SC has been to Cairns. Have you?

SC has been to Cairns. Have you?*updated 15dec*

No prizes for guessing where I found the title. Its 1pm today and I'm risking being late for my 2-7pm dance practise for the musical by blogging about the Cairns trip now. The best thing is I'll have to dance with 4 merry blisters that look far from healing on my feet. May the good Lord give me strength so that I may dance for him =D


Nothing to do on 22 December? Why not come over and watch a musical at my church? I'll even have to dance -.- so you know what a rare occasion this is. Ask me if interested.


This will probably be my longest blogpost so far, so I'll probably take some time to complete sometime tonight/tomorrow. Now, before time starts running any later, let's get started!


Day 1 - Are we there yet?

I went to the airport with my family at around 5 if I remember correctly, and saw a few SCs at the foodcourt as well. It was supposed to be my family waiting for me to eat, but ended up the other way round since I was kind of full. So it was just waiting until all have gathered, people got their boarding passes and we all said quick goodbyes. Nobody shed any tears, at least I didn't see any.

Switched seats with Sara and ended up with a stranger sitting beside me. Oh well, at least I got the aisle seat, and the lady was pretty nice. The plane trip was booooooring and slow as always, most of the entertainment coming from staring blankly on the tiny bite-sized screen that also seemed to be looking straight back.

We were all glad to get out of the plane and finally stretch our legs, before getting on yet again another transit flight to Cairns from Sydney. Everyone suddenly somehow formed groups and the omni-present poker cards finally emerged from various bags. I only remember playing a few games, like Tong Wei's MRT station card game, Cheat and Idiot. So time decided to give us a break and moved a little faster than usual, allowing us to board the plane before we started to get realllllly restless.

I slept on the second flight through most of the way, and the moment we passed the Customs at Cairns, guess who/what greeted us? I'll give you a clue. What does a camera in DHS usually hang in front of?

Mr Yeo! A few were kind of surprised, because he told some people that he couldn't get a ticket, but that seems like a very Mr Yeo thing to do. Oh well. Now we know that we'll definitely have pictures.

The second thing that greeted us wasn't a "who", but a "what". When we stepped out of the Airport, people did not hestitate to remove their jackets. It was hot enough to fry a whole supermarket warehouse, let alone a group of SCs. I quickly loaded my bag into the coach's luggage compartment and rush up into the coach to feel the relieving... Wait. Sir, are you sure the air-conditioning is on? Or is that piece of plastic up there just for fun? I couldn't feel a single wheeze of pathetic air from the aircon in the bus.

Tolerance is a virtue (I think), so I tried to ignore the fact that we were in a 30 degree environment. Cheng Qian Confucius say: 心静自然凉。On the way, auntie Angela was telling us that we were staying "not in a hotel, but a ho-stel, S for Simple." If simple meant no aircon, I swore I would've murdered somebody on the bus by then.

Fortunately (for both me and potential victims), the bus ride was short and we soon found the crucial piece of metal attached on the wall in our room.

-will be continued ASAP after my blisters get worse from 5 hours of dancing







-make that 7


So we started to UNPACK - Un-Nicely Pile All Carried (insert synonym of luggage starting with K. Kargo?)

After we explored the hostel and confirmed our worst fears that we could do nothing more than swim in the pool for entertainment, it was off the the one and only shopping centre that we went to for lunch - Cairns Central! A large group of us went to get Subway for lunch because we wanted to walk around and have a look.

Soon after, we assembled and started a small amazing race, breaking up into groups of three. We actually had a original group of 6, so we decided to just simply walked together, and laughed at the people running ahead to the first stop. It was a 10 minute stroll to the lagoon swimming pool, which was really really cool. In more ways than one.

I got wet after getting the rock out from the pool and recieved our next clue. We waited for the other group once again before spending a grand total of 30 minutes before getting to the next stop, which happened to be a long 600m approx away. How tiring.

The next one was the killer. We asked a man where the anchor (which was what we were supposed to find). He turned us the directly opposite way and wasted about another 30 minutes, and even after we turned back, we overshot and wasted another total of 30 minutes before finally finding it. Picture will be uploaded ASAP to show how tired we were.

Our group was late for the Reef Teach talk because we spent too much time walking in wrong directions. It was pretty okay, but nothing special so I'll just stop wasting time.


Day 2 - Jack, I'm flying!

We woke up quite early the next day to a simple breakfast of cereal and juice, as we wanted to avoid being sea-sick. Yes, we went out to sea. Yes, it was for snorkelling. No, the boat is not named Titanic.

The boat ride was soooooo fun. Almost all of us went out on the front deck and the sea breeze never felt so good. A sunburn wouldn't stop any of us from staying outside to feel the sky, sun and sea. Pictures were, once again, taken in excess. The ride ended to our slight dismay, but we were about to get an experience for life.

We were given some tips for snorkelling, and fitted with gear. I think I was the most mafan person there, because the flippers were just too small. But anyway, it wasn't long before we jumped into the ocean and...

