the big twenty one. whoopdeedoo.
ida posted at 9:18 PM
Monday, April 28, 2008
Felt like its been awhile since i've been out with the family on the weekend proper, since I've been workin the past few weekends, which pretty much sucks if you ask me. well anyway, family headed to Shokudo Japanese Food Bazaar at raffles city for lunch on saturday. It's sorta like Marche, albeit it being japanese style. It's a pretty nice place, would wanna head back there sometime soon. haha. we had quite a spread of food ranging from a humongous steak burger, rosti with sausage, barbequed rice balls, yakitori, scallops etc. got to admit, i loved the crepe we had for dessert. it was pretty big, so irina and i shared. banana and chocolate crepe with a scoop of strawberry yoghurt ice cream. muahahha.
taken with sis's phone. 5megapixel cam. but. it had to be spoiled with that frame. she just told me to smile so i did, and when i looked at it, whats with the FRAME. her response? "cute what." haha.
did i mention? jie bought this. yuck. maccha? whatever it is, its green tea. i took a sip and man did i cringe.
anyway, i don't really get all the hype bout krispy kremes. i think j.co actually has nicer donuts, believe it or not. irina and i bought some back.
worked fst shift yesterday, huang and rongxin was doin opening shift too so it was kinda like all hell broke loose. in a positive manner mind you. haha. and we encountered many french tourists. let me quote huang's blog as per norm.
and then when ida and i came back from lunch, we were slightly crazy. a french guy came to talk to us and was facing difficulties phrasing what he wanted to say in english.
(softly)
i: you can speak french right?
ida: not really.
i: she can speak french!
french guy: ____________________ (french)
(ida turns to me with THE look. and we both started laughing)
i've only picked up french for two months now and am thus barely proficient please. and that girl was ecstatic when her "merci" convinced a french tourist she spoke french. oh spare me. HAHA.
must've slept in the wrong position last night cos my neck hurts today. hope it gets better by tmr since i've got driving and i could just imagine me struggling to check my blind spot if my neck still hurts. not a pleasant thought.
taken with sis's phone. 5megapixel cam. but. it had to be spoiled with that frame. she just told me to smile so i did, and when i looked at it, whats with the FRAME. her response? "cute what." haha.
did i mention? jie bought this. yuck. maccha? whatever it is, its green tea. i took a sip and man did i cringe.
anyway, i don't really get all the hype bout krispy kremes. i think j.co actually has nicer donuts, believe it or not. irina and i bought some back.worked fst shift yesterday, huang and rongxin was doin opening shift too so it was kinda like all hell broke loose. in a positive manner mind you. haha. and we encountered many french tourists. let me quote huang's blog as per norm.
and then when ida and i came back from lunch, we were slightly crazy. a french guy came to talk to us and was facing difficulties phrasing what he wanted to say in english.
(softly)
i: you can speak french right?
ida: not really.
i: she can speak french!
french guy: ____________________ (french)
(ida turns to me with THE look. and we both started laughing)
i've only picked up french for two months now and am thus barely proficient please. and that girl was ecstatic when her "merci" convinced a french tourist she spoke french. oh spare me. HAHA.
must've slept in the wrong position last night cos my neck hurts today. hope it gets better by tmr since i've got driving and i could just imagine me struggling to check my blind spot if my neck still hurts. not a pleasant thought.
ida posted at 7:10 PM
Tuesday, April 15, 2008
It's about time i blogged about my melbourne trip and quit procrastinating, considering even busy bee dee has done so. haha.
Met dee at the airport on the night of the 23rd and so we headed into the transit area after checking our bags in. it was rather odd walking in the transit area of terminal 3 but yet not being on the way to work. not that i'm complaining of course. after frantically looking for my bottle at the SVC for awhile, i acknowledged defeat and so we headed up to the silverkris lounge to hang around. Well we were so preoccupied that we lost track of time and the best thing is that we had no clue.
