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oz again

konbanwa, anata~

our trip to Sydney started a lil miserably. the 8-hour AirAsia flight to Coolangatta was unbearable. nothing to do, nothing to read, and i couldn’t even sleep because the seats couldn’t recline much and it didn’t have good head support so my neck was constantly aching.

we then had a day to kill before we fly from Gold Coast to Sydney the same night, so we threw our luggage into a locker and took the local bus down to Surfer’s Paradise. i was originally thinking of going north towards Coolangatta to check out the retiree town, but mom wanted to have a preview of the range of accommodation available to prepare for our own stay this 11th. the bus took about an hour to get to the end of Cavill Ave, and we took our time looking at all the different places.

yes, i’ve seen it all! altho now a McDonalds has recently popped up, and i now know the locations of some of the smaller attractions, like Infinity. still, generally it’s the same old Surfer’s Paradise i came to know of in August. and due to my lack of sleep/rest, i was grumpy and snappy all day. the only thing interesting that happened today was when the coast guard cleared the surf when a snake appeared.

but despite that, tis still interesting to see how Surfer’s Paradise is like in the summer. the warm sun together with gentle cool breezes was a lot nicer on the skin than in winter. the place is teeming with ‘schoolies’, kids out for fun after school’s over. tis a major booty fest, but while my eyes wandered occasionally, my thoughts stayed focus on you.

after having nothing else to do, we took the bus back to the airport. we had plenty of time before check-in, so we took another nap at the terminal. as soon as the counters opened, i was there right up front with our luggage. then we had another 2 hours to spare before our departure, so we just loitered around having tea, reading books off the shelves, and playing Boulder Dash on the phone.

it was just about time to board when they announced that our flight was delayed due to a technical problem. turned out that the plane ran into a bird on the way in. things looked bleak when they announced that the service might be cancelled (we didn’t get my mom any travel insurance), but we were lucky when they managed to get a replacement plane from Melbourne. so we departed about 1 1/2 hours later than expected, but surprisingly arrived in Sydney according to the earlier schedule.

but anyways, Ayin’s friend couldn’t pick us up, so we just took a cab to UNSW. once you see the face of a loved one, all the weariness just washes away. am now all nice and clean after the 24-hour journey, and here on my sister’s notebook sharing our experiences with you. this looks to be my only avenue of communication, as the phones are low on battery and we’re without a charger (thought i could use my sister’s Nokia 6300 one, but it has a different jack >_<). oh well…

am missing you dearly. tis just strange not having you close by.

singapore = food + music

Nope, not promoting Singapore in general. But leave me in the hands of my Singaporean relatives and I’m immersed in a blown-out food fiesta! I swear each time I’m there I feel like I’ve gained kilos but tis mere illusion blown away as soon as I reach home.

Sat Lunch: Mak Tam’s homemade briyani (3 servings) and awesome fried chicken.
Sat Dinner: More briyani~! And more chicken!
Sat Supper: Tidbits from Jogja~ spinach and mushroom crisps~
Sun Breakfast: Singapore Murtabak!
Sun Lunch: Mak Tam’s homemade lontong~! More chicken!
Sun Dinner: Ria’s Ayam Penyet~!
Mon Breakfast: simple breakfast ^_^
Mon Lunch: Char kuew teow at Banquet
Mon Dinner: Mak Abang’s awesome chicken rice!!!!
Sometime in Mon: Bakerzin’s Desire, and choco-banana macaroon~
Tues Breakfast: simple breakfast again ^_^
Tues Lunch: Mak Abang’s awesome chicken rice again!!
Tues Dinner: Shared pasta at TCC
Tues Supper: Shish kebab at Al-Majlis on Arab St + banana split~
Wed Breakfast: Kacang pol~
Wed Lunch: Islamic’s mutton briyani~

Thanks so much to ichaya for taking care of me during my stay. ^_^ Even managed to catch up with most of the Twit Gang on Monday night when they came over for chicken rice. XD Darryl is just hilarious! Too bad Lizzie no want to come out. <pout>

Also managed to catch the R-21 version Lust, Caution. Porn scenes aside, the movie was actually pretty good. ^_^ Still, wish I could get that image of Tony Leung’s <bleeps> out of my mind. Argh!

