Bye, Aussie!

We said bye to Princess Aurelie at the Airport on Thurs, 8 Sep 2011. My holiday was over... not! HK awaits.

The last week in Aussie had been pretty much relaxing, lots of home stay, bearing in mind that we still needed to save our energy for our travel to HK (... and for bro: to Taiwan). Here was the rest of the travel log in Aussie:

Sunday, 4 Sep 2011 - Sydney City Tour

I woke up at 10.00am and welcome by the warm sunshine through the window. Spring is really here! I took my breakfast (chee cheong fun), showered, then continue with my lunch (fried kway teow) before finally leaving for our own city tour.

"White" Char Kway Teow - Mum and Dad's Version

We started with a quick shopping at pharmacy for some vitamins and order from sisters. Afterwards, we went to "Red Roll" for a delicious Vietnamese sub. It was so good that I only remember about taking picture after I finished the sandwich T_T It really reminds me of Subway - the Vietnamise Style. It even has the meatball menu!

Menu of "Red Roll by Hong Ha" - The queue was never ending!

We continued with Paddy's Market for quick browsing. Didn't really find anything to buy, we decided to proceed to Queen Victoria Building as the next tourist spot. Along the way, I gave a try to "Easyway tea indulgence" pearl milk tea. It was similar to Sweet talk in Singapore, except the fact that it cost AUD 4.8 for regular cup instead of SGD 1.5 T_T Oh God I miss Singapore. Similarly, Easyway has its very close competitor, ChaTime. This kind of reminds me of competition between Gong Cha and Koi. Hehe.

After 10 minutes of easy walk, we reached QVB which is actually a... shopping mall! =__='' I thought QVB is a historical site or at least something of elegancy. To be fair, it was actually some kingdom / government place before converted to a shopping mall. Oh well. At least the inside was not disappointing.

The Statue of Queen Victoria outside the Shopping Mall

The Infamous Clock inside the QVB Shopping Mall

After half an hour and hundreds of pics, we took a free shuttle bus to Circular Quay, from where we walked all the way to Customs House, Sydney Opera House, Harbour Bridge, Royal Botanic Garden, Mrs Macquarie's Chair, before finally taking a rest outside of Art Gallery of New South Wales.

Princess Aurelie on the Replica of Sydney @ Customs House

Must-Take Pic of Sydney Opera House + Harbour Bridge

Spring at Royal Botanic Garden!

It was almost 7pm before we decided to go back for dinner. After some debate, I managed to get Domino Pizza for dinner :P Their ordering system was quite advanced. You can track whether your pizza is being prepared, in the oven, or ready. And since I was there, I can see that all the pizzas were freshly made from the dough upon order. The pizza was still steaming hot when we reached home. The taste? It's so soft and cheesy and nyummy that I can almost finish the whole large pan myself.

Domino Pizza - Cute Packaging

I slept at around 12am after doing some ironing and supper.

Monday, 5 Sep 2011 - Another Princess


I woke up at 10.30am and seemed like mum has given up waiting for me for breakfast. I had toasted bread, then went out to the city for lunch at Umi Kaiten-Zushi. It's the rotating table style and gosh, there were so many choices! At least 100 of different styles of sushi. And while in Singapore we had it in either normal plate or red plate, they have it in green ($2.5), orange ($3.0), red ($3.5), blue ($4.5), purple ($5.5), and grey ($6.5). After around 20 plates and noodle and rice, we went to next destination - visiting another princess - Claresta! She is around 1 year younger than Aurelie and just as cute =D We played for around an hour then move on to the next destination - Bondi Beach!

At Umi Kaiten-Zushi

At Maestri Tower - with relatives

The weather was really nice at Bondi Beach. And since it's weekday, we pretty much have the beach for ourselves. After having fun with the beach, we went for dinner at Hurricane's Grill (my favourite!) before going back home feeling full and sleepy. No more staying up late on Monday as I needed to wake up early the next day for Canberra.

Bondi Beach (read as Bondai Beach - Initially I read it as Bondi =_=')

Hurricane's Grill @ Bondi Beach - The Ribs are amazing!

Tuesday, 6 Sep 2011 - Canberra

I set my alarm at 6.30am but it didn't ring =_='' Thankfully Aurelie  managed to wake me up at around 6.45am. I quickly went showered, breakfast, then went with mum and dad for the one day Canberra tour. The bus arrived at the pick up location at 8.00am sharp, and I quickly asleep along the way.

The tour was a miss compared with what we had in Melbourne =( For one thing, it was raining. And since this is still early spring, we don't get to go to the flower festival, which is the biggest attraction in Canberra. The worst is the driver. He was super rude, kept talking loud in phone while driving, looked down at people who bring their own lunch, pushed people to go out on raining time without providing any umbrella, threatening to leave us behind if we are more than 5 mins late, and 1001 things which made me hate him to the core by the time we finished the tour =_=''

Complain apart, we did manage to go to few places: Cockington Green, Royal Australian Mint, Embassies, Parliament House, Australian War Memorial, and some other places which I don't really know the name. The next time I go to Canberra, hopefully it will be for its flower festival!

Cockington Green Garden - Where it's the little things that count

Royal Australian Mint - Create your own legal coin!

Parliament House - Where laws are made!

A massive collection of Great War 1 and 2 at Australian War Memorial

Back home, we ate the warm cooked dinner, watched some episodes of HK movie: The Drive of Life (quite captivating), then went to sleep.

Wednesday, 7 Sep 2011 - Resting

Since it's the last two days in Sydney, I decided to wake up at 7am and it actually surprised everyone =_='' I had cheese toast, sorted some pics to be developed for mum and dad, relax, then went for last lunch in Sydney @ Kingsford Chinese Cuisine. After a filling lunch, we took a stroll along Kingsford area, which is also known as "Indonesian" town. True enough, I can hear people chattering in Indonesian :D

After a quick shopping for dinner ingredients, we went back to home and relax for the rest of the day - packing, watching TV, taking pictures, chatting, etc. We had steamboat dinner at around 7pm and then rest early for the day after playing COD.

Thursday, 8 Sep 2011 - Bye, Sydney!

I woke up at 7.00am, had breakfast, packed, then left for airport. We arrived early, got our flight and seat arranged to HK, walked around, then departed on time at 11.30am. This time I managed to complete Disney's Cars :D Actually, I had my own movie marathon and finished Bridesmaids, Something Borrowed, as well as Hoodwinked within the 9 hours flight. I like Cars the most. Somehow Disney's movie always so touching for me. We reached Singapore at 6.30PM, delayed from the earlier scheduled time of 5.45PM =_='' It won't have been an issue usually, but since we still needed to catch our connecting flight at 7PM, well, we had a small run for the HK flight.

OK, more of HK on the next post! For now, Happy Mid-Autumn Festival to everyone! :)
ED