Friday, June 09, 2006
Australia Graduation Trip
18 May 2006 - 29 May 2006
Overall, we manage to keep within our budget of 3K.. coz we stayed in hostel and apartment and moved around using the cheapest mtd which is walking... haha
Generally, tt is a clean place with clean toilets and potable drinking water from the tap and nice, friendly pple.. their service was not bad, at least most of the pple still bother to smile to you when you walk into their store or approach them.. but i guess there's still a bit of communication breakdown due to the words that we used and their very strong accent.
CAIRNS
Din stayed for very long at this place coz we thot that this place quite ulu. Onli planned two days of activities:-
White Water Rafting (gg thru a few ripples, quite exciting coz we will hold on to the string on the boat for "dear" life, haha.. din want to fall into the water... we din but a guy did fell in.. haha...)
Great Barrier Reef (one of the seven wonders of the world.. so it's a must see if you go aussie.. hmm.. but it wasn't a good weather for us on that day, the water was choppy.. and i mean real choppy coz the boat was like shaking from side to side.. I tink it feels like some thrill ride in the theme park.. neva knew that the boat can shake so vigorously in the sea...so they act prepared ginger pills for pple who felt seasick.. luckily, i wasn't one of them... =).. since the weather wasn't so gd, the sea was a bit cloudy so couldn't reallie see the reef and the fishes very clearly.. but at least, I gotten a chance to snorkel in the deep ocean... we also went into the glass bottom ship to see more of the things under the sea since we dun noe how to dive..
SYDNEY
It looks like a typical city with busy people and vehicles... taxi in aussie was super expensive coz the meter jump every 10 seconds so most of the time, we chose walkin when moving to the various places... went to Paddy's Market (things were cheap, should haf bought more things dere esp the macademia nuts), The Rocks (nothing much, more of ornaments which is nice but like got no use if bring home, din get to try "Pancakes on the rocks", heard it was nice), Casino (good that they act give you moey to play if you are first-timer.. haha.. won some money over dere plus the money they gave us... haha.. and had a eye-opener watching pple betting)
Of course, Sydney was also a place to take pictures.. there's the opera house and the harbour bridge...overall, not much to play, more of sightseeing and eating... oh.. i also went to Port Stephens which was nearer to Newscastle.. Went dere for sand boarding... the sand dune dere was amazing... it has been built out for many many years.. some even covering the original forest..sand boarding is where you act slide down from the top of the sand dune to the bottom, like an enlarged slide in the playground...quite scared initially coz it was reallie very high... haha
GOLD COAST
Half of my trip was spent dere.. reallie enjoyed myself over dere... went to two theme parks: Dreamworld and Movieworld.. Some of the rides were scary, particulary like the "Wipe Out", "Superman Returns" and "Scooby Doo". Wipe out attempted to flip you in all directions as if you were doing surfing.. as for Superman, I like the way where there's a story and the ride took such a short time that you can onli shout and b4 you know it, it all ended... haha... Scooby Doo was fun coz you dun noe what to expect when you first take the ride, and given the minimal amount of harness that was given, you tend to get a bit scared when you haf to go thru the ups and downs...
Dreamworld had a open area when you can get close to the kangaroos.. hee~.. they were quite fun to play wif though we were a bit scared at the start.. Oh.. can also try "Tower of Tower"- a modified version of free fall.. but when it all occurs so fast, there's not much time to react la..hee~
Movieworld was about taking fotos with the various characters like Batman, Shrek, Spongebob, etc... I also like the Shrek 4D show... Oh, and the police academy stunt show is also sth not to be missed, funny and amazing, seeing the stunts performed right in front of your eyes...
Another thing was SHOPPING at HarbourTown... it's a place wif all the factory outlets of the various brands... so you can see things from ripcurl, mamboo, nike, etc selling for as low as AUD10(~SGD12.50)... haha.. can you believe it?.. all and there's also where we spent most of our money.. making us almost cashless dere.. think i spent ard AUD200 at that place alone... haha...
luckily, we stayed in an apartment over dere so we could saved on eating over dere by cooking meals ourselves... haha.. oh.. and i tried kangaroo meat le.. looked like beef but tasted a bit like chicken meat...
snoworld blogged on
7:23 PM
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