I read 2 letters in today's Straits Times Forum which I disagree with. The first has to do with estate duty, the second has to do with NDP tickets.

The writer of the first letter wants estate duty to be raised instead of scrapped. Here's the reason. "The passing of wealth from one generation to another creates a grossly unfair headstart for the wealthy few. In a civil society, it is the duty of the Government, as a matter of principle, to tax such estates to ensure that the future generation's less fortunate have a fairer chance to seek space for themselves." He also cites the philanthropic efforts of Bill Gates and Warren Buffett as proof that the two richest men in the world are against bequeathing great wealth to the next generation.

This sounds like a great way to level the playing field and achieve income equality, but I think it's a pretty absurd idea. The previous generation worked hard and built up a large estate. He has the money to spend on enrichment activities for his children and other luxuries. That is his privilege and his reward. Taking his wealth away upon his death to deprive his children of a full inheritance in the name of creating a level playing field is just as unfair. The very idea sounds like a case of sour grapes.

Is it the duty of the government to pull those ahead back just because they're ahead? They got there by virtue of hard work, and maybe a bit of luck, but they dared to dream and they succeeded. How they want to distribute their estate upon their deaths should be up to them. If they want their children to succeed on their own and choose to donate a large part to charity, that is their prerogative. If they want their children to live a comfortable life without working, that is also their right.

The idea raised in this letter reminds me of the complaints against Microsoft accusing them of monopolising the OS industry, and there are calls for them not to integrate certain software into the OS so others can compete. The integration of a web browser or music player doesn't prevent you from installing others, just like the presence of rich children with bountiful opportunities doesn't prevent one from working hard and succeeding. I feel that people are just jealous that others have managed to get so far ahead. Would a dominant company in any industry give a chance to potential competitors? Would a soccer team in the lead purposely slow down and give their opponents a chance? Would a good student purposely answer questions wrongly so he won't be so far ahead of his class? So why should a rich person be forced to hand over part of his estate to the state upon his death?

Actually, I have no opinion on whether estate duty should be abolished, but I feel that the reasons brought up for raising estate duty in this letter are unfair to those who have succeeded.

The second letter write wants the NDP organisers to allow her kids to watch the parade without tickets. She has two tickets, so only her husband and her can go in, to the disappointment of the children. According to her, this is not a pro family policy.

I didn't bid for NDP tickets this year so I'm not sure of the system, but the year I did bid for them, I could choose how many tickets I wanted. She apparently bid for two and got them. Instead of being happy about it, she now complains that her children will have to miss the show. Some may argue that two children won't take up much space, but where will the line be drawn? How many families are also in this situation? How many more children will have to be packed into the already full stadium? Anyway, there are other solutions. If she is so concerned that her children will miss the show, one of the parents could miss it instead. This will be unfair to the other child, but apparently they are too young to go by themselves.

If the NDP organisers are flexible about this, how many more children will they allow in? How many parents will "attach" their children to friends and relatives with tickets? The tickets are to limit the number of people to the capacity of the stadium. In addition to being unfair, letting children in without a ticket can also be dangerous.

Every year, many more people will bid more tickets than there are places. It is a great privilege to be able to watch the parade live. I can understand the disappointment of this parent, but she must also consider the needs of others.

I finally got to watch this movie. It's much better than the first one. A wide range of related issues were brought up in the movie, and the theme of parenthood is much stronger in this one than the original movie. It's been awhile since I watched "I Not Stupid", so some facts may be wrong. Feel free to point out any errors and I'll look into it. This is not a movie review, spoilers are expected.

The movie starts off outlining tension in two families. One is a seemingly happy one, who have all they want in material possessions. The other consists of an ex-convict and his son. They are poor, and the relationship between father and son is not good. This theme of family tension is predominant for much of the movie.

The tension comes about because of poor communication between the parents and their children. The parents in the first family are busy with their careers, and they have little time for their children. Time and again their children drop hints that they want more attention, but time and again the hints are ignored by their busy parents. Jack Neo brought all this across in a humorous manner, but the underlying message is a sharp wake-up call to all busy parents. It's Father's Day and the younger child gives his father a silhouette drawing. When the father asks why he is portrayed as a black shadow, he asks his dad to stand in the doorway while he switches off the light. His dad is now silhouetted against the bright lights in the hall. He tells his family that this is how he sees his dad every night when he is already in bed. However, his parents brush him aside, saying he's only good at coming up with all this "nonsense".

