Day 5 - 29th Jun

Durban skies unedited

We visited the Moses M. Stadium which looked very finely designed, while Soccer City Stadium was simply breathtaking! Managed to snap some photos of the MMS w/o the crowd and in broad daylight. Will probably TRY to do the same for SCS since we only caught a blurry pic of it on the 27th night :S. It is amazing what stadiums ZA has come up with for the WC. Why is SG taking so damn long to build 1 sports hub?

Victoria St Mkt was next. Imagine Little India or Pratunam Market.
Lunch was at Hungry Lions. Imagine KFC.

Popped by Musgrave Centre Shopping Centre. Free 1st 1.5hrs of parking, YAY! (because public transport is FREAKING EX here, therefore anything free wrt to transport deserves a YAY!) Anyway, this seemed to be the atas area of Durban. The houses around looked huge, and it is a shopping area frequented by more angmohs than the africans/indians. Far far cry from Victoria St Mkt.

Made our way to New Beach that overlooked the indian ocean for the fan fest and caught the 2nd half of the Paraguay - Jpn match. Jpn lost on the penalty shootout. Lovely place anyway!

Next, off to the Casino we went which was just about 500m from the beach. Played some roulette for the fun of it. Dinner was at John Dory's Fish & Grill. Pretty good food for 2 at $30. (2 mains, 1 pot of mussels, 1 bottle of beer). Spent 2 hrs there to watch the Spain - Portugal match 1-0

Back to Joburg tmr noon. Another 6hr drive :S

- shihui in rm 136

Argentina - Mexico 3-1

Soccer City Stadium - Players warming up

Soccer City Stadium - just before the kick-off

Day 4 - 28th Jun

Our attempt to eat local food in Newtown, before we set off for Durban :)

The food servings were huge - the rice filled up almost the whole plate like a mountain and the chicken thigh was as big as my palm + fingers! Mashed spinach and pumpkin cubes seemed to be their popular side dishes. Sua-ku me finally tried beetroot, and it was pretty nice as its texture is similar to white radish.

Alex drove a good 6hr before we finally reached Roadlodge Durban at 930pm. Even sitting in the passenger seat was a tiring affair! Lovely scenery before it turned dark though. Buffaloes were just grazing freely along the roads, and I hardly saw any that was not grazing. Little wonder buffaloes are huge! The vast empty land that ZA has is enough to hold godknowshowmany SG.

On the way from Jo'burg to Durban

Just had Mcdonalds bf across the hotel. We had been happily eating bf from Roadlodge Randburg til we checked out ytd and was told that bf was chargeable at S$10 pp. :@ I had asked upon check-in if bf was complimentary and I was told 'Yes'. grrr!

Anyway I will only be in Durban til tmr noon before we drive back to Joburg. Going to check out the Moses Mabhida Stadium and the famed beaches of ZA later.

On a sidenote, the hotel's clear glass bathroom door doesn't really allow comforable bathing eh... and there is nowhere to put the clothes other than on the black surface.

- shihui in rm 136

Day 3 - 27th Jun

We had an AWESOME yesterday!

Went to the Gold Reef City Theme Park and Casino, followed by the match b/w Argentina-Mexico! Had to shift the Apartheid Museum visit til 2nd Jul.

The theme park entrance

I was worried it might open its feathers suddenly and sweep me away!

An interesting visit to a underground mine. We were brought down to a depth of 225m and toured the place for 45 min. We had to follow the guide closely as we had no torchlights. There is definitely no room for the claustrophoics and nyctophobics!

The Golden Loop
This ride which was given a fear factor of 8 brought us forward and backward onto the loop and up the almost-vertical track. A little apprenhensive at first but eventually, we found the ride not that scary lah.

The Anaconda
Fear factor 9 ride. Pretty ok too. The many twists and turns it has, little wonder it is called the anaconda.

Fear factor 9 too. We didnt try this ride as it was nearly 5pm and it had a queue. The park closes at 5pm and we wanted to pop over to the casino pub to watch soccer already. This ride would bring people up and drop them vertically... face-down. Looks like a must try. :(

Miners' Revenge

This was the ride I didn't go up as I was feeling somewhat giddy and nauseous from the previous rides, and this would seem to aggravate my condition, so garung Chue went up alone.

