Sydney trip: an overview

Yikes! I have been falling really behind in keeping this blog updated! This is because I have been spending the last few days catching up on schoolwork after returning from Sydney.

Wait... Sydney? Oh yeah, I forgot to say! I went to Sydney last Thursday (4/19) and came back this Monday (4/23). There was a Rubik's cube competition there on Saturday (the Sydney Autumn 2012), so I decided not only to attend, but to spend a few days before and after the competition exploring the city!

It was a very nice trip. Despite Easter break being over, I felt like I was on vacation! Well, actually, my Easter break didn't even feel like a vacation at all, because I was spending most of my time working on the two papers I had. But I finished them just in time for Sydney, so I didn't have to worry about schoolwork during my trip!

I think I'll break up my trip into separate entries so I don't have a super huge blog post. I'll find time to write the other entries in the next few days. For now, here's a picture!

Taking a picture with the Sydney Opera House while on a ferry!

(My camera had a total of 610 pictures of Sydney when I got back! But after removing lots of bad picture, I had 429. Not bad!)

Cooking over Easter Break!

7 April 2012 Dinner

garlic, onion, green onion, ginger, red chili pepper, red bell pepper, cabbage, 豆干/dòugān (dry tofu?), mirin

I was loosely following a recipe I found in a Chinese vegetarian cookbook. I like the nice, bright colors! (Or is that because of my camera?)


8 April 2012 Lunch

egg, onion, green onion

sweet potato, cilantro

The onion and green onion added to the fried egg was a nice touch! (Would this be considered an omelet?) So was the cilantro added to the steamed sweet potatoes! Yay for spices!

8 April 2012 Dinner

red curry paste (shallot, garlic, galangal, lime juice, lemongrass, cilantro seeds, cumin seeds, kaffir lime leaf, red chilli pepper, olive oil), coconut milk, green bean, broccoli, baby corn cob, cilantro, basil, Japanese ramen noodle (I'm typing this list from memory. I have a feeling I forgot something!)

In the morning, I decided I would try a recipe I found for "red curry with cashews" for dinner, so I went out to the Queen Victoria Market to gather all the ingredients. (I couldn't find some, so I left them out.)

The recipe didn't look so bad, at first. But making it took forever! First, I had to make the red curry paste, which involved a lot of chopping. Then I had to do more chopping. And I cooked some Japanese ramen noodles on the side while doing all the other preparation. This was a bad idea because I couldn't keep track of everything.

Finally, I had everything ready for stir-frying except the coconut milk. So I took the can of coconut milk and a can opener, and proceeded to open the can. Except I couldn't figure out how to use the can opener! After 10 or so minutes, I realized I was working with the wrong end of the can. So I turned the can upside down and spent another 5 minutes before I figured out the proper angle to hold the can opener. Sigh...

But everything worked out after that! And I think it turned out well! There were so many different flavors coming from all those ingredients!

Making the dish took me well over 2 hours! I was super exhausted by the end. I think I need a break from trying out new dishes. Especially if they are all this tiring!

9 April 2012 Dinner

garlic, green onion, broccoli stalk, carrot, dou gan, cabbage, basil, egg

Like I said yesterday, I needed a break after that super complicated recipe. Nothing exciting tonight. I'm just trying to get clear out the refrigerator.

10 April 2012 Dinner

I'm still in the process of clearing out the refrigerator! I was thinking earlier about what I could do with all the vegetables, and one thing I thought of was: pasta! Except I didn't want to use pre-made tomato sauce, so I attempted to make my own sauce with absolutely no idea how to proceed. What I ended up doing was using a can of tomato paste. The result was nice, but nothing like tomato sauce that I am used to.

12 April 2012 Dinner

More tomatoes! This time, I used a can of diced tomatoes instead. And I added a bunch of spices in an attempt to make a tomato and egg curry.

15 April 2012 Lunch

Before break started, I was looking online one day for ideas with fried rice, and found one that used pineapple! When I saw the pictures, I knew I had to try something like that, so I'm glad I was able to get to it on the last day of my break.

I even did the whole pineapple-bowl thing, which was lots of fun!

The dish turned out super sweet!

15 April 2012 Dinner

Some fried quinoa here. Nothing super exciting really; I'm just trying to clear out the refrigerator some more. I had some leftover "red curry paste" (in quotes, because I don't think it turned out correctly!) which I had made for an earlier dish, so I decided to throw some of that in.

And that ends my Easter break cooking spree. I wish the ending was a bit more exciting.

End of Easter break already?

I can't believe it's already Sunday night (9:50pm local time). How did my Easter break pass by so quickly? Did I even get anything done?

Looking back at the past week, I've spent a lot of time at the university library working on two papers, one due this Wednesday and the other due next Monday. That was not so exciting. And this is my first time writing a university-level history paper and a philosophy paper (at any level!), so I experienced a lot more frustration and confusion than I would have liked.

