Mechanical Bull, Inflatable Dinosaur

I haven't posted in a while ... been pretty busy, since all my final assignments are due soon. Doesn't mean I've only been doing assignments though! It's been an eventful last few weeks, so it's been fun. I got to ride a mechanical bull in the middle of Rundle Mall, for only a dollar. They were raising money for SCOSA, which is the Spastic Centres for South Australia. 

Surprisingly, not a lot of people were lining up for it. I guess they were a little wary? Nick and I have been on a mechanical bull before during Taylor's Commfest in 2010, so we were pretty excited to give it another go. They said we'd get one ride, but we both got two instead! That was nice.

Later in that week, we decided to try something new. So we visited a new place. Burnside Village is a really fancy upper-class mall out in the Eastern suburbs. That particular suburb also happens to be the location of the most expensive house in South Australia - nine million dollars' worth, with an Olympic sized swimming pool and its own parking lot. 

The mall itself is pretty gorgeous. It's a lot of open space, and there's even a huge gum tree living in the middle of the mall. All things considered, it's a nice, bright mall, but there's not much to do there. Not for us anyway. The shops were all high-end, and there were not a lot of food options. We ended up eating some sushi, which was nice. There just wasn't a lot of variety.

After walking around for a bit, we ended up at Cocolat, which is this dessert shop. I got a 'Wild Thing', which is a sort of chocolate cake topped with a sort of hard, sugary shape. Sorry my description is not at all poetic, haha. It was alright, though I felt that it was kind of overpriced, compared to other dessert shops I've been to. 

It's around this time when Sammie suddenly got appendicitis. It was unexpected, and I got a call from her boyfriend at about 10pm, saying that she's in the hospital. I think I freaked out a bit, it was so out of the blue, haha. The next day we all went to visit her after the surgery.

On the way to the hospital, we found a girl who was making balloon animals in the middle of Rundle Mall. So we got a dino-balloon for Sammie. It's so cute and angry looking. Haha. Anyway, Sammie's pretty much recovered now - she's walking around, so that's good. Gave us quite a scare though.

I've got more stuff I'd like to update with, but that can wait for another post. I've got to leave for class in fifteen minutes. It's my last week of university classes! Hasn't quite sunk in yet. 

March of the Undead

On the sixth of October, zombies filled the streets of Adelaide.

Okay, not all the streets, just a few. And we joined the crowd, because when else are you going to have this opportunity? It's definitely not going to happen in Malaysia, haha! We all met up two hours before the event to put on makeup and everything. It took way longer than expected. I take credit for painting on Sammie's skeleton face, hoho. 

Zombie Walk 2012 started at 7pm at Rymill Park, which is on the far Eastern side of the city. We left home at about 6.45pm, and arrived slightly after the starting time. On the way there, it was a kind of bizarre journey. We got a lot of stares, and woman with a pram got out of our way pretty fast, saying "Go, just go." The atmosphere got weirder and weirder the nearer we got to Rymill Park. Slowly, we met more zombies and even some people dressed as soldiers. It really felt like we were slowly leaving reality behind and marching straight into the zombie apocalypse. :0

As you can see, Sammie and Nigel went as a matched pair. Fyra went as a zombie cat, and I was a last-minute country girl zombie. It would have worked better if I had a cowboy hat, but oh well.

When we arrived, the walk had just begun, so we shuffled into the crowd, twitching and groaning as we did. There were a lot of people with cameras at the beginning, and all the zombies at the edge of the street put on a loud and jerky show for them. 

Nick was our zombie cameraman. It was kind of dark, so it isn't that easy to get good shots of the zombies. There were a lot of different kinds though; zombie minions from Despicable Me, an Assassin's Creed zombie, ninja zombie, Plants Vs Zombies zombie, Super Mario zombies, Gangnam Style zombie ... even zombie dogs on leashes! 

The walk didn't take long - it only lasted a half hour. The end point was Light Square, where everyone started going around and taking photos with other zombie groups. It started to get very cold, very fast. I think all of us got some good exercise during the hour that we were out that night. By the time we got back to UniLodge, I was dead tired (pun intended). It took a while to get all the food colouring and makeup off our faces.

Dinner was a beef burger from Snag in a Bag! Nick and I have been wanting to try it for ages, but it only opens past 10pm on party nights. This is the beef burger. I thought it was pretty good, really juicy and filling. The chips that came with it were just so-so though. I prefer the chips they sell at the KFC here. So yeah, that was our night. Spent a good few hours hanging out with the UniLodge gang after dinner, playing Mafia and Charades. 

