lock-me-out-nator

Back in Singapore for a week already. Lazy to update my blog:p Because at home, wireless network not working and i lazy to go my sis's room where the modem is.

Ever since I've been back, I have running nose every morning. Air here so dirty tsk tsk...My sister is back from her studies as well. My nose is really irritating( or irritated)..grrrrrhhh

Been cleaning up my shit at work which i left behind when i went off to study. Handing over and teaching stuff to the Ed. And also trying to fix a program for a machine i did previously. So its not all holidays and bumming around.

I had durian with my buddies, one of their friend, and the buddy's friend's friend last nite. And this morning woke up with abit sore throat. But its all good. Bought back some durian for my mum and it stank up the whole car:p

Alrite....be back later lah.

Over and out!

Posted by Unknown at 3:07 PM | Permalink | Comments

Ok Day 3 finally.....

We are still in Hobart, Tasmania. A sunday. And we headed to the visitor centre in Hobart city because we have booked a bicycle trip from Mt Wellington.

Reached there around 9:30am. Wait and wait. Why? Because something cocked up on the organiser's side. Their transport broke down somewhere or something like that. Good thing they provided a cab to bring us up Mt Wellington, about 1200m upwards.



Organisers reach the summit shortly too, with the bikes. We were suited up with extra jackets, helmets and optional gloves.


Summit very windy. It seem to pierce into your bones and make u feel so darn cold. After all the prep, all good to go, we started our descent from the top. This trip will take us from the top and back to the city.

A very fast ride, downhill, no need break any sweat. until one section where we went off-road. Even ST went in and conquered it!!



We went round and round. Then we reached Cascade Brewery, which is located just at the foot of the mountain. Had some drinks and tim tam biscuit, before we resume cycling, this time on the roads, towards the city.

Very fun cycling trip indeed! Returned the equipment and we were on our way to find lunch. Guess what we had??????


No not her........try again






we had..........Fish and chips......again. Anyway we finished the lunch. And we need to think of where to go. Because we are too efficient in our travelling (or inefficient in planning). We finish our planned places to visit.

We ended up at the Tasmania Botanical Gardens, where we saw the fierce guard.

Cows laying lazily on the green pastures


A lazy afternoon in the park, enjoying the lovely sun and breeze. Watching the locals having picnic, kids playing. Visited the japanese gardens, subantartic plants section. I find it abit boring though, but we ran out of ideas on where to go :( and the botanical garden seems to be the only place of interest at that time.

Dinner was spanish food. Thankfully something different from fish and chips. My first time having spanish food. Must say the taste is rather unique.

And that was the 3rd Day

Day 1 here
Day 2 here

(lazy put pics already. Wanna sleep:p)

Posted by Unknown at 12:58 AM | Permalink | Comments

I is back in Singapore already. A welcome part of 7 people came to the airport and fetched me, brought me for breakfast in the early hours after their all night majong session.

Is always good to be back, especially for holidays. Had dinner with my parents and ST Yesterday night meet my chumps for coffee at coffee bean down at east coast park. Got new blood haha.

I know my tasmania trip posts are still incomplete. Still got day 3 to 6. will do it asap lah:p

If not, read day 1 and day 2 of tasmania trip.

Over and out!!

Posted by Unknown at 4:27 PM | Permalink | Comments

Day 1's activities are here
Photo Album for the trip here

(Warning....again. Lots of pictures)

The itenary today was to go The Salamanca saturday market.(whatever the name is) and also to Port Arthur.

The market is located along Salamanca place(in Hobbart city), and it opens only on Saturdays. Lots of stalls, lots of people, lots of stuff to see and buy. I am sure there is something for everyone here. It starts in the morning and ends probably around afternoon.

Firstly, to make sure our stomachs are filled....starting with sausages


And then some donuts and dutch donuts


With some ice-cream


As you can see, ST seem to be doing all the eating :p Ok lah i got pictures of me eating also


Ok enough of eating for now.......lets move on. Saw a cute chair. and the push to try save the man who is gonna be hung in Singapore. ST is so scared of people knowing that we are from Singapore. Afraid that they may take it out on us!!


