Part I: HARRY POTTER: THE EXHIBITION!!

cool - i haven't updated in like 2 months lol

here's some highlights of october though:
- had our Texas Study Break where we made peach cobbler, corn bread, mac n cheese and sweet tea
- went to a soccer game Oman v. Australia
- we had our closing dinner
- started studying for exams
and for november i continued studying for exams and taking exams for the first two weeks and packing to leave IH

THEN ON NOVEMBER 18 I WENT TO THE OPENING PARTY FOR THE HARRY POTTER EXHIBITION!!! :D

first things first, we arrived there and my friend forgot to print out her ticket -_- but we all got it sorted out and got our very important muggle (VIM) lanyards - we were sorted into groups to go into the exhibition which was nice, cause the next day there were tons of people at the exhibition and it was quite crowded
i just enjoyed the exhibition the first night, bought some stuff and took my small notebook and took notes the next day when i went to the exhibition again...cause they were evil and sold opening tickets after the exhibition tickets

but anyways here goes my notes since you can't take pictures inside

1. first you wait in line to take a picture in front of this green screen and it's basically you in front of the Great Hall - they gave out pictures for free during the opening party :) but my friend's eyes were closed...fail photographer...

2. then you wait in line to enter this room with the sorting hat on a stage and a person asks for volunteers, asks them what their fav house is, holds the hat above their heads, and a speaker goes off in the sorting hat's voice
it's totally rigged cause everyone gets their favorite house
on opening night, the girl who worked there was so overly enthusiastic it was almost hilarious haha
and then the next day during my session, there was this cute kid - the lady asked him do you have a fav house? he shakes his head and gets sorted into hufflepuff (i think..my memory is fuzzy) the cute part was when she asked him how he got here - did you get here by floo powder? shakes head. broom stick? shakes head. car? nod. was it a flying car? shakes head. lol too cute

3. then you enter a room with like 8 plasma tvs (placed vertically) and it basically shows you this montage of the harry potter movies - i feel sorry for the guy who works in that room he has to watch that montage like ten million times
the back wall opens...

4. and you see the hogwarts express - during the opening party there wasn't a greeter, but the next day there was one - it was pretty nice

5. now you enter the exhibition! there's a hall of portraits (some of them talk - including the fat lady) to the right was neville's + ginny's + luna's stuff (clothing, shoes and such)

6. the next little section has cool stuff - list of DA members (there's different handwritings for each person), hermione's beaded bag (it's so pretty!), hermione's clothes (their tennis shoes look like onitsuka tiger style) she wore these black flats as part of her school uniform when she was younger i think - they were quite interesting and very flat looking
behind this section is the Gryffindor notice board

7. ron and harry's dorm room which included stuff like clothes, the marauder's map, the love potion box of chocolates, ron's howler, harry's glasses (which look like they don't have lens..), the egg from the triwizard cup
on ron's bed, there's his knit blanket and you really notice how wrinkly, faded and frayed ron's clothing is
interesting things:
- a comic called Martin Miggs the Mad Muggle
- Seeker Weekly: Which Broom?
- autographed shirt from Chudley Cannons
- Ron's broken wand
- Cram-it OWLS like spark notes haha

8. Potions Professors
- snape's robes are actually really purpleish
- slughorn's robes are so intricate and the fly of his pants are button up
- slughorn's wand is also pretty cool, it has a blue handle with a blue design down it
- there were also jars of potions stuff in the background including a box of bezoars on display

9. Gilderoy Lockhart
- omg his dueling clothes are sooo nice (it's like velvet and has really nice designs)
- they displayed his collection of books
- there's also that HUGE portrait of himself on display behind everything
- he also has snakeskin shoes, they looked REALLY nice
- something else that looked nice: his gold robes
- the test that the students took was on display too - some interesting questions/answers:
what is GL's ambition or something like that? to rid the world of evil
what is GL's favorite color? lilac
when is GL's bday? Dec 12
a tip of GL - always check teeth to see if they're free of green
what is GL's best side? he's so handsome any side will do
something about what does GL use to keep his teeth clean? fairy sparkle lisok? jisot? idk lol

