Australia : Day 2

Day-1, Day-2, Day-3, Day-4, Day-5, Day-6, Day-7, Day-8

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).

Australia: Day 1

I was back from Aus trip for like a month, but i haven't even blogged about my trip. There are so much thing to blog about as it was our first trip ala-backpacker. We booked the free AA tickets since Aug-08 but I didn't do any homework back then due to laziness. The real work only started about 2 mths before my trip and that's when i had to bug several people whom had actually been to Aus recently. Those unfortunate candidates are like CW, WY, SF, JoeyC & my sis's sil =)

A day before my departure, at 9.30am, i received a sms from AA saying that my flight has been cancelled and been postponed to much later time & contact a phone number for assistance. Fearing the flight would be further delayed and we had a connecting flight to catch, i spent about an hour trying to contact AA customer service personnel. It took us forever and i tried several AA phone numbers i googled. Finally, a human answered our call and it was confirmed that we would be able to catch our connecting flight in time.

Day-1, Day-2, Day-3, Day-4, Day-5, Day-6, Day-7, Day-8

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.

tongue

My fat Khye has this bad habit of sticking his tongue while doing things. How to prevent this?

Twins

Just want to share with everybody my sis's newly born twins. I think the girl has "honest" look . I'm officially an "er yi" now...as in 2nd aunt, not crocodile.

No names for both of them yet as the parents are undecided of the names. About 2 more weeks to go before they get fined by the government.

being temperamental

The previous post was written before lunch, was being rather emotional when hunger strike. After a few laughs on marriage, divorce & going on labor, my mood is stable again. No more negative chi, for the time being :D

oh well....

Last night i lost my temper again putting khye to sleep. It was not that he didn't want to sleep, there was another obvious reason. Earlier that night, my mum broke the news of other my sis is expecting. Oh, so two of them are preg but i'm not. I was supposed to be happy for her like the rest but selfish me, i was sad, disappointed, angry, frustrated, envious and all negative feelings & thoughts came at once. Almost immediately, my mood went down. Negative chi followed me all the way home last night and all the way to office today.

I'm still very very hurt.

someone put a threat on Sunshine Farlim on 4 April 2009?

Note: I bet nobody has blogged about Sunshine Farlim 4 April 2009 night incident.

My Saturday routine is always the same. Tumble Tots then spend whole Saturday at mum's place together with my parents, sis and bro-in-law. We went to Sunshine Farlim right after dinner which was about 8pm+. It was raining so heavily but the place was still packed as ever, most probably there was a sale again. After sending some time a the ground floor, we found out that khye poo-ed. So mum & i had to bring khye for washing and change into new diaper in the ladies. The moment we reached the toilet, we saw about 5 cleaners in woman's toilet. 3 of them were guarding a cubicle while the other 2 were talking in a serious tone. My mum asked them whether we can use the toilet to clean khye's buttock or not. We were then told that "rosak". But, why do we need 5 cleaners in toilet? My first thought was they caught a molester? Since we did want to spend time looking for another toilet, we went into the gent's. Just as mum took off khye's diaper, i heard hubby calling for me. I thought he was just being impatient. But, he repeated my name so many times and getting louder, at the same time asked me to come out immediately, we started to realise something was not right. Hubby never acted that way before. Mum opened the door and hubby asked us to get out of the building right away. I was still carrying khye in superman position with his poo stuck to his buttock. Not knowing what actually happened, i followed hubby's instruction and dashed towards the main entrance. Before i reached the main entrance, i noticed that the shopping mall was almost empty & all i can think of was where is my heavily preg sis?!?!?! She was supposed to meet us after her toilet visit. But carrying khye (still in superman position with you-know-wat stuck to his butt, i ran all the way out from the building. Outside i was greeted with a bunch of salesgirls & guards asking me to slow down. Some of them even laughed when they saw khye. It was a good thing, nobody took any pic of us. The place was crowded and we saw a few patrol cars while we tried to clean up Khye. Khye didn't make a fuss at that time, lucky for us. Hubby was explaining that the moment the 3 of us went into the toilet, there was an announcement made, which he thought was happy hour sale or things like that. Manatau, it was to evacuate the building immediately.

With my one week old canon ixus 870is, i was snapping pics like nobody's biz. Taking pics of the whole scene & even recorded some videos. I was actually afraid that the police will confiscate my digicam since i was the only one taking pics with a cam, not phone. Soon after that, we saw a videoman arrived but dunno from which tv channel as there was no logo printed on the jacket. Another one arrived with a DSLR. I was joking with my family members of selling my pics and video to these reporters :P Unfortunately, nobody bothered to ask me anything and i didn't dare to approach any of these guys. Silly me even took pics with hubby in front of the mall, to prove that we were there.

What had actually happened, we'll have to find out in tomorrow's papers. I wonder what happened to those people who haven't paid for their dinner bills in restaurants inside Sunshine Farlim :P

These are pics taken by me :D

Taken by my dad :P

khye's hiding place

Last Sunday, both hubby and i almost ransacked whole house to find his bunch of house keys. At first, hubby tot i was the one who took the keys. When i told him i haven't seen his keys, he went to search his car and even the place where we put our keys. Couldn't find them anywhere.

Then, it was my turn to ransack the whole. I searched in all possible places - toilet, kitchen cabinets, fridge, freezer, washing machine, khye's cupboard, my drawers, but failed to find the keys.

Hubby was getting restless and he went for another round of checking and after a few mins, he came back into the room with the keys. Khye was the culprit. So the next day, hubby put the keys back at the same place where he found them and asked khye "Khye, where are the keys? Please give me the keys." See where khye hid them and the strange thing was he remembered where he put them.....

hair cut

We took khye for his second hair cut after pestering from both grandparents. The first haircut costed RM2, and made him look like a kampong boy. It's not consider very cheap too, looking at the amount of hair khye has.

About 2-3months later, which was last Saturday, hubby wanted to have a haircut so three of us went together to the salon. Hubby was thinking of getting the hairdresser to cut his hair and conveniently thought that khye's will be free. How silly & dumb :P She was going to charge RM5 for khye's haircut, which i said no.

After hubby's haircut, we went to the neareset mamak barber, RM3. Surprisingly, khye was behaving quite well. I put him on the chair and for the first time, someone really cut his hair instead of just shaving. Through out the entire session, he was holding a cassette in his hands so hard but still managed to give us a smile while hubby was taking his pics. He was feeling ticklish all the way until he could hold on to his tears anymore, just in time for the final snip. Another silly one.

he looks cute, isn't he? :D

behaving so well, notice the cassette?

with his Tumble Tots backpack

unfinished business

Still the same topic. He says wait till Khye reaches 2yrs old and when the time is right. Who knows when the right time is?

Khye turns two on Feb-10 & if we're lucky, we'll be expecting a second one in Dec-10. If we start now, we'll be expecting the new born by Jan-10. Same year, rite? Why wait? Only Buddha knows how many reasons i've listed for hubby & how many sessions of fight we had over this matter. @#$#!*@!!!!!

Khye is going to be spoilt & pampered by everybody. Khye is going to become the most selfish person among his cousins. Khye is going to lose his close family members once we're not around anymore. If i were to die tomorrow, i will return and haunt hubby on my unfinished business.

Strange thing is, my friends whose hubbies didn't want more than a kid are all expecting 2nd kid now, AFTER being brainwashed by me. My hubby is a stone statue.