Other than passing hours in the library, I did spend some time outside enjoying the nice weather... when there actually was nice weather! The first few days and last few days were all sunny and warm. However, in the middle, it became super super freezing, and it rained for a few days. The break started off feeling like summer, then all of sudden it became winter, and now it's summer again. But it's actually supposed to be fall now! Melbourne weather sure is crazy!

I did spend Saturday afternoon at the Melbourne Central food court hanging out with some other cubers!

Everyone sure looks happy! (I took the picture after most cubers left. There were a lot more cubers there than this!)

Oooh, I also did a lot of cooking! But I should probably save that for another entry. (Coming soon! Except I should work on my papers...)

More cooking!

Thanks for everyone's support on my first blog entry on cooking! It's really encouraging! Here are some more pictures of dishes I came up with, mostly by mixing random things together. Hopefully I'm getting better?

Now that I am on Easter break, I plan to spend more time cooking and learning how spices and sauces and seasoning and everything else works, so that I won't have plain vegetables all the time. So maybe the next cooking entry will be better. (Or maybe not!)

24 March 2012 

Butternut squash! (Or here, they call it "butternut pumpkin.") I had never tried this until I went to Princeton, and I loved it so much that when I saw it at Costco back home, I asked my mom to buy some!

25 March 2012 Lunch

Butternut squash noodle soup! With an egg added! I think I am getting better at varying things!

25 March 2012 Dinner

Between lunch and dinner, I biked to the Queen Victoria Market, and bought some fruits and vegetables. Among other things, I bought some cabbage and sweet potatoes!

31 March 2012 Lunch

I only used half of the sweet potatoes the previous time, so I tried to steam the rest. First time using a steamer!

31 March 2012 Dinner

I visited an Asian supermarket between lunch and dinner, and saw Japanese ramen noodles with "great for stir-fry" on the packaging. How could I not buy that? I mixed the noodles with celery, red bell pepper (or "red capsicum" as it's called here), carrots, mushrooms, and... what is all that tiny mushy white stuff? Tofu! I didn't intend for it to become like that, but I liked how it turned out!

1 April 2012 Lunch 

Fried rice! (Except it's kind of moist.) And I used up the remaining tofu. Not surprisingly, it ended up in the same condition as the previous time.

3 April 2012

Quinoa with some vegetables!

5 April 2012

I decided to try cooking some sweet potato in the same pot as the rice. I think it turned out nicely! I also tried to fry an egg, and it mostly stayed in one piece! (It was very dry though.)

6 April 2012

I used the same cabbage from a few days ago! And there's still a bunch remaining. Ahh! I'll be eating lots of cabbage in the next few days! (And I only bought a quarter of a cabbage too!)

Also, I don't know if they're very visible, but I started off cooking with some cumin seeds! Trying to spice things up, literally! The seeds starting popping up from the pan like firecrackers, which kind of scared me, but I learned that it's actually normal for that happen.

Good Friday!

Wow! I'm surprised that I "survived" Good Friday! Here in Melbourne, nearly everything was closed! My parents were surprised when I told them that, and people here are surprised when I tell that Good Friday isn't that big in America.

Anyways, I'm on Easter break! Today was the first day, and I have the entire next week off! I can see myself doing a bunch of work on assignments due right after break. I guess that is part of university life...

But I'm also planning to spend more time cooking, so that all my dishes don't look the same. Which reminds me, I have plenty new cooking pictures that I need to put up!

Since everything was closed today, I spent some time at a park doing some reading for my ethical theory class. I also decided to go for a run. I ran down Smith Street and up Brunswick Street, two big shopping centers in the area, and saw for myself that everything was closed. Well, everything except for a few restaurants, bars, small grocery stores, and... a bookstore!

Yesterday, while I was on campus, there were some Easter-related events.

Some of Melbourne Uni's Christian clubs were giving out hot cross buns. I had no idea what they were until yesterday! I thought "hot cross buns" was just a song! But now I know that people eat these on Good Friday. Except I'm still not quite sure why...

They had boxes and boxes of these!

Also, the Student Union Environment Department (the word "department" is used differently here), organized an Easter egg hunt, with "Easter egg" replaced by "water fountain"! They gave out a list of questions, and we went around campus looking for all the different water fountains, which contained the answers to the questions! The message that the Environment Department was trying to tell us was: bottled water is bad bad bad. In the end, I got a chocolate egg and a water bottle. Yay, environmental awareness!

Here's me with Ruthi, one of the leaders of the Environment Department.

After the MUOSS Night Market...

As nice as the Night Market was, I don't think I'll remember the market itself as much as the little mis-adventure that happened afterwards. I should provide some background information. The night market started around 6pm, and I went there with Tommy, who I met from Melbourne Welcome, and some of his friends. Tommy lives in Trinity College, one of the residential colleges on campus. Before we all headed over to the market, he let me leave my backpack in his room. I didn't want to carry my big backpack around the market since I expected it to be very crowded.

