I don't know what heaven feels like, but on the day we got to eat maguro, I felt like I'm very close to heaven already!

This is one big slab of maguro. We had 2.5 slabs in total. Muahahaha. The wasabi tube doesn't come with it, but it's there anyway.


This is somebody cutting up maguro. I think it's Shota. I'm quite good at cutting too.. Hehe.


Yes, it's Shota! Lolx. Kanako was trying to do a "scare" pose..


Yeah baby, look at the messy table.. Nori, Japanese rice, and more maguro!!


TADA!!!! Over-flowing with maguro.


I know you guys can't see what it is. It's the pot, with our rice in it. Cooking the rice, and what you can mainly see is the bubbles. Bubbles! Bubbles! Take a look at our stove man. It's ELECTRICAL stove yah, but I think I still prefer the fire and gas kind.


I like the teapot! It's so cute. Hehe. We used it to make our o-cha in it. Authentic o-cha from Japan leh.. I was happily slurping my tea up.. =D


They even brought their Japanese chopsticks here. Hahahaha..


Shota and Kumi setting up the table, scooping the rice, and the rest of us just drooled all over.


Tea pouring ceremony


TADA!!! See the food??? OMGOMGOMG. It's the rice, topped with our sliced maguro, a bit of shoyu over our rice and maguro, not forgetting some wasabi, and we shredded our nori and sprinkled them over everything.
From left: Kumi, Mari, Me, Kanako and Shota. See how always the royalty sits at the head of the table. Haha. =P


Dessert. ;) It's coffee with ice cream dumped in it.


Washing up time! As usual, royalty gets to slack and take photos.. (I was mugging for my katakana test then, actually..)


Alright! No more photos!

I promised to post photos didn't I? Hehe. Here they are!

This is Shota.. We were waiting for our yukata clad girls to get ready, so we sat at the couches at our Village reception, and tada! *peace sign*


O.O!! We were getting quite bored, so we started to take funny poses with our cameras. Looks spastic.. =X


Here they are!! The one beside me is Kanako. Her yukata is hand made by her sister!


This is Mari! Yes, tilt your head to the left. I can't be bothered to rotate the pictures.. =P Cute hor?


So we left for the Japan Festa.. Hot day, but worth it, I tell ya. This is takoyaki! Octopus in it. This is our Takopachi in SG. I was feasting man.. Hehe.


Japanese traditional drums? Not sure.. I wasn't really into the show, was more amazed at how the australians always only turn red, and not get tanned or stuff like us. See how red their faces were!


Oh my gosh.. See this? I wanted to eat it, but the queue was damn long!! Even if I have all the money in the world to buy it, I wouldn't wanna wait and queue in the hot sun..


Some sort of dessert I think. Or snack. It's rice with red beans. I like the leaf. Hehe. No, I didn't eat it of course. I meant, the leaf is pretty, so, I like it.


From left: Lim, Mari, Kanako


This was the first event we came across when we arrived actually. Sorry for not putting the photos in a chronological order. This is Judo.


Japanese traditional dance! You can see they're having fun. Haha. It's great you know? I wanted to join, but I paiseh....


See? Even dogs came to support the festa.


Story telling!! This is a picture of MOMOTARO!! Haha..


They even have a few other girls to sing songs for the story.


The Japanese girl is Kumi, the one that I told Jean that has a spitting image to Joanna Wee. Yes? No?
The girl on the left is her French classmate. Sexy babe leh. She joined in the dance, and woooooo.. curvy moves. Guys, get your buckets and not drool all over the floor.
The 2 older people behind are their mentors or something. I'm not sure..


Kids dressed in yukata! They're so adorable. :D


Yep, that's about it.. I took videos of the dance, so there wasn't enough space to take photos of the watermelon crushing and all that. Gonna blog about maguro now!!

I really believe that I suck in English. So anyway, I was asking Jean if it's spitting image, or splitting image. Apparently, I always thought that it was spitting image.

tree: but why split??
jean: ...........
jean: -_-
jean: spit so nan ting!
jean: it's like... PUI. den suddenly someone else looks like me.

