*ahem* this post was started on Christmas Day itself and only finished 4 days later... long one with many pictures ahead

Merry Christmas everybody! Hope its a good day whatever you did--eating, sleeping, holidaying, churching, nothing, lanning...

Just got back from Tasmania last night, it was a trip of ups and downs but ended on a good note :) Here's a commentary plus pictures:

Day One:
We flew Virgin Blue down to Tassie and it was my first domestic flight ever (no I haven't travelled around Asia in those budget airlines yet)

Landed in Lanceston where we did a bit of sightseeing around the local area... saw some gorge (which was surprisingly small for its name) and the James Boag (beer brand) factory

also saw this really cool green Tasmanian Devil car :P

After a buffet dinner (yay) which left 2 sizes bigger... actually I was only stuffed after I ate dessert... and helped myself to plenty of mussels (yum yum yum what can I say?), we took a short drive around the neighbourhood, ie, got lost, and came across this beautifully decorated house with all the lights and everything.

Day Two: It was off to Cradle Mountain which was a good 3hrs drive away. The view was really nice though, I wouldn't have minded going for a full hike instead of the 15mins we did (well mum and bro weren't too keen at all so dad and I just went for a short one). See the cradle mountain at the back? Looks more like a cradle from above rather than at the side...

At night, we went back to a dinner that was so-so. After talking a bit about cutting back on eating, ie, not eating till we're stuffed like the night before, I went ahead and ordered a chicken and rib combo, of which the chicken was under cooked and the ribs weren't meaty enough.

This was the nice villa we stayed in that was very spacious and good for sharing with loads of friends. Self contained too :)

The next day (day 3) we left to head to Hobart, but not before a spot of golfing (I can't seem to get the swing right!!)

On the way to Hobart, we made a little pit stop (mostly to visit the toilet) at a beautiful seaside suburb of Swansea, where the view is so so gorgeous!

And then awhile later, we made yet another stop to "touch the Tasman sea" as my dad put it. It was a nice time just enjoying the sea, touching the water (for the sake of it), throwing rocks around and all that. (this was an attempt at a posed shot but I look ALOT like I'm in pain...)

Finally! We reached Hobart, which is supposed to be the largest part of Tasmania (being its capital) but still pales somewhat in comparison with Sydney's city.

We drove around then had dinner at the Drunken Admiral which was an extremely cosy restaurant with the inside decor largely inspired by a nautical theme. The food wasn't all that great though, maybe because we were kiasu and went for the ones which had all the seafood inside with one type of sauce, instead of dishes with just one type of seafood. My brother's bbq-d seafood was the most promising due to the lack of the sauces.

The next day (fri) we'd planned to go to the Cadbury Chocolate factory but unfortunately it was closed for the Christmas period and so we made the trek to Port Arthur instead--the place where convicts from England mostly were held and made to serve out their sentence. It was a whole community there, from the prisoner's quarters (front left building) to a hospital (back right building),

the governor's and other higher-ranking officials houses, to the places where the soldiers stayed and kept watch.There were also chapels (where the prisoners would sit at the front in one group, and the free people got to sit at the back in individual stalls/compartments and look toward the front.

Full of history, it's a must-see place when going to Tasmania.

Dinner that night was the best of the whole trip! We went to Mures-Upper Deck which is an internationally acclaimed restaurant (or so the brouchure says) but the food there is fantastic. We ordered octopus as an entree, crayfish (aka lobster) with fettucine in a creamy sauce, scallops in hokkien noodles as well as grilled blue eye cod as mains. Each dish had its own flavour, was beautifully presented and comes with high recommendations from this family :)

On our last day there, Christmas Eve, we headed to Salamanca Markets for a browse around what they had to offer.

Those clear blue skies soon turned into dark clouds and occasional heavy showers so we returned to the hotel for shelter and to wait for the taxi to the airport. Goodbye Tasmania Hello Sydney! (I love sydney so much more!)

Twas a good relaxing Christmas day starting with ushering for service in the morning, a yumcha lunch as well as a great big nap in the afternoon, and a typical Christmas dinner with some family friends at night :)