Bye 2009

I know I have abandoned my blog for weeks! I was a little busy and a little lazy. I will resume my Tasmania post when I connect my laptop to the internet! Oh btw, I'm back in Malaysia for 2 weeks already and I'm finally free at home now.

Today is the last day of 2009 and tomorrow will be a brand new year. I had great fun in 2009 and I'm grateful that I have family and friends with me along the way that made my 2009 wonderful.

Finally, I wish everyone all the best of luck in 2010 and Happy New Year!!

Will update again soon!

Tasmania Pt2 - Table Cape Tulip Farm

We had breakfast at the Anvers Chocolate Factory, the place where I am being served with generous amount of salmon at a relatively cheap price.They have really nice hot chocolate tooo!

With a full tummy we drove to the tulip farm... Need I say more? Just look at the pictures!!

I have more pictures and will be posted up on facebook when I'm not lazy. Not gonna say when I'm free coz I'm free everyday! Tee hee =D

Next will be random places I went in Tasmania like Port Arthur, Woolmers estate, etc... so stay tuned!

Mamma Mia!

Holy crap it's 41 celcius today! It's like oven out there! My room is like sauna! It's not even summer yet!! Winter can you please come back? Pretty please???

Tasmania - Explore the possibilities pt 1

The original name for Tasmania was Van Diemen's Land. Click here if you're interested to know more about it. Tasmania is pretty much similar to New Zealand, mainly about sight seeing. Of course New Zealand is the best but Tasmania is not too bad too! Or maybe it's true that the grass always greener on the other side.

Our plane landed in Hobart and we drove to Launceston immediately on the night we reached there. We could have just bought the ticket to Launceston instead but because of someone's suggestion we bought the one to Hobart then only we realized that all the places we intended to go mostly at the upper part of Tasmania. So we drove in the dark without any street lights and there weren't any cars in front or behind us for at least 10km! Or more!! I think there were less than 15 cars pass by us for the whole 200km journey! Very scary no joke! But I was glad that the moon was very bright that night to give us at least some decent moonlight to see what's around us.

We reached Launceston at arount 11pm and the very nice backpackers owner left the keys inside the envelope for us to go in. On the next day, we went to Tasmazia and the village of lower crackpot. Tasmazia is the world's largest maze complex and it has a total of 8 mazes including the world's largest maze, the great maze, when they planted the hedges maybe around... 20 years ago? The village of lower crackpot is whimsical model village built to 1/5th scale. They are located at a place with wonderful name called promised land. It sounds so fairytale-ish!! It has a small lavender farm too, too bad lavender wasn't in season that time.

We had our lunch at the pancake parlour and we ordered this as what they proclaim the world's most photographed pancake.I don't remember the name of the pancake, I think it's tripleberries or something...

I felt like I got cheated you know... I don't see how wonderful it is to be the world's most photographed pancake... or maybe I'm very shallow like that.

-this is the village of lower crarckpot, the weather that day wasn't very good.-

-more!!-

-the mazes and the village of lower crackpot. The maze in front is the confusion maze and the one on the other side is the Hexagonal maze and Hampton Court maze, repeat design to scale of the original Hampton Court Palance in U.K. It was really fun getting lost inside the mazes and trying to find my way out!-

Inside the great maze, you can find small little mazes like the balance maze, the cage maze and the Irish maze.

-the balance maze-

-you will also find small little thing like this-

and over dozen of signs with sayings like

and

which I think they are very cute and amusing

-three little bears cottage is the point you have to reach to complete the maze... it took us ages to find it. You can hear people around it and you know it's just beside the hedge but we just couldn't find our way in. But it was very easy to get out... I guess we were just some direction idiots... or maybe just me... -

When we left the place, it was still early so we decided to go to Lake Barrington which is located just beside Tasmazia. It was a nice calming place at the first glance.

-like this.. maybe not very nice in this pic... -

but when you look closely at those small little black dots on the grass... to our horror... it was full of kangaroos and wallabies poo!!

-literally holy shit! grosssss-

That's pretty much our 1st day in Tasmania. Next up will be Table Cape tulip farm!!!

p/s: it's really gross looking at the feaces while typin....  *run to toilet and puke*

pps: I did not take that gross pic... it wasn't me!!!!!!

Melbourne Part 2 - The Great Ocean Road

Ha this is so long overdue. I finished up my internet quota too early last month so I can't update! It just refreshed like 3 days ago.

The great ocean road is a 243 km stretch of road along the south-eastern coast of Australia between the Victorian cities of Torquay and Warrnambool.The road was constructed to provide work for returning soldiers and dedicated as a Memorial to those killed in the First World War.It is one of Australia's great scenic coastline drives. (quoted from wikipedia)

We joined the chinese tour for the cheaper price! We departed early in the morning and it takes about 3 to 4 hours to reach the destination. It's like going to KL to and fro in a day and the road is very winding. Being the usual me I fell asleep in the car and hence I don't feel anything. That day was very gloomy, windy, chilly, everything you can get to be the worst timing to go on a trip. But luckily the sun came up for a little while to cheer me up.

