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.

First thing first, Happy New Year to all AhWee.com readers! Like most of you out there, I had a fantastic New Year Eve celebration watching fireworks display at Sydney Harbour Bridge!

A little bit of information about the Fireworks – The Australian government spent 5 million AUD on the 12 minutes of fireworks and there are millions of viewers from all around the globe watching it at areas around Sydney Habour Bridge.

We (My cousins and I) were at end of the L-shaped jetty right beside Wendy’s Secret Garden (I have no idea if that’s the real name or not) which you can find from this Wikimapia link.

With Blues Point (The place I took the Harbour Bridge Night Scene shot) closed due to massive amount of people there at the time we arrived at Milsons Point train station, the jetty was the best I could find. The view wasn’t too shabby though.

As you have read, there are a 3 freaking hours of interval time between fireworks. My cousin and I decided to play “Chor Dai Dee” together. As the people around us started to notice that we’re playing cards, we invited them to play as well. They are Alex, a migrated Malaysian, Timo from Singapore and a Hong Kong Ahma(granny).

Yes rly! They jumped into the water

We played until 11:45 PM and something happened, some people decided to watch fireworks in the sea. So they jumped inside, I was dumbfounded by what Australians are capable of doing. Then 15 minutes later, the fireworks started.

Starting of Sydney 2009 New Year Eve Fireworks

Ending of Sydney 2009 New Year Eve Fireworks

Here’s a Video of the 2009 New Year Eve Fireworks at Sydney Harbour Bridge I uploaded in YouTube.

Going back home was the worst part. We were stuck inside a tunnel cramped with thousands of people rushing to the train station. This is what we call Human Traffic Jam. We were cramped for an hour there and weird things happened – Lesbians hugging and kissing each another, people playing drums to get everybody high, some drunk lady vomited in the middle of the freaking crowd, there’s another girl I saw, vomited but acted like nothing happened. I need to learn some skills from her Haha! The only thing good about Human Traffic Jam, I can look at local pretty girls.

This is what we call People Mountain People Sea

That’s my New Year Eve Celebration. How was yours?
Oh and what’s my New Year 09 resolution? Get a tripod for fireworks shots :D

After months of living as an “introvert”, I finally had the chance to visit Sydney Aquarium located at Darling Harbour. I can’t be more fascinated by the underwater creatures that they have in the Aquarium.

Darling Harbour is located at the west side of Sydney CBD. It’s extremely easy to reach there. From Chatswood, it’s just a train ride to Townhall Train Station, walk a km to the west and you’re at Darling Harbour already.

Sydney Aquarium & Sydney Wildlife World is just beside the Pedestrian Bridge in Darling Harbour. Both these tourism spots are under the same roof but you have to pay for two tickets for them. For my case, I went to the Sydney Aquarium only.

There are tonnes of underwater wildlife to watch in there. So many that they made me wonder who the ones who are actually watching? Are the creatures watching us or are we watching the creatures? Haha.

The best part of Sydney Aquarium is the 2 big aquariums where Dugongs and Sharks are displayed. Those two are the most interesting part because they have tunnels underwater which makes it looks like sea worlds.

Here’s the video of the Dugong eating some seaweeds I took in HD in Sydney Aquarium.

Here are some highlights of the creatures in Sydney Aquarium which some I barely know what they are …

Is this a terrapin?

Eels, now you see them, now you don't

Puny little croc

Fantastic sea world structure

This thing killed Steve Irvine

The Last Part

At the ending part of the Sydney Aquarium, there are benches around combined with very soothing underwater musics. The big aquarium in front of you could easily be misinterpreted as a large screen saver with various underwater wild lives. It’s dark and many people actually fell asleep in there.

Overall I think the Sydney Aquarium still have a lot of rooms for improvements. I would definitely revisit the place again, hopefully they will have more creatures by then!

Here are more pictures from AhWee Gallery.

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 …

This year (6th September 2008), the University of New South Wales had their undergraduate open day (they call it Courses and Carrers Day) under a rainy day. However, rain wasn’t the worst enemy though, the wind is. Tents that were set up by the seniors were sent collapsing by the crushing wind. The attendance during the Courses and Careers Day (CC Day) was poor, but UNSW did not fail to present their best to their future students.

For your information, I have not attended any UNSW open day before I transfer to UNSW. So I was a bit confused as I was entering the Mechanical and Manufacturing Engineering Building mainly because I have no idea where to start. At the ground floor, there’s the UNSW race team with their mini red colored F1 race car. I was supposed to go to my lab to settle my assignment, so I just speed pass the race car without even taking pictures of it (I know, stupid me) and went straight to my lab.