Ok back to eating. ST is dazed by the food & music


After filling our stomach with snacks, we then head of to Port Arthur. It was a former pentitentiary(prison). It also housed a community of the military personnels donkey years ago.

We arrived there really on time, bought the entrance tickets and ran for the cruise that was scheduled to set off in 5mins time.


And on the cruise of course we have to take some pictures!


Sadly, by the time we finished the cruise and was about to proceed with the tour on foot, it rained for 15mins. Sun came out for 15mins and rained again.


It was like this for about 45mins before the sun came out for a long period of time. We then continue to resume tour of the place.



More pics of the tour of the places we went are available on my photo album here

Anyway we finished the tour when the skies beckon to pour again. Headed back to Hobart city in search of dinner. Settled on Fish Frenzy, one of the more popular places for fish and chips in town. Drooling??


Dinner signaled end of day 2. After dinner, we headed back to retire.

Posted by Unknown at 8:02 PM | Permalink | Comments

(quite a bit of pictures, so please patient abit lah)

Exams are done for all of us. So a trip to Tasmania was planned. Tasmania is one of the states in Australia, located just south of mainland Australia.

We woke up early so as to reach the airport for the 0645Hr Flight to Hobart, Tasmania. The flight took about an hour, so reached Hobart airport and went to pick up our rented car.

Woke up very early, so I need the coffee

Car provided was an Automatic 2.0 litre Hyundai Elantra. Spacious enough and good enough to carry us for our tour.....comes with a model too


First Stop we drove into the city and looked for some breakfast. Found a cafe and settled our breakfast with a set of omelettes, tea and orange juice.

I look cute and i want my food

Activities lined up for the day was a cascade brewery tour, where my favourite Australian beer comes from. And then a tour to very popular chocolate factory.

First up the brewery tour!


another part of the factory


This is one of the few must-go in Tasmania. The guide will bring us thru the history of the factory, and then a walk around the plant to look at the production stages, from raw material barley to the few final product of beers, cider etc. We must wear some vest and safety goggles for the tour like this.....
and

A closer look at the production area......They use spring water from Mt. Wellington for the production of the beer.


After the tour was (almost)everyone's favourite time, the beer tasting. We tasted almost all that is available for us to test. Bought some beer that isn't exported out of Tasmania too. $14 for 6 bottles.

It was also at this time when st loves the dark beer!! and after that thru out the whole trip, she was asking for it!!

We ordered lunch too. Lamb shanks and Steak Burger. Food turned out really great. The meat dropped easily from the bone, and the burger delicious.
&

Next stop cadbury factory! Not much photos because the outside wasn't really interesting and cameras, earrings, watches blah blah not allowed into the production area. They were quite strict on this policy. And we have to wear funny shower caps for the tour.




The factory wasn't up to everyone's expectations. Why? Because all of us watched Charlie(or willy wonka) and the chocolate factory already. Then we imagined the inside as it was in the movie. Flowing river of chocolate, expecting some one dressed up as willy wonka bring us around for the tour.

The factory is made up of lots of conveyor belts. And yes the chocolate was within reach but no....we did not just pick up any chocolate from the production areal. But they do serve us some chocolates along the way, and end of the tour we were able to buy chocolates at a discounted price.

After that we checked into our accoms for Hobart. It was a really nice place just at the outskirts of Hobart City. With a view of the bay, I guess thats why the name was bay view villas. It comes quite complete with a small kitchen, 3 bedrooms and a large living area.
TOILET!! Important place!!


It was quite early, so we drove to Salamanca Market for a short walk. It was quite quiet. We are gonna come here the next day for its saturday morning market, which is quite popular. Another must visit in Hobart. So if you are planning a trip to Tasmania, try to make your visit to Hobart to consist of a saturday.


Visited the casino in Hobart. But nothing much to see lah. Melbourne's Crown casino got more to see.

And then it was dinner. A very simple affair. Macdonalds.


And it was the end of day one.

(More coming up. Photos here. Partly uploaded, more coming up soon!!)

Posted by Unknown at 12:02 PM | Permalink | Comments

yoo yoo I am back in Victoria, after abt 6 days away for holidays in Tasmania.

