Having stayed in Sydney for such a long period of time, I had finally visited one of the so-called most “prestigious” kart tracks in Sydney. It was extremely pleasurable to feel the adrenaline rush when I am back racing again despite the fact that I did not enjoy racing at Eastern Creek Karting Raceway entirely.

Eastern Creek Karting Raceway offers Arrive and Drive packages that cater for racers of all age, starting from as young as six years old. If you are organizing an activity for your company, you could also opt for the corporate hire. Since there were only 3 of us at the point of arrival, so we hired the 9 HP karts for 30 minutes.

Safety

I have never raced anywhere other than on Malaysian tracks before I visit Eastern Creek Karting Raceway. I must admit that I am extremely surprised by how many safety gears we were supposed to wear. We were provided a pair of gloves, a full body suit and of course, the helmet. In Malaysia, we are only asked to wear a helmet (sometimes not necessary at all).

There was also a short briefing regarding kart racing which was shown on TV and new racers are supposed to watch it. So, as long as you don’t drive straight into the wall, you will be fine.

Kart Condition

Lady Luck was on our side that day, the technicians provided us the wrong kart. Instead of registering us to the 9 HP karts, we were given the 4 stroke 13 Hp karts.

I personally think that the karts are pretty well maintained, the power difference is very minimum, unlike many other tracks whereby their karts have a huge difference in power.

This was the first time I raced in Australia, and also the first time I experienced the heaviest steering in my entire life. It requires a huge amount of effort to turn the car, probably due to the size of the kart and its weight. Did I mention about the enormous 4 stroke engines?

After 13 minutes of racing I barely had enough strength to turn into any corners. Fortunately enough, the staff was generous enough to allow us to race in two 15 minutes intervals.

The Track

The track we raced was the Hire Circuit Two (730m). The track was awesome, except for the fact that the surface repairs were extremely bumpy. After 30 minutes of racing I felt like vomiting.

Other than the bumpy track, it was fun racing there. The Hire Circuit Two consists of many types of low and high speed corners. Especially at the end where there is a 3 joint left hand high speed corners which are fantastic to drive in (pretty similar to the Turkish GP), if only you could ignore the rigorous bump.

On a side note, if you like straight line racing, this is probably not the best circuit to race in, because there is no straight line at all! Thus it is a very demanding track, both mentally and physically.

Overall

I was surprised that at the end of each 15 minute intervals, we were given our own lap times to look at. The lap time’s sheet is not something many tracks offer. My fastest time was 45.19 seconds per lap.

In a nutshell, my search for a proper kart racing track still continues. Eastern Creek is good, but the bumps are definitely a huge turn off. I might be back again for Hire Circuit 3 but I am definitely not going to pay for Hire Circuit 1 and 2 ever again.

If you ask me whether travelling all the way down to Blacktown to race worth it or not. I am afraid I will have to answer that question after I tried Hire Circuit 3.

I’m quite surprised how many people have no idea what daylight saving time (DST) is. Especially some of those who are from my MSN. Well this post is specially for all of you who have no idea what daylight saving time is.

First lets talk about some normal weather changes in a country that has 4 seasons. During autumn and winter, day time is less than night time. While during spring and summer, day time is more than night time. Thus the sun shines earlier in the morning during spring and summer and sets later in the evening too.

The main reason for DST is to take advantage of the sunlights during the day so that we have more daytime. To do that, areas which are affected by DST will adjust their time an hour faster during the summer and adjust it back during the autumn.

I will not go into it’s history or it’s origin bla bla bla. Normal citizens like us just need to know, during daylight saving time, night comes later in the evening so we have time plan activities during the evening.

However, I think DST is just a pain in the ass. Now I can’t talk to Malaysian girls to late night anymore, because I will lose extra 1 hour of sleep. And Formula 1 will start an hour later as well. Farmers are affected, bill payments are messed up, plans, everything ARE SCREWED UP.

I sure hope New South Wales government would be as clever as Queensland government, stating that cows will get confused by the daylight saving time.

If only governments were clever …

The owner charges $5 for each entry or $10 for unlimited entry both with maximum limit of 30 minutes. Fair enough, since these were for kids. Adults can also enter though, to take good care of their kids for free I think.

The farm is about 9m length x 4m width big. Enough for that many people to join.

I love visiting the farm. It brings me peace just by looking at those cute animals being petted by the customers (Not being slaughtered at the slaughter house). Everybody was having a good time there I think. And thanks to the owner I get to take so many pictures of these cute animals.

Let’s start with the cow first. I can hardly imagine the cow enjoying the love the girl was giving, usually it’s the food and milk that we wanted. Haha. Damn cute.

The classics! The pigs. After eating they will definitely sleep. And there you go, asleep like two pigs! The pigs are naughty creatures. It squeals when somebody tried to pick it up, VERY LOUDLY.

These were all the cute animals there. When I looked at the lamb, I kept thinking about Black Sheep (The stupid sheep monster movie). How I will turn into a sheep if it bites me.

Ahh, the dog, I heard the owner said to a girl “Hi, is your name Chloe? The dog’s name is Chloe as well.” This is one hyperactive dog and it’s so damn cute!!! I took a video of it bullying the chickens then got scolded by the owner. Haha, cute creature this is. Make me wanna buy myself a dog like this.

