset, around 6:30 pm.

We moved inwards, from the beach to the street after the sky turned dark. The Batu Feringghi Road turns into a night market belt after the night falls. The night market stretched more than 1 km from Shangri-La Rasa Sayang Resort to Bayview Beach Resort. The items offered by the night market were not that attractive to us, as they were basically a repetition of souvenirs, fake branded products, such as watches, clothes, and belts, as well as pirated DVDs. The only thing that attracted us was the food.

As we can see from the photos, there were not many people on the street and, it was not the off season. We learned from a taxi driver that the night market was targeting the tourists, with the items sold with the price slightly higher than other places in Penang. That's why the night market attracts less visitors. Trishaw is available at  Feringghi only during the night time (lower right).

We can get various food at Feringghi- Indian food, Chinese food, Middle East food, fast food, Western steak house, you name it, you got it. We tried asam laksa (some refer it as assam laksa) and fried oyster at Long Beach Cafe (it's a food court). The taste, so-so. The food at George Town and Gurney Drive taste better. We passed by some of the food shops such as The Ship and Golden Thai, and we personally felt that the food over there were over-priced.

This is how Batu Feringghi Road looks like during the day time.

Batu Feringghi and Penang Airport are located at the both ends of Penang Island, northern and southern ends respectively, around 30 km apart from each other. By taxi, we took around 40 minutes to travel from the airport to our hotel, and the fare, RM75. We stayed in Bayview Beach Hotel at Batu Feringghi for one night. The hotel is just by the sea, with astonishing sea side view. We chose the hotel as it is cheaper (bigger room and lower rate), compared to the other major hotels nearby, such as Hard Rock Hotel, Parkroyal Hotel, Shangri-La Rasa Sayang, and Holiday Inn. Location wise, a little bit to the western end of the whole tourism belt, but its still acceptably good. If we use the street, by foot, the hotel is 10 minutes away from Parkroyal Hotel and 25 minutes away from Shangri-La Rasa Sayang Resort (we did a brief calculation when we were moving around the night market). Long Beach Cafe is around 20 minutes away from our hotel.

Bayview Beach Hotel from the street (upper left), with a nice pool facing the beach (upper right). We didn't expect to get such a good view from our hill view deluxe room (lower left), and the room is really big, with many space to move around.

This photo was taken with handphone camera. The wrong white balance setting gives a totally different feeling to the photo. Well, this photo was taken at the beach side of our hotel.

We were lucky to get complimentary breakfast at Parkroyal Hotel, thanks to the conference that one of us had attended at the hotel. 

This is what we could see from our table during our breakfast.

We took the opportunity to walk around and enjoy the nice landscape of Parkroyal Hotel, and this was one of the picturesque scene we saw. In comparison, Parkroyal has better service and nicer landscape, a smaller room, and about RM200 more expensive than Bayview Beach Hotel. 

After we enjoyed our breakfast, we started our journey to Penang Butterfly Farm and Penang War Museum. Follow us now!

All our sharing on Penang are available at:

[Penang Batu Feringghi Beach] [Penang Butterfly Farm and War Museum]
[Penang World Heritage Site Part 1] [Penang World Heritage Site Part 2]

[Penang Accomodation and Food] [All Our Destinations]

Penang World Heritage Site Part 1

Chulia Street is located in the heart of George Town, right in the middle of the UNESCO Heritage Site. Staying at Chulia Heritage Hotel was really a good choice, location wise.

Staring from our hotel, we toured around the UNESCO World Heritage Site at 9 am, heading westwards until we reached Penang Road. After taking our breakfast at one of the coffee shops there, we turned into Lebuh Leith (Leith Street) to visit Cheong Fatt Tze Mansion. We turned back to Muntri Road, then reached Lebuh Light (Light Street) through Lorong Love (Love Lane). From Light Street, we travelled into Lebuh Pantai (Beach Street), had our lunch at a kopitiam and, visited Peranakan Mansion before we make our stop at Khoo Kongsi along the street. We stepped our foot back into our hotel at around 4 pm, covering a distance of 4.5 km, by foot.

