14. Holiday Update!

Well, this post is long overdue, and I think that an update is imminent since my last post was about 2 months ago? It’s just that I’ve not really sat down and thought about something to write, or nothing really worth jotting down happens. Anyway, here’s a vague summary on what happened on my three weeks of holidays, which can be described overall as unproductive :P

Week 1:

Moved out of IH and into my dad's friend's (which shall now be referred to as "host") place in Nunawading, which is some suburb approximately 40 minutes from the city via train. I had to use the huge luggage bag to store 1 week's worth of clothing and one quilt. Besides that, I also had to lug to my laptop there and a backpack full of stuff too. Spend the whole week finishing up Season 1 of House, and my host's son decided to share with me the TV series "Angel" from Season 2-5 (one season is about 22 episodes which are about 40-43 minutes long respectively.) Didn't DotA because my program was screwed up for some reason.

On the weekend my church friends organised an outing to Marysville as a fun retreat during the holidays. We took a 2 hour drive there and lodged in a...lodge? 20 of us were there and we had a chance to create our own live fire in the fireplace. Our retreat was 2 days long, due to the fact that we arrived on Saturday and had to be back in church on Sunday afternoon. On the first day it was raining mildly, so we went to visit the Sculpture Garden in Marysville village. This sculpture garden is owned by some guy named Bruno who used to travel around the world to find inspiration for his paintings. Over time, he decided to settle down in Marysville and created this sculpture garden. He has a wife and I think 3 daughters, and all of them are extremely proficient in art. Must be in the family genes. He also has a documentary filmed that tells the tale of his journey around the world searching for ideas to draw them out on canvas, and also sculptures which he created. After admiring his works in the display room, we headed outside towards the sculpture garden. The amazing thing about the outdoor sculpture garden is that each of the sculptures are crafted out by using natural resources , e.g. rocks, tree barks or slabs of stone. The detail and beauty of each of the sculptures really makes you stop and just take in the dexterity of the sculptor. For a glimpse of his art, you can visit the website. At night it was still drizzling moderately, and our plans to visit Steavenson's Falls had to be put off. Sigh, and it looks so good in the picture too...

On Sunday we decided to head up to Lake Mountain to play some snow before we head back to the city. Sadly, when we got to the toll halfway to the ski resort, the sign said that there was no snowfall at all on that day or the days before. When we got up there we only saw a small patch of man-made snow, but we made good use of what there was. One thing I learnt: Never handle snow with your bare hands over a long period of time unless you have really thick skin or you're cold-blooded. Wear thick gloves before planning on engaging in some snowball fight. Also, snowballs don't seem as soft as they are (or at least those made from artificial snow). It's like grabbing the ice crystals of ice-kacang, making it into a ball and throwing at someone. It hurts like an actual rock hitting you, only more fragile. The group decided to head up to the ski trails and enjoy the scenery since we had time to kill before church. Took some pictures, and on the way back to the carpark we stumbled upon a huge chunk of snow about 50cm in diameter. A few of the guys attempted to carry it but as I mentioned earlier, frostbite is an issue. Kicking it along the trail only made the chunk more fragmented. We almost got it to the carpark though. One thing I disliked is that their bathrooms aren't equipped with warm water. When your hands are frozen and you want to warm them up with warm water, or even washing after visiting the loo, we came out with hands that are somewhat dipped in ice-cold water. Not a very great feeling. It's a wonder my blood didn't freeze over and caused a heart attack or something. So week 1 ends here.

Week 2:

Friends from Malaysia came over, from Malaysia, Canberra and Adelaide. Spent the whole week bunking with them, and really had a great time. LeeKuan , XinYi and Phoebe had arrived earlier, and the MC dudes from Malaysia arrived later. Since Melbourne's pretty boring if you don't have a car to go around visiting, we didn't really do much. The main events of this week shall be categorized accordingly for easier viewing:'

Food. The main thing that brings us Malaysians talking. We have yum cha, mamak, B.Y.O.s(bring your own or pot luck), and all sorts back there in Malaysia, and we're not going to hide it in Australia. Heck, it's part of our culture. Even on the first day of the MCians arrival, after having a huge helping of beef noodles, Minghong asked, "Eh, so what's for dinner?". Anyway, for the whole week, we had several different kinds of cuisines; Dim Sum, Korean, Vietnamese, Greek, Japanese (well, me and Justin had a few sushi rolls), and maybe some that I missed out. Other than the main courses, we had gelati(I'm sure everyone agrees that this pwns, even though it's winter), chocolate from Max Brenner, goodies like Tim Tams, Doritos and Shapes accompanied with dips just to name a few. On our last day, Sam Lim's parents even invited us for dinner. Despite eating extreme helpings over the past week, we didn't seem to have even gained weight. Well, me and Justin decided to weigh ourselves on the scale out of curiosity anyway. Ah, it's good to have such a trait - to eat as much as you like and still maintain your weight even without much physical activity. Even though beer was more commonly available in Australia, we didn't get to see Minghong drunk :). Perhaps another time...

