Last weekend, Mr. Navigator and I had a sort of last minute 2 days 1 night trip to an island in Aussie named Phillip - Phillip Island!!

Phillip Island is famous for it's wildlife and nature, especially the Penguins Parade where you'll get to see Australian Little Penguins (the smallest penguin in the world) returning from fishing the whole day (will talk more about this later in the post). This island is a really quite town, and when I say really quite, I meant ghost town! Well, ghostly till summer comes anyway... The lady from the information centre said that during summer, Phillip Island will be uber packed to a point the island will sink! Ok, I exaggerated the sinking part, but you guys get what I meant, right? So, if you do plan to go visit that island during the summer, be sure to book your accommodation and tickets to parks like Penguins Parade, Koala Conservation Centre, Wildlife park and so on...

So on Friday morning, we started our adventurous trip (you'll see why) at 6am! Washed up, blah blah blah and walked to the train station to catch the train to Stony Point station and from there, got on a ferry to Philip Island.

It was bright and sunny that day, but don't be deceived by the picture below! The wind was CRAAAAZZZYYY!!! So it wasn't warm AT ALL! I was shivering till my back hurt :( But the sun was still good :)

Once we arrived, we went to get Tetleon his doze of coffee and walked to the Information Centre to get some directions and also booked a shuttle bus to visit the Penguins Parade and also our entry ticket. Then off we went to check in at our backpackers - Chill House.
From the 2nd picture in the top collage, you can see that the outside of the backpackers didn't look so inviting. Haha But inside, I thought it was pretty ok. For $30 a night, you can't really ask for much. There's dorms for $30 a night and double room for $75 a night. Breakfast is included but its only the continental breakfast staff like cereal, milk, bread with butter/jam and milo, coffee and tea. But you're welcome to cook in the kitchen too. There's a BBQ pit you can use too. Toilet and bathroom is obviously shared. Oh and they have a pool table there to play with too!

1st stop, we went to A Maze N Things recommended by Lauren. We were lucky that the owner of Chill house, Bonnie was heading to the same place, so we hitched a ride there :) If not, it'll be 5km of Bus no.11 for the both of us, which means by walking.

The entrance of A Maze N Things. They also have a miniature golf there. It is basically a puzzle world. Things that puzzles your mind and cheats your eyes and make you think.

From the collage below, 1st picture was something about gravity, 2nd picture was me getting ready to take a leap slide of faith. It a really really steep slide, considered a high risk activity. But once you slide down, WOAH~~~ its like your heart literally drops down to your stomach. Really fun I tell you! The both of us, did a few times :) 3rd picture is the Illusion room where its like a mirror maze and you have to find your way out. 4th is also a gravity activity, 5th is a really lame treasure chest! We were stuck on it trying to open with the 2 keys provided only to find out that the way to open it is with the magnet in the keychain =.=' and the last picture is also actually suppose to be a game on the wheelchair, but we didn't find out how to operate it :)

This is what I call a cheapskate picture. See how we actually need to pay to get this picture :D

And I thought this was pretty cool...

The activity ends with a large maze outside. The challenge was, enter the maze and find 4 congratulation signs. There's 1 at every flag pole. I found 3 and Mr.Navigator who is suppose to be better than me in directions only found 2, and he cheated!

And this too. It was towards the exit of the place and entrance to the gift shop.. it'll look sooo much better and more realistic without that pink sign board on the right =.='

After A Maze N Things, next stop was to Phillip Island Wildlife Park. There's actually a Koala Conservation Centre right opposite A Maze N Things but I don't recommend to go now. I think they just built it, and there wasn't many koalas in there yet. Anyway, entrance fees is only $10, so you can still try. Think of it as donation for them to make the place a better home for the koalas. But I recommend the wildlife park more cause you pay $15, and you get to see more than just Koalas. And did I mention you get to feed the wallabies, kangaroos, wombats and birds too??