Later went to the Asian Heritage Museum to take a look at the Nalanda trail exhibition. It does bring back distant memories of Asian culture studies back from the day. I went to a similar exhibit once in LA to do a paper on Asian artifacts; sure feels nostalgic.

The Linkin Park concert itself was a blast!! We started an hour late cuz they were taking their time letting people in but once it started all gripes disappeared in the energy of the performance. They played a good mix of their old and new songs, so us loyal oldies had a really good time singing along to Hybrid Theory and Meteora. Feels like age is catching up to me though: my arms were aching from the constant waving (handbanging? XD)  and I couldn’t last standing through the whole thing (stopped to sit awhile during a light song). But yeah, well worth the trip! ^_^

On a side note, my niece and nephew have grown. Afiq is hefty for a 6-year old, and his antics are amusing as always. Najiha is just adorable as always, but still shy shy since I haven’t seen her for so long. A strong-minded one that one. ^_^;;

mewr

Watched P Ramlee The Musical on Sunday. It was really good, beyond my initial expectations. The group performances were alright, but it was the solos that totally hit the spot. Siti Nurhaliza and Liza Hanim’s songs were so good that I had goose bumps most of the time, and their lyrics were so meaningful as well. Sean Ghazi was just brilliant, and totally blew us away with his performance. Stage props were interesting, and well used as well. ^_^

Plus I had the pleasant company of Fai-chan and her mom, and that compounded the entire happy effect. 🙂

Tis another 2 weeks till my bro sits for his SPM, so there’s a huge amount of cramming to be done till then. Daily classes have put a major dent in the amount of things I can do in my time, but it’s this time that he needs our support most, so I’ll just have to suck it up. ^_^ Besides, I still managed to squeeze in some quality time with Fai-chan here and there. Hee.

WoW guild is still trying to lay the smack down on Kael’thas. 5 phases altogether, but we’ve only managed to survive up to phase 4. Coordination is just a lil lacking, and people were just having trouble paying attention to everything that’s going on. Mom’s guests tonight will be coming early, so I’m hoping to make the raid to take down the mini bosses I need for Black Temple.

Am now on a TV series marathon, catching up with the new seasons of House, Heroes, Prison Break, and Californication. Heroes and Prison Break remains interesting, and House is awesome as always. Californications is… risque, but behind all the sex lies a good story about an author (played by David Duchovny) trying to get his act back together. Haven’t looked up Battlestar Galactica though… I should do that soon.

There’s no longer any doubt that I’ll be going to Singapore and Sydney within the next two months. Leave has all been approved, and modes of transportation booked and purchased. I’m pretty much all good in ichaya’s hands for Singapore, with plans of yummy food and desserts. For Sydney, there’s a few more logistics issues to sort out. First of all I MUST find something to do for the 8-10 hour AirAsia flight. Was originally thinking of a PSP, but a book would be more prudent. *suddenly remembers Merv’s iPod Touch and starts drooling* We’ll be landing at Coolangatta along the Gold Coast, so we need to figure out how to get to Sydney and think about anything we’d like to do or see along the way. Ugh, am already dreading the 15-hour bus ride down. Looks like I’ll need a book bag.

macam-macam ada…

Server was constantly hanging this morning, right after I restarted my torrents after clearing some space on the drives. Further checks revealed that it hangs during an fsck check on one of the 250GB drives, so I might actually have some bad sectors on it. Sigh, guess I’ll have to get another drive and move stuff over before it dies completely.

