i can't think of a title

in london right now, struck with the blogging bug. blogged one line on od, then decided to blog at livejournal, blogged there halfway, and jumped here to blog. lol. will go back to those later. anyway. until i find the time and the mood, this blog is probably going to be on a permanent hiatus. hoho. what an oxymoron. and i have no idea when that would be, since it is now europe, then it would be china, and then there'd be so many more things to write about to blog about and to do, and then after china there'd be fyp, and the start of school, and then shit begins for one year, and after this the reality of the working world would face me. so basically, after the dream worlds of australia and europe, we start with the beginning of the end when china descends, cos that's summer school anyway. a summer school that i have NOT prepared for at all, and intend to smoke my way thru, when i have nothing in my head and can't smoke at all. good job amelia u are so dead.

i am still left with chronicling the few days on the gold coast, but oh well. i kinda reached a point of jaded-ness. what's the point of trying to remember every single little small thing anyway? life in that world is over. it's time to put it behind. so yeah. i don't know if the mood will ever come for me to finish up blogging about the last week. and i guess i don't regret being so over-emotional and sad in that last week. perhaps i was that sad then because i know, soon, i'd move into this phase. a phase where everybody, slowly but surely, begins to move on.

it's time to refer people back to my normal (singapore) blog because i referred people here when i was in australia. so ha, no surprises here. back to justabagatelle.livejournal.com if you're interested to know my (often) less than enthusiastic muses about life.

goodbye australia. honestly, it's about time.

11 may night -- the night reality TV came true Pt 4

ok there is part 4 but i am exhausted. and part 4 is gonna be pretty short and relatively inconsequential.
so tmr.

11 may night -- the night reality TV came true Pt 3

bah it is 3 am and i am still typing part 3. as i said, this would be a very very tiring entry because so many things went wrong in that short span of one night. gah. tired.

ok from now on, all the times are vague guesses, because i was too busy being very super stressed out, and there are no more smses to show me timings anymore, so yes.

~~20:30--
zhujun finished with her coke chicken which tasted good to her immense relief, and so she transferred it to a serving dish which was more like a plastic container thingy. and den i had to wash the pot..which had like remains of maillard reaction stuck to the bottom of the pot and was really hard to scrub with the meagre amount of detergent we had in plastic sachets provided by the apartment. yah and i was happily (ok not happily, stressily) scrubbing scrubbing scrubbing for the next 5-10 mins and hoping for dear life the sticky stains would go off quickly and i could cook the fish.. when zj's phone rang and we were like OH SHIT.

status update:
--coke chicken ready.
--mushrooms prepared and ready to go into the oven
--cabbages still sitting in some other bowl waiting to be fried
--fish and ingredients reqd for fish prepared but not cooked yet
--eggs and tomatoes prepared and waiting to be fried.
--tiny pot still sitting there and looking clean and pretty.

zj answered, spoke to him for a bit, and held the phone up to my ear with my hands still suddy. i tink the pot was nearly done then alr.. so i think irene took over the cleaning and finished it up. yep so wayne and nathan were already downstairs. obviously, we were less than 50% ready. and wayne asked me if i could look for a corkscrew because he had a bottle of wine but he didn't bring something to open it with. and to their surprise (and not to ours as we'd already experienced first hand the paltry state of the kitchen that we had to work with) there wasn't a corkscrew. anw i told them we were totally NOT READY yet. so they said they'll go into surfers to try to buy a corkscrew, and buy nathan a non-alcoholic drink. haha.

i had to go down and let them into the garage, so i was like ahh zj since u know how to cook the fish can you start on it first.. so i went and let them in. and i hopped into the car..and at the gate u had to like press the sensor to the gate-opener..and they had to wind down the window to do that..i was gonna stretch my hand out of the window when wayne wound up the window again. and i'm like okay here we go again some things don't change. first thing u do when u time with the two of them laughing and snickering..like i stick out my hand and then the window starts going up and i was like nearly going to strangle him already when he finally let me open the gate :| and so i let them exit to go on their little surfers rendevous and plunged myself back into the warzone.

PROBLEM 11: zj was cooking the fish..and she was trying to flip it but it broke apart..fish being flaky and fragile...so i took over the fish..and she started on the egg and tomatoes.. for my fish.. i had to cook it in 3 batches..cos the pieces were big..and in the end.. due to the very unsuccessful attempts of trying to keep the fillets in one piece.. i decided ahh forget it they don't need to know that it was supposed to be in one piece! so i just 'chopped' everything up so it became like fish slices in citrus sauce. the sauce turned out alright, but when i tastd the fish i was like awwww crap this fish is super fishy. so the meat was like no good :(

PROBLEM 12: i was trying to put in some pepper (from a plastic bag) onto the fish..when i suddenly lost control and a whole PILE of black pepper went onto the fish and i was like ahhh oh shit oh shit oh shitttttt. we managed to scoop most of the pile up and save the situation tho.

