zuanqing extraordinaire

Thursday, November 06, 2014

#FAM2906 Day 06: To Launceston, Tassie!

We took an evening flight via Jetstar from Melbourne to Tassie, and arrived at Launceston Airport! Went to collect our rented car… without ...

We took an evening flight via Jetstar from Melbourne to Tassie, and arrived at Launceston Airport! Went to collect our rented car… without a GPS. Jo was supposed to bring her dad's over but before the trip it malfunctioned and so we wound up without a GPS in Tassie as the car rental company were not able to rent us one without pre-booking.

Luckily we had data so could use Google Maps to navigate, just that it will consume unnecessary data! But no choice, need to get to our accommodation right? Lol so just for one night lah. Not so bad. So we drove to our accommodation and only got to spend one night there before we had to check out the next morning. Which was kinda a pity cos the place was quite rustic and nice.

Anyway the roads in Tassie are like pitch dark okay. Like no street lamps at all. Only those light reflectors on/along the road so it was pretty scary driving… like you look in the rearview mirror and it's just DARK. Lol.

Our cozy 2-storey apartment!

Our accommodation compound.

Breakfast!

Made our way to Cataract Gorge after brekkie! That is where the world's longest chair lift is.

(Forever) My partner and I on the chairlift!

Trekking up some hill...

It was quite a workout for us! too weak lol

On the suspension bridge

Too bad the weather was kinda foggy so somehow the Cataract Gorge didn't look so gorgeous… Anyhow, we went to a honey farm from the gorge! They had free honey tastings which were so good but being a poor student I didn't buy anything haha. Just bought some honey roasted macadamia nuts for my landlord and housemate.

Decided to stop by the salmon farm, and met this cute resident dog over there named George! Super tame and adorable.

me and George! :D

We spent too much time eating at the salmon farm and had to rushhhhhh our way for the cave tours. The sightseeing places in Tassie are so far from one another, it takes on average 2 -3 hours to drive from one place to the next. But thanks to Kang who was driving, her chiong skills brought us there just in the nick of time to join the last cave tour for the day.

Because it was winter, sun set at about 4.30 pm so it was turning dark by the time we were done with the caves tour. Set off for our accommodation for that night and it's this trailer cabin which is kinda cool! Lol no photos of it though.

"steamboat" for dinner in the superbly cold weather was very shiok!

And that concludes our first day in Tassie!

Tuesday, November 04, 2014

#FAM2906 Day 05: Brighton Beach

Brighton Beach is one of my favorites places to visit + bring friends to visit when they are in Melbourne. Especially when the weather is...

Brighton Beach is one of my favorites places to visit + bring friends to visit when they are in Melbourne. Especially when the weather is good! You can spot lots of families, children, pet dogs, and also tourists on the weekends. I guess go on weekends not so good because it will be hard to take nice photos with so many people milling around in the background haha. But weekend go then got atmosphere! Cos it will look like a busy happy beach. Lol.

Anyways I stay like a 15-20 minutes train ride away from Brighton Beach :D If you are not driving there, you should take the Sandringham line and alight at Brighton Beach station! Easy right? Hahaha. Once you alight just turn right and you will see the beach! Cross the road towards it, turn right and walk your way down. You will soon see the row of distinctive brightly colored boat houses along Brighton Beach :)

For the first time ever in oz, #wefie on the train! haha

The funniest thing happened as we were about to alight the train. For some reason, I think we were too dilly-dallying, half of us got out while the other half got stuck on the train cos the doors suddenly closed and the train took off! Hahahaha the group of us left in the train was in shock for about 3 seconds as the train drove off and we waved bye to the rest on the platform…

Lol. We had to alight at the next stop, crossed over to the other side, waited 20 mins for the train to come (off-peak hours frequency; stop complaining about having to wait for trains in SG! Lol), and then ride it back to Brighton Beach station where the rest were waiting for us haha. What a waste of our time. But what a funny experience too. Good thing I was with those left behind… The next time we rode the train back to city, each of us stationed ourselves at different doors so as to ensure we ALL alight the train together lol.

Heheh smile detector camera snaps the funniest candids. Walking our way to the boathouses after crossing the road to the beach side!

And we are here!! Beautiful day out

P L Lites

After having our fun at Brighton Beach, we headed back to the city for lunch! Went to this little Jap ramen place along Lt Bourke St aptly name the Little Ramen Bar. It was a really small place and crowded at lunchtime! We had to queue for a bit. They initially wanted to sit us separately and eventually managed to join tables together for all 8 of us. Great service! And nice customers who were willing to shift to other tables just for us heheh.

Little Ramen Bar

5/346 Lt Bourke Street

Melbourne, VIC 3000

(03) 96705558

I had the Chashu Tamago with Shoyu base I think. Or was it Miso? can't remember. But it was delicious and a generous portion for $13/14 :)

After lunch it was time to go back to the apartment and wait for the maxi cab to pick us and send us to the airport! HM was flying to Sydney first while the rest of us were headed for the Tassie leg of the trip. Tassie is truly a beautiful place! Will blog about it in the next few entries :)

Back to my report writing… 3000 more words between me and FREEDOM!!!

Sunday, October 19, 2014

#FAM2906 Day 04: Mount Buller - do you wanna build a snowman?

Stayed over the night before at the guys' apartment cos we had to catch a 5 (or was it 6?) am bus to go to Mount Buller! The guys bough...

Stayed over the night before at the guys' apartment cos we had to catch a 5 (or was it 6?) am bus to go to Mount Buller! The guys bought a Groupon deal while I made separate reservations with the tour group. Theirs was slightly cheaper although I really can't remember how much! It includes to and fro transportation plus a cable pass so you can grab the cable up a higher point of the mountain to ski! Ski gear and equipment additional. So it's a 4-hours drive from city to Mount Buller and we basically just KO-ed on the coach!

Pit stop at Yea before heading up the mountain. As you can tell from the background, it was super foggy at where we were!

Arrival at Mount Buller!

We had vouchers for some of the eateries at Mount Buller and we opted to eat at this pancakes place!

Big breakfast

Original pancakes with a generous scoop of ice cream

you can never go wrong with chips. who says we can't have them for brekkie?

Savoury pancakes! my tastebuds preferred the sweet ones

After brekkie, we took the cable and went cam-whoring up the mountain. It was FREEEZING. Be adequately protected with jackets, scarves and gloves I kid you not. Don't say I didn't warn you.

Unknown taliban LOL. This HM was so cold she basically covered every part of herself up with everything she could find.

Instead of spending A$300 on skiing, we decided to rent toppogans instead! Here we are getting ready to toppogan at designated toppogan slopes.

Building a snowman!

Because of the boob that were originally on him before HM plucked them off lol.

That is our snowman named BOOBS.

Making our way back to city.

Dinner was at Lygon Street, also known as the 'Little Italy' of Melbourne because this is where you can find streets and streets of Italian eateries and restaurants!

I recommended Cafe Coretto which I had tried twice before and found it pretty good, so the rest were happy to take up my suggestion!

Cafe Coretto

227 Lygon St, Carlton, VIC 3053

Pumpkin soup! Looks like baby food.

They are famed for their home-made lasagna! It is really good.

Avocado pasta

Agnolotti peppino

Brought the guys to Brunetti also along Lygon St for desserts but it was pretty crowded so we decided to tabao back instead! Their desserts are wide-ranging and not the cheapest priced but the quality and standard are pretty good! So far I haven't tried anything that I dislike yet. That could also be because of my sweet tooth haha.