Juan Or's First Time at Litt Tak Toy Warehouse Sale

It's the Litt Tak Branded Toys Warehouse Sale again from 8th till 12th June 2011! Mommy is a regular of this toy sale because Litt Tak is the distributor for Tomy brand of toys, more specifically Thomas and Friends toys. All the while, Mommy went to this sale alone, i.e., without Juan Or tagging along. Mommy loves to go for this sale because it is near to Mommy's work place plus the crowd and payment queue is far better than the crazy (and ugly!) and huge crowds seen in Hasbro, Fischer-Price and Mattel warehouse sales.

Mommy went on the first day of the sale, i.e., on Wednesday, right after picking Juan Or up from the UCSI-Child Development Centre (Mommy enrolled him for some school holiday programme there but will blog at later time). Mommy wanted to reward Juan Or by making a trip to this toy shop since he had been a very good boy that day - he went into class eagerly without any fuss or crying!

Here he was at the Litt Tak Warehouse Sale - happily smiling because toy shops are his favourite outing destinations. ^_^

Checking out Ben10 toys at the ground floor of the shop......

There are a few classes of Ben10 Omnitrix watches on sale, the cheapest being RM15 and most expensive being RM40. Juan Or wanted the RM15 one, but Mommy disagree on buying it since the babysitter had already given him one as birthday present recently. Juan Or also asked to buy Ben10 figurines and playsets (the cheapest being RM45 for a set of 3 figurines), but Mommy refused again because Mommy felt RM45 is still considered expensive considering Ben10 toys are not very educational in nature. Even the figurines are mere simple figurines (call it as boy's version of Barbie dolls!), unlike Transformers robot toys that are made up of various small but movable parts that require a substantial amount of 'engineering thoughts' to assemble let alone transform them.

Another corner of the ground floor has Thomas and Friends sets stacked up high. The set with the bridge costs RM140 (normal outside selling for RM199.90 if not mistaken!) and the one with Creaky Cranky the Crane cost RM105 (selling for RM149.90 if not mistaken).

There are still more selections of Thomas and Friends playsets on the upstairs. As Mommy was busy choosing, thinking and calculating, Juan Or occupied himself by playing with an electronic gun from a nearby shelf. When the trigger is pulled, you will hear electronic shooting sounds that sound quite like what you hear in movies. In fact the shooting sound was so 'real' so much so Mommy can see Juan Or was so absorbed in aiming the gun and shooting at customers who passed by him - very much like a toddler being in action figure mode!

By the way, the gun costs RM9 and luckily Juan Or did not pester to buy this because if Mommy is to buy it, then it will be at Papa's agony since Papa has zero tolerance for noise.


So finally what did Mommy get from the sale? Mommy bought two items only this time since Mommy's budget is very tight for this month due to a recent high expenditure for car maintenance. It's the Thomas and the Shake-shake Bridge set for RM105 (outside selling for RM149.90)....

.....and Bertie Motor on the Road set for RM48 (outside selling for RM69.90). 

Once back home, Mommy allowed Juan Or to open the Bertie set and ta-dah!

But where is Bertie the Bus!!??

A check here and there at various nook and cranny of the box reveals no Bertie!!

All Mommy could see were merely hollow boxy indentations or cave-ins, whatever you call it and Bertie is nowhere to be seen! Darn! Even the leaflet of specifications indicated that there is supposed to be a Bertie Bus included!

So Mommy immediately packed the set up before Juan Or could do any damage to the packaging to the point deemed unexchangeable.

The next day, Mommy dropped by at Litt Tak again to exchange for another Bertie set, but to Mommy's surprise, all the other Bertie sets don't seem to have any Bertie Bus in them! So Mommy took down some Bertie sets to the cashier counter to report about missing Berties. Then one of the man staff opened one to inspect and there Bertie was hiding all the while! *OMG! Has Mommy gone blind already!?*

Anyway, all problem's solved now and back home, Juan Or is happily playing with the Bertie set.

That night, he even insisted on taking Bertie the Bus together with him to sleep. ^_^

And....... (*drum roll, please!*)........ta-dah!


 In the second visit to Litt Tak to 'exchange' the Bertie set, Mommy decided to add one more purchase! It's a Tomy choo-choo train set again, but this train bears the classic steam train appearance minus the cartoony look plus its fittings are compatible with the Thomas sets.

