I haven’t been blogging for a while so here’s an update on Jon Jon’s life! The exam month of November was pretty stressful, more so with the amount of procrastination (Facebook) that I went through. I had discovered a new love for Red Bull (and Mother, although Mother has a stronger effect on me and will cause me to lose a night of sleep) which quickly grew into an addiction, which I’m trying to get off now that the exams are over, with some success.

I won’t really go into detail on how the exams went, except by summarizing that the 10th of December is going to be… interesting. Assuming I pass all my units, I will be graduating on the 12th of February :)! And there goes my undergraduate degree… [COMPLETED]. Right now, the plan is to continue on with an honours in finance, but really, it depends on my results

Aside from that, I finally applied for my Japanese visa last week, after being rejected once because I forgot to bring some documents along. I’m scheduled to collect my passport this Wednesday, so let’s hope everything goes well. It sucks that I’m the only one in the group who needs a temporary visitor’s visa to get into Japan simply ‘coz I’m on a Malaysian passport (with an Australian PR). But meh…

So that is Jon Jon’s life over the past 2 months! Now for life over the next 1 month!

As I’ve said, December is a month of awesome-ness!~ It’s the last month of the year, and it’s the holidays. December’s a month to sit back, relax, and laze around in anticipation for more hard work in the coming year. It’s a month to dwell over the achievements and under-achievements of the year and to formulate new goals and resolutions for the coming year.

But anyways… here are the countdowns (inclusive of today) :P!

Countdown to 2009: 31 days
Countdown to leaving for Japan: 26 days
Countdown to Christmas: 25 days
Countdown to the only unhappy day of the month: 10 days
Countdown to having the house all to myself and not seeing the rest of the family till January ends: 7 days

Oh and yes, last but not least… the number of days left before I turn hatachi (20 years old): 20 days

Today’s the first day of December. And December is a month of change.

But anyways, I’ve noticed that lately, Youtube has been coming up with lots and lots of “Chipmunks” remixes of popular songs. A chipmunk-remix would be when they increase the pitch of the vocals in a track using various audio-synchronizing programs to make it sound somewhat similar to the voices of Alvin and his chipmunk brothers.

So going through the list of songs I know… I started searching for the most weirdest (and interesting) ones that have received chipmunk remixes…

… like the hot dog song from Limp Bizkit. Yes folks, the one where Fred Durst spins a rhyme saying phuck for a total of 46 times.

And yes, there was a remix for that :P! And it’s awesome, check it out here. It sounds like a little kid running foul… bad little chipmunk

So I went on looking for the more, and I found a chipmunk remix for a really really gothic Marilyn Manson song!~

And just when you think they haven’t done it yet… they did!

Haha, while we’re on the subject of pitch changing, while you can make vocals sound kiddish, you can also change girl voices to boy voices. Here’s for all you Ouran fans out there (Courtesy of Karen-chan who showed it to me ^___^)~

I’ll be back once the exams are done. Until then, have a good one :)!

Let’s begin with a recap! We spent the morning of day 4 walking around Paddy’s Market. Initially, we had planned to spend the afternoon at The Rocks, but after running out of things to do within 15 minutes, we decided to bum out at Luna Park. After that, we headed back to The Rocks for some pancakes

Jay visited Bondi on day 5 while I walked around Chinatown, we later visited a night market at Chinatown. Day 6 was spent with more walking around and packing up as we reach the end of our trip

Here come the pictures ^_^!!~…

Thursday, the 2nd of October (Day 4)
Recap of Day 4

The little Taiwanese shop that we had breakfast at... disgusting food but Jay disagrees XD

This time we caught some uber new trains and not the old school ones!~

Jon Jon posing at Circular Quay, with the Sydney Harbour bridge in the background!~

Jay Jay at Circular Quay with the Opera House in the background !~

Jay Jay posing at some artsy figure of a soldier at The Rocks!~

Jay Jay outside Luna Park with the Sydney Harbour bridge in the background :)

Jon Jon at Luna Park ^__^

Whee!~ Rides They look pretty kiddy ... but I came out of this one really really dizzy :(

Luna Park !~

Jay Jay on a really kiddy ride !~ Swing, swing, swing :D

This ride was awesome . We were being turned around and around hehe.

Jay Jay on the ferris wheel with the Sydney Harbour bridge :)

Pancake on The Rocks ! (Found it after wondering around for like three quarters of an hour)

Jay Jay impatiently waits for the food (Or Jon Jon having fun snapping random shots of Jay Jay to annoy him)

Gourmet Pizza !~ With homus and sour cream. It's the first time I've had pizza with homus and sour cream... and it tasted like a piece of heaven!!

