Last Days in Sydney

It's less than 24 hours before I move to Brisbane for my new job as an economic analyst at Dept of Employment, Economic Development and Innovation of the Queensland Government. I'm so excited, nervous and sad about leaving Sydney.

Since I have found out about the job a week ago, I have been running around organising everything and meeting up with as many people as possible. Last night, I had a farewell dinner with Nick, Nena, Mizzah and the Bruneians in Sydney. We went to BBQ City, a Korean place on Liverpool St. It was good food and good value too. Service was good as well. We then had drinks at Chamberlain Hotel, which was quite nice but quiet since it is after all a Monday night. I had a cocktail of vodka, apple juice and cinnamon sugar... delicious!

Last Saturday was farewell with the Waterloo boys, Ange, Grace and George... went to Busshari... highly raved Japanese restaurant at Potts Point... it was good BUT the boys were still hungry after eating 200 bucks worth of food and were insisting on going to Burgerfuel after... :S
so we went to Burgerfuel... interesting place... huge burgers with burger holders... fries are sweet potato fries... names of burgers like Bastard and Greedy Bastard lol

Then we were finding a place for drinks and were lured by some promoters to try out a new dance club called aero space or something... on the 3rd floor of the empire hotel building seemed quiet n scary so we decided against it and went to elk for drinks instead... was nice place n we played backgammon, chess and drinking games... all won by Master TG Chen

On Friday night, after catching up with some at Customs House Bar, having dinner at Sushi Tei, had drinks at bar 333 and then tried Zeta Bar at Hilton... love the place... spacious, nice decor, good atmosphere... drinks a bit pricy though... but for the experience its worth it

So next time I write I'll be reporting from Brisbane! xoxo

Harold and Kumar Down Under

Sunday night... or Monday morning rather... I'm sitting, unwinding and recapping the past week... another great week of fun and new experiences... highlight of which is my school friends coming to visit Sydney from Singapore and Melbourne. This morning we went to Zilver for yumcha... in terms of food and service, the best I have had in Sydney yet. Goodies include pork ribs (to die for), beef balls, chee cheong fun, quail's egg siewmai and lots more... The only thing was we had to wait for a good 30min before being seated and there was an extra $10 charge for kitchen which was totally unnecessary... other than that two thumbs up... my friend from Singapore was happy with it, so happy that she had to do her har gow dance! lol

Yesterday, we went to the Sydney fish market... had lobster, fresh prawns, oysters, octopuses, calamari and fish... was great! Good day out and then headed for the Rocks market and the Opera House for sight-seeing... The Rocks market is interesting with a lot of quirky unnecessary things like overpriced herbs, oils, chilli... My friend definitely liked it and bought a few things like lipgloss in shells as souvenirs... They then went on to Luna park for a ferris wheel ride and Maissey's at Neutral Bay for sticky date pudding, which they thought was too sweet and could not finish.

On Friday night, when they first arrived, I tagged along to their accommodation which was a god forsaken Formule 1 hostel at Strathfield South... the room was bad... the sheets had white stains on them, we told ourselves it could have been detergent but that was an excuse for children and we are definitely all grown up to know that it was not detergent! The toilet/shower was so small that you could only rotate while standing in it... The bed had booger on it and the cups were oily... The sink was in the room instead of in the bathroom... And I had a sleepless night on the ground as I crashed there with them since it was too late and troublesome to take me home.

On Monday, I had dinner at Alfredo's an Italian restaurant near Gateway building in the CBD. It is a really good restaurant and we had penne with hazelnut sauce, pasta with crab meat in white wine sauce and rack of lamb... all were good except portion was a bit small... good thing I loaded up on fried rice and eggplant and fish beforehand lol

Last week I did not get up to much except go clubbing at Bamboo, the club that is Martin Place Bar during the day... very popular spot for Asians mostly... music was not bad except repeats itself... cover charge of $25 which is standard... had a male stripper which was weird and fat and old...

That's all... next week my bf comes back from NZ... yay!

2 Weeks' Redemption

Hi all, sorry for not having written for ages. I have been busy. So there is much to update on. Firstly, two weeks back, a friend of mine Pauline was in the city so I went to have drinks with her at the Establishment and then crashed at her hotel room in Westin. It is a wonderful 5 star hotel with a big room and great view. The photo here is of the clock tower that is part of the view from the room.

