Food quest

As said, since holidays started, I've been going out almost everyday, shopping, eating and catching up with friends.

I was taken by Yoke Teng to Plume Restaurant, situated close to Highpoint shopping mall. Apparently, this yum cha restaurant serves the best dim sum. Even Hong Kongers say the dim sums are much nicer than Hong Kong's! But it tasted the same as others for me. As long as it's not dim sums from Shang Hai dumpling restaurant (where the dim sum wrap is thicker than 16 A4 papers and the filling is so little), situated somewhere along Chinatown, it's considered good already. :P



I didn't take many pictures of the dim sum though because I was busy filling up my stomach so that we could continue shopping after that. Hehe. :P

Some of the dim sums we both ate

The dessert. The bottom picture is the Plume Restaurant's tang yuen specialty. Because we ate on Tang Yuen Festival, we thought we should gave that a try. Inside was filled with black sesame seed, which to me was tasteless. Felt like eating onde-onde with tar instead. Hehe. :P

At night, we went to the popular Thai Restaurant, called Ghin Khao at 242 Swanston St. The food was not bad, especially the tom yum fried rice. Hmm, delicious! :P

Tom yum fried rice

We also ordered grilled chicken with spicy green papaya salad. Surprisingly, this salad was nice too but unfortunately the dish only comes with a few strips of grilled chicken. Sigh. But then again, it's a salad, so what can I ask more? Gee...

Grilled chicken with spicy green papaya salad

The soft shell crab in mild curry sauce was however a problem. Initially, we were served with a live fly hidden inside the fried shallots on top of the dish. I noticed something moving and saw a fly trying to fly out from the fried shallots pile. I told the waiter and he brought the dish back to the kitchen. Because the kitchen had a big window where one could "kind of" see what the cooks were doing, we "kind of " saw the cook throwing away the fried shallots and then frying the whole dish again. Then we were served with the same dish but it wasn't fancily decorated compared to the first time.

What to do? Ma eat lor! Or else throw the crabs away meh? AUD 22.90 for that dish eh!

Soft shell crab in mild curry sauce

I've never eaten soft shell crab before. I have eaten hard-shell crabs, if you would like to distinct it that way. :P But the crabs tasted more like just dough to me. And this dish is one of the "highly recommended" dishes by Ghao Khin. Hmm...

I also went to Gigi, a Japanese restaurant at 237 Swanston St with another group of friends, one of them who was bound to leave to Singapore for good after her graduation. This place is not recommended to anyone unless they want to taste disaster. Oh, I'm a terrible critic. :P






Never have I come across a Japanese restaurant which doesn't even serve Japanese green tea, until this restaurant! They instead serve cold can drink of Japanese green tea. Weird! I want the hot Japanese green tea served in a teapot and teacup! Not a can drink!



The food was horrible too. My unagi don (eel with rice) is not nice at all. I think they could improve on that dish much much more. And in fact, I would much prefer the eel to be served with Japanese rice and some sesame seeds on it, you know, the actual Japanese style kind of food.

Unagi don, served with miso soup

My friends' salmon don and yaki udon noodles didn't look appealing too. The yaki fried udon looked more like Malaysia's hokkien noodles. The difference is just that Malaysia's hokkien noodles, fried with lard, is thousand times much better than yaki fried udon. No wonder it is yucky. :P

Yaki fried udon noodles



Salmon don, also served with miso soup

No offense.

Geelong part 3: Geelong Botanical Gardens

There's actually nothing much to do in Geelong. Just sight-seeing, shopping and eating. But because I went there on Christmas day (read this and this), the shops and restaurants weren't open so the only thing I was able to do was sight-seeing.

In taking this picture, I got scratched by the cactus thorns. :(

And that's actually enough for me because I love taking pictures and travelling around more than shopping and eating. Hehe.



Walking from Geelong train station to Geelong Botanical Gardens and then back (to board the train home) is certainly quite a distance. But walking to Geelong Botanical Gardens, I passed by Corio Bay and also strolled along the Eastern Beach. So the wonderful sights did not really tire me, but in fact gave me full spirits to walk more and see what lies beyond.

Geelong Botanical Gardens is very small. I thought I couldn't finish visiting the whole place but there's nothing much to see in there. In fact, compared to Melbourne Botanical Gardens, Geelong Botanical Gardens have very few trees, so the place wasn't shady at all - and I hate heat! So I didn't enjoy myself much in there. Hehe. :P



So this ends my Geelong 6 hours venture on foot. :)

Religion turned entertainment?

Note: I know that this blog post may create an uproar among pious readers. Please read this post with an open mind and be in my shoes and understand my disappointment with certain people. I'm focusing on Buddha because this is what happened but this post generalises to all Gods and religions.

Today is the massive Boxing Day sale and I'm one of the many crazy shoppers who wouldn't want to miss out on this. Waking up at 6.30 am, I went to the city to find so many shoppers who have already bought things and are resting on benches (Myer store opened at 6 am today). I guess they are even crazier than me. :P

An accident that occurred today that caused a long tram pile up. I had to get down from the tram and walk to the store instead because the accident occurred on the tram tracks so the trams cannot move.