The hypocrisy of parents was another issue brought up in the movie. It's dinner time, and the parents lecture their son about using his handphone during meals. He complies, but soon after, his father receives a call and picks it up. The mother tries to explain it as an important business call, but it is clear from the father's side of the conversation that all they're discussing is the location of a hawker stall. The explanation changes to hungry clients are angry clients, so the call is still considered important. Right after this, the mother gets a call too. She explains that her calls are important too, and picks it up. It turns out to be someone telling her about a discount on a skirt. The looks of disgust on the faces of the children give an eloquent description of what they're thinking. There are many other cases of irony in this family, such as when the father is lecturing his sons and the grandmother comes in and offers her opinions. The reaction of the dad is the same as that of his son, but he fails to realise this.

For these two families, the children are trying to earn praise and approval from their parents. However, their parents are hopelessly out of touch with their children's lives. Their "holier than thou" and "I know what is best" attitudes saddens the children, who feel that they are misunderstood and their parents cannot appreciate them for what they are. Instead, they are forced to conform to the stereotype of an ideal child held by their parents. Whatever they do is wrong. When the elder son fixes his father's laptop and brings it all the way to the office in time for his father's important presentation, he gets no thanks. He is chided for not being in school. Put yourself in the child's shoes. How would you feel?

Throughout the early part of the movie, the parents' love for their children is evident, but they are unable to express it to their children. As a result, the children feel lonely and seek acceptance from their peers. The movie goes on to explore one of the extreme consequences of this. While this might be an extreme case, it is certainly possible.

The same theme of adults being out of touch with teenagers also surfaces in school. The chinese teacher is hardworking, responsible and wants his students to do well, but his constant scolding and disparaging comments gets on their nerves and makes them defensive. When he changes his technique, his students are encouraged and much happier.

The extent of a teacher's role in the education of children and the issue of corporal punishment were also discussed. Should teachers also be responsible for character development? They cannot ignore that, but neither should parents expect teachers to shoulder all the responsibility when their children go astray. This aspect of education requires both parents and teachers, to whom the children look up to as role models.

All these issues were brought across in the movie in a humourous way. Look deeper and you will see the serious messages beneath the jokes. In today's competitive society, perhaps we should step back and evaluate our priorities. There are intangible things which are more important than a job promotion or a big house. Success is not measured by grades alone.

Thanks to Chee Hui, I'm playing about 20 games of the very addictive msn game Solitaire Showdown with him every day. It's very challenging to play against him, and the slightest distraction can result in a loss. I've had a few interesting results with him. The first one happened sometime during the week. The game was close. So close that it depended on whose double click on the last card got through first. Both could move up, but although I kept clicking, the system deemed that I was second. So sad :(

The 2nd interesting result happened today. Both of us got stuck. Now there's nothing strange about that, except that both of us were stuck at 0-0. None of us had moved a card off the 13 pile or placed a card in the center.



Another first. I've yet to hear of anyone playing against 2 people at once, but that's what jeryl did, with an overall win percentage of 80%. 16-2 against chu huey and 4-3 against me. This is embarrasing. I'm never going to maintain my measly 59% at this rate. Chee Hui complains that he's getting thrashed when it's only 60%. That doesn't happen too often, and when we end it's usually quite even. Looks like I need to find easier targets, haha.

Anyway, jeryl is probably right in saying that I play too much. If I can actually blog about solitaire showdown, I think I'm playing too much of it.

I went with my dad to service the car yesterday. We waited there the whole morning, and I spent the time watching CNA show the soccer highlights about 4 times. I got so bored that I walked over to the Honda and Toyota showrooms to pick up price lists and brochures.

We went home around 12, then discovered that a light wasn't working, so we went back. The service guy had gone for lunch, and we waited till he got back. By the time the light was fixed, it was nearly 2 pm. On the way back, my dad decided to go Toyota to take a look, since I had checked earlier and found out that the manual Vios is in.

We waited awhile for the same salesman who gave me his card in the morning on my recce trip. He had another customer to attend to. After 8 months, I finally got to drive a manual car again. The Vios was quite nice to drive, although I'm not really used to the small pedals. However, at least the brake pedal isn't much higher than the accelerator, like it is on the auto Vios. The manual was quite easy to drive, although I'm a bit rusty and jerked the car a little. The brake wasn't overly sensitive and this made it quite easy to stop smoothly. I didn't find the steering as stiff as the one on the auto Vios too.

Tried Toyota's hybrid car too, the Prius. It's really high tech. There's a touch screen in the middle which also shows the energy flow while you are driving. It shows if the car is currently powered by the petrol engine or the electric motor, as well as the direction of power flow between the battery and the motor. The suspension was good. However, it's not very powerful, so the pickup is a bit slow. The brake is also very sensitive, making it hard to control smoothly at slow speeds. The ignition and gear shift are cute. You slot a little keycard in, then press the "Power" button to start the car. It looks a lot like a computer power button. The gear shift has a "Park" button, but the rest are controlled by a little joystick controller, which looks a lot like those you see in arcades. Actually, we tried this car for fun, at $80000, it's way too expensive. You can't save $20000 in petrol over the expected lifespan of the car.

