the roads are getting nearer

Tuesday, June 26, 2007

` 11:19 PM

what i've been up to these few days whenever i'm home:

:)) loves it! uber cool show. this series makes Lost almost... boring. Peter Petrelli is my fave Hero haha.. he has the coolest power (he's able to absorb powers from others and recall them) ~~and he's cute too~~ :p

this. is. hilarious.

The Dramatic Look! rofl.

Thursday, June 21, 2007

` 8:59 PM

i'm finally doing something constructive after almost two months of bumming around and watching tv marathons and going out and spending money. not that spending time with people i love is not constructive, but you get my drift! :) working at Cycle & Carriage (Mercedes Benz) for just four days (or five, if we're working next monday) folding letters and putting them into envelopes (super boring and brainless but physically taxing job: imagine folding 2000 letters per day). am working with ohmy so it's not that bad, at least i've got her to talk to and suffer together :) wahaha. and the pay's pretty good too! so i don't know why am i complaining in the first place. lol.

oh, and currently there are approximately 24,000 Singaporeans who own a Merc. that's the total number of letters we have to fold and put into envelopes :S

and today we realised that this temp person working with us is from NUS Chemistry Year 3-to-be, and what's more, he is the ghost that i kicked in LT22 during SOW's fright night two years ago. LOL. talk about a small small world.

PostSecret's Father's Day special is so sweet :) i love the little anecdotes people sent in about their dads.

my fave one is:
When i was little my dad told me that polyester was a small animal in Australia & they would kill it to make clothes. That night i sat in my room reading the labels on my clothes for hours & threw all of the polyester ones away.

and i like this too:
We used to have an automatic van. When I was small, my father would have me call out to the car in parking lots to find it. he would beep the car as if it were responding to me. I could also "command" the automatic windows to roll up or down -- but only if I asked politely.

Though I know how it works twenty years later, I still ask cars politely for their windows to go up and down.

And I still love my father.

awwww :))

have been sleeping early and waking up early these few days. healthy lifestyle huh. hahaha. but when this job ends next week i'll be back to sleep-at-2 and wake-up-at-12 again.

Saturday, June 16, 2007

` 9:47 PM

Sydney Part 3

we set off for Hunter Valley on Day 7. it was the day it started raining (and didn't stop till our last day).

morning mist outside the cottage, due to rain.

lunch at Hunter Valley. the hot chocolate looks good huh :) but tasted like milo so boooo to that.

the little town.

i love the colours :)

saw this in one of the shops. hmmm. -ponders- :p

people visit Hunter Valley just for two things: its wineries and its gardens. we didn't go for both because it was too late by the time we reached! sad case.

so what do we do? take photo of the map of the Hunter Valley Gardens -.-''' hahaha.

and take photo of the vineyards.

our 4WD!

wild kangaroos! this time not just two! woooot :D

stayed one night in Hunter Valley and set off for Port Stephens on Day 8. this was the day the floods started in Hunter Valley.

our whale watch (out in the open sea to see killer whales! like omg apart from BridgeClimb this was what i was so looking forward to) was cancelled due to bad weather conditions. we kinda expected it cos it was raining non-stop and the wind was damn strong, but still, huge disappointment! i've concluded that we have absolutely no fate to go on a whale watch, cos a few years back we had one in New Zealand which was similarly cancelled due to bad weather :S

Nelson Bay. the dock was packed with boats cos no one ventured out to sea.

we're sad cos we can't see whales!!

we ended up going for a dolphin watch instead! dolphin watches were allowed cos we need not go out to the open sea to see dolphins; we could see them in the bay.

onboard the Moonshadow Cruise to see dolphins! :)

choppy waters.

Kenny-from-South-Park lookalike. i was STILL freezing. the wind was so colddd.

saw many dolphins!! damn exciting :) they just kept coming close to the cruise so it was damn fun :) at one time 2 dolphins swam along with the cruise, right in front of us. pretty creatures :) i love dolphins (and wombats and dogs and hamsters and terrapins and polar bears and...)!

no pictures of the dolphins cos i reckoned i should enjoy the moment instead of fumbling around with the cam and worrying about getting nice pictures. it's like fireworks. i used to take pictures when looking at fireworks and then i realised i should concentrate on looking at them instead. i enjoyed them more ever since :) ok digress again.

enormous waves and cold wind at a beach. can't really tell how big the waves are from the pictures, but they were really HUGE!

some more wave-madness along the Grand Pacific Highway.

even the locals flocked here to see the waves!

we braved the wind and rain back to Sydney that night.

and ohmygod i can't remember what we did on Day 9. i only remembered that we went shopping (!!) at some factory outlet. lol. short-term memory loss.

went to the Pylon Lookout on Day 10! (pylons are the four huge concrete and granite blocks flanking the Harbour Bridge.) and finally the sun came out!

walking to the pylon..

yup that's the pylon.

the Pylon Lookout! see the steps along the sides of the Harbour Bridge? bridgeclimb bridgeclimb! hehe :D

the Pylon Lookout isn't just simply a lookout. there are photos and stories in the pylon about the bridge, its history and how it was constructed. (i digress again, but are the 2 sentences above supposed to be in present or past tense??) learnt quite a few things. huge eye-opener :) for one, the bridge is the widest and heaviest single span bridge in the world, but not the longest. and it consists of an estimated 6 million rivets to secure it in place.

some of the proposals for the design of the bridge back in the 1900s!

the wikipedia site is a pretty good site on the history of the bridge (if you're interested!). haha.

view from top of the pylon.

spot the groups of bridge climbers hehe!

we heart the beautiful bridge :))

and after that it was lunch at some shopping mall near The Rocks and then off to the airport for the flight back home!

