We've Come In From The Coast

time to blog about the goldcoast trip!

its was sooooooooooooooooooooo fun!!!

would love to put up some pix but i still am too lazy to learn.

so anyway we flew off by emirates and the 7hour ride was really long, tedious and tight. but once we touched down at brisbane we quickly got our car, a nice little 1.8 ford laser thats really easy to manage, and headed off to search for the goldcoast and our supposed villa.

okay so we were abit apprehensive about the villa that we're about to stay cuz the brochure says its 5-star with underground carpark indoor heated pool blah blah and jaccuzzi and the size of the room is like a hotel suite and blah(which later did turn out to be true), and therefore weren't expecting much. it took us 1 hour to get to goldcoast and another hour to find the damn villa that is royal woods resort. thats right. lost in the woods resort. took us forever and a lot and i mean alot of wrong turns(largely because of my 'instincts' - joe should know only too well). and when we finally found the place it was actually nicely tucked in a residential inner coast of sufer's paradise about 5 minutes from the coast. which was alright.

and lo and behold the villa was the nicest cutest looking shag pad. wait. nicest looking suite in the whole wide world! its got a huge bedroom, living room cum kitchen and attached bathroom! it had all sorts of amenities you name it you got it! toaster, kettle, pots, pans, refridgerator, microwave, fryer, oven, literally everything plus the kitchen sink. heck, the basement garage even had a washing machine and clothes dryer lor! wah so shiok...

okie okie, then after oohing and aahing about all the stuff that was available to us, namely huge money savings by cooking dinner in our pad every night, we decided to head down to the coast to check it out.

gold coast and namely surfer's paradise and main beach are pretty cool places. abit pricey but a joy to walk along. the weather there macham like genting in the day, and very cold at night. lotsa surfers and surfer wannabes, lotsa tourists too. but the beach is definitely the main draw, really windy(cold), fine sand and huge surfs. and it wasn't very crowded either.

i think we called it a day after that. the place starts to get dark around 4pm, so its really very evening feeling by 4+..i think we went to a nearby supermarker that sold $5 bread and $5/pkt hotdogs - action supermarket - to stock up on groceries(of course not everything was THAT expensive).

day 2: brisbane

drove back to brisbane. it was a sunday. we drove there really early like 8+ so when we got there the place was quite deserted and at first we thought that sundays were indeed a day of rest and nothing opened. but thats not true. we parked our car in a carpark in the heart of town for a full day(only $7 on weekend) and went on a city tour by foot. saw all kinds of heritage stuff(i'm lousy with names), buildings and blah, went ot queens street mall and asked the information booth what was the best way to walk brisbane in a day, walked to botanic gardens, parliament house, goodwill bridge, victoria bridge, little stanley street, cityhall, and lotsa other names of places i can't recall. i think we were on an army exercise like exercise longwalk or something. but i gotta say the girlfren has stamina siah.

at night we cooked dinner. pasta and stuff with brocolli and ham. was not too bad(i have to say this else someone might chop me up).

day 3: seaworld

seaworld was great! such fun! we went there really early before it opened but even still there was a long queue liao. cuz last monday was the queen's birthday so it was a public holiday. got all sorts of sea stuff and birds and blah. dugong, penguins, sharks, polar bears, dolphins, seals and all things sea.

highlight of the park was shark bay where we saw lots and lots of sharks from beneath the surface. but bock lian says it pales in comparison with hong kong's hai yang gong yuan(ocean park?). but then i've never been there before. so there.

the girlfren's first corkscrew roller coaster ride too. exhiliarating. then again any roller coaster with the super uncreative name 'corkscrew' is bound to be underestimated.

day 4: movieworld

this was probably the most disappointing day of all. i've been here before like way back when policemen wore shorts and carried girlie whistles and by golly the lousy place has hardly changed.

boo! hiss!

they've only added a few tacky performances and a matrix exhibit and batman 'the ride' has become batman 'the ride 2' which was more memorable than the first only because it sucked bigger time.

the park was so small and unentertaining that we rode and watched everything(yes. even the road runner roller coaster for kids) by 2.30pm. so we left to go for lunch opposite at kfc.

just wanna say kfc down under DOES NOT have my beloved cheese fries.

after lunch we both decided that we needed to make our AUD$60 entrance fees worth it so we went back for more. nothing really new but covered a few other little things.

bleah.

highlight of the park was the lethal weapon 4 ride which we took twice. which incidentally garners the "roller coaster ride of the trip" award. awesome.

at night we went to the jupiter conrad. the only casino on the goldcoast. smaller than any casino i've seen but still had fun at the slot machines for a while.

day 5: harbourtown / lamington national park

we were supposed to go to dreamworld today, but it rained!! boohoohoohoo! we were quite sad especially at the gates where we were hoping that the rain would stop. and some of the rides were closed due to the rain. hmph.

so instead we went to the largest facory outlet cum shopping mall in the area - harbourtown! didn't buy much. the girlfren bought a mambo bag for $10 and a pair of oohseh-but-not-as-oohseh-as-mine sunglasses. then went to woolworths to buy more groceries.

