Cuti Cuti Malaysia ….. Air Wing Family Day 2009

My family & I during the event

The Air Wing Family Day was held at the First World Hotel Convention Centre, Genting Highlands on 15 Dec 09 (Tuesday). It was planned to be a simple family day consisting of a treasure hunt and a family day dinner…easy enough. We were also given discounted passes for the Genting Theme Park for people to further enjoy the time at Genting with their love ones. While almost everybody stayed over at the hotel for one night, a few of us decided to extend our stay for one additional night. And with the Friday being a public holiday, taking the Thursday off really was a good idea. Here are some of the highlights of my 3 days/2 nights excursion to Genting Highlands for this version of my Cuti Cuti Malaysia.

Treasure Hunt

The whole air wing clan gathered near Giant at about 0800 to kick start our family day. The official colours of 501 Squadron (orange), 502 Squadron (blue) and KD Rajawali (black) dominated the scene while me and the few others from the Air Wing HQ, numbering less than 5, tried our best to show our presence in the bright red t-shirts of our tiny little unit. We were flagged off shortly after 8am to pursue for clues along the 95km stretch from Manjung to Bidor. This distance would normally take me less than 1.5 hour, but for this hunt, I completed the whole drive at a snail pace of almost 2 hours. Not bad. My co-pilot, Lin, was a marvelous team member as between the two of us we managed to complete all the questions. And we felt good about them too; Kg Parit Jerman, Sungai Sungkai Mati & Hidup, a temple with a name I still can’t pronounce, a factory famous for making women inner wears....just naming a few. When we handed in our Treasure Hunt Form, we were fully confident that we’d win nothing. The most important was that we had a blast doing it. And to our surprise….we won it. Oohhh yes…numero uno with a 12 megapixel Olympus camera as our reward. Not bad eh…more to come of course.

the Olympus FE 46 we won

Detour to Sungai Klah Hot Spring

Being fairly good at estimating travel distance and time, I concluded that we had plenty of time to spare after the treasure hunt. The earliest we could check in at the First World Hotel Genting was 3pm so I reckoned we had at least 2 hours to do something else. So what to do….we could make a stopover at a small rapid near Batang Kali…….or we could check out Sungai Klah Hot Spring. After convincing one of my friends, Bidin, to tag along, we took a detour to the hot spring. The 10km road leading to the hot spring was very nostalgic for me as we were flanked by the vast palm oil plantation of Felda Sungai Klah. Reminding me of childhood memories (sorry Axl Rose, have to borrow your famous lyric)…..”chop kelapa sawit” and other “anak peneroka” activities. Hmmm…..it’s been a loooong time. After paying the entrance fees of RM10/adult and RM8/child, we headed straight to the big pool. After about an hour of splashing around in the water, we had to tell the kids it was time to stop. They were obviously a bit disappointed, but the prospect of fun and game at Genting was an easy candy to lure them out of the pool…hah..hah. We then took a quick walking tour through the rest of the area; an egg boiling area and therapeutic pools where you could dip your feet in several hot springs at different degrees of temperature, and that was pretty much all the time we had. It was really worth it as Farhana & Farhana, after the short dip in the pool, were now already in overly excited mood about this trip. Bidin chose a road-side restaurant at Kg Balun (yes, I like the name too) for lunch. It turned out to be a great surprise as the food was incredible. I had kerabu kerang/pucuk paku/taugeh, masak lemak pucuk manis and a grilled catfish with air asam. I didn’t even remember to snap photos of the food as they were gone in a split second. The grilled catfish was definitely the best, no charcoal or burned parts…a perfect result of a slow and meticulous grilling process. And the air asam…with plenty of keresek. My mouth is watering just from describing it. Or maybe I was just hungry…you tell me.

Family Day At Genting Highlands

Our Arrival At The First world Hotel

We checked in into our hotel room at about 3.45pm. The First World Hotel was busy as usual. Man…running casinos is a great business. I remember when I took a tour of the Monte Carlo Casino, the guy told me that Monte Carlo’s annual taking was only equivalent to a Genting earning of one month. Lots of dough we’re talking about here.