Here come the pancakes. This is Jay Jay's Vanilla n Choc Surprise :)

...and Jon Jon's Blackforest Cherry ^___^

Jon Jon suffers from a chocolate overload =/! Someone save him!!

Friday, the 3rd of October (Day 5)
Recap of Day 5

Jay Jay's shot of Bondi Beach (which Jon Jon didn't go to)...

More shots of Bondi :)

Jay Jay and Jon Jon at the night market in Chinatown ^___^

*yum* :)

... damn I'm getting hungry posting these shots up =/!!

The Malaysian stall that Jay Jay bought some roti telur (Indian flatbread with eggs?) from :)

And they made it in front of us ^__^

The Japanese stall that I bought my takoyaki (octopus balls *lol*) from

Saturday, the 4th of October (Day 6)
Recap of Day 6

Icecream puffs ^_^!~ Randomly found a stall selling these while walking around... they didn't taste as good as they looked =/

The stall... :P

And I shall end this post with shots of our Krispy Kreme heist :D!

Krispy Kremes!!!

Whoa.. thinking back, how did all those Krispy Kremes disappear so fast lol!

Sydney 08, thou shalt forever be remembered fondly by thy Krispy Kremes ^____^

Bought a monorail day pass on day 3, and we checked out all the stops along the circular route.

And here comes the pictures on day 2 and day 3 of our adventure!

Tuesday, the 30th of September (Day 2)
Recap of Day 2

Camwhoring on our way to Macquarie. The train was pretty old school :P! Reminds me of the Hogwarts Express ^_^

Jay Jay striking a pose :)~

Actuarial Studies? Business Studies? Which one do we choose :P?

After meeting the lecturers, while exploring the university, we found an awesome photo opportunity spot :D!

Jay Jay striking another pose!~ I love to think that I'm releasing Jay Jay's inner camwhore ;)!

Checking out the Apple store (the only Apple store in the southern hemisphere!!~)

And they had glass stairways!! It was kinda creepy, it shook everytime we stepped on them... almost like they were gonna break. Maybe I'm just too fat =(

Wondering around, we stumbled across this epic alleyway shopping mall :P. I believe this is the Galleries Victoria... but I could be wrong >_<!!

How many security cameras do you need to watch over your LV bags? Why... 16 of course!

And an LV dress... 42 security cameras :)!

The Queen Victoria Building :)!~ I don't know the history behind this building, but it looks like an old administrative building that was deserted and turned into a shopping mall :P!

Jon Jon posing inside the Queen Victoria Building :)!~

Jay Jay posing with one of the clockwork ornaments that hanged from the ceiling of the Queen Victoria Building!~

Jon Jon posing while having his dinner at the Sydney Tower!!~

Jon Jon posing more!~

Some of the views of Sydney from the revolving tower :)

The blurryness at the bottom is due to the glass window and our crazy technique to get clear shots and cancel out the ''revolving-ness'' :P

Wednesday, the 1st of October (Day 3)
Recap of Day 3

We finally decided to take a photo of our hotel on the outside :P

Guess who's just a couple of buildings up our road :P? An old friend...

Jon Jon posing in the monorail!~

The view of the Darling Harbour from the monorail :)!~

Jay Jay posing outside our stop!~ The monorail trackline is in the background :)

Jay Jay sneaks an ugly picture of me while I'm chowing down on my food :(!~

More pictures to come :D!~

And now without further a do~

Monday, the 29th of September (Day 1)

Caught the sunrise on the plane as we were nearing Sydney. Truly spectacular :)~

Our first view of Sydney as the pilot makes a U-turn since the airport runway faces the sea and doesn't accomodate for us coming in from the direction of inland Australia~

The airport runway~ we're landing ^_^!

Our hotel room !! Small, but cheap and comfy :D

Our toilet sink ^_^! Pay attention to the toothbrush and shaver sitting on the left... that's all of Jay Jay's toiletries :P. The rest is yours truly's :D!

The entrance to Chinatown

Views from the Darling Harbour! Wished we were living in those hotels instead :P~

More views from the Darling Harbour. This one's the Sydney convention centre!

More shots of the Darling Harbour (not sure what this building is >_<!!)

*yay* me at the Darling Harbour ^_^!

Our water taxi that looks like a colourful mini speedboat ^_^

The same views of the Darling Harbour... but taken on the water taxi :)

A navy ship and a submarine!

The Sydney Tower =)!

The Sydney Harbour Bridge!

The Opera House!

