Day of <3

Yay, I feel much better now! :) But just to be on the safe side, I have decided to quarantine myself in my room. And as my only reprieve is my laptop, I shall recount the tale of my day out in the city yesterday. :)

*****

Every Sunday, you'd find me in the city. Firstly, 'cause it takes about an hour just to get to the city, and we poor students just can't afford such luxuries during weekdays. Secondly, and most importantly, on normal days, you would have to pay approximately AUD6 plus for bus/train/tram fares to get to the city; but on Sundays, we have a savior called the Sunday Saver, which enables us to get to the city for only AUD2.50! :P



Our hero... *insert swooning noises*


Our plan today was to go to Bridge Road, which is somewhere near the city, and meet up with Jaclyn and Lionel there. Bridge Road is renowned for small cutesy boutiques, and also loads of places to get ball dresses!! I am in dire need for a ball dress, as I hope to attend the ball organised by the halls on the 10th of August, and being the smartass I am, I didn't bring a dress here!! *kicks self for my stupidity*

But before we headed off to Bridge Road, Mey and Smalls brought me to meet another new love of my life. Everybody, meet Valley Girls. :P

I totally went crazy in Valley Girls, everything there is so freaking nice and cheap!! And the best part is, quality is not compromised. :) I actually got a cardigan for AUD9.90---What the hell?? ;) But of course, we all stepped out of the shop with bagsfull of stuff... :)

Oh, Melbourne economy, you owe us so much. ;)

Next stop! Bridge Road! :)




Flinders Street Station. We had to get to Flinders to take a tram down to Bridge Road.


We had a couple of minutes to spare till the tram's arrival... So we got down to doing what we do best...

Picture-taking! ;)



Touristy... :P




Kit Mey and Smalls




Federation Square, opposite Flinders station.




We shorties have to stick together... :P




Trams!




Melbourne skies. :)


As soon as we got to Bridge Road, we got our hands onto Jac and Lionel, and it was tummy time!! We were so ravenous, that we ignored our wandering eyes that lingered on the rows of shops ahead of us... :P










We decided to go to Subway....


Not a single crumb left... ;)


Oh, by the way, although I have never tasted Subway back home, but I have to say, Subway in Aussie is GOOD!! Kit Mey and I shared a footlong together, and we were super greedy, we just told the lady to put everything into our sandwich!! Needless to say, we had very painful jaws from trying to fit the hugeass sandwich into our mouths... :P




The loving couple who has been so nice to chauffeur us around... :)


After hitting the shops on Bridge Road for awhile, Jac, Lionel and Smalls went to Smythe Street as Smalls wanted to invest in a Crumpler bag, whereas Kit Mey and I decided to stay on Bridge Road for there were just too much too see.. :) Oh, by the way, prior to this, I had no idea what Crumpler bags are!! I just did a google on it... ;) Check it out here--- Crumpler! :)

Lookie, what I found on Bridge Road!



Not just any normal toilet...





Look, you actually have to press a button to open the toilet (ala automatic sliding doors), and if someone is in the toilet, the ENGAGED light will be on, and vice versa if the toilet is vacant. You do the same thing if you are in the toilet-- there are buttons for you to click to open/close the doors!

Open Sesame! :P

(Sorry la, I am suck a jakun.)

And oh, I am so happy! *glee* We found this shop that sells the most delectable clothes!! A cross between Topshop, Selfridges, Forever 21, and a little bit of Zara and MNG, it is WONDERFUL!!! :D It is not very expensive, especially where Aussie prices are concerned; the prices are very similar to what you would have to pay back home. :) And I got my ball dress there!!! For a measly AUD49!! MUAHAHAHAHA.

All hail to Claude d' alban! (pardon the wannabe posh name) :P

As usual, Melbourne shops just HAD to close at 5pm (GRR GRR GRR), leaving us high and dry. As we waited for the tram to bring us back to Melbourne Central to meet up with the others (public transport come by very rarely on Sundays), Mey and I found ways to occupy ourselves... :D

We started challenging each other to do miang poses..=p










Making doe eyes...




And this is just a fraction of the pictures that we took, but I shall refrain from embarrassing us further... ;)


Once we were back in the city, we decided to have dinner at chinatown... After much deliberation, we had to forego spicy fish (something hot, spicy and tasty recommended by Jac), 'cause poor Lionel avoids chillies like the plague.

So, Dessert House it was!



Dessert House. Spot Jac! ;)

Apparently Dessert House is quite a popular Chinese restaurant, and judging from the fact that the shop was packed to the brim, this notion is correct. Dessert House sort of reminds me of Kim Gary... :)



Such intensity... in ordering food. -_-




Wheeee, I havn't had chinese tea in AGES! :P




*sniff* I miss teh tarik so much..*starts bawling*




Chinese fried rice! Yes yes, I am a deprived child. ;)


Because we are greedy people, after our fulfilling chinese dinner, we decided to go to Max Brenners for dessert. We walked over to the Max Brenner at QV(also known as QVB); the one I previously visited is located in Melbourne Central.