Along our way, we saw different types of old shops, which their age can be determined by their architecture styles. The Southern Chinese style (upper left) was the oldest shops that we could identify, which were built between 1840-1890. Early Strait style shops (upper right) can be found at Love Lane. They were built between 1890-1910. We came across some shops built in Late Strait style (lower left) at Muntri Road, while Early Modern style shops are everywhere across George Town area. We learned the knowledge about architecture styles of the shops from this penang shophouses blog.

We reached this blue building at the end of Leith Road around 10 am.  It was a mansion, which now serves as a boutique hotel. This edifice has won several international awards, which include the highly recognized "Most Excellent Heritage Conservation Award", which was given by UNESCO. It is a popular movie filming site as well. More information about Cheong Fatt Tze Mansion can be found at its official website. We didn't go into the mansion, as the first tour started only at 11 am. We need to pay RM12 per person for the tour. Many had mentioned that the tour is somehow overrated. Our advice, why not take a look on their comments, and then, make your own decision.

We came across this Hainan Temple, which was built in 1895 at Muntri Road. This temple serves the goddess of Mazu. What you can't miss about this temple is the fine sculptures on it's walls and the pillars (as some of them can be seen at the pillars of the arch). 

 The Goldsmith's Guild (upper left) at Muntri Road and Carpenter's Guild (upper right) at Love Lane are two of the oldest trade associations in Penang. We entered the Carpenter's Guild and saw a very fine sculpture was hanged in the middle of the guild (lower right). Love Lane is an old street, which the name might has the connection to the illicit liaison of mistress, which was once quite popular at the street.

We met this historical Church of Assumption at the junction between Love Lane and Light Road, which was built more than 160 years ago in 1860. This church can accommodate more than 1000 congregation in a single mass.

The pictures designed with stained glass in the church are the lighting windows, decorative pictures, and the story tellers.

St. John Church is located just beside Penang Church of Assumption. This should be a very popular place wedding photo taking. How did we know about that? Take a look on the notice below...

 Commercial photography and pre-wedding photography is NOT ALLOWED.

We were not posing commercial nor pre-wedding purposes. So, taking photo there was allowed. :p A helpful tour guide, Gary, volunteered to take this photo for us. He is specialized in Penang tour. Take a look on his blog here. Or contact him at garyleop@yahoo.com.

We took a short rest in front of Penang Town Hall, as the pedestrian path over there was well shaded. There are three main heritage sites beside Light Street- Penang Town Hall, Penang and Fort Cornwallis. Penang Town Hall was built in 1880. It was once been called the "Ang Mo Gong Kuang", or The Meeting Place of the Foreigners by the locals.

The Building of Penang Municipal Council was built in 1903, and still functional until today.

We reached the entrance of Fort Cornwallis, with the sun blazing 90 degree above us. This is the fort which was built by Francis Light in 1786.  Lucky, and we were saved from the stinging heat by the trees planted inside the fort.

The building of Fort Cornwallis marked the starting of British colonization in Penang. From what we can see, many of the cannons are facing the sea, make the fort a powerful British stand against the Malay army from the peninsular mainland. The design of the fort showed that Francis Light had the intention to take over Penang by force, from the very beginning of his plan. A small chapel was built in the fort (lower left), while some parts of the wall were reconstructed (lower right).

Along Light Road, we turned right when we met this sixty feet tower. The tower was built in commemorating the Jubilee of Queen Victoria in 1902 (the construction started in 1897, but the Queen died before the completion of the tower). The building was sponsored by Cheah Cheng Eok, one of the richest men in Penang at that time.

We took a lunch break at an air conditioned Kopitiam, next to Standard Chartered. We continued our journey along Beach Street after the lunch. Follow us now!

All our sharing on Penang are available at:

[Penang Batu Feringghi Beach] [Penang Butterfly Farm and War Museum]
[Penang World Heritage Site Part 1] [Penang World Heritage Site Part 2]

[Penang Accomodation and Food] [All Our Destinations]