I think it is about time for me to write an entry regarding my trip to Australia. I will try to cover as much as I can, from the ticket flight, accommodation, transportation, food, telco, etc.

My friend and I booked two-way flight tickets from Kuala Lumpur to Sydney and Sydney to Kuala Lumpur in May 2016. Our flight will be around early August 2016. The duration of stay would be 9 days. We bought the tickets early because they are cheaper if we book early. So after we bought the tickets, we started to plan the itinerary for the trip. Of course, we have to google for the interesting places at Sydney right? After we have done some research and read about Sydney trip from other bloggers, we found out that there are not so many places that we can cover. I could already guess that because based on the itinerary that I have planned, we can cover most of the areas in Sydney within two days only. If that’s the case, what do we do for the rest of our stay?

So we decided to go to Melbourne as well. But I did say that we have already bought our ticket right? If we were to reschedule our ticket we had to pay for the fees. If we were to just abandon our return flight ticket, Sydney-KL, so that we can just return to Malaysia from Melbourne, it would be a waste of money. In short, this would cost more expenses than it should. Therefore, we bought the Sydney-Melbourne and Melbourne-Sydney within that 9 days, means that we were inserting a slot for the trip to Melbourne within those days. So it will be, 3 days in Sydney, 3 days in Melbourne, and 3 days in Sydney. Ya it was quite ridiculous because we were like go here go there go here again lol. But, it costs lower amount of money, I have compared these two situations mathematically.

Oh anyway, the highlight for the trip to Melbourne is Mount Buller. It is a mountain full of ice (well not really full) which I don’t know whether it is man-made ice or natural ice. We booked the entrance ticket online.

  

 Air Asia two-way ticket (Kul-Syd-Kul)      = RM 2500

Tigerair two-way ticket (Syd-Melb-Syd)     = $ 30

                                                                               = RM 90

Entrance ticket for Mt Buller                       = $ 79

                                                                      = RM 237

Total                                                              = RM 2827

Tips:

-For the purchase of flight ticket, we used Skyscanner.com to compare the price.

-Because we have friends studying at both Sydney and Melbourne, so we spend 0 dollars on accommodations and food haha!

-If you want to bring any food with you, you have to make a declaration. Make a list of the food with the ingredients stated in the list.

-Toilets in Australia are dry toilets. They don’t have water pipes in the toilets. So bring along at least a water bottle for your ease because you won’t be comfortable if you just wipe with tissue.
-Google Maps is a really good help throughout the entire trip. Be it by bus, train, tram, ferry or even walking, you would know your route.

Alright enough for the introduction. Mind you we went during last bit of winter in Australia so it was still cold, so we brought some winter jackets.

2 August 2016 (a day before):

My friend and I went to the KL Sentral by KTM, and then we rode the RM10 bus to LCCT. We arrived KLIA2 at 6.30 pm. Our flight to Sydney was at 11.30 pm. It was an 8-hour flight so we slept throughout the entire journey.

3 August 2016:

First day. We arrived at 9.45 am Sydney time. We were 2 hours ahead. So it would be 7.45 am Malaysia time. Our friends picked us up at the airport by her car, ate nasi lemak (because they missed Malaysian Food I think), had a long chat, and then we went to La Perouse, by car as well. That night I just ate at my friend’s house.

4 August 2016:

Second day. I followed my friend to her university, UNSW, to just have a walk. The university is really just a stone throw away from her house. Then I went to the town to buy my telco. I used Optus because for the usage of one day, it would only cost me $1 and I can have unlimited call and unlimited high-speed internet data. I really would recommend Optus if you are ever going to Australia. My friend (the one who is in trip with me) and I then rode the bus from the town, which I couldn’t remember what number, to the city. Yes by the way here, they wont receive any cash if you want to buy the ticket bus because they don’t use ticket bus system. You want to ride the bus, then you have to use the Opal card. It is similar to the RapidKL card in Malaysia. We just borrowed the cards from our friends. We covered Sydney Opera House, Royal Botanic Garden, Art Gallery of South Wales, and Bourke Street. All these places were like grouped together so you can reach just with a 10 to 20 minutes walk. 

We also went to some places which were not in our list, but because they were seemed like worth a visit, so why not. After that we went back to Kingsford because it was almost night. We dropped by at the Coles, it was like Tesco but it was so much cooler than Tesco! They have this one machine where you can scan your things without needing to queue to pay manually. And, that 2L milk in that big bottle only costed me $2, insane! Haha! If it were in Malaysia that 1L milk already costed RM 12 heh. But of course this is because Australia is milk supplier, other than New Zealand.

5 August 2016:

Third day. Our flight to Melbourne was at 6.40 am. We got out from the house at 5 and reached domestic airport at 5.30 am. Thanks to my friend who woke up early to send us off at the airport huhu. We reached Melbourne at 8.15 am. It was really windy as soon as we stepped out of the plane! It was 3 degrees omg. We then rode taxi for RMIT Bundoora campus, to my another friend’s house, or hostel. We had a meal which she cooked, and then we off to the city by tram while my friend went to her class. The same concept here, you use card to ride public transport. But at Melbourne, it was PTV card. I think it stands for Public Transport of Victoria. We didn’t buy, we just borrowed our friends’ hehe. It was an hour ride because Bundoora is the last station and the city is as well quite towards the end of the route. We covered Fed Square, Hosier Lane, Flinders Street Station. We managed to cover most of the areas in the city before night. 

That's all for Part 1. To be continued...