By the time we reached our gate, there wasn't anyone in sight. except for a guy who said, "melbourne flight????"
"err yea?"
"omg hurry up!! you guys are late!!"
and man did they speed us through the whole scanning and stuff. all through the way till we stepped into the plane, everyone was shouting, "melbourne? HURRY UP!!! why are you girls so late??!?"
talk about embarrassing.
c'mon. when we got onto the plane, the air stewardesses were reporting "okok last two's here!" we were seated and i reckon dee and i were still freakin out like 10 mins after we were sitted., and coming up with scenarios in which case if we were to miss our flight. the horror.
the view from the plane window. sunrise.
8 and a half hours later, we arrived in melbourne! kwann and her mum came to the airport to pick us up and then we cabbed back to their apartment.
RMIT uni. pretty nice isn't it.
kwann's mum recommended this famous vietnamese noodles house to us and it was pretty nice. a pity i couldn't appreciate it fully because i was still a lil stoned from the flight and i burnt my tongue halfway through my meal. hrm. the place's called Mekong.
after lunch, we walked further down swanston street, which is the street kwann's apartment's on. further down swanston's melbourne central and all that, so its pretty convenient. although the walk's rather long. bout 30 mins walk?
st paul's cathedral
the cathedral was pretty breath-taking. when we stepped in, we almost gasped in unison. wow.
the famous federation square (:
oh yes, and the melbourne visitors centre was on federation square, which is a pretty ideal location i've gotta admit. pretty interesting visiting other countries' visitors centre, considering i work in one back home.
another day, kwann brought us to have a mini tour of her college and uni campus. the infrastructure's beautiful. reminiscent of architecture from the UK. dee and i were basking in the whole environment. we were saying we wouldn't mind staying back to study and hang out at a campus like THAT.
one of the buildings in trinity college
Melbourne uni!
we tried like a million jumpshots because our dear kwann sucks at taking them. i swear its not my cam. =P hhaha. dee caught a decent one of kwann and i. i reckon kwann looks really cute heree HAHA.
one of the hallways in melbourne uni
later on, when we were walking around melbourne uni, we actually came across a movie set. they were shooting a movie on the campus, so we tried to see who the actors were. we're pretty sure it was nicholas cage. even the voice matched. coool. haha.
we headed down to queen victoria after that and had "dodgy chinese food"
pig me fully concentrated on my chinese takeout.
we took a ride on the city tram too. did an entire round trip on it. and kwann took lots of stupid shots of dee and i which i would not post up, in order to preserve our pride.
while waiting for the tram! their tram systems are in the middle of the road. so there're cars on either side going in opposite directions.
us awaiting the city circle tram
Melbourne Central
we caught a movie at the pretty famous half-pipe theatre. it has these huge comfy bigbags for seats. we caught Black Balloon which actually turned out very good. i dreadfully wanted to post
The four of us booked our day tours for the great ocean road and the trip to phillips island so this's our first tour, the great ocean road (:
we stopped by this lake to have our brunch, and we tried vegemite for the first time. for the those in the dark, go wiki it. to be honest, i barely tasted much. hrm.
other photo stops along the way (:
we had a stop for lunch at this hotel, the food was delicious. i swear i could've finished my spaghetti without a fight if not for the fear of getting sick on the bus later on. haha.
spot the rainbow (: we went on a day when there was scattered showers all throughout. but the good thing was it resulted in lovely crashing waves that way, a beautiful rainbow, and gorgeous shot opportunities.
the most gorgeous of the view. im so sorry im too lazy to rotate it. u'll just have to tilt your head to the right.
