Super Short Break Austin Heights Day 3: Cake Baking and KTV

It was our last day in Austin Heights and it began with a lazy morning and packing up. We checked out and headed to bfast.

Right next to the bfast place was this 娃娃机 shop. It's lure was too strong and each attempt was only at RM1! We easily spent RM50 at the shop and all the kids caught something except for Lil Shauna.

The last coins were reserved for her but it still ended up foiled. Lil Shauna was mega upset and even teared. I got dagger eyes from Daddy Lim. I just died. Well, not that she really wanted a soft toy but the emotion of being the only one who failed was hard to bear. She even rejected the soft toy that Felicia wanted to gift her to comfort her. So nice of F. Fortunately, the incident was soon forgotten and emotions soothed over bfast. I cold sweat.

We were on perfect time for the reserved cake baking session at 11am. I wanted to bake chocolate cookies this time and asked Daddy Lim to stay and help with the boy. Lil Shauna partnered with her beloved F. The bakery was so much more crowded this time.

The session started with ingredients preparation. I am Princess!

I was busy taking pictures.

So Daddy Lim got to help with my chocolate chip cookies.

It was time to bake. All we had to do was to follow the step by step instructions in the ipads provided.

Zaky chose to bake chocolate eclairs this time and it was much more difficult and complicated than the molten lava cake that he baked the last time. I ended up having to follow him around as he melted butter over stove and used the mixer.

So what happened to my chocolate chip cookies? The chef was in the house and successfully managed from A to Z. The cookies were the easiest to bake and Daddy Lim was all done while we were still scampering around.

All baked and smelling really good.

The cookies didnt stay intact on the tray for too long. Once cooled, it was too hard to resist them. Yum yum. My SIL had to keep reminding us to keep some for photo taking. Lol. They were delicious. Daddy Lim did complain that he couldnt taste the chocolate chips bcos Zaky kept snacking on the chocolate chips before that. Lol.

Our eclairs were just starting to bake.

This was the part with a lot of waiting.

The eclairs were out for cooling after 18 mins as advised by the staff.

I had assumed that 2 pieces made up 1 eclair. I know, they looked a bit flat and white right? Haha.

It was after a few minutes of cooling that the lady boss noticed that something was wrong. Upon double checking the instructions, the baking time was supposed to be much longer but lower temperature at different intervals. The staff who gave us the wrong advice was defensive and told us that we should have read the instructions properly. He toned down when I was apologetic. Well, small case, small case, dont spoil my holiday.

It was after many more minutes of baking that the eclairs were finally done. The lady boss said that we were lucky bcos the puffs are delicate and often doesnt puff once the oven door is opened. Ours puffed enough for us to inject the chocolate custard even when they were taken out of the oven to cool. See the difference from the initial white flat pieces?

Each puff was sliced and injected with chocolate custard before coated with chocolate jam. The initial few complete pieces didnt see the daylight and were sent straight to the various tummies. Hohoho. They were yummy!

These were what was left of the popular items while waiting for the girls' cakes to be done. Even then, some of them still disappear but at a controlled speed.

The girls' ice cream cake and cake pop were finally almost done.

Bcos there was so much waiting, Daddy Lim even managed to send the car for washing. There was a washing place conveniently across the bakery. For RM20, several guys washed, cleaned and vacuumed the car.

We felt bad for the superb work that they had done for so little money and left them with a small tip.

The baking were finally done. We finally took the picture before continuing to snack now that the picture was done. Lol.

Being so near to the water park, the kids pleaded for round 2 drift cart. After which, the kids self-entertainment while waiting for Popo to tabao some delicious fries.

They looked like they were 打小人-ing right? They were actually whacking the ants with their slippers. Faint.

My brother got his car washed too. It was obviously too much for the sky to bear with 2 cleanly washed car so it had to pour. Lol.

The pouring rain made it hard for us to reach the 2nd destination - KTV. We were wet despite the umbrellas. It was seriously pouring. The 2 hours hiding in the KTV do us good escape from the rain.

