Last Trip To Melbourne

Here are some photos from my last trip to Melbourne for my graduation.

The Melbourne Aquarium

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I’m not really that into chocolate, especially when it’s a whole lot of it. Between Lindt Cafe and Laurent, I prefer Laurent.

Chocolate tart from Lindt Cafe (more crust, less chocolate please…)

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In my 4.5 years of studying in Melbourne, I had never been on the Great Ocean Road. So I decided that it was definitely something I should do during this visit. And because I didn’t want too drive, we went with Go West. The tour was as I expected it really… I’m not really that into seeing rocks and stuff, but it  provided some nice scenaries.

Bell’s Beach

The Go West tour bus

The start of the Great Ocean Road

Koala spotting

Apollo Bay

12 Apostles

Loch Ard’s Barge

London Bridge

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Visit to the Werribee Open Range Zoo. Worth it to fork out a little more money and go for the open vehicle safari rather than the free safari.

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Delicious (and cute) mini cupcakes from Little Cupcake as mentioned in my Brunch-ing entry (Clockwise from top left: chocolate with cream cheese icing, cookies & cream, chocolate mint, coconut, raspberry with white chocolate icing (center))

Han Guk Guan

Craving for Korean food? HGG is the place to go in Melbourne. For me, HGG will always be the number 1 – undisputed – Korean-Chinese restaurant in Melbourne!! For one thing, they have THE BEST gan jjajang (jjajang myun) EVER. Just thinking about it makes me hungry. Also I like the banchan they serve there. My other favourites deep fried Korean dumplings, ddukbukgi, kimchi chige, sweet & sour pork, sweet & spicy chicken, spicy octopus rice, and grilled pork belly. If you ask any Koreans where is the best place to go for Korean in Melbourne, most of them will say HGG. For what you pay, you will receive a generous portion of a delicious dish (unlike some other restaurants…). The staff may not be the best English speakers but they are very competent.

Han Guk Guan

13A, Victoria Street

Near the corner of Exhibition Street. The restaurant is quite hidden so you may have to keep a look out for it.

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I also recently had dinner in Hwaro Korean BBQ. This restaurant is in a sense quite the opposite of HGG. It’s modern, chic, and fashionable. The food is pretty good but the portion is really small for the price they charge. Although the lemon shouju is really nice. The staff is friendly and food came pretty quickly so I can’t really complain.

Hwaro Korean BBQ

562 Little Bourke Street

Near King Street.

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There are also a few good ones on Victoria Street near Victoria Market. Hallah, a modern Korean cuisine restaurant, has a really nice soy chicken but the food there is pretty pricy (well actually Korean food is pretty expensive).

Brunch-ing In Melbourne

One of my all time favourite things — “rain drops on roses and whiskers on kittens” — is going for brunch. It might sound a little luxurious but believe me it’s not. I’m not talking about doing it every day or week, but now and then – it’s really fun AND SATISFYING (when it’s good of course). I wished I had started this brunching thing earlier but Fi and I only started last year and then we started dragging Annie along, and sometimes Grace as well. There are so many to visit and so little time. But anyway, so far I’ve only got 3 that’s worth talking about.

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Number 1. The Quarter, Degraves Street (off Flinders Lane), Melbourne CBD.

This is the usual favourite place. It’s simple. It’s convenient. It tastes good. The Quarter is your good ol’ fashion cafe that serves breakfast and lunch. Their breakfast menu has all the basic breakfast favourites like bacon and eggs, eggs benedict, omelet, buttermilk pancakes etc., and also some less conventional ones but I don’t really look at those. My usual choice at The Quarter is eggs benedict with (extra hash brown) which uses a toasted turkish bread base instead of the traditional english muffin base but the turkish bread is exactly why I have these eggs benedict, nice an crispy!  I’ve also tried their big breakfast which was ok but nothing special, and buttermilk pancake which Fi loves but I think they weren’t actually all that great – it was a little heavy to me, I prefer my pancakes light and fluffy. I’ve also had lunch at The Quarter before and it’s pretty decent. Overall the food is acceptable, the service is decent, the coffee is not bad – an overall dependable place to have brunch.

