Mount Coot-tha Pics

Beautiful pic taken by yun song

Pictures!

My luggage



Living Room



Kitchen



Dining



Dining 2



My messy room



Stairs



Caught this at roma street. Says where's norma? Its sort of a publicity for an event i guess



South bank parklands. Took this while on my way to sch one fine day heh


King George Square. Took this while on my way back from sch


King George Square. Took this while on my way back from sch


Museum


Funny thing about Uq is that theres all sorts of bird everywhere... even turkey heh


Amelia Yun Song and me


Marie and me


This bee was sticking to me for quite some time during the ferry ride to bulimba so decided to take a macro shot of it


Bridge


The bridge that links southbank with the city


Brisbane's CBD... (I think only)


This was taken at the regatta ferry terminal where we failed to get our free dinner for the day (there's supposed to be a free bbq for international students on that day)


Taken at bulimba ferry terminal


Me


Sunset pic taken at bulimba ferry terminal


The fake beach at southbank parklands. They actually have a beach in the middle of nowhere! lol


Fake beach


Got scolded for taking this photo... we are not supposed to take pictures in the railway stations... din know tt ... so mah lu


The deserted chinatown


Me in the deserted chinatown


Flower outside our home

Day 13 (Chinatown) and 14 (Mt Coot-tha)

Day 13
Its been almost 2 weeks since we arrived in aus. Quite an experience i must say. Went to chinatown with Yun Song yesterday and the place seems to be very deserted. Or rather not as busy and rowdy as we had imagined it to be. Probably its because we went down on a weekday...

We went inside one of the sex shops there ... heh and yun song suggested getting a dildo for amelia! haha. but nah we din get any though it seems to be cheaper than singapore. And the lady boss was such a bitch... we were carrying this can of drink into the shop and she said "guys i hope you dun spill the drinks onto the floor else i'm gonna make u mop the place for good." ..... Ooookkkkk.... wat the heck

Day 14
Woke up early today... (actually yun song dragged me up heh) The four of us went for the kayaking try out today. It was quite fun... to be out in the sun and into the river... heh yeah we were kayaking in brisbane river... :) and then you can see the ferry pass by you while u are kayaking heh. Cool rite... how to do that in singapore? heh After the kayak they prepared a bbq brunch.. the sausages were very nice actually :) all this for free some more... heh dunno whether should join the club anot cos we onlyhaf to pay 40 bucks for the membership and we can have access to the kayaks anytime we want. hmm good deal eh? but I was thinking of joining either wind surfing or the wakeboarding club.. cos it only costs 40 bucks for wakeboarding! how can dun go rite... heh

After the morning kayak we went to mount coot-tha by henry's car. :) It is such a nice place man.... we went trekking round the mountain before heading back to the summit for the sandwich which we prepared... :) (actually yun song prepared them lah not "we") haha

the place is really really nice. But it gets very cold at nite though :) took a cab back after that.

photos will be uploaded soon :) abit lazy lah heh

Day 9

:) LEssons started today... and guess wat... first day got assignments already... heng its not that diff :)

after lesson me and yun song went to the north of brisbane... to bulimba ferry terminal and we realised the houses up north are actually so much nicer :) got a nice sunset pic also..

after that went back to our home for dinner with the other 2 gals. ... den back to home to do assginments... haiz.. first day man lol

but quite ok lah... so far so good :)

will try to post some nice photos in the next entry :)

Day 6

Yup ... went to school today to settle some module stuffs...
Then we received a call from the agent! They called to say our application for the apartment is successful!!! yeah!! hahah i was so darn happy lol... :)

Yeah! we finally managed to get a place... so we went to withdraw money and then proceeded down to the office to sign the lease. After that we went to shop around before heading back to the apartment to take a good look at it hahha. No lah we went back to see what are the stuffs that we need to buy.