I think it's easier to spit than to split.. PUI. Then you have many trees, which is good because they beautify the place and provide shade and give you mortals more oxygen to breathe. So government should allow ME to spit without giving me fines.

Yes Huijun, I am very happy here! Especially today. Haha.

If you guys remembered what I blogged about the past few posts, probably you all will know that I went to the Japan Festa today. Haha. It's fun!

So before I continue with the Japan Festa, wanna dedicate this small little section to my Cherie jie. Haha. Yeah guess what, I dreamt about you again! One of the funniest dreams so far.. Haha. Yup so apparently in the dream, you were here even before your semester starts. I mean, hey, you don't have to miss me so much till you wanna come so early yah? I don't get to have the toilet to myself anymore, but that's fine. I enjoyed your company. Haha. In the dream, we were actually like quarrelling lor. Ok, more like debating. We went to shop for groceries, and we shared food, and during our meal, we were arguing who should eat more, because it's not easy to split food into half equally yah. It's not the "Hey!!! I should eat more, because I need more nutrients ok" kind. It's the "Wei!!! You should eat more lor, because you're skinny, and I wanna go on diet!!" Really, I never imagined that I would dream about anything weight related. =X It's funny how we argued and sorts, because we did stuff like scissors-paper-stone, but decided that it's not fair either. So in the end, we decided that we shall take turns to eat more. Pengz. I woke up laughing like hell....

Yep, back to the Japan Festa today. I got up at 10am in the morning, went to shop for groceries. I spent a lot today man.. I bought watermelon, grapes, fish, baby octopus, minced beef and chicken. Haha. Should last me a week plus I hope. Came back and bathed, went to meet my jap friends at the reception area before we set off. Hee. So exciting! 3 of them are girls, namely Kanako, Mari and Kumi. They wore yukata.. Aw... So cute!!! I couldn't get my hands on one, so I had to go to the Festa in jeans and a normal top. Shota (the only guy in our group) and I were busy having fun with our cameras, taking the girls donning in yukata. :D

It's a hot day.. Really! Could feel the sun burning my skin. I should really get sunblock lotion soon. Took a bus to the place itself, and gosh, quite a lot of people even though it's just a small Japanese fair! The first event we came across was Judo. Haha. We took a few pictures, and scurried off to look for food. Hungry people, we are. I spent a lot of money on food.... =X I bought Chocolate Donut, Onigiri, alot of Takoyaki (it's our Takopachi in SG) and... *suspense* MAGURO!!!!!!!! OMGOMGOMGOMGOMG! I'm so gonna feast on it tonight. RAW. Muahahahahaha. -happy as a lark-

Took quite a number of pictures.. Pictures of this group called Himawari Taiko (I think), they were playing those Japanese drums. Then they had paper movie, which is sort of like a story telling, where they have pictures drawn on drawing block, and then somebody tells the story. One of the story was about Momotaro. Haha. It means, Peach Boy. They had this dance too, that goes round and round in circles like those kind of camps where you dance around the campfire, just that this is the more traditional Japanese dance.. Haha. My friends wanted to pull me in and join in the dance, but I was too embarrassed. Haha. Last was the watermelon splitting event. Hoho. So funny! For this event, they only allow kids to play. I don't know why.. But it's rather amusing. The kids are blindfolded, and one at a time, they are given thick wooden sticks to hit the watermelon. As they can't see where it is, they have to depend on the audiences telling them where to move. Haha. Most of them will go way off the course. There's one kid, he thought he was on the right track, and wacked the ground really hard, that the stick broke! Lolx. The whole crowd burst out laughing. It's really fun, too bad we don't get to try it. My friends and I were thinking, maybe we should organise one such event at The Village! Haha. Cool man. And of course, we'll get to eat watermelons after the event. =D

Came back feeling really happy, haven't had so much fun since I came. Haha. Made friends with a few people too. So anyway, they said next Thursday they're gonna bring me go clubbing. I was like, er...... I can drink, but I can't dance. They said drinks are gonna be real cheap on Thursdays, so I should go try it. ALRIGHT. To think my first time clubbing would actually be in AUST!! Like, so weird. Ah, as long as I get home safe and un-drunk, that's fine. I hope they've got nice nachos to go with..