The salesmen at Toyota were great. They explained everything patiently and there was no pressure to buy. The one attending to us still bothered to explaing things even after my dad said that he has no intention of buying that day. That was so unlike Opel's salesgirl the other time, who showed no interest in us as soon as she realised we were just hunting around.

As a result of all this, I had lunch at 5pm, and dinner at around 815pm. Installed Messenger Live too. It looks very nice, and there are lots of little features hidden in various menus. I have yet to explore it fully, but a very nice touch is the ability to change the colour of the windows to any colour you please. However, the irritating this is that display pictures are no longer shown beside contact names in the main window. Everyone looks like a little pawn now.

Saw some interesting things in The Sunday Times.

First is the new ringtone used by New York students. It's high pitched, such that youngsters can hear it while older people can't. This allows them to receive calls during lessons, and the teacher won't be able to hear it. An interesting idea, but I'm wondering why they don't just use the vibration mode.

Next is the Gen Y section. This week's article is a follow up on the article on bullies a couple of weeks back. After seeing that article, one group of bullies hunted down their victim and asked him out to coffee. They apologised for what they did to him during their school days. I found that quite touching. They were repentant and even took the effort to contact him to apologise in person. It takes a lot of courage to do that.

However, the other victim isn't so lucky. Her bullies actually had the gall to feel offended that their side of the story wasn't considered. All right, fair enough, so they got a short bit on their side of the story. They bullied her because she refused to be their alibi. Their victim refused to lie to the bullies' parents about their whereabouts. Can you believe the cheek?? They lied to their parents, saying they were in Penang with the victim, when they were actually in Bali with their boyfriends. When the victim refused to cooperate, they started being mean to her, and still have the cheek to say that she started it!!!

In addition to that, they blame her because a guy which one of the bullies had a crush on started showing interest in the victim. The bullies blame her because they think she did something to make him like her, although she does not return the gestures. Therefore, she is a traitor. What kind of twisted logic is that?? It doesn't even make sense. It's too bad that the guy likes someone else, does it mean that the girl purposely did something to arouse his interest?? This group of bullies seem to have few morals. They actually think someone is wrong not to lie on their behalf. It's totally absurd. They should reflect on their own disgraceful behaviour.

Went to Kev's house just now to watch the Argentina vs Serbia and Montenegro. Kenny went too. I got to the bus stop just in time to watch the bus go by, and waited 20 mins for the next one. As a result, we missed the first goal of the match. Never mind, there were 5 more to watch. Argentina was great to watch, and the buildup to the goals was very exciting.

I notice an interesting pattern. For the 2 full matches I've watched on TV, both had 6 goals, and I missed the first goal for both. Coincidence? haha.

My doorbell stopped working a couple of days back, I finally stopped procastinating and got down to finding the problem. Replacing the batteries would seem to be the obvious solution, but I thought I would check first. I took out the 4 C sized batteries and measured the voltage with a digital multimeter.

At first I thought the batteries were dead, as the reading was very low, but as the probes were shifted around the terminals, the reading suddenly jumped to 1.5V. I realised that the rust on the batteries were preventing a good contact, so I rubbed all 4 battery terminals with sandpaper and tried again. The bell still wouldn't ring.

I used the multimeter to check the voltages at the metal contacts of the bell with 2 batteries inserted. The readings fluctuated a lot, so I removed the batteries and checked the resistance of the metal contacts. It was quite high. The next step was to spray the contacts with WD-40. I let it dry for a while, but there was little improvement when I checked the resistance again with the multimeter, so I rubbed the contacts with sandpaper. Now the resistances are a lot lower. Ahh, some improvement. I replaced the batteries, making sure that the non-rusty parts had good contact with the metal contacts of the doorbell. Went to test it and it worked!!!

I had a similar experience with my calculator, but after so much effort cleaning the contacts, the LCD screen decided to spoil after 9 years of service. Now my dual line display has become a single line one.