Gold Coast post is finally up. See previous post. ^_^ The pictures are supposed to be thumbnails, but somehow WPG2 decided to show the mid size versions instead. They’ve been scrunched in to fit the theme, but oh well, just click on em to see how it’s supposed to look like. Can’t add captions either, cuz G2’s edit photo options aren’t working somehow.

The visual editor for WordPress seems to be working fine again. Co-authors, feel free to enable it again in your profile to give it a go.

I now have a second monitor plugged in, so that I can chat on MSN and WoW at the same time. WoW now runs in maximised windowed mode, so that my mouse can actually leave the WoW area onto the 2nd display. I lose some FPS, but hey, it’s worth it. ^_^

Saturday night, Fai-chan and I, Shogun!
Yippie yay whoopie! Food for you and me!
Sashimi, tenpura, konyaku~ Kimochi datta yoo~
Sono ato de, karaoke! Minna ooki koe de!
Tanoshikatta yo~ Mou ichido, let’s go!

gold coast!

A quick rundown of what was up in the Gold Coast and Brisbane:-

Arrived in Brisbane Int’l Airport close to midnight. Fish’s parents/uncles/aunties came to pick us up. Weather was pretty rotten; t’was cold and windy with unpredictable rains (supposedly part of a once-in-a-100-year deluge). Took a drive straight back to Labrador, a small suburb on the coast where we’ll be staying.

Next morning, since weather conditions were still poor, we decided to head first to Harbour Town for a bit of outlet shopping. Spent the whole day there buying clothes and things. Might’ve even completed my Nike ACG set. Woo, I can feel that ski trip coming soon. Anyways, I think we busted our budgets in that one day. It didn’t help that the place was so near where we stayed too.

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@ Night: Chinese food. -___- Yes, one problem with travelling with old folks is that they can’t survive without familiar food.

On Sunday, one of the aunties relented to visit the Carrara markets, a permanent complex of lil shops and booths pretty much like the Chinatown markets of Sydney. Lots of cool, interesting things, but nothing that really says Brisbane or Gold Coast, ‘cept for the usual host of souvenir shops.

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After that we drove back up to Brisbane to hang out at South Bank. This was a park located along the river, and it had great views of it. There were some watering holes for the native aviary, as there was a makeshift market as well. Buskers entertained the crowd with their song and feats, and people frolicked in the man-made pools or spread out on the grass under the sun. Met up with wired for lunch, then took a drive down to Queen’s Street Mall for a walkabout and Dreamy Donuts. Mmmm..

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@ Night: Chinese food. -___-

The next day, we went to WB’s Movie World. Being the only 2 young ones in the group, Fish and I separated from the rest for a whole day of thrill rides and shows. Batwing Skyshot (tower ride, +4.5Gs, -1G) and Superman Escape (coaster, +4.2G, -1G) were the stars of the day. Lots of other attractions too, but nothing could beat the Superman one. It was so awesome, we rode it twice. There was another Batman ride, a Scooby Doo coaster, a Police Academy stunt show, a Wild West floob(?) ride, and stuff. There was a Lethal Weapon coaster too, but that was closed for maintenance. Boo!

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That night, we went to Surfer’s Paradise, the main surfing area along the coast, for meat! Yes, finally some proper Ozzie food. We took a big table at the Hog’s Breath Cafe for their famous PRIME RIB! I’m actually getting teary eyed just writing this paragraph. The steaks were juicy and tender from 18 hours of slow grill. I tell ya, it was fantastic~

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Walked around, picked up a few things at HRC, took pictures. Nice big moonlit waves.

On Tuesday, we were at Sea World, since we purchased the Escape Pass which allowed us two park visits within 3 days. The place seems a whole lot bigger than the Sea World in San Diego, but nothing could beat San Diego’s seal show. We saw the Imagine Dolphin show, a simple Seals Aboard show cuz they were renovating their seal exhibit (Boo again), and a Waterski Wipeout stunt show set in the 80’s.

