Tuesday, December 2, 2008

ASIMO @ Queensbay Mall


On the 29th of November, I got a chance to watch the live action of the ASIMO humanoid robot. The show was held at Queensbay Mall. The whole main atrium of the mall was crowded with people for every session of the show. I watched the session at 5.30pm after an interactive session (folding of the ASIMO paper robot). Below is the video of the beginning of the Live Action of the ASIMO


(video in average quality due to file compression)




* Taken from a pamphlet distributed by the Honda representative *




Monday, November 24, 2008

Gold Coast Australia


It was my first time ever in my lifetime I went to Australia Most Famous Gold Coast. It was a wonderful trip, not a holiday trip actually, it was a transit back to Malaysia by Air Asia..As usual, as a typical not-so-poor student, we sat JetStar to Gold Coast, about $200 one way, this is rather an expensive ticket. But it's considered as cheap in New Zealand.. The journey to GOld Coast was a broing one, as it was a budget airline, no food was served and it took me 4 hours to arrive there.. The view outside was awesome with snowy mountains stretching along the west coast of New Zealand.


Arriving at Gold Coast Coolangatta Airport, the glaring hot sun shone on us, the weather was so hot and humid, the feeling was so similar to being outside in typical tropical country like Malaysia. I like this type of weather but the sunlight was different from Malaysia, it was so "sharp" and kept "burning" my skin. This obviously ruined my plan to retain my fair skin till I'm back to Malaysia. haih.. I forgot the address of our backpackers! We was so lost and took a long time to ask people the exact location of our backpackers. We shoudn't stop at the Surfers Paradise in the first place coz the backpackers's situated at SouthPort, which is still a long way to go.. Surfers paradise is the main tourist attraction in Gold Coast and a row of skyscrapers could be seen along the road. Below are some photos of the city of Surfers Paradise. Btw, the beaches there were so nice that you couldn't find any rubbish and the sea water was so fresh. The beaches in Gold Coast were special as they were so straight and they form a straight coast line stretching from the Southport till Tweed Head.






After arriving at Aquarius Backpackers, we went to have our dinner at Hungry Jack's, a fast food restaurant situated in the Pacific Fair Shopping Mall..


The backpackers we were staying in were in bad condition and totally not worth the money we paid. The fan was not working and the room was so compact and the ventilation was poor. Furthermore, the people staying there were like gangsters to me. A pub was situated at Ground Floor, and there was a big living room next to the pub. The first night there was horrible. An Australian guy sleeping on the bottom part of the double-deck bed was snoring the whole night, so loud and so rhythmic. U know, sleeping in a hot compact room while listening to people snoring at night was indeed a torturing moment...

Movie World was the first theme park we visited. The theme park was situated at Coomera, about half an hour from the Southport. This theme park was packed with lots of thrilling rides and lots of WB cartoon characters display. The most exciting and thrilling ride would be the Superman Escape (Mass Rapid Train) where we underwent 5 positive G-forces and one negative G-force. The train was so extreme as it had to passed through various sharp corners and near to 90 degree steep rail. So awesome that I've bought a photo snapped by the ride hidden cam. The Batwing Spaceshot was another thrilling game, it looked pretty similar to the Spaceshot Gravity in Genting Highlands, but the only difference was it moved in 2 directions, shooting upwards and dropping downwards.It moved upward so fast that I just managed to see the beginning and the end of the view in front of me, nothing in between. Then , it dropped by the help of gravity. Below are some of the photos snapped during my visit to the Movie World...

























Another park we visited was Sea World, what interesting about this world? Honestly, nothing. Most of the performances and shows I've seen before during my A Famosa Resort trip several years before. The weather turned bad that day and it was raining the whole day, luckily, they didn't cancel any shows. There, we got the chance to watch Dolphin show, Sea Lion show, Sesame Street performance, penguin feeding etc. And, we got to chance to see the full view of the world by riding the Sea World monorail. Yea, sharks, seabirds and some other sea animals could be seen also. Besides viewing the sea animals display, we also watched a Waterski performance. And finally, we watched a 4D screening of Planet SOS. This 4D screening was so real that I could even "touch" the snake, feel the tortoise in front of the screen, enjoy the smell of the lush rainforest. And, of coz, this show described some of the pollution and destruction made by human beings. Trees falling down, breaking of the ice at the Antratic, global warming and the greenhouse effect were so real and it was indeed fascinating..














After all of those joyful days, it was time for me to go home. Air Asia was the flight we took to get back to Malaysia...

Monday, November 10, 2008

Roses @ Christchurch Botanic Garden

Late spring is the best time to view the beautiful blossom of roses, blooming across the Botanic Garden in Christchurch. Late Spring in Southern Hemisphere such as New Zealand falls in November. The exotic blooms of the roses in this botanic garden indeed attract lots of visitors. Following are some of the photos snapped yesterday in a rose garden in the Botanic Garden: