Canberra + Sydney: Revisited [Part 2]

So sorry.... been really late in updating my next part of the post. I know I know.... it's December now and I'm posting stuff during October!

Ah Sydney... how I love you... but only for a lil' bit... only because I luv Bondi Beach and is slightly more happening than Melbourne. No matter how Sydney will always be a rival city in most of Melbournians and my heart =p

Sydney was the final leg of my trip. First part of my Sydney trip was to visit my cousins thier family there. Would like to thank them for their hospitality during my stay at their luvly home.


"Hi, I'm Brandon! Nice to meet you! Want some water? *slurp slurp*"


East Aust is supposed to be having Spring... but OMG, it was friggin SUMMER!! 40'C!! Summer will come during Dec lar... not now!!!

My first day after arriving in Sydney, we all went to Sydney's Fish Market... for the 1st time (this is my 3rd trip to Syd). If u're a sukka for fresh seafood... this is THE place and it's cheap!




After lunch we headed to the Botanical Garden (izit called the botanical garden?) to chillax!






"On the right.... introducing: Benjamin!"


"Ah grandma... you know y everyone love you =D"


"XYZ Tea... brings out the GAYAness in you!"


"Brandon® [Trademark ok!]"


".... is a BIG SKY"


"Stay tune... check your local stores near you for our album release date"




2 days later, it was day the whole reason I made this whole trip... parents visiting Sydney! Gosh thank goodness for wireless broadband... if not my 1-2 hours wait would be disastrous!



We stayed at Starcity Hotel... nice location! Close to city center, Darling Harbour and monorail to travel around town.



Some pics of my room =p






The next day went on a private boat for a private cruise.



"Free booze... YUM!"

Well better not write too much bout everything I did in Sydney, would need a book to write everything I want to say!

All I can say is, I really had loads of fun during my stay in Sydney, both with my parents and my cousins. Looking forward to see all of them back in KL.

Oh b4 I stop... here's a pic of Canberra from a bird's eye view, if u're good with geography, you can roughly calculate how small Canberra really is! =p


(Sorry pic's not big and clear enough)

Till then... take care guys! I'll start posting more recent stuff.

Canberra + Sydney: Revisited [Part 1]

My parents went to New Zealand for holiday, my parents, uncles and some of their friends plan to stop over to Sydney for holiday. So happen my cousins Benjamin and Brandon together with their family were also in Sydney during that time. Then I have friends in Canberra who I want to visit to, Wai Yee who's working there and Jane who just finished her semester there. So it was a perfect opportunity to visit both place at that period of time.

Arrived at Canberra, on the 29th of Sept in the afternoon. After traveling domestically for a few years, the thing I learned is to travel in the afternoon where traffic is good and you don't need to rush early in the morning or late in the evening. Weather was good cause spring was supposed to be around the corner. My "hotel" once again is in Fenner Hall! Hahaha... really missed the place, when I first stepped in the hall, gosh the nostalgic dorm smell.

Was a pretty simple plan on the first nite... had dinner with my host for my trip in Canberra, Jane Lau! Took her to a Thai Restaurant in the city, is also her first "long meal" as she call it =p Really good catching up with old friends from Malaysia.

"Jane took me to a Thai Restaurant which is supposed to be 1 of the best in Canberra"



"The TOWN CENTER. Yes, that's as big as this city can be..."


Headed back to the hall, went back to our own room and I thought I could begin my Dota session which is one of the highlights of Canberra when I first visited this place. Alas, seems like either everyone went back to their home country or the game is not hype anymore. Could also be the Hall's way to prevent peer-to-peer downloads. No matter, an early sleep does no harm and I needed to wake up quite early in the morning to Floirade (or Florade). Is a Spring fair, with loads and loads of Tulip flowers on display... yes like the one somewhere at the foothills of Mt. Dandenong in Victoria. However compared to the one back in Melb, this is much more interesting cause is not just display of Tulips but more of a fair and lots of flower art.