We spent most of the time belting out popular songs. My brother had to do his customary chinese and cantonese oldies that he always do at every KTV session. Towards the end, Daddy Lim and the kids were doing Smashing Pumpkin and Linkin Park. It was my 1st time hearing people do rock songs in KTV. Haha.

The rain was done when we were done too.

The last stop of the day was the usual Korean BBQ joint that we always visit at Bukit Indah. The bulgogi was to die for. I know the weighing scale at home will be putting up a huge protest.

Dinner was great; the short break was fantastic. The trip home was smooth with little traffic at the immigration. We made it through both the immigration in under 30 mins! Woohoo!

Mummy Lim

Super Short Break Austin Heights Day 2 Part 2: Escape Room and Rocky Basecamp

We had other agenda planned for the afternoon. I like that bcos water play is just so much hard work. Think about the hot sun, the lugging of float up the many flight of stairs.

Stop 2 of the day was the escape room. My SIL found an escape room near to the waterpark and made a reservation online for the Doraemo-theme room at 4.30pm. The theme was super apt and friendly for the kids and Lil Shauna was just recently watching Doraemo online, in Chinese somemore!

It was the Fs' 1st escape room experience. Overall, it was a pleasant experience. The kids solved some of the puzzle and were eager to try and help. Did we escape? Of course! It was a simple room.

We headed to the mall to meet up with Popo and the 1st F. It was drizzling anf 2 mushroom heads with too small tummy baring shirt miraculously appeared out of nowhere.

I had requested for this picture.

My shorts were new bcos I forgot to bring a pair from Singapore. I just bought the T-shirt from the waterpark bcos I forgot to bring a top to change. Hahaha. Yes, I forgot to bring my brain for the trip.

Popo and F looked like they had a great time at the movie, snacking and shopping. We had dinner at a 茶餐厅. It was Singapore price but in RM. No wonder Singaporeans flocked to JB.

The younger kids headed back to Rocky Basecamp. The adults took turns to supervise them. Where did they find those energy?

It was in this 2nd trip that the kids were told that they could collect these "coupons" that were hanging on the walls in exchange for goody bags. They had to scale all the walls to collect the different coupons to exchange for 1 goody bag. It sure was a motivating factor. The stronger climbers had to scale more walls; the girls had to rely on Zaky for a particular beanstalk walk and he conquered that 4 times to claim 4 coupons. It was something about jumping from point to point on the wall that the 2Fs couldnt do and the need to climb from left to right that Lil Shauna couldnt do. Rare times that Zaky comes in useful and it dawned on me that such occasions would become more frequent as he grows bigger and stronger as the only boy among the cousins.

Coupons all claimed!

The kids had sore hands and blisters but nobody complain much.

Their goody bags - the result of their hard work.

The kids were disappointed to only find a towel and a bottle of water in the goody bag. Lol. I thought it was so apt and useful after all the climbs. The goody bags are packed for mummies lah.

Sleep was so easy that night after waterplay, escape room and rock climbing. I was surprised that the kids made it back to the airbnb awake. Good night.

Mummy Lim

Super Short Break Austin Heights Day 2 Part 1: Water Park

Due to the late night, everybody crashed. I was up at 7am and had some lovely quiet moments to myself and my coffee. There was no rush anyway. We were heading to the Water Park that doesnt open until 10am.

My bro and SIL enjoyed having their bfast alone; I was happily waiting for them to tabao back and dined with the rest in the airbnb's comfort.

Some waiting here, a little dilly dally there and it was 11am before we finally got out of the house. It's alright, I am happy with just a little water play bcos it is hard work and the sun was too hot. The 1st F didnt quite fancy water play like me and opted to go to the mall with Popo for a movie. I wish I could join them but my motherly duties were calling.

The kids were a lot more exciting about the drift carts than the water play.

It wasnt cheap, RM40 for 20 mins but a lot of fun with quite a lot of drifting. 豆腐店 leh.

I brought the handphone waterproof sleeve that I bought from the Phuket snorkeling and was finally able to take pictures in the water park.

