Category: Travel

I’m not leaving Brisbane for Sydney today. I couldn’t get a train ticket! However, I’m leaving tomorrow evening. The journey will take 18 hours.

Jin Han, Su Cheen and I went to Mt. Choo-tha today. It’s a scenery spot where you can see the whole of Brisbane from one end to another end. We took loads of pictures and had a drink before heading home an hour later.
– 11:44PMI’m leaving Brisbane tonight..sob sob. Sydney here i come!
– 1:15AM

» Gold Coast was great. It was about an hour away from Brisbane by train and bus. JinHan, Soon Loong, Kiang, Umeng, and I were extremely tired but Su Cheen and Su Min seemed energetic. We did not have enough sleep and we ended up sleeping on the train.

Racism is one of the main social problems in Australia. Some of my friends were victims of such social ill. Umeng and I were sitting next a young white boy. We were speaking in Cantonese but then suddenly the kid started saying, “yes, yes, what’s your name? Where are you from?” and his friend sitting infront of us started laughing. Umeng was pissed and screw him “shut up!” The boy was shocked and he kept quiet. We were suspecting that the boy thinks that we don’t understand or speak English. We plotted revenge. As soon as the boy gets out from his seat for his stop, Umeng said, “See you later guys!” the boy replied, in a surprised and embarrassed tone said “You can speak English???” Everyone on the bus started laughing.
First stop was a shopping centre. We had lunch before heading to Surfer’s Paradise by bus. In the beginning, we had no idea where the hell is the bus stop. We wandered around until we saw few benches in front of a 7-11. I sat down and asked a Japanese girl for directions to the bus stop. She replied, “oh this is the bus stop!” We started chatting. Her name is Noriko. She’s from Kokaido and 24 years old this year. Extremely fair with huge eyes, friendly and pretty but has really yellow tainted teeth. She can speak English (most Japanese cant) but she has a limited vocabulary (she doesn’t know what’s an architect). I asked her why are there so many Japanese around Brisbane and Gold Coast. She answered “because there are many Japanese shops and Japanese here!”

Umeng joined our conversation and we started chatting more. But soon Umeng and I ran out of things to say. However, this friendly Japanese girl kept on talking and asking us questions. She even led us the way to Surfer’s Paradise. We asked for her email so that we could keep in touch. She replied, “oh I don’t have email!”
We separated with a simple bye-bye.
Surfer’s Paradise was filled with people picnicking, sunbathing and taking photographs. We took off our shoes when we walked on the beach. Unexpectedly, the sand was cold despite the bright sunny day. The beach is clean but there is still rubbish around. The seagulls happily feast on left over food.
We weren’t properly dressed for the beach. Most of us were clad in jeans and even brought our sweaters along. Hence we didn’t spend much time on the beach. We took loads of pictures before heading to some of the shops around.

8 Hens in Gold Coasts!

God of Gambler – Hen??

Kiang feeding seagulls

Surfer’s Paradise’s Town

Sunset!

There was this entertainment centre that has shooting games that uses a real gun (but it was too expensive) and even a make-your-own-mtv (but it was damn lame). Soon, we were bored of that place and we headed back to the beach. We took couple of pictures again, ate sushi at “Sushi train” for dinner and then headed to Hen’s house. His place is just few minutes from Bond University (his uni). I took a picture of it before we left for Brisbane.
– 11:30PM
» We had a yamcha session in La Dolce Vista (café), Milton. My friends call it Bangsar because it has similarity as our Bangsar in Kuala Lumpur. But this “Bangsar” doesn’t have much pubs and cafes as they do back in Malaysia’s Bangsar. It’s just a row of single story shops. However, there’s a small radio tower which looks like the Eiffel tower within the shops. They call it Brisbane’s Paris. According to my friends, Dolce Vista serves really good ice mocha. They put gelati and chocolate syrup topped with chocolate powder and whip cream on it. yummy! We started talking about ghost stories. Him was telling us about his experience in his old apartment when he first stayed in Brisbane. His stuff sometimes gets missing or sometimes something that doesn’t belong to him appears suddenly. We then started talking about Ouija games. Him, Kiang and Soon Loong were telling us their experiences. They held a pen together on a piece of paper and kept thinking about summoning the ghost. Soon the pen started moving. They asked about some stuff and even asked about what’s the winning lottery number (sadly, the ghost answered he doesn’t know) and what’s the ghost’s race (he’s a Malay). And for the ghost to leave, all the do is just tell the ghost that they’re done. *phew* scary!

