After the few travel adventures Sean and I have had together, I've learnt that the difficult part of travelling isn't the packing nor the unpacking, but the counting down and the knowledge that our little holiday is over and that it's back to reality. Unfortunately, as we all already know, all good things must eventually come to an end, but of course, we can always look forward to the next.
Or.. think back and smile about the wonderful trip, and share it with others (:
So here I go.
Booked a random, spontaneous flight to Gold Coast, Australia through Scoot during one of their ridiculously cheap flight promotions. In what seemed like forever, we were finally leaving Singapore for our longest adventure yet. We celebrated our 16th month together on the plane - sleeping.
Day 1 (29-30Dec13)
Our 7h55min night flight landed us in Coolangatta Airport at about 8am Aussie time. Got our prepaid sim cards and car, and headed to Coolangatta beach just less than 10min away. Yes, in all our airport clothes which obviously, was not appropriate for the beach. We were greeted with soft sand, icy cold seawater, breeze, and cooling temperature despite the scorching sun. The view was amazing, with a vast, endless stretch of coast against a spectacular skyline. The beach was actually crowded at that time with all the early birds trying to soak up as much of the sun as possible.
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| the car that brought us around during our 8 days in aus |
Grabbed Subway (in our defense, they had other flavours we do not have here!!) for breakfast at the shopping mall just across the road, walked around for a little bit and then made our way up to Brisbane (1hr drive), where we checked in to
Go Now Backpackers in an 8-bed dormitory. For lunch, we settled on a cafe which served all-day breakfast -
Atomica Eat Drink. OH YUMS. Not exactly the cheapest but really generous servings.
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| my eggs benny w/ham |
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| Sean's scrambled eggs and sourdough |
What would a holiday for two triathletes be without some physically challenging activities? We therefore, could not resist a hike at Mount Coo-tha. No, not UP Mount Coo-tha, thankfully! The gradient was crazy! Amazed how cyclists can ride up to the summit. Randomly attempted a trail, and found ourselves sliding down a long slope. And of course, we had to climb back up! Oh dear.
From our experience, "the slower you go, the more pain you'll feel" so we (or rather, I) ran with all we'd (I'd) got, back to where we started. Altogether, I think we hiked for more than 4km!
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| A friendly jogger with his friendly dogs. |
Dinner was great at
Swampdog in the cooling 25deg windy weather and watching the chef cook up the never-ending orders. The fries and calamari with tartar sauce were delicious but the fish was nothing to shout about and could have been less.. chewy.
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| Happy boy can't wait to gobble down yummy fries! |
Day 2 (31Dec13)
Checked out of GoNow Backpackers early the next morning and headed for
Trekkers Backpackers in Gold Coast. Found a big bike shop and was super excited but the stuff there were so much more expensive than in Singapore.
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| planet cycles |
Here are some photos of our lunch at Galaxy Seafood & Mediterranean Restaurant. Bruschetta was tasty for someone who does not fancy tomatoes. I actually gladly finished my portion, savouring the blend of flavours from the herbs, tomatoes and onions. Sean ordered Reef&Surf which was really good too except for the disappointment of having only ONE single lonely slice of calamari. Other than that, the prawns were fresh and steak was cooked perfectly, just the way he likes it - medium rare. Wanting to try something new, I ordered chicken tajine, with no idea it would turn out the way it did, as in the photo below. Glad I did it, because the chicken was so tender and juicy, having been cooked with the stew, which was by the way, undrinkable on its own due to the amount of spices giving it its strong flavour. The lobster mornay was creamy (not so much to my liking so I tried to remove as much of the cream as possible, which probably was the 'mornay' part of the name), oh-so-fresh and delicious 10x better than the prawn from Reef&Surf.
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| bruschetta |
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| reef&surf |
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| chicken tajine |
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| lobster mornay |
Had some time to spare so we explored
Australia Fair a little before making our way to the
Skypoint Climb. Spent about an hour and a half in total, putting on jumpsuits and harnesses, safety briefing, and the awesomest part - the climb itself! We got to look down the building from 270m above the ground and had a 360 degrees breathtaking view of Gold Coast whilst learning about it's history and fun facts from our wonderful guide. Unfortunately, we were not allowed to bring our cameras up, so we bought hard copies of photos we took on the climb - obviously a daylight robbery but I bet everyone buys it. How not to when one has already paid so much for the climb? One clever guy/gal who suggested this eh. (Don't have the hard copy with me at the moment)
Next activity in line -
Yatala Drive-in Theatre to watch The Hobbit 2! Predicted that it might be crowded so we went early to get our tickets first before getting dinner and dessert from
Yatala Pies just a short drive down.
