Astronomical extravaganza

15th Dec 2007 is a very special for me. Not only is it the 4 years 9 months’ anniversary of being together with my dearest Limin, it’s a day where I can finally experience something which I had always wanted in my 27 years of my life. Back when I was much younger, I used to borrowed books from the library. Besides borrow books on dinosaurs, which is my favorite, I love books about astronomy – stars, planets, black holes and what not. I used to borrow this book on the solar system, which had colourful pictures and notes about each member of the solar system. I would try to draw the planets and sun according to the book, and copy down the notes besides the pictures as well – for the sake of keep it since library books are meant to be returned. Till today I still have the drawings at home!


And so on 14th Dec 07, when JM told me that there is a meteor shower on the early morning of 15th Dec 07 (estimated to peak at 3.45am), I was ecstatic! I MSNed and SMSed those friends staying in Australia, telling them the news. Basically, I’m pretty hype up – on the possibility of seeing my very first meteor! According to news, the meteor would be coming from the direction of the constellation Gemini, which is about below Mars at this time of the year. And how to I recognise Mars? Mars was on top of Orion and is naturally orangey-reddish in colour – and so I had no problem finding it since Orion is so easy to locate. And I was running to and fro the balcony in JM’s room every here and then to see if the meteor shower had started, since 11pm! LOL…

Anyway, thanks to Kuan who managed to get a car, Cat and I (as well as Kuan) finally reach Coogee beach to watch the meteor shower. But, this was before I saw a meteor flying pass from JM’s balcony!! Can you imagine the joy!!? I wanted to scream out, but managed to suppress it for fear of disturbing that no noise-scence woman staying below us. Hmm… prolly it was around 2.15am, but I can’t say for sure.


The night view of the sky from Coogee beach was superb and magnificent! As we went up to the cliff, where there was very little light pollution, we could see the stars in the sky very clear. I could even see the Milky Way stretching from the west to the east, towards the horizon where the sky meets the sea. And indeed as the books had mentioned, the Milky Way is full of stars as compared to the rest of the sky – truly a star-awing sight. It is a real pity that I couldn’t take a picture of it, and had to rely on my memory to relive the moments in future. My digital camera just isn’t good enough for the job. =( Throughout the night, I was treated to a sight of at about 20 – 30 meteors. Not much of a meteor shower, but just meteors here and there every few minutes or so – but I’m not complaining. It’s already fortunate enough to be able to view such astronomic sights. And especially for me, I’m totally near hysterical when I saw the first meteor while on the beach. I was like shouting? Or did I jump around as well like a kid? I really can’t remember, but Cat did say that I was like a kid then! LOL. Oh well, how often do you see such heavenly events? I don’t mind acting a little kiddish once in a while. =) And talk about wishing upon a falling star? Don’t even think about it, as the meteor went pass with a blink of an eye! Some were faint, while a couple of them went out with brilliance. We were somehow so busy with pointing out and exclaiming where the meteors was that there just wasn’t enough time to make a wish! LOL… I really hope that I had a camera to capture the moment, and that I will never forget this wonderful night with the heavens.

Following the meteor showers, we stayed on in Coogee to catch the sunrise again. Cat and I had caught the sunrise a week earlier, with the NYP students and gang, but it was a cloudy sunrise. And we had thought that this sunrise after the meteor shower would be cloudy as well. We were wrong. The sun just sneaked up on us right from the sea – a sight that is truly amazing and seldom seen in Singapore. Indeed we were treated to an astronomical extravaganza that morning – meteor watching capped off with a perfect sunrise. And photos of the sunrise to relive my memories forever…

A sad couple of weeks - Part 3

Finally, the last installment of the post 'A sad couple of weeks'. And so, Emily had left for M'sia/Muar since like 2 weeks ago? Hadn't heard from her since, 'cept once in MSN. She's very good at MIA, I reckoned. Wanted to let her know of the chalet arrangements etc and yet she MIA.

Anyway, back to like eh... 2nd Dec 07, where the NYP students were finally going back to Singapore. Hmm..everything started when I went over to Kingsford to meet up with the students, Cat, and Weisheng for dinner on the 1st Dec. Kinda waited till like approximately 8.30pm that they finally confirm the dinner with me?! And by the time I reached the 'Pinangsia' restaurant, it was already closed. And by then, they have yet to reach as well. But, can't be help, as I later learnt that they (excluding Weisheng) had quite a rough day before that. So anyway, we went to another Chinese restaurant for our dinner, which was not that bad.

As usual, somehow I just hate the services of the Chinese restaurants, 'cept for a few of them. Talking about that, I find that the services of a Chinese restaurant in the city to be quite good - it's located in Circular Quay, somewhere near the MacDonald's. Prolly the Chinese restaurants in Chinatown and Kingsford are always flooded with customers e.g. visitors and Asian students respectively that they don't really give a damn to their services. 'There are always customers coming in to replace those who are not happy with us' might be their mentality! Argh... Those situated in the city might have more competition etc and thus services might be better? Sounds logical? hmm... bottom line, I don't like the services in Chinatown and that restaurant in Kingsford. Given a choice I'm not gonna go back again no matter how delicious their food are.

Ok ok.. diverted quite a bit when I talked about food. lol...so after dinner, I took Weisheng's bicycle and ride back home to borrow the weighing scale from JM while the others headed to the student's place in Parade Lodge to help them pack their stuffs. And it was this ride that I encountered a possible crime in action. Oh well, give me creeps every time I think about it. And to think that I had walked along that uni walkway in the middle of the night before, when I had no choice but to take buses that past by Kingsford. Anyway, passed the weighing scale to them... initially they clocked like ~30+ kg per person?! After much repacking, managed to scaled it down to 20+kg.. lol.. why? 'cos part of it is that, we will be helping them to take some of their stuffs back to Singapore when we're going back in Jan 08! LOL.. Anyway, Malcolm's stuffs were like 40kg and yet SIA allowed him to check it his luggage without additional charges as well.

