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12 marzo Disney WorldAfter Miami Beach, Bec and I are on our way to Orlando Disney World. One advise, if you ever need to go from Miami to Orlando, take a flight, we toke the greyhound bus, we saw some "local culture" that we didn't expect to see, it was a rather interesting experience.
We arrived at Crown Plaza Universal Hotel, it is much more better than Best Western, the room is big, nice and clean. At Singapore, we stayed at Crown Plaza, it was very good as well. We spend the rest of the night planning out the next two day. There are 5 Disney parks (MGM Studio, Animal Kingdom, Magic Kingdom, Epico and Water park), but we only got two days, we could get hopper pass, which is more expensive than base pass, but we get to go to all parks, on the other hand do we have time to go to all parks, would it be too much a rush. At the end we decide to get the base pass, one park per day and the two park we chose to go is MGM studio and Magic Kingdom.
5th March - MGM studio, this is the first park we visited, very excited, when we got the map, we carefully examing which ride and show we want to go. The Twilight Zone Tower of Terror is our first stop, "Drop 13 stories at random, into another dimension.", I was so scared, I held on to the handle when I got onto the ride, and didn't let go until the ride ends, I scream so hard, almost lost my voice. Coming out of the ride I saw the photo, my eyes was shut, Bec and I was leaning against each other with mouth open, not a good sight. Some of the other rides and show we went are Star Tours, Indiana Jones Epic Stunt Spectacular, Sounds Dangerous, Muppet Vision 3-D, Lights Motors Action Extreme Stunt Show, Voyage of The Little Mermaid, The Great Movie Ride and Beauty and the Beast. But my favourite Show is Fantasmic at night, there were fireworks, boats and most importantly Mickey. And my favourite ride is Rock'n'Roller Coaster, it was so good Bec and I went on there twice, to make sure we get a nice suvernier photo. We spend whole day in the park from 10am - 9pm. It was hips of fun.
6th March - We went to Magic Kingdom the second day. We toke a ferry to the Island, saw the Cinderella Castle. I think Bec and I were too tired from the day before, we were not as excited and ambitious the day before. Rides and show we went are: Jungle Crusie, Big Thunder Mountain Railroad, Mickey's PhilharMagic, It's a small world, Tomorrowland Indy Speedway, Space Mountain, Buzz Lightyear's Space Ranger Spin and Stitch's Great Escape. Our favourite is Splash Mountain - "Plunge 5 stories into Brer Rabbit's Laughing Place", the sign says "You will get Wet", and we did, twice. Of course we got the photo to prove it. We had this nice Turkey Leg for lunch, it was yummy. Shopping at Disney world was not that good, the merchandise is nothing compare to what I have seen at Paris Disneyland, things are very plan. I only end up getting a shorts for myself, Bec got a T-shirt.
7th March - Another "interesting" ride on the greyhound bus back to Miami, straight to airport and flying back to London. One thing worth mention is that US duty free cosmetics are very cheap, almost half price compare to UK retail price. Miami HolidayThis was a much needed holiday for me, away from the winter cold, get to see the ocean and beach again. Most importantly get to meet my family (cousin at LA) and friend (bestfriend from SYD), yes both of them flew to Miami.
I fly to Miami on the 28th Feb with Virgin Atlantic, I have to say this was one of the best flying experience I had. Their entertainment system was very good. You get to chose from 30 movies (all very new). I watched "Dream Girls", "The Prestige", "Happy Feet" and "Maria Antoinette", on the way back home "Superman Return" and "A night at Musem". The food is also very nice.
We stayed at Best Western South Beach, meant to be 3 star hotel, but the room is more like a motel room or worse. We even got charged for using the safe in the room. But it was peak season that was the best we could get. At least they have a tiny pool, which I get to swim around at night, I really enjoy swimming, something I don't get to do that often at London.
First night after meeting up with Rebecca, we went for a walk on the Ocean drive (the main beach front road at South Beach), we had Lobster paelle, I got tonsilitis on that day, so didn't enjoy the food as much.
1st March - We signed up for a Everglades airboat tour for the morning. Sitting on the airboat, it reminds me one eposiode of CSI Miami when they trying to find the alligator that swollen part of a dead body. Heehee I like CSI Miami. We had gator tail meat for lunch. In the afternoon we spend some time on the beach working on my tan. This girl slept about 10 meters away from us didn't move for a long time, the lifeguard called the Beach Rescue to check up on her, her nose was bleeding after they woke her up, and the ambulance and more beach rescuer came, it was very dramatic. She is 22, very pretty and poshy with nice body look a bit like Jennifer Garner. At the night we went around Collins Street shopping, spend hips at Armani Exchange.