PROBLEM 13: zj was having a lot of trouble trying to fry her tomatoes and egg in the tiny pot. and she said she never fried it so ugly-ly before and she was quite traumatized. irene was also quite appalled that we were gonna be serving food in this kind of state to guests. and yes of cos, by then my 'perfect idea' thing was totally gone and i was highly regretting ever suggesting this..but it was too late. things never do turn out the way they seem eh.

PROBLEM 14: in the meantime, we told weibin (i think it was weibin if i am not wrong) to cook the rice..so he tried cooking one packet...but for some reason, it came out hard and gross and we were like D: and so we tried to salvage that packet of rice..that was because the pro rice cooker hl was sick and resting :(

PROBLEM 15: i put my mushrooms into the oven.. and when they came out, they didn't look like what it was originally supposed to look like.. and it was rather ugly.cos the cheese didn't brown well and it was just a weird colour after it melted. so it was probably the oven's problem, or the cheese, tho i specified a brand there for them to buy..they mixed it up with my instructions for the rest of the ingredients, which was to buy the cheapest..so they bought the cheapest packet of cheese.

and then after everything was done, we had the veggies to fry still. weibin bravely took up the endeavour. we had like damn alot of cabbage, and that tiny pot. so he had to fry the cabbage in 3 batches in that tiny pot, which was highly challenging.

and hl had gotten up at the end..and she was helping to prepare the rice..i think the later 2 containers of rice were not too bad haha. long live the pro rice cooker.

by then, wayne and nathan were back and came up to the apartment..everyone said hi to everyone.. and i locked them out in the balcony briefly....and then we served up the unappetizing looking food, had a bit of a panic because

PROBLEM 16: we thought they didn't have glasses and wine glasses as well..but found them in a top cupboard eventually..and

PROBLEM 17: there were 7 of us, but only 6 chairs. a bit of a musical chair dilemma eh. so in the end we put like 2 chairs together and 3 of us sat on one chair and poor irene who was sandwiched in the centre next to a right hander and a left hander on the wrong sides had VERY little space to eat.

yup so finally at like hrmm.. what 9:45?

we finally settled down to dinner. i remember wayne making a short little toast at the start to thank us for the dinner and i tink all of us were really paiseh for the state of the food we were serving him and nathan..me and zj especially i think. and i think we were joking about masterchef or judging or critquing the food or something like that..and he went.. well u guys already get full marks. for the effort. and when i heard that i felt even more bad because they'd have to tahan crappy food at this time of the night where they'd be absolutely starving..and still say such nice things to us.

11 may night -- the night reality TV came true Pt 2

continued from part 1:

oh yes. forgot to say. the original invitation told them to come at 8pm.

19.10--we got to surfers at about this time. last hugs to aunt suvy who was always so nice going out of the way sending us here and there. and then zj and i brought our luggage up first. and i came back down, and got a bit worried as the other 3 weren't back yet, and it looked like a storm was brewing. well within a minute, their silhouettes appeared, all of them carryig huge plastic bags of stuff. i felt really bad because of the key issue, and making them buy and carry all this barang and have to rot at the supermarket area. so i'd say that

PROBLEM 6: we had 3 especially disgruntled friends who were already not in the best physical and mental state from dreamworld earlier that day, and moods probably exacerbated by this whole grocery saga.

and furthermore

PROBLEM 7: hui ling was really sick, she was feverish and all, and at first she was trying to help..but she looked really bad..so we told her to go and slp, and that we'd handle the cooking and all.

yes, all this and we hadn't even started cooking yet.

19:20---i had a sms come in from wayne (which came in at 19:08, just that i read it only like 15 mins later) which was:

LIFESAVER 1 (probably the one and only, really): he was still at work at the time he sent the message so he'd definitely be late, cause he needed to get home and get changed and then pick nathan then come into surfers. so that bought us more time.

so when i got to the apartment with them..we were checking out the cutlery and plates and etc etc. and they definitely needed a wash. and we were like ahh where's the detergent...we had to wash down all our crockery and cutlery before starting on anything.

in the meantime, i had to go get the stuff i needed to get. the 3 of em told me that they only bought 1 packet of microwaveable rice..and it didn't look enough because it didn't look like the kind in US which expanded. so they told me to get more. so i walked briskly down to coles this time..and thankfully it was still open. first thing i did was to go look for the mushrooms.

PROBLEM 8: i think i had to get like 12 mushroom caps, and at the end of the day, all the mushrooms there were like bruised and battered and cui. and i was like struggling so hard to find 12 proper looking not-too-ugly mushrooms.

and for the fish, there weren't many options too, and so i got the nicest looking affordable fish fillets --which were the hake fillets.

so i paid up and left. and guess what?

