Europe Trip 2010 Part 3 - Newcastle

my brother have been living in Newcastle since (around) 2000.. and i have never visited him even once. so now that i have finally arrived at Newcastle Airport, though exhausted, i really couldn't believe i'm there.

my wife and i took the cab to my brother's house which isn't too far from the airport. the long journey from Adelaide to Newcastle had made me very slow, and caused a little communication issues. the cabbie had an accent, i thought it was a very thick scottish accent, but i just found out people there actually have a different accent called Geordie accent. i don't know what the differences are but i know this.. both accents are not at all like aussie accent that i'm so used to now.

the first thing i noticed about the road in Newcastle, there are a lot of roundabouts. in that 20 mins ride to my brother's, i think there were 15 roundabouts (i lost count after the 5th). the road is narrow, and people drive skilfully fast that it scares us a little bit. and astonishingly.. we never heard anyone use their horn even once.

so we arrived at the house at around 2pm. we didn't do anything else but stay home and catch-up with our sister-in-law and her kids. the last time we saw them was 3 years ago. later that day my brother came home from work and had some afternoon tea. for dinner we had some kebab delivered to the house.. how convenient is that! i couldn't imagine how cool that would be if we can have any halal fast food delivered to our home back in Gawler.

the kebab was different too. well, different from what we have in Australia anyway (which is different from the ones in Malaysia). the meat is a lot thicker and so is the bread. the kebab has a lot of meat on it and a lot less vege, while the kebab here in Adelaide has the same amount of meat and vege, on a thin bread; and in Adelaide, kebabs are called 'yiros'. maybe it is a different thing.. i don't really see the difference. but anyway i kinda fell in love with the UK's kebabs :P

on the third day in Newcastle, we went to a car boot sale. 'malaysian student's favourite pastime' someone told me. i always thought car boot sales are the same everywhere. there are not many car boot sale where we live, just garage sales scattered everywhere every now and then. but the car boot sale here in Newcastle (and the UK i assume) is a lot different somehow. we found almost everything there, literally, and way beyond cheap. i find most the things there are not unwanted things people might call trash, they are in really good condition. we ended up buying 12 books (paperback novels) and the whole lot was £4!

our excitement have caused us to forget, those books do weigh a lot

during our stay in Newcastle, we went to this factory outlet shopping mall called the Royal Quay and had a look around and did some shopping. the things are cheap and even cheaper when we were there because they were having some summertime sale going on. we went to Whitley Bay, a beach, for a short walk and had ice cream. it was after all summer (and not the kind of summer we have in South Australia). on the last day in Newcastle we went for a drive around town and a short stop at the Quayside. a lovely view of the River Tyne and all the six bridges, and The Sage Gateshead (a massive building shaped, to me, like a massive futuristic glass cocoon) across the river.

Newcastle was fun. love the city, not too busy, but big enough a city.

we left Newcastle Upon Tyne on the 4th day of our trip. took a train from Newcastle Central Station to Edinburgh Waverley Station, Edinburgh, Scotland!

Europe Trip 2010 Part 2 - Departure

South Australiawe were to fly on MAS from adelaide to heathrow, with a 2 hour transit at KLIA. we deliberately chose to fly MAS so that we can have that short stop.. maybe have some KFC while waiting. but 2 hours was not a lot of time, so we were a little worried that we won't have time for that KFC. i know KFC isn't something special, but to us, living where their KFC isn't halal, and to watch their commercial every day, we kinda miss all those unhealthy fast food.

so our very long journey began early in the morning. planned to hop on the train from Gawler to Elizabeth, then get on the bus to the airport, but there were some things to take care of and we were running a little late. so we asked a friend to drive us to Elizabeth. the good thing about it was that the drive only took 20 minutes but if we took the train it probably will take 45 minutes.