Then I took a ferry back to the city to catch the free shuttle bus to my dorm while the rest of my friends walked back cos their temp accommodation is very near to our new home. At the city's bus stop... I saw this french guy from the "Somewhere to Stay". :) Asked him if he had his dinner already he said no... so we decided to get some dinner near our place. When we went back... we saw two other guys from denmark whom we just got to know each other in the morning on our way to school. So we asked them if they wanted to join... they said they will join us after our dinner cos they needed to do their dishes.... yeah so me and that french guy went for dinner ... and guess wat??? haha we went pubbing after that together with the two danish :) cool right...

I kinda like the somewhere to stay cos everyone's really open and laidback... so off we went to city looking for this place called downunder bar :) had a few drinks before heading back to the dorm.. really really fun night with lotsa jokes about how things were so ex and some so cheap in aus... aus cars and hse are cheap ... any other things are very ex heh.

learned quite abit about their country culture as well :) hope they have found a good place by now :) which reminds me i should really sms them to ask how they are doing right?? yeah i think tml ... ;)

Day 2

Had to go to school early in the morning for some shit compulsory briefing....
Kinda exciting cos I'm all alone ... trying to find my place to the university etc ... ahha i took a ferry to sch! cool right lol...

Basically brisbane is sort of like divided up between the brisbane river... so they have this ferry service called City Cat. Its actually a catamaran that is used as a public transport... So people who needs to get from this end of the river to the other side of the river bank will need to take the ferry. And the tickets they use are paper tickets... very environment unfriendly hor... people just buy the tickets and then throw it away after their trip. And its slow too cos the ticketer needs to print the tickets and calculate the change for the passengers... so sometimes the queue is kinda slow. But overall its still quite efficient.

Anyway .. the ferry's quite cool! Imagine telling people... i'm taking ferry to school everyday lol. Oh and one thing good abouth Brisbane's tranport system is that the tickets you bought for the train ferry and buses are interchangeable. So all public transport uses the same kind of tickets. And they have this system that you can reuse the same ticket for as many times as u wish within a certain time period... (i think its 2 or 3 hrs)... so u can buy a ferry ticket to sch... den go to the city in a bus... and den take the train back to somewhere else all with the same ticket that you bought! :) cool rite... saves money.. not like sbs like that... SBS SUXXXX. And yah the people are so much friendlier than the SBS ppl...

Day 3 and Day 4
Nothing much going on except going around hunting for apartments and getting around in school attending seminars and talks... getting the subjects settled and most imptly trying to get this guarantee letter for the apartment... Its so hard to get an apartment in Aus. They need some kind of proof that you have the ability to pay for the rent. And one month pay in advance is not enough... they want a letter from ya parents or a bank statement to back up ya application. And its not enuff just to have one ... every applicant has got to haf that letter... troublesome right.. had a hard time trying to get that letter since my parents cant write in english... but its finally settled :) i'm happily typing this entry from the comfort of my six months home lol. Its a really nice place.. you guys shld visit me if u happen to come to brisbane :)

DAy 5
On this very day.. we (meaning my roomies) went to this restaurant near my "Somewhere to stay" for dinner... why?? cos its a restaurant that sells singaporean food!! haha ... though I dun really miss singaporean food that much yet... but i'm still very happy to be gg there cos its the only day when i had a good meal every since i've arrived in aus. Every meal is budgeted kinda meal for me until this day. ;)

I had .... guess wat???/ haha curry chicken lah wat else.... my fave leh .. it was ok lah... though its not as nice as the one we had back in singapore... esp my mum's curry chicken but its good enuff :) All of us had diff food so that we can try them :) not too bad... and its so near to my place... and oh! we discovered theres actually internet access at that place... haha so happy.. finally managed to get internet access... just for the record,,, internet access in aus is not as cheap as those back home. They dun really have truly unlimited internet... they limit the amount of data you can download per month and if u hit the limit... they will shape the bandwidth to 64 kbps... saded right... tts only slightly better than a 56kbps dialup. and the school's comp... they are just pathetic... there are only certain comps... those without chairs... (kinda like those in libraries where u search for the catalogue)... those are the only ones that you can access websites that are not from the uni. Other comps in the library are only meant to access uni websites... saded... and cos i dun wanna bring my laptop to sch... (cos i dun wanna unpack my stuffs in somewhere to stay)... i cant have access to internet man... deprived of that for almost a week ...

