Gold Coast: Surfers Paradise

Boy was this trip packed with thrills and spills! As we are cheapskates, we bought the first Jetstar flight to Gold Coast that departed at 6:30a.m. Crazy right? Well, seems that the whole plane was full of crazy people like us. When we arrived at Gold Coast, we bought a Freedom Pass that allowed us to ride on any Surfside bus service for 5 consecutive days, and that included airport transfers from our motel. That was the plus side. The down side was that we waited at the wrong stand and the bus driver didn't bother telling us although we approached him!

Great...

When we finally found out where to go, we realised that it was the same bus driver whose bus we were going to board! Celaka... oh well... and while waiting for the bus to depart from the airport, we were observing a group of (pretty jakun) Malaysians, who must have flew on AirAsia. There was a camera crew and some people directing another group of people on what to do, where to look and all that. And then I saw the word ASTRO emblazoned across some of their jackets. Ah, baru I faham what was going on.

And then, it was onwards to Surfer's Paradise! We checked into a place that looked like a dodgy Polis Diraja Malaysia hostel with typical white walls and blue roof. We gulped. Oh no, please let the rooms be comfy... phew, thankfully, the apartment was in good condition and the lady who ran the place was super friendly. We paid $400 for 4 nights for a 2-bedroom apartment at Raffles Royale. It came with a toilet adjoined to the laundry with a washing machine and dryer, air-con/heater, cable TV and kitchen. Outside, there were barbeque pits, a pool and a jacuzzi. She didn't charge us for the extra rollaway bed, how generous!

After placing our luggages in our respective rooms, we decided to go out for brunch. Our first meal in Gold Coast was such a rip-off! My goodness! For the same price, we'd be having a much better looking, better tasting and BIGGER breakfast in Glebe! I guess feeling extremely hungry has its price to pay. After that, we headed to the beach. I must admit, the beach is spectacular - siky soft and fine sand, clear blue waters and skies and there was A WHOLE FREAKING STRETCH of 'em! Here, let me show you a left, middle and right perspective of what I mean:

Of course, we checked out the shops there as well. I didn't buy anything other than four gemstone bracelets for $10. The following two places we headed to the most because Shaun couldn't decide which cap to get and whether he really wanted the jacket he saw at

and because we had to buy two things on two separate occasions for Auds from

.... sigh, yup, decisions, decisions.

Our first day on the Gold Coast ended with a home-cooked pasta dinner. The next day, there were two additions to our foursome who joined us from Brisbane:

Just in case we'd forget again like we did the day before, we took a pic in front of the arch that greeted beach-throngers to Surfer's:

That night, we celebrated Jenny's birthday at an Italian restaurant. Nic secretly asked for a piece of cake from the waiter, much to Jenny's surprise. She was so happy that she decided to take group pics to commemorate the occasion:

Little did she know that there was another surprise waiting back at the apartment. We bought her a cute little star-shaped chocolate mint ice cream cake from Cold Rock:

And while everyone was relaxing in front of the TV screen, I was busy keeping track of who owed me how much for what. Wahaha, can't believe I actually listed out exactly what it was they had to pay me for...