Aussie trip day 1 – 10th May 2014 – Hobart, Tasmania

After taking a long flight from Singapore to Melbourne and a short flight from Melbourne to Hobart, I finally reached the Hobart Airport at 11.05am. When entering the airport building, all passengers were welcomed by the quarantine officer and a Tasmanian sniffer dog by his side. It was such a big size dog. It sniffed every passenger’s hand bag or back pack that they brought in.

Welcome to Hobart :)

If you’d never heard it before, “Tasmania had some of the world's most stringent quarantine regulations. Strict quarantine requirements were in place to protect Tasmania’s plants, crops and animal industries from introduced pests and diseases. The introduction of a pest or disease into a production area could result in expensive controls being implemented and loss of markets, which could cost primary industries and the community millions of dollars.” – Source: Quarantine Tasmania Website

Therefore, you were not allowed to bring things such as: fresh fruit, vegetables, cut flowers, plants, native birds and wildlife, livestock/domestic animals, soil and plant sample, etc. If you did by mistake bring any of these items, you ought to pass them to the quarantine officer at the barrier checkpoint for inspection. If you didn’t, when the sniffer dogs detected these items, you might be fined A$130 on the spot.

After collecting my luggage, I called my friend informing them about my arrival and I took a cab to Zero Davey Boutique Apartment, a 4-star hotel situated right next to the Hobart’s historic port, with modern amenities inside. We rented two-bedroom apartment with a big living and dining room, big-size kitchen and two bathrooms, for five of us. The taxi trip took about 20 minutes to reach but it didn’t come cheap. I had to fork out about 50 bucks for that trip alone.

Finally I met up with my friends who arrived there the night before inside the apartment. They welcomed me with fruit amenities hehe… - cut fruits of pear and figs – that they purchased that morning at Salamanca Market before my arrival, and a cup of hot ginger and lemon tea. Thank you dear friends!

Salamance Market was a weekly outdoor market, held every Saturday, just about 5-minute walk from where we stayed. It signified the Tasmania’s unique culture showing off the original, hand-made Tasmanian local produced items from wood, stone, glass, etc. There were over 300 stalls selling those items plus offering the finest and fresh food products (fresh fruit, vegetables, cheese, honey, jam, etc.), talented artists with his/her creations, local children book-writer, and so on. It opened from 8.30am to 3pm.

Salamanca Market (some photos by Celipu)

Since I reached there on Saturday, I really wanted to visit this market. But I also knew that the rest of my friends had browsed around the area in the morning when I was still on my way there. They had already had another plan to visit another place too, which was Mt. Wellington. Perhaps Buddha knew what was in my mind and they had to cancel the trip to Mt Wellington due to the snowy road and cloudy weather on top and they let me to visit the other part of Salamanca Market that they hadn’t been to earlier. Lucky me! :)

But before heading there, we first had our reunion lunch at the Jackman and McRoss Bakeries at Battery Point. This place was also one of my wish lists to visit (die die must go!!!). I’d read the review before going there and they offered rich selections of mouthwatering pastries and desserts items inside the store. Again, my friends had kindly shared the same agreement to visit this place and to have our lunch there.

Mouthwatering food by Jackman and McRoss

We had to wait for a while before our turn as the place was fully booked. It was almost lunch time by the time we reached. The view outside the place was beautiful too. Oh, forgot to mention! It was autumn season – going to winter down there. Many places were decorated with red, yellow, brownish, and green leaves’ trees. Oh my!!! It was tremendously beautiful!! We were all very lucky to visit this place at the right time. It’s been many years I never experienced real autumn season in my life and I was very grateful for the chance given to all of us. Thank you, thank you, and thank you! :)

Three young kids enjoying their meals outdoor (Photo courtesy by SJ)

We ordered five different types of dishes with cup of hot Chai tea for me. Everyone enjoyed their food, including the three young kids who were sitting right in front of us but outdoor. The ambience was really great. We enjoyed it so much!! Before leaving the place, we purchased two kinds of desserts to be eaten later for dinner :)

Beautiful view at Princes Park (some photos by Celipu)

We continued our journey to Salamanca Market. But on the way there my friend, SJ, took the wrong way and we ended up stopping at the Princes Park. We took photos of the beautiful and colorful autumn leaves and had some dramatic photo directed by our photographer SJ. Hehe…

More photos from Salamanca Market ;)

Dada da da…. We’re finally in Salamanca Market! It was about 1.30 pm when we reached. We walked around until 2.45pm where the stalls were almost closed. I bought the Tasmanian wooden cheese knife (hohoho…. ^^), a beautiful Tiger’s eye stone’s bracelet (which I loved it so much!), and few post cards.

