Emo Post

I rarely write anything depressing in nature (I do, however, frequently like to rant about things and write things of a negatice nature, but depressing is more like 1 in every 20 posts) but today is just one of those days when I just feel sad – but it’s not just today though, it’s a continuation from yesterday.

There are several things that can put me in a bad mood, and one thing is wasting time – if I feel like something stupid which shouldn’t have happened wasted my time meaning that I could miss my bus and be late for work, I will be extremely grumpy. Another thing that can instantly put me in a bad mood is remembering or noticing something that triggers bad memories when it’s totally uncalled for.

I don’t deny it – I do what other people do, I avoid things that make me unhappy. If it’s within sight and it annoys me, I will remove it. It’s that simple.

Everyone has been recalling stories about when they were 24 years old (the supposed “bad luck” year) and they told me stories about how they were just really really upset and depressed the whole year. I’m generally not that superstitious so I really hope that this isn’t the case for me this year – but unfortunately I’m starting to feel it. I feel really alone for the first time in years. After a disaster of a break up, I was a complete wreck and I was luckily pulled up by my friends. I thought to myself, I could make do without a relationship if I had awesome friends around me. For now, I really do feel that my friends are slowly drifting – and it’s not necessarily my fault, though it feels like it – in the respect that it makes you ask yourself “what went wrong? What did I do for this to happen?” It could just very well be that they have their own lives and they’re just busy with whatever they’re doing… but as we all know, we don’t quite think so logically like that.

I’m not really a positive person either – I tend to look on the darker side of things because I think I just have the worst luck when it comes to things people find ordinary in their every day lives… it’s my way to deal with disappointment because if I don’t expect something good, I won’t be disappointed. Every time I try to be positive, I find that I’m disappointed – I’m not sure if it’s because I’m just way too optimistic at the wrong time, or if I’m just asking for too much. Am I asking for too much? I don’t know, a lot of the time I really don’t think that I’m asking all that much… but when people treat me in a way like “U MAD?”, I start to question myself and the self-blaming game restarts itself all over.

I really try to be confident, but I can’t. I really want to move on and be a better person, but I can’t. I just find it so hard to just be myself and yet have people accept me for the way I am… it’s really tiring because most of the time I’m the one who gets disappointed the most. I’m the one who apologises even when I’m not wrong. I’m the one who is left behind even though all I ever did was just look out for people I care about, even if it was in a strict way.

All I can really say is that at the moment I’m really stressed and I’m not all that happy. Yes, I do have feelings, and although I might appear to be really tough on the outside, I’m the one who gets hurt the most. I don’t really have anyone to turn to these days to talk about things because people these days don’t really listen. For now I just hope that when this post ends, I can then continue on with my every day routines, cry my heart out, get some rest and hope that my unhappiness ends at midnight and tomorrow is a brand new day.

Melbourne 2012 Day 2

Triim Food & Drink

Hardware Lane Melbourne Victoria (Open 9:23)

Because of my upset stomach from the previous night (because I ate a ridiculously light lunch and left dinner too late), we made it a mission to go find a hot and filling breakfast. We walked a very very long way to find a cafe that we thought looked decent – we walked so much we realised that nothing was really open at around 9:30am in the morning =_= We basically wandered around the city centre, crossed the road whenever we saw a ramen sign, but found they didn’t open for breakfast. We went in the opposite direction to Flinders St station which was where we needed to be for our next stop – even climbed slopes – then we stumbled across Hardware Lane. There were 3 cafes, but we picked one randomly.

Vegetable and poached egg $10.50

This was my friend’s breakfast – it was supposed to come with 2 eggs only but she ended up with 3 because I was the one who ordered an extra egg – not with my meal, but as a separate thing. So this egg on her meal was free lol.

Strawberry and vanilla ice cream pancakes $10 ($7 after discount as I ordered a tea, plus $2 for an egg)

This was my breakfast and it was quite satisfying. My extra egg came poached but I didn’t get a picture of it.

Earl Grey Tea and Cammomile Tea – $4.50 ea

I ordered a Cammomile tea as I expected it to be gentle on the stomach.

Overall it was a really satisfying breakfast. The bill came to $28.50 which is pretty standard. The staff were pretty friendly and food came pretty fast. It was a nice atmosphere – not bad to visit. They open at around 9:30am so that’s a plus.

Federation Square

We had to walk about 10-15 minutes to get to Federation Square. The reason we headed there was because we needed to get to Flinders St station, and my friend actually didn’t get to visit Federation Square last time she came… so here it was.

We actually came here because the toilets here were a lot cleaner than say, a station toilet.

Melbourne Visitor Centre – there were a lot of people inside there – we wanted info on how to get to Chadstone, but when we got down there we actually had to take a ticket and wait for our number to be called – just to ask a question! Well, we just took some maps and left…

Flinders Street Station! I think this station is butt ugly compared to Southern Cross (which I didn’t get to take a photo of, but it was really nice since it was newly renovated and feels like an airport in disguise). It’s kinda nice in the respect that it’s well preserved though – but I really think the colour scheme is really tacky. Eurgh, just google pics or visit it – you’ll probably know what I mean.

We decided to take a train to… I forgot what station. The one after Oakleigh… I think. Waiting for a train takes forever. But unfortunately I didn’t know back then that I could have taken a tram to Oakleigh, then hop on a bus to Chadstone… either way it seemed too complicated. The Chadstone website also said it was a 10 minute walk from the station… so I took its word.

The trains are really different to the ones in Sydney in the respect that there are no partitions between carriages, and you need to push the door button for it to actually open to board and get off the train. The seats aren’t all that clean, but there are very few people on the trains. We took trains I think 3-4 times that day and we got our tickets checked twice in the same day,  by the same ticket inspectors. Seriously, if you catch trams or trains in Melbourne, buy tickets. We did that and we were safe.

