Wollongong

To those who are still blur where gong is, yes it's short for Wollongong...duh! It's 80km south of Sydney, about one hour's drive thereabouts. Arrived here last Wednesday morning. Bumped into Jas's colleague in the airport. What a coincidence. I get to use the internet in his office to make some vital appointments for house inspection.

Gong is situated along the coast. The beach is really beautiful and people flock here in the evenings and mostly in the weekends for the sea, sand, yachting, hang gliding, fish&chips, etc. I must say it's more crowded than St Kilda Beach, only because the city of Gong is only a stone's throw away from the beach. I even had to queue an hour for the fish&chips...but it was most definitely worth the wait, besides the point that the service is really slow... sorry lah, I'm comparing with how fast I used to work at Plush serving sushi and coffee 100 times faster than these people are taking the fish orders.

On Saturday, Jas's good friend from Sydney came down for a night's stay with his family. We went deep sea fishing...I was so looking forward to it...being my 3rd time fishing. It was my most unfortunate outing as I succumbed to sea motion sickness and threw up 5 times. I've never felt so miserable in my life...it was worse than my food poisoning encounter 3 years ago. I wasn't the only one though. Simon, another friend who has also relocated to Gong, had the same problem. Luckily I managed to fish for the first hour or so. As soon as you drop the line, the line tags and you pull up fish after fish. So much fun! Dinner that night was of course, FISH.

The next day we went to Nan Tien Temple, the biggest temple in the southern hemisphere. I never knew you could find such an attraction in a city as small as Gong. Will post pictures of the temple later...can't upload the photos...am currently in a public library.

Thankfully after a week's search, I finally found a nice cozy quiet unit. Am moving in next Friday. It's really close to the city itself, with Woolworths ( Safeway is called Woolies here), train station, the main shopping mall and Asian grocery store all within walking distance. I can't wait to slowly decorate the place and make myself feel more like I'm back in Melb. Goodbye Melbourne... Hello Wollongong!