Day 9. Lonepine's Koala Santuary, South Bank, Queen's street - Brisbane, AU

17th March 2012, Friday

I'm counting down. 2 days left to spend in AU! I couldn't believe my holidays were going to be over! That is practically what everyone would say.

In the morning, we headed off to see koalas~ Koala, koala~~ at the Lone Pine Santuary. Gosh, there were a lot of Wallabies. And in fact they were rather smelly too. And a lot of shit scattered all around the green field. If one is not careful, they may just step onto them. Oops~

And it also featured the most koalas over there. There were a lot of koalas, and its where I took my photos with the koala. I was contemplating to take, since it felt normal on the spot afterall. Want to carry, no? Well, since I'm there, just carry I guess, its the signature shot in AU.

We spent a great amount of time over there, before heading to University of Queensland (UQ). Was it just me or what? It felt so asian. University campus, awwww. I missed those times. Full - time. Of course, its just opportunity costs. King said they had a famous pizza shop in UQ, and its a must try. Its indeed delicious. The pizza texture was similar to Skinny Pizza back at home. Yum.

Then we boarded their city cat. Its a ferry ride apparently and it linked up the whole city by the river which included UQ. And it seemed to be a service which faciliated a lot of students there. We dropped off at South Bank and did shopping. Hmmm, don't ask me about shopping, I know nuts, especially in AU. In Hong Kong or Taiwan, perhaps I would still be quite excited because at least I know what to expect. But in the end, unexpectedly I bought 2 pieces of clothes, but that amount was equivalent to a few shopping pieces that Sb had bought. Oops. But if I didn't bring it back, I would regret. So I bought. What a pair of wicked eyes I had.

Sigh, and I went back to QPAC on the way to refund my musical ticket for Bombshell. A pity though, I thought I would be able to catch a musical here in Brisbane.

It was the night Sb was going to leave already. We had beef steak, with King and his friends. Expensive! But it was really juicy, thick, sweet. Accompanied with the mushroom sauce, it was really tasty. Me and Sb just shared, because the portion was quite big, and anyways.. we knew that we were going for supper... >.< King really squeezed our time to make everything possible for us man. Thanksssssssssssssssssss. ^-^*~V

Supper was at Three Monkeys cafe. Oh my gosh. So crowded. I had chai tea latte, while sb had mocha? or latte. I couldn't remember. (hey, I only started to recap it like now, when my trip is all the way back in Mar...) The cakes were yummy.

Then we wheezed sb off to the airport. Hugs and kisses. I was pretty sad to see her off. Suddenly. I wrote her a postcard. It was good that my trip was with her though. No idea why, but I gotta give her lots of thankkewsss. Without her initiating to me the trip, I wouldn't be here. I would be well off to somewhere else definitely. I could still remember her casual mentions about her plans to go AU alone. Sauntering along Robertson Quay with our Mr ong. Hahaha. Mr Ong and I were like, what? You?! Alone..? What a load of rubbish talk we all had that time at Hummerston. But soon everything was into plans. From her taking her own sweet time to plan initially, my sudden involvement prompted her to hasten her footsteps and put it into action. I guess. Motivation helps. Till today, I would think, 'Why did she mention to me that time?' hmmM~ it felt great. Of course our friendship leaped by bounds. Closer bonding nowadays, albeit ours were of a different style, she was more wild externally, but I was more wild internally. Different wildness I would say. Strangely we clicked well.

Anyways. Tomorrow would be my turn to fly. Awww.

Film taken from slr cammie. Hmmm

Hmmmm! I sent my first film taken from a slr camera to wash yesterday. And this was the results I received. Uploaded one of them. The effects were quite unexpected, but still, rather lovely. Grainy, though. But I had expected worse, so~ its okay.

Nice effect, isn't it. Looks processed, but it isn't! ~ Weeee.

Failure and Success

Something I had written as a survey for my friend. As all my thoughts flowed together and I pieced them up, I realised that it had become a long essay, in which my friend exclaimed that he only required a super short paragraph only. Would just want to share my thoughts here since I had written it, and lets not waste it!

Failure. What is failure? I’m more of the latter; I believe that failure is a process that would lead me to success. Personally in my opinion, failure and success is only a thin veil apart. There was an illustration I saw before. 2 people are digging the underground for diamonds. One gave up, but little did he know that upon another few burrows, diamonds would be trickling out, while the other one is still digging on. This indicates that the person who did not give up will meet his success if he could overcome his failure feeling, and the person who gave up has clearly overlooked success as a very easy factor to achieve. It is an evident example which supports my statement above. Failure and success are intricately linked; you will meet success if you are capable of coping with failure, vice versa, you will hit failure when you overlook success.

