Legoland

Even though we were sad to leave Singapore (Vivian got in some window time before we left),

we were excited for our next adventure, Legoland, Malaysia!

Legoland is actually pretty close to Singapore.  The X factor in terms of time is how long it takes you to get through the border.  I had searched around online for driving services to get us from Singapore to Legoland and found one that included all the border fees, so it was a pretty smooth trip.  The driver picked us up at the apartment, we drove for about 30 minutes, then we got to the border.  It took about another 20-30 minutes to get through the lines on each side, and then about another 20-30 minutes to get to Legoland, easy!

I had booked us a package through the Legoland hotel that included a half-price, two day pass to both the regular park and the water park.  I knew we were going to have a good time when we walked into the lobby and there were two huge Lego play areas.  One was a pirate ship and the other was a castle.  Both were surrounded by a sea of Lego hemmed in by a circle of cushioned benches for parents to sit on.  I realized once we got home, that we had so much fun playing in these areas that we didn't take any pictures.  Whoops!

We got there in the morning, so we couldn't check into our room yet, but they had a luggage room set up, and I had already pulled out our swim gear.  We changed in the lobby bathrooms and headed over to the water park.  We didn't take pictures, but we had a lot of fun.  Elena and I hung out in the wave pool while Jeff and Vivian went on all the different water slides.  Then we all migrated down to the kiddie pool area that had sun shades over it.  Elena LOVED it.  There was also a lazy river going around the covered area, so Jeff and Vivian took a spin on that.  Since it's Legoland, there were water Legos floating around to build with and covered water tables for Lego boats and other creations.

We got a lunch of some really yummy fried seafood.  The only juice they were serving was blackberry flavored Ribena.  None of us had ever had Ribena before, so we bought one as an experiment.  Vivian decided that she loved it, so we ended up drinking a LOT of Ribena for the next two days.

After a few hours of splashing around, we went back to the hotel to see if we could get into our room.  It was ready, so we went up to check it out and change.  The hotel has three different room themes: Kingdom, Pirate, and Adventure (read ancient Egypt).  Vivian had picked the kingdom theme, and she was not disappointed in the room.  There was a bunk bed area for the kids and then a king size bed for the adults.  There were lots of fun Lego touches, and we got our own box of Duplo to play with.

There were even Lego creations in the bathrooms!  It was great.

After a change and a rest, we headed over to the main park.  It was easy to get from the hotel to the park, but you had to get past the Lego guards.

Near the entrance, there were several Lego creations to welcome you.  We found the pigeon lady to be the most memorable, in a disturbing way.

The first activity we found was a Lego driving school.  Vivian hopped right in a car and got her Lego driver's license.

Jeff really wanted to ride the Lego train, so we all got on.

Then we wandered into an ancient adventure area, complete with camels.  That's her new driver's license that Vivian is proudly wearing around her neck.

Vivian is becoming quite the daring amusement park goer, so she was excited to try the drop ride.  Jeff is trying to teacher her to put her hands up.

But when the drop actually happened, she held on for dear life.

As we were walking around, we also found a Lego Ribena blackberry.  Vivian posed with her new favorite.

We hadn't found a roller coaster yet, but we did find a splash ride.  Jeff and Vivian bravely got on, while Elena and I watched from the bridge.  Elena was definitely concerned when she saw the boats go splashing down the ramp.  "Uh-oh, Daddy Vivi."  Sure enough, down they went with a splash!

Jeff with arms up, and Vivi hanging on for dear life ;-)  She loved it though, and since they were already soaked, they went around for another go.  

As we left the ride with Vivian and Jeff squelching and dripping water, we noticed that there was hardly anyone left in the park.  We asked one of the park attendants what time the park closed, and she said 6:00pm.  At that point it was 5:55pm, so we figured we'd better make our way towards the exit.  In a way it was good, since it had been a LONG day of fun.  

Jeff and Vivian got in to some dry clothes, and then we went downstairs for dinner at the Bricks restaurant.  It was a fairly standard buffet set up, but they had a kids chef donut decorating station, which Vivi got a kick out of.

Luckily, she agreed with us that she should probably just take a sample bite of her creation, rather than eating the whole thing and going into sugar shock.