Chadstone shopping centre – just a really bigass shopping centre you can easily get lost in and takes forever to finish walking

The Chadstone website kinda lied because it took us probably 20 minutes to walk to the shopping centre and it was like “are we there yet….” the whole way there. We just basically walked past a lot of large houses with really ugly front walls to make their properties look like fortresses.

Anyway, we finally got there and the first stop was David Jones since that was how we entered – through there. I then spotted Prada, which was super elusive since the day before. I wanted to get a keyholder, and my friend was after a phone case – to my disappointment, there was only one keyholder left, which was the display model. Even worse still, there was a black mark on the gold metalware – mind you this is NOT normal by my standards… so I had to give it a miss. It was also $280, which was NOT what I was expecting to pay since the price was only like $230USD or something on the international website.Prada, why are you so expensive in Australia?If that keyholder was $250 (similar price to Miu Miu), fair enough, but $280?~ U MAD?

Either way, my friend got her phone case and even got a new wallet too, so that was good for her.

We then split up to visit different stores and decided to meet again at 2 to have lunch.

We had lunch here at Dumplings Plus – this place goes by the same name as the one on Swanston Street so I’m assuming it’s the same famous dumplings place. Only this was super takeaway style as it was in a foodcourt.

I ordered a chicken noodle soup (background), we shared xiao long bao (wooden crate in centre) and my friend a beef pho (foreground).

I was fairly satisfied with my noodles, and the xiao long baos were okay, just a bit dry as these didn’t have any soup in them. According to my friend the beef pho was awful – I guess that’s probably a good hint to not get Vietnamese cuisine from a place specialising in Chinese food. But if you look closely, the beef in the beef pho isn’t that thinly sliced beef you usually get when you order a beef pho – so… eurgh. Either way, I was super full from eating it and really, my noodles were pretty good.

After Chadstone, we went back to the hotel (this time we caught a bus to Oakleigh, waited ages for a train… got off at Flinders… realised we could get off at Southern Cross and hopped back on immediately – then trammed it back).

We then took the number 8 tram to get to Chapel St, South Yarra. There we visited Topshop and a few other shops – I have photos but I’m too lazy to post them up. Let’s say that Chapel Street on a Friday night (it’s supposedly Friday night shopping which means shops close at 9pm) were dead quiet. Topshop was OK busy, but the other stores were like… whoa.

I really wanted to visit more shops alongn Chapel Street because I keep hearing about massive bargains…  but a lot of shops weren’t open (it was only like 6ish then) and I didn’t know which shops they were. We ended up just tramming it back to visit Eureka Skydeck.

We didn’t know the exact address of Eureka Skydeck, so we actually looked up to the skyline and tried to get there by walking towards it LOL.

Well, it worked because we managed to find it just by spotting the building in the sky. Eureka Skydeck is a popular tourist destination and is the tallest building in Melbourne.

Pretty tall.

To get up there, you need to buy tickets – it’s around $17.50 for an adult. At Southern Cross Station we picked up a Melbourne’s Visitor Guide which coupons inside – there was a coupon inside for 10% off entry tickets to Eureka Skydeck… so we used it. Didn’t take much off the ticket obviously, but we saw massive families (like 6-8 people!) so that coupon would have been great for them. Get the coupon, money is money.

Well, the level we needed to get to was level 88 – the lift is super fast and it takes about 30 seconds or less to get up 88 floors! Literally could feel the wind and my body felt like it was hovering slightly because we were going so fast. Pretty cool.

When you get up there, you get 360 degree views of Melbourne – such as this:

We took photos from everywhere, but there were a lot of people up there. We tried to take a photo together and that kinda failed as well lol. Well, anyway, the whole point of us going to Eureka Skydeck 88 was to watch the sunset… we got there at around 8pm, actually.

A shot I managed to take of the setting sun.

Melbourne’s skyline is really different to Sydney’s skyline. Everything is a lot flatter and it’s really calm in a way. Lol at the Topshop bag in the reflection >_>

… as you can gather, we waited until about 8:30pm or even perhaps later… but the damn sun wouldn’t set!!

We pretty much gave up waiting for the sun to set, because it wasn’t happening. We expected a really pretty red sunset with a huge yellow egg yolk in the sky… but we didn’t see anything like that. To be honest, it was kinda boring up there, but it was good as a touristy thing to do – and we did it.

On the way back to the hotel, we figured that it was probably too late to eat dinner at around 9pm since probably most stuff is (again) closed – so we ended up buying dinner from Coles Supermarket ;A;

The lunch we had this time around was so filling we just opted buying a salad and microwaveable soup as well as a dessert for dinner.

I also lugged this ridiculous 4L bottle of water all the way back to the hotel because we were dehydrated and didn’t have enough water to drink…. unfortunately… 4L was too much D:

I chucked my dessert into the mini freezer since I was too full to have dessert after my “dinner” – but the next day when I got it out, only half of it was still frozen, the other half was melted because it wasn’t touching the frost Dx Eurgh – that was a waste of food

Anyway, here is a picture of some stuff I bought during the day to finish this post off -

This is what $68 worth of chocolate looks like.