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| first ever drive-in movie for both of us (: |
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| yumyum angus beef pie! |
Found out that the hanging speakers could be brought in to the car and that we were unprepared relative to the other aussie patrons. They brought chairs, tables, cushions, baby cot etc. Well, we made do by eating on the car bonnet so.... who needs tables? Also found out that nobody would chase us away after our movie ended and that we could stay for the next too! So we decided to stay for The Secret Life of Walter Mitty (didn't think it was any good).
And thus, we welcomed 2014 in the car while driving back to the hostel. Wheeee. We are so
guai (well-behaved) right? Thanks!
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| first photo of 2014 while chasing fireworks! happy new year! |
Day 3 (1Jan14)
We woke up a little later to a horrid find. We got a parking ticket for AU$50! Expensive lesson there. Well, we always learn something new eh. The traffic police there are very
on or enthusiastic.
Shopping at
Pacific Fair on a beautiful morning before heading for lunch at
Yellowfin Seafood. Maybe the seafood platter for 2 is not meant us Asians. I think it should be for 3 instead. But I loved it anyways!!! Oh succulent Aussie crab, you may be messy, but how I love thee.
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| had a bottle of white wine which we could not finish |
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| too big for the table it needed to be 2 'storeys' high |
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| seafood platter for 2! (with base full of chips) |
Not a very good idea to drive when Sean had had 3 glasses of wine, so we walked and tanned away the alcohol at
Broadbeach. Enjoyed the beautiful scenery, overwhelming vastness of the azure blue sky, sun without the humidity AND built weird-shaped sandcastles which may be too vulgar to post here. So it's up to your imagination now. Muahaha.
Once the
Beachfront Markets opened at 5pm, we parked and not wanting to experience another parking fine, went over to the ticket machine to buy a ticket. "NONO, don't put in money!" We turned in surprise and this guy was running towards us "Take my ticket, no need pay". How thankful we were to be able to save some money since we already lost $50 that day. The ticket was paid till 7pm (exactly when parking became free!). Thank God for His providence.
Had a great time checking out the stuff on sale, watched a talented artist paint, but everything there still wasn't as cheap as we thought it would be, so we cheapos got 2 healthy juice drinks at AU$4.50 each (which isn't even cheap by the way!) But we were thirsty so.. yeah..
Wanting some dinner, we walked across to
Centro Surfer's Paradise in search of something reasonably priced. Wasn't easy. Settled for
Hungry Jacks, the Aussie version of our Burger King (they had Whopper too!). The street performers there were AMAZING. So entertaining and interactive, I thoroughly enjoyed myself. I think the Aussies were thinking "who is that weird-ass Asian cheering and laughing like a retard?" Well, who cares! I'm on a holiday, mates! Probably embarrassed Sean a little HAHA. (Pictures will be up when I can find my mem card adapter. Just lost it. In my own home sigh)
Day 4 (2Jan14)
DREAMWORLD DAY! But before that, we went for a morning run, where we found a beautiful park with cool playgrounds and a bicycle course. Of course, our run was interrupted heehee.
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| being a little kid again (: |
Thoughts on Dreamworld: The rides were extremely thrilling and exhilarating, one might even describe it as heart-stopping from the shock especially from the Giant Drop. Sheesh. One helluva crazy ride, that one was. I lovelovelove roller coasters but I have no idea why this just wasn't my favourite even though it is the craziest. I'm not gonna describe the rides because then no one would ever want to come back here to read such a
lor-sor (long-winded) blog. Just google it ok. Or maybe, be like me, go with absolutely no idea about what is coming up.
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| Buzz-saw |
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| check out the size of that hotdog! |
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| fave pic of the trip: the innocence of a child - he danced with the kangaroo and hugged it as one would hug a soft toy |
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| shhhooo cute |
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| this noob's first time trying churros. shush. |
After Dreamworld, we went to
Harbourtown but it was already closing. So we went to
Runaway Bay Shopping Village next, which was equally disappointing because it was just big supermarkets, but we did go in to grab some groceries, since we were already there anyway. Oh, and had KFC (once AGAIN, they had other stuff ok and don't judge, we haven't had it in eons).
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| their definition of MINI wrap. glad to be Asian. half-priced baby. |
Day 5 (3Jan14)
Whitewater World today! Queue was fine, reasonable I guess, probably because people started work. Slides were pretty much the same except for the Water Coaster which is similar to the one in Singapore but better!
Made friends with two young boys (let's name them Heaven and Hell) who were queueing in front of us. When we asked if they "would like to go (on the ride) with us", Heaven replied with no hesitation and with much enthusiasm, "YES!" whereas Hell replied "yeah! Where are we going?" HAHAHA. (No pictures, sadly.. did not bring along my waterproof cam this time)
With our 21-day unlimited entry, pass we went back to play at Dreamworld and rode the Tower of Terror again. So awesome! Easily my favourite ride EVER.
Headed out for dinner at Labrador Tigers Sports Club. I think their sports = betting. Shrugs.
Food was goooood. By that time, we had had enough of chips even though they were really quite yums. AND.. we had another bottle of wine, which we did not finish, again.
