Coincidentally I was chatting with my Aussie fren, Ben on iMessage and telling him I intended to visit Sydney somedays and he was telling me how he was supposed to go Lombok to visit a fren but he cancelled it last min. And I could not rem how the convo suddenly switched to us planning for a trip to Sydney together! I just need to book a flight to Sydney and as he stayed in Melbs, he just need to fly 1-hr domestic to Sydney. Seemed like a perfect plan! I get to visit my Sydney and he got to getaway for a short break. And both of us would have a travel companion!
And as I was booking my trip to Sydney (flying 24 Jan 2am was the best-price!), thinking if I should return to SG on Tue or Wed, Ben suggested that I might as well add another 2 or 3 days to make up a week and fly back to SG on sunday instead. I could go back Melb with him and hang out there. He would do all the bookings and planning, which was fantastic for me cos I hate planning! :p
Mmm... Sound like a crazy idea! Cos I'm always very uptight about work and not used to taking long leaves. But then... I have reminded myself that I have promised to make sure I must do all the must-do travellings in 2013 and take a step back from work. And since Ben had an apt to stay, I won't be spending a lot anyway (cos I need to save up for my Europe and US trip). And coincidentally, flights back to SG are so much cheaper than flights from Sydney! So, out of impulse, I booked a 1-way flight to Sydney with Scoot and 1-way flight back to SG from Melb with Jetstar!
Itinerary:
24-29 Jan = Sydney
30 Jan - 3 Feb = Melb
Seem like a good plan!
How exciting!!! My first time with Scoot! My Spanish teacher reco this airline cos of its cheap flights to Sydney. It was quite cheap as compared to other airlines!
But....
This will be my first and last with Scoot! There was a big SAGA on Sun 20 Jan whereby 20+ passengers were asked to get off the plane due to some technical issues with the back door of the plane. As a result, every single flight were delayed at least 4-5 hours! I was sooooo worried that my flight will be delayed cos I didn't want to spend my night at the airport! Imagine checking in at midnight and wait till 5am for the flight in cold cold airport?! No way!!!
But I guess I was very very lucky that all the flights were back on schedule on 23 Jan! Hahaha!!! 1 day before my departure! I'm damn lucky lor! Anyway, the flight was on time and the plane was fantastic! Actually if not for the boo-boo, I guess I might want to book Scoot again! But right now, I can't take another such scare!
Reached Sydney in 8 hours and I was feeling perfect! The weather was slightly hot (not surprising! I brought a whole bottle of sunblock!). I went to get a cab and the cab driver was very friendly. We talked throughout the journey! Reached hotel (Swissotel) in about 30min, damn nice place and location! It was just opposite the Sydney Tower, walking distance to darling harbour and opera house! DAMN GOOD! Ben booked it, guess he knew his stuff! Hahaha!! So great to go travelling without having to do any planning.. yayayay! :p
Fell asleep waiting for Ben to arrive... It was so comfy in the room! But I got some bad leg crams and that woke me up! Trying to get back to sleep... And in a while, Ben came in! Hahah! So embarrassed to be still in bed! Anyway, we chatted a bit and did a little planning on what we should do in Sydney... I totally have no idea what to do, I only know about Opera house, nothing else! Haha! :p
The next we knew, it was at night when we left to find food. We surprised that most of the places were closed around 9pm and the streets were basically empty and quiet! Oh well, its a Thursday, so I guess people must be back home after happy hour drinks. Luckily we found a hotel (cannot rem the name!) that had a dining place that was willing to take us in even though the kitchen was about to close. It was a nice quiet hotel along Elizabeth street (near Opera house). After dinner we walked over to Opera house and the bars were crowded with people!
It was rather chilly at night but I loved such weather. It was such a nice change from the usual humid warm weather in SG. After a drink at one of the bars there, we decided to go back early so that both of us could have a good rest. But in the end, we ended up watching a in-room movie "Argo" till 2am! Hahaha! It's a nice movie, although the ending quite expected.
We went up Sydney Eye Tower (Click here: http://www.sydneytowereye.com.au/) the next day, to have a bird-eye view of Sydney. It was fantastic! We started off with a 4D short video clip on Sydney.
Hated the glasses, but oh well, the clip was good, gave us an idea of the whole Sydney. We then went up the tower and the scenery was breathtaking!
(See the nice blue sky? I totally loved it!)
Spotted the Sydney Harbour bridge.