The assortments of chocolate products in Max Brenners...


After we found ourselves a table, we just sat down and started taking pictures. Mind you, each of us had a camera, and poor Lionel had to snap pictures of us using each and every camera, and as we were fussy ladies, he had to take a few shots before we are satisfied... *sheepish*





After we were done with our photography session, we happily sautered to the counter to order. OOooHH, can't wait for the delicious chocolate sauce to slide down my throat!!!

"Sorry, our counter is closed."

What. The. Fuck.

It was only 8pm!! Bloody Melbourne.

So what choice did we have, but to walk over to Melbourne Central for the other Max Brennners branch. A lesson learnt-- only camwhore at appropriate times! :P


At the other Max Brenner....



I ordered Suckao, one of the trademark drinks in Max Brenner. Basically, it consists of milk being warmed over a candle, and little chocolate beans that you'd have to melt yourself to your own hot chocolate! *heart*



My suckao! :P




Aphrodisiac. Strawberry dip.




Kit Mey says "Thumbs up".





Passionfruit pancake. Comes with honeycomb pieces, maple syrup and sour cream (???). Kind of regretted ordering this though, it wasn't fantastic... And the pancakes didn't come with chocolate sauce!! How can you go to Max Brenners without consuming chocolate sauce????

Ooooh, I just realised that that both of the foods that we ordered are very aphrosidiac-ish, haha. Yeah, there's this private joke among Smalls, Kit Mey and I that we are boyfriend-deprived. *shy* :P



Yupps, that is a metal straw! :)




I love playing with food... :P

Oh, and you can ask for refills for milk for the suckao! This means that if you ration your chocolate beans carefully, the drink can last you for pretty long!! Perfect for a looooooong yum cha session! And oh-so-fun! :D




Doesn't it make you feel like jumping into the chocolate sauce?
I know I do. ;)


Oh, and when I snapped pictures of the chocolate sauce spinning thingy above, one of the staff actually came over and asked me not to take any pictures of Max Brenners... What the hell?? You are afraid that I'd engineer a huge chocolate spinner and create competition for you is it??!!??

Sheeesh.

After that, Lionel and Jac were so nice to fetch us few huge elephants (yeah, chinese carbs plus chocolates tend to make you look and feel like one :P) back to the halls again. :) I think it was during the walk to the car through the rain, and whooping winds that made me caught a chill....*sniff*


But anyway, all in all, the day was a kickass success. Laughs, fun, shopping bags, and good food.

I am blessed. :)

Sick

I am sick.

I went to bed last night bundled like an Eskimo, with thick socks and a fat ass sweater, shivering although I had my comforter covering every part of me like a corpse.

I think it must have been the drizzle that I ran through in the city yesterday night, especially since it was a freaking cold night. For the first time, I understood the phrase "chilled to the bones". My bones was deduced to an achy existence, and finally, into a dull numbness.

I woke up today, and felt like puking. But instead, I was just regurgitating air out over the basin. Still shivering. Decided to skip my lecture and went back to sleep.

But shite, I have two tutorials now that I absolutely can't miss, for we have marks for participation and attendance.

Wish me luck.


*****

Update: I just look out of the window, and it is raining now!!!

GAH.

Chocolates Galore!

Saturday morning are usually spent on grocery shopping at Brandon Park's shopping mall, as we are total cheapskates, and Monash offers free shuttle bus rides to the mall.

A bus ride costs AUD1.80 k, so I may not be such a big cheapskate after all. :P

Life constantly provide challenges, and it paired me with a cooking partner that believes in starting the day early. I was coerced into meeting Eunice at the bus stop at 9.30am.

I slept at 4.30am yesterday. -_-

I started my day with a honeycomb muffin that I have eyed savagely at Brandon Park. Oh my goodness, it was so delicious, that I actually stopped eating halfway so that I could bring it back to my room and slowly savor it over an episode of Desperate Housewives. :P The muffin had a buttery taste with a tinge of honey tang, and as you nibble around the muffin, there are spots that honey would ooze out, and there was also parts where there were melted chocolate chips... I love melted chocolate chips, y'know..*blissful smile* Oh oh oh! And there was a huge dollop of cream cheese on top of the muffin, with a generous sprinkling of Hershey's chocolate chips!

