Homecoming Australia!

yaaay! it has been 4.5 years (2005) since I have been back from Australia, and I simply cannot thank God enough for the opportunity to re-visit again, after living there for 4 years. Due to my mum attending the Asian Finance conference in Brisbane, my parents, sis and I went to Brisbane, then to my beloved Melbourne♥, the city that i used to live in :)

we went on the 28th of June, flew at 20.55 from Soekarno-Hatta with Qantas (yes, tasting the most awesome airplane food ive ever tasted again lol) oh and may I inform you that now when you get on flights that are more than 3 hours, you get in-flight movies and there are lots to choose from! Plus cable tv channels, radio stations, cd libraries, and games, well the point is that it's awesome and i highly recommend flying with Qantas (Aus patriotism lol). we arrived in Sydney at 6.30ish in the morning and i gotta tell you, when we were about to land, the sky was rainbow coloured from bottom to top! seriously. and if you live/ever lived in Sydney, is it always like that? it was gorgeous :) made me want to tell mi amigo that "Sydney says 'hi'," lol.

apparently we had to wait for a few hours because transferring from the international to domestic terminal was quite hassled and chaotic with soo many people coming to the immigration section PLUS transferring terminals -_- and remember how Sydney airport's really strict with securities. so yea after we passed all that, we waited for about an hour in the waiting lounge eating apple pie hahah took pics with Hanna, well to make a long story short we arrived in Melbourne, langsung ketemu Ka Fadya dan Bunda, the first thing i felt was the cool gush of wind. wow. very niceee keluar pesawat aja udah gitu, apalagi di luar? i thought. and yea i took of my jacket just to breathe in and intertwine (hah? haha) with the winds once again. aaah.. it felt so good to be back home :)

a few hours at fuzzy's, my nose started running! damn, must be the sudden change of weather. to fasten things up, me my fam and i plus fuz went to Brisbane the next day!
i forgot this lovely bridge's name!
Brissy has pretty nice weather, still sunny but of course cool winds now and then, comparing to freezing Melb. or is it just my wrecked bodyadaptation from polluted Jakartan air? hahah anyway we looked around the CBD due to our stay at one of the apartment-hotel in the city. For dinner we went to Woolworths and bought a salad mix, vegetarian pizzas and fish&chips, plus i heated my unfinished kebab from lunch! it was huuugee man too big, even from the a la Turko kebab in dandenong! the City Cat, Brissy's one of a kind water transportation

went to the Botanical Garden, Maritime Museum, lunch at a Chinese resto, walked around with Fuz and found a Wednesday Market, bough yoghurt+free muesli lol, slept in the afternoon coz she had a headache and i took a tablet, watched an episode of Grey's on 7! alhamdulillah, haha the Wheel of Brisbane

what we failed to do on the next few days were riding the CityCat, the Wheel of Brisbane, ride bikes at the Botanical Garden, see the in-city beach. spent 4 days there and it was pretty wesome. oh yea! how could i forget, we went to Warner Bros MOVIE WORLD! "Hollywood on the Gold Coast"- :D
i love the Scooby Doo Spooky Coaster! didn't capture much on my cam though, my mum actually has HEAPS of GC photos.









went back to Melb on Friday afternoon, the next day we went to Anglesea, Great Ocean Road. overnight, mm long trip also but the view was soo damn worth it. i was in the car with Ka Fara and Ka Mirza (her husband, they're newlyweds and im going to be an auntie soon! :D), Ka Fadya and Fazkia. we made some jokes along the way and ka Dya told us a bogan joke:



still - Mie Goreng at the Oaks!

speaking in rich Aussie accent (read: BOGAN)): have you heard about the booogan jookee?
well there was a bogan and her friend. that friend had a webslider and the bogan said,
"Hey, your mobile's so weird, the alphabet isn't even in order!"
The friend told her what it was and taught her how to use it, and didn't even find it funny one bit.