I also remembered to bring Daddy Lim's rash guard. No more Daddy Lim black face (pun intended). Ha!

The weather was freaking hot and the sun was working very hard. I could barely open my eyes.

The waterpark wasnt big and we took all the rides.

Before escaping to the lazy river.

It doesnt matter that we had a late bfast and that we were not hungry. Lunch was a good excuse for the parents to take a break.

My bro volunteered to entertain the kids in the wave pool. What did Daddy Lim do? What he does best after lunch. Zzzzz.

He seriously napped for a long time. I took over the kids thereafter and we proceeded to play catching at the water playground.

We returned to wake him up after our playground play and ended the water park with another few slides.

Mummy Lim

Super Short Break Austin Heights Day 1: Aeon Mall

It was the Good Friday long weekend. It is too wasted to not do anything. A few watsapp and we planned to head to Austin Heights with my brother's family. It was a super short break as we had to be back on Sunday for BIL and MIL's baptism.

We knew that the traffic at the immigration would be horrendous having experienced that during the National Day long weekend. Ended up, we took half day leave to beat the traffic. We got the kids from school, lunched, changed and wash their stinky feet before heading for Malaysia. Yes, the kids' feet... dont get me started. They almost knocked us out when they took off their socks and shoes in the car during the last road trip where we started directly from school. Just imagine keeping a car load of salted cuttlefish. Eeeeewwww... My bro's family had to risk it to cross the custim in the evening with the youngest still in school till late afternoon.

All fingers and toes were crossed. While the Woodlands checkpoint was closer to the airbnb, Daddy Lim was much more comfortable with the 2nd link. Phew, we could see the custom when we joined the Q.

It took us less than an hour to clear both the Singapore and Malaysia customs. The traffic was slightly heavy at certain parts of the journey to the airbnb and it was another hour before we arrived at the airbnb. Yay!

Our airbnb this time was a double story house. It was conveniently 6 mins drive to the Aeon mall. The house was huge with 4 bedrooms. However, it was aged with old furniture and weak aircon in the rooms. There was no aircon in the living room but fortunately, the heat in the living room wasnt overbearing despite the hot weather.

We couldnt get the wifi to work and didnt know how to switch the channels on the TV. At times like that, it is best to hit the malls for free aircon.

The Aeon mall was a few storeys big.

There were plenty of food and snacks to please Popo and many sports brand lined the 2nd floor to entertain Daddy Lim. The kids had their time at the arcade.

Then dragged us to the new indoor rockclimbing place; it didnt exist the last year we visited the mall.

The Rocky Basecamp was similar to what we have in Kallang but lesser walls. It was much cheaper too. A 2-hour pass was only RM25 per kid with harness and shoes provided. My pocket was very happy.

It was fairly empty on a Thursday evening.

The session started with a simple safety briefing and a demonstration of dos and donts.

The spidey-wannabes set off.

The place was really safe for our tweens who knew what they had to do or cannot do but a guardian was still needed to stay around for
kids below 15yo. The place must be designed by parents for parents to know how tiring it is to wait for kids and therefore lined the waiting area with comfy bean bags. I swear Daddy Lim could fall asleep in that position.

He self entertained with his camera.

The adults took turns to stay with the kids. I ran off for shopping bcos I actually forgotten to bring along shorts for the trip. Obviously I didnt bring my mind for the trip too.

There were 2 storeys and the 2nd floor was lined with more shorter walls.

As well as some ninja warrior training stuff that proves to be too difficult for small people.

The wall climbing was a workout. Lil Shauna crashed with the early morning and long day.

Our timing was perfect. Right when the session ended, my brother's family arrived at the mall. It took them 3 hours to arrive, which wasnt too bad but involved some punk driving at the custom of course.

We had dinner and some shopping before heading back to the airbnb at 9.30pm. The host had sent somebody to rectify the wifi. With wifi and great companion, the night was easy. In fact, we only went to bed after 11pm when our eyelids could no longer hold.

Mummy Lim