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! =)

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

freeeeee!

i officially finished my exams today! yay so that means i can enjoy the rest of my few days here doing whatever and not worrying =)

but quick note about the exams - they're really strict - during the first 30 min and last 30 min you can't turn in your papers/print out your papers or leave

and for the paper exams you write on carbon paper so you produce 4 copies of your exams o_o and they envelopes for turning in the exams and you use your CPR number (just an identification number) so your prof doesn't know your identity

the exams are also 4 hours long - and when they say 4 hours, they mean 4 hours - i used up all 4 hours for both of my exams @_@ i thought i would be able to finish early, but nope, these exams are suuper long

anyways, i went to Fotex after my managerial finance exam, ate lunch, then set off to go visit some chocolate boutiques

first i took the bus to Frederiksberg Chocolade on Frederiksberg Allé - they call this street the Champs Elysee of Copenhagen, but i honestly don't know why cause i've never been to the Champs Elysee haha

it's a really nice street though - lots of boutiques, cafes and trees

and here's Frederiksberg Chocolade!

i bought this nice box of chocolates - i figure this place is pretty legit since the ladies working there don't really speak English haha

i got to eat some samples too =) they were pretty good - nice and smooth and sweet but not tooo sweet - yumm~ the perfect therapy after insanely long exams
then walked to Summerbird Chokolaterieand i got to try a white chocolate flødeboller ("Theirs is perhaps the ultimate incarnation of this Danish confectionary favourite, being made with crisp, dark 'grand cru' chocolate domes, the traditional sweet, white filling as light as air, and a marzipan base") with passion fruit? filling - it was really good but would have been better if it was cold
i ended up buying mini chocolate ones
and also these almonds - one's covered in raspberry and the other covered in liquorice powder - i tried both and they're pretty good =)

after that, i rode the bus to Forum station and took the metro to Norreport to go to Sct. Peder's Bageri - it's really close to Sct. Peders Kirke, hence the name

too bad it was closed when i got there =(

i actually wandered around Norreport for a while cause i couldn't find the Norregade street and ended up making a huge circle back to the metro station, so i looked at the map and it turns out that my instincts were right at first cause i headed in the right direction but i decided to turn onto some other street (if i continued about 20 more meters i would have been on that street haha)

like the graffiti? haha

they don't really have name tags/plates up for their pastries so i ended up getting this huge thing haha

close up!

not as good as Lakagehuset, but still good - i'm really tempted to go back to Lakagehuset to eat another kartoffelkage

then i went Kongens Nytorv/downtown just to window shop and i also tried on some clothes at H&M just for the heck of it - i really like this one shirt so i'm gonna go back and get it!...if i have enough money left lol

random note: flowers are really cheap here - there's a lot of floral shops and at the one in front of Magasin department store you can buy 3 bouquets for 100 kr (around $16) - cheap right? it's so nice that you can buy a nice bouquet of flowers anytime you want cause they're so cheap - and a lot of people do buy flowers here

so after window shopping i went back to my dorm, ate, and then headed to Valby to get pictures/return a calculator/say bye to Gloria (since she's leaving Friday morning)

i did have some difficulties getting there though lol since i haven't been there in a really long time - i got off one bus stop too early and walked over there
and then nick told me the wrong combination to get into the first floor (it's 7351? but he told me 7531 -_-) so i stood outside the door for like 10 min trying to open it and gave up and knocked
luckily Fey came back at that time and pressed the right combination - Jericah also heard my knocking and opened the door though
but yea, frustration! haha

i really can't believe my time in Copenhagen is coming to an end - trying to soak it all in

tomorrow i'm going to Bon Bon Land though =) it should be interesting haha