A trip to Down Under - Part I

Since I have only 5 days to blog about all the happenings in 2009, I better get cracking. I have been postponing to write about this trip, cause I thot I have so many things to write about it. But now, since this trip was way in April - May, semua sudah lupa. So here goes nothing...

Day 0

Arrived in KLIA way ahead of schedule. Wah too good to be true. Jarang benda ni berlaku. Selalunya dah terkejar nak check in and boarding ala cerita Home Alone. Dah berangan nak check in and do window shopping in all of the Airport luxury stores. Dengan semangat poyo yang waja, marched right to the check in Kiosk and slot in Pasport to check in. Wah hebat.. dah tak payah pergi counter. Suddenly, "Error. Please go to counter to check in" Hampeh with capital H.

Stepped up to the counter with still a high poyo spirit. Dah bersiap sedia nak melaser nak cakap Kiosk tu lain kali jangan letak kalau tak boleh guna. A quick check by the lovely girl behind the counter, our nightmare suddenly begin. Well, traveling with me memang dah biasa ada nightmare. Malas aje nak cerita. It's just that this is a mother of all nightmares. Jason vs Freddy kind of nightmare.

"Kak... akak takde visa nak pergi Sydney".. Sayyy whhhatttt? Oh NO! Flight lagi 2 jam. 2 jam. Macam mana ni orang kampung semua dah tahu nak pergi Ostolia ni.

"Eh, Commanwell country bukan tak payah buat Visa ke?" (tanya macam ala2 ada degree in Political Science, pastu dah keje dengan UN 5 tahun)

"Err tak.. cuma rakyat Australia and New Zealand aje yang tak payah Visa"

OH MY GOODNESS....camno ni...

"Err.. takpe.. akak pergi ticketing office kat floor bawah, diaorang boleh tolong buatkan Visa. Beg ni tinggal sini la dulu, tak payah susah2 bawak". Oh terima kasih adik ku yang baik lagi mulia disisi masyarakat. Note that I refered her earlier as lovely girl behind the counter (instead of the normal Biatch No 1 or Imbecil No 1). So off we go to the ticketing office. Kakak aku pun mula membebel-bebel secukup rasa dan rempah. Tu la kau.. tu la kau.. tu la kau. Haih, kalau tak, tak jadi cerita burung bayan (to quote my mum).

At the ticketing office, muka masih maintain cool. Bila adik jaga number tu tanya nak urusan apa. Cakap nak buat Visa. Bila dia check flight kitaorang muka dia memang terpancar 'Ha?Nak mampus? Flight lagi 2 jam baru nak buat visa? Sah-sah la kau tak dapat naik flight ni' - tapi dia maintain professional la. Ok ambik no and tunggu. and berdoa. If tak dapat fly, dah kira2 nak pergi Bali la ... pergi mana2 sebab dah set our mind nak pergi holiday dah. Nak naik jugak flight.. walaupun sampai Puchong. Waiting and hoping and praying like crazy. Apa tak nya.. dah pukul 8 malam, in Canberra it's already 10 pm. Sape pulak la yang keje nak telexkan Visa kitaorang ni.
Setelah macam 40 minute in agony, tiba-tiba datang cahaya ilahi bila namaku dipanggil. Yahooo... Visa gua sudah siap. Aik.. nama kakak aku tak panggil pulak lagi. Kena lagi maki hamun dengan dia... lepas 15 minute tu, nama dia plak. Alhamdulillah. Kena la bayar RM60. If RM100 pun aku bayar. No question ask.

Dapat la naik flight. We are 8 hours eh ke 7 hours away from Sydney. Naik je flight, in the spirit of Malaysia Boleh, semua orang nak tukar seat. Flight memang kosong. Boleh kalau nak tido satu baris sorang pun ok. Steward and Stewardess memang tabah betul. Semua layan dengan patience. Nak tukar duduk sama kawan. Nak tukar duduk row depan. Nak duduk dalam overhead compartment. Nak duduk atas food trolley. Semua boleh. Dah settle semua. Baru la senang hati semua orang. As soon as flight take off, konon la dah plan nak tengok movie apa, cerita apa, main game apa.. sekali lepas makan terus tido sampai esoknya. ZZzzzzzzzz...

Day 1

The picture above was taken from the airplane window. Daylight breaking across Sydney.. or somewhere in the middle of the ocean. In a short time, we landed in Sydney. The immigration check was breezy. We filled in the form and declared that we brought Maggi and what nots. The immigration dude, quickly call us to the counter. It was a delight because 1) we skipped the frickin long queue of the 'Nothing to declare' and 2) the immigration dude is cute guy who could be an extra in Neighbours called John.

John 'intterogated us' - "is this your bag?" "yes (silly)" "did you pack it yourself?" "of course (duhhh)" "you know what's in your bag?""yes (apa ke hal dia ni?)", then he rummaged thru our bags. I'm disappointed that he didn't even ask about the pack of Maggi Ayam. I was prepared to dazzle him with my expertise of it's ingredient (having consumed the miracle noodle since the age of 5). Ok, all done.

Welcome to Sydney. G'day! Cheers.