I went to bed exhausted and woke up at almost noon. But only because daylight savings started and I lost a whole hour! Pah. Oh well. I had a good time, and it was my first ever big 'dress-up' event! 

Lanterns and Lights

The last day of September was the Moon Lantern Festival. I dressed for the occasion, as you can see. :3 

Here in Adelaide, the event was held at Elder Park, which is just a five minute walk away from my apartment. Here's the thing about Elder Park: it's usually a place for cyclists, joggers, families having picnics, seagulls looking for scraps ... y'know, that kind of thing. But the day Nick and I walked down to the park for the event, we were pretty much amazed by the crowd that was there. I have never seen so many people at once in Adelaide before.

The feature above was part of a stall where people were learning how to fold paper lotuses. It looked like fun, but there were so many people. Our plans of having dinner at the park were totally dashed - each food stall had a queue a half hour long. We even saw the ice cream stall that we visited while at Victor Harbor, though the prices were a dollar more expensive that the stuff we ate down south. 

In the end, Nick and I decided to have dinner at Mamak Corner and come back to see the fireworks. We were supposed to meet everyone at the festival, but it was impossible.

When we got back, the Moon Lantern Parade was just ending. Sorry for the terrible picture, my camera isn't that great in the dark. See the little blobs of light surrounding the large lotus in the middle? Those were the paper lanterns on parade. We found a nice high balcony behind the Festival Centre where we could see all the lights and the fireworks.

Nick helped me take a lot of firework photos, and these were the best. I loved the ones that zipped around like small birds after the initial explosion. It's hard to take photos of those though, as you won't make out the motion of the lights. It was a beautiful show.

The VH Adventure Part Four: Whale Tail and Journeying Home

This is the last post about the Victor Harbor Adventure! Here are Part One, Part Two and Part Three. This is definitely the most blogging I've done in months.

The last day at Victor Harbor dawned bright and sunny. It was the warmest day since we got there, which is a shame I guess. Just our luck, getting the coldest day the time we arrived. Nick, Sammie and I were the earliest risers, so we set about making eggs for breakfast; scrambled eggs with buttermilk. There was also some pancake mix left too, so we mixed that up with buttermilk as well. It was a pretty good breakfast.

We left around 10 am, as that was check-out time. We really didn't have to hurry, but I felt safer leaving at the time that we were told to, just in case somebody was supposed to move in on that day after us. I tried calling The Big Duck Boat Tours to see if I could book a last minute whale-watching tour, but they were fully-booked. :( Oh well. Maybe I'll see whales another time in the future, Insya'allah. 

As we really had no plans for the day, we just went to the playground, relived our childhoods and revisited the carnival area. No desserts this time though - everyone was a bit apprehensive of the ice-cream after Fyra's stomach aches the day before. 

Nigel wanted to try this hot dog stall near the whale tail fountain, where they sell German hot dogs. We hung around there for a while, watching kids playing in the fountain and gulls trying to coerce people into giving up their food. Sammie accidentally dripped some ketchup and mustard onto her pale purple jeans. Thus began a frenzy of Googling how to remove ketchup stains, haha! We went to Cafe Primo for lunch, and she cleaned up in the toilets there. The stain came off pretty easily, thank goodness.

Cafe Primo at Victor Harbor is puh-riceeeeyyy. Good thing I had some vouchers with me for half off the second main dish you order. Fyra, Nick and I shared two dishes - Risotto Funghi and Salmon Spaghetti.

Check that out. It was delicious! I loved the risotto especially. The mushrooms were so lovely and juicy. They made me happy. And the spaghetti was in some kind of sweet, honey cream sauce. It was a bit strange at first, but it went really well with the salmon. After lunch, we went to a chocolate shop where Nick and I shared a double scoop ice-cream: Kangaroo Island Honey and Pavlova flavoured. It was pretty good. I could feel my health points decreasing, the way I was eating at Victor Harbor. So much sweet stuff.

We boarded the bus at 12.30pm, and so began the two hour journey home. It was supposed to be an hour and a half, I'm not sure what happened. The bus was stifling inside, and I ended up napping because of boredom and heat. Exiting the bus was such a relief. 

Funny how, when I got off the bus, I felt different. Victor Harbor made me feel like a parent, haha! It was a great experience, and I'm so happy and grateful that I got the chance to go on holiday with my most loved Adelaide-ians. It definitely was an adventure.