Gonna get ready and go eat MAGURO!! MAGURO!!! Whee.....

I've had a packed week. Been rushing for stuff here and there, not much time to do any other stuff leisurely. I'm really busy yah, not giving excuses for not blogging the past few days..

I had my hiragana test on Monday.. Not sure how it went, but I know for sure I won't fail, but neither would I get full marks. Haha. Heck la. Doesn't kill not to get full marks yah. I'm still relatively smart I believe. Hehe. The worst day was yesterday, where I had 2 pracs in a row. First was bio prac from 10am-1pm, then chem prac from 2pm-5pm. 6 HOURS OF PRAC IN TOTAL!!! I felt like every ounce of energy was drained from me. Even though I was one of the fastest in bio prac, I still didn't manage to finish the prac. Can you people imagine how screwed we can get? Gosh. I was like, squinting at the mosquito head under the microscope. EEEWW..

Yup, those 2 pracs were enough to kill like 95% of me. What 5% left was used to drag myself home with a big handcarry filled with my 1000+ pages thick Biology Campbell & Reece book, labcoat, goggles, pencil case, file and big nalgene bottle. Not forgetting that I didn't really get much sleep the night before, trying to do the pre-prac assessment online for chem (but hey, it was worth it because I managed to get all of the answers right) and at the same time, trying to read up for the pracs so I will know what's going on. I was really exhausted, but I'm really glad it's over. Next time, I'll give myself a week's grace to prepare for the pracs. Seriously, just 2 days isn't enough.

Tomorrow's the Japan Festa, looking forward to it! Hopefully we'll figure out how to get there.. Haha. Shall take many photos.

Was watching Russell Peters video clip again, with my 2 housemates in my room. Ok, doesn't sound proper to be in a room with 2 guys, but hey, whichever corner of the house I am at, I'm still under 1 roof with 2 guys, doesn't matter if it was my room or not. So anyway, we were laughing our ass off. Hahahahaha. People from Holland and Philippines come together, they produce little Hollappinos. People from Iceland and Cuba, little Ice Cubes. French and Greek, little Freeks. Hahahahahah. You guys should watch Russell Peters!

I can't remember what else I wanted to blog about.. Nothing much really. I'm gonna bathe and dabian. Have a good weekend!

See? I AM making an effort to blog!

So here I am, blogging again. Had quite a good day, so wanna tell you guys about it.

Just a little note, it's more about my usual ramblings. Might bore you. -winks-

Woke up this morning at 11am, had kelloggs frosties for breakfast! I love frosties. Haha. No, not because of the Ice Age: The Meltdown activity cd that comes along with with it. It's just nice to eat kelloggs frosties. It's not like the normal kelloggs cereal. It's frosties!! Like, sugared you know? So it's slightly sweet, you can eat it without the milk. :D

Went back to my room to do chemistry homework before I go for tutorial in the afternoon. It's about the structure of molecules, VSEPR theory, hybridisation. Haha. I totally suck in hybridisation. I only understand a bit, and totally gave up when I saw the one that has molecules with double bonds in them. Haha. Packed my bag, had instant noodles for lunch, then headed to school.

Brrr.. A little cold for an afternoon.. Think the weather is getting quite cold nowadays.. Anyway, I stepped into the classroom and hey, I'm the only student there! The tutor looked at me and said, "I think you're probably going to be the only student today."

Ok let me explain what's going on. The tutorial lesson was supposed to be on Monday, but it was Adelaide Cup on Monday (which means it's holiday). So, we missed lessons on Monday, and had to replace it today at 3pm, which is a slot specially opened today for us. Apparently, there would be some students who can't make it, because they might have other lessons at 3pm. Some people would crash other tutorial lessons available during the week, and some would totally give it a miss, because they'd rather use the time to go to the pub instead of learning something. (The last bit of statement quoted by the tutor. She's quite cute.) So yeah, I was really the only student there, and it felt like those one-on-one tuition that you had back in primary school and secondary school days.