Surprisingly, the lab was locked. Maybe they don’t want outsiders to steal stuff from the lab. So I joined the kids who were taking a tour at the different specified labs in the Mechanical and Manufacturing Laboratory Building. I joined halfway while they were entering the laboratory I am majoring in, which is Mechatronics Lab.

Mark and Edward (my tutors) was the people in charge of the presentation. Well, not impressive I must say, Mark should do the talking and Edward should do the other stuff. I did not take any pictures, AGAIN.

Next we went into the Machanical/Material Lab. This was much more impressive. My group mates from Tunku Abdul Rahman College (TARC) would know remember how we polish our steels in the material lab. Haha, we were using our hands to polish the hell out of ourselves. In UNSW, they have this machine.

The Metal Polisher

Basically, you just clamp the steel there and put on the weights for different pressure, which means different surface finish for the metals then pour the abrasive. After the preparation, just wait until it is fully polished. Saves time and energy. TARC needs to improve!

Milling Machine

Beside the metal polisher is the 5 axis Computer Numerical Control (CNC) milling machine . Now this is something, this CNC miller has a hidden compartment which can store up to 30+ different millers (as told by the presenter). WOWO, cool huh.

Different products made by the Milling Machine

Well, he explained a lot of stuff so here are the pictures that will explain a thousand words for me.

3D Printer: Prints layers by layers to make a 3D shape

Water Jet Cutter

Electrical Microscope, monitors and lots of stuff

I also got to know a person, actually 2 persons from Malaysia currently doing their thesis in UNSW. They explained some stuff to me about these instruments. As expected, these monitors can calculate surface depth by the nanometers!

After the Mechanical lab, I was already blown away by the cangihness (coolness) but the Aerodynamics Lab was much better.

The Aerodynamic Lab

Now, how many of you ever seen a real shock wave? Not the one in Warcraft 3 ok. A real shock wave made by air deflected by a metal when shot by high pressurized air. We actually had to wear ear plugs because to the noise produced by the shock wave and the machine generating the high pressured air was too loud. Interesting stuff. If I had done this a year ago I would have major in Aerospace. Hahaha !

Shock wave appears in the are the red arrow is pointing

Well, as stated in the caption, the shock wave was formed in that tip. Then projected by don’t know what thing to a blackboard (it’s clearer there).

More Aerodynamic Lab

After that we go to the Manufacturing Lab. This lab has many types of machines, both conventional and CNC machines. And as expected, it’s by far better than the equipments TAR College has. I know you guys love looking at pictures, so … here goes.

Conventional Crap

CNC Lathe Machine - Costs 300k AUD

LOL, when the instructor was talking about this machine. Everybody was like, “huh? What the hell are these?”.

I forgot what this machine does already LOL

The trip ends here, most of the visitors goes out into the rain, stupid people. I stayed to chat a bit with the dude and have him explain more about the machines. Then I told him I am currently studying here and we chatted more. I found out that we, the mechatronics students can actually use all these machines. All we need to do is create our own designs with Computer Aided Drawing (CAD) software like Catia, then let them manufacture the thing.

I went out from where I came in and up to the Simulation Lab, this was what makes the open day at Mechanical & Manufacturing Laboratory Building looks best. F1 alike race simulation and flight simulation is built in the Lab.

The n00b (sorry), he crashes at every corner.

After looking at the simulation testers crash their cars for many times. It was my turn to test the simulation. Huh, luckily there was somebody beside to guide me how to drive a F1 alike racing car, I did better than the rest I’d seen but in the end I got too excited and end up in the tyre barriers, F***. I want to test some more!

Well, the person told me they are going to implement hydraulic seats next time so that when you turn the simulated car, the seat will give you a fake G-force effect. Wowo, I’m looking forward to next year’s Courses and Careers Day.

More simulations…

I have no idea how this works ... Just a monitor playing these things

Airplane Simulation

My visit to the laboratories ended with about 10 miss calls and 10 sms messages in my handphone. I was about 2 hours late to my meeting. LOL!

Happy reading…

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!

On 20th July, we (myself and my aunt’s family) visited 2 main places, The Rocks (not the rock is cooking ok?) and Sydney Opera House. It was the last day of World Youth Day, the pope’s influence were still strong at the Sydney Central Business District (CBD) and the pilgrims were still singing like mad people around the city, so we decided to go into Sydney CBD by train instead.