Above is a cathedral, which we walked past the previous night. Very nice architect!
(Above is the stadium, apparently quite popular, I guess)
(We can catch a small view of Opera house, not the full view though.)
(See? I spotted a small "effiel Tower" lookalike! See below for better view!)
Wonder what was the building??? Haha!
After Sydney eye tower, we took a walk back to our hotel for a short rest (yes, we were old people, needed a lot of rest!) before we made our way to Darling harbour for dinner and chill.
The sun was really scorching at this moment! But there was some cool breeze, so not that bad! I had my body covered with sun-block, so I guess I'm pretty safe!!! :)
The sun was setting and the view was fantastic. There were some shows happening there as tomorrow was Australia day (I didn't even know it was their National day on 26 Jan!). Ben was telling me that there must be some sort of fireworks tomorrow. So we made a mental note to drop by here again tomorrow night.
(Sydney bridge at night. It looked sooo peaceful... )
We made an impromtu decision to watch a movie - Skyfall at iMax at darling harbour! It was freaking expensive! Click here: http://www.imax.com.au/home/ . I have never been to iMax cinema before, I didn't know the screen was soooo darn BIG! Daniel Craig was sooooo BIG on the screen.. haha! It was a great night out!
And then it came Australia Day! We decided to take a cruise down the river so that we could catch all the places at one-go! Well, since it was Australia day, I guess its a great day to do the touristy stuffs cos I'm sure there would be tons of people doing the same! We thought of going for the "coffee cruise" but we have to board at other pier. So we decided to do the Captain Cook's "hop-on hop-off" cruise at Darling harbour (reco from the Sydney guide book I took from the airport).
Click here to see Captain Cook website.
We hop on to the cruise and we could hop off at any of the destination. We were too lazy to hop off at all the locations, so we only hop off at Luna park to take a break and a walk. The weather was nice! We were very lucky!
Simply loved the blue sky with low-clouds!
Another cruise ship fleeted past us... With a banner shouting "Aussie Aussie Aussie"! So funny...
Had a better view of Opera house from the cruise!
(A posey ben! Hahah!)
The bridge looked very huge and solid! There were people on top arch-part of the bridge! I guess they opened for tourists during Australia day!
We decided to take the monorail back to hotel for a rest before venturing out to Darling harbour for dinner and fireworks! The sunset at darling harbour was fantastic and sure enough, many people were already gathered there to wait for the Australia day ship parade show and fireworks! We had to wait about 20-30 min for a place in the restaurant (decided to try the chinese food there). Pretty long queue, must be good, right? :)
Finally the sun has set (and we have filled our stomach - I had laksa and he fried rice! Yummy) and it was about 8pm by then.
We decided to brave the crowd and walked towards the centre to get a good view of the fireworks and the ship parade.
(See the crowd? It was amazing!)
Finally the fireworks, which lasted around 15 min, I think? And it was already near 10pm.
See the crowd leaving the harbour?
It was basicallly 人挤人! Hahah! I guess it should be the same for our National day parade, but I have never been to one! Hahaha! :p
Well, we were so tired by now (our 4th day!) and so we decided to have a slow and quiet Sunday. We took a slow walk from our hotel to Oxford street.
And we had a good coffee break at one of the book cafe (where I bought a book! Yeah!). It was not cheap though but I really need a book as the one that I brought was not nice. :( I hope this book would be nice! :)
It was drizzling the whole day though. After a long wet walk to Oxford, we took a cab back to Queen Victoria building. This is an iconic building and I didn't even know it was actually a high-end Shopping mall! The architect was fantastic and I was totally mesmerized by the interior and exterior designs!
See the unique staircase?? Wow....
(Another posey Ben! Nooooooo... Do it again!)
That's much better! Hahaha!! The best tour guide for me! (eh... that's my new book under his armpit! Hahahaha!!!)
And the funny thing is... As we have no where in particular to go, we decided that perhaps we should walk towards the museum. Seem pretty close by anyway. But we walked and walked and didn't seem quite right! So we stopped and looked at the map and realised that we walked the wrong direction! HAhahaha! That was funny! We landed up in Chinatown and we took a short walk at Paddy's Market. And I bought my cutie phone cover and fluffy pink feathery accessory for my iphone. Great! Blessings in disguised! We were quite drenched by then and we took the monorail back to hotel to rest and wash up... It was definitely a wet and fun day!
