Grampians

love these film shots taken by kenneth. ♥ ♥ ♥

so during the september holidays, we all went to grampians for a day trip. to be honest, i didn't expect that so much climbing/hiking would be involved. hence, the super inappropriate attire. nevertheless, i still managed to hike to the top without getting injured. of course, it wouldn't be possible without help from the boys. it was dangerous!

we had a picnic on a huge rock right beside a waterfall for lunch. the experience was amazing! we were munching on sandwiches, potato salad, cupcakes, grape and cheese crackers, while sipping red wine right in the middle of nature. this is the life.

we were literally freezing in the cold, no joke. but we persevered and sat on the rocks for almost an hour waiting for sunset... it was worth it.

isn't this beautiful!!! it totally reminded us of the movie, jurassic park. to me, that was the best part of the day. absolute silence, breathtaking view, great company, and the freshest air. ahhh!

by nightfall, we started to make our way back to the city. it was a long long drive, and as usual everyone was well asleep. after an hour nap, we all woke up to a stunning night sky.

i have never seen so many stars in my life! the photos don't do them justice. i was really in awe. i couldn't take my eyes off them. we could actually see the milky way, how cool is that! really unforgettable. :)

一路向北

this photo was taken 2 months ago at murray regions. that was my first road trip and my first time hanging out with the ZH group. since then, i've been meeting them every single weekend. they are such an awesome bunch to hang out with. they made my supposedly stressful last semester the best semester throughout my uni life.

we kayaked along murray river on the first day, it was a very peaceful and relaxing 2 hours, despite the cold freezing waters. thank god i didn't get wet, though one of us fell into the water! thereafter, we went to safeway and big w. bought tons of food and equipments for our barbecue, which only started at 10pm. we stayed in a 2 bedroom apartment which was rather new, clean and cosy. if only we didn't have school on monday, i'm sure an extra day will be well spent on the facilities provided such as the huge ass trampoline, the playground, etc.

had a massive late night drinking session after the barbecue, and yet some were up really early the next morning to prepare breakfast. this group is filled with chefs. we had a spread for both meals, it was enough to keep us full till our chinese dinner at boxhill. visited a few wineries - wine, cheese, nuts and salad dressing tasting, and off we drove back to melbourne!

In Case You Were Wondering...

i'm alive.

can't believe that i have been so busy since i came back to melbourne.

awesome 5 days ski trip up in falls creek, first week of school madness, yummy korean dinner at 7&7, late nights due to korean drama IRIS, regular weekly revision of lectures and tutorials, sunday brunch with the clique, first ever footy match, job/intern applications, etc.

to add to the list, i'm going to Murray Regions tomorrow. oh wait, in 7 hours time! just a night stay, but we'll be kayaking/canoeing, cycling and having a good old aussie BBQ!

Best Easter Break

at the nobbies on phillip island

With Our Rented Car

finally a day at home. need to rest and charge up my energy for the party tomorrow night. i'm so excited. pamplemousse at dempsey looks so beautiful, i can't wait to dine there, and i'm gonna go butter factory for the very first time!

so now, back to melbourne... this was during the september 2 weeks break. we decided to rent a car and drive up to dandenong mountains for a day. just to get out of the city that we're always in, and to have fun of course! thank god for ming de who is above 21 and has a driving license, if not we'll never be able to rent a car.
we kinda spent 2 hours traveling there as we got lost in the suburbs. thanks for google maps on our iphones and bbs. first stop on the mountains was pie in the sky, a place that sells very awesome pies, both sweet and savory. i had apple pie, while the rest had meat pies. they also sell so many other types of desserts! wait, never try the chocolate and caramel spider. spiders only taste good with fruits.

thereafter, we went up to sky high mount dandenong, i drove up there from pie in the sky. we were really high up that we could see the city from there. spot our flashy bright blue car that we rented.

we basically spent our time there walking and fooling around, enjoying the view and taking pictures!

drove down to miss marples, in hope of getting a table. sadly, they were fully booked and we had to wait for another 30 minutes. we couldn't do it as we had to return the car by 5pm. despite not having miss marples, we were still late in returning the car.