Wake up once again to a beautiful warm morning. Had a very short and quick breakfast with Jane then we were off to the fair. Oh... entrance is free as well! Woot! When I entered the park... wooo it's really really B.E.A.-UTIFUL!








Basically the flowers displayed are set up with a theme. For example the picture below is "Wedding Dress" theme.





Then I stumbled upon an interesting stuff... "Australian Fair". Played tracks and tracks of good old disney themes and other iconic anthems in cute organ sound.







"Can you spot the Super Obvious? (clue: something to do with the feet)"







On that nite had dinner with Wai Yee... chat chat chat on high school stuff and gossip gossip =p So Ol' Skool indeed! Then visited her place and met her BF and their dog which is super super HYPER!!



Then comes Wednesday... Thank goodness it was a only 2 day trip, any longer I might rot =p Time to move on to my next destination...

Sydney here I come woot woot!!!

What did I do?

Heheh... when I was back in KL, it was a Ramadan Month, so many restaurants in KL have special dinner package which is value for money.... or so I thought.

Decided to spent my frens Jean, Yu Wei, Freddy, Aries and Lily for dinner at a Thai restaurant, Flying Chili at The Gardens. The dinner package was for 6, perfect number rite? So we decided to dine there.

When we sat down and looked at the menu, Freddy had a very interesting thought. He was afraid that the amount of servings/dishes won't be for 6 but will be the default size. To make things clearer, lets say the package includes Tom Yum Soup, originally 1 order is for 2 people, but in this dinner package will it be 3 serves for 6 people? Because if that is not the case, there won't be enough and it would be so much more expensive than ordering it individually.

When the food finally came out, gosh how right Freddy and I were! That's con job man! Oh oh and you know what's worse? The dinner is for 6 rite? But damn all their servings (like the number of pieces of chicken) is for 5!!!!! OMGWTF!? Can you guys count or make sense? You guys advertised it dinner for 6 and the servings you guys serve is meant for 5? Further more the size of the dishes were meant for 2!! GOSH!

Anyway... my friends and I were dumbfounded but remained cool & calm. Since we all expected this kind of result, we decided to just head to Steven's Corner! *YUm*

COME ON MAN!? The restaurant seems of class and standard, plus located at Gardens? DAMN!

Hmmm what else was I doing while my trip back?




Yea bz repairing this beast! Gave Dell Msia to solve the problem but to no avail, only managed to diagnose the problem when I was back in Melb. Was the Hard Disk Data Cable fault. Maybe I should start working in computer/IT field eh? Thank goodness for international coverage. That's y I love companies like Dell... worldwide support babey!

Some details on the XPS M1730, credit to Jping for his steady hands!







After fixing the problem... DAMN this machine is one heck of a UNLEASHED BEAST! RAWR!

Cousins + Singapore + KLIA

While I was back, many of my relatives were back too from outstation and overseas. Since it's one of our few chance of seeing each, other we had lots of family dinner. The one below is taken in Victoria Station in Bangsar. Oh yea we booked the whole top floor! Coolness!



Always nice cathing up with them. Talking bout "those were the days"... talking lame stuff... and "oh my father treats us the same, it's a Wong family thing".

On the 28th of August, my whole family and 2 of my aunts went on a road trip to Singapore. Was excited because of 2 things:

1) I've never been to Singapore b4, the last time I was there parents told me i was 5... but I can't remember jackshiet so I'll consider this my first time.

2) Never thought we would be driving down. Always wanted to experience driving through immigration on road instead of airport; also to see how bad the traffic jam and wait can be. Ooo those who don't know.... I LUV road trip PLUS I'm the designated driver for the whole trip.