St. Kilda's Beach. We had no plans for the afternoon, so we decided to tram our way down to St. Kilda's Beach for a little stroll. The main thing we did here was to goof around and take pictures of the beach. The beach was also the ideal place for the guys to pose around like boybands. 5 of us made up the BSB group; Me, Ter, Yewhorng, Minghong and Justin. Xin and Phoebe were the camera crew, and there were plans to drag Tat Wei into becoming our manager (since he wasn't there with us) and also launch an album since we have the album art settled in St.Kilda's. Sigh, the things that they come up with. Much has really changed since I last met them...or has it?


Great Ocean Road. We spent 72 bucks on a whole day tour of the Great Ocean Road, which is this 400km scenic route along the southern coastline of Victoria. The trip along the road started with a magnificent view of the beach, with large waves crashing at the beach. Occasionally over the distance we could see surfers attempting to ride the waves. They must be really fit to be surfing in the freezing water during winter. We also passed by a koala inhabited area and we tried to spot the furry koalas sleeping on tree branches. After a few hours of coastline, we reached Apollo Bay where we had our lunch for an hour before heading out to the 12 Apostles. Nope, this isn't some bibical thing, it's just a name given to some rock formations. Here's a brief description off the net:

"Glorious at dusk and dawn these giant rock stacks are a central feature of the spectacular Port Campbell National Park. The forces of nature gradually eroded the softer limestone, forming caves in the cliffs which became arches and when they collapsed, rock islands as high as 45 metres were left isolated from the shore."

One of the last stops of the visit is the Loch Arc, where a shipwreck happened and a guy and a girl were the only survivors of the tragedy. The girl, who couldn't swim, tried to stay afloat the mighty waves. The guy had to drag her to safety after an hour long battle against the waters. So, want to guess what happens next? Girl falls in love with guy after saving her life, got married and lived happily ever after. Well, not all instances are fairy tales. The guy and girl never kept in touch after the incident. The girl went back to Ireland and got married there and I don't know what happened to the guy.

Well, the trip ended with us guys a bit drowsy even though we spent virtually 90% of the time on the bus trying to get a few winks because we stayed up previously for some World Cup game. Minghong should have a few bad bruises on the head because he kept knocking his head on the plastic-thingy where the belt comes from for the next seat. I sat there at the beginning of the trip and it was really painful. Imagine Minghong getting bonked on the noggin for the rest of the trip. Ouch...Arrived back at the city at about 8.30 at night, and just chilled out in the apartment.


Battle Shits. Justin, Minghong and Yewhorng's favourite game. The idea originated from Harold and Kumar, if I can recall, where the 2 girls played this game in the toilet. The rules of the game are not known to me. You have to ask the masters of the game to explain the specifics. All I know it that the solid excretions are the ammunition, and the fruits are to prevent the 'gun' from jamming. Sounds grouse, because it is. Everyday without fail, a battle will take place, whether it's single player or a duel to the death :P


Random Side Events. Some of the small events that aren't as big, but still makes the MC experience a memorable one:

- MingHong has been nicknamed Johnny in the Gelati shop because he didn't know who John Howard was (he thought he was a football player)

- Yewhorng has been reeled in to the mystical powers of Ebichuman! (E-B-I-C-H-UUU!!! EBICHUMAN!)

- The character 'Hard Gay' has been added to our minds, so don't freak out if some of us suddenly calls out "Hard Gay! Woooooo!!!!!"

- A certain phone call I made to a church friend to borrow a cable to connect Justin's camera to my laptop sounded in such a way that I've been misinterpreted by the guys. Very funny... To add on that, Justin's camera is simply weird: has a different size port for the cable and different memory card. We had to make use of Xin's camera.

- Knob-turning is still evident in the MC-guys circle. On top of that, there's also whammy and double whammy, and if possible triple whammy?


So that concludes week 2! I don't have all the pictures with me yet, so...

Week 3:

About the same as week 1: eat, sleep, finish up Angel, and get ready to get back to uni. Was supposed to work on my Human Behavior assignment, but oh well... It's holidays anyway.

Post Holiday Week:

Had a hard time trying to get back to uni mood, which means get up early and go for lectures. After the first semester, I've decided that I should faithfully attend lectures :P, and study harder because almost everything is going to be new, and cramming 13 weeks of lectures and extra stuff in one day is impossible. Can't afford to slack that much now. But it's the first week anyway, and so the lazy mood begins...