IOI City Mall, Putrajaya

How I Made Christmas at IOI City Mall

Where The Magic Of Christmas Comes Alive

Photo credit to gowhere.my

Christmas is my favorite time of the year as it is a time of showing love to friends and family. Beautiful Christmas decorations can be seen at shopping malls and on the streets in the city. My children and I went to IOI City Mall to do some shopping for Christmas gifts, ice-skated at Icescape and had delicious lunch there. Come here and see for yourself.

IOI City Mall is a regional mall located in the South of Klang Valley. There is 1.5 million sq. ft. of lettable space occupied by hypermarkets, cineplexes, health centers and more than 100 restaurants and cafes. Besides that there is an Oympic-sized Ice Skating Rink named Icescape and a 70,000 sq. ft. adventure theme park, District 21. You can enjoy the Symphony Walk ambience and pamper your day. Finding an empty parking lot is easy with the advance Parking Guidance System (PGS). Finding your car after your shopping is easy with the Car Finder System. The mall has invested about RM 3 million in implementing the first-in-Malaysia Car Finding System with the installation of 2000 units of cameras covering approximately 5,500 parking bays in the mall. You just need to key in your car registration plate number in the system and your car location would be known fast. Free shuttle buses are available daily at various pickup points namely KTM Serdang, Multimedia University and Limkokwing University Cyberjaya.

Map of IOI City Mall

This year the Christmas celebration comes alive at IOI City Mall. The festive theme draws its inspiration from the fun, lively and vibrant Christmas Circus, where the imaginable becomes alive, hence the theme "How I Made Christmas".

This year, IOI City Mall is decorated with beautiful, colorful Christmas trees, dazzling ornaments, and a long list of exclusive Christmas characters where you can find 2D and 3D sculptures throughout the mall. There is Parson the snowman, Robbie, the 24-feet tall robot, the many helpful penguins, Paddleton the cycling bear, Dexter the jester with candy, Marko the monkey with cymbals, Berry the owl, Dante the ringmaster, Lulu the blonde little girl and more, all customised by the creative team of the mall. The story behind these imaginative Christmas characters began with the main character, a young boy named Charlie, narrated as "I", worked with his amazing friends to throw a marvellous Christmas celebration IOI City Mall.

Photo with Parson, the snowman.

Photo with Robbie the robot.

Photo with Marko the monkey with cymbals.

The Christmas themed "How I Made Christmas" will commence from 27th November 2015 to 3rd January 2016. Children will love the booklet designed for this holiday season featuring Charlie and his helpful friends. My son couldn't get his eyes and hands off this book. He was holding on to it the moment he saw it until we reached home. This booklet comes with colourful stickers and colouring pages to keep children occupied during the school holidays. Colouring activities encourages children to express their own creativity and imagination. Upon completing the colouring pages, shoppers can redeem a mystery gift when presented to the redemption counter while stocks last. 

There is a variety of Christmas performances taking place here to entertain shoppers young and old. You can see Christmas Buskers, Jolly Brass Band, Christmas Cabaret and many more spectacular dance shows.

This show time was taken from the booklet and is subject to changes.

Get rewarded for shopping at IOI City Mall. Besides the fun-filled entertainments, there is a wide array of redemptions and contests throughout the festive period. Shoppers who have spent RM 350 onwards in a single receipt will be entitled to spin the fortune wheel and redeem an exclusive Christmas premium, while HSBC credit cardholders can enjoy the same redemptions upon spending RM 250 onwards in a single receipt. Redemptions can be made at the Gift Wrapping and Redemption Counter on Ground Floor, West Wing of the mall while stocks last and it's not valid for purchases made at the anchor tenants (Tesco, Parkson, GSC, HomePro, Index Living Mall, District 21 & Icescape).

Photo credit to IOI City Mall Facebook

Not to be missed is the "YES! Shop and Travel" contest in conjuction with the Year End Sales (YES). The mall will reward top spenders who have spent RM 350 onwards in a single receipt with exclusive travel packages, including return flight and accommodation vouchers to popular cities such as Busan, Perth, Shanghai, Hong Kong and Pattaya by Air Asia Go and Air Asia. As many as 10 lucky winners will win, so do submit as many as you can for a higher chance of winning.

There is also a "Spot, Snap, Win!" Instagram Contest to reward its social media followers. Participants have to follow @ioicitymall to look for the clue, spot and snap a photo with the "How I Made Christmas" character of the week. Upload the photo with #FoundAtIOICityMall. 10 weekly winners will win RM 100 worth of Harvey Norman cash vouchers each and the most creative photo will win an iPhone 6S.