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Number 2. Auctions Rooms, 103-107 Errol Street, North Melbourne.

I’ve only been to this place once and I have mixed opinions about this place. Food was pretty good. First thing you should know is that their menu consist of original recipe type dishes, but you can still pull together an order of bacon, eggs and toast. I can’t remember the name of the dish I has as it’s name after auction terms but it’s basically baked eggs with chorizo, and potato and carrot hash – it was pretty good. But there is one thing you should really try from Auctions Rooms, their pancake! Trust me, this is no ordinary pancake. Despite it’s size, it’s light on the inside and crispy on the outside, REALLY GOOD. Service was ok but it was really hectic. Let me put it this way, a place can be busy but still offer smooth service, but here the service was really hectic. Although the staff was really nice, so I guess I can let that slide. The down side was the coffee. Very, very disappointing. The coffee wasn’t hot?!? According to Annie, she revisited the place and asked for very very hot coffee and it can as just (maybe) hot enough. So I guess they need a new barista. But honestly, if you don’t order coffee, the food is pretty good. Plus I kinda like the layout of the cafe itself – it has an open kitchen, a back patio, and even though the place is quite cramped it feels open.

*To get to Action Rooms, catch the 57 tram from Elizabeth Street towards West Maribyrnong. Get off at stop 12 (just before the tram turns off Errol Street). Keep walking up Errol Street past Queensberry Street, it’s not far from the stop.

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Number 3. Gattica, 223 Carlisle Street, Balaclava.

Amongst the 3, I would give this one the highest rating even though I’ve only been there once. The food is good and comes in a generous portion and apparently the coffee is just fine (I didn’t have coffee). The thing which deserves the most mention is their homemade hash browns. I had the hash stack with chorizo, homemade baked beans, crumbled feta, and fried free range egg. The other thing is that the 3 cafes essentially have the same price range but the portion in Gattica is the most generous. They also serve really nice homemade jam with their toast, you just have to ask for it. The food is indeed very good. Even though it’s a little out of the city, it’s really close to the train stop so no worries.

*To get to Gattica, take any train that stops at Balaclava Station. Get off there and turn right coming out of the station. It’s right next to ANZ.

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I have to mention this when mentioning The Quarter. If you walk along Degraves Street towards Flinders Street, there is a little shop that makes and sells THE BEST cupcakes in Melbourne. It’s called Little Cupcakes. If you like cupcakes or anything along those lines, TRUST ME, you will want to stop by this place.

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Another place worth mentioning, as it turns out not a lot of people seem to know about it, is Laurent, a French patisserie located at 306 Little Collins Street (between Swanston and Elizabeth). Forget Brunetti (mediocre and overrated) or Greco (average and terrible customer service). Here the pastries are actually good and none of the staff think they are better than you. However, be warned that the pastries are a tad bit pricy.

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These are the few things that I can remember that I wanted to blog about. Until next time, itadakimasu.

Discrimination At Supper Inn

This is actually a long overdue entry. My housemates and I had decided to try out Supper Inn after hearing good comments from others about the place as well as from the internet. However our experience there was not as pleasant as hoped and has left a rather bad impression on us. Firstly it was rather surprising that there was a minimum charge to book a table so we decided to not do that. However there was still a minimum charge even without the booking but I guess they are not the only restaurants that do that. The food itself was actually pretty good, I was pleased with the quality of the food. However the service was something left to be desired. The waiter/waitress that had served us was not very responsive nor showed much empathy. There were 6 of us there that night and 1 had decided that she wanted to have congee instead of sharing a meal with the rest of us, so rice (which is ordered seperately) was ordered for 5. It came in a little bucket so we had assume that the bucket was for our table to consume as we liked. So when we had quite a lot of leftovers, we asked the girl who had chose to eat congee to try the dishes and have some rice. When the waitress saw us doing so, she came over and told us that that was not allowed as we had ordered rice for 5 people even though the bucket was more than half full, and that if she wanted to have some she had to pay extra. Not only that but she immediately snatched the bucket of rice away without even asking if we were done. I thought that that was extremely rude and we were all outraged. What made it worst was that it was obvious that they did not behaved the same way with the other customers, namely the Chinese speaking Chinese and the Caucasions. It was obviously discrimination! And by people of my own race. Even though the food was good, I have to say that I will never spend another cent in that restaurant ever again.

