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So here we are - or rather, here I am - back in good ol Adelaide, one day after the conclusion of what was an incredible trip. As much as I was ready to come home and ease back into reality, I'm currently being attacked by pangs of post holiday blues. I hope the other 3 trippers are easing back into Klang while missing Australia at the same time!

We haven't really updated much aside from Adrian's faithfully-edited videos, but in our defense we were having too much fun at the Worlds in Gold Coast and the internet at our temporary abode was as bad as TMnet 10 years ago, no kidding.

So now that we're all back to civilization, we'll attempt to rehash all that we've been through in the last few weeks at Gold Coast. I reckon Sam gave a really good day-to-day account of our road trip leg, so look that up a few posts below this to find out what we did and where we went.

Gold Coast itself was a breath of fresh air for us, not least because we actually returned home each night to a real family with proper home-cooked meals which were mouthwatering to say the least, and it didn't hurt that Sam's aunt's family was entertaining as! It was refreshing to be able to catch proper sleep each night after tiring days at Dream World, Movie World and swimming/bodyboarding at the different beaches.

The first day at GC was spent at the Dream World White Water park, which was real good fun and really relaxing as well. You guys should have seen Zlwin morph into a 5-year-old kid again. He got excited at every ride and was smiling and skipping along like a little monkey the whole day. Good times!

The next day, we just chilled out at Surfers Paradise, hung out on the beach, did some window shopping, and just took in the beach vibe. Zlwin bought a new bodyboard and we each took a turn at it. The waves at Surfers was so incredible strong apparently a few people have drowned in just the last few weeks over the Christmas period. Scary! There were a number of times when we ourselves were dragged into the waves and flipped over underwater mercilessly. Thank goodness we all survived! Always remember to swim between the flags no matter which Aussie beach you're at. That way, if you drown at least you know someone can come rescue you.

The third day, our friend Ivan from Brisbane met us and we headed to Dream World, which was a veritable ocean of adrenaline waiting to wash over you with its waves of excitement. We went on all these incredible rides, the most "chi kek" being the Buzz Saw, which spins you up and down left right and centre at a mind-numbing speed multiple times, to the point where you think you're going to die. But then again, don't most roller-coasters. A little trivia for you: this Buzz Saw is one of the only three of its kind across the world, so if you have the chance you shouldn't miss it. Once in a day was enough for me though. Brrrr. Another really notable ride was the Giant Drop, which is a chair lift that propels you up a 36-storey (i think its 36 storey but don't quote me on this) tower, and then drops you so quick you think your neck is going to snap and your heart going to stop. The worst part is that you're dangled at the top of the tower for about more than 1 minuite, and just when you're easing into the views across the Gold Coast and think it's never going to happen, it flippin DROPS! It's crazy and magical and achingly scary all at the same time! Bes!!!

After that massive flood of adrenaline, we took it a notch down at Movie World, which was lovely and had a real family vibe about it. Sam skipped this day to spend time with her aunt and because she thinks Movie World is boring. It is definitely less exciting than DreamWorld obviously, but still good fun and a great place to visit to relive some of your childhood heroes (think Scooby Doo and Batman)

Our very last day at Gold Coast was spent at Burleigh Heads beach, where a World Junior Pro surfing compeitition was taking place. It was my dream come true honestly, to end our trip on such a note. I couldn't help sitting around on the grass with other surfing aficionados just looking out into the far waters, watching the surfers work the waves. One day before I die, I will get to at least 1/3 of their level - now that's something to look forward to! Sam hung around with her cousin Melissa who graciously spent the whole day with us, Adrian wandered off to take pictures and videos, and Zlwin headed off to body board, and I joined him to attempt some fun in the waves after having had enough of watching the surfers. Burleigh Heads is seriously a gorgeous place with such an amazing vibe, so try not to miss it if you go to Gold Coast.

Oh here comes the crappy bit. We ended the night with dinner at some crap Italian place which looked legitimately Italian, but I can't recall a worse Aussie dining experience seriously. The service was unbelievably slow (even to hand us the cheque!) the food was terribly bad and salty, and the price was unnecessarily steep. It's too bad none of us bothered to remember the name of the place or we would have posted it here.

The next morning we woke up bright and early (or at least most of us did! One of us overslept and couldn't even believe we had to head to the airport NOW becuase said person's brain wasn't awake yet haha. Guess who!), and headed for home sadly. 

It is now back to real life and to what will be a good year with many more experiences ahead of us. Definitely looking forward and not back!

The trip has ended, but the videos and stories have not! We will continue to update this site and Adrian is still working on editing the massive amount of footage he took, so definitely stay tuned to this space!!