I’m going to Gold Coast tomorrow morning!
– 1:33AM

We played football at Milton just now. We played against an Asian team and a mixed team (Peruvian, Bolivian, French, etc). Any team that scores first will be entitled to remain on the pitch. We could easily beat the Asian team but we lost to the mixed team twice. In both games, the mixed team scored in just few seconds! We exited the pitch shamefully. We played till dark, until we couldn’t see the ball and people. There were few mishaps such as banging into each other and tripping.
After football, we had dinner at this place called Spice house in Milton. The owners (husband and wife) are very nice and friendly. They gave us prawn crackers and dimsum while waiting for food to come. I had sweet and sour pork. Boy, their sweet and sour pork is really nice, it’s one of the best I’ve tried!
– 10:00PMClubbing was fun. Kiang, Elaine, Mien, Umeng, JinHan, Hen, Soon Loong and I went to this club called Family. Apparently it’s one of the good clubs around. The club has 3 floors with 3 rooms namely the main room, Hard House room and the chill out room. The hard house room is a suffocating small foggy room while the chill out room is mainly a bar. We had couple of drinks before heading to the hard house room. Their drinks are horrible. A vodka redbull cost me $11 and their jedi coke tasted awful. I even felt like puking when I was on the dance floor!

Kiang and Him has been showing me the Brisbane dance ever since back in Kuala Lumpur. And today, I was able to witness it! Almost everyone could do the Brisbane style (probably cause it’s easy to dance)! Due to the fact that the hard house room is hot and suffocating, we headed for the main room. Initially, someone told me that the main room plays R&B. However, it soon turned into trance and lastly into hard house and techno.

There were more locals that Asians in the club. It reminds me so much of UK. Sometimes the locals would be so fucked that they would just come up to you and shake your hand. However, according to Umeng, he saw this local trying to get close with 2 local guys. The guy annoyed the latter and soon they smashed the guy’s head onto the wall. On another occasion, we had a local trying to get friendly with Mien (she’s a friend of Kiang). He kept on touching and dancing with Mien and she was trying to avoid him. We got up and approached the local and he left within seconds (however, he soon found another Asian girl to molest).

By 3:30AM, all of us were exhausted and we headed home. We shared a taxi van with a gay couple. They were hugging and touching each other and kept on talking to us. They even go till the extent of touching Umeng and Hen!
– 5:58AM

Hen came down to Brisbane from Gold Coast. He’ll be staying here until Saturday. Kiang, Umeng, Soon Loong, Jin Han, Hen and I had our customary drinking session. We were playing UNO the whole night and the loser has to bottoms up a mixture of Sprite and Smirnoff. The winner will also be entitled to draw graffiti on the loser’s hands. I drew a penis on Hen’s hand. hehe.

We went wild for few hours, running around and laughing the whole night.

After 3 hours, we were totally drunk. We shifted the beds from the rooms and placed them on the living room so that all of us could sleep together.

However, Umeng couldn’t make it to the bed (he was too drunk), he ended up on the floor till the next morning.
– 1:07AM

We didn’t do much today. Soon Loong and Umeng couldn’t wake up for the early classes due to yesterday’s heavy drinking session. We ended up in the city; walking around and shopping. Hen bought a backpack and I bought a Bota bag (the traditional Spanish wine skin) from a shop selling army accessories. The shop also sells gun replicas (damn they’re heavy!), Samurais swords (aud199 to aud300, wanted to get one but don’t think I could get it through Malaysia custom), crossbows, Mao caps, etc.

Soon Loong had been telling me about the arcade in Brisbane. He said that the players are not good at all. We then walked to a video arcade nearby. I was glad to see a King of Fighters 2001 machine there. Its been weeks since I played a game! I happily inserted 2 tokens to challenge someone. However, within few seconds, I regretted playing. Their fucking buttons are all mixed up! I couldn’t play properly! Predictably, I lost and I left the place disappointed.