Next, we visited the Museum of Old and New Art (MONA). It was an art museum opened officially on 21 January 2011, located within the Moorilla winery on the Berriedale peninsula. It was the largest privately funded museum in Australia. The building appeared to be single-story appeared from the street level. But, its interior possessed a spiral staircase that led down to three larger levels of labyrinthine display spaces built into the side of the cliffs around the peninsula (source: Wikipedia.org).

Water Words - One of the arts - Check out the walls!

Admission ticket was A$20 per person. The museum housed over 400 artistic works from David Walsh’s private collection consisting of antiquities, modern and contemporary art. And before starting, we collected the iPhone-like device called the O, where we could read the information regarding the art on display (the device could automatically detect the nearby art for us to choose) and listen the interview with the artists. It was a highly usable interface device, the first system in the world designed to replace the traditional artwork wall labels (source: Mona.net.au).

Museum of Old and New Art - Hobart, Tasmania (Buddha's photo courtesy of SJ)

Let me tell you! Most of the art exhibitions displayed there were marvelous!!! We were all stunned by its existence. Sometimes we couldn’t imagine how people would be as creative, as meticulous, as talented, as intelligent, as innovative as them, creating such an exquisite creation, weird, funny, and so on. There were explanations behind every art they created. The above were few of my favorite arts displayed :)

Outer part of the museum

We left the museum with heart almost content (too bad we couldn’t enter the Mummy area as it was going to close soon). The view outside the MONA was simply delicate and wonderful too!!! Given a chance to go back to Hobart again next time, I would register myself to this place again, no doubt! Thumbs up everyone!!!

One of the arts displayed outdoor in MONA (Photo credit: SJ)

Btw, the above photo was one of the arts displayed outdoor. Acted by Mr and Mrs Tsang, directed by SJ :)

We browsed until about 5pm and went to Coles (supermarket) buying some food and liquor store buying a pair of Australian wines :) Once headed back to apartment, we started preparing our dinner led by our Chef cum driver cum tour leader cum planner cum many many posts more, Ms. SJ! Hahaha…

Our kitchen crews (Photo credit: SJ)

We cooked using the fresh vegetables and meat purchased in the Salamanca Market earlier this morning and voila!!! Here was our dinner: Sautee Spinach w/ Garlic, Rice Noodle w/ Sesame Oil and Soya Sauce, Fish Cake and Lobster Ball Soup, Stir Fried Beef w/ Vegetables (Broccoli, Trio Color Carrots, Jalapeno Chili, Shitake Mushroom, and Chili Padi) in Black Bean Sauce.

Home cooked meal using the freshest local ingredients :)

Uuuhh……. That was one of the great meals I’d ever had – as it derived from the very fresh local ingredients and cooked in a perfect taste! We ate until very full! Each of us took part helping in preparing and clearing the dishes.

After dinner, we just stayed put in the dining room and continued with the next session, which was: Cheese & Wine pairing session (plus dessert – Opera Cake – and fruits – grapes and orange – all were bought this afternoon). Today’s cheese: Tasmanian Heritage – Triple Cream Brie with Penfolds Koonunga Hill Shiraz Cabernet (red wine).

While having that, we chit chatting about many things in our lives until quite late. One by one finally took a bath and went to sleep, got ourselves ready for the next day. Thank you everyone for the first day of our trip – especially for accommodating to my need to visit some places. It all went well and the weather was good too: cold, a bit cloudy, and drizzling for just a while.

Home Sweet Home

Finally holiday was over! I came back to my own country yesterday evening. The first thing I did was to call my Mom, who was also inside the Changi Airport (going back to Jakarta from Singapore), but at Terminal 3 (Hubby and I were at the Terminal 1). Looked like she was having some accompanies there (some relatives flew back to Jakarta around that time too), that was why I didn’t insist to meet her. But you know what? She knew what’s inside our minds (hubby’s and mine).

We didn’t order food on our flights (both go and return) as to save some flight costs as per meal was charged at S$30 (for just a portion of – not so fresh – food). But I didn’t realize that it would be a longer journey when we returned and our metabolisms were different between morning and night time.