Jay Jay @ the Opera House

Jon Jon @ the Opera House steps !~

Jay Jay inside the Opera House~

More pictures of the remaining days to come! I’m just getting tired naoz =).

This last episode of the adventures of Jay Jay and Jon Jon in the city with that opera house will cover the last two days of our trip in Sydney and after that I’ll post up a picture post of all the photos we took on our trip (that is if I don’t suddenly get lazy and start procrastinating like the natural procrastinator that I am).

Anyways, this episode begins with…

[Friday the 3rd of October]

I woke up late today and Jay Jay and I decided to part ways as he wanted to head over to Bondi beach while I was just plain sleepy and decided to stroll around Chinatown. Nothing much happenned as I decided to hit a nearby internet cafe to play a game of DotA. Had lunch at an awesome Japanese place, which was quite interesting as the sizzling platter arrived on my table with instructions to turn the slab of beef hamburger around as they bring it out raw on the sizzling platter and apparently it cooks there and then. Somehow, it was still a bit raw when I ate it, but it was delicious *yum*.

I headed back to the hotel after that to watch the credit crisis unfold on the news and then Jay Jay got back. We decided to head back out coz apparently there’s a night market going on in Chinatown. So we arrived to see rows of stalls occupying the main street of Chinatown that’s usually deserted. Most of the stalls were selling delicious asian finger foods but there were some selling mobile phone accessories and plush toys.

Pretty fun, I bought some Japanese takoyakis (octopus balls?… well no, octupuses don’t have balls, it’s basically octopus meat rolled into a ball and fried) and Jay Jay bought a roti canai from a Malaysian stall. I noticed after a while that most of the stalls set up were commercial businesses that own restaurants in Chinatown itself and they were probably doing it to advertise their stalls (with all the colourful and pretty signage).

[Saturday the 4th of October]

Ah, the last day of our trip has finally arrived. We woke up, packed our bags and got ready to check out of the hotel, since checkout was at 10am and they didn’t allow us to stay after that. They did allow us to store our luggage at the counter tho, which saved us the trouble of tugging our bags all around with us.

So we went off to walk around part of the city, discovered some fast routes underground to get around the place ^_^! But that was about it. We got back to the hotel at 3pm to grab our stuff and catch the train to the domestic airport.

Once we got there, we checked in and decided to chill around at the food court. Apparently, there was going to be a 30 minute delay on our flight :(. So we played cards and had an early dinner… and bought 6 dozens of Krispy Kreme doughnuts ^_^!!! And coz we’re really really weird, we decided to take pictures of our Krispy Kreme loot in the food court itself, while everyone was watching us :P!

Thus ends our trip to Sydney, we thoroughly enjoyed ourselves during the week, and we’ve had heaps of fun tho Jay Jay knows now that I tire out really quickly and I’m probably the worst travelling companion he has had for the many many times I’ve said “Let’s go back to our hotel, I’m tired!!”

Anyways, I’ll end my travel journal for Sydney 08 with a picture of our Krispy Kreme loot :D!

Krispy Kremes *yum yum*

Anyways, do stay tuned and I’ll post up what transpired during our final days in Sydney as well as a photo post of our trip once I get these assignments out of the way.

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~

Anyways, me and Jay Jay flew out early yesterday morning (as in 12:50am early). So we were at the airport, checked in our baggage (Jay had a 3kg piece of luggage lol!!) and went through the metal detector things to wait for our flight. Once we had boarded, we were quite surprise to see two other people casually sitting on our seats. We were even more surprised to see our boarding passes duplicated but with different names…. As a public message to Virgin blue, please sack your IT programming dude.

All was well after that, we had our seats reallocated (and we got window seats too *yay ^_^… well not really, I got the window seat, and Jay Jay was stuck in the middle *grins*). Anyways, we didn’t get much sleep during the night, Jay Jay didn’t get any at all, and we walked off that plane like zombies (*… brains… brains…*).

[Monday, the 29th of September]

So once we touched down at Sydney’s Domestic Airport, and stumbled around like the living dead, we went off collect our luggage. Mine came in one after the other just fine, but Jay Jay’s 3kg piece of luggage seemed to be nowhere in sight… we later went to enquire about this and found out that Jay Jay’s 3kg luggage fell off the carousel (*HAHAHA*). We caught the train to the city, and walked over to our hotel. Checked in, and freshened up, just in time for our 9:30am appointment with Jay Jay’s friend (who shall be named here as Tall-Tall Guy :)). Yes people, after a night of almost no sleep, in an uncomfortable, unreclinable seat, and in a state quite similar to those sleep deprived terrorists in Guantanamo Bay… we began exploring Sydney.

