Guess who's back with a long post again ever since the last day of 2013? Hehe. AM SO GLAD TO BE HOME!! So anyway, am back with updates from my Sydney school overseas trip! Pretty excited to list down the details because I love to pen down everything from thoughts from scratch. Spent like 6 days there and I'm really glad everyone was nice and all. Made new friends, forged really strong friendships, party every other night, embarrassing ourselves etc. Ok back to the topic.
Since it was my first, here's a selfie :
So you bet, everyone was excited and anticipating for the 6 days. The first thing I did once I got on the bus, selfie again!
And I know people usually check into their hotel first and all BUT however, in our case, we checked in only at night. Instead we headed off for the University of New South Wales first (yes it was so draining cause we sat on a plane for 8 hours and were just too tired because the majority of us didn't really got to nap on the plane.) Nonetheless, we had fun admiring Sydney's roads and houses that looked really vintage and atas at the same time. How the heck does these 2 even co-exist together??? So yes, back to UNSW. Campus tour and all I recalled clearly was climbing a whole lot of stairs which really almost made us went insane because every stairs we saw we went "whoa stairs again?! walao." hahaha. Kate + the 3 guys really displayed good hospitality and I wasn't really amazed because after all, australians are really friendly. Not as scary as some of them made them out to be after all. Quite impressed with their faculties and especially their coffee houses!!
Didn't really take any photos there except my favorite shot of the roads nearby because I was just too tired to do anything. So here you go. And I must comment that it looks really simple but yet gorgeous at the same time. Just look the sky!! It's not something you see everyday back here in Singapore.
The entire day we basically kept touring and touring and finally ended off with a lecture that lasted us about 20-30 minutes. Worst topic ever (nightmare) - Organic Chemistry. Half of us were already dozing off. Dinner was at some indonesian restaurant and the food was so good. Thumbs up!! However sadly, no photos again and I think no one actually took photo of the food/dinner that night because all of us were "dead". Oh, the sun sets at 6pm in Sydney so by 6pm it looks like 8pm in Singapore. Took us a day or two to get used to it actually, feels and seems kind of weird. Checked into our hotel aka Stamford North Ryde. Nothing much about their facilities but I like how their room are always clean, room services I give it a 101%.
(Credits : Google)
The only thing I appreciated in the toilet was this bathtub. But I didn't use it till the final night and it was so good. 25 minutes including 10 minutes of sleep time because I fell asleep. Regretted not using it every other night because 1) I was damn lazy 2) there was no damn plug to stop the water from not flowing down. So yes, and oh, they have really cool tea bags as well that is FOC but I never tried it, not even once. Was never a fan of tea haha.
That night, everyone else slept late, like 11+ or 1/2 +. As for myself, I slept at Sydney's timing 830pm because I was too tired to do anything already. Plus the bed was so comfy and soft!! By the way, I forgot to mention that, Sydney is 2 hours ahead of Singapore so yes, I slept at Sg timing 630pm, that is hell early. Day 1 over just like that, hectic tiring busy exhausting.
Day 2.
Something really cool? This hotel gives morning call to every room upon request. Ours was at 7 I think, if I remembered correctly. So yes the phone rang and the person went "Hi good morning this is wake up call ~" Lobby's breakfast was quite satisfying but we had it for 6 mornings man, same dishes same type of drinks everything the same. Boring much. Nonetheless, food was good all the time so, yup. Just that I cannot stand the china and korea people, hello the tongs is for you to take the bread and not dump it back into the bowl with condiments. Are you nuts or a retard?? And they could still do it even after seeing where other people put it. Set off at 845am and back into the City for UNSW. First up was the chemistry workshop! Yay to chromatography and the instant snow and the sand. So cool + so fun. The sand video, the instavideo is on my Instagram so head over and check it out @startswithjo (though its private hahaha)
This was some cool legit shit. Its like you pour the powder into a cup and add water, and ta-dahhhhhhh! Snow comes out instantly. Alot of us had a go at it and we even wanted to ask if we could actually buy it back to Sg! It was that cool and awesome. Left us with jaws wide opened.
