Winter's Fairytale: March 2009

So yea... My parents and I went down to Taszy (Tasmania)

I'll just write down what I wrote in my travel journal.

(Though, on second thought, I think it's pretty plain without any narration in between)

Up at 4.15am, Taxi came 5am, was not ours but taxi still took us. (Our taxi came just as we left.. I felt bad for ditching the other taxi) Stopped the other passenger at Southern Cross station. Reached Tullamarine Airport at 5.30am. Check in at Jet Star self check in and dropped off my luggage. (It really was a first time to do a self check-in... The wave of the future but lacks the human interaction)

Watched Red Boots of Christmas while waiting to board plane. (In case you're wondering... it's a christmas cartoon. hehehe~!) Boarded plane at 6.45am. Took off at 7am. Slept and arrived at Hobart at 8.15am.

Picked up rented car from airport, Thifty. (I thought the roadsign warning for the possum was cute.. though I had to admit that I did see quite a number of flat ones on the road.)

Drove from airport to find Liverpool St. (that's one big overhead bridge 0____0)

Staying at Pickled Frog, backpackers place. Rooms weren't ready yet. (Did I mention that it was my first time to stay in a backpackers hotel?)

Walked around... (First it's pickled frog and now the quilted crow... what next... the grilled cow?)

(That's dad, consulting the map... note that we had driven here. Since we wanted to save up on fuel, we decided to walk instead. Luckily for us, it was Sunday and the lot we parked on didn't need any parking fees)

(Apparently mum was also curious what the quilted crow shop was about)

(It was a fantastic view of the city with all the christmas deco and the cotton swirls of clouds)

(We walked and came to a market square. The fish there is a drinking fountain. Cute~!)

(I was beginning to wonder if the signboards are actually like that or was it because it was the christmas occasion? It looks pretty much like in finding directions in christmas town...)

(I don't remember what this place is.... but on a wild guess, I think it's the town hall. There's something similar back in Glenferrie and even Melbourne town. If I was to reference it to anything back home home, the building at Dataran Merdeka? Though that is a court of law...and not a town hall, hehe..)

(One of the parks... which I also forgot the name to it. Remember taking a photo of the signboard.... [goes to look for it] Blah, details details... [waves it away])

(Here's dad, whipping out the video camera... Speaking of video camera, I remember that I got lots of vacation video tapes sitting at home, waiting for me to work on them... Hahaha~!)

(Just another take of the town hall)

Walked to Elizabeth Harbour.

Saw all the luxury boats. (The boats aren't really boats... I'd say there are ships~! They got sails and all.. Hahaha. You can actually pay and go for a boat ride but I must say that there's really nothing more exciting than driving the boat yourself [motorboat; did that when my family and I went to London, if I'm not mistaken])

(If I have a boat of my own... I would actually wonder what was I thinking when I could use that money to buy a PS3. Hahahah~!)

(I thought this sculpture was very interesting in this angle because it looks like an angel of sorts... Surprising that it isn't covered with bird do-do)

(A photo shot of the pier, looking to the town hall)

Ate at fishy business. (You'd think we would choose something better since the shop sounds "fishy")

Had ordered a seafood bucket and fish burger. We ate lunch while sitting behind the restaurant, overlooking the small lake. Lots of seagulls were attracted to our food... but luckily they had none. (But you can be sure that we were practically on our toes, in case the seagulls decided to swoop down and take our food. Though the thought of a massive seagull swooping is enough to give up the fight and go far far away)

(My guess would be this is an important building... Why? Because there's a flag pole on the top? Hahaha~! 'Does that mean that if one puts a flag pole on top of one's house that would be an important building?' In that case, I'll say that you're just being patriotic.)

(Besides, I should be able to tell apart a normal house from a building like this one... well unless you're very rich and like to randomly put statues above your front door, you win)

(Pretty yellow-ish green tree. The only time I see this colour back at home home was when I don't water the plants, that and chinese cabbage... YUM~!)

(As the sign says... "Mawson Place". Leaving the Elizabeth St Pier...)

(We came across the Tasman fountain.. I'll add here that the smell was a bit bad here since someone kind of peed into the fountain... Ugh... Aside from that, I think the sculpture were pretty)

(That's Abel Tasman. I don't really know why he's here... Let me wiki a bit. Hang on... [goes to wiki] [copy and paste]

Abel Janszoon Tasman (1603 - 10 October 1659), was a Dutch seafarer, explorer, and merchant.
Tasman is best known for his voyages of 1642 and 1644 in the service of the VOC (United East India Company).