We had breakfast with Tall-Tall Guy and his girlfriend and walked around the Darling Harbour for a bit, before taking a water taxi (like a colourful mini speedboat) over to the Opera House. We went on a tour inside and discovered many things that could’ve been read from Wikipedia anyways. And after the Opera House… the fun part begins.

Whilst I realized that I was falling asleep while walking/standing… and I have to use up nearly 90% of my thinking capacity to put one foot in front of the other, I allowed myself to be dragged by Tall-Tall Guy and Jay Jay to… climb the Sydney Harbour Bridge (which is a 3 and a half hour climb). Yes… I’m an idiot… and yes, it was THE Sydney Harbour Bridge. My biggest fear was not from whether I’ll be able to climb the bridge, but more of whether I’d be enjoying a free bungee jump as well with no bungee cord attached to my feet (waist?) after mistakenly walking over a railing in one of my half sleep deprived and confused state of mind.

Surprisingly, I survived! And came back in one piece, thanks to the numerous safety equipments hanging off my pelvis (no, it’s not what you’re thinking of … *glares*). We later walked around the city (btw, Sydney is a phucking huge city, we took 45 minutes to walk to our destination…. and this after climbing the bridge, with the state that my legs were in… I swear the surgeon would have recommended amputation in the emergency room, yes I’m exagerating, but you get my point!). Anyways while I was going to finish that sentence but had my line of thought briefly interrupted, we later walked around the city and headed for Chinatown to have dinner. Okay, Jay Jay says it’s not Chinatown. Bloody git is reading my screen while I’m typing this out. He claims it’s somewhere in the city, I reckon it’s Chinatown… And now I’m being accused of denying the facts. Food was okay-ish not too bad, not too great.

Anyways, we walked back to our hotel, sleepy and… well, just sleepy. Took a shower, and collapsed into bed, and I slept for a total of 11 hours ^_^. An interesting thing happenned while me and Jay Jay were sleeping (*haha, Jay Jay just called me a bastard*). Sometime after we fell asleep, a weird ringtone echoed through the room and woke me for a bit… before the offending mobile phone was answered… on loud speaker. Whilst most of the conversation was in Mandarin (and me being a banana and unable to speak in Mandarin) I could vaguely make out what I was hearing, but I figured that it was the offender’s parents enquiring about his wellbeing, only to be answered by a constant stream of “I’m sleeping… I’m sleeping… I’m sleeping”. The very next day, said offender thought this incident was a dream, only to be proven wrong by his call-list.

[Tuesday, the 30th of September]

I was woken up rather peculiarly by a Jay Jay trying to be stealthy and quiet. Jay Jay couldn’t sleep anymore and decided to go out and buy some breakie whilst I got to catch an extra hours worth of sleep! Jay Jay came back, and we had our breakie in the hotel room, freshened up and left for Macquarie University to meet up with some lecturers.

We had to head over to Central Station to catch a train to Eastwood, and a bus from there to Macquarie. The university itself was pretty run down and old, much like Murdoch University (ugly, old and boring… haha to any of you studying there… *CURTIN PAWNS YOU*). But anyways, we later found out they had not one, but two food courts on campus with many other cafes, and outdoor coffee stands!!! And all of them are believed to be run by private businesses, not a student guild. Food was awesome, and their toilets were clean… for any of you who have studied / are studying in Curtin… think of their most dirtiest toilets as being one level above building 300’s toilets.

We later left the university and headed back with a heavy decision on our heads… one that may have to be decided rather quickly. And many many many many coins will be flipped in the process. Jay Jay and I later took a stroll around the city, visited the Apple store (lol, they don’t sell iTouch 2G cases there wtf) and continued our stroll around the city.

We had a buffet dinner at a revolving restaurant on top of the Sydney Tower which was…. not too bad. Jay Jay had a hard time taking photos of the city view due to the revolving-ness (I can’t think of any other word from my rather miniscule vocabulary) of the restaurant and the lack of anti-shake features on Jay Jay’s camera. We ended up finding a way to get around the revolving-ness (lol, any suggestions for words other than this one?), but didn’t get good shots anyways. What did we think of the restaurant? In Jay Jay’s own words… good view, good food… and we don’t need to pay for breakfast tomorrow. Needless to say, we stumbled around holding our barfs in our tummies (the side effects of over-eating) and went into an internet cafe on the way back where I decided to spill out all this random crap for you to read.

Anyways, that’s all for now, I’ll be back again later, if I decide to :P. Until then, I shall leave you with a random photo of our adventure during the past two days

Jay Jay sneaks a photo of me while I'm eating...