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Day-8
I woke up before hubby and we agreed to get the final view of Opera House :P I took along the leftover grapes all the way to Opera House.
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Day-6
Took Airtrain from Central Station to Brisbane Domestic Airport then flew to Sydney. The airstewardess was fatter than me :P Reached Sydney and checked into Base Sydney. Our accommodation seemed to get better and better. The beds were so comfy & bathrooms were very clean. Our roommates were a Korean couple who were not very friendly. Not only they shared a single bed, they even took the bed-sheets of other beds to tie to the poles of the double decker bed, so that they can camp in it. Too bad it's not sound proof, we could hear the guy snoring whole night. I'm lazy to type so much already. It was already about 3pm, so we rushed all the way to Sydney Fish Market to grab some super fresh seafood (but not cheap) and managed to get to Paddy's before it closed at 5pm.
It was a mistake to go to Paddy's. We ended up spending hundreds of dollars at Esprits. 25% of reduced price mah, how to resist :P
After dinner, i decided to cover Hyde Park on the way to Sydney Opera House. It was another mistake. We tried to take picture of the majestic Archibald Fountain - failed. Pic of St Mary's Cathedral - failed. Sydney Opera house & Harbour Bridge - passed.
It was an icy cold that night and strong wind spoilt my mood. Hubby was so mesmerized by Opera House that he didn't want to leave before taking enough pics of that odd building. And also cos we took 45mins to reach that place. The color of my face gradually turned from pale to black >:(
To add to my misery, we were standing outside of the Opera House fine-dining restaurant where diners were wearing sexy evening gowns, laughing while drinking champagne. In the end, to keep myself warm, I hid myself against the wall of the building under a lamp post until hubby finished his assignment. Walking back was another ordeal. I think I fainted on the bed when we reached our room. Here are some pics:
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Day-5
We woke up later than expected and by the time we reached to bus stop, the bus left already. So we had to wait for the second bus at 7.20am. When we finally reached the train station, another bad news - train to Bris delayed for 20mins. It took about 2hours to get to Bris town and another 2hours to get to the zoo from Bris town. This means we'll only reach the zoo by 12pm and I didn't dare to tell the additional 2hours journey to zoo. We reached Brisbane Central Station and quickly checked-in at Base Brisbane Central. The staff was kind enough to upgrade our 8-bed room to 2-bed room, we didn't have to share with anybody but it was at level 3 with no lift!! Anyway, to cut the story short, we reached zoo at 11am+ & didn't miss any show =) For the first time, we had to wear jackets in a zoo instead of usual shirt & shorts & sunblock :P
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Day-4
We went to the same bus stop to take the bus to MovieWorld (From SP, take TX bus to theme parks). Same suggestion, try to reach there before 9am. The crowd at Movieworld was worse than Dreamworld. We were given the timetable for shows and parade in Movieworld, so before the theme park was opened, we planned on what to do first in order to cover the whole place. To our disappointment, Movieworld is a small theme parks & maybe cos we went on weekdays, there was no movie stars around for us to take pic. There were also 6 thrill rides and again i completed 4 & 2 for hubby. There was a ride which was very scary - Scooby-Doo coaster. It was a forward and backward ride, not exactly that fun and i had good time screaming non-stop. Good way to release stress though.
We stayed until it was almost closing time and board the bus back to SP. Went back and packed all our bags as we needed to catch the 6.50am bus to train station to get to Brisbane. Our new roommate - a Korean who stayed in US.
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Day-3
Woke up 7am and i prepared breakfast with the bread & choc spread bought last night. The kitchen was extremely dirty. People just leave the pots and pans in the sink. Kitchen table was full of bread crumbs & instant mee seasoning. Stains everywhere. I put all my things a plastic bag. We brought along some plastic utensils and cups, luckily. I thought ang-moh kitchen is very clean, from tv-show. After breakfast, we went to bus stop to catch the bus to Dreamworld.
(From SP, take TX bus to themeparks, AUD7.60 per person, 1-way). My suggestion is to go there before 10am to avoid the long queue at the ticket counter. We reached there at almost 9am and get to take a lot of pics before the crowd at 10am.
