So my friend, Wei Jin posted this photo on his Facebook profile with the caption:

"Anyone seen this strange looking bug before?? @@"

I totally freaked the moment I saw it.

Pardon my language, but what the fuck is that?!?? 

It looks like a cockroach mated with a grasshopper, producing this hybrid, ghastly lobster-looking insect.

LOL If it's even an insect to begin with. By definition, insects have 6 legs.

My observation:

See that final pair of "leg"? It looks like a lizard's tail or a worm to me. 

It has wings, albeit quite short.

It has feelers, like those of a cockroach

I then gathered more details about this odd creature –

• He found it beside the kitchen table 
  
• It is about 3 centimetres in length, bigger than a cockroach (half the size of his palm)
  
• It's tail looked like the back of a snake and had white stripes on it
  
• It looked like a rat from far and when my friend wanted to hit it, it flew a little
  
• The yellow stuff is its secretion (shit and goo)

If you guys have any more questions, just ask 🙂

Any opinions of yours is good too.

Thanks! I'm just extremely curious to find out what this is.

Any help will be appreciated! Share this! We'll find out what it is together 

UPDATE! 

A few readers told me it looks like a woodlouse.

And others told me it could be a wood termite.

More of them claimed it was the famed 'Cockamouse' from How I Met Your Mother

LOLOLOLOL I quite agree. But it's a fictional creature so it's impossible

Any more opinions, guys? 🙂

BIGGER UPDATE!!!

Finally discovered what that underground monster is! 😀 😀 😀

It's called a Mole Cricket! (discovered it when I was Googling and Wikipedia-ing all night)

Ta-da! Same, right?

Your new best friend

I was sorta right. It IS a hybrid. And from the grasshopper family.

It's a cricket! Not your average cricket FYI.

This creature is nocturnal and practically spend their entire lives underground and digging tunnels.

It feeds on larvae, worms, roots and grasses.

EUREKA! 😀

I must admit that when I first arrived in Melbourne, I had a pretty hard time adapting to the weather.

It was temperamental and yet excruciatingly cold when the sun sets!

They say its very likely to experience 4 seasons in ONE DAY. That's how unpredictable it is.

The sun shines brightly during the day but the cold wind is enough to give you chills anytime

And you call that Summer? Yeah, I arrived in mid February – when it was in the middle of Summer.

I'm sorry, if ya think Australian Summer this year is anything remotely close to any other day in Malaysia, you're terribly wrong.

You would never want to be caught dead outdoors in the early mornings

it's FREEEEEEZING!

As mentioned, it's not too bad during the day but being typical Malaysian, I'm so used to wearing very

little clothes that I actually forget about how cold it is outside

A random mini green pinecone we found.

Whose palm is that btw?

 I spend the days indoors with my housies in the West

And my mates from the house next door!

Always up for a drink or two!

As fun as it is in the West, I spend more of my time in South now

I'm glad to have made an awesome bunch of friends there. Love them much!

The route between West rez & South rez

Sunny days for the Summer, but it never gets anything close to 25 degrees celcius

Chilling by South 9's porch

At the uni lounge deck with some of my mates!

From L-R : Levan, Todd, Devin and Deanna

Without realizing it, the days of Summer are over and we are now in the midst of Autumn.

The leaves on the trees has turned yellow in preparation to fall

Bright yellow, vermilion orange and deep, scarlet reds beautifully scattered on the ground

Different trees shed their leaves at different times.

This tree, for example, was a tad late in joining the rest of his kind, but boasts a beautiful, burgundy hue.

Walking by this tree after classes, I can't help but to stop in my tracks

and admire Mother Nature's wonder

One morning, as the sunlight peeped through my window and in the near distance, I spotted a tree with bright red leaves.

Seeing that red is my favorite colour and the fact that I never once noticed this tree just outside my rez, I whipped out my camera and bolted through the door in my pyjamas.

Excuse the straight-out-of-bed face and hair!

I just had to take a picture with it immediately 😀

Here it is again. The rare, bright red ones standing out from the crowd.

Be inspired. I know I am.

As of now, it is nearing towards the end of Autumn and we are expecting Winter to arrive soon.

The days are even colder than before and the nights bring frost to the grass and mist to our mouths.

Every night hits below 5 degrees celcius and I spend all my time right in front of the heater now.

The roaring warmth helps to keep me from freezing my arse off.

Branches are left bare and empty for Winter

No wonder it's so cold. You can actually feel the chill in the air. I soon found out that it was already snowing at Bendigo, some 4 hours away.

I can't wait for my snowboarding, skiing and tobogganing trip up Mount Baw Baw with my mates in late June when the blanket of snow are inches and inches thick!

Here's to hoping it will snow in Melbourne city or Gippsland too! 😀

Not that I intend to freeze or frostbite myself to death, but simply because I've never seen snow before in my entire life!

This is insane! Out from 9am – 11pm and at least 10 hours of non-stop walking has really taken its toll on me.

I'm maxed out tired to the bone now – resting while transferring photos and blogging this post.

Yeahyeah, I know I should probably hit the sack by now but being me, it is imperative that I blog an immediate snippet before the entire blogpost… because who knows, this might take another million years to be up LOL

I love my new prezzie! An adorable, furry, soft tigga hat to keep my head warm

So anyway! I was at the Melbourne Zoo in Royal Park for almost 5 hours; was impossible to cover every nook and cranny

I reckon it would be safe to say that almost the entire animal kingdom reside within the walls of that zoo

From the smallest of insects…..

…to the biggest of animals!

My whole afternoon was spent exploring the entire zoo hunting down the animals to take photos of.

