Travel Ramblings of the Mentos Addict, Part 3

Day Three

Sydney city tour. First stop was the Sydney Fish Market. It smells of… duh… fish. But there are plenty of fresh fruits and vegetables as well, along with every kind of cheese in the world, (including a kind called Edith… hehe… tell your sister, Esther.) lobsters, crabs, oysters… seafood haven.

It’s summer time, and it’s hot. Even hotter than in Malaysia… seriously. And of course, flies, flies, and more flies. A walk along Darling Harbour came next. Hot. Nuff’ said.

Next was the building everyone knows, Sydney Opera House. No entry. We just snapped quick pictures outside and quickly hunted down any place there was shade (Umbrellas and a large sign board were among such places…). A little boy from our tour group went missing for awhile and panic ensued. Not sure whether the boy’s parents or our tour leader, Tony, felt more panicked. Hehe.

After that, all aboard on Captain Cook’s cruise ship around the harbour. Captain Cook, by the way, was the guy who brought the first ‘Aussies’ into Australia. Mind you, they were convicts.

Not the best part of the holiday, as I was hit with another round of nausea. So, lesson learnt… rocking ships and A380s… not for me.

Ah… Bondi Beach. Some of you might know what this place is famous for, and for those who don’t, you can guess. It’s to do with a beach, and PG18 material.

Unfortunately, (or should I say fortunately??) it was near evening and the weather cooled down, perhaps a little too cold for any in-the-buff beachwear, so don’t worry, nobody saw anything they shouldn’t. Bwahaha.

Of course, that didn’t stop the males on our tour group, (especially Tony…) from spouting all kinds of PG13 jokes…

Ok, ok… on the right! Ladies, no need to look…

Nah! Nah! On the left! Men, no need to look…

Yeesh…

Dinner was at Star City Hotel. The huge buffet dinner makes you wish you had four more stomachs to sample everything. And after finding out the price for the dinner, you damn well wish you did have four more stomachs to eat its worth.

There was also a casino. Very Vegas. (grins) Although the rules clearly state under-18s were not allowed, I got in anyway, after a quick passport ID with those big, burly, bald headed, bouncer type guards.

That’s all for Sydney. We head for the airport for our local flight to Melbourne. The flight was delayed for quite awhile thanks to incoming storms. But thankfully, we arrived safe and sound in Melbourne. And, in contrast to that afternoon, it was freezing. A good 10 degrees. On to the hotel and off to bed. The next two days in Melbourne made me wonder whether it really was summer in Australia or not.

Next: Penguins! Squeeeeeeee!

Sorry... not pics again. Bad connection...

Travel Ramblings of the Mentos Addict , Part 2

Parliment House, the most expensive building in Australia.

Day Two

I started ambitiously writing what happened during the day every night in the hotel. It worked for Day One. By Day Two, I gave up. Tiredness! Not lack of discipline, Jessica.

Woke up bright and early for the hotel buffet breakfast. Sure beats bread and peanut butter at home. Onwards to the Koala Park Sanctuary. Koalas are even lazier than us 15 year olds. They sleep pretty much three quarters of their day away. They don’t need water, and if they’re not sleeping, they’re munching away on the eucalyptus leaves. What a nice life… XD

Also got to see tiny penguins, (but I’ll talk more about that when I talk about Phillip Island) kangaroos, a very angry peacock and cuddled a humongous wombat. Also, there was a sheep sheering demonstration but no one could really understand what the guy was saying, as his accent was so darn thick. More like, “So ya mrghh-hrggh-furgh-tha-grggh…”

Then of course we clambered back on the bus, smelling of ammonia and dung.

Oh, and one thing I have to mention. The flies. Those bloody creatures are everywhere. Regardless whether you bathed or otherwise, they’ll still come to you, buzzing in your ear and in front of your face. Waving one’s arms furiously in front of one’s face soon became a sort of secret greeting gesture…

The angry peacock, hissing and picking on the poor ... whatever that creature is...

Next stop, ah… the Blue Mountains. We got to sit the world’s steepest railway, the Scenic Railway as it plunges us down to the bottom level of the mountains with a 52° incline down 545 meters. Huzzah.
If you look closely, the darker area there... that's the railway.

And no sooner do you get off the train-thingy… railway thingy… whatever… you get treated to the one of the most spectacular sights, the Three Sisters Rock.