The famous twelve apostles. i know. wow right. its more breathtaking and you would expect despite already seeing them in pictures.
all throughout the trip, kwann kept forcing dee and i to do stupid poses like POINTING at a sign. you could tell i was very reluctant. if not, i must be goood.
with our tour guide, darryl
the next evening, we headed down to the day tours centre again for our phillips island tour!
because kwann was sitted beside the window, i told her to take a shot of the cows and guess what. yes u guessed it. she took a picture of A COW. and was incredibly proud of it i might add.
haha oh yeah! our guide, which was darryl again, took a wrong turn. ahah and it hilarious the way he admitted it. it was sorta like "oh btw guys, in case you were wondering why our big ol' bus's on this tiny dirt road, i took a wrong turn."
WHAT. aahhaa. but it was pretty hilarious. how our huge giant of a bus trundled on the dirt road past tiny cottages with like ulu wells and all that, before the road we were SUPPOSED to be on, came into sight.
thats the road we were supposed to be on. haha.
it was freezing when we got there. because we were near the sea and it was evening. we goofed around in the souvenir store before heading down to the beach for the penguin parade.
long lost twins perhaps
a pity i couldn't take a shot of the penguins in fear of scaring them away. they are SO CUTE. im serious. the cutest things i've ever laid eyes on. and tiny too i might add. the baby penguins were cuter, with their fluffy brown feathers. they were all sitting inside their nests, waiting for their parents to return with food for them.
kwann and i went over to one side to wait for a penguin to waddle past when we saw a rustle in the bush ahead.
"omg did u see that?"
"where????"
"think its a penguin."
"WHEREE???"
and out hopped a... ... rabbit.
HAHAHAHAHA. kwann and i were in fits. ahaha.
kwann's mum took us to crown to have a look around too. its sorta like an entertainment complex with the casino as the main focus. 99% of the people in the casino were ermm retirees i reckon. haha. kwann's mum said to notify her if we sighted someone in the casino who looked under 30.
oh there were these giant art pieces outside crown, they were all huge montblanc bags. unique.
spastic poses (:
kwann and dee wanted to go to the arcade at crown, so we went there. yes, i had no say. haha but it was quite fun. one of the games we played were DEAL OR NO DEAL. instead of cash, we dealt with coupons of course. our luck wasn't very good though. while we were there, kwann's mum headed to the casino for awhile. haha.
after that we hung out at this european cafe, Greco.
just one third of the selection of cakes,tarts and crumbles available
dee's tiramisu
my hazelnut cake
kwann's mum's mudpie. the chocolate was immensely indulgent.
we headed to the eureka skydeck which is on the 88th floor, to have birds-eye view of melbourne.
superwomen. this australian guy was smiling to himself when we were taking this shot. hahaa.
the view from above.
well. after we went back 'down to earth', haha we decided to take some stupid shots with the lampposts.
oh we took a ride on one of these carriages (:
We also went to St Kilda's and had a stroll by the jetty and explored the lil mobile shops they had along the pavement, selling hand-made crafts and what have you.
2nd last day, dee and i made our own way alone to Queen Victoria Market! one side sold clothes, knickknacks, accessories and all that, the other sold foodstuff. there's a huge variety of foodstuff available. dee and i made some pretty good purchases, and we tried the american doughnuts there. we think they're nicer than krispy kremes. haha.
we had some extra time after that, so we walked back down to swanston street and had a drink at max brenners there (: we sat outside and basked in the cool breeze. you couldn't really do that in singapore because its so freaking HUMID. u'll just end up sweating into your drink or somethin. for those of u who perspires alot that is.
That pretty much sums up our trip to Melbourne. Really nice of kwann and her mum to take the time off the bring us around on some of the days, and letting us put up at her place temporarily (:
i had a ball of a time. incredibly fun and enjoyable (:
ps: some of the photos are up on flickr under "my photos 2", friendster and facebook, though i'm not even near being remotely done uploading them all up yet. decided this blog post was of higher priority.
Met dee at the airport on the night of the 23rd and so we headed into the transit area after checking our bags in. it was rather odd walking in the transit area of terminal 3 but yet not being on the way to work. not that i'm complaining of course. after frantically looking for my bottle at the SVC for awhile, i acknowledged defeat and so we headed up to the silverkris lounge to hang around. Well we were so preoccupied that we lost track of time and the best thing is that we had no clue.