Family Dinner… FUN!

It’s been awhile since I’ve been to a big family dinner with my maternal side of the family and it was loads of fun… I’ve forgotten how fun it was really. We’ve always had this dinner ever since I can remember, every Chinese New Year… my grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins from my mother’s side of the family would have a dinner together. Of course now, not everyone can make it, but there are also new faces… Nevertheless, it’s amazing how everyone has changed yet they are still the same… It was even more interesting when we started recalling old times, all the fun things we did together, all the tricks we played on each other, and all the embarrassing stories of each other we revealed.

We had the dinner at Golden Dragon City in Sea Park, which we haven’t been to in quite awhile… the food still tastes the same… I’m not sure how much th food costs there, but apparently it’s quite affordable and the food is excellent for the price you pay. All I can say is that it tastes pretty much the same as I remember it and it’s pretty decent. The dishes were, Yu Sang (a dish of Singaporean creation to celebrate Chinese New Year), shark’s fin soup, roast suckling pig, steamed fish with stewed pork, fragrant prawns, glutinous rice with preserved duck and Chinese sausages, and dessert.

Just to include into the entry, I had dinner with some friends yesterday night… and it was fun too. It was good to see Vin Li whom I haven’t seen in awhile now and since she’s working in Singapore now, it’s gonna be awhile until I see her again as well… that is unless she comes back to Melbourne. I loved that we ended the night playing Mahjong, no not the computer game where you pick a pair of mahjong tiles to eliminate them, the actual Chinese game which I consider is the equivalent to Poker just in terms of popularity. It was really fun, and it’s been awhile since I’ve played it so I was a little rusty.

Anyway now that the 3rd day is over, celebrations pretty much dies down from here on. It’s been an interesting 2-3 days, probably the most fun since I got back from the US.

The History of Chinese New Year

So tomorrow is Chinese New Year otherwise known as Lunar New Year to those who are not Chinese but do celebrate it as well. These days it is also commonly known as the Spring Festival (春节/chun jie). It is considered one of the most important, or maybe even the most important date in the Chinese calendar, and there is basically 15 days of celebration (although these days only the 1st, 2nd and 15th days are technically celebrated).

When I was younger Chinese New Year was always a huge event with family reunions, going from house to house to visit relatives whom you didn’t even know existed, but these days we don’t really do that anymore. We only gather at one main house. Also this year is my first Chinese New Year back home for the past few years because I would always take up summer school, and it seems that we don’t make much of a fuss about it anymore.

Spring-cleaning

I’m not sure where or when the term spring-cleaning came about but before first day of the new year, there will always be a major cleaning-up for every household. Usually it is a few days process to make sure everything is spotless. This is also extremely important because we do not like to do any cleaning for at least the first few days of the new year because it is thought that we would be sweeping away all the luck from the new year. Oh by the way if you don’t know it already, let me just warn you that Chinese people are extremely superstitious.

Reunion Dinner

Traditionally every family will have a family reunion dinner on new years eve, and this will be a feast not just a meal. Even members who are overseas would try to make it back home for this. And coincidentally, my sister is flying back from the UK and will arrive tonight in time for dinner.

Ushering in the New Year

Traditionally also, there is a custom of staying up late to “unsher in the new year” called 守岁/shou sui. It’s believed that doing so is to ensure longevity of our parents.

