Part 2: South Africa - Aquila Safari

28th december 2008
wen booked for the 4 of us (me, mum, dad & kuma) a tour in Aquila Safari. we got to reach there by 8am. which means we have to leave house by 6am because Aquila Safari is situated about 2 hours from wen's house. which means we have to wake up at 5am as there will be four of us sharing one bathroom!

early sun

the journey towards Aquila Safari is one of the best scenery i've ever seen. besides the view from table mountain of course ;) the whole 2 hours drive around mountains and hills, and the view is FANTASTIC!!!!!!!

reminds me of the show the sound of music... the hills are alive, with the sound of music

Aquila Safari

wine to welcome us

they actually have chalets if you wish to stay there.

and a place for you to suntan!

the sun is shining, but we are shivering... IT'S COLD!!!!


crocodile pond

i hate crocodiles. i think they are EVIL. lol

breakfast was provided (i mean, included in the package). after a buffet style breakfast, at about 9am, our safari tour started!

we sat inside this jeep.. and OFF WE GOOOOO!!!!

oh, and SA is always proud to have the BIG 5. (lion, leopard, elephant, rhino and buffalo) and they have it all in Aquila!

buffallo


zebras


zebra and rhinos


ostriches


look at the baby rhino! cuteeeeeee


zebra crossing ;)

and my favourite......

GIRAFFE!

they even stopped the vehicle near the giraffe, and we were allowed to come out of the vehicle and have a snack!

and it's really really windy there!

african elephant

african elephants are unique as you can only have them in africa. and they are called african elephants because their ears are in the shape of the africa continent! cute right?

springboks


the lions are somewhere after this road

and lastly, the leopards.

too bad the leopards are caged as they are having a breeding programme for them. the rest of the animals are not caged! they are just walk freely around our vehicle!

views in the safari


the clouds look really fake!


cute plant

on the way back, i enjoy the scenery again. i know i wont be coming back again soon. =(

random wineyard along the way

*******to be continued........

Part 1: South Africa - Table Mountain & Signal Hill & Victoria Wharf

26th december 2008
after traveling for about 6000 miles across to globe, from one continent to the other for about 10 hours on the plane, we finally reached cape town, south africa at 7.25am local time!

cape town from the plane

i can see the table mountain already!

it's quite bright already as the sun rises at 5am during summer in SA!

wen meet up with us. then we went to rent a car from Avis and off we go to wen's house in stellenbosch, which is about 45 minutes drive away from cape town. we then tried to get a little rest, but i guess we were too excited, we cant wait to walk around and explore south africa! but we resisted ourselves and just walk around the neighbourhood that day.

kuma . me . dad


@ Oom Samie Se Winkel


Cape Town Fish Market which is actually a restaurant and NOT a market

the shops were still closed as they are still having their christmas holidays! we went back home quite early as we were having jet lag (6 hours difference!).


27th december 2008
body is fully charged for our day! we plan to go up to the table mountain today as the weather is sunny.

along the way, we saw this.

these are shacks and yeap, there ARE people staying inside. i just cant help but feel bad about it. =(

we reached the bottom of table mountain at about 10 in the morning. there's already ALOT of people. we have to park our car pretty far from the cable car station.

and we gotta take a picture of our number plate just in case we cant find our car later! haha

look at the queue for the cable car ride... then times it with five!! it was loooooooooooooooong. we have to queue for 1.5 hours. correction: we have to be baked under the SUN for 1.5 hours! (look at the sky, there are no clouds at all). zzzzzzzzzzzz

even when we were just queuing for the cable car, they view was BEAUTIFUL already.

lion's head behind me


left hill: lion's head
right hill: signal hill

signal hill on the left.. and cape town as my background

mum and dad with cape town


the floor inside the cable car actually turns so that you will have a 360 degrees view

dad at the top of table mountain with the cable car station behind

lion's head and signal hill from table mountain


the ocean

we wanted to leave table mountain at about 3pm. that's when we realised, the queue is loooooooooong again. =.=''

look at bottom right o.O

this is just about half of the queue. we were at the back half. =.='' got baked under the sun again. oh, besides cable car, you can actually choose to hike up or down the mountain. you can also choose to do abseiling.

3565 feet only what... hahahaha

then we went over to lion's head. we realised we couldnt drive up, we can only HIKE up.. so, we decided to just pass by and off we go to signal hill.

after going to table mountain, the view of cape town from signal hill is not that "WOW" anymore.

left mountain: table mountain
right hill: lion's head

but of course, we are nearer to the ocean when we are in signal hill. we see the endless ocean!!!!! not sea, but OCEAN!!

after that, we went over to Victoria Wharf located in Victoria & Alfred Waterfront.

it's just a normal mall. with shops, boutiques, groceries shopping.....

oh, guess what they sell?

CHEESEEEEEEEEE!! from the size of your palm, to the size of the pail you used to take bath in when you were little!! =.='' no wonder we say "ang moh are tua chiak" how can they not be tua chiak when the cheese they sell are in THAT size? zzzzzzz

*****to be continued............

thank you

sorry for this late response. but i really truly sincerely appreciate those who take the effort to remember and wish me during my birthday on 30th december. and thanks for the presents.

thanks hooichin, lean, chuileng and peishing for the cake.
(yeah, they bought me a christmas cake for my birthday. i have 'cute' friends. lol)

finally i am 19.

i am back!

i love south africa.

WONDERFUL! FANTASTIC! MARVELOUS!

i hope 3 weeks doesnt end that soon. kinda miss south africa now. lol

i promise to blog about it soon. for now, let me adjust back to the malaysian time so that i can attend classes tomorrow! goodnight