Recap: Johor Experience

Click image to check places of interest in Malaysia Aliya Zin in Johor. After a late night at Dataran Merdeka for the Colours of 1Malaysia Parade, we headed back to The Royale Chulan and grabbed a few hours rest before getting up in the wee hours to catch our AirAsia flight to Johor Bahru (JB). FYI, Airasia has 3 flights daily from LCCT to JB Senai Airport, and if you catch the AirAsias morning flight from Brunei, you can easily catch a connecting flight at 14:05 to JB, and still arrive in plenty of time to enjoy the better part of the day. Admittedly, all of us were still sleepy so it was fortunate that joining us for this leg of the trip was AirAsias Ivan Ong, who herded us around the airport and made sure we got on the flight on time. The flight to JB is 45 minutes, like Brunei to KK. Upon arrival, we were picked up by our tour guide, Abg Zainal, and were taken to what I can only describe as heaven for Hello Kitty Lovers (a.k.a THE MOTHERSHIP! You can tell that this post is going to be biased already) Puteri Harbour Family Theme Park! Puteri Harbour Family Theme Park is a four story indoor theme park about 25 minutes from Senai Airport, and is an awesome place to take your little ones, which has Hello Kitty Town, Little Big Club and Lats Place. Sanrio HELLO KITTY town features Black Wonder, a hi-tech interactive themed experience, where you must solve clues to save Hello Kitty and Daniel from the naughty Kuromi (and I insist that you MUST save them!); and Kitty House, an iconic Hello Kitty house complete with living room, bedroom, bathroom and kitchen (If I could move in there, I would!). At the Wishful Studio, you and your kids can enjoy jewelry making, costume dress up at the photo studio as well as visit the nail salon where they can decorate their nails with Sanrio characters nail art. In addition, you can make and decorate Hello Kitty shaped cookies at the cookie studio and your very own Hello Kitty doll at the doll factory! On the next two floors is The Little Big Club, where your kids can interact with all of their favourite HiT

characters under one roof through a series of 6 themed interactive play zones - with games, rides, soft play areas, and more. Amongst the 6 themed interactive play zones at The Little Big Club is the Angelina Ballerina play zone where your little dancing stars can dress up, play on a host of interactive touch-screen games, and even get a dance class from their favourite ballerina, Angelina. Bob the Builder fans will love the interactive 'Build It Zone' where they can join Bob's 'Can-do Crew' and help their favourite builder by getting involved in all aspects of building a house. Barney's play house is a re-creation of the set in the television series, and your kids can even watch Barney perform in his very own sing-a-long show. Thomas the tank engine, a favourite of my nephews gets his own floor, with a variety of rides, play areas and his very own live sing-a-long show. Theres even a giant jungle gym, where parents can join their kids crawling, climbing, sliding and getting into all sorts of trouble! (Being the good reporters that we are, we even tested it for you, and yes, we had a lot of fun!) Lats Place is an interactive dining experience where patrons get to interact with characters from the comics in a village setting. For one and a half hours, a virtual day in the kampong, you get entertained by the characters, dining on delicious set menus, and receive a photograph of the experience which is all inclusive in the price. The characters will actually speak to you and the script is never the same, so its always a different day in the Kampong!

Hello Kitty Town in Johor

After Puteri Harbour, our guide, Zainal took us to the one and only, LEGOLAND! By then, we were running on pure adrenaline, and even the gloomy weather didnt dampen spirits! Kids, both young and

old will enjoy Legoland, as it offers attractions for the younger children, such as the Junior Driving school and Boating school, or compete with other families to be top of your class at the Rescue academy. Of course, rides such as The Dragon rollercoaster and Lost Kingdom are subject to minimum height regulations, and children will need to be accompanied by adults. I guarantee that you will have a lot of fun getting wet on the Dino Island ride! (Insider tip : Bring extra clothing and put ALL of your belongings in a locker for safe keeping and to keep them dry, especially mobile phones! Ivan and I found out that even in your back pockets, your precious is not safe from the splash!) After a long day, we eventually made our way to The Thistle Hotel, a gorgeous hotel, and if youre lucky, you will get a gorgeous view of the clock tower in JB, and of Singapore. After dinner, all of us crashed into our beds, as we had another fantastically early start to the morning the next day, this time to the mighty jungles of Endau Rompin! This post is brought by Tourism Malaysia and AirAsia.