The Lioness.: melbourne

left home at 3pm plus yesterday (11122005) to the airport and met my sis and sis-in-law, eddie, over there. was afraid that i'd not be able to pass through customs because i had fever and was coughing...but managed through successfully anyway.

the control tower. im at the airport!

19:15 MELBOURNE BA 17---yeP, that was my flight

my dad and mum with the snowman xmas decoration

me, my mum

i wanted to hug the snowman but was afraid of dirtying myself

some xmas decoration inside the departure hall

thats my plane

my parents and i

on the way into the plane

outside my plane...a qantas one

im in the plane! got a window seat =D

watched the 40 yr old virgin and something's gotta give on the plane..these two movies very sex..dont really like haha. but the stories' fine la. spent about 7 hours on the plane..reached melbourne at 2 plus singapore time. australian time is 3 hours faster, so it was 5am plus when we reached melbourne and already broad daylight. could see dawn when i was reaching melbourne.

got this wine on the plane. red wine

its hard to see from here, but you should see some clouds

see the lightning?

dont focus on the reflection, but see that its dawn

so near the ground

touch down!

on my way out

thats the one i took, now in melbourne

proof that it was me all along

there's a minibus connected to this container in which we put our luggages in. the mini bus was supposed to send us to the hotel

this very nice looking tree abundant in melbourne but you dont see them in sg

these people live near the airport, must be darn noisy. negative externality

the uncle driving us. guess he caught me taking a pic of him

a tram

reached the hotel (ramada hotel) in about half an hr, and the hotel is small. its situated between two buildings, like some shophouse. but much taller of course...and its opposite the flinder's street train station.

ramada hotel, melbourne is a 4 star hotel...the service is good.

the flinder's street station

the room i shared with my parents. room 4005

its just slightly larger than the room i had in genting. sigh

but it has a nice bathroom though. comfortable enough

im in the toilet!

some big shot building...forgot what it is called

my brother came to meet us at the hotel. he's been studying in melbourne since this year and there was a graduation ceremony on wednesday. brought us around to see see look look. and we havent had a meal, so he brought us to this vietnamese restaurant. i must say, i cant take vietnamese food. arGh. there's this thing called the bai xiang cao (百香草) which smells so weird!! you're supposed to add that and beansprouts into the noodles that you're eating. lucky i never add or i'd never be able to finish that bowl of noodles. that vegetable just tastes different. hate its smell.

the green leafy thing is the bai xiang cao

asked for seafood roll...tak boleh tahan. cos got the bai xiang cao inside also. didnt like it

thats the bowl of chicken rice noodle i had. not bad la

after that bro brought us to do some small shopping...saw many subway, mcdonalds, kfc joints. also saw hungry jacks which is the burger king in australia. and many other familiar names.

the golden village. showing harry potter

there was also singapore's chom chom, which either is a franchisee or just a pirated version. because what we know in singapore is chomP chomP. they did sell singaporean delicacies, but we didnt try at all. why would you try singapore's food when you've been eating it for most of your life? heH. i also saw this breadtop. yea the one we know well is breadtalk. i think its quite pirated, cos the colours of the logo are quite the same. didnt take photos of them cos was quite paiseh. what would i be doing with the signboards anyway.

my mum insisted that she wanted to see my brother's living area...she also wanted to take a tram (its actually a much longer route). bro's place is sort of a hostel, but quite glam for one. he says its more like a hotel, but service aint good. one thing my mum didnt know is that, we had to travel a loooooongggggggggg while to get to my bro's place which is in the suburbs. quite regret too, cos had a lot of flies to accompany us. had to take a long tram ride and walk a distance. but at least i got to try the trams lo.

by the way, why didnt anyone tell me about the flies that appear in summer??!! they are so irritating!!! it'll do if they stick to food, but they are ultra big and stick to human! they love going into my ear hole and there would be this buzzing sound which will stun me, if not they stick to your faces all that. bro said his friends even swallowed those flies before. yuck. the flies we see in singapore are quite small, harmless and not that irritating. but the flies there are fat!!! really fat and if you eat flies, i'd say that they're big, fat and juicy! will show a picture of the flies later. they are and were really horrible.

my bro and i on the tram

the rest of the tram

didnt get to take any photo of my bro's room cos i was so sleepy and laid on his bed till it was time for us to leave. a shorter route to get back to town is by train! so we had to walk to the train station, another hefty walk. and the flies! arGh.

to show how irritated i was with the flies and the sunny sun but cool weather and the strong winds

the train station. very ulu right

here comes the train

hopping on

its quite easy to evade fares there..lazy to explain, but they rely more on everyone's responsibility to pay the fares. there are inspectors however they dont appear very often. so thats why there are sarcastic notices placed in the trains to warn evaders.

"please thank the paying passenger next to you. they have covered the cost of your journey. maybe you should offer to mow their lawn" there's this other one that says something like treating the paying passengers to a good restaurant

went back to the hotel and i slept there..was extremely tired and i didnt sleep on the plane. had free movies to watch, why not? haha. so made myself a cappuccino and slept while my dad and bro go out and settle some stuff bout our day tours.

the cappuccino

i didnt mention that the scenery outside the window of my room in genting was somebody else's room. its the same this time, just that its the window of the adjacent building. sigh. no scenery

had subway for tea, my bro bought some back. after that i lazed around a bit more and we went out to explore more. mum wanted to go to chinatown. we passed by some sort of a small supermarket and we bought instant noodles and some snacks. that supermarket sold asian goods, so it had japanese korean and of cos chinese food. after that bro brought us to this chinese restaurant he liked to try the egg chiffon rice there.

i ordered a seafood egg chiffon rice

the rice was super nice!!! it had prawns, calamari and scallops!!! wah. and the portion was very big i couldnt finish. but the price is also quite ex...A$12 for a plate like this. my bro says the normal price to eat out in melbourne is around A$6-7. still expensive though.

this is the chinatown of melbourne

met this tree

after dinner bro brought us to crown entertainment complex. its where the casino is so its quite popular and famous...didnt manage to go into the casino cos of the shopping bags we had.