anyway, off we went, with one big bag and one carry-on bag each. the big luggages are both half full at this point. this was one mistake (not too big a mistake tho) for us travelling to Paris and London.. big bags will slow you down and a real hassle if you plan to hop on the their train. so next time we'll go there (hopefully) i'll try to pack even less things

our flight from Adelaide airport was on time. checked in at the kiosk to skip the long queue, and only had to stand in a short 'Bag Drop' line. quick and easy and there was no problem at all. :D

the 3.00pm flight to KL took around 7hours. that is a long time to sit in a plane.. but MAS planes have those in-flight entertainment thing, i think they call it 'Select'.

the 'Select' in-flight entertainment has movies, tv shows, music and games on it. it has a 6.5inch screen that is not too clear but works all right. some of the movies had subtitles rendered into the video with a raw a little too big fonts that sometimes are a little annoying (considering the small screen).. but it isn't too bad.one of the movies i saw was Slumdog Millionaire. it already had subtitles of their own so it does look better, however, those subtitles are probably meant for at least a TV display. so at some parts, the subs were so small that i have no idea what they were saying.

the food was actually pretty good. i had lamb korma with basmati rice which was a great because it's something malaysian. it comes with a dinner roll, salad, crackers and cheese, and a tiny drinking water. at least the main dish is still something malaysian :D

Kuala Lumpur International Airport
we arrived at KLIA on time, at the main building. we quickly made our way to the 'Arrivals' to meet friends waiting there and have our KFC. this was a transit stop, so we did not have to wait for our bags nor check-in again. so we chatted, laughed, and about 30 minutes before our 11.40pm flight to London Heathrow, we realized that our flight got delayed to depart at 1.10am. if we'd checked earlier, we could've taken our time.

in the end, we finally took off at 1.35am, we finally flew out to London. this time it is a much longer flight, a 12 hour (ish) flight. they served dinner (or was it supper.. maybe a very early, heavy, lunch @_@) and i had beef lasagna which was not too bad but i was kinda still not hungry but i forced myself to eat anyway.. it was probably around 3am in KL i think. i noticed the food was packed differently from the ones we got during all our flights to and from Australia. different caterers i guess.. and i think the food in Australia bound MAS flights are a lot better.

after that meal i was so stuffed that i couldn't sleep. and when i decided to watch a movie, there was this problem with the in-flight entertainment system of the plane that they had to shut it down for 30 mins. i tried to sleep anyway but even after the Select rebooted i was still wide awake, but extremely fatigued. it was dreadful. so i randomly selected a movie that i have already seen, and probably 15mins in, i was already asleep. when i woke up, washed up a bit and started watching movies again. so the grand total of movies i saw in both flights was 9 movies.. all of them i have never seen before!

London Heathrow
we arrived at Heathrow Terminal 4 at around 6.30am. the terminal looked rather shabby i think.. and gloomy. maybe it was the early morning. we had to wait for a bit until we got our luggages and then had to stand in a very long line at the customs and immigrations. that was not fun, waiting in line after travelling for over 20 hours (including transit and all the bus ride from home).

thankfully everything was smooth there and the next thing we had to do was find our way to Terminal 5. it was not too hard, just that for someone arriving there for the first time, we did were a little confused at first. all we had to do was get on this inter-terminal train (which i think is free) to Heathrow Central Railway Station (which is for terminals 1,2&3). then wait on the same platform for the train to Terminal 5.

we got to Terminal 5 rather early, checked in for our 11.50am flight to Newcastle. T5 is not a big enough airport for the amount of travellers there. and to check-in, we must use the 'check-in kiosk' and then head to the many bag drop counter. anyhow, waiting for our flight, we ate some sausage buns we brought from KL, then we realized there was no rubbish bins to throw the wrappers away. i find that interesting. we walked around the terminal to have a look at the shops. we did not buy anything.

finally we arrived in Newcastle at around 1.15pm. we were exhausted, rather hungry but too tired to feel hunger. we took the cab from the airport to my brother's house not too far away. the cab driver asked 'where to' so i said the address. then he said something more than 4 words long.. and i couldn't understand a word he said. maybe i was too tired.. or maybe he had an accent i have never heard before. maybe it was both