2nd March - More shopping in the morning, got two pairs of shoes. My cousin arrived around lunch, we went to Joe's Stone Crab for lunch, we were a bit late, the restaurant closed, but the takeaway is still open, even though it was not fine dinning but the crab still taste very good, Bec and Nina loved the stone crab, while I prefered coconuts shrimp. Remember to order the stone crab craw, not the atlantic ocean crab craw, they both nice, but stone crab is their specialty, also recommend the key lime pie for dessert. More shopping in the afternoon, since Nina lost her luggage, we trying to shop for a swimwear for her. At night, while I am getting ready to sleep, Nina and Bec are putting their makeup on getting ready to do some night clubbing. After 5 hours of dancing and 2 clubs, they came home 4 o'clock in the morning, fully excited and with Nina's lost luggage. The bad news is Nina can not find her camera in the luggage, it got stolen.
3rd March - Nina and Bec only had 3 hrs sleep before we got on the tour bus for a day tour to Key West, the most southen point of US, only 90 miles from Cuba. It was a 4 hrs drive. The town look a bit too touristy, Bec and I signed up for snokeling, while Nina decide to catch up with some sleep on the beach. The boat toke us to the only living coral barrier reef at Northen hermisphere for snokeling, the reef is nothing compare to our greater barrier reef at Aus, it is not as colorful and not as many fish. But the highlight was that I saw a more than 2 meters long tiger shark (at least I think it is tiger shark, look like the one in finding nemo). At night we had dinner at this very nice Italian restaurant, but don't remember the name, but if you walk down Eleven Ave towards Ocean drive, turn left at Ocean drive, it is about 100 - 200 meters, you cannot miss it, it has red light, red and white checked tablecloths, very Italaian with live music.
4th March - Forgot to mention, another highlight of the trip is that I have dinned at a true American dinner, you know those you seen in the tv series and movie, where people have their breakfast, or couple goes to at night after a movie. We had breakfast there twice. It was very nice, it is at the coner of eleven ave and washington road opposite to best western. This was the end of my Miami visit, after breakfast we said goodbye to Nina, and started our jounery to the Disney World.
21 febbraio Chinese New YearCelebrated Chinese New Year in true Chinese style - with food
 . Had Dim Sum at Royal China for lunch. Running around whole afternoon preparing New Year's eve dinner, especially the fish soup, cannot have a NYE dinner without fish. My hard work had paid off, my flatmates enjoy the food (see the before and after shoot of the food). New Year day was interesting. My friend is a hotel social event manager, got invited to a Asian Wedding Expo, and I went along with her. The expo is all about Indian wedding, there are nice traditional Indian dresses which I like. The catewalk was not that professional but very entertaining. After the expo I went to watched "Music and lyrics" with my friend, it was a cheery film, not the most romantic, but bits and pieces of it was funny.
In general my Chinese New Year started on a good note. 09 febbraio Life UpdateEncouraged by Ronny, I decide to regularly updating my blog. Hope I don't bore you all with my life.
It snowed today, it was very beautiful. There are about 5cm of snow in the garden. The pedestrian path was covered with snow, made it a bit hard to walk to station in the morning, but I enjoyed every moment of it.
Chinese New Year is coming up, got plans to go yum cha with friends. Really miss home and China, hope I could be at either place rather than here for New Year.
Weighted my self today, 46.5kg, half kg less than last week. I am not on diet or trying to loss weight. It just that there aren't anything nice here to eat. Lost my appetite on most of the food here.
Have been going to gym the last few week, trying to get nice abs for my holiday, going to Miami meeting up with Rebecca this month end. I get to enjoy some sun and the beach. Hope I get to go fishing and snorkling. Also going to Orlando, get to visite Disney land and all the other theme parks. Get to do some duty free shopping as well. Can not wait for it. 28 agosto London AquariumIt is a long weekend, I thought I do something touristy - I went to London Aquarium. As a big fish lover, it is always exicting to viste an aquarium.
Compare to the aquarium at Sydney and KL, London Aquarium is not that impressive. It is not as modern as the KL one, and doesn't have as many display as Sydney Aquarium. But overall it is still good.
