Melbourne: Brother's graduation!

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Am blogging about my Melbourne trip on the flight back to KL from my work trip! I wished I had more time to blog about my travels, but these days it’s been all about Whitesoot. If I’m not doing anything related to Whitesoot, I’ll be either eating or checking social media before sleeping!

My brother graduated as a doctor last December in Melbourne, so my family and two aunts flew over to attend his graduation ceremony. Yep, my brother is definitely better in academics than me :P



It was scorching hot when we first touched down! It was almost 40 deg during his graduation day, and some of us took shelter from the heat in Union House’s cafeteria. Not all of us could enter the ceremony hall as there were only 2 tickets available for my brother.

After the ceremony ended, we stepped out of Union House to greet my brother and felt a gush of cold wind! My aunt thought it was the air conditioning from the building beside -_-“ The temperature very quickly fell to 25 degrees. That night itself, we were shivering at 16 degrees. Melbourne, you’re so erratic!

But the next few days were a comfortable and pleasant 20-25 degrees during the day :) Thank goodness for the lovely weather because we rented an 8-seater MPV (so huge!) and took road trips. It was awesome! More of that on the next post ;)



Other than attending my brother’s graduation and day trips, I only had a day or two to enjoy Melbourne. One of the days, I decided to roam alone around the city, visit my favourite crepe cafe to take a bite and people-watch, and just let the nostalgic feeling take over me. After some time spent studying in Melbourne, I can’t help but fall in love with the city! This was the place that cultivated my love for fashion. Without spending time in it, I’m not too sure if Whitesoot exists today :)

While wandering around, I stumbled upon some really nice street art! Was especially surprised by the Joker and Virgin Mary :)

Oh! And I managed to meet up with my gorgeous friend, Mei Yi, too. She brought me to a rather hidden restaurant in the city for dinner ;)




















Alright, I think that’s enough pictures for this time :) Hope to blog about the day trips soon!

Cliff Diving & Sunset Cruise in Boracay!

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This is the place I realized my fear of heights. Although the scenery was amazing from the platform's edge, it's so damn scary to jump off!




There were 3 platforms – 5m, 8m and 15m high.

The daredevil Bryan saw two other Korean boys jumped off the 8m platform gleefully, and he happily joined in the fun, only to realize (in mid-air) that 8m is pretty high up!

He was so quick to jump, I haven't even found myself a seat by then!

That dive, he pulled his shoulder muscle a little bit because he didn’t land properly -_- So he had to recuperate for almost an hour before he went in the second time!

On the other hand, it took me a while to gather my guts before I could jump off! I was a little overwhelmed by the 5m high platform, so I jumped off a lower cliff at 3m first. There wasn’t a platform for that height - I just jumped off some random rock hehe! ;)

Yep, LIFE IS GOOD indeed (when you're in Boracay!)


Three hours passed, I’ve had a couple of beers and yummy caramelized bananas (they were so good, I ate a 5 bananas, and Ching probably had 20 of them!), and THEN something got into me.

"I should JUST DO IT Nike-style, jump off the 5m (at least!), and make my RM150 worth it." (the activity cost RM150 per person!)

Just like that, I was ready for my 5m jump.

PEACE!


Sue May, on the other hand, already knew she had fear of heights. So the poor girl only managed to jump off some 2m high rock hahaha!





One of the divers surfaced with a pretty blue starfish, so we struck a pose with it, and gave it back to him :D

After cliff diving, we went for a sunset cruise on a local paraw. Paraw is a local makeshift boat by the villagers as a mode of transport. We got it for so cheap – a ridiculous RM10 per person for a 45 min ride out to the sea!

It was such an incredible experience!

It's hard to forget having the breeze on my body, as the paraw sailed further into the ocean, my feet dangling over the 'seats', occasionally having sea water splattered on it, one hand holding onto the wooden panel, and the other holding the fiance while admiring the beautiful golden egg yolk sunset.










Simply amazing. Boracay's sunset is the best I’ve experienced yet! SIX days in Boracay was definitely insufficient for us. The next time we get to Boracay, we’ll stay for at least 2 weeks ;)

A couple more photos of us there ;)





I'll be back, Boracay! :)

Next up - Melbourne!

Boracay, PH : Beach house & self-select, fresh seafood!

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Our private balcony with welcome drinks

View from the beach house




If you want to travel to Boracay from Kuala Lumpur, do consider it's traveling time. We took ONE WHOLE DAY to reach Boracay!

4 hours flight to Manila (we left KL at 4AM)
3 hours of waiting
45 mins transit flight to Kalibo
2 hours bus ride (through the mountains!) to jetty
5 mins boat ride to Boracay (reached at 8PM, like finally!)

But once you reach Boracay, you kinda forget about the traveling :) This place is heavenly! Alright, I might be a little biased because I love the beach, but I'll let the pictures convince you :D

We booked ourselves to a wonderful 2-bedroom beach house on Bulabog beach. We ended up not staying in the famous White Beach, because with our budget, we can only live in very old hotel rooms which resembled my previous apartment in Hyderabad, India. -_-

So it was pretty obvious we were going to go with the beach house :P

My travel partners for Boracay - Bryan (can never leave him out, can I? :D), Sue May and Ching!






Sue May & Ching are so cute together, right? One's 5 feet and the other is 6 feet tall :D Not apparent in the pictures above, but you'll see in my next posts haha!

It was a rather relaxing holiday for us. We ate (a lot) and did a couple of beach activities like sunset sailing on a local paraw boat, and cliff diving!!! Will get to that in my next post ;) I reckon beach activities are cheaper here compared to Thailand. The rest went for skim boarding too, but I was too slack to do it (I ended up watching the sunset!)

Other times, we just lounged on bamboo sunbeds next to the beach house, drank lots of San Miguel while snacking on tapas, soaked in the water during sunset and basically, just do nothing :)






Windsurfers on Bulabog Beach

Enjoying a bottle of Mango fruit shake, at Jonah's.







The famous Willy's Rock, with a statue of Virgin Mary at the top

One of the nights, we found ourselves wandering to a local wet market. Apparently it was popular with the local Filipinos to purchase fresh seafood from markets, then bring it to the restaurants for it to be cooked. And that's exactly what we did!

Bryan haggled for them, and we ended up getting two lobsters, two crabs and a fish. All of them were giant-sized, and it left me wondering "How can four of us finish it?!" The lobsters were so huge, that its antennas have flesh in it -_-

The waiter suggested different ways to have our seafood cooked, and he thought since the lobsters were so huge, they'll take the heads and cook porridge with it. WOW!!! That was a brilliant idea! Can you imagine porridge with all that yummy, goooey Lobster roe? *salivates*

Bargaining in action!

Lobster roe porridge!



Bryan with lobster antennas!

Grilled crabs - the night's winner for me!



Every night at the beach house (after replying Whitesoot emails, and yes, I can still put food in my tummy after that huge meal) I enjoy a bottle of San Miguel while listening to songs played on Ching's portable speaker.

I remember thinking to myself "Life can't get any better than this..." :)

Next post - Cliff Diving in Boracay!

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