Hey!! Goolooloo is finally back!

Alright, just a little update about what’s going on lately. I had my vacation to Gold Coast, Australia for a week, it was a relaxing trip but it wasn’t so perfect. My grandma passed away on my last day in Gold Coast, hence I did not manage to attend her funeral. May her rest in peace, she left peacefully at the age of 96. Continuosly, I was back to work, the PIKOM fair was a success, hope that the next PC fair would achieve better target.

To start off with my Gold Coast travelogue, I’m gonna share with you my experience getting there with the most budget style. Some of my friend would say me “Cheapskate”..I gotta be Cheapskate in order for me to travel to more places! Haha… but hey, who says Cheapskate can’t enjoy much?

Air Fares:
Miri-KL-GOLDCOAST(AUS) = RM 889 via Air Asia and Air Asia X

We booked the ticket 8 months prior to departure. Haha, that’s how we grabbed cheap ticket.

The Schedule:
10th April 2009 – 16th April 2009

Travel Mates:
Yen - the all time mate and added a new mate – Eet, whom I guess he is deeply regret to join us.
3 of us who stay in East Malaysia, have to travel early morning from Miri to KL. We have few hours transit time in KL , hence we have fun in the big City.

KL welcomes us with Big Thunder and Rainy days, but the rain would not have stop us to continue our shopping to Time Square.

Before we manage to start being a Shapaholic! , of course we have to feed ourselves.

We reached LCCT again by 7pm, just in time to check in, and have our dinner at Old Town Cafe.

=.=”’ Prices in LCCT are slightly expensive….

and makes our little laopanniang looks so frustrated to take her order…but if once compared to the expensive and yet not-so tasty in-flight meal, I know it would be wiser to eat before i fly.

We will be flying using the newly renovated LCCT international terminal. I thought I would have chance to visit a bigger duty free shop, but too bad, the only shop that is pretty much interesting would be this Country’s Tid Bits and Candies Cottage.  Can you imagine, the dried squid are left open and kept in this glass room. I wonder is that really Hygiene?

It has been quite torturing for us to keep waiting, waiting and waiting. The flight to GoldCoast were scheduled to depart at 9 something but due to the bad weather it was slightly delayed.

This is the first time we fly with Air Asia X, the X tra big and X tra long.. of course we are very excited. Eet, I know you are excited too ,just that you want to act cool, right?

The flight was quite full, lots of angmoh flying back to Australia.
The seating allocation was , 3 by 3. I warn you, its really not comfortable at all!~ The worst thing is , we have to sit here 8 hours without reclining our chair! OMG! What kind of airline is this? But what to do, this is the budget airline, I shouldn’t have complain that much la.
I was very excited at first when I first saw the in-flight entertainment – X-cite. Which is supposedly we would share the RM30 and take turn to watch movie on it. The stewardess came to tell us that in this flight they do not supply this device. I was like full of disappointment!!! and start to worry how to kill my 8 hours time.

The seat is really torturing me, I can’t even have a good sleep throughout the flight. I wonder why AirAsia would have design such a sit which does not allow the passenger to recline their sit!

Yen is pretty relaxing, she had her sudoku on hand that helps to kill her time. For me, I could only turn on my Ipod and let it play till I sleep and awake and sleep again.

Finally after 8 hours , Xtra long hours flight, we reached coolangatta Airport of Gold Coast, Australia. This is the first time we visited Gold Coast. I’ve been putting pretty much expectation towards this trip. But when I just step down to the airport, I was thinking, are we landed in a wrong airport? Why does it looks more like a warehouse?

The airport looks too simple, compared to what I’ve seen in Brisbane. It is very straight forward. Right after the custom checking, straight away we reach the exit.

This is a friendly reminder, please do not ever try to bring any fruits and milk product into Australia. It will be really really troublesome for you to go through the custom checking. Poor ahYen, her Nescafe 3-in-1 pack was detained by the custom officer.

The first thing that you should do once you reach is to grab a map from the airport, and buy yourself a bus ticket.We got ourselves the 5 days travel pass, AUD$91 /pax which include of Airport Transfer, Theme Park transfers and also local bus services. This is really a must if you plan to go for a budget travel too. The orange bus, Sunshine Shuttle will send us to our hotel, don’t worry, its really a door-to-door service!

Oh ya, this is also another must- at least for me. I got myself a new simpack. Its Vodafone! I’ve been selling Vodafone modem, but hey, this is the first time I use their mobile services. The Simpack cost me $9.95 but the reload had costed me $29~ sigh, what to do, it is requested by my dear.

Finally we reach Surfer’s paradise, the most happening area in Gold Coast. Do you know Qdeck is the worlds tallest residential tower,which is located in GoldCoast? As far as my eye can see, I capture this tall building right from the bus window.

This concludes my “getting there” for today.  Will update soon again for the coming Gold Coast events. Stay tune guys!

Recap of my spending:
Aud $91 – Bus Ticket
Aud $10 – Prepaid Sim Pack
Aud $ 29 – Mobile Top Up – ($150 capping)