Koko Black is a chocolate shop/ cafe which is only Melbourne based – last time I came I didn’t bother with the chocolate because I thought it was freaking expensive… this time round I still think it’s freaking expensive… I mean the cheapest is like $3.50 for a small block of chocolate…

I’m not really a fan of chocolate to be honest, so to me, all of this is pretty useless. It’s stuff I won’t really eat… it’s more to give away really. (I ended up buying more the next day =_=)

Well, I figured since it was only available in Melbourne and people made it sound like their chocolate was made out of unicorn hair so I decided to give it a try. My verdict is that it’s not that bad – but you have to be careful and check the expiry date. Also, 34% cocoa is milk chocolate… anything more than that is already dark chocolate… so I ended up with a crapload of dark chocolate which I probably won’t eat. Gotta find someone to give these away to… >_>

Stuff from L’Occitane. There was a sale and I grabbed a shampoo/body wash made out of royal jelly, as well as a hair treatment spray for $32 – both were half price. It was a pretty good deal considering that usually they’re pretty expensive, but the sales on Chapel Street was super friendly and she even gave us some samples to take away. I am currently really digging these products because it makes my hair actually feel healthy and I think I’m shedding less hair, which is pretty good.

Overall Day 2 was a really long day, but we did a lot – we went to 3 places which was pretty demanding as a schedule. We were meant to go to Eureka Skydeck on Day 1, and we were going to abandon the idea, but we managed to make it there anyway, so that was pretty good.

I’ll probably blog about Day 3 next week – until then, everyone stay healthy and strong – I’ve been in a good mood lately and I’d like to share that with everyone Have a good day or night wherever you are!

Melbourne 2012 Day 1

Lol, this is a super delayed post but I got here finally because I have photos!

What happened was that I brought my camera to Melbourne… but didn’t realise until I went though customs that I forgot to replace my battery in after I charged it. So I brought a camera… that couldn’t be used >_>

I decided to go on a trip with uni friend A – she had annual leave, and I still have a zillion days left to take - I took the rare opportunity to take just a few days off (it was only like 3 days) to go on a mini trip interstate. Well, in that case, it means I didn’t actually fulfill my resolution in 2011 since I went to Melbourne in January 2012, but I guess it’s close enough since I went on the 5th January, just after the new year.

We did a lot of research into which hotel to book, and what to do when we got there. I went to Melbourne in I think 2010 and it was too short of a trip to have done all the shopping I wished I was able to do! I kept hearing stuff from my colleague about awesome deals but I didn’t really encounter many – this time I was determined to snag some great deals. In fact, the whole point of this trip was to destress and spend money shopping – that was all, LOL.

I seriously already planned where to go, how long it’d take us to get there, how long we’d spend at the place and how we would get there. I had to organise it because we had a fairly tight schedule, and I really didn’t know my way around Melbourne, despite being there before. I really really was terrible with directions the last time, because I didn’t need to know – there was always someone else who knew the way, and I couldn’t figure out which street was which since they looked so familiar.

All photos were either taken by me or my friend – credits to whoever took em, she shouldn’t mind

We flew Tiger Airways, and it wasn’t that bad. It was the cheapest air ticket we found (JetStar came a close second), but it was still kinda pricey at $95 one way, $191 return. It could have been cheaper, but that price included travel insurance, and 20kg checked-in baggage TO and FROM Melbourne (we should have just picked like 10kg on the way there – but we actually didn’t need it… and on the way back we only weighed in about 12kg, so 15kg would have been enough for us). Either way, it works about about the price of petrol, but you get to Melbourne really quickly, about an hour and a half at most.

Photo I took with my phone whilst waiting for the plane at the Sydney Domestic Terminal food court.

Check-in for Tiger opens 2 hours prior to the flight, and boarding starts about 30 minutes-45 minutes before the flight is due. We checked in at around 8:10am (originally we made it for 8am but we were slightly late) and we managed to get seats next to each other, as well as plenty of overhead space. Check in early – you’d be surprised. We saw many people being separated from their friends and on the way back, there was limited cabin space especially if you board later – so get on board first!

Tiger will also not let you board another flight if you are late – so it’s good for people who are really punctual. We were fairly organised so that wasn’t a problem. The flight left early, even, because everyone was so orderly.

When we got to the Melbourne Domestic Airport (please folks, when buying your air tickets, choose Tullamarine airport and NOT Avalon airport – Avalon is kinda in the middle of nowhere – just search it on google maps and it will frighten you.

We pre-purchased tickets to ride the Skybus ($26 return for adults) but they sell tickets whilst you board. The Skybus is a shuttle bus service that takes you straight to the city centre (Southern Cross Station) and it’s a service that happens every 10 minutes, so it’s fairly frequent. It’s a cost effective way to get to the city, without catching a taxi.

A bus ride on the Skybus takes about 20-30minutes depending on traffic. They also have a free hotel transfer service – but we didn’t use it.

At Southern Cross we took a Melbourne guide book (includes a map and various coupons inside, so take one if you see one) and then went to the shopping centre above, Spencer Street Mall. The mall has a lot of stuff we have in Sydney, like Forever21, Wittner, blah blah – I didn’t get anything there, but we had lunch there (a salad and a juice – cost us about $15 each) and bought a bunch of supplies at Coles supermarkets, including stuff like muesli bars, water, fruit, toothpaste (we both didn’t bring toothpaste because we only brought carry on baggage on the way there and there’s a limit to how much you can bring – make sure to read carefully and pack lightly).

We then bought our tram tickets at 7/11 – the tram tickets are about… damn I forgot. Around $9 for an adult all day zone 1 ticket. Zone 1 is the city area and an all day ticket means unlimited travel on Yarra Trams, Metro Trains and the buses. We then hopped on a tram to get to the hotel – and surprisingly, it was a lot closer than what we originally thought.

We decided to stay at Causeway 353 Hotel, which is a 4 star hotel on 353 Little Collins Street. We booked a twin bed room for two nights, and I think between us it was $150, so $75/night, which wasn’t bad. I originally wanted to stay at Novotel because they had 30% off for booking in advance, but it worked out all the same – 353 was a bit cheaper, but the location was even better – litterally, we were about 10m away from a tram stop which took us directly to Crown Casino, which was amazing. It was like hitting the jackpot without knowing it.