Europe Trip 2010 Part 1 - The Preparation

ok before i start, apologies for the late post. i kinda promised this last week but did not manage to make it. gomen~

oh how good it is to be back and to have broadband again~!

the beginning
the whole trip was planned because of a conference in Edinburgh. so because neither of us have ever been to europe before, and all the friends and families living there, we decided to spend a few weeks in the UK and France.


the plan
we wanted to go to a lot of places, but the reality is, we can't really afford it. and not enough time anyway. the initial plan was to have this reunion with wife's closest friends, now living in Netherlands and Germany, in Paris but unfortunately in the end everyone couldn't make it and so we planned to go visit their cities, but even that was tricky.

so in the end we did not visit Amsterdam, Rome, and this town in Germany that i could not remember the name. maybe next time, if we ever have the opportunity to go over to that side of the world again.

to prepare for all the places we were going to, we bought some books, these Lonely Planet's guidebooks to Edinburgh (Lonely Planet Edinburgh Encounter Travel Guide), London (Lonely Planet London Encounter Travel Guide) and Paris (Lonely Planet Paris Encounter Travel Guide). initially i didn't think we really need them (i guess that's just me being a guy) but it is not too expensive anyway (and my wife thinks those books could come in handy) so we bought them. turned out to be a good call because it helped a lot in our trip.. especially the Paris and French Fast Talk. small light books, makes you look like the tourist you are, but they help you out a lot especially when you have no idea where to start and in some cases, how to communicate. i don't mind looking like a tourist.


the trip
we went to Newcastle first, then headed north to Edinburgh for the conference and stayed a couple of days more for sightseeing. After that we went to Glasgow for a few days and flew to Paris. After a few days in Paris we went to Disneyland Paris and spent 2 days there. Took an early morning flight to London where we stayed for a few days before going back to Adelaide.

i enjoyed the trip so much that i wished we had more time to spend there. and that we did not come down with a flu during the trip and that we did not have bought so many books so early into the trip.


the thanks
i have to say, there are some blogs that my wife and i referred to when we were planning this trip. and to them i would like to express my gratitude and thanks. please visit their blogs for me :D. the blogs are the very famous redmummy.com whose very detailed travel report provided heaps of insights, kenwooi.com whose trip to UK was rather inspiring to me, my wife's friend sagittariuswifey.blogspot.com whose husband takes lovely pics, as well as to shilashower.blogspot.com and ladyverde.blogspot.com for posts about their trip to europe as well.



i'll do a more detailed post later about each place that we went to. this is sort of like the intro to everything. so if you're interested in reading about it, just drop by this blog again later in the week. or comment and ask me to stop slacking off and post the next part already. ^_^

in the mean time, here's some of the pics that i took during the trip.

my pics are a little gloomy aren't they?

^_^

tentang Jet Lagged

Jet lag, medically referred to as "desynchronosis," is a physiological condition which is a consequence of alterations to circadian rhythms; it is classified as one of the circadian rhythm sleep disorders. Jet lag results from rapid long-distance transmeridian (east-west or west-east) travel, as on a jet plane.

- wikipedia

i am back from our europe trip!! extremely excited and oh how i wished the trip did not end so soon. the summer weather over there is so nice~

anyhow, i am suffering from jet lag still, so i am having the hardest time finding the words to type the travel report for anyone (which i hope do exist) to read. maybe someone will find it informative enough and might help them plan their future trip. who knows :D

anyway, don't think it will write itself.. and i don't think i'll start posting about it tomorrow. but i'll do my best to start posting within the week.

now i gotta finalize those panorama shots and select which pics i wanna upload to the blog.


oh just so you know.. my wife and i went and stayed in Newcastle, Edinburgh, Glasgow, Paris and London. the whole trip lasted roughly 20 days. i'll have to check the total.. i lost count

tentang Vacation Part 2 - KL and Aidiladha

our trip have so far been pretty fun. spending time in penang, went to an enggagement kenduri in kulim, shopping at feringgi.. even the drive to KL was pretty fun. it was a fine day and when we arrive in KL it is already dark and it was quite a sight. but when we arrive at the hotel we booked things start to go wrong.

