Sh*t Happens...

THE MAIL THAT WILL MAKE MALES WAIL...

*&^%$#@!

Peace! LOL.

Happy Birthday Selina Chua!!

That golden toilet bowl... Need or a want?

All of us have wants in our life. At every point in our lives. But not all of us are able to get what we want everytime, simply and most usually because of the lack of means to achieve it.

There I was minding my own business in my humble abode's toilet when I heard a distinct loud adolescent cry.

"WHY WON'T YOU BUY ME A PLAY STATION!!!"

"YOU SAY AFTER P5, THEN AFTER P6, NOW I SEC 1 ALREADY YOU STILL HAVEN'T BUY!"

I realise for no known logical reasons, that the toilet is the most 'connected' place in my house. At different intervals of the day, one can hear a radio blaring 95.8 tunes, the television broadcasting news at 930pm, the sound of a running vaccuum, stir frying, dishwashing and naturally different voices from different neighbours conversing. More amazingly, while the noise level is minimal, it is clearly audible (wonder if they could hear me bombing away on the bowl).

So you can imagine I had quite the 'front row seats' to what is turning to be a family argument. I'm no eavesdropper but you can't expect me to find my ear plugs while I'm in the midst of 'transaction' can you? Anyway the poor boy was clearly inconsolable and was screaming his lungs out. All the bawling, wailing, shouting accompanied by the occassional sobs and sniffs would have put any parent on a mad dash for the antacids.

I suppose the parents know of the deadly close proximity to the neighbours as they started speaking to the erm 'child at 13?' in hushed tones. Somehow after 10 mins or so the kid toned down. Yes a full 10 minutes you gotta hand it to him for his resilience.

So that little incident got me thinking: "Have I ever owned a PS?"

More so, "Did I always get what I wanted'?

Sure I wanted lots when I was a kid. That 16-bit game console that you keep going to your friend's house to play on pretext of project, those cool gameboys, the latest board games, those crazy decks and decks of street fighter cards that other kids in school were always showing off, the coolest backpacks...

The list can go on forever. But I had none. None at all.

Well it's not that my family can't afford them, nor that I needed them then but hey, if everyone owns them why not me? The truth is at that point of time in life, I was clearly unsure of what I needed. Fortunately my mom was always prudent. To the extent that at Sec 2 I was sporting a holey, ludicrous and hideous bright yellow NDP '97 bag that gained me instant infamy and ridicule those days. It was only the next year, when my elder bro sponsored me my celebrated green 'Eastpak' backpack (more of you can relate now) which I still use at times till this day ("Guaranteed for life, maybe longer"), that I owned something I desired.

My first bag of my own choice.

Looking back, I sure was glad that my parents had intervened at those 'I WANT' junctions in life. I mean what would I do with all those things that I would have outgrown today? The money spent on these could have been used in a better way like buying essentials for the family. Sure that bag didn't come easy. I still remember it cost $69 back then. Comes with a lifetime warranty and was probably the most expensive asset to my name at 15 years of age. But that was a need.

Which brings me to the crux of this little discussion: Do we really know what we want and what we need today?

Sadly I have to say not all of us, even after a few or more decades in life, know the subtle but pressing differences. Face it, one can't depend on their parents to make the correct decisions in life on their behalf forever. Its time to realise that the decisions you make today will turn back and hold you accountable some time on in future.

I can't bear to think how much has been lost or what could have been put to better use just within my family. Heck I was also responsible for making hasty lousy decisions myself. Yes yes I can afford to and I DO buy my own things today in case you're still wondering. =) I thank God that I have a mom who scrimped and saved to put me through college. Sometimes I wonder what would happen of the family if not for her. She has showed me that one don't need a degree or phd to prioritise.

It is true, personally, that God the Jehova Jireh provides,

but I believe that one is responsible for making the best use of the provision.

I just hope there is somehow someway I can get this couple of people to understand this concept. Perhaps I'm just trying to hammer jelly to the wall.

SIGH.

It feels good

To be back home.

In the meantime, let me get used to the humidity first.

Melbourne (last part)

There isn't much pics the following week coz 1) we mostly stayed at home coz the heat outside was too unbearable or 2) we were shopping.

31 Dec 2007 - Countdown at Docklands

We stayed at home till around 6 to go to city for countdown. Think it went up to 42 degrees. Thought it would be cooler at night, but it was still kinda warm. No cool winds, but warm and stuffy wind. News reported that it was the hottest new year eve, like ever.


At Docklands while waiting for the fireworks at midnight.

We were waiting for the fireworks when it just started suddenly. No countdown or whatever. The atmosphere was not exciting. It was rather, ermm peaceful and quiet. Just had people throwing up into the sea coz they have had too much to drink. Everybody just went home immediately after the fireworks ended.

