Status: Very Hungry~
Music: Viva La Vida by Coldplay, Sora Uta by Alan and Music Box melody

It's been 1 week since I'm back from Australia, and though I promised that I will update soon, I haven't got all of my pictures back from my uncle. Since I took so many photos, I was worried that the memory card wouldn't last throughout the trip. Luckily, my uncle brought his laptop and I could use his laptop memory space for a while.

Truthfully speaking, I'm still not in the mood at all for writing the entry on Australia. I'm sure it will be long, longer than any of the entries I have written so far. But while waiting for my parents to buy back lunch, I guess I will give a brief update on my life. (it appears that my "lunch" will come at 3-4pm >=< so I guess I will have plenty of time to update.)

Let's see, in the past week, I've been happily catching up the sleep I missed on my holiday. Imagine the gruelling lifestyle of waking up at 7-9am while sleeping at 12-1am everyday, just to fully utilise the days overseas. Well, the only day that I've really slept early, at 7pm was the day of snowboarding.

Some quite facts I've come to the enlightenment after Australia trip:

1. Their standard of living is high.
(I've always known that their SOL is high, but experiencing it made me truly emphatise with the poor there. For comparison sake, a hot dog bun there costs A $ 8.50 and fast food there cost around A $10 ++. The cheapest fast food would be Hungry Jack.)

2. Singapore food is the best!
(Seriously! There is a wider variety and since fast food are so oily and usually deep fried, I've gotten so sick of them, especially the fish and chips. Their steaks/ meat are alright though but they are usually more expensive. Since the Australia trip, I've come to miss Singapore more.)

3. The shops close at 4-5pm, so no late nights shopping for night owls like me.

4. Australia is slow paced and that doesn't necessarily equate to a good thing when you have hungry bears waiting to be served their dinner =S Though I understand that individually cooking a meal shows more sincerity, but when you have 15++ people to feed and not enough manpower/ equipment, this system of cooking is slow.

5. After all that's said, I guess climate in Cairns is much better than Singapore. The temperature in Cairns are comparable to Singapore, but you won't get Australia winds in Singapore.

We stopped over in Sydney and flew to the north of Australia, Cairns. There we spent 2 days 1 night in Cairns. Where activities are concerned, Cairns would be full of it. =)

Day 1 (09/06/09): Flight on Quantas to Sydney, followed by a domestic flight to Cairns the following day

Day 2 (10/06/09) : White water rafting at Baron's river with dinner in an Italian Restaurant (because the place we are staying at is a resort)
This heart thumping ride spears through The Barron Gorge National Park and the World Heritage-listed Wet Tropics. Yupx, the scenery of the surrounding rainforst was stunning! We coursed through rapids like 'Rooster Tail', 'Cheese Churn', 'Hells Gate' and also met the "Mother in law". Subsequently, we were mesmerized by the impossible beauty of the breathtaking lush greenery by the riverside as the Barron River drifts along the splendid mountains and majestic valleys. (Though I was busy regretting not having/ being able to bring my camera along with me to capture the beautiful sights. =< ) Along the trip, we also encountered huge boulders, zigzaged our way through the rocks and cut along the high-rising frothy waves of the water body.

Day 3: Cruising to green Island followed by snorkeling for the first half a day, riding on sky rail, Kuranda train In the Night, it was shopping in town at a shopping centre with dinner at a fast food centre where all the oily food are. (11/06/09)
I guess I will let the pictures paint the trip in the later update. In the midst of the ride on Kuranda train, unfortunately, most of us were asleep. Not surprising, considering how jaded we were. Grabbed some pictures from the net for Kuranda Train below.

Day4 (12/06/09) : Flight to Brisbane, Car Trip to Welcome Horse Riding on the way to Cairns, which ended in a disappointment

Day 5 (13/06/09): Movie World till 2pm (which was boring), followed by shopping at factory outlets for renowned brands (the items are still expensive btw) Dinner at a chinese restaurant with my aunt's aunt and family.

And since Geraldine has gotten tired of listing the days in Australia, she will just sumarise the following days in Australia. Further details will be in following updates, if she is not too lazy to write one. =p

In the following days in Brisbane, they visited dream world and finally their horse riding experience in the mountains on the second last day of Brisbane. In essence, since the first half a day was wasted on Movie World which could have been replaced by Dream world, Geraldine missed out on a shopping experience in Caberra's Market, which only opens on weekends and close at an exceptionally early time (by Singapore's and any other Asia's standard) at 5pm. In Melbourne, the main attraction was snowboarding and shopping in Queen Victoria Market. And so, this concludes the end of gist of Australia trip. =)

PS, I'm currently into the music mentioned above, especially music box melodies. FOr those interested, I would recommend the music box melody in Pandora Heart anime.