@ Night: Vietnamese food. -___-

Wednesday saw us driving up to Mt Tamborine, a plateau of national parks about half an hour inland. The forest scenery along the way was fabulous, mixed with farms, vineyards, and horse ranges. It really accentuated the great weather that we had that week. We made a quick stop at a vineyard, where the old folks were hoping to score some free wine but this particular one where we stopped at was kinda small and therefore not very willing to give out free samples.

Once we reached the top, we first made a visit to the botanical gardens, where they had nice walkabout trails within an artificial forest cum jungle. Actually, the entire area of Mt Tamborine is littered with nature walks, but we only managed one or two with our limited time. Plus we didn’t want to lay out too much stress on the old folks.

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After that we took a quick browse along the main tourist street. While they don’t sell anything particularly Australian, they had a wide variety of interesting and strange merchandise on show. There was this one shop that was totally dedicated to fairy and witchcraft stuff, and another that had a dark section especially for things with twinkly lights (fairy wings included). Sorry, no pictures allowed. Then a quick drive to one of the waterfall areas for a picnic lunch.

To end the day, we walked the 3.1km Witches’ Fall nature trail in the hope to catch a glimpse of a waterfall falling into a valley below. But because of the drought, we only found a longkang of water trickling down. Still, the view was breathtaking.

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In retrospect, we probably could’ve made it further inland to see the awesome sights of Natural Bridge and stuff, but we weren’t sure how steep the incline was in that direction and the old folks were feeling jittery about it. But we did take the Goat’s Trail down and it was actually a pretty easy drive. Yes, MPVs just don’t tip over that easily. -_-

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@ Night: Thai food. -___-

So that pretty much wrapped up our stay in Gold Coast. On Thursday we did some last minute shopping at Harbour Town to pick up souvenirs. Then we made ourselves back to Hog’s Breath for lunch, where I had the steak/ribs combo. The ribs were just mouth watering~ Fish had to catch a flight to NZ that evening, so we did some packing and I came along to the airport to be dropped off.

It was about 5pm when I was dropped off at the Direct Factory Outlets (DFO) near the Brisbane Int’l Airport. That meant I had only 30 minutes to shop! Oh noes! Managed to grab some shirts from the Billabong outlet before shops started closing. Missed out on Levi’s and Sony. 🙁 By 6pm, wired arrived to pick me up for my overnight stay at his place. ^_^

That night, wired and I went to this Mongolian BBQ place that was both interesting and delish! You get to pick the meats and stuff you want in your bowl, as well as all the souces and seasonings can be selected individually! I took them all cuz that’s supposed to be the best! Except pork, that is. The chef would then dump the stuff onto this freaking huge hot plate where he’d just move the food around the thing in a clockwise motion, finishing up with a wrist-flicking flair. I probably had about.. 3 bowls. Gosh, it was good.

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After that we drove up to Mt Coot-tha, a famous lookout point over the city (i.e. famous makeout point). The view of the city at night was gorgeous~

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On Friday, I chilled for the most of the day at wired’s place, surrounded by gadgets and lots of flat screen monitors. Only got out for a simple kebab lunch at a nearby shop, and a quick walk around Story Bridge. Went back to Queen’s Street again for dinner, this time having the new McDs Backyard Burger. It actually had green leafy veges. Originally I had also planned on making a second stop at DFO, but the assumption that all shops in Brisbane opened till 9 on Fridays did not hold for DFO. 🙁 And I was so hoping to pick up a new pair of jeans…

After that, bye bye Brisbane. Bye bye Gold Coast. Rest of the pics here.

misc

Sorry guys, the Gold Coast update will have to come this weekend, since I haven’t picked up the 2 Gigs of pictures from Fish yet. And I can’t quite remember what our dinner plans were…

Anyways, a misc update of everything:-

Only being able to watch 1/4 of Memoirs of a Geisha on the plane, I watched the rest of it back home. Such a sweet, happy ending! Glad I watched it. 🙂 Aaaa Chiyo-chan~

