Re-cap Australia

Spent my Sunday finishing Bridget Jones diary and fiddling with my laptop. Realized have also probably been influenced by book to start blog. (where’s my Mark Darcey btw…? ) I’m trying to tidy up all the files in my laptop plus organize the Sydney photos. Just came back from a week in Sydney and I’m missing it already. Miss my jie the most. But I think a week in Sydney is more than enough, more than enough to make me put a kilo or 2 or 3 and to regret the reckless food gorging done. What can I say? What’s a holiday without good food? Tee hee..

Alright, so we didn’t really do anything spectacular. No white water rafting, or wind surfing or whatsoever, nothing tooo touristy. For the first 3 days, we, or rather, me, jie, baby, mom went around shopping, dragging my poor daddy along. I think me, jie and hui enjoyed shopping the most, while mom was the happiest when she could get away from it all and go to her favourite STAR CITY for some arm or rather finger exercise. I discovered the wonderful brands in Australia with just my kind of design and size. had to remind myself not to get buy too many clothes, cos they’d all be useless when I’m in winter wonderland Sweden. Argh! Was plain torture… had to miss out on Supre, JayJays, Roxy, Just Jeans, Maceys lah lah lah…Therefore, decided to direct my attention to accessories in Diva instead. I sound like a bimbz! hee! Anyway, I think the whole fam enjoyed ourselves most at Target, cos they basically have things for everyone. Daddy finally got into the shopping mood and got himself 4 shirts plus socks. Yey!


Day1 (Saturday): had Korean food at Millore, spent day shopping at Market City and Paddy’s Market, ending with smelly dumplings from Da niang in Chinatown.

Day2 (Sunday): lunch with Uncle Michael, Auntie Helen, Vincent, Susan, Clement and Emily at Chinese restaurant at Market City, went to the rocks for a walk and ended up taking lots of silly photos, then after that we went to the Coles at Broadway to stock up on garbage food, rent videos and buy Indonesian take-away from Shalom. Ravished Coles bbq chicken, jungle curry, chicken leg with chili and tortillos with guacamole and salmon spread while watching Bruce Almighty.

Day3 (Monday): had lunch at Musashi and took the train to Bondi junction, spent time mostly at Target. After that, me, hui and jie went to visit jie’s “friend”, Michael who was working at coles. Hui and I were embarrassingly excited over oreos with half chocolate and half peanut butter fillings, Tia Maria and Kahlua timtams, which we decided to bring back with us to Singapore to share with our friends. Also got kettle chips with interesting flavours that I think Liyan, the kettle chips addict will like. Later on we had Dominos pizza n Thai takeaway and watched Analyze That.

Day4 (Tuesday): went to Canbramatta’s Vietnam town for lunch with Susan and family and visited temple and Susan’s very very nice house! It looks like a show house. Our house will never ever look like that because we have too much junk. will most probably dream of houses again in the near future.

Day5 (Wednesday): rented car and jie drove down to Hunter Valley with dad as navigator. Was pretty clueless on whereabouts on journey there till I got my own map at the information centre. I think this was highlight of the entire trip for my dad. Wine paradise! Dad jumped straight into the first winery – Ernest Hill, buying up half a dozen bottles, only to discover there were hundreds more wineries on the list. We then decided to be more selective over our stop-overs and Dad was limitewd to 4 or 5 wineries instead of the 10 he had set out for himself. Next, we went to Pepper Tree, where my mom thought the bartender was cute and asked us shuai bu shuai in the midst of wine-tasting. Tempest2 was the most impressive, looked like a country club on its own . Also attemped to find chocolate company in lovedale, which hui was very excited about, cos she thought it was some giant chocolate factory. In the end, the chocolate company was lil shop selling expensive chocolates. So disappointing! Contrary to expectations, Hunter Valley had a few fine-looking restaurants and cafes, but we had bought our own chicken, mushrooms and corn and ended up cooking our own dinner in the Picolbin chateaus.

Day6 (Thursday): drove out of Hunter’s Valley and made a last stop at Wyndham’s estate before heading for Port Stevens. It’s a pity we only planned the trip so last minute, else we could have done much more things at Port Stevens, which would have made the extra 2 hour drive more worth it. The view is great though! Here is a picture I took at Anna Bay.


Anna Bay

It’s a great feeling, cos the sun is super bright and makes the water all sparkly at the parts were the water is calmer and the water is white where it crashes into the rocks. However, we spent less than 3 minutes out on Anna Bay because Daddy was in a bad temper from being hungry as it was already 3pm, so we quickly scooted back into the car to other areas to look for lunch. We thought the area would be full of cafes and restaurants and bustling with activity but we found nothing at Fisherman’s bay! A slight disappointment… Finally, we got to Nelson Bay where all the shops and restaurants were hiding and had lunch at this rather high-end seafood restaurant. I think the mentality was “Since we drove all the way here just for one lunch, we better make it a good one. If not, what’s the bloody point!?” I declare that my family is a piggy family. Right after lunch, we took a walk around the bay only to get back into the car to head back to the city for a BBQ at Susan’s house. Susan and Vincent are super nice people who bought hoards of seafood from the FISH market and I felt like a ball after the night. This is not good…

Day7 (Friday): Went for breakfast at the tea garden at qvb, then went around shopping. Jie had to leave me, hui and mom to pack lunch for dad who stayed in for a meeting. Then realized how lost I can get without my sister as the tour guide. Suddenly, do not know where to go after coming out of maceys. Think the 3 of us wandered around rather aimlessly until jie returned. Finally went to daddy’s golden century for dinner. Their business is superb. The whole place is full from the time it’s open for dinner till 12 midnight when it closes. But it is understandable as they serve very yummy food. Feel that many of the customers are not doing the restaurant justice though. Many of the Aussies just order bits of food and spend the rest of the time drinking red or white wine and talking and laughing super loudly. Their favourite dish is definitely fried chicken with koropok! Half of the ang mos are having it. Such a pity how many Westerners still do not know how to appreciate Asian cuisine.

Day8 (Saturday): Had to leave for Singapore. By amazing stroke of luck, was upgraded from Economy Class to Business Class. Mom and Hui were so excited, giving me no idea why. So what’s the big deal? Anyway, turned out to be very different indeed, feel like a sua gu. Best part is the space chair. Stewards offer you magazines, sweets and you’re served entre, main, fruits, cheese, chocolates and ice-cream. It was an enlightening experience and I now know what business class is. But if you ever ask me to pay more than double just to sit business class, you gotta be nuts. I’ve got better ways to spend my money. As long as the plane brings me from point A to point B safely, I don’t care what kind of chair I’m sitting in.