Ayer Hitam - Kari Kambing 40 Hair & Aw Pottery

Jalan-jalan at Ayer Hitam. I just love the charm of small towns. The husband brought us to Restoran Kari Kambing 40 Hari, popular among bikers taking road trips, he says. I'd say, it is popular among ANYONE taking road trips. Waze probably gets a lot of instruction to go there.

Queue is pretty long on weekends, but it moves fast.

There's a sitting area like this if you want to eat the traditional way.

Crowded on a Saturday.

I think this is why it's unique. If you have your family with you, yall can eat together from this large dulang (tray). We ordered the mutton & chicken set. The mutton's tender and the rice is awesome.

Next stop, Aw Pottery. This place is historic apparently. My classmates has been here when they were younger. This was my first time here. Quite a magical place.

 The garden.

They all say the highlight is their toilets. It really is! The walls are handmade with bits and pieces of clay and tiles.

The ladies' washroom.

This is their main hall, displaying their products for sale.

Kitchenware.

Bowls.

More kitchenware.

The workshop.

What's fun about here is that you can make your own clay creation. RM22 per 0.5kg of clay. And you can literally sit there the entire day!

The husband and I joined in and made these. These are air-drying clay, so they will be left to dry for at least 3 weeks before we go back and paint them. Can't wait!

This is the place to go if you just want to get out of the city and immerse yourself in chillax art.

VR Coding Workshop @ Me Books Nook - Sunway Citrine Hub - Medini - Johor Bahru

I don't know which one to talk about first, the VR Coding Workshop for children or the venue where it was held, because both are awesome!

Thanks to Facebook Ads, I saw the event by OwlnextEDU and what's rare is that it is in JB! This kind of workshop only happen in Singapore or KL, I thought. So I asked my boys if they were interested and of course they said yes. Also another rare phenomenon that my boys say yes to any learning activities I suggest. So I booked 2 seats last Friday and took leave from my work.

Getting to Sunway Citrine Hub was easy peasy. Waze knows the way. It was my first time in that area that was being developed by Sunway. Will talk more on that later. But first.... the venue.

It is GORGEOUS! Well, what's in it that is gorgeous.  This little book nook called Me Books Nook. I fell in love with that place instantly!

The workshop started with a video introduction to VR coding. The instructor is this cool techie dude who works well with children. 

Participants have to bring own laptops to log into cospaces.edu to create their project. Wifi was a little slow at first but I think it worked out in the end. The other kids were from Sunway International School and Malborough College.

Everyone gets this googlecardboard VR piece. 

The workshop was held from 10am-4pm. I had planned to go home between that time but I ended up exploring the bookshop and the hub, and time just passed along nicely. It was a carefree, take-it-slow day and this is one of the most treasured quality time I had for myself.

The community mall is fairly new. There weren't many shops yet. So far, the only businesses in operation are Me Books Nook, M2L (language centre), Mr. DIY, Awesome Brew cafe, Heaven's Door Restaurant/Bar, Jaya Grocer, Sunway Pharmacy, 7-11 and Old Town Coffeeshop.

This is Me Books Nook on the 2nd floor.

Heaven's Door restaurant where the workshop participant have their lunch (provided).

Awesome Brew cafe. 

Very nice ambience. I felt like I was forced to slow down here.

My brunch that cost RM28. 

After peeling myself off the cafe chair, I explored a bit and saw Jaya Grocer.

This is quite a fancy supermarket, compared to the Giant we always go to. Kinda atas.

SO, here is the highlight of this post actually. The books! The beautiful gorgeous books that make you want to either live there or buy everything home.

Me Books Nook is an outlet of mebooks.asia, you can find out more about them in the link. Their tagline is 'Instilling Values Beyond Pages' and raising lifelong readers. Their carefully curated collection are mostly award-winning children's books with beautiful illustration and the right amount of words on each pages. Perfect for reading to your little ones before bedtime.

They also carry some primary, secondary and A-level exercise books, brought in by University Bookstore Malaysia.

A small-but-enough collection of novels for teens and young adults. I found many good books here, that are recommended when you search 'best books for teens'. 

These are some of the books I laid my eyes on...

How could I resist not buying some home right? Flipping through the pages made me happy already.

I checked the price of the two novels on bookdepository and found out that this bookstore is just selling them about RM3 more. Not bad!

 

It was, a beautiful day indeed.