PROBLEM 9: scatterbrained me forgot all about buying the rice till i got back to the apartment and was like OH CRAP.

19:54--walking back from coles, at the bottom of the apartment, received a message from wayne saying that he was gonna be leaving his house and would be there in 45 mins. essentially, we therefore only had 45 mins left to finish up everything. and i hadn't even started on either of my dishes yet.

when i got back to the apartment, zj was lamenting terribly. and she had good reason to lament.

PROBLEM 10: we only had 2 pots. 1 pot was a pot with a relatively large circumference, but NO COVER. the other pot was absolutely TINY. and we were having major logistical difficulties, with not enough big plates and bowls to put our large quantities of raw material. that night, our 'menu' was

coke chicken, citrus fish, fried veggie (which was cabbage in the end because that's what they bought), baked mushrooms with cheese, and fried egg with tomato. so the status right then was ..

--coke chicken cooking in big pot with plate as cover.
--no place to put cabbages, so all in aluminium trays supposed to be for mushrooms.
--mushrooms untouched
--egg being beaten and tomatoes being cut.
--tiny pot not in use yet.

and,

--40 minutes left to finish everything.

so i found out about the rice, and weibin decided to go buy more rice.

and i got started with the mushrooms, because the big pot was then in use and i couldn't do anything to the fish. and irene told me to tell her what to do, so i could go start working on the fish. so irene officially took over the mushroom dish.

11 may night -- the night reality TV came true Pt 1

ok i have been delaying writing this for the longest time and i decided if i dun hurry up finish blogging aust, i will have europe and china coming up and this will slowly fade away in my memories.

this is because this night was so eventful with so many things happening, plus no photos at all, it is gonna be pretty hard trying to dig up my memories of everything including timelines and all that i shd be rather drained of energy by the time i'm done with this.

ok so basically, when i planned gold coast, i planned for all of us to be staying in an apartment complete with kitchen and all, like our own little home for 4 days. so i wanted to like try cooking in aust, making our own dinner. and then at the same time i thought, why not merge this idea with another? to thank wayne we could invite him over and cook dinner for him. and this way my good friends in singapore could meet my good friend in aust and vice versa and have a nice enjoyable night. perfect idea right?

NOT.

the night turned out to be entirely nightmarish. problems after problems cropped, making this feel like reality tv (like masterchef or something) come true, 10 times magnified, given the enormous number of screwups and obstacles we had that night.

before starting on the nightmarish night, we eventually decided to invite nathan too , because it was zhujun's last night on the coast so she could see him one last time as well. and well that's probably like problem 0, because nathan eats like a cow. lol.

so now, to start from the start,

4:45 pm--we were at dreamworld, and we left at about this time. we were to split up, me and zj to collect our luggage from aunt suvy's place, and the other 3 to head straight to surfers to start buying groceries first (we prepared a list for them already). i had all the bus timings checked out and in the google spreadsheet beforehand, so that we wouldn't reach aunt suvy's house too late. but:

PROBLEM 1: we did not have excel spreadsheet in hard copy on us, so no bus timings to guide us, ended up taking a later bus.

and

PROBLEM 2: the only key to the apartment was with me. (we asked for 2 keys, but they only handed us one that morning cos i think room service held the other, and they said they would leave the other key for us in the apartment.) so if the 3 of them finished buying groceries, they could not go back to the apartment until i got there.

5:50--we reached the bus stop that was nearest to our place finally. nearest to our place, but still super far. it was already dark then, and the darkness seemed like it was pressing down on us..giving a greater sense of urgency. we were like walking super super quickly to achieve reaching the house at 6pm, but it was a really long distance away..

well, one thing we discovered on our way home, was that in the 2 weeks we were gone, a proper footpath was created from the bus stop to our house! in the past, we had to walk along the road, or on a dirt path. well at least we got to walk on it for one time. ha.

6:10--finally, after lots of super rapid briskwalking and panting and breathlessness, we got to the house. when we got there, we discovered

PROBLEM 3: that uncle gary wasn't home yet! ta-dah. and we needed him to be home, because aunt suvy needed his car to fetch us to surfers. and she was asking us to stay for dinner and all, and asking us to eat bobochacha that she'd made.. and we felt too paiseh to decline..and she even called uncle gary to come back immediately after we explained our time-pressed situation to her..and we felt rather bad about that..

she was like aiyoh..why must cook..don't cook lah just order pizza...and seriously right that moment i was like thinking maybe that is really a better option, the only problem being that our friends were already grocery shopping, and that kinda burst my 'perfect idea' bubble. we had to pack all our remaining barang, and also pack some condiments in plastic bags.. because it wouldn't be economical to buy whole bottles of seasonings and condiments to cook for that one night. so we had like oyster sauce, sugar, dark soy sauce, salt, pepper, u name it in plastic bags and containers. we were pretty much done by 6:40, but uncle gary wasn't back yet. so i sent a sms to wayne and told him the situation.

