Initial attempts at cooking

When I was sorting out my living arrangements for this semester, I ended up making the fateful decision to cook for myself, despite having no experience with cooking.

My very first attempt at cooking something on a stove here was an "egg with tomato" dish. Originally, I wanted the egg to be in one piece, but it just kept breaking apart. (I probably shouldn't have prodded it so much with the spatula.) In the end it was a big mess, consisting of tiny chunks of tomato mixed with even smaller pieces of egg. And I didn't know how to tell when the egg was done. I was well aware that it was not a good idea to eat raw eggs, so I probably overcooked the egg by a lot.

When I first came here, I did have the idea of taking a picture of everything that I cook, but I was feeling so discouraged and embarrassed after this first attempt that I didn't take a picture. (I didn't even mention what had happened to me before I even started cooking: while lighting the gas stove with a match, I burnt my thumb nail!) I didn't take pictures of the next few dishes either, which consisted mostly of stir-fry vegetables. Not taking pictures of any of these is quite a regrettable decision.

Here are the pictures that I do have. Before moving on to them, I should give a warning: When people usually write about food and include photos, those photos probably contain food that looks super delicious. But when you see these, I highly doubt you will think "Wow! I wish I could try that!" (But maybe my photos will for some people! I'll keep my fingers crossed!)

I should also talk about how these dishes ended up tasting. Being the overly health conscious person that I am, I didn't add any salt, pepper, spices, or other seasoning to these dishes. People might say that these dishes have no taste, which confuses me a little. Don't vegetables have taste on their own?

4 March 2012

Here were some vegetables with a little bit of lentils on the side. I don't know what I did, but the lentils turned into mush!

10 March 2012

Some more vegetables, but with rice this time. I started with around half a cup of uncooked rice. I didn't know it would turn into this much!


11 March 2012

Cooking with tofu for the first time! (I got it at a local health food store. There's no Asian supermarket within walking distance.) I didn't end up with too much rice this time!

14 March 2012

Ever since I became acquainted with tempeh at Princeton, I've always been fascinated with it for some reason. I could never find it at any of the supermarkets back in California, but I found it here at the health food store. Cooking with  baby bok choy makes me feel Asian!

15 March 2012

I was finishing up the rest of the tempeh. I also cut up an entire eggplant, so I ended up with more than I could eat in one meal. (Note the pot to the left of the pan. I was using it to cook the rice. I always add too much water to the rice, which I have to pour out at the end. It's better than not adding enough water though.)

17 March 2012

I took the leftovers from the previous photo and made a noodle soup. My mom did this so often back home, and I always loved how the noodle soups turned out. So I knew I had to try that here! And I liked it, so now I know what to do with leftovers! (I got the noodles at an Asian supermarket I found during my exploration of the city centre.)

18 March 2012

Here, I tried to cook with a type of tofu called dou gan. It's drier than regular tofu. I like how the carrots make this dish look brighter and more colorful!

20 March 2012

Surprise! Leftovers turned into noodle soup!

A visit to the city centre

(Warning: This is a very long post with a lot of silly pictures!)

I can't believe that I've completed three weeks of classes already. Time here sure is passing by quickly! I probably should write about how things are going at the university, but that will have to be put aside for another blog. Right now, I want to talk about the stuff that happened today (Saturday, 17 March 2012).

Hmm... so where to begin. I got up around 5:30am today, probably because I needed to use the toilet. (I've been getting used to saying "use the toilet" here instead of "use the bathroom"!) Naturally, I tried to go back to sleep. (Even though I do tend to get up early, I don't usually get up that early.) I couldn't fall asleep though. My brain just kept drifting through different thoughts. At some point, I was thinking about a math problem posed by the Maths and Stats Society at Melbourne Uni that I had been stuck on. And somehow I solved it! I guess my brain didn't want to go to sleep. It wanted to solve math problems...

Sorry, I thought that was kind of interesting to share. I'm not going to go into so much detail in the rest of this entry. I'll focus on the afternoon, when I decided to go and explore the city centre, also known as "the CBD" ("central business district").

It was a nice and sunny Saturday, which made it the perfect time to walk around. There have been some places in the CBD that I wanted to visit for some time now, so why not today? I made up my mind and left to house to do some exploring!

