july trip - radelaide

spent most of the day feeling that emptiness when you travel with friends for so long, and then suddenly they're gone =[ miss my friends already.

so on the 3rd of july, I left for Adelaide, flying solo with Tiger Airways. Tiger has a new check in process, where you can self check in online if you have no check in luggage, which I did. Surprisingly, it went quite smoothly, I was at my boarding gate within 2 minutes of arriving at the terminal 4 (aka the tin shed next to the airport).

I was reunited with an amazing five people at Adelaide: visiting with me was Sarah, looking pretty with straightened and dyed hair, Hao Zhe the magician who we were staying with, Nicolle, Kim and Adrianna. We also met a few of Nicolle's friends who entertained us to no end; Juliet, with a cool nickname Jet, the proper speaking Maria (hilarious accent) and various of Nicolle's boys =]

My first time being in Adelaide, I didn't have much expectations. People had always dubbed it as a hole, but I knew it couldn't be that bad. My first impressions were that it was less fast paced than Melbourne. There were less cars crowding the roads (road limits were mostly 60 zones too), the community felt closer at a bar we went to, no high rise buildings. It was quite nice actually, as a person who does not like crowds. I'd imagine I would feel more comfortable driving into Adelaide city than Melbourne.

Hao Zhe took us to Mt.Lofty, sort of a look out towards Adelaide, and it's very spread out. Reminds me of New Zealand a bit. Cleland Wildlife Park was pretty fun too, feeding kangaroos and wallabies (they're so cute!).

Me and Sarah had the chance to explore the city one day. I think we only went down a few well known streets, and it wasn't anything special, but a nice city to hang out in. That said, I'm not a city person, so I probably wouldn't appreciate the nice things about it anyway. It was definitely smaller than Melbourne, but not in a bad way.

Nicolle took us to the Adelaide Zoo (where we met up with Kim) and Victor Harbor. The Zoo was entertaining, but nothing that much different than any other zoo. Victor Harbor was quite beautiful, I wish I could've gone swimming. We went around Granite Island, which the high light of the day for me was sitting on this huge rock on the edge, close to the ocean. It would've been a favorite hang out spot for me, looking at the waves crash against the shore. Awesome.

Other than that, we hung out at Hao Zhe's and Nicolle's place. Hao Zhe's unit is quite amusing, his room has a hole in the roof where the room light should be and his car matches the unit (emergency brake light doesn't work, engine often dies, 20 km up a hill). Funny moments include (but not limited to) fail to see karate kid (Adelaide get their movies a week later than us), tiger in the bathroom and sarah's tassie devil enthusiasm born.

Absolutely great to catch up with them all in Adelaide. Hope to return there someday soon to visit. Thanks to Nicolle and HaoZhe for showing us around. Also interesting to see their houses and family =]

teoh,