On My Own

27 Sept 07- Centennial Park

Decided to take a break from mugging and went to town to explore the Surry hills area and Centennial Park. It is Sydney city's biggest park! Here's snippets of my mini-adventure:

On my way to the park, I walked past rows of houses that has the the 'English' kind of feel...

Then I saw the Sydney Football Stadium! Think it must be flooding with people whenever there is game going on...
I also discovered Fox Studios!! They had those movie sets like the fake commonwealth bank and clock tower... there was a huge shopping center there with pubs, cafes and a cinema...

Then I finally reached the beautiful Centennial Park which really reminded me of Hydes Park in London..with its big ponds.. and large empty green grass patch.. I like the park's quiet and peaceful atmosphere..gives me a sense of serenity and tranquaility...I sat by the pond, basked under the sun and indugled in my sandwich and a book...what a great way to spend a nice sunny afternoon! Here are some shots of the park:

Me, my book and I by the pond!

Mid-Autumn Festival at Sydney!

25th Sept 07- Celebration at Viv's place

Our second round of celebration was at Vivien's place. They kindly organised a mini-gathering and invited health sciences students from Singapore! It is ironic how we don't bother about such festivals when we are in Singapore but when we are far away from home, we make the effort to gather and celebrate these traditional chinese festivals. I guess when you are away from your comfort zone, you seek a sense of belonging and familiarity from such festivals. It also gives you the opportunity to bond and celebrate your roots with people from the same background and culture as you. I am really thankful and appreciative for the generousity of those who organised the gathering! Great job babes! =)

Oh ya! The highlight of the night was Elain meeting her childhood friend in Sydney after like 20 years?? How small can this world get man! He is here on holidays with his brother who is the boyfriend of Wendy (a PT studying here). Fate has brought them together on this festive night... Orhhh... =)

Here are some snapshots of the beautiful night...

Warmly-lit lanterns hung over laundry lines- creative eh!

Kept us warm throughout the cold night =)

What's mid-autumn festival without the mooncakes? Yum yum!

The host cutting the highlight of the night- 'bing pi' mooncakes which were really good! Had all sort of exotic flavours like green tea with macademia nut, etc. There were other yummy food like the barley dessert with beancurd skin and gingko that we cooked, fried shanghai nian-gao, almond biscuits, lao po bing and a variety of tea to sip with the food..

The lanterns and I! Does it look like I am at Chinese Garden or something? haha.

As usual, the OTs are always stationed near the food table..muahaha

Wantan and I with our lanterns

Presenting the lantern babes!

Do we look like chang-e flying to the moon??

If we do, I think no one would want us to fly back to earth..muahaha

Mid-Autumn Festival at Sydney!

23rd Sept 07- Celebration at Cabramatta

Remember the chinese town which I blogged about previously? Well, we went there to join in their Mid-autumn Festival Carnival! It was such a huge thing that roads were blocked off at the main centre of Cabramatta and even saw Asians at our place heading down there on an early Sunday morning. Our main agenda of the day is to fulfill our DIM SUM craving! Amber recommended a resturant there which sells good and affordable dim sum. On our way to the restaurant, guess what we saw??

Real soild FIRE CRACKERS!!! At close proximity somemore..It was my first time witnessing fire crackers man! Singapore banns it cos its suppose to be dangerous and the only time we see it is during chinese new year with many police and barriers around it like it is some atomic bomb.. haha. It was really loud and smokey!! Nearly choked me to death and burst my ear drums so I took a photo and ran behind to catch my breath... talking about a typical 'kia-si' Singaporean...
There's the lion dance performance before the fire cracker!


Here's the DIM SUM- siew mai and some vege dumpling. Of course it was not as fantastic as those I ate in Hong Kong and Singapore but considering how deprived we have been and that we are in an ang-mo country, it was good enough to satisfy us! There was not much variety either- guess our next dim sum hunt will be at the city's chinatown! I realized how much I missed sitting around a round table at a resturant, sipping hot chinese tea, eating and talking...that's what I like about the chinese culture- all you need is a round table with good food to keep families bonded =)

Here's 2 hungry ghost at work...concentrating on their siew-mais really well...

Wantan and Zhen with their catch-of-the-day!


Joan and Sil looking pretty!

Zhen and me with the delicious chee cheong fan and carrot cake with sweet sauce!
Having a serious discussion about what mooncake to buy for the party at Vivien's place on Tuesday night...Sil trying to attract attention again... haha
Group shot before we joined in the massive crowd at the carnival!
The atmosphere was great! Balloons everywhere, people squeezing their way through the crowd, smell of delicious and familiar food drifting in the air....
They even had dragon dance performance! The poor dragon had no where to go and kept travelling up and down, squeezing in between the carnival crowd...perhaps the young boys with the dragon were feeling lost.. haha

We found chinese dessert too! But it wasn't the authentic kind, I think its the vietnamese version or something....
Guess how much is the ba-kwa? $2.50 a piece! Daylight robbery ah!!

Went to a chinese temple to pray...wanted to do a familiar sunday family thing...
since it was a sunday too! =)

Indulged in yummy vietnamese dessert- choice of 8 types of ingredients with coconut milk. The coconut milk was good and not too sweet...like the red beans which reminded me of ice-kachang!

The funfair where many people won big gigantic soft toys!

The pedophile in me (according to me brother) started to take photos of little kids on the traditional pasa-malam rides which were really old...Nevertheless they seemed to be enjoying themselves! Check out the ride above which require someone to get it started by turning it manually first... how cool is that?? haha.

Its the HOLS!

21st Sept 07- Chalk-the-Walk at Prymount Bridge

Friday marked the start of our 1 week semester break! So we headed down to town to check out the Chalk-the-walk competition at Prymont Bridge. The participants of the competition are artists who use chalk to draw interesting murals on the floor of the bridge. Unfortunately, it rained the previous night so the they had to re-draw their designs again! Some were really well-drawn and meaningful...here are the artists and their works in action!

After admiring their master pieces, we headed down to Oxford street- the happening clubbing area of Sydney! I have no idea why we went there in the day..hahaha. Cos there was nothing much to see other than a few gay men walking around intimately... we sort of suspect that it is the 'gay street' of Sydney as well. Anyway, we failed our mission of searching for potential Aussie clubbing men cos we chose to go at the wrong time of the day. Such a waste for Wantan who dressed up so girly and nicely for the outing today!! (At least her good friends were there to admire the good effort put in- she walked for half a day in a pair of pumps and painful blisters! See lah... the price of vanity...muhaha)

Presenting the MEI-NU of the day...at the empty Oxford street!!!

Front Pose
Side Pose

I think we were so bored at Oxford that we started taking photos with a bed of flowers that we walked past...Presenting the FLOWER BABES (trying hard to be oh-so demure and sweet)! Wantan and Zhen trying to take a shot that require endurance and flexibility and the ability to look happy even when in discomfort....

Did not manage to find Aussie clubbing men but I found Aussie boys!!! haha.. Yup, that's me the Aussie boys and my coles bag with celery...Notice Sil behind in some funny position? Dunno what she is trying to do also.. stretching? hahaha

Bored with Oxford Street, we walked to King Cross, the red-light district of Sydney instead. Saw a lot of shops like above.. walked into one and realized how 'open' they are when it comes to selling the 'tools' for the 'activity'... they can be very creative too! haha...

Yup, that marks the end of our outing... next up is photos of our mid-autumn celebration! =)