A special mention needs to go out to Auntie Rosie and Uncle Bob and the Tan siblings for their amazing hospitality, yummlicious food and the ROFLMAO-standard entertainment that they provided for the duration of our stay in the Gold Coast. You guys are amazing!

And thank you to all our faithful #ausroadtrip12 followers! Ciao for Nao!

x,

Slinga

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Catch up with us as we kayak in the Tea Gardens and show you the traditional Muttonbird Island dance. Also, Zlwin's potential father-in-laws should not miss watching him manhandle Su Ling in the epic onetenjus bed grab challenge. Just to ensure your daughters are safe in the future. We're kidding, he's really a softie. Enjoy!

#AusRoadTrip12 Episode 4 :

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Day 6, Port Stephens:
So we started off with heading towards Port Stephens and we stayed at Jimmy's Beach Caravan Park. It was not only cheap but also worth the money. We rented a powered site for the night and it only costed us $37. It was there that we visited Hawk's nest beach which was absolutely lovely. It really hit off the roadtrip to a great start.

Day 7, Tea gardens:
We got up early, made ourselves some baked beans and toasted bread on our mini stove and headed up further north. Pretty much shopped for groceries, took a shower and slept up to get ready for the next morning's activities. (the same routine everyday on the roadtrip) we did however arise the next morning early and headed to Lazy Paddles where we rented kayaks and kayaked in the Tea Gardens. From the moment we mentioned kayaking, Su Ling and Adrian partnered up leaving Zlwin and I to be the very much underdog team. The underdog team however did win the final race to the finish! And that was pretty much my highlight.

Day 8, Port Macquarie:
It had already started drizzling in the Tea Gardens after we had finished kayaking and it continued to pour as we drove up. When we got to our new campervan park, it was rather bright and sunny but little did we know rain was going to pour down on us all day, all through the night and all morning the next day. The boys powered through and set up as well as broke down the tent in the rain. Kudos to them. Especially Zlwin!

Day 9, Coff's Harbour:
Leaving Port Macquarie in quite a hurry due to the rain, we were in a rather gloomy as well as under-rested mood. We headed to the harbour and visited Muttonbird Island. It was a rather pretty sight and there we feasted on our chicken-avacado sandwiches. We did manage to get a pretty great campervan park "Malaleuca" and since the boys had just had a very tough day before, we got a cabin instead. The cabin came with a 'winner' queen sized bed and a 'loser' 3 person bunk bed. In the most ungentlemen fashion, they challenged myself and suling to a battle of rock paper scissors. Prize of course being the comfort of a nice warm soft bed with fluffy pillows and double comforters. The boys ended up winning. :( it did rain that night again and we were all very pleased with our decision to get the cabin over a campervan site.

Day 10, Yamba:
Heading off towards Byron, we decided to skip Stanthrope which was on our initial list of places to visit because that would probably mean a campsite and unsure of the weather, we played it safe and headed towards this small surf town instead on a whim. Also on a whim, we ended up eating at this Turkish-Mediterranean cafe which ended up to really cheer us up from all the bad weather we had been having. Later that night after getting a powered site at the best campervan park, by far-Blue Dolphin, we cooked up Indian food and lots of rice to satisfy Zlwin's insatiable craving for it's starchy goodness. It was very much a breath of fresh air for us as well as we were greeted with calm weather and that little spice gave us all a taste of home.

Day 11, Byron Bay:
We left early for Byron Bay the next day stopping by hippie town, Nimbin. The town itself was rather interesting but I did not feel particularly safe being the only few Asians and everyone stating at us like we would look good on a barbecue. Haha. But it was definitely an experience. We lounged around the main beach in Byron and eventually settled for a campervan park and marked the end of our ausroadtrip with a huge meat barbecue. At the end of it, and even till now, no one really wants anymore meat. It was way too much! We woke up the next morning at 5 a.m. to try and catch the sunrise. It was however, not as pretty a sight as we had hoped. The rising sun was blocked by a huge cloud and we could barely see any rays. Had a quick breakfast and headed to The Valley which was absolutely gorgeous. It was more of a surfing area but we all just enjoyed soaking up the experience and the vibe we were getting from the surfers, the ocean and the scenery. Eventually headed back to the main beach to lie around because after many days of dark clouds, we finally had a bright sun shiny day of pretty much Joy.

