Tribute to my fellow travellers

wonder who still reads this... but well, this is the most important entry i'm gonna make!!

Liling...
an adventurous and fun-loving girl who made the whole trip as interesting as possible for all of us with her nonsense and quirks! she really takes good care of people around her, sometimes even at the expense of her ownself. totally selfless and helpful in everyway! she helped me carry my luggage before she carried hers. she lent me her conditioner without hesitation when my hair was in a mess. she made sure everyone else had enough food to eat before she worried about her own plate.

she's my fellow cook for our delicious home-cooked dinner every weekday. she's our fellow gambler in taitee and gin rummy. she made our lives interesting with her sudden thunderstorms and bright sunshine days! she's my travel buddy on our sydney trip where we had nobody else but each other to depend on.

Kenneth...
he's our big bro! totally dependable and reliable source of support. when everyone was sleeping in the car, he made sure he slept light to jagar for us. he offers his jacket whenever we're too cold coz he has natural insulation. heh... he's our dedicated navigator... made sure we get to places and not get lost. he paid all the attention he could on the road so that we won't get into any accidents or trouble. he listened and tolerated all our rubbish without much complaints.

he totally hates travelling but he actually tahanned everything n went to mountains, waterfalls, n caves. he washes the dishes dutifully without any complaints. he offers his help without fail whenever we're doing the cooking.

Fengyi...
our wonderful driver and army commander! a highly-disciplined traveller. no complaints even though he's tired and wanna sleep... he just keeps on driving so that he gets us to many many sites and gets us home safely. he wakes us up early in the morning, so we won't miss our flight to tasmania and wonderful experiences like rainstorm on mt wellington... haha!

he is opinionated and made our dinner and long drives full of political and highly-educational debates. he amuses us with his multiple quirks and weirdo behaviour (like wearing scrubs for pyjamas). he's our photographer with his huge high-tech camera with 10X zoom!

thank you all 3 of u fantastic ppl! it's been such a pleasure n enriching experience. without any of u, it wouldn't haf been complete and so fulfilling! every single one of u had a part to play in forming these wonderful memories for me. these wonderful memories have made me become a better person and i'll remember them always! looking at all our photos make me smile and laugh all the time, no matter how many times i've gone thru them!

i'll not trade u fellow travellers and this entire trip for anything in the world!

P.S. my photos can be found in http://www.imagestation.com/members/s0urs0p !

People we met...

the tour wouldn't be half as fun if the people weren't there!! 15 of us... travelling through thick n thin... sharing our fun n laughter... getting to know each other's culture n country!

all of us minus peter our tourguide

peter who took good care of us throughout e trip

my holiday fling... ash from england... ooohh... so handsome right?

2 singaporeans... robin n lijuan... a real gentleman n nice lady

2 more singaporeans... ck n madeline... 2 mad women who made e trip so fun!

sarah from UK... strong girl travelling alone in australia for 1 year!

julie n sarah from US... on graduation trip! really intellectual n fun-loving girls...

takeshi-san... a 61-year old but 21-year old at heart!

plai from thailand... quiet interior designer student...

n of course... *drum roll...*

my travelling buddy who tahanned me for the whole 7 weeks!!

Blue mountains

e last 2 days of our tour were spent exploring blue mountains national park... the name blue mountains came about because apparently, due to some chemical reaction between the eucalyptus and gum vapour emitted by the trees there, the mountains appear to have a layer of blue mist over it.

well, personally i didn't really see this so-called blue mist when i was there but strangely, the pictures of the mountains turned out kinda blue. haha!


can see the bluish tinge at the back? use some imagination... haha!

the national park was alright... i think throughout e past weeks, i saw so many beautiful mountains, rock formations that i keep expecting better and wanting more. blue mountains fall short of my expectations i suppose... although other people on the trip actually found it very scenic.

over there, we took a very steep but slow railway down a cliff and then took a cable car up. i thought the train ride was too short and instead of enjoying the view, liling n i were too busy pretending to be scared n scream! haha!! before we knew it, it was over n we were at the bottom of the mountain. after tt, we took a cable car up to where our bus was parked. the cable car ride was slower so we managed to enjoy a bit of the breeze n scenary.


steep-looking huh?

part of the national park includes the Three Sisters...

we stayed over night at blue mountains YHA hostel at Katoomba. e place was really nice!! well-maintained backpackers' hostel with a HUGE kitchen, nice bunk beds, clean toilets, a pool table and tv lounge area.

tt's our lil area in a 5-people dormitory!

last few bits of our trip

we officially finished our electives on 20/5 friday... so e last week was mainly travelling for liling n me! ken n soh went home first on 23/5.

liling n i took a 3 n half day tour on a coach from melbourne to sydney. along e way, we get to go sightseeing at snowy mountains, canberra and blue mountains. the tour started early on monday and we'll reach sydney on thurs afternoon!

Snowy mountains
nope... it was only autumn, so it wasn't snowing yet! it's actually a huge ski resort with lots of skiing sites around the snowy mountains town-like place. we arrived at snowy mountains on monday nite, so din get to see much on the first day. we were mainly trying to cover the distance on our coach, so lotsa driving n sleeping... stopped over at a Ned Kelly museum which was nothing much...

oh! must talk abt the accommodation at snowy mountains!! it was a very cheap motel at Khancoban (a small town) which was furnished more like a hotel actually! we paid only 24 bucks each... and look wat we got!!

nice beds wif bed linen... and the most impressive thing was the bed heater pad under the linen! i was fascinated with it man!!! discovered it when i was turning in bed n hit my arm on a plastic-like thingy... we removed part of the linen n saw e heating pad!! WOW! hahaha... sorry la... so sua ku but it was my first time seeing a bed heater...

and there was an attached bathroom, tv, free coffee n tea and refrigerator in the twin bedroom! it's gotto be the best accommodation we've had throughout these 7 weeks! haha! almost din feel like leaving e place e next morning...

the next morning, the weather was pretty bad and everywhere was misty, so there was not much point in trekking up one of the mountains, so we took a river trail along Thredbo river. along this river, we enjoyed scenic views of the snowy mountains and got some nice morning workout! although it wasn't snowing yet, the mountains were still beautiful coz there's this layer of fluffy clouds/mist at the mountain caps! haha!

Canberra
this is the capital of australia but it's a ghost town... haha! very very quiet town, so unlike melbourne and definitely far from sydney! in canberra, we saw the old n new parliament house, war memorial, all the embassies of different countries n the national museum of australia.

the highlight of e 2nd day would have to be the bbq at night!



this is our tourguide cooking our meat for us!

we bought e groceries n meat from a supermarket, went back to our accommodation to bbq! it was so enjoyable, coz we sat around, eat n talk crap! plus we had wine n beer to go with our food! some of e guys got pretty drunk i think... n started sprouting nonsense n singing very loudly!