- Loch Ach Gorge
- On the way back from melb
- Sydney Opera House
Me, Nigel & Wen Chin at War Memorial
Xmas dinner - cranberry turkey, steak, salad, soup & wine
- NY eve in melb - 300K ppl!
- june in bourke st mall
Merry xmas and happy new year!!! Apologies for posting such late greetings & news about myself over here in Canberra. Been busy since June came and been busy throughout the festive period. Well, things have been pretty hectic since i last wrote. June arrived in Sydney on my bday and we spent 3 wonderful days in sydney travelling around the biggest city in OZ! We stayed at one of the best apartment with one of the best view overlooking the harbour, had a tremendous dinner at darling harbour, snap-shot ourselves at the harbour bridge & sydney opera house, had dim sum in chinatown, went to Sydney Fish Market and cooked ourselves bloody fresh prawns, fish + some rocking oysters!!! Anyway, it was really happening in sydney as my royal bday clashed with some of australia's biggest event - australia general election, australian idol final, beckham arrived in sydney with LA Galaxy for an exhibition match against Sydney FC and not forgetting the annual xmas parade! And remembering John Howard was just a few blocks away from where we were staying, giving his last speech at the Wentworth Hotel hours after being ousted by Kevin Rudd in the election. What a weekend! And what other way to end my bday nite than with a spectacular fireworks at the opera house? It may be coincidental with the australian idol, but hey, it really made my nite and truly, i had one of the best bdays in my life in sydney.
Less than a week after my gala, wen chin flew over from adelaide and we went around canberra paying visits to the parliament house and war memorial. We rented a little prius to take us around the city and guess what? we drove about 100+ kms and did not even pump it up when we returned the car. AMAZINGLY eco friendly. Had not been doing much since she left as it was really frantic back in the office rushing for god-knows-how-we-achieved deadlines before closing down for the xmas period. Apart from a very welcoming and relaxing xmas lunch in Bungendore, i literally spent my days dreadfully waiting for the coming of santa. :P
Oh, did i mentioned about celebrating winter solstice festival shortly before Nigel left? Ha. Nothing much to brat about it but we did cook up some sumptuous dinner & some mini "tong yuen" to bid our farewell to Nigel and welcome xmas and CNY (in 2 months time :P) with gracious open arms...
Jingle bell, jingle bell.....Xmas came too soon before i realised. And as a matter of fact, it past by too soon, too! It was particularly a quiet xmas, given we celebrated it in CANBERRA and just me & june in the house. No xmas trees, no mistletoe, no carols and no snow...but we still got ourselves some pretty red big socks and had cranberry turkey for xmas dinner! Not too bad, at least i'm with june! The break was good as i managed to stay in the bed till 10 almost every single day and have been staying up till 4 in the morning to watch xmas football on my lil foxtel. Beers, chips, chocolates, snacks, late night mee goreng...i reckon i bloated about few kilos extra during xmas! Darn...
Melbourne! The flight to melbourne was an occasion worth remembering as it was me & june first flight together! Haha. After almost 7 years, imagine that... Arrived in melb, hopped on the shuttle and off we went to our motel/backpacker. The place was OK and can't complain much since it was dirt cheap. The only thing, and to our horror is...no aircond! SH*T. And it was a sweltering 41C in downtown Melb + i did not pack any shorts with me given that i almost chilled to death on my last trip to melb during the same period last year! i say blame it on global warming! We unpacked (sort of just dumping our bags and jumped straight out from the room) and went straight to do exactly what we came here to do - xmas sales shopping! I would seriously say that shopping in Melb is much more enjoying than doing it in sydney. 2 words to sum it up - glamourous & chic. Swanston & Bourke St was such a pleasure to shop around albeit the freaking weather. At night, we walked quite a distance to Lygon for our NY eve's dinner and damned the manager for giving us a seat right outside under such hot conditions! Villa Romana, as usual, was superb as we had mussels for entre and rissoto + fettucini for mains. Next up was the hot and long walk to Fed Sq where a sea of crowd was already filling up Swanston St and Fed Sq by 10pm. About 300k reportedly were in the streets. 41C? No. I reckon it felt like 45-50 when you are swarmed by 300k ppl! GAWD! At around 2355, ppl started getting into this frenzy kind of rave party around us as it was less than 5 minutes before we ushered in the new year. Much more happening than counting down in KL i supposed! Strucked midnight, the melb sky was lit up by dazzling colours of ravishing fire works left and right, front and back! The fire works lasted a good 15 minutes. Simply beautiful! Couples hugged and kissed while friends jumped abruptly in circles saying goodbye to 2007 and welcoming 2008. Sensational atmosphere as we stood among the thousands, basking in the heat and the feeling of brand new year. Welcome 2008...
Our last day in melb was a long and winding drive along the majestic great ocean road. We drove-thru McD for lunch and from Geelong onwards it was a pretty scenic route and June snapped shot away as we drove past Torquay, Apollo Bay etc. After about 5 hours driving, we finally reached the 12 Apostles (well, 8 to be exact). It was as grand and magnificient as usual and this time, i tagged june along to Loch Ard Gorge i.e blowhole (i know, it sounds a bit corky) & the infamous ship wreck (we saw none apparently). By the time we hit the road again, the sun was already starting to set down on us and we took another 3 hours + to get back to the city. A record IMHO *grin* :) We were dead hungry by the time we reached the city and had hopefully wanted to get some quick dinner along China Town but to our dissapointment, not that many restaurant actually open for such late suppers. Anyhow, we did find one and our ex-classmate managed to join us for a late yum cha. Have not seen her since high school, seriously. And somehow we bumped into each other in the streets and managed to catch up on some old time. In all, we both enjoyed the trip tremendously and hopefully the next xmas holis is just 'round the corner!
