Love from Melbourne, Part 1

Hi dearfairygodmother,

I feel bad neglecting you since I decided to come Melbourne to study. Left the sunny island on Valentine's Day, spent time adjusting to the life here in Melbourne, developed horizontally during the 1st semester. Now it's the 2nd semsester and also the last semester of school here. Let's talk abit of my experience and view of Melbourne here.

Weather

Currently it's winter time here. I wished it snows in Aussie, but no, it does not snow except in the mountains. The lowest it can get at night I ever seen it about 1 or 0 degree celsius? But generally it ranges from like 4,5 to 18 degrees during the winter. It's okay if it's not windy. But if it is windy it's horrible. Winter ends when it is 1st september. The air is quite dry in Melbourne, not humid like Singapore. It's a good place for putting makeup on, as one will not sweat at all in this kind of weather! But it is so dry here one have to put on moisturiser definitely. But being the lazy me, sometimes I just let it be. And I will end up having white patches around my mouth. Ugly. Lipbalm is a essential here! 

Not forgetting to mention this... I have saw the most numbers of rainbows in my entire life in my stay in Melbourne! I swear.... I have seen at least 5 rainbows here... And I took picture of 2... with one time seeing a full rainbow outside the shopping centre Melbourne Central... I have never freaking seen a rainbow in Singapore or Malaysia. Just my luck. But it seems to easy to catch a rainbow now and then over here. 

This is seen near my hostel last sem :)

This is the one seen most recently and is a Full Rainbow! No wide lense so I couldn't take the full rainbow in one shot :/

Another thing I love about Melbourne is the clouds and the stars view. Maybe because most buildings in the suburbs are all low rise, there is no obstruction to the sky view. I love lying on my bed and gaze at the huge puffy clouds passing by my window. Stars are plentiful in the black dark sky at night :D And the most amazing starry sky I have ever seen was at the Philip island when we were at the beach shivering in cold waiting for the penguins to march back to their homes from the sea. I cannot describe in words the beauty and how amazing it is how grateful I was to have at least seen this kind of sky in my lifetime. And there was this huge patch which really look like the legendary "Milky Way".... I'm not sure if one is able to see the Milky way from Earth but it really fit the description. It was a silverish sea of I don't know... stars? Like silver dust in the sky. I was just so star struck.......

Enough of my gibberish.... Here are some photos I took from my room window.... :)

Grey clouds looming above my window..

Morning Sun :D

The colour of the horizon is v nice... Couldn't capture the true colour on my Iphone cam..

Food

Speaking of food, I can never blog finish the stuff I have tried and ate for the past 6 months. Like Singapore, there is a lot of good food around in Melbourne. Other than the obvious western food here, there is a lot of  Thai, Japanese, Korean and Vietnam food! Greek and Italian food can be found in Melbourne too. But standard of living is real high here in OZ. To eat outside normally one normal meal costs at least AUD$8++ . Their pizzas are good and cheap. Like this:

The chocolates in the supermarkets are often on sale, cheaper and more variety compared to Sg. And as me and my girlfriends our favourite past time is to go grocery shopping, I always buy a lot of chocolates and chips home. Red Deli chips and Doritos here have a lot of flavours to choose from. My favourite is Doritos Mexicana chips, and recently fell in love with Red chilli Grain wave whole grain chips. Now you know why I expand horizontally here!

In school, seriously there isn't much to my liking that I can eat. One funny thing is they have dim sims here. I'm sure most people would know what is Dim Sum (Hongkong Cantonese term for snacks). The Ang Mohs here they have Dim Sim! A picture of the Dim Sim is posted below in the fish and chips picture, see if you can spot it! Here is a definition of Dim Sim from Wikipedia :

" A dim sim is a Chinese-inspired meat dumpling-style snack food popular in Australia. The dish normally consists of a large ball of pork or other meat, cabbage and flavourings, encased in a wrapper similar to that of a traditional shumai dumpling. They are usually deep-fried or steamed, but can be barbecued. Dim sims differ from typical Chinese dumplings in that they are often much larger, have a thicker skin and are shaped more robustly.^[1] They are primarily sold in Fish and chip shops, service stations, corner stores and Chinese or Asian takeaway outlets in Australia."

And they have potato cake here, which is basically potato in the form of a flattened round shape and fried. Fish and chips are real good in Aussie. This photo shows one of the nicest fish and chips I have ate before.. Ate this with my girlfriends... Big portion! Couldn't finish it... 

