Posts from — October 2009

Finally compiled the pictures for Melbourne City into a few pictures only… phew… I have chosen around 100 pictures just for this 1 day @ Melbourne City… really shocking ler… so I have to cut into a few smaller ones… lol…else one post has got 100 pictures??! @_@ Some of the pictures are too small… click for a bigger size ya

Anyway, back to my Melbourne day out.. the sweet Pei San took a day off to bring us around… she was very tired… so we woke up late… we got ready by 11am… walked to Melbourne City’s most famous lane for our breakfast:

>> Bought a bread sandwich @ $3.50 as our breakfast

We walked to Federation Square to eat our breakfast… and Pei San was enjoying the sunny day… it was quite warm today..

There were a lot of wild seagulls flocking around this area…

Just directly opposite the Federation Square is Flinder Street Station, one of the main train stations in Melbourne City

Some pictures of Melbourne city, which include the opera house, Yarra River, St Paul’s church:

Next is Treasury Garden:

These ducklings were sooo cute ler…

>> We spent a lot of time here… just to snap pictures… lol… Pei San was enjoying the sun at the bench…

After we were done with photos snapping, we crossed over to James Cook’s cottage.. saw an Ice-Cream van… kinda cute.. so we thought of giving it a try:

>> Cost us $ 4.50 for this @_@

On the way into James Cook’s cottage, we passed by a conservatory… inside were full of flowers

>> That’s Pei San with her back facing us LOL

Inside the conservatory:

James Cook’s cottage! Just a simple cottage… but also cost us $ 4.50 per entry:

Then we walked back to Melbourne City…the weather changed suddenly… from sunny to cloudy… so we got to walk faster.. they said Melbourne weather is very unpredictable… one day can have 4 seasons in it… Spring, Summer, Autumn, Winter..

Walked past Melbourne City Museum, Windsor Hotel (Melbourne Oldest hotel), State Library and Parliament of Victoria:

>> Melbourne people have the tradition to snap their wedding pictures here… but I don’t know why..

Shop @ Supre .. nothing matched our needs… better shop in Malaysia cuz of the size and price problem… lol….

Next, Max Brenner! In case you don’t know… it is a must to try whenever you go to Melbourne.. They are famous for their CHOCOLATE! And they serve all kind of chocolates! Damn cool ler? But also very heaty Tho I’m not a chocolate person…but I feel very excited to have my share of chocolate here… the waffle was just so crispy and tasty.. yummy!

>> We ordered “soukao” and “tutti fruity waffle”… they were just yummylicious! Cost us $18

After Max Brenner… we went to have a walk @ Melbourne Central.

Pei San suggested we try their cupcakes… so we bought the mini cupcakes and had a try… quite nice… not that sweet $ 2 each

Been out for the whole day.. so we went home to have a rest… Sweet sweet Pei San prepared cheese platter for us to have a try at their different kind cheeses The platter included 2 types of cheese, strawberry, some duno-what-dip, biscuit.. too excited till forgot to snap pic

Night we walked to Crown Casino for our dinner…on the way to Crown Casino:

We simply chose one of the cafes for our dinner… with a moderate price… that would be a food court type.. lol… budget ma

Again..shared this dinner with Missy… sharing is caring ma (don’t know what ads ei slogan)

>> The first one was ordered by Missy which was BBQ chicken + 2 sidelines…. the second one ordered by me was the chicken salad! We also ordered 1 mineral water and pumpkin soup.. cuz I feel like having a hot bowl of soup and they only have pumpkin ==” Anyway, this meal cost us $ 20.20

After dinner we walked around… went to Crown Casino’s hotel…the ceiling wall got musical light.. damn cool la!

Then we walked out to the riverside… there will be fireworks every hour @ Crown Casino… I thought was the real fireworks which I love very much… ended up was “fire” + “works”.. quite disappointing >.< It was just fire coming out from the poles

Crown Casino is famous for their Greco’s cheese cake as well… and there were so many varieties… but the cheese cake is quite costly… $9.50 per piece >.< I’m not a cheese cake person.. ya ya.. I don’t mind cheese but not cheese cake..

