Good Days

From now on, I'm not going to make excuses for myself when I don't update for a very long time! Heh. Let's just always assume that I am busy/lazy and had no motivation to write a blog update. But let's have a quick recap of my life during the past few months.

During the time since February 2012, I've grown up quite a bit, mentally and spiritually. Not physically, although I'd like to think that I've lost some weight, ahem (There's a lot of walking to be done in Adelaide). I've also managed to make a little cosy home for myself here, nestled in this small South Australian town. I won't go into all the details, because there are way too many things I've done this year. It's been amazing, and I'm blessed to be able to experience all of this, Alhamdulillah. I'll just be talking about recent events here.

August was a busy busy month, what with the family visiting and it being the end of Ramadhan. Prayed outdoors for the very first time in my life, and it was beautiful. A week after the first day of raya, there was the Eid Festival at Bonython Park. We went there thinking it would be small ... boy were we wrong!

It was lots of fun. We went on this one ride, some flying carpet thing. They segregated the lines so that men and women had to ride separately, which was something new for me. Heard some of the girls in line complaining that it wasn't the case last year. I understand why they did it though - everyone was pushing into each other. We ended up waiting for about a half hour.

Worth the wait though. It was a super awesome day. I remember waking up that morning feeling pretty good about it. We all had lunch together at Coffee Club at David Jones. Man was the food expensive, but my eggs benedict with smoked salmon was nice. Then coming to this event, it just made things feel really good. Ah, the surprisingly joyous days are the best ones.

A final shout-out of love to my Adelaide family:

You guys are the best. 

Next Chapter

Today feels relatively normal, all things considered.

I woke up at a reasonable hour (for me, that means 8 in the morning - and I only snoozed for half an hour instead of an hour and a half) and checked the BB from my bed. Got up, showered, had breakfast. Then I went back into my room and this is where it stops being your ordinary day, because I had to repack my luggage bag for the fourth time because my parents said I was bringing too many things. :'c

I'm finally all packed and just waiting around for the time to leave, pretty much. It hasn't sunk in yet. This time tomorrow, I'll be in Adelaide, and I won't be seeing this bedroom of mine for another ten and a half months. 

No pictures today unfortunately. My card reader has been packed away. So the next update I'll make, I'll be in Aussie-Land! :D

Cats and Reunions

Hello bloggerverse! I don't even know if anybody still reads this page. Ah well. I think I mentioned before that I had a lot to blog about, but I don't know if I'll ever get to posting about everything that happened this January. Far too many things. I've been out every single day of this month, it's been crazy. And now I only have a week left before I fly for Adelaide.

Yesterday, I went to Yen's CNY open house. It's become an annual thing since we finished NS. This is the one time we get to meet up as a group to catch up and stuff. I haven't seen any of these people for months! So it was great to see them again. I had a great time dominating the food table with Hamizah and Marc while Yen was playing hostess to an army of people, haha! 

After that, Hamizah and I got to hang out for a while before I sent her back to her place. It's nice that even after the both of us have moved house, we're pretty much still very near to each other in terms of distance. Then I got to meet her kittens, oh my gooood. So cuuuute. Look at them! I haven't had the chance to play with kittens this small since we first got Spyro. 

Speaking of Spyro, here's the little fatty now. He pretty much lives in my bedroom nowadays, and we share the bed together at night. When he needs to leave the room, he sniffs around my face and nudges my arm till I wake up. See this picture? I whipped out the camera and he started posing for me! Silly cat. I'll miss him very much when I leave next week. :( He's my baby.

After dropping off Hamizah, the family and I went to Uptown to have dinner. My last time there. Ordered my fish and chips, as usual. We've been going to the same place since I was seven years old, and I have been ordering the same thing since then. It changes occasionally, but I always go back to the fish and chips. So I dah puas makan last night, haha! I overate actually. Phew. Once I'm in Adelaide I will have to start up an exercise regime. 

Canopy Glider

Finally, after two years of wanting and waiting ... we finally went on a Skytrex Adventure! I was really hoping to get to do this before I fly off so I'm really glad we managed to. There's a pic of four of us girls up there. Nick and Han Liang were there too, so there were six of us. The weather was nice, not too hot and it didn't rain, Alhamdulillah. So what happened was, we went to Taman Pertanian Malaysia and bought our tickets to go into the park. 

We were late because I didn't eat lunch early enough so I delayed everybody ;__; Bleh. So we waited for the bus to come back for us. Once we got there, the first thing we saw was the kids' challenge. Our route was further inside. We got our harness and bottle holders then went through a short briefing on how to hook our carabiners and pulley onto the ropes once we get into the trees. 

