Hey there! How’re you going?
I’m T1 and this is my brother T2, together we are The J Twins!
Lego Ninjago
JJ are HUGE fans of the Lego Ninjago Series… prolly smitten by the same Lego bug as was Daddy J in his younger days.
One fine afternoon when we were about 4, Daddy J whips out little Lego System Black Knights Castle ensemble from the closet and intrigued us. That kinda sparked our interest in these little’ bricks yet he said we were too young to fiddle around with them – instead he shoved us some Lego Duplo blocks instead *bummer*…
One of our first Lego (Duplo) sets we bought at the Lego store @ Rinku Premium Outlet in Osaka, Japan.
We will be sure to keep this in neat condition for junior JJs in future 🙂
However since embarking on our very own Ninjago journey 2 years back, there’s been no turning back.
JJ’s Lego Ninjago journey…
Kudos to the LEGO team for the very clear and intuitive instructions. JJ have had very minimal supervision building these sets. The only help Mummy and Daddy J have provided are in ensuring the pieces stick together snugly, and the very occasional re-orientation (left/right hand of the Kai Fire Mech or left/right wing of Jay’s Lightning Jet)…
Clockwise from Jon’s hands…
- Jay’s Lightning Jet (Blue)
- Cole’s Quake Mech (Grey/Black)
- Garma Mecha Man (Black)
- Kai’s Fire Mech (Red)
Clockwise from Jon’s hands
- Firstbourne Dragon (Red)
- Stormbringer Dragon (Blue)
- Lloyd’s Green Dragon
- Ultra (White) Dragon
- Destiny’s Bounty
- Our favourite Ninjago City!
- Manta Ray Bomber
- Ninjago Temple of the ULTIMATE Ultimate Weapon (Ninjago Joke)
- Ninjago Temple of Resurrection
- Miscellaneous Ninjago sets
To top it off, we were recently gifted a Legoland Ninjago Lloyd staycation @ the Legoland Malaysia Resort by our lovely Gugu J – check out our review of that stay here.
Hong Kong (Dec 2018)
Hong Kong (Dec 2018)
JJ in HKG (16th – 20th Dec 2018)
Type: Free and Easy
Day -1
Daddy J comes in with the usual “LIGHTS-OUT-kids-please-sleep-since-you-have-a-long-day-ahead-tomorrow-no-story-time-tonight” yadda yadda; and we try hard to fall asleep, thinking what movies might be screening in the IFE tomorrow (hopefully no more Frozen or Peppa Pig, though Paw Patrol, PJ Masks or Ninjago would be fun) and soon dozing off with Mommy Koa and Elsa.
D1
I’m still surprised at how the kids will be up and cheery in mornings like this instead of the grumpy i-didnt-get-enough-sleep-last-night on regular school days…
Kids jump right out of bed and are literally jumping on their (actually our) beds!
OKIE DOKIE, you know the drill, transport comes in 30mins, go washup and remember to pack whoever’s going with you on the plan into your bags – Mummy J yells from the hall, frantically doing the last minute squeezing of stuff into the bags, which she does so really well (the latter only of course!).
We get to the airport, pickup our WIFI dongle from Changi Rewards counter and off we go to the checkin counters. Was a breeze as usual and off we head for some breakkie.
Soon its boarding time!
On arrival at Chek Lap Kok airport we clear immigration rather quickly and collected our luggage, upon exiting customs we keep a lookout for our KLOOK driver (we had pre-booked return airport transfer via KLOOK) but to no avail. Walked on further to the rendezvous point outside Tai Hing Restaurant (Arrival Meet & Greet Hall, 5/F, Terminal 1) and saw a group of other folks talking to what appeared to be the KLOOK agent. Apparently our driver was running behind schedule and we were given a swap, which would only arrive in 30min.
No drama. we made ourselves comfortable, TAKE MORE PHOTOS and it wasn’t long before the chap arrived.
When we finally settled into the MPV, it didn’t take long for the kids to doze off.
We did have some issue with getting the wifi to work this time.
Disclaimer – we’ve used the Changi Wifi umpteen times in the past and hadn’t had any issues whatsoever. Issue here was that the device wasn’t able to connect to the internet despite multiple attempts which including rebooting and resetting the device.
Tried eventually to get in touch with support, and took almost all day before someone eventually got back to us. Good thing was that once that happened, we went through the remote troubleshooting process and finally got it working. Phew!
