Clueless Diva

Living la vida voca

Happy Birthday to me! Yes, it seems yesterday that I was 16 and I desperately want to grow up faster and now I desperately want to slow down my ageing. I am losing my 'value' fast!

As promised, I shall blog about our ski trip the weekend that has just past.

This is me doing the Karen Cheng in my new ski jacket that Ernest has bought me.
It is a genuine Columbia down jacket with many secret compartments that would make 007 proud. There is a waterproof pocket for mobile phones, special pocket plus hook for your portable audio equipment, mesh pocket for other barangs and a secret hanky in there which I presumed it must be for polishing that expensive sunglasses all Columbia jacket owners wear. I feel so warm in it. Wonder if it is the love or the thickness of the jacket?


We were booked on Rex flight Sydney to Albury departing at 830am on 25 Jul, Fri. My plan was to get to Albury by 930am, catch the 1015am bus from Albury to Falls Creek and we might be able to squeeze in about 2 full days worth of skiing, then catching the 2pm bus from Falls Creek to Albury and lastly catching the 630pm flight back to Sydney in time for dinner and a well deserved rest before work on Mon.

Perfect plan? Yes. Did it happened? NO!
As it turned out, the 830am flight to Albury was delayed til 1135am. Due to crew late sign on, a technical term for lazy Aussies who are backed by unions who insist they cannot work OT. Where got such thing in Singapore??

Because of this legal rest period requirement, all flights that day is pushed back.

Damn. I quickly changed the bus time. Because there are only 2 buses on that day and one being 1015am and another one at 5.15pm, we had no choice but to take the 5.15pm one. Sianz! What did we do when we arrived at Albury at about 1pm?


Happy pose in the aircraft. Already sian-half lah, delay here delay there. I want to complain!

We walked about Albury town centre and I was immediately reminded of Orange. Monkeycrab and Dan will understand how I feel about Orange. S-I-A-N with caps.
Let the pictures do the talking.










































































Yes, 5 mins in Albury, I am already bored.

So we decided to kill the precious 4 hours by watching movie. We could have been skiing! But it's ok, we caught Batman: The Dark Knight.


Nice. I like the movie.












So by 5pm, we were waiting at the Albury Railway station waiting for the coach to Falls Creek and the click-happy Ernest entertained himself. Dun you think the Railway Station looks so much like Melbourne's Flinders Station?

































































Sunset in Albury is pretty spectacular.

Yah! The bus is here! Off we go to Falls Creek. Ernest has not been feeling well on Friday so he slept most of the way to Falls Creek. I like how the landscape changes during the journey. I see houses zooming by, then slowly you can see less and less houses, then dotted farm properties and fields, then pockets of cattle grazing, then spectacular Aussie country views with valley views and mountains as back drop.

Slowly as the bus climbs altitude, you start to see silvers of white snow on trees and on the grasses and you get really excited. The first time I felt that was last year when my boss brought us to Perisher Blue to ski. I sat in the bus then, really tired, but when I saw the first glimpse of snow, I 'woke' up.

Then you can see more and more of the snow and soon the entire view of the mountains covered in snow came into view. It was an unbelieveably beautiful scene. Singaporeans who have not seen snow; I urge you! Go and see some snow!

The coach dropped us at the Oversnow Terminal and because we are stingy with our money ($17.50 ea for transport in a over-snow vehicle to our lodging at Julian's Lodge), we climbed steep slopes, slipped and slide over the snow in our inappropriate footwear and arrived really tired at Julian's. (Note to self: buy proper shoes before we go to snow places again)

When we stepped into Julian's, the crackling fire in the fireplace immediately caught our attention and we quickly check in and decided to throw our stuff in the room and catch some dinner in the hotel restaurant.

As I have mentioned before, Julian is a backpacker's hotel but haha, I was a bit overwhelmed by how back-packerish our room is.































At Julian's there is a loune room where a big plasma TV lives and we can make complimentary tea & coffee. I think I heard the lady mentioned something about an indoor swimming pool, but I sure won't be trying it!

They had a drying room where you can store your ski gear and the lodge is full of nooks and crannies that it seems we are playing hide and seek the entire time when we stayed there, exploring where each staircase leads to.















Having dinner at the restaurant. I can tell ya, the chef at the restaurant ain't the best but hey, the bartender sure is good. The lychee martini is very strong.



































































We hit the sack right after dinner. It had been quite a dramatic Friday.

Next day morning, we arised really early. We wanted to catch the late worm, the beginner's ski lesson. Woohoo!

As usual, stingy us actually brought Korean instant noodles with us and tucked into the noodles cooked generously by the hot water provided by Julian for the complimentary tea & coffee at the shared lounge.
































From then on, it was non-stopped skiing. We couldn't take alot of pictures as it was really cold on the snow (Duh) and we were taking our lessons seriously. And plus we had to practice the stance that our teachers taught us. We had the beginner's and the beginner advance classes.

By the end of the weekend, we learned how to put on and take off the skis properly. How to get up when you fall. How to balance yourself. How to do snow plough, how to stop, how to turn, how to slow down and how to tackle steeper slopes. There are more to learn but alas, 2 days is too short for us to be professionals. But we will be back on the slopes next year for sure. I am lovin' it. I wanna comment on the food served at the ski place. They are really unhealthy. Imagine KFC-styled fried chicken with chips. I asked them if I could substitute the chips with salad (they serve salad with other combo meals) and they say no. I said I am willing to pay a bit more to change my side or to add another side, but no, they cant do it. Obviously they are not Chinese. Dunno how to make money. Hai.....

But one thing good I saw was, Falls Creek provided FOC water to all skiiers. They had 3 water coolers at the main restaurant where they provide paper cups for you to drink the FOC water. The cups are big too, so you would drink more water. They emphasized that it is important to keep hydrated while you engage in skiing, as with all sports and I think it is a very nice gesture of customer service as well. All their staff were very friendly and helpful and I would love coming back here again. Hey, if your flight is delayed, Rex will not offer you water. Shame on us. And also, when we went back to Sydney, our flight was delayed from 6.55pm to 9.30pm. Now I do not wonder why our passengers write in to complain all the time.

But nevertheless, here are the snow pictures. Enjoy!