Sydney Day 1 - University of Wollongong

Of all the cities we went in Australia, Sydney is my favourite.  :)

Compared to others, its nice and warm-ish and yet not too warm. Just nice. I love it.Its very obvious that Tomato also liked it here, she was immediately well, and her appetite suddenly increased 'x'.

We plan to take things easy at Sydney, since we are relying on public transport here.Our hotel (Central Station Hotel), and is pretty near to the Central Station. 

I believe Tomato enjoyed Sydney most too, cos her appetite suddenly grew so much here. Keep asking for mam-mam (food). And also maybe because she didn't eat much when she was sick while at Hobart.

I decided to go and visit University of Wollongong. Although I didn't physically study there, but my degree program was from there.  My college offered this twinning program with the Uni. And since we are at Sydney, I figure I should grab this opportunity to go and have a look.

But first, let us take a selfie. LOL! We took a south coast line train from Central Station to North Wollongong Station. The journey took about 2 hours 17.20 AUD  for a return ticket. From there, there's a free shuttle bus which will bring you to the campus, just look for the Uni Logo on the bus.

The bus will make a few stops once inside the campus. And in my mind, I ran through my memory to get down as close to the duck pond as possible. My friend told me its nice there. And I think it would be nice for Tomato to run around looking at ducks since she likes to see animals so much.

The Uni is smaller than I expected. And we quickly reach our destination. But the pond is really nice. And the scenery is so serene. Students lying down relaxing on the grass, reading, chatting, eating. So carefree. I envy. LOL!  

The people there doesn't seem to be surprised when they see Tomato. She is the only small kid around. I was told by my friend, there are parents who are students that sometime bring their kids here.

Tomato had a blast, she ran around like nobody's business, exploring the surroundings, while we sit down in the shade watching. Oink got panic whenever she is too near the pond.

Hello there Duckie! The ducks there is not even afraid of humans. And the grass seem clean, I wonder where they poop? 'x'

We lunched at the nearest cafe (there's a few) we can find. And one pretty student commented that Tomato has very nice hair colour. Her dad has brown hair as a kid, hers is not as light as what he had, its a darker shade of brown.

We left around 2pm but took the wrong shuttle bus, which goes to town instead of North Wollongong Station. Nvm, we treat it as 'makan-angin'. Tomato fell asleep in the bus.

And she slept through the train ride back to Central Station. :)

Hobart Tassie Day 3 - MONA

On our last day in Hobart, we went to MONA (Museum of Old And New Art).

Museum of Old and New Art

655 Main Road Berriedale
Hobart Tasmania 7011
Australia

You can either drive there, or take the ferry from the MONA Brooke St ferry terminal (Hobart), which takes about 30 mins.

Opening hours varies with season and entrance tix is priced at 20 AUD per adult.

Usually I am not a fan of museums as they bore me. But MONA is different. The exhibits are more, how should I say..hmm, provocative. Go see it for yourself. Its very interesting. I would recommend you bringing older kids though, some of the exhibits I think are not very suitable for school going kids. Ahem.

Anyway, Tomato was busy playing with our phones for most of the time while we are there. Most areas are dark which scares her, so we had to give her our phone as distraction.

I was very intrigued by this piece of art. Alot of time and patience sure was put into making this work.

Me :-p Wanted to show more photos but I think I read somewhere that  distribution of photos on the museum is prohibited.

There's a lot of eye-opening arts & exhibits in the museum, I highly recommend it to people who are open-minded enough.

The view outside the museum. It was very windy, cool and sunny.

Tomato running loose.

Tomato is 2

Weight= approx 12 kg
Height= approx 90 cm

The little monkey is 2 now.  She is VERY active, and VERY talkative, and with VERY SHORT attention span (except when playing with our phones or tablet). She can ask you to play a dvd for 5 mins, then said she want to watch another :/

We took leave to celebrate her birthday with her. I cooked longevity noodle with drumstick, eggs, date, mushroom for her and also for me and Daddy Oink.