Went to watch the show Cars at TM this morning. The TM GV shows a lot of advertisements, and it was nearly half an hour after the stated time that the movie itself actually started. There was even a short clip from Pixar which was really funny. It showed 2 buskers competing for a measly coin from the only person in the village square. It's actually a very interesting interpretation of the chinese phrase 鹬蚌相争，渔翁得利. (yu bang xiang zheng, yu weng de li). In the end, the little girl was so stressed she dropped the coin, which rolled into the drain and was lost forever. However, she grabbed a violin and started her own performance, and got a gigantic bag of coins for her efforts. She tossed two into the fountain, and the clip ends with the buskers still trying to get the coins out at night. The rest of the advertisements were the usual ones you see at movies. I think they are of a higher standard than those TV ads, but the visa one is getting a bit stale. At least I didn't have to see the Dynamo one, where a whole room of scientists purposely stain their lab coats. How impossible is that? It's such a silly concept, and the surprise of the cleaning lady was so incredibly fake. I prefer the Pepsi ads on Yahoo Music.

(Possible spoilers coming up)
I digress. Cars is a very nice show because of the wonderful storyline, and the animation is great too. It's about a racing car with a huge ego, selfish, self-centred, brimming with confidence, but who fails to appreciate the people, or rather cars, who have elevated him to that position. By a stroke of fortune (or misfortune, depending on how you see it), he finds himself in an old forgotten town, forced to do community service. Throughout his stay, he learns a lot about friendship, and realises that there is so much more to life than personal achievement. He enters the tiebreaker race without his usual pit crew and distracted by his reflections of the past week. His new friends come in as his pit crew, and he is also able to put some newly acquired skills to good use during the race. If this was a run of the mill cartoon like the Power Rangers, where the good guys win every time, it would still be a good story, but in the case of Cars, the hero does not win the race. Instead, he stops right before the finish line, and returns to help his fallen competitor finish the race. This act shows how much he has changed during his stay in the town. He has truly realised that it can be meaningful to help others and going all out to win may not be the right thing to do. After all, the trophy is just a metal cup. The end does not always justify the means.

The winner, who used underhand tactics to win, was booed when he was presented with the trophy. Instead of getting the cheers he expected, he lost the respect of the fans, who were moved by the actions of the protagonist. The protagonist even got a coveted sponsorship offer despite losing, which he turned down as he was grateful to the ones who had helped him achieve what he did.

Cars is a beautiful story about friendship, trust, helping others and sportsmanship. It tells the tale of a car who was transformed by the actions of others to become much more likeable. In today's rat race, it is certainly heartwarming to see that there are people who still believe in ideals. It is not only about winning, but how you win. With the World Cup currently on, this is something that all the diving and dishonest players can learn from this animated movie.

As Timothy will be flying off on fri, the yf had a farewell outing on Saturday. Some of them went to attend a wedding first, the rest of us met them at ECP. Some chose to cycle, while 5 of us chose to blade. As Jol and Jeryl are still learning how to blade, the cyclists left us in the dust and rode off into the wild blue yonder. Ok, that's an exaggeration, but you get the idea. Anyway, it's ok, the 2 of you just need more practice. Then Jol can change "learn" on her wishlist to "learnt".

After ECP, we went Marina Bay for steamboat. Had a good time there, here's a group pic. Shaun isn't inside as he took the photo. Jonathan is very sadistic with prawns, and Timothy is equally sadistic with empty drink cans.


We ended around 930pm, then Joline got the crazy idea of going Esplanade. Jon, Sarah, Chu Huey, Jol, Jeryl and I went. Walked across to the Merlion, and saw the boards covering it as it's closed for maintenance works. Instead of dull plain boards, they had a picture of the Merlion taking a shower. Jon wanted to pull off a disappearing act, leaving Jol and Sarah behind. He wanted to leave Jol as it was her crazy idea in the first place. I have no idea why he wanted to leave Sarah behind. In the end he disappeared with Jeryl, but we met up with them at the MRT.

Had to go home after that as there was church the next day. Called kenny and found out that the England Paraguay score was 1-0, scored by an own goal. It sounded boring. If he stops mapling long enough to read this post, he'll probably complain about how I played him out. Oh well, God before soccer, haha.

Haven't blogged this week, that should have been enough time for anyone interested to read the entire trip diary on one page. This post should push Day 1 off the page.

Watched the opening match of the world cup on channel 5 last night. Germany vs Costa Rica. It was a nice match to watch. Within 6 minutes, Germany had scored a goal. Costa Rica equalised quite quickly, but Germany drew ahead again. So many goals already. The second half had lots of goals too. Costa Rica didn't get a 2nd equaliser, but they managed to keep the goal difference to 1, until Frings blasted in a long range shot. The final score was 4-2. Since I don't support any particular team, what I want to watch in soccer are the goals. Doesn't matter who scores them, haha. So this was a very nice match for me to watch.