*licks muffin crumbs off my fingers* ;P

I wanted to take a picture of that sinful muffin, but I devoured it before the thought struck my head, so hee, your loss. :P

I think we went totally overboard with grocery shopping, 'cause we could barely lug the bags back to the bus stop. We even had to stuff grocery bags into our handbags, as we couldn't possibly carry everything by hand!!


In the van back to the halls...


The grocery bags in my bag.



The grocery bags next to me, and check it out, there were
some more bags on the floor!



More grocery bags with Eunice.. Mind you, she had some
more grocery bags in her handbag k...

ERRR, if you spy potato chips and TimTams in the bags, just ignore them k. Girls need comfort food. :P

Speaking of comfort food, while I was in K-Mart, i went on a chocolate spree. :)

I bought all the chocolates that are renowned in Aussie, the chocolates that I have heard so much of, but never tasted before.

May I present you with...





Pods. The choccies that Jaclyn swore were orgasmic. Eunice too summarised it in one word, "BEST".





Heaven. This is the chocolate that Eunice's sister absolutely L.O.V.E.S. And with a name like Heaven, how could you resist? ;)






Boost. Despite its name sounding more like an energy drink, the fact that my friend Wilson, a guy, mind you, is addicted to this chocolate is truly intriguing. Furthermore, I havn't tasted Aussie's Cadbury chocolates in my stay so far. And I can never say no to biscuit pieces in chocolates! :P





bisc&. I've no idea what the name, bisc, means, or how to pronounce it, but I've tried the bisc& with Twix topping, and I LOVED it!! But I felt so cheated, 'cause I accidently took the one with Mars topping!!=( Just pray for me that this one tastes as good as the one with Twix k!! *crosses fingers tightly* :P





Wonka. Whoopeee, I found Wonka bars from Charlie and the Chocolate Factory!! *victory dance*=p I just might not eat it, and keep it for memorabilia purposes! :P But I don't know why, the stupid song from the movie keeps on playing in head, "Willy Wonka! Willy Wonka!....." -_-





Twix. As I mentioned before, I have tried bisc& with the Twix topping, and I felt compelled to try Twix in its full glory... :)



Twix. :)


I am a happy girl. =)

This is what I call a good day

Prologue:
I was rushing to university today, and I met Smalls on the way, and naturally, we walked to our class together. We got so caught up in chatting about, well, just about everything, and when we reached the end of the campus border, we stopped.

"Hey, where is the class ya?"

"Eh, I thought you knew?"

"Hah? I thought you knew!"

Hee, joker. :P

*****

Shopping was on the list today. :)

I have made plans with Kit Mey and Smalls to go to Chadstone, which is the largest shoppong mall in Melbourne, I think. Please don't ask me about logistics nor statistics, I only know that they have lots of great shops, enough to make me go back week after week. ;)

We were reunited with our other Chadstone kaki from last Friday, Victoria, along with Smalls and Victoria's old schoolmate, Jaclyn. Oh my goodness, I so love Jaclyn's dressing, it's so Melbourne!! Have. To. Get. A. Cute. Vest. ;)

Kit Mey and I were supposed to meet the rest at the bus stop, but we reached earlier, and since we had nothing to do, we whipped out our cameras, and started snapping away...



Kit Mey and I, camwhoring while waiting for the bus.


Errr, there was sort of an incident that occurred while we happily camwhored away. Y'see, the buses that pass by the bus stop that we were waiting at will only stop if you hail the bus. And the thing was, we got so caught up with camwhoring, we sort of, hehe, missed the bus. Smalls, Victoria and Jaclyn just looked at us at as horror from a distance while they were approaching us, as they see the bus that we were supposed to be taking zooming past us carefree-ly.

Cheh, the bus was 3 minutes earlier k. How were we suppose to know it was the bus that we were to take... *super defensive*



Another camwhore picture. No use crying over missed buses. ;)

(OOoooh, the sunglasses above actually belongs to Kit Mey, I forgot to bring mine!! It was so freaking sunny (bloody Melbourne, supposed to be winter, grr), and Mey was nice enough to offer me her sunglasses! Super glam right? ;) )


In the end, we got our butts to Chadstone anyway.




Chadstone, or more affectionately known as "Chaddy".


I had a sushi roll before going to Chadstone, but by the time I reached Chaddy, I could feel my stomach screaming of emptiness again. A quick exchange of knowing looks between me and Mey prompted us to start looking for ice cream! :)




Ooh, lookie, Wendy's!!


