Year 3 Parent Teacher Day, Monsters University and Honda Hybrid Family Road Trip 2013 at Queensbay Mall

Parent Teacher Day

It's the once a year Parent Teacher's Day. Children from her school are required to be there early for a motivational talk.

Her 1Malaysia drawing on class notice board

Got these from her school facebook page, the children during motivational talk

Then it's queuing to meet her class teacher. Not too long a wait. The only complaint she had was 姐姐 was being bossed around by her good friend and she didn't think it's healthy. My comment is let her handle her social life :P Nothing much from this session as teacher is pretty satisfied with her work and overall behaviour.

Monsters University at Queensbay Mall

There's a roadshow/display at Queensbay Mall main concourse with Wyeth Nutrition promotion. However need to register to play the games and the queue is really long during the weekend. So we gave it a miss, and just have some fun shots for the children with Monsters University display.

Of course, hungry stomachs can never miss dinner.

Dragon-i's 蟹黄包 (with straw) and 窝贴

Honda Hybrid Family Road Trip 2013

The children saw the inflatable playground when we drove towards the carpark and asked to check it out. It's the Honda Hybrid Family Road Trip 2013, like an outdoor playground.

Honda Hybrid Family Road Trip 2013 at Queensbay Mall

They played until both of them were sweating hard. 弟弟 even fell down from the top of the inflatable as there were too many kids there, but he was ok as it's soft grounding (it's an inflatable after all).

There's a mini tent where it's air-conditioned inside with cars on display and games. Kids get to play with interactive "games" which kind of introduces hybrid engine (hahaha, as if they can understand).

Holiday activites - Penang Floral Festival 2013, Penang Botanic Gardens, Gertak Sanggul Fishing Stage, Kids' Food Craft - Pinwheel Flower and the beach

For the 2 weeks school holidays, we have been around Penang. 爸爸 was missing in action for a week and of course, there is still so much of Penang that the children have not experienced :P

Penang Botanic Gardens
Now the Penang Floral Festival had been around for some time and we have not been to one. It's time to visit :) Although it's said to be held at Penang Botanic Gardens, it's actually setup outside. We went to Penang Botanic Gardens first as the children have not taken a ride on the mini tram before. The fare is now RM2 per adult and RM1 per child. The mini tram takes us around the gardens. Too bad it is not really at a leisurely pace, maybe due to the influx of visitors during Penang Floral Festival? I think the roud-trip is completed in less than 15 minutes. There is not much waiting time as well though.

Penang Botanic Gardens mini tram ride brings us around the gardens.
See the monkeys in the background in the bottom left photo?

Some of the more interesting places we stop by at the gardens. A Penang Bridge lookalike over a little stream. A platform with a musical quaver, they were so excited over it :) And then they took a splash at the shallow part of a stream. One of the benefits of having a kampung-boy-at-heart as daddy, he's always willing to let the children try such things. There's a school group further down the stream doing their school project, and trying to catch little fishes too. 弟弟 didn't want to put on sunscreen so he got even more tanned from this visit. 姐姐 had allowed me to put on sunscreen for her so she's ok.

Walking around Penang Botanic Gardens

Water lily ponds at Penang Botanic Gardens. It's at the entrance.
Are water lilies are seasonal, not a lot to be seen this time.

Penang Floral Festival 2013
It's off to the Penang Floral Festival 2013 next. We took a walk through a nature path beside the main road to reach the grounds where they hold the floral exhibition, passing by the Moon Gate. There are so many types of orchids around at the exhibition of Penang Floral Festival 2013. Opposite the exhibition ground, there are stalls selling plants but we didn't get any.

Surrounded by stunning orchids of various types

弟弟 trying to smell the orchids at every chance he gets.
And the children tasted ice-cream on bun from the mobile stall outside.

Later after dinner the children goof around with this. They were playing around the Fun Family Snap of Incredibles cutouts at New World Park.

