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The folks at the Upper Room took a road trip up to Desaru over the weekend. We went together with Belle’s family. Early Saturday morning, we packed the children and stuff (its amazing how you literally bring your whole house with you when you travel with little children) into the car and set off!

We cleared customs at around 9 am and proceeded to our favourite prata place next to Pelangi for breakfast. The 2 girls were absolutely thrilled to be going on “holiday” together. They talked endlessly, giggled non-stop and simply enjoyed each other’s company. We couldn’t stop smiling to ourselves as we watched them.

Our first stop was the Crocodile aka buaya farm on route to Pulai Desaru Hotel. And what HUGE buayas they are. I for one have not seen such ginormous ones before and so many!

Talia was in her father’s arms throughout because it honestly was a little scary to watch! *goosepimples* She didn’t quite dare to lean too near to see as well and her little eyes were round as saucers when the buaya-keeper agitated the sleeping reptiles with poles and they roared to life, showing off their teeth and enormous mouths! The little boy was even funnier, he obviously was fascinated, eyes never leave the creatures but whenever they came to life, he would give a little scream and then hug me close and snuggle his face into my neck, but surfacing barely seconds later to stare at the crocodiles in wonder again. And when I told him those are crocodiles, he actually repeated the word after me! I was amazed!

There was a baby crocodile that you can actually get to touch and all the children took turns at it! NOT ME though! NO SIRREE!

See how game the boy was!

and how scared the jiejie was!

We then went a a nearby chinese restaurant near to a children’s playground for lunch and was about to sit down before the servers rushed out to usher us in because they were expected bus loads of tourists coming in and those set tables were for them. We ordered couple of dishes with sotong, fish, tofu, couple of veggies and it was about RM140. We thought it was pretty steep for Malaysian standards but the food was pretty good.

We drove towards our hotel and while Belle’s mummy was checking in. The children had some fun at the children’s room.

Then we hurried to our room so that the children can have their afternoon naps as it was nearly 2.30pm. We were expecting the worst because we have checked the reviews on the net though even Pulai Desaru is one of the better hotels in the area, the general comments are that the rooms smelled, are old and badly maintained. With that in mind, we actualy even came prepared with our own aromatherapy option. The room was large though but does look its age of more than 10 years old, Kev then took off to walk around the hotel premises.

And as expected, the pool and the beach were great though!

The kids woke up at 4.45pm and off to the pool they went! Have I told you how much the boy lurves the water?

See the sheer look of bliss on his face!

The girl was a bit more tentative, I think you tend to be less gungho when you are older. I must make a mental note to let them learn swimming, blading and cycling when they are younger and not so prone to being frightened by falls and the likes.

Come play ball with me!

The boy got even happier when he was inside the water kicking!

Yeah!

Little Isaac in the float that his mum nearly expired from while trying to inflate!

Having fun in the pool!

After showering, we set off towards Sg Rengit which is about half an hour away by car for dinner and what a dinner we had, lobsters, crabs! The food was good but unfortunately because Channel U has been there, the prices have also went up. By the time we were done, it was 8.30pm. We ditched the idea to see fireflies and drove back towards Desaru. Before we went back to our room, we spent about 20mins at the beach just admiring the stars. There were sooo many and it was the first time the children know that there were actually that many stars in the sky that become visible when the surroundings are dark enough.

The next day we were all woken up by the baby boy crying and we were so thankful it was 7am instead of his usual 6am routine.

Having milk together!

We went for breakfast and after that we headed to the beach! It was HOT! The boy spent some time digging at the sand but I wasn’t sure if he was enjoying it because of the expression on his face, yet he kept at it for a while!

Ewww! sand!

The girl on the other hand was completely content to be “cooking sand” under the sanctuary of the umbrella we set up for her!

Cooking up a storm!

看海的日子！

After the beach, we went back to the room and the children snoozed for about an hr and we checked out and set off towards the next item on our itineary, the fruit farm!

Ok! this is hilarious! I wanted to take a picture of the bua long long fruit, some small green fruit that doesn’t really taste that great, but because I was at the back of the group tending to the little girl when the guide was explaning, I took the wrong pic! muahaha!

Not the bua long long, but the passion fruit instead!

There was a pretty koi pond in the middle of the fruit farm and the two girls had a lot of fun feeding them.

Many many kois in the pond!

Feeding the fishes!

That strange looking longish plant is actually some kind of banana, but according to the guide it doesn’t taste good at all!

Bananas and me!

There was also a mini zoo where the children fed goats. There was also monkeys, an ostrich, hens, a snake (eewww!), rabbits and birds. Talia simply enjoys feeding the animals. She will choose which ones to feed and dash around exclaiming “this one is very hungry!” or “You eat already!”

Little zookeeper at work!

By the time we were done, it was already 3.30pm and we haven’t had lunch! Good thing the boy was fed his avocado lunch in the car at 12.30pm and the girl munched on a roll at 1.30pm. The adults hungrily gobbled down the fruit pack given to us at the end of the fruit farm tour in the car while driving towards Kota Tinggi.

If you have not already noticed, there were no pictures of food at all because when you have 2 hungry toddlers at meal times, you hardly have time to eat yourself, let alone take pics!

After that very late lunch, we went to buy some fruits from roadside stalls and continued driving towards Johor’s Jusco shopping centre. We spent the night shopping at Jusco (which by the way was enormous) and left at about 10pm, only to reach home at about 11.30pm!

The children had loads of fun, the adults were completely shacked out! All in all, not a bad way to spend a weekend, at least for the children .