Gold Coast! (urm... non-halal pictures ahead)

My Australia trip post is coming to an end, finally.

If you ever visit Melbourne, don't forget to eat at The Meat & Wine Co. There's a few of the restaurant all around the world but I think the nearest to us would have to be Australia, Sydney in particular. And while you're there and while you're non-Muslim, please don't forget to eat the pork ribs.

No, not this one but this is really good too. It's their ribs platter which comes with small portions of lamb, beef and pork ribs. 

THIS. is their full rack of pork ribs. It may look gigantic but it's not difficult for 1 person to eat it up since most of it consists of bones, or ribs for that matter.

That full rack of pork ribs costs around AUD50+, can't remember the exact amount. Expensive? Yes. Worth it? Yes. Will I try it again? Absolutely. Why? Simply because I can never find something like this in Malaysia.

The last 4 days before heading back to Malaysia we went to Gold Coast, stayed at Surfers Paradise.

The Surfers Paradise beach, which is loooooooooong.

It's a beautiful place but I guess we were there at the wrong time. It was raining everyday, the sky was really gloomy, the weather was wet and cold. Everything was underwhelming :( Because the sky wasn't clear, so was the sea waters. And the rain just didn't help at all.

Upon reaching we strolled along the suburb. Because it's quite a hot tourist spot, the price of everything's marked up like crazy. My advice for anyone who's traveling to Gold Coast particularly Surfers Paradise is, stay in an apartment and cook whenever you can. The food isn't exactly amazing, or at least nothing we tried was. It's not worth it to spend on food there, not even groceries. Pack instant noodles if you have to.

We had dinner at this Taiwanese restaurant. Like I've said, food was not impressive. But I quite like their bubble tea. The milk tea was so so, but the pearls were good. The place is called Hazel Tea Shop.

The next day we went to Sea World which was quite fun but again, the rain was a major let down :(

My favourite part of the visit is seeing these King Penguins!!!!! I almost couldn't believe my eyes when I saw how huge they are and how fake they look! It's like seeing a Mumble (from Happy Feet) and the rest of the penguins! Except that they didn't sing and tap their feet and dance wtf.

There were also a few scheduled shows peformed by the marine animals.

Imagine, the dolphin show.

Fish Detectives, where the seals and sea lions all came out to act!!! So cute!!!

Looks like one of the seals is getting horny wtf.

First time seeing a polar bear!

For dinner, we decided to try Bavarian Haus because they (Wk and family) were very interested in the pork knuckle, which is a popular German dish.

Such a disappointmet.

It's my first time trying a pork knuckle and unfortunately I didn't like it. Ok... I did enjoy the crispy skin (I'm a sucker for zhu yao zhar which I think is deep fried pork lard and siew yok skin which is the skin of roasted pork) but the meat was well, quite tender but smells strongly of... I dunno. Pork which has been kept for too long I guess? Not forgetting it was looking quite bloody as well, not sure if it's cooked. But if it's that tender I'm pretty sure it has been cooked for long so I don't understand why it looks bloody in the inside. And the strong, unpleasant smell of pork, gosh.

We also had several other dishes like the Wursts (German sausages), chicken schnitzel, lamb shank, pretzels... everything was just mediocre. Nothing impressive.

Try it only if you cannot contain your curiosity on pork knuckle. Otherwise, I wouldn't recommend that place at all. Environment is ok, but the food just doesn't justify the price.

Ok signing off. Will finish off the last 2 days tomorrow. 

Selamat Hari Thaipusam semua!