we were fooled by the very good website of this hotel in PJ and made bookings online. the pictures on the web were probably taken 10 years ago or an artist's impression of how the rooms will look like after they REALLY clean it up. a lesson we learn about online booking for hotel rooms, we cant smell the stink of cigarette through the website and they probably wont write that in the ad either. so my friends, do not stay at Lisa De Inn hotel PJ.

we cancelled our bookings and head to Cititel Midvalley, that hotel above midvalley megamall. lucky they have rooms available that night. by 11pm we managed to go to KL Central to pick up two more friends who just arrived from adelaide and took them to Cititel. that night all four of our mat salleh friends had a good rest and as for me and my wife, we went to McD for a prosperity burger and spent the night at my wife's cousin's place. it has been a long day


Aidiladha was not like the hari raya haji that we normally have. we went to the mosque in the morning and went to my wife's aunt's place (which is a block away from where we stayed the night before) for late breakfast. it did not occur to me at all that this is the first raya (both aidilfitri and aidiladha) we celebrated in malaysia for the last 2 years. we should've made a bigger celebration rite?


then later that afternoon we were out again.. visiting the mall where we used to spend our weekends together - midvalley megamall. we met up with our friends who stayed at cititel and went shopping. but unfortunately midvalley was packed and we did not enjoy shopping in that supermassive crowd (we're from adelaide and that many people at a shopping complex is somewhat impossibble) so we headed to big apple donut for a coffee and of course some very sweet donuts.

hummph.. i think being in kl for shopping on hari raya haji was the worst idea >_< however, fortunately we only spent a couple of days in kl and the next morning, the 8 of us were off to Indonesia!

tentang Vacation Part 1 - Penang and Kedah

our trip began with a 7 hour flight from Adelaide to KLIA and then another about an hour to Penang. we arrived midnight and stayed at UITM Hotel.



the hotel was the usual not-properly-maintained but a pretty good hotel. UITM Hotel only have (if im not mistaken) less than 20 rooms but the room was comfy and impressive with a massive double bed. costs about RM110 per night for our room and if u know someone who works for UITM u can get a discount (as if the rate isnt already cheap). sure the furnitures are not fancy Sheraton standard and the toilets doesnt have gold pipes or anything. but hot water and working plumbing system that doesnt smell is enough. like i said.. comfy.

the breakfast buffet was not bad.. but not exactly the standard buffet at normal hotels either. there was only one main dish when we stayed at the hotel, which was nasi lemak with several side dishes; and the more western breakfast like toast and bagels and croissants and cereals (usual stuff). but they were complimentary breakfast and we did eat a lot

in Penang we didnt do much. did some shopping at AEON Seberang Prai City Shopping Centre. went there the fist day and already our aussie friends have started their shopping spree. had to come back again the next day for more shopping lol. and as for me i didnt buy anything at Jusco.. didnt find anything that i fancied till we went to Feringgi that night. i bought myself a new 'Ray-Ban' (right.. RM10) and some CDs ^^



on the second day of our trip, our family gathered and drove to Kulim, Kedah for my brother-in-law's enggagement. it was a short drive through small towns and highways with beautiful view of paddy fields and traditional houses. i was driving so i couldnt get any snaps. sigh. but our aussie guests seem to be enjoying themselves. the things that we find boring and old-fashioned are exotic to them.

our aussie friends, our guests on this trip, are two ladies who works at the uni. we had planned a trip to indonesia for our friend's wedding and to spend a few days in malaysia on our way there. then when our family heard of our plan my brother-in-law thought it might be a good idea to have the enggagement kenduri while we were around.