We had to wake up quite early today to catch our 1130 am flight. We went to the train station to buy tickets for the train to the International Terminal. Taking train to the airport is expensive there, the one way ticket would have cost $12.60. Since there were 5 of us, the ticket guy suggested that we take 2 taxis instead, so we went outside to wait for taxis.

zq and I got on the first one. The driver was friendly and asked us a few things about Singapore. The scary thing was the method he used to talk to us. We were in the backseat, but he liked to have eye contact when speaking to us. He would twist around all the way in his seat to talk, with one arm draped on the wheel and the other on the centre armrest. During this time he won't be looking where he's going at all. Still, he managed to get us to the airport quickly for the relatively low price of $21.

We joined the long queue at the check in counters and waited for the rest. They took a very long time to arrive. When they showed up, they told us they had got stuck in a traffic jam and run up a fare of $45. In the end, the amount we paid was similar to what it would have been if we had taken the train.

The check in queue was very slow, and the woman who served us was quite talkative. Perhaps the friendliness of the staff held up the queue.

I got separated from the rest while we were looking through the airport shops. They went further down without telling me, so I decided to board the plane first as takeoff time was getting close. Kev made the correct guess as to whether I would have waited or boarded, but got overruled by the rest. His reasoning was spot on too. In the end, we met up on the plane, so all was well.

The flight back was uneventful. I managed to watch "The Longest Yard" and "Million Dollar Baby" on the way back. The video on demand system is great, passengers no longer have to worry about missing screening times. Here's a picture of the view right after takeoff. Australia is a nice place, I hope to visit again next time, so much to see and do.


Eight hours and 2 meals later, we're home again, chris and zq can't wait to get back to their computers and play Maple Story.

Anyway, for those who have persevered so far and read my very lengthy account of my trip, thanks for reading, and I hope I didn't bore you.

First attraction for today was the Taronga Zoo. The cable car service at the zoo hadn't started yet so we had to take a bus up to the top of the steep hill which the zoo is situated on. The Lonely Planet guidebook had stated the adult admission price as $16. Although it's a bit outdated, we didn't expect the price to double to $30. Tried to tell the person that we were students, but none of us had thought to bring along our student passes, and we weren't sure if they would have been accepted. At least the free guidebook we picked up from the airport had discount coupons.


Well, this zoo is just like any other I suppose. The animals are in very natural looking enclosures, but most were still asleep when we were there. Here's a picture of some kangaroos. They weren't very active when we were there, but we saw a couple of them bounding around. They're really fast.

The picnic corner gave us a great view of the harbour. I got one of my best panoramas here.
After we reached the lower entrance, we took the cable car up to the top and down again. This caused us to miss the 12 o'clock ferry back to Circular Quay. Actually, we wanted to have lunch at the fish market, but as it was quite far we decided to try going there for dinner.

We watched a busker perform some daring stunts at the quay. He juggled flaming sticks while riding a bicycle, not the usual way, but with his feet on the seat and handlebars. As if that wasn't enough, he did it again while juggling a chainsaw and 2 flaming sticks. Finally, he put the whole bike onto a metal pole, climbed onto it and juggled a knife, an apple and a flaming stick. He even managed to eat the apple while juggling it. During his performance, he made many jokes and managed to draw quite a large crowd. Most gave him a tip at the end too. Here's a picture of him perched up on the bicycle while a member of the audience tosses the knife to him.

We went shopping after that. I don't like aimless shopping, although I don't mind going through shopping districts to see what they are like. Chris and zq slowly browsed through clothes at Myers while the rest of us followed along and tried not to look too bored. They have a pretty good books section though. We walked on to the fish market, stopping now and then to browse through shops. We got there to find everything closed, so we walked back and had dinner at the same place as last night.

We had to wake up early in the morning to catch the train back to Sydney. Had a short debate on whether to buy tickets or not. After all, you don't need them to board, and we have a TravelPass to get out on the other end. In the end, integrity won and we spent another $9.80 per person on train tickets. We booked ourselves into the Sydney YHA again, and found a relatively cheap food court in Chinatown for lunch. $6.50 for a very large plate of rice and a mountain of beef.

Went to visit the famous Bondi Beach next. We had to take at train then transfer to a bus. Luckily there were very clear signposts. The beach looked just like the pictures I had seen of it, except for the number of people. The postcard pictures always show a huge crowd enjoying themselves, I guess they took the picture during the height of the summer holiday season, but when we went, the beach was fairly deserted.

We spent a long time watching the surfers and the waves crashing onto the shore. Here's another pic of the beach, from a vantage point closer to the water. If you look at the larger version, you can see that the little specks far off at the other end of the beach are people. As we didn't have anything else planned for the day, we slowly strolled to one end of the beach. CH did some crazy things, he got chris and zq to do push ups with him on the beach. zq also ran at a huge group of seagulls and made them fly away, haha. chris mentioned that this would be a nice place to watch a sunset, but we pointed out to him that the sun set in the other direction. Still, he proved to be right.