Red Packets

Also known as 红包 hong bao or ang pao in Malaysia, red packets are basically little red envelopes with money in it and is given to children by married adults. It may be unbelievable that people will just give money away like that but it is irrelavent as to how much is in the packet, it is a symbol of celebration, well wishes and good fortune.

When receiving a hong bao, it is customary to receive with both hands and wish the giver well wishes.

Lion Dance and Dragon Dance

The lion dance is believed to ward off evil and bring luck, while the dragon dance expresses a wish for abundant rain fall for the year.

There are two types of lions for the lion dance: the nothern lions that are smaller, seem more gentle and playful, and always golden; and the southern lions that are bigger, more agile and aggressive, and come in many different colours.

Firecrackers

Until firecrackers were illegal, they were used to ‘ward off evil spirits’.

New Year Visits

Also known as 拜年/bai nian. We basically go from house to house, visiting our relatives and friends. We also bring along some gifts with us as it is rude to go empty handed, and the host will in turn give something back. Usually we will include a few mandarin oranges, which in Cantonese sounds like ‘gold’.

Symbolism of New Year Dishes

Dishes served during the reunion dinner will usually include ingredients which symbolise prosperity:

New Year Cake (年糕/nian gao) – increase in status every year
Sprig rolls – good harvest
Chinese cabbage – growth of all living things
Vermicelli – gold threads
Dumplings – shaped like gold ingots called Fortune God Dumplings
Bamboo shoots – growth in status and good business
Soybean sprouts – shaped like ruyi, a jade ornament that brings good luck
Fish (鱼/yu) – implies ‘nian nian you yu’ meaning there will be surplus every year

Origin of the New Year Cake

I have known nian gao to be the snack to eat during the new year celebration and even throughout the year. My favourite way to eat it is to combine a piece of nian gao and taro, dipped in a light batter and fried until crunchy, served warm. It’s sticky, chewy, and sweet.

It’s said that the nian gao originated in Suzhou during the Spring and Autumn period 770-47BC (Zhou Dynasty) in China. Suzhou was then the capital city of the Wu Kingdom, where its emperor He Lu was assisted by Wu Zixu in administration matters. There was extremely good weather one year which gave the people bountiful harvest for several seasons. Wu Zixu was assigned with the task of storing the harvest surplus. So he ordered that the excess grains to be steamed, mashed into paste, and compressed into bricks. Then the bricks are used to line the inside of the city walls and then covered with another layer of regular bricks. After emperor He Lu died, his son succeeded to the throne. He was power hungry and due to many slanderous rumours, forced Wu Zixu to commit suicide. During that time war caused the Wu Kingdom to fall into famine. That is when the people remembered the rice bricks stored within the walls of the city. To honour Wu Zixu who the people considered had saved their lives, rice bricks were baked and offered during the new year, which slowly evolved into the custom of eating the new year cake.

Origin of Jiao Zi Dumplings

Qing Taizu , the founder of the Qing Dynasty, was a tramp when he was in his early years. One new yeas eve, he ventured into an etremely quiet town. An old man who found him wandering the streets took him in and told him that there was a monsterous beast called ‘mahuzi’ eating people in th village. The people are afraid of going out and once their food source runs out, they will starve to death. Qing Taizu offered to brave the beast and slay it. He found the beast and killed it. The people of the village were extremely greatful and decided that since the beast gave them so much grief, they would mince its meat, wrap it in dough skin, and cook it. From then on, the people celebrated new year’s eve by making the little mince meat filled dough skin caclled jiao zi.

Yuan Xiao Festival

The 元宵节 Yuan Xiao Festival falls on the 15th day of new year which is the first night of a full moon. It is also known as a Lover’s Festival. On this day it is tradition to eat tang yuan, glutinous rice balls which symbolises completeness and happiness.

People also used to have a very interesting way of celebrating this day. There is a belief that on this day, if you throw a mandarin orange into your local river, the person who picks it up is your soulmate. I think the girls throw the mandarins and the guys pick them up. I think the government has banned it because there was just too many mandarins clogging up the rivers.