Here's the front view......

.....and the side view. Note the detailed finishing of the train.

This choo-choo train design reminds Mommy of the Russian movie "Kray" because the toy train looks similar to the one in the movie.

(The more-in-front train in "Kray" taken from here.)

Enough said about choo-choo trains.....hehehe. This set costs RM75 (outside selling for RM99.90). Anyway, Juan Or was very eager to dig the train out from the box.

Not just that, since he is in choo-choo train fever, he even digged out a choo-choo train storybook from his bookshelf to accompany the toy train. This photo was taken in the car when he insisted to bring the choo-choo train book while going to the babysitter's house. ^_^

Juan Or at the Norwegian Food Fair

Yesterday, Papa decided to go and see one Norwegian Food Fair after reading one food blog about it. Guess where is the fair? It's at Empire Shopping Gallery, roughly neighbouring Subang Parade!

We parked at Carrefour Subang (otherwise where else has free parking!?), took a walk in front of Subang Parade and crossed some major corssroads before reaching Empire. Still it was pretty early when we reached there because most of the tenants were not opened yet - still another 10 to 15 minutes' wait before 10am, so we loitered at a bench first while Juan Or played hide-and-seek of sorts with Mommy at one F&B tenant's chairs and table.

Along the way, Mommy caught sight of this interesting tube structure - turned out to the longest indoor slide. But of course to slide in it, you need to reach a certain minimum height, plus pay for the ticket. One notice indicated that the ticket fee is half-price on the 1st of every month, however there's no indication at the ground floor on how much is the ticket price.

When the clock striked 10, we walked over to the Norwegian Food Fair's booth. First and foremost, we were greeted by the hole-in-the-face life-sized picture of a Norwegian couple in traditional costume. So Juan Or and Mommy tried it. Looks funny and odd, huh!

We also posed in front of the Norwegian flag and 'house'.

Then along the way, Juan Or seemed keen to run away to other neighbouring tenants, so Mommy had to chase and bring him back again. Unbeknown to Mommy, Papa had taken a shot of us coming back to the 'true path'.  This shot really made Juan Or and Mommy look like shopping kakis (hats)! ^_^

At the food fair section, the main attraction was the selling of Norwegian frozen seafood such as salmon, cod, blue mackeral, shrimp and crab. Some of these seafood were sold in vacuum-packed marinated form. Mommy remember reading about this Norwegian food fair at The Star Metro section on Saturday (19th March 2011) and the article did mention about the frozen seafood sold at bargain prices. So are they really a bargain? In Mommy's opinion, they are definitely not! For example, a 200g vacuum-packed frozen salmon fillet (non-marinated) costs RM12, i.e., RM60 per kg - that's exorbitant! In comparison, a salmon slice in Tesco costs RM24.90 per kg during promotion and in one TC Boy Warehouse Sale last year, a 700g to 800g piece of imported salmon fillet (frozen, vacuum-packed) costs RM27 only. Other than frozen seafood on sale, there were Norwegian breads and bread premixes for sale too but Mommy didn't take a close look. In one section of the booth, you can see one staff cutting the bread into small pieces. You think they are preparing free samples of the bread for people to try? Nah, you have to buy them to try! Cheh!


Putting aside the food fair, there was also a section in the booth where photos of places, people, scenes and scenaries of Norway are displayed - something like a "To know Norway is to Love Norway" expo kind of thing.

These are some of Juan Or's favourite things....

.....the waterfall     and.....

.....the  choo-choo train!


Before leaving the Norwegian food fair booth, Mommy managed to take some free recipe booklets and leaflets for cooking salmon fish. Yippy, even if Mommy had nothing to buy from the booth, at least there's still something to take and keep for future reference!

