Tasmania and Melbourne

Tasmania and Melbourne 22 May to 4 June

We (or maybe it was I, haha) was so captivated by the beauty of New Zealand that I really wanted to find another place like it to visit. Maybe can see if can retire there anot too haha.

Tasmania seemed like a nice and cool place to visit, with its rugged scenery. Plus Melbourne is supposed to be one of the top livable cities in the world! So off we went to plan a trip to these two places and do a road trip again!

We flew to Melbourne by Qantas and took an internal flight to Tasmania. Hobart was our first stop and we planned to drive up the East Coast to Launceston to take the flight back to Melbourne.

Qantas air tickets for two to Melbourne: $1196.60
City Tempo Melbourne: $297.37

Our first stop was Hobart and we visited the Hobart old prison which is a main highlight of Hobart (although admission ticket was expensive, haha). I also learnt during the trip that Tasmania has quite a sad history and realised the reason they have so many old prisons for visit is because they were treated as a dumping ground for convicts. While it is not happening anymore today, the standard of living of the Tasmanians are also lower than the mainland Australians. Quite sad.

We also took the time to visit the Hobart's Museum of Old and New Arts. It was one of the few times we visited a museum during our trips. But the Museum was really quite interesting and eye-opening! Not your arty-farty kind of museum.

We also spent a day to visit the famous Hobart weekend market (but we will find it meh, cos I guess we won't buy a lot of those farmers' market like kinda stuff) and drove up to Mount Wellington to see the sunrise.

After spending about three days in Hobart, we started our road trip! First stop of the road trip was Curringha Farm which was supposed to be a key highlight of the trip but the stay still feel a bit short of expectations. The room was pretty, the scenery was nice, we did chase some sheeps, but we found that the room was too pricey and there really was not much to do. And NO wifi!!!!

I think we felt a bit let down mainly because we didn't see anyone when checking in and out of the farm- we had to drive up and down to try to find a person at the reception, in the end we just took and left our own key at the reception. A bit like no hospitality. Hurhur.

On the road to Wineglass Bay after we checked out of Curringha Farm! We met a group of Singaporean aunties who are staying in Australia during our hike up to Wineglass Bay. So we all chit chatted a bit on the way up.






And, we met a wallaby in the carpark at Wineglass Bay! It was just there in the car park to see if anyone would feed it and it was very friendly, not scared of people who went to take photos or pet it. The close proximity that one can have with wildlife in Tasmania was quite amazing!

The view of Wineglass Bay from the top. It is called Wineglass Bay because the shape looks like a wine glass.

Then we drove around a bit and Dear brought us to go eat Oysters at this place he saw his friends also went to. Haha.

Fresh and cheap oysters! Very scenic, we ate it by the sea somemore haha. Dear ate most of it cos I'm not a very oyster kind of person.

Then we headed off to Bicheno by the Bay where we stayed for the night. Today's drive was all along the coast, so a lot of seafood in our meals today. Dinner was fish and chips at the Gulch where the food is supposed to be quite good. It was not bad but we have learnt from this road trip that when you are on the road, it is A LOT of burgers and fish and chips. We were quite sick from these though- everyday was really literally either burger or fish and chips haha. 

Oh, to make the chips more yummy without paying for the sauces, I bought a spicy habanero sauce from the supermarket and used it for my dips. HAHAHA. Cos I don't think I can survive without spicy food for so long and really quite wasteful to keep paying for sauce at the restaurants leh. I am very proud cos I really appreciate Dear going along with my life hack. Hehe.

We had a National Geographic moment when we went to get our dinner on one of the nights. We had wanted to visit Bicheno for the penguins but didn't see any. BUT, as we were walking to the car park after dinner, we saw a penguin in the bushes at the back of the shed. AND, a predator (we thought it was a Tasmanian Devil but the owner later came out and told us it is a furret cat cos they frequent the area) was on the window ledge waiting to jump onto the penguin.

We stood there trying to protect the penguin cos the furret cat was also scared to jump down as he sees us around. The two of us was also like errr, how ah. Then after a few minutes, the cat decided to jump down but missed and the penguin took the chance to run away in the bushes. Hope the penguin really managed to get away!

From Bicheno, we drove towards Cradle Mountain and I was really looking towards it cos it is really magnificent and almost New Zealand-like. But lo and behold, it actually started snowing on the day we are in Cradle Mountain! Raining somemore! And since we didn't expect it to snow, Dear was also a bit under dressed and too cold!

