Phuket Day 4: Phuket Fantasea

Monday, 1st November 2010

Today is our 4th day (third, if we calculate the actual day spent in this island) in Phuket and we initially we toyed with the idea of island hopping, but then that that didn't materialise because the hubs and I had to attend the Marriott presentation at 1pm.

We had our Subway breakfast in the villa at our leisure time, and the kids watched with favourite DVD borrowed from the Kids Club ie Meet The Robinsons (William personally picked it). It started to drizzle and the sun didn't look like it will come out anytime soon. So at 950am, I called the kind lady from the club if she could rearrange our presentation to the morning slot at 1030am, which she did a quick check and said we could.

So off went hubs and I... we took a buggy ride over to JW Marriott. After the presentation, we spent the afternoon packing in the villa after putting the kids to sleep.

At 5pm, we will be picked up by the minivan to Phuket Fantasea, about 45minutes drive away from the villa.

Our ticket included a round trip, buffet dinner and the show. Phuket Fantasea is highly recommended for all who visit Phuket. The buffet dinner is also a must, and I want to note down how professional, tourist-friendly and helpful the staff are at PF - from the driver who picked us up, to the time we arrived, dining staff, carnival promoters, show ushers, etc.

Here are pictures to savour:

Welcome to Phuket Fantasea
Beautiful japanese koi fishes that greeted us
Mummy and William admiring the koi fishes. He wanted to just stay there to watch the fishes but we had to pry him away... small lau gai
Waiting at the ticket queue, this is the ceiling in the building - beautifully decorated
Very thoughtful of them to have these cool-fan for those queueing

These are some of the selection of small prizes to be won at the carnival. We played some games while waiting for the show, and had great fun despite the slight drizzle and William's moodiness (maybe because he couldn't walk and had to be confined to the stroller). Yeh Yeh won two small prizes and I won one big prize (the kids preffered the small prizes... me too!)

William chose a blue hippotamus and Vic chose the monkey eating a banana. Neither picked the cute little green frog I was eyeing ; P

Carnival

Entering the buffet hall

Part of the dining hall where we had our buffet dinner. The place was well air-conditioned, food spread was good and we could easily find food for Victoria, and the staff were helpful and friendly. Please go with empty tummy. I was so into the food that I rather tell Mother Nature to hold the call ; )

One of the food booth

And guess what is this, my dear friends? This was taken inside the ladies. Toilets are well maintained, dry and very clean. Thumbs up!
One of the food booth at the buffet hall
This is the place where the show was held. It looks much better in reality than on picture. Inside the hall, strictly no camera and we were told to deposit our cameras and handphones at a counter, and picked it up after the show.

Vic was excited about the show, William drank his milk and remained in his stroller eventhough he ask to "walk around abit". I think he was scared, but didn't cry, just held on to my hand and remained very very silent eventhough there were some scary parts and loud bangs and firecrackers.

The show had live chickens, birds, elephants (but of course!), a goat and some buffalos. Funny thing is, how do they train the chickens and birds to walk/fly in one, correct direction?

Returned to the villa nearing midnight and kids still awake and very active. Mummy daddy, on the other hand, super tired...

Drawing blood

I interrupt my Phuket holiday series for this post.

In Phuket, I noticed Vic had a small, red, pimply-like spot on her abdomen area. This is similar to what she had about a year ago and at that time, we consulted her allergist doctor in Tangkak which he confirmed was a sign of allergy. We were told to ignore it and it will go away, which it did.

This time, when I saw the red dot again, a small alarm rang inside me. Maybe it will go away.

But yesterday when I gave her bath, I counted more than 5 dots on her thighs and abdomen area, which was shocking and very worrying!

I told hubs, and we brought her immediately to Pantai Hospital, to meet up with the one person whom we still gave much respect to, a professor Dr M Yadav who specializes and researches in allergys. He is not a medical professor and doesn't prescribe medications, but he knows everything about allergys. That's his field, his bread and butter to say the least.

Two years ago, he was the one who did the blood test for Victoria. Yesterday, we had the privilege to sit with him again, and quickly briefed him on her progress, her frequent nose bleeding episodes this year, her diet and he shared with us the many ways of testing allergies.

For more details on allergys, please read more here

To cut the story short, Vic went for another round of blood test to check her IgE scores after 2 years and also to test on other food types.