Highlight of the viste include
- Seeing little eels poping their head out of the sand
- Seeing shrimps and crabs
- The moonlight jellyfish is beautiful
- Found one nemo at the edge of the tank 22 luglio It is getting too hot I thought I have moved to a cooler country, but London has proved me wrong the last month. This week the mercury has hit high 30, which means many sleepless night, and a lot of sleepy days. But the worst thing is this countries' public transport system was not build to coupe with the heat, there are no air condition on any of their public transports. Inside the tube the temperature rises way over 40, 10 minutes in it could make anyone sweat like a pig. But lucky for the pigs, they get ice block treat to cool them down. 12 giugno Go KatingI went for Go Kating last tuesday. It is an event organised by FICC IT social committee. The race court is at Kings Cross.
It is nothing like I imagined. The kart is small, the race track was big, the speed was fast and everyone is so competitive. There were only two girls went for the event out of the total 40 people went. We all have to dress in this racing suit. While we waiting at the briefing area one of the staff toke a kart for a spin. I was shocked how fast he went. Then I look around everyone is exicted and talking about how experienced they are, I was seriously concerning about my life, and praying I will come out of this in one piece. During the briefing I was concentrated and listening to everything the instructor was saying, but because of my nerve I keep forgetting what he said, such as what is the difference between the blue flag and the yellow flag, what am I suppose to do when the light in the tunnel is flashing, how do we change driver.
I was team up with the serious developer who I work with, he was very nice and trying to calm me down, telling me everything is going to be ok. I was first up for practise round. The moment the engine starts, the kart start to vibrating so hard I can not get a clear vision with the helmet on, and because I am short my feet barly reaches the accelerator or the break (which I was more concern about), fortunately I was the last one in line to get out of the pit, I could take my time. Once out of the pit, I start to feel much more better, the nerve is gone, I thought, since I am already here, I might as well enjoy myself, I press my foot hard on the acclerator and here I go.
Through the whole race I didn't manage overtake anyone, I guess everyone toke a turn overtoke me. Of course the result of that is my team came last in the competition. After close to 30 mins of driving, I came out alife and excited, my right side of the ribs is still hurting until today (cause by an early collision), but I truely enjoied and had fun that night. Wouldn't mind doing it again next year. 21 aprile World Trip Stop 8 - LALA - where the rich and famous lives. But I didn't like the city that much. Could be because of the jetlag, could be because of the cold weather (didn't bring enough cloth with me). The city is full of boring old buildings, everything seems to be dusty, but the food is definitely better than London. Shopping is cheaper (brought hips of cloth there).
I stayed with my cousin, get to spend some time with family is always a plus. I made her breakfast everyday (since I wake up at 6am). Now that I lived at London without family and friends, I start to understand why she always complains about being lonely at LA and how much she miss home (where your families are). I made her 100+ wontons before I left, hopefully that will last some time.
World Trip Stop 7 - ParisBeen there twice in the last four month. It is so easy and cheap to go to paris for a weekend. 2 hours on a EuroStar train will bring you to the heart of this beautiful city.
The first time was mainly sightseeing and disneyland, it was before Xmas.
Disneyland was fun, we got on all the big rides, screamed until we lost our voice. Did some shopping in Disneyland for Xmas presents. It was Dom's birthday, so I order the engineers to light up the Eiffel tower for her. Visited theLouvre Museum, saw the Mona Lisa and Venus de Milo.
The second time was for shopping, since I wear size 5 shoes, it is impossible to get them in London, so we went down to Paris for shoes shopping. We also visited LV store and all the big department stores.
World Trip Stop 6 - LondonLondon - my "home" now. It is just another city, but with old style buildings, lots of shopping, bad food.
I lost 4 kg when I first got here, due to bad food. Now I start to cook for my self, and my weight has go back to normal. London people don't seems to be too keen on seafood, prawns is best you can get. A lot of meat, even though I am a meat lover, now I have started to feel bored of eating them.
Shopping is good here, but expensive when you do the exchange rate. The first few month I am here just happen to be winter. Summer is coming, everything should be better then.
Being here almost half a year now, still haven't got a chance to travel around a bit in UK, will start doing that in summer. World Trip Stop 5 - BeijingIt is the capital of China, where 2008 Olympics going to be held. All around the city you can see construction going up in preparation for this event.
