Yeah, I'll do a proper entry this time... so much work from now till the end of uni, it's stifling me =( I've kinda finished a draft speech for Japanese presentation next week... and that's only the first step to it! Now I need to memorise it because we're not allowed to have notes or powerpoint, nothing, we are expected to just stand there and talk. For 5 minutes. In Japanese. As if it's not hard enough in English, this will be one terrible presentation.

Haven't been called in to work, so it's been a well-paced week- so far, considering how it's only Tuesday. Well-paced because I felt like I accomplished heaps by getting this speech written out in the first place. Now there's only two left to go. Haha, only... kidding myself really, coz on top of the two essays, there are heaps of tests and assignments to work on.

It's time like these we need... comfort food. And the sad thing about winter- every girls' (and perhaps guys') lament- we eat more and get fat. =( Look at what I've been eating these days and you'll never think to call me skinny ever again. Ok, so it's a very girly thing, I seem to be getting more and more girly as the days go by. Taken a particular liking to pale pink too, and I get someone laughing at my choice of colour for a headphone rubber thingie... though wouldn't you say it looks so cute being pink... and tied up with my headphone's black cord??

Meet Pinku. Given by mw, it's fast becoming my good friend =P I like it more each time I see it. Thank you~!

Naked Pinku =D Still cute, but something's definitely missing. You need this guy tied up or he looks a little wrong.

First of the unhealthy food. Caramel and macadamia muffin from BB's cafe. It's sweet, yeah, but sooo good, especially when it's still warm and the top is crispy. It's actually quite hard to get through one whole muffin- very filling, and you get sick of it easily too. After eating that, you won't feel like another one for weeks.

Oh pretty flower... I think I only like flowers when they have water droplets on them, makes them look 100x better.

100 points for someone who can tell me where this plant can be found! =D I see it every Thursday, it's right outside the building where I have class, this curious-looking tree looks like a mutated and burnt pineapple tree with two heads and green hair. Now that there's a Y shaped tree, maybe I can go hunting for an L shaped one too, and then a D shaped one...

The Macaroni Cheese obsession starts here. Actually, I haven't gone through them all yet, had no time to make them, but I'll get through them all someday! This is Day 1 of obsession- where I went to Woolworths and got while getting phone credit. Vodafone gets 10% off at Woolworths, and I wanted to get the Save Fuel voucher for my dad, so I got these to make it over $30. So far, I've tried EasyMac and Kraft. The other one is disqualified coz it's not really macaroni cheese.

Look, Easy mac. They now come in bowls too, even simplier coz you don't need to wash up afterwards, except maybe a fork. It's simple enough- add water, and it doesn't even need to be boiling water, and microwave, stir, microwave, wait, eat. It gets a 12/10 for convenience, but taste... I would give it a 3 or 4. Out of 10.

Tried San Remo next. "Delicious and creamy" because I had to add more ingredients, namely milk, water, and butter. And then microwave it for 10 minutes. I had a bit of problem here because I neglected it, left it there to microwave and it bubbled over. Made a bit of mess in the microwave, but didn't smell quite as bad as Easymac. I followed instructions, I really did! It said stir two or three times within the 10 minutes, but even so, it still bubbled a lot.

That's why the bowl looked like this afterwards. Taste was certainly better than EasyMac, so, 5 or 6... I would give it a 6 actually. This thing does take around 10 minutes to prepare, and needs more ingredients, so not too convenient. Not exactly "instant".

Ah... continental. "Great creamy taste!" because it also needed milk, water and butter, but this time, I was smart and WATCHED it while it was microwaving, so end result:

Not that bad and did not bubble over. Saved me from having to clean up. This, in my opinion, tasted the best out of the three that I've had so far. This didn't smell bad at all, and tasted exactly as described- creamy. I think the fact that I added heaps of white pepper to it sort of altered the results, making it taste better, but you can't tell from the photo, since most macaroni cheese look pretty much the same, it really tastes so much better than EasyMac and there's a noticable difference from San Remo's too. Cost- 89 cents. I got this one from Franklins while it was on special =D Rating: 8/10

I haven't tried the others yet, but will do so when I get around to it. =D If you feel like macaroni cheese, go Continental!! (They should pay me for this, I'm promoting their product...)

Back to slightly healthier food...