The weather was really quite bad that the park rangers recommended visitors to take short walks only, so that we can turn back if the weather really gets very bad. So no choice, instead of doing the Dove Lake hike that we had planned to, we took the 20min walks.

 Very pretty but so cold! And it was drizzling too! It was cold and wet walking outside!

See the snow!

While we had dreamt of a more pleasant hike in the greenery, I guess hiking in the snow and rain was an adventure of its own. Hurhur.

From Cradle Mountain, we drove to Launceston to stay for one night before heading back to Melbourne.

Had our meal at Burger Got Soul which Dear said was good. It's just another burger to me cos I don't know how to appreciate :/ Haha

The next morning, we had breakfast at this place that Dear found online and it was really not bad. All the items are have a nice chargrilled flavour to it. Since moving into our own place, we don't really eat this kind of brunch food often, heh.

The Cataract Gorge is Launcston's main attraction:

And we spotted wallabys hanging out in the park too! Like nobody's business. We took photos and fed it with leaves for a while before continuing on our way.

We had lunch at the Saltwater Cafe nearby and headed to the airport to take our flight to Melbourne. Bye Bye Tasmania!

We stayed in the Hilton hotel (free one cos we had Amex card promo!) on our first night in Melbourne cos we are going to the Great Ocean Road for another road trip! It's gonna be a 3D2N trip! Ya we really planned everything in haha.

It was an early start the next morning cos we had lots to cover on the road- we visited Dear's colleague and did a tour of his neighbourhood before hitting the Great Ocean Road proper. The Great Ocean Road where you can see the waves of the sea and the curves of the mountains.

We visited the lighthouse, 12 Apostles etc. All the works. It was nice but similar after a while haha.

After 3D2N, we are back in the city and since we had the car with us, we went to the Brighton Beach to see the famed bathing boxes. Really a lot of ppl, cannot get a good photo! Plus the sun was setting when we reached, so the lighting a bit bad to take photos but at least we managed to see the famous bathing boxes!

We spend the next three days exploring the city of Melbourne- visiting the weekend markets (I fulfilled my KPI of buying Buddy a Fuzzyard bed!), the Melbourne Goal (which was really fun) and had brunches cos we needa try out the Melbourne coffee.

One thing that impressed me about the Melbourne city is their free tram ride and wifi in the central city area. Really cool!

And of cos, we visited the graffiti art too.

One good thing about the Melbourne city is that it has loads of Asian food (Chinese, Jap, Korean, Thai etc) that are good and quite reasonable prices! Just nice for us to feed our Asian stomachs after all the burgers and fish and chips!

We tried out one of the popular ramen shops. Not bad lah.

We finished our last day with a brunch at Higher Ground Melbourne and walked around a bit at the Spencer Outlet store opposite. Then it was time to go back home and see Buddy!

Hong Kong 4 to 9 Dec 2018

Hong Kong 4 to 9 Dec 2018

We are back in HK again! This time it is Dear's family trip and his father wanted to go HK. I helped to do up an itinerary that had the must dos in HK like the Peak and night markets, and also new places to visit for those who went to HK before. Cool beans lol.

Ooh and I also helped Buddy to order stuff from this brand that I've always wanted to try and save on shipping. Double yay!

Our hotel room at Park Hotel HK. Really happy with it cos it is slightly bigger and better than the usual small HK hotel rooms. 

Our first meal was lunch at Tai Ping Koon restaurant which is famous for their roasted pigeons. Dear's bro recommended it and just nice it was beside our hotel.

I thot it was like a Chinese restaurant but it was an old school western-canton kind of place. Food was not bad but a big pricey. The portions was quite big though.

Then we went to Temple market and Ladies market at night after looking at the K21 mall near us. The markets were a bit boring like nothing much to buy, and we finished looking quite fast. We stopped by Yee Shun Milk company to have dessert to kill some time and get some rest too from walking the night markets lol.

I finally plucked up the courage to try their steamed milk, though it is chocolate flavoured. Well, edible but ehm stil a bit milky for us esp Dear hehe.

We ate a lot on the trip, cos food is probably the main attraction in HK for me and Dear, esp some in the family have visited HK before.

Some of the food we ate like of cos Tsui Wah, fishball noodles, desserts like beancurd etc.

We also managed to have an afternoon of toy shopping where everyone gamely walked around the toy shops to look see tog. Lol.