>> There were too many choices…  strawberry cheese cake finally caught our attentions… I actually had my eyes on the strawberries only … lol

Anyway, Pei San went to meet up with her friends… so we walked around Crown Casino on our own…. with the Greco’s cheese cake in our hands… it was pretty hard to resist it .. lol….so… we found a place to sit down… and had our share of cheese cake + I went to buy a garden salad … ya ya.. again you will be wondering… why I always ordered salad? Cuz there was too much of meat here and no vege!!!! I’m a vege person… so I must have a lot of vege

Tada! My garden salad which cost me $9 ==” damn ex la…. *sigh*.. what to do…the food stalls were situated in Crown casino… and you all should know casino is famous for the expensive food… even the food was just a normal hawker food >.<

We got the house key from Pei San as she would be hanging out with friends till late night… and will walk home…

On the way out .. we saw this huge crab and lobster outside a restaurant…

I’m drop dead tired when I reached home… too much of walking .. lol… but it was an enjoyable day… and I really love Melbourne!

Coming up next is Queen Victoria Market + St Kilda’s beach + meet up with Anthea @ Lygon Street! Yipee! Stay tuned ya! xoxo

Sis backed from Arab d…. just for a short holiday… she bought a few things for me…

1. Paris Hilton’s perfume

>> The smell is very nice… smells like flower… not that strong smell….

2. Bracelet

3. A kind of shorts(don’t know the name for it.. lol)

>> Wore this beneath the dinner dress so that it will looks nice wor…. hmm…..I wonder will it?

4. Wall paper

Hehe… my sis love me very much one… that’s why I got so many things I still remember when we were young, we used to quarrel a lot.. even now we still do not agree to the same things all the time… but things have been better…

Tomorrow going to Langkawi with my family… yipee!

Told ya all I’ll be busy… this is a very busy day for me…

Morning work half day…then rushed to Chan Ming and Lan Fong’s lunch wedding… lol… they finally had this lunch wedding after so long … I have been waiting for years… lol…

>> Bride and the bridegroom of the day – Chan Ming and Lan Fong .. wish them live happily ever after

Sad sad.. my hand so fat fat… need go slimming centre d…

The extra wedding gift for everyone:

>> it is actually a mooncake!Their wedding was on 15th August of Chinese calendar… which happened to be Chinese’s mid-autumn festival…

Met Amy… a long lost friend… who is also a close friend of Chan Ming and Lan Fong…

The wedding was held @ Vistana Hotel… same place like Sherine’s brother’s wedding last time… the deco was basically almost the same… but the band they hired was quite good…

The best part, I sat with a skin specialist doc which I went last time… he is a friend of Chan Ming… I didn’t even know about it till I ask my friend Tze Siang… lol… what a small world… lol…

I didn’t wait for the final dish as it was quite late already… I needed to go prayers with mom at Kek Lok Si… so I rushed home to pick up mom…

After that back home took a short nap.. before going to Ah boo’s house for mid-autumn festival celebration… well… I went there to eat and took pictures of baby Darren only… cuz I don’t have time to take his pictures lately… felt bad

>> Mom taught baby how to show his age… he just totally ignored her… lol… naughty him..

>> Table full of foods … lol…

>> Ah Kheng’s new born baby… just two months old…

>> Darren was so excited seeing new born baby…

>> Boon’s younger son.. very cute… he got very deep dimple when he smile… soooooo cute

>>Naughty boy messed up with his clothes.. so have to change to a new one…

Getting ready to take lantern:

We went home at 10.30pm… phew… so late for baby already… anyway.. happy Mid-Autumn festival to ya all!

Yipee! Going to Great Ocean Road… this is a must go trip for those who plan to go Melbourne… Twelve Apostles is super famous in Melbourne… the history of the place, the nature of mother earth, the magnificent view… OMG! I was anxiously checking my calendar each day. Strike off the day one after another. Just to wait for this particular day to arrive!

And yes, it finally came ^^

We woke up at 6.30am and got ready to walk to the travel agency. Oh ya! We used “Extragreen Holidays” service for this day trip. They have chinese tour guide and the price is quite reasonable However for security reason, we didn’t pay via our credit card. We asked the cute and funny Angelynn bank-in to the travel agency’s bank account and we paid her when we reached Adelaide. Thanks to Angelynn we get to go there

The driver was a china man. He was quite friendly.. with a heavy china accent. First stop at the petrol station.. then the real first stop is at the gate of Great Ocean Road.

It was quite cold over there as it was near to the beach… but niceeee

>> The panorama software I used couldn’t stitch up these two pictures… >.< so I can only upload it like this…

On the way to Twelve Apostles, there were lots of wild koalas… the tour guide cum bus driver stopped for us to have a look… there was one which was quite near to us… however my cam’s optical zoom was not good.. the max is like this only  >.< So that was our FIRST encounter with Koala! A not-to-be-missed protected animal in Australia.