1 Jan 2008 - Casino

This day was the same. We stayed at home trying to stay cool. I even went to wrap some ice and used it like how you would a heat pack. I could not even sleep in the bed coz it was so hot in the upper bunk. Evening became cooler and I even went out in my jeans.

After dinner near Lygon at a Thai restaurant, we went to the casino.



Donut shaped sculptures outside the casino.

There wasn't much pics taken inside the building which contains the casino (CROWN). The building reminded me very much of the airport. And pictures are not allow in the Crown.


Outside the casino, waiting for the hourly fireballs to fire. But we waited for more than 2 hours and none came. =((

We had really huge ice cream too! YUM

2 Jan 2008 - City touring, Suzuki Market

It was really hot on this day too. But we decided not to waste any time to stay at home, so we went to do some touring of the city.

St Paul's Cathedral


I love cathedrals. I love their stained glasses and this sense of serenity.





The state library


We weren't allowed to carry our bags into the library, so we din loiter long inside. Instead, we took pictures outside, and oogle at a Japanese skateboard.



Then we went to the Suzuki Night Market which operates at Queen Victoria Market every Wednesday night. Gosh, an ang moh pasar malam!!




There was live music and people dancing! Love the feel!




Outside, they set up this booth to allow children to paint. And this little girl (Laura) allowed Rui to take a picture of her and her painting. Ain't she an angel?


Night view of the Flinder's Street station

3 Jan 2008 - Chadstone, Lygon Street

We spend most of the day at Chadstone Shopping mall. Had to take a bus to the city(~45mins), and another free shuttle bus (~40mins) to the mall. It was supposedly the biggest shopping centre in the southern hemisphere. Which part of the southern hemisphere, I don't know.


A tiny part of the mall. It was so HUGE!

Somehow we did not manage to shop or buy alot of things there. Think we exhausted ourselves (for shopping). We spend most of the time sitting down and in the food court.

Then we met the Melbournians to go to Lygon Street, or little Italian for some italian food!


Pastas! Good schtuff I tell you.


Then it was off to gelatos!! 3 scoops for $4.50?

4 Jan 2008 - Queen Vic Market, Movie

Went back to Queen Vic market to get some more stuffs that we missed the first time round, and then to Melbourne Central for movies! We watched Enchanted there. Whee.

5 Jan 2008 - Boxhill, Ikea

TLP brought us to Boxhill, in the hope of getting some chocolates as they are cheap there. But in the end we did not get anything coz we still have another leg of journey to Sydney. We managed to have some rice cake and glutinous rice chicken, and char kway teow, which made us really happy girls.

Then it was off to Ikea. Somehow, it wasn't as exciting as I had expected. Think it was the heat again. And we could not really buy alot of things coz our luggage were very very full!

At night was some intensive packing, and hoping that our luggage were not overweight.

6 Jan 2008 - To Sydney

Do not take Jetstar from Melbourne. Coz Avalon airport is all the way at Geelong, which is more than an hour's drive away. And guess how much our taxi fare came up too? AUD$172.80. Every cent it jumped made my heart skip a beat too. That is like the total of all my cab fare for a year, and maybe more. Gosh.

Luckily we left for the airport early, else we could well have missed the plane. Our luggages went through fine, except for Rui's coz hers was about 28kg. And so she had to pay $56 for the excess. This is alright! Except that our luggages weigh the same when we took the plane back from Sydney to Perth (by Virgin Blue), and we went through without paying anything. And amazingly, my luggage weighed lesser (21.5kg at Melbourne airport, and 19kg at Sydney airport). Was the scale at Melbourne Avalon airport, which only has Jetstar, skewed? We could only guess.

Next up would be Sydney!!

Grampians

30 Dec 2007 - Grampians

The days were starting to get hotter. And I mean in the late 30 degrees. The day we went to Grampian, the temperature at Melbourne was 32. Not too bad right? We were so wrong!

It was 39 degrees in Grampians!! Urps!

In Beaufort Town, having our morning tea.

I was making tea with the various requests - kosong for Sil and Tricia, with milk for HuiHui and Rui (she wants milk with tea), and teh-o for myself. The cute German in orange tee is looking at the camera! Heh.

After some morning tea and biccies, we went to the Brambuck National Park for a short walk.

The start of the many long walks under the hot sun!

To find ermm.... kangaroos. Hmmmmm

Along the way, we saw this rock that was some way off and decided to climb onto it.

Climbing up was the easy part. And this was before my left foot which was the one supporting my whole weight slip off the rock and I nearly slipped off the rock and down below. Scary. Was clinging on to my dear life while Sil pulled from the rock and HuiHui pushed from below. Haha. I am clumsy.