We ended the night with some Lego robot building time.

The next morning we ate breakfast in the hotel, and then Jeff played in the giant Lego pit near the restaurant with the girls while I went upstairs to pack us up.  Elena is becoming a real Lego apprentice.

Our first stop in the park was a roller coaster, since Vivian hadn't gotten to go on a proper one the day before.  They thoughtfully put a car in front of the ride for pictures.

Elena wanted her turn too but was too curious to sit still for a picture.

She and I positioned ourselves in the shade of a tree, and we could see Jeff and Vivian zooming and dipping around on the roller coaster.

Still no hands up for Vivi :-)  We ended up getting the full souvenir photo package that included a Lego block version of the picture.  It also included a key chain, like the one Vivian got at Sesame Place when she and I went on her first roller coaster together.  She's building up a collection of roller coaster key chains.  We'll see who's next.  Judy?

After the roller coasters, we needed some air conditioning, so we went into the Star Wars exhibit.

They showed a short, goofy Lego Star Wars movie, and then we got to walk through rooms displaying Lego creations from all the movies.  They started with Phantom Menace and went through Return of the Jedi.  I guess they're still building The Force Awakens.

The girls liked the cantina scene, especially since you could push a button for music.

Every display had a couple buttons you could push for sound and motion effects.  It was fun to look around.  

After that we went to the 4D Lego movie for more air conditioning.  They gave us all 3D glasses, which Elena was very impressed with.  She's noticed that Jeff and I wear glasses, so she keeps wondering why she doesn't have glasses.  The movie was about 10-15 minutes long, which was about as long as she was interested in wearing glasses, so it worked out.

We wandered through Miniland, with Lego creations of famous sights.  Since this Legoland is in Malaysia, Miniland was full of Asian attractions.  We recognized our own Wat Arun from Bangkok.

We also found Angkor Wat from our trip to Siem Reap.

Some of it was geographically impossible, like the China display with the Great Wall right behind the Forbidden City.

But the girls were impressed all the same.

Jeff got a cool shot of Miniland with our mega hotel in the background.

After that, Vivian wanted to go jousting on a Lego horse.

We found some cute Lego bunnies on the way.

Vivian also joined a pack of Lego wolves.

She wanted to do a few more roller coaster rounds, so Elena and I found an indoor, air conditioned area to play, while Vivian and Jeff zipped around.

The ended up playing a while themselves, since the blocks and the air conditioning were irresistible.

We got lunch at the park, and Vivian managed to catch Emmett just as he was about to leave the restaurant.

Then we played at a covered Duplo playground for a while (they had fans!).

Finally, it was time to say good bye to Legoland and head back across the border to the Singapore airport.  We got a driver through the hotel, and he was very friendly.  He told us about the things we were driving past.  We had a funny moment, because we had seen a building with this gateway in Miniland.

We thought it was so over the top that it might not be real, but, sure enough, we drove by the real thing on our way out of town.  Our driver told us it's a royal palace.

We got to the airport with plenty of time before our flight.  In fact, we had so much time that Jeff and Vivian went to get foot massages at the airport spa.  I walked with Elena in the stroller, trying to get her to go to sleep, but there was just too much stimulation, and she kept asking, "Where Daddy Vivi?"  It worked out though, because she ended up nodding off peacefully on the flight, which was quite late at night.  Poor Vivian though had a rough time on the flight.  She ran in to some friends from school at the airport, which was fun, but she's had a bit of a cold, and when the plane was landing her ears got really painful.  Luckily, the seat next to Jeff was empty, so she went and sat with him while I propped Elena up to make sure she didn't keel over during landing.

We had a great vacation, but it was definitely good to sleep in our beds that night after such a full day.

Singapore Part 2

We knew that we were going to go to Gardens by the Bay on our second full day in Singapore, but we weren't sure what else we would do that day.  When we woke up, the weather made the decision for us.  It was an inside activity kind of morning.

That was not a problem, because one of the things we wanted to check out was the Science Centre.  It's a science museum that was pretty close to our apartment.

The Science Centre turned out to be a big hit with the girls.  Elena had a little tumble when we first came in, but I got her distracted by having her count reflective spheres.