It turned out to be the 'nightmare' of the day for those people! The machine malfunctioned! It twisted and turned and suddenly, it stopped. We all thought it was part of the ride and suspense it had to give, but when it didn't move after 3 min, something was surely wrong. Some kids were already yelling to the park attendants to do something about it, and according to Chue, a few were on the brink of tears. Gosh! I was sitting next to this local whose friends were up there too and he was just commenting that he had vomitted previously after this ride and thus he didn't want to go up this round. I say it's FATE and Miners' Revenge indeed!

View from outside the casino - I like how the ferris wheel looks

Casino facade

At the pub in the casino - this pic was taken on 2nd Jul where the Brazilians were up against the Oranges. The one we caught this day was when the Germans kicked the Englishmen out.

We adjourned to the shuttle bus pick-up point near Gold Reef City for the Argentina-Mexico match thereafter.

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In the room now preparing to drive 5hrs to durban.. waiting for Alex, Rubin & YY to come back from their jog in the cool weather and car collection.

ps: Supporting the germans cuz 1) they make good booze and delectable sausages and 2) they are dressed in my fav color. Im shallow, I know. Haha

- shihui in rm 25

Day 2 - 26th Jun

Sneaking in a quick post before heading out for the day to Gold Reef City and Soccer City Stadium for the Argentina-Mexico match!

Day 2 was spent at Randburg City, Sandton City & Nelson Mandela Square.

Randburg City is the shopping area for the locals. Think AMK Central etc. An angmoh seen there will be quite rare. The 2 of us were like aliens on earth.

Sandton City & NMS are similar to Takashimaya with the swanky shops. Of course there were a lot of local flavors as well. Lots of tourists congregate there and because of WC, the sporting atmosphere was great. I like how almost all the shops partake in the WC and decorate their windows and insides with vuvuzelas, soccer balls and makarapas etc, making the atmosphere even better! Even non sports related shops did not forget to bank in on the WC, with the various merchandise to entice tourists!

The mandatory shot of Nelson Mandela Statue

The never-ending stream of people and the fully-packed restaurants

Watched the live screening at The Marco Polo bar which is actually a jackpot-only casino. Hurhur. More people went in to watch soccer than play at the jackpot machines. Hardly surprising anyway. A pint of draught beer + a chicken burger w fries = R35 ~ S$7 ! And back in SG, we pay $19 for a pint of beer at wala-wala. :S

S$14 for all the food above :D plus premium seats

Before i forget, imagine LIVE ESPN coverage with the studio-like setting! yes, we saw that at NMS.. damn cool lah.

NMS - LIVE reporting

More to come when i have the time! TATA!

- shihui in rm 25

After 23 hrs...

Yes, I'm here in Randburg finally at 8pm after 17 hrs of flight, 5 hrs of transit, 1 hr of travelling from OR Tambo airport. We are staying in Roadlodge Randburg, about S$100 per night per rm.

Our 1st meal. 30cm pizza w delivery - S$12! :D

Day 1 - 25th Jun : walked about 500m to the nearby shopping area called Brightwater Commons, it is like a little village of shops, restaurants and supermarkets. We had lunch with damn cheap beer, looked around the shops, and by the time we realised, we had been in there for around 5 hrs! Didnt manage to buy anything, still checking and comparing the prices.

Hotel facade

Jo'burg - Outside Roadlodge Randburg

Beer vending machine in the hotel. Nice.

Brightwater Commons - Tshirt shaped canvas with all the jerseys

- shihui in rm 125

6 wks of waiting!

This is it ! Off to contribute to vuvuzela noise and watch messi!

sidenote: The emirates check-in was damn damn damn slow... grrr

-shihui @ T1

Out of town

We will be there 24 jun-6 jul. We should be getting a pre-paid card there for urgent contact (will put it up here i guess) , otherwise pls email/ offline msn/ comment here should you need to tell me something! Not too sure how well the internet connection is, therefore I do not guarantee a response (asap).

Bye!!! :P

-shihui

27th Jun

And so, we will be watching Argentina vs Mexico. *blows vuvuzela*

-shihui

Transport

Woots, we finally got our car rental confirmed for the trip! No more fretting over lousy train schedules, expensive internal airfares or unreliable buses!

- Alex

4 more!

Trying to fix up transport now for joburg - durban. hurhur

-shihui

9 days more!

HOLIDAY MOOD is already on. 24th come quick!

Local trivia of the day: I just got the McDonalds glass in pink (volley).



-shihui

15 days more

to the action and cool weather...

-shihui

Testing