There were many cafes downstairs where you could have breakfast (though we didn’t try those) – the worst part about the location is that it IS accessable only via an alley, but we didn’t think too much of it when we saw so many cafes along the way. But the inside was honestly a lot nicer than we expected, so we were fairly impressed.

Excuse the messy room, this was actually taken on the second night, trololol and all that crap on the bed is mine… I am so messy.

They had a lot of things I didn’t expect them to have – such as a microwave. I mean, I expected a safe and a kettle and hairdryer, but the microwave was a real bonus. There was a long desk, an ottoman, a chair, a sofa and a TV which we didn’t use. The bathroom was actually really nice and brand new, but I didn’t take a photo of it because we kinda really messed it up by piling lots of used towels on the ground as mats to make it less slippery (shower splashes water okay). The bathroom has a shower in a tub, so you can take a bath if you want, and the best part is that the water is actually hot. ZOMG. Maybe it’s because whenever I’m at a hotel or motel in Australia it’s in Canberra or somewhere where hot water is limited LOL – but even so last time in Melbourne, hot water actually stopped around 10pm… because I did take a cold shower once in the middle of winter >_>

There were a bunch of phone books, a safe. iron and even ironing board. We didn’t use the slippers or the robe because I think you had to pay for them (check the bar price list just in case guys!), and there was a Remington hairdryer, which surprisingly, did not suck. It was a good hairdryer. You’d be surprised at how crap some hairdryers are… they just blow warmish air and do nothing… but this hairdryer was a BEAST. Pleased, really happy.

ANYWAY enough about the hotel – checking in was easy and the room was really nice. We didn’t have a view, but overall it was fairly quiet, except in the early hours – I could hear people rolling out their wheelie bins and in the morning I could hear vans or trucks reversing, possibly to collect rubbish. Otherwise it wasn’t bad.  Aircon was controllable and it was fairly comfortable.

Our first stop was South Wharf DFO which we took a tram to Crown Casino to, and then walked for about 10 minutes. I was really looking foward to Burberry there because it was an outlet… I was pretty annoyed that Burberry in Sydney didn’t have 50% during Christmas sales (they did during July) so I was looking forward to seeing what they had.

On the way to DFO… and the dirty Yarra River lol… it was seriously yellow.

Bring your sunglasses. I didn’t regret it – it’s really windy and sunny at times, so you will need them.

This is the entrance of South Wharf, so look out for it or you’ll miss it. We almost missed it because the entrance was located in a fricken wind tunnel, but there were heaps of people holding shopping bags so we just traced back to where they came out from LOL.

They had a lot of sports clothing outlets, so you could get great deals like my friend who got 2 Adidas t-shirts for like… $25 or something? I dunno, it was really cheap from memory. Upstairs was just homewares and furniture, so we checked out the basement – full of clothing and shoes.

I didn’t get much from DFO because I bought myself a GHD hair straightener (though it wasn’t cheap or anything, I was just sick of looking) and we just kept walking and walking… we went into almost every store (that at least caught our attention anyway)… and then at the very end of the loop… BURBERRY. We did a hugeass circle and it was at the fricken end! Next time I go, I’ll go anticlockwise rather than clockwise… OMG. But anyway, my friend did buy from the other stores – like shoes… I think it was from ALDO (a pair of heels and they were only like $30 or $40 – really cheap) but Burberry…. @___@

Everything in the shop was half price D: And the best part was that most of the items still had sizes – I still regret not getting the pair of espadrilles there… I thought that I shouldn’t get them since I bought so many shoes last year… but they were only like $230 or something D: Sigh.

Anyway, I was more interested in their clothes – we each bought a jumper for about $135 (that’s cheaper than Lacoste okay) and I took my time looking for a trenchcoat. There were only a few to choose from but none of them really tickled my fancy all that much. There was a trench that was pretty nice, but it wasn’t waterproof so I didn’t think that I needed it that long… little did I realise, I managed to find the cropped jacket version of it… and I really liked it, so I got it. Half price makes me happy.

We then headed back to the hotel to drop our stuff off – and I kid you not, Melbourne was freezing then, so I was pretty glad I bought a jacket to wear. We tried to visit Prada since it was just down the street, but by the time we got there (we took a tram 2 stops up), they were closed. This was at 5pm! Shops close at Melbourne wayyyy too early. And they open wayyyy too late!

So we then hopped back on the tram to Crown Casino.

We went to the Prada at Crown Casino, and walked into many of the shops there but we didn’t buy anything. The Prada there had a shockingly small collection of stuff to sell – or rather, the sales assistant didn’t even bother to check for us, or at least tell us if it was available elsewhere. She seemed like she was daydreaming.

We already planned in the first place to have dinner at Crown Casino, because I got a Melbourne Entertainment book and card courtesy of my boss and manager – they went to Melbourne in around July 2011 so the book/cards were still valid.

After walking around a lot and trying to decide on where to eat, we ended up on the first floor. We were tempted to try the one on ground floor, but we had no idea what Modern Australian cuisine was, and it was fairly cold so we skipped it. Well, *I* wanted to try the Buffet but it was fully booked, but luckily we didn’t go there – it didn’t look that nice to be honest.

We went opposite and found JJ’s Bar and Grill – which upon first glance sounds like a barbeque place, but it was actually fine dining, so that was really surprising. The interior was pretty grand and followed a racecourse theme. Throughout the night there was a guy playing the piano and singing classic songs (all of which my friend knew, none of which I knew) – he was so good that I honestly thought that I was listening to a CD until I turned around and saw him there D:

Photos are not allowed in Crown Casino, but these photographs were taken with the permission of the waiter at JJ’s - we asked before taking these. I guess you’re not allowed to take photos of the casino and gambling area – food is alright, I suppose?