Then after that we took her to Molly fantasy@CityOne. She had so much fun, we had a hard time getting her to leave 'x' LOL

After that we had lunch at Fork and Knife, which I think was mediocre and the service is not so good.

After that we send her to the nanny for her nap, while we adult go back to GSC@CityOne for a movie date. :D We watched X Men and it was awesome, well, at least to me 'x'

At night, we had family dinner Rock Road Seafood.

Hobart Day 2 - Richmond Village, Richmond Bridge, Bonorong Wildlife Sanctuary & Royal Tasmanian Botanical Garden

It just so happen that while we are there, Richmond Village is having a fair. :D

After driving for about 40 mins with the help of the GPS (its a must!), we arrived.

Already cars start to crowd. The weather could not be more perfect. Clear blue sky, sunny, and yet not hot. In fact it was very windy that Tomato demanded to wear her beanie. Anyway, Tomato was still not feeling very well, no appetite, refuse water, but still in playful food. In fact, she vomited at 5am in the morning :/

 

 Double Decker bus spotted on the way to the fair. Its actually operating. 

Our very first country fair :D Now get to see it for ourselves. Kids were running around, there's a band playing instruments, food stalls, handicraft stores, animals, animal rides.

 Looking at Cao-ni-ma ( I am not cursing here 'x'). Its Grass Mud Horse.

HEEE. What's a fair without people dress up in colonial costume? See, told you its windy.

 

We walked over to Richmond Bridge. 

There's a very scenic river under the bridge and Tomato was very excited when she saw the ducks  waddling around, she called out "dok dok" LOL. 

After that, we wanted to lunch. I really wanted to try some scallop pies, but unfortunately its finished. BOOHOOHOO. So I settled with some fried stuff. We ate alot of fried stuff while at Aus. I even bought 2AUD juice for Tomato, but she rejected it :( still no appetite.

After lunch, we headed to Bonorong Wildlife Sanctuary. 

 

Entrance Fee :
 
Family (2 adults & 2 children) $65.00
Adult $25.00
Child (4-15 years) $11.00
Child (3 years and under) Free

It pretty near to Richmond Village. And with GPS, its no problem for us to get there in 15 mins.

With every ticket, you get a packet of feed to give to the kangaroos. Papa Kangaroo is also carrying a Joey too (Tomato). LOL!! I was very excited to feed the kangaroos, but I found their nibbles a bit painful O_O So I end up throwing the feed on the ground so that they can have it. LOL. And while they eat, I pet them, and when Tomato saw it, she also bravely pet them, but Oink is very worried the Kangaroos might scratch  or even kick Tomato, so he stopped her. We saw 2 kangaroos fight. It was funny, it was not vicious or anything, but the bigger kangaroo keep kicking to keep the other one away from the food on the ground.

We saw Tasmanian Devil too. It kept running around and around. I saw it bite into a carcass too. Its jaw is really strong cos I heard bone crunching :S

After that we drove back to Hobart Town  for Royal Tasmanian Botanical Garden. Its free but there's a money box where you can drop donations at the entrance. The Garden is hugeeeee.

 

The sunflowers is crazy big. Some of it is actually bigger than my face!

Close up shot of one of the many plants available there in the park. We didn't spend along time there as Tomato was getting really cranky and clingy.

Ending this post with a sunset view from the balcony outside our room. Its really pretty, and the sunset later there, around 7pm. Its really cold at night at Hobart.

Panchor hot spring,kuching

Panchor Hot Spring is located at 27th  mile Kuching- Serian road. I am ashamed to be a Kuching-lang and never been to any of the hot springs we  have here 'x'

So off we went.

The sign leading to the place. After this its gravel road. So drive slowly.

Gravel road ahead.  Just drive ahead and when you are near, there's a small stretch of tar road.

Pathway to the hot spring made with planks.

You will be greeted by the Welcome Signboard.

I was told it used o be RM3 to go in, now its RM4. ppfffttt.

The many people because of the long weekend. The place is not big by the way. And it can be crowded during holidays.

