Category: Going Places

My travelogue.

Going Home Soon

Posted on By sweet surrender 10 Comments on Going Home Soon

It’s really heavy to leave Adelaide but at the same time I’m glad to be leaving. How contradicting?!?!? I love Adelaide but I also love Kuching. Once I leave, coming back in near future or even in the future is rather impossible.

There’s so much memories here, good and bad. I made lots of new friends here from many countries and even those from other states of Malaysia.

Besides that, I had fallen in love here too. Even though it was a short one but it’s good and sweet enough to be part of my experience that I will never forget.

I had also worked in a restaurant which I would never had done so in Malaysia.

What’s most important is that, I had finally fulfilled my dream of studying overseas.

In fact, finding my other half here is also part of the plan but oh well… I guess my other half is not here after all. Maybe he’s in Kuching or some other place waiting for me? Who knows?

While I’m here, I also managed to travel a fair bit. I’ve been to Gold Coast and Brisbane (AUS), Busan (Korea), Christchurch and Queenstown (NZ), soon will be Melbourne. I don’t think I’ll have the chance to visit other places such as Perth, Hobart, Sydney, and all the other major places in Australia. Maybe next time but it will mean more money required and won’t be in near future. However, these are good enough for me as I’m using my own money which I earned here working casually and my own efforts without asking any from my parents.

I’ve been staying here in Adelaide for more than one and half year and came across websites that provide massive discount using services vouchers or restaurant vouchers. Never heard about such thing in Malaysia. It was very interesting and I had signed up a few Australian based ones but didn’t buy any of them hahaha…

These days, I’ve been seeing friends in Malaysia talking about such vouchers. I had checked the site called Groupon and the deals were all amazing! I’m going home in March, most likely early March. This means I get to enjoy all these amazing deals and save lots of money! Friends are all so excited whenever they bought the vouchers.

So Kuching! I’m gonna be back in March and I’m gonna haunt you again! Hopefully can re-established myself in Kuching’s blogsphere again after going missing for quite a period of time.

Finding Myself - Adelaide, Personal Events

Compilation of 20/12/2012 Graduation Ceremony Photos

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Finally got the other batch of photos from my friend. Since I’m so free got nothing much to do, I did some compilation of all the photos which are my favourites and also photos of friends who came to take photos with me.

Family wasn’t there that time, many other friends all went back home either for good or holiday or some were working. These were who were left who were able to be there with me. Thanks to all who made the effort to come 🙂

Here’s the video, my appearance is at rather the end of the video ;p 57 minutes into the ceremony.

Sigh… Going home in less than 2 months 🙁 So heavy to leave…

Finding Myself - Adelaide, Me, myself and I, Personal Events

Christchurch and Queenstown Trip (25/12/12-2/1/13) – Part 5

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Left: After the gondola ride, we headed down and saw this car, interesting!
Right: On the way back to our accommodation and saw the fire station, it’s just so cute!


Random shoots along the way.


We had our lunch at Fergburger. The crowd was crazy, it’s always like this! We were told it’s the must-eat when you are in Queenstown.


We waited for ours for half hour if not mistaken. Very long wait. We nodded off on and off. Too tired *LOL*


Left: Someone’s burger who happened to sit next to us and we asked for permission to take a photo of his burger and chips *LOL*.
Right: The burger was huge! We ordered one and shared with each other. We had The Fergburger (NZD11). Thumbs up! Very delicious! Yes, must go have this when you are there and be prepared to wait… This burger is the most basic burger. Basically there’s beef, lettuce, tomato, red onion, aioli, and tomato relish. Very fresh ingredients! Was so full, I only had half!


We went for a walk around Queenstown after lunch just to enjoy the view.

Here’s some photos to share…





Even Queenstown has LV store.

Basically that’s all we did for the day. Very relax, free, and easy.

Food Porn, Going Places, Kia Ora - Christchurch & Queenstown

Christchurch and Queenstown Trip (25/12/12-2/1/13) – Part 4

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Finally we arrived in Queenstown after 12 hours. It took us almost an hour to locate our living place (Pinewood Lodge, 48 Hamilton Road, Queenstown, 9300, New Zealand) hahaha… I forgot to print out the map and chosen the wrong drop off place.