And so, after they have finished with their packing, the whole group of us decided to head down to city, at like... 2+am in the morning?!! And why did we go to the city in such un-holy hours?! Simple - to play games in the arcade! 'Cos apparently, Weisheng has promised Li Qiu that he will catch a softtoy for her, after Malcolm successful 'captured' a stitch and pooh toy for Cat and Chu Ying respectively! LOL.. Weisheng was quite reluctant initially, but had to ultimately cave in to peer pressure! LOL... and so we went to the city. Boy, the city was like full of drunken ang mos etc... chaotic even though there are police vehicle around. prolly all the bars and clubs in the world are kinda like that. Oh well, and Weisheng invest money on Malcolm to get the toy for Li Qiu, claiming that Malcolm is the expert! lol.. I joined in the fun too, played a few times, and aided Malcolm in his quest for Li Qiu's pooh! lol.. finally, managed to get it! lol. We played a couple of more group games e.g. Daytona where all 7 of us were racing against each other... and don't know which bugger caused me my car to flip in the race and ended up out of the contest for the first placing! argh...

Anyway, after the last game, we realised that it was about 3.30am - time for our bus, else we will need to wait for another hour! And so, we practically speed walked and ran to the bus stop at Hyde Park! lol. Phew.. finally managed to board bus 373 to Coogee - just in time for to catch the sunrise in Coogee. We reached coogee at around 4am? and headed towards to the beach, and to the cliffs to catch the sunrise. And it was then that occur to me that the daylight hours in Sydney now is freaking long. The sky started to slowly lit up with tints of orange over the horizon at approximately 4.30am, and the sun rises at around 5.30am. Sun sets at around 8pm, which means that 14.5hours of daylight in a day! Now this is what you call summer! Anyway, the sunrise was stunning, 'cept for the clouds over at the horizon. There are always a few early birds that were kayaking as well - talk about premium seats to watch sunrise!

After the sunrise, we headed back to Kingsford from Coogee, on foot! argh.. too early for bus service! A long, tiring walk. Finally reached Parade Lodge, and took some stuffs to Cat's place as Cat inherited them since the students were leaving. Rested for a while till 9.30am, and subsequently went over to the students' place again as we realised that Charmaine could not make it to drive the students to the airport. As we reached Parade Lodge, we got a shock as the students were already preparing to leave on a taxi to the airport. As the taxi could only seats 4, Weisheng and me had to take bus 400 to the airport. It's quite alright for me, as I can take this opportunity to see how to get to the airport on my own, so that I know what to do, where to go where I'm gonna fetch Limin when she's here on the 9th Jan. Quite a long ride - I would say 30 min ride as the bus when through Eastgarden etc! argh... and finally we reached the Kingsford Smith International Airport!

At the airport - ... can see that the folks are pretty upset, but still putting on a front. Guess those students must be pretty confused as well - at one hand, they can finally return to the comforts of home, but on the other, they had fun and enjoyed themselves while they were here, as well as being independent etc. Everyone was still joyus during our brunch in the Airport (we had Oporto). However, things were rather different when we were at the departure gate. Guys being guys are quite immune and somehow look beyond such parting, I suppose. However for the gals, its quite a different matter. Tears were being held back for them, and at the very last moment - just before they enter the gate, I told Cat to give them a last hug. Somehow, this precipitated into tears as Cat were hugging Chu Ying and Thivyaa. oh well... only thing that can comfort her is that we're going to have a chalet on the 1st and 2nd Feb, and soon we'll all be back in Singapore to party again! LOL...

Phew... finally finally... finished my super duper long post.. Oh, for the rest of the photo, do check out my flickr collections.

More pic of my Coogee walkabout...

My short video of the Gordon's Bay at http://filexoom.com/files/2007/2/8/57675/CIMG0262.avi Beware! it's 13M file, so might need to be patient in downloading the file... =)

Walkabout from home to Coogee to Clovelly Beach...

Well.. as stated in the titled, today is my walkabout to Coogee Beach and Gordon's bay... As the saying goes.. "A picture speaks a thousand words".. so here goes..

Well... the route that I took is highlighted in blue.. you can click on the pic to enlarge the picture for a clearer view.. basically, the walk starts from Randwick to Coogee to Gordon's Bay, and to Clovelly Beach. Whole journey from my place to Clovelly Beach is abt 4km.. and plus the journey back.. a total of 8km!! Damn tired after that.. lots of uphill and downhill.. and the slopes are steep. Took about an hour to from Randwick to Clovelly.

My packed lunch for my walkabout

The way to Coogee beach... through Coogee Bay Road

One of the joining roads to the Coogee bay Road

Along the Coogee Bay Rd.. see the horizon?!

The Coogee Beach

Lotsa ppl in the Coogee beach ya...

Overlooking Gordon's Bay and Clovelly Beach, from Dolphin point

Cliffs at the Dolphin Point

Overlooking Gordon's Bay

At Gordon's Bay

Babes at Gordon's Bay

Me at Gordon's Bay

Overlooking Coogee area, and Gordon's Bay

Me resting at the park near Dolphin point.. I also ate my last bread here... and guess what, a labrador came right to my side.. I think the dog must have smell my peanut butter bread.. haha.. quite a beautiful and tame dog..

My dinner at home... Taste much better than yesterday! haha..

Menu.. rice, prawn fried with egg, and broccoli and cauliflower with prawn stir fried in black bean paste