Adelaide 101

Wow, a post in such a long time. Honestly I have no idea why I haven’t been posting lately. Guess it’s a mix of laziness and nothing much to blog about…unless preparations for flying off to another country and certain PS2 games are newsworthy.

So here we are in Adelaide and it’s been almost a week now. Guess we’re slowly getting used to the place after a relatively stressful first few days. Waiting for buses, running around town for groceries, uni stuff, banking, looking for accommodation, not to mention the jet lag and sun-induced tiredness (well, it affects me) is really tiring.

The weather here is weird. The sun is hot but anywhere in the shade is cool and the wind, which is really frequent, ranges from cool to downright cold. It’s also dry as heck. I’m practically shriveling up like a prune so much so it sucks quite bad. The itchiness due to allergens has given way to itchiness due to dryness :( sigh…although it is loads more comfortable here as you tend to not sweat at all.

For all the advertising about the public transport service here being better than back home, it isn’t entirely true. While it is true that the services here are pretty regular they neglect to tell you a few things. Like the fact that some buses don’t service certain routes on weekends which resulted in Leng Hui and I waiting for about 45 mins for a bus that would never arrive. During weekends the buses are rarer so there is a longer time waiting in between, sometimes up to an hour. Each bus has certain stops so although there may be like 10 stops along a certain road, the bus you’re on will only stop at maybe 3 or 4, so you really gotta get used to the routes quickly or rely heavily on the maps of the bus services.

Then again after all said and done, they are pretty efficient if you know the routes and timetables. Waiting by the side of the road for one like in M’sia doesn’t work here.

As you can see, we spent most of Saturday waiting for buses and basically running around town viewing potential accommodations...ok fine, so Leng Hui was camwhoring in the 2nd pic but we were still waiting.

Yesterday was pretty fun cuz we all went to the Glenelg beach to relax. It’s quite a nice place and really quite crowded too. The road leading to the beach was aptly named Jetty Road and it’s basically a whole row of shops on either side. Then there was this plaza like area just before the beach proper where many stalls were setup, kinda bazaar-ish.

Jebbrine, Sheng Kai, Leng Hui and I decided to go walk along the beach while Bryan decided to stay and roast.

It was a nice warm sun(later it became really hot) with almost constant cool seabreeze and cold water lapping at our ankles. The seagulls treated the place like home, even daring to attempt to steal food from some beachgoers. Many dog owners also brought their dogs to run about the beach. Every now and then a helicopter would pass overhead; supposedly they’re the Shark Patrol units. We didn’t see any fish whatsoever though.

We found a potential place to stay at just outside the city. It comes with a piano, which is a big plus point for it I must say. It’s small, fully furnished and located very near an entire row of shops ranging from food to medicine and banks. There was this Asian Grocery near there where we saw Malaysian Maggi Mee! And even stuff like funeral papers which I never expected to find here.

Our current accommodation is a temporary thing, it seems to be an old hospital which has been remodeled as a hostel. We all stay in different rooms, and my room seems to be the weirdest of them all. It's divided into 3 parts: a bedroom proper, a 'living room' that has a 1 seater sofa and a ceiling fan which spins fastest at Speed 1, and a 'laundry room' which basically is a really small room that has a shoe rack and a dirty clothes basket.

Close up of my room door. Yep, I sleep in an ex-Radiation Room! Muahahaha!!! Mutation beckons!!!