As a mother, like any other, my heart goes out to my daughter. Everytime I drive to the hospital, knowing that one of my kids are sick, makes me sick. Not literally. But my thoughts run. I wish Heaven can be lived out on Earth - at least for my girl - because then she will have a perfect body with no allergys.

Today is Deepavali - Happy Deepavali to those who celebrate - tomorrow her blood will be sent for testing and results should be out latest Monday.

Please uphold Victoria in your prayers - we know she still has her allergies despite scoring a ZERO in Tangkak, but we hope for lower IgE levels and a confirmation in this blood test, and to find out the culprit that is causing her recent symptoms.

Phuket Day 3: Phuket Town - Elephant, Snakes, Spa & Simon Cabaret

Sunday, 31st October 2010

What can I say? The title of this entry says it all... today we left the resort to Phuket Town for elephant rides, snake show, spa (go Thailand, don't do spa, how can?) and caberet show!

Breakfast was a filling Subway sandwiches which my FIL so thoughtfully "tapau-ed" last night when we were out in Patong. We warmed it up in the microwave oven provided, and I discovered complete sets of plates and cutleries and all sorts of pots and pans to faciliate a simple cooking. The club even provide that thing that brews coffee, what do you call it, the coffee maker? : )

But of course, I am not there to try out my culinery skills, am I?

Our driver the night before came on time, at 1000am he was already waiting for us near the concierge.

First stop, Phuket Town. We asked the driver to recommend a place for elephant rides. He is driver cum tourist guide... haha - one note, he knows good places to eat as well, but maybe out of sheer hospitality, never brought us to the road-side hawker stalls, instead the moderate-good food-reasonbly priced restaurants.

Elephant Rides

To put on record, I am a chicken-sh*t mummy who's equally excited yet scared of getting on an elephant, at the same time I'm prepping my kids up for the thrill of riding on an elephant weeks before this trip.

The moment of truth finally arrived... despite the slight rain and gloomy weather, God is great to hold the rain for a good 15 minutes of our ride on His mighty creation, before sending little showers on the last 15 minutes of our ride back. But no worries, we were given umbrellas along the way (see how tourist-friendly they are?).

The ride cost THB800 per adult, and THB400 for children. They wanted to charge for William as well, but knowing the general practice that kids below 4yo enjoy/eat for free, we negotiated, and they quickly relented.

So the boys went on one elephant - a 15yo elephant, I later enquired. Vic and me got on an older elephant, older than moi - a 35yo elephant (yes yes, I am still very very young). I passed my camera to FIL/Yeh Yeh because I was afraid of dropping it along the way but later wished I had my camera with me as there were many good shots.

At one part of the 30minute journey, we were going down a small laterite slop, Vic and I both felt we were slipping down our seat, even though we were strapped in. One hand holding on to umbrella with my arm around Vic's shoulder/neck, and another hand holding on to the side bar with my handbag on my shoulder, I was fearing for dear life! I screamed, "Stoopp! Wait!" but the mahout only went on nonchalantly. Maybe he thought we were screaming with excitement! Oh nooooo!!! I looked in front, and saw that hubs and William were steady on their elephants...

Coming in... look we are still in one piece!

The maharajas returning from their trip.

After the elephant ride, we got the opportunity to feed the elephants sugar cane. I gave a small tip to the mahout on our elephant because I found out that he was only 25yo, with a wife and 1yo baby, and paid only THB100 per day no commission. Am I too gullible? Later I saw a sign after the ride that we should not pay tips, ahh, but what the heck.

Hello, I'm Mr Elephant! Feed meeeeee!!

Feeding the elephants. William wasn't scared, but big jie jie was...


Snake Show

We gave the kids an option of seeing monkey show or snake show. As usual, they have to choose different choices, with Vic opting for snake show and William for monkey show. As the monkey show only started at 1pm, we didn't want to wait, and so went for the snake show.

I didn't see... snakes are not exactly my cuppa tea. (OK I'm a scardy cat)

Hubs paid THB400, Vic paid THB200, William entered for free. Mummy, Mama Yeh Yeh waited outside.

Thai lunch

This is one of the best dish too... simple cooking, but taste perfecto! This is pork fillets cooked with salt and garnished with cashew nuts. Maybe I can attempt this at home... hehe

This is Thai fried rice with pineapple and cashew nuts and raisin

Braised soup - fish maw (I love this... makes me miss the Hokchiu fish maw dish)

Deep fried fish - very fresh, crunchy on the outside

Tender black bean beef

Stirfry morning glory (we were wondering what it was... then) which turned out to be kangkung


Total lunch cost including 4 coconuts: THB2095

Nearing 1pm, we asked the driver to recommend a lunch venue for us. He brought us to this restaurant near the beachside, covered open air (like what you get at our Telok Gong) and Yeh Yeh did the ordering of food. Everything tasted good, here are pictures to salivate on, even I had to stop William from downing all the coconut before lunch.