As we were walking out from Circular Quay trainstation. The first thing that was shoved right in front of my face was this, the hugest ship I’ve ever met in my entire life.

This ship, by size is bigger than some of the big buildings in Sydney CBD. From this angle, it looks like it’s bigger than the Harbour Bridge. Her name is Pacific Dawn, what a sweet name.

The Rocks

So our first stop was The Rocks. It was said to be the best market, but some owners of the stores there claimed that Paddington is a better place to sell. They mostly sell handcrafts there, but there was some jeweleries that was chromed in Gold and Silver there, those are really good. I bet any girl would just fall in love with those jeweleries.

Anyways, this picture below will certainly prove that why the Rocks Market was a better market than Paddington, just have a good look.

I did not capture the video, but I have the pictures though. That heel is made of glass, and that dude did it with oxyacetylene gas I think. The torch looked like the one I had used in TAR College workshops. LOL

After visiting The Rocks, we decided to go over to Sydney Opera House to capture some real close pictures. But along the way, this dude performed some real good tricks. Just click on it and you’ll see quite clearly that he was actually juggling a knife, a torch (the one you use to light up the Olympics fire) and an apple. It took me some time to notice that he was eating the apple when it passes through him. I have no idea how he did that but it was just marvelous.

He was clearly looking for money there and after the performance, everybody put in money into his bag. We are poor so 5 of us only gave him 1 AUD.

Sydney Opera House

So we walked up north-east until we reached one of the most glorifying place of Australia, The Sydney Opera House. Seriously the building is just magnificent! All the curve at the ceiling, the sharp ends, ahh I’m falling in love, and God knows why with a building. Since I’m new to the place so Sherlyn be my tourist guide and took me around the place.

The gulls here are not afraid of anybody, it would go as near as a meter to a person and show off their white feathers! LOL Even today when I was coming back home from school, that damn gull was ahead of me and I felt like I am playing "catch" with it. Grr, seagulls give me bad impressions from "Finding Nemo".

A picture I took before we got closer, this was the best picture I’ve taken of the Sydney Opera House. It’s a bit gloomy though, because there were dark clouds so the day was a bit dark.

A picture I took when I was wondering at the end of the Sydney Opera House. I took pictures from the Harbour Bridge before, but that day I took pictures of the bridge from Sydney Opera House. Look at the background, the sky was raining dark.

While we were starting to leave the Opera House to get our dinner, we saw this policemen taking pictures with about 8 or 9 tourists. They were taking turns so I joined!

Then … they took me to jail, can you believe that?

After having our dinner, we went to darling harbour. And Cher taught me some great tricks, to urinate into the stream of water.

Evil people. I’m disappointed in you Cher! I thought you were a good person.

Here’s something for you to guess. Where is this?

Hints:
1. At one of the tourist spots.
2. One trip there is about AUD 350 (or is it AUD 250?).

Good luck guessing.

It’s a bit late here so I don’t think I want to talk too much for this post.

Gap Park at Watsons Bay

The birdeye view from Wikimapia.org

Some sort of an entrance. Look, the first thing they give you are penalties. Sucks huh? But many of the tourists doesn’t give a damn about it. Haha

What a beauty shot captured from above. I was hoping for bigger waves actually, this was the best I can capture. Some were captured by Sherlyn though.

Can see the Harbour Bridge from faraway and the Sydney Tower(thinnest and tallest).

A capture of the opposite side of the cliff.

When we were walking over to the opposite side, Cher wanted to hang on the anchor. Took her awhile though. Haha.

We were at that cliff taking shots before.

Mackenzies Bay

The birdeye view from Wikimapia.org

An evening shot of the cliffs. I edited the cranes off it so it looks nicer like that.

We were at the opposite before, taking shots towards here.

This is Tamarama Bay. You can see this from Mackenzies Bay. Many surfers waits for the wave to surf here. But seriously I have no idea how they do it. It’s so cold in the winter, it’s about 15′C and they can surf at the sea. Crazy people …

Here’s some nature stuff Sherlyn and I captured. We captured some birds actually, but it’s very blur so I decided not to put them in the blog. Enjoy yourself!

I’m not sure it’s dead or not, maybe it’s winter that’s why it’s withered. Nevertheless, I love this picture.

Here are some flowers I have never seen before.

Our original plan was to eat at Hurricane’s Grill. But we went to Bondi earlier just to have a look at these lovely places.

Anyways, I dedicate this post to my parents at Malaysia. I love you mom and dad and I thank you so much for sponsoring me to study in Sydney. I’ll bring you to Bondi Beach the next time you come here alright?