Next we climbed the slope up to the cliff walk and followed the trail to the headland. Although there is usually a safety rail, in some places it's absent, allowing you to climb down onto the rocks. ch seemed a bit crazy that day, and led the way down onto a rocky section of the coast. We stopped there for another break, and took a few photos. Now that wasn't as simple as you might think. There wasn't enough flat space to set up the tripod and take a group photo on the bit of rock we were on. On the seaward side, there's another rock, but we had to cross a gap too large to jump. To do so, we had to climb down to a little ledge, walk along it, then cross the gap where it is narrower and climb onto the other rock. Unfortunately, those pics are with kev and I haven't got them from him yet, so I've got nothing to post here. We all did that and took a group picture on that much flatter rock.

We then got the idea of putting the tripod on the seaward rock while we took a picture of ourselves on the landward side of the gap. Since kev's camera only had a 10 second timer, someone had to press the button then scramble across the gap and into position within 10 seconds. We timed CH and he managed to do it, so we set everything up and took the photo. Before ch pressed the button, we warned each other not to blink. CH pressed the shutter, and performed a great feat of athleticism scrambling across safely. Upon checking the photo, we found that Murphy had not been idle, for lo and behold, zq had blinked!!! His eyes were shut. Ch nearly wanted to throttle him there and then. So we had to do it all over again. This time, he didn't blink, or he would probably have taken a little saltwater bath. Anyway, zq has a history of blinking during photos. He does it regardless of shutter speed. He can do it with long exposures or with short ones. I'm pretty amazed. How do you time a blink so your eyes are closed in the same 1/640 of a second that the camera takes the picture?? I've heard rumours that he can perform this feat at even higher shutter speeds. However, he tells us that he's now being more careful not to blink and he was less blink prone in future pictures, so maybe he's getting better.

There was another funny thing that happened before the photo incident. CH was the first to climb to the seaward rock, and went even further by climbing onto a low lying cratered piece which was sometimes flooded by a big wave. He wandered onto it, despite seeing a wave wash over it and the craters full of water. He went to the end, turned back and waved at us. I went down near the start and kept an eye on the sea. It was bound to happen sooner or later. A large wave hit and water started flooding onto the rock. I was near high ground and got out of the way easily, but CH had to hop frantically onto the dry spots with the water nipping at his heels all the way. He barely scrambled up in time, but got his jeans slightly wet from a puddle. Didn't get that on video because chris had kept the video camera at the 1st sign of possible rain and hadn't taken it out again. Being CH, he just had to go back to get a photo taken, but this time we warned him when a wave approached and he was able to get back with time to spare.

We continued walking along the trail towards the headland. The view was great, there was a beautiful sunset and we even saw a rainbow. I shall let the pictures speak for themselves.







After it got dark, we took a slow stroll back towards the shops, had some ice cream, then took public transport to the Lansdowne Hotel, which CH's friend had recommended for its cheap (by Sydney City standards) meals. We had dinner there, then bought so much chocolate from Coles that one of the natives commented about it, haha. We were buying for family and friends and had just dumped them together in the same basket, so it looked like a lot.

After breakfast, we followed the map provided by the YHA to the start of the Prince Henry Cliff Walk. The weather had cleared up and it was a beautiful day, although it was even colder than the previous day. Here's a shot of Katoomba Street.



We followed the trail to The Three Sisters. There were many lookouts on the way and we detoured to them quite often. The view was great and we stopped quite often to take pictures. As a result, it took us quite some time to reach The Three Sisters. Here's a picture taken at the start of the trail.



The Three Sisters is also where the Giant Staircase is. This is a 900 step staircase that descends to the bottom of the valley, which then leads to the trail that will lead to another staircase that you can walk up. If you choose to follow that trail further, you will reach the lower stations of the Scenic Railway and cable car which we had already taken yesterday. The staircase is very steep and narrow. There is even a warning sign that it is only for strong walkers. We followed it down for a while, until the bridge that lead across to the first of the Three Sisters. Took a short break on the bench there, then we climbed the stairs back up to the trail and continued along the trail to reach Echo Point. The short climb was already tiring, so it was a good thing we hadn't gone all the way down as we had originally planned. The wind there was very strong, and it was very cold. Here's a pic of CH further up the staircase, taken from the bridge. Behind him you can see some people descending the staircase. Nearly froze my fingers taking this picture.

At Echo Point, we went into the visitor centre, which was also a souvenir shop. Spent a long time there hiding from the cold wind and just looking around. I didn't see anything worth buying, but the others spent a long time looking at mood rings. Those are rings which change colour depending on temperature, and the colour is supposed to tell you the mood of the wearer. In the end, the others except chris bought them, just for fun.