The bar was pretty spectacular.

To start us off they gave us some bread and vinegar in olive oil. The bread was nice and warm and crispy. Yummy. This was complimentary.

The first thing that arrived was the platter we ordered. The platter is a platter for 2 – around $50. There were several items you could order from the list, but you choose 5 out of the ones they have listed. We ordered everything under the category of “The Ocean” except for the king prawns, which was exactly 5 items (I mean, if it was gonna cost $50 of course I’ll order all the seafood… lalala). Starting from the shell and going clockwise, the shell was scallops, then salmon, calamari rings, octopus and ham, and lastly, crab meat. I didn’t touch the crab since I wasn’t sure if I was allergic to it, but everything was pretty good. The paste in the centre was a tomato paste and it was pretty tasty.

The platter looks really small, but it also came with some bread (like pancake bread) to go with it – you can see it faintly in the top left hand corner.

I was actually pretty hungry by the time the food came, because my lunch was a mere salad and I ate that at around 12… it was about 8pm when we were at the restaurant, so I was starting to get stomach pains from not eating on time. That really did ruin my experience, and it was shame because the food was really good

I rarely stick photos of myself in here (esp with that hair – what/ why I do not know), but I had to include this because I was happy with my main. The surroundings were also nice as you can see. I ordered a pan-fried barramundi – it cost about $45 or so, but ohhhhh the fish was huge and it was the softest, juiciest fish I’ve had in a very very long time. Melts in yo mouth :Q___ Sat on a bed of I think mustard seed. YERMZ. Too bad I had to stop halfway and pause for a bit – because it was a really really good main. I did finish it, by the way. But I didn’t finish the mustard seed, just finished the salad on top and the fish

As you can also gather, we each got a glass of water – we were happily drinking that, until we noticed they were serving us Panna water which is a fricking expensive water they serve at high end restaurants. I don’t think they charged us because I didn’t see it on the bill, but we were like “omg what” – LOL. We should have known, I mean, we did pay quite a lot for this meal.

The two cocktails we ordered – at the beginning the waitress asked if we were going to have beer, wine, spirits or cocktails. We said cocktails and she took our glasses away

The pink one is mine, which is a Cosmopolitan. I still don’t know how I’m supposed to drink it, but it came with strawberries, a heck of a lot of ice, and MORE alcohol in that stainless steel cocktail shaker on the left. Couldn’t finish drinking it. The yellow one was my friend’s… don’t know what it was called but it was a pineapple flavoured cocktail… we each paid $19 for our cocktails.

Last but not least, this is my friend’s main which was kangaroo meat done medium rare. It looks like really little, but whoa, each slice of kangaroo meat was probably the size of a human tongue. This photograph does no justice to the size of the dish. There was a LOT of meat there. This main was also around $42 or so.

We declined dessert at the end… we were both seriously, really really full.

After using our Entertainment Gold card and giving what we thought was a reasonable tip, we each forked out $75 each.

I think it’s the most expensive meal I’ve had to date, but it was the first time I’ve actually went fine dining (yes, I’m slow, but well, I’m not a person who exactly likes to spend money on food). I’d say the restaurant is pretty good value for money. The food was good, atmosphere was nice and well, yeah. If I had to say what was weak, the food was a little slow and the drinks were a bit strange – I had lots of ice, my friend had zero ice – and funnily, I preferred drinking my drink with the ice. Otherwise I’d go again – no reason to not go back.

I was slightly tipsy on the way back (that’s what you get for trying to finish your alcohol in the last 10 minutes of your meal) and by the time we got back it was like 10pm. Showered, went to sleep. We were pretty exhausted.

Day 2/3 coming soon.

This post is already 3000 words so I’m going to cut this short. Lately I’ve been really hooked on Shut Up! Flower Boy Band, which is really amazing D: So much better than Flower Boy Ramyun Shop – really!

So much better than Dream High 2, which in my opinion makes no sense and features a bunch of emotionless, zombie actors/ actresses following a poorly written script. WHERE IS THE SUSPENSE. O THAT’S RIGHT. THERE IS NONE.

Another reason why I am ending this post is because I need to do my daily exercise in 2 minutes. Lol. Will be back soon with next segment of this super boring journey. Hope it helps persuade some of you to go to Melbourne, tho

Why I am not doing anything architecture related.

Happy singles awareness day – and Valentines to you

Valentines is just another day at work for me. But I need to thank all of you who are in love, you are the ones who consume, spend money and make my day at work awesome since you’re all pretty rushed for time and don’t ask questions I really hate or haggle over a few measly dollars. Valentines is awesome in that respect.

ANYWAY.

I thought that I explained myself many times before, but I guess I probably did that in real life but never in words on screen, so I was surprised when I got questions asking why I quit architecture and decided to do something completely different.

Like many people who like to romanticise several occupations, I was a dreamer who thought that I was ideally designed to be an architect. I got good grades when I was in high school doing technical drawing, I could draw (not well, but alright, but obviously not good enough – le doodle is okay), and most of my friends thought that I was pretty creative. I really actually did think that I could be awesome and design many buildings one day and take friends around the world, point out “I designed that” and proclaim it like a boss. Well, in reality, being an artist is not like being Picasso – more like it’s being a starving artist unless you really somehow make it big one day. I’m a dreamer, but I’m realistic. My personality is just like that – I just say it and think of it as it is. Forget the rainbows and unicorns – if it’s not going to work out, it’s not going to work out.