It's interesting that when Vivian was this age, I could get her calmed down by singing her the ABC song.  That doesn't work with Elena, but she loves to count.  Vivian has grown up to be really strong verbally, so we're wondering if Elena is going to be more of a numbers person.  Only time will tell :-)

We had a lot of fun in an exhibit about the brain.

Elena had fun playing with everything and following Jeff and Vivian around, but she definitely didn't get the brain part.  When she saw this display of part of the brain, she delightedly yelled, "Dinosaur!"

After that, we found a virtual reality area where Vivian pushed on a sphere to move a virtual rock.

Elena was impressed.

Unfortunately, she was not too impressed with the next part, which was a Tesla coil demonstration.  

It was LOUD.  I had to take her to a different area, because it made her cry.  She prefers things like pushing buttons to make a metal ring go from one side to the other.

She pushed this button at least 20 times and giggled every time.

The Science Centre also had a special human body exhibit.  It cost extra and involved climbing, so Jeff and Vivian went in while Elena and I hung out in the natural disasters area.

They had to climb in the mouth, and then go down a tongue slide.

Once they were inside they traveled through various organs.

The funniest part, though, was how they got out.  Elena and I went around to the "exit", which was basically a huge poop hole.  The cherry on top was that it made farting noises when people came out.  Vivian, of course, found this hysterical.

She ended up ranking the science museum as one of her favorite Singapore experiences.  After the museum we went back to the apartment in the hopes that Elena would take a nap, but she was having none of it.  By then it had stopped raining, so we decided to carry on to Gardens by the Bay.

At this point, we still didn't know that there was no memory card in Jeff's big camera, so we only have a few pictures from my phone from the first part of our trip.

When we came in the main entrance, there was a tram that said audio tour on it.  I had realized as we drove up that the gardens are HUGE, so I thought we should get on the tram and get the tour rather than walking in the heat.  I quickly figured out where to get tickets and got us on.  It ended up working out perfectly, because we got a great overview tour to start off with.  

After the tour we collected our tickets (thank you Klook!) for the two domes.  The big visual features of Gardens by the Bay are the super trees and the domes.

The two domes have two different types of plants.  One is a cloud forest, which is meant to be a mountain rainforest.  The other one is called the Flower Dome and it has flowers from all over the world, including a tulipmania display.

We went into the Cloud Dome first.  It's hard to get pictures because there's so much glass, but the centerpiece has plants growing everywhere and a huge waterfall.  You take an elevator up the middle, and then walk down the paths around and inside it.  Jeff took better "pictures" with his memory card free camera, but luckily I was so impressed by it that I tried to take some pictures with my phone.

It was an incredible experience walking around inside that dome.  It was one of my favorite things in Singapore.  It was also quite chilly though, so when we go next time, I'm bringing a sweatshirt.

Next, we went into the Flower Dome.  It was divided into sections by continent, with different types of plants in each part.

Again, lighting was a bit tricky, but we got lots of nice pictures.

The Tulipmania exhibit is seasonal and quite impressive.

The Flower Dome was also air conditioned, so by the time we were done in there, we were COLD.  We spent some time outside warming up, and then we found some dinner.  Our goal was to stick around until 7:45pm for the super tree show.  They do a light and music show twice a night.  

This is what the super tree grove looks like in the daytime.

The space ship looking building in the back is Marina Bay Sands.  It's a hotel and casino.  Getting to the bar at the top is on the list of things to do next time we come to Singapore.  This is what it looks like at night.

On the left of the picture, towards the bottom is the OCBC Skyway.  It's a bridge connecting six of the super trees.  We were planning to go up there in the evening, but the line was so long that we had to scrap that idea.  Just another thing to add to the list for next time.  There's also a restaurant at the top of one of the super trees, which intrigued us.

The light show was great.  They played show tunes this time.  One of our friends went when they played Disney music.  I got a little video at the end.

It was late, Elena hadn't had a nap, and she had experienced Tesla coil trauma earlier that day, so she spent most of the show with her head buried in my shoulder.  Vivian loved it though.  After the show, we went over to the taxi stand and easily got a cab back to the apartment.  It took about ten minutes, since there was no traffic.  Have I mentioned that I love Singapore?