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| appetizer? good enough for a meal. |
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| Mixed Grill |
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| Surf and Turf |
Day 6 (4Jan14)
Am thankful to be able to visit Carrara Markets (an Australian Chatuchak) at 730am. Yay early birds. The sun and temperature that day was terrible. It got up to 34 degree celcius, so much so that we were tired from just walking around the markets. Decided to get into the shade and found a place to sit, which happened to belong to a food shop selling macarons. We were talking about whether we should get some just for fun, but as I was trying to look out for the price, I noticed the shopkeeper pick out two pieces and put them on a plate. He then walked out of his shop and walked towards us. Holding the plate in front of us, he said, "It's a really warm day and I know you two would really love some. So here you go, enjoy guys." Yes, I remember every word because it was such a rare gesture, never seen in Singapore. Seriously, would any shopkeeper just step out and offer you free food unless they are giving out testers?
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| with muh favourite boy (: |
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| greatly appreciated free macarons |
Went back to Harbourtown to complete the shopping we did not get to do the previous time. Got what we wanted and stuff for his family yay! The weather was craaaazy hot and that killed my mood for shopping and made me irritable haha. We wanted to save some money so our lunch and dinner were bought from
Woolworths, their supermarket, and headed back to our hostel to cook (: Also went bike shopping! There are a few bike shops near our hostel -
99Bikes and
Ferry Rode Cycles.
While eating our early dinner and playing pool before going out again to Ripley's Believe It or Not, we were invited to a weekly backpackers event where all the backpackers from participating backpackers hostels in Gold Coast gather together and visit 4 clubs. We also get one free drink from each club. Sean, being Sean, and by that I mean adventurous, spontaneous, daring yaddayadda, persuaded me to say yes - "come on, we're on a holiday and we've never been into a club overseas right? Don't you want to see how it's like?" So, there goes our guai-ness. Yippee.
About the clubs there (at least the 3 out of 4 we visited)- Songs were alright, dance floor isn't big nor super crowded, people aren't quite as crazy as we expected but it was fun nonetheless. A good experience. Glad I gave in to his persuasions. The night ended with our horror at how fast the taxi meter jumped. If you thought taxis are expensive here, you haven't been to Australia right? It started at AU$6.30, followed by AU$2.14 per km PLUS waiting time. In total, our short 4-5km journey costed us approximately AU$17. Like.. WHUTT??
Day 7 & 8 (5-6Jan14)
First surfing experience in Australian waters. The water was freezing and there was unfortunately no sun! Compared to Bali, the waves were not as big and no photographers were present to take pictures of us ): so we just have to make do with this photo taken after the 2.5h surfing experience.
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| my $10 lunch |
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| his $10 lunch haha |
Next up - Currumbin Wildlife Sanctuary. We finally reached at 3.30pm (closes at 5pm). The entrance fee was already half-priced by then which was what we got our vouchers for (but it was meant for the whole day!). Did not manage to catch the shows but it was fun roaming around a practically empty park/zoo/whatever it is called. I think we were pretty awesome. Who would do that? Really? Entering a park near closing time haha. Thankfully, we managed to catch the last tram ride!! Also thankful that I can be going crazy chasing random monitor lizards and my boy doesn't mind being with me hhahaha.
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| D-I-N-G-O and Dingo was it's name! |
Such an activity-packed day, we drove down 20min to get our 2 large Pizzas for $10 from Bada-Bing Pizza and Pasta which I do not recommend. We only got it coz it was on Groupon and cheap. There are many other pizza places, so don't worry, you won't be missing out a thing. Immediately drove to Ripley's Believe It or Not for our final activity of the trip. Had an interesting and educational visit, read about all the weird facts and pretended to be in a spy movie when we went through laser beams. Really fun, but probably not suitable for young children due to the amount of reading that needs to be done to really maximise the experience. Furthermore, some of the artefacts might be pretty disturbing for some.
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| a guy had double pupils! |
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| Tallest man vs Sean |
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| Shrunken head - real |
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| A hanging jacket? No. Wood. Hard piece of wood. |
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| spy on a mission |
This brings our trip to a close. Packed up and left early the next morning before the hostel receptionist woke up (so we lost our $10 deposit -.-). A close shave at our luggage weight at the airport, crying babies wailing at the top of their lungs for the 8h flight back. Ups and downs, luck and misfortune - all part of Sean and Clar's travelling adventures and we wouldn't change a thing.
Final note:
Biggest thanks goes out to my bestie - the most awesome travel companion, navigator and driver, Sean. He drove the entire trip and I'm guilty for giving wrong directions even with google maps in my hands.. oops. Thank you dear for communicating with the ang-mohs and getting things done for us. You made this trip so memorable for me and words can't describe how much fun I had the entire trip, and how thankful I am for you.
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| my bestie and meeee |
