Food part 2

yay - you guessed it! more food - cause really, that's what i've been doing for the past two days - eating and more eating

beware: this is a freakishly long post - i am sorry if i lose your interest in the middle

ok so yesterday i went to the fish market

and saw lots of fish
and ate some pretty good food - the huge shrimp and the sashimi you see in the backgroundoh yea, and one of these =) you can ask them to cook one fresh for you so it was really really good! but i cut myself on the shell..they don't give you one of those crab claw openers (i forgot what they're called) - they just crush it and give it to you even if they didn't really open it for you really well
and so all these people saw me digging around in the crab claw with my bare hands - very messy and not a pretty sight, but you know i didn't really care cause it was really good

then we went to The Rocks - some area part of Sydney

and we visited Sticky - people are making little pieces of hard candythese green ones were for a wedding - they had like jean ♥ elizabeth on it

next stop - off to see the view
for mommy: auntie cat said we would eat here when you come cause apparently a lot of people go there and you need to make reservations
and then there's this amazing chocolate cafe - Guyliandidn't eat in there but auntie cat (family friend that i'm staying with) bought me one small cake
they're soo expensive o-o

i got this one and have yet to eat it cause i was too sleepy/full when i came back yesterday and i'm still insanely full from today - you'll see why later
but i do plan on eating it tonight - yes it's called 100% pure pleasure
i'll see if it lives up to it's name haha

here's some more cakes
so pretty!

ok next we walked into Chinatown and Darling Harbour

due there was this HUGE line waiting for these little emperor's puffs or something - idk whats so great about them
apparently they're pretty good but idk if it's really worth waiting in line for
you see all those people? they're all waiting in line for those little puffs

then we walked into the city and was going to eat some siu long bao (in case you don't know what it is) at this place, but it was closed =(
so we went somewhere else to eat some and i didn't take pictures cause i was too busy eating

Darling Harbour - well walking to the harbor

yay the harbor!
and the lindt store near there
walking into the cityand into Queen Victoria's Building (QVB) next where all the rich people shop
chocolate shop! didn't buy anything there but just oogled at the chocolate for a little while
it's really pretty inside!

ok i know this is stupid but i just had to take a picture of it after all these years of "what's your secret, victoria?"
see, there's some store other than victoria's secret!

then we went to passionflower for some tea
elderflower tea in a nice little tea set

and one of the aunties i was with told me scary stories in order to tell me to be careful - making me waay too paranoid o_o

ok i shall tell you some stories - maybe the scariest first cause she told it so well and it totally freaked me out (melinda, if you're reading this please do not read this paragraph or you'll likely get nightmares and blame me lol)

[start of paranoia stories]
ok so apparently this girl was walking back to her car after classes at night and then used the remote to unlock the car. she put her books up in the trunk and when she got into the driver's seat there was an old lady sitting next to her in the front and was like "oh, do you think you can give me a ride somewhere?"
and the smart girl was like "oh...ok well i'm a bad driver, so do you think you could get out of the car and help me see if there's enough room to get out?" and so old lady gets out of car and once the girl gets out of the parking spot, she drives away and goes to the police station to report it
and this old lady has done this before to rob people and the girl has heard it before - and you know what the police found in the car?
an axe - cause the old lady would use it to rob you
and it isn't really an old lady but a man
so lesson learned, at night, don't unlock your car from far away and just lock your car once you get in
...and ok it might not sound scary just reading it but seriously i think that auntie has told it many times before cause seriously, she told it really well and freaked me out!

other warning stories pertaining to only mainland china people (well, won't this be interesting?):

1. so you know mainland china people are spoiled right? especially since they come here to australia to study and they all drive these nice cars and have nice stuff, so the auntie tells me - if they say hi to you, just say hi back - don't ignore them or act all high and mighty cause that'll just encourage them to bother you some more until you acknowledge them
2. apparently this applies to chinese people in HK as well - if you see someone that dropped some money on the ground, don't pick it up or once you do, these people will come out yelling that you stole their money and such - and they especially love using old ladies and little kiddies for this dropping money act
3. if someone steps on you, you say sorry or else some people might pop out and beat you up cause they seriously think they're not in the wrong
4. don't let chinese people borrow your phone or once you do, they'll press a couple of buttons and all of your personal info will be sent to them (well i guess this prob happens sometimes in the US too)
   

ok, this really just puts all chinese people in a bad light and makes you paranoid of all asian people - at least that's how i felt after i heard all these stories lol

i'm hoping not all people in the uni are like this....
[end]

ok and then i ate dinner at a jap restaurant and i actually forgot the name but here's how the inside looks like lol
and you know, this being a food post, of course i'm not done yet - we proceeded to go to meetfresh to eat taiwanese dessert
it was pretty good - although i think i still prefer eating ice with fruit :p

OK now onto today - i only have a couple of pictures!

first, went to Temasek in Parramatta to eat Hainan Chicken with rice and chicken satay and a noodle dish with shrimp in it that was really good
oh and there were lots of white people eating there too - isn't that awesome? it's kind of sad that i still think seeing non-Asian people in Asian restaurants is awesome but hey, it IS awesome - kudos to aussies for being open-minded and knowledgeable about what is actually good Asian food

then i followed the aunties while they did grocery shopping around Eastwood

and after that, we went for some afternoon tea at some 香港茶餐厅 (direct translation - hk tea restaurant?) - i don't know the precise name of it though

i ate french toast with some hot milk tea ♥ it's like being in hk even though i'm not
the french toast had peanut butter in the middle - which was quite interesting...

