2012 - Where have you gone?

I've been a lazy blogger this year. But at least I blogged every month. So that's something. My memory of this year is hazy. I've been watching various news programs and their end of year montages. I keep thinking that everything happened so long ago. The first half of this year is a total blank.

Also, once again I failed the Project 365 which is where you take a photo a day. I gots lazy.

JANUARY

Summer school. I had summer school over the 2011-2012 summer and it's all a blur.
Celebrated a friend's belated birthday at Nakashima in the Rocks.




Hang out with friends and then summer school drifted to an end. My past couple of summers have been like that. Boo, summer school, boo.

FEBRUARY

I was uber jealous of friends away overseas. So jealous. So I ate my feelings.






And some stuff my friends brought back from overseas for me. So jealous.

MARCH

Arashi Wild At Heart PV leaked!



Back to uni. Final semester. And as always, good intentions never come to fruition and I was a lazy law student.

Lots of dinners out with friends. Seems our Friday Night Dinners returned for a short while.

APRIL

My birthday month! Yays!



And let's be real. I don't remember much of my birthday! Turned a quarter-century old! Eep!

MAY

Vivid Sydney this month!

JUNE

Friends came back from Taiwan to visit! Drunken night out at Kobow, as per usual. And a friend leaving to go back to Malaysia. *sadface*




And exams and family emergency trip to the hospital and getting sick before exams. I wish I wasn't sick. I was just dying through that last exam. With only one soggy tissue for the 2 hour exam. *cries*

JULY

This month was birthday outings and food and food and doing last things before people left to go to South Korea in August. Like Bondi beach.

AUGUST

The month of farewells! Everyone leaving for South Korea to teach English. And thus continued the sight seeing of Sydney. On a ferry ...



And that friend from Malaysia came back for her grad ceremony! No photo of her but look, the UNSW Library Lawn!

SEPTEMBER

Quiet month. Another month of doing nothing as I slowly looked for a placement. But a trip to the MCA and being all arty.

OCTOBER

Sugar hits at the Shangri-La! A post that got a hundreds on views on here, by the way. Ha.



And I volunteered for Pink Ribbon Day for the first time! And also did some pre-festival volunteering for the Japan Film Festival and met some really awesome people!

NOVEMBER

Finished reading The Fault In Our Stars. One of the few books I finish in 2012. Volunteered at the Japanese Film Festival and got my first work experience placement and my Ls. I felt really accomplished this month. And busy, which is good.

DECEMBER

Changed placement positions and was and am volunteering full time. I shall be done with my work experience by April. SO YAYS! ALSO, CHRISTMAS. My most favourite time of year. Listening to Christmas carols all day on my iPod.



Les Miserables premiere on Pitt Street too!



Watched Samsara, which was pretty amazing and made me want to travel the world!

Then the long, slow wait in the days between Christmas and New Year's.

And now here we are in 2013! And I finally got this rather not-quite-wordy post done!

The only New Year's Resolution I've made is basically to do what I say I'm going to do. Otherwise, it's just a waste of words, isn't it? XD

HAPPY NEW YEAR! AND YAY 2013! SUCKS TO BE YOU, MAYANS! *jks*

Le Pelican, Surry Hills

Last Thursday my friends and I headed to contemporary French Restaurant Le Pelican in Surry Hills. Though I think Surry Hills is a bit misleading XD. We GPS'd our way to it and walked the backstreets. We didn't realise that if you continued up Oxford Street for a bit and then turn right you'll find it much more easily.

There was about 30 of us. I'm guess-timating here and we had the $70 A la carte menu.

They placed a copy of the menu at every seat. Once everyone arrived the ordering process was explained. The waitress would come around to each person and take the orders for all 3 courses: Entrée, main and dessert.


Complimentary bread

Entrées

“Pâté Maison” onion jam & cornichon
Out of all of the entrees, this would have been the most filling. But I suppose, that's not what entrees are for.


Seared scallops, new season garlic, braised cos, guindilla & mullet roe
I was expecting more scallops, to be honest.

Mains

Coorong Angus onglet, potato mille-feuille & sauce vierge


House smoked Flathead pie, “lobster bisque”
This was pretty good. And rather filling. That bowl is deep. I barely finished it because I was getting pretty full.