Tada... Oily I know... But it's nice! A glimpse of me and my cropped hair in the mirror! Can you spot the Dim Sim? :D

They have french fries which taste real good. The fries from Red Rooster fast food restaurant have thick and good texture but too salty. Lord of the fries is common here too, but I find their fries average.. Speaking of fast food, in Aussie, Hungry Jack's is the same as Burger King. But why is it not called Burger King? I have always wondered. So now talking about food in this post, I wikipediaed it and this is what I found : 


" Australia is the only country in which Burger King does not operate under its own name. When the company set about establishing operations down under in 1971, it found that its business name was already trademarked by a takeaway food shop in Adelaide. "


Sou desu ne...


And except for Mac breakfast, I will never really want to eat MacDonald for lunch or dinner in Aussie because... their burger is so dry...The bread and the chicken meat... I think the people like to eat breast meat here.... and no chilli sauce or tomato sauce is given! And expensive too. 


But one thing I like about Aussie is their Jap sushi roll! It comes in one big roll and they sell it for about $2.30 on average. Me and my girlfriends always visit a stall outside Melbourne central which sells them for $2 only. Sometimes in Melbourne central basement there is offer on the sushi rolls like 2 boxs (total 8) for $8 or $10 when they are closing shop. My favourites are tamago (egg) and california and tuna rolls! They all come with a cute fish plastic tube for the soy sauce. ^o^

Why Sg don't sell sushi rolls like that?! Shiok to eat like tt!

Chicken schnitzel and chicken parmegiana are also very common food in Melbourne. Both are chicken boneless meat coated with breadcrumbs (I think) and fried, The latter has tomato and cheese topping on it, and sometimes with minced beef on it. 


Okay another recommendation is Pancake Parlour at Melbourne Central! I'm not a Pancake lover.. But if you happen to be one I think you should try this atas restaurant for their raved pancakes... 

 This was what I ordered.. Banana and walnut flavoured pancakes... And chocolate ice cream on top.. 

This is what my friend ate... The cheese kransky sausage was thick and juicy!


Another place I went before with friends is this Passionflower ice-cream parlour ... Atas place but interesting!

Not forgetting the fruits here, basically they support their own farmers, so a lot of fruits sold here are grown in OZ. Bananas is a fruit that I have only bought once here, because it is freaking expensive. It can be as ex as AUD$14 per kg. Recently it is about $9+ per kg. I have learn to eat more fruits living alone here, as compared to in Sg. Strawberries sold here are often big and sweet and not too expensive, I bought a small box for AUD$2.50 when it was on sale in the supermarket. Here's a picture of it!

BIG RIGHT! ^.^

I also like to buy yoghurt over here from the supermarkets like Coles or Woolworths... One special yoghurt I've eaten here is this : 

Gippsland yoghurt! 

It is a very thick and rich yoghurt with real fruit bits inside....... Nice! But unless got offer I won't buy it... Not very cheap... about $5+ AUD...

Drinks
Alcoholic drinks like wine and beer are cheap cheap cheap. They have their own beer here called Victoria Bitter. Just like Singapore got Tiger Beer. But I'm not really a alcoholic person so all beers to me are the same. But soft drinks can be very expensive. AUD$3.60 for a small bottle of Coke. Of course if you buy from the right places still get good and cheap deals. Melbourne is famous for coffee also, which is very sad for me because I don't know how to appreciate coffee. But I did learn to drink a bit of coffee here due to the need for caffine sometimes in school! So I drink Mocha which has chocolate added to the coffee.

  Mocha from school cafe 

And they have Max Brenner and San Churros which are 2 similar concept cafe which sells chocolate drinks.. Max Brenner have this special looking cup for their hot chocolate drink... and I love their Tutti Frutti Waffle... I heard Singapore Esplanade has one Max Brenner outlet... 

Forgot the name of the drink but it has chocolate biscuit balls in it! Yummy!

This is San Churro's special... Churros (the long stick looking like thingy which I think is supposed to be Spanish Donuts) to dip in the different molten chocolates ... :D One of the things that one can try when in Melbourne... 

Another drink that I want to mention is the shakes from Boost! Their mixed fruit shakes are fabulous.. One thing to mention is that bubble tea is available in Melbourne but they are expensive compared to Sg of course! A cup is about $4,$5 AUD... so I rather pay for Boost Juice which is healthier and something that I have never drink before back in Sg. But I also have heard from my friend Boost has a outlet in Vivo city... 

Okay enough of the food.... I will continue Part 2 soon!  あげぽよ! \^o^/

It's 3 am already! Oyasuminasai! 

<3

Harumipq