10. Professor Lupid
- the boggart wardrobe
- the jack in the box that popped up as someone's boggart (dude it's soooo intricate, it actually has clothes, bells on the bottom fringe of the shirt/gloves and the box looks hand painted)
- records of the music he plays during the boggart lesson

11. mandrake pulling! this basically reminded me of those whack-a-mole things at arcades but instead you get to pull a mandrake up and then it makes whiney screaming noises

12. Umbridge
- her clothes are like realllyy fuzzy (and her pockets have yarn fringes)
- a decoy detonator was up on display
- mini paper airplane ministry of magic memos
- her pink chairs look really comfy
- she has a really short chubby wand
- pink stationery with cat at the very top + cat statue and perfume on her desk

13. Trelawney
- the cup with the grim on it still looks wet and stuff - it was pretty cool
- her clothes has lots of buttons (3 layers of clothing too)
- parvati patil's clothes were also there and she had pretty basic black flats

and i will stop here for now :P the next section should be the quidditch section!

September fun~~

ok what have I been doing? you must be wondering eh? haha

Sep 12 was my friend's birthday (the monday after our spring break trip) so we prepared a little surprise party for her and then there was a mass ponding (in which i got ponded as well)

Sep 16-18
my mommy came and i spent the weekend with her eating a ridiculous amount of good food (might upload pictures later)

On saturday we bought cakes and macarons in Balmain, went to the city and ate at Din Tai Fung, then walked to a ramen placed (ichiban boshi) and ate ramen, then went to Chatswood? i think to this dessert place and ate snow ice (and other taiwanese-ish desserts), then a couple hours later we ate at a Chinese restaurant and then I went back and ate cake and macarons = fat victoria lol

Sep 20
Beach Thursday! went to Coogee beach that afternoon cause it was really nice and then got discounted ice cream from my friend who works at a gelatto shop nearby and then went to the city to eat sushi with mommy =)

Sep 24
our dorm had a cruise party with a black and white theme, so we got all dressed up and went on this cheesy looking cruise with bright blue lights lol it was called "Good Time Cruise"
...i think it would have been less cheesy if we weren't dressed so nice but it was super fun since there was free wine and beer (and soda) so a lot of people got drunk - i didn't :P
it was a nice view though =) went around the harbor a couple of times...except it was cold and rainy

after that, we went to Pancakes on the Rocks =) and then walked in the rain and cold to the bus stop and then we played a game of Catan after that
OH i haven't explained my game addiction to Catan have I? I've been playing it A LOT - check it out - so much fun haha

so most of the time after dinner i'll play a game of catan with the texans + a guy from connecticut haha

other food adventures:
- went to Madang (korean restaurant)
- went to 阿里山? ah li shan?, which is like a Korean Chinese restaurant - one of the Korean unnies set up a blind date for the other single Korean girls so they went on a blind date there and a separate group of us went and spied on them haha
- went to fish market last Wednesday for lunch

this past weekend - on friday i went to darling harbor for dinner then movenpick for ice cream! and then to the observatory and walked around the opera house at night and then went to max brenners <3

on saturday i went to Manly Beach for the Manly Jazz Festival - pretty fun! it didn't rain and i got to go on the ferry for the first time
plus, there was good music, i got a good chai latte and ate fish and chips for dinner =) of course it just so happened that we had fish and chips for lunch at our dorm the next day

annnnd that basically sums up the fun stuff i did these past 2-3 weeks! i promise i will try to upload pictures later!!

SUPERAWESOMESPRINGBREAK part 2: MELBOURNE

Sorry for the insanely late post about my Melbourne trip!

Tuesday - we arrived at night and took a maxi taxi to our hostel - Home @ the Mansion where our friends from IH were waiting for us and they made us dinner (so nice!)

and dinner was kangaroo sandwiches! it was good =)

after this we were so tired we planned to go to sleep - and then we met our roommate Joghan! he's from...Germany i think lol and apparently people just call him joe but we just kinda called him either joghan or johan lol
we had a bet going on how old he was and i won lol cause he's like at least 30

Wednesday - woke up super early around 5:45ish? for the Great Ocean Road Tour which consisted of

the Cape Otway Lighthouse
we ate lunch here and they gave us the traditional bread + sausage bbq stuff and potato salad i think...if i remember correctly but anyways it was a really good lunch!