Some of the new places we visited this time included the new Little Europe Street (very short street actually but got Calbee shop there),  Ngong Ping 360 ride to Lantau island, Sham Shui Po, island visit to Cheung Chau for seafood dinner and Shenzhen! Quite fulfilling!

At the Little Europe Street where we just walked around and left to visit the Causeway Bay area.

We went to the revamped hipster Tai Kwun (the former Central Police Station) also cos my younger SIL wanted to visit it. And then off to the Peak and Madame Tussads Museum.

We went to Sham Shui Po on on the third day for breakfast. Dear's bro met us later cos they were too shagged out by the walking for the first two days (oops). Sham Shui Po has a lot of good food in its area and we went there because we wanted to visit the local kinda toy shops and fabric market there. Turned out the shops at the toy street were gearing up for breakfast and most of them were selling the same Christmas stuff :/ 

And we didn't get to visit the fabric market cos we didn't have enough time and we had walked further away from it as we walked the area. I was quite annoyed but Dear very nicely tried to make it up to me by bringing me to other arts and crafts stores in town to look for fabrics. Give you a hug, dear!

We went to Cheung Chau in the late afternoon after meeting up with the rest and went to take the ferry to the island. We managed to catch the sunset when there too. Nice! Also had a pretty decent seafood dinner there. Nice experience to walk walk see see and have a meal.

 

On our ferry back to Tsim Sha Tsui, we had a great view of the harbour and its night lights. Ah, the charm of HK. 

We had extra time in the trip the next day after going to Fa Yuen market in the morning so there was a suggestion to go on the Ngong Ping 360 to Lantau Island. It was very cold and raining up there, bad day to go there. But it was still an experience.

 

On the second last day of the trip, we went to Shenzhen and split ways with those who wanted to go to Disneyland. Dear's parents came along with us too. We were like the tour guides for everyone lol.

It was quite an experience and the city was more developed than I imagined. We went to Luo Wu shopping mall where they sell knock offs and one of the shop assistants almost got into a fight with Dear. A bit scary that part but what to do, Dear likes to hustle and poke ppl sometimes. @_@

The Luo Wu shopping mall

Then we went to the Dongmen shopping street to walk around, actually quite nice to walk around. Many street foods there and we plucked up the courage to try them instead of having a full lunch.

 Cheap grilled oysters with a yummy garlic sauce! Dear liked it so much that he went for two rounds of the oyster. In the end, kanna stomach ache on the train on the way back and he had to alight first to find a toilet. Cries lolol. 

 On the last day, we had a brunch of dim sum and left for the airport. Bye HK and til the next family trip!

Shanghai Sept 2018

Shanghai 16 to 23 Sept 2018

We finally visited the Chinese land! This time, Dear decided where to go for our next hol and he thot it will be interesting to visit China since we have not done so and everybardy is talking abt its high tech cashless lifestyle (Dear just wanna experience it haha).

Then we were deciding between Beijing and Shanghai, in the end Dear thot it may be good to visit the more 'accessible' city first, so off we went to Shanghai.

We arrived in the late afternoon and visited the famous Shanghai Bund at night. I guess this is really the most impressive sight in Shanghai.

We ate hairy crabs for dinner. It was in season! I planned the meal in as I have not eaten hairy crab before; Dear who has eaten it said actually it doesn't taste that out of this world. Oh man, he was right :( It tasted like normal crab, albeit with a stronger flavoured roe. Like, I won't pay the extra price to eat it leh.

Athough Shanghai is a city that dun have much sights, its surroundings are beautiful. It is near Hangzhou and Suzhou which are known for its beautiful sights and water towns, and pretty women (says the ancient Chinese).

Our first day trip out of Shanghai was to Suzhou. We visited the water town Tong Li too. Unfortunately it was drizzling that day and affected a bit of the mood :(

The gardens are a main feature of the scenary in this region. But Dear got a bit bored of them, ahem. Luckily for me, I had just finished watching the very hot imperial palace drama, Yanxi Palace, so I was able to appreciate these scenary a bit better.

 

Lunch time- traditional fare eaten by the water town folks in the past. Ok lah, still acceptable for our tastebuds but this boiled river prawns that we ordered was really super meh. It was quite tasteless as it was literally boiled in water and the waiter said we can taste the sweetness of the prawns, but ehm, just prawns leh. No taste one. :p

 

Then we went to the night shopping street. Atmosphere is not bad for a walk walk.

Then it was back to exploring Shanghai city. We visited the Yuyuan Garden (think Dear got a bit too much of gardens by this time hahah) and walked along the shopping street there. Tried the must try XLB too, but we still prefer DTF hahaha.

