Jakarta trip

Overall like other people that go back to their hometown after 2 years ( the last time I went back home was in 2006 December for my younger brother wedding, when Maya was just 4 months old and Indy was 4 years ) , my schedule was tight to visit here and there, meet family and relatives, and must bring my 2 girls around all day , everyday.
Poor kids they must be tired too. Indy was ok , but it will be tougher on Maya ( as well on me)

As I mentioned before, Jakarta is full with the latest , high end, medium end and bargain center mall/shopping complexes. I just went to a few of those new one, and skipped all the other that I've been before . And for this post to save your time to read I will only highlighted the 2 places I want to share , I think it is great for kids ( who knows if you visit Jakarta, you can try these places )

KIDZANIA Indonesia

I first heard of this place in the AirAsia Indonesia flight. And I was wondering what was that. And I found it it was interesting and went to check it out and decided to let Indy go in with my aunty, as it needs about 6-7 hours to play inside at least, and I dont think Maya can stay that long inside.

So here is what it is ( taken from it's website)
KIDZANIA is a unique EDUTAINMENT CENTER for children between 2 to 16 years old and their parents. It is a kid-sized replica of a real city, with streets, buildings, retail and different vehicles going around the City.

Here, children play adult roles and they learn how to be a doctor, a pilot, a construction worker, a private detective, an archeologist, an F1 driver and over 100 other PROFESSIONS and OCCUPATIONS.

In KIDZANIA, kids use our official currency KIDZOS. Here, children learn to appreciate the value of money, by performing over 100 professions and occupations and earn a salary. Their salaries earned, can then be used to buy goods and services available in KIDZANIA (See “Our Economy” section).
KIDZANIA is an indoor facility

So As you can read, it is like a small city, I was amazed also and thought: geee I wish I can play this when I was young...how lucky our children is .....
But beside the fun part I think it is educational too.

When you entered the place, you need to buy ticket like in the airport and then they will greet you WELCOME TO KIDZANIA. The supervisors are all adults and they will address all the children with Ibu or Bapak ( Mam and Mister) just like adult. They will be given 50 kidzos too start in cheque form and they can choose to cash it or put in the bank and use ATM card. And they must do it all by them self.
Of course for kid age 8 and above it will be so easy. But for younger kids it will be abit hard , but for Indy 's age ( 6) is ok too, need more guidance but she can handle it well.

She went there with my nephew Dylan age 10. Dylan is Taiwanese so they speak Mandarin to each other, Dylan also understand and speaks english but he is more comfortable to speak Mandarin to other people unless he really has to.. :-D He knows that Indy speaks Mandarin so he didn't even bother to speak English to her. Since Indy also speak Bahasa Indonesia quite well, she doesn't have any problem in Kidzania , for English speaker kids there are English speaker supervisors too. But for Indy I didn't request for that, as I purposely want her to handle the language challenge , I just told her if you don't understand or they speak too fast for you, just raise your hand and say " maaf , saya tidak mengerti...." ( sorry I don't really understand). On some roles , she went in with, Korean kids , Singaporean kids or even kids from KL. So that time the supervisor will speaks English to them.

Back to the topic, inside Kidzania , you can found whatever you found in a real city. From Bank, petrol station, Tax office, court room, police office, jail, hair saloon, hospital, dentist, energy room,
supermarket,TV station, Radio station, stage, cinema and then there are factories of : noodle, ice cream, chocolate, candy etc etc....
You can check the website for more info and photos

Too my surprise Indy choose the "job" that was not on my list for her, I know she like too play beautician, or more girly stuffs , but she choose to be window cleaner, construction worker. And refuse to work in hair saloon, stage and dentist. ( it is true that the first time she went there , she was with Dylan her cousin, but when she went there the second time, she still didn't want to choose more girly job, instead she became police office and running around to catch a bad guy :) )

Beside that she also be pizza man, bakery girl, work in instant noodle factory, and so on...
She also got her driving license, scientist certificate, baker certificate, ATM card, and bring back a pack of instant noodle that she made, cookies, and bought a bear doll for Maya with her hard earning kidzos. She at the end had 190 kidzos and spent 170 for the bear for her lil sis that keep bothering her , and bite her. And just spent 20 kidzos for her self on sticker and pencil. I was impressed actually by her unselfishness . I told her why you need to spent so much for Maya, you should buy more for you , not just stickers and a pencil. She said : ah never mind la, Maya didn't even play there. She is too young ya mommy. Can't find many job there. I can get 5 kidoz if I work as shoe cleaner or window cleaner. :-D...funny rite.
Also she was so concern about the money she earn. And keep asking my Aunty if that job will give her money or must use money ( some thing like taking airplane, bus, taxi will cost their kidzos)
Same with cousin Dylan, they just want to earn earn earn, until one role, they need to spen 5 kidoz and both Indy and Dylan were so panic and told my Aunty : no no we don't want this, we dont want to spend our money " but they already wait in line for long time , so my aunt told them it is ok...just cost 5... ...:)

Indy went 2 times to Kidzania, the second time, me and Maya followed her in for one hour or so. After that my aunty replace me.