the Twelve Apostles

basically what everyone comes to see when they're on the GOR


Razorback


i think this is Lochard Gorge...i think haha
this is where some guy saved a girl and they survived through the night in the gorge - it happened a loooong time ago apparently


steep cliffs...on some beach lol
i think the most significant thing for this is the stairs we were on because Aboriginals would just climb up these cliffs and then this one guy decided to build stairs leading down to the beach

also learned how to spot koalas in the trees! that was cool and we got to see koalas actually walking on the ground! apparently that rarely happens

here's some random facts about koalas: they don't drink water, eucalyptus is toxic so that's why they're sleeping all the time - to create an enzyme that will help them digest it, their pouches point backwards towards their butts and a baby koala's first meal is their mom's crap aka pap (that's what our tour guide said)

so Wednesday was a really really fun day =) except it wasn't over lol after the tour we went to Lygon street to eat Italian food - if you're a guy and you're with a big group of people, the Italian restaurants will try to give you a good deal so we got free drinks =\ the wine wasn't good...

after THAT we went karaokeing in this really dodgy Korean place where we had to leave through the back door but maybe that's because they didn't have a license or something lol

Thursday - wake up! eat dim sum at...red dragon something? lol then went for crepes (i didn't get one) at Melbourne Central and shopped for a bit and then had lunch at another Italian place on Lygon Street (which was totally better than the one from the day before) with our friend from IH who's from Melbourne

after lunch with him and his friends we went shopping at Bridge Street (a street with all these little boutiques) and then went to KOKO BLACK!! which is a chocolate cafe like Max Brenners =) here's the stuff we got courtesy of my friend inky's nice camera

and remember the bet we made about joghan? since i won everyone bought me a hot chocolate haha

Friday - we went to Queen Victoria Market for shopping! it's basically kinda like paddy's market

then we went to Coconut House nearby for Malaysian food and had a total food coma after that cause the food was so good <3

yea we totally went back to our dorm and took a nap and rested and wrote postcards haha

then around 9-10 we went out for frozen yogurt at Cacao Green which is actually owned by Red Mango - except it has so much fancier things like waffles and cheesecake and blueberry syrup for toppings (that's what i got)

Saturday - we went to Bridge Street for shopping again haha then to Ying Thai on Lygon Street for lunch, then to Melbourne Central for more shopping and then to Federation Square

inside they have free exhibits so it was pretty fun

they had old school video games and gaming systems, stuff about movies, costumes, a thing where you can make your own matrix dodging bullets kinda thing and other fun stuff

and then after that we got ready to go out - we walked to the Crown Casino first

along the river there's like columns that shoot fire out - like a light show

after that we went to Spice Market, which is this really classy club - f'reals man, everyone was in suits and dresses and stuff

Sunday (last day!) - woke up, ate brekkie (aussie way of saying breakfast apparently), walked around the area surrounding our hostel and then went to the Discount Factory Outlet

walked across the Yarra River to get there

then we ate ramen and crepes again and went walking around more places

after that we went back to our hostel to get our stuff and take a taxi back to Sydney!!

and that concludes my spring break trip - seriously the most fun spring break trip i've ever taken; it was seriously awesome =)

SUPERAWESOMESPRINGBREAK

long time no see!

if you're looking forward to reading an update about my amazing spring break trip it might not be that great since i don't have my pics - but let's start shall we? (i might amend this post later)

Saturday
got up early - kinda scrambled around since we wanted to catch the bus to the airport BUT we made it just on time! right when we got to the bus stop like a minute later the 400 bus came!

but then we had to find the right terminal - we wandered around in the Qantas terminal till we asked someone where the Virgin Blue terminal was

and then it turned out that our check-in baggage was too heavy so we repacked everything (someone told us they weren't strict on check-in but were really strict on carry-on => liars)
security was sooo lax....didn't even have to take out liquids or anything (we later found out that you can take any amount of liquids as long as they aren't opaque or something like that

NEXT - got to Ayers Rock, got our cars and drove to the Ayers Rock Resort and checked in!

