Memories

Today was my first day of clincals in Austin Hospital.

We had to wake up at 630am to catch the 713am tram and breakfast starts only at 7am! That left us exactly 2 minutes to spread butter on the bread, 2 minute to toast it, 4 minutes to eat it, 2 minutes to clear our plates off the table and 3 minutes to get to the tram station.

And guess what! We missed the that tram. The next one was scheduled to come 4 mins later, and it did. (Something which Adelaide’s bus couldn’t afford.)

Some confusion happened when we were to board the train which would take us to Heidelberg, where Austin Hospital is located. Like many larger cities with extensive train network, we have a city loop which goes round the city. For some reason, the morning train goes in the opposite direction compared to the evening train!

We used to walk to uni, 15 minutes and free. From now on, we have to take a tram and then train, which is 1 hour per trip. That’s 2 hours per day! Everyday!! On top of that, $5.30 for the tickets! x 3.03 now! Arrgghh!!

Still, we got there 10 minutes early. All we see are new faces. We left sem 5, and we’re joining sem 8 now. A whole new batch of students.

These are the people whom I will be working with! I prayed that I would be able to fit in and learn as much as possible from everyone around me. :o)

Darren’s my buddy and there are 4 other people in my group. Co-incidentally, one of them is my neighbour in Sunway Damansara! I met her and her buddy in the train back to the city and they all turned out to be wonderful people! :o)

Back to the lessons, the whole morning we had lots of intro lectures, proper lectures and and intro to cardiovascular system PE. Started from 830am all the way till 1pm, with only 15 minutes break in between. Since I only had 5 hours of sleep yesterday and 2 hours the day before, I could hardly keep my eyes open.

1pm to 5pm. ‘Tag a nurse’ program. I was assigned to a nurse and my job was as described in the name, tag along her!

I was assigned to the Peads wards! I have always had a special spot for Paeds in my heart. And voila! Peads wards! My first rotation! :o)

And the nurse, named Catherine, was amazingly hospitable. Besides bringing me around and teaching me new things, she introduced me to all the staff in the ward. It was such a friendly environment. Everyone from the doctors to the ward clerk to the cleaner-lady know each other very well. Thank you Catherine.

In his Intro lecture, the Dean said: If Austin is your first choice, congratulations. If it’s not your first choice, you have been put into a very good choice.

So true. My first day has been a very pleasant one. I’m looking forward to the many days ahead!

Jas 1:5  If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask God, who gives generously to all without reproach, and it will be given him.

Wenhao (Uncle Jon), Layin (Shirlyn) and Seyin (Emily) came to Adelaide on Saturday, the jackport date 7-7-7!

Happy birthday Wengsoon and Hsiulye!

It was nearly six months since I last saw the girls. I’m glad that they were here! All of us sprung into action almost immediately. We’ve totally utilised the short period of 4 days to the maximum.

Shortly after settling down in the ever famous Village, we went to the Central Market for brunch. And our story kick started from there!

Hahndorf, the German Village, was the next station. We went into almost every shop because Chuen’s idea is that every shop is good as long as there’s heater in it! True enough, that day was so windy and to make things worse, it was raining. We went into a Chocolate Shop, Fudge Shop…. and finally we met this shop that totally blew Steph away - Fairies in Your Garden. As the name suggested, it was full of FAIRIES! :o)

We rested for a while before having dinner in Dumpling King. A word of advice: dumplings good, rice and noodles bad, except Shanghai noodles.

Day 2 (Sun)
We went to Steph’s church - the Edge. We then spent the whole afternoon in Glenelg. Chuen and Wenhao were all up for Boost juice! The got the rest of them into it too! Then we came out with a brilliant idea - ‘tapao’ our Fish n chips and yiros and eat outdoor. In the end, Chuen literally turned blue! I’ve never known what cyanosis was until that day.
Dinner at home was good! The girls showed off their culinary skills (erm.. Chuen?). Then was when I really wished Layin and Seyin could stay till Sunday, when I leave. :o)
It was Poker time after dinner. Texas hold’em. James Bond. The slight difference was that our chips were made up of sudoku number tiles, rubber bands, hairbands and boggle cubes. And I lost all my chips in the first game. :p

Day 3 (Mon)
The Adelaide ppl went for classes. Thus, I stepped in as a temporary tour guide! :o) We visited Cleland Wildlife Park. Funny things happened in the park. Some kangaroos were sunbathing, some scratched their armpits, some their private parts. Wenhao talked to a kangaroo and trying to make it shake his hand. Hmm..
We stayed in the city after that and hung around in Rundle Mall till dinner time. We had Italian food in Amalfi.

