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

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