Made out of the pumpkin that P's mum gave us, we made pumpkin soup. Recipe required beef/chicken stock, water, pumpkin. And a blender, which I got for christmas last year =D It's strange how when asking Asian people for recipes, they'll give you vague instructions, like, add salt, add sugar, water, chop it up and boil, then blend. Western people tend to want the specific details, like, how many tsp of salt, how many mLs of water, how long to boil for, what strength of fire to use, how small to chop it up to... my Chinese teacher was just telling us, a westerner's kitchen is vastly different from asians. Theirs is full of measuring utilities, different sized spoons, jugs, cups... whereas asians don't measure their ingredients and tend to go by experience, by feel, just the fingers grabbing a pinch of this and that.

So when I got the instructions of: boil pumpkin, use chicken stock, and then blend, I was at a complete loss. I needed more specific instructions... but it was a good learning process- to go by feel once in a while. Cooking skills level up~ it turned out good, slightly too watery (because I had no idea how much stock to use), but still good. That's a bread stick btw, sticking out of the soup.

This is Latti-- long time no see, latti. She's looking very grumpy.

She refused to look up at the camera.

Bit of nature there- chrysanthemum... I hope I spelt that right. I remember trying to learn it for spelling test in Primary school. I'm kinda running out of flowers from my dad's backyward to admire...

Getting late! And cold... wanted to finish this blog entry before I sleep but looks like it's not going to happen. Oh well~~ sister's coming back for a holiday on Friday... brother's graduation then and mother's day on Sunday.

Oh yeah... from the last post, the first youtube video isn't there anymore thanks to TBS copyright laws... not that it'd stop me from watching Josou Para, because it's such an awesome game show =P I'm thinking of uploading it into my youtube account and hope it doesn't get found... under a different name... but then I feel a bit bad if I do that... oh well~ see how it goes. Goodnight.

I feel like I've aged10 years within these two days. Seriously, it's been such a mess! Actually, it feels like I've been working full time.. having actually been shifted for 2 days and ended up going in for 5. Yesterday was a mess because someone's drawer was over by $20, and another over by $100 due to eftpos error, and THEN the cheque lady came! Who pays by cheque when shopping at Franklins anymore?! I wasn't exactly sure of what to do with the cheque when it comes to office work, and C threw away my notes which I took during training... so... it was just one bad thing after another. THEN today, it was my turn to have an eftpos error on my register! Ran everywhere, rang up IT but they were busy and didn't pick up my phone call, then asked for help from A, the supervisor, who had NO idea what to do... so in the end... apologised like 20 times to the customer for having them wait so long while I run around trying to find out what to do...

It doesn't help that A was so slow at closing, he let someone in even though we're 5 minutes past closing time!!

My mum was waiting for me in the car (yeah, I'm STILL not allowed to drive by myself) and needed to go to the bathroom, so I practically sped all the way home >_< PLease don't let there be any police patrolling the area tonight...

I was actually going to blog properly, but this has turned into a rant post. Because I needed to rant. NOW I have three essays to write tonight- 2 japanese, 1 classical... I'm probably only going to finish one.... No time for a proper entry... ;__; I'd rather blog than do work, but priorities... =(

I think I've found my favourite Japanese game show. Gakkou e Ikou MAX: Josou Paradise!!! If your computer can read Japanese.... 学校へ行こう: 女装パラダイス. And from that, you'd know why I like it =D

CLARIFYING that no, I am not a les or bi =D I'm perfectly straight, but these guys seriously look so pretty as a girl, they're probably prettier than more than half the girls that are in Japan. Check this out:


From the 3rd minute, onwards. Can you even believe that's his real voice? For those who can't understand, the "girl" said "she's" caught a cold (everyone screams kawaiii!!!), and the V6 (a band) leader asked "her", by the way, who's your favourite V6 member, to which "she" replied, Sakamoto-kun (which is the leader himself). So, they did a little skit where the "girl" has to confess "her" love to Sakamoto.

Ok, it's actually pretty gay, but the "girl" is so pretty, one can almost truly forget he's actually a guy and believe he's really a girl. Even the voice doesn't give him away!