on our ride back! one driving, two sleeping, and me, camwhoring. :)

Sliding Down Snow

finally back to this page after a very long time. have been rather occupied with school- tutorials, assignments and mid-semester tests. can't wait for the upcoming week to end, cause it will be our 2 weeks mid-semster break. lots of activities planned, and i'm going to GOLD COAST. :)

here's some pictures of my trip to falls creek with the gang. much much more up on facebook, so go check it out. it has been exactly one month since we were there, but we still can't forget how much we enjoyed ourselves up there. it was a 3D2N stay, took the 5 hours coach up on friday 9am and took it down on sunday 5pm.

we didn't manage to do any skiing on the first day, since the ski lifts closes at 5pm. so we spent our afternoon touring falls creek, looking for food places, and enquiring about the day passes, ski lessons and skiing routes. night came really fast, and we had our dinner at a japanese restaurant. i swear, we had so much fun and trouble walking through the snow in the freezing weather at night. it was so tiring and cold that my chest hurt so much and i felt that i couldn't breathe. on the other hand, jonny was doing some stunts by walking in that crazy weather topless! our nights always end with cranium board game, girls vs guys. laughter-filled room.

we started day 2 with lessons! :) kimmy, rachel and i went for ski lessons for 1.5 hours, while jonny and merrie did snow boarding lessons. skiing is actually very easy to pick up, especially if you start young. there were so many 2-3 year olds learning how to ski, and some even did skiing and snowboarding stunts, like jumping off slopes, so crazy man. i was in utter shock!

so cute how there's a mini stall selling hot dogs and snacks on the ski routes. so we skied down half way, took a break and had our lunch there. our instructor said that the basic ski routes are not easy, and suggested that we take another lesson before trying them. despite that, we still went ahead to drovers range. true enough, the slope was really steep and i had my first fall there, it was quite painful.

i really love the view up there. everything's so white and wide, really beautiful. our favourite ski route was wombat's ramble, and i love that so much. really had lots of fun once i started to get the hang of it. doing the big and small S really helps a lot. :)

ski lifts were great. especially when we just finished a long and tiring route, it was always nice to sit down and admire the view from above. we all had thoughts of the cable snapping, but none of us dare to talk about it. cause if it ever broke, we wouldn't be able to stop ourselves from sliding down the slopes since we had our skis on. we would die.

whenever we're doing wombat's ramble, we would all wait at the bottom for everyone to arrive. i think we were waiting for merrie, when kimmy and i decided to make a snowman. jonny and rachel was too tired and uninterested to help us out. anyways, the snowman turned out fine. any cooler snowman than this?

day 2 in falls creek ended with jonny breaking his wrist while snowboarding. the snow 'ambulance' found jonny lying in the snow and sent him straight to the medical center. we all got changed out of our so-hard-to-walk-in ski boots and met him there. spent like 2 hours waiting for him to have his cast put on. poor jonny, he enjoyed snow boarding so much. had dinner in our lodge and played usual cranium to end the night.

oh, and they had night skiing on saturdays. but we were too tired to try it. if not i bet it'll be loads of fun.

on day 3, only rachel, kimmy and i skied. the snowboarders were all so tired and un-fit to continue. the 3 of us had lots of fun, we tried out new routes and we skied over and over again. i challenged myself to go for one intermediate course, and i did it! no falls or anything. lots of concentration involved though, and without kimmy's guidance i guess i wouldn't be able to make it to the bottom. :)

we stopped skiing at 3pm as we had to catch our coach back to the city. we would love to continue skiing and extend out stay. but for obvious reasons (school), we couldn't. by the way, our lodge was bad. please don't ever stay at snowdrif lodge, there's plenty out there which are much better. we can only blame ourselves for not doing our bookings earlier, beggars can't be choosers.

okay, i'm going to enjoy my chicken herbal soup and sambal fish for dinner now. dinners won't be boring anymore, cause JUNIOR MASTERCHEF is back tonight! yes, it is. :)