Saturday, October 11, 2014

Memories of Malaysia - Day 3, cont I-city

I-City is known as the "City of Digital Lights" and is located in Shah Alam, which is a different city to KL (a bit like how Ipswich is to Brisbane). It wasn't easy to work out how to get to it as the website is not very detailed.

We were so blessed by our Air BnB host, Su Yi, who lives in Shah Alam, and offered to pick us up from a nearby train station and drive us to I-City. Su Yi works for a major electronics company, also located in Shah Alam.

From our apartment, we had to go back into KL Sentral and then catch a train, and a drive to the location. This meant we didn't get to I-City until the early evening which was OK because we were going mainly to see the night lights. We had a little rest and swim in the afternoon because we knew it was going to be a late night.

After grabbing something to eat at the park, we decided to head into Snowalk. Inside was a below 5 degrees celcius Artic environment with ice sculptures and rides – the biggest in Malaysia. Inside we found igloos, ice houses, slides, a mini-bobsled run, snowmen, ice penguins, a bar made of ice (no alcohol unfortunately), various ice sculptures and LED lights.



We had to rug up in hire jackets while it was boiling hot outside! Our hands were still cold though, gloves would have been great! There were a couple of small toboggan rides but our boys were a bit young for them and Kaiden was too scared.





Outside, there was an area of amusement rides. You needed to pay a small fee for a ride card and then charge it up with money. We didn't spend alot of time on rides and they were quite expensive for what they were.

There were a couple of other attractions in the park but we were running out of time and it was getting late.


 
We stepped over to the main light area and saw an amazing field of digital trees, animals and flowers. After looking around for a little while and realising it was now 9.30pm, we sent Su-Yi a text as agreed and as she had just finished her dinner with friends she offered to drive us back to the apartment. This was an amazing offer given the distance (about 30 mins drive) and we are so appreciative of her hospitality. She asked if we wanted to stop at a supermarket so we could buy groceries (which we declined though but so grateful for the offer).

As we were driving back, we went through a few tolls. Su Yi used a hand held device which she kept in the side panel of her door. She explained how they don't have the toll reader on their windscreen as when you are stopped at lights or parked, people smash the windscreen to steal the reader. Her next story was about how her Mum had her handbag stolen from her passenger side seat when she was waiting at lights. I held my bag extra tight and felt so grateful for the safety we enjoy in Australia!















Tips 
*Take your own food or eat before you go! There are a limited number of food outlets and are busy at peak times. There is a small supermarket to buy snacks, drinks and ice-creams.

*Try not to combine I-City with a major day outing (like we did with Batu Caves) as there is a little bit of walking around and i-City is a late night activity. All up it was a big day.

*Best way to get there? Not sure. If you don't have your own transport, I would hire a driver and have them wait. Getting there would be easy (train and then heaps of taxis at the train station) but getting home would be more difficult. I didn't see any taxis at the park. It would make it an expensive evening out. I'm not sure if it would be worth it then.

*Spend a bit longer that what we did  if you go (6pm to 9.30pm) but this is not an all day activity. It also definitely for families/children and please don't expect this to be like MovieWorld as it is very basic in comparison. The main highlight was the field of lights.





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