Daddy J was actually feeling rather unwell at this stage (probably caught on the flu bug from T1 who had been sick the week prior). We decide however to go to look for some dinner around Mongkok and eventually settled for Tim Ho Wan!
D2 – Disneyland!
We head to Mongkok MTR station which is a short 5min stroll from Hilton Garden Inn Mongkok. No fuss as there were plenty of sights and sounds to take in (the area around the hotel is predominantly hardware shops. Kiddy Caution! The area around Soy Street seemed a little seedy when we were walking back to the hotel at night, with what appeared to be some working ladies lurking in the street corners.
Apart from that it was a lovely hotel which provided us free upgrades and breakfast for the gang (Grandpa J and Mummy J are both HH Gold Members and kids < 7 years eat for free. See our other post on HH Gold fasttrack tip!)
MTR ride was smooth and comfy on a wintery December Monday as most people were already at work when we boarded the train from Mongkok station en route to Sunny Bay station before crossing over to the other side of the platform for the Disneyland Resort-bound Monorail.
We get to the turnstiles around 11am, clearly missing the rope drop (10am). We had prior to this downloaded the HK Disneyland App (similar to other Disney parks) which basically shows you the map, schedule and queue time at each destination). We will not go through the review in detail as there are heaps of other blogs which offer a lot more in-depth reviews on the attractions, rides, shows and tips and tricks).
Once inside there was a clear beeline to the Mickey meet and greet which we steered clear from. Instead, we patronized Donald whose queue was way shorter.
At the end of the day after clearly achieving more than 10,000 steps that day, we were thankful we had prebooked pickup/transfer from Disney back to the hotel.
D3 – Causeway Bay, Star Ferry, Sogo Causeway Bay and Light Display
[JJ hack] FYI kiddy ergonomic bags are at least 30-40% cheaper than those of the same brand in SG.
Armed with this info, we made our way to Sogo Causeway Bay to grab the Moonrock Bags after doing some comparison between Dr Kong and MR (we had prior to that ventured to the Toys R Us @ Harbour City Shopping Centre as that was listed as one of the available locations on the MR website. Unbeknown to us (until we got there and spoke to the staff), this was only available as a summer item at that location. Because it was now winter these bags were no longer stocked there! Plan B then ensued and we tracked our way on the iconic Star Ferry from Tsim Tsa Tsui to Wan Chai (Mummy J at the onset of flu which explains the facemask!). Our friendly Octopus Card was really handy and was seamless in our transitions from MTR, bus and Ferry!
*Caution: Your Octopus card is eligible for a refund which we completely forgot about until we arrived home!
Note: On departure from Hong Kong you can return it to the Customer Service Centre at the airport or to any Customer Service Centre at any MTR station to get the refundable deposit of HK$50 and the remaining value. A refund fee of HK$9 will be deducted if the card is returned within 3 months from the date of issue.
The famed MoonRock kids’ ergonomic bags…
(Picture 4 below from Dr Kong in comparison with the MoonRock ones which come in an assortment of design including Ninjago Masters of Spinjitsu!)
The awesome display of lights at the Symphony of Lights from the Hong Kong Cultural Centre (Tsim Tsa Tsui). The other alternative location is at Golden Bauhinia Square in Wan Chai. The shows run nightly from 8pm.
Nice looking junk sailing along amidst a dazzling display of sound and lights.
Highlight was the horseman busker in the underground
D4 – HK Science Museum/Victoria Peak/Tram ride and Trickeye Museum
We were deliberating on whether or not to bring the kids to Ocean Park but decided to take it easy this time. We ended up going to the HK Science Museum (yay for Free Admissions on Wednesdays!) and onward to the Peak.
Note the museum is conveniently tucked in between theTsim Sha Tsui, Tsim Sha Tsui East and Hung Hom MTR stations.
Very visibly tired kids who fall asleep in no time after a long day out…
D5 – Olympic City playground
Without battling an eyelid, the kids were unanimous (quite uncommon!) about wanting to spend the morning after breakfast at the nice playground across the street from the hotel before heading to the airport for our flight home.
Flight home… JJ crashing Grandma J’s sleep pod.
The Importance of the right Travel Insurance
Well, we don’t think there’s a real need to over-emphasize the importance of a travel insurance which should be common knowledge, but with the proliferation of products out there, it may be worthwhile to go into the contract with your eyes wide open.
Not only are there numerous products ranging from individual/family coverage, destination/region of travel, health/emergency evacuation and the usual flight delays, lost/delayed baggage or trip curtailment, there are also the suite of products covering sports equipment (including add-ons for x-treme sports!) and comprehensive coverage of car rental.
