My Aussie Trip: Part 2

Arrived in Sydney’s airport. As we signed up with Citibank for the 4 days 3 nights free and easy tour package in Sydney, we have 3 nights stay in Swisshotel, 1 night stay in Blue Mountain, car rental and shopping + dining vouchers, all for the price of only $499/pax! So Cheap!! So the 8 of us split into 2 cars. Lost our way while finding our hotel from the airport, but managed to find it. Basically, Swisshotel is located in the CBD area. It is just beside all the big shopping malls so very accessible. We also went to Chinatown and Paddington market. Nothing much to buy there. The Rock, which is the Sunday market there is more interesting. It is well-known for its pancakes, but then we couldn’t find it, coz it wasn’t stated clearly its exact location. We only know the name: Pancakes on the Rock. Decided to ask people, and that’s when we finally found it. The pancakes there are fantastic!! It’s hard to describe, you have to taste it yourself. Anyway, we had pancakes as our brunch, and its shopping time again! Went to Hard Rock after that for another round of shopping since most or rather all of us are Hard Rock fanatics as well. Dinner that night was so romantic! It was along the waterfront with all the yachts parked there. That was the time where we ordered Kangaroo meat! Awweee…so delicious!! After dinner, was a romantic walk with not 1 but 7 people! Ahaha…but it was also a tense moment, coz our results are out that day. Clara, Mike, Mag and Me decided to walk to the Internet café to check our results, coz I hate to be kept in suspense. Luckily, I cleared all my subjects! Yeah!!

Personally, I feel that Sydney is not as fun as in Melbourne. Maybe we stayed in Sydney for around 4 days and have yet to really explore the city. I guess the only fun part was going up to Blue Mountain, where we stayed in Strawbale, a nice looking English cottage. It was really a good experience! We have the whole house to ourselves! It consists of 7 or 8 rooms, including the attic. The place does not have a heater. Instead, it has a firewood area where Mike and JS have to chop up the woods and start the fire! We also went to Sister’s mountain, a 10mins drive away from our accommodation. Tried on the world’s steepest tram! Damn scary…the cable car ride back to the start point was worst! I was practically covering my eyes and not even taking a glance out of the window to catch that breath-taking view! Luckily, I had Mat and Clara there to comfort me! Hee…of course not forgetting my sweetest Mat & Mike who stopped by the Harley Dealer in Sydney to satisfy my Harley crave while on the way up to Blue Mountain. Yeah! Shopping again in Harley!!

Dinner that night was instant cup noodles and a whole roasted chicken which we bought from the supermarket. It was a simple dinner but all of us enjoyed it. You can feel the warmth of the firewood burning, the peacefulness of the surroundings and sharing that wonderful moment with your close friends. After dinner, all of us went back to our rooms to settle down, bathe etc. after which, we gathered at the living room area and started our gambling activities!! Ahaha…I did not join in as I am an idiot in card games…”Chua Dai Di”…Anyway, I was also tired that I fell asleep on the couch but I could still hear laughter from Mike, Mich, Clara, Mat…think it was Mike who lost again that night…as usual! Ahaha…Early next morning, we set off again for the airport, to catch our morning flight again to Gold Coast. Here’s an unforgettable moment in our Sydney trip. We nearly miss our domestic flight!!

We were supposed to set off at 7am, coz the drive back to the airport is around 2 hours. Our flight was around 10.45am. Logically, we should have ample time. However, some of us overslept and by the time we actually moved off, it was already 7.30am. Even then, we should be able to reach on time. But we forgot that it was a normal working day for the Australians and it was actually the morning peak hour! Worst of all, there was a traffic accident along the expressway, thus the traffic was really slow moving! We were all quite anxious by then. Luckily, we have Mag and Mike, two excellent drivers who managed to bring us there on time, but they themselves nearly miss the flight coz they need to return the vehicle. We were the last few to check in and we told them that our 2 friends were coming soon, but the staff told us that if they cannot make it in another 5mins time, they would not be able to board the flight. Then Clara, Mich and I tried to stall for time. We purposely take a long time to load our baggage on the belt and keep on distracting him so that he would not be able to process our boarding pass so soon. Luckily, at the very last moment, Mike and Mag ran in as fast as they could and off we go, running to the gate like mad people! Worst of all, the stupid boarding gate is like one end to the other end, there’s no travelators, and we had to run with our hand carry, and mine was like 8kg!! Terrible!! Anyway, we thought that was the end to our nightmare of catching the flight. To our worst horror, our flight Jetstar is damn pathetic!! We were told back in Singapore that our domestic flight would be changed to Jetstar instead of Quantas, so we thought it was like other normal plane and just accepted the changes. But this was not the case. It is a budget air, free seating, seats so cramp that poor Mat and Clara were nearly squashed! No snacks were served and the plane just don’t feel right. It just feels like it will crash any moment! After nearly 45mins of torture, we finally arrived in Gold Coast!