While Chloe was inside the farm having fun with the chickens, this dog was outside jumping around. It’s so cute as well I had to take a picture of it.

Here are the chickens. Different huh? I wonder what kind of chickens are these, the one at the right was the one being bullied by the dog. Haha, it squeaks and it’s damn funny looking at Chloe bullying it.

The last one, the Guinea Pig. I hope this does not end up in the laboratory in UNSW. Haha

I hope this farm will continue at Paddington Market so I will have something to enjoy when I’m working there next time. Until then, stay tuned.

In Sydney, you get to see different kinds of people, I don’t want to call this a multiracial city (Boleh-land have been using that), I’d like to call it various racial city. Everybody around the world tends to come here, from the East country of the rising sun to the USA, you name it.

By saying that, I have yet to conclude that Sydney is a best city to live in. It’s certainly a nice place to live in, but it has its own downfalls as one of the most expensive city to survive.

Let’s start with the advantages first.

1. Wages are high – Woohoo, everybody loves this, who doesn’t like good money? But don’t jump conclusions yet.
2. Well educated people – Compared to Boleh-land, Australians are much wiser. Put your valuables on the table, chances that it might get stolen are a few hundred times lesser compared to Boleh-land. But don’t take your chances.
3. You get smiles everywhere you go – A hundred smiles a day keeps illness away. ‘Nuff said.
4. Cheap hardware – When I said cheap, it’s both cheap in terms of cost and cheap in terms of quality.
5. Superb travelling experience – The longest you’ll wait for a train or a bus might be approximately 15 minutes only.
6. One of the most beautiful and peaceful cities to live in.

The disadvantages , I love this part.

1. Crazy food prices – Average food cost in Sydney is about 8.5 AUD (a chicken roll costs more than this). If you’re not earning your pennies locally, try asking your dad to work harder back at hometown.
2. Rentals are a killer – If you think renting at RM500/month/room in Boleh-land is expensive, how about an average of 240 AUD /week/room in Sydney? Now tell your parents your rental isn’t expensive as they think it is.
3. Travelling dries your wallet – One can easily spend up to 10 AUD per day for travelling alone. A good way to keep your wallet dry.
4. Summer is burning hot – Everybody loves summer but in Australia, I doubt anybody likes it. Here, ultraviolet rays will burn your skin within 15 minutes.
5. Life ends at 5 PM – I can’t believe how they live here. Almost everything closes at 5 PM. Night life isn’t that popular I guess.
6. Weird traffic lights – Traffic lights here are more complex compared to understanding a girl. When the lights are green, sometimes you just cannot turn right because the cars in front are driving straight with that lane.
7. Excessive drugs – When somebody asks you “do you want some ice?” You’re not supposed to answer yes unless you’re a drug addict.

Having said so many disadvantages, it doesn’t means that Sydney is a bad city to live in. If money is not an issue, you are fine without night life or if you’re a drug addict. Sydney is for you.

If not, stay at Boleh-land and enjoy the excitement of “you-know-who” buying 100 mil worth of spaceship crap with your parents’ taxes, making false promises, corruption, racism and frequent gang/rape/theft cases which nobody seems to care.

You decide.

We rushed PingLian’s artwork into the car immediately and I couldn’t believe how hard the water had hit me when I was loading the canvases into the car. It was my first time experiencing the first thunder storm at Australia so I thought the rain must be strong because of the frequent big wind.

There were too many stuff lying around, so we had to slowly dismantle some stuff near the shops. It took me awhile though, to notice what hit me was actually ice! Eventually, the ice built up so quickly some places are covered with ice while raining.

Example the table.

Then the rubbish bin.

Then the car, poor car.

My aunt said this was also her first time experiencing iced rain. And excited as she may be, she took pictures with her car that was covered with some ice. I can’t even stand still due to the shivering but she can pose with the car.

After a while, the road was covered with some ice. This is dangerous. I wouldn’t recommend anybody speeding over the piles of ice. Haha.

Wooo, this looks like real snow under the chrismas tree. Seriously, some places the snow was about 2 or 3 centimeters thick so quite a few of the residents came out and play snowballs.

Of course, I’m not left out! I made my own crappy snowball as well. But I doubt I can pawn any kids with this size of snowball. Haha!

It’s Sunday morning, I am not feeling that well but I had promised to go to Kirribilli Art and Design Market with my Aunt. I don’t think I’ll write much for this post because business is slow that day, not much to see around the market. It’s just very normal.

Kirribilli Art and Design Market is located at the bottom of the Northern part of Harbour Bridge, where many rich people from Sydney live there. It looks like a Thursday market but they sell only designed stuff there, mostly jeweleries. It started at about 8AM and closes at 3PM. Kirribilli Market only opens every second week of the month.

Bird Eye View

If you want to spend your Holiday in Australia, Kirribilli Art Market is not quite the place you might want to be in.

By the way, I was lazy that day so instead of selling(which means a waste of time when business is slow), I decided to walk the Harbour Bridge. There are a lot more to watch up there. Cool place.