For the purpose of this write-up, we will provide the perspective on insurance coverage on car rentals only.
As the story goes, on the homeward-bound part of our trip DownUnder in 2018 as we were headed to the Perth Airport for our flight home, we pulled over at Mirabooka Caltex station (right next to Mirabooka Shopping Centre) to fuel up so as to return the car with a full tank of fuel. There was a slight drizzle, and the gang was in the car. All of a sudden, without any premonition, there was a loud ‘BANG!’. Aghast, Daddy J who was outside turned to look around (note there is no auto trigger on the fuel nozzles in AU. Seems it is a requirement by law for motorist to control the trigger manually so they don’t set it to auto stop as we do back home, or elsewhere for that matter where there is a latch that clicks when the tank is almost full).
Certainly wasn’t the click or bang from the trigger. Thus we were left wondering what had happen!
Pertubed, Daddy rushes over and tells us to lock the doors shut and heads to the front of the car to assess the situation.
We find out subsequently that a yellow Holden had backed into our rental.
The driver gets out and himself seems to be in a state of disbelief he could have erred or missed seeing our stationary car perhaps in the blind spot from where he was.
So what happens in the ensuing minutes was some indistinct chatter where both grownups were seen snapping pix of the ‘damage’ and exchanging contacts.
The long and short of the process was – we had to fill up some forms at the Enterprise desk upon drop off of the vehicle at the airport when we arrived. Instead of what would’ve been a simple, straightforward task of dropping off the keys became about a 30-min administrative chain of completing forms, providing further details, and having to dictate what transpired to the duty manager.
In the end, Enterprise charged a flat AUD$2750 damage liability fee to our pre-registered credit card. *Ouch*
What ensued in the subsequent weeks after we had gotten home to SG was the back and forth correspondence in hopes to recover the monies paid upfront for something which we were at the receiving brunt of 🙁
Fortunately though was that we had pre-purchased a comprehensive coverage prior to trip commencement with RentalCover.
Yes there was some hassle getting the docs and forms to and fro – to be fair and on hind side one would need to contend with that with any other insurer anyways. RentalCover however has been really responsive through the entire episode.
After 5 weeks from the start of process, we received a cheque for SGD$1500 (based on our selected coverage). Yes that’s way lower than the sum we were slapped with by Enterprise, but they subsequently returned AUD$2000 charged initially given the estimate for repairs came up to only around AUD$700-isd. And, because of the ongoing claim from Enterprise to the insurer and the final verdict that we were not at ‘fault’, we eventually received the full refund back to our credit card! We figured Enterprise had recovered the full damage/repair cost directly from the insurer of the guy who backed into us.
Net, not only did we get a refund on the initial damage liability charged to our card, we ended up with some reimbursement from our insurance coverage as compensation for the inconvenience and perhaps to defray some of Mummy’s shopping spend! 🙂
Birthdays!
Mommy J recounts how preemie we were – we popped in WK31 and were both in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU) for 20 days (T1) and 21 days (T2) respectively. It was tough to say the least, as both Daddy and Mommy were not allowed to stay overnight during this time.
Good thing is we had each other’s company, and subsequently Rex’s… 🙂
Thus every year is precious and every birthday is worth celebrating, and a timely reminder of how blessed we are to have life, and to have each other!
Our Very 1st Birthday – Cake and Cupcakes courtesy of Aunty Luan!
Our 2nd Birthday – Peppa Chocolate and Koala Strawberry!
Our 3rd Birthday Cake – Bus Boy Mutton and Princess (Elsa) Nana
Our 4th Birthday Cake – something a little more mainstream for us both to share!
Birthday Kiss Jie Jie! *Muax*
Now my turn Di Di!! *Muax*
The boys decked out in the same prints…
What happened to our 5th?
Our 6th Birthday Bash!
This year Mummy decided to do something different by organising a Birthday Bash for us! Mummy even made her own Candy Corner, worked the decor and kids craft! Good thing we had some elves help with the food, games and goodie bags!!! Pin the unicorn was definitely a hit with the kids!