After lunch, we asked the driver again to recommend a good place for spa massage. He said we go to Phuket town because it's cheaper than Patong. He took us to Metropole Hotel first, but it was full, so we went to the second venue, which coincidently was what I read about before this trip and hoping to go (looks like God had this planned out). We dropped Mama Yeh Yeh off at The Raintree Spa first then hang out at Robinsons (NOT the same Robinsons as ours) as it was raining.

We picked Mama Yeh Yeh after one hour, and it was hubs and my turn at the spa. The driver took the rest back to the resort to rest. I chose a herb & spice and aromatic massage for hubs, and for myself, I went for the honey & orange (for a renewed and glowing look, ahem!) and the aromatic massage.

The honey & orange massage was not very nice as honey was sticky (duh!) and then I had to wait 5 minutes for it soak into my skin followed by a cold shower, and finally a good, hard aromatic massage. It was so painful I even thought the masseur was taking revenge on me for no reason. Haha... but after that, all nice and lose and refreshed!

Hubs massage package was THB1600 (comes with 30mins steam bath but no time) and mine was THB1800. Both massage lasted 2 hours.

Simon Cabaret

Drived picked us up for a quick shopping at Silang mall, we only managed to buy a little stuff as there were not many stalls and some were not willing to bargain. Hhmpk. So ended up with a small loot from a Vietnamese-run shop, then tapau-ed Subway breakfast for the next morning, and McDonalds for our dinner in the car.

We arrived Simon Cabaret to pick up our VIP seats (front row, so we can get a good view of the girls... hehe). Actually VIP seats cost cheaper than normal seats, promotional price was THB600 per pax. At this point, I didn't have my camera as I thought they didn't allow us to bring in... regrets later.



Review of the show: very good. The girls were not all 100% pretty and delicious... oops, did I just say that? I spotted a few who were still in-the-making, with flat or small boobs, and did we just see the ticket attendant dancing on stage too? Serious.

My personal thoughts on the she-males. Sad. I feel for them. Takes them a lot of balls (no pun intended) to perform on stage, and a few times I wonder why. Why did they come to where they are today? After the show, they all lined up outside, asking the audience to come snap pictures with them, and tip. I saw a man who took a photo with them, but didn't bother to tip! How thick skin! The rest, just stood around snapping pictures of them, but refusing to take WITH them, so they save on the tip. For me, I had no camera lar...

Returned to the resort nearing midnight. Driver was good. He has been a safe and punctual driver, and comes out with good recommendations, honest and we paid him THB2700 including tip.

Phuket Day 2: Mai Khao and Patong

Saturday, 30th October 2010

Today we woke to glorious Thai sunshine. We didn't pack food except for the kids' biscuits and milk and although the kitchen was tempting with all the equipment (even the pots are Zebra branded), we couldn't utilize it. So with only a few shops in the nearby Turtle shopping area, we had to order room service (hubs did this the night before).

We could even choose the time that we want breakfast delivered, in 15 minutes block! So we picked 745-800am assuming the kids will wake by that time (because it will be 9am in Malaysian time). The kids woke nearing 9am and they hung out at the villa backyard where the private pool is.

The building where our villa is located - ground floor
Sunshiny day, but my princess was moody and quiet the whole day. We didn't know if she was not feeling well or upset as she wouldn't tell and preferred to keep to herself. So hard to crack her up.
In the backyard of our villa

The private pool in our villa's backyard. Very clean. The staff comes every morning to check the water

Then Daddy brought them to the beach via buggy (kids get excited to get on this, even mummy is) then the pool.

Getting onto the buggy to go to the beachside

As for Mummy, I signed up for one of the club's many complimentary activities ie animal towel folding! I learnt how to fold (and hopefully can still remember by now) elephant, rabbit, dog, monkey, turtle, bird in a nest and swan. Interested? Haha... come see me for free lessons : )

See my new turtle pet?
My romantic swans

When I joined the kids and Daddy after the towel folding class, the kids were drying up and finishing the complimentary fruit. William eats it like it's lollipop

Kids' pool... look at the slide

Swimming pool

After swimming and bathing, we had lunch at The Coffee Club in the Turtle shopping area. The menu had a good variety of food from western to local and the price was very reasonable.

