babysitting

It’s been a busy couple of weeks, months? And now on the last day of Ramadhan, I finally have a bit of time to write about some the stuff we’ve been up to.

By the way, I’m writing this while watching the Littlest Dictator feed herself.

A few weeks ago, we visited PIP’s Playbox, located on the fourth floor of The Esplanade.

It’s sort of like a little library and play space for little kids.

Yeah, it wasn’t too bad!

I did get a little annoyed by parents who allow their kids to snatch away toys from the Littlest Dictator while she’s playing with them.

I have a new policy now: if the kid snatches away a toy, I snatch it back immediately. Gently but firmly. Waiting for some parents to do the right thing is like waiting for snow to fall in the Sahara Desert. Or the nee season of Attack on Titan. Just… just trust me on this.

BUT! It was hard to stay annoyed when you’ve got one hell of a view:

Then we went for a walk outside along the river.

Hmm, let’s see where else we’ve been to. Oh yeah. LOL Playland at JCube, an indoor playground near Jurong East MRT. Can’t recall if we went before or after The Esplanade though.

Oh yeah! I went to KL for my very first business trip. First time I ever flew there, and first ever day trip. Usually it’s a major thing for me. Takes about six hours by rail, and four by car or bus.

Yeah, not too bad. an experience! The budget airline terminal looked pretty damn good.

Then we took a goddamn 45-min cab ride to a place that looked like it had been carved out of a forested area not too long ago. A pretty cool place with a hipster-ish vibe, with apartments on the upper floors of the shopping centre, and brand new houses on the other side of a narrow road.

It reminded me of a nice waterfall in the middle of a forbidding jungle.

Despite how nice it looked and… ordinary it felt, I couldn’t shake the feeling that we were so far away from the city centre, let alone the airport. Wouldn’t mind going back for a short vacation though.

Let’s see… where else? Where else? Oh right. We paid Big Box a visit. It’s a humongous shopping mall/warehouse next to Jem Shopping Centre, also near Jurong East MRT.

We’d gone there previously and it was pretty underwhelming. While it may be huge, the products sold there appeared to me to be of a cheaper, poorer quality compared to what you’d find in other shopping malls.

But I’d heard of a huge indoor playground there and thought we’d check it out.

It was pretty big, that’s for sure. Might bring the Littlest Dictator here when we get th chance.

Then we checked out their humongous supermarket.

Seriously, this place was huge. It felt exhausting just trying to look at all they had to offer. The design seems a little off though. The aisles were a little too wide, and there were white spaces nearly everywhere you turned, from the ceiling to the walls to the floor. Too many white spaces. The place felt vast but strangely sparse.

It wasn’t that bad though. Might return to check out some of the stuff they have on offer there.

By the way, this is now two days after I started writing. And now I’m attempting to finish this while watching Slap on Titan, an Attack o Titan parody. Armin is one hell of a creepy dude.

The Littlest Dictator has been running us ragged ever since we got here so we thought it’s time for us to take her to what they call here in Korea ‘Kids Cafe’, which in this case turned out to be a huge awesome play area for toddlers and young kids.

Getting There:

33 Se Sil-ro, Busan, South Korea.

Take exit 3 from the Jangsan Metro station and keep walking forward. You’ll eventually see a colourful sign with cartoon buses. That’s the one!

Basic Information:

Contact number 703-5556. Most of it is similar to what can be found on this blog post I found but for a different outlet ( and a much better review too!): Tayo Kid Cafe – For the Younger Crowd

Open daily from 10:00am – 8:00pm, it’s 12k won for two hours but apparently if you sign up for a membership, it’s only 8k won though I haven’t verified this yet.

We went there close to 5pm, and they were closing that day at 6pm for maintenance so we only spent an hour there.

Wasn’t planning on doing a review so this one’s going to be a bit sparse and I’ll let the pictures do the talking. Will definitely be returning and hopefully I’ll be able to prepare a more thorough review.

Here goes:

It’s got a large – what do you call it? – an obstacle course for the kids, with big bouncy trampolines (which she absolutely loved!), and a ball bit and all kinds of things she could climb over and under and through.

There was also a little track running under and through the obstacle course where you could manually ride in and drive miniature buses on every 15 mins. I liked this waaay too much!

There was a little room with play kitchens and lego blocks and dolls (which frankly were a little creepy 😂 ).

If watching cartoons is more up your alley, there’s a room for that too.

As for the toys, there are all sorts that cater to infants and toddlers and young kids.

We had an awesome time and will definitely be returning.

Minor Gripes:

Apparently we were overcharged. Since they were closing at 6 on that day and we’d arrived at 5, I was open to paying the minimum 2-hr cost.

Pretty normal back in Singapore for you to pay the minimum amount, so long as you knew you’d be spending less time.

My mother-in-law said that this is not the case in Korea, and that we should’ve been charged only half the cost.

Also, I wasn’t told about the membership options which kind of annoys me.

Lastly, some of the toys were broken, which kind of takes away from the experience.

Overall Verdict:

It was pretty fun, and we had an awesome time. I’ll sort out the overcharging and membership issues next time we’re there, and yes, we’ll definitely be returning. The Littlest Dictator was NOT happy about leaving!

One Weird Dude's Busan Blog

Busan in Three Months

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Visit to the Esplanade and a Few Other Places

Tayo Kids Café Haeundae