Besides the Christmas decorations and contests, you need to see for yourself,  Icescape, the biggest Ice Skating Rink in Malaysia according to the Malaysia Book of Records. It is the only Olympic sized Ice Skating Rink in Malaysia spanning 30m x 60m of enormous ice surface with a breath-taking glass view. Icescape has an Ice Rink capacity of 800 people and has attracted numerous visitors to experience the real winter season since the commencement of the mall on 20th November 2014. Icescape visitors is approximately 15,000 to 30,000 per month.

This Ice Rink Technology uses CO2 /NH3 Ice Rink System which consumes less energy and reduces CO2 emission while offering superior ice quality. 

Photo credit : Icescape Facebook

Mr. Phua Hong Yee, the Ice Rink Manager giving ice-skating introductory lesson to fellow bloggers. Mr. Phua is the first and only Malaysian who has performed at the world's largest ice show, "Disney On Ice". He has more than 16 years of skating experience and was trained by the Olympic coach, Matthew Smith in Los Angeles, USA. He has performed in more than 40 cities including the USA, Canada, Japan, Puerto Rico and Venezuela. His other titles include:
1) Silver medalist of ISI World Championship, USA
2) First Malaysian Ice Skating Head Coach for Mega Ice Station (Penang)
3) Head Coach cum Rink Manager for Kalang Ice World (Singapore) and World Ice Skating Centre (Thailand).

Measuring the size of the foot to get the correct skating shoe size.

There are 186 lockers with Surau, washroom, vending machines, skating equipment shop, penguin skating aid (for children aged 12 and below), souvenir and photo shop and coaching services.

Bloggers having fun ice-skating.

This is the first time my children ice-skated. They fell a few times but enjoyed the experience. The instructors were really good in teaching and guiding us.

My children with the Penguin Skating Aid which can be rented for RM 30 per hour. This is really helpful for beginners.

Click HERE  to view my video ice-skating in YouTube. I know how to ice-skate but I never took lessons. So on this day, I learnt a few methods to stop properly and a few other things which I didn't know. I had lots of fun.

Group photo with bloggers, Ms. Sheena Wong (the Public Relations Executive), Mr. Phua and two other instructors. All of us were very happy and enjoyed ourselves. 

The creative team of IOI City Mall has managed to put together recycled toilet rolls to form the base of the earth-friendly Christmas evergreens, decorated with light bulbs that were painted by hand to resemble snowman, penguins and reindeers.

After our ice-skating experience, we were invited to have lunch at Tino's Pizza Cafe. This is an Italian restaurant which serves delicious pastas, pizzas and others.

We were served with lots of delicious, mouth-watering food here.

 Pesto Pollo Spaghettini (smoked chicken and spaghetti in delicious pesto sauce) RM 23.90

Tino's Club House (A three way combo of Tino's chicken wings, Dory Fish Fries and Peanut Butter Fries) RM 21.90

Chef's Special, Mr. Tino (chicken or beef bacon, pepperoni, mushroom, black olives, capsicum and melted cheese) RM 24.90 for Medium and RM 37.90 for Large

Salmone Affumicato (smoked salmon slices topped with capers, salad greens, cheese and an authentic Italian salad dressing) RM 19.90

Peanut Butter Banana Oreo RM 18.90

The food was very good. I liked the pizza, Mr. Tino the most. It was really tasty and delicious. The peanut butter fries from Tino's Club House was special as it was the first time I tasted Peanut butter on fries. It's unique taste made me fall in love with it. I must have more when I come here again.

After lunch, we went to dal.komm Coffee to get our drinks, This is the best place to hangout as there is a great view of the fountain and a beautiful garden.

The Musical Fountain show schedule. 

  Honey Grapefruit and Strawberry cube.

Lastly, Ms. Sheena Wong brought us to redeem our free snack at Eggette Lab.

The snack tasted really delicious and both my children and I enjoyed this very much.

A special thanks to Ms. Sheena Wong for this invitation, Mr. Phua for the ice-skating lesson and Engku Nurul Jannah for the delicious lunch at Tino's Pizza Cafe and all other sponsors namely Texas Chicken, Krispy Kreme and Aster Spring for their vouchers.

For more information on IOI City Mall, please visit their facebook HERE or their website HERE