Day 12, Brisbane:
Let Byron half heartedly because we all really wanted to spend more time there and headed up to Brisbane. On the way we had Yatala Pies which were okay interns of filling and mushy peas but the gravy and pastry did salvage the meal. We were greeted by Chris and Beverly, who are the nicest, and dropped off our wicked campercar. It was honestly odd seeing the car so empty and clean for the first time in almost a week! We then headed into the city to meet Ivan. Hitting the city we set out for good food. Headed to a small French patisserie to wait for dinner. Eventually headed to Funny Funny, which is a Korean restaurant, for dinner. There we feasted on so much food each of us could almost explode (even Zlwin!)

As I'm typing this, we're heading back to Ps. Chris' home and I can't wait to shower and to get a good night's sleep on a BED! I doubt you've really read the entire post but of you did, yay and good on you. Drop a comment if you like and we'll update you soon enough. :)

SAMOEUMIN

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After us saying that Su Ling is not graceful enough to do synchronized swimming, she decides to prove us wrong with a graceful dancemove. She may not be able to cook but she is able to pose gracefully. - SAMOEM (Samantha Ong Eu Min)

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LAST NIGHT.

So the girls took 45 minutes to cook a complicated dinner meal. The boys were smart, we bought CANned food. And we had our dinner ready in just 5 minutes. The girls came and teased us. We let them try our food, they dropped dead and said, "Wow it's very tasty. Can I have more?"

#win ! =)

- Zlwin Chew and Adrian Yap

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So we've had lunch at the beach. Today's venue is the hilltop of Muttonbird Island! With the fantasticallyziliciousmusious view of the PACIFIC OCEAN!!!

What's for lunch? - Chicken with Avocado and Baby Spinach Sandwich! =)

- Zlwin Chew

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What an amazing getaway! Here we are right now at Hawks Beach. We will be camping here tonight. When I first set my sight on the beach I was so exhilarated and thrilled I quickly asked Adrian to stop the car and we all ran out towards the beach. The waves were so strong and it was so misty (because of the strong wind blowing the sea water towards the shore)! And as I was looking past at the far distance, I was amazed cause I can't seem to see an ending to the coastline/shoreline. At a far distant, the mist was so thick and I couldn't see anything beyond that. This place really blew me away. It was such a blessing to get away from the busy city life and come to this kind of place. There's no one sharing the huge beach with us except for some dogs and about 10 other people spread all over the huge shoreline. We literally had the whole beach for ourselves! =)

And now we are camping at the campsite 2 mins away from the beach. Will be heading to bed early because we want to wake up at 5am tomorrow to catch the sunrise! Good night, friends!

- Zlwin Chew

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OMG it's championship point for Djokovic while Zlwin snores away!!!!!!!

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Well hello hello!

We got back from the Blue Mountains today after our night of camping, and then headed to the obligatory Sydney holiday spot extraordinaire, Bondi Beach. To be honest, Sydney has been one heckuva ride. So much has happened in such a short time, we've done things we didn't plan for and not done things we wanted to do (like hiking at the Blue Mountains and sitting in Hyde Park and visiting University of Sydney - yeah ok I'm old and I like all these old people activities and all).

I reckon you'll gather a bit more from the video that Adrian will post up soon, but for now, I thought I'd give you a snapshot of some of the places and things we've been getting up to.

Eating. Lots of eating. Mecca coffee. Bourke Street Bakery (Ginger creme brulee tart here is the BEST!!!!). Adriano Zumbo Passionfruit Tart & Raspberry Whizz Fizz. Ish Cafe Japanese/Aussie cuisine. Hurricane's ribs. Coles $10 chicken (SA Wooly's is better!). Fried Mars Bar (Suuuper good!). Ajisun fried chicken. It goes on and on.

Sydney Opera House. Having prime seats watching the Magic Flute. Hanging out on the steps of the Opera House. Singing Barney on the Botanic Garden Lawns. Three Sisters up on the Blue Mountains. Camping on top of the car. Cramming all four of us in a three-person tent. Zlwin's snoring symphony. Crazy terrain in a Toyota Corolla. Dodgy camping ground in the middle of nowhere with a pretty little creek we didn't get to swim in.

It's been a really good stopover at Sydney. We're leaving tomorrow on the actual road part of the road trip, and it's going to be great!! We'll be in touch from there. Busy watching Djokovic almost win the Aus Open now. It's 30 - 0 with ONE point to go for Djokovic to win. Kancheong Kitchen!!!! Ciao!!

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---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Zlwin Chew
Date: Sat, 28 Jan 2012 10:16:40 +0000
Subject: The Wicked Campers Wicked Camp!
To: ausroadtrip12@posterous.com

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We rented our campervan and drove up to the Blue Mountains. It was a
pretty interesting journey! Yeeee haaaaw!