Now, the journey to the wildlife park was funny. We walked from A Maze N Things which was about 2.5km apart from the wildlife park, and so called Mr.Navigator got us lost a bit because he didn't want to listen to me when I said we were on the right track. =.=' Well, at least we didn't walk far towards the wrong direction, so not that tiring to backtrack.

These are some of the animals in the wildlife park.

Koala, Blue-winged Kookaburra, snakes, Echidnas, Birds of pray and Dingoes. The dingoes looked like normal dogs,cute and adorable but let me tell you, enter their enclosure and you're dead!

Kangaroos and Wallabies...

It was his 1st time seeing these cuties in real life, so he was kinda like a little boy again. Feeding and playing with them. And there were a few mother kangaroos carrying their joey in their pouch.

The highlight of my trip to the wildlife park... WOMBAT!!! sadly only spotted 1.. The rest must be in their borrows as they're supposedly nocturnal? But this 1 was roaming about so we fed him. Tetleon didn't know how a wombat looked like so he was like pointing at every other animal asking if it was a wombat. LOL

Wasn't it just ADORABLE?!?!?! But I have to admit, it was really dirty cause it was digging for food. And I finally managed to touch 1 :D BIG SMILES

Last stop of the day was the famous Penguin Parade. Be warned, please layer up before heading there. Its really windy and it's by the beach so it'll be freeezing cold! Like Tetleon's friend said, 'It'll freeze till your bones!' And he wasn't kidding...
And again, it was his 1st time experiencing this. This is my 3rd time. Well, not in Phillip Island but my 3rd time going penguin watching. My 1st and 2nd experience was about 3 years back in South Australia. My 1st experience was just plain bad! It was like a treasure hunt to see penguins. Totally a waste of money, we saw more possums than penguins =.=' 2nd time was not bad, it was funny actually. I got to see them returning from sea, walking up the shore and back to their borrows where their little chicks were calling out for them. And got chased by a baby penguin when I tried to take its picture. I so regret running away from it as I actually had the chance to touch it and not get caught! (we weren't allowed to touch them)

They say third time's a charm. And it was. This 3rd experience of penguin watch was the best! I wonder if my future experiences will beat this. We actually got to see at least 1000 of them returning from the sea, marching up the shore and back to their borrows. Literally like a penguin parade. You can hear their little footsteps going 'tak tak tak' on the wet grounds. Soooo adorable till I wanted to steal 1 home (at least 1)! The sad thing is, we weren't allowed to take pictures of them. But being naughty as usual, we took 1 :D

So why this was an adventurous trip was because of the 5km of walking to get to our destination and the experience we had on this trip. And while we were walking along the highway, the weather, was crazier than Melbourne. Every 5 minute it was rainy and sunny, rainy and sunny. Not to mention it was windy too!

The next day was just a slow day. Woke up got ready, checked out, walked to the town for lunch, roamed around till the ferry came and back to Stony Point where we actually stoned for 1 hour; catch the train back to frankston and back home... But it was a fun filled, animal filled, adventure filled, fruitful footful trip! Don't mind doing it again... :D

Phew~~ finally finished my novel. haha..

The continuation of my Superduperfanstasticalawesomelicious 21st Birthday! I had a 3 days birthday dinner celebration, started from friday (13th), all the way till Sunday. 3 separate dinner because I don't know and I can't entertain everyone if I invite all my friends to 1 single party. Too much for me to handle :)

Before I start on my 2nd and 3rd dinner, lets recap on my Superduperfantasticalawesomelicious Friday the 13th of August :)

Right, so on my 2nd dinner, it was at 1 of the restaurant in Crowns called Cantina Dell'Empirio. I googled it up and thought the price was not too bad. When we got there, I found out that it wasn't like a proper restaurant, more of a self-service kind of restaurant. You got to order your food at the counter and wait for your number to be called. It was a pretty busy night at that restaurant as well as the other 2 restaurants next to it (well, the other 2 were more packed).