Dessert

Soufflé "Retour du marché"
Don't let the colour trick you. It's strawberry or berry flavoured which was totally unexpected when I took a bite.


Buttermilk Vacherin, dried fruits & maple syrup
Too much crushed ANZAC biccie and not enough sorbet.


Chocolate fondant, thyme ice cream
When you open it up, chocolate gushes out. The chocolate's not too sweet but it's still good.
Overall, it was a good dining experience. The interior was very pretty. Food presentation was amazing. The food itself, wasn't as amazing as I expected for the price. But it was good and it was good to try somewhere different.

(NOTE: The names of the dishes might differ from what they are. I got the names from the online menu but it appears as though they're not exactly like the menu that we had on the night. And I didn't take a photo of the menu!)

• Find Le Pelican at Shop 2, 411 Bourke Street, Surry Hills NSW 2010. 

Day 1 of Christmas shopping

Firstly, I can't believe it's December already. This year, my gosh, went by so fast! But I say that every year.

And here's part of my tree! That's a Mickey Mouse ornament that I got from Disneyland Tokyo 3 years ago. I can't believe I haven't been back yet. Oh, I so need a job.


Despite the sweltering heat in Sydney (forecast said it would 42 degrees out where I am, car thermometer said 39 but I was in a shopping centre most of the afternoon so yeah) I ventured out into the world to get a start on Christmas. This is pretty early for me. I'm usually a late shopper. I didn't get much bought today. I'm still pondering on what the best gift is. My brother is like "Just get them photo frames! Just get them candles!" Like, how impersonal. Really. Not that they're bad gift ideas but, like, some effort would be nice. Unless you don't really care so much.

So, what I got so far for the grown ups (aunts and uncles).


- Candle gift set
- JAG wallet
- Tea cups and saucers





Tomorrow will probs be an update post about me and what's been going on. So, yeah, stay tuned for that. It will include a whole bunch of low quality camera phone photos!

#jff16 - "Tug of War!" Onitsuka goodie bag

I was going to post this earlier but then got lazy and forgot. If you're in Sydney the film Tug of War! has already been screened and viewers would have gotten their goodie bag already. If you're in Melbourne, though, Tug of War! screens on the 8th December. If you need something to persuade you to see it, besides the movie itself, every ticket holder to Tug of War! gets this goodie bag!









You get a rather large tote bag in either red or black, a wrist sweat band thing, a clicky pen (black ink), a notepad and then a bamboo media manager for putting in phones and the like I guess.

I and other volunteers who helped pack them got to take one home, so yay for that. XD

So enjoy the festival and the goodie bag!

Tees

... because it's almost summer and I have no summer clothes. And I almost always wear jeans so I need to buy some shorter pants or skirts or something.

So, yeah, t-shirts from Myer. Just an excuse for a post.





Think the yellow one was 25 bucks and the pink one 20 bucks. And somehow the nice lady at the register convinced me to get a Myer one card. It was free and I do shop there a lot at Christmas time so yay for another points card.

Yep. That is all.

A good cause

The follow-up appointment with the cardiothoracic surgeon was today. Turns out whatever it was in my dad's lung was not cancer but an abscess. (An abscess is "a collection of pus in any part of the body that, in most cases, causes swelling and inflammation around it.")

I was so relieved I wanted to cry.

In the hospital the doctor had said to my dad that it was lung cancer. At the appointment though the pathology report said that it was an abscess. After all that, it appears that my dad must have breathed in something that caused an infection. Maybe it had something to do with the pneumonia that he had in June which started this whole ball rolling.

In any case, it was not cancer but it was best to remove the abscess anyway. Somewhat related but not really, my dad has a follow-up with the GP about a cyst in his liver in December which is something not to be alarmed about I'm told.

Ever since my Aunt was diagnosed with cancer in 2004 I've become more aware of the prevalence of the disease in our society. When I was younger I thought it was something that happened to other people. However, more and more it seems that those other people are turning out to be someone you know. Just today my dad was telling me that one of our long time family friend and neighbour has cancer.