As I'm typing this, we are currently snuggled up in our tent that was
set up above our car! Yeaps! This car is a super cool car, it has a
built in tent thingy thing that works like magic. With a little muscle
work, the tent is set right up above our car.

The line here is very bad! What do you expect? =) deeeeeep in the
jungle and high up in the Blue Mountains!

In the meantime, we are in the midst of editing A LOT of videos!!! Due
to the lack of internet access, we couldn't upload the videos but will
do some tomorrow! For sure! =)

If you don't hear from us tomorrow, come to the mountain and save us!

Good night!!!

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The first peek of our journey across the land down under. We are four Malaysian Monkeys who have known each other forever but have never lived nor travelled together. Join us as we explore all things Aussie and attempt to live with each other for the next 2 weeks without killing each other.

In this video, we're in Sydney, Australia. We arrived here in conjunction with Australia Day which was a GREAT way to kick off this leg of our Australian road trip.

Music : Some Boys - Death Cab For Cutie & Houdini - Foster The People

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So here goes! We left Melbourne and flew to Sydney with much anticipation! However, upon arrival, we were a tad bit disappointed to see a huge chunk of the city filled with the typical Chinese styled buildings and there were a lot of Chinese shops and people and more Chinese shops. At a point I thought the city has been dominated by the Chinese!

Anyway, we walked on and on, aimlessly, like a vagabond, that's who I like it. And to our pleasant surprise we found the Aussie part of the city! It was beautiful! For pictures, go to urm Google? =D Haha. It's just beautiful! 

So anyway, we walked along George Street and ended up at the river front overlooking the iconic Sydney Opera House. It was magnificent. However, we didn't want to go and see it first, will save it for tomorrow. Just because we weren't properly dressed to take good pictures =)

Day 2, Melbourne

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Well, I realised Suling did not really give a detailed version of our second day in Melbourne. So, for the reading pleasure of whoever that actually is following this blog, I'm gonna give it to you right here. Right now. That's right. Here it comes. Are you ready? Because it's coming. Seriously, it is.

So sorry for the blabbing above. It's 2 a.m. here in Sydney and trying to recall every last minute detail and type in a Slinga-like fashion is quite the challenge.

We started off at Manchester Press. The quirky side lane cafe served us with really really REALLY good bagels and really really REALLY good coffee. I don't know why but I found the coffee to have a slight salty taste which I honestly loved. Unlike some gongcha salty foam, this one complimented the flavours and the creamy texture of the coffee was a great start to what seemed like a great day. If you ever head down to Melbourne and wanna find this place, first look for Baba Buddha (it's a very famous coffee place and apparently it's the best in Melbourne. We however, very full from Manchester Press, did not manage to grab a cup before leaving the city) and turn left straight into the lane next to it. I'm pretty sure it's Rankin's lane and the signage for M.Press is a simple M.P. with an arrow pointing downwards. It sort of looks like a parking lot sign. A big shout out and thank you to SEAN TAN for giving me directions to this great little shop.

After breakfast, Adrian's friend, and now ours, HUI SZE came to meet us at the cafe and her welcoming attitude just got us even more excited about the day ahead of us. The 4 of us (minus Zlwin, whom we're sure regrets not coming. HAHA) headed to the DFO in South Wharf. For those who don't know, DFO stands for Direct Factory Outlet. It was huge and had heaps of different brands from cheaper ones like Cotton On where a pair of flip flops could be bought for 2 dollars to Armani where things were still very much cheaper than in a retail outlet. It ended up taking us about 4 hours to complete our shopping. Yes, Adrian the shopaholic shopped all 4 hours too. Minus maybe one because he had already shopped out his shopping quota! Another huge thank you to Hui Sze for being so patient with us. If any of you reading would like to head to the DFO, just hop on the City Circle Tram and wait till you get to the South Wharf DFO exit. It's pretty obvious as the conductor will announce it and it's also right after the stop in front of the Victoria Police Station. 

At the end of shopping, we had huge bags and headed for Freddo's Gelato on Lygon Street. It was honestly to me not that great. Yes, better texture and flavour than ice cream back home but would I go back again? Probably not. Would I recommend it to anyone? Yes, if you would like to have an additional thing you can converse to Melbournians about but No, if you actually want great ice cream because it was not. Not to me, at least. We also had churros which taste very much like 'yu char kuey' or a donut. For me, it was a little oily which made it pretty hard to finish but the chocolate sauce was very yummy. If not mistaken, the churros came from San Jose. I pretty not so oily churros with cinnamon and if you're in Malaysia and you wanna know what churros are, head to One Utama. SEAN TAN's mum owns a shop there that sells it near cold storage of the new wing and her churros are SO MUCH BETTER. I'm so sorry but I can't remember the name right now, ARGH. 