I trashed out everything that I didn't understand about hybridisation and resonance. The good thing about one-on-one is, you get the tutor all to yourself, and you can ask her as many questions as you like because there'll be no one else for her to attend to anyway. You get to ask the stupidest questions, and after clearing the doubts, you become the smartest student.

Less than one hour of lesson, we cleared the whole tutorial. So happy. Went to Rundle Street to get some stuff. More hangers, another pillowcase for pillow no. 2, measuring cup for my rice tub and very colourful range of rubber bands for my hair. Was looking for my contact lens saline, but it seems that the optic shops don't sell them! Weird...

Walked back home, stopped by at the library and borrowed another 2 dvds: My Life As A Dog, and Calendar Girls. Was craving for bubble tea and.. Yah. Bought a cup of bubble tea. =X sinful!!! But hey, it was like almost 6pm, and the shop is still open! I thought to myself, I shall go to the library first, and borrow some stuff, and maybe it'll be closed by then and will end my craving for bubble tea. I came out from the library, continued in the direction of my apartment, and saw that the shop was still open! I'm just SO FATED to drink it ok. Hahahaha..

Slurped everything happily, and finished it even before I got home. That was fast.. I should open a bubble tea shop myself, so I could drink bubble tea every day huh. Went to the reception and checked for letters. Woah.. I have 3 postcards!!! Hehe. I feel so loved. Thanks sisters! Ok so anyway, I went online (still am online) and made dinner - spaghetti with pasta sauce, sliced tomatoes with lemon & cracked pepper tuna, and steamed corn with melted butter. Had ice cream a while ago as dessert. Haha. Did I mention that I bought a 4 litre tub of ice cream that costs only $4+? Expiry date is a year later, so I can eat the whole tub for the year, unless I finish it very fast. Haha.

Hm.. That's about it. Quite a good day, except for some minor stuff here and there. Shan't talk about it here.. Gonna sleep early tonight, because there's a lesson at 8am tomorrow morning. That would be 530am SG time yah? Haha. 15 minutes to 10pm now, I gotta go bathe and pack my bag.

A fool is someone whose pencil wears out before its eraser does. - Ask Marilyn

Blunder

The very first embarrassing thing that happened to me:

I made friends with a guy from my bio class unknowingly through email. The person's name is Mitchell, and I thought hey, my church friend back in Singapore is called Mitchell too. Therefore, he should be a girl. Invalid argument of course, because he is a male. Definitely not a sound argument at that too. So anyway, he missed a bio tut yesterday, and was asking me what went on during tutorials. I said oh, yada yada yada... and went on to say that I was wondering which of the 2 girls she (I didn't know he was a male at that time) was, so actually she wasn't there.

This is the reply:

Hehehe...gold! i am a boy... :) did you ask one of the girls if she was me?
classic!

Yeah, smart ass, I am..

The simplest form of the theological argument from design for the existence of God is known as "Paley's Watch", after its inventor, William Paley. If we found by chance a watch or other piece of intricate mechanism, we should infer that it had been made by someone. But all around us we find intricate pieces of natural mechanism, and the processes of the universe are seen to move together in complex relations. We should therefore infer that these, and the universe which contains them, likewise have a Maker.

- Bernard Williams.

It's been slightly over 3 weeks since I arrived here. Woah.. Quite fast huh. Time seems to pheeeeeew by without getting a lot of things done. I've got a couple of personal emails to reply, but I don't really have much time last weekend to do. Today is a holiday in Adelaide.. Haha. My first holiday here. What holiday is it? Adelaide Cup or something like that. Whatever la.. I get to have a day more to do some work.

