Hey Hive!
If you missed the last few posts, I'm sharing about our first time venturing up into the mountains of Malaysia, specifically to Genting Highlands, where there's an integrated resort there! I've heard about it a lot but never actually been, and Sean was excited to show me around since he used to go there with his family.
Last week, after a bunch of hassle we finally checked into our hotel - First World Hotel, which is known for winning the Guinness World Record for being the World's Largest Hotel with 7,351 rooms!
To be honest, the hotel itself wasn't that great. But since it was my first time in Genting I had to check it out to see what the hype was all about. Plus Sean did manage to get a good deal on it thankfully.
The room itself was more like a hostel and reminded me of my college dorm more than a hotel. But I guess that's the downside of having more than 7 thousand rooms to maintain..
After we dropped off our bags and settled in, we went around the resort complex to explore since there was so much to see!
We went to have a big lunch at a Hong Kong style cafe called Zok Noodle House since we hadn't eaten the whole day other than sharing a shawarma wrap.
In total we ordered 6 items from the menu and we were so stuffed after that! But it was a really tasty meal nonetheless. Anyway, let's continue on our adventure!
11 September 2022. Sunday.
While walking around one of the first things we saw near the cafe was this old Chinese style place that I thought was a restaurant at first but is actually a karaoke bar!
It was actually quite a big establishment and another entrance looked like this with a huge screen showing a music video with the lyrics on the bottom. I don't think anyone was actually singing at the time so I guess they play some videos on loop just to show what they're about.
This floor led to an outdoor area with more restaurants and bars that feature al fresco dining. But it was still mostly sheltered which was good since it was drizzling a little bit.
We went upstairs to where there were more restaurants and bars,
including one of our favourite hotpot restaurants - Beauty in the Pot!
There was also a balcony area with a view of the outdoor theme park!
And also a view of First World Hotel, which is pretty iconic for Genting with how colourful it is from the outside. But it does look quite old.
We passed by a Koi bubble tea/boba shop which is one of Sean's favourites so he had to grab a photo with it.
But instead of Koi he decided to get Chatime instead, which is a more affordable bubble tea chain from Malaysia.
We went back into the main area of the huge mall where the indoor theme park was with some cars on display as prizes for something.
We also found our way to the casino where there was a whole crowd of people lining up to get in, or get a card to go in or something.
This is definitely the main reason why everyone in Singapore/Malaysia comes to Genting (to gamble) but we're not here for that since we don't gamble. We did want to take a look around but the crowd turned us off that idea for sure.
One of the floors of the mall led off into the department store area where the retail shops were. This place was relatively empty compared to the other areas.
There were some other retailers in the main area as well, which I guess was reserved for the bigger stores like UNIQLO since most of the traffic was here.
I think this was the overall map of the whole place, including the outdoor theme park. You'll see that there are multiple hotels here, with malls in between and all of them are connected, so it really is a whole complex but bigger than anything I've ever been to.
We ended up going through the indoor theme park to another part of the complex.
Even the indoor theme park had quite a lot of stuff to see and it was two levels as well! There was just so many people and lights flashing around I felt really overwhelmed with all the sensory input after a while.
We ended up walking to Genting Grand since we haven't seen this area yet and Sean was more familiar with this place. I guess this was the older section of the complex.
It definitely did look older, from the lower ceilings to the traditional-looking floor tiles.
There was an arcade here with a lot of machines both old and new.
It was quite a big arcade too, and thankfully there wasn't as many people here as there was in the theme park.
They even had some carnival games where you could win giant plushies.
There was also a McDonalds here which I was surprised to see wasn't on the other side. But Sean tells me this McDonalds has been here forever and I guess they didn't see the point of moving.
Even in this section there were a bunch of floors with different shops and links to the other side of the complex.
We walked through Genting Grand and ended up in a more modern side that looked different from where we came in.
We came across this vegetarian hotpot restaurant with its own microgreen farm that I thought it was a flower shop at first until I read the name.