Then we went to the shopping areas like Xin Tian Di and Tian Zi Fang. I think the nicest place to walk walk is Tian Zi Fang cos of its hipster vibes.

We saw this very guai and cute doggo right at the entrance of the Tian Zi Fang alleys. I think he is an attraction in his own right. A lot of people stopped to take photos haha.

夜上海~~夜上海~~what is a trip to Shanghai without the night lights. But the actual thing is too many people on the streets hahaha.

上有天堂，下有苏杭. So after the visit to Suzhou, we have to go to Hangzhou. Both look very different. Suzhou retained more of the traditional houses and vibes, layout of the town was a bit messier too. But Hangzhou was more modernised, more like a city with the modern buildings srurrounding its attactions. The main attraction in Hangzhou is the West Lake.

We had planned to do a bit walking round the lake but it was toooo hot that day with the sun shining down. We felt very cheated during the trip cos the wether was supposed to be cooling and turns out to be hot!!!

So we hopped on the tram and toured around the lake instead. Heng got the tram. It still took around an hour ride around the lake, i think. That's how big it is!

We also had lunch here at the Grandma's restaurant here and it was the best meal of the trip for me! The flavours suited our test buds very well. No wonder they are highly raved too.


After we got off from the tram, we ran off to get some respite from the heat in the shopping mall and got a   massage since we had time. Super awesome, their massage is cheap and good. The rooms are machiam like KTV room, can watch tv and eat fruits and you can hang around in the room after the massage too!

Then we went to their old school shopping street. The shops were more touristy then the street in Suzhou and we finished walking quite fast. Halfway also got heavy rain and we tried to seek shelter where we can, sibei cham.

Then we got dinner at one of the recommended restauarants and tried the Qian Long's fish head. Actually it is like fish braised in black bean paste lah, but I think must have been quite a novelty for the Qian Ling emperor to have tried it. Generally we found the food in Hangzhou to be quite good and the best from the areas we tried during this trip.

We were also lucky that got a good breakfast shop near our hotel and we tried their default Shanghai breakfast: 豆浆油条 and pancakes. Very nice and crispy! They also have a savoury version for their 豆浆 which includes adding like chilli and soy sauce. That was not quite for me, even though I'm the savoury kind of person. :/

Think this is an alcoholic drink? Nope we went to the biggest Starbucks in Shanghai where they had all these fanciful corners and hipster concoctions. This is a coffee cocktail!

And of cos we went to Hai Di Liao too! Actually we don't find the experience much different from eating in Singapore, maybe a bit cheaper, that's all. If we go back to China next time, maybe we should try other brands of hotpot.

But we met nice staff at the Hai Di Lao! They missed my manicure turn and said they will help me set up a station for me. Turned out that they mean to bring me to their small office room and help me do that. A bit ehm, yes. But it was very funny, when I went in there, there was a big sized Japanese Spitz there too! Turns out that his owner came to eat and the staff helped to take care of the dog by keeping it in their office first, lol. Like that also can.

We also devoted one day to Disneyland. While we didn't encounter any traumatizing Tiong behavior, we wouldn't really recommend the Disneyland in China cos it just lacks some of that magical and dreamy touch whenever the Tiong accent comes out. Ooops. LOL. 

The second last day of our trip was quite free and easy and I let Dear suggest where we can go hehe. We went to this hipster place which used to be a butchery to look see and chill.

They also have a dog cafe there where we ended up to while away some time.

And Dear found that the Shanghai football team was playing so we can go watch Oscar! Totally a woofie itinerary haha.We even got the interesting experience of buying from scalpers cos the ticket office had closed by the time we reached the stadium.

We also went to eat 小龙虾 cos Dear's bro recommended them. Taste is not bad lah, the sauce is like the mala stir fry we like but removing the shells for that little bit of lobster meat was tooo tiring.

Oh ya we also stopped by this park where parents will come paste their children's resume on umbrellas to look for potential partners. Really is like that also can right haha.

All in all, it was quite an eye opening trip to Tiong land. Not as bad as we thot, but maybe becos we were in Shanghai. We would still wanna go Beijing to see the imperial palace and great wall, maybe maybe we will go there in the near future? LOL

And oh, what I also found interesting is that quite a lot of people keep dogs as pets. We see a lot of them walking their dogs. But not much accessories shops, so sorry Buddy, we didn't bring back much for you haha.