The Place to be (Part II)
Thoughts. Not necessarily in a stream.
Monday, June 18, 2007
Brisbane Adventure
Ello all. It's been more than a month. This blog is absolutely stagnating. But amazingly people do read it (only when they're really bored.. I know... straight from the horse's mouth [of course I'm referring to a little horsie called Wan] :p) Anyway, finally have the time and mood to get on with the 2nd part of my down-under trip.
The Batman Ride which shoots you up and down. I went the first time and hated it. These 2 are obviously smug with what their stomachs can handle.
Had Nando's for dinner.. great Peri Peri sauce. And conveniently there was a night market going on at the stretch behind our hotels. Played with sludge there. Anyway, the next day was our long road trip day so we settled for an early night.
And we finally reached our destination.. Sunshine Coast! Or rather Noosa Heads.. where we did some body surfing (or attempted to, mostly kept getting smacked in the face with my own surfboard). Hah. But was fun, hanged out at the beach till the sunset and it got kinda cold. Then we shopped for our trusty bottle of chilli sauce and had a load of fish, chips and calamari. That ended our long day and we drove the long dark road home (3hrs was it?) and collapsed into our beds. Next day took some pretty pics at the beach before we headed to Brisbane..
Thanks Bebe for bringing us around.. don't we look like we just Belong to the beach? To more years of travel ahead!
See it? See it? So cuteee!
Also petted kangaroos, and energetic naughty sheepdogs.. they just trample all over the poor sheep. Petted a black sheep. Bebe wanted to pet it too but it bleated at her. HAHA. After that we drove on to Bebe's uni, which is lovely btw. I wish I studied there rather than NUS man. We had lovely Sarpino's pizzas there with beer and took a walk by the lakes before heading to Brisbane city. Brisbane city shopping area looks similar to Sydney's, literally saw some copycat buildings. Anyway, there was some chinese festival going on.. walked down fortitude valley and Chinatown. Not as lively as Sydney though.. but Bebe brought us to this little cafe and we had the yummiest hot chocolate. Couldn't get enough of it... tiramisu was lovely too. 
So during the transit btw Sydney and Brisbane we managed to find ourselves some Krispy Kreme donuts after much running around (from terminal to terminal only to be greeted with a little Krispy Kreme cart which we didn't see the first time round at the very terminal we started from). They were indeed delicious. Melts in your mouth. We touched down in Brisbane around 8, and once again a free ride to our hotel in Gold Coast Surfer's Paradise! This hotel was wayy better than the Sydney one... and so was their breakfast the next morning. Pancakes, sausages, macaroni, cereal, yoghurt, salad, ham, cheese... bad for the cholesterol levels but oh so good for the soul. The beach was a minute's walk from the hotel and it was beAutiful:
Now that's what I call beach. And the reason why I don't regard East Coast Park as a beach, becos it ain't, it's just an artificial sandbar real close to the shore.
The rest of the next day was spent shopping at a factory outlet called Harbourtown. Took a bus down (yup, familiarising ourselves with the public transport already) and found a terrific bargain (Rip Curl bikini tops and bottoms at $5 each!). Also bought some Esprit tops for my mum at $10 each which turned out to be too big. Almost lost my bikinis midway through shopping but thankfully found it in the changing room. Had coffee and cake to unwind from the stress of shopping after which we headed to our neighbourhood Woolworths (its like the Singapore equivalent of NTUC) to dabao chicken, salad and ginger beer to head back to our hotel to pig out. And the next day, Bebe came over!
And we went to MovieWorld... which is NOTHING compared to Orlando's themeparks. Heh. Sat on a 2 scary rides and slurped ice cream.
The Batman Ride which shoots you up and down. I went the first time and hated it. These 2 are obviously smug with what their stomachs can handle.
The Superman Rollercoaster. This one was better than the Batman but it still kinda gave me a headache. These 2 obviously loved it and sat on it again right at the back row with the highest G force. Show-offs.
Us slurping our ice-creams.
Had Nando's for dinner.. great Peri Peri sauce. And conveniently there was a night market going on at the stretch behind our hotels. Played with sludge there. Anyway, the next day was our long road trip day so we settled for an early night.
I love roadtrips! Ever since Orlando times its a great feeling to be on the road with the music up and chatting with your bestest pals. First stop was Glasshouse Mountains which I imagined to be some awesome sight with reflective cliffs and stuff but it was just a hilly mountain, maybe the reflective part was on the other side :\ Couldn't get to a good vantage point. The next stop was more exciting though.. the Giant Pineapple!
It's really just that, a giant pineapple. Of course around it there was a pineapple plantation, pineapple tours, and a shop selling just about everything you can make from pineapples.
After that we made stops at the Ginger factory and Macadamia nut factory and bought loads of goodies back for the folks at home. And finally we reached the Eumundi markets where hundreds of people flock to every weekend. Its a really big market which sells all kinds of stuff. Didn't get anything there except a can of slime though. Don't look at me that way, Mr Adriano bought it for his personal pleasure.
And we finally reached our destination.. Sunshine Coast! Or rather Noosa Heads.. where we did some body surfing (or attempted to, mostly kept getting smacked in the face with my own surfboard). Hah. But was fun, hanged out at the beach till the sunset and it got kinda cold. Then we shopped for our trusty bottle of chilli sauce and had a load of fish, chips and calamari. That ended our long day and we drove the long dark road home (3hrs was it?) and collapsed into our beds. Next day took some pretty pics at the beach before we headed to Brisbane.. Thanks Bebe for bringing us around.. don't we look like we just Belong to the beach? To more years of travel ahead!Oh next stop was my favourritte.. went to Lone Pine Koala Sanctuary and came face-to-face with dozens of cute furry koala bears!!! Even saw a baby one!!
See it? See it? So cuteee! And I even got to hold one! Wanted to bring it home so badly.. it's name is Hazel :)
Also petted kangaroos, and energetic naughty sheepdogs.. they just trample all over the poor sheep. Petted a black sheep. Bebe wanted to pet it too but it bleated at her. HAHA. After that we drove on to Bebe's uni, which is lovely btw. I wish I studied there rather than NUS man. We had lovely Sarpino's pizzas there with beer and took a walk by the lakes before heading to Brisbane city. Brisbane city shopping area looks similar to Sydney's, literally saw some copycat buildings. Anyway, there was some chinese festival going on.. walked down fortitude valley and Chinatown. Not as lively as Sydney though.. but Bebe brought us to this little cafe and we had the yummiest hot chocolate. Couldn't get enough of it... tiramisu was lovely too.
And that was the end of our trip! The next morning we woke up at like 4am to catch the coach to the airport and we had a long day just sitting on the aeroplane flying around Australia till we finally ended up back in hot ol' Singapore. We even passed by Perth and saw good friend Maria Tandun there. Haha. That was a pleasant surprise.. anyway, yeah, was a good trip. And that's all my photos for now. Oh I did go for another holiday soon after I came back.. short family getaway to Malaysia but I'll leave that to another post. :P
Goodnight folks!
The SP, 9:13 PM