Over dinner of roast chicken and brocolli, a silly question was asked by me.

"Why is chicken breast dry?"

Someone answered "Because the rooster touched it too much"

More about the trip later....

Posted by Unknown at 7:44 PM | Permalink | Comments

I have finished my exam already. Shiokness. Still some poor souls have yet to start, like my sis. Good luck!!

Early morning, me and me chumps shall leave for a flight at 6+ for tasmania and be back in about 6 days time.

Yesterday was spent getting lost in the city. I will not wanna drive into the city. My lousy sense of directions + lots of roads lead us to where we did not intend to go. Walked alot too, end of day legs were damn tired. The day was spent window shopping and eat and eat. Supposed to drop by vic mart night market but there doesn't seem to have anything going on. Bought a top at some nike adidas warehouse, then a book somewhere in melbourne. Had huiting and her boyfriend joining us for dinner. We had a good one and dessert to finish off the night.

More details over here

Gonna bath and take a nap. Leaving around 4+ for the airport.

Over and out!

Posted by Unknown at 8:33 PM | Permalink | Comments

Warning: Mindless random stuff below

Last paper is on tuesday. Can't wait for it come. although I am not ready, not prepared. But still, one can always welcome the coming of the last paper. Yeeeahhh baby~ Afterwards, 2 semester to go:(

This coming one is financial modelling, one of the two more challenging subjects i have this semester(the other database. The rest are boring crap). Loads of calculations. 105 MCQs in 120minutes. Should be quite a rush for time. With negative marking, cannot bring in any dice, cannot anyhow hantam. Answer wrong, minus 0.2 marks. Its little, but it adds up.

Don't see the point for negative marking. Even if i don't know shit about anything. What makes them think one can guess 50% of the 105 questions correct.(Some one do the stats please?)

Anyway today has been rather productive for me. Did quite abit of past tutorials and revision questions for this subject. Finally able to get into study mode, which means sit down on the chair, for 2 hrs and do my work with no distractions.

For the past few weeks, I can't make past the 1/2hr mark, without drifting off to other activities like, trying out Championship manager 5(it sucks), playing some online driving game, Sim Tower, Civilization 2(laptop grapics card no good, cannot play the latest games). I even install the .NET framework, and tried to learn the basic of simple client and server program based on sockets.

Right at this moment, I was supposed to read through my notes, but really got no mood. I think i should go rest and start work early tomorrow.

.......

Over and out!!

Posted by Unknown at 10:41 PM | Permalink | Comments

This morning, I had my third paper. Same place, down at caulfield race course. Except this time in the morning, 9:30am. Train ride was like a suspense thriller story book for me.

Last night checked the train schedule, planned to take the train and reach there with 15mins to spare. Estee told me to go earlier in case the trains screw up, but i don't feel like waking earlier than i had planned. Nonetheless, i decided to leave the house early. Walked to the train station, bought me tickets and went past the gates.

An annoucement came in form the loudspeakers in the station.

Estee damn accurate man!! must be never brush teeth!! Should have got some numbers from her for you guys playing 4-D at home.

They announced that there was disruption to the train services, the train won't take me to my destination, and it will stop some where in the middle. I panicked already(kan cheong spider lah)

Wallet not enough money to take cab from the stop point to caulfield (cab ride expensive lah). Ok nvm, wait and see. Sat down took out my notes and read thru it again.

Reached the supposed stop point, but no one told us to leave the train. Instead there were passengers coming in,so i sat down still. The bloody train just moved at turtle speed, then stop for few minutes, then move again. Repeat quite a few times. In the train, i was like "God please bring me thru! I don't want any what-if scenarios happening". No mood to read notes anymore man.

Supposed to reach at 8:47. In the end, praise the Lord! Reached there almost 9:30. Whole train ride felt like it took ages. Anyway exams went on and invigilators gave some grace time for people who got stuck in the trains.(I don't have because i got there on time)

Finished the paper, drop by school picked up some assignments, then took the shuttle bus home.

Right now slacking around now. Rest abit and get ready for the final battle next week.

Over and out!!

Posted by Unknown at 1:45 PM | Permalink | Comments