area around our cabin

all the sand is red! so awesome

bought groceries for our bbq later that night and then drove into the national park to see the sunset (btw i don't have my pictures - these are all from my iphone lol if you're actually my friend and not a creeper who happened upon this blog then you can see my pictures on my fb page.....later)

so you basically watch Uluru (that's the rock's name - it used to be named Ayers Rock...now it's Uluru) change colors as the sun sets
it's amazing - like seriously, seeing this rock in person is amazing - i think of it as kind of seeing a glacier, it's just a huge block of ice and Uluru is just a rock but it's still breathtaking to see - you realy don't know how massive this thing is until you see it in person

then afterward, we had bbq! took a while to cook everything though =( and some of the chicken was a little undercooked so i got a stomach ache at night >< but no biggie...cause i've eaten undercooked chicken before and experienced it before lol

Sunday
woke up early to see the sunrise!! i don't think i have pictures of it on my cell phone - sorry peeps
we went to the cultural center to read up on the history and look at artworks and such
then we went back to our cabin and took a nap haha then ate lunch and first did the Mutitjulu walk? to a gorge and then from there we did the base walk where you walk around the entirety of Uluru (all 10.6 km)
it took us about 3 1/2 to 4 hours - about 20 min of it was waiting for two of our friends while they climbed Uluru

this is the section where you can climb it

the Aboriginals actually ask that you do not climb the rock because to do so is risking your life and they want you to think about the people you would hurt if you did end up dying at Uluru - and they don't want Uluru to become known as a place of sadness since to them, it's a place that supports and gives life

ok so after we finished that we watched the sunset again, but this time from the same viewing point where we watched the sunrise

annnd then we cooked dinner (curry!) and slept pretty early-ish
we actually planned on having our campfire this night, but learned that we needed to collect wood from like this area beside the highway so we postponed it

Monday
woke up, did the free guided tour (the Mala walk) and learned a whole bunch about the history and culture of the Aboriginals who came from there - each group of people are named after animals that are native to the land where they come from (like i guess for us Texans, we could be called the armadillo people...since armadillos are kinda native to only Texas)
the Mala Walk took us to the Kantju Gorge i believe and after that we went to eat lunch at the sunrise viewing area =) nice scenery for lunch

after that we went to go gather wood lol yay for girl scout skills - i actually knew what we needed

then we went to kata tjuta aka the olgas, which are another set of rocks in the national park and walked to the gorge there

we also laid on the benches for a while since we had a lot of time to kill and we were tired - after that we went to wait for the sun to set after this we went to buy a bit more groceries and then we ate dinner (pasta with left over meat from our bbq)

then it was campfire time! i was so scared that i wouldn't be able to build a fire and that it wouldn't work but it did! mostly because all the wood was so dry i think
except the bigger pieces of wood were still kind of too long and too thin so it ended up being really tall at first and became a bonfire at the end
but everything was still good! we stuck our sweet potatoes in the fire and then made s'mores! yay for teaching people what s'mores are - except they were like aussie-style s'mores cause the marshmallows here are in lame gumdrop shapes and come in pink and white (they're considered more of a candy instead of something you can use for baking and stuff) and they didn't have graham crackers!! so we bought these lame sweet biscuits that worked out pretty well

all in all, me fire = success! yay for girl scouts!

and our day wasn't done yet! we laid outside and watched the stars for a while...then some people went back to sleep and four of us ended up staying outside for a couple more hours haha and it was worth it cause we got to see pretty huge shooting starts that streaked across the sky!

Tuesday
woke up, ate lunch, went to walk/shop around the resort and i bought a couple of postcards

then it was off to the airport! and spent the entire day on the plane kinda

we arrived in Melbourne a little late since apparently we didn't have a place to land or something like that so we stayed up in the air for a little while

then we went to our hostel called home @ the mansion! it's pretty cool and nice - and two of our friends from ih made us dinner!
kangaroo sandwiches! they were really good =)

and i'll end it here cause this post is long enough o_o

Mid-Semester Break!

yay! so next week is spring break!...even though i think it's still too cold to be spring break

i figured i would write a quick blog post about what i've been up to for the past 2? weeks

mostly just studying - i actually go to the library and study and didn't go anywhere at all for the past 2 weeks...except eating laksa and hanging around circular quay for a while last thursday and then to the olympic park and the chocolate room last friday....and watching horrible bosses this week (it was pretty funny)
not having a tv is doing amazing things for my productivity lol

so my finance midterm was last tues (25th) and i had my microeconomics exam this past tuesday - was so happy when i finished :)

but then i also had a finance assignment to do that was really really annoying - we had to actually go and find the historical closing prices of stocks and a risk-free asset
it was sooooo dumb cause doing all that research and taking screenshots and formatting the appendix probably took longer to do than writing the actual report -_-

