Update (Part 1)

Relaxation

     

Been to the Royal Botanic Gardens a few times for some relaxation… I really love that place… especially when the weather is nice!

Rotaract

   

Even though we are lacking in members… Rotaract has been quite active this semester… that was one of our projects at the 3 Towers event in Richmond.

Shalini’s Visit – Ballarat Day Trip

                     

Shalini came down to Melbourne again over the spring break which gave us some opportunities to meet up with some Assuntarians… mostly our time was spent eating! We also had a day trip to Ballarat… I drove! My first time driving in Australia… was kinda weird and I was very very nervous at first but I wasn’t too bad… Surprise of the trip was when we found a cafe called Assunta’s… the sign was in school colours as well and they even had a student’s special… hehe… then again Ballarat was full of Irishmen back in the day during the gold rush…

Grampians Road Trip

                      

The last weekend of the spring break, I went on a road trip with a bunch of O’Connell people… It was FUN!! Except for the driving… driving sucks… but I had a great time none the less… We stayed in a caravan park, went to the J-ward, night winery tour, went hiking up the Grampians, and the Ballarat Wildlife Park in Ballarat… the scenery was awesome… it was great to get out of the city for awhile… saw loads of kangaroos (including road kill) as well as an albino one… good fun!

Random Photos

From Olive Picking: – more info go to http://www.rotaractcarlton.org.au

      

From Royal Botanic Gardens:

              

From Noa & Jo’s Farewell:

  

Random:

 

21st Birthday

My birthday this year was a smash… really it was… it was good fun… it started at midnight when Noa, Jun & Taz came to ambush me armed with two very cute balloons and a very charming card… hand made as well… Then Jun played some Black… which he still needs to complete for me… Later in the day… well in the afternoon… we went on a scavenger hunt that Fiona prepared… it was meant to be a tour of Melbourne since I was always going on about how I haven’t seen that much of it… It was quite fun but since we started rather late we really didn’t have time to complete it… Then we rushed back to get ready for dinner… I went to dinner with my friends from O’Connell at the Melbourne Central Lion Hotel… the food was pretty good bar food… and they had good cocktails… After dinner we were told that there would be free comedy in the pub as part of the Melbourne Comedy Festival promotion… so we hung around to watch… that was until the 4th comedian who went on about porn and sex… so we decided to leave… we just went next door to Kingpin/Barcode to play some pool/air-hockey… man my pool skills really have degraded… it was soooo bad… but my air-hockey skills weren’t really that good either… but it was still good fun…

On Wednesday, I met up with Li Chin who came down from Adelaide, as well as Yan Zhen who brought her sister along… we went for lunch at Ajisen Ramen on Burke Street… Li Chin was so sweet as to give me a very nice watch for my birthday which I have become rather fond of but also in constant fear of scratching or breaking it as I am so used to the invincible Tag watch I’ve had all these years…

On Thursday, I met up with some high school friends organised by Ash… we went to Stalactites for dinner… Ash and Tjia Wen got me a scarf which I think is very cool… refer to picture… Vin Li and Pei Ling got me a set of salt and pepper bottles which is very nice as well… and red (yay) although I think I would prefer to use them for oil and vinegar…

On Saturday… I was meant to have a reunion with my friends from college who are in Melbourne but unfortunately and also outrageously… they did not show up… none zip nada… except for Li Chin of course who organised it… Yan Zhen was sick so she decided to skip it… Although I really do think that I’d rather not have it any other way since we ended up going to the Royal Botanical Gardens… well okay… I brought Li Chin to the shrine and we happened to stumble by the garden which I did not know was there… It’s very very nice… I wanna go back there one day just to like lie in the sun and read a book or something… It’s absolutely gorgeous and so quiet… I really enjoyed it…

Cheers to everyone who made my 21st so great… XOXO…

Black-Out In North Melbourne

Okay so we were having a delicious dinner that Jun made and all of a sudden… OUT went the power… “Oh no! My computer!” was the first thing that came to mind… although it did not really stop me from enjoying the delicious meal… Thankfully the building had its emergency lights and so we were still able to see without candles… After dinner… some of us decided to go check if anyone was stuck in the lift as suggested by Fiona our ingenious ex-resident… and the of course we headed to Jun’s room… for a little game of “cheat” and some other random stuff like the no saying yes or no game… When it got too hot to stay in the room we decided to head downstairs where we ended up doing some musical stuff with Jun playing his guitar… and then some body drumming… and then some humming… and then me killing amazing grace… and then more people joined us and we ended up just doing random stuff… until about maybe quarter to 2 or so… “ta dah” the electricity came back on… to everyone’s delight especially those who were dying to watch the cricket world cup… bah… Anyway… even though we started off really hating the blackout… we did have some fun… kinda like the good ol’ days when “the gang” were still here…