So here are the photos

Waiting for ther turn to deposit her cash in to her bank account

Waiting to deposit their money in the bank. Despite the gender different and age different and language different, Indy and Dylan get along pretty well.

Following her Gege inside the traffic police office to get their Driving license to be done.

Very serious right.....

Now is Gege Dylan turn!

As construction workers
Build those wall, buddy!
Keep building!

Dylan working at the petrol station.
Indy is waiting for her turn.
Finally Pizza making
Can you tell that her father made pizza for living? :p

She is familiar with this, just like to roll cookies dough at home :D


And now put the tomato sauce

Have to decide which topping to put


YAY...our own Pizza!!!! As window cleaner

as the controller ( second time visit)


Indy and Dylan in action!

Hi....

waiting for their turn...( I dont know for what hahaaa)

Working at the hospital , Nursery section.


Coloring time

First become the customer, later on she became the cashier at the supermarket.


As little sciencetist

So which bacteria is harmfull and which one is useful?

Officers Indiana.

During the briefing before the alarm went off ...and they need to run after a buglar around the city and catch him.

Clean mommy's slippers.

Maya and her signature "get me out of here" scream in Kidzania.

Fire fighter , Indy didn't got the chance to be one. It is so cool , they even have the fire truck and go around the city with the weewow weewow sound...A dream come true for boys!
Again making deposit to her account .

taking some cash out from her account

The declaration of independence

Beside that, I also took them to Seaworld Jakarta. Since Maya loves Fish so much , and for her to go inside the tunnel to see all fish swim above her must be amazing. She keep saying " look ma fish up! fish there...fish here.. fish big....fish very big.... "

The are turtles on the back that you can touch, and on the other pool there are baby sharks also.

Inside the tunnel
Beauty!
Big fish...

Again in the tunnelShark quarium!

Sharks feeding time...

Beside that , these are some extra photos .

With my pregnant SIL and trying out their brand new Peg perego stroller. :-D

Maya loves this place and Indy is too! The token/card are affordable about RM 1 per game.

Mom did have some fun too! Getting a " smoky eye look makeover"

I must said this time is the most challenging time to travel for us. As Maya is at the difficult stage and both of them were not in their best health conditions. But sure we will love to travel again with kids. Sure it will be hard on mom specially, and yes I was tired. But it will open the whole new experience for the kids.

I flew back to KK alone with 2 kids. This was not the first time I travel alone with them. 2 years back I also went to Jakarta without my dh ( via Brunei) and I think it was easier because Maya was still 4 months old. This time she is much active and alert ( read as: running around in the airport, pulling front passager hair in the airplane, calling the next passenger while they were asleep : uncle ...uncle sleep? , Cried and screamed during take off and landing, pulling the Imigration cards as I wrote it , and I prayed oooh please let the imigration officer understand my wiggly writting oh and she did one explosive poo in the airplane and God knows how smelly that was...poor people that sit near us.....). If it is sound funny in this post, trust me It was not funny at all for me at that time , but I remind my self.. oh well at least I will have an interesting blog about Maya's behaviour.:-D

I did put some "small surprise toys" for emegency situation and some candies and treats too. During the long line during checking in in the airport, and immigration or while waiting for boarding that will help. As for Indy she got this game boy kind of thing that will keep her busy and not driving me nuts by keep asking me : when we will go ma? is it time yet? are we there yet?

And if you travel alot , it is good to keep some extra immigration cards , so you can fill that before the trip and it will save your time and sanity. I got mine from my cousin and I filled it up the night before, but I didn't have the Malaysia one so that why it was tricky to wrote that on the plane. Last time with other airline I did ask the assistance from the crew to filled it , but as you know with the lower budget airline, the crew were more busy making instant noodle and making coffee and teh tarik and calculating the price and the change. :)

Indy and her dearest Pho pho
Me, Maya and My dearest Mom. She has Parkison diasease for the last 15 years. But she is in better shape now, Thanks God.
Maya was looking at the giant presents

With my Aunty, infront of this glittering silvery Christmas tree of Mall Of Indonesia.


Taken in one of the private club in K. Gading area.

One of my favorite photo of the girls....very civilized here....no hair pulling or biting or screaming...

So am I tired from this vacation? SURE....
Will I do it again? absolutely if finance permit :) why not??
My next project? hmmm I plan to have a trip with one of my "friend" , no husband allowed (kwang kwang kwang) , and we plan to bring our kids to Hongkong Disneyland next year.... My wish ? I hope Maya can behave better by that time! Time to save money now! No more new bags for Mommy :(