Our room was very basic, but I think it was just recently being renovated as everything seemed to be in good condition. The casino hotel has more than 6000 room, so I obviously couldn’t expect too much. Majority of the people are here for quality time with the slot machines, roulettes and black jack tables and they don’t complain much about the room I’m sure. My room had a clean bathtub, and a wonderful view of the mountains. On the rare few occasions when the low clouds steered away from my window, I could actually see the lights illuminating from KL. The kids did a good job of convincing us to let them “go swimming” in the bathtub and that was enough to keep us occupied until it was time to get ready for the Family Day Dinner.

The Air Wing Family Day Dinner

The dinner was held at the hotel’s Convention Centre. We were entertained by a band called Los Cappuccinos. The buffet spread was okay, but food obviously wasn’t the highlight of this event. The MC, Lt Nazhar, did a great job in keeping everybody glued to the activities throughout the night. Lots of music, family games and basically just fun all around as all 350+ air wing members and their families basked in the wonderful atmosphere.

Mama & kids doing poco poco

I was convinced by Lin to partake in one of the games. Little did I know that it was a chance for me to undergo a little transformation…..enough said, this was the horrific outcome:

Oh my........

The only consolation of this whole ordeal was winning 2 giant Tweety for my twins….as I was gently reminded by Nik…”we have all the proofs we need”….scary thought…hah..hah..hahh.

Receiving my treasure hunt prize

And I was also presented with the camera I won for the treasure hunt, and I got a RM30 McDonald’s voucher. Great….

Genting Theme Park

The children were obviously tired the next morning, but they woke up early. Lots of activities to look forward to at the indoor and outdoor attractions of the theme park. These photos sum up their wonderful time, at the expense of cramps and stiffness that their parents had to endure for the next few days.

Everything was great, except the part where I accidently dragged over a tray of brooches from a stall, and broke at least 6 of them. Fortunately, all except one could be repaired (according to the owner). So, I should still consider myself lucky as I only had to pay RM40 for a broken brooch which we didn’t need. Lin somehow managed to tweak it right back to its original condition. So, it worked out well for everybody at the end. Can’t imagine if I had to pay for all the 6 brooches (must still count my blessing).

The RM40 brooch after being fixed

Dinner at the Genting Palace Restaurant

My boss, Kdr Roslan, had been raving about this Lake View Seafood Restaurant where you could have a nice Chinese dinner while being dazzled by the view of the theme park lake. What a better way to end this fantastic family day event than to enjoy great food in a great company. So it was me, him, Nik, Husaini, Bidin and Bob, and our families numbering 30+ all together. We were all looking forward to the dinner, and eagerly gathered in front of the Convention Centre waiting for the boss to lead us to the restaurant. To our dismay, the restaurant was no longer there…it was closed a few months earlier. When my boss called the Genting staff who arranged the family day event, we were recommended to try the Genting Palace Restaurant at the Genting Hotel. He said it would be shorter to just “walk up” the road to the hotel instead navigating our way via the “indoor” route. It was shorter alright…..but it also meant climbing up the steep road while cars blazing through the lightly illuminated road. With low clouds shrouding a big portion of the road and strong wind blowing against our bodies, it was a good workout for everybody, especially for Nik and Husaini who had to push baby strollers as well. Slightly damp and hungry…..it was a welcoming site to finally arrive at the Chinese restaurant. It was definitely worth the walk as we had the following course for our dinner.

The steamed Patin was exceptional. I never thought you could steam Patin fish due to its “hanyir” nature, but to my surprise…none of the smell, just plain juicy Patin meat steamed to perfection.

And as you might have guessed it, our walk back to the First World Hotel was via the “indoor” route.

Conclusion

The whole occasion had been wonderful. Farhana & Farzana were additionally pampered with a trip to the movie, "the Princess and the Frog" at the Sunway Pyramid right after coming down from Genting (complete with a treat of freshly made pop-corn of course). Me and Lin……we were beat…we are still feeling it now. The accumulation of fatigue from the trip to Genting, the “merisik” ceremony for my sister the day after we came down from Genting and our trip to Ipoh on Sunday to watch Navy Orca in the National 7’s Rugby is really taking its toll as I’m now coming down with a flu…and I can feel my body temperature slowly rising…..it’s a sign and I’d better take notice. Where’s that warm tea with honey……zzzzz.