Since we still had a lot of time left before lunch time, Papa and Mommy took Juan Or to his favourite place - Toys R'Us! Mommy then took the opportunity to enquire from the customer service counter how much points were collected thus far and to Mommy's delight, it was 814 points and that entitled Mommy to have RM30 worth of vouchers to redeem (RM10 voucher for 250 points)! Woo-hoo!  You may then be thinking that Mommy had spent RM814 previously to buy toys, right? Wrong, Mommy had only spent RM254.50 so far buying toys from Toys R'Us. So how did Mommy do it? Actually Mommy made use of windows of opportunities. One was when Mommy made use of Standard Chartered's credit card cash rebate promotion that gives RM188 rebate upon first swipe of any amount transaction. Second was when Mommy got 3X points when purchasing something from a new Toys R'Us outlet in IOI Mall. The best part was that Mommy made use of those windows of opportunities simultaneously to reap the maximum benefit possible! ^_^

Juan Or had a jolly good time at Toys R'Us. Mommy asked him to pose next to this life-sized Ben10 hero (his current favourite cartoon character), but don't know why, he refused. *Shake head*

Then there's also this Lego corner for children to play.

When we came out from the toy store, Juan Or did not fret to want to stay on unlike in other toy departments in Jusco previously. What does this mean? It simply means he had seen and played to his heart's content already! ^_^


You may then be wondering what Mommy bought using the RM30 voucher? Here it is - the 65th Anniversary celebration edition Thomas train set selling for retail price of RM89.90. Mommy knows this set is pretty expensive and no discounts are given even during Jusco sales. Also, Mommy has never seen this set on sale before in Litt Tak's Warehouse Sale all these years. So this is good opportunity to make use of the vouchers to get it for a cheaper price! Anyway, it's to add to Mommy's collection as well! ^_^

Once back home, this was how Juan Or played with it.....crash, boom, bang.....fall down! If you have watched Thomas and Friends in Mistry Island Rescue before, Juan Or actually wanted to simulate one scene where Diesel unintentionally pushed the jovi logs to the edge of an unfinished track and they all fell into the river.

If you are a train model enthusiast, this 65th Anniversary edition features an interesting passenger coach.....

.....that can be opened up to fit in Sir Topham Hat!

Hehehehe.....another addition to Juan Or and Mommy's choo-choo train collection! ^_^

Mommy is Going Choo-choo Train Crazy!

Woo-hoo! It's the Litt Tak Toys Warehouse Sale again which started on 1st December 2010 and ended on the 5th. And Mommy is really going crazy already this time. Yes, Mommy is going choo-choo train crazy!

It all started like this. You may remember reading blogposts here not too long ago that Juan Or's latest interest is the choo-choo train. He loves looking at real choo-choo train photos in books, loves looking at real choo-choo train exhibits at the National Museum, loves looking and riding on the LRT type of 'choo-choo train'. loves watching Thomas and Friends' Misty Island Rescue, loves playing and parading his Thomas playset train as he sleeps or watches cartoons and loves his Thomas and Friends storybooks. Then somehow this choo-choo train thing also got into Mommy's head as well as a result of sitting down together with him to watch Misty Island Rescue over and over again plus a host of other choo-choo train-related activities! Not just that, Juan Or is still at the destructive stage whereby he handles his toys roughly and his Thomas playset train is no exception. His Thomas train has endured all kinds of falls from all possible domestic distances and usually these are hard and uncushioned falls onto the floor! Yet his Thomas train is still in one piece, the electronic part is still functioning well, and no parts of the train is chipped or cracked or got dislocated. Conclusion is the Thomas and Friends playset made by Takara Tomy or Tomy is of very good quality and is really the you-get-what-you-pay-for kind of thing. And boy, Thomas playsets are costly too and so to get it cheaper, Mommy bought a starter set from a previous Litt Tak Warehouse Sale (Litt Tak is the distributor in Malaysia for Tomy brand)  for RM55. That also Mommy was gambling with the possibility that Juan Or may not be that keen on Thomas. But now it's confirmed that Thomas trains are indeed Juan Or's interest (and Mommy's interest too! ^_^), so Mommy went looking for more Thomas and Friends sets for this round of sale. By the way, previously, Mommy bought a China-made cheap cartoon train set for only RM10 (from Litt Tak as well) but unfortunately (and as expected too), the train cannot withstand Juan Or's roughness. The joints started to break and so the components fall apart.


Here's Mommy's yield for the day. You can call Mommy crazy.....hehehehehe! 

This time, the starter sets have gone down in price - from RM55 to RM50 per box! So Mommy bought Percy (green train) and James (red train) to complement and expand the existing Thomas train set.