By the time we reached our gate, there wasn't anyone in sight. except for a guy who said, "melbourne flight????"
"err yea?"
"omg hurry up!! you guys are late!!"
and man did they speed us through the whole scanning and stuff. all through the way till we stepped into the plane, everyone was shouting, "melbourne? HURRY UP!!! why are you girls so late??!?"
talk about embarrassing.
c'mon. when we got onto the plane, the air stewardesses were reporting "okok last two's here!" we were seated and i reckon dee and i were still freakin out like 10 mins after we were sitted., and coming up with scenarios in which case if we were to miss our flight. the horror.
the view from the plane window. sunrise.
8 and a half hours later, we arrived in melbourne! kwann and her mum came to the airport to pick us up and then we cabbed back to their apartment.
RMIT uni. pretty nice isn't it.
kwann's mum recommended this famous vietnamese noodles house to us and it was pretty nice. a pity i couldn't appreciate it fully because i was still a lil stoned from the flight and i burnt my tongue halfway through my meal. hrm. the place's called Mekong.after lunch, we walked further down swanston street, which is the street kwann's apartment's on. further down swanston's melbourne central and all that, so its pretty convenient. although the walk's rather long. bout 30 mins walk?
st paul's cathedral
the cathedral was pretty breath-taking. when we stepped in, we almost gasped in unison. wow.
the famous federation square (:
oh yes, and the melbourne visitors centre was on federation square, which is a pretty ideal location i've gotta admit. pretty interesting visiting other countries' visitors centre, considering i work in one back home.
another day, kwann brought us to have a mini tour of her college and uni campus. the infrastructure's beautiful. reminiscent of architecture from the UK. dee and i were basking in the whole environment. we were saying we wouldn't mind staying back to study and hang out at a campus like THAT.
one of the buildings in trinity college
Melbourne uni!
we tried like a million jumpshots because our dear kwann sucks at taking them. i swear its not my cam. =P hhaha. dee caught a decent one of kwann and i. i reckon kwann looks really cute heree HAHA.one of the hallways in melbourne uni
later on, when we were walking around melbourne uni, we actually came across a movie set. they were shooting a movie on the campus, so we tried to see who the actors were. we're pretty sure it was nicholas cage. even the voice matched. coool. haha.
we headed down to queen victoria after that and had "dodgy chinese food"
pig me fully concentrated on my chinese takeout.
we took a ride on the city tram too. did an entire round trip on it. and kwann took lots of stupid shots of dee and i which i would not post up, in order to preserve our pride.
while waiting for the tram! their tram systems are in the middle of the road. so there're cars on either side going in opposite directions.
us awaiting the city circle tram
Melbourne Central
we caught a movie at the pretty famous half-pipe theatre. it has these huge comfy bigbags for seats. we caught Black Balloon which actually turned out very good. i dreadfully wanted to post
The four of us booked our day tours for the great ocean road and the trip to phillips island so this's our first tour, the great ocean road (:
we stopped by this lake to have our brunch, and we tried vegemite for the first time. for the those in the dark, go wiki it. to be honest, i barely tasted much. hrm.
other photo stops along the way (:
we had a stop for lunch at this hotel, the food was delicious. i swear i could've finished my spaghetti without a fight if not for the fear of getting sick on the bus later on. haha.
spot the rainbow (: we went on a day when there was scattered showers all throughout. but the good thing was it resulted in lovely crashing waves that way, a beautiful rainbow, and gorgeous shot opportunities.
the most gorgeous of the view. im so sorry im too lazy to rotate it. u'll just have to tilt your head to the right.
