The Joys (... and Woes) of Holidays

My 2.5 week term break ended last week.

Here's roughly what I did during my holidays.

1. Slack! Haha! I didn't really have that much homework during the holidays. Very little, compared to the last four years. Yea! NO compulsory chinese book to read last minute! NO yue du bao gao (chinese book review)! NO essays! NO past year papers! NO projects!

2. Went to Swan Valley and Caversham Wildlife Park. My dad come over for a week! So together my mum, my grandma, my cousin-in-law and my niece we drove to Swan Valley. Went to the Margaret Factory Chocolate Factory, had truffles and hot chocolate, and sampled the FREE Dark, White and Milk chocolate pellets. There were huge bowls of those stuff and you probably take as much as you want. The hot chocolate is really just warm milk with melted chocolate pellets. I could literally see the milk chocolate pellets melt - I saw a brown precipitate in a white solution dissolve to form a choco-brown (duh!) solution! Okayy, enough of chemistry... wahah.

So anyway, we went to the Caversham Wildlife Park and after going up close and personal (I actually got to go fed the kangaroos and pat a koala and a wombat!) with the Aussie Native Animals, I've come to a conclusion: There must be something sedative (probably eucalypt oil) in the Aussie plants, because ALL the native animals are super super stoned, especially in the afternoons! The kangaroos just sprawl on the dry grounds and bask in the sunshine (well, not really... some of them much prefer the shade).

See what I mean?

They're lazy and hardly move and are probably too well-fed, cause some of them even rejected the food that I brought near their mouths. But some did eat, though rather nonchalantly, almost as if they were royalty being presented food by their servants - though I'm sure that even royalty DO in fact fed themselves and are definitely less pampered than these kangaroos! Also, the huge wombat just sat on the lap of one of the staff and never flinched or reacted to the many pats and tickles from the visitors. It just sat there like a shao ye.

More pics:

Three funny incidents took place at the 'farm' which is the part where the non-native animals are housed.

i. The horse snorted on me! I could feel the sticky, gluey, viscous, slippery substance that consists chiefly of mucin, water, cells, and inorganic salts (i.e. MUCUS!) on my foot! This was not really funny... it was GROSS!

ii. The camel squirmed when we tickled its belly! It was quite a hilarious experience seeing the camel's stomach (i think) literally flutter. But after a while, it got used to it and no longer quivered.

iii. Have you heard a real sheep go "BAAAAAA"? The one I heard at the park sounded so OFF! It sounded croaky and low-pitched. My dad and I both agreed that the sheep didn't sound right at all. My dad said, "It sounds like a human male doing a very poor imitation of a sheep." It's true.

This brings to mind Andy Roddick's appearance on the The Weakest Link. [Jam and Dra, you two should remember this! We had a blast! And the other tennis videos!] By the way, The Weakest Link was my favourite show in London in Dec 2000!! I used to enjoy doing Anne Robinson's "You are the weakest link. *wink* Goodbye!"

Here you go!


3. Went to Kosmic and Park Pianos. But the stuff there (especially the music books) are so expensive! A music book which will cost about SGD25 at Kino in Singapore costs about AUD40+!! Almost double the price!! Needless to say, I didn't get anything. Although my dad did - he bought some device that records guitar stuff directly onto the computer.

4. Did a whee bit of shopping. Bought 3 black jackets (presumably for winter) from Myers. Cool eh? Here's a catch: I can only choose one. Cause they have 20% off, ON TOP of another 20% discount and I couldn't decide on which one to get, so my aunt suggested I bought all 3 first, at the discounted price, then I'll return the other two after I've made up my mind. Not surprisingly, I have YET to decide...

5. Went to King's Park on Good Friday (okay.. this was a LONG time ago but I thought it was worth a mention, cause it signalled the beginning of the term break which has now ended). Had a picnic there and all. The person who was supposed to pick me up was late, cause he and his friends decided to drive to Mandurah (about 45 mins away) to watch the sunrise at the totally sensible hour of 4 am! *dots* One of friends who was driving almost crashed the car. -.-"" To think that they are actually older than me! haha. Plus, they had many exchanges of rubbish rants and illogical arguments much like what Jam and I used to do, but much more!

6. Bake! n Cook! I bet, you don't believe it right? I helped to make cookies, cakes, kaya and pau-s! I knead the dough for pau for like forever. It takes hard work, okay? You can get biceps just from cooking and baking regularly. Here's a picture of some of the fruits of my labour:

7. Recognise my way around. Now I know how to find my way round to Victoria Park, the City, South Perth!

Things I didn't do:

1. Make rain fall. Even till now, it has been raining quite a lot. Quite a lot for Perth's standards anyway. It has been raining everyday for the past few days! I got caught in the rain for the 1st time last sunday evening. Unlike in Singapore, where my must-haves in my bag before I go out are: water bottle, wallet, handphone, EZ-link card AND umbrella (well.. if i remember bring those things... haha), I never carry an umbrella in my bag over here. So I had to share umbrella with a cellmate. Not that it mattered anyway, cause the winds were so strong, that they rendered an umbrella useless. It's gonna continue to rain for the next few days... Plus, it's getting colder too...

2. Go out during ANZAC (Australia and New Zealand Army Corp) Day on wednesday. All shops in the city were closed except for some cafes and restaurants, mostly which were owned by chinese. There were so many people queueing up at the restaurants, so we all decided to give up and went home for lunch! So public holidays here aren't that much fun.
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Even as college started on monday, I felt ready to go back to college. At least, I wasn't dreading school or anything. In fact, I didn't mind returning to college at all! Well... there was (and is) one thing that I kinda mind about my college now - it's too crowded! No offense to the April-start students, but there's just too many people at college now! In the ISO, there's lots of people; in the canteen, there's lots of people; in the library, there's lots of people, along the walkways, there's lots of people. Now, the fridge in the ISO is almost completely filled! In term 1, only the 1st few racks in the fridge were filled. Plus, there's always such a considerably long queue at the microwaves. AIYO! Oh, how i miss the 'old' college!

P.S.: I rigged the date so that this post wouldn't seem as belated as it actually is