We finally left the warmth of the visitor centre and went to the lookout point. The wind there was really strong. After a couple of minutes, chris and zq disappeared to take shelter, while the rest of us took the pictures. We finally found them in the warmth of another building looking through the shops, haha. Anyway, here's a picture of the famous Three Sisters, as seen from Echo Point.

We followed the trail to the eastern station of the Scenic Skyway, then walked back through the streets of Katoomba to the YHA. We went back early to rest, as we had booked an eco tour for the night. More on that later.

After taking a short break, we went out for an early dinner as we hadn't had lunch. The problem was, it was 5pm. All the shops which were open for lunch were about to close, and those which open for dinner don't do so until 530pm!! In the end, after walking all the way to the train station, we walked all the way back and had a little sandwich at a small shop near the hostel. They were about to close too.


The sky looked ominous at 530pm, and we didn't want to be caught out in the rain again at night. Although it had started raining, our guide for the eco tour showed up at 6pm and assured us that it wouldn't be as cold or wet under the forest canopy, so off we went. He drove us to an area near Wentworth. After parking the SUV at the side of the road and giving us torches, we followed him down a small and overgrown trail. Unlike the other trails we had walked on during the day, this one was much smaller and not as well kept. Some of the steps were missing and there were some tricky jumps, made even more slippery by the rain. Also, it was so dark under the tree canopy that I couldn't see my outstretched hand without the torch.

Along the way, the guide told us some interesting things about the trees we saw. He also explained the importance of swamps in the habitat. As we followed the trail down to the valley floor, we passed a large stone cliff. There, he told us to switch off our torches. In the inky blackness, we could see the tiny blue lights of the glow worms on the wall. Considering the cool weather, there were quite a lot of them. The guide told us it could be because there was no moon. He warned us not to shine our torches at them as the glow worms might think it was morning and switch off their lights. The lights are used to lure insects into their webs, then the glow worms will use them for food. As we continued on, he explained the life cycle of a glow worm. They don't eat when they are adults. All they do is to find a mate, lay eggs then die. We passed behind 2 little waterfalls. They are fed from the swamps further up. The swamps are not like our mangrove swamps. In fact they look like normal ground, just with no huge trees, but lots of dense vegetation. The vegetation is so thick you can walk through it, but some of it is rather sharp, and it'll probably be very painful to attempt walking through a swamp.

Just on the right of the path is a short steep slope, which leads to a pond created by a waterfall. We had to be quite careful so as not to fall in. We took a break at a picnic table under an overhanging cliff, quite near the waterfalls. The guide told us a few things about Aboriginal people, and we just sat there in the dark forest.

On the way back, he showed us a glow worm and its web. Kev tried to take pictures, but I'm not sure how they turned out as he didn't use a tripod. Anyway, here's a pic taken from my video footage, brightened and cropped. It shows the web of a glow worm. There's no point showing a picture of the blue light, because all you will see is a tiny blue dot in the middle of a black picture.

We got back to the top of the trail without incident and he drove us back to the hostel. The sandwich we had for dinner was nowhere near to filling us up, especially after our energetic hike through the forest at night. We went back to Domino's Pizza again, wondering if we should get 3 or 4 pizzas this time.

We still weren't sure how many pizzas to get, but this sign here helped us to decided pretty quickly. Yup, it was half the price of yesterday's pizzas. We were pretty shocked too at the drastic price cut. Plus the only condition was that the crust must be their classic crust. We ordered SIX pizzas. Note that we only have 5 people. To add to this, we went to Coles and bought 2 large packets of potato chips and some pepsi.

Back at the YHA, we got on with the task of finishing 9 to 10 slices of pizza each. We finished most of it in 20 minutes or so, but the last one took a little longer. Actually I've never eaten 10 slices of pizza in 1 sitting before this. For an idea of how large the pizzas are, refer to the picture in my last post which shows chris carrying the boxes.

As a reminder, the date on day 4 is 22/05/2006, Monday.


We had to wake up very early as we wanted to catch the 725 am train to the town of Katoomba, up in the Blue Mountains. Breakfast was instant noodles which we had bought yesterday from Woolworths. Here's the 4 of them eating breakfast at 620 am in the morning. The town is a 2 hour train ride from Central Station. As we already had a TravelPass to the Green sector, we just topped up the difference, which is $9.80 for a one-way ticket.

It would have been easy to miss the station. There was something wrong with the speaker system and the driver's announcements couldn't be heard clearly. Good thing ZQ was alert and told us when it was time to get off. The first thing we noticed as we walked out of the station was the lack of ticket gates. Which means that no one would have known if we hadn't bought any tickets. The second thing we noticed was that it was a lot colder than in Sydney.