And the market was indeed very crowded. We went around checking all the stalls together, but during one of the times that I was being silly and taking a picture, the others disappeared! Luckily, I ran into them some time later around the Indonesian booth. But then we decided to split off to buy different things.

After I finished eating the two things that I bought, it was already 7:30. I started to look for the others. Not only did I want to find them, I had to, since my backpack was in Tommy's room. I went around the booths once. No sign. I went around again. Still nothing. So I went around and around and in different directions. After the sun went down, it became extremely hard to identify people, even those that were right next to me. But I kept on searching. After 30 minutes or so, I started to become really worried. This was not looking good!

If you're wondering why I didn't just call them, it's because... well, I left my phone in my backpack, which I left in Tommy's room! Argh!! I felt so so so stupid for doing that. Why couldn't I just carry my phone around with me like most people?

As time passed, I felt less and less likely to find them at the market. But eventually I gave up. I thought of two things I could do: I could try to contact Tommy through the internet, or I could go look for Tommy at Trinity.

So I ran (literally!) to the library to try to contact Tommy through the internet. That was unsuccessful. I was tired from running, so I walked over to Trinity. Once I was inside, I started looking for people, so I could ask them "Do you know a Tommy?". Normally, I would not feel comfortable going around doing something like this, but I was super desperate! It was late and there weren't many people outside. The first person I asked didn't know Tommy, but he was nice and took me into the building to his room. Tommy wasn't inside.

There was no one else around outside. I walked around the area, looking inside buildings for people to ask. Then I ran into two girls on their way to the library in Trinity.

"Excuse me, do you know a Tommy?"
"Tommy Chiu?"
"YES!!!!! Would you happen to have his number?"
"Yeah."

Wow! I could not believe how lucky I was! During this time, they seemed pretty amused, and they explained to me why: When they first saw me approaching them, they thought I was Tommy! (Apparently, we look alike?) But when I started talking, it became obvious that I wasn't Tommy. But I asked about Tommy!

Anyways, we called Tommy. I had been worried that he had also been looking for me all this time. (If he had been looking for me, I would have felt that I was wasting his time.) But it turned out that he had been watching the performances. (I had gone over and checked the audience so many times! How did I miss him?) He came over to Trinity, and everything was good again!

That was a tiring night, so after picking up my backpack, and apologizing over and over again, I went straight home and showered and went to bed.

Unfortunately, I didn't take any pictures during that time. Not surprisingly, I wasn't quite in the mood for pictures when I was panicking at the market. In the future, if something similar happens, I need to tell myself "Don't worry! You'll get through this! And you should take some pictures right now in case this ends up being worth writing about!"

Well, here's a picture. It's of me and Tommy at the formal dinner at Melbourne Welcome. Do we really look the same?

Two events by the Melbourne University Overseas Student Service

This week, the Melbourne University Overseas Student Service (MUOSS) hosted two events on campus. The first one was the Student Experience Fair on Tuesday, and the second was the Night Market on Thursday.

The main goal of the fair was to let students know of the different services offered by the university.

There were booths set up by the different departments.

Hmm... I wonder what this long line is for.

Aha! They're giving out free twist potatoes! (Remember these from the Suzuki Night Market?)

Free Red Bull! But I didn't take any because energy drinks scare me

There was also free cotton candy! (An Australian would actually call it "fairy floss"!)

No, I did not stand in line to consume all that sugar! I went to the front of the line, and asked the person making them and to let me take a picture with one. Then I handed the fairy floss off to the student at the front of the line, who probably thought I was crazy.

Anyways, Thursday night was the Night Market. A lot of the student clubs performed and others sold food! There was a nice variety of cultures represented!

Here's the banner in front of all the tents!

So many food booths and so many people!

Taiwanese Student Association!

I think my picture with the Korean booth turned out well!

As you can see by this example (Vietnam), pretty much everything at the market has meet in it. Hmmm...

The Indonesian club had something vegetarian though!

Tahu isi - fried tofu stuffed with vegetables!

Yikes! Here's the wrapper after I finished eating the tofu. I'm not sure why I am smiling...

So much deep frying was going on at the night market! But look! What's inside that pot?

Herbal tea egg! (cha ye dan)

Performances lasted throughout the night.

I ended up only getting the tofu and the egg at the Night Market. There simply wasn't many vegetarian options available. But also, watching the clubs prepare the food also scared me a bit. Maybe watching something being deep fried can make certain people really hungry, but it has the opposite effect for me. Also, I was about to get a cup of sweet potato and tangyuan soup, until I watched the people put a huge block of sugar into the pot. Ahh!

I still had a lot of fun walking around and exploring though! But actually, it turns out the most exciting part of the night wasn't everything I've just shown. I don't think it's fitting to talk about that here, at the end of this entry, so time for another post!