Forbidden city, The Great Wall are the two must go destination at Beijing, and they never fall to amaze the million tourists going there everyday. The grant structure reflects the thousands years of history and culture of China. Food – my favourite topic, the most famous food in Beijing is its Duck and Lamb Hot Pot (Steam Boat) – of course I have tried both. In my opinion the duck just like any other duck you can get from Chinatown, the steam boat was good, always loved lamb steam boat, yummy ……. 06 aprile World Trip Stop 4 - ShanghaiOne of my favourite city in the world, because this is my birth place, where my families are plus where all the beautiful food is made - yummy.
So this is very obvious what I have done when I was at Shanghai - Dine. Before I landed there, I got appointments lined up with family and family friends for lunch and dinner. Even though I was dead tried when I landed at shanghai, but I know there is nothing in the world could stop me from going to the scheduled dinner that night, hurried home ( aunt's place ) and head straight to the restaurant. After been travelling for two weeks, I was hunger for a nice big meal, and the dinner didn't disappoint me at all. Even Dom agree with me - "The food in shanghai is just in a different level compare to everything else". Dom's favourite is crab, she had loads of them when she was at China. For me I will never miss the hot spicy steam boat and the hand made beef noodle soup.
While we enjoying good food everyday, we didn't forget to do some site seeing, actually I have seen them all, but Dom haven't, so we went to the oriental tower, the old temple town, the busy nanjing road ...
02 aprile World Trip - Malaysia - Stop 3I have recieved many complaints that I don't update my blog very often. Sorry everyone ! =P
Last time I was talking about Bintan, this time I will talk about what we did after Bintan - we head to Malaysia. I stop over at two city Penang and KL.
We were very forturnate that Vanessa was at Penang for a wedding, her friends drove us around for some sight seeing, shopping and food. We stayed at Shangri-la Golden Sand - near the beach. The beach is not very impressive, but we had fun lying near the pool drinking cocktails (happy hours - 2 for price of the one). The street outside the hotel has night markets, selling souverniers and pirate dvds. The food court outside the hotel the food was very nice and cheap. Shopping is always a plus over at Malaysia, the exchange rate makes everthing very cheap. We visit the penang temple, there is this pond where they keep all the turtles, we brought some vege to feed the turtles, that was very fun, since I love turtles.
KL was hot and dusty, there are alots of shopping malls but Dom and I was too tried to walk around them. We sign up for half day tour, and visited the King's palace, walked around the KL towers. I have also visited the aquarium - wouldn't miss that one for anything, that might the highlight of my KL trip. Rest of the time we were sitting next to the pool or infront of the TV getting rest and prepare for our next destination - China. 18 marzo Start of a new journeyLondon - LA - Sydney - Canberra - Sydney - London - Goldman
I am gettting ready to go home for my work permit visa application, the visa is for 60months from Goldman Sachs. Once activated my working holiday maker visa will be invalid for ever. Some how I feel like this is such a big decision. A new beginning in my life. Did I see my self down this path 6 months ago when I am getting ready to come to London for a different experience - NO. While the friends and families celebrated my semi-settlement in UK, I am still uncertain whether I want to be here, seems like the right path to follow, but no friends, no family, just work, how long can I last? I fell like a leave falling in a river, and let the current take me to its destination, hopfully it is where I want to end up.
Wish me luck! Fifteen Restaurant ReviewI went for lunch at Jamie Oliver's Fifteen Restaurant, in short - Love the starter and hate the main.
Don't know whether if it is the weekend effect, that the restaurant seems to be situated at middle of no where. After getting out of the Old Street tube station it is about 5mins of walk to this famous restaurant on the side street of city road. The walk seems longer since we have seen no one on the street. Only when we are at the front of the restaurant we see groups of people walking into the restaurant, some come with a cab some droved. As far as I can see we are the only group come here on foot and by tube.
The restaurant is smaller than I expected, but cosy and warm. You can see the kitchen for the Trattoria floor the moment you walk inside the restaurant. The smell of the food made me feel very hungrey. We were urshered to downstair the restaurant section. There are another open kitchen downstair, you can see the chiefs are busy preparing delious food, unfortunatly for Dom, Jamie was not there. We were seated at the far end of the restaurant.
