Perpustakaan Raja Tun Uda Shah Alam

The spectacular lake in front of the library

 

 

I braved myself and ventured out from my comfort zone again, this time to Perpustakaan Raja Tun Uda in Shah Alam.  I saw some photos posted by one of my FB friends and was impressed with the amount and choices of books available, they have Chinese, English and BM book titles and not forgetting that membership are totally free and no annual fees.   Unlike the two public libraries we used to frequent, TTDI Public Library and Puchong Library where they still impose annual membership fees and I can't find any Chinese titles there.

View of the lake-facing library

 

We spent a lot of time here admiring the geese.

 

Carpark and the garden landscaping at the background

Opening hours

The Opening hours has since changed to:

 

Mons - 10am - 7pm

Tues - Fris: 9.30am - 7pm

Sats & Suns: 9.30am - 9pm except for Creative Zone (Kids' Section)

where they open until 7pm only

 

Children section where kids can read on a "hill" under a gigantic "reading tree".

 

As the place is fully carpeted, no shoes are allowed.  You have to remove your shoes, put them into a bag provided to you and carry it with you.

 

The place is colourfully furnished.  It is well equipped with fairly new Apple iMac desktop computers!  Kids and parents can go online at an affordable charge of RM1 per hour.

 

The boy having a break at the couch.

 

Some of the boy's favourite books.. Roald Dahl

 

Magic Tree House

 

 

Diary of A Wimpy Kid

 

 

Magic Tree House (Chinese version) ~ Must get the boy to read these one of these days. *evil grins*

 

 

Self registration of membership is done online (there are few terminals there for you to do so) and it will be activated within an hour.  No membership card are issued to adults as Mykad will serve as one but children will be issued a member card on their next visit there.

 

We only managed to explore the Children section on our first visit there.  The next visit will be for myself to explore the Adult section.  6D movies are even available at a fee but the boy wasn't interested at all regardless of the number of Ds so we gave that one a pass.  I heard they have a gym room too and that one will be on my next to visit list too.

 

If you stay around Puchong, Subang and Shah Alam areas, this is the type of library that you would like to visit.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

It Arrived, Finally!!!

The book was sent all the way from Belgium..  Now I can see the reason to the slight delay of the book arrival

I pre-ordered a copy of the latest title of Geronimo Stilton's via The Book Depository sometime in February and it finally arrived today!  Woohoo!!  

Winding back time to February, I didn't know this title was yet to hit the bookstores worldwide when my boy asked me to get a copy for him when  I told him I would be going to Popular Bookstore after dropping him off at school.   He got to know about the title from the next book release page published in one of his Geronimo Stilton's.  I did not manage to get the book back for him, of course and there's when I started googling for the title and stumbled upon The Book Depository website.  I only paid USD5.25 which's equivalent to about RM16 with free postage! I usually pay RM18 each after a 10% member discount at Popular Bookstore.

This book would be released in April, so I was told when I placed my pre-ordered copy.  I received an email from the The Book Depository on 19 March 2012 informing me that my book was on its way here.  My boy was pretty excited about it and kept asking me if the book has arrived and starting to get worried when it didn't after 10 days.  He even bugged me to write to them to enquire about the whereabout of the book.   Hahaha...

Now that the book has arrived, I can almost hear the voice of my boy screaming in excitement when he finds his favourite copy sitting on the car seat waiting for him when he gets into the car after school later! LOL... 

I highly recommend this site to all book lovers.  And NO, this is not a sponsored post, neither would I get any reward for writing this post entry.   I am merely a very satisfied customer wanting to share my positive experience with all book lovers.  

Chinese Reading Frenzy

Content of the novel

I bought the boy this Chinese illustration novel when I was at Popular Bookstore two days ago.  This novel was recommended by one of my friends whose daughter also loves reading, mostly English books though, Geronimo Stilton in particular, hardly any Chinese story books.

She got this novel for her banana girl recently and to her surprise, she started flipping through the novel as it has the same funny font characters as Geronimo's, one of the strong factors why kids are drawn to the book.  As I am writing this post, the series of this novel by Odonata has just published its 4th book. 

My boy, though reads Chinese and BM story books too but he is still inclined towards English books given a choice.   I hope he will be like mommy one day who reads not only English books but Chinese and BM books too when I was his age if not older and that's how I picked up Chinese though I went to a Kebangsaan school.

Content of Geronimo Stilton books

I also bought him comics books, also by Odonata as requested by him. Yes, He requested for those Chinese Books!  Previously, he would never have asked for any Chinese books unless I bought and put them on the bookshelves, then he would read it but the priority would still be English books! 

I think he is influenced by his classmates who are mostly from Mandarin speaking families unlike his previous school where majority of them spoke English.

The content of the comics

The dinosaur comics he pre-ordered through his school.   It has become a hit among kids in his school.  One of his classmates even attempted stealing one of those books from his bag but the boy soon recovered it as someone in the class who witnessed the incident reported to the teacher, the culprit was caught red- handed. Lucky him!

And this too, to prepare him for std 4 as by then, they are required to use Chinese idioms to make sentences and write essays.

I hope by reading more books, my boy would not have to memorise those long essays they have to write during exams, it's torturing having to do all the memorising. Gosh.. And yes, now that he is in std 3, essay writing is coming real soon as the Chinese standard in his present school is higher compared to the previous one.  The boy hasn't gotten back their exam papers but he told me they already had one Chinese essay during the recent exam but much to a simplified version where some of the words were given and they're required  to fill in the blank to complete the whole essay.  