I’m no longer holding 2 positions. Got a transfer letter back to my old post on the Monday I returned. *wonders what management is up to*. You could say I’m glad, but not in its entirety. Was pretty sure I could’ve contributed much more. At the expense of my brain cells, but nonetheless…

Caught up with Fish the day after his return from New Zealand. Another boarder-junkie has joined our midst! Hopefully that trip to Melbourne next year will become a reality. 😀 Wonder if Merv will want to join us… Well Fish didn’t manage to do the 100m Queenstown bungie though, only a 47m one. But it’s ok, we’ll just have to go there again and do it! w00t!

Will be going to Singapore in November for Linkin Park. Mom didn’t like the idea, cuz it was a weekday and everything, but it would’ve helped if she told me before we booked tickets. 🙁 E-mails should be replied! Anyways, what’s done is done. Sorry, mom.

WoW news: Personal FTK on Karathress. Morogrim is a bitch. We’re almost there on Leotheras. Have started arena-ing. It’s actually quite fun. Of course, being a holy priest means everyone will try to kill me first. Oh noes.

Have started playing BF 2142 again. Lowest video settings at highest resolution seems to help the graphics latency a bit. Merv has overtaken me on the leaderboard. Bugger.

Few more movies to watch:- Pathfinder, Apocalypto.

naik dan turun

Woke up at 6.40. Tummy ache! Managed to leave the house by 7.15. Traffic was smooth all the way north, arriving at Colmar Tropicale at 8.30.

Then presentations. Presentations. Presentations. Presentations.

Breakout session. Lunch. Food sucks. Contemplated visiting the rabbit park, but had no ticket yet. Nap time.

Another breakout session. Then presentations. Presentations. Presentations. Presentations. Presentations that were supposed to take 5 minutes each but ended up being 3x more. By the time we finished it was already 6, and all the attractions were closed by then. Boo. No fluffy bunnies for me.

Quick shower, then off to a BBQ dinner. Then 2 rounds of bowling till 11.30pm. Man, I suck. Only managed to score 93 and 104. More practice needed. Left Colmar at 11.45, reached home at 12.30am. Did some last minute packing, and here I am at Fish’s place writing this post. Gonna wake up at 6.20, to leave for KL Sentral at 7. Then breakfast at KLIA and board our flight at 10am.

So, see you after Merdeka. 😀

temerloh

after you travel, you usually describe the sights, and stuff that make a place special. for places in malaysia, it’s usually food!

same goes for this quaint little town in Pahang called Temerloh. takes 2 hours to get here from KL northwards via highway, and i can talk abt it being next to the huge Sungai Pahang, but it’s not that much of a deal.

the best thing about Temerloh is its specialty dish: Ikan Patin Gulai Tempoyak! we found this nice place next to the river, and next to a sewing shop, that serves this every lunch hour.

ikan patin is basically a type of fish that’s quite big and can be found in this river. some of us call it a naughty fish cuz it eats everything, hence its size. you usually find its meat steamed or simmered, never fried, cuz it’s too soft and flaky.

tempoyak is fermented durian. durian is the king of fruits here in malaysia, for taste and ‘nasal impression’. tempoyak tastes great, especially with sambal belacan. but for most, it’s an acquired taste.

ikan patin + tempoyak = bliss. every time i balik kampung to Raub for a kenduri, they’ll always have it! and here in Temerloh is where the main ingredient comes from. our group of 6 cleaned out 3 bowls of it. should’ve eaten more, cuz now that i’m back, i yearn for more…

world without warcraft

Saturday
Cuzzies!
WoW
Marche`

cuzzies and relatives visited from Singapore, and we had fun with the limited time we had. loitered around in the morning having breakfast, reading, and chatting before they had to leave for a wedding. spent some time then doing SFK. at night we younglings spread our wings and flew to The Curve for good overordered food and shopping. got myself a book for my upcoming roadshow. the rosti at Marche is good as usual, but the beef pepperoni sausages were a bit too much. sauteed mushrooms also ftw.