I was just changing the title of my blog and its description. I don't think you'll see it on the blog itself, but here is how it goes. My blog's name is now called Raise Your Voice. Haha. It's the title of this movie that I watched just last night on dvd that I borrowed from the library. It's this movie featuring Hilary Duff, interesting storyline. I shan't talk much about it.. Go to http://www.raiseyourvoicemovie.com/ if you want to know more. Take a look at the music jam video. One of my favourite parts of the movie. Haha. So anyway, next is my blog description. I put 4 words in that box. Speako Chicko Mutto Titto. I don't know what it is, seriously. But it sounds cute huh. Haha. Speako means speak, like saying that this blog is a way for me to say what I want to say. Chicko is... something to rhyme with Speako. Haha. Mutto can mean mutterings. Like, how I always mutter to myself when I read, study, think aloud, etc. Titto is NOT tits.. It's just something to rhyme with Mutto as well. Haha. So there you go.

Hm.. A bit about my school life yah? Since that's probably what I've been busy with the whole time. Oh ho, I've got this weird Chemistry teacher. She's called Squinty eyes. No, not her real name of course. My housemate gave her that name, because I kept complaining how she talks with her eyes closed. I often wonder if her eyes were just squinting, or are they really closing. So in tutorial, that was the only time I could get closer to her, but not too close (because she freaks me out). I was watching her intently, and yah, she closes her eyes. The only time she opens her eyes REAL WIDE is when she's emphasising something. LOL. Bio tutorial is probably one of the more interesting tutorials, because the people are interesting. Too bad, it's only once a week. I could do with more help in Bio.

I just had my Chemistry practicals last week, and in my uni, we have to do this pre-practical exercise online before we are allowed to do the prac. I was really anxious because:

1. We are split into groups, and what experiment we are supposed to do for the partcular week depends on what group we belong to. AND, I didn't know about the grouping thing until the eve of the practical. OMG.

2. I mentioned about doing the pre-practical exercise yah? I knew about it way before, and intend to do it the eve of the practical so I would remember it better and know how to go about doing the test the next day. BUT!!!! I found out that we have groupings, so I'm not supposed to do the practical exercise that I thought I was going to do. Yah.

3. So the next day, I went to school real early. Thankfully the practical is in the afternoon. I finally know what's my group number, and ARGHH!!!! It's about Covalent Halides! Quantitive Analysis. Gah. I suck at Quantitive Analysis!

4. We need to get at least 65% pass for practicals. I can faint... I've like totally no confidence then!

Thankfully, the pre-practical exercise was not very difficult. I got 90%! Muahaha. But sad lor, because I didn't read carefully, then I didn't count properly as well.. I could have gotten full marks!! Haha whatever la. The practical itself was enjoyable, that's what matters more. The teacher was really helpful and encouraging, I felt like practicals are so fun! Hee. Now, I look forward to practicals instead of dreading it. I mean, isn't it amazing how the teachers here can change my attitude towards school? So far, I've been looking forward to lessons and all that. Haha. And doing work excitedly. Lolx.

The only subject that I'm falling behind on is Jap. Sigh. I still cannot catch even the hiragana words. I'm so screwed!! I've decided to make those cards with the characters on it, and practise hiragana and katakana words everyday. In the toilet especially, since I always want to find something to do while I'm dabianing.


Announcement:

Japan Festa '06
presented by Japanese Society of Adelaide Inc.
25th March '06 Saturday
1:00pm - 5:00pm
Orphanage Park at Millswood
Corner of Goodwood Rd. and Mitchell St.
Entrance from Mitchell St.

Japan Festa (I thought Fiesta is the right word?) on the March 25. Anybody wanna go with me?? *no response from anybody* I'll buy air tickets for you!!! *sees everyone fighting to raise their hands higher* NAAAAAHHHHHH. Just kidding.. *Cheys heard*

No worries, I won't be alone. I'll probably tag along with my Japanese friends, who will be wearing their yukata (summer kimono) to the festival. AW..... I WANT ONE TOO!! Maybe I'll get one for myself at the festival, if it's not too pricey. Hehe. I'll probably spend more money on food. Better ask my mum how much I'm allowed to spend on the festival. I'm still a good girl, even though I'm away from home!

I've blogged quite a lot huh? I'm running out of topics to blog about. To maintain readership level, maybe you guys could give me topics on what I could blog about! All right, gotta do bio tutorial. Till I blog again! (Hopefully not another 3 weeks later..)

Cheers.