kizciti
17/04/2016 19:44
Hours:
Tue - Fri: 8:00 to 15:30, ticket 180.000 VND
Sat & Sun: 9:00 to 20:00, ticket 220.000 VND
Hoàng Diệu, District 4, HCMC
Tel: (08) 3825 3868 Hotline HCM: 094.40.22228
Kizciti is basically a miniature city for kids between the ages of three and 15, where they have the opportunity to live the life of an adult. You’ll find anything here a city would need to function, shrunken down to size for children –everything from a fire and police station to a bank and newspaper.
The twist to Kizciti is that, just like in real life, kids here have to earn Kizo, Kizciti’s currency, before they can play the city’s games or buy its ice cream. And, just like real life, to earn Kizo the children must work.Each child is given a small bracelet, which is used to track the amount of currency they hold, and then they can go around town, basically door to door, earning and spending their Kizo.
Activities are basic but enjoyable. For example, at the fire station, a child will be dressed up as a fire fighter, loaded into a small fire truck and driven to the other side of Kizciti where they will put out a “fire” with pressurised water hoses. Then they load back up and return to the fire station five Kizos richer. To earn another five Kizos, they can deliver the local Kizciti paper. With 10 Kizos they can now visit the ice cream shop, where seven Kizos buys one lucky kid the chance to make their own single-scoop ice cream creation. This is then repeated throughout the 30 or so activities in the city.
The park really caters to Vietnamese children, but that doesn’t mean that children must speak Vietnamese to enjoy the city; most of the staff speak at least basic English and most signs are also translated. It’s really more about the concept than the instructions anyway, with most tasks being simple to follow; if you can get over the initial shock of not being able to understand the instructional videos, your kids could have a blast.
Kizciti is perhaps less enjoyable for parents, as they must watch the activities from the unair-conditioned city streets, although they’ll get a kick watching the scores of children working various jobs. (Our favourite are the kids hustling other children for credit card applictations while wearing suit jackets.) But parents can retreat to an air-con restaurant in the centre of Kizciti.
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