(In case you are an ignorant blub, Wendy's is a native Aussie ice cream empire.. :P)




I screamed for ice cream! :P

I had the Bailey's with scorched almonds, and boy, it was goooooooood. :) Though, to be honest, I couldn't really taste the Bailey's. But oh well, ice cream is ice cream, and a girl's gotta get get her energy up and going before shopping. ;)

I shall skip the boring portions of us conquering the shops, and swiping our cards like mad. But I did managed to get tops for AUD10!! Which is really quite cheap, as they are fancy-mancy tops, sorta like Forever 21 ones... :) But of course, the highlight of the day was when I managed to find a supernovafriggincheappromotion going on in Jay Jays-- AUD15 for 3 tops!!! And they were not mangly fugly tops k, I managed to snag a crinkly white dress shirt, a baby doll top, and a red polka-dotted victorian top. All in my size. :)

Oh, and Jaclyn is such a bad person to shop with! ;) 'Cause she is such a shopaholic, and she was buying jeans just because she "doesn't have jeans in that shade". :P She is really adventurous with clothes too, and I really appreciate that in a girl. Fashion is all about experimenting k? :)

We just stopped suddenly in the middle of the mall and started snapping pictures. ;)



Took pictures with 3 girls who are all above 5'7.
Such a humbling moment.
Somemore the idiots had to bend lower, while I had to tiptoe.
*emo*

I had a crazy idea of everyone posing with their purchases.



Me, Victoria, Mey, Jaclyn and Smalls.


Smalls was like hissing to us, "Guys, let's stop! This is getting embarrassing!"

But of course, we won't let her off the hook so easily. ;)



Tada! Much better. :P





My cooking partner dropped by after her classes. :)


After shopping to our heart's content, we embarked on our other mission for the day.

To try out Koko Black.

Koko Black, is another chocolate specialty shop, and from what I gather, would probably be Max Brennners' nemesis. Some people have told me that Koko Black's chocolate drinks are too 'kao', i.e. thick, but nevertheless, we had to judge for ourselves. :)



Winter Chilli Chocolate. Spicy!!


Jaclyn ordered the Winter Chilli Chocolate, which sounds downright strange. But intriguing. :) Of course, we all asked for a small taste, just to satisfy our curiosity, and Jaclyn gladly obliged. It was really weird!! When the chocolate first land in your mouth, all your tastebuds could sense was the chocolate taste, but as soon as it glides your throat, it leaves a trail of fire!! The heat remains in your throat for a couple of minutes, scary...

Jaclyn, very adventurous of you. ;)

Thankfully, I was a boring old fart as usual, and hey, you could never go wrong with iced chocolate right? ;)



Iced chocolate with its goodness, ice cream, chocolate sauce and all.. :)


I was quite disappointed with the menu, actually, as there were no other foods available other than the Belgium Spoil (Spoiled?? Gah, hate the name, reminds me of rotten meat for some reason). The Belgium Spoil (Spoiled?) did sound delicious in the menu though, promising a slice of cake, chocolate mousse, chocolate ice cream, biscotti, and two cubes of fine chocolates. Look at what we got.



Fucking disappointed. :(


I swear to god, the little teacups my grandnmother used to put on the altar for praying is bigger than the miniscule bowls they used to serve our mousse and chocolate. And the cake was even more pathetic looking. And it tasted dry and parchy. Besides that, the so-called biscotti was as tasteless as paper and as stale as last month's bread.

Bleagh.

The iced milkshake too was just so-so, for I am one to believe that true good food will ignite emotions in you, but as I was sucking away on my iced chocolate, I was just going ladidums.

I want Max Brenners. :(



Everyone again, at Koko Black. I don't think I am ever coming back again.


Oh, and Jaclyn's boyfriend, Lionel came join us at Koko Black after he finished work. We walked around the mall for a little while after Koko Black, 'cause y'know, to ease digestion and all.. ;) And oh my goodness, it was so difficult to watch the couple together. They were really loving, hands held tight, shared whispers, playful chatters, and stolen kisses... I tried not looking at them, but my eyes are just drawn back to the affectionate couple repeatedly.

I want my boyfriend. :(

In the end, we decided to go back to Clayton town for dinner(mind you, Clayton town is a 30 minute walk to campus k), as it was already 8 something, and there were no more buses back to campus from Chaddy; and we would have to take a bus to Oakleigh station, and take a train to Clayton, to catch another bus to get back to the halls anyway.



Waiting for the train at Oakleigh station.
Smalls and Vic followed Jaclyn and Lionel's car.


We went to Malaysian Gardens at Clayton-- Nasi lemak for me!! :) It was really fun to hang out with Malaysians; somehow it's more comfortable, and it feels more like home. I could use slangs like kena, malu, abu-then, and I wouldn't feel compelled to explain myself. And it feels really good to just spend some girlie time. No pictures were taken, I just realised that, but I guess,
everyone was just so busy scoffing down the yummy dishes that we miss so much back home.

And oh, thank you, Lionel and Jaclyn, for fetching us back to the halls, tampering with the Australian Laws for for bringing more than the allowed number of 5 passengers!! ;)





This is life. :)