6:50 pm. Uncle gary arrived..and we were finally set to leave. last goodbyes to linnett and uncle gary (aunty suvy was sending us), and we were on our way. i recieved a call from weibin then. they were done with grocery shopping at woolies, but we were a good half hour away from surfers still so they would have to rot at the supermarket. and then came

PROBLEM 4: there wasn't any fish that i wanted, and there were only barrumundi left, which were really expensive.

PROBLEM 5: they didn't know which mushrooms to buy, and even tho i tried describing it to them, they didn't get it, or perhaps there wasn't that type of mushrooms there.

both of them were my dishes and i was like oh crap. so in the end the conclusion was that everyone head back to the apartment first, and zj would start cooking first, while i go down to the supermarket myself to buy the remaining stuff.

dreamworld 11 may

okays.. i am not in the best of moods now with the recent spate of events. lol 1) having had only 3 hours of sleep the previous night, because of a) wake b) unforseen conversation c) digging up stuff for ling 2) the fact that it sucks having to travel alone again, with even more uncertainties this time, and 3) having my insecurities and paranoia eating away at me again, kinda makes me glad that i'm about to finish uploading these photos and finish up blogging this phase of my life soon.

but anyway, the mood now probably coincides a little with the mood i felt on 11 may. 11 may was a rather down day for me. aside from that little out-of-the-world farm stay experience, 11 may would be kinda like the official start of the gold coast travelling, the program i planned with all my heart and put in lots of effort for with the hope that my good friends would love the gold coast just as much as i did. but well, i can understand being them, and having experienced melb and syd, gold coast really would seem like nothing. i was pretty upset when one of them complained of the scorching heat in the coast and went 'gold coast is my least favourite city!' like ouch. haha. even before anything started, the coast was condemned. lol.

perhaps what made things worse, was that everyone was pretty under the weather that day, perhaps from the late night out the previous night stargazing, as well as the cold on the farm that night. everyone just felt like nua-ing around, totally not in the mood for a theme park.

hrmm. 1) we intended to go to white water world that day, but when we got to the apartment, our apartment wasn't ready for us yet, so we couldn't settle down, so it was difficult to pack stuff for water theme park, so that was out. 2) neither tracey or lorna could join us that day like they said they would, cause of an audit that happened at work.

so yeah everyone half-heartedly went to dreamworld and took a few mild rides..and then i suggested reefdiver cause linnett told me before that it was good even tho few people went on it. BIG mistake as it turned out. both ling and irene were really really really really giddy and nauseous after that and ling's condition took a turn for the worse. she kinda had a fever after dreamworld.

hrmm ...log ride was funny cos irene and i (in one log) were like nearly dry and the other 3, in the other log, were like realllyy wet. haha. we were saying it was all wb's fault lol. and tower of terror was super fast but absolutely awesome. claw was good, surfrider was good too. revisiting childhood wise, vintage cars!!!!!! still there after 16 years (First time i went there i was 6) and finally i get to carry my own koala hahaha. i was super bummed at age 8 to not be able to carry it and i still remember it clearly till today.

dreamworld vs movie world. i thought i'd like dreamworld more..cause everyone kept saying it was really fun and there were more rides and it was like bigger (in terms of visitable theme park area) but i realized that day (un-theme parkish atmosphere amongst us 5 aside) that i honestly liked movie world better and was glad i got the endless summer pass for movie world and wet and wild, which are, in conclusion, my 2 favourite parks of em all. :)

some little research i was doing alongside blogging

1) hui ling's redness: alcohol flush reaction
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alcohol_flush_reaction

Alcohol flush reaction (colloquially referred to as Asian Flush, Asian Red or Asian Glow) is a condition in which the face and/or body experiences flushes or blotches, due to a missense polymorphism that encodes the enzyme, acetaldehyde dehydrogenase (ALDH2),[1] normally responsible for breaking down acetaldehyde, a product of the metabolism of alcohol.[2] Flushing, or blushing, is associated with the erythema (reddening caused by dilation of capillaries) of the face, neck, shoulder, and in some cases, the entire body after consumption of alcohol.

so yay! i have acetaldehyde dehydrogenase!!! hahaha.

2) of meteor showers
http://www.meteorites.org/?page_id=63
i love this site...tells us when and how we can view meteor showers! so cool.

In most cases, a meteor shower can be viewed from almost any location on the globe.