Feeling lazy... We catched another movie at night after a quick Macca dinner. This movie was fantastic! Definitely a good choice over the rest! "This is 40" 值回票价! I laughed so much that it really felt great to be on holidays! :)
The next day we checked out of hotel and took the hotel limo to our next hotel, Bellagio by the Sea (click here: http://www.bellagiobythesea.com.au/) at Collaroy Beach. It continued to drizzle the whole day and I guess it has to do with the flooding in Brisbane. Sydney had been raining since Sunday! But I was lucky, at least the first 3 days were bright and sunny and I managed to catch all the must-go places and witness nice blue sky! Now it has became very grey and gloomy.
We reached our hotel and it was still raining! The weather forecast told us that the rain would go on for the whole day! So... we decided to go lunch first, then walked to the nearest supermart and stock up some snacks and borrowed 2 DVDs to spend our day entirely at the hotel. :)
We braved the rain and had a quick lunch at the Beach Club (nearest to our hotel). I got to know what does RSL mean! It is a place that offers good discounts for senior citizens. Interesting! Anyway, the beach looked nice but too bad, it was raining very heavily! We were totally wet!!!
The hotel is nice! It was actually an apartment, with a living room and 2 bed-rooms.
Nice sea view from the balcony.
(Opps, messy room!)
While lazing on the couch after lunch, watching news on the floods in Brisbane, caught sight of Ben's wrinkles.. Hahahah! Evil me! I know I know... It's gonna be my turn soon, retribution coming!... But I'm investing in eye serum and eye creams!
Well, it's still raining and thus, we had a relaxing evening, staying in, watching 2 DVDs (Campaign and Ted) and having wine and my favorito snacks, Cheezels! :) The movies were super hilarious! It felt so good to laugh out loud and I loved the feeling of being happy!
The next day, I'm fooling around the apartment while Ben was off at the gym! I simply love my pinky slippies! Only S$4, bought at the flea market in BKK!
la la la la~~~ Yawn... Ben was gone for more than 30min... Guess he must be on the treadmill...
It's so nice to have a quiet and relaxing rainy day after 4 days of city sightseeing!
Since the weather has turned better, not much rain, we decided to rent a car to drive to Manly beach and also to drive around the area. We could have the car till next morning, which was just nice for us as we need to get to the airport before noon. We could drop the car at the airport, so convenient!!! :)
But.... We need to walk from our hotel to the car rental shop, which Ben told me supposedly should be quite near... We were at unit 1126, Avis was at unit 800++ (something like that, can't rem the exact unit number). So we thought it should be quite near to take a walk since the weather was nice and cool.
We walked and walked and walked... But we just can't seem to get closer to 800 + units! We walked for an hour and we were only around unit 850... hahaha!!! But its a good walk! I passed by many good and nice houses.... We think we definitely need a coffee and we chanced upon a small quiet nice cafe (we nearly walked past it cos it looked like a child-care centre!)
It was called "Cloud Nine" cafe... Awwwww..... Cute!!! There were small children chairs and small cute little decorations. But the coffee was fantastic! It was sooo cheap too! Each cup only A$3.30! Ben was sooo facinated by its coffee that we went back to this cafe to buy take-away coffee after we came back from the spin at Manly.
With good coffee in our system, we finally reached our destination! AVIS!!! And we got our car! no more walking!!! YAY!!!
We got a small car and took a drive to Manly beach. As the weather was still a bit grey, and tides were high and strong, not reco for any swimmers or surfers. Thus the beach was a bit deserted.
We decided to go for lunch near the beach....
Not feeling very hungry so I only had clam chowder with garlic bread... And the clam chowder was exceptionally BIG!!!
After lunch, we walked across to Manly Wharf... See the nice blue sky with stunning clouds? Simply my kind of place! I'm gonna stay here forever!!!
In the evening, we took another drive out to Palm beach, using the GPS...
The sea looked terribly nice especially during sun set... Awwwwww........... I don't wanna leave!!!!
Loved all the beaches here at Manly....
Oh wells... It's our last night at Bellagio and our last night at Sydney. We will be flying off to Melbs tomorrow! Time flies! Actually we intend to borrow some DVDs to enjoy our last night here at Collaroy, but the store was closed. Awwwww ..... Anyways, I loved Sydney already!
The morning at Bellagio was emotional and peaceful. We had already packed our stuff the night before, so we didn't really have to rush.
Bye Sydney sun (and rain!)! I'm gonna miss you!!!