Twelve Apostles was situated quite far from Melbourne city… till noon we had yet to reach there.. so we stopped at Apollo Bay for our lunch… Pei San recommended us to try their fish and chips… so we just tried one out

>> We had one fish and chips + hot chocolate @ $ 13.30… then I saw that we can ordered some ala carte.. so added additional:  2 calamari ring + 2 scallops + 2 prawns which cost $8.60 …. the best part… you got to pay for the sauces!!! @_@.. we didn’t pay for the sauces.. so we just had the most plain fish n chips + vinegar… oh! Vinegar was free

Finally we reached Twelve Apostles!! So tired…. lol… it was around 2pm… and you could actually pay for a helicopter ride to see the Twelve Apostles view… it cost around $90 if you go there by yourself… as the travel agency got some biz relationship with the management.. so we can get it at the price of $70.. which was quite worth it…

but… since we are on a budget trip…we sure didn’t go for the helicopter ride… lol…. we were busy snapping pictures man!

I brought my tripod to Australia… hmmm…this was the first time I brought it out.. cuz it was really troublesome.. lol….

>> Our first shot with the tripod! This is the best after a few attempts…. lol.. btw… I forgot to bring down my remote… so have to use the built-in timer… @_@.. what a waste… bad bad…

>> By the way, there weren’t twelve apostles anymore… one or two years back the 8th or 9th apostles fell down already due to the strong waves splashing on it every day and finally washed it off…. so now… left either 8 or 9 apostles there … so sad… mother nature took over

>> Another tripod shots

>> Shot taken by a tour mate.. he was using canon DSLR… and his DSLR very geng.. a Thai guy..

We took a lot of pictures here and missed the time… so when we walked back to the bus there.. the tour guide and whole bunch of tour mates were waiting for us… lucky we were not the last 2… lol… the thai guy and his friend were the last two

>> click for a bigger view of the panorama

The view and this place were really very very very breathtakinglyw beautiful and we took a lot of pictures here as per Pei San’s bro advice.. lol…I’m sure to go there again for the second time… the second time will be flying with the helicopter!

Next stop @ Lord Ard … there was a story at this place… back in 17 centuries, there was a big ship from Ireland travel to Melbourne… the crew saw Melbourne and expected to reach Melbourne the next day.. therefore the night before they celebrated in the ship… however… the weather turned bad that night… the ship sank and 54 people in the ship died.. only 2 people survived – Jack and Eva…Jack was a sailor and Eva was a rich man’s daughter…. Eva’s family members died in this disaster… she stayed in Melbourne for 3 years and left to Ireland after that… Jack and Eva weren’t together due to their family status…

>> Story telling from our tour guide… lol… so sad….but the view was really nice…

>> click for a bigger view of the panorama

Final stop – London Bridge… there was another story  here… back then… there was one couple pak tor (dating) over here… but so unlucky of them.. they dropped into the sea… it took the rescue crew 6 hours to save them… there were paparazzi and reporters waiting to get the latest news there.. however these two people just sped off with their car once they were rescued up.. so the reporters and paparazzi chased after them… only to find out that they were actually married couple whom were having an affair at that moment…

Don’t ask me the ending as I don’t know about it… lol… I’m interested in the place and view itself only

>> click for a bigger view of the panorama

Phew… there goes our day trip….last stop at petrol station… we were quite hungry at that time… so bought ourselves a wrap sandwich $ 2.50 … reached at Melbourne city 7.30pm… we walked around Chinatown for some Melbourne souvenirs while waiting for Pei San to get off from her work….

Dinner @ Stalactiles – Greek Food…

I ordered appetizer platter + peach drinks and Missy ordered lamb souvaki which were on Pei San’s treat .. thanks to the thoughtful Pei San

>> Anyway, we couldn’t finish our dinner… the portion was just too big… first lesson to learn – Do-Not-Order-One-Meal-Each… better share if you are a small eater

Coming up next is Melbourne City tour! Stay tuned ^^

Been really busy after my holiday… new responsibility has been assigned to me… not to complain… but I see this as an opportunity to learn more… well… that is good news to me..

Anyway, I will update more on my holiday very soon… it was a great holiday for me… I would definitely like to share it out.. there are so much more to share: Great Ocean Road, Queens Victoria Market, Adelaide, Cleland Wildlife park, Gleneg beach, St Kilda beach, AQWA, Harbour Town Factory Outlet, etc….

This coming Saturday got Lantern celebration at bro-in-law’s friend’s house… there will be more pictures to be updated … then another weekend sister come back already… will have more to post again…

Phew… my weekend for this 2 weeks is planned so busy.. lol…

Anyway, just stay tuned ya … muaks