Now check this one out! This one has the voice of a boy, but come on! Who can say he's NOT pretty as a girl?! It's made me jealous! haha =P

Anyway, yes, I've been too busy watching this on youtube to update. Oh, I made pumpkin soup with P tonight, it turned out great. I'll post pictures next time, I have Josou Paradise to watch! If you're interested too (dw, you won't have to tell anyone) this guy is uploading the series as it comes out.

http://youtube.com/profile_videos?user=chagen105&p=r

Verifying once more: I'm only watching this for fun! Not to suss out pretty guys. I'm serious =)

Ok~! I’ve kinda done my Japanese presentation for Wednesday, and other than having to prepare for tomorrow’s two hour tutorial, I have time to… update this poor blog.

But first, checking to see if anyone else updated their blog… =( unfortunately, no one has. Internet has been getting so boring lately, I can’t believe it! All I do now is check gmail, oricon charts (haha, go, Morning Musume!!) and um… look at recipes. Not coz I want to cook, it’s just interesting, that’s all.

Oh yeah, I’m meant to be updating. Right, let’s see, let’s start off with a pretty picture of a tree from Usyd.

Now this is what I call a real tree. Not those puny sickly ones that are just branches in the harsh cold weather, this is a real tree. Disregard the fallen branch...

This is Broadway, Tomodachi. Went there some Mondays ago, can't remember which... but it's pretty nice.

More interior, which is nicely decorated.

Beef tataki salad with avocado. Not bad, I like salads =) Going healthy! (haha, just wait till you see the later photos... healthy indeed)

Some set meal of pork? or chicken katsu, I forgot already... been so long =( Anyway, we had to go to class, so didn't really try other stuff, but it was filling anyway. Rating... hm... taking into account the value for price, customer service, and quality, it's actually not that great, so, maybe a 5.5... 6? Yeah...

Look, my phone mascot. His name is Sano. Not Sano from Hanakimi- it's Sano(suke) from Rurouni Kenshin.

Sano is very furry and cute.

This is from Mexican Crepe at Usyd. Quite newly opened, it's really quite popular. They have specials in the morning for breakfast, so this was one of them. Um... mushroom cheese chicken crepe I think? I shared it with F.H one Tuesday morning. I wasn't hungry- she was.

Wasn't anything really special. Tasted quite plain actually... needed like, two packets of pepper =)

Two Sundays ago, I had to go to work at 2:15. I had to teach Sunday School too, which finished at 11:30. Was going to walk to Thornleigh McDonald's, but ended up going here instead. This is at Wild Fired, Pennant Hills. Just walk further up from the Corner Cafe and you'll see it. They renovated it into a really nice cafe. See the woodfire oven on the left? =D

Other side~~

This is their um... (runs to check menu) "Peri Peri Chilli Kebab- marinated and char grilled chicken breast fillet skewers, bbq'd on char grill with peri peri chilli sauce, lettuce and tomato on pita bread." Yup, it was nice. I liked their rice. =)

This is Mixed Grill Gourmet Meat Pizza- "bbq sauce,mozzarella, lamb pieces, pepperoni, chorizo sausage, bacon, egg, tasty cheese topped with sweet chilli sauce." Hey... I thought mozzarella IS cheese... anyway, it was good... The weather outside was storming while I was eating, there are this flash of lightning and this really loud thunder that caused a few seconds of blackout. Annoyingly caused Epay to cease working at Franklins, which messed up one of my customer's transaction that day =_= Oh well, anyway, yeah... Wild Fired is a pretty good cafe, so it's worth going another time. Rating of 7.

Istana with family~~ Nevermind the dirty table, their Nasi Lemak~~

And Sambal Kang Kong~~ I dunno why, but this has always been one of my favourite vegetable dishes. =) Looking at the photo now makes me want to eat it again...

What is this ugly piece of brown thing doing on my site... oh! Uni food. Haha, this is at bottom level Wentworth. Had to get it coz we wanted to sit at the cafe to discuss group work. It's a brownie, an exceedingly sweet (till you can gag kind of sweetness) brownie.

Oh I remember that day. That terrible terrible day of mid-sem exam last Tuesday. I needed that flat white. Studied for two hours before my exam. And guess what? It was bad anyway. I hope I don't get it back tomorrow, or ever. Hopefully someone will be nice enough to flush it down the toilet before it gets back to me.