Day 4 (Tues)
Christine prepared us breakfast as her class was only in the afternoon. We went marketting in Central Market to buy ingredients for tonight’s steamboat! :o)
After that Steph met us in the city and brought us to Harbour Town! We waited for more than an hour for the bus! But shopping was good!
We got back to prepare for the steamboat. It was such a huge night. Dramas happened: the soup overflowed, the fuse tripped.. But on top of all that, we had a wonderful dinner!

Layin and Seyin left this morning! :o) All the best to you in UK! Take care!

Day 1

The first impression I have on Cairns (pronounced as Cans) was ‘Wow! The weather is so wonderful!’ Indeed, I was very lucky that the day I arrived in Cairns was the first sunny day after a long spell of showers.

Coming from Adelaide (in Southern most side) to Cairns (in North-eastern side), the weather was fantastic. The temperature was at a high of 24C to a low of 16C, compared to Adelaide which was 5C to 15C.

I was first greeted by a gush of warm breeze as soon as I stepped out from the aircraft cabin, followed by rays of gentle sunlight. After collecting my luggage, I couldn’t resist the temptation to stand under the sun while waiting for my bus. Never in my life had I appreciated the sun so much. It was all gloomy in the south.

I met the rest of the group who had been there since 3 days ago. Since they did bungy jump in the morning, we had decided to chill out at the man-made Laguna Beach. This is my first day - beautiful weather, beautiful beach and beautiful scene! What else can I ask for?

Dinner was at Barnacle’s Bill. In Cairns, most of the restaurant gave a 20% discount if you settle your bill by 7pm. Of course, for a low budget group like us, we took the offer. We still ended paying nearly AUD$20 each.

Day 2

The next day was dedicated to White Water Rafting in Tully River! We were all excited as none of us had done it before except me. I had tried Sg Padas in KK (grade 3). But this river was grade 4, which aggravated the anxiety tenfold! :o)

Our guide, Dino, adopted a very safe mode. Every time we challenged a rapid, he instructed us to stop paddling and hung on the ropes. It killed off some of the excitement, but we definitely enjoyed his jokes and each other’s company down the 4 hours river ride.

Our backpackers’ inn (Cairns Beach House) is affiliated with Rhino Bar. We are entitled to a free dinner or we can upgrade our meals with a very reasonable price. I’ve got a steak in mushroom gravy with chips and salad for only AUD$10.

Since it was still early, we visited The Reef Hotel Casino. It’s only about a quarter of the size of the casino is Crowns or Conrad, but the interior was very well designed. Steven tried his luck and got a handsome return of $1!

Day 3

We woke up at early today to get to the jetty because today was the day for sea kayaking! We took the 830am ferry ride to Fitzroy Island. By 1030am, we were covered in thick layers of sun block lotion. Our guide showed us some basics of paddling and off we go! We did some snorkeling and we stopped at Little Fitzroy Island for lunch. Our guide also gave us some history of Australia during the colonization era. I did some research and learned that there a beach called Nudey Beach (clothes are optional :p). How I wish we could stop by there, but.. Oh well, at least my partner and I saw a huge bull ray which glided pass under our kayak on our way back. Good trip!

Dinner was at La Pizza. It was quite a disappointing one as the food smelled so much better than it tasted. The restaurant was also overcrowded due to the holiday season. On the positive side, we dined alfresco accompanied by the perfect full moon, which was supposed to be blue according to the newspaper. :o)

Day 4 & 5

We spent the next two days in Cape Tribulation, the northern most point of the Australia continent. It was a heavy biology lesson as we visited the:

1. Wildlife Park. We fed more kangaroos and wallabies. But this time, with a guide.
2. Exotic Fruit Farm. We learned terms like sapodilla and carambolla, which just meant ciku and star fruit. But also some new ones like atemoya, breadfruit and Davidson’s plum and also their life cycles.
3. Jungle surfing. Five flying foxes that swung us from tree to tree! Wee! :o) We even did the last one head down! But it was a bomber that cost us AUD$80!
4. Junction between tropical rainforest and mangrove habitat. We heard lots of tree jargons which I doubt I remember any of them now.
5. Daintree River cruise. The guide took us on a 1 hour river cruise looking out for crocodiles while explaining their life cycles to us. According to stats, 95% of the crocodile will not survive their first two years! And most of the crocodile-attack-human cases are due to human feeding themselves to the crocodiles, such as swimming and fishing in croc infested river. He left us a take home message: When in doubt, stay out.

That’s all for my trip to Cairns. It’s been amazing. Not to mention heavily over-budgeted. Thank you everyone for your company - Pat, Kimi, Grace, Kevin, Jia Hui, Jia Yun, Adrian, Jac, Jeannie and Steven! Hope to travel with u guys again! :o)

Another take home message, from Pat: Anything fruity and colored, stay out!

Cheers!