We drove to the airport around 9am (stopping by Cloud Nine cafe again for some take-away coffees!) and reached airport really ahead of time! Traffic was good and all was well!
We took Tiger Airway back to Melb and I totally knocked out in the plane! Hahaha! as usual!
We reached Melb in around 1 hour... And we took a cab to Ben's apt... Oh by the way, during our trip in Sydney, he had finally made a decision to move back to Adelaide and take up a new job over there. So technically, this will be his last few days in his apt and Melb as well! He surely had a lot of friends to catch up before he leave this state.
His apt was fantastic! On the 21 floor, the view was mesmerizing! And he is only paying A$700 a month! damn cheap!!!
We unpacked our stuff a bit and rested a while before going out for early dinner and some grocery shopping. We bought some fruits and snacks and water... It was ages since I tasted Vanilla Coke!
The plan was that we hang out here in Melb and on Sunday, after sending me to airport, Ben will drive to Adelaide and start his new job and life back there.
I cannot rem how the bizarre idea sparked.. But Ben was always talking about how nice was Adelaide and that he can't wait to go back... Since I haven't been there before (and I didn't have any plans for Melbs), I was thinking that perhaps I could go Adelaide with him! It was such a great idea that made both of us so excited!
Now we need to solve the logistic issue. My flight was 12noon from Melb-SG. I tried to check if I could change the flight to Adelaide-SG but I can't cos I bought the budget ticket where no changes were allowed. Aww.... I even checked the cost of a new flight from Adelaide back SG, but I need to top up more than A$200+. Not worth it. When I was about to give up, Ben suggested to check flights from Adelaide to Melbs on Sun morning. What a great idea! And sure enough, I was lucky that Qantas had a morning flight from Adelaide and reached Melb at 920am, just nice for me to catch my 12noon flight back SG! The cost was not too high too, about A$120. With this amount, I can get to see another state of Australia, why not??? :)
With everything booked and set, we realized that we only have this ONE night at this apartment afterall! What!!! This is such a nice place and we only just got in here. And we have to leave tomorrow afternoon! AWWWWWWW....... But no choice, it was going to be a 8-hours drive to Adelaide. We need to start our journey tomorrow afternoon so that we could reach Adelaide tomorrow 10pm. And we would have 2 full days to enjoy Adelaide. :)
With this new impromptu plans set, Ben started to unpack his apt immediately. This would be technically his last night here and he had to quickly search for a moving company to transport his furniture and stuffs to Adelaide. He could bring with him clothes and daily stuffs so that he could start work on Monday. He will be staying with his parents temporarily.
So he spent the whole night packing his stuff, and I spent the night lazing around watching tv and drinking white wine. Hahaha!!! :p
The morning in Melb was great! Especially the good view from his apartment!
Ben woke up soooo early in the morning to put all the clothes and stuffs into his car! It was so funny! His ford was soooo packed up with things that he totally can't see anything from his rear mirror. I helped a bit okay! :)
Then he was off to catch up with his friends while I packed and lazed at his apartment watching tv and drinking coffee. I can't take many photos cos the place was in a mess with all the stuffs lying all around! Hahaha!
Finished packing and while watching tv, decided to laze and 自恋一下... Hahaha!!!
Finally my man is back and we loaded our luggage into his already-super-loaded car and embarked on our 8-hours drive!
It was exciting as I have never thought of going Adelaide and have no idea what to expect. It's gonna be random!
Hmmm... we saw dark clouds forming! Oh oh... Raining soon!
Sure enough, it started to drizzle and rain a bit only...
And then along the way, we saw a very STRANGE cloud....
Look like a huge centipede!
So strange!!! It was a nice peaceful drive. I didn't know his car could do auto cruising! So cool!
We reached a small town (H-something... can't remember!) to find food and pump diesel (so cool for a car to run on diesel!)... This town was... DESERTED! So strange! It was only 6pm and every shops and even cinema was closed! What?! Hahahha! It was soooo strange!
Finally we found a small cafe and we thought it was closed. Well, technically they are about to close! See? They have already kept all their chairs and there was a small boy mopping and sweeping the floor. But we saw some people in there and so we went in. Luckily they are still operating (closing in 20min time!). So we ordered our food. It was sooooo cheap! A fried fish only cost A$5! Wow!
The food was Okay but we were hungry so I guess we gobbled down the food in record-fast time! :) Most of the customers of this shop were for take-away pizzas. The time that we were there waiting and eating, there were at least more than 7 customers dropping by to pick up their pizzas orders.
