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! =)

World Press Photo 11

today i went to see the World Press Photo 11 exhibit and the Sydney Morning Herald Photos 1440 exhibit at the state library
EDIT: found the official site! now you can see all? of the pictures =)

i'm not into photography that much but the photos were truly awesome - some of them were amazing and some of them just made you super sad since there were lots of photos of news stories and contemporary issues - you weren't allowed to take photos so too bad for you guys

anyways this is a statue of the dude who first mapped out the coast of australia i believe - and that statue behind him was his cat named trim
after we went to the photo exhibit we walked around the city and checked out some cool stores and walked through The Strand (again for me)
cool stationery store that vanessa would prob like
and this other stationery store had cups with pantone colors on it! haha i thought it was cool
and you know the "keep calm and..." series of stuff that floats around on the net/tumblr? apparently my friend babette had a friend who worked on it to expand it from london or something? so yea, that's pretty cool - she was excited to see it haha

then i split up with the group since they wanted to go on the walking tour and wanted to eat somewhere close by whereas i wanted to eat some good food so i went to Chinatown and ate at The Coffee Place (ate a beef sandwich...which they called a burger lol - it was reaaally good - only $10.80 with student discount and it came with a small salad)

then i shopped around at Paddy's Market cause there's just so much shit to buy there lol and then got myself a hot hazelnut milk tea at Chatime - that was really good too =) although now that i drink more it's quite sweet and the caffeine is making me a little jumpy...not good lol

and yea, that was basically my day - i'm still full from lunch =\

7/25/11 random note: did i mention an atheist club here on campus yet? they were passing out flyers that said "HAS GOD FAILED?" and there were people on campus today wearing bright blue hoodies that had that on it too - they're so much more hardcore than the atheists at UT haha

yummy food time

ok so today i went out with auntiie cat for lunch =) we ate sushi and then we walked around and went to eat at din tai fung

ahh 小笼包!!

the ones that have crab meat in it?

also drank some hot soy milk =) haven't had a cup in such a long time
and then there was dessert dumplings with red bean paste inside
but it wasn't that great =\ cause there's not really any sauce
but yea, yum~

city exploration time!

wow two posts in one day? i know what you're thinking - are you like freakin bored, victoria?

well kinda - there's not much to do since classes just started

so i went to my lecture today for China: Imagined and Perceived - the prof is from the US (he got his PhD at UC Berkeley) and he's kinda awkward but he can speak Chinese with a good accent which is pretty interesting (he's white)
and the class seems really interesting - we can actually watch films in class since it'll be 3 hours long

so after class (which was only 1 hr) i went to the city

and i guess today is my lucky day or something =) cause a lot of good things happened haha

1st (i don't know if i'd call this good - maybe just dumb luck lol): i took the 395 bus and apparently there's this huuugee line of people waiting for it but i just went to the front of the bus stop to check to see if it was the 395 bus stop and when it came i just got on and cut like a whole bunch of people who didn't even get to get on the bus..lol..

oh wellll - i'll just wait next time haha

i got off at central station because that was the closest to Paddy's Market (went there first) and bought my sister this pocket watch

front

opened

back

it kinda snaps closed weirdly but it was the prettiest one

then i wandered around into Chinatown - remember this?

those little emperor's puffs that all these people were waiting in line for? well there was nobody waiting in line so i bought some haha 4 for $1

and this is how they look like - they have some custard inside

and then i wandered over to Galleries Victoria - Kinokuniya Bookstore is somewhere on the 3rd floor

and then i randomly wandered over to The Strand while trying to find my way to ZARA again
it's so nice inside!chocolate store!
they have all these cute food/candy stores inside
and nice cafes
it's just really pretty inside - i think i like it better than QVB

also saw this other chocolate shop at the other entrance - freakin expensive!that box on the left costs $115

yay finally wandered around and found ZARA again where i returned the purse i bought

2nd lucky thing: i feel like this has happened to me before haha so the purse cost $60 (or more accurately 59.95) i gave the guy 5 cents to even it out to $60 - and then he says "ok here's $70" and i'm like huh? but of course i take it =P
and i double-checked and yes, the purse cost $60 but he gave me $70 for some reason lol so i made $10 today =)

after that i took the bus back to the dorm! and so ends victoria's exploration time!

3rd: it's now raining cats and dogs but it didn't rain at all while i was in the city haha yay!

and now i'm like super tired lol

random note: i'm looking at my stats and all these random people from other countries have viewed my blog...it's kinda freaky

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 =)