For instance. Being in a situation of work and study, everyone says it’s not easy to juggle both and it is indeed true to an extent because a lot of time management is required. Failure looms around us all the time and we are easily deterred by the surrounding distractions that will cause us failure. However, the failure could become a huge motivational springboard (strength) if we are able to overlook the fact that we are constantly lacking of time, and by thinking, “Since I have lesser time to complete my studies and I know I will fail, I have to start my studying earlier and complete my semester. Let’s just do it.” 

Everyone has their own strength. And everyone has a different capability of achieving what we want in life. Some can tolerate and handle people’s relationships well. Others just could not control their emotions and feel so mentally weak that they could just cry on the streets while walking home one day.

Likewise, this also applies to our work and studies as well. True enough, it does get a little depressing; we are all human being and our emotions run when we do not get the appraisal or the results we had hoped for. Is that a failure? I think this is a very subjective answer. Everyone deems it differently. To be honest, I think this is not about a right or wrong (i.e. failure or not), it is my own process of growing up to be a better man, and being able to deal with my current issue would mean I will have the courage to face some other more imperative issues in future.

Lastly to conclude, I’ve always believed failure is inevitable. To me, a real failure is when we do not learn anything from our failure and continuously to attempt the same mistake once again. Subsequently, we then complain about the mistakes we had made and how hard it is to move on, when the issue is that, have we learnt to cut corners and avoid the problem in future?

A half year Checklist - June'12

Its roughly about time too. JUNE. I just wanted to record what I had done so far, not to miss any of my precious time this year.

Maison Kayser @ Scotts Square, Orchard, Sg

 27th February 2012, Monday

A Paris bakery restaurant, which got very famous in Japan, opened its first outlet here a few months ago. Have heard from my colleagues that its bread was rather tasty, we decided to head here for a try for lunch. Which also means, bread for lunch.

P.s. Paris Baguette, which also got itself very famous in Korea (yes, really very famous for its delicious bread and cafe atmosphere), is also going to open its first outlet here in Sg! It will be opening in Wisma, level 2. Can't wait. Recently here in Orchard, really opened a lot of upscale bakery restaurants and outlets. I could even name them immediately. 

New ones

Maison Kayser - Scotts Square B1

Paul  - Ngee Ann City Level 3

DonQ - Takashimaya Dept store B2

Paris Baguette - Wisma Level 2

Existing ones

Swiss Bake

Pecks

St. Leaven

Breadtalk

Cedele

Delifrance

Wow. Do we have the demand to open so many upscale bakery outlets in such a short time? But I do see the crowd to buy the bread. Or it may just be a fad? Hope it won't.

 As you can see, because it is famous from Japan, its a delight to a lot of japanese ladies here. The staff are also Japanese because the outlet is opened from Japan, and not from the Paris HQ.

Their bread, indeed looks yummy. XD

 Since we were all here, we took their set lunches, which includes a soup of the day and our main course. 

The soup was Broccoli cream. Its tasty! My first time of tasting such soups was at the Raindrops cafe, located at Scape*.

 One of the baguettes that my colleague had ordered. Yum! This was cheese and ham.

This was stuffed with tuna. With a different type of baguette.

Alternative, you can choose to order a breakfast set, a croissant, with scrambled egg and bacon. 

Delicious. The croissant was fragrant, crispy on the outside and soft inside.

A Monday morning. Have a great day ahead! 

Hopefully it can clear your Monday blues upon seeing this! Cheers. XD

Day 8. Byron Bay, Dreamworld, Brisbane AU

16 March 2012, Thursday

Very fast, one day down, another day down. Its my 8th day! We woke up at 4am. King woke us up. Seriously how did he manage to wake up so early using our phone alarms? I'm seriously impressed at people being able to wake up so early, because I'm one who cannot wake up early myself.

We prepared ourselves, and headed out. The weather was gloomy, and it was drizzling. I just noticed that our rooftop had windows to the sky! Its beautiful. Only that it was still dark. Pfft. It took around an hour plus to reach Byron Bay, and King mentioned that we probably would be late to catch the first sunrise. But the weather... it slightly drizzled.. and drizzled.. and drizzled..

Upon reaching, we hiked for a short distance. Hmmm really, we cannot see the sunrise. Due to the heavy fog, the 'salted egg' was covered in between the fog, and it had risen up. Weeee.

