UNSW Orientation Day was officially started on 23rd July until 25th July, which was on Wednesday until today, Friday.

There were many activities to join, but maybe not as much if compared to the March’s Orientation.

Journey to UNSW

About 12 hours before the journey start, I was busy searching for routes that would take me all the way to UNSW. I did not bother how to come back, all I wanted to know was how to go there. So I spent the whole night checking wikimapia for my journey and planning it. I had done my best, but the first day was still a bit hectic.

At early morning, Cher told me top was 14′C. I nodded, but in my brain, I was thinking “what’s the big deal?” until I went out of the house. I felt like I was smoking air and it was so damn cold I chilled all the way to the train station.

It is Roseville Train Station that I was going to and thank God it got warmer when I reach there. I went over and told the cashier that I want a single ride to the city, then I got this feeling from the cashier that nobody starts their journey with a single ride using the train. Weird … I guess normally people buy a return ticket instead. Oh and I was charged 50 cents extra by buying a single ticket! Ugh.

But smart person as I am, I planned to go to UNSW with a single trip ticket. Then after 3PM, buy the weekly TravelPass from my school because when you use the weekly TravelPass after 3PM, you get to use it for the rest of the day plus 7 more days. Wah I am so proud of myself.

Here’s the view of the Roseville train station. Looks old huh? Wait til you see the station at Chatswood. Sorry I do not have them. Haha

After sitting inside the warm train for 30 minutes, I exit the train at Central inside Sydney CBD. It looked a bit crowded with people so I go all the way to the express bus stop at Eddy Avenue to wait for 891, a one way express route to UNSW.

I was busy enjoying the great view of so many birds at Belmore Park until I forgot to take notice of the bus is prepaid. Then when I was trying to board the bus, the officer told me that bus is prepaid. Gosh I got a shock of my life but thankfully he told me to get a ticket from 7-11 just opposite the bus stop.

I went into the 7-11, got cheated by the shopkeeper for 3 AUD per single ticket, I’m not sure single ticket to UNSW are that expensive or not, but the last time I sat a single ticket, it was 2.50. Then I went out and board the 20+ minutes bus to UNSW.

The whole journey from my cousin’s house -> Roseville Train Station -> Central Train Station -> Bus stop -> UNSW took me about 1 hour and 30 minutes.

UNSW Orientation Day 1 – 2 days ago, 23rd July 2008

I attended the Official Welcome for Undergraduates from 10AM to 12PM. Then during break at 11AM, I went straight out to another Welcome for Engineers, which was a better choice because an hour later at 12PM, we had free BBQ! From there, I get to know Jonathan, Claire and MeiLing through Jayson.

Jayson is the Golden Jubilee guy, Jonathan from Singapore looks a bit like my 2nd brother, MeiLing is very a open minded girl, talks about almost anything and Claire is well sort of like an auntie when she speaks English. LOL

After the BBQ, I went to settle some of my enrollment stuff, then joined the Meet the Mentor talk. God damn it, took us about 20 minutes to found out where the venue actually was. I chose our mentor during that mentoring talk … our group was all guys, AGAIN (I’m bored), because he’s from the Engineering faculty as well. I get to know Ivan, Ash, Eugene and Wesley there. Ivan, Ash and Eugene was from INTI Penang and Wesley was from China.

We went on a campus tour with our mentor and I captured some really nice pictures of the campus (dirty one as well, haha at the older buildings, I’m not showing that.)

This will be the first thing you see when you come right into the UNSW main gate.

After some walking down the campus, you get all these buildings. Wooo this is equivalent to Putrajaya!

Our UNSW library. The tallest building on campus. But all I had done these few days in the library was to print my documents for certification at the Student Central.

This building is called John Niland Scientia. I heard the lectures that expects about 200 to 300 people will be held here.

A shot right outside of the John Niland Scientia building down to the main gate.

Look! Pool tables! At the campus pub. Unfortunately these are as small as Giri’s pool table.

The campus tour by our mentor (I forgot his name) ended after 1 hour and 30 minutes of walking around the university. That was not the end of my walk, it was about 4:30PM that time and I had to walk all the way up north-east to Randwick to get my prepaid simcard from Optus.

The guy from International Student Service (ISS) only told me to walk straight using Botany Street. I’ve got no map, all I did was to follow my instinct there. Luckily I reached there, I thought the shops are only 500m away from UNSW, but I checked from wikimapia at home and it is approximately 2 KMs away.

The funny was I lost my way back. Luckily at Randwick Racecourse I met my lifesaver, Eve, she is a sweet girl from France who came all the way here to study English. She was actually jogging her way back from Centennial Park, but since she had to direct me, we chatted back to UNSW instead. Thanks to her I get to go home that day with the 891 bus.

UNSW Orientation Day 2 – Yesterday, 24th July 2008

I woke up at 11 AM just to reach school for this, BBQ organized by ISS! Hahaha!

Look at the damn queue, everybody was waiting just to eat free food here in Australia. Sad case, the newspaper is right, Australia is ranked 15 as the world’s most expensive city to live in.

Look, everybody was enjoying the food. This room looks so old school.

The food wasn’t good, but we took our time waiting for Claire to finish eating and in the same time chatted with a Chinaman who said that I look like a ABC (Australian Born Chinese). I’m a Malaysian !!! But not a proud one.

We chatted too long until the talk we wanted to go was too crowded with people. This was a talk about getting permanent resident in Australia. This was the first time of me staying at the door listening to lectures. WTH, if I’m at TAR College, I’m long gone.

UNSW Orientation Day 3 – Today, 25th July 2008

Woke up at 10AM, but it was drizzling quite heavily, so I continued sleeping again until 12. It was still drizzling though, but lighter. Today I spent 3 hours of traveling just to listen to 1 hour of talk about finding part time job and 1 hour of crap. Oh I’m so hardworking, all thanks to weekly TravelPass.

Eva Chan talked about finding part time jobs, I think she’s from Hong Kong, by the Cantonese accent. She smiles sweetly and I love her presentation. The other 1 hour talk was rubbish by some Malaysian person, I should have just left the hall.

So that’s all for the orientation. Bah I need to know more girls.

Oh yea, I have to show this. This is the coolest environment friendly tissues (erm, towels) I have used in a toilet. If you want to dry your hands, just pull down the newer towels, the wet towels will automatically pulled up into the … thing … machine. No need to waste any tissues as it will be cleaned and reused over and over again (I think).

We have to implement this now and save the world.