Tasmania

Forgot to blog about my trip to Tasmania. Tasmania is one of the places in Australia that I wanted to visit before I graduate, and I am glad that I managed to do so...according to my awesome hosts Conney and QY, Hobart and Launceston are the second oldest and third oldest cities in Australia respectively.

I arrived at Launceston at night around dinner time and we had this:

Dinner on the first day - udon with tempura and green tea mooncake

On the second day we started our journey to Hobart, which is about 2.5 hours away from Launceston. We made a few stops on the way:

1) Ross

Conney told me that it is famous because of Ross Village Bakery & Inn, which happened to be one of the places of inspiration for Japanese artist 宫崎骏 (you know, the guy who drew Totoro) in his cartoon 'Kiki's Delivery Service'. The bakery sells woodfired bread and a range of pastries.

in front of the bakery

QY bought a loaf of woodfired sourdough bread....really fragrant

us in front of a church

no idea why it is called female factory

crossing train tracks

2) Richmond
Famous for Richmond Bridge. We went there to feed ducks.

Richmond Bridge

And then we finally reached our destination Hobart. Had a fulfilling lunch at Kawasemi Japanese Teahouse....

bento box with miso soup (there was also entrée)

green tea pancake dessert with green tea ice cream

It wasn't really of good weather that day as it kept raining and it was really windy. We went to a few places around Hobart, mainly sight-seeing and some pictures.

Hobart city casino 

The next morning we went to Salamanca Market.

they call this fruit leather...it is edible, sweet and chewy

We also walked around the harbour front and then drove up to Mt Wellington. It was snowing!

Hobart city in the background

hello snowman

Back to Launceston in the evening. The next 2 days spent at exploring around Launceston... (including buying groceries)

Cataract Gorge

we made nasi lemak at home

with Niva in front of Launceston casino

our last dinner together...kangaroo steak

and homemade green tea + red bean cake!

Thanks to Conney and QY for making the trip fun and memorable =)

Exploring Melbourne with Christine

Haven't been updating my blog for a while since my birthday last month. I thought I should blog about what Christine and I did when she came over to Melbourne. It's her second time visiting Melbourne and I thought we should explore more makan places together (since she had already visited those touristy places)...and we did =D

Turkish lunch at Brunswick

Lebanese pastry from Balha's at Brunswick

Christine and I at the Shrine of Remembrance

First time trying out Koko Black hot chocolate

sunset in Melbourne

sushi burger....yummy but a bit expensive though

us at the Royal Botanical Gardens

desert 'garden'

coffee at the famous Brother Baba Budan

look at the ceiling of wooden chairs

Flinders Street train station at night

We went to Brighton Beach too one morning =)

we love the beach

colourful beach huts

♥

We also went for a day trip to Great Ocean Road....and surprisingly it was HOT when we were there!

the must-take picture

the view is absolutely stunning

with few of the Twelve Apostles that were left

pretty isn't it?

they call it London Bridge

I love this view, it's just amazing

I am glad that we had so much fun together and certainly happy that I got to see her before I graduate. We managed to update each other with our lives and happenings around us, which is great =) Hope we will meet again soon!

Food, Friends and Fun

Amirah invited us to her house for Raya last Wednesday =) Made me miss the food back in my home town...never mind, just few more months to go!

yummillicious food!

Raya sparklers

last Raya celebration in Clayton

Shean Wei came to Melbourne with his dad for holidays, and we got to meet up on Friday!

at the Shrine of Remembrance

Went to the Olympic Park and AAMI Park unexpectedly after walking out of an exit from Royal Botanical Gardens....I have never been there before and I used to wonder how to get there, and then somehow we were at the place!

colour-changing lights

Melbourne Cricket Ground

We took the train back to the city for dinner, and while we were walking towards Chinatown we bumped into ah Buu's brother! It has got to be fate....Shean Wei's dad was just saying that it is easy to meet Kelantanese when travelling while Shean Wei said it would be quite impossible in Melbourne, and that he would treat the person to dinner if he did meet any - well we did meet one this time! It's just funny to recall that Angelene and I bumped into ah Buu at Amsterdam airport few months ago....and now his brother (I didn't know he has a younger brother)....fate fate =)

The next day I went boating with the Monash gang, at Studley Boathouse.

ducks ducks ducks

有点山芭的感觉……

row, row, row your boat...

After rowing boat for an hour, the 13 of us sat down in front of the cafe to chill...it was a fine sunny Saturday afternoon and we had warm coffee and hot chips. It feels great to just relax and catch up with friends that way...just then, I thought I saw someone familiar...all of us turned and looked, it's a Prof we all know from Paediatrics last year! None of us dared to go up to greet him as he probably wouldn't know us anyway, knowing that our cohort consists of 300+ students and we are just the few out of that 300+....but Yu Wan went to say hi before we left, haha...

On Sunday evening, Grace came to pick Christina and I up to Amirah's house - Grace planned to make tofu burgers! I brought avocado pudding over but I -absolutely- forgot to take a picture of it (nothing special anyway, just a bowl of green stuff) but it tastes really good (and really easy to make too)!

making tofu burgers

Christina's own recipe of fried Chinese mushrooms

Tofu burger with mashed potato as side

Unfortunately I couldn't taste how good the tofu burger was (it must have tasted really good with the lemon juice and herbs) as I was (and still am) down with a cold! Didn't get to taste much of my favourite avocado pudding either but I knew how it tasted like coz my dad used to make it at home (it's his recipe anyway)~