I brought Nanzaro and his two cousins, Zhen Yiong and Shen Ern, to the mountain resort of Genting Highlands. I am surprised that Nanzaro had got on so well with his two cousins because the last he saw them was when he was only four.

Genting Highlands is about an hour drive away from KL. Since I do not have a car to get around, we decided we take a bus and cable car to the resort. Genting Highlands is famous for its casino. As a matter of fact Genting Highlands existed purely from the casino. However, it is also here that the biggest theme park is located.

The cable car ride (called the Genting SkyWay) was spectacular with breathtaking view of the surrounding mountain and thick rainforest. On a clear day, one can even see KL from the gondolas.

Genting Highlands had the largest hotel in the world with over 6000 rooms (bigger than the MGM in Las Vegas). The two colourful hotel blocks is known as the First World Hotel. We were there primarily for the theme park and, of course, the food.

There are basically two theme parks — simply called the Outdoor Theme Park and the Indoor Theme Park. We bought passes to both theme parks. Nanzaro enjoyed himself and was the leader for the day, dictating to his older cousins what they are going to ride next.

The Indoor Theme Park was impressive and much bigger than I thought. There is even an indoor roller coaster there — it was the boys favourite as they went on the same roller coaster a few times. The lines were not too bad with waits of about 10 minutes (I remember some of Disneyland’s wait times were 60 minutes!).

There were also a lot of very nice food outlets throughout the resort. Why, there were five buffet outlets too. I decided to go for the grandest of the five buffet at the Coffee Terrace. Adults costs about RM42 (less than CAD$15) each with kids under 12 at 50% discount.

The ambiance in the restaurant was nice and the place spacious and clean. It was certainly worth the price they charged. The buffet is not one of those places with a table spread. Rather, they had sections specializing in certain types of food with cooks/chefs preparing them on order.

I did not know where to start and just went to the closest counter and took some from the Western counter.

I also had some satay. Satay is always good — no such thing as a bad satay. So, this one is pretty good. I am saying this because in the next few days I will be blogging about the ultimate in satay.

The Hainanese Chicken was great. They were cut to order … i.e. you tell the chef at the counter the cut you want and they do that on the spot.

I can’t figure out what this is … looks like some from the Malay section.

I also had a small bowl of laksa. Spicy … nice.

There is also ice kacang which also is prepared to order. You let them know what you want in them.

I also had a small bowl of Hakka porridge.

And closed off with some local deserts.

Nanzaro loves sashimi and was delighted that they had all you can eat shashimi. Salmon is not native to Malaysia and is an imported delicacy. Nanzaro had several rounds. However, he remarked that they sliced it so thin, unlike in Vancouver where it is chunkier.

Needless to say, I overate. Frankly I had so much food that I had trouble keeping up with the boys in the theme park after dinner.

The boys went for more rides in the outdoor theme park. They could have gone on for much longer outdoors if not for the pouring rain that fell suddenly.

The boys had a great time. I am glad to see them laughing, especially Nanzaro’s cousins — they were very close to their grandfather.