Day 3 - Surfers Paradise

Oh ya, I forgot to mention I met a new roommate when I was back to hotel the 2nd night, a French, he was on internship at Perth for half a year, then he flew to Sydney and Cairns, then to Gold Coast, but he only stayed in Gold Coast for just a night, he flew to KL the next day, will be in KL for 14 hours before he flew to HK for 1 week, then back to France.

English isn't his mother tongue, he only learnt it when he was in Perth, so he can't speak that fast, but it was good considered that he just learnt it for such a short time, anyway, the way he spoke was quite funny, he had lots of actions while talking, so it was actually quite nice to chat with him, haha..

I booked my accommodation for my 3rd and 4th day at surfers paradise at a hotel called Islander Hotel, it wasn't that good, room is hot compare to my first hotel where I had air-con. =)

Anyway, I planned to spend my 3rd day at Surfers Paradise, so before I left Coolangatta, I went to a look out point, it is somehow on top of a small hill, with all my luggages with me, I was wondering whether I should go up, but I still went up at last considering that could be the last time I came here. It was actually quite nice, I can see the beaches and the famous Kirra beach.

Although this beach is quieter than Surfers Paradise Beach, but there are still a lots of surfers on the beach, it was actually quite nice and enjoyable, in the morning, those backpackers just wear a beach pants, and carry their surf board and go to the beach to surf, how cool is that? You can see lots of people are just enjoying their life like that, it's pretty awesome actually.

While I was taking pictures on the look out point, somebody talked to me, it was the French roommate, he checked out earlier than me, but his flight to KL was at night, so I invited him to go to Surfers Paradise together since he didn't get to travel much as he only stayed in Gold Coast for 1 night (what a waste.. hhmm..) Anyway, we went to Surfers Paradise by bus, about an hour trip.

After I checked in to my new hotel, we decided to went to a place called Qdeck, or Q1, it is 322.5 metres tall, it offers 360 degrees view anywhere in Gold Coast, or even Brisbane! It's the only one beach side observation deck in Australia, the lifts inside Qdeck are crazy, bloody fast, it is the world fastest elevator I think, it sent us went up to 77 floors in just 43 seconds, I did record down how fast the numbers of the floors changing in the lift, haha..

322.5 metres tall doesn't sound not that great isn't it? Compare to our Twin Tower, this might be nothing, but it seems that it's the highest residential building in the world, it ranks 25th in world's tallest building. In Qdeck, it keep saying that it's taller than the Eiffel Towel in France, I wonder what my French friend was thinking, haha..

Well, enough of the fact of Qdeck, so what if it is the world tallest building? It's the view up there matters! It was really really good, what was in front of my eyes was just like what I saw in the postcard of Gold Coast! I took a lots of photos, but because of the reflection on the windows, it might not look good though.

It's water everywhere, check out the island in the middle of the picture, it's in heart shape!

And this is my French friend, his name is Archambaud Millet, French name is just so hard to pronounce, so he asked me to call him Archy instead.. haha..

And thanks to him, there's somebody travelled with me, so I can ask him to take photo for me! I looked so small compare with him, kns..

After Qdeck, we went to Hard Rock Cafe!

Not a big fans of that, but at least I been there! haha, this is outside of the Hard Rock Cafe..

There are 2 storey in the cafe, lower floor is a shop, selling all those Hard Rock Cafe T-shirt, jackets, and all the accessory, then walk upstairs, it's the cafe, there was a band singing and playing music there, and it's quite full at that time we went, the food isn't cheap as well, hhmm..

And this was taken at night, I stayed very near to Hard Rock Cafe actually..

After that we went to the BEACH! The beach of Surfers Paradise! But I have my camera and all, so I didn't go into water, just walk around the beach and take photos, the weather was quite hot at that time, lots of people playing at the beach..

the wave there was big, which was good for surfing, those people who didn't surf, were still playing with the wave, let the wave hit them, looked fun!

Some of them just lying at the beach for suntanning. =)

Check out the wave, it's quite big, it's fun!

After the beach, we walked around Surfers Paradise town area, have a lunch..