We stopped on a few places to see the rocks like the razorback, the 12 Apostles, London Arch, Loch Ard Gorge and probably more which I can't remember anymore. When we reached the destination, it was like wow... then took out our camera and snapped snapped, then after awhile I was too cold and don't even feel like taking out the camera and just keep my hands warm in my pocket. So I have a few photos only.

-the entrance to the Great Ocean Road-

- the 12 apostles, you can't exactly see all of them from the place I was standing, you have to take the helicopter to get the bird eye view then only you can start counting. A few of them have collapsed due to the constant sea erosion at their bases over the years, and you can see how gloomy the day was, I can't even get a nice photo of the 12 Apostles-

-the razorback-

-I dont remember........... -

-london bridge is falling down, falling down, falling down..... the london arch. That two thing was originally attached, we were told that when it collapsed there was a couple being seperated with the girl on the london arch and the guy on the land. I just wiki it and apparently it has nothing to do with the song.-

-This is the Loch Arch Gorge, this is not how it originally looked like, apparently it collapsed some years ago too...

-This is the before and after photo I got from the internet, click here-

So people, if you intend to visit the Great Ocean Road, you better hurry or there will be not much left for you to see in the future anymore. The rate of erosion at their base is approximately 2cm per year.

That's the end of my Melbourne trip post, next up will be TASMANIA!!

The place to be - Melbourne, the CBD

Basically the CBD of Melbourne is made up from nine vertical and nine horizontal streets. The government is trying to preserve the Victorian style in the CBD and hence most of the high rise and modern buildings are built outside the city. You can get around the city easily by tram, but the traffic can be very confusing too because they have tram lanes and car lanes, and the tram station is in the middle of the road. It even has carriages around the city too! If you take away the cars and the modern trams, it will be just like an old Victorian city.

Melbourne is a vibrant city, even though it is not as fast pacing like Sydney but it's definitely a good place to be at, except the weather is not very nice, the 4 days I was in Melbourne, it was very windy and you see just clouds and more clouds.  It is a smaller city compared to Sydney, Sydney has more high rise buidlings, and more like a business district to me as you can see big, famous, and listed companies around the city and people wearing suits going for work and Melbourne has more tourists and students as the University of Melbourne and RMIT just located around the city, and tourists are just everywhere in the city, like EVERYWHERE. I like how they have information booths and helpers to help the tourists to get around the city, which was really helpful for self-touring tourists like us.

There are a lot of Asians too, it's just everywhere, whenever you blink your eye you see an Asian. The whole city is just like a Chinatown to me, I thought I was in some Asian country. But the good thing is, the Asian groceries and restaurants are everywhere!! And it's cheaper! Well, the cost of living there is cheaper but the rental is crazy!

Okie picturessssssss!!

- The federation Square-

-still around the federation square-

-The very busy Flinders Street Station-

-random building which I found pretty interesting-

-I think this is the old fire station-

-the state library-

-I got locked up in the watch house... =(-

-and got this photo taken, for a crime I did not commit-

-gallop gallop gallop on on the street-

-if you happen to go Melbourne, you HAVE to go to this gelato place in Lygon Street!-

-They have the awesome durian flavoured gelato and it's like you're eating a durian! Their best selling is Ferrero Rocher and I think the 2nd best is the durian flavour already! I had the Durian and Pandan! I miss it alreadyyyyy!!-

-I think this is an exhibition centre or something-

-I am a teapot short and stout, this is in Melbourne Museum, which we got in for free! For being a student!-

-the night view of the city from Yarra river-

-The Crown Casino!! please ignore the stupid pole which trying to steal the spotlight. Everyone was soooo posh and classy looking and made us feel so inferior for wearing just t-shirt, jeans and sneakers.-

-The only picture we took inside of Crown Casino -

That's pretty much about Melbourne city, next up will be the Great Ocean Road!

Holiday

I'm on my mid semester break for 2 weeks and I'll be flying off to Melbourne and Tasmania tomorrow. Bye bye!! Wil blog about the trip when I come back 1 week later. =D

Dust Storm

No I did not edit the picture, this photo is taken in my room at 7.40 in the morning today. The dust is not so thick anymore now but the wind is still very strong. According to the news, it's the worst dust storm in 70 years. And the scientist says there might be another one coming up again tomorrow and Friday. Scaryy.... I need to go stock up my food storage already!

Anyway, it's holiday babeh!! 2 weeks of mid term holiday, not that I'm going anywhere but still it's holiday!! Maybe not exactly a holiday as I have three assignments due when uni reopen. For now, I just want to curl up in my bed watching drama series!!

*praying for a rain*
*praying for the dust storm to go away*
*praying for no more dust storm tomorrow*
*praying for the mid term test results to be at least decent*