The Force at Mid Valley

Another two weeks before the release of all release coming to the cinema for the year. Star Wars would be back and at the moment the adverts were everywhere. Some clever, some tacky but it seemed to be a celebration coming. Just hope that the movie would not disappoint.

Mid Valley Megamall hosted a life-sized X-Wing at one of the side foyer. It cost money to enter and snap pictures at but the buzz was certainly. There was hardly a queue when I visited since it was mid week right after work. I could imagine that the line would be long at weekends.

Well. Two more weeks and counting...

What's with all the Wau

What's with all the Wau? : The decorations were up at all the main malls in town. Compared to previous years, I didn't have much time to explore them. Work schedule got in the way. In fact, since Ramadan, I didn't have much time to take my cameras for spins.

Armed with my iPhone, I had a look around when we were at Mid Valley last weekend. The theme was kites or 'wau', and there were plenty of those on show.

Vote for this one?The whole foyer was full of them

At one of the areas, there was a competition for the most beautiful kites. And they were gorgeous ... and expensive. Wau also being the symbol of MAS did bring home some poignant reminder of the two recent event plaguing the national carrier.

We looked around for quite a bit, and the usual stalls were about. Anita did some shopping there while Idlan and I ventured around to other shops. Irfan refused to come. He stayed at home with his grandmother.

Private Schools Fair

Anita had circled this date in her calendar since a couple of months back. Even though Sri Utama was not that bad, we felt that the place was slowly losing its charm, especially since Idlan's close friend moved out of Setapak at the beginning of the year and switched school.

I also personally felt that there were not enough emphasis put on co-curricular activities and the amount of homework were at times ridiculous. There were also too many assessments for my liking when children at my boys age should be enjoying education. They just didn't get the chance to explore their interest.

Since the beginning of the year, there were a few clubs opened. Idlan seemed to enjoy his drama class and badminton lessons. But still, the homework were becoming a drag ....

It didn't hurt to explore other options and that was what we did today.

The fair entered its third year this time around, but compared to last year, it was palpably smaller in both scale and prestige. A few of the elite school did not even show up. Most that were there were on the fringes, and possibly in the same league as Sri Utama in terms of aspirations and vision.

We left the place almost empty handed, with the only institution which left us with an impression was Epsom College. A couple of issues, it was in Sepang and the tuition plus boarding fees were damn expensive. We could afford Yayasan Saad with the same amount.

We might be exploring the place more for secondary school in a couple of years time. In the meantime, it looked like my boys would be staying at Sri Utama, unless we come across other alternative. I was still asking Anita to consider having a look at Park City International School right next door to the Medical Centre. The place looked rather nice ....

Private School Fair

Private school is big business in Lembah Kelang. Increasingly parents could afford private school, and some do so due to be coming disillusioned with the Ministry's actions over the years when it comes to medium of instruction. It was in English for Math and Sciences until recently. Then came the scrapping of UPSR. One never could guess what would they come up next.

The decision for me was straight forward. I feel that getting them proficient in English from an early age is important, and the local public school our kids were assigned to was well below par. We could do what other parents do, appeal, use some connections to get into better school or even resort to using an alternative home address in areas where good schools were available. In the end, we decided to enrol into private education, and with Sri Utama round the corner from our place in Gombak, it was the easy option.

Last weekend, we went to a School Fair at Mid Valley to look at other options. Irfan was upset however as he was not keen to switch school. But the reason why we went was to look at secondary schools later. There were a few schools which now offer boarding. They actually looked tempting, as I don't think our boys would be able to secure places at government public boarding school coming from private primary.

List of participating schoolWe spent more than an hour looking around the fair. Spoke to a few schools. And then the boys got excited when they saw their headmistress at their school's booth. She must be wondering what we were doing there. She might be suspicious that we were thinking about switching school.

On the whole it was a good outing. At the very end, we came across a booth by an afterschool agency called The School. It is located at Jaya One and will be opened later this year. Children can go there an enrol into music lessons among other things. And Idlan was excited to join.

The Fair was scheduled to be done yearly. This time, it was doing Ramadhan which curbed our enthusiasm somewhat.

Kid's E World

The boys were craving to go to the park but the weather was too hot and it was only 3 pm. We were at Mid Valley Gardens and we decided to give Kid's E-World on the top floor a go.

The place had been open since last year but we never got around to try it. Entrance fee was rather steep at RM50 per head, plus the boys had to pay for the socks. Parents get in free of course but you had to purchase socks if you were not wearing one.

A quick drinks while the boys were creating havocThey made it quite clearThe boys doing the plottingThe place was actually bigger than it looked from the outside and true to the amount you paid for entrance, the facilities there were very well maintained. The toilets were clean and children friendly. They also had a small cafe for snacks. Nice open space for the children to roam around but it would soon get too crowded as they had separate area for toddlers and older children.

Quite a decent area to sit inA quick chargeThe waiting area for parents were quite comfortable. The entrance fee was good for the whole day, so you could come in and out as many times as you wanted to. Handy! I was not sure if they had a drop in service but I wouldn't be surprised if they do.

With such a high entrance fee, I couldn't help but to feel that the place should offer more. My kids enjoyed it however and that was the main thing. As long as I had a bean bag, I wouldn't be complaining either. Oh! And did I mention about the free wifi? Hehehe! Win!

I also taken a short video,uploaded to Youtube here.