As for this, just shake the yellow one and it functions like a traffic light so they named it the traffic light experiment. It goes from green to amber to red. I was in awe when I did it and saw the color changing. :o Pretty much amazed. The blue solution was supposed to turn colorless but it didn't because the professor accidentally said that he added the wrong amount of solution, had me and a few bursting out in laughter because of his reaction.
My 2 masterpieces at the Chromatography station. You just take a petri dish and a cotton, wet it with water, make a tip, and tadah, this happens. The star actually looked so appealing to me that I even brought it back to Singapore hehehe just couldn't resist.
We had a tour in their Human Disease Museum and wow, 180000 over specimens from real life, people that were already dead. It looks really gross and disgusting but they preserved it extremely well. It all looked like they were just taken from the day before. Rows and rows of them and I think there are at least 35 or 30 sections man, yes that's really huge for a museum exhibition. No photography allowed so yes tough luck guys, the only photo I have from there is the photo of me and my new friend, Sam. FYI : Sam is a skeleton. HAHA. So I'll just take a few extracts from Google to show what's it like in there. (I tried to take those that are decent looking and not too gross okay HAHAHA)
(Credits : Google)
And Suhu's favorite line all the time at anywhere we went was, "Can we take a group photo please. Smile please." There you go, our group photos at UNSW.
In Australia at their campus, everyone lies on the grass. It's quite a comfortable feeling actually. So I eventually caved in and did it too! But it was so sunny I couldn't smile into the camera so I ended up looking like that but who cares! Nobody judges you there anyway so bitch please haha. I had a few shots (ok not a few quite a number of it) before I was finally satisfied with this one. It's either the shadow problem or the lighting problem or its just me.
W/ Saranya! :)
And after this was our long anticipated : SUPERMARKET. I have never felt so happy and excited about going to a supermart but because we really (desperately) needed chocolates titbits and whatever not, we were so happy, like little kids on the block. Everything there was almost dirt cheap.
Day 3.
Finally a change in the planning. We headed off for Cochlear, which was some hearing implant company. Their products, COSTS A BOMB. But the trip there was a total disappointment. For some reason that day, majority of us were dozing off when the guy was presenting. Not that he was boring or anything, even his black nail polish attracted us but we were just too tired I guess. Shaun was a good presenter. The lady, Elaine, however, was pretty bad. Didn't really know what she was doing + she was stammering half the time. Boring experience. After which we went to the World's Famous Beach : Bondi Beach. But before that, lunch at a Fish House which serves really good fish&chips. All of us had it.
Move on to the exciting part : BONDI BEACHHHH, lets go to the beach each lets go get away ~~ I was taken away by the clear air and the waves and everything there omg even the people. And we came across this old couple + their granddaughter and a dog, and I couldn't resist but took a photo with the dog & the girl! Both of them are so adorable teehee.
Yes group photo hehe we all look damn asian here la cause sun was in our eyes and we were squinting, too bright already. Went to wash up 45 minutes before ending time because I wanted to enjoy the breeze too and yup, that was it. OH!! I facetimed the boy for awhile there and a few of them saw his morning look HAHAHAHA oopsie wasn't on purpose, my sole intention was to show him the beach and the scenery. Up next, I have no idea where we were suppose to go but Barry, our really good driver who played good hospitality to us. So he recommended us our next stop : Watsons Bay. Damith happily told me Sunkist Bay and I couldn't find it anywhere on the maps hahaha.
W/ the girls from 112 + Faci!
W/ Debbie!
Room 112. :)
And then you have the boys who wanted to pose like Sir Stamford Raffles. Made all of us burst out in laughter once more because obviously, they failed at it.
And then moving on, as if all these weren't making us tired enough already, we went to the Harbour Bridge to take a few shots of the Opera house and not forgetting, group photo. Unfortunately, I don't have the photo with me as faci was the one who took it. So yes again, typical tourist side.