Moomba Water Festival 2007

After a year of absense due to the Commonwealth Games… the Melbourne Moomba Water Festival made it’s appearance again this year… The festival or fair was just as big as I remembered it from 2005… and the fireworks were pretty good too… uncomparable to Disney World’s fireworks but still good… As usual I didn’t get on any of the rides nor try my luck on any of the games… Yes I am so unadventureous… Whatever… At least this year it was way more fun going with the O’Connell people…

Crazy Crazy… Tired Oh So Tired…

Fiona’s Cake (Black Forrest)

Oliver, Johan, Julia, Lili, Taz, and Me

Fiona

Taz, Anna, Kris, Julia, Fiona, Johan, Jun, Jo, Oliver, Me, and Lili

Anna, Taz, and Lili

Kris, Lili, Julia, Johan, and Oliver

Lili, Julia, and Jun

Julia’s Cake (Choc Mud Cake)

Julia

Kris and Faisal

This entry has been delayed for soooo long… Ok collectively it’s both Fiona and Julia’s birthday but we went out to celerate Fiona’s birthday on 7th October, Saturday which was her actual birthday… it started at home when we surprised her… okay well not really surprised because she kinda walked in without us knowing and totally spoiled it… but we were preparing for her to cut her cake… After dinner we went to 3 degrees in QV for drinks but it closes pretty early so we headed off to flinders lane where we wanted to go to 6 links but they were closed as well… so we just stopped by some random club which was really really small and had loads of really weird people… then we decided to head off to Seven… amazingly… Seven was TOTALLY empty when we got there… which is really weird because it is usually quite packed… and I have to say I was rather dissapointed because the DJ sucked… it wasn’t long before we went back home… we got back at around 3 something… And because I had volunteered to help out the Melbourne Marathon with the Rotaract Club and we had to be there by 7 but I had to meet my group members at 6.30… I decided I might as well stay awake because if I slept I wouldn’t be able to get up… So I stayed awake…

Sunday was a torture… we were made road marshallss which meant we were each stationed at certain junctions in the road to redirect traffic… which meant we had to deal with angry motorists… and what was worst was that we had to stand there from 7am to 1pm and it was really windy especially since I was stationed in the middle of an alley… the wind was extra strong and it was freezing… It was just all bad…

Anyway… we went out o the 10th, Tuesday to celebrate Julia’s birthday which was on the 11th… Had dinner on Lygon and then went back home to cut the cake… I’m so broke now… spending so much money on this two occasions…

Cena Española

Julia checking on the rice

Me making sure everything is ok

Taz & I

Me & Julia

Lili, Me, Julia & Taz (The Cooking Club)

Tortilla de huevos de la patata

Pollo de carnes asadas del estragón

Vehículos de las carnes asadas

Arroz Español

Placa de cena

The idea of having a themed dinner came from Julia I think but Lili and I were definitely along with the plan and Taz joined in later… and our first theme was Spanish… At first the idea was to have a three course meal but we decided to start out small so we went with 3 dish meal instead… We had Spanish rice, Tarragon roast chicken and vegetables, and potato omelette… I have to say it turned out fantastic… but then again it wasn’t that difficult really… and it was fun… everyone enjoyed it… Next up… Roll your own sushi…

Mecca Bah

Ole ole ole ole!!!! Exams are finally over… all in all… not too bad I think… could’ve been worse… fingers crossed!! Well anyway so to celebrate the end of exams (or the soon to be ending for some of us)… my beloved housemates and I went out for a nice dinner in Docklands in a restaurant called Mecca Bah… It was actually because I’m leaving soon for Malaysia and the Europeans will be heading back to their respective countries before I return from Malaysia and so we just wanted to have a “last supper”… The restaurant wasn’t bad… Middle Eastern food… I had the Garlic chicken kebab, mjaddarah, yogurt sauce & tabbouleh… It was good, I loved the rice and chicken… but they ruined it with the weird tomato salad they had with it… tried some of my friends’ desserts… the chocolate ice-cream was good and the Pistachio Maamoul was good too… thumbs up for the Spicy lamb & pine nut Boureks; Mussel with harissa, tomatoes & preserved lemon; Flathead fillets wrapped in vine leaves & chargrilled, parsley & artichoke salad; Middle Eastern spiced swordfish kebab, spicy couscous salad; Spit roasted lamb, rocket, yogurt & sumac… from everyone else… so pretty much good reviews for the restaurant…