Travel Log: Gold Coast ~ Australia (Day 1)

Destination: Gold Coast, Australia
Duration: 6 Days 5 Nights (Aug 21~Aug 26, 2011)

Day 1: Flights, Custom, Hotel & Late Night Walk

It was 5.40am when we reached the Penang International Airport to catch our connecting from Penang to KLIA. Such an unearthly hour! Amazingly the airport was packed with people though. Luckily I managed to get into the correct flight in my dreaming stage. *yawn*

We managed to reach KLIA at 7.30am and had to wait for 2 hours for our flight to Brisbane. Air travel sucked when you had all these transit time. *sigh* The shops in KLIA were mostly closed due to the timing as well. This left us nothing to do other than logging in to our Facebook to post “I wanna go home!” (My favorite catchphrases!)

Finally we got on the flight feeling famished. The stewardess served us breakfast after like forever. Breakfast was either Nasi Lemak or Omelet. The taste? Kind of like the worst of all my other experience in airplane meal. Mind you, I actually liked airplane meal, I liked how it was arranged, the varieties of food offered and the thoughtfulness of the most convenient food size within minimal space.

Sammy is hungry...

Oh Geez… Look at the tomato on the omelet! You couldn’t really cut it without juice spraying all over yourself and you couldn’t eat it in one mouthful without choking to death. I wouldn’t want to be headlining the newspaper with big title: DEATH by Tomato on MH! It would be like the most embarrassing death ever!

MH Omelet Breakfast Set

MH Nasi Lemak Breakfast Set

Long story short - the omelet was tasteless and watery whilst the nasi lemak rice was kind of soggy. This MH breakfast meal was simply below par even though MH prided itself as one of the best airlines in the world. It was at this time I missed Lufthansa’s Spinach Omelet Breakfast Meal (unfortunately I don’t have a photo of that… *sob*) & Cathay Pacific Japanese Breakfast Meal.

Now this is how airplane breakfast meal should be - CX Salmon Breakfast Set!

In the midst of our 8 hours flight, we were served with a mini Magnum ice cream (where is Haagen Dazs? Ops.. was I too greedy? :p) and a mushroom pie just before we touched down to Brisbane. The packing of the mushroom pie reminded me of Singapore airlines. I think MH was trying to imitate the SG concept but it was not even fair to compare the food quality of the pie between the 2 airlines. SG would felt insulted with this comparison! :p

Looks familiar? Taste totally different though...

We finally reached the Brisbane at around 7.40pm local time and were stuck at the immigration due to long queue and some shoe accidence. Ops.. apparently soil on shoes was not allowed. The poor custom officer had to take my sneakers and washed them before releasing them and his last word was: “Please do wash your shoes next time before stepping in Australia.” *blush*

Oh no! Poor Australian Custom..

It was another hour coach to get from airport to our hotel in Surfers Paradise – Islander Resort Hotel. Well, the hotel was kind of run down but the location was amazing and price was cheap. It was actually a combination of hotel+hostel and part of the building was catered for backpackers.

Welcome!

It was almost 11pm that we walked out from the hotel to do some exploring. It was windy and cold at that hour. Hard Rock Café was just across the street whilst the beach was just a block away. One thing I noticed was – “Finding Nemo” totally misled me into believing seagull speaks “MINE”. The seagull here didn’t though - Perhaps due to different location causing different language? They walked around the street along with pedestrian and even walked into Hungry Jack’s (That’s Burger King in Australia) looking for leftover food. Oh ya, did I mention that the policemen are HOT?

Hard Rock Cafe in Surfers Paradise

The Beach at Night...

Seagull looking for food in Hungry Jack's!

1st meal in Surfers...

I didn't get the photo of the police but i do have a photo of police car. :p

Since we had to wake up early tomorrow to join our day tour, we’d decided to call it a day after our supper at Hungry Jack’s. It was bedtime! J

Next Day (Byron Bay, Lighthouse & Crystal Castle)