When we flew from Singapore to Melbourne, it was night time, so it was alright if we didn’t take any meal. However, we returned back to Singapore at 11am Melbourne’s time. Skipping lunch was neither fun nor a good idea. Our stomachs were grumbling all the time inside the airplane (our last meal was at 9am Melbourne’s time or 7am Singapore’s time – we both had McDonald’s for breakfast :D) and we only reached Singapore at 5pm (10 hours with no food).

Although I was sleeping when the food was being served to other passenger, I could still smell it and it arouse me, wanting me to have the real food rather than just smelling it. And while smelling it, my stomach kept grumbling. Oohh… poor me, couldn’t even have a nice sleep on the plane :( I kept drinking water provided freely to passengers and kept going to toilet to release it haha…

Hubby told me to have a meal first before going back home, which I completely agreed with his opinion! So, while still on the plane, I was asking him, “So dear, after being away from home for almost two weeks, what food will first come out from your mind to have once you reach Singapore?”, and before he even gave his answer, I prepared mine too. Guess what he said? He answered it instantaneously without thinking further, “Hainanese Chicken Rice.” Wow!!! I told him, that I too, was thinking the same hahaha… :)

Chicken rice (picture for illustration only)

Didn’t know we both think alike although usually we seldom ordered this when we had our meals together on weekend. We had a specific place to enjoy our favorite chicken rice, but it was located quite a distance, and that was why we always ordered other food and not this. But weirdly, that was what we both missed the most while we were away from Singapore!!!

And funnily, while on the phone, my Mom told me that before she went to the Airport, she made a detour to my house from my brother’s house as she wanted to see and meet up with my dear son, and she went there with four packets of chicken rice on her hands as she knew that it was my son’s favorite food!!! Lolx!!! Seemed like we both, the parents, were having our dreams came true!!! ^^

However, even after knowing that she bought the chicken rice for us, we still decided to have our meal first at the airport before going back home, because we both were too hungry to move (I also scared that my gastric would pain), especially after we looked at the super long queue for the Taxi.

My hubby chose the Airport Staff’s Cafetaria to eat, which was also opened for public (bypassing the ‘Burger King’ stall – as he had enough of western/junk food over there in Melbourne). But instead of ordering the chicken rice, as what we’d imagine at the airplane, we both ordered two different types of noodles: He ordered yong tao fu noodle soup, and I ordered my favorite mee rebus, plus a cup of teh-ping – Nyum nyum….. It melted and warmed my stomach right away (felt like never ate for days….)

Mee Rebus (picture for illustration only)

Oh my…!!! I miss Singapore food so much! And both noodle and drink cost less than S$5 (as what my sister who stayed in Melbourne had predicted), unlike in Australia, where all meal would cost at least AUD10 each, and that wasn’t including the drink ;)

So, after filling up our stomach with food and drink, we then went back home happily. Reaching the half-open house door, I shouted, “Hellloooo…..” I only heard a soft replied from inside, which was my son’s voice, “Hello”, but no shadow of him coming up to the door to welcome us. It puzzled me quite a while though. ‘Didn’t he miss us?’ I wondered.

When I entered into the house, I could see him sitting down in the dining room, enjoying his packet of Hainanese chicken rice with lots of chili, brought by his grandma, happily!!! He was smiling to us with his butt sticking to his chair, didn't even bother to get up and hug us. Lolx! A power or chicken rice for him!!!

State Library of Victoria

State Library of Victoria in Melbourne

I always fond of visiting library since I love reading books. But fifteen years ago, when I first visited this city, I'd never been aware about its existence. Therefore, I'd never stepped into this place before.

This time round, I had a greater interest to visit this place since Running Man members were shooting in Episode 191 to find the historical books that would transport them to the past, as part of the show. They were filming in the Dome reading area, which I found significantly beautiful.

If you see the photo above, that's the outside part of the library. I think it looks more like a museum rather than a library. Don't you agree? Therefore, this time round I tried my best to spare some of my time to visit this place.

So, despite the hectic schedule that I had, I finally managed to go and browse around some of the area.

It's such a huge place. If you walked into the library straight, you would see the above place (Level 2 - Ground). The library provided free wireless Internet access plus the power points so that people were able to work on their things using laptop conveniently.  Many students were seen doing their school's project, assignment, etc.

Redmond Barry reading room

At level 2A you would find the Redmond Barry reading room. It's big and bright. Many books could be found over there.

Once upon a time

At the same level, you could find a Cowen gallery with lots of paintings. On this day, there was a 'Once upon a time: a world of children's picture book art' exhibition, also at a Cowen gallery.

