The Balik Kampung Trip: A trip down the memory lane

Day 1: We took the night flight on 28^th November from KL to Gold Coast. It was a bit of a rush as Hana and I was still working on that day. We went home a bit early than we normally do, showered, had a light dinner and went straight to the airport. 

At the airport, we met up with Ciktie and my aunt who will be joining us for this trip. We checked in a bit late as our friend’s friend was supposed to send her box to the airport for us to check in. By the time she arrived, it was 20 minutes before the check in counter close.

Our bags ready to be checked in

At the check in counter, we faced slight delay as the counter that we checked in, the computer suddenly hang when the person keyed in our details in the system. Therefore, she had to restart her computer and do everything again. Luckily, we were already at the counter, so we ended up the last one to check in for our flight.

Once checked in, we went to the immigration counter and went inside the boarding lounge. We have about half an hour before it was time to board the flight. Since we were a bit thirsty, all of us bought bottled mineral water to drink. When they announced that it was time for boarding, we went to the gate.

At the gate, there was another security check where they checked our documents and we had to scan our bags again. When we know that we had to scan our bags again, we knew we were in trouble as all of us had more than 100mL liquid with us. Since the water bottles were nearly full or ¾ full, all of us gulp down the remaining liquid down our throat as we didn’t want to waste our money. It was hell trying to shove 400mL of liquid down your throat in a short while. Eventually we managed to empty the water bottles but made our bladder full. (I guess 3 years of not travelling to Oz made us forget the strict security for all flights to Oz).

After that, we board the plane and head towards Gold Coast. We slept most of the time throughout the flight, as we wanted to save energy for the next day.

Day 2: We landed in Gold Coast half an hour earlier than the estimated time. At the immigration counter, my aunt got questioned by the officer there. He asked her the purpose of her trip and she answered to attend a friend’s wedding. When he asked to see the invitation card, my aunt said that the invitation was via Facebook. The officer was impressed and he never heard of anybody invite to wedding via Facebook. I guess only in Malaysia people invite to wedding via Facebook.

Once we got our luggage, we head in line for custom clearance. Since all of us brought instant noodles with us, he declared it on our incoming custom sheet. When the custom officer took a look at our custom sheet, he asked us what kind of food we were bringing in. Is it ikan bilis? Maggi? We giggled when he said ikan bilis and maggi. Over the years he must have got used to the type of food that Malaysians were bringing in to his country.

Gold Coast Airport arrival hall.

At the arrival lounge, we took turns to freshen up ourselves in the toilet and then went to pick up our rental car from Vroomvroomvrrom. The car rental was only AUD300 for 10 days, very reasonable right. We got the smallest car available (Holden Barina) as there’s only the 4 of us which was more than enough for us to travel with.

We drove up to Brisbane from Coolloongatta (Gold Coast) Airport and head straight to University of Queensland (UQ), our alma mater. The journey to UQ took about an hour and a half and once we reached there we drove one round around the uni before we decided to park our car at Munro Park praying hard in our mind that we don’t get a ticket for parking here and then we walked to uni.

Excited to be back at Down Under. Heading up to Brisbane

It was a hot sunny day. Approaching Brisbane CBD.

It’s been 3 years since I left this place and I can already see the changes that had happened since then. The Forgan Smith Building (the building next to Goddard) had a modern makeover to some part of it but the Great Court is still the same. Then we head to Wordies for lunch as all of us were hungry. We had their signature nachos and crispy wedges for lunch. Halfway through lunch, Hajar and Johan joined us for a brief moment before they had to head back to their respective labs. God, it felt so good to be back to a familiar place. 

In front of Forgan Smith building facing The Great Court. It's good to be back.

Favourite lunch: Nachos and Crispy wedges from Wordies

Reunited with our batch mates, Hajar and Johan

After lunch, we head to IMB (the place where Hana and I did our honours) and paid our old lab mates a visit. We where there for nearly an hour while my aunt and Ciktie waited patiently at the lobby area. We were waiting for Soumya to take us up to the lab but we saw Jan at the lobby and she brought us up. It was good catching up with everyone there. The group got bigger now than what it used to be.

Stopped in the middle of The Great Court on the way to IMB

Paid a visit to the Physics building to see the world's longest running experiment, The Pitch drop Experiment,

Paid our old lab mates a visit,

Later on the day, we head to Indooroopilly Shopping Mall as Ciktie wanted to buy new slipper as her slipper got spoiled while we were walking around uni. We also want to do some grocery shopping for ourselves. The mall also has expanded from the last time we were here; it’s a bit bigger than it used to be.

After all the shopping, we went to Hajar’s house (our accommodation in Brisbane) to rest, freshen up ourselves and head out again after sunset. That night we went to Ami’s future in law’s house for her henna night. The girl that did henna for her is very talented and she’s only 16 years old (a pretty girl too).

Staling the girl who did Ami's henna

Us girls with the bride-to-be

We had dinner there (a widespread of foods available) and head home around 9.30pm to discuss about our remaining trip. But all of us were too tired to discuss about it so we just called it a day. Will write about the wedding soon.

Till then~