haha! get it? a webslider is a phone with QWERTY keys, the bogan never saw it before and obviously knows nothing about it, so she asked her friend but her friend didnt find it funny at all when she SHOULD! get it? oh well haha it was funny anyway when i heard it for the first time :p

we thought of things that would make us feel sick and vomit due to the long and winding road of Great Ocean Rd (ya iyalah), one by one volunteered their ideas and the result was: eating risotto while riding a bike backwards, reading a small-font-printed book and having durian for dessert. ew. very nice huh? i forgot where we got the idea of risotto was from, but




the bike, we saw someone ride a bike on the road how cool is that that guy rode a bike on THE, Great Ocean Rd in freezing weather like that! the book idea was from me and Fuz turning the clickwheel of her iPod now and then and getting dizzy to read it because we kept turning on the road. durian, haha forgot too. we went as far as Apollo bay because it was
getting
dark and about to rain, went back to the house and had dinner, surprise birthday cake for Ka Fara! yum
went home on Sunday, before that we went to the Twelve Apostles. now THIS, was the most extreme cold weather i had from my visit to Victoria. im not sure how cold it was but it mustve bin under 5 degrees plus it was windy so that made it worse.. but it was worth it the view. pity only 7 Apostles remain now. beautiful. but its really far from the Melbourne though and people should come there in the summer, NOT winter hehe. OH THE BEACHES ALONG THE ROAD ARE SPECTACULAR! FAIRHAVEN BEACH, WOWIEEE wish i had a summerhouse there!! i would definitely come back one day and find this beach again in the summer!!!
off we went, arrived in Melb about 6-7ish in this petrol station that had a dining place, got hot chips and tea, the trip home was fun and ka Dya and ka Mirza 'interviewed' me about my school life hahah one funny question from ka Mirza was:

"Apakah tawuran merupakan sebuah bentuk ekstensi pergaulan di kalangan remaja?"

hahahha! yea and stuff like that, it was fun. got back to Fuzzy's and spent time with Adin and Meuti and others, caught up with some friends on FB and went to sleep at about 2 again because we came up with more things to google about! (have i written that down already? gosh this is soo long)

i will really try and make this short alright? this (hopefully) will be the last time i will edit this post because it seems that i dont have that much time on the comp these days. year 12 people! gahh.
on Wednesday we met SANDRA! aaaaaaaaaaaaa i miss her sooooo and and she really liked the 2009 glasses i got her! she didnt expect that i would get it and apparently it was the last pair in that store we saw. lucky :) bisa aja she managed to think that 2009 wil be the last of them making these kind of glasses because next year will be 2010 SO you cant wear 1 around your eye can you? lol. we had crepes, did a little shopping, looked into vintage stores, boutiques with $100 per dress.. hahah and helped her find one for her formal, but unfortunately couldnt find the right one. she only likes BLACK and DARK colours, also shades, hahah it was pretty hard and we laughed about it, had so much fun pity only for abt 2.5 hours..? she had Taekwondo after so she had to go home early. and homeworl. yeah, then me and Fuz went to Melbourne Central (yes the awesome train station has been transformed into a shopping galore place, very nice) and got presents and such. Flagstaff to Abah's office, then to the Consulate General of Indonesia, met Ibon and Melissa.. plus Alyssa Soebandono, currently studying in Melb and again, apparently lives near Fuz (ternyata). she didnt know as well). Abah knows her dad, which was his boss at some period of time. okay so ordered pizza by phone while we were still on the road and picked them up (i never knew there was such a thing in Melb -_- well im not surprised)
Adin and Meuti were sleeping over.

next day went to Chadstone, long-lost Chaddy i've been wanting to go to. and yes, it too has been EXPANDED, tooooo expanded i believe hahah watched The Hangover (MA15+, my Indo ID was accepted, thanks to the dude who served), lunch by the sushi train in this Jap resto i forgot its name, and bought oleh2 for YOU guys. hehe. went home, our Indo friends came, and their families, nice. met Hanif and his bros, also Galih. played a fun round of Pictionary!

the next day was devastating.. my last day of vaca. loneliness and awkward situations waits upon me.. lebay. i dont wanna go home... all i wanted was XI IPA 1 to be a whole class again, so at least i had something to look forward too. well, fuz didnt come to the airport, but it was sad of course.. cried when Bunda hugged me, all their fam has been so nice, since i've known them so that means since i was born.. :') i love you all. and i really hope that my Dad's PR application get accepted so we can all live there together again.. Amin.

as "I Still Call Australia Home" tune in to my plane earphones, liquid start running down my cheeks and I know, I just know that deep down inside.. we'll be back again. Together as a whole family :)