We soon said goodbye to Hui Sze and headed back to the apartment where suling decided to snooze and I had to mother-up and bake up two frozen pizzas (which we had gotten the day before at the train station, they were giving it out for free!). It was okay but free is always good and we got to stay home, which was nice. 

Later that night Zlwin came over and got us all to head out to TRAK club at Toorak Road. It was a totally new experience for me. For those who know me, I do not club and I have never been to one. Myself and Adrian who are more into the live music scene found it great the first hour and then overwhelming in the second and left pretty early with Suling. Do not take our word for how good the club was though, we're not the epxerts. I asked Zlwin what he thought and to quote him, he said "The club is insanely awesome, I love the fresh aussie vibe there". So yeah, I reckon if you wanna go clubbing, that would be a good spot. HAHA. It was nice though, to see Zlwin in his element and to see how 'big' he really is in the industry and to go in all VIP and stuff.

Day 3, Sydney

Woke up later than we wanted and walked all the way to the wrong train station before figuring out that the Skybus (and this is a good tip for you travellers) only heads to the Southern Cross station. So we had to hop on a train and when we finally got to the airport, we were still on time because we had purposely added extra time just in case and yes, the extra minutes came in handy. Classic case though, Zlwin Chew was no where in sight. When he finally did appear at Subway, he had brought along Ps. John which was nice. Having not seen him in ages, it was a good short reunion that I'm sure all of us appreciated. Then, we hopped on a plane to Sydney!

Upon arrival in Sydney, Suling's contact KAI picked us up from the airport and I kid you not, it cost him 7 dollars to just drive through the airport to pick us up because he had taken longer than 10 mins. 

That pretty much told us from the start that Sydney was not going to be a cheaper journey. For example, to get on the train in Melb is $2.60 to and fro and nonstop. Here in Syd a bus ride (one way) is already $2.80. We quickly dumped our things and headed off into the city. As tourists, we walked the entire George Street from the bus stop we jumped off at (Central) all the way to The Rocks. It took us ages and halway through, Zlwin and I gave up and had to eat something. We decided to get a pie at Pie Face because it was EVERYWHERE. It was okay, not amazing but not bad either. Almost got Chatime but my thrifty side won that inner mind battle. Might get one tomorrow instead, who knows. I really want to complete my Asian Australian experience! :D

At The Rocks, we took good shots (or at least Adrian & Zlwin) of the Sydney Opera House and the Sydney Harbour Bridge. Up to that point, we were all feeling a little dissapointed with what we've seen of Sydney and the city. It looked pretty much like Sentul, KL and there were shops that were kind of like Sungai Wang. We however randomly stumbled across a bar with great live music and that pretty much saved our day. The atmosphere was great and everyone seemed to be having a great time. The great music that was played by their band and their upbeat singer certainly did not harm it either. There we just hang out and waited around till much later when Kai came to meet up with us again. 

Kai, who is apparently quiet and shy according to suling, turned out to be very sociable and bordering on noisy. HAHA. But that made him a really good guide and thank you! (if you ever read this) We got into his car and at this point it was about 9.30 p.m. and Zlwin and I were starving and crabby and sleepy and tired and did I mention, hungry?!? So yeah, we headed to Darling Harbour to try and catch Hurricane's before it closed and bang when we got there, it was closed. AHHHH. We walked downstairs for Pancakes on the Rocks and bang, closed again! AHHHHHHHHHH!!!!! At that point, Zlwin and I were gonna die of starvation (and I'm not exaggerating, it's true. We had that pie at 4 p.m. and it wasn't a big pie, it was a small pie. Also before we had the pie, I was already hungry. After we had the pie, I was still a little hungry) So, very much desperate, we went downstairs to the foodcourt to get whatever random bites we could and when we did, it  felt good. :) After that we headed back to this Korean place (can't remember the name right now) and had fried chicken and noodles. On the way back, Kai showed us around UNSW, so modern!

So overall, it was a good and although slow at the beginning, productive day. 

-SAMOEUMIN

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I don't believe it, after hitting publish on that last post, I read Sam's post and realize she's STILL heckling me about liking Melbourne!!!!!! For Pete's sake, yes I kinda sorta maybe am possibly liking Melbourne a bit more, so shut up already! We're moving on to Sydneyyyyyy!! Honestly, I reckon I'll love Tasmania most. With its gorgeous mountains and old people and crazy freezing weather and all that. Hah. Next road trip!

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