OK and i'm done - and i'm still full (that toast was around 3-4 pm) and it took me approx 2 hours to actually write this post with pictures and all

tomorrow will be my last day staying with family friends until i move into the dorm on sunday - which will be a whole other bother cause i have to make an effort to make friends (you know, it's actually hard to find the right friends to hang out with - some people you meet at first might turn out to be weird and stuff) but here's hoping things will go well =)

Food

yes, this is a post about food - because really, there's a lot of good food in sydney

ok corrections to my last post:

• there aren't THAT many asians, but i'd say it's like UT in terms of % of asians and it depends on where you are in sydney

other notes:

• there are a lot of tall people - tall huge white australian people are not that uncommon
  
• it's like 60 degrees out and you see a range of people wearing tshirts/shorts to people wearing coats/pants/scarves - i even saw some people wearing tanktops...like wth are some australians just super butch or something? - ok, of course most were just walking in the mall but still!
  

first things first - for lunch on the day i arrived i ate some sashimi and it looks beautiful no?

look at how nice and thick and orange the slices are ♥

edit: totally forgot to add the french toast with greek yogurt and berries on top that i ate at the book kitchen

it was really good =) i ate the whole thing minus the grapes...cause i don't like grapes

ok and i went to Max Brenner's Chocolate Bar two days in a row already - it's a cool place and pretty popular too

first time i went i had the make your own hot chocolate with dark chocolate
ok and i admit i'm a total noob i had no idea wth i was supposed to do - you see that plate of chocolate there? i added like almost all of it into that tiny little cup/bowl thing above the candle - like so
so it was very chocolatey

you see how almost all the chocolate pieces are gone there on the right? lol and i hadn't even added the refill milk either in the mini pitcher

and then i sat there and was like...how do i drink this?

ok ok, my mom has told me about this before and i totally forgot what she said so she'd no doubt tell me how stupid i am at this point cause the spoon there is actually a straw too - ya see up there in the picture?

ok and the second time i went there which was a couple of hours ago i had the dark chocolate mocha frappe - i love how you can choose which type of chocolate you want

and their cups are really cool too - check out their website!

dude, america needs a place like this cause their chocolate is good

tomorrow i am going to the zoo =)

and surprisingly, i don't have that much jet lag - although i am sleeping around 9-10 pm and waking up around 8-9 am

AUSTRALIA!

and so here begins my australia posts!

first things first i shall sum up my flight:
i think this was one of the worst flights i've had mostly because i drank white wine in first class and i don't think me and alcohol mix very well together cause i got a headache...
that lasted until 4 hours into my flight to australia - i tried to sleep it off and it sorta worked

on the way to vancouver though i sat next to a lady with a baby and a cat - she had a lot of stuff and i watched star wars ep iv and some criminal minds

stopped at vancouver and sat there for around 2 hours - i was surprised by the amount of fobby asians there in the airport haha
on the flight: by 6-7 am in the morning houston time i felt better and watched 3 movies: unstoppable, lincoln lawyer, and battle: LA
all of which were surprisingly good

then i got to sydney, waited for like 30 min at baggage claim only to find out that they didn't have my luggage - AGAIN
like wtf is up with me traveling alone and airlines losing my luggage? but at least i wasn't the only one - the other guy who arrived in sydney from houston was also missing his luggage

Random comments on my first glimpse into Sydney (many of which might turn out highly inaccurate as i explore more of Sydney):

• australia has crazy quarantine rules (the flight attendants have to spray this non-toxic spray when you land) and everyone checks your docs like ten million times to make sure you have that electronic visa
  
• there are a lot of asians
• no seriously, there are a lot of asians! like 50% white and 50% asians - of course that could just the be the area that i went into but still - lots of asians!
• white people actually eat in the asian places - and these asian restaurants are pretty legit asian food, so it's nice seeing non-asian people there enjoying the food unlike in america where chinese food is "kung pow chicken" and "mooshu pork" or whatever
  
• it seems like a mixture of HK and america to me (like you have to drive, but the malls have supermarkets in them and resemble more of hk malls than american ones, and there are tunnels like in hk - but i guess lots of places have tunnels but not houston- but then there also neighborhoods instead of just building after building after building filled with apartments...i totally rambled but whatever)
• the sun doesn't move (really! when i was in the car and we were driving into the neighborhood it was 10 am and the sun was to the right of me and then on our way back from lunch around 2 pm the sun was in the exact same position - it boggled me)
• speaking of the sun, it sets really early - by 6 it's dark out o_o i don't even think it sets that fast during our winter in texas
  
• there are white people wearing european style fashion and then asians wearing fobby style fashion so yea, it's like a huge mixture)
• the place i went to (ok i totally forgot the name - chestwick/chestwood?? i think it's chatswood...i'm tired so i forget) has lots of bakeries
• the weather is nice - well it was nice today - it might be cold tomorrow
• all the roads are opposite from america - and i think people stand on the left for escalators...i was standing on the right and was wondering if i was doing something wrong lol
• the tap water here tastes like the tap water in hk
  

of course like i said before, many of these things could be waaaaay inaccurate but just first impressions for me - i hope no aussie is actually reading this cause i'd feel like an idiot
..maybe i'll name this "first impressions based on only venturing into a small part of sydney for a couple of hours from an american noob's pov"
i'm actually really excited to be living here for the next 5 months and i had the urge to smile and keep smiling but i didn't want to look like an idiot so i kinda made a =| face