Last weekend, I had a good catchup with my ex-uni mates. Had yumcha at Palace Restaurant, which we think is one of the the best yumcha places in Sydney and we highly recommend it!

This week I had my hair cut at FM hair studio on Kings Cross. The service was excellent and the cut and price is good too. I highly recommend it. I didn't do much different to my hair just a trim and wash.

On Friday, we went to equilibrium, me and the boys... and we sat by the staircase toward the club and were eyeing chicks walking up the stairs... and all the girls were wearing the shortest dresses and skirts and it was a sight for sore eyes but my guy friends were not complaining hehe... it was soooo seedy of us!

Yesterday, we went for to the beach since it was a sunny day. We decided to try the Dee Why beach. It was a great day out and I didn't get burnt without any sunblock :D Walked miles up and down the beach twice and my legs were sore from that. There were not many good looking people to sight at the beach unfortunately... For dinner, we drove all the way to Granville (close to Parramatta) for charcoal chicken. The funny bit was when Endra, one of my friends asked us to make a booking... when we got there, it turned out to be a dodgy place like a McD's joint lol... the food was good and cheap

Granville was a first visit for me and it was quite interestingly different. Firstly, there were many black people which is a rare sight in Australia... there was even a black street with a black club. There were of course many Lebanese since it is a Lebanese area. We went to a dessert place after to have baklava and other Lebanese sweets. One of my friends got the wrong order, the glasses had washing water in them and the lady came up to me and said "You can eat anything you want but please put your foot down" when I had my leg up on my cushion. I thought that was appallingly rude. One thing for sure I am never going back to Granville again!

Avenue Q

Yesterday, I had a long tiring day and so I could not write when I got home. I went for the Myer group interview and it was quite funny. There was this girl who was very annoying because she could not really understand/read English. When we were given the form to fill, she kept bothering everyone around her by asking people to help her read the question and to spell words! The funniest part was when we were supposed to sell a product that was given to us and then upsell by thinking of two additional products that we could sell with the product. This woman got a piggy bank with a mug inside. She had no clue what we were supposed to do so she took out her own mascara and lipstick from her handbag and started selling them lol!

Next, I took the train to the city to meet up with my friends. On the train platform I found a $10 note hehe... First, we went to the noodle market... It was horrible... too many people, food was crap and expensive and we couldnt find a seat for ages... Then, the highlight of the day, the Avenue Q show! It was very entertaining... lewd at times, like when they showed the muppets making love... funny stuff so I give it a 4 out of 5

Indian makeup

Hihi! Ok today I had to go get an eyeliner as my last one which I got from Singapore has finished... You see I have been resisting getting an eyeliner for a while now because I missed the Indian product called Kajal that I got from Singapore by my friend Sulo, who introduced me to the product. And because I have this interview to be a cosmetics person at Myer on Friday (lol) I decided that I need full face makeup for that hehe...

And to my delight, the eyeliner from Rimmel is also made of Kajal! It's times like this I salute different cultures... Indian makeup, curry, dances... Sometimes when I eat pizza and lasagne I think to myself, these Italians are geniuses! And how can I forget my own Chinese noodles, mahjong and dumplings!

Ok that's all for today... Coming up... I am going for a theatre show Avenue Q on Friday night... can't wait! Will update you on that on Friday. xoxo

Royal Botanic Gardens

As promised another post for another day. Today first I went to search for a scanner in the city to scan some documents and after I was sent from one place to another and found nothing I gave up and headed to have lunch with my friend Gabriel who could help me scan the document instead.

Wanted my nasty noodles from CBD noodles but my fav banker was standing in line in front of me so I opted out and got Hokka Hokka noodles instead. That's a first! It was good but somehow just not tasty enough and I only ate half of it. And when I came back home I realised that I don't think I paid for it... oops!

So as I headed home after lunch, I decided to stop at the Royal Botanic Gardens to chill out and read my book Madame Bovary. This is something that I had never done before. And it was wonderful! Breathing in the fresh air, smelling the fresh flowers and looking that the greenery... and the book is lovely too!

Here I attach you a beautiful pic of one of the structures in the park.

Ok last but not least a special dedication to my annoying little bro who got emo and insisted I give him a special mention. Lololololol...

Photos of My Neighbourhood

Hellow! I woke up really late today as always and had to think of something quick to do for today's post. So I decided to go out for a walk around my neighbourhood and take pics of the sights and sounds here. After all, I may be moving from Sydney soon and will definitely miss this lovely suburb of mine.