Now listen up, story-telling time, with help from Tony the tour leader and wikipedia… ahem.

The Three Sisters is a formation of sandstone rocks, caused by erosion over the ages. (Geography…) But naturally, there is a legend behind the Three Sisters just to make things more interesting…

There were once three very beautiful Aborigine sisters. They each fell in love with three men from a neighbouring tribe. Of course, marriage was forbidden by tribal law, so a fight broke out. To protect the three sisters, a witch doctor turned them into stone. But he was killed in battle and no one else knew how to turn them back. So here they are, still stuck as stone today.

And Tony added that the tiny little rock beside the three was the youngest, fourth sister. She was the naughty one, who always went out when she shouldn’t, til’ late hours of the night, so the witch doctor turned her to stone too… Heh. Don’t believe him.

The Three Sisters. (And the fourth baby one on the far right... :-) )

After that, we walked through the forest and took a cable car back up to the top.

Next stop was Echo Point, for the best view of the Blue Mountains. Heights do not deter flies, as we were once again attacked by them.

And for the record Jess, the Blue Mountains were blue when I was there:

Why are the Blue Mountains blue? The blue haze is of a different hue and deeper than anywhere else in the world. It is caused by the Eucalyptus trees emitting oil vapour into the atmosphere along with fine dust particles and droplets of water vapour. They scatter the blue light more than any other colour in the spectrum.

What an expert I am, eh?

Ok… fine… that came word for word from a Blue Mountain guide book mum took from the hotel…

Back to town, with a quick stop at the Olympic Stadium, for toilets and photographs.

Then, back to the hotel. Some went out walking around town, but good ol’ Mentos Addict and Tangerine & Ginger flavoured Hacks Lover stayed in our room, watching NCIS and Numb3rs… Heh.

Tomorrow: City Tour in Sydney. Where the weather is hot and flies aplenty.

Travel Ramblings of the Mentos Addict, Part 1

After a week in lovely Australia, I'm back. Well... technically, it's more like five days, four nights, seeing that two more nights were spent on the plane... nasty advertising tactics...

Neways, I'm back in one piece.... although all slush on the inside from exhaustion. But slept the whole afternoon so I'm 'almost' back to normal.

I'm Mentos-Addict, due to the 3 tubes of Mentos brought along on the trip, which me and my mum, Tangerine-and-Ginger-flavoured-Hacks-Sweets-Lover (called that for obvious reasons...), chomped down unmercifully throughout the trip. Heh. I'm serving these posts in bite sizes, or else I'll be typing all day...

Day One (Or should I say, night one?)

Met up with our 21 other tour group members at the airport at 4 pm, as well as our tour leader. 24 in total. First, off to Singapore's Changi airport. Then, aboard the, can you believe it, Airbus A380, only on it's 3rd voyage to Sydney.

But honestly, other than the fact that it is of course, HUGE, there's not really anything else that is special. Ok, I'm saying that cos' I was attacked by nausea throughout the flight and I'm grumpy cos' I was in no condition to enjoy any of the hundreds of music albums and shows they have (including CSI and CSI NY.. ish...)

So, after about 8 hours of sitting uncomfortably in a glazed trance, trying not to gag everytime meals were served, as well as enduring the woman who was blowing her nose in regular intervals behind me, the guy who was coughing consistently in the seat somewhere in front, an the baby who cried all night long, we finally arrived in Sydney, 7 am local time (3 hours ahead of Malaysian time).

No rest for the weary. Off we go through 2 hours of getting through customs, and an hour of waiting for our bus driver, Bill. Finally, we're on our way on a 3 and a half hour journey to Canberra.

Canberra, is the capital of Australia. Stop thinking it's Sydney. Turns out, Sydney and Melbourne were fighting over who gets to be the capital, so they decided to pick somewhere else to develope into the capital instead.

Bill is one jolly guy with quite a thick accent. One hilarious thing was Tony, our guide (whose English ain't too hot), had a hard time understanding him, and vice versa. So one would ask the other a question, and the other will either not reply or answer something completely different.
But they bonded anyway, referring to each other as 'my boy' and 'my man' everytime. XD

Everyone pretty much zonked throughout the journey to Canberra, waking up with stiff necks.
First stop, was the Cockington Green Gardens, filled with minatures of people, buildings and what not. Amazing detail. There were tiny golf courses, villages, football stadiums, castles... you name it. Outside the Cockington Green Gardens

Next stop is the Parliment Building, the most expensive building in Australia. We got to go inside and take a look around. Saw the potrait of ex-Prime Minister, William McMahon, as in Julian McMahon's (of Charmed and Nip/Tuck) dad. Cool or what? Also, we went to the War Memorial, what can I say? It's cooler than the Penang one. Hehe... But as we were 2 hours behind schedule, there wasn't much time to look around. Onwards to Embassy Road, where we got to see all the different embassies, including Malaysia, of course. :-)

Finally, we head back to Sydney, another long bus journey. The hotel bed never looked so good. Zonked out immediately.