Last but not least, I must admit that he is still not quite ready to reading a 'real' novel which I bought for him at his request too.  I think this one novel gotta sit and wait on the bookshelf until he is ready. Hehehe...

A 'real' novel with no pics or funny font characters in between..

Popular Book Fair @IOI Mall (07.03-18.03.12)

I made a trip to Popular Bookstore after dropping off the boy at school yesterday.  I promised my nephew and niece that I would get them some books when we 'balik kampung' this coming Sunday. Yes!  School holidays start this Saturday and we are going back to my hometown in Sabah for a week!  Yippeeeee.... 

When I was about to march into the bookstore, I saw a banner at the entrance informing customers that they are having a book fair starting tomorrow.  Since I will make quite a bit of book purchases, I decided to hold my bullets for tomorrow but yet I still came home with a Chinese story book for the boy during my visit there.  

I got myself a tall cup of pearl milk tea from 'Dong Cha' before heading home.  Both the boy and myself enjoy drinking cold milk tea and it seems to be a trend now.  What about you? Do you like Dong Cha too as much as we do?

Pearl Milk Tea RM5.90 @Dong Cha, IOI Mall

Milk Roasted Tea RM5.90, add RM1 for pearl

@Chatime, Sunway Pyramid 

  

A Lovely Friday!

Updating my daily challenge post aside, here's some update on what we have been up to.  School is out, Yeah!  I am still not fully recovered from my flu and fever.   The boy, though no more fever, is running a flu and doesn't have much appetite. 

Anyway, we are going to Popular Warehouse Sale Book Clearance at The Summit, Subang USJ today.  Today is Popular Card Preview Day, anything to do with discounted books, die die also must go. Hahaha..  Here's the details if you are a bookworm like me. ;)

Date: 18.11.11 to 28.11.11

Time: 10am to 10pm

Location: Concourse Area, The Summit, USJ Subang.

MV Logos Hope, The World's Largest Floating Book Fair

It was already 5pm when we reached Port Klang Cruise Centre, far behind our schedule.  After having lunch at La Teh Cafe, Mah mah wanted to go shopping at Giant.  We headed to Giant in Kelana Jaya and spent more than 2 hours there and that explained the delay.

His signature pose

Logos Hope from far

A mobile van selling Kenny Roger's roasters

Photo taken from the start of the queue

The queue to the ship was horrendous and it took us almost 2 hours before our turn to board the ship.

Look at the 'Q'!!

After 1 1/2 hours in the queue, a crew finally showed up to entertain the kids with......

Fire painting, as requested by the boy..

Onboard the ship and this was what first came into sight

Look at the crowd!!

The 2 hours' standing and my nursing of a bad tummy ache literally killed my enthusiasm and desire to shop for more books.  Furthermore, the book pricing was nowhere near that of Big Bad Wolf Sale to which I had contributed RM400 sales.   However, hubby and the boy managed to get themselves each a book and a toy despite only less than 10 minutes onboard the ship.

Hubby reckoned the concerned party should have organized some activities/booths selling food and drinks along the long queue during peak periods such as weekends to entertain the crowd and to make the long wait more bearable to all and I couldn't have agreed with him more!

Signs And Directions

I headed to MAEPS in Serdang after dropping off my boy at school to attend Big Bad Wolf (BBW) preview sale yesterday.  Traffic was a breeze and with several missed turnings and all, I finally made it there in half an hour.  It was some form of achievement for a person who suffered no sense of direction syndrome like me.  Hubby was surprised too I could indeed make it there without any help, help as in having to send him SOS calls or make him draw me a map the night before.  :)

After hitting Puchong-Cyberjaya Toll, I drove straight all the way, I could see McD and Petronas on my left.  I slowed down and kept to the left lane after passing through Sierra 16's overhead bridge and tried looking if there was any BBW business signs on display.  I spotted the first BBW vertical banner hung on a lamp post and quickly pulled my car over to that direction.   I turned into the exit to NKVE and saw more banners along the highway.  I was led by the banners all the way until I lost them. Yes, I lost sight of those banners!  Damn..  As I was on a highway, it left me no choice but to soldier on. 

Not long after the missed turning, I spotted name plaques of MARDI/MAEPS on my left and quickly turned in.  Lucky me and voila! I found the Big Bad Wolf finally!  Hey, I am not that bad in directions after all! ;)

Bookaholic

The boy has outgrown Enid Blyton and is now into junior novels and Geronimo Stilton.. 

After polishing up his bowl of chilli pan me (minus the chilli) and a glass of ice lemon tea , he starts reading his newly acquired novel while enjoying his bowl of soup.

Getting annoyed by my camera

And even in the moving car, he continues reading... LOL...

Inheritance Of Book Collections

The boy inherited a set of children's dictionaries and encyclopedias from daddy dated back to 35 years ago.  As school holidays are around the corner, we brought home the young children's series from parents in-law's house while the senior series remained there due to lack of space in our condo. Some of the books from the preschooler's series are still kept in our old house.  I will eventually move all the books here to complete the set when I get a big and tall book shelf to house them. 

Though some of the information in the books are a bit outdated but nevertheless they do make good reading materials.  I hope my boy treasures his inherited book collections and passes it down to his offsprings in the future.. Oh, am I too ambitious?  I am predicting things that would only happen in at least 20 years and that's only if I am still healthy and alive to be able to see things happen.  Oh, I probably think too much and too far jor..:)

A dictionary from yeh yeh to daddy and the boy is the proud owner now

The picture illustrations look so classic, don't you think?

Part of the encyclopedia set