Next, you will want to try and view the shower as late in the evening as possible. Most of the radiants for showers peak in the sky after midnight, so viewing the shower very late in the evening up until dawn is the best way to ensure that you experience the full affects of the shower and helps to make sure the shower is most visible. In fact, most meteor showers peak very early in the morning so you will likely see more meteorites as the night goes on.

(haha so we were right in choosing after midnight to go stargaze!! ahh if only we could have stayed up the whole night haha)

A wide open field with no trees or other obstructions that does not have any sources of light pollution is truly the best way to enjoy all that the meteor shower has to offer.

(yup yup we were in one!)

we probably caught the The Eta Aquarids Meteor Shower. it was May 10 then.

Partially coinciding with the Lyrids are the the Eta Aquarids. This meteor shower starts on April 19th and lasts until May 28th, peaking between May 4th to May 6th. The Eta Aquarids radiant is in the constellation of Aquarius near the bright star Eta Aquarii. The source of the Eta Aquarids is the famous Halley’s Comet. This meteor shower is best seen when viewed during the early morning hours before sunrise, away from city lights.

Gold coast farm stay part 3

oh yes, forgot to mention, we saw like 1-2 wild kangaroos too while we were horseriding. but they were really hard to spot because they were like alone.

after horse riding, we were to rest till dinner time. we brought our stuff to the cottage, and after exploring the cottage, and being awed by the cottage interior, and having a little disagreement on who was to get which room which got our only guy a little upset..we headed back out..where the sky was starting to get dark..and we waited at the dining area (we had a choice to eat in the cottage or in the dining area but we choose the dining area. after all we were on a farm! shd experience everything to the max!) where there was a little mini stage and benches...prolly for little school camp performances when schools went over to visit. haha.

dinner was nice..we had beef stew with rice and tea that was heated over the fire..and we saw a bold wild possum come in to the place. it was a rare event too, seeing the way the japanese workers were fascinated by it too.. so we gave a little biscuit to the possum who climbed up the scaffoldings of the dining area and perched himself a distance away above us and went about om-nom-noming its biscuit. i tried to take pics of it but because it was so dark my camera refused to cooperate and kept taking blur pictures..and i didn't wanna use flash on it. when the possum finished the biscuit..it climbed down the beam and i was like ooh cool i get to touch the possum!! but i forgot it was WILD. so yeah i held my finger out to it..it grabbed my finger with 2 of its hands (paws??) and bit down HARD on my finger. i was like YEOW!!!!! it was painful!! and it ran back up the beam after realizing my finger was NOT edible. and bold possum actually came down after that and jumped up the chair to the table and started drinking zj's tea and eaing her ice cream! haha i still remember the sight of weibin protecting his ice cream by covering it with his hands. haha.

after dinner I played around with the campfire a bit cause i miss campfires from my guides days and all....and we were looking out at the stars which had started to dot the sky. and the japanese guy (whom i think worked there for like 7 yrs alr) was pointing out the southern cross to us and telling us the direction of antarctica could be told from the southern cross. like really cool. and he pointed out the milky way to us too..that was the first time i saw the milky way and i was like WOW. awesome. he pointed out like venus(i think) and mars to us too and we were super awed and we were gonna go out star-gazing later that night when the sky grew darker.

so we went back..and took turns showering..while i turned on the tv and switched to channel ten where MASTERCHEFFFFFF was on!!! haha. super exciting. lol i love masterchef sad tt i can't watch it already :( can only go to the site once in a while to see who's been eliminated and why. and philip whom i supported and mentioned in one of the previous entries was eliminated for some stupid reason!! and after that i went to shower and when i was done showering all the cooking and tasting was done and i was like what?!?!! D: after that weibin went to nap and we were all doing our own thing..till we decided we all shd start playing bang and we woke weibin up..and the 3 of them taught me and zj how to play bang which was really fun :)

after many rounds of bang, we decided to go out and stargaze. and star gazing proved really really fun. i wish we had sheets to lie down on, couldn't just lie on the grass, because as i said in facebook, it was pooland. you'd risk lying on poo if you lay down on the ground. so as a result all of us were standing there in the cold and having sore necks. thank goodness i was in my trackpants and jacket.. if i'm not wrong hl was like just wearing shorts i duno how she survived! we were down there just looking at all the stars, trying to pick out constellations, or imagine our own constellations, when irene and hl spotted a shooting star. and we were like WHERE WHERE?! and we thought they were really lucky to have seen one..when all of us started to spot shooting stars of our own here there and every where! and we got really excited and happy and started making wishes upon the shooting stars. haha. we were a bit surprised..how could we see so many shooting stars in one night? it was just something that was beyond our belief, growing up in star-less singapore. but as we confirmed with the owner of gum nuts the next day, this was perfectly normal. he said that on one of the meteor shower nights, he saw 2-3 shooting stars every 30 seconds and we were like WOWWWWW.and we were lucky too, it was a new moon night that night..so there was no moon!!! which meant that the stars were brighter. so cool. i wanna experience more meteor showers in my lifetime. i just went to wikipedia it and i found out meteor showers occur throughout the year!! ok anyway after that zj hl and irene decided it was time to slp..so they absorbed the whole sky into their memories (quoting hl's words haha) and i decided i wanted to stay out there for longer..so it ended up that me and wb were the only 2 left out there. well it was a nice thing.. being able to chat with a good friend under the stars.. so i quite enjoyed it.. we stayed out till about 2am before we decided to go slp. and for the record, i saw 10 meteors!!! :)