The lighthouse was pretty. Really nice, accompanied with the surrounding scenery. Its similar to the lowhead lighthouse, where the surrounding seas and the walkway to it were so comfortable to walk along and enjoy. Byron bay lighthouse was built beautifully, very victoria-like. A picture to go along~

Not processed yet. >.<

This picture was actually taken in a haste. Because suddenly the drizzle of rain, from little drops, became bigger and more. There were photo spot, so I fixed this camera on the spot and took together. Upon taking this precious shot, we all quickly rushed down the lighthouse to seek shelter. I was the last one, because I wanted to take more of the lighthouse.

It rained heavily. Luckily it stopped after some time, and all of us rushed back to the car. Had our breakfast at one of the cafe situated in Bryon Bay town. It was savory. Coffee was good!

Seriously, the days we were in Gold Coast, seemed to be gloomy, if not raining almost all the time. Whew, I told them luckily I did my sky diving yesterday! Because it was drizzling for the whole day. I'm really lucky. So far. I'm really thankful as well. Sometimes, during holidays, one just needs a tiny weeny luck to get through. Holiday luck, we call.

From Byron Bay, we went back to check out from our hostel, and went to Dreamworld. Alas, it was raining the whole day. Drizzling quite heavily, I would say. Then it made no sense to go Dreamworld anymore; a lot of rides weren't opened. And it also meant I would be drenched by the time I finished the rides. Awww... I took one picture of Dreamworld before we left. Goodbye Dreamworld. Will I be visiting you again? I've no idea. Because I don't know if I'll be visiting AU in the near future.

We then sped up to Brisbane straight. The moment we stepped into Brisbane, my feeling was, hmmm.. so was this Brisbane? Feels 'normal'. A little just like home. Checked in and then we just walked around in town, the man-made beach, the ferris wheel, and all the buildings around it, I had almost mistaken it for Sg. Hahahaha.

Night time King came to pick us up, and we had korean food cuisine at Madongsan. It was reallyyyy tasty. It had been a while since I had korean food and imagine I had it here in Brisbane. Couldn't forget the taste of the beef sashimi salad and the pork belly (Bo ssam). My impression of Brisbane was really food, food and more food. Haha. Breakfast, Lunch, dinner, supper.

Went to drink hot chocolate at La Dolce Vita. Oooh, its really yummy and left a very fragrant aftertaste. The chocolate was creamy but it would leave you craving for more. King said it was too thick for his taste, but to me and Sb it was fine.

All these hangout places seemed to be the ones the younger ones hang out at. And Brisbane is considered a city that ends later as compared to the other cities in AU (even though I'd never been to Sydney, Melbourne, but I'd heard the shops closed pretty early as compared).

A special mention: The YHA hostel at Brisbane was very clean. In fact really bright and clean. ^^

PS Cafe @ Paragon, Orchard, Sg

Finally!! 

I am able to post a food post properly after all the woo haa that had happened earlier on this year. Which also meant that finally I had the time to arrange my photos and give it some light in the blog now! Hahaha. Yay! Started on some simple posts first. I've some glitches with the way my blog is presented anyways. Got some stuff to learn and edit as well. My photo resolution (which is affecting the mobile presentation, grrr), anyone who can help me? >.< its all the complicated html thingy. And I also want to remove my profile and all the other stuff from the sidebar to pages so leaving my main web body with all my posts. Wanted to put a certain default handwriting for posts. I'm always so not satisfied with my blog. Guess that's the only way that keeps me going. Because I'm always not satisfied and I crave for more changes that could be done.

25th January 2012, Wednesday

It was the first day back to work after the Chinese New Year! While it may have been the day for some to head back to school, it was ours back to work, as per normal just like the other working adults. The Japanese girl and I agreed to eat something nice, and I suggested PS cafe as I had heard it was good. Come lets go!

 Have heard that PS Cafe is not bad, but upon reaching, it was pretty crowded over at the outlet at Paragon, 

and its like upclass market chatting away instead of the comfortable cafe-like atmosphere. 

 I have to be frank. Their food was so so. And yet pretty expensive for us working adults, for lunch. 

I had this very cheesy macaroni. But it doesn't leave a great aftertaste and after sometime, I felt 'jelat'.

(i.e. feeling full just by eating another mouthful, or seeing it)

This was laksa pasta that the Japanese girl had, and it wasn't that fantastic as well even though it was touted as the best selling. 

Are you sure its one of best sellers? I saw people ordering more of their sandwiches across several tables straight. Haha. 

Yep, so it wasn't as good as what the reviews had mentioned.