Sunday
Cuzzies!
Briyani
Star Movies

traveling day. could only spend the morning with my relatives and cute cuddly niece. by 12.30 Sue picked me up to go to the office, and then to Haz’s housewarming in Puchong. she had hired our usual office caterers, Asyura; they make a mean briyani. there were also sweet butterfly-decorated cupcakes, and moist choc cake. and those prawn crisps junk food we used to eat when we were young. 🙂

after eating we headed on to Muar for the first day of the roadshow on Monday. the group was feeling too lazy to go out and look for Mee Bandung, so we just had Kak Ita’s leftover mee goreng that her mom had made. i was planning to read the books i brought but there were good shows on tube, e.g. the original Poseidon, and National Treasure. oh, and we stayed at the Classic Hotel. rooms were great since they were recently refurbished.

Monday
The Giver
Academy Awards

started reading The Giver, which i found resting on a bookshelf at home. i’d always wanted to buy this, but i guess i don’t have to now. 🙂 by this time, we were already in Melaka, staying at this old hotel called Emperor. it’s so old, the elevator buttons reminded me of the ones you might see in black and white movies. creepy place.

there wasn’t much on TV too, except for the Academy Awards. NTV7 did a great injustice to viewers by mutilating the show. what’s the point of watching if you can’t catch the presenters’ jokes and the performances lined up in between? argh. luckily we got a somewhat-stable tranmission of Singapore’s channel 5. but they only started at 10pm, and we were really sleepy by the time they got to best actress in a leading role.

at least i finished the book. hate these kind of endings.

Tuesday
Discovery Channel
Belgariad: Pawn of Prophecy
Newsweek

we’re in PD now, staying at our company condo. nice place, well maintained. has a nice pool, and it’s right next to the beach. but no, none of us got ourselves wet, except for Sue on Sunday morning. i might be imagining it, but the PD beaches seem a little cleaner than before.

wasn’t much on TV except a special on volcanoes on Discovery. HBO was showing crappy old movies. so it was back to reading. finished the 1st book of the Belgariad, which i bought on saturday. it didn’t have an ending, so i guess i’ll have to get the other 4 books. 😛

Wednesday

i’m hoping to WoW a lot today. 😛

home

back from JB and Singapore. spent the weekend over at the company resthouse there. spent the time with my dear cuzzies and relatives chilling, napping, eating. activities of the idyllic sort. 🙂 er, not the eating of course. think we made a pretty good mess of the place, and feel kinda guilty to the housekeeper. esp. after my mom realised they left something in the oven and the new tenants found it. :O

as for eating, there were many yummy places to eat along Jln Petrie. 2 were within walking distance, but of course we were lazy and didn’t. had the usual Mee Rebus Tulang at one place, and went to the other “treehouse” place at night. food was alright, and we had live entertainment in the form of an instrument whose name i forget. 😛 that and all the food the relatives brought up pretty much made it a binge fest.

the journey up and down were uneventful, save for a few people who refuse to get off the fast lane. and we lost my lil bro’s passport. no clue where it’s gone. thought my aunt that came with us may have accidentally taken it, but she didn’t. bleh. it’s going to be a hassle making a police report and getting it replaced.

we’ll be seeing our relatives again this weekend, so the clean up is underway! 😀 not sure how to get my airconditioning fixed tho…

so now i’m home. arrived around 8pm after crawling through a medium sized jam. first thing i did, of course, was to see if my WoW/Streamyx connection has improved. it hasn’t. instead, spent the night watching Shaun of the Dead and CB4. straight out of locash!

at the same time, i devised a script to tell my router to connect/disconnect my DSL till i got a 218.* IP address. i was good to go, until the router itself started bugging out on me. damn Linksys to hell! looks like DD-WRT installation will happen soon, and if that doesn’t help, i’m converting the server into a router.