i slept really poorly that night..being really really really really cold for some reason, despite being in trackpants and socks and my jacket..i had to put on another blanket in the middle of the night..and my sinus acted up REALLY badly prolly cos of the cold too, and i couldn't breathe properly, and had to wake up to apply the sinus med too. which was why i wish that the fireplace was working. i wonder how it'd be like in winter..it'd be absolutely FREEZING. the next morning..i think pretty much everyone was feeling rather under the weather..i was still so cold that i decided to borrow ling's gloves to wear. we had breakfast in the cottage..which was alright..aside from the fact i ate a weird looking egg. :( okays so that ended our farm stay which was really fun and memorable!

p.s. while writing these entries..i went and did a little bit of surfing and researching haha and i shall share my findings in the next post! lol

Gold coast farm stay part 2

right after lunch we just went and played around with the goats for a bit..fed them fruit..took fotos with them..i rmb irene and hl being really scared of the goats haha..i think out of all of them i was the most gung-ho when it came to the animals. one of the goats kept aiming at my jacket sleeve and chomping on it haha. in the meantime the farm workers (who were all japanese surprisingly) were busy chasing after the cow who was running all over trying escape being caught.. the poor cow was too full with milk..cos her calf was separated from her (which is kinda cruel imo :( ) so we could milk her.

milking was cool, lots of videos and fotos for that, shan't elaborate more. after that we went shooting! weibin was really pro..he got like 95% of the shots. haha i mean well he was a marksman in army, and in air rifle in jc! so what do you expect lol. and zj was good too, she got like a few shots down too! i heard the recoil really hurt from all of them and i was REALLY apprehensive to try it cause i wasn't the strongest of persons. haha. and my master eye is my right eye and my master hand is my left hand. how on earth am i supposed to aim properly like that?! so yeah basically the 3 besties missed everything and we decided it's no fun and rather pointless to keep on trying at the expense of dislocating our shoulders lol so we gave the extra shots to weibin and zj who prolly found it more fun and satisfying because they at least managed to shoot something. haha.

after shooting we tried our hand at using the whip, and boomerang throwing. haha. the whip thing was ok i think i got it once or twice, not before i whipped myself with it tho. haha. and boomerang throwing was fun, i think i did get it to come back to me once or twice, and a few times we ended up nearly killing each other when the boomerang started flying toward one of us and that person had to run for their lives. haha.

after that we had a short little break, before we started getting ready for horse riding. i guess horse riding was like the ultimate highlight of the day.. and it was awesome. i got a cool thoroughbred (or pure-bred, i can't rmb) horse called elvis. and i liked him. i wish i could've galloped him tho. i was the last in the line of horses...and so elvis always had to wait up for the rest of the horses in front, who occasionally stopped to poop or pee lol. and there was one point where hl's horse kicked irene's horse and irene's horse freaked out and nearly ran down a slope into a creek and i saw the whole scene and i was like :O all in all i was quite sad when the whole horseriding was over i wanted to ride the horse for longer :( and i was quite bummed too that we were gonna miss the next day's extra horse ride.

Gold coast farm stay part 1

okays i have been procrastinating but i shan't procrastinate anymore because i have a weird system that i have to blog about the event (if it hasn't been blogged yet) after i post up fotos before i post up the next set of fotos.

so anyway that morning we flew from sydney back to the gold coast. it was my first time going to gold coast airport and i took the window seat. when it was nearing, the plane was going along the coast..and i was like looking out of the window..seeing the coast..and wondering to myself..hmm where's byron bay..where's burleigh heads..where's currumbin...and it just gave a very nice familiar feeling..kinda like a feeling of being home after being away for so long.. after all it kinda felt like a second home to me after 4 months. and i felt really happy when i touched down to gold coast. just a very warm excited feeling that came from within..which i couldn't really explain. I called the gum nuts guy who was supposed to pick us up..and he seemed really friendly too. :)

so after a while we got our luggage, and got picked up in the bus.. and he said oh we'll be travelling inland for about 1 hr ++ to a place called nerang. and i just felt so at ease hearing all these familiar names..seeing familiar road signs..and familiar roads..there was this road we went on..that i turned and asked zhujun..remember this road? this was the road we took to o'reillys! it kinda just brought back lots of fond memories. haha perhaps many years later.. when i return to the coast again..i will feel exactly like that.. or perhaps be overwhelmed with greater and stronger nostalgia. haha. so we were headed toward a winery in mt nathan (more memories haha).

