On CNY eve we had reunion dinner at Yu Wan's family friend's house. They're a few nice people who help Chinese students from overseas by giving advice and information on how to move about in Melbourne. The people who were around there graduated from Monash University and knew much things about the uni. Two sisters from Hong Kong and a 2nd-year Science student from China were also there, together with three more people. The whole lot of us had a nice delicious dinner and made ourselves feel at home. They did understand that this is our first time celebrating Chinese New Year overseas and prepared a lot of food for us. We also played games and it's really fun with so many people around!! It certainly boosted up my mood for CNY when we got an angpow each! =P There were even desserts and fruits prepared for us...haha..
On the first day of CNY (which was yesterday) we went to church...it made me realise that I miss DUMC - the crowd of people, the songs that we sang, the cold air cond...and also the usual dinner after church which was economical rice, cheap and nice to eat. Anyway the church that we went yesterday morning was Hope Christian Church Melbourne which was actually at a school hall (from what I heard). As it's CNY we had a funny play presented by fellow church members and an ang pow which contained a verse each. After service two church members drove us to Caulfield train station as we had to go to Melbourne Central to the city. Pn Haslina from the Consulate of Malaysia would be at Restaurant Jom Makan at the city to meet us scholars from both Melbourne and Monash University. There were many students in the restaurant, more than a hundred I think. We met Amelene, Ling Sing, Zhi Han, Esther, Daphne, Joanne and a few other pharmacy students from the Parkville campus. We had our free lunch there and it's the first time I realised that canned beverages in Australia are all 375ml instead of the usual 325ml sold in Malaysia. So it's a little taller than the usual one.
Pn Haslina was a bit late. She arrived with a lady officer and some seniors from Melbourne University. After passing up our forms, she ended the session and we were free to go. The usual 12 of us, together with Ling Sing and Zhi Han went to Chinatown to have a look at the CNY celebration there. There were quite a few lion dance and several stalls selling all kinds of stuff. Now I really feel that it's CNY! We walked along the busy streets and reached a Giordano shop. There was a sale - T-shirts were priced at $10 each! Most of the us went inside and bought a T-shirt but I didn't, now kinda regret coz I didn't bring many short sleeved shirts and blouses with me...
After that we walked again. There's a small stage set up by a Chinese school...all you need to do is just go up the stage and sing 'Tong Hua' by Guang Liang accompanied by the music and you'd get either a soft toy keychain or an alarm clock. At first we didn't want to and had headed to the Giordano shop earlier, but after much persuasion by Yu Wan, we agreed and 8 of us went on stage and sang. Chau Wang took a video of us singing. We didn't get any souvenirs (maybe there's nothing left) but we certainly had fun! First time performing on the streets of Melbourne =P
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