Since Mommy's objective now is to expand the set with different kinds of trains, Mommy got Stanley set (off-white train) for RM75 and a black colour train (don't know what's his name) that comes together with Thomas train set for RM90.

This is a racing train set  - Thomas the steam engine racing with Spencer the diesel engine - for RM85.

Mommy added these single-type trains as well - Gordon (the blue train) comes with 4 straight tracks for RM35, and Thomas with the Chinese dragon and a Troublesome Truck that comes with DVD for RM45.

And then Mommy can't resist buying these as well, RM8 per box. These sets come with tracks as well but of course the tracks are not compatible with Tomy's. Yes, Mommy knows although these are those China-made and not-so-good-quality type of train sets, but Mommy bought them more for their design being  very realistic, classic and detailed. It's more for display and collection, not really for Juan Or to play with because these will definitely fall apart under his hands! By the way, Mommy saw the same train set (and same brand too!) selling in Tesco currently. The only difference is that Tesco's has all the coaches and cargoes that are also found in the ones Mommy bought, altogether in one box selling for RM29.90 (before discount is RM45.90)! Woo-hoo, what Mommy bought is a bargain!

Anyway, Mommy will only be introducing the sets or trains to Juan Or one-by-one, depending on him showing outstanding good behaviour or good deeds. ^_^ You may be wondering, what then if Juan Or's interest in choo-choo trains doesn't last? Well, these will become Mommy's collection then and become exhibits in Mommy's future home-made 'Toy Museum'!

By now, you must be thinking that Mommy has really gone crazy, huh!? ^_^


By the way, Mommy's close colleague bought a toy bow-and-arrow set for Juan Or from the same Litt Tak Warehouse Sale. It was selling for RM5. As expected, Juan Or still doesn't know how to shoot the arrow despite his Papa demonstrating many times. Instead he played with the arrows' suction ends only and to date he has already bended one of the arrows. So Mommy has confiscated the bow-and-arrow set from him before more damage is done! ^_^

What is Juan Or Really Watching?

Mommy has been 'missing' from the blogging scene for quite a while due to tight work deadlines, but the work has not really finished yet at this time of writing. So Mommy's blogpost today is going to be a short one.  And Mommy will resume bloghopping activities again once Mommy is really back on track. Thanks a lot for visiting and leaving your comments! :-D


Lately, Juan Or is getting very obsessed with choo-choo trains. It doesn't matter whether it's Thomas and Friends or some other China-made or brandless toy train - so as long as it's a choo-choo train (doesn't matter whether it's diesel or steam train), he's satisfied already.

Some time back, Papa downloaded Thomas and Friends in Misty Island Rescue from the internet. Initially, Juan Or was indifferent towards it, but gradually he learnt to love watching it. Now that he's obsessed with choo-choo trains, he will arrange his choo-choos on the laptop's keyboard and watch Misty Island Rescue. And mind you, those choo-choo trains arranged on the keyboard are partially blocking the screen.

And this is a closer view......

So what is Juan Or really watching? The toys or the show? You decide! ^_^

Trip to National Museum

Yesterday, Papa and Mommy decided to bring Juan Or to go visit the National Museum. Reason? Because from a dusty corner of Mommy's memory, Mommy remember seeing real steam locomotives on display there and that Juan Or loves anything to do with 'toot-toot train-train', so why not take him there to see the real thing? So when Mommy told him that we were going to the museum to see Thomas and Friends  or Tho-fren (Juan Or's abbreviated version of Thomas and Friends), Juan Or cheered very happily and kept on saying "Choo! Choo!" during the jorney.

We arrived there, parking was RM2 per entry and there were not too many nor too few people there - just nice. It was a sunny day too which was perfect condition for Mommy's handphone camera since photos would only turn out sharper if under sunny condition.

Right at the entrance of the museum's compound were the locomotives. Immediately upon seeing the locos, Juan Or kept on saying,"Ai (want) Thomas!".