Oh even now i'n tapping on my neighbour's internet connection lol...

yup so far its been really fun and exciting! Next day is even more exciting man... haha watch out for it...

Aussie Adventure!

Hey ppl! Its been so very long ... And its been so very exciting :)
Heres the summary of my so called adventures so far haha

Day 1
Arrived in australia feeling very very tired. Din sleep well at all on Qantas cos the seats were really tight and uncomfortable. But something happened on the plane. Was supposed to be seated on the isle seat when the flight attendant came up to me and asked if I specifically asked for an isle seat cos one elderly couple couldn't get an isle seat during the check in but would prefer to have the isle seats. So I gave up my seat to that elderly couple and was shifted to sit beside this young girl. And so happen that the young girl was also going to UQ! haha such a coincidence right. So thats how i met this 19yr old charlotte.

After collecting my luggage we went out to the arrival hall and saw the UQ airport reception people. Was then led to the carpark outside after waiting for about 10 mins for the rest of the people to come in. Once we stepped outside... it was so super refreshing! The day was bright and cloudless... (tts the typical aus weather btw) but the air was so cold. Its like having the whole place air conditioned.... hahah.

While on our way to the various different temp accommodation location, we met some other guys from china doing their masters program :) cool hor. But guess wat... half way thru the trip, the driver realised that he lost a piece of luggage! scareded siah. I was wondering whether it was mine.... but heng its not mine lah ... cos my place is like the second last stop so my bag was right inside the carriage. Felt pity for the china guy... imagine your first day or rather your first hour in a foreign land and this had to happen. I will be damn sad for the rest of my stint man. I saw them again a few days later at some seminars and was told they have not found their luggage yet.... lodged a police report already but i seriously doubt the police can do anything.

So I was brought to my temp accommodation called "Somewhere to Stay". Its a backpackers inn. So everything's really very simple. Its more like a bunk to me. Though they call it a dorm lah. I'm sharing this dorm with four other people. One gal is from england.. shes really cool man. She's on wat she calls a work holiday. Means shes travelling around the world and yet working at the same time to earn enough money for her next country. So basically shes working and travelling around at the same time. Cool right. Then theres this gal from Spain. shes also going to study in UQ majoring in biology. Seems to me that shes very much into birds.... cos she seems to be so excited at the sight of birds lol. Den theres this two guys from germany. One is Amit the other one is robert. Amit is studying in UQ as well... and robert... i dunno what hes doing lol. Those two are always partying the night away lah ... so haha yah. They called me along one of the nights when there seems to be some kind of party going on in the city... but i gave it a miss cos... yah dun really know them well lah and they seem to be those hardcore party goers also.

So after putting all my stuffs into the dorm, I went straight to the city to look around since the place actually provides free shuttle bus to the city hourly. Went look aroung in the city .. was so tired and bored haha. Din meet up with the rest of my roomies to be cos one was bz the others i dun haf their numbers yet. Went to open a bank account, bought lip balm and a prepaid card and called boo to chat heh. Went to their borders and realised their photgraphy magazines are cheaper than singapore's. I think thats about the only thing that is cheap in aus liao. Every other god damn thing is so ex... even brands like mambo billabong are ex... saded.....

one thing i wanted to get are shades.... but its kinnda ex... but i need it leh... so dunno shld buy anot.. sianz haiz.

anyway went back to the dorm to sleep around 5 pm... slept till the morning hahah

thats the end of day 1 :)

Great week

Its been a great week meeting up with frens... Enjoyed myself alot :) though spent quite abit liao.

I still have like a few more days before I fly... Haben really packed my stuffs yet... will do it tml if i'm not meeting up with zann and company.

Met up with miss boo today lol. Had a great chat and went to indo chine for a drink :) quite a nice place... shld visit more often in future heh or maybe half a yr later ;)

Gotta go sleep liao lest tml cant wake up for work again ... Seeya