A part of the place which I think was the most scenic 'x'.

Important information in Bahasa Malaysia. No english ones at all. Hmmm.

Ok, I take back what I said just now, there's some english used.

Apparently, they do sell food here, but because its the Gawai Holidays, its closed.

I only dipped my feet. I had these bugging itchiness on my legs ever since I came back from Penang. And after that dip, I actually don't feel itchy much  the whole day . HMMM~~~ The water was indeed hot, but not as hot as I expected.

Asked if I would come back again? I would say no. There's nothing much there to keep me entertained, but I see that there's some simple BBQ facility that you can use.

Hobart, Tasmania - Day 1

Oink's cousin was getting married on 23 march, 2014, in Melbourne and we were thinking, why not take the opportunity to jalan-jalan at Australia? So off we book tix. At first we didn't buy any tix for Tomato, Oink was adamant that he didn't want to bring her along even I tried to coax him to bring her along. But after we watched "The Impossible", before we slept that night, he suddenly said " Lets bring Tomato with us" LOL!! What the, I can't even beat a freaking movie into making my dear husband change his mind. This is too much. LOL.

We didn't want to spend whole 2 wks only at Melbourne, so we decided to walk around a bit and picked Tasmania and Sydney.

We took a night flight from LCCT to Melb- Tullamarine airport. And then, we spend a night at an uncle's house before flying with jetstar to Hobart, Tasmania on the next day. We plan it that way so that Tomato won't feel too tired. At least she can rest a bit before flying again. So how was our 8 hours flight from KL to Melbourne? I would say I was glad? I expected worse, I thought Tomato will make alot of fuss, but she didn't. But she didn't actually sleep until AA started to stop serving meals and off the lights. :(, which is like around 1++am! So when we arrived Melbourne, we were so tired. After meal and shower, we hit the beds and zonked out. When we woke up, its already afternoon in Melbourne. 

our flight to hobart was very early, 7am in the morning, so we had to wake up early. Tomato was excited. She loves taking plane. She slept mostly throughout the flight. We landed quite early, took our rented car from redspot car rentals. Talking about car rentals, I was so stressed when researching on Australia. Aus has a strict regulation on road law involving children. If not mistaken,kids under 7 has to be in a car seat at all times while on the road. But the good news is,malaysian driving license holder can drive is aus for up to 2 mths. But still we paid rm10 to get oink's driving license translated,we are kiasi like that,*ahem*. And i got so stressed up reading up horrible stories with car rentals,but redspot was good. Their counter was with the most people when we arrived to collect our nissan almera.

ok, i think i have loso long enough,back to the topic shall we?

our first destination was to Salamanca Market. The weather was gorgeous,warm but not too warm.

We didn't get anything much from the market except lunch and a small jar of jam.lol. Everything is so $$ if i convert to RM.why oh why rm is so weak?? We bought a very nice baked potato with cheese and all sort for Tomato,but she wouldn't eat.  We were puzzled. She was so cranky and clingy and while i hope she didn't come down with fever, i took her temperature anyway and was confronted with what we fear most.37.5 degrees, she had mild fever :(

Good thing was i brought along my boba 4g. She slept while snuggling close to Oink. Did i mention their park is so nice? Pity tomato was sick and don't have the mood to run around.

After that,we moved on to Grandvewe Cheeses. Hoping to see flocks of sheep running around. Imagine when we got there, 40 mins later, we can actually count the no. of sheep  'x' . Oh well.

Notice Tomato's kool fever patch?:-s At least she was better after a nap in the car, and she loves looking at animals. Makeup-less face 'x' Still not bad right? 'x'!!!

On the way back to the town, I saw this and got curious, so I got Oink to stop the car so that I can have a photo of it. That's the beauty of driving ourselves. I hope this will scare smokers bad enough. 44 years of smoking = 100k up in smoke! Wow that's alot. If the photo didn't scare smokers out there, I hope the amount of money they are wasting will wake them up. LOL!

Stay tune for more...