Wow.

I looked below and was so shocked I almost breathed through my nose instead of my mouth. The ocean was so deep and you could see the fishes all right in front of you, all within arm's reach. The next few hours went by easily, marvelling at the sights that the reef had to provide, what with giant Parrotfish, "nemos" and reef sharks, along with a rainbow array of corals that all looked different yet were bunched so tightly you couldn't tell the difference.

The only reason people wanted to leave was because alot of us were getting seasick (Lucky me. I was safe.) I was kind of tired on the way back, so I plugged into my phone and slept through the whole thing back. The only thing that I saw was 4 salted fishes lying on the front of the boat.

-to be continued yet again





-like right about now

If I remember correctly, we returned to the Night Markets yet again, and had the Fish & Chips there for our dinner. It was surprisingly disappointing, with even the Chips having more taste than the fish itself. You could see most of us going back to the stall to get more sauce for the bland fish.

I was asking Jia Teck whether he wanted to go buy some drinks and food from Woolworths (Try saying that 5 times quickly), which is a supermarket, nearby. I waited for him to finish up his food and we went there to get a few bottles of drinks and the famed TimTams!

Day 3 - Come out, we won't eat you.

We woke up a little later this day, since the places we were going weren't as far as the Great Barrier Reef. It was a bus ride to Kuranda and an hour plus of souvenier shopping. It was quite a nice place to be at, with a relaxed, homey kind of feel to the place. That feeling made you feel just perfectly comfortable to be there. Except for the price of drinks.

I didn't pick much up, and mostly window-shopped through the whole thing. I still remember some things from that place, like how we thought there was actually a petting zoo, the fake snake box, the funny funny statue that we took so many photos with, and how my hand was strangely just as smooth as Ms Yeo's after she went do the free hand scrub.

We met up later at the meeting place and our first stop was the koala park. It's kind of weird though, since I only saw koalas once, but anyway. The crocodiles weren't all that special, since they're seen in almost every zoo. The snake cage was quite cool, seeing as to how they actually are allowed to climb anywhere, and they actually were no less than 1 metre away from us, for those who remember the snake who went on top of the small display cage.

We were also quite lucky as the koalas happened to be awake for a short moment when we were there, allowing for some photos of them while they were moving. I make it sound like a big thing, but hey, they're only awake three hours a day. But still, the most amazing, enchanted (no, I didn't pick this word on purpose) experience there was the wallabies.

There was an area where you were allowed to enter and had an unlimited supply of wallaby food from a bucket, and you just fed them if you like. I took a handful, crawled to a spot where there were 20 wallabies at least crowding up to hide in the shade, and reached out. Then I waited. Waited. Waited. Ignored the smell. Waited. Waited. I was a little tired, but refused to give up. It was after some time when one sleepy little wallaby hopped over and curiously sniffed at my hand, before slowly chewing them up piece by piece (The food, not my hand). I was delighted, and let him continue, patting him happily.

That moment was good enough for me, but for Jia Teck, it was a whole new life altogether. He was one of the first to feed the wallabies, and picked one young one to start with. I was watching him earlier, but decided to try it out for myself. After some time when I returned, I found Jia Teck sitting right beside the wallaby, feeding 2 at the same time. He looked just like them.

After that, we went to some river cruise cum tour on a boat, which was frankly boring, with most of us sleeping on the way back. The only interesting part was how much the driver looked like Sean Connery, and boy was he proud of it.

The lunch at the cafe was okay, and I watched as Iris and Shuqi got their comical caricature done. Come to think of it, I should have gotten one for myself too. It looked really cool when it was completed. Oh well.

The next stop after that was the Skyrail. This was probably the craziest part of the day. It started with them asking us to split into groups of 6 for each cable car. Gillian, Sara, Tong Wei, Jia Teck and me were talking to each other about the Aussie slang book (heh heh) and we formed a group of 5. We needed one adult (I think) and we happened to be actually considered children and paid half price. So we got Xingqi to be our "adult" for the ride.

This is where the fun starts. Xingqi was mocking at how we were considered Children while he's already a full grown Adult, while we fought back saying that we only had to pay half the price (Although all costs were covered by the tour, but who cares). It was after a short while when we started calling Xingqi our father, who happened to be taking his 5 children out to the Skyrail.

Bam, and there you have it. A family of 6 born in a skyrail just like that. Xingqi the father, Gillian the oldest, followed by me, Tong Wei, Sara then our youngest sister/brother, Jia Teck. The rest of the ride was simply crazy fun as we screamed at every interval when the Skyrail made loud noises, took a few family group photos, and coming up with a failure of a ghost story.

I guess we all felt quite sad (well not really) about the ride ending, but were rewarded with a spectacular view of Cairns as we descended towards the bottom. When we landed, the attendant there told us to smile as there was a camera that will take a picture of us in the Cable Car. Thus, at a price of $10 each, our true blue official 全家福 was printed born.

-stopping here again on 15 dec 10:39