Behind the scenes prep…
Perth, Western Australia (May 2018)
Perth, Western Australia (May 2018)
JJ in PER (31st May – 5th Jun 2018)
Type: Free & Easy (Self Drive)
Day -1
Daddy J comes in with the usual “LIGHTS-OUT-kids-please-sleep-since-you-have-a-long-day-ahead-tomorrow-no-story-time-tonight” yadda yadda; and we try hard to fall asleep, thinking what movies might be screening in the IFE tomorrow (hopefully no more Frozen or Peppa Pig, though Paw Patrol, PJ Masks or Ninjago would be fun) and soon dozing off with Mommy Koa and Elsa.
Day1 – Caversham Wildlife Park
We arrive on time in PER and remember the Q at immigration builds up very quickly given the short interval between SQ213 and MH flight. We clear immigration in a jiffy and get the go ahead to clear customs without the cute little beagle sniffing our bags this time. Onward to the car rental counter (this time we opted to go with Enterprise* whose counter was located at the far right end of the terminal in the car park as we were exiting the secondary clearance area).
*Good thing Daddy bought a separate insurance cover from Rental Cover as we did encounter bit of an incident towards the end of our trip! We were so scared! See write up here.
It was a relatively quick(er) process versus the more-than-an-hour-wait at Hertz the previous trip and soon we were all strapped in and headed to Caversham!
Day2 – Perth Hop On/Hop Off (Perth Explorer Bus)
We get up early (surprising how JJ get up early during holidays!) and head down for breakkie (free breakkie for HH Gold. See separate write up on HH Gold fast-track. We also got upgraded to a family suite this time!).
We then drive to Murray Street and park somewhere in between ‘The Explorer Stops 2 and 6″ (refer below map) since we want to take the bus only around the City to Northbridge, onward to Optus Stadium, Crown Casino (where we pitstop for Macker’s hash browns!) and alight at Perth Mint – this circuit takes only 20 mins tops. We alight outside the Perth Mint and walk 5mins back to the car neatly parked on Murray.
Refer to the Perth Explorer Website for latest routes and timing (Map/photo credit to Perth Explorer).
We end the day with the welcome drinks…
[Disclaimer: Kids did not partake of any alcoholic beverage(s), its just one of the signs of cranky and tired kids after a long day out!]
Day3 – Cicerello’s @ Freo
Voted by the JJ Twins as #1 Fish and Chips in Australia 🙂
Very kid-friendly as they have lotsa crayons and colouring pages to keep the kids occupied while waiting for the food!
(yummy chilly mussels!)
Day4 – Busselton Jetty
After breakkie we make our way down south towards Busselton, past Bunbury.
All in we take about 2 hours for a leisurely drive on Freeway South.
Highlight here was the train ride towards the ocean along the Longest Jetty in the Southern Hemisphere.
There’s an Ocean Observatory at the end (10min train ride, which you need tickets for! Make sure you pre-book it lest you wait an hour or two for next available slots). Caution if you are rushing to the Cape Naturaliste Lighthouse (about 1.5hrs further down south-west from Busselton) you really need to prebook the train ride.
After grabbing some Jester’s Pie (yum!), we rush off towards the Lighthouse at Naturaliste (past Dunsborough).
Unfortunately we arrived just past 5pm where the last tour had departured. Fortunately the groundskeeper was kind enough to allow us to our self-guided walk around the vicinity!
We hurried off just before 6, as the final few cars to roll out of the car park, with the sunset behind us and make our way back to Perth City. Needless to say kids (including Daddy J and Mummy J) were super exhausted by the time we arrived back at the hotel…
Day5 – Swan Valley/Mini Golf
After an exhausting day the day before, we decide to take the day slow.
We went on the Perth Explorer Bus again, then drove north to the Margaret River Chocolate Factory @ Swan Valley (30min) [not to be mistaken with the original Margaret River Chocolate Company in Margaret River (3 hours drive down south).
After stuffing ourselves silly with choc and ice-cream, we decided to head over to X-treme Ice Rink at Mirabooka to burn it off with ice-skating (we had prebook family passes from Groupon the night before).
Ice Skating at X-treme Ice, Mirabooka
Day6 – Perth Carnival Fever!
While at Westfield Carousell the day before, we noticed a carnival going on at the Showgrounds Claremont.
Did some check over the internet and found tix which we then bought. Everyone loves a carnival! 🙂
The even had a petting zoo with small farm animals (Old MacDonald’s petting zoo!)…
Face Painting for the girls…
And more rides!!!
Summary of May 2018 Perth Accommodation:
We were at the Hilton Parmelia Perth this time. It was on par with the Pan Pacific Perth we stayed at the year before but note that parking at the Parmelia is by valet only and costs AUD$50/night. We found it obviously more cost effective to go with the street parking. Note that there are also strict timings by when you need to observe clearway (strictly no stopping), and maximum duration allowable (1P denoting 1-hour/2P for example is for 2 hours).