After checking into the Blue Mountains YHA, we used our See Sydney Card for 1 day on the Blue Mountains Explorer Bus and for the Scenic World rides. We took the bus straight to the rides, and decided to take the railway down and the cable car up. The railway passes through a tunnel, but the distinguishing feature is the steepness of the ride, a whopping 52 degrees. The first picture shows a tour group in front of us boarding the train, while the second shows the view from the front while the train was descending through the tunnel.










At the bottom, we took a few pictures of the famous 3 sisters. There's a legend about how they were formed. Basically a witch doctor turned his daughters into stone to protect them from an evil monster, but in escaping from the monster he lost his magic bone, and is still looking for it to this day. The picture on the left shows the 3 sisters and some of the valley, as seen from the lower station of the scenic railway. The 3 distinct blocks on the left of the picture are the 3 sisters. If you can't see them clearly, don't worry, there will be more pictures of this famous attraction in the next post.

We took a short detour along a trail to Katoomba Falls, which was nothing but a small trickle of water. Perhaps it was the season. Next we followed the boardwalk towards the cable car, making a small detour to see the coal miner's village. The village was a bit of a disappointment, it was just a small furnished shack. I suppose it was to show us how the coal miners used to live. The cable car ride was great, giving us a wonderful view of the valley as it ascended back towards the top. The pic shows zq, chris and ch in the very large cable car.





Lunch was at the revolving restaurant there. It was expensive, but we didn't want to waste time looking for eating places. Caught the Explorer Bus to the Gordon Falls trail and started a long trek in an attempt to reach another famous attraction, Wentworth Falls. The view along the way was great, and we stopped often to take pictures. There were many lookouts along the way which gave us a great view of the valley. The trail was well signposted and quite easy to walk on. There were even staircases for the steeper sections. Here's a picture of a waterfall we encountered along the trail.

After the waterfall, we climbed back onto the main road and continued our eastward journey to the next trail that would lead on to Wentworth Falls. We only had the Explorer Bus' map of the area. It wasn't to scale, and only showed the major roads. Thanks to zq's accurate navigation, we didn't get lost, but it was much further than we expected. We finally found the start of the trail, somewhere near what looked like a country club.
Here's a pic of us posing with the sign. Now why were we posing with this sign? See the A4 sized notice stuck onto the wooden sign? Here's another picture that will give you a better view.

After walking all that way, we found out that the trail was closed!! So we decided to head back to Katoomba instead of trying to find a way to Wentworth by the main road. The walk back was uneventful, up to a point. It was getting dark and we had to cover all the distance we had walked earlier.

Here's a picture of the sunset, taken on the long trek back.

The sun sets early in autumn, about 5pm, so it gets dark pretty early. Next it started to rain, so the 5 of us are now sharing 2 umbrellas, walking back in the dark and in the rain. We decided to head to Leura train station instead of walking all the way back to Katoomba. Now we realised that it was a good thing the trail was closed, or we would have been stuck on a bush trail in the dark and in the rain, and that wouldn't have been any fun at all, especially as it was getting colder.

As we neared the train station, I saw a car covered in what looked like ice. We guessed that it had come from a higher region where it was colder. Thinking nothing of it, we continued. Kev and I were in front sharing an umbrella, while the other 3 were behind sharing another. Suddenly, the 2 of us heard them yelping, then they suddenly ran for shelter. We wondered what the matter was, then realised that the rain had turned to sleet. Little ice pellets were now falling from the sky, and it was painful when it hit. Luckily we were already opposite the train station. However, trains on this line have a frequency of 1 per hour, so we had a long wait for the train. Ch managed to make an ice ball for zq to volley. Anyway, here's a pic of the umbrellas after we had reached the train station safely. You can see the ice on it.


After taking the train back to Katoomba, we had dinner in a very warm chinese restaurant, ordered pizza at Domino's Pizza, and visited the supermarket, mainly to buy a 12L tank of water.

We couldn't have had pizza right after dinner, so we had actually arranged to collect the pizza at 10pm. After a very cold night out, we were all looking forward to a hot shower, and since there was still quite some time till 10pm, we all took one. When it was time to collect the pizza, none of us wanted to change back, since we were all clean and had changed into sleeping attire. There was never any doubt that we would all go to collect the pizza together, so out we went back into the cold night in the attire you see in the picture, taken from the video camera and brightened up so you can see better.


Chris is holding the pizzas, dressed in a jacket and shorts, which was what all of us were wearing. We hadn't even bothered with shoes. You can see CH at the back in SAF sandals.

It had certainly been a most eventful day.