It was a very distant walk. As far as I know, I was made understand that it’s quite near to the town centre but we found out it was so far away! We only realized there’s a shortcut on our last day staying there ;p


Booked Backpacker Twin room which I misunderstood as we had an ensuite but it turned out we had to share with another 4 people for all the facilities -.-” Oh well… What to do? We just had to live with it. At least it’s cleaner than what we had in YMCA. It wasn’t easy to find something for our budget too. Worst, everywhere was fully booked!

After we check-in, we decided to head out. It was already 9pm+ but it was still very bright. We just loiter around and reached our place at 11pm+.


The next morning, we prepared early to go join the Milford Sound tour. Guess what?!! Our bus didn’t show up! We got panic and quickly get the reception to help us contact the company. It turned out that they changed the pickup time to 7.10am instead of 7.40am! We were not informed about it. After several exchanges made in the phone, they finally agreed to arrange the trip for us the next day.


Our plans gone haywired. We were mentally and emotionally tired after that. However, it didn’t deter us to continue with our plan in which the plan for the next day was swapped to this day. That’s not just it, we were worry about our accommodation too since we were supposed to be moving to another accomodation the next day instead of going for a full day tour. We decided to check out our second accommodation in Queenstown and gave us a great heart attack! It was so hard to go there even though it was near to the city centre. We had to go up very steep hill and lots of stairs! -.-” So we decided to look for other accommodation since we were allowed to cancel the booking without charges 24 hours in advance. Too bad… Everywhere was fully booked! We just had to accept the fact that we would have to lug the heavy luggage all the way up by then after our 12-hour Mildford Sound trip. It’s gonna be exhausting!


We then headed to Skyline for the gondola ride. It cost us NZD26 for return ride. Luckily we went early, not many people. We got in fast and got to see a lot without the crowd. Blessings in disguise. I we were to go the next day, we’re pretty sure we would be coming here later in the morning instead of very early in the morning.


Up… Up… We went…


Left: Finally up there…
Right: The gondola for photo taking, it’s 1960’s design.


View from up there.


Camwhored of course!


Another ride to go further up. Not included in the ticket. When you’re up there, there’s quite a number of activities that you can do such as luge ride, mountain biking, bungy jump, helicopter ride, dining, paragliding and so on.


Another views from the top.


Left: Photo taken when we were on it and they photoshopped the backgroud. It’s expensive! We didn’t buy.
Right: When we go down, the queue was sooooo looooong! So many buses too! We met Skyline mascot and took a photo with them.

While were were up there, we got a call from the bus company telling us that they had arranged us on their partner’s bus and there’ll be a taxi come to pick us up from Pinewood. We breathed a sight of relief knowing that we didn’t have to get our luggage all the way up anymore after the trip. There’ll be taxi sending us back to our new accommodation right to the door step with our luggage. Things sure happened for a reason. God does take care of us.

Going Places, Kia Ora - Christchurch & Queenstown

Christchurch and Queenstown Trip (25/12/12-2/1/13) – Part 3

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Here we go… Still on the way to Queenstown…

But we will detour to Mt. Cook first before heading to Queenstown.


Scenery along the way.


Stopped at somewhere, I don’t remember the name for a short photo opportunity.


Mt. Cook, the highest mountain of NZ, we’re almost there…


I’ve never thought to see such view with my own eyes!


We had lunch break here at The Hermitage Hotel. It’s rather luxurious.



Our lunch was at the hotel cafe. It’s the cheapest option.


We had salmon quiche (right) and egg and bacon quiche (middle) for lunch. NZD5.50 each. Salmon quiche was so salty! Not a good one. However, egg and bacon quiche was just nice.




The museum in the hotel.


Off we go again, now on the way to Queenstown. Goodbye Mt. Cook.


Had a short stop at a souvenier shop at I don’t-know-where! -.-” Didn’t pay attention at all, was on and off dozinng off in the bus.


Then we head to Cromwell for a short stop. You can see the famous Cromwell Fruit Sculpture here. We stopped at Jone’s Fruit Stall.


Fruits and ice cream! Yummy! Bought the ice cream for NZD2.50. It was Hokey Pokey, yum! I love it! Even though it’s commercial one, Tip Top brand, it tasted great! Didn’t try the real fruit ice cream because it was NZD5 ;p We’re too stingy.

Hokey pokey is a flavour of ice cream in New Zealand, consisting of plain vanilla ice cream with small, solid lumps of honeycomb toffee – known as “hokey pokey” in New Zealand.

After this stop, we continued with our journey to Queenstown.

Food Porn, Going Places, Kia Ora - Christchurch & Queenstown