As I was pulling my bag to look for the train to the city, I wander why did he ask such questions. Then it dawn to me... oh right, in case he suddenly find drugs in my bag, I can't go around acting.. errr.. this is not my bag. I didn't put it there. I don't know how I put it there...

Right.. here's the train to the city. We need to take this train and stop at King's Cross and walk to our hotel in Potts Point. The name sound lovely. Already liking it. Only to discover, celaka there's so many lines and reading the train network is like deciphering Da Vinci's Code... in ancient sanskrit (not that I know modern Sanskrit any better). Finally after going up and down, hi and lo, we arrived at King's Cross. The hotel is a 10 minute walk from the station. Jangan tertipu bila dia kata 10 minute walk. Aparently mereka tak begitu paham dengan perumpamaan dekat sekakang kera.. sebab sebenarnya mereka maksudkan jauh nak mampus atau jauh bergenat kaki boleh patah. I shall give more examples shortly. Anyway, the walk was not that bad, it's just that we're not familiar with the place and tangan dah nak patah tarik bag aku (yang in it's previous life was a 1000 pound baby elephant)

But seriously, Potts Point is a lovely place. Maybe this is where the gay and the yuppies live in Sydney. It has loads of apartments and posh restaurants, intellectual looking bookshop, flower shop, streets lined with maple trees, and bakeries that is run by Australian Rachel Ray equivalents. But just down the road is Kings Cross full of bars and strip club. Who wouldn't want to live here.

So we checked into the hotel. It's small but at least it has everything. Oppoosite it is a supermarket - Woolworth. This hotel/apartment was recomended by my team mate who went to Sydney for his honeymoon. (Thanks dude!)

After menghilangkan penat bak kata orang Melayu, we are ready to do some shopping. So my sister had surf the net and decided we must check out the factory outlet called Birkenhead Point (supposedly by a river) and an outlet somewhere called Homebush. We checked with the guy at the reception. He suggested for us to check out Darling Harbour and go to Paddy's Market. According to him, it's not very far from our hotel. We can get to the harbour (where the Sydney Opera house is), by going straight... go down 'whatsisname staircase' and turn right...another walk, then another 'whatsisname staircase - just 100 steps', go thru the Botanical Garden... just 15 minutes and boom you're at the Harbour. Lovely walk he said. Lovely as in you may die in this journey, but if you die, you will die happy (note again of their understanding of dekat and jauh nak mampus compared to Malaysian. Benci aku). I just smiled and said oh we want to go to Birkenhead Point (besides he already had lost me at the first 'whatsisname' staircase). He was not really sure which bus that will stop at the place, but after consulting his map, he gave us the alleged bus number and printed a copy of the map for us. How nice.

Off we went. We took the train again and stop at QVB. And walked outside to find our bearing. It started to rain. Cis. We stood at the corner of whatsisname and whatsisname street,and (as a Kelantanese might say) we waited waited, but the bus dideng come. Akak sudah mahu meroyan. Tanya semua orang, semua orang tak tahu. Kakak aku pulak sudah melakonkan watak Stamford Raffle nak berdiri terpacak dalam hujan tapi tak nak bertanya. Akhirnya.. we decided that we should grab a bite and clear our minds. After makan, we walked the road, ke atas.. ke bawah.. haram pun takde bas no brp tah tu lalu. So we walked all over the place Someone said we should go to Circular Quay coz that's where all the buses will stop. But after walking like eons, we decided to take whatever bus number because we're tired walking. The bus went on the Harbour Bridge. Ha jangan marah, dah naik pun aku Harbour Bridge. Suddenly we were scared coz we don't know where we're going, so we got off the next stop which is at a train station. Asked the folks at the station how to get to Birkenhead Point, they said you have to take the ferry. We were puzzled. Took the train to go back to QVB. The train went on the Harbour Bridge as well. Ha 2 kali aku naik Harbour Bridge. Stopped at QVB and went out another exit and suddenly find ourselves, on a street that has a bus stop which has a bus that we were looking for. Ya rabbi dah dekat 2 jam pusing area ni macam orang gila. So we waited with a throng of school kids. Seronok pulak tengok uniform depa yang cool. The bus came, we were tired yet happy. Finally.

About 10 minutes on the bus, we finally saw Birkenhead Point on our right. Ok, so now we just need to wait for the bus to make a right turn then we will stop. Ho Ho Ho. The bus went straight. So we thought.. ok maybe it will double back and go on the other side of the road. Ho Ho Ho lagi. It went straight for the next 1 hour and suddenly we find ourselves in Paramatta. It's like, you want to go to Petaling Street but you ended up in Westport in Klang. We are trully, madly, deeply - LOST. Well, I do enjoy the ride... get to see their houses, school, a few universities but right.. what the hell are we going to do now? Luckily the last stop was at the Paramatta train station. So we boarded the train again back to Sydney. Nasib beli all day pass. Macam-macam jenis train dah naik hari ni. Yang 3 tingkat, yang 2 tingat, yang buruk, yang ada toilet, semua aku dah naik. Sudahnya, first day, satu hapak pun tak buat kecuali jalan-jalan naik train and bus keliling Sydney suburb. Penatnya toksah cerita la. Tapi posing tetap posing dalam train nak balik Sydney. Balik terus tido. Esoknya pulak...(to be continued)