Origin of Yuan Xiao Festival

During the reign of emperor Wu Di of the Han Dynasty, Dongfang Shuo was strolling in the imperial garden one day. He stumbled upon a girl, Yuan Xiao, who was about to kill herself. He managed to convince her not to do so. She admitted to him that she was admitted into the palace and is not allowed out, therefore she was feeling extremely homesick. She begged him to think of a way to solve her problem. He promised her and headed off to find here family. He cames up with a very elaborate plan which led to the emperor allowing the palace occupants to go out for a night. So Yuan Xiao managed to reunite with her family that night. The emperor was extremely pleased with the result of the night and agreed to make it an annual event.

I am actually not sure how true these stories are but they are rather interesting. Anyway, Happy Chinese New Year everyone!

2007 Year End Vacation (Cap 1)

Ok so since I’ve taken awhile to actually write this (yes I have been extremely lazy and have not been writing in my blog at all in the past year, and I wonder if anyone would still bother to check my blog); my memory of the vacation is just a little hazy, but nevertheless I will try my best to capture it here.

Our first day arriving in LA was pretty much a bore, as we arrived late in the afternoon and we had to drive down to Anaheim which took us longer than expected as for those of you who may have had some experience with Californian traffic, is absolutely horrendous. So by the time we got to the hotel, it was rather late. We stayed at Residence Inn which was basically situated just a few blocks down from Disneyland.

Next day, we were off to Disneyland. You may be thinking: “Aren’t you a little old to be going to Disneyland?”. Well firstly you are never too old for a trip to Disneyland. However it was not too long ago that I visited Disneyworld (last year’s vacation) and Disneyland is just about the same. But what can a person do when they are travelling with young children.

Day 3, we took a long drive back to Hollywood to Universal Studios. We haven’t been to the west coast for awhile now and I couldn’t believe how different this Universal Studios was from the one in Orlando! There was hardly anything to do there. I was very dissapointed.

Day 4 and 5 were spent going between Disney’s California Adventure Park (Disneyland’s twin park) and Disneyland. Well we actually bought this special pass that gave us 3 days access to these parks, so we might as well use it to the max.

Day 6, we check out of Anaheim. We then decided to visit the Discovery Science Center in Santa Ana for awhile and a little shopping nearby before driving down towards San Diego. We stayed at Residence Inn again. The science center wasn’t exactly the best one I’ve ever been to but it was still rather entertaining after continuous days at Disney.

Day 7, drove further down into San Diego to get to Sea World. Nothing much to do there but watch the shows and enjoy the ribs (haha ;p). Then is was back to LA to pick up my elder sister who flew in from London to join us. That night we stayed at Embassy Suites.

Day 8, we initially thought of going to Knott’s Berry Farm but when we got there we found out that they were having a special weekend where if you bring in a toy (to be donated to charity for Christmas) you get to enter for free. And there were HEAPS of people!! So instead, we decided to go shopping instead.

Day 9, we checked out and headed north to San Bernadino where we checked in to Residence Inn there and then headed up to Lake Arrowhead to see a little snow. Unfortunely there weren’t that much but it was the first encounter with snow for my two little siblings.

Day 10, checked out and headed for Las Vegas. After a long long drive, we finally checked into MGM Grand. Then we went for lunch at Planet Hollywood’s Spice Market Buffet. Later that night, we caught Cirque du Soleil – LOVE at the Mirage.

Day 11, we went for Breakfast at Le Village Buffet in Paris (Las Vegas). Then we went shopping! That night we caught Mamma Mia! at Mandalay Bay.

Day 12, we ran late so we decided to have breakfast in the hotel itself at the MGM Grand Buffet. Then we went up the mountains to try our luck with snow again. The second time around was much more successful. We even made a snowman. After that we went back down to do more shopping.

Day 13, we returned to Planet Hollywood for breakfast. After we were done, we checked out and headed back to LA. It was a really long drive back especially with the heavy traffic and not so good weather. It was interesting though cause at one point we were literally driving through a cloud! That night was the night me and my younger sister were looking forward to as we caught Wicked at the Pantages Theatre.