But wait! I said it was "a nice and sunny Saturday." This meant I should use some sun protection first!

Sunscreen, sunglasses, and a hat!

I live in Collingwood, which is an inner city suburb. There's a tram stop about five minutes away from where I'm staying that goes straight into the city centre!

When I got to the tram stop, the tram had just arrived, so I quickly hopped on. I wanted to take a picture of the tram arriving, but it would become a picture of the tram leaving me stranded!

I made it just in time!

20 minutes later, I got off at a stop inside the CBD. (I know the time it took because of the timestamps on my photos!)

Without having to walk very far, I came across some people pretending to be statues.

This reminds me of when I was in the Boston Commons!

Stop 1: David Jones

My first destination was a place called David Jones. I heard that there was an section with American products, so I went to see what they had in stock! (I wonder if homesick Americans go there!)

You could not miss the place! It was a huge department store!

I found some American Cheerios!

What?!?! Does it really cost $16.95?

There are in fact Cheerios in regular Australian stores (although they're packaging looks different). If they wanted to sell breakfast cereal at crazy prices, shouldn't they choose ones that didn't exist in Australia? One example is Rice Chex. As anyone in the "Princeton morning breakfast group" can guess, I've been missing Rice Chex so much since I came here!

But as it turns out, David Jones only stocked Cheerios!

No Rice Chex in sight!

Off I went, kind of confused. Along the way to my next destination, I passed by the Vietnamese restaurant I went to on my first day here, so I had to stop for a picture!

Here's the restaurant I went to on my first day! (I have a short blog post about that day.)

Stop 2: QV

My next stop was the QV Villiage, which is a mall. I didn't have anything I wanted to see in particular, so I just walked around.

Here was the entrance that I went through.

In Australia, bubble tea (or "boba" or "pearl milk tea") is called "bubble cup"!

There's Tutti Frutti in Australia too! (I went to one in the U.S. during my time in Berkeley a few months ago!) It's a little more expensive here though.

I also stopped by the supermarket in the QV to get a picture with regular Australian Cheerios. One box is $7.94 (which is still a lot, but way cheaper than the other one).

At that point, I probably spent enough time in the mall, so I left.

Stop 3: Mind Games

I made my way to a board game/card game/puzzle store called "Mind Games" that Tim told me about during my first RMIT Cube Club meeting.

Store entrance! (Note the trefoil!)

The store might not look very big on the outside, but the store goes very far in, and there's a second floor!

Everywhere in the store is just packed with games!

Set! I haven't played that in a while!

Look at all those cubes! (And non-cube-shaped puzzles!)

After some browsing, I headed for my last stop - an Asian supermarket. My plan was to buy some Asian groceries and then head back home. (Until this point, I had not bought anything from an Asian supermarket yet!)

To get to the place, I passed through Chinatown!

 Stop 4: Great Eastern

I made it!

Like Mind Games, this store didn't look very big from the outside, but one you go in, it's enormous!

There were so many aisles of products!

I don't know what inspired me to get a picture with ramen. I didn't actually buy any.

After taking enough pictures, I decided to get a basket and actually buy stuff. I got some noodles, some mian-jin (fried wheat gluten), some tofu, and some bean sprouts. Time for my food to start tasting more Asian! Here's a picture of everything I bought:

(Since this picture was taken after I got home, it's way out of sequence. I don't know why it bothers me a little. Maybe because it ruins the flow of this blog post.)

Homeward bound!

At the tram stop, with my groceries!

I wanted to get a shot of me with the tram arriving. I can't say it turned out very well. (I only had one try!)

Here's me getting off and the tram leaving, 20 minutes later!

When I got back I decided to make dinner! I had some leftover vegetables in the refrigerator, so I mixed them with the noodles and bean sprouts to make a soup.

Here was the result!

Bon appétit?

I thought it turned out well, but I'm sure most people would say that my noodle soup has no taste. I didn't add salt or anything else to give the vegetables or the soup flavor. But that's because I'm a little too worried about having too much sodium. Oh well...

It has occurred to me that I should probably write a blog entry about my attempts at cooking! That would be pretty fun (and painful) to write! But that will have to be for another day.