the winery experience was nice, we met a fellow singaporean working there..who taught us how to do wine tasting and the experience was really cool and refreshing! you have to 1) swirl the glass properly, and observe the stick on the side of the glass, the greater the stick, the better the quality of the wine...and wines that have been diluted with water will have very poor stick. 2) smell the wine..first with your left nostril and then with your right..because apparently your left and your right orthonasal receptors pick out different notes! like they send different messages to your brain. it's like a right brain and left brain thing or something. like what guys smell with their left nostril will be what gals smell with their right..and stuff like that. that was really cool. and 3)drink just a sip and let it circulate entirely through your mouth so that you sense all the flavours and tastes that you've smelt..and let it run down the back of the throat by tilting your head back a little. and we tried a lot of different types of wines.. by the end of it hui ling was SOOOO RED in the face we wanted to take a pic of her but she refused to let us haha..and she started wearing her huge sunglasses to cover up the redness. haha. all of us, except for zj bought the honey liqueur in the end..

yep so we travelled and finally got to gum nuts! where lunch was waiting for us. haha. i wanted to go to the washroom..and when i went in there were 2 cubicles. i opened one and i saw a few insects...kinda like colourless dragonflies.. big wings.. small body..i don't know the name of the flies haha. i was like hmmm lets take a look at the other one..when i opened the other one i was like whooaaa and i quickly closed it. there were even more in the other one. so when i came out.. the rest of them had come in to use the toilet and i was like hmm i tink u shd use the one i used.. and they all did..except irene who was gung ho enough to use the other one.. BUT when she flushed the toilet apparently a frog jumped out at her!! she was SUPER freaked out. apparently the frog was in the toiletbowl all along?????

yup jumping toiletbowl frogs aside, we filled out some sort of horse riding imdemnity form, and then settled down to lunch. i had grilled beef, and weibin had grilled fish, while the rest of them had grilled chicken. i didn't get the grilled chicken cause i wasn't sure if it would be breast meat, but i liked grilled beef anyway. haha but the grilled chicken WAS breast meat and it was yummmmmyyy. haha. lunch was good overall :)

sydney 9 may

we had a super full agenda that day. wanted to go to pancakes on the rocks, visit the weekend markets on the rocks, take pics of harbour bridge and opera house, and go right up to opera house look see look see, and then go to fish market, and THEN to bondi beach.

ok pancakes on the rocks rocked as usual lol. and it was pretty much about lunchtime when we were done so it was more like lunch rather than breakfast. den we went walking about the weekend markets which were more atas-ish than the paddy markets ones, and quite interesting.. we saw this spray painter and a glass melter (ok i duno the name) and caricature artists.. and this booth that we could try sauces with chips/tacos and it really reminded me of byron bay..their sauces went from mild to like ULTIMATE and they had scores from 1/10 to err i think 11/10? which weibin tried and was crazy. there was this mango habanero one too and it tasted similar to what i did! and i was like excitedly asking everyone to try the sauces but no one was nearly as crazy as weibin to try that. i think irene did try the mango habanero-ish one?? and weibin found his long-lost peanuts and had a nice little reunion with it lol. and then ling and irene bought fudge which looked nice and i wanted to buy also but i decided not to =/ and we saw these really pretty intricate complicated pop-up cards that were super nice!!! :) and we got the guy's hopes up he was looking really happy but in the end we nv buy. haha. and then we went and walked into the superbee honey shop where everyone was trying honey except me and zj cause we did that already at currumbin the other time. haha.

ok and then we went and took photos of harbour bridge and opera house etc..and i got the scare of my life because i think weibin pressed the display button accidentally and my whole display went out and i was like GAH IS MY CAMERA SPOILT and i was really sian for some time because i thought oh crap so my phone's spoilt and now my camera's spoilt too.but then eventually after taking many fotos with other ppl's camera ling tried mine and just presed the DISP button and the display came on again. i was like PHEWWWW. and then we went and walked to opera house and halfway me and zj lost the other 3 and we were waiting for them at the end..while they were waiting for us somewhere in between ...and waiting indefinitely until weibin decided to give us a call. haha.

and the fish market was FANTASTIC the seafood was all awesome and FRESH. fresh is an understatement. i loved the sashimi and squid they were the best. and the lobster was hard to eat esp since we were sharing it with so many people. haha. when we were done eating the sun was already starting to set and we were like ok now we have to get to bondi beach before the sun sets!!