The subject that I studied (we all know it as architecture) I shall refer to as archi, which is what we all called it as. I’ve decided to use this abbreviated name so that you can distinguish between archi the subject your study, versus architecture the professional field. They are very similar, but not the same.

I feel that there are a lot of misconceptions about archi. I’m not saying it’s not a feasible direction to head to – oh dreams do come true. But to let you know, this is actually what we had to experience – and if you think that preparing a presentation for some marketing course is hard, you wait and see.

As archi students, we didn’t just design. We had to do research (note that most of the information we needed only existed as printed material in the library), write essays, write reports, do calculations (trigonometry, physics, yes – all), make models (computer and physical models) – out of several types of materials, do drawings (computer and hand drawn – includes technical, perspective and sketch/ diagrams), make presentation layouts (fill up the whole damn wall), do portfolios (graphic design?), design other crap that belonged to our design (industrial design, anyone?), make verbal presentations (communications/marketing?)… we, hands down, do more than the average student. This is why I absolutely think it’s ridiculous when people are so happy they graduated from like, commerce or something – dude, you ain’t seen nothing yet gurrrrl.

This list probably doesn’t just apply to archi – it applies to most design courses that involve time consuming activities such as making things such as physical objects (so I don’t think graphic design is quite as hectic).

NB to Americans – uni (university) is the equivalent of college in the States. A basic subject consists of 3 units (elective), but core subjects are typically 6 or 12 units. Each unit is about an hour at uni each week, and uni runs Monday to Friday – but is open 24 hours as we have access cards. Most local students tend to live quite far from uni (at least 30 minutes away), a select group of students manage to find university accommodation or live as close as 5-10 minutes away.

1. Being an archi student = no social life, or very little of it.

The amount of after hours work we have to do is probably like doing your commerce maths questions times by three in terms of time required. We do the same amount of units, but we have so few hours left over to actually do work. We have 4 subjects – sometimes 3 - (usually differently weighted, with design being the highest priority) and they expect you to do an extra 8 hours self-study for every unit you take. Design is 12 units, by the way, meaning they expect you to uses 48 hours of your own time working on design. And don’t forget the other 12 units. Working 48 hours on a project means that it is your entire weekend without drinking, eating, sleeping or socialising. Pure, non- stop working. That’s what they ask you to do.

Everyone you know probably is in your course. You rarely know anyone who isn’t studying the same thing. You lose contact with your high school friends.

Of course, most of us choose to prioritise our social lives instead of camping out at uni over the weekends, where I must admit can be quite creepy at night when it’s kinda empty and all. Obviously once you start choosing priorities over self-study, you end up pressed for time and find yourself rushing projects to be finished. Yeah.

2. Archi requires a high level of discipline ie. zero procrastination, steady progress – else you pull all nighters. Every single time.

That’s right -once you start to have a social life or you decide to let things dwell for a bit before actually working on your projects (which I am sure everyone does), you end up finding hours you normally wouldn’t have otherwise: time when you should actually be sleeping. You sacrifice your sleep in order to finish your projects.

If one night isn’t enough, then take two nights. When two nights isn’t enough, take three nights. Still not enough? Four, five. As many as you need, even if it means you have to hand in your project late.

I was not the type to hand in things late. I’d pull all nighters so that I could hand my projects in on time, and I’ve done that for pretty much all my projects. But you cannot imagine what it’s like to feel so sleepy in the middle of the night, you’re thirsty but don’t want to waste time drinking, your body feels like jelly and you really want to sleep. When you finally get to sleep (after staying awake for probably 30 hours or so, and napping for about 1-2 hours), your eyes feel like they’re on fire when you wake up.

3. Archi is unhealthy.

What do you do when you pull an all-nighter and you’re damn sleepy? You drink coffee or energy drinks. Take a smoke outside if you’re a smoker, so that’s extra cigarettes you wouldn’t have smoked if you were asleep.

Again, I wasn’t the type to drink coffee or energy drinks because I never really thought they were beneficial for health on the long term due to their high caffeine levels. My way of working around it was putting together an awesome playlist of songs that I’d listen to whilst I worked throughout the early mornings of the day. I did drink green tea – but unfortunately they were the packaged bottle types you grab from a local Asian supermarket on the way to uni (2 litre bottle) to last you the entire night.

If you’re hungry you’re probably going to snack on junk food or fast food. To save time, usually we had one guy go through all the levels and he would take orders for us since he was going to take a trip to McDonald’s. I really appreciated those times, because it means that we get food without wasting time to go out and buy it. The guys would wait until what was it… 3:30 or 4am to wait for the breakfast menu to take place. Most of us probably have McDonald’s several meals in a row especially if camping out at uni for several nights.

Many students don’t go home for as long as perhaps, 4 or 5 days. Sometimes even a week.

This means a lot of students don’t shower. We do bring face wash and toothpaste/brush to brush our teeth though.

We skip meals regularly if pressed for time.

We are dehydrated because we worry we drink too much water, and that means we go to the toilet constantly which wastes time.

Most of the time we spend is in front of a computer screen. Namely a dual screen. We get arm/ shoulder/ neck/ back/ butt pain for sitting long periods of times. Our eyes also hurt and suffer as a consequence. Usually the first thing I did was change the contrast and brightness settings on the monitors I was going to use, in order to minimise damage. Not sure if it did anything though. Towards the final year, I suffered extreme dizziness looking at any computer screen – bad enough I slept 4 days out of the few days they gave us to complete our project. I first used a computer when I was about 6 years old and never have I encountered sickness looking at a computer screen – until the end of 2010. I was 22 years old then, barely what I consider old. Clearly, my health was deteriorating.