Our very first obstacle was a ladder that stretches up into the sky by about 14 metres. It was really tiring. ;_; Halfway up I was wishing that it was a climbing wall because somehow, those seem easier to scale than the slippery pipes on this ladder. Here's a pic of Hannah scaling the super tall ladder. I got some pics of our gang going through the trees. Not many though. Didn't get any of myself sadly, since that I was the only one with a pouch and a camera. x)

Here's one of the bridges up in the trees:

I didn't mind these, they were pretty cool. There was another obstacle that I went on, where you have to swing from a rope to reach planks of wood further away. Don't have a pic of that, sadly. Halfway through that, I swung too low and my shin struck the panel of wood. It really hurt! It's all swollen now. :/

Up there is another one of the obstacles. It wasn't bad, just a little wobbly. But the best part was definitely this:

 The flying fox. :D I had a lot of fun with these. It's awesome being able to glide through the trees like that. I was a little nervous at the first flying fox ledge, just because I wasn't sure how to let go. But it was definitely the highlight of our adventure today. 

And once everything was over, we walked out of the park to find some ice-cream men and their carts at the entrance. Of course, I couldn't resist myself. This was the first time I've ever gotten an ice-cream roti that came with chocolate sauce and peanuts! I was impressed. It was a good way to end the day. I would definitely go back to try the Extreme Challenge next time, hopefully. :)

Pain-ball

Happy New Year! I'm starting 2012 on this little blog of mine with ... PAINTBALL. Last month, Groupon had a deal for this indoor paintball arena at Summit at about RM35 per person with 200 pellets. I've never tried paintball in my life, and always wanted to so I grabbed the chance! Getting people to join was a hassle though. I have to say a big thank you to Sammie's friends who managed to fill in our two empty spots at the last minute. Super grateful for that. :)

Here we are decked out in our gear. Nick, Hannah and Sarah were on my team while Sha, Sammie and her friends made the other team. The first thing I learnt about paintball: It bloody hurts. T_T The first elimination I got was three shots right at my upper thighs. The pain shot right up to my skull, I was kind of taken aback. Stumbled to the safe zone in a daze. Poor Sarah gave up a few rounds into the day, she couldn't take the fear of getting shot, haha.

This is one of the two arenas available at the place. I like this one the best! There're so many place to hide in and be sneaky. There's Sha in the image, crouched and ready to strike. I even got to play a bit of a sniper, since there are steps in the area. That was the best fun. 

I think the best part of everything was the adrenaline rush I got creeping around the area during the dead silence where everyone was waiting for someone else to make a move - there's this fear of getting shot (which hurts, I'm not kidding at all about the pain) and the excitement of the 'hunt'. Not that I lasted very long a lot of the time, I'm pretty easy to shoot by the looks of it. I even got shot in the crotch once ;__;. The pain was blinding, I just toppled over and burst into sobs. What an experience, haha.

Here's my most obvious bruise, on my left arm. It's also one of the smallest. x) My worst one is sitting on my left thigh, it's gotten all purple and splotchy. I got eight bruises all in all. Any other shots I got during the game were all in the helmet area. So yeah, I had fun! It hurt like crazy and I said that I never wanted to do it again ... but now I look back on it, I wouldn't mind. There's something about that adrenaline rush I mentioned earlier that makes up for all the pain. :)

For Good

This is a really late update, but better late than never! A couple of weeks ago, me, Acu and Mira went to Singapore to catch Wicked at Marina Bay Sands. I've read the Gregory Maguire novel about three years prior, so I was interested in seeing what they changed in the musical adaptation. :) We left for Singapore on a Friday morning. Took AirAsia. It was a very short plane ride, didn't even take out my book to read.

The show was that night itself. After spending the day walking around ... OK I can't remember the name of the shopping mall. But it was right opposite our hotel. We spent the day there, then went back to the hotel to get ready for the show. Marina Bay Sands is huge! And pretty spacious. It even had a river running through it, haha. Acu contemplated trying to get into the casino to see how it's like in there, but Mira and I are underage. Oh well.

I'm comparing the photo taken above with the photo of Mira and I when we went to watch Cats at Esplanade two years earlier. It's very different. Haha!

Anyway, we weren't allowed to take photos of course, so I took this at the very end of the show. I thoroughly enjoyed it! Brought a pair of binoculars so I could see the faces of the performers. Really glad I did. I kinda liked G(a)linda in the show. Reminds me of Pinkie Pie from My Little Pony. x) They changed the ending completely from the book version, so I was taken by surprise. I like this ending better though. It's happier. 

Night shot of the skyline seen from outside Marina Bay Sands. Gorgeous or what? Pardon the low quality image. Perry takes awful pictures at night. The weather was lovely, so we walked around outside for a bit before heading back to the hotel. The next day we went shopping at Orchard Road then headed home in the evening. Just a one night trip, but I think we made the absolute most of it! And I got myself some Wicked merch hehe. :) When I got home, I downloaded the Broadway soundtrack. Playing on repeat. So goooood.

Two bottles of stars

It's not the 2nd anymore ... just realised that it's past midnight. Doesn't matter though because it just means another day has passed since that day a year ago. It's been an interesting year, learning new things about both you and myself, and I wouldn't have wanted it any other way.

There's a lot of things I wanted to blog about, but it's been a truly busy week. I just wanted to note this down in blog history. I'm happy for the year we've had, ups and downs, and everything in between. We've been friends much longer than this ... almost two years now. 