His was the first known European expedition to reach the islands of Van Diemen's Land (now Tasmania) and New Zealand and to sight the Fiji islands, which he did in 1643. Tasman, his navigator Visscher, and his Merchant Gilsemans also mapped substantial portions of Australia, New Zealand and the Pacific Islands.)

Walked to Salamanca Road. We missed the saturday market (It was a sunday. Plus don't you think the little girl is a cutie pie too? Teehehe)

(We came to the fountain and it seemed to be a central spot for children really... They loved dipping their hands into the cool water.)

(I remember that one boy loved it so much in fact; that when it was time to go, his parents had to carry him away while he was bawling = To cry or sob loudly; wail.) Went to buy some fruits and nuts at the fruit market.

(At this point, we were trying to figure out how to get to Kelly steps on the map... We knew that it was somewhere here... It was until dad asked some guys that we spotted the very small signage below)

Walked to Kelly Steps while eating sweet sweet cherries (back home it's 80 cents for one cherry, here it's 30 cents one) (so you can imagine how thrilled we were that they were so cheap and so sweet =p especially mum) and also bought white peaches.

(That's wild lavender bush... It smelt so pretty walking past the bushes. Somehow I had imagined lavender to be less bush like... like our paddy fields or something... hehehe~! Would be nice if our paddy fields smelt like lavender... They would taste good and smell nice. hahaha~!)

(There was this big beautiful bush of red red flowers that was growing beside the pink exterior of this house)

We made our way to Battery point (nice houses~!) (At least I think this is battery point and all... It's hard to tell since there wasn't anything to indicate "Hey~! We're here or something")

(Just thinking if living in this type of house would be nice... It looks nice on the outside... not sure how furniture would be arranged inside..)

(The fun thing would be that there was this museum that house a bit of antiques.)

(Since there was a fee to pay, mum and I sat outside whilst dad went in and took photos inside)

(I think that the flowers in the garden outside the museum is really much more awesome... mum took this shot. It looks dramatic, neh?)

(I think that's a peach... growing from the tree... I might have grabbed it if I didn't already know that it's not ripe yet.. But it belonged to the museum so I won't have taken it anyway)

(Dramatic lion statues at one of the other entrances of the park)

(It's pretty cool to be able to take a photo of the town like that) Headed back to Pickled Frog and we all took a nap from 4pm to 6pm. Showered at the common bathrooms. (Yup, the only thing that you actually need when you travel is a place to sleep and place to put the luggage, the others can be shared.) The water temperature was crazy. Cold, hot, cold... (Who knew it could be so "exciting" to shower)

Drove out. Arrived at Royal Botanical Garden, walked in for 5 minutes... and it closes at 6.30pm. (So we were practically "shooed" out of the gardens... Hahaha~!)

Stop by Cadbury Factory at Claremont but it's closed at 4pm (Sept - May)

(But even standing outside the factory, you can smell the delicious smell of milk chocolate.... [drool])

[sigh] (Well, we didn't plan to go to the chocolate factory but now I'm thinking that going to one would be fun~! I think I've been to quite a variety of factories... Batik, whisky, paper umbrella, animal skin production (just the later parts of it - I didn't see the slaughtering . de-skin part), dried seafood production...)

(It's nice that they have a picture in the car plate. Though I'm not too sure if I'd like a rafflesia on my car plate back home home. Wouldn't mind a tiger or maybe hibiscus but not orang utan or hornbill) We continued to drive up to New Folktown. There, we went to buy groceries (Chocolates + breakfast + lunch stuff) (Notice that we didn't buy anything remotely for dinner...)

(We walked into a Shanghai restaurant. But because it was close to closing time, we could only order for takeaway. While we were waiting for the takeaway food for dinner to be prepared, dad and I walked around in the small park)

Fried rice and noodles (which has lots of meat [grin]). Ate outside in the park near a church. Has found it earlier while waiting for the food. There was singing, but when we brought the food, service just ended.

Chilly evening to eat dinner out. (It was~! Mum thought we were crazy to insist on eating out in the park and not in the car)

Left for Wrest Point. They didn't check my passport. (In the case, you don't get it. It's a casino. Though I'll admit that they don't advertise it as a casino but an entertainment centre)

Played pontoon, which is similar to black jack. Mum won in her roulette. (I like pontoon. They reward you the moment you get black jack. Why you ask? It's because it's harder to get a black jack in pontoon if compared to normal black jack; they removed the 10 cards)