BUT i'm done now and we're planning for our trip and stuff so it's all good :) happy times! till school starts again booo

all in all - just a quick update since i obviously haven't been doing anything THAT exciting for the past few weeks BUT i promise to have an exciting post or fb photo album about my amazing spring break :) leaving tomorrow in the morning! (that's friday night for you US peeps)

Quick post!

ok since i have a little bit of time and i don't want to study atm i'll make a quick post =)

went paintballing on sunday! it was pretty fun except i got my shoes all muddy and i have two huge bruises on my leg - they're looking quite colorful
and my legs were so sore for the next 2-3 days lol too much crouching and running - i am proud to say that i actually shot people and didn't get shot at all for like the first 2/3 of the games and i didn't waste that many paintballs so i still had like a lot left by the end

and then i guess other people got trigger happy at the end and i got shot in the leg mult times - hence the bruises...i have no idea from how far away they shot from though
people say it might have been pretty close cause the bruises are pretty ugly lol...i seem to get injured in the legs quite a lot while abroad

anyways since i still had bullets by the end i played another round with like just 8 people and then the very last one we each had 2 paintballs haha

so that's the only fun thing i did besides going to the city yesterday with giwon and taking pictures at the apple store, shopping, eating lunch and getting multiple free samples from a chocolate shop lol we just kept eating and eating....

and another cool thing - my almost neighbor babette (the stairs separate us haha) from the netherlands came up with this great idea to get trace everyone's hands on the second floor and draw their flags on them

here's my awesome texas flag with part of the hk flag =) all the people from the US except one put their state flags on instead of the US flag...cause they're so many stars on our flag
although the california one was pretty hard to draw - but the bear turned out awesome bwahaha (yes i drew that flag) i'm quite proud of my accomplishment haha...although it's even better than mine so i'm jealous lol

and today i was a nerd and went to the library and studied all day =) cause i have absolutely no idea what's going on in my finance class and my midterm is next week (but now i actually do have a clue of what's going on cause i studied! =)

Winter Festival!

Oh wow - i haven't updated in quite a while (having too much fun! haha)

sooo last weekend i didn't go out that much...except for one night where we went out clubbing which was super fun but we came back quite late =X

and then i just hung out with friends and slept and rested and such for the rest of the weekend

didn't do anything this week either except cleaning, homework and going to classes (i skipped a lecture today! ahh - let's hope i don't regret it)

then went to the Winter Festival tonight!

we walked through Hyde Park to get there - so pretty right?

and here's the food booths that you see once you walk into the festival area thing - it's quite small but they had tons of food - some were closed though since it's the last day =( we went late...

bratwurst!! makes me sad that i'm going to miss wurstfest this year T_T

thai food!when we got there, some guy was doing a show with fire eating/blowing/etc.
kids rapt with attention - so cute hahahmm the rather small and slushied-up ice skating rink - i'm so glad i didn't pay $20+ just to skate there
me and my fellow houstonian, maggie, shared an apple cinnamon waffle with whipped cream =)
then we proceeded to go shopping at westfield and then went to chatime! i love chatime..like seriously, it's so good and the girl asked me if i wanted less sugar and less ice and i was like hells yeah! so i got half sugar and half ice and it was just awesome..pricey, but awesome and good (it's like the same price as momokos...but they give you more)

then at the bus stop next to hyde park some guy was spreading out all these pieces of bread and then all these possums came out! there was even a baby and mom there too
ok some people might think it's gross but i thought they were cute (they're quite huge too aren't they?)

we went back to IH after that and kinda planned our trips again =) and that's basically it! it's raining outside right now =O


i'm also going paintballing for the first time on sunday! i'm hoping i won't get that bruised up cause knowing my skin, the bruise will stick out on my pale skin and will remain there for like...a year

~see you in what hopefully will not be more than 2 weeks haha