And the above photo was taken at Level 3, the Dome reading area. The green lamp gave an unique feature and more contrast color to this structure.

Various racks full of books collection filled the room. Oh my! It's such a pamper for everyone lived there! Especially those students who studied or lived nearby the area. Hope they could make use the facility to the fullest and enjoy reading many of their favorite books, or even finding some knowledge for their research study, project, assignments, and so on.

Dome at State Library of Victoria

But anyway, I was grateful enough to live in Singapore where there were so many libraries available, even in neighborhood area so that we didn't have to travel far just to borrow the books. It might not as big and as grand as in Melbourne, but the most important thing was that the book collections were up to date and available enough for people to borrow.

Now here, in this case, I'm very grateful too bring able to visit this marvelous place. It's such an eye opener to see how other country's library looked like. Click here if you want to get more information about the library above.

Blog readers, you may want to share too how the library looks like in your own country and hope you enjoyed reading this post! :)

Eyes and brain

The traditional proverb ever said, "The eyes are the window of the soul." But I would say, "The eyes are one of the parts of our body that absorb whatever we see and record it into our brains that others are unable to steal it. It's one of our treasure possession that we have to treasure." With it, I can see the incredible beauty in life.

I feel very grateful being able to travel to many places in my life. I've been seeing and witnessing many things that happen around the world. It always amazes me how people, plants, animals, language,  culture, buildings' structures, etc. are very different from one country to another. And 'Airport' has played lots of magic in my life. It transported me from one place to another within hours of journey. When I land, I have reached another place already. It always gives me surprise and wonders. I never stop saying "WOW!!!" when I reach the destination.

Yesterday my sis, her elder son, my hubby and I had a one night journey to Phillip Island, about 3 hours drive from her house. Well, when they said going to see Penguins, hmmm... I thought, I saw it before in Singapore Zoo. So, well, let's see how it looked like.

After browsing three other places, we finally reached the Penguin Parade area in the evening time, witnessing the sunset until the sky turned into the dark. We sat down in stage alike position, just in front of the beach. We had to pay AUD23.80 per pax in order to see it. And the best thing was, no photograph or video taking were allowed as it would scared the penguins. So we purely had to depend on our eyes and brain to see and record the whole process and couldn't share it to others.

Well, my first impression when we had to pay the money was - 'What??? It's supposed to be natural things to see penguins to return back to its burrows, and why we had to be charged for that?' But the staff had explained that these penguins were about to extinct in many years to come. They were there to protect them, take care of them and that's why we were charged just to see them.

Hmmm.. When I saw it myself how the group of penguins were returning from the sea back to the land, I admitted that they were all very cute and if they weren't protected, as the staff had just said, it would soon vanish from this island as people would kidnap them one by one and brought them back home and make them into one of their pets since they were all too cute to be true!

We were all amazed with the way they walked, how they ran sometimes, how they were mating too sometimes when being caught hehe..., and it brought everyone at all ages, to love them, to like them. And you know what? When we looked up at the sky, we found another thing that amazed us, which were the stars! There were billions of it shining beautifully high in the sky!!! They were the other things that we couldn't capture their beauty using photograph. Therefore, our eyes were the only things that witnesses the greatness of the nature beauty, that couldn't be shared with others in form of photographs. I was like having 'double fortune' for watching the penguins and the stars.

But soon, the third fortune appeared when we drove to our apartment. We saw the big round, bright and beautiful moon looked very close to the earth. That was the other nature that only our eyes could see but couldn't be captured by our camera.

My sister was right. The moon here in Australia looked bigger than in country where we lived. The stars looked so much more and bright than what we usually saw in Singapore. Well, perhaps I was just lucky? But I was very grateful being able to experience and see all that by myself and I would always remember those moments within my brain. Thank you SB for everything! Thank you, thank you, and thank you. And since no photograph was allowed or being able to be captured, no photos posted here ^^ Hope all of you have a great weekend!

A piece post from Tassie

Time flies. It's been 5th day I'm in Australia. Right now we're still at Tasmania. It's our last night being together actually. I didn't buy any phone card to connect to Internet here and depend a lot only to free Wi-fi connection. There were days where there was no free Wi-fi available. That's why I didn't have chance to write or post any blog here.

However, I just want to drop by and post this photo. Actually this photo was sent by my hubby who joined a tour in Melbourne. He saw this on the tour bus. The woman in the picture was looked just like me. Hahaha.... I was laughing out loud looking at that and decided to post it here. Let me know your opinion, was it looking like me? :D