These are the food some of the food we ordered that night.

From top left: Garlic & Herb bread, Grilled Sirloin with redwine sauce, Bacci, Seafood Platter and I can't remember what's the name of that dessert.

The menu doesn't have a wide variety of choices to choose from but hey, sometimes less choices is better right? And if you order their Grande Meal which costs $17.50, you'll get a main course with a glass of soft drink and coffee and a cake. And the portion is just nice I would say. Oh but I must say they have quite a few of alcohol beverages to choose from :)

After dinner, we had a last minute crazy idea to head down to St.Kilda area (the wind that night was crazzzzyy!!). When we were there, we stopped at Sans Churro for dessert.

The girls that night :)

And the boys that night (excuse me ^^ )

And that's everyone who were there for my 2nd dinner.

Thank you again for coming!!! :D

After the sweeet hot chocolates, we headed down to the beach area and walked all the way to the pier leading towards the Little Blue Restaurant at the end of the pier.

It was soooo windy that ChristopherTeo came up with the Tritanic idea...

See how strong the wind is?

That's the end of the 2nd day. Now on to the 3rd day :)

Before my 3rd dinner, Maekhoo and I finally went to church after god knows how long (well, that actually just applies to me, coz she's been twice since she came, hehe ) Keith was sooo kind to come all the way from Boxhill to fetch us there and back. And I have to say, it does feel nice to finally be in church again (don't ask me why).

Keith joined us for dinner after church. Waited for Daniel to come over around 8.30pm and went to South Morang to rent a DVD. We got Law of Abiding Citizen and it was really good (though I don't like Gerard Butler). After renting, we stopped by at an Indian take-away restaurant to get our dinner. I got each of them to order 1 dish each.

Here's our yummy Indian dinner. It was good :)

After the movie and dinner, Daniel had to leave for work. So we had a lil camwhore session before he left..

I personally love this picture!

Its like Maekhoo's boring Keith!

Yes! I still got my sneaky candid shot skills. Without all the drinking sessions at NiniekSugiartiNiniek's place, I haven't been taking or recording anything funny and embarrassing :(

And no one can leave till we snap a group picture :)

Oh.... and we spammed on Polaroid pictures too! Unfortunately, I'm short of 2 more shots to make it 21 polaroid birthday picture :( But nevertheless, I had tons of fun! Still wished my family was here to celebrate with me though.

Thats the end of my Superduperfanstasticalawesomelicious 21st Birthday. Gosh! I still can't believe I'm already 21.. sigh..

It was 13th last Friday. How was everyone's Friday the 13th? Anything interesting happened?

I had one hell of a time during that weekend. It was the Superduperfastasticalawesomelicious Friday the 13th of August! The day I get to celebrate and rejoice the day I officially turn TWENTY-ONE!!!

My Superduperfastasticalawesomelicious 21st kick started (well, more like bang-started) with loud bangs on the door when the clock stroke 12 in the middle of the night. And I was still planning on what to wear for my dinners and what to wear during the day, I was sort of half naked in my bedroom and also chatting with my parents online at the same time, so I panicked a little, didn't know what to put on before opening the door. Was like running, twist and turning around the room, trying to think straight and act fast while there were shouting and screaming outside my door, rushing me to open it.

By the time I opened the door, my roommates (Szu-Mei and Maekhoo) were holding my surprise cake with sparklers that were already burnt out. LOL! So I had to go back into my room, pretend like nothing happened while they light up the sparklers again and start banging on my door. This time, I thought of snapping a picture of them with the sparkled cake. When I grabbed my camera and snapped, the sparklers were almost all burnt out again and this was all I captured.

We headed to the kitchen, light up my cake for the third time! And quickly snapped a perfect shot.