Honors Flash Sale Pricing:
Price breakdown |
Room price AU$695.50 |
5 nights: AU$139.10 /night including taxes |
Total AU$695.50 |
Bali, Indonesia (Feb 2018)
Bali, Indonesia (Feb 2018)
JJ in DPS 12th – 17th Feb 2018
Type: Camping in the hotel over CNY.
SQ946 departs Changi on time and arrives shortly into to DPS at 1946hrs.
Clearance was smooth and soon we were in the arrival terminal.
It was good to be back in Bali since Daddy and Mummy had been there previously and were hoping to bring the kids to the beach there one day. This was that ‘one’ day we had talked about previously. Couldn’t help however but notice the heat as we go out to the arrival area as we were greeted by our driver who would be bringing us to the hotel.
Traffic was not a concern at that hour and soon we were at the beautiful hotel grounds (couldn’t really take in the sights until the next day when we were finally able to explore the sprawling grounds!).
Photo credits Hilton Bali*
*Note this property was previously the Grand Nikko Bali till circa May2016 when it was acquired by and rebranded to the Hilton group.
Kids as usual lose no time in taking photos while Daddy J checks us in.
We get upgraded to a family room (with bunk beds and pool view).
I think we could have stayed in the room all day with the kids super excited about the double-decked bunks, climbing up and down, and (almost fighting) about who would get the top bunk. We finally agreed with alternating J1 and J2 every subsequent night 🙂
Got up to a nice breakfast the next morning post which we spent some time exploring the grounds. It was a huge hotel, with multiple pools (i think 4 spread across the site).
First stop of course was the Kids Club which we had read a lot about (2 levels – top floor with foosball, game consoles, board games, first floor with an outdoor and indoor area; the outdoor houses a wooden-decked playground, sandpit, rock-wall, trampoline and the indoor with a kids activity area*).
*The Kids Club runs multiple kids’ activities throughout the day – and even offers parents the opportunity to ‘drop’ your kids and optional kids’ lunch and dinner menus.
After couple of rounds on the foosball table, we decided to hit the beach!
Jon tries his hands (and legs) at rock-climbing the next day (part of the fixed-timing activities).
Kudos to the staff who were very helpful and supportive the whole time!
At the beach, we catch some hermit crabs… yummy (just kidding!). No crabs were hurt in the process!
We got a nice invite to attend the Manager’s Welcome Drinks Session the next day, which we happily accepted.
Had some nice canapés sipping Pina Colada and the Blue Fizzy drink by the pool after which we went for our own Chinese New Year Reunion dinner.
Part of the 5 most memorable experiences from the kids were ‘Drinking the Blue Drink by the Pool!*”
5 Best things about this trip (according to J Twins!) in cascading order.
5. Sipping Blue Fizz by the Pool!
4. Spending time with Daddy and Mummy!
3. Kids Club!
2. Beach!
1. Bunk beds!
Camel Feeding – also part of the Kids’ Club activities.
Overall, the 5 days here passed by swiftly! We had alternated between the following as part of our daily routine:
Breakfast – Kids’ Club – Beach/Pool – Nusa Dua Collection (10min shuttle bus ride away for lunch and shopping) – Beach/Pool… we also found some time towards the end for tennis with the kids!
Soon it was time to bid farewell to Bali.
Jo zooms off with the potter on the trolley back to the Lobby where Daddy J checks us out while we feed the kois in the pond around the lobby/foyer area.
Given our flight back home was early on Saturday morning (17th Feb), part of the plan was to relocate to Hilton Garden Inn (situated right next to the Denpasar airport!) which we transferred to after checkout on Friday. From here, it was a 5min Blue Bird taxi ride to Kuta Mall!
Seoul, Korea (Dec 2017)
Seoul, Korea (Dec 2017)
JJ in ICN (22nd -27th Dec 2017)
Type: Private Free and Easy Tour
Aunt J decides we will go on a private tour this time as it would be our 3rd trip to Korea. in our 1st Korea (packaged tour to Seoul/Jeju Island) trip in 2015, we met our then tour guide Mr S. Park, a very nice fatherly chap whose contact we had kept… until now. Though we had been back to Seoul a year after (2014), we went on our little own Free & Easy Trip (alternating between Lotte World and frolicking around Myeongdong for food and fashion!).
