16 Dec 2014 - Taiwan Trip Day 3: Baby Boss (职业体验任意城)

Today is the day that Jerlene and Javier had been looking forward to.  We are going to Babyboss, an indoor recreational center where children between the age of 3 and 12 will have a taste of what's it like working as different professionals.

Direction:  From Ximen MRT station, take the green line (which was just opened one month ago) towards Songshan and alight at Nanjing Sanmin station (南京三民站).  From the station, it's a five minutes walk to the Living Mall (京华城) where Babyboss is located on the 7th floor.

In Babyboss, it's not only about having fun for the kids.  They will learn the fact that money does not drop down from the sky.  They got to work hard to earn money and spend them wisely.  Here's a sneak preview:  My Pilot Captain Javier and Chief Inflight Stewardess Jerlene.

While the kids were enjoying themselves, parents do not just laze around.  Their main job is to help their children to plan the different jobs one after another.  There are a total of 70 occupational roles and every role got a timetable.  Each job session will take about 30-45mins.  Furthermore, there are limited number of children who can attend each session.  The seats for most of the popular roles will be filled up very quickly.  Bad news is there was a school excursion today and it's expected to be crowded but good news is they will leave by 3pm, which means the place will be pretty empty for the last 2-3 hours.

Anyway, we were fortunate that when we arrived at the TransAsia Airline counter, there was still one space left for both pilot and flight attendant.  This is one of the most popular jobs in Babyboss.  As a parent, I was invited to go on board the below plane and act as a passenger.

Before the start of a job role, there is always a briefing session and uniform changing.  Here comes the pretty stewardess Jerlene, who was on her way to board the plane!

And how about the smart looking pilot Captain Javier!

Photography is not allowed while on board.  Basically Javier was sitting in the cockpit controlling the plane (I think there is a flight simulator game of some sort).  As for Jerlene, she and the rest of flight attendants were busy pushing trolleys along the aisle in the plane asking every passenger whether they need a blanket or magazine.  It's a short flight and the mission was accomplished.  Here comes Captain Javier after the successful flight.

After collecting their pay in the form of babybucks, we quickly went over to the next job.  We wanted to sign up at the police station but it was full.  So we went to the nearby Art School where Jerlene and Javier were trained to be artists.

From the Art School, we rushed back to the police station and there were still spaces left for the next session.  We were a bit hungry by now and I bought some finger food (nuggets and fries) for the kids to eat while waiting for the session to start,

After putting on the police uniform, the kids were briefed on the basic roles for this job.  By the way, all the briefing and instructions are in Mandarin.

Let's salute to the police contingent!  They were now ready to march through Babyboss City.

They marched to the other end of the city and started directing traffic using their batons.

Look at the serious look on both Jerlene and Javier's face while on duty!  With such look, I felt safe to stay in this city.  Haha................

The next available job is the Balloon Magician at the Magic Theater.  Here the kids were taught how to make a puppy using balloons.

Without wasting much time, we proceeded to the Operating Theatre and signed up to be Doctors/Surgeons.

After the above briefing on human internal organs, all the young surgeons went over to the operating table and ready to "operate" on a patient (fake of course).

This is Dr Javier trying to clean up the blood from the patient's wound.

Another interesting job is the firefighter.  Once again, they were briefed on what to do as a firefighter and what to expect in their mission.

Before going to the actual fire scene, all the young firefighters were trained to slide down the fireman pole and pick up the hardhat.  

They then lined up at the entrance of the fire station and got ready to board the fire truck.  Within minutes, they reached the fire scene and started putting out the fire.

Yeah!  Another mission accomplished!

By now, all the school kids had left and we wanted to try out the Astronaut at the space center,  However, the session will only start an hour later.  So we went over to the nearby Workshop and signed up as car mechanics.

The timing was just right and immediately after the car mechanics session, we went back to the Space Mission Center to sign up as astronauts!  This is another popular job in Babyboss and true enough, the seats were full a few minutes after we signed up.

In this mission, all these young astronauts will take a space shuttle to the moon.  I understand that it's a simulator ride for the journey to the moon.

Once touched down on the moon, the young astronauts were busy looking around for moon rocks, which they were supposed to collect and bring back to earth.  All the kids look so cute in the astronaut's uniform.

And once again, the mission was successfully accomplished.  Jerlene and Javier received a very warm welcome back from moon with flowers presented to them round their necks.  Good job, kids!

By now, there was only enough time for one last job.  There was not much choice left and the kids decided to be dentists.

After getting paid as dentists, Jerlene and Javier calculated the total amount of BabyBucks that they had earned today and went over to the departmental store to exchange for items.  The number of items that they can exchange were limited.  Eventually they chose a highlighter pen and an activity sheet each.  For kids staying in Taiwan, they can actually bank in the babybucks in the Babyboss bank and earn interest.

Jerlene and Javier had an enjoyable and educational day today at Babyboss.  They managed to complete 9 professions each which in itself was a great achievement.  I read many blogs saying that their kids only managed to complete 6-7 jobs in a day.  Well done, Jerlene and Javier!

We took a few photos of the surrounding before heading to the nearby Raohe St Night Market.

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