Apparently Maekhoo baked these just in time to bang on my door at 12am, hoping and praying that I'll stay put in my room and not go into the kitchen. Haha... And they were yummy!! :D

After the whole sparklers chaos, we all went back to our rooms and went to bed. The next day, I met up with Mr. Navigator during the day. Did some touring. Went to the Shrine of Remembrance and walked around the Royal Botanical Garden. All the walking took us the whole day and soon it was time to head over to Universal at Lygon Street for my birthday dinner.

At around 515pm, we started heading towards Lygon. Whilst heading to the restaurant, we saw helicopters and about 7 to 10 flashing police cars along Lygon Street. Apparently 2 guys got shot just around 4plus! What a way to welcome me into the 21st year of my life.. LOL!!! Right, there's nothing to be happy about that.. now back to the topic...

I held my dinner at Universals. The same restaurant I went for Arif's Birthday a few weeks back. Like I said in my last post, the food here, is GREAT! And you don't have to burn a hole in your wallet to eat here. The prices are reasonable and the portions are big!

The picture above is what everyone had that night... The last picture is the best!! Pork Ribs and wings with salad and beer battered chips for 14.90aud (my order :D )

After dinner, we chilled, camwhored, chit-chatted... Amandachoe and UY went for a puff and disappeared for quite awhile. And when they finally returned, after a few minutes, the waiters started to sing the 'Happy Birthday' song. That's why they disappeared! They went to get me a birthday cake. Awesome friends, period! And the cake, was totally Y-U-M-M-Y!!! Can't remember what's the name of the cake though.

Here's my yummy-licious cake and my usual awkward birthday face when everyone's singing me the 'Happy Birthday' song. No idea why, but I always don't know where to look when everyone's singing so I'll always stare at my cake and try to smile naturally throughout the song.. Haha :)

I love this picture that AmandaChoe took of me... Thank you!!!

And thank you Amanda for picking this cake for me too :D

After cake-ing, it was camwhoring time. Took quite a few pictures and quite a few polaroids too!

The pretties: (Maekhoo, AmandaChoe, MichelleWong, LaurenLim and Me.) Lauren's another food addict like myself and she knows more places for yummy food here in Melbourne than I do. Shall have to steal your list of food places soon, Lauren!

Polaroids!! Yeah~~~ :D

Once again, thank you guys for coming!! I hope you guys had fun and enjoyed yourselves, I know I did! :D <3

PS: There's more to come.. So stay tuned :)

Was browsing through facebook earlier and I came across this video by 'Hands Percussion'. Hands Percussion is a renowned Malaysian Chinese percussion ensemble that has been creating a ripple in the music scene in Kuala Lumpur since 1997 with its ground-breaking and innovative performances. A team of skillful drummers delivering music and sounds with interesting harmony and in a thunderous note from drums beating rhythmically.

I used to be in the 24 season drum club back in high school and let me tell you it was really tough! We had to stay back till 6pm twice a week to practice while other clubs and societies only had to stay till 3pm and only once a week. But all in all, I had an awesome time joining that club! Representing the school, performing in other schools, universities and events; performing in school events. The principal worships us back then, but that was because we were helping the school earn extra cash and let me tell you, it's we were expensive!

Then when I entered Sunway College, I met a friend who was in this club back in her own high school in Seremban, Sin Yin. And she introduced me to Hands Percussion. :) 2 of her best mates were members of the percussion team and boy were they amazing! Still is!

It's free to join the team, you pay them your time and effort and creativity. Totally worth it! They've been performing in many events, even kick started the Petronas Malaysian Grand Prix earlier this April. Oh and did I mention they go on tours too?! Yeap! Just like rockstars, they go on tours too! They're about to perform in Adelaide in September for the Adelaide Festival Centre OzAsia Festival! And I wanted to go but I have class... Sigh... So near yet so far :(

They'll be touring to US as well after Adelaide. So do catch them if you're there. So far, I've been to 2 of their performance back in KL, thanks to SinYin :) and I was blown away both times! Can't wait to go for another performance :D

Until then, here's a short video of their playing. Enjoy :)

鼓典 Classic from HANDS on Vimeo.