Day 14, was spent shopping and later that night we caught High School Musical On Tour at the Kodak Theatre, home of the Academy Awards.

Day 15, the last day. Pretty much wasted a lot of time trying to get to Chinatown because of that crazy Californian traffic. But did manage a little bit more shopping. We flew back that night.

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Hotel Review

Residence Inn Anaheim Resort Area/Garden Grove:

A little old but still clean. The room that we stayed in had furniture that was to my opinion needed to be renewed.

Residence Inn San Diego Oceanside:

Very new and very clean. Has brand new appliances like LCD TVs, alarm clock/ipod stand, and stainless steel kitchen appliances.

Residence Inn San Bernadino:

Relatively new and clean.

Residence Inn Los Angeles LAX/El Segundo:

A little old but well maintained. Small but due to it’s target market of business people who stay for a few days at most. Free shuttle to the airport which is just a few minutes away.

*All Residence Inn hotels basically have the same structure: free internet, free gym access, coin laundry, and buffet breakfast which usually includes sausage patties, potatoes, scrambled eggs, waffles, fresh fruits, assortment of breads and pastries, cerial, juices, coffee, hot cocoa, and soft drinks.

Embassy Suites Los Angeles – Downey:

Very old. Has low ceilings and bathrooms are very small. Needs a renovation. Buffet/cook-to-order breakfast is pretty good, includes scrambled eggs or you an order any type of friend eggs or build your own omelette, bacon, sausages, pancake, hashbrown, breads, pastries, fruits, juices, coffee, hot cocoa, cerial, and soft drinks.

MGM Grand Hotel Casino:

The biggest hotel in the United States (used to be the biggest hotel in the world until 2006 which went to the First World Hotel in Genting!). Like most hotels on the strip, it is large, grand, well decorated, has loads of attractions, and of course has a casino. The bathroom is HUGE, includes both a bath and a shower, and two basins. No breakfast though but seriously people want to go around and try the different restaurants and buffets in Vegas, so it doesn’t matter. Ok so the night that we went to see Mamma Mia!, I didn’t want to walk all the way to Mandalay Bay, so we decided to walk across the road from MGM Grand to Excalibur where there was a monorail that goes across Luxor to Mandalay Bay. So on our way back, just as we reached the Excalibur station, the power died and we were stuck in the monorail along with a whole bunch of other people who were also returning from the show. It was hilarious. Someone in another section of the monorail started calling out “Let us out! Let us out!” but obviously in a joking way. After a few minutes the finally managed to dock the monorail and open the doors. Everyone cheered and clapped. When we got back to the hotel it turned out that there was a power failure at one of the plants and the whole hotel except for maybe the casino was out. Man that sucked! We had dinner in the dark and it was getting rather warm. Good thing it was winter and we could let cold air in. It seemed that the power came back at like 3 or 4 in the morning but by then we were already asleep.

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Buffet Review

Spice Market, Planet Hollywood:

Lunch – Excellent! They basically have a food from different parts of the world theme so there’s Mexican, Italian, Asian, American, Mediterranean, etc. I loved the pastas the had. But everything was pretty good. They also have really good cookies and desserts.

Breakfast – Also has a world food theme but less choices. Crepes were excellent, the onl place with bananas as an option.

Le Village Buffet, Paris:

Breakfast – Huge buffet with good pastries. Some off the things an get a little repetitive but hey it’s breakfast there’s only so many choices. Loved the crisp hashbrown.

MGM Grand Buffet, MGM Grand:

Breakfast – Smallest breakfast but has excellent choices for salads, I personally am not the biggest fan of salads but I liked theirs.