It was quite normal for guy to just walk around without shirt, girls with their bikini, it's at the beach! What do u expect? haha..

After we walked around the town, it's about time for Archy to go to airport for his flight to KL, he planned to go Twin Towers within the 14 hours, he said Euro is big compare to RM, so he is gonna take taxi from airport to twin towers, kns. I asked him to go to Low Yat Plaza as well, as he said he wanted to get a digital camera at Malaysia. I asked him how was Malaysia that day through facebook that day, and that was what I got:

"eheh :P Twin's tower was good, but KL is very durty :/ (around low yat). Anyway, thx you and come on in Paris when you want :)"

Durty = Dirty, what a shame right? Tourist remember nothing, but dirty..

Anyway, after sent off Archy, I went back to hotel, drop all my camera stuffs, walked to the beach barefooted, hang my clothes on a tree, and jump in the water, it's Pacific Ocean! The wave was quite strong, it's just so fun to play around with the wave, there were Rescue Team there to look after us, so it wasn't that dangerous! When I went that time, it was quite late already, so it's getting colder, didn't get to play in the water for too long as I really cant stand the coldness, haha.. Then I lied on the beach to just relax myself...

It'll be really really fun to go with a group of people, I am looking forward to go if you all if you are interested!

One day... we will!

-To be continued.

Day 1 & 2 - Coolangatta, Gold Coast + MovieWorld

I was saying I arrived at the airport...

Because I did some research about the accommodation before the trip (before I fell asleep actually), so I know there is one backpacker hotel not far from airport, and they offer free pick up service from airport, so I called them, and they came!

The town itself called Coolangatta, and I stayed in a backpacker's hotel called Coolangatta Sand Hotel, in a 8-bed dorm, but there were 4 empty beds at that time.

My first night at Gold Coast was terrible, it was so boring, Coolangatta is a small town, nothing much happening, not much of people playing at the beach, I walked along the beach for 3, 4 times, just to kill my time, having dinner alone, walked around the town as slow as possible so that I don't go back to the room so early with nothing to do, but the town was pretty quiet as well, only left the restaurants were still open.

At that time, I can feel what I felt when I was in Curtin last time, it was really lonely to be alone in a place like Gold Coast, where everyone else was having fun, I seriously didn't know what is so fun about a backpacker travels alone. That night, I went back to hotel, lying on the bed, read through those travel guide about Gold Coast, and hoped to plan something for tomorrow, I was on msn with my sister that time as well, so she suggested me to go here and there around Gold Coast as she has been there last time.

Next day, I went to MovieWorld, it was where the fun began! =)

Inside MovieWorld, there are lots of nice rides, which really spice up my day! Too bad, one of the ride called Batwing spaceshot was closed that day.

It is the same sort of ride in Genting, but it is higher in here, and you will experience 4.5 times of gravity force, which means, VERY fast, we were all science students after all, count it!

I went into a show called "Hollywood Stunt Driver" to start off my day in MovieWorld, they showed all the scenes that you see in Hollywood, and they make it a bit funny as well, it was good and amazing.

I was on the screen, can you see me?

Right in front of your eyes!

I was satisfied with that, I did record down some parts of the show, if you all want, I can post it up. =)

Then there was this ride called "Superman Escape",

It is like roller coaster kind of ride, and because it's movie world, so there was a story behind the ride, the story behind the rides was we were in a METROPOLIS subway loading dock. As we travel through the subway, a terrifying earthquake happened. To escape, SUPERMAN rescues us by propelling our carriage out then vertically upwards at 100km per hour! We travelled from 0 to 100km/h in just 2 seconds! You can feel the skin on your face is moving slower than your body, it's really fun although the story was quite lame, haha!

Lethal Weapon, this 1 was quite fun as well, 5 complete upside down experiences, 85km/h, 4G gravity force, and it was 765metres long, so you will have enough time to feel everything!

There was this 1 called Road runner roller coaster, it was in the kids' zone, well, it didn't look so childish, so I went to have a ride too, and there were only kids ride that, so ya, I was quite paishe at the time.. haha..

It doesn't look that dumb to ride on this right? =P

And some of those really kids' things.. (Obviously I didn't go and try.. hehe..)

