Hola amigos!~ Welcome to the second episode of the adventures of Jay Jay and Jon Jon in the City with that Opera House. In this episode, Jon Jon is blogging from an internet cafe in Chinatown while juggling a massive migraine and a time limit of just another 34 minutes… will he make it in time? Read on to find out if he does!!

Oh and on a random note, on our way back home on Tuesday night, we found out that Curtin University’s Sydney campus (well, it’s more like a building than a campus) is located on the same street as our hotel on the opposite side of the road just 1 or 2 buildings away!!. Anyways …

[Wednesday the 1st of October]

Had a nice sleep in today and left the hotel pretty late in the morning, we explored much of Chinatown and Market City, found a nice shop that sold J-fashion imports and bought 2 jackets there ^_^. And omg, I finally found a piece of clothing… for mens… sold in Australia… in a retail outlet… THAT WAS WAY TOO SMALL FOR ME! And it was being sold at that J-fashion import stall. Something tells me that I need to drop off the kilos before my trip to Japan at the end of the year, or I might have to look around for XL sizes there instead of XS sizes.

So anyways, we were walking around for the good portion of yesterday, Jay Jay was looking for Chinese drama CDs in the many pirated CD stalls in Chinatown (yes, it feels like Malaysia again, pirated CDs galore!!).

We bought a monorail day pass which took us all around the city, stopped over at the Darling Harbour and we walked over to the Harbourside Shopping Centre for lunch and more shopping. After that, we caught the monorail and headed over to the Queen Victoria’s Building and the Galleries Victoria for some additional shopping, none of which were fruitful, found a sweater at Barclays that was retailing at $AUD385 (*wtf?*).  Had ice cream at… Krispy Kreme’s lol.

We walked around for a bit more, but after that, we were overcome by traveller’s fatigue and with me whining and whinging about having to walk (sympathisizing with the many kids around demanding their mommies to carry them), Jay Jay decided we should head back to the hotel. Back in our hotel room, we played big two for an hour or so… yes, two people playing cards, how sad… and had KFC for dinner, went back to the hotel room and watched an episode of Fringe (pretty new and interesting) and Kitchen Nightmares (Gordon Ramsey doesn’t swear as much as me and Jay Jay).

Since we’re on the topic of swearing, I find that me and Jay Jay enjoy swearing just a bit too much. It’s kinda odd waking up and not hearing a “good morning” but instead a chorus or rhyme with two young adult men going “phuck phuck phuck phuck” :P. We’ve also twisted the words of Beyonce’s “To the left” song quite nicely, tho the contents of which will not be mentioned on this blog to avoid being given an R17+ rating for being a porno site by Google (Google is God).

Anyways, we ended our Wednesday pretty early and had a good night’s rest.

[Thursday the 2nd of October]

So Jay Jay and I got up early to news that the US congress has voted in their wall street rescue plan (*yay*). Randomness aside, we got freshened up and headed out to be slapped in the face with an instant wave of HOT WIND upon exiting our hotel. Apparently we’re going to be hitting 33 degrees today. Went off for some breakfast at Chinatown at some Taiwanese shop. Apparently, Jay Jay says the shop is quite well known, but I found myself nearly throwing up on the Won-ton noodle soup (tasted like instant noodles in salt and pepper soup).

*Oh crap, I just went over the 34 minute mark, had to buy another hour’s worth of Internet access… gaahhh!!*

We took a stroll around Paddy’s market in Chinatown… of which upon entering, we instantly felt that we had left Australia and we’re now in a back alley in Hong Kong where fake goods are everywhere :P!! Gucci bags, Armani apparels… all for less than $20? Jay Jay bought himself a good stroller luggage bag to carry his 3kg piece and one of those feng shui water fountains for his dad. We were trying to find a Gucci bag for his sister, but his taste clashed with all my recommendations (yes, he wanted to buy the plain, unstriking, white Gucci bag…lol). We went back to the hotel to dump our loot, but decided to stay back for a bit to relax our sore legs.

Headed back out, this time to the Central station and spontaneously decided to head over to the Rocks (situated near Circular Quay). Apparently it’s a historic site and there’s a shopping mall and market nearby. Little did we know that the shopping mall was only a tourist shopping centre (with boring old Australian souvenirs) and the market was closed on weekdays. So after spending an hour walking around, we decided to catch a train to cross the Sydney harbour bridge and run wild at Luna Park (a theme park located on the shores of Northshore with a view of both the Sydney harbour bridge and the opera house).

We walked in and bought ourselves an unlimited rides day pass, only to find that the rides were pretty mediocre. Noticed a couple of wet patches on the walkway but we didn’t think much of it, tho it didn’t really rained today. Sat on our first ride, which was basically carts attached together to form a ring, and the carts go round and round over rough contours in a circular motion, really really fast… backwards at first, then forwards… it sounded like childsplay, it looked like childsplay too… which went against the fact that I walked out of that ride stumbling like a drunkard on the verge of puking a whole night’s worth of booze.

We went over to another ride, but as we were queueing up for our turn, and the previous batch of riders were exiting the ride, we saw a little boy bending over and releasing his lunch and the probable remnants of some icey slush drink over the pavement. It was then that it finally clicked… those wet patches on the walkway I was talking about before… (*grimaces*).

After hitting on a couple more rides, we noticed that while most of the rides I was accustomed to in theme parks in Malaysia, Singapore and South Korea were geared towards thrilling the riders… Australian rides were more geared towards… making you throw up! Thankfully we made the right decision to skip on lunch XD!!

Anyways, we took a ride on a ferris wheel, and decided to end our day by catching our train back to Circular Quay. We then went on a hunt for a well-known restaurant called “Pancakes on the Rocks” at the Rocks (that historic site). Stumbling around like bats during the day, we tried our best to find this place, nearly giving up on more than one occasion with all the weird and contradictory directions we were receiving. We even walked into a street only to be stopped and asked for some IDs, upon realizing that we were walking into a bar which occupied the rest of the street, we were told to head out and find a family friendly restaurant lol? (apparently we looked like we’re under 18 *yay*).

We stopped a couple of people to ask for directions and finally found the place. Oddly enough, one of the waiters at a restaurant we dropped by told us to go all the way straight and take our second turn to the right. The pancake place was actually on the opposite side of the street… across from that waiter’s restaurant (*PHAIL*). Food was great tho, we ordered a gourmet pizza (which tasted so much better than little ceasars and a blackforrest cherry pancake for me while Jay Jay had a Vanilla n Choc surprise pancake.

We later walked off and headed over to our cozy Chinatown internet cafe where I’m here now writing all this down. Hopefully I didn’t miss anything out XD! Sorry for not being as entertaining as the last post, I’m feeling the effects of a combined migraine from the heat, the rides at Luna Park and the chocolate overdose from the pancakes… Anyways, I’ll end this episode now with a picture of Jay Jay at the Pancakes on the Rocks.

Does this look infected? ^_^

Until next time, see yaz~