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Shows Review

Cirque du Soleil – LOVE:

  

If you don’t know what Cirque du Soleil is, it’s basically a show with beautifully choreographed dance and aecrobatic movements. Cirque du Soleil -LOVE is choreographed to a collection of songs from The Beatles and it also incorporates stories from their lives. It runs for a little under 2 hours and it’s not the most exciting performance of any kind but it was beautifully choreographed and it did have a few parts that was rather interesting. The only way to know is to go catch it if you can. But I would say that you might not enjoy it all that much if you are not a huge fan of The Beatles.

Mamma Mia!:

 

This musical is about a girl’s effort to find out who her father is in time for her wedding. Sophie is a girl in her early 20s and has never known who her father is, thanks to the hard effort that her mother, Donna, has put in to hiding his identity. After a lot of digging around, Sophie found that there are three possible candidates and invites them all to her wedding. But when they arrive, secrets start to spill over and things get out of control.

This musical is written to incorporate the much loved hits by Swedish band ABBA. It is well written and is full of laughter, love, fun, and a lot of comedic drama. I loved it. The only dissapointing thing was the crowd that night was pretty much filled with rather old people and were not that into it. Basically at the end they have a section meant for the audience to get up and sing and dance along but that crowd didn’t. But still it was great. The Vegas cast did a good job with Carol Linnea Johnson (Donna) leading the way. She has a very interesting voice.

For those of you who can’t catch it, no worries as Mamma Mia! The Movie is due to be released in the summer of 2008.

WICKED:

 

This musical is basically the untold story of the witches of Oz. You know The Wizard of Oz. Yeah that Oz. It tells of how Glinda The Good and Elphaba The Wicked Witch of The West met and even became friends. What happened to cause their separate ways and what “actually” happened to Elphaba. Some parts does not sync up with The Wizard of Oz but it’s still well written and has everything from action to romance to comedy to drama. It’s AWESOME! Please if you have the chance, go see it! I was already very used to Kristen Chenoweth (Glinda) and Idina Menzel (Elphaba), the original cast, and comparison was inevitable but Megan Hilty (Glinda) and Eden Espinosa (Elphaba) were excellent as well. They are both veterans with this musical and both have excellent voices. They are so comfortable with their roles that they could play a little with it. I just recently found out that Eden wrapped up her time as Elphaba on 31st December and I couldn’t believe we got to catch her, she was actually meant to be the original Elphaba until they found Idina. I really hope I can see it again in Melbourne!

High School Musical On Tour:

  

Ok firstly I’m sure most of you know HSM by now. The stage version is basically the same story line just compacted. The cast is not the cast of the TV version. I’m not really sure what to say, I don’t think that the original HSM cast are the best singers in the world but I don’t think that the stage cast did any better. In fact I very much prefer the original cast but hey I am being a little bias as I am, yes I am, a fan of Zac Efron’s. I think the stage cast had decent voices on their own but did not mesh well when they had to sing duets.

Unlike the Mamma Mia! crowd, this crowd was filled with tweens and little kids, and it was insane! Everyone was screaming and shouting and singing along! I was going deaf. Everyone was just so into it and I was just like… woah! Yeah so definitely a kid’s show.

Oh and it was held at the Kodak Theatre where they host the Academy Awards and American Idol. I was surprised that it’s quite small really although it has a large reception area.

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Goofing around in the car

Me & elder sis

Me & younger sis

Three of us

Bought Pooh this year, since I bought Eeyore last year

Seoul Restaurant

This week on our saturday outing we decided to try some Korean food… and so Lili told us that her Korean friend said that Seoul Restaurant on 369 Little Bourke Street was good… so we decided to go there… I had the spicy pork bulgolgi which is spicy pork cook on a hot plate aka Korean BBQ… And of course it came with rice and a bunch of side dishes which one included kimchi which for those of you who don’t know is slightly spicy preserved fermented vegetables… a must for all Korean meals… I loved my meal… it was good… the pork was really tender… only thing was the price for the food was a little pricy… but we do get a rather large proportion… so it’s pretty much a trade off… And when we were there it seemed like most of the customers were Koreans so the food must be really authentic… So I recommend the place…