I didn't like Dreamworld that much. Apart from the 6 thrill rides, Tiger Island and Wildlife, there was nothing interesting there. I tried 4 out of 6 thrilling rides, while hubby only took 2 rides. Giant drop was my first ride, i took so much courage to take the ride. The moment the seats rose from ground, i started regretting. It halted at the top with magnificient view but i didn't enjoy it. Then, i heard the signal beep indicating that we're going to drop. My heart stopped a second and off we went. It was really like committing suicide by jumping off tall building. I could feel the anti-gravity experience, strong wind blowing against my face and my eyes were open all the way down. When it finally stopped, i think my heart stopped again too :P Great ride but i will not try it again. 2nd ride was Motocoaster. I didn't know that it was one of the 6 thrill rides. It was like riding motorbike at super high speed and i felt that i could die during the ride. Honestly, Giant Drop was much better than this. At least, during Giant Drop, i dun have to go "head first". 3rd was Tower of Terror. This ride will go the same height as Giant Drop at 30degrees and back. Equally scary. Cyclone was nothing to shout about.
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Day-2
Finally touched down in Coolangatta, Gold Coast International Airport. The weather was not too cold. Hubby had slight problem at the custom counter. He didn't know where is the place we're going to stay and he stupidly told the officer, "I dunno." So both of us were stopped by the custom and i had to expl
It was a small airport with nothing much to blog about. The moment we grabbed our luggage, i dashed to find the local bus stop. Met a friendly guard who directed us to the correct bus stop and we waited for bus along with some people who also arrived in GC for the first time. The bus drivers are very helpful and patient, all you need to do is open your mouth and ask or bring along the address of the place you want to go. You will not go wrong. Take any bus that stops in front of the GC airport bus stop and it will bring you to the next main bus stop where you get Bus-700 to get to Surfer's Paradise. One good thing is, you just need to pay once and then you just show the same bus ticket to the next bus driver. I do not know how the fare is calculate but it's calculated according to Zone. You go figure it out.
The ride took about 40mins and it will stop at every bus stop on the way to Surfer's Paradise. Along the way, you will see beaches on your right and lots and lots of accommodations from hotel to motel. We went pass Pacific Fair shopping complex, Conrad Jupiter casino, Hooters, Sizzlers.....etc and finally the bus stopped in front of Cirle of Cavill. You can even inform the bus driver to let you know which is the correct or nearest stop to get down from the bus.
We walked for like 10mins from Cirle of Cavill to Sleeping Inn, Peninsular Drive, the hostel we booked online. The two heavy luggage made the walk rather difficult. One good thing was, we didn't sweat all the way there. The hostel was like a semi-d house with a mini pool. Not exactly that cheap and i wouldn't recommend it to anybody else unless you can find a cheaper place than this. Some of the staffs there were not friendly & never smile. Since we reached there earlier than the check-in time, we just stored our bags and walked back to SP. First, we went to hunt for Hungry Jack's, a highly recommended place for burgers. I swallowed a Bacon& Egg wrap while hubby went for Whooper. No chili sauce :( Proceeded to SP beach and the waves were crazy and yet you can see so many people sun-bathing at the beach. I was still nicely wrapped in my jacket :P
We also went to enquire bus info since we were going to Brisbane on the 5th day of our trip. There were so many bus companies and we went for the famous one - Greyhound. The price is AUD30 per person for one way trip to Brisbane - 1.5hour ride. I was shocked at the price was not the one i got from internet. Later i found out that the trip to Bris which i obtained from internet was using the public transportation, only AUD21.20 for 2 persons.
After grabbing some maps and mineral waters, we went back our hostel to freshen up before heading to Harbour Town. (From SP, take Bus 709, 703, 700 to HT, AUD3.40 per person, 1-way). Harbour Town is a huge factory outlets. You can from a lot of brands there from sportswear to baby clothings. Some of the prices are not really that cheap after converted back to RM, maybe equivalent to the price in Penang. We managed to grab from clothes from Esprit which was proven to be much cheaper than getting them from Penang (we regretted this when we reached syd - will write about this later). Out-of-season crocs sandals were sold for AUD19.90 per pair!! Sadly, hubby couldn't find the size he wanted and i dun fancy crocs sandals at all. We were looking for cheap local fruits but couldn't find any. I remember my frens telling that the local fruits there are dirt cheap. Maybe we went to the wrong place (we finally found out how cheap the fruits were in Syd). Packed dinner and we went back to SP.