I volunteered for Pink Ribbon Day this Friday (though official day is Monday, 22nd October). I just wanted to do something. Sometimes I wish I had the brains to go into medical science but I don't so I'm going to help in any way that I can. You can still register to volunteer at http://www.pinkribbonday.com.au/volunteer.

Anyhoo, if you see the stalls around town please buy something if you can!

Or you can donate at http://www.pinkribbonday.com.au/donate-pink.


Some links for more information:

• Cancer Council Australia - http://www.cancer.org.au
• Cancer Council NSW - http://www.cancercouncil.com.au
• National Breast Cancer Foundation - http://www.nbcf.org.au
• Pink Ribbon Day - http://www.pinkribbonday.com.au

Chinta Ria - The Temple of Love

A somewhat impromptu Public Holiday Monday dinner found my friends and me at Chinta Ria, Cockle Bay Wharf. It took me a while to find the place on my own. I've never been but I've read blog posts on other blogs about it. I went up a set of escalators much too early. To find it walk all the way down Cockle Bay Wharf until you hit the escalators leading to Pyrmont Bridge. Turn around and face the city and it'll be in that area on your right, hidden behind foliage (I'm not quite sure I used that word correctly ...) That's how I got there. There is probably another, maybe even easier, way.

The first sight that hits you is the massive Buddha. It's pretty in the low light. Well, I guess it's pretty in any light.




We had a table for six. I liked the colourful, retro-looking bowls and chairs. The restaurant had low lighting and the flash on DSLR was painful for my fellow dining companions so I used it minimally. As such, photos were too dark and not bloggable.

We ordered maybe 5 dishes, I forget which ones because it was a couple of weeks ago now. But these two were my favourite.


Beef Ria - $25.30


Roti Kari - $18.70
The other dishes, that escape my memory, weren't amazing. I guess that's why I don't remember. I think it has a very cosy atmosphere. Food wise, there's probably cheaper and better Malaysian restaurants out there. It's not bad but for the price (note: I'm still looking for work so ... XD) I was expecting some more bang for my buck, so to speak.

I think I'll go back one day to try some other dishes that perhaps are particular to this restaurant, if there are any.

The Buddha though. Amazeballs.

• Find Chinta Ria - The Temple of Love at the Roof Terrace of Cockle Bay Wharf, next to the Pyrmont footbridge entrance, 201 Sussex Street Sydney 2000. 

Sugar Hit at Shangri-La Hotel

I've always heard of, but never been to, the Sugar Hit part of the Crave Sydney International Food Festival. As part of the month long food fest you can eat assorted desserts coupled with a glass of wine for $20 at selected venues.

After dinner on Monday night, at a friend's suggestion and after googling, we headed to the Lobby Lounge at the Shangri-La Hotel in Sydney.


According to the website "The Lobby Lounge offers a decadent chocolate tasting plate with an assortment of handmade chocolates infused with rose, Earl Grey, orange, lavender and Irish whisky; with a glass of Brown Brothers dessert wine."





I am not the neatest eater. I was trying to figure out how to best eat these (also, could not figure out a good way to take a photo of the whole plate). In the end I ate with my hands. I did not know a good way to eat with just that fork. Also, I do not think the flowers are edible.

My favourite in that whole platter was that little chocolate, double layer dessert on the end with the puff-looking stuff on top (awesome blogger am I XD). There was an unexpected crunch when I got to the bottom and it was amazing.

SO MUCH SUGAR.

For more info visit the Crave Sydney website: http://www.cravesydney.com/index.php

Because Topshop opens tomorrow

... which is something I had no idea about it until I walked by the as-yet-not-opened store on Monday night.




The only Topshop I've ever been to has been in Manila in the Philippines. I'm glad that Australia, and especially Sydney because I'm a Sydney-sider, is getting more international clothing stores. I'm not quite sure of the price range. Hopefully it's pretty affordable.

Also, look at the girl in the last photo just looking at me taking a photo. XD

I haven't posted in a while ...

Nothing really happening at the moment. My dad had his operation. It went well and he's recovering fast. Next doctor's appointment is on 17th October.

In the meantime here's a random photo of UNSW's main walkway at night. SO PRETTY. I MISS MY ALMA MATER. I was visiting UNSW for a friend's graduation.