We sleep with our heads on the tables, or sometimes we take down a board which we usually pin stuff to, lie it flat and use that as a mattress. Some students choose to sleep across tables. Some choose to sleep on the floor. Some bring sleeping bags or air mattresses. Sleep is generally considered a luxury, lasts ideally for less than an hour, and occurs once every 36-40 hours.

I don’t need to go into detail, but as you can gather, there are a lot of unhealthy habits associated with studying this subject, and it’s usually beyond our control. We don’t want to do all nighters,  but probably even if we didn’t procrastinate, we’d spend our extra 48 hours over the weekend doing the same thing over a period of 13-15 weeks. The majority of us choose to cram all 13 weekends into the final two weeks we get to prepare our final projects.

I gained so much weight by the end of my fourth year (still in the healthy BMI range, but it was like 8kg or something, JEEZ) so I went through a strict exercise regime in my fifth, which I detailed in my diet diary. I discovered most of it was water, since I dropped sizes really fast. All because I didn’t exercise enough while I was studying.

4. Archi is expensive.

Some people like to explain this by saying that archi(tects) are indulgent beings. I believe this is so, because if you didn’t have spare money to begin with, you couldn’t afford to study such an expensive subject such as archi in the first place -

Since you’ve all gathered by now that archi is a really damn busy subject, most of us didn’t have jobs. And without a job, income comes from…? Well, you can think about it.

Just to start the subject, I remember having to spend about $500 buying the “essential” items – possibly more because of textbooks. Thankfully, we never really had many textbooks to buy during the duration of the course – but when we did our research projects, we spent a heck of a lot of money photocopying and scanning stuff. A typical end of semester project would probably look like this: Models and material/ equipment – probably $500. Printed presentation – $300 to $700. Portfolio – $100. Archi was a really expensive subject. Don’t forget I didn’t include the cost of the interim submissions during the semester. ZING!

Because freedom was so seldomly enjoyed, whenever we went out for a meal (lunch, dinner, leisure), my friend and I would overexpend to compensate for the crappy times we had to endure. We ate probably twice as much as what we normally would, and spent probably three times as much as normal – to make ourselves feel better. It was a stupid habit, stupid and expensive habit – but it was nowhere as expensive as archi itself. Printing for a final project – easily up to thousand dollars or more.

And without a job, our income…? LOL.

There were a lot of students who did work part time jobs, but they were fairly organised and kept everything under control. I suspect they just were really good at organising their lives and they managed to fit everything in. The catch is that a lot of these students only studied part time, not full time.

I was a full time student for 5 years. I didn’t work a single job during that time. I was too busy to. I just couldn’t.

5. Archi is mentally challenging, tiring, abusive.

Apart from stating the obvious that if you can’t problem solve the design according to your beliefs andn the requirements of the brief, you’re basically stuck. If it’s shit in your opinion, you gotta fix it. And to do that, you gotta think.

That’s right, a lot of the time we are doodling and trying to figure out where to put what, how to do it and whether or not it fits or looks strange. Once we decide it’s alright and draw it to scale, we realise it looks freaking ridiculous and you forgot that you left out an essential part that is required, like the toilets or something – I dunno. Then you gotta start again – and fix it.

We go through many many trials – I think during the design stage I’m not surprised there are at least 10 mutations. Some students start completely anew (really unclever move – time consuming and doesn’t solve anything, just avoids all problems and ends up being weaker), some just can’t move on because they either don’t know what they want, their tutor can’t guide them further (there’s always that one kid who takes up a lot of personal tutorial time), or they’ve run out of time.

In other words, if you are intelligent enough to have an awesome idea, and can think of a brilliant way to express it, and is pratically flawless in terms of functionality and technicality, you’ve got yourself a winner.

Unfortunately a lot of us are just people who want to produce something we just want to present and be proud of it, because we worked our butts off for it – and ought to be congratulated for it.

Unfortunately again, we present to a panel of experts who really just like to concentrate on what’s bad rather than what you’ve managed to accomplish. Some aren’t really all that wide and accepting of quirky ideas and frown upon your design immediately. A lot like to feign ignorance because they didn’t listen to your presentation carefully and pretended that you didn’t explain it clear enough.

It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to get this point through – it’s discouraging. It’s stressful. It’s depressing. After spending so many hours, sacrificing so much sleep, risking our health in various ways to get things done and spending so much money, our design is presented in about 15 minutes max, and a lot of the time, if it doesn’t tickle their fancy it’s shot to pieces.

I was lucky to have never had such a bad experience, but I’ve seen it happen to others. Once, my project was taken away for evaluation because it was considered a good sample – they never returned it to me. That presentation cost me about $700. Probably all gone to a recycle bin.

All that effort for that single moment of glory… is it worth it? Yeahhhh I guess so. But after a while, perhaps not.

Have I given enough reason to justify why I decided to not continue with this field?

Let me speed through another bunch of reasons that are plaguing society today:

* Bad economy. Few firms are hiring. They’d hire you… maybe for free. Most firms require 3-5 years full time experience. As you can tell… what experience?! I didn’t have any time for that.
* Bad economy. Few projects are actually taking place. No jobs to do… no jobs for you.
* Bad economy. Australian dollar is too damn high. Go overseas (ie. ASIA) where the money is.

A huge reason why I didn’t want to continue was because of my health. I did mention severe dizziness. I experience it now even. I was never a super fit or super healthy person to begin with. I get tired easily. I can’t get stressed easily. I will really seriously ka-boom. Although I merely described archi side effects, it’ll be the same whilst on the job – sitting in front of computer, all day – overtime. It’s not really all that different – except you’re given less time to do stuff and you have to do it, because it’s a job, not a uni project.