I merged 2 photos here so they're both mom, dad and kids :P

Gertak Sanggul Fishing Stage Restaurant
An early Father's Day celebration for 爸爸, as his schedule is unpredictable so we grab the chance to have seafood feast when he is around. Very nice of him to leave work early so that we can be there before the mosquitoes start to have us for dinner :P

This place is pretty far from our place. It's like in the midst of an idyllic village, and nestled among some hills. There's a big signboard only when you reach the little village.

The fishing stage where some folks were enjoying fishing. Quite nice view eh?

Food was pretty good too at Gertak Sanggul Fishing Stage Restaurant

Children loved the Marmite Chicken, Thai-style steam fish (We had 金凤鱼 - RM30) and fried noodles. The Thai-style steam fish is flavourful, just a tad spicy so the children enjoyed it. The 甘香 lala is too spicy for them but good for us adults. They also do not know how to appreciate the salted egg crabs (RM42 now), but 爸爸 and I like it very much. We'll be back soon as we have not tried the mantis prawn or prawns yet. While we finish up the dishes, the children were full and played around the area (away from the fishing stage of course). It's like life slowed down here. A leisurely dinner that we enjoyed and a pretty long drive home passing the Gertak Sanggul beach :)

Kids' Food Craft at Straits Quay - Pinwheel flower craft

The last day of school holidays was a rainy day, so it was totally a blow. We had wanted to go to the beach with the children but was not able to due to the rain. We kind of hang around Straits Quay to wait for some luck if it turns sunny again.

While lounging around, the friendly staff near the information counter invited us to join their kids' food craft session. Of course both the children loved such an activity. They were first given ingredients of strips of bread and strawberry jam. They're to spread the jam and roll up the bread strips. Once it's completed, they were given strips of celery to place on the paper plate as stems and leaves, and the bread rolls as flowers. Add on a slice of orange and it's a completed piece. The organizer helped to shrink-wrap the completed food craft for the children to take home.

The children trying their hands at the pinwheel flower craft.
弟弟 looks like he is going to eat the jam anytime, keep sniffing at it. 

Their finished craft

Even though they had dinner earlier, they still wanted to eat up their pinwheel flower food craft and every single piece ended up in their tummies :)

Smiling faces enjoying eating their craft :P

It was raining on our way home. The rain was so heavy at one time that when we reach the road to our taman, it was flooded! Fortunately we decided to go home early, the traffic was building up by then. What a bang to end the holidays :P

Batu Ferringhi beach, finally!

Only serene due to the angle.
There were actually tourists taking off and landing for parasailing right before we took this photo.

One week after holidays ended that we get a chance to go to the beach. Now what happened to the public beaches in Penang? The one we used to go to, between Parkroyal Hotel and Hard Rock Hotel has turned into a sort of water sports thing! I don't even know what is the name of the road off Jalan Batu Ferringhi. 姐姐 remembered the eatery called Kompleks Bayu Senja by the beach. The beach boys were shooing us away, and it's so dangerous, tourists were taking off and landing on their para-sailing stuff right by us and other tourists walking around. These are all waiting for accident/injury to happen (then the finger-pointing starts again). The parking attendant charged us RM2 for parking and we left the place after 10 minutes. Never ever will we go to this place again to save ourselves from potential injuries.

Beach opposite Tropical Spice Garden

We only manage to find a little quiet beach just opposite of Tropical Spice Garden. Probably it was way past closing time, so not many people there. The children finally enjoyed their sand-digging, splashing and just sitting around. It was only us at first, then young daytrippers, another local family and tourist family. The waves were quite big so we watch over the children closely.

The day before going to the beach, we went to check out Theatre of Ships which is a bamboo sculpture by the MPPP building at Esplanade. Too bad we couldn't find the little secret garden. It was getting late :(

Theatre of Ships sculpture. Amazing that only wires to connect all the bamboos.

Going for more Father's Day celebration, he's always getting so many mini-celebrations :P

Desserts at Hui Lau San and ikan bakar at CF kopitiam near Weld Quay