Jirrahlinga Park

Upon recommendation, we went to the Jirrahlinga Animal Sanctuary at Barwon Heads near Geelong. This is where many of Australia's native animals can be seen in a very natural surrounding. Eryn got to touch a koala, baby wombat and see wallabies up close. There were not many people there on the day we went.

Off to Melbourne again

We are off to Melbourne again to see the Grant family. This time, we are meeting my friend Brian who is on a wedding photoshoot in Melbourne. Upon arrival at Melbourne airport, we hired a car from Budget. I also rented a GPS unit for the duration of the rental. We brought our own car seat for Eryn as we didn't want to pay for the rental of the car seat. The car seat was easy to fit, after we got the GPS unit going, we were on our way to Geelong.

Activities

I asked the concierge for malls with toys sections. There is a toy section at Canal City, Fukuoka which is right next door. They also suggested Hawks Town Mall, where there is a Toys R Us outlet. This mall is just next to the Yahoo!Japan Dome baseball stadium. We took a bus from outside Tenjin bus station to the Mall. The bus fare for adults is 220yen, kids below elementary school age ride free. The Mall is huge with lots of facilities for kids/family. The Toys R Us is huge with a lot of display toys which the kids can play and try out. Store staff were also quite happy to allow the kids to play with the merchandise.
In the Mall, there is also a kids gym-type of playground in a store. The entrance fee was 400yen/hour which I thought was reasonable. The whole place was padded, with many articles that kids can climb, ride, swing and jump about. The lady operator was also very kind and helpful when any kids gets a bang or falls down. She even brought an ice-pack to a kid who knocked his head! Now that's service! I observed that many mother's brought their kids here, so I guess this is a very kid/family-orientated mall.

March in Fukuoka

We arrived in Fukuoka with a morning temperature of 6 degrees Celsius. Boy, was I unprepared for the chill! Passing through immigration was ok because the immigration service counters only open at 8am. An officer was kind enough to let us go ahead of the queue because we were pushing our 2yr old daughter in a stroller. Most parents with kids were let through as well. We managed to get into a cab to the hotel. Our hotel was only like 5 kms from the airport but the taxi fare still came to about 2500yen! I was expecting that rate from what I read on the Net.

Visiting Japan

As this is our first trip to Japan on holiday, we had to do our Japanese visas for the trip. Malaysians require a visa for visits not longer than 15days. There is no charge for the visa except that you have to submit your application to the embassy on your own and they need to retain your passport for 3 days. We checked on the application process online.

Save some rupiah for the departure

Remember to put aside 150,000 rupiah per person to be used when you leave Indonesia. This is the equivalent of the "Passenger Service Tax" of air travel but collected at the departure hall. I kept aside 75,000 rupiah thinking it was still the same the last time I came to Indonesia for a holiday (2000). Luckily, I still had some rupiah left!

Activities

There are many activities available in Bali but we decided for this trip, we were just going to chill out at the hotel, get some massages, eat great food and some shopping. However, if you planning for some water activities, I do suggest going to an offshore island called Lembongan. It's about 40mins away by boat on the eastern side of Bali & has great looking, clear waters. Rates start from US$50 onwards but do check out the many brochures available before making your decision. I saw this island while the plane was doing its approach to land.

Massage in Bali

There are many spas available in Bali to suit any budget. I know of one called Rose Garden spa. It's just 5 mins by car from our hotel and the spa even provides a pick-up and drop-off service. The spa offers various spa treatments & we chose a 2-hr, 'diamond sand' massage. There were 2 lady masseuse for each person & they are really good at what they do. It was like heaven for the whole 2 hours! The spa offers even 2/3 day 'package' offers where the discounts are quite attractive. For our massage, we paid about US$20 per person for the 2hr session. We gave some tips to the masseuse individually.

Hotel pool

The hotel pool is great for kids. There is a large adults pool, about 2m deep with an adjoining kids wading pool. There is even an island bar so you can sip your cold drink while sitting in the pool! There is also a giant slide about 2 storeys tall. Great for kids & adults too. There is constant supervision on the slides and the lifeguards are very friendly. The slide pool also has a tarpaulin-shaded area for those who doesn't like the bright sunshine. A lot of pool games & activities are planned every day for kids & adults as well. Eryn really enjoyed her time swimming or taking the slide.

To Bali without a stroller

We're going on a short holiday in Bali and it was only after checking-in that we realized that we didn't bring the stroller for our daughter. The flight was uneventful but the immigration queue was so long. As we were waiting in line, our daughter started to make a fuss and started crying. Lucky for us, a kind immigration officer motioned us over and proceeded to process our immigration formalities. We were done in 5 mins! Having a kid does have its privileges! Hahaha! We checked into our hotel, Bali Dynasty on Kuta beach. We chose this hotel because of its child-friendly policies and kids swimming pools. We booked a family room that had a King-sized bed and 2 other single beds. The family room allocated to us was on the ground floor, just near the swimming pool. At first, we were worried about the noise level but as it turned out, it wasn't that bad.