I’m attaching the itinerary here for your info, please send me an email if you’d like to learn more and we will be happy to share the contact of Mr S with you.
Day -1
Daddy J comes in with the usual “LIGHTS-OUT-kids-please-sleep-since-you-have-a-long-day-ahead-tomorrow-no-story-time-tonight” yadda yadda; and we try hard to fall asleep, thinking what movies might be screening in the IFE tomorrow (hopefully no more Frozen or Peppa Pig, though Paw Patrol, PJ Masks or Ninjago would be fun) and soon dozing off with Mommy Koa and Elsa.
Day1
We wake up at 5am, get dressed pronto and make our way to the airport to catch our ride to Seoul. We ALWAYS make it a point to go early to the airport – the Holiday really does start at the airport itself! With so much to do at literally the world’s best airport, Changi continues to impress.
Soon we’re airborne on KE648 bound for Incheon!
Kids waste no time on the in flight entertainment but can only last so long and fall asleep soon after.
Arriving at our hotel for the next few days…
Day2 – Gyeongbukgung Palace, Insadong
Annyeong haseyo Uncle S!
Uncle (Mr) S meets us right after breakkie and we load up into his MPV and off we go to Gyeongbukgung Palace and National Folk Museum (oh and we pass by the Blue House* en route)
*Daddy J asks us a riddle – “If the green house is on the left, and the red on the right, where are the white and blue houses? In Washington and Seoul of course!!
We get off the MPV and make a short stroll to the outer court of the Palace where a procession takes place. It was freezing cold but Mummy J whips out some hand and feet warmers which she quickly tucks into our pockets. We didn’t quite like the racket although it was fun to see the colourful traditional hanboks. T2 and T1 lose no time taking some pix with Grandma J, Aunt J and Mummy J.
We walk through the Palace grounds which house some traditional looking cottages and were impressed at how closely these replicas might have resembled the original look and feel of the palace and living quarters.
We find some pinecones and continue walking till we come to a the stone zodiac statues. TJT pose with the dragon symbolising the chinese zodiac of their birth year. Soon it gets cold again for us so we run inside the folk museum building to escape the cold (although momentarily!) and to take some shots with Soohorang and Bandabi-nim to commemorate the upcoming 2018 Seoul Winter Olympics!
Soon we head back out to meet our guide Mr S and take some funky pix on the way before hopping into the MPV for what i recall a 5-10min ride to Insadong.
At the end of the way – The J Twins were just so beat we dozed off on the way back to the hotel…
Day3 – Everland
Was raining cats and dogs all day. Despite the ponchos Mr S prepped for us we pretty much had to stay indoors at the cafe having extended breakfast, lunch and tea, eating sweets, choc, burrowing our heads in the map, taking pix, and more pix.
Oh for the record, Aunt J actually found a lost baby and returned her to the info desk to very VERY concerned and grateful parents. WELL DONE and HIP HIP HOORAY for Gugu J!
A blessing in disguise – because of all the rain, it started to snow as we were leaving the park! OK, maybe not so much snow, just flakes… but still good enough for us equatorial dwellers.
We end the day with another one of our chicken parties – WHAT is a visit to Korea without Kyo Chon???
Day4 – Christmas @ Lotte World!
“Today is best day ever because today is (not moving day – adapted from one of our favourite movies – HOME! but)… Christmas!”
What better way than to spend this day (not with your toys! – separate section) but with your favourite people at Lotte World!
This would be our 3rd time to Lotte – the first 2 years we spent more time at Pororro Park (situated inside Lotte) but this time TJT mutually agreed in one accord (this seldom happens) that they were getting a tad too old for this ‘park’. Daddy J quickly welcomed the idea since he didn’t need to pay extra to go visit Pororro in his abode again!
The J Twins lurveee rides and meats!
At the end of the day, Mr S drives us to our Christmas Dinner reservation Texas de Brazil @ Seocho-gu. By this time, we were so hungry we could literally have eaten a horse each!
The Churrascaria was a great choice since they had a great salad bar (even though you don’t really need that in a meat bar!) and all-the-meat-you-can-eat! T2 signalling with his green chip for MORE meat! Literally, no horse run. Neither was there horse meat. Seriously.
Way to go Mutton!
Day5 – Nami Island and Petit France
Off we go with Mr S who drives us about an hour to get to the pier where we would get on a ferry to Nami Island.
Miss Singapore T1 poses with the Singapore Flag.