I swear felt like Dora the Explorer LOL! But the fact that I'm lacking the binoculars and knapsack doesn't come in the way for I think I made up for it with a big-ass DSLR camera and a slingbag 😛 😛

And… the King of the Jungle! (yes, if you're wondering… I was THAT close to Simba here)

It was incredible, better than any zoo I've ever been! Melbourne Zoo is massive and the entire place was an extremely close-to-real-life makeshift rainforest dessert ocean underground grassland antartic tropics aviary all in one.

Unlike many *cough* places *cough* that my fellow Malaysians know….

There are certain zoos in particular who mistreat their animals, cooping them up in tiny cages with restricted space to exercise, not cleaning their already miserable cages and drugging them to ensure their benevolence during photo-opportunities.

Oh and yes, I know I owe everyone a photo of a kangaroo ever since I set foot in Australia

So… ta-daa! 😀 Here it is, shot in the zoo earlier today

Plenty more photos of the glorious (and even the unglorious, ugly, often overlooked) members of the animal kingdom to come! I did, as usual, took truckloads of photos.

And the most tedious part is filtering & batch processing them all. Bleh.

Headed to the Tutankhamun exhibition after that for another 3 hours!

On the right: a bag of Egyptian souvenirs I bought. On the left: a replica of Tutankhamun's skull

Verdict? It was magnificent and we were clearly in awe with everything they had to offer. Everyone was clearly enthused with the displays, footages, ancient relics, hieroglyphs, statues, fragile mummified skeletons,  and the like. More to come, I promise!

If you're an avid lover of Egyptian civilization like I am, you'll be star struck.

And now do you still wonder why I had the Eye of Horus tattooed on my left wrist? 😉

Sometimes, I need my escapade.

And sometimes, I yearn to just lie under the sun to let life pass me by.

Sometimes, I am aimless; not knowing where certain routes lead to.

And sometimes, I could walk down a path which still remains unwritten.

Sometimes, I could not be bothered where the trail leads.

And sometimes, I reckon it's the journey that matters the most.

Sometimes, I am fearless; but many a time plagued by inhibitions

And sometimes I am sheltered by a facade I wish to believe in.

Sometimes I wish I could only see

And sometimes not dive headfirst in a vault of quandaries

Sometimes people stumble and fall; after all, to err is human

And sometimes the untold illuminates the answer that can never be found

Sometimes, the wrong methods are proven the best way to constantly learn

And sometimes, it helps you discover yourself in the process

Bold, adventurous and playful like a canine

Sometimes I wish I didn't have a single qualm in my mind

Thriving on long walks, playing fetch and frolicking on the grass

Sometimes a huge, mesmerizing smile will allow storms to come to pass

Sometimes I wish I never had to suppress myself; thus ambiguous, cryptic and a tad misunderstood 

And sometimes I enjoy free-falling and being susceptible to life's treasures

Sometimes I need my liberation, just to run an exhilarating mile

And sometimes, if I'm lucky it may lead me back to familiarity

Sometimes all I need is to close my eyes and feel it brimming within

So come here; lay with me on the grass and show me something so beautiful like never before.

And that's why they say dogs are man's best friend

***

P/S: I have no idea how I managed to turn a sunny day out into a surge of abstract thoughts

Believe me, it was supposed to be my usual carefree thing but it didn't quite turn out that way.

Goodnight all.

Sunrise after sunrise, another one beckons; it will herald a new day, I'm certain.

Okay, I know I promised for the full post on the Fancy Dress party but hey, there was a glorious full moon tonight and I couldn't help unleashing my arsenal of camera gear to start shooting it.

Don't worry, all the fancy dress photos have been collaged and batch edited – ready to go! (it's currently halfway written and saved in my blogpost draft at the mo)

Shot at 1925 HRS

It's funny how the sun begins to set at 5.45pm here in Australia, as compared to how it sets at about 7.30pm in Malaysia. Talk about a huge difference!

Goodness gracious, by 6pm the sky is already dark here!

But the moon only begins to appear at approximately 6.30pm

So yes, the moon. Remember how there was so much buzz on the Supermoon roughly 3 weeks ago?

Supposedly a rare occasion where the moon is at its closest point to the earth?

Well, BIG DEAL. *rolls eyes*

To be honest, all I saw was a round full moon that night. Just like any other moon on any full moon night.

But tonight, it was beautiful and huge.

So off I set out from my rez carrying nothing but my camera and a few lenses

I was crawling all over the floor and climbing rooftops just to get the shots I wanted.

Few of the people on rez gave me weird looks and thought I was a drunkard trying to break into houses LOL

As you can see, the clouds were being a bit of a b!tch so I waited and waited

And when the sun has COMPLETELY set on the opposite end of the horizon, all was still, silent and pitch black in the sky.

Finally, my wait is over. Now, let's shoot the moon!

Now, that's more like it.

I shot this one whilst on top of South 8's rooftop.

Don't ask me how I got up there, I just did. Well, blame the extra dosage of hyperactivity.

Shot this on top of a tree branch

Again, don't ask me how I got up there.

I was scratched on the arm in the process. Sigh.

The great lengths photohunters go to just to get their perfect shot.

This was shot while I was lying flat on the grass

I know they all probably look similar to you, but notice the difference in colour and positioning.

Ahh well, I loved how the moon looks tonight. Opalescent, romantic and a tad eerie.

Just the way I like it.

Don't mind me. I have a solid excuse 😛

I was waiting for the moon to peek from those annoying stratus clouds

It took me slightly over an hour to get all my shots together. Heck, it was very windy so all the clouds just kept coming in the way! Oh, bother

But hey, it's all good. I got home safe and sound in the dead of the night… with slightly numb ears and fingertips because the idea of putting on a jacket didn't quite occur to me in the midst of my hype to go mooning.

Silly me!