Here's a mini steam loco, mini as in because the caption board said so, but to Mommy untrained eyes, it still looked big! And because this loco is green in colour, Mommy bluffed Juan Or and said that's Percy! ^_^

Next was the regular-sized steam loco and since it is all black in colour, Mommy couldn't think of any names from the Thomas and Friends series to tell Juan Or, so this is a 'nameless' loco! ^-^

Mommy also managed to capture a photo of the modern day train (is that a diesel train?) but only from a distance because this train is placed right in the middle of the parking compound, so was not conducive to cross the parking area with cars and buses frequently passing by and with a young child tagging along. Luckily too, Juan Or did not pester to go have a closer look - he seems more interested with those Thomas and Friends type only!

We didn't immediately go into the museum, instead we 'visited' all the vehicle displays at the compound first. We saw all sorts of carts,......

 ......riskshaw, trishaw, antique car, and even the first generation of Proton Saga, .....

.....the antique fire engine (fire engine is also Juan Or's favourite vehicle!), ......

.....and boats.

 Among the antique vehicles was a stall for anyone interested to take photos with colourful parrots, with a fee of course! The fee was RM15, but the signboard did not indicate clearly whether it was RM15 per session for taking photos regardless of how many photos you take. Anyway, Mommy was not exactly keen on taking photos with parrots plus the price was steep, so Mommy merely stood at a hidden angle (yes, hidden from the man who manned the stall!) next to a pillar and clicked (for free)! ^_^

Here are more poses of Juan Or at somewhere near the antique vehicles. Too bad, we missed the snake exhibition although the signboard was still there.

We took one round around the museum's compound as well and found the fountain (the fountain is also Juan Or's favourite).

 

Then there's this bronze statue of someone in history with whom Mommy asked Juan Or to pose. After reading the caption board, turned out this man in history is Sir Frank Athelstane Swettenham, the man who contributed to the early developments of Selangor, including the opening of Port Swettenham, now known as Port Klang.

After we were satisfied exploring the compound, we entered the museum. The fee was RM2 per adult and free for children below 12 years old. The inside of the museum is all renovated, so it looked more spacious now.

Now there are four galleries in the museum: Gallery A for early history (Permian, Prehistory and Proto-history Eras), Gallery B for the Malay Kingdoms ranging from the ancient to the 19th century ones, Gallery C for the Colonial Era (Portuguese, Dutch, British, Japanese Occupation, Malaya's education system and Malay freedom fighters) and Gallery D for Malaysia today. However, those stuffed wild animals display that Papa and Mommy used to see during our childhood were no longer there. Where have they gone to?



Anyway, Mommy didn't take much photos when in the galleries because the lights were mostly like those hotel lights - dimly lit yellow lights, thus not suitable for Mommy's handphone camera. It was only at Gallery D when the lights were more of the white type. So Mommy snapped a photo of Juan Or together with a model steam loco,.....

....a tin dredge model, .....

....and a photo of Juan Or doing a face-fit on the 'spaceman suit'. You can see Papa holding him up from behind because his legs were not long enough to stand on the back platform.

Finally we were done with the museum and we came out. Mommy saw there is a walking pathway to go to the National Planetarium and Mommy had also wanted to go to the Orang Asli (Aborigines) Museum just adjacent to the main museum building,but Papa said it was late already and had to go for lunch.


So we left the National Museum, and Juan Or went to see and say goodbye to the steam locos one more time while Papa walked to the parking lot and drove the car to pick us up. Next, we headed to Plaza OUG at Overseas Union Garden via Old Klang Road for McDonalds.

As usual, we took advantage of the McValue Meals offer that starts at 12 noon, but we reached Plaza OUG at about 11.35 am, so we loitered at the plaza for a while. Thus, Juan Or gets to have his kiddy ride.

Finally the clock striked 12 and we were at McDonalds already. While Papa was queueing up to buy food, Juan Or had a good time fiddling with the McDonalds' plastic spoon, disposable sauce dishes and the salt and black pepper mini sachets. As usual, he would arrange the mini sachets in an array (like what he would do for his toys).

A pose for Mommy!

Finally Papa was back with the food. Mommy's food was a Fillet-O-Fish. Wah, can't wait to eat, stomach was rumbling already!

Nothing seems unusual about the burger, right?

Now when Mommy opened the burger, can you spot anything unusual?

Yes, that's right, how come only half a piece of cheese was used? Strange.....other McDonalds outlets are not doing like that. Does that mean if the price is cut at 12 noon, so does the ingredient? Only the McDonalds at Plaza OUG will have the answer.