Let’s get high.

This is the car we managed to rent from Europcar, the latest Subaru Impreza hatchback series, sweet looking. The traction, design, gear shifting was great, comes with cruise control and steptronic technology. If i can recall correctly, it cost $186 AUD for 3 days of usage.

The itinerary for Christmas Eve was rather simple, hit Yarra Valley for wine tasting, back to city for chill and countdown from evening.

Yarra Valley do sound familiar to Barossa Valley . Indeed they are similar in many ways, just that Barossa Valley is bigger in terms of size/magnitude. Personally, i feel that Barossa Valley’s reputation and fame is better than Yarra Valley to a certain extent.

These photos were taken on the exterior of the winery Domaine Chandon. This winery is full of beautiful attractions and the wine cellar is higher than high class i felt, however i did not purchase anything from there.

Example of a wine cellar, a place to wine taste for free. Unless you want to try their museum/wicked series, which will most probably cost you $3 – $5 AUD for tasting them.

Welcome to Yarrawood Winery, and that’s us at their lawn. If you ever ever reach there, please try then buy their Autumn Harvest Riesling 2006.

Be appalled by the amount of awards De Bortoli winery won throughout the many years. Oh, the winery is also voted the best for tourism too.

That’s Kit acting like Horatio Caine from CSI: Miami. Did i mention, we have the season one to eight at our disposal, and that’s a way how we kill time. Over exposure to the show makes you think like a criminalist all the time. When you do smell anything weird, that will be decomp (decomposition). When you do see anything suspicious, it will be bag it tag it, send it to tox/trace. When you need to search for anything, it will be set up 5 x 5 grid. It’s crazy i know.

Ah, i’m not acting like anyone from CSI: Miami. That’s just me after having too much to drink, it was like glass after glass, wine after wine, taste first and talk later (our policy).

Our destinated driver (DD) was supposed to be Kenneth, but judging on his actions and communication, i thought it’s wise for me to take over the wheels, although i was also rather high, but not as high. It wouldn’t be nice if we ended up with a vision of white on Christmas Eve, and singing too late to apologize to the DD.

Along the way, we were just hoping there won’t be any road block for breathalyser, fingers crossed. I don’t wish to get deported back to Singapore!

As promised, the night scene of Melbourne Central. Say hello to David Jones and Myer people.

This was taken outside Crown Hotel, also a casino. They have fire spitting pillars on the exterior of the hotel, expulsion of flame will be done in every hour interval. Once again, Adelaide’s Sky City casino just got owned very badly.

After walking around the casino, i realised gambling is really not a thing for me. Although card counting and probability matching should be able to lower the risk/chances, but the luck element seems to be hard to control.

Anyhow, the amount of Asians gambling is maybe ten to twenty fold of the locals. The locals were all seen at the slot machines, throwing away their gold coin, while the Asians were at the tables throwing $50 AUD a bet type (loose until siaooo). Simply suggesting, gambling is in the blood of many many Asians right. Fear is defintely mounting up when Singapore’s integrated resort opens, i dare not imagine how much income will be rolling in a night for the casino.

The group of us met up with Kenneth’s Indonesian friends again to countdown at the Steakout club/pub in the hotel. It was a really really average countdown i must say, although the company was friendly/comforting, and a feast to the eyes for Kit. For example, after the countdown, i went out of Steakout to call her. After the short call, the bouncer insisted that i cannot go back in because it’s closing, like super oh my gosh right? Close right after countdown, hahahaha maximum. Thank goodness, i swindled my way through and insisted that i have unfinished drinks.

Sorry that i did not take any photo inside, simply because our camera wasn’t up to the job. However, our Indonesian friend Melissa (which Kenneth was trying to tackle) brought along her DSLR. Will get the photos from her asap and update, no worries mates.

Before heading to Yarra Valley, the group of us insisted that buying wines is forbidden because we have a problem going through the Singapore’s custom. So much of trying to resist the temptation, we ended up buying a total of eight bottles of wines. I bought a New Vintage Pinot Chardonnay from Rochford for someone special, Kenneth bought like three for himself, and the rest were all for sharing between us. For your information, Kit now has a fetish for Moscato and Bianco.

A point to note is that Barossa Valley produces great reds, while Yarra Valley is good with their whites.

Do keep a look out for the next entry, as the group of us travel along the ever so famous Great Ocean Road on Christmas Day!