Australia Spring 2008

Day 1, i lugged my giant luggage across Southern Cross and tried finding my way around the station. Memory's rusty, took the wrong train...

Simple day, a rainy walk along Chapel Street, i never went there in 2007. Dinner at bestfriend's place. Met her local Aussie boyfriend of Greek descend. He's nice and he makes her happy. I approve!

Day 2, met up with Aunt and cousins. Aunt brought me shopping! I bought my very first pair of Nine West!

Didn't wanna throw the box away but i had to =( Its so pretty

Day 3, went back to the house i used to call home to gather the stuff i left in boxes neatly in the closet.

Ended up chucking most of my stuff into the recycle bin with the yellow lid. Some went into the charity bin. Then went to meet my old boss and have lunch, he gave me 20% staff discount! =)

Then i went to the beach to sit on the sand and reminisce

In the evening i had dinner with PN, Vietnamese food and hung out in Starbucks discussing photography =P

Day 4, bestfriend and i shopped, and then yummy Thai dinner with bestfriend, LF, DL and RC. So nice of them to come out and meet me plus send me off to Southern Cross where i took the CountryLink overnight train to Sydney. Alone.

Day 5, YW came to pick me up from Sydney Central in the morning. I bought us Krispy Kreme and she brought me to this cute coffee place along King Street.

Its just a short walk from where she lives. Sydney Uni Village is beautiful!!!!

Honours student YW had lab and mice to attend to so i was on my own most of the day. Nice Thai lunch tho, green curry pork! Love the atmosphere of the restaurant she brought me to.

She handed me a map and told me to visit The Quadrangle on uni grounds. I had no idea what i was looking for but i found it and its like a scene from Harry Potter.

Building with four corners and a field in the middle. There was a couple making out on the grass and i so felt like taking a picture of them, the girl was on top of the guy! Hahah

One of the corners. Why can't Monash Clayton be like that? Or Peninsula or Berwick?

I wanted to check out the touristy spots at night. Last Dec, when i was there in Sydney with the family and the boyfriend, we saw these sights during the day. I wanted to see it by nightfall.

Right choice! Darling Habour:

I wish i didn't bend my stupid leg. Really nice pic otherwise.

My old tuition friend WC was nice enough to meet up with me and the 3 of us walked to the Opera House

Pictures with people in it on my camera turned out bad, still waiting for WC to send me the ones he took on his 7.0megapixel camera phone

Structures turn out well tho =) Sydney Habour Bridge

Played Diner Dash on YW's Nintendo DS till 4am. Its amazing how i managed to get up in time to catch the 9.15am train to Newcastle on
Day 6

Sitting there on the train, starring out the window at the countryside, all alone, on that damn 3hour train ride, I FELT LIKE A BACKPACKER! Hahahahaha

Camwhored while waiting for PL to come pick me up from Warabrook station.

Its so hot in Newcastle, PL came wearing shorts, and she stared at my winter jacket like said people would think u are crazy. HAHAHAH. What to do, i came from Melbourne.

She made me lunch, we catched up. Then we headed to the beach for a dip, love love the waves, stupid of me to leave my camera on the sand, no good pix there.

It got cold and windy in the evening, exactly when we decided to have ice cream. We were shivering!

My leg turned to stone! Look:

Haha, lame. But it was fun =)

She brought me to dinner at Goldberg. Their pasta is so so good, the best food i ate in my trip. And then we shared Newcastle's specialty dessert: Sticky Date Pudding

Love the ambiance there, worth every cent of the $25 i paid with my Commonwealth Debit Card (treated her to dinner for giving me a place to stay)

After dinner, we took the bus back and my dear friend was so blur we missed the stop and had to walk through her campus in the cold! Damn funny, we were freezing! They had a Commonwealth Bank branch on their campus! Hahah, but its such forest at her campus than it is at mine!

Day 7 was Korean food in Strathfield for both lunch and dinner, before and after shopping in Sydney's DFO.

Stupid little me had some problems with her return ticket, they printed the wrong date and i didn't check properly! Thankfully, they changed it for me FOC =)

Day 8 at Parliament Station. Thats where bestfriend worked the 7am shift so i went over for some Coffee HQ.

Look at all those people dressed in black on that Monday morning, scurrying off to work. I was so glad to be on annual leave! Oooh RC was one of them! HAHAHA poor soul. When he comes to visit Msia next yr, it'll b his turn to laugh at me.

I walked along i-forgot-what-street,

Admired Cathedrals. Walked along Collins Street, saw two of the Big Four accounting firms and i wondered...

Walked to the park and lay on the grass...

It was good just starring at the sky, not having to worry about work =P

In the afternoon, Masters student bestfriend wanted to go to the State Library so i tagged along. That woman doesnt know how to work a photostate machine so i did it for her

Love the interior of the library, so ancient. And love what my new purple Sony Ericsson camera phone =)

Nice dinner at Fratelino's, where bestfriend's housemate works. Good quality time chit chating, killer good salmon thin crust traditional oven baked pizza. And not to mention the "hot pizza boy" as she calls him...

Day 9, god, guess what i did on Day 9?! I woke up at 5.45am to go to the gym for a 6.15 Bodypump class but i walked the wrong way and ended up in Toorak train station, which is at the other end. I was so pissed. I walked so much that by the time i got to the gym i avoided the treadmill at all costs. Too late for my class too! =(

Bestfriend and i waiting for the tram to the city, where we shopped along Swanston Street before heading down to Clayton for ex-housemate HS's graduation ceremony!

Me, HS and her S'porean bf F. In the background is B smiling at the camera!

LF and i. Goodness, she's graduated, i still remember meeting into her in Sunway College's 4th floor toilet, she fell and her knee, or was it ankle, was bleeding. She was a MUFY student while i was in AUSMAT. Pre-University days!

At night bestfriend and i had Ying Thai 2 (really bad service but really good food) and Dolce Freddo's ice cream! We walked along the Yarra River, watched the flames at 11 o clock outside Crown Casino. I went in to lose some money and to pick up the free poker magazine Bluff

Day 9, was a simple day at St Kilda

with bestfriend and DL on the tram. Ate scallops and Golden Gaytime ice cream!

Went back to finish up my packing and got ready for my flight back to Malaysia

That sums up my 10 days, 12 nights (2 nights in the plane, 2 nights in the train, 8nights on mattresses) in Australia. Spent RM5,800 on flight, food, transport and shopping.

Less than one week after my return, the STUPID Australia forex dropped like mad! I could have had the same trip but save RM1,000 if i went slightly later =(

Gotta go, working on another unit trust fund tomorrow. And i just found out tonight! Thats the life of this auditor