Pictures and commentory of my walkabout in Sydney

Getting ready for my walkabout once again!

Took the 10.40am bus (372) to Central Station. Was hoping that it reach there before 11.29am, as the train departs at that time.

The interior of the bus service number 372

Inside the Central Station. Besides trains to other suburbs, one can take interstate (e.g. to Melbourne) trains here too!

One of the interstate state train, I think!

Entrance into the passenger-only area. This is only one of the many entrance within the station. There's an underground entrance as well, as some train platforms are underground e.g. the one I'm going to take!

So, I need to go to Platform 25 as I'm taking the Illawara line.

This is the type of train that I took. Didn't manage to take a picture of it, so have to use this image from the Cityrail webby instead. Anyway, it's a T-model set with 8 carriages. The train departed at around 11.29am and reached Gymea Station at around 12.12pm. The whole journey was quite pleasing, except that the train is not well maintained - some the leather seats are torn, and dried up sugared drinks are on a portion of the floor, making it sticky to walk on. Well, I must say, I miss Singapore's MRT train! So much cleaner. However, one thing that unique in Sydney's train is that it is double-decked! Definitely something new for me!

On my way, walking to Rick's place. Follow my planned routed.

Typical scene along the way.

Rick's Place is way up there. The slope is so steep - must have been at a 50-60 degrees angle!

OMG, can't imagine what will happen if I roll down!

View from the balcony in Rick's place. Nice!

Chit-chatting, and waiting for the rest to arrive. From left, Oliver, Sohail's wife, Tim, Tim's wife Toni (hope I get the name right), and Sabine (Oops Sabine looks like she's having a big tummy! =D, jus a joke!).

More people chilling out. From left: Lily's BF whose looking very smart-looking (Leighton or something like that? I'm very very bad with names, pardon me), Lily, Mark?, and Matt (our proud lotus owner).

Nibbles before the main kill. Oops, lunch I meant!



Let's dig in! Wow... quite a spread I must say - heard from Rick it's a mixture of Italian, Turkish, some Australian fine dinning! My first time going to an Australian's home and eating 'Australian' food. Pretty delicious. I took a portion of each, and ended up pretty full!! Don't underestimate the food - looks like pastry etc and you think 'I wouldn't be full with it'. You will regret it if you take too many, as it can really fill you tummy! Of 'cos, Cat's stomach is another matter altogether LOL...

Not enough seats... even the host had to sit on the floor! But they are looking quite comfortable on the floor! From left: Rick, Mark, Toni

Of course, the lucky ones will have a sit at the comfy royal couch. From left: Sabine, Cat, HuiFen. Don't be fool by HuiFen into thinking that she's drinking beer! It's just sparkling apple juice! LOL... The cat's out of the bag! Oops, no pun intended.

From left: Tim, Davide, Oliver, Toni, and Sohail's son. What can I say? Sohail's son is very knowledgeable! But I guess Tim is the Grandmaster!

Wow, Sabine and Charmaine (on the right) looks like they are having a very serious discussion.

Rick has lots of such Indigenous stuffs, e.g. boomerang, spears etc. And do you know that boomerang come in two general forms? One form (non-symmetrical ones e.g. on the wall all the way back) is also called hunting boomerang. These are thrown at the prey and its never meant to be returned. The symmetrical ones (beside the spears) are meant to be returned when thrown. Some are very large, and are purely ceremonial. Learnt a lot from Rick on Indigenous stuffs. Very educating.

Sohail's son giving a public lecture on Roman civilisation and many more!

Let's do some exercise after the heavy lunch. Getting ready to go for a hike, as Rick's place is right next to a national park

One of the houses along Hovea Place, while taking the hike. See how big the house is? It will cost a bomb to own this in Singapore!

Me with the National Park in the background.

Where the river flows. Aim of the hike is to go upstream of these river.

A small stream is not going to stop us!

Following the trail. It's pretty rough at some point, gotta climb over rocks etc.

Exposed river bed 'cos the weather is good and hasn't been raining. Else I guess we wouldn't be walking on it now! Might be rolling a boat or something.

A very common tree in Australia. Can't remember the name. I'm very very poor with names as you might already have guessed.

Up the rocks... and finally!

Picture of the day. Highlight of the hike.

Everybody is feeling a sense of achievement. After hiking for about 20 minutes, we have reached a very nice waterfall.

Matt and me beside the waterfall.

Well, the two 'sisters'. LOL... Cat and HuiFen.

This is on top of the water fall. See how relaxing Davide is??

View down the waterfall from the top.

A plant holding on firmly by the bank against the mighty flow of water.

Life is so resilient.

Me on top of the waterfall. After spending like 20 minutes on the top, we headed back, chit-chatted some more, and finally make our way home at around 5.30pm.

Thanks Rick & family for their wonderful hospitality, and delicious luncheons!