There was also this Chinese restaurant that looked very imperial, like a palace or temple we've been to.
We also came across this very European-looking side of a hotel which was closed unfortunately. It did look very different compared to the other shops we saw here, and reminded me of what little I've seen of Las Vegas.
We ended up walking all the way to the Genting Grand Hotel which I guess was one end of the complex since the lobby led out onto the road.
So we ended up walking back but through a different path.
We passed by the taxi stand of First World Hotel on to another hotel at another end.
There was a huge empty area behind the hotel and we were curious what was lying at the end.
Turns out its a hotel called Crockfords that is probably one of the priciest hotel here.
It did seem very disparate compared to the other hotels here, and the large empty area separating it from the rest of the complex and the mall was quite telling.
Even though we weren't guests we decided to enter to take a look and there was such a large area even past the entrance.
In fact the hotel was so far from the main area of the mall that we saw some guests being escorted there in a golf cart! That's how you know how high-class this place is that they have a driver service.
In the end we finally found the main lobby next to this buff horse statue.
the lobby was so spacious and cozy, what a stark contrast to the chaos that was First World Hotel when we checked in there.
They had a very prominent statue of a rabbit standing on a mooncake holding a huge bouquet of lanterns and maple leaves in celebration of Mid-Autumn Festival, which is celebrated in Chinese culture.
There was also a robotic piano playing some light jazz music automatically. The keys were moving on their own it was kinda eerie like a ghost was playing it.
After we hung around the lobby for a bit we decided to leave and head back to the main area of the complex. When we finally made it back we were pretty tired from all that walking so we decided to stop for some dessert and rest our feet at this place called Koong Woh Tong.
I've seen this shop around Singapore a bunch but have never actually entered one of their establishments. I always thought they sold preserved products for Chinese medicine and cooking. But they actually specialise in Chinese traditional herbal jelly ‘Guiling Gao’ (龟苓膏) and herbal teas that are known for their remarkable healing effects!
Sean has tried it before but I haven't, so he bought a bowl of their herbal jelly for us to share. It's served in their special traditional bowl, along with a small pot of sweet syrup. We also got some small bowls so it'd be easier to share.
Apparently this herbal jelly has quite a lot of health benefits. I'm not sure how legit these are but it did taste quite light and very refreshing and I can see why it's popular. Even if these health effects don't actually work, it tastes good.
I was surprised to see that most of the staff here were quite young since this seemed like a dessert enjoyed by older people. But even the customers were young too. I guess that goes to show how good it is.
It was indeed a nice pick-me-up, but I would not buy it here in Singapore for sure since the price is easily 5 times that in Genting, and it wasn't that cheap here too. I guess it's the resort price and all. But if the price is reasonable I'd highly recommend this dessert!
After that we headed to one of the areas we had yet to explore fully - Ripley's Adventureland!
Sean said he remembered a Ripley's but never went inside it and it didn't look like this, so I guess they must have revamped it in the renovations. There were a bunch of hobby shops, exhibitions and fast food restaurants here so it seemed like our kind of place.
It was also very open and spacious for kids that wanted to ride on the robotic dinosaurs or the train that was going around.
It was quite hilarious watching the kid on the dinosaur since it wasn't going smoothly on wheels like you'd expect, but it was very slow and bumpy like it was lifting its individual feet.
There were some smaller rides as well that were reminiscent of the ones we'd see in void decks back in the day.
Most of these rides were obviously made for kids though, like this small go-kart area.
And apparently there are real life mechs you can drive in now?
There was also a separate play area for kids to ride these toy dirt bikes.
And of course since this whole area was called Ripley's Adventureland there was of course the Ripley's Believe it or Not museum which they called Odditorium which I thought was pretty clever.
I've been to one of these before long time ago in another country, but since Sean's never been we thought we'd check it out! But more on that next week!
Thanks so much for reading!
To find out more about me, check out my intro post here!
Check out my previous post in this series!
TacoCat’s Travels #218 (Genting): Staying the World's Largest Hotel? 🤔
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