12AM. It's now Sunday morning in Sydney and I'm still not willing to put myself to bed. So here I'm browsing through my mails and decided to note down some of the events this week. Honestly, I really lost track of date and time here. I now realise how much I have been looking at calendar when I'm in office ^^;
Anyway, let's start this blog with where it ended last week.
Sunday, 28 Aug 2011 - Bye, Singapore!
So after blog, dinner, and some last minutes tidying up, I left home for Changi Airport at 9pm. Took the MRT all the way to Changi Airport for SGD 1.1 (I started to appreciate how thoughtful is the fare after being in Sydney - AUD 15 for Airport train!!!). After the hassle-free check in, I carried along the 3 boxes of Boon Tong Kee chicken rice (special order from my brother) and went to the liquor shop to get the Hennessy XO (another request from my bro, ticked). I wanted to get Bee Cheng Hiang too, but the seller told me that I won't be able to get through the Australia's immigration... so... :(
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| Never knows that Airport comes with Mini Playground now! Gosh! |
After shopping, the timing was just right for me to get a quick 10 minutes OSIM foot message then went to pick up my parents at Terminal 2 Departure Hall. The flight arrived 20 minutes ahead of schedule but thankfully I still managed to find mum and dad before they make a move to another place =D Good news, mum didn't complain about me looking thin this time. Bad news, they seemed to bring at least another 30kg in their hand carry luggages. Added with my chicken rice and Hennessy XO, I struggled a bit in counting and making sure that we carried everything and in the end forgot to text my sister (which led to multiple calls the next day)
Monday, 29 Aug 2011 - Hello, Sydney!
It was already a Monday when we finally flew off. The flight was smooth and there are quite a lot of movies that I wanted to watch. I started with Disney's Car, but fall asleep after the supper =( =( I woke up only when it was time for breakfast, and even then, I didn't manage to finish the movie. Next flight must be better!
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| Breakfast - Omelette, Sausages, Yogurt, Bread, Coffee, etc |
After the flight touchdown in Sydney, we took our luggages and followed my bro's advice to go to the Red Line for checking. Apparently, we're in good luck. They simply asked what we had inside (I don't even know what mum has packed inside), check one of our uncountable luggages, and declared us as passed!! I should have bought the Bee Cheng Hiang to see how far can my luck bring me :p As we walked out from the airport, the cool breeze greeted us. It was the end of winter and temperature was around 15 degrees. Bro picked us up from the airport shortly afterwards. As expected, we overwhelmed the back of the car and had to carry some to the passenger seat. The day continued with unpacking, greetings, quick shopping, resting, and packing for our trip to Melbourne on the next day.
Tuesday, 30 Aug 2011 - Happy Birthday, Sis-in-Law!
I woke up a around 7am in the morning and saw that my breakfast was already prepared. I told mum that she doesn't have to be so busy as I didn't normally take breakfast - which was totally a bad move as it followed with 101 advices and reason why breakfast is important T_T We left at around 9am to Sydney Domestic Airport, took Virgin Airlines and arrived at Melbourne at around 12pm.
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| Street of Melbourne, before the start of Melbourne Tour! |
We took the big taxi for half an hour ride to our apartment - Darling Towers. The apartment's location was surprisingly very convenient. It was around 5 mins walk to Chinatown, 10 mins walk to a mall + our tour gathering place, and 15 minutes walk to most of the attractions in town =D. After a quick rest, we went out for lunch @ Mekong Vietnamese Restaurant, then went for our own city tour. We indeed covered quite a few attractions (even those we don't really know of). We went to Victoria State Library, Melbourne Town Hall, Federation Square, Flinders Street Station, Crown Casino, and of course, Chinatown for the steamboat dinner.
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| Famous Steamboat - Chinatown, Melbourne |
We reached back apartment at around 10pm, had a small birthday celebration, then went to the cozy bed at around 11pm.
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| The addictive Birthday Cake from Ganache Chocolate |
Wednesday, 31 Aug 2011 - Hi, Penguins!
After a good night rest, we went for our first day tour to Phillip Island. The highlight of the tour was the penguins at night, but I much preferred the Chocolate Factory (where I got to eat free chocs as much as I want) and the Amaze'n thing (something similar to Ripley's believe it or not) In addition, we also went to Churchill Island, Koala Reservation, and couple other itineraries - A fully packed day! (No pics of penguins since there is no pics allowed ^^;)
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| Taken after the delicious Fish and Chips Lunch |
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| Penny's Chocs Factory - I wouldn't have mind staying there a bit longer... |
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| Dad & Me in one of the attractions in Amaze'n thing. I look just... weird! |
Thursday, 1 Sep 2011 - Hi, Spring!
It marked the first day of Spring, and true enough, the sun was shining brighter, the wind wasn't blowing that hard, and finally I can get rid of my thick brown jacket for awhile. We went to Great Ocean Road tour that day and went to see those rocks at Twelve Apostles. The scenery was good, but the journey there wasn't easy. I was wondering why the tour guide gave us a plastic bag at the start of the tour. I figured it out after a while - the route was similar if not worse than the route from Medan to Brastagi - a lot of turning and turning. Thanks God the return route was better.
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| At the entrance of Great Ocean Road |
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| Finally away from my jacket! Ha! - Feeding lovely Parrots on the way to Twelve Apostles |
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| View from the Twelve Apostles |
That night, I managed to get KFC for dinner! :p
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| KFC All Stars Box - AUD 9.90 |
Friday, 2 Sep 2011 - Bye, Melbourne!
We took our last Gold Trail tour to Sovereign Hill on this day and followed by a fly back to Sydney at night. The tour was good, but I guess 3 full days tour in a row was a bit too much - we were exhausted and decided to skip some of the tour itinerary. As the tour ended quite early (around 4.40pm) we went to Queen Victoria Market, but it was unfortunately closing as we reached there :( In the end, we just went for dinner around that area and went to the airport. The taxi fare was AUD 80 for less than half an hour ride!! Everything seems so much more expensive compare to SG, I don't know how if I tried to compare it with ID...
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| Kryal Castle - don't even know what is the castle for... |
Saturday, 3 Sep 2011 - Weekend!
I slept at around 1.30am and woke up the next day at around 10am. After shower, we went for Sydney Fish Market for the fabulous seafood. I went there once two years ago and I can't stop thinking about coming back for more. The place is exactly the same as it was two years ago, and the seafood was exactly the way I remember it. Nyummy!!
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| Fried Platter - AUD 34.50. Simply Awesome!! |
After lunch, we went to Star City Casino, where I got $20 with my $5 bucks capital =p. Follow through, we went to Chinatown for some shopping, Darling Harbour for some sightseeing (bumped to Festival Indonesia event ^^;;), dinner, and finally clearing my shopping list at Coles supermarket before reaching back home at around 9pm. We had one more round of supper before calling it a day.
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| Festival Indonesia - Performance with lots of stalls selling Indonesian Food at 10x the normal prices |
Sunday - To be continued.
It's 1.30am now. Shall sleep and see what tomorrow brings :)
ED