well we didn't exactly succeed. when we got to bondi..it was NEARLY dark. and my camera was nearly out of batt.. so we didn't really get to enjoy bondi beach much even tho it was like a really well known beach. at first, nobody wanted to go and dip their legs in the water and then i was the only one who wanted to so i just threw all my stuff down ran way way ahead toward the waves, leaving everyone far behind. after all that was what i brought my change of sandals for! the sand was really really cold, but the water was nice and warm :) haha. after that weibin came and joined me. and soon enough, everyone was there with their feet in the water :) and the thing about those waves were they were really big, and you could never predict which ones would come right up to you. those that seemed big..ended up really small and didn't reach up to me, but those that i didn't think much of, ended up coming really high and deep. so one of those times, the water came up too quickly and wet my jeans which were already rolled up!! i tink zj got that one too. and weibin was laughing at us. i was like it'll get you soonn... but the next 2 to get wet were ling and irene!! haha. in the end i think everyone got their jeans wet except weibin =x and we were gonna have like a small dinner cos everyone was still full from fish market..and we were walking (and most beachwear shops were already closed boo) and we saw St churros!!! we were like okay since the other time at melb we were too full to have it (after koko black with liling) we hafta try it now! so we did. i think it was okay only lah. churros wise, i prefered US theme park churros for some reason, and chocolate dip wise, i preferred the fondue wayne got us at max brenner's :)

yepps that ended our very eventful day!

sydney 8 may blue mountains

8may blue mountains

ok blue mountains nothing much also..loads and loads of scenery pics.. but hmm i remember the guide being quite fierce and we were all like rather 'scared' of him. and he was very very knowledgeable.. but the way he spoke was in some sort of a lull that whenever he spoke i'd feel v sleepy. i remember i just kept on falling asleep throughout and feeling so so so so tired that i couldn't wake up even tho i wanted to listen to what he said. lol. or maybe it was just the past few days that were very tiring? i have no idea.

i felt blue mountains would be better enjoyed if it were free and easy.. like if we were able to explore the national park on our own..rather than being rushed from one place to another and most of the time on the bus and driving. perhaps blue mountains is a really really big place?

ok i took fotos of nearly everything that is worth blogging and since pictures tell a thousand words, i shan't blog bout the rest hoho.

sydney!!!!

7th may paddy's markets and darling harbour

i made a point form list to write about:

--walking from paddy's to darling--big round

yep so we wanted to et to darling harbour from paddy's market... and we ended up
walking a long long distance.. when we got there there were misleading road signs and we ended up taking a big round round the back of the convention centre, when we could have walked round the front and reached very quickly. but oh well haha.

--like a competition to see who can take the nicest scenery shots
--there for abt 1h +++ just takin fotos of scenery, each other and stopping random ppl walking by to take photos of all of us

at darling harbour it was sunset and the colours in the sky were really pretty. so it really became like a competition between cameras (Who has better camera) and between skills (who can better adjust the settings and take the photos) to see who had the prettiest scenery photos. so we were just there snapping away for the LONGEST time ever as the sky just changed colour gradually.. and of course taking photos of each other..how the camera brightness changed when there were people in the shot and when there weren't people in the shot.. and constantly stopping random people who were walking by to take group shots.. because everytime a stranger took fotos ..it'll either be blur..not include the sky line scenery..or etcetcetc. we were never pleased or satisfied with the group fotos some way or another so we kept having to pester passers-by. lol


--surprise find! pancakes on the rocks

pancakes on the rocks was a surprise find for us, because we thought that would be at the rocks. haha. so after all the photo taking and we were cold and nearly gonna start freezing..we decided to go have a nice comfortable meal of pancakes and crepes.so that when dinner was over, we'd have the night view to take photos of! haha.

-wearing shorts
and yes that whole day we were wearing shorts..thanks to the initial idea that we were gonna go to bondi beach..and it was rather warm in the day. hoho. when night came it was COLD and we were like oh man we are all crazy and gung-ho. and we still had to walk back from darling harbour to central station!!

crave 4 kfc

after dinner.. irene and ling were craving for kfc's popcorn chicken (thanks to my recommendation ^^) so we went to kfc and bought it! haha. honestly i miss aust kfc's popcorn chicken..so juicy and tender...................

street perf

we watched a street performance on our way back..at darling harbour.. we were gonna just stay for 5 mins..but we ended up watching nearly the whole thing..and he started asking for money and all that.. and near the end after the climax we walked off and he was like 'look people leaving without giving money!' i think the 5 of us..none of us turned back because we probably felt all the eyes on us at that moment. that wasn't a very nice feeling.