Pad Thai, THB100 - I hope I got the name right. It's stirfry rice noodles (original to come with peanut sauce, egg and prawns which we requested them to take these out... they made 3 rounds before getting this right but the waitress was still very nice)

Pork with basil leave. Daddy ordered this so the kids can eat also.

I went for "tak-halal" food - spaghetti with mushroom and ham, THB169 Yummylicious.

This is Thai version of porridge - very watery, with 4 pork balls, THB100. They call this the Kao tao or something I think.

Vic was still moody. I took her for a walk at the shops after lunch. The shops were open but without customers. We checked out the only spa centre there but it was pricey.

Supposed to have dinner with Mama Yeh Yeh once they arrived, but their flight was delayed so we went for dinner at the Zest Restaurant by the poolside where they had a fire show.

Fire show at night. William likey, Victoria not interested.
Dinner at the Zest Restaurant. Kids below 6yo eat for free. Adults at THB1000 per pax.
What was this drink again? ERrmm... oh ya, the black russian. ; )

After Mama Yeh Yeh arrived, we hired a minivan to Patong (journey took 1 hour) around 10pm to have supper and then just hubs and I did a quick walk (or jog) along Bangla Road to check out the shops. And look at these girls... or she-males... we passed by only lar

Back to our villa at midnight. We paid THB2000 for the round trip minivan (Toyota) and negotiated with the same driver for a day out tomorrow at Patong / Phuket Town.

Phuket Day 1: KL to Phuket

Last Friday we went for a short 5D4N holiday to Phuket, accomodation under Adrine's invitation at the luxurious Marriott Vacation Club in Mai Khao beach.

The flight was an evening flight, and after picking Vic up from school, and rushing the kids to down their lunch, then cleaning them up and last minute packing, whilst Daddy was delayed at the office and only got home till the last minute, gobbled down his lunch, whilst the airport limo driver got here 30minutes early and waited outside the gate... adrenaline rush even before we got to the airport!

We got arrived the airport by 315pm, checked in, then hang out at the Premier Lounge again (the same place we went to early this year) until calling time. Took the train back to the gate and boarded the 510pm MH790 flight to Phuket.

Kids were excited. Boy boy only slept on the way to the airport and that lasted him till the night. The moment he got in the plane, he "buckled" up himself and I was amazed that he sat down because this boy normally cannot sit still. Phew! Later I realised he buckled up the wrong way, and then I taught him how to buckle up properly. That's lesson number one for him if he really lives his dream to become a pilot. : )

This is my ever willing little helper ; )

At the Premier Lounge after having a light meal. I did a quick update on Facebook, Vic was playing with games and William was trying to hack into the log in password.

Airline food. We called less than 24 hours before to confirm their allergy-free food. This is spaghetti chicken bolognese which William loved! Vic ate Daddy's food because the commercial spaghetti are also manufactured in the same place with eggs. Not safe.

Vic is one who loooovvvess airline food. She likes the pink guava juice too!

"Buckled" up by himself. I just had to snap a picture of him. The guy sitting next to William couldn't resist too, and asked me to snap a pic of him and my boy boy. Huh? Safe kah? OK I guess.

Arrived Phuket local time 525pm. Flight was uneventful and kids were well behaved.

Welcome drink is watermelon juice (but think they mixed it with something)

Just arrived Marriott Vacation Club

We were greeted by the Club's mini van driver to transfer us 15minutes to Marriott where we were pleasantly greeted by staff with flowers to put over our head (aaaaawwww!) and then escorted to our room. I am already liking the Thai hospitality here!

As it was already dark by the time we settled down in our room, we decided to stay in. Kids said they were not hungry but I gave them to biscuits to eat while watching TV. Vic's enthusiasm and excitement for her holiday suddenly waned, and she went to bed about 1030pm.

Masterbedroom : One king sized bed

This is the guest room: Two double beds. But who is going to sleep here? Surprise, surprise! There is also an en-suite bathroom

The living room. Opens up to a private patio and swimming pool

The fully equipped kitchen. Comes with all sorts of pans, utensils, measuring pot, plates, spatulas, etc

Even the toilet paper is creatively folded into fan-like. Tomorrow I'm signing myself up for their complimentary animal towel folding class. Will definitely come in helpful.
An elephant on our dining table????