A lot more snow on the other side – The J Twins go sledding.
Daddy J “There’s more snow over here kids. Beware of black ice!”
TJT “Daddy don’t eat the yellow ice”
TJT are TRUE Vegetable champions!
Day 6 – Myeongdong and Paju Premium Outlet
More shopping before we finally bid farewell to Seoul. Until we meet again!
Farewell Seoul – we had a blast. Checkout our awesome JTJ moves.
Fundays!
Funday Everyday!
One of our absolute favourite things is LEGO! However Didi (T2) has had very stark increases in his myopia progression in recent years we’ve been advised to go outdoors more often and avoid the near-vision activities which we so like such reading and watching tele!
Nonetheless we enjoy other stuff like…
1. Riding our Wiggle Car!
2. Getting around (being ridden by Daddy J in our bike wagon)
3. Garden Breakfast Party (with Rex and friends!)
4. Our little jumping castle and Water Slide!
5. Outdoorsie Stuff!!!
Bubbles…
GIANT BUBBLES…
Painting
And bird catching?
Don’t worry, no sparrows were harmed in any way, neither by the JJ Kids nor the Goldie in the pic – the birdie was as swiftly released after gobbling up the remnant rice grains it had been attempting to eat before the doors behind it shut!
Montage courtesy of Gugu J! 
Perth, Western Australia (May/Jun 2017)
Perth, Western Australia (May/Jun 2017)
JJ in PER (29th May – 2nd Jun 2017)
Type: Free & Easy (Self Drive)
The JJ kids are up early this morning as we scurry to get ready for our flight! We catch some quick shut-eye on the way to the airport but nothing’s stopping us from posing for the cam at T3!
The J Twins posing with Mummy Koa (who’s headed back to Aussieland) and Elsa.
It wasn’t long before we hop onto to plane.
Daddy says its 5 hours to get to PER, but…
JJ: How long is that Daddy?
Daddy J: Thats the equivalent to 2 runs of Frozen kids… you can watch it twice, or once and have a little shut eye after your CHML before we get in.
How’dy Mate! Sure enough we soon land in Western Australia, the new Aussie Sunshine State (with officially more hours of light that Queensland, with an annual average of 8.8hours of sunshine/day). Anyways… we disembark, and make our way to the immigration clearance. Wow, the queue builds up really quickly, we think there was another flight (guessing its MH) which arrives into the gate within minutes from ours.
No trouble… we clear immigration after a 20-min-ish Q without any hassle, pick up our bags, and our Kiddy-booster seats.
Note Australia has stringent legal requirements on child seats – Disclaimer on below requirements. Please CHECK the current legislations and latest requirements online via www.transport.wa.gov.au for Western Australia (RTA for New South Wales), or log on to the AusGov Roads and Transport Authority site since different AU states have different local governing bodies which manage licensing and regulations within their jurisdiction – https://www.australia.gov.au/information-and-services/transport-and-regional/roads-and-road-transport/authorities
What we had when we were there though we noted as below:
- < 6M – Babies less than 6 months need to be put in an approved rear-facing seat (baby capsule or convertible child car seat)
- 6M – 6Y – Toddlers in this age bracket to be in a forward-facing child seat with inbuilt harness.
- Kids > 145cm in height can use the regular fitted seat-belts.
After collecting our bags we were randomly selected for a secondary customs inspection where we were instructed to stand still in a line when Mr-Customs-Officer a cute waggly beagle comes along to sniff our bags. He takes a little extra sniff on ours maybe because of Rex’s scent but then trods along soon enough. Too bad we couldn’t snap pix… he was really adorable.
When we get out the sliding doors, we make a left turn towards the car rental desks. Daddy told us to wait as he queued at the yellow Hertz‘s counter with what appeared to be like 5 others folks ahead of him. And boy did we wait. We found out subsequently there was only 1 guy on shift that day, and was probably out at lunch. Daddy must have been in Q > an hour since during this time we had gotten his Aussie Optus SIM card from the local telco store, and had bought us a quick something to eat and drink while Mummy stood in line on his behalf! FINALLY we get our keys, Daddy manages to secure our trusty Safe’n’Sound seats into the rental and on we go all strapped up and ready to rock’n’roll! Despite the multiple delays we have every reason to smile from ear to ear!
We make our way to Caversham Wildlife Park in Swan Valley to see our favourite Aussie marsupials.
