I Hate Blogging Pictures

*I can literally kill myself over blogging! I wonder how Xiaxue can blog so many photos so frequently like nobody’s business. For me, everything below was written 3+ hours ago and I still struggling in uploading photos for my previous entry. Forget it! No more photos from now on so I just have to describe better.

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So here we are in the third day of our journey. Anyway, I have to first apologise for the lag in the previous post as wireless internet connection is a luxury for tourists here in South Australia. I have to explain to the Aussies in the name of the media to get a free hour of internet for the first post and two free hours right now as I am posting this entry as well as the previous one. 

Let’s just get back to topic. Lobsters! I don’t know how to put this but they taste simply heavenly! My gosh. Do you know what happened actually? Seven of us (including Biddie our Australian tour guide) shared a big lobster for a picnic lunch. But at the time, Maggie and I have to interview the lobster fishermen so the rest tucked in first. When Maggie and I returned, they left us quite a reasonable amount of lobster body meat to share. However, I started to go for the lobster head and legs first and I am telling you this is a clever thing to do because the flesh in the head and the legs is the tastiest, softest and of the most quantity. When the rest saw me enjoying myself so much, they were kicking themselves for throwing away the other half which contains untouched head and legs. Sigh, what a waste! 

Anyway, I had a drunken time of my life after that as we visited the Norfolk Rise Vineyard and we get to do some enjoyable wine-tasting. My face became so red that everyone, especially my producer Maggie, became so worried for me. I got knocked out in the car during an hour journey after that. What an embarrassment for me. 

We also visited the Wagyu cows farm where the cows are treated with special care and treatment so that their meat remains as the world’s finest quality beef currently. Oh boy, it is so evident how good their lives are as they look so relaxed just gorging themselves with high-quality wheat and lazing around. I tasted their meat on the first day of the trip and the taste really lives up to its reputation. Finally, we had dinner at a very scenic western restaurant which I apologetically forgot its name. Everything is fine and peaceful.

Back at my new motel room (just a footnote, we changed motel rooms every single day and motel rooms are much bigger than hotel rooms contrary to what I learnt in the past), I realised that Justina is actually my City Harvest Church member who is the wife of our popular announcement video guy Bernard! Wow, another surprise don’t you think so? Ok, have a good night!

Filming is the new sightseeing

Pardon my previous blog entry as there are awkward mistakes I know. What to do, bad internet connection and bad wordpress. But certainly nothing to do with my typing as wordpress trims my sentences. But anyway, I have amended the mistakes already so let’s go on further into the details of my trip. 

Today after breakfast, my media team of six arrived at Blue Lake once again and embarked on a proper and guided tour near the Blue Lake. The experience took us in a claustrophobic-prone elevator down to which water was originally extracted, through a tunnel to admire the Blue Lake at a close proximity.

 

After that, we visited the Umpherston Sinkhole where once a cave was formed through dissolution of the limestone, this sinkhole was created when the top of the chamber fell to the floor of the cave and created the beautiful environment for its “sunken garden”. Arrangements have been made to access the Lobster Shed where for a fright of my life, I saw lobsters bigger that kittens. I am telling you it is really “OMG”.

Very quickly, we also visited the Windmill Farm where the amount of houseflies landing in your eyes and nostrils are comparable to those in Africa and I am not kidding at all. Then, we went to the intriguing Pool of Siloam where you cannot possibly drown as the salt content is seven times greater than the sea (sounds like Dead Sea to me). It is also said that the water in there has divine healing powers that can heal your wounds as an Australian interviewee there shared his testimony.

 

Throughout the whole day of filming and sightseeing, we finally settled down at restaurant The Gallerie for a gastric-electrifying dinner where I ate kangaroo once again. 

PS. While typing this, I suddenly saw myself on television! I am actually on WIN News, a local channel here. What happened was the media over here filmed us filming, reporting us helping to report South Australia. It is fantastic as I managed to snap some photos of myself on TV in Australia. The photo above has the WIN logo clearly on the top-right. Praise the Lord!

And My Work Begins…

Just when I thought I could finally rest after a whole day of hectic filming in South Australia, I was wrong because it is my greatest honour and responsibility to update all of you at Ngee Ann Polytechnic regarding my whereabouts in this foreign land.

 

Let me first introduce the characters during my trip – (from left) Jafri Bin Modamed who is a freelance writer, Justina Su from Simply Her, Jane Ngiam from Woman Weekly, Maggie Bee who is my producer, Charlene Eng from the South Australian Tourism Commission and then me of course. Other than this group photo which came in between the day’s photography, the rest of the photos are in chronological order. So let me just go straight into what happened today.

On board Singapore Airlines, we arrived at Adelaide 9.05am. At there, arrangements have been made with the Hilton Adelaide for us to freshen up. Later at 10.55am, we headed on to the Adelaide Botanic Gardens where a native Bush Tucker lunch has been arranged for us. I did quite a great work of filming of the food as we get to taste for the first time in my life, kangaroo meat! Yummy!  So in future, I can educate my children that kangaroo is an animal that hops and it is finger-licking good.

At 3.45pm, we departed Adelaide on board a mini passenger plane and we arrived at Mount Gambier 4.50pm. In this place, the picturesque township of Mount Gambier is surrounded by ancient crater lakes. One of which is the famous blue lake in South Australia intelligently called the Blue Lake. Don’t laugh, it is really very blue.

Finally at 7pm, we enjoyed dinner and white wine compliments of Limestone Coast Tourism and the food is just shiok.

I am dead beat from all the filming and travelling so peace out, goodnight!

The Trip Prelude

Before my second independent overseas trip (first was China) commences, I just want to take this opportunity to introduce myself to all my Ngee Ann Polytechnic (NP) peers and lecturers!

Hi, I am Shawn Tan (full name: Tan Qing Guang Shawn) and I have just completed my three years of tertiary education in the Diploma of Mass Communication. My final semester ended with a terrific blast as I was the general manager of the NP campus television station, aka CTV, and I truly had a ride of my life filming celebrities and directing national film projects like the anti drink-driving commercial. Even though this CTV attachment has so-called ended, my lecturer and friend, Mr Jonathan Foo, is still pulling in more industrial strings for me to accomplish and one of which is the S-Pop Hurray music video that I have directed myself which will be broadcast on Channel U. With that, I am truly grateful to Mr Foo for such wonderful opportunities.

Another of which will be this upcoming South Australia trip that I will be going with the MediaCorp news producer, Maggie Chong, for a week. Maybe to further explain about this trip from my own understanding, I learnt that the South Australian Tourism Commission is promoting South Australia as a latest tourism attraction by organising a media familiarisation to the various attraction spots in South Australian such as the Wagyu Beef farm, Windmill farm, Blue Lake and Umpherston Sink Holes etc. Sounds country, isn’t it? So I can now totally visualise this whole trip to be a complete different experience from my city lifestyle in hometown Singapura.

Check back this space again for a daily update of my travel at South Australia from 25 Feb to 1 Mar. I hope to blog many photos with detailed descriptions for your enjoyment.

See you guys soon! =)