We continued our way after food and we finally crossed the state line for South Australia!
It was nearly 9pm but the sky was still so bright! Then we remembered that there was a 30min time difference, so it might be still 830pm.
Finally we reached our hotel at Glenelg around 1030pm and checked into the perfect apartment! :) Once again, the apartment was so nice and comfy that I felt like coming back home! We didn't do much as it was late and Ben was tired from all the driving. So we had an early night (early for me but late for him!).
The next morning, I took a morning break at the balcony and oh man! The air was soooo fresh! I nevver had such good air before! Falling in love with this small town arleady!
We stayed near the west beach at Glenelg, so we decided to take a walk along the beach and have our morning coffee around that area.
We passed by the town hall... Nice building!
The morning breeze was too cold! And thus there weren't many people hanging around the beach. The area around town was empty too. We found a nice place for coffee (with an over-enthu waitress!)... It was a great start to a great day in Adelaide!
Ben took me for a walk at the botanic garden. It was peaceful with great air!
(Interesting carpark ticket!)
We took a walk along town and city and he showed me his new office... hahah! It was late afternoon by then and I wanted a good coffee! So he brought me to this place. Nice decor!
It was evening and we went to Chinatown and have a nice dinner at a chinese restaurant - the name was "Ky Chow", I think. Thereafter, we decided to watch tv in the room. We are meeting Ben's fren the next morning so we had an early night. We were quite tired by then!
We had a good meet-up with Ben's fren, Terry and Rachel with their 2 cutie daughters! We have breakie at Central market in Chinatown. Terry and rachel had just shifted back to Adelaide from Melb and they were looking for a house. So since we did not have any plans, we decided to follow Terry to their first open house visit. It was a nice attached house, cost around A$550K, I think. Aww... That was soooo Cheap!!! I could only buy a small condo with that kind of money! Thereafter we left Terry and we went to view some of the houses that Ben was thinking of buying. I guess it was really good living in small towns cos the air is fresh and houses were cheap. Life was slow and peaceful without the usual city bust and stress! Good place to retire!
We then went over to the Adelaide hills. There was a observatory deck there for tourists to orientate themselves with Adelaide.
Wow... See the sky and the low-clouds!
We had a short break at Stirling Hotel lounge, which I had the best bowl of french fries and Coke light! See here: http://www.stirlinghotel.com.au/
After having a long drive up and down the hills, we decided to go back to the hotel to catch a nap. We passed by Penfolds winery and I decided to take a few photos to show Betsy.. Haha!
I didn't know I was really soooo tired and I knocked out completely in bed! When I woke up, it was already evening and we didn't feel like going out again. So we decided to drop by to the nearby stores to grab chinese takeaway.
I was soooo facinated by this packaging! See those nice handles! No wonder the food was sooo expensive (A$9.90 for a small pack of Mee goreng!), I think surely about 10-15% goes to the producing the box!!!
We had a good carbo-laded chinese dinner and we lazed at the couch watching tv... Glenelg Adelaide night was good... It was my last night here and I had to catch an early 730am flight back to Melb the next day... Awwwwwww.... Time was so short!!!
Goodbyeeeeeeeeeeeee Adelaide!!!
I was glad that I woke up in time to rush to the airport by 630am! The sun was rising and the feeling was mixed and emotional.
I was going back home and starting work the next day. Ben was starting a new job and a new chapter of his life back in Adelaide. So both of us were quite emotional.... :(
It was definitely an emotional goodbye at the airport and the Qantas air-stewardess was staring at both of us when we were saying goodbye in tears... Hahaha... She must be thinking what's wrong with the both of us! :p
Finally I boarded the plane back from Adelaide to Melb on time and after spending about an hour checking into my Jetstar flight to SG, I have about an hour to hang around in the airport before boarding the plane back to SG.
Bought myself one last coffee in Aust, and looking back at my 10 days holiday trip to Sydney, Melb and last-min Adelaide, I would say that this is one of my most memorable trup! Cos i have a good travel companion Ben, who was always so sweet and buying me coffee at times when I needed one, and eating Chinese food with me cos I couldn't live without chilli sauce! I am glad to have such a companion!
Ciao Australia! And I guess I won't be going back again! Hahahha!
I am going to Paris-London in May and possibly Spain-Italy in Sep and maybe New York!
So that means... I need earn more $$$$!
HUAT arh!!!