I'm just really really happy. :3

Les comptage des etoiles.

Ice Cream Class!

Sammie and I went to an ice-cream making class yesterday. It was a Groupon deal, so we got a discounted price on the class. It was fun! Got lost on the way to the class though, since neither of us are very familiar with Kota Damansara. Thought we were late but due to true Malaysian timing, we arrived way before the class even started. :p

Pre-mixed stuff. 

Sammie hard at work! For our first ice-cream the chef came over and helped mix it for us since that we were worried about spilling so were moving very very slow. 

 Completed stuff packed and ready to be taken home to the freezer. It's kinda lumpy and unattractive at this stage. We were happily licking our mixing bowl clean with our fingers though! It was yummy.

The chef took up some cups from the morning class, and we got to taste the mango. Our mix was tastier than that one though in the end. :p So photo session with the fancy swirled ice cream! Mango and strawberry yoghurt flavour.

And here was my dessert for last night. Threw in a Belgian chocolate thin for fun. :3 It was alright, I like the strawberry yoghurt one more than the mango, which I think was a bit sweet. Should lessen the sugar the next time I make it. 

You quack me up

One last post before the semester ends officially, tomorrow. :) Have some ducks! These feathery critters have been a great source of happiness for me this last semester at Taylor's Lakeside. I just get really excited when I see them swimming around in the lake. Cheers me up for sure! Hehe. 

So tomorrow is the last day of the semester. How crazy is that? It's been a long semester. Tomorrow, I'm three assignments less burdened and the holidays finally begin! I'm going to make the most of it, Insya'allah. Here's to a fantastic mid-semester holiday!

The title of this post makes me laugh. Eheh. I'm such a dork.

Adelaide Taster Trip Part Trois

Time for my third and final update about my Adelaide Taster Trip! Above is a picture of the front of the Magill campus. The pretty scene is kinda ruined by the cones there in front of the sign though, haha. Not sure why they're there. Anyway, this was a Monday morning and my parents and I followed Fyra on the morning bus to campus. She had a class at 8, so we just tagged along.

Here's while walking into the campus. It is very very pretty. Papa seemed really pleased with it, he kept saying that he'd like to study there too. There's a creek running through the campus too! I didn't see any fishes though. Also, the crows there are black and white, how strange. No pics of that though.

Anyway, I went to talk to the people at the counter and stuff about next year. They couldn't really help that much since I'm not done with my current sem and I don't have an address in Aussie yet. So oh well. Fyra took me around one of the buildings and we got to see the library, so that's nice. In the pic above, the eating area is behind us, and there's a cafeteria inside and everything. I look really short in this pic, I dunno why. Must be the angle. 

After looking around campus we walked down the street to check out Sammie's house and make a few calls to properties so we could go take a look at them. Sammie's house is super near the campus, it only took us five minutes of walking. After that we walked back to campus, met up with Fyra and took a bus back to the city.

We took a look at a couple of places in the city. UV Apartments looks like the inside of a horror movie. >_> Fyra and I went in and I could feel the horror soundtrack playing in the background of my head. Everything's really dark and the lounge area has grilles because the building was formerly a bank so that was where they kept the cash and whatnot. We tried to go to a few other places but there were tenants in all the rooms so they couldn't show us around. So far the place I like best is Urbanest. At the rate I keep talking about it, I'm pretty much confirmed living there next year, haha! Although I'm still looking around just to see what happens. :p

Yoghurt! We were walking down Rundle Mall and there's this Greek Yoghurt shop thing. Mama had some the day before so she wanted more. Mine was Cinnamon Apple Crumble while Mama had something called Strawberries and Cream or something. Mine was alright, the raisins in the yoghurt were the best part, I think. Along with the crumbly bits.

Here's Papa at Rundle Mall with statues of piggies in the background. Mama got quite a kick out of them, that's why she asked me to take this picture. There are three piggies in total, the third one is hiding behind the trash can. I think I like the one leaning on the trash can the best. It's got character.

Random picture of fluffy platypus plushies in a souvenir store at Rundle Mall. I FELL IN LOVE WITH IT but it costs 30 AUD wtf. ;__; So we parted ways.

The day was particularly windy, as you can see here. It wasn't actually that cold but it was like the wind was determined to change that, the way it was nipping at every part of me not wrapped up in fabric. Sammie and I are standing in front of the Adelaide Entertainment Centre. The Script performed here earlier this year. ;___; What are the chances of them going back to Adelaide next year so I can see them? Ahagjhgsjdghasj.

Random photo while waiting. We went to look at a house in the area and got a little lost so the house agent offered to pick us up and drive us there. Sammie took this pic three times because she was trying to get Papa to smile. She succeeded! Haha. :)

Very last pic the night before I flew back to the homeland. It's blurry though, such a shame. I had a really good time, and I fell in love with the city, it's such a lovely, quaint place. :) Kinda can't wait to get started on next year!