3) Transport = Toyota Alphard =) Is like piloting a Boeing-747


Singapore Trip Diary - Day 1

Left home about noon and off we go. Reached the Tuas Causeway bout 7pm and OMG what an eye opener for me! While I was driving

across the bridge between the border of Singapore and Malaysia, it seems like I'm in a totally different continent. My sight in front of me and what's behind my read view mirror seems to have a big contrast; the view, the air, the cleanliness... the differences seems so different. At the custom's gate, gosh... you'll get the glimpse on how efficient these Singaporeans are. I had culture shock when I was driving on my way to my flat, every perception I have about Singapore and it's citizens (both good and bad) are drastically different. Our flat is located at the district of Clementi. After offloading our stuff in our flat we were off to city and had dinner with cousin and her hubby at 1 of the Crystal Jade Restaurant at Takashimaya Complex.


Day 2

Woke up in the afternoon. Decided to get change and walk around Clementi for some shopping+makan+sightseeing.

Shoplots around the flat area are really convenient. Is nearby and they have different specialised shops. However, the shop that populate majorly around the area is beautician shops. No wonder Singaporean gurls so pretty. =\




I like Clementi, they have very good public transport service. Over here you see a MRT and a bus depot.



Another reason I like about Singapore? Games shop are everywhere! Cheap original software FTW!



Clementi Town Centre is like a 10 mins walk from my flat.



Had dinner in a food court+restaurant just down the flat. Really surprised that the food they served were really yummy and cheap as compared to some restaurants in the city.



Day 3

Is Zoo trip day! Lots have been said bout both Singapore's Zoo & night safari, so was pretty excited to be there.

Sadly though... before we reached our destination, it rained. =( We decided to just wait at the entrance to see if the rain would stop anytime soon.


Alas after half an hour of waiting doesn't seem to be any improvement on the weather and the zoo would be close soon.

"Rain rain go away... come again another day..."

So instead decided to indulge ourselves with things we love... ice-cream and KFC! *slurp*



Since we can't make it for the day trip, we decided to go for the night safari. Dad and lil bro been b4 only recently... but they don't mind going again. Must be that good to visit again eh?

So while waiting for nightfall, we headed aimlessly to "whenever the road leads us". We stopped by a place just off Chua Chu Kang and damn... got no idea how freaky the place was, was quite and filled with funny people. My brother and I felt like we were in some Silent Hill or any horror like movies.



Yesh! We're bACk! Wohoo~ Rain stoped... Animals here we come!





"Can you spot IT"

Have to say... the Night Safari is really WORLD CLASS! ACE my frens! Really amazed we Asian countries can create such spectacular park and atmosphere. Really put Melbourne Zoo to shame!



"First Class Drive To Sg? Call Matty at...."

Day 4

Nothing much really... we just packed all our stuff from the flat, said goodbye to my 2nd home (or 3rd since 2nd is in Melb) then

off we go back to KL. Oh gosh.... now I feel those people who have to travel back and forth between Msia and Sg... the traffic jam

and wait is terrible!! we were stuck for nearly an hour plus!

****END OF SINGAPORE DIARY****


I'll just add some additional stuff before I end my post.

Getting sent off to the airport is very plain and normal for me. Is always me and my parents sending me off, this trip was different however.

I was surprised to see my O'pal, King 'The Rock' Jer Huan and his girlfriend Avril (oh you lucky guy to have a gf with such name)came to KLIA to send me off, but that wasn't only their only reason. It was really fate, that Hoai Ye was there also to catch a flight back to the UK... and gosh! We haven't met up since ages ago. It was a touching moment for me to see all 3 of us (Huan, Ye & me) from different part of the world getting together b4 we leave.


"Ooo celebrities! The Rock & Avril"


"Manage to catch Hoai Ye b4 she boarded her plane! Well you won't be able to go away this time without seeing each other and saying good bye gurl!"

I'm even more touched... when I realised that all of my relatives from my mum side came to sent me off!! It was Mooncake Festival

during that time and they had dinner at my place. So probably they just decided to drop by. I'm really touched by your efforts LEEs!

Really appreciate it... it reveals to me how many people still cares for me T_T!

Till then, take care guys!