Anyways, this is where my mini-adventure of the day ends. I'll stop with all the silly photos for now. (I had much more that I didn't put on here!) It's 10pm, so time for bed!

A bit of homesickness

Last night, around 8:30pm, the full moon was so big and bright. It was a really beautiful sight, and I was reminded of Li Bai's "Jing Ye Si" ("Quiet Night Thoughts"). Then all of a sudden, tears started to flow... We had to memorize this poem back in Chinese school around 4th grade, but it took me 10 whole years to begin to appreciate what Li Bai was saying.

I am definitely not an expert in Chinese poetry, but from my understanding, the moon is a symbol of family -- no matter how far you are from your family, everyone sees the same moon up in the night sky. The moon has an important role not just in Li Bai's poem, but many other ones (such as Shui Diao Ge Tou, by Su Shi).

I talked to my family over the internet and told them how I was reminded of the poem, and I started crying again. And now, as I am currently writing this, I feel a little saddened yet again. I have tried to tell myself that this feeling will eventually pass, but that doesn't really make me feel much better.

I wonder if Li Bai felt a lot more homesick than I do now. At least I have the internet, so if I want to see my family (over the computer screen), it is not a problem at all. But I find it amazing that this poem, written over a thousand years ago, still moves people today.

Presenting the RMIT Speedcubers Team!

Last night, I went with three other members of the RMIT Cube Club (Andrea, Luke, and Tim) to a pub called "The Brunswick Green" to perform in a variety show called "The Variety Collective." There were also comedians and magicians and other performers. (This included some people that weren't well-known to me but were to everyone else.)

Nick, the host, introduced us as "The RMIT Speedcubers Team." Now doesn't that sound intimidating! When it was our turn, the four of us went up and solved the Rubik's cube one at a time. The lights were really blinding up on the stage, so I think we didn't do as well as we could have. (Also, we didn't get to pre-inspect the cube.) But that doesn't matter. The audience was impressed and entertained. (I hope!)

Nick was really good at introducing us individually as we were solving the cube. I learned quite a few things about myself. Even though I'm called Alan, my real name is "GAP," and I sponsor a particular clothing company!

Tim and I "competed" against each other in the final round. The audience took sides and started cheering. So is this what it feels like to be a wrestler? I won by a little, and that concluded our performance.

After the show ended, we took some pictures and chatted with the people at the event.

Then the other three became hungry so we went to find a place to eat. It turns out that a little down the road, there was a McDonalds that was open 24/7. And with that... I found myself walking into a McDonalds! Oh no!

Here were pictures from the night. As much fun as I had taking these pictures, I think Andrew, Luke, and Tim had more fun being in them!

We found the place, and we found parking!

Here's a picture of me standing in front of the entrance. Oh, what's happening over there?

Inside the pub. This is what you would see if you were looking in from the outside.

Here's the section of the pub set aside for the performances. When I took this picture, the show had not started you, but look at all the people!

Group picture with Nick, our host, after the show.

Picture with Lawrence Leung!

Noooo!!!

What is McDonalds doing open at 11pm?

I didn't get anything, but I watched the other three happily eat their food.

Visiting the Night Market

A few weeks ago, during the Melbourne Welcome orientation program, we visited the Queen Victoria Market during the day. (There a picture of me tasting wine at the market in an earlier post.)

During the summer Wednesday nights, the market is also open, but has a very different feel from the market during the day. Some of my friends from Melbourne Welcome decided to go to the market yesterday, and I went along with them to check it out. It was exciting seeing so many Melbournians and visitors gathered together in one place! There was so much going on!

Immediately when we arrived, we saw performances everywhere!

The market was so crowded!

So many food stands! Because of all the people, walking around and checking out what's available took a long time!

Wow! Look at those gigantic pans cooking fideuà! (Fideuà is like paelle but it uses noodles instead.)

Everything looked great, but I think my mind was set on the fideuà once I saw it!

Here was something of interest. They used machine to cut up a potatoes into spirals, without separating them into pieces. Then they deep fried these potatoes.

Here's the result! I saw so many people with these around the market. (But I didn't get one.)

Unfortunately, this is the last night market of this summer. The next one will take place at the start of the next summer near the end of 2012. Oh well, I guess this means I have to move on and explore other things! I'm glad I got the chance to see this before it ended though.