long time no see!

ok just a quick update of what i've been up to since i haven't updated in more than a week

didn't do much monday - wednesday

my finance lectures are SOOOOOOOOOOO boring - i wanted to die

Thursday was Foundation Day and there was a party at Roundhouse so the night included me writing up part of my marketing group proj, pre-drinking (i didn't drink that much...like maybe 7 sips of stuff lol), and partaying
and my friend was pretty drunk and she wanted to eat fries so we went to McDonalds (apparently people call it Mackers...which i think sounds weird haha)

oh yea, earlier on in the day i also met up with my partner for our marketing assignment and we went to the law building/library - look how nice it is!

anyways on to Friday!
went out with Aude (my french friend) and met up with her french friend

Aude also gave me a carambar - french candy

interesting tidbit: when Melwenn (her friend) greeted me, she greeted me in french manners of a kiss on each cheek - kinda took me by surprise but still cool haha

anyways - we headed out to the University of Sydney and you walk through this gorgeous park on the way there
and then this part of the campus (the quadrangle) looks a bit like harry potter! so pretty =) and it was a beautiful day too
then we went to Gloria Jeans and we shared this choco cake

i didn't plan on going anywhere else, but as you know, there's always something going on if you live in IH so a few other friends were going to Chinatown so i decided to go with
it was fun even if the night market basically consisted of this one street haha i did buy $5 shoes though - they're plastic and smelly but i figure why not, it's just an extra pair of shoes that i can wear and throw away later

Saturday - i was going to do homework but i ate lunch and chatted with people until like 2 and once again, i found out people were going to see the sunset at La Perouse so once again i decided to go with

it was gorgeous =)

maybe not the prettiest picture but whatevs - i took like a million lol

THEN after that went back to IH to eat dinner - after dinner, me and a couple of korean girls made shin ramyun lol
and then we proceeded to have game night - we played some game where you build trains across america (i have no idea what the name of it is), uno and then got more people to play mafia (...or killer - whatever you want to call it)
ended up sleeping at almost 4 lol

Sunday was the Aroma Festival at The Rocks!! pictures are up on fb and it was basically a lot of booths with food to buy/try - got a couple of samples which was nice =)
there were A LOT of people though..kinda reminded me of the food truck festival except the lines weren't as long

yesterday i went to Oporto (burger place) to eat lunch with Lynnhere bes my chicken burger - which actually tasted better than it looks in this picture

and since i had a coupon, i got a free coffee bun from Papa Rotti =)

i bought some hot milk tea from Chatime too so tea + coffee bun = awesomeness

then in the afternoon there was a study abroad welcome reception so some IH people and i went to eat free food and mingle (a spanish friend of mine learned this word and he loves it lol)

then after dinner i got registered for Pottermore!! excited =) lots of mixups going on though because of multiple sign ups haha
after that i just did homework for the rest of the night cause i really needed to finish some book problems haha

random note: i swear, some profs here are like the worst profs i have ever had - my microeconomics 2 prof doesn't teach very well at all and my finance prof last week actually forgot what he was doing or what the stuff on his slides meant...lol (his excuse was he didn't have lunch)
but yea - sucks that the two classes that are mandatory for me are my most boring/hardest classes


and now i will see you some other day! watching bridesmaids tonight with some friends =)

busy busy busy

ok so i've been super duper busy for the past few days - i don't even remember when i made my last post but it probably wasn't that long ago? tuesday? or wedensday or something

but i feel like it's been FOREVER

ok so thursday was the aquarium and honestly, the exchange program is really disorganized and it's hard to meet new people since they didn't exactly force you into small groups to meet new people - you just sort of stuck together with the people you already knew

we got off the bus near town hall and they gave us an hour to walk around so we walked around the entire harbor after we ate lunch on the steps of town hall

anyways - all my pics from the aquarium are up on fb

i have a whole bunch of cool videos of animals though but too bad for you since i don't plan on uploading them =P

after the aquarium, we walked to The Rocks to The Argyle for happy hour but i didn't get anything

then we took the bus back to IH (international house) and ate dinner

then it was Pancakes on the Rocks! really good pancakes/crepes =) just in case you didn't see my picture on fb, i'm going to post my Devil's Delight pancake and crepes picture again
then yesterday was orientation again except it was cold and rainy - bleh

they told us 9:45 am but it started at like 10 something and it was FREEZING in the auditorium - crazy

and we sat there until 12:20ish and so we went back to IH to eat lunch and then it was back to the auditorium at 1:20 - then we sat there some more until 3

i went to the exchange office and successfully got into a new lecture time =) so it's not from 6-8 pm on tuesday now

and there was a free bbq! interesting since it's different than texas bbq - they had sausage and chicken that you could put in your bread - it was kinda weird cause the chicken looked like thai satay and then went to get insurance stuff done

then ate dinner and talked to peeps and took a shower and read and slept lol

there was a party yesterday night at Soho but i decided not to go cause i was really really tired lol

good news: my study abroad advisor sent an email to gigi (the lady who needs to approve of my economics course)...and i sent some emails to her too lol so she's basically getting bombarded by emails...BUT oh well at least i have a good chance of getting into the course now =)

and as promised, here's pics of my room

it's quite small and a little messy at the moment since they gave us SO MUCH papers/brochures/forms and stuff and i have no idea where to put themmy key! the little tofu was only like $1.75 cause it was on sale at that morning glory story =)there's masking tape cause the yarn started to fray lol

today i woke up - went to lunch and stayed and chatted with people and now i'm in my room with no plans except going to see hp tonight =) relax day yay

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 =)