Dinner after this be like YAYYYYYYYYYYYYYY so we were at Chinatown I think?? Having dinner. Sells you asian food BUT the taste is so different, nowhere near Home and the portion was so huge! Couldn't even finish my laksa but the soup base was good but still, can't compare back here. Got myself a Cherry Ripe chocolate bar from Cadbury at the convenience store because its not available here in Singapore, not at all. :-( But it tastes so good. We all knocked out completely on the bus back to the hotel, could even hear some slight snoring. Back to the hotel, Room 112. Day 3 over.
Day 4.
I don't know why but every day we have either a presentation/lecture first thing early in the morning and that shit, SUCKS BIG TIME. Headed for the second and thankfully last, university trip of this trip's highlight : UTS (University Technologies of Sydney) Which was where we met 4 of our very own RP's interns who were there serving their internship. Now I'm wondering, how do they actually survive?? Anyway, we attended a Forensic hands on workshop, the entire time all we went was WHOA AH WAHHHH WOWWW. Hahaha pretty amazed at the fact of how science works when it comes to forensic, but one thing for sure, I will never take up Forensic Chemistry. That shit is complicating. I looked at the board and all I had were question marks at the back of my head. Had a boring 2 hour lecture on Fire Investigation after lunch. I thought it would actually be interesting BUT.... it was a disappointment. The majority of us were sleeping anyway.
And we had a tour of their students dormitory (they call it college) and it was quite an Ikea style actually. The set up, colors, furniture everything. They have really simple facilities for the students too. I think the only 2 that was really interesting was the BBQ place up there and the movie theatre for students. But all in all, damn boring la please zzzzzzzz day 4 was the worst among all.
BUT, we had a mini shopping spree at Macquarie centre! I shopped like crazy, literally like how a shopaholic does. Once there's a sale, I run towards that store. Everything was so worth!! If only Sg had Woolsworth, Big W & Target! Lee Cooper going at only $29 can you believe it, nuts man! I spent that one hour doing nothing but shopping hehe even had faci to give us an extra hour. Too much to buy.
Dinner and back to the hotel, and our usual gathering.
Day 5.
Thank god no more University tours for we had enough of those. We headed off for ResMed early in the morning. ResMed actually deals with sleeping disorders and stuff related to that like you respiratory system and whatever not. The presentation managed to keep me awake for awhile because I was pretty interested in their products and how their machines actually work. Like wow, I never expected these to exist. No photos there because they said no photography allowed. :-( Morning tea followed by a tour of their manufacturing company. So since I have no photos taken on my own due to strict restrictions..... I'll just do this.
(Credits : Google)
AFTER WHICH, PADDY'S MARKET!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! All of us were excited for that because it only meant shopping time! hehehe. Sadly, I was too busy shopping and walking around I didn't take any photos at all. Oopsie. But paddy's market is quite similar to our Bugis Street. So yup, you could imagine the prices and clothes there. Quite worth my money because I managed to find really good deals hehehe I do that everytime I go shopping. Cotton on there was insane, mad insane. 50% off almost the entire store! Their clothes that were on sale, is something that you can never find in sg. The denim vest was worth my buy, definitely. And the crochet shorts!! Sg has it at 39.95, and I got it at like 10 only, WTF MAN BEST BUY EVA.
Nonetheless, 3 hours flew by really quickly and we had to head back to the hotel. Unpacked my loots and packed it into my luggage. And I must say, I am impressed with my packing skills after so long. I used the camper style packing way haha and to my amazement, everything could fit in and I didn't have to squeeze my luggage here and there to make space!! So happy for that hehe. Packed and off I went for the final 112 gathering. I'm missing all the fun we had now. :-(
Day 6 was just basically checking out and taking the plane back home. Bittersweet feeling but I was really happy! Flight delayed sort of turned me off a little because that would mean landing at a later timing. We finally flew at 1pm but landed at 915pm. And guess who was excited to see me?!?! Hehe. Home to unpack and bed time.
So 6 days, just like that. Was a really good experience for me and I thank everyone for making this trip a happy one for me! :)
xx
Labels: Australia, Experience, Friendship, Overseas, School Trip, Sydney