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

The Parenthood - 1st London Street Family Park in Malaysia

Malaysia's 1st London Street Family Park by The Parenthood will open its doors to the public on 5th December 2015. It is located on 2nd floor of Sunway Putra Mall, Kuala Lumpur. This is the perfect place to bring young children because there are many babies or children's things to buy, lots of great activities for kids and fun bonding time for parents and children. This indoor park provides a wide range of enrichment classes from academic to hobbies and sports. The park is for new born babies to 12 year old kids.

When you step into this friendly neighbourhood place, you know this is not the ordinary walk in a park. Familiar architectures greet you like Big Ben, the red London Bus, British flags, red post boxes quaint shops nestled along yellow-marked tar road againts the backdrop of the English castle - indeed a refreshing reminisce of fabulous London. The Parenthood is a family park offering parents and their children an avenue to Learn, Play and Enrich individually and together all under one roof!

My kids really enjoyed themselves at the My Kingdom Playground by the Parenthood. It's a children's paradise here.

Two units of X-Box for some fun.

There's a room to accommodate up to 40 people for birthday parties or private function.
There are 2 big TV screens opposite the Cafe capturing the playground area assuring parents that their kids are safely playing independently there.

The admission to The Parenthood is FOC. For the admission to My Kingdom playground by The Parenthood - Weekday is RM 35 and RM45 for Weekend, Public holiday / School holiday.

 For more information on My Kingdom playground by The Parenthood, visit My Kingdom Facebook .

Parents can shop for children's products, have their manicure, pedicure, massage, facial, and hair cut here.

Various shops where parents can buy children's things.

 Plants can be grown from these cute little buses.

This is the place for relaxation & leisure, education & play, dining, shopping and others. For more information about The Parenthood, please visit ther website HERE
or Facebook HERE

TRIKSTARS , Masters Of Trickery at Sunway Lagoon

TRIKSTARS: Masters of Trickery, a world-class magic, illusions, comedy and musical unlike anything seen before in Malaysia, will be performed right here at Sunway Lagoon's Amphiteatre for the very first time from 5th December 2015 to 20th December 2015.

Produced by internationally renowned theatrical impresarios, Dion and Randall International – they bring together six great magicians and illusionist all across Las Vegas and Europe for this spectacular performance that is set to charm the whole family!

The Wizardry of Phelston Jones, a great magician that captivates audiences with magic and comedy as he playfully picks on the audience to produce mesmerizing one-of-a kind illusions.

Joining the fun is Sylvester the Jester, an American magician best known for playing a cartoon character who comes to life.

King Charles Troupe, a group of young men who play an unbelievable game of high energy basketball on unicycles as they dribble, pass, shoot and weave their way through the world's wackiest game of basketball.

Nightmares with my kids. Nightmares from Netherlands is the winners of numerous Magic Awards, it is the new era of Magic with a unique combination of story telling and strong visual.

Sebatian & Kristina from Hungary are multi award winning dancers who dazzle audiences around the world with their magical transformations.

There is Rudy Coby who leaves audiences in stitches with his humour and enchants them with his acts. To further jazz up the show, Australian born singer J'aime Holland will showcase her vocal versatility and charm you with her sweeping voice.

On 27th November  2015, bloggers, media and VIP guests were given the opportunity for a sneak preview and to meet the cast & crew up close.

Mr. Sean Choo, General Manager of Sunway Lagoon gave a welcome speech. He said to make this a magical experience, his team is encouraging Malaysians to nominate their loved ones or preferred charity organization to win a free show.

Mr. Adam Dion Bahoudian, the driving force behind Dion & Randall Productions gave an introduction to TRIKSTARS cast & crew.

We we all amazed by the sneak preview of the TRIKSTARS magic.

The TRIKSTARS performance is 2 hours long and for all ages with 14 shows running every Wednesday to Monday from 5th to 20th Dec 2015. Ticket prices for TRIKSTARS are RM 70 for children and RM 94 for adults. Book your tickets at ticketcharge.com.my

TRIKSTARS is sponsored by Coca Cola, Nestle, Milo and 100 Plus. 

Call +603-5639 0000 or visit website www.sunwaylagoon.com or Facebook page HERE for more information.

My Personalised Items From Printcious Arrived

I was very happy to receive my personalised T-shirt and personalised cushion from Printcious. If you had missed out on my previous blog about ordering from Printcious, you can click HERE.  I am very satisfied with the T-shirt as it is very good quality, 100% cotton and preshrunk. The photo is very clear too. Don't miss out the opportunity to get personalised gifts for your friends this Christmas.

I ordered this T-shirt with my recent family trip photo to Australia because I really love this photo of us with the Koala. This T-shirt looks as though I bought it from Australia. From Printcious, it is only RM 29.00 if there is Printcious logo and RM 39.00 for normal T-shirts. It also came with T-shirt care instructions.

Besides the T-shirt, I ordered a personalised cushion with a very nice family photo. I love this cushion very much, the photo is clear and the color is nice. It is only RM 39.00. The material is 100% polyester, the dimension is 40 cm x 40 cm square with 20 cm x 20 cm printable area. The weight is about 350g and there is a hidden zipper enclosure so you can wash it if it is dirty. An inner microfiber cushion is included too.

If you love what you see, then go to Printcious website at http://www.printcious.com/ to get your personalised gift. There are mugs and tiles to choose besides T-shirts and cushions. If you order now till 30th November 2015, there is 20% discount when you use code NOV2015. Happy shopping online!