It was a tiring day for us, not to mention the sleepless night before on plane. The other backpackers were not considerate at all. A group of them were playing poker on the dinner table when we went home. In the end, we had to have dinner at the balcony, accompanied by cold breeze & some rains. Bad experience. Oh yeah, we had 4-bed room and our roommate was a German girl. Friendly but very unorganized person. Do you put your toothbrush on the carpet of the room & shaver on the floor of the bathroom shared with soooo many strangers? Anyway, i fainted the moment my head touched the nicely wrapped pillow (i wrapped the pillow with the laundry bag i brought along).
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We packed everything to mum's place, especially khye's milk powder. He has somehow turned into a Milk Monster, finishing a 900g per week (he is only taking 4oz per 3hourly). If he were to take 6-7oz hourly, i will have to buy a cow. Mum prepared fried rice for us for dinner at LCCT. Parents dropped us at the airport and khye waved goodbye just like that. He doesn't cry when he waves good bye at us. He only cries when mil waves good bye to him. Do you think I’ll get jealous becos of that? Of cos not, he is still small & innocent.
We reached LCCT around 5.30pm & the first thing we did was to stop at AA customer service counter to add check-in baggage from AUS-KL, KL-PEN which cost us RM45. You see, if you pre-book AA ticket online, you only need to pay RM5 (domestic) & RM20 (international) for a 15kg check-in baggage allowance. Otherwise, you need to spend RM10 & RM20 respectively if you do it at the check-in counter at the airport. Stingy me, i didn't pre-book check-in baggage allowance online for KL-AUS so ended up, we had to stuff a lot of things in our jackets and pockets. By the way, AA does not weigh your bag at the departure terminal although you can see a big weighing scale there. Unless your bags look heavy or you carry an over-sized handbag or backpack, then good luck. Before we entered the departure terminal, i made one very very stupid statement, "Hide your tickets, dun let the AA girl know we're taking AA flight, so she will not weigh our bags." I forgot LCCT is only for AA flights. So, pls make sure you pre-book your baggage allowance next time.
After much hassle, we went in and settled down (unloaded things from our jackets and pockets) and took turn to bathe before boarding 8-hours flight to Aus. My stupid-ness did not stop there, as usual. I insisted that we sat in the first row so that we could board the flight first. Again i forgot that we have been assigned seat numbers the moment we checked-in. Dearest hubby, this is what happen when we only visit the airport once a year *hint*.
Seats in AA are so minute. You cannot recline the seat like how you normally do it. To recline, you need to glide your body forward and if you have long legs, that spells trouble for you.
You have to pay for everything - blanket, neck pillow, eye masks (RM35). If you're taking the night flight, you just need to keep your stomach full before you board or else you can still get some snacks on board for unreasonable price. Like RM5 for instant Ipoh White Coffee or RM4 for 500ml mineral water. I read about all these before boarding the plane, so i actually brought along empty bottles to fill up water from the water cooler in the departure terminal :P Sleeping was nightmare without neck pillow & 10% recline seat. I didn't bother much and occupied 2 seats to sleep despite a guy sitting in the same row as me. Hubby was lucky enough to get 3 seats to sleep on. The Prudential group members were so noisy and they made it harder for us to get some sleep. At 3am, hubby finally exchg seats with me......heaven and I slept until it was about time to land. People must be cursing us for occupying so many seats.
Oh yeah, if you want a much bigger space to stretch your legs, you have to add additional RM100 per person for the special seats, which is the first row of seats, near the toilets :P Air stewardess tied the safety belts to the trays and disallow people to occupy the seats. A few passengers, who attempted to untie the belts, were shoo-ed away by the air stewardess. We were waiting for the plane to land before continue our itinerary for the day.
My fat Khye has this bad habit of sticking his tongue while doing things. How to prevent this?
