Fishy Tales at Aquaria, KLCC

Yesterday was Federal Territory's Day. It was an off day for Mommy but not for Papa. So it was a fun day for both Juan Or and Mommy - just the two of us. Mommy decided to bring Juan Or to Aquaria KLCC, somewhere that Mommy had wanted to bring Juan Or to long time ago but just wasn't able to due to time constraint and other factors. Federal Territory's Day was a very good day for outings to Kuala Lumpur because there would normally be no traffic-jams, less crowd plus lots of parking space available.


We reached there at around 10.40am. The traffic was very smooth all the way from home to KLCC. Mommy parked at the open air parking space (RM8 per entry for whole day) neighbouring to the entrance of KL Convention Centre and Mandarin Hotel. Since the time was not too far away from lunch time, Mommy decided to postpone going to Aquaria, instead we went to Suria KLCC first.


To go to Suria KLCC from KL Convention Centre, Mommy decided to use the garden way instead of the underground pedestrian tunnel. The garden route has more things to see even though it was much hotter (the sun was already bright and hot even though it wasn't noon yet).  Mommy managed to capture a view of the scenic city.....

....and the iconic Petronas Twin Tower.

Along the way, Juan Or managed to see his favourite.......fountains!

This boy was very mischievous - he knew that Mommy wanted to capture his photos, so he purposely didn't want to keep still and even played catching with Mommy! Even in Suria KLCC, Mommy wanted to capture him with Chinese New Year deco in the background, but he was not cooperative at all - kept on turning his face away or showing his buttocks to the camera!

We went first to Parkson's toy section to see (not to buy!) Thomas and Friends toys because that is Juan Or's current craze. So this boy had a heavenly time trying and pressing whatsoever exposed buttons on those toys, and arrange and rearranging the toy boxes on both the floor and shelves.

After we were done at Parkson, we headed to Kinokuniya to see whether there were any non-fiction books on choo-choo trains. Turned out, there was none so we went for lunch. Mommy wanted to take Juan Or to KFC to eat the chicken rice which he loves, but unfortunately, the restaurant was on renovation. Luckily there is a concierge counter next to KFC, so Mommy simply asked whether KLCC has any MacDonalds or not and turned out, there is! And apparently, the MacDonalds at KLCC does not have its own proper restaurant plot unlike Nandos, KFC, Sushi King and the likes. Instead, MacDonalds is located together with other small eateries at the KLCC food court area. Along the way, we spotted a giant bear at Harrod's entrance.

After the lunch at MacDonalds, on the way out of Suria KLCC but just before reaching the underground pedestrian to KL Convention Centre, we managed to steal some time to check out Thomas and Friends toys at Toys R'Us.

Upon reaching Aquaria, we were greeted by this banner displaying the entrance fee.

For Malaysian adults, the fee is RM35 (provided you show your identity card as proof) and free of charge for children under 3 years old. For that purpose, Mommy did bring Juan Or's MyKid to make sure his entrance is FOC (he is just 3 to 4 months short of 3 years!)! For the benefit of readers out there, Mommy did snap this banner's photo showing the operating hours of Aquaria. By the way, Aquaria allows the payment of entrance fee via credit card.

The insides of Aquaria are mostly dark, so Mommy did not capture much photos there because Mommy's handphone camera cannot do well under poor lighting condition. There is a section for creepy crawlies and turned out, Juan Or did not like that section. But for the sake getting the money's worth for the entrance fee paid, Mommy carried him up to see the creepy crawlies on display. Juan Or showed an unpleasant face and kept on saying "Scared! Scared! Ai (Want to) go home! By the way, Mommy also showed him those big and dangerous spides (tarantulas) and his immediate reaction was "Scared!" Hahaha.....now Juan Or knows that Incy-Wincy Spider is not that friendly after all! *Evil grin*


There are also some small sections displaying live mammals - the water rat and a raccoon family member called coatimundi. Turned out, Juan Or likes the coatimundi (photo below) and even ran alongside the glass barrier whenever it scampered around. At one point, the coatimundi climbed the rocky wall and started rubbing its genitals on the rock so much so the penis became erect like a big, fat, red lipstick! And Mommy heard one Middle-Eastern lady laughing out loud on seeing that! ^_^

There are also many live-sized aquariums and many fishes, both small and giant-sized fishes to see.

Mommy particularly liked this funny-looking fish, but don't know what it is called as.

There is also an 'underwater tunnel' for you to 'feel' what it is like to be among the fishes swimming around you. The tunnel also has the walkalator so you don't have to do the walking. For Juan Or, the attraction is the walkalator and not the fishes! *Slap forehead!*

When in the tunnel, Mommy spotted this giant scavenger fish - looks very much like the 'bandaraya' fish suctioning itself onto the tunnel's ceiling.

We also saw the giant-sized arapaima....

and a huge turtle which Juan Or was fascinated with.

There are also corals to look at.

All in all, we spent a little more than 1 hour in Aquaria. We headed back home after that and Juan Or dozed off immediately in the car. But then of course, Mommy being the type who likes to run several errands in a day's outing, also managed to do one banking transaction, bought a set of odd-shaped tiny screwdrivers from Mr. DIY (for Juan Or's Thomas and Friends set) and also bought XXL prawns from Tesco Puchong before heading back home (reached home at 5.15pm), and still managed to cook dinner. ^_^