Day 2: Blue Mountains.

Will upload more photos later. Connection is nuts right now...

Gila-gila Mentos signing off!

On Hiatus

'I'm leaving on a jet plane... dunno when I'll be back again...'

This darn tune won't stay out of my head.

So you won't see me anywhere around here for the rest of the week, cos' I'm off to Jesse Spencer's hometown. Doubt he's there of course...

Ok, let me clear things up with you guys...

Jo wants me to smuggle a joey home, in reference to what some people call her, "Joey"..

Phaik Chern also wants kangaroos, preferably a pair, so she can breed them and start a kangaroo farm that will be featured in the Star Metro section.

Jess, of course, wants me to smuggle back a cute Aussie guy for her.

Tricia, I'll scout Trinity College for you and warn them all of your arrival in December.

Hope that's everything...

Happy Holidays!!

Got tagged...

Heh. For the first time, I've been tagged. Thanks, Maria... :-p

1. Grab the book nearest to you, turn to page 18, and find line 4.
- In seconds he bounded back up wearing a satchel of tools. Reader's Digest August 1999

2. Stretch your left arm out as far as you can, What can you touch?
- The mirror...

3. What is the last thing you watched on TV?
- House. On Monday night. And it's Saturday today... YOIKS! One hour of TV a week..
who knew?

4. Without looking, guess what time it is.
- 8.50 am.

5. Now look at the clock. What is the actual time?
- 9.00 am... not bad... :-p

6. With the exception of the computer, what can you hear?
- Rain drops outside. And the whirring fan...

7. When did you last step outside?
- Yesterday. To Tesco...

8. Before you started this survey, what did you look at?
- Was at You Tube, watching the latest DL developements on CSI NY... Hence the updated quotes>>>>>>>>>

9. What are you wearing?
- 3 quarter pants and shirt. Geez... what kinda question is this?

10. Did you dream last night?
-Oh geez... I don't remember...

11. When did you last laugh?
- This morning, watching Danny and Lindsay bantering about catapults on You Tube...

12. What is on the walls of the room you are in?
- CSI Season 4 poster, CSI Season 5 poster, CSI NY Season 3 poster. *cackle* Waiting for Carmine Giovinazzo poster...

13. Seen anything weird lately?
- Danny and Lindsay bantering about catapults on You Tube... -somebody stop me... lol-

14. What do you think of this quiz?
- Like Maria said, it's not a quiz... more of a questionaire... and it's fine.

15. What is the last film you saw?
- I think it was the Seeker... on October 5th... yoiks.. where have I been???

16. If you became a multi-millionaire overnight, what would you buy?
- CSI merchandise, completely-up-to-date. Ooh, and a nice Gibson acoustic guitar...

17. Tell me something about you that I don’t know:
- Who's 'I'? Different people don't know different things... muahaha.

18. If you could change one thing about the world, regardless of guilt or politics, what would you do?
- Make them cancel all post-PMR programs and let us play UNO all day long instead. Ohhh... the world? No wars, less garbage and more CSI NY merchandise to reach Pulau Pinang. :D

19. Do you like to dance?
- Depends on the dance...

20. George Bush:
- I know Phaik Chern's weird plans concerning him, but other than that, I got nothing...

21. Imagine your first child is a girl, what do you call her?
- Always liked the name 'Haylie'... but I would go for Aiden too!

22. Imagine your first child is a boy, what do you call him?
- Uh.... DUH..... Danny!!!

23. Would you ever consider living abroad?
- Yes.

24. 4 people who must also do this in THEIR blog/journal:

- I don't know all that many people... um... Esther. Jo. Phaik Chern (tho' you said you didn't want to already, rite? but nvm.. heh.) And Mr. Stranded-on-an-Island. You know who you are. :-)I can't believe you won't let me shoot!
We'll be here all day...