Also, I am, afterall, a girl – or if you like, a woman. My hairdresser used to ask me what I studied at uni, and I’d tell him archi – he’d then reply every single time, “ah, you want to be superwoman huh?”- little did I realise several years later, he was right. Architecture to me couldn’t be a long term job. If I wanted a raise, I’d have to wait for those in a higher position to retire before I could fill that position. I am (hopefully) going to get married one day, and I can’t possibly work a job where I have no idea whether overtime was waiting for me at the end of the day or not. I can do this whilst I’m young, in my early 20s… could I do all nighters when I’m in my 30s… 40s… 50s…? I really don’t think so. Archi was never all that family friendly to begin with – I got into so many arguments with my parents because they couldn’t understand why I couldn’t be home to have dinner, or why I couldn’t be home to sleep. They thought that I was like a stray animal without a home… and sadly, I agreed.

I’m not saying being an architect is bad or wrong, and that studying archi is a bad choice – I learned a lot of things and as a result I can do a lot more than the average person probably could. I do have friends who have successfully entered the field and are doing well in their work. I’ve seen a lot of people transfer out of uni because they couldn’t handle the pace and just couldn’t fully grasp the subject – that’s perfectly normal.

But I just wanted to say, I experienced all of the above for 5 years, non stop, and that was during the years of my life which were supposed to be the best and most fun. Simply put, five years is enough – and selling jewellery is kinda cool.

PS: Did you know – when you are tired and sleepy,  you have a higher tendency to make mistakes? Well once I was so tired, I sliced my finger open when I was trying to cut a piece of cardboard. Completely missed the cardboard, totally could open my flap of flesh. Please be careful.

Stuff I did/ that happened in 2011

2011 was a year of change for me. Change in my pace of lifestyle and complete change in what I was going to do. I went from graduating from a Masters Degree in Architecture to working in a designer fashion jewellery/ fine jewellery boutique in the city. I met a lot of people who I would have never met otherwise, and they were surprisingly, types of people I’ve never encountered before.

There’s little to reflect on because 2011 was a year of what I would like to call “steadiness”. There were no major ups or downs, and there wasn’t anything amazing that I accomplished. But I will go and reflect upon my resolutions I set for 2011 and whether or not I achieved them.

Things I achieved:

Do well in my work, make some friends in my workplace (not some, more like, all) and get at least one payrise during 2011.
I achieved this several times during the year which made me happy. That’s as much as there is to it, really.

Go overseas or interstate.
I went to Melbourne, so I finally did do something

Things I did not achieve:

Save up 75% of my pay. 25% of pay goes to bills and online shopping. If there is spare money, it will go to my parents.
This failed pretty miserably because I ended up more like saving 25% of my pay and spending 75% of it LOL. I did however, did buy a lot of stuff for my parents and looked out for them in that respect. 50-50. Close enough.

Lose that final kilo to hit the 5kg target weight loss. Then lose another 4.
Damn it, I didn’t even have that “extra kilo” to lose because I already gained several that made me far far off my original target. OTL Close enough.

Go out at least once a week.
I really, really tried. But I work long hours, full time, deal with all sorts of weird situations, and I have to keep an eye on everyone, everything. Eurgh. But I probably did go out once every two weeks or so – okay I lie, more like once every three and a half. Close enough.

Meet more people.
Errr like who? >_> Well to be fair I did meet new people – aka colleagues, but nothing to fangirl over. 50-50. Close enough.

Start those blasted dance lessons. Drag a friend along in the process.
This resolution was made one year too early. I only recently discovered that my workmate wanted to do lessons too. Y U NO WORK EARLIER.

Blog better, keep winning gift certificates and getting more comments from readers
Oh, I did achieve the latter half. I didn’t achieve the gift certificate thing though because I completely abandoned Gmarket – just got too expensive to play around with, and it was just too tedious to navigate. Ended up trying out ASOS instead. Worked out okay in the end.

Start posting on my Lookbook. Poor, poor neglected baby.
I don’t even think I logged in to be honest. Perhaps once.  But I don’t have a photographer to follow me around and snap pics of me unfortunately… and a self held camera will sadly not suffice.

Dyeing my hair a shade that is not dark ashy tobacco brown.
50-50. I went for something that wasn’t ashy, but it ended up not being much lighter.

Go on at least 3 dates. If it’s even humanly possible. There is nobody in my life atm. Or at least go to 3 outings where I meet new people.
So I tried. Zero potential each time. If it wasn’t meeting up with really close friends (like friends who you know so well they could still be smiling even if you give them the death glare), it was meeting up with people who had fiances or boyfriends. BO-RING.

Write up a fixed skincare routine timetable and post it up here.
Obviously not – so I’ll try to do that soon.

Blog twice a week and do a 30 day challenge, so I continuously post for 30 days in a row during one of the months in 2011.
I just never found time to queue up drafts… I know it sounds like an excuse, but I really have been really tired. Did you know, I also ended up typing so little that my keyboard battery lasted a whopping entire year?! That’s insane… usually I change batteries within 6 months. W-O-W.

Add bohemian/ gyaru style to my wardrobe.
I kinda scratched this off my list because I’m no longer interested in the style. Ie. I’m growing old, fast.

Shoot more in film, and experiment with film photography.
The most I did was develop a roll of film… already forgot how to insert a film roll into a camera. Oh, shame.

Result: Credit

I give myself a credit for trying, but not hard enough. I’ll post my new resolutions up soon and well guess what, still no photos from Melbourne… guess she either forgot about them or just couldn’t be bothered emailing me lol. Oh well, I’ll make do with whatever I have then, in that case. I wonder how many resolutions we usually achieve on average per year? Perhaps I put all my effort into the two that I thought mattered most, so I prioritised those. I don’t know – but it seems like it could very well be the case.