Video by Gabriel Goh with our Gopro footages – pretty much sums up our trip to Tioman Island! A few cuts and fish bites here and there, with Zack suffering from a minor decompression sickness after the first dive and Gabes getting lost (LEL) but we are all safe and sound, open water certified! 😀
(P.S.: Please forgive Gabe’s horrible puns)
On the first day after our flight, most of us were really tired so we decided to have a chill aftertoon out of Melbourne CBD. Williamstown was one of our options since we could get to take the ferry ride from the city at Southbank Promenade down to the Yarra river. The Melbourne River Cruises ferry ride was a tad expensive though (AUD$29 for adults) but they have a family package as well!
Confession: We went to Williamstown mainly for the Fish N Chips!! We had really good recommendations for this stall – Off The Pier, Fish and Chippery – but the weather wasn’t exactly in the best of mood and they didn’t have any indoor seats for their customers.
It started to rain and got really cold so we settled for another indoor Fish N Chips restaurant, Williamstown Mussels, to hide from the strong winds.
Guess what? After eating our fills with a huge family combo, we went back to try Off The Pier because we couldn’t leave without getting a bite of “the best Fish and Chips” 😛
And boy did it not let us down!! We got it without the chips because we had so much chips in the previous restaurant. The fish batter was crisp on the outside and the fish was so fresh and tender on the inside. It was so much better than the one in Williamstown Mussels. Prawns were 10/10 amazing too but if I’m not wrong they cost AUD$2.50 per piece. One thing about Australia though – they do not have chilli sauce. So fellow asians, please take note haha.
Williamstown was a really tranquil and peaceful town, but it was a little quiet and isolated – like a seaside village. There wasn’t really much to see except a few quaint shops and cafes.
The scenery was good though, thank God the weather cleared up so we could see the clear, blue skies 😀
The ferry then came to pick us up and we requested for them to drop us near the Direct Factory Outlets (DFO) at South Wharf!
The rest of our day was pretty much spent shopping. DFO South Warf (20 Convention Centre Place, South Wharf VIC 3006, Australia) is one of the best shopping outlets in Melbourne. There is also free wifi in the basement food court for those taking a break from shopping!
I was right there last year as well! They have a huge collection of discounted clothes and shoes from a wide variety of both Australian and International sports and fashion brands! (Adidas, Nike, Converse, New Balance, Nine West, Dr.Martens, UGG, Michael Kors, The London Rebel, Calvin Klein, etc.) I got a pair of Nikes there, shoes are pretty cheap in Australia for some reason. Unfortunately, the shops in Australia close quite early (DFO closes at 6pm) so we didn’t really had much time to shop. I also met up with my brother for a short while before he had to run off to study for his exams.
And that was it! Most updates will be here soon 🙂
For more things to do in Melbourne, read here, here, or watch my travel video here!
Hey m8s I’m back from a family holiday in Australia! New South Whales was amazingly good, refreshing and just what I needed to kickstart my Summer break 🙂
Here’s a video featuring the amazing scenery and nature Aussie had to offer! Will share my favourite places real sooon 😉 Australians are really chill by the way, most of them end work before 5pm and go to the beach to unwind after. Haha it makes me think that Singaporeans are too fast-paced for their own good.
Thx AU it’s been real 😎
We flew from Singapore to Paris with a transit in Zurich for around SGD$1,200 for a return trip if I remember correctly. Our departing flight was via SwissAir and Lufthansa! Not extremely impressed with the service by SwissAir but Lufthansa was great! And Lufthansa’s plane seats are much more comfortable as well.
The first night, our accommodation was located at Nanterre, France.
Nanterre is one of the western suburbs of Paris but it was really convenient for us because we could get to Paris from a nearby metro station through the express subway. Our airbnb host was extra kind to pick us up directly from the bus station near his apartment.
Since we arrived pretty late in the afternoon due to a flight delay, our host suggested that we head down to a nearby Christmas market which was only a 10-minute walk away!
This was our first Christmas market so I was pretty excited and wide-eyed for all the scrumptious looking food. I’ll admit to being a hopeless sweet-tooth addict here, so my eyes were basically lighting up at every signboard that screamed “Churros” or “Crepes”.
There’s something about Christmas markets that give you warm, fuzzy vibes in both your heart and tummy.
We’d have love to try more food but our host offered to prepare our dinner for us. Guess what? 
Looks lovely ain’t it!! It was such a simple dish – Traditional melted Raclette over the grill accompanied by humble boiled potatoes, and a variety of dried meat selection. Not forgetting the ridiculously cheap wine available in their supermarkets!! The french love cheese and wine. Love is probably even an understatement. It’s probably the equivalent staple food to them as rice and noodles are to Asians.
Shoving boiled potatoes down our stomachs with a couple of glasses of red wine plus insightful conversations with the host – that concluded our first night in France.
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