---
yayness finally done :)) and oh Channel 5 answered my question! Lost 3 premieres on 24th jun sunday 11 pm! wheee! can't wait!

Friday, June 15, 2007

` 3:58 PM

haven't started on Sydney Part 3 yet, but here's the very outdated pictures from the bf's phone :)

i heart fat-arsed wombats :))

awwww. sad-looking puppy at some pet shop.

ultimate aunty hair! wahaha. cheonging Perfume project in school. sab and mr. fridge are beside me btw.

Julian Beever's chalk drawing at Raffles City.

hahaha so what do the biscuit earrings say?

le kua si mi!

things we do when we're bored: fold flowers and make a bouquet.

the ben bears love each other :)

Mr. Dean's List and his not-so-pro sidekick :p

all the silly things we do, from bursting (loads of) bubble wrap and getting a kick out of it to making up stories about my poor koala. oh so silly things, but i love them cos they're done with you :)

Wednesday, June 13, 2007

` 10:11 PM

am using my dad's comp now cos my frickin laptop can't assess the stupid wireless and i have no idea why. all my collages are saved in there so i have to thumb everything over. arghness!

but anws here's Part 2.

Part 2

Day 4 Day 4 Day 4!!!! is the day i climbed the Sydney Harbour Bridge :))) ok you can go on and roll your eyes and say "chey!". hahaha. oy i've been waiting for this day ever since i saw a documentary about it way back like 5 years ago or something.

no photos cos we weren't allowed to bring anything that can be dropped (of course). even glasses had to be tied securely to our jumpsuits. we wore blue-and-grey jumpsuits and black weather pants which made me look damn spastic hahaha. and we had to strap like so many things (safety harness, radio, wet-weather packs etc.) to a belt we wore around our waist it was so heavy my pants kept wanting to drop. there were 10 people in one group and a guide (ours was called Tony! hehe).

the whole experience was 3 and a half hours long, but the first hour was spent signing a declaration form, undergoing a breathalyser test, listening to lectures about safety etc, wearing the suit and putting all sorts of misc stuff on our belts, and climbing a makeshift structure to prepare ourselves for what's in store for us on the real thing.

i was totally ecstatic when we finally got out! we had to climb, one by one, four sets of steep ladders to reach the base of the bridge. so when it was your turn to climb it you were literally on your own till you reached the base of the bridge. it was quite freaky but really fun at the same time :) when that was done, it was just walking up steps all the way to the top where the Australian flag stood flying. the view was spectacular. we could see the Blue Mountains! it was truly a great way to experience Sydney :)) i learnt so many new things during the climb. i so wanna go again! (if only it's free.) wahaha.

after that once-in-a-lifetime experience, off we went to take a ferry to Birkenhead for some shopping at the factory outlet there! (sadly) i didn't buy anything :(( haha.

sunset! :) the bridge reminds me of One Tree Hill! haha. the intro song where Chad Michael Murray runs across the bridge bouncing a basketball. haha ok enough.

the ferry back to Sydney city. as you can see, the cam is not good enough to take nice pictures at night :(

Day 5 saw us checking out of our apartment and collecting our rented car to drive to Blue Mountains!

the Blue Mountains are blue because of oils produced by eucalyptus trees which when released into the air give off a bluish tinge.

Wentworth Falls. just a trickle because of lack of rain. who'd guess how heavy the rain would be just a few days later.

stopped by the cosy little town of Leura for lunch.

a tiny candy store selling every kind of candy possible! it reminded me of Hogsmeade's (?) candy store in Harry Potter! haha.

then we checked into our Bed&Breakfast (B&B). i swear the cottage came out of a fairytale. not kidding. the cosiest and warmest B&B i've ever been to :)

our rooms!

around the house. it's owned by this old Italian man (Anthony) and his family. lucky people!!

click click! (the entrance to the cottage; fireplace in the dining room; dining room; the counter where Anthony sits, pretty candle; tv room; staircase to our rooms; the outside of the cottage; window in the dining room.) once again the pictures don't do justice to how gorgeous the place was. sigh!

nice right!! i so wanna live there.

after oohing and aahing over the place, we drove off to Echo Point to see the 3 Sisters.

the 3 Sisters.

took a track down the Giant Stairway to the first Sister.

sunset at Echo Point!

oh we went back there at night to see how the 3 Sisters looked like in the dark. the whole place was scaryyy. everything was pitch dark except the 3 Sisters which were lit up by orange spotlights. creepy stuff!

we went to Jenolan Caves on Day 6.

on the road..

the Grand Arch (or something liddat). entrance of the Jenolan Caves. there were many different caves and we went for the Lucas Cave tour.

it totally rocked :))

there were many chambers in the cave itself and some of them were SO huge and grand! one chamber's called The Cathedral as it was actually used as a cathedral in the olden days. it was.. majestic (with lack of a better word). learnt heaploads of new things during the cave tour. and the stalactites, stalagmites, "curtains", "beams" etc etc formed such a pretty picture it was truly a sight to behold.

then we drove off to see more of the Blue Mountains.

wild kangaroos doing their thang by the side of the road :) soooo cute!

some more Blue Mountains :)

Bridal Veil Falls. so named because, well, the thin sheet of water really looks like a bridal veil isn't it.

next up was Scenic World, where we went on the Skyway...

...the Cableway...

...and the Railway, which is the steepest railway in the world with an incline of 52 degrees!

it was formerly built for miners to travel deep down to the valley floor. we sat right in front which upped the thrill a few notches :D really fun but too short a ride!

---
this is so abrupt, but Part 3'll be coming up soon. ha.. ooh i just remembered! Lost 3 is showing in Australia now. i wonder when will it show in Singapore.