What about scuba diving?
This blog post deviates somewhat from my usual guide on traveling. Instead, this is about my experience in scuba diving in general. Although I’m not a regular diver, I did dive around 17 times in 3 different countries. As a beginner scuba diver, it is important to choose the site to dive, and who to dive with (for safety reasons). The first time I dove was at two different sites in Great Barrier Reef at Australia: Port Douglas and Cairns. Since I didn’t have my license at th
The Aussie Journey
After, exploring 15 cities in the continent of Australia, I decided to make this video to summarize my journey. Highlights including scuba diving, hugging a koala bear, trekking through a glowworm cave, and playing at the Australian Open venue. Huge thanks to Yale, Catherine, Jessica and Yuwei for accompanying me in this trip! Canon EOS Rebel T4i and EFS 18-135mm lens http://www.youtube.com/user/TheLegoman Vimeo: https://vimeo.com/115820351 Music: The Father's Heart - Tony An
Australia: Travel Vlog (Part 2)
Australia & New Zealand Travel Video Blog (Part 2) Documentary video of my backpacking trip in Australia and New Zealand. Video covered from scuba diving, to holding a koala bear, to exploring the Shire from Lord of the Rings. Special thanks and feature: Yale, Yuwei, Catherine and Jessica #vlog #Australia #NewZealand
Australia: Travel Vlog (Part 1)
Australia & New Zealand Travel Video Blog (Part 1) Documentary video of my backpacking trip in Australia and New Zealand. Video covered from scuba diving, to holding a koala bear, to exploring the Shire from Lord of the Rings. Special thanks and feature: Yale, Yuwei, Catherine and Jessica #Vlog #Australia #NewZealand
Australian Open: The Happy Slam
On this day, I visited the most important venue in Melbourne – the Melbourne Park, home to the Australian Open of tennis. As a tennis fan, I was excited to visit the site of this prestigious tournament. Melbourne Park consists of a large area that includes venues such as the Rod Laver Arena, the Hisense Arena and the Margaret Court Arena. This is the open area at the park. I signed up for the tour to check out the venue inside. The tour guide told me that these lockers were f
The Great Ocean Road: Beauty Coast
Day 17 In the morning, I left the city early for a tour to visit the famous Great Ocean Road, along with other landmarks, most notably the Twelve Apostles. Great Ocean Road is a must-see sight if you plan to visit Melbourne. The road is 240km long and stretches from Port Phillip bay to Warrnambool. The view on the Great Ocean Road is certainly spectacular, however, after 3 hours of twists and turns on this curvy road, I began to feel motion sickness. After taking Gravol pills
Melbourne: The great rival of Sydney
Day 16 Early morning, I took a 7:45am flight to Melbourne (bye bye Sydney). After arriving at Melbourne, I signed up for another “I am Free” walking tour. On this tour, I was able to learn the history and cultural development of Melbourne. As mentioned from before, Melbourne did not grow big until the gold rush in the 1850s. Ever since then, Australians begin to compare between Melbourne and Sydney. In fact, Melbourne was ahead of Sydney in many aspects at one point in the 19
Beach hopping!
Day 15 In the morning, I met up with my friend Yuwei who lived in Sydney temporarily at the Darling Harbour to check out the Malaysian Food Festival. To be honest, I was surprised that there were only a maximum of 10 food stalls at the park. The other stalls were mostly on merchandise sale. Afterwards, we took the bus to Maroubra beach, which is about 10 km south-east of the CBD. On that day, we walked from Maroubra beach to the famous Sydney Bondi beach. The entire path was
Tour of Sydney & Blue Mountain
Day 13 The next day I went to the CBD again and visited the Darling Harbour. According to the tour guide, Darling Harbour was not as nice as before, and recently went through a massive urban renewal development. Now, the harbor is a large recreational and pedestrian precinct. When I visited Sydney, it was during the school holiday. Therefore, I saw many children and families gathered around the Darling Harbour park as their playground. This is another view of the Sydney skyli
Sydney Opera House and more
Day 12 This is going to be a long post. After a change of pace and atmosphere, I arrived to the city side of Australia – Sydney. Sydney is a metropolis city, quite similar to Toronto. The city is very multicultural and is indeed a financial hub on the Oceanic continent. Sydney is also the state capital of New South Wales and has the highest population in Australia. I stayed at a family friend’s house in Sydney for the next four days. On my first day, I took the Skytrain out t
Gold Coast: Miami of Australia
Day 10 We took an 11 am flight to leave from Cairns to Gold Coast. Off the airport, we rented a car from Europcar and drove to our hostel. On the streets of Gold Coast, I noticed something very different. Remember how I mentioned that Australia likes to name their words differently? Well, in Australia “Burger King” is called “Hungry Jack’s”. What happened was that the name “Burger King” has already been trademarked by a food shop in Adelaide. As a result, Burger King, partner
Scuba-diving Round 2!
Day 9 This day was my second Great Barrier Reef trip. This time we departed from Cairns and sailed to Norman reef. As you can see from the picture below, the first trip 2 days ago was at Agincourt Reef at the top, and today is at Norman Reef, which is below. We went with another tour operator company called Reef Experience. Unfortunately, I was not impressed with this company because the staff lacked professionalism. The service was not the greatest compared to my first trip.