The menu is only one page long, they change them daily I guess. It toke us 15mins to decide what to have. I had seafood pasta for starter and lamb for main. Everyone ordered some wine, except for me, since I don't drink. My starter was very nice, best pasta I had so far, but the main was disappointing, it taste like any other lamb dish from an average restaurant. Whether I will go back, we will see. 24 gennaio World Trip Stop 2 - Bintan IslandAs you can see that I have been lazy, it has been 4 months since I was on Bintan Island. Checked the calendar I was there from 10/09/2005 - 13/09/2005 - three very relaxing days.
Bintan Island is an Indonesian island, about 2 hours of ferry ride from Singapore. We stayed in Bintan Lagoon Resort, got discount rate from Singapore Stop Over holiday package. Most of people go to Bintan to play Golf, but we were there for the beach and pool.
The main activities for the three days include swimming, sun-bathing and delicious food. The highlights of the three days are:
Day 1 afternoon, hiding under the hut next to the swimming pool during the tropical storm (it last for 30 mins). We made no attempt to run back to our room, because the rain was very heavy + loud lighting. After the storm we jump back into the pool.
Day 1 night, we had steam boat buffet, with tom yum soup as base. it was wonderful.
Day 2, we would to the beach, I caught a little white crab, I toke a photo of it and let it go, but the photo didn't turn out too good.
Day 3, Beach side massage - super. We also discover this water slide in another pool. That was fun, missed everyone there, hope you all there it will be more fun.
21 novembre World trip stop 1 - Singapore08/09/2005 - 10/09/2005
It was my second visit to Singapore. The food is still as tasty - especially fish ball noodle. The next day we went to Singapore Zoo, it was amazing; I saw elephant bathing, polar bear, orangutan and white tiger. Had buffet lunch at the hotel, if you ever going to Singapore remember to try Carlton Hotel's durian cake - beautiful, I loved it. That night we visited Sentosa Island, went on top of the Merlion - it was a great view up there. Within the two days at Singapore I also manage to squeeze in many shopping trips as well - unfortunately don't have enough luggage space for everything =P 17 novembre Broadband - FinallyFinally got broadband at home today, now I can update my blog. I have to back date everything to September. But I will do them eventually. Just wait!!!!
=) 16 agosto City 2 Surf 2005Another year, another City2Surf, another 14km. This time I did with Oakton girl's team. My walking partner include Dominique and Demet.
It was cold morning, the girl met up at St James station. Before we made our way to HSBC starter area, we recieved a SMS from our Cheering Team Leader saying she couldn't make it to Bondi to welcome and cheer for us =(
After some rush we manage to put out winter cloth on the second last transport bus. Now we are down to our T-shirt and Gym pants. Standing in the crowd helped to keep the freezing wind away.
The race starts on time, HSBC starter start around 9:40am. The girls was running the first km, but I was struggling to catch up with them. Feel like I let the team down =(
After 157mins of walking we made to our finish line. From there on it is another km of walking to the Oakton meeting area Beach Road Hotel. The places was so crowded, we decided to get food from a nearby chicken shop and sat on the grass across the road to the hotel for lunch.
The bus ticket queue to go home was about 1km long, the queue to get on a city bus is another km long. So we decided to get ourself a New Zealand icecream and walk to Bondi Junction Station.. Yes walk. No we didn't end up doing it, we found this transite officer selling bus ticket next to the Bondi Junction bus, no one seems to found out the shortcut, we brought the ticket and got on the bus and start our jounery home.
What a long day! 10 agosto Car Crash - Lucky EscapeI was driving on Prince Hwy 8:40am in the morning to work on the 9th of August. My car is in the most inner lane. The driver in the truck driving at the opposite side and direction passed out, and lost control of the truck. The truck came across the road divider island to my side of the road, crashed into my car from the driver's side, glasses shuttered, metal scraping, the truck scraped the car from front to back, and went on, hit another two car on the way before crashing into a pole on the wrong side of the road. My family car Toyota Camry is badly damaged on the driver side, both door bent in, you can see no paint on that side, it all got scraped off by the truck. As for me, the skinny me in a big car escaped with no harm. Pulled my car to the side of the road, stop the engine and climb out of the passenger side. Legs shaking, glasses in my hair and on my cloth, grabbed my mobile dialled 112. The police, ambulance, fire brigade came within 5 mins, the truck driver have to be cut out of the truck. One of the other drivers who got hit also needs to be taken to the hospital.
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