Brisbane trip - Lone Pine Tour

After the city tour on the day before, we finally found out how to go to the Lone Pine Koala Sanctuary. I believe people won't consider me went to Australia without visiting the Koala and Kangaroo. So, we hopped in a bus and reached the park around noon. The entrance fee is AUD22 and trust me, it's really worth it.

At night, we went to the La Dolce Vita for dinner. It's a Italian restaurant and they served very good pasta and spaghetti.


Just in case you don't know where is it, there is a big billboard on the outside.


Yup, I finally saw it.


Not to forget them also


Me and my wife in the park.


La Dolce Vita restaurant

Brisbane trip - Queen Street and Botanic Garden

In the morning, we went to a Italian restaurant for breakfast. After that, we went to Queen Street city information center get some detail for the next day trip. After we got our map and travel detail, we didn't go anywhere far and only went to nearby attraction that can be reached by foot.

At night, we went to a Chinese restaurant for dinner and then went to South Bank for a walk. I didn't take any photo at South Bank because I was lazy to bring along my tripod. Anyway, we went back to South Bank next week early morning and took some photo there.

Below are some photos we took while walking on Queen Street and the Botanic Garden in the city.

Queen Street

Marines musical performance


Fruit juice stall

Botanic Garden

Tropical garden in the center of Brisbane city


Duck swimming freely. (Looks good on dinner table too :P)


Ships docked at the river nearby the garden

Brisbane trip - Day 1

Sunday, 11th May 2008 - After I have been a month in Cyprus, finally my wife has planned to go to Brisbane Australia to visit her brother, who has been there for around 4 years. We planned for 2 weeks stay at his apartment, take a tour around the city and Gold Coast theme park, then travel to outskirt for some adventure trip.

The flight was on 10:20am Sunday morning and my wife got the tickets from AirAsia online booking. The deal we got is rather cheap for 2 people, return ticket, including on-flight meal and 20kg luggage for each of us. There is no entertainment on board, so usually we just sleep thru the whole journey. I found beside sleeping, a book, ipod, laptop or a mini DVD player is what other passengers carried on board.


A look out from the window before sun set.

Anyway, there is one misfortune hit me on-flight. As I walked towards the toilet and trying to push the door open, as it was clearly shows VACANT on the door sign, suddenly there was somebody inside the toilet quickly push the door close. Unfortunately, within that million of a second, I was able to see the face of that innocent person, who is unable to read or close the door. It was a Chinese old lady, who I think she is a Malaysian and clearly there is no Chinese word written on the toilet door. Faith is making fun on me as it happened again when I went to the same toilet for second time. Door not closed and the same old folk pushed the door close in a hurry. Enough is enough, I swear not use that same toilet again for the rest of the flight.


At the airport lobby.

After 8 hours of exhausting flight (it wasn't easy to get some proper sleep on the flight), finally we reached the Gold Coast airport. The time was around 8 PM and we still haven't see any sign of our relative yet. We haven't take our dinner as the sandwiches (we calculated that is not feasible to buy other meal. e.g. Nasi Lemak = RM15) are all sold out. At the airport lobby, I bought a candy bar for both of us just to kill the hunger temporary while waiting for our ride. After an hour passed, finally he has came with a Toyota Camry (by rental) and brought us to an Asean cafeteria, where they still open at late night, for dinner.

After the meal, we went back to his apartment and we're shocked. Not by the house, the decoration or the furniture but a 16 dog year old golden retriever. I have nothing against dog living with human in an apartment but the odor that it left inside really took us a while to get used to it (I'm not sure whose fault that is).

We went to sleep rather late that night: after we took the shower, organized our luggage and stuff, get used to the smell then only able to get some proper sleep.

So, that's it. End of day one.

Back from vacation

I have been missing for 2 weeks as I was having my vacation in Brisbane and Gold Coast. People are asking me for photos but I need time to re-touch and organize them.

By the way, it's a 2 weeks vacation and there is a lot to tell. Hopefully I'll have my first article posted here in this week.

Back to Malaysia

As promised, I have uploaded some photos to my web album

Cyprus Trip March 2008

Cooking skill improved
Staying out sometimes proves to have a chance on building up ones cooking skill. The simplest formula (I find cooking is more like a science subject. It won't go wrong if the formula right.) I found is the base and the dishes. The base is something like rice, noodles, potatoes or beans. In Cyprus, the potatoes is the cost effective food I can get compared to rice and others. To prepare it is simple, either boil or fry. Of course, I don't want to get too messy in the kitchen (or rather I save some penny on cooking oil) so I'll boil instead. Then, what about the dishes? The simplest way is to get the tin can food or to have more variety, there are sauces available on the supermarket shelves. Sauces like curry, sweet and sour, Mexican or the spaghetti sauce. Just fry or boil the raw meat and vege until they are cooked, then add the sauce. Stir until all are heated. Finally, serve with boiled potatoes or rice. With this formula, I can get home cook dishes around 80% right. The other 20% is something went wrong. The potatoes not cooked enough or there are too much water added with the sauces. Anyway, things get better on every try.

Going home
25th March 2008 - On my flight back to Malaysia, I found out that getting enough sleep on board is just too hard. I was seated next to the window with the jet engine just 5 meters away. I don't even bother to close up my ear as that won't do any better. I woke up and watch the in-flight TV show instead. What do you know? There are so many in flight announcements, in Arabic and repeated in English, that my "The Office" show doesn't look that funny anymore. Anyway, after I got off from the plane with light-headed, due to not enough sleep, things just don't went so well. 30 minutes wait on the cab and the driver took the long way to get me home. Urggg! I told the taxi to take the shortest route but instead he follow his trusty GPS gadget. Well, that end up taking more time for me to go home and get more sleep.

Finally, at least I back home in one peace, anything before that I rather careless about it.