They brought me to this place called King George’s Square (its in the city itself). It’s a small garden with fountains and statues scattered around it. And there also lies a huge clock tower next to the garden. We took couple of pictures before returning home so that Hen could cook dinner. His soy chicken and mushrooms is really good!
– 1:42AM

I just had dinner at Sunny Banks (a suburb in Brisbane, about 30minutes from the city). My friends and I had dinner at this small food court which has Vietnamese food, Taiwanese food, Chinese food, steamboat etc. Sharon (oinkie) and her cousin joined us for dinner. Her cousin is only 20 years old this year but surprisingly, she owns a cybercafe in Toowong, drives a big black Holden (some Aussie car) and has her own lawyer. Sounds like a very successful person. However, Sharon told me that her boyfriend died not long ago from an incurable cancer disease. Poor girl. However, throughout the conversation she seems cheerful. And she even gave me a ride on her Holden! Cool!

I had a quick photo session in the evening. My friends took me to South Banks. According to them, it’s one of the great places to take pictures. The city’s panoramic view can be easily admired from the walkway of the bridge that crosses the Brisbane River. However, due to the fact that it is still winter, it gets dark quickly. By the time we reach South Banks, the sun has already set. I was hoping to take some pictures of the city on a sunny day. But I guess I’ll just go on with the photo session. I managed to finish my first roll of film for this Aussie backpacking trip. yay!

– 11:12PM

The flight to Brisbane was not a pleasant one. During my flight to Singapore, I had one elderly couple omitting durian flavoured fart. While on my flight to Brisbane, I had a Japanese girl snoring throughout the whole 7 hours journey.

On my flight to Brisbane, I had a Canadian man and Japanese girl sitting next to me. We did not spoke a word throughout the journey. The Japanese girl, with her long dyed blond hair; pimples scarred face doesn’t seem to know English. Wanting to try out my Japanese phrases I learn from “Japanese for tourists phrasebook”, I said to her “anatawa nipon-jin desu?” Expecting a Japanese reply, she replied me with a disappointing “yes yes!” I made no more effort to talk to her anymore.

I did not sleep a wink during the journey. Singapore Airlines provided really good movies. I watched Austin Powers 2, Mr Bean, Ice Age and Spirit. By the time I finished the movies, there was 2 hours left before arrival. I decided to sleep for a while. However, after few seconds of dozing, bright lights were turned on. Frustrated, I decided not to sleep at all!

Umeng was waiting for me at the airport. We took a train back to his place at Toowong. It seems that all my friends here dyed their hair. Kiang dyed purple, Yong Lin and Jin Han dyed blonde (ah beng!), Umeng dyed dark brown, Soon Loong dyed hazel brown and Him dyed a mixture of brown and blonde. I guess I’m the only decent one left.

I followed them to University of Queensland. In my opinion, the uni is much bigger than Melbourne Uni. Even their food court is bigger! I have always wanted to go for an architecture class. Umeng and Soon Long are studying architecture. I decided to follow them for one of their classes. However, within half and hour, I dozed off.

We headed for lunch after class. The uni sells various type of food ranging from Asians to Western food. Feeling famished, I had a big piece chicken teriyaki sushi and fish and chips. We had lunch at one of the nice huge cafeteria. It was spacious, dimly lighted by the natural sunlight and clean. We spend hours talking and joking. I hadn’t been laughing so much ever since!

We headed for Chinatown at Brunswick next. Brisbane’s Chinatown is much smaller than Melbourne’s Chinatown but it has more Chinese monuments. Umeng bought some groceries before we head to Elizabeth Place in the city to meet up with Sharon aka oinkie. She told me about the places to go to. She looks better and better from the day I met her. I bet she’ll grow up into a gorgeous lady in the future!

I was exhausted in the end of the day. It was as if my body is going to shut down. Thank God I took a nap when we got back home from the city. However, hours later, I woke up finding that I was completely confused, no idea where I am. I totally forgot I’m in Brisbane!

Dinner was almost ready when I woke up. Right after dinner, we watched tv, went online, played computer games etc. Damn, it’s great to live in a bachelors house.
– 10:10PM

I’m leaving for Brisbane in few hours time. See you guys there!
– 1:47PM