It was good to see how those kids react when they were on the ride, some were so excited before the rides started, and when it started, you can hear them screaming, haha..

There were lots of shows in MovieWorld too, Scooby-doo live show, 4D show... and lots of shop as well, mostly about souvenirs..

They have the parade for all the cartoon characters as well, but I missed out the front part, only saw bunny, Marilyn Monroe,

Tweety bird, Sylvester,

Scooby-Doo,

Sherk,

CatWomen,

Batman,

Batman one was quite good, the car you saw in the pictures, it moves! Omg, haha.. It looks pretty cool, and it think that is the same car that appeared in the latest batman movie! The batman was just standing beside the car, NICE! Haha..

Although I went on all the rides alone, but it was still fun and enjoyable! That day after MovieWorld, I went to a place called "Surfers Paradise" to look for my accommodation for the next 2 days as I really didn't want to stay at Coolangatta, it was too quiet.

Compare to Coolangatta, Surfers Paradise was so much better, it was sort of heart of Gold Coast, so it's more happenning and beautiful, I spent my 3rd day at Surfers Paradise too!

- to be continued..

Be a backpacker is FUN!

Hey my dear LOUZAI bros and everyone here, how are you guys doing? Not much of update from here, so didn't really know how is everyone~ This place has been really quite over the year, we only have 30 overs new posts in this bloody 2009, that is actually quite sad to see loushi is kinda slowing down. =(

Anyway, I am here to share something with you all. =)

I just came back from Gold Coast and Sydney on Friday, and the trip was good, not to mention I actually travelled alone, haha.

The whole story was quite long, so I think it's better to post it up part by part..

The initial plan was I and my girlfriend will travel together, from Melbourne to Gold Coast, then to Sydney, then back to Melbourne, we booked our ticket in August, while there was a promotion, but somewhere in October, my girlfriend found out that she will have something on during the travelling period, and there is no way to avoid that, so after a struggling period, we decided to not to go for the trip, since she can't go and the air ticket is not transferable.

Everything went normally until the night before my flight, I was talking to my house mate about his planning of travelling, and out of nowhere, I recalled that I actually have the air ticket to Gold Coast and Sydney, which was on the next day morning, few hours later from that time.

So I went and checked the ticket, and yes, it was at 11.30am 11th Dec. Then I started to wonder, if we should go, so I go and tempt my girlfriend to go for it, but I failed, she can't go, she asked me to go by myself instead, actually when she found out that she can't go for the trip, she asked me to go for it, but I keep saying no since it's kinda weird to travel alone.

I was in dilemma at that time, for the whole night actually, I do not want to leave my girlfriend at home, I do not want to waste the air ticket and the chance of travelling before I need to go back to Malaysia, that was a very tough decision to make seriously, and it took me a bloody long night to decide. I went to search for the backpacker hotel to see if there was still any dorm available, and yes, they were available, so I decided to go for it, and they was already like 5am on the travelling day, so I started packing, took out underwear, socks.. and I fell asleep.. Zzzz...

And when I woke up, I saw the bright sky, I was like "SHIT!", I thought I must have miss the flight so I don't bother to check the time, and continue my sleep, I woke up at about 9 in the morning when my another house mate woke me up as we were planning to go somewhere, so I told him about my flight, and he asked me to go for it, and it was still possible to make it as the check in counter closes 45 minutes before the flight time, which was 10.45am for my case, then I struggled again, as I haven't pack anything yet except my underwear and socks, so I think again, again and again, at the time I REALLY decided to go was like 9.25am already, it wasn't possible to reach airport by public transport on time, so I called a taxi, and asked if it was possible to reach airport by 10.45am, he said he can't promise, but he will try, and he will come at 9.45am, so I still have about 20 minutes to pack my stuffs!

He came, I hopped on, rushed to airport, ganjiong-ing all the time on the way to airport, and at last I made it! But the taxi cost me a bomb, kns..

Anyway, that was the story BEFORE the trip, sorry for all the long story.

Journey began, I landed on Gold Coast Airport, alone, didn't book accommodation, didn't know anyone, didn't know where to go, how to go...


- to be continued...