we drove back to penang later that afternoon and stayed in penang aanother day for sight seeing and shopping. well.. mostly shopping. we didnt go to Queensbay Mall and we didnt go to Bukit Bendera or anywhere touristy. penang seems to always have a very bad traffic jam and we dont really have the luxury of time then. another thing that i kinda wanted to do was go see that statue of Sir Francis Light in penang. he is the father of Colonel William Light, the founder of Adelaide.

the next day our trip continued with a long drive to KL.. for Eid ul-Adha (hari raya haji). i had to drive so again i missed the opportunity to snap pictures. the view on PLUS highway on that sunny day was pretty awesome and the slightly hazy air kinda made the hills in Perak look like the paintings of the mountains in Guilin, china lol.

tentang Vacation 2009

i have been away for over 2 weeks. i went on a trip home to malaysia for an enggagement, then to indonesia for a wedding, then back to malaysia for shopping :P. right now, still exhausted from the trip. so im not gonna write too much.

but here are some pics :D



i'll post up the details (hopefully) this week. and what and where those pics were taken. so.. keep visiting my blog k. cyaz~!

tentang The Royal Adelaide Show

(kid in black tee with blue prints is not me)

when i was stuck in RL i managed to enjoy some RL events that was really fun. there was a 'Pasar Ramadhan' at Adelaide Uni, went shopping for baju raya at Harbour Town, Roseworthy College Open Day 2009, and The Royal Adelaide Show 2009

The Show (the name people here refer it as) is a yearly event. something like a massive fun fair that is held once a year at the Adelaide Showgrounds. when i say massive.. i mean that by comparison to the fun fairs the i have been to in malaysia. there were the usual fun fair things - rides, carnival games, bazaars, competitions

here's a little history of The Show i got from wiki and info from friends :P. the first ever Royal Adelaide Show was held in 1840 as an agriculture thing. it later grew over the years as more things and attractions were added. The Show used to be more on agriculture and livestock.. and the showbags used to be free. but nowadays it is more of a fun entertainment event.

this is a late post so at the time im writing this, the show has ended almost a week. it was only a 10 (or was it 9) day event :P. but the site is still up.. if you're curious, head to http://www.theshow.com.au

more pics ^_^

tentang the last 3 weeks

so what did i do the past 3 weeks? attended a wedding in Kelana Jaya and Marang. took whole heaps of pics and deleted almost 2/3 of it ^_^





these are some kind of summary of the wedding. selamat pengantin baru Ain & Red

tentang Kangaroo Island trip

i decided to spend some time today to post those KI trip pictures. so from 400++ pics i chose the accteptable pics which was around 150pics. still too many to upload. again i had to choose the better ones and that left me with some 60+ pics. i did that again and again till finally i ended up with this 20+ pics.







we spent 4 days on Kangaroo Island. we originally planned to go there on thursday but the weather was pretty bad so we had to cancel. the next day was better so we go on with the plan and finally arrived at Rachel's at night. went straight to bed.. some of us were pretty seasick from the rough ferry ride (including me).

the next day we drove around to some of the interesting places around KI. well.. the island is pretty big. maybe about 3 (maybe more) hours drive across. so it is a good idea to really plan the trip. so that day we sort of drive around the northern part of the island.

that night we went fishing.. unsuccessfully. it was raining and the current was making things hard and it was freezing cold. yes freezing. maybe below 10degrees. and raining. and windy. >_< we spent like 30 mins but decided it's probably not a good idea. then we sat around a campfire (oh warmth!) and had our little barbeque. that was heaps fun.

day three we went to a sheep farm (cheese!), this eucalyptus oil place, a honey farm and at night we went to Kingscote for dinner and took the penguin tour. imagine walking on this trail at the seashore at night with a red spotlight (because red lights doesnt hurt the penguins' eyes) and wild penguins were everywhere beside the trail.

day four, final day, we drove across the island in the morning to Flinders Chase National Park. it's this big national park with cool places like Remarkable Rock and Admiral's Arch but parts of the national park is still closed to public because of the bushfire last year.