The victorious climb.

Now, going down is the difficult part, coz there is not much foothold. The one that we used to climb up was directly below the main surface of the rock. Luckily Rob, our tourguide and driver helped us.

I remembered that he say "You Singaporean girls are so troublesome" in a joking manner. And I sorta said something along the line of us taking escalators and lifts and not climbing rocks nor trees, and that's why it was so difficult for us. Haha. True ain't it?

The trees provide minimal coverage under the hot burning sun. When the temp get this high, you feel as if the rays of the sun is biting into your skin, and you can almost hear the sizzle on your skin.

A chair for Bob.

Reids Lookout - Jaws of Death, the Balconies

The Jaws of Death.

MacKenzie falls.

There were, if I don't remember wrongly, 3 different routes to take. And we chose the most difficult one, which will take us to the bottom of the falls. And it was a 1.16km walk (to and fro), with a 100m of stairs (abt 25storey?) which will take us to the bottom of the stairs. The distance doesn't sound like alot. Factor in the hot weather and you'll understand why it was so straining.

When I saw this, I thought we were reaching. But this was just the top of the falls. More stairs!!

Finally reached the bottom!

The waters as usual look really inviting. But we din go in. There were people, kids included, swimming inside and I think they are really silly. There were signs telling people that swimming is prohibited, and Rob said that people had died in it, coz the undercurrents are really strong.

Borocca lookout.

The land down below was where we had our lunch. Real cool.

Then it was finally back to Melbourne. Sunset pics taken on the bus.

Philip Island and Queen Victoria Market

28 Dec 2007 - Philip Island

This time, all 8 of us went coz the Melbournians had not gone to Philip Island yet. We were all dressed in the wrong attire! I was in a sleeveless top and a thin cardigan which i took off later in the day. Philip Island is NOT cold in summer!!


The bus which we spend the whole day travelling in.

Frst stop was at Gurdies Winery, where there was free wine tasting!





Then to Maru Wildlife Park.

]
Guinea Pigs!


A sluggish baby wombat!


Smile!


Dingoes.


Sleepy eyed llamas!


Cornered duckies! Haha. We chased them and cornered them and saw them panicked! So cute! See the backside of the other 2 ducks running off?


And of course Kangaroos. The Perthians had seen so many kangaroos that we just stand around helping the Melbournians and Sydnian to take pics with them! Haha!


The huge and heavy koala sitting outside the toilet.

Next stop was Cape Woolamai Surfers Beach. It was here that we realise how wrong our attires was! The waters!!!!











The penguin soft toy we got!

Then it was off to San Remo where we had our pizza dinner!



The last stop before the penguin parade was Nobbies Centre where we were allowed to roam around and look for penguins under boardwalks or hidden in the hills.


And we spied one! Then another 2 more!


One of the nobbies.


Penguins and seagulls share the same territory. Penguins make burrows like the one above and hide inside them until they are old enough (5months if I don't remember wrongly) to come out and go into the waters to hunt.


A lovely place, with splendid weather and wonderful companionship.



A mother seagull and her baby!

Penguin Parade!

Check underneath the cars, coz there are confused penguins!

~

And as no cameras is allowed during the Penguin Parade, this is the only picture we have of them. This is a picture of a picture we took while at the wildlife park. Got scolded by the storekeeper. Oops!

The penguins are really cute! And if anyone is going, I suggest you pay an extra 10 bucks for Penguin Plus. This means that you get to sit in a place with lesser people (think 100 vs 2000), and there is a free drink and 10% discount when you buy their souvenirs. So it's more worth it. And the penguins really waddle up really close. You can even walk alongside them along the boardwalk! Really cute. I saw a few fell down and one sneezed. Their recovery after falling down was exceptionally fast too! Aww... I so want to bring one home!

~

29 Dec 2007 - Queen Victoria Market, Docklands

The Perthians, Sil and MX went to the Queen Vic Market early in the morning!

Yummilicious, hot jam donuts!!

I like these black dolls. Anyone knows what are they?

Some of the stuffs sold there. From food to clothes to dolls.

~

After Queen Vic, the Perthians, together with Sil, made our way down to Smith's Street, where there are lotsa sports stores, for, well, more shopping!! Then we met MX and TLP again for dinner and then we went to Docklands.

The cow up the tree - an art sculpture.

When the Perthians saw the 7 sign, we were so excited!! [7 is a channel here in Aus] Shows how much we watch TV huh!

The Melbourne city skyline at night.

Fun with the sculptures!

~

Next: Grampians! I feel tired just thinking about that place! Haha. Maybe becoz I've been at this blog thingy for very long already. Night!