The first picture on the left is of some terrace apartments that are the typical design of houses in Sydney.

The second picture is of a beautiful small park that my friend Angeline and I love to hang out and chat.

The third picture is one of Rushcutters' Bay, which is scenic and sometimes I just go on to the ferry stop and sit on it while dipping my feet in the water.

For dinner today, I was too lazy to cook and it was too late to get takeout so I went to the supermarket to buy something to eat and I tried out an Indian microwave dinner. It was pretty good actually but for a small serving of Chicken Kurma with white rice was like 700 calories!

First Post

Hi there! I have decided to start writing a blog again. This blog is meant to be about the new things that I experience everyday in my life and since it is the beginning of Sunday 11/10/2009 right now I shall highlight on the things that I did this week.

Last Sunday was my friend Gabriel's birthday. Also, my friend Jocelyn from Brisbane was in town. So, early in the morning, I went to see her off as she was leaving that day. She was staying at Travelodge in the city and it was my first trip there and I was pleasantly surprised. It was a really neat place and very affordable too... I highly recommend it to anyone who is visiting Sydney

Next I went to get Gabs' present and bought the first thing from an apple shop. Had an utmost embarrassing moment as I was paying at the counter. The guy took some time to process my payment and then handed me a white apple bag with the product in it. I then stood there and waited for my receipt and the guy started chatting to me about what I had bought and what products that we find interesting. I was wondering what was taking him so long with the receipt and so politely kept having the small talk with him until some other customers came to ask him something and after they had left I decided to ask him about the receipt and he said that it was already in the bag... oh my god! I was standing there for 5 min and the guy probably thought I was chatting him up... I didn't know how to retreat from this embarrassing position so I decided to fake a phone call and then ran off quickly. Never going back there again!

Sunday was also the grand final of rugby league... So we started celebration with watching that and yes it was my first time actually watching a final of a rugby match... had to do it sometime in Australia I guess... Then we went to this Spanish restaurant called El Bulli for tapas. It was awesome! Had snails for the first time and had a good variety of food with lots of Sangria... my favourite was the Patatas El Bulli, the best potatoes I have ever had. At the end of the meal, we were given a shot of something like alcoholic apple cider to down which was pretty cool.

On Monday, I met up with my friend Jason, a Korean ex-classmate who now works at RBA. Two new things that I did that day: i) tried Madang, supposedly best Korean restaurant in Sydney ii) bought two books at Kinokuniya (first visit there as well). Madang was good... Jason introduced me to cold noodles (pic on the left) which was very interesting as it was icy cold and the noodles were really stringy that we had to cut it off with scissors. I steered from getting my normal favourite bibimbap and went for a kimchi soup with rice cake and it was nice... I thought that it was quite ordinary compared to the other Korean places I have tried but then again apparently Madang is popular for its BBQ, so I will definitely try to go to BBQ again.

The 2 books I bought were Anne Enright's 'The Gathering', the winner of the Booker Prize 2007 and Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert. You see, I have never been much of a book reader let alone a book buyer so that was an experience in itself for me. As for reading them, I have tried reading The Gathering only to lose my patience as to find out what happens and found myself skimming through and zeroing in on the interesting parts, in other words, cheating. Now that I know what happens in the end, I don't have the motivation to fully read the book anymore... sigh... As for Madame Bovary, I have not started it yet so I will do my best to not cheat and read it from cover to cover.

On Tuesday I went to Wagaya, a Japanese restaurant in Haymarket. It was a really nice time I had with my friend Michael as we bitched about our problems to each other. It was also a long awaited late night trip to get supper that Michael had promised me many moons ago. And since Michael lived in Japan for some years, he was the perfect companion for me to try out a Japanese restaurant. The interesting thing about Wagaya is the electronic menu and ordering system that it has. And the dishes came very quickly as well. We tried some interesting things such as Wasabi raw octopus (pic on the left) which I found yummy, chicken gizzards, octopus pancakes, squid pizza (didn't like it) and Nagoyan fried chicken.

The rest of the week was a blur to me partly because I slept through most of it and hardly stepped out since it was raining incessantly. Got food delivery from a Thai place at my suburb... nothing spectacular just typical takeout like Pad Thai noodles and fried rice

Ok till tomorrow night hopefully I will do something interesting tomorrow if the weather permits ciao!