around 3pm we went back to the other side of the island straight to Penneshaw. got on the ferry back to Cape Jarvis and drove straight home.

more pics on fesbuk

tentang Kangaroo Island, Australia

i'm going on a trip to Kangaroo Island today with my wife and her friends today.. wohoo!! cant wait to to do all the stuff we plan to do. there will be some jalan2 makan angin around kingscote, the town on that island.. maybe go around the island and see the native wildlife (kangaroos of course, koalas, emu, etc etc) and enjoy the island scenery. have a feeling this trip is gonna be awesome. did i mention we're planning to go fishing on saturday? i always fish in ponds when i was a little brat but never on a boat in the middle of the sea off an island.

so, camera.. check! batteries.. check!! backup batteries? no money for that. sure hope i wont regret not having any :P

here's a rough description of Kangaroo Island. it is the third largest island in state of South Australia (negeri dia nama tu),Australia. located seouthwest of Adelaide, from my house we'll be driving for about 3 hours and then another 1 hour ferry ride to kangaroo island. i'm not the driver but i think i'll need to study the map a little just in case. the island is a home for most native aussie wildlife plus seals, penguins, and sea lions. sounds cool eh? but i dont expect to get to see all of those critters. we'll need proper timing for that.

so i'll be back on sunday evening with loads of pics which i plan to upload like a handful here. it is now 1pm.. we'll be leaving in an hour but i still havent finish packing!!

tentang weekend kat Melbourne

melbourne is.. gile best. tak reti nak describe lebih2. dia tak macam sydney.. terlalu crowded.. bangunan2 terlebih tinggi terlebih rapat. melbourne ni lebih kurang crowded tapi bangunan2 dia ade distance sikit.. or at least bangunan mencakar langit dia tak too close together lah.. tapi tram system dia sungguh serabut sekali, compared to adelaide that is. nasib baik kitorang ade local guide.. so we didnt need to understand how anything works.. just ikut je diorang ^_^. thanks fadiha n alia (pic #7)

day 1 starts at around 4.30am. keluar rumah around 5.30am.. about sejam stengah drive pegi airport sebab flight kol 8.10am. nk tiket murah.. memang dapat tiket pepagi bute la. sampai melbourne.. jumpa fadiha n alia.. terus shopping kat DFO. spent $10 untuk 2 tshirt kat just jeans. cheap! around noon check-in kat hotel rest2 kejap pastu keluar pegi st.kilda jalan2 tepi pantai n menjejakkan kaki ke melbourne luna park (tak main ape2 setakat amik gambar je :P). pegi dinner at this street i cant remember the name tapi reminds me a lot of bangsar. had nasik ayam and nadia makan mee bandung.. macam kat m'sia je.

day 2.. pepagi bute dah pegi queen victoria market nk beli (borong) souvenirs. i ended up abiskan $80 for 4 more tshirts :D. nyesal gak kejap sebab beli banyak sangat tee tapi design dia terlalu cool utk tak beli. lepas borong coasters, fridge magnets, pens, more tshirts.. balik hotel sebab in dah janji nk pegi jalan2 lagi tghari tu. noon pegi lunch kat this indonesian restaurant n aku makan ikan keli bakar. nadia makan ayam balado. lepas pegi thai festival kat federation square.. kitorang naik tram free pusing melbourne cbd turun kat dockyards kejap. then pegi parliament building and lepak kejap kat rumah fadiha (23rd floor tu kat tengah2 CBD. takyah naik skydeck :P). dinner kat kedai lazzat (same place the nite before) n makan nasik biryani lak.

the next day early start lagi sekali utk balik adelaide. by now kitorang penat, kaki sakit jalan naik turun bukit city melbourne ni, tangan lenguh angkat barang shopping, duit dah berkurang.. kol 3 pagi dah bangun nak naik cab pegi airport. tiket pagi bute sama cam aritu :P. kesimpulannye, trip ni memang best. tak cukup rest takpe.. janji jalan2 banyak tempat

more pics kat fesbuk ^_^