The way back home from Rick's place is a 'woo-ahh' event! LOL. I didn't need to go back by public transport. Rather I hitched a ride back to Randwick in Matt's green lotus (somewhat like that one shown in the picture). Cool right!! The car is so low, that getting into the seat requires technique. And when it accelerates,you can feel the power and speed of the car. You are sorta thrown back to your seat (maybe too exaggerated, but you get the idea). Of cos, the lotus can go from 0 - 60 mph (or 0 - 97 km/h) in ~4.5 seconds!

Alright, this is going to be yucky. After reaching home, I took off my socks and I realised that I'm actually bleeding! I was like - how? when? why? I have no answers to this and it will always be a mystery... My educated guess is that I hurt myself during the hike. But I did not feel any pain at all! And you know what? It just keeps on bleeding - non-stop. It's bleed when I walk, bathe and even...

after I put on a plaster on it. Quite shocking I must say. Then I took a tissue paper and press on the wound, and continue to apply pressure for a good 20 minutes before it finally stops. Luckily it stopped, else it might look as though I try to commit suicide by cutting myself on the heel!!?? LOL.

Food and walkabout once again!

Be warned.. This is going to be a long post! LOL... *take a deep breadth* here goes!

--Pork meatball--
Well, after the previous failure from turning my minced pork into pork pettie, I have finally (somewhat) achieved making pork balls on Thursday night! Yeah! I was so happy to finally see it turn into a ball, and stay that way! LOL... This time round, I added minced pork with chopped onion,Chinese cooking wine,and some corn flour. Not watery, and sticky. Good! So I rolled it into a nice little ball using my palm and spoon! kinda fun I must say. Now comes the part where my gal would hate, which is to put the pork balls onto the oil-ed pan. And the oil starts to jump despite the fact that I have already turn the fire down..lol.. I mean, I'm quite immune to these jumping oil so I'm ok with it. Down side is that the kitchen will be contaminated with flying oil! And the ball tends to be soft, so when I turn it over etc, I gotta be very careful! Else I would squash it! Nonetheless, I'm glad that it's an improvement - at least I got the shape right! As for the taste, I should have put a bit more cooking wine to make it more fragrant and tasty. But overall, I think it's a pass! =)

--Fried noodles--
My menu for today's (Friday)dinner was a simple fried noodle. Though sounds simple, but lotsa preparation work! Gotta buy hokkien noodles, dried veg, bean sprouts from the Randwick oriental store, then need to soak the veg, bean sprouts, mushrooms in hot water. Thereafter need to oil the pan, and fry the garlic, chopped onions, veg, bean sprouts, mushrooms,and mince pork together. Meanwhile have to soak the hokkien noodles in hot water, drained it and add into the pan. Continued frying it, and add in the dark and light soy sauces, sambal chilli, pepper... ah.. makes my mouth wet just by describing my procedure! LOL.... But overall quite nice, but I find that the taste could be thicker. Maybe next time I should add more dark sauce. But overall, I love it!

Reminds me of the time when I was in Malaysia when I was younger, and my dad used to buy the Malaysia's hokkien noodles for me as it's my favourite! For the record, Malaysia's hokkien noodles and Singapore fried hokkien noodles is worlds apart ok!! For starters, the fried hokkien noodles in Singapore is white, while that of Malaysia is dark or black! I still miss it, and one will definitely not find it in Singapore. I remember eating it like last year when Limin and I went to KL, and it cost us like RM$5 per packet. I wonder when I will next eat it??

--Tomorrow's walkabout--
Well, the sub-title of this is tomorrow's walkabout, but in actual fact it's later today lor, cos it's already past 12am as I write this post. Anyway, tomorrow Rick (my PhD sup) has invited the lab to go over to his place for a lunch. And, sadly everyone has lobang to go except me! =( All the cars are filled and no space for me. And they kinda arrange everything without asking me as well, and the only person in my lab that kinda remembers me is Charmaine. However, Charmaine's car is full as well! Oh well, guess I'm kinda 'transparent' huh? Can't be help lar, I'm not the talkative type, and if I don't know you well I tend not to talk to you. I can get around comfortably for a day, without talking to anyone. LOL. A loner in his own little world right?? Must remind myself to get out of this world some day. Furthermore, they have their own topics, like the guys are always talking about politics, religions, cricket and rugby etc... I'm not a cricket or rugby fan, and I'm not really interested in them. As for politics and religions, each has their own views, and I think mine is rather radical! So better keep it to myself!

Anyway, I shall be independent and not reliant in general. Rick has provided us with a set of instruction to his place. Therefore, I will need to take a bus from my home to the Central Station (~35 minutes), and take a ~45 minutes train ride to Gymea Station, and walk for about 2km to his place. It's a long long route! Travelling + waiting time amounts to about 3 hours, which means that I will need to set off at around 10am to reach by 1pm at his place! Wow! I'm really amazed at how he manage to take the public transport to and fro his home to UNSW. It would total up to about 4 hours of travelling time!!! Oh gosh, I would be so put off by just the thought of having to travel for so long each day! I really have to take my hat off him.

So, this is a map showing the I'm going to take from Gymae Station to his place in Hovea Place. Hopefully I don't get lost! LOL... Once again, Kev is about to embark on his walkabout!