by afternoon the rain cleared and we decided to make the most of the day by going to lamington national park. its in the hinterland and its got mountains valleys gorges and blah. was a good nature day. we actually walked a cave trail(wasn't that much caves) that was about 5km(told you the girlfren had stamina!) and saw wild turkeys, wild wallabies among other flora and fauna. was quite a nice trip along the countryside. we also visted hinze dam - its a dam - which was quite charming.

at night we met up with bock lian and ryan over dinner who were incidentally on a road trip like we are except they've spent alot more time in their car driving to sydney and all but i guess i prefer to spend more time here on the coast after that 3mth road trip in the usa. but it was fun catching up with them and exchanging stories and blah. then we also walked the 'pasar malam' at surfers paradise where they sold all kinds or quirky arts and crafts, and i learned how to make a bird sound(quack quack).

day 6: dreamworld

yes! the day we were waiting for. really sunny day and a funshine morning.

we got there early and it was thronging with people. we got off to a bad start and we thought it was gonna be that way for the rest of the day. the first ride - tower of terror- we went to queue for was shut down indefinitely for maintenance so we lost about 15mins there alone. then the next ride which was the claw, was delayed by a man with an iron leg. yes. its true.

anyway we waited for about half an hour just to get on that ride. but when we finally got on, it was well worth it! the claw is like a swinging pendulum where you sit at the end of the pendulum in a circular fashion and it swings wildly sideways while you rotate, which is scarier than i can ever describe it. but suffice to say if you can scream and the tears from your eyes actually splash at the person next to you while the person next to you's saliva spills and splashes at the person next to her, then the ride is confirmed scary wan. the next ride was the cyclone which was the crappiest and most painful rollercoaster ride in quite awhile, which was made worse by the tedious 45 minute wait(the girlfren and i actually played an assortment of silly games during the wait like ji ko pah and i spy with my little eye).

from then on it was all smooth sailing...the rest of the rides we took only needed waiting for about 10minutes tops. the wipeout, vortex and then abracadabra, the giant drop - world's tallest drop @ 120m, according to the guinness book of recs and blah - had no queue at all, possibly cause it was so darn scary, but we took the ride twice! from the two different angles from the top! haha. i mean the ride slowly takes you up and then once you are up there it stops for 25sec(which is an awfully long time when you're up there) and then releases and you go screaming aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa
aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa
aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa
aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa
aaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh *deep breath* aaaaaaaaaaaaaaa aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa
aaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh all the way down. thats how long the ride was.

the other ride that was amazing was the tower of terror. its got some jet engine propulsion that allows it to accelerate at breakneck speed in a matter of seconds. i think the whole ride was only 7 seconds, but its the speed that was so thrilling cuz while you're flying forwards with your mouth screaming wide open it goes all over the place like an upside down umbrella. thats how fast the rocket was. in the end we took the ride 3 times.

the good thing about dreamworld is that apart from all this puke-inducing, stomach-churning rides, there is another different themed world that takes you to nature's side. you get to see all sorts of australian animals(i swear that the wombat could have been a man dressed in a bear suit) and you get to touch and brudder up with kangeroos for free! koalas cost $20 though. cheap bastards.

so at the end of the day dreamworld is my world of the trip! haha

the highlight of hte day was when we went for our 2nd tower of terror ride it was supposed to be the FINAL RIDE before the park closes.however after that ride there were 2 more people in the queue that were allowed to go so there was space in the vehicle. however the attendant didn't want to let us ride again but then this indian family started pleading and exclaiming "we're from india!" then the attendant softened, so expectedly i turn on the charm and pleaded along and said "we're from singapore!" and that did the trick! we got a third and final ride before the park closed. fantastic. the funny thing was that the attendant actually thought that singapore was further than india! hahaha "wow! thats even further than india!"

*roll eyes*

day 7: goldcoast

we thought of surfing but didn't know where to start and surfer's paradise was the perfect place to! for AUD$50/pax we actually got surfing lessons, boards, wetsuits and the works! and since it was the early 930am class we got lucky and there were only 2 other people in the class!! so shiok! so we had our instructor kelly who taught us how to surf first dryrun on sand then sample in shallow knee deep waves then further to waistdeep. but lemme tell you at kneedeep the waves are already very strong and can hit you like a truck liao. surfing was really fun and addictive thought the water was really really cold. if not for the wetsuit, sure freeze to death wan.

at the end of the afternoon i was able to stand on my board and surf a full wave from wave to shore! whooo! surely must do it again if i come back. so by the end of our lesson i was actually awarded the 'best surfer' award! while the girlfren was awarded 'biggest wipeout' award(means kenna thrown around like a rag doll by the waves the most jialat jialat) wahahahahaha.

then after that we drove down to coolangatta to see point danger and the waves there are lagi power and the surfers and all damn pro wan.

day 8: sunshine coast

today we fly home in the evening. drove for 4 hours up to sunshine coast. all the way to noosa heads. very nice coast. less tourists and nice beaches too. we hiked all the way to hell's gates in noosa national park. very nice and calming.

so that was basically our whole trip in a nutshell. fun right?!?!?!

phew.

xiong.

i am tired liao. will blog more if i have more time.

oh yah and finally to all the lucky readers who have managed to scroll down so far and actually read all the crap i've written, the girlfren's blog has all the pix from the trip! enjoy!