For the record – Jiejie (T1) was so tired (she’d refuse to sleep on the flight – ended up maxing out 2 movies with the endless request for more snacks and OJ) she falls asleep on Mummy’s lap for most of what we recall at Caversham. Daddy hurries around with Jon to see the other animals (we tried tirelessly to track the croc but only find a measly baby hidden behind some shrubs in the enslosure but were happy to find the family of baby penguins happily swimming away). That of course was after the standard Koala and Kangaroo trail.
Funnily though when we were about to leave, Jo wakes up feeling all fresh! *we remember Daddy nagging away about us having enough sleep before the holiday so we don’t sleep our holiday away…”.
Daddy says we’re a stone’s throw away from the Margaret River Chocolate Company also in the Swan Region. We get there soon enough and perk ourselves up after stuffing ourselves silly with chocolate!
The next day we get on the Perth Explorer (aka the Hop-on-Hop-off) bus…. we basically just do a little circuit and hop off at almost the same spot we left our car. We do spot SHREK along the way apparently at a Shrek Show in at Burswood Convention/Entertainment Centre. *Whee!*
We alight the bus at the Hay Street stop, right outside the Perth Mint. Daddy got us discounted tix from the Perth Explorer bus captain to go into the Mint. Seems there was a fixed timing so we play around the outside while waiting for our slot. We recall there was this interesting display of melting what looked like a gold brick. We thought Daddy seemed to be getting some ideas at one stage staring wide-eyed at the gold bar the whole time…. 🙂
After we whack him in the bum to wake up his silly ideas and he was sober enough to get behind the wheels again, he drives southwards to Cicerello’s @ Freo (Fremantle) for the best fish’n’chips in town!
On the way, we chance upon a nice big toy store called ToyWorld (what caught our eye was the yellow banner with the familiar while-emblazoned-on-red LEGO fonts claiming to be “Western Australia’s Largest independent Lego Store”. We make a pitstop and check out the Lego there to validate that claim!
Turns out to be pretty extensive a range, but the lineup wasn’t the newest… we did enjoy the giant trampoline and made ourselves pretty much at home in the basement though!
Soon it was munch time at Cicerello’s! Great food, some nice colouring sheets we helped ourselves to with some crayons while waiting for our lunch! We really liked the fish tanks with marine sea life around the restaurant (even in the little boy’s room!).
After a hearty lunch we head to Fremantle Prison.
We’re in luck, next tour leaves in 5mins so we quickly sign up and jump into our Orange Prison jumpsuits for our prison tour (just kidding on the jumpsuits!).
All in we took >2hrs to complete the prison tour. Daddy really liked it, Mummy we thought was too tired from chasing us around the sprawling outdoor grounds…
The next day we went shopping Westfield Carousell…. we enjoy the twin shopping cart at Coles. From Cannington we drive to X-treme Ice @ Mirabooka for some ice-skating. This is our first attempt on the rink, and Daddy says the cute little Penguins would come in handy. As there were absolutely no other people that day the staff were nice enough to offer us the Penguins at no additional cost – thanks heaps again guys from the JJ Twins! You guys rock! We will be sure to come back again soon!
At the University of Western Australia (UWA) grounds the next day. Surprise surprise who do we bump into there but our BSF teacher who was on holiday with her family.
At King’s Park with the picturesque backdrop of the beautiful Perth City!
At the Synergy Parkland King’s Park, where kids play like KINGS!
All in 5 days seemed pretty short. Soon we were packin’ up and Mummy got us to do our usual stuff sitting on the suitcases so we could pull the zipper together to close it shut…
Daddy says there’s so much more we weren’t able to see this time, and we should come back soon – if only we eat our veggies and continue to be the vegetable heroes we are, hope to see you soon Perth!
Summary of May/Jun 2017 Perth Accommodation:
We split the accommodation at different properties based on the best available rates (BAR) at each establishment.
Jo developed a fever towards the end of the trip so we had extended by 1 day (SQ was kind enough to waive the cancellation/rebooking fee and had rebooked us to another flight at no additional cost!).
- First 2 nights at the Mercure Hotel Perth (10 Irwin Street, Perth, WA, 6000 Australia).
Price breakdown
Room price AU$265.52
2 nights: AU$121.51 /night
Taxes : AU$22.50
Total AU$265.52
- Subsequent 2 nights at the Pan Pacific Perth (207 Adelaide Terrace, East Perth, WA, 6000 Australia)
Price breakdown
Room price AU$351.01
2 nights: AU$160.44 /night
Taxes : AU$30.13
Total AU$351.01