The famous twelve apostles. i know. wow right. its more breathtaking and you would expect despite already seeing them in pictures.
all throughout the trip, kwann kept forcing dee and i to do stupid poses like POINTING at a sign. you could tell i was very reluctant. if not, i must be goood.
with our tour guide, darryl
the next evening, we headed down to the day tours centre again for our phillips island tour!
because kwann was sitted beside the window, i told her to take a shot of the cows and guess what. yes u guessed it. she took a picture of A COW. and was incredibly proud of it i might add.
haha oh yeah! our guide, which was darryl again, took a wrong turn. ahah and it hilarious the way he admitted it. it was sorta like "oh btw guys, in case you were wondering why our big ol' bus's on this tiny dirt road, i took a wrong turn."WHAT. aahhaa. but it was pretty hilarious. how our huge giant of a bus trundled on the dirt road past tiny cottages with like ulu wells and all that, before the road we were SUPPOSED to be on, came into sight.
thats the road we were supposed to be on. haha.
it was freezing when we got there. because we were near the sea and it was evening. we goofed around in the souvenir store before heading down to the beach for the penguin parade.long lost twins perhaps
a pity i couldn't take a shot of the penguins in fear of scaring them away. they are SO CUTE. im serious. the cutest things i've ever laid eyes on. and tiny too i might add. the baby penguins were cuter, with their fluffy brown feathers. they were all sitting inside their nests, waiting for their parents to return with food for them.kwann and i went over to one side to wait for a penguin to waddle past when we saw a rustle in the bush ahead.
"omg did u see that?"
"where????"
"think its a penguin."
"WHEREE???"
and out hopped a... ... rabbit.
HAHAHAHAHA. kwann and i were in fits. ahaha.
kwann's mum took us to crown to have a look around too. its sorta like an entertainment complex with the casino as the main focus. 99% of the people in the casino were ermm retirees i reckon. haha. kwann's mum said to notify her if we sighted someone in the casino who looked under 30.
oh there were these giant art pieces outside crown, they were all huge montblanc bags. unique.
spastic poses (:
kwann and dee wanted to go to the arcade at crown, so we went there. yes, i had no say. haha but it was quite fun. one of the games we played were DEAL OR NO DEAL. instead of cash, we dealt with coupons of course. our luck wasn't very good though. while we were there, kwann's mum headed to the casino for awhile. haha.
after that we hung out at this european cafe, Greco.
just one third of the selection of cakes,tarts and crumbles available
dee's tiramisu
my hazelnut cake
kwann's mum's mudpie. the chocolate was immensely indulgent.
we headed to the eureka skydeck which is on the 88th floor, to have birds-eye view of melbourne.superwomen. this australian guy was smiling to himself when we were taking this shot. hahaa.
the view from above.
well. after we went back 'down to earth', haha we decided to take some stupid shots with the lampposts.
oh we took a ride on one of these carriages (:
We also went to St Kilda's and had a stroll by the jetty and explored the lil mobile shops they had along the pavement, selling hand-made crafts and what have you.
2nd last day, dee and i made our own way alone to Queen Victoria Market! one side sold clothes, knickknacks, accessories and all that, the other sold foodstuff. there's a huge variety of foodstuff available. dee and i made some pretty good purchases, and we tried the american doughnuts there. we think they're nicer than krispy kremes. haha.
we had some extra time after that, so we walked back down to swanston street and had a drink at max brenners there (: we sat outside and basked in the cool breeze. you couldn't really do that in singapore because its so freaking HUMID. u'll just end up sweating into your drink or somethin. for those of u who perspires alot that is.
That pretty much sums up our trip to Melbourne. Really nice of kwann and her mum to take the time off the bring us around on some of the days, and letting us put up at her place temporarily (:
i had a ball of a time. incredibly fun and enjoyable (:
ps: some of the photos are up on flickr under "my photos 2", friendster and facebook, though i'm not even near being remotely done uploading them all up yet. decided this blog post was of higher priority.
ida posted at 9:06 PM