I don't know what happened to make the photo so blue at the back, I'm sure it wasn't that dark when I took the photo... but it makes the flower look nicer anyway. Yeah... since I can't get photos of my cats recently, coz they don't want to come into the house anymore, or they catch rats outside and it's disgusting to let them into the house after they play around with rats... I've been turning to taking photos of flowers instead. Yellow flower taken right outside my house =)

My dad was super proud of this one. It looks like a weird ball of... fungus... but it must be hard to grow the plant till it produces flowers, so yay =D

Oh look, a mini shuttle. I didn't bother taking off the threads so it looks bad. Oh well.

Sunday~ Just yesterday, my brother and I went to The Rocks after church for lunch. Lowenbrau, perhaps better known as The German Place, or the Bier (Beer) Place.

Here's the other side of the exterior.

As soon as I went in, I was amazed by how big this place was. Seriously, Lowenbrau is such a huge tavern, it's crazy. Yet my brother tells me it gets full at night. Full!! That place can fit... like, hundreds of ppl and it gets full!!

There's like another hall further down that end. And at night, there's bands playing for entertainment.

The bar~~

Crappy pictures because it was dim inside, and my poor phone camera can never take dim lightings well...

German Bier~~ 0.5L. Haha, no, I didn't have real beer. I had to go to work after that, and I wasn't going to walk into Franklins smelling and sounding like a drunk. Plus, our family can't take alcohol well at all =) So this is the non-alcoholic beer (don't laugh! non-alcoholic beer is good- you won't get a beer belly from drinking this and it tastes the same anyway!!)

Their bathroom. Coz that's like the most important part of a restaurant other than its kitchen. It's not a sink- it's a slab of stone.

We ordered a platter for two. Because the platters are big, they got logs to hold it off the table while u eat on the table.

Major disappointment is that they had no pork knuckles available that afternoon. BUT we got extra crackling pork belly instead! So it's all good =) Everyone kinda all stared at our table when our platter arrived. Why, did they think two asians cannot finish a platter by themselves? Coz we most certainly could finish it, and did. Let's see, the platter had three kinds of sausages, and some mashed potato, sauerkraut, pork belly, ham, chicken schnitzels, I can't remember what else, but it was very filling. Excellent food and service. That's why... 20 minutes later... the platter became this:

The stuff remaining on the platter is.. Sauerkraut. That stuff like... I'm sorry, foul. It's not inedible, like parsley and coriander, coz I can eat it, but would prefer not to. I tried three forkfulls of it, and still couldn't get used to it. It's fermented cabbage... so imagine the usually plain cabbage... tasting sour. Everything else was really really really good though... bit salty, but that's expected~ their sausages are nice =D Rating: 8.5 Will go back. P said he wants to go too, so hopefully sometime soon~~

Working on Anzac Day. =( Ok, so I shouldn't be complaining, it's double time and a half, but I had plans! Oh well...

Lack of updates?

Yes! Because I haven't been anywhere other than home, uni and work.

But then I realise... no one blogs anymore! It's a bit sad... there were only a few blogs that are kinda alive, mainly my sister's, B.T's, J.C's... and a couple of other ones, but recently, no one has been updating either.

.. Well, I had good reasons!

I mean, if I actually went to interesting places, took a few good photos, and had something to update about, I'd be doing it right now. Heck, I would have updated ages ago when I had at least some material to update on.

But no... what I've been up to between the last time I updated till now was a couple of mid-semester exams, a few essays due sometime in the near future, as well as presentations. Not exactly my definition of fun.

Strangely enough, I met a lot of high school friends this week in the mornings on the train. Monday was J, M and C, Tuesday was S and F, Wednesday was B, S and G, and Thursday.. today... oh, I slept on the train today, since there was no one. Sleeping with a scarf on is really comfortable coz half of your face gets buried into the scarf which warm and soft.

My brother bought a new laptop, for the price of... haha, a plane ticket to Japan... roughly anyway, but it tempted me to get a laptop too... which... I will not get! =( Must save up for Japan~ (get a laptop in Japan maybe? haha ^^) 

Such a disconnected entry... I better stop before it gets any worse.

Next update WILL have photos. I must really go somewhere interesting soon, my life is getting too dull and uninteresting. My brother's been going to all these fun places to eat with A and with his colleagues, leaving me behind, but he said he'll bring me to those places sometime... when I'm free... haha, which is like, never. Till Anzac Day.

In need of a break.