The many trams stalled because of the accident

Anyway, there was one shop that I entered which kind of angered me. I won't name the shop though. What happened was that a Buddha statue was placed near the cashier counter. I don't mind if the owner himself is religious but what disappointed me was that the music playing in the shop was a very loud "banging-on-the-wall" kind of music which is definitely not appropriate for a Buddha to be placed. But that wasn't the most disappointing part. What angered me most was the statue was facing lingerie.

What the hell?!

Although I am a Buddhist, I am not a religious person. Nevertheless, that scene really outraged me. How can a God statue (in this case, Buddha), which is usually placed in a quiet surrounding, is placed in a shop blasted with loud music and worse facing lingerie?!



That is so not acceptable!

To think of it, there's a disco pub somewhere along Chinatown where a big Buddha statue is placed inside. And people are drinking beer and partying in there. Right in front of the Buddha.



Has Buddha turned to be an entertainment icon??!!

A friend and I were discussing this issue recently and she told me there is one scene in the movie, Music and Lyrics, starring Hugh Grant and Drew Barrymore, which shows the singer coming from behind a Buddha statue and starting singing while dancers dressing as monks caressing her. I didn't watch the movie though.



If that movie is acceptable, then why Harry Potter was banned in some countries because of "religion issues"?

I am not comparing the two and say that it is unfair to have double treatment. Because I also feel angry when I see the Pope and the monks bashing up a man in the movie, Scary Movie (I think it was part 2).

Some people might think this is just a comedy. It's just a movie. But I think making fun of other people's religion is not funny at all!

The main message that I want to convey is that all of us respect each other's religion and religion cannot be used as the source of entertainment but for educational purposes.

Geelong Part 2: Hunting for Bay Walk Bollards

Geelong is popular for its Waterfront City and its Bay Walk Bollards. There are 106 wooden sculptures there, each with its unique paintings.

Ta-da! Presenting 'The Son of the Sheik'.

Corio Bay in the background

Royal Geelong Yatch Club

I think this is a prisoner sculpture. This picture was taken at the roadside so it was embarassing having to adjust the camera when the traffic light was red and the occupants in the cars were looking at me. :P



Take note of the family barbecuing in the background

Travelling to Geelong on my own gave me time to hunt for the sculptures and take pictures with each of them. Nevertheless, I don't think I managed to find all 106 of them. Still it was fun because I was the mastermind of this "treasure hunt" - the organiser of the game, the winner and also the loser. Haha. :P

Helping to look for bushfire so that this fireman can put it off. :P

Swimmers with a blue black punched eye. I guess they hit on the rocks when they were diving. :P

A very sad clown






Take note of the family sitting on their own foldable chairs, relaxing in the nice weather



Being like one of them. Hehe. :P

Going on a treasure hunt alone and also adjusting the camera on my tripod and then running to the scene and smile made me look like a crazy woman. People were looking at me and smiling at me. Haha. It was so embarassing!

The worse was when some even just stopped to look at me posing for the camera until the photo is taken! It felt so awkward! Hehe. :P

But ah well, not like they will recognise me anyway. :P

The band. This sculptures are so cool because they even have notes printed on the music score instead of putting a blank piece of score.

The music score

Does this look a bit like the olden times? ;)

Coming up, the final part of my Geelong travel.



******



Tomorrow most Melbournians will be busy attending cricket match; Australia vs India. But I'll be busy shopping for the much awaited grand sale, THE BOXING DAY SALE! Woo hoo! :P

Geelong Part 1: Water and granite

When people are busy getting together and feasting on a turkey for Christmas lunch or even busy unwrapping the many Christmas presents, I went on a journey. A journey around the Port Phillip Bay.

My journey from Melbourne to Geelong

Corio Bay #1

Corio Bay #2

Corio Bay #3

Corio Bay #4

Corio Bay #5

Corio Bay #6

Eastern Beach #1

Eastern Beach #2

A one hour train ride via V line train service that takes me from Melbourne to Geelong usually costs AUD 12.20 return, is free today due to the Christmas break. So, I decided to take the golden opportunity to venture to this place which I've been planning to go since last year.

Calm, serene, peaceful

Clear water

"Shark Fins" #1

"Shark fins" #2

Armed with the three most important things; tripod, camera and spare batteries; I woke up at 6:30 am to go on this journey alone to rediscover myself. Haha. :P

I look like a small kid :P

Thomas the tank engine!! Hehe.

Initially, the weather was a bit cloudy and gloomy. Luckily it didn't rain though. Later in the afternoon, the weather became so sunny. Thank God for that. :)

Smorgy's Cunningham Pier

I thought that there will be very few people since it's Christmas. However, I was so wrong. There were so many families who decided to have a family time at the park there. Many of them brought along their BBQ pits, foldable chairs, tables and mats. They even brought games to play. I saw one family who was playing lawnbowling too and another one who brought gifts to exhange there with their relatives. Some of the families brought a radio while some of them blasted their car stereo sounds.

People playing volleyball

Kid's pool

I walked along the entire Waterfront City to Geelong Botanical Gardens. The Waterfront City was much better than I've expected. The beautiful sunny weather made it all the more interesting and colourful, especially at The Promenade.

The Promenade #1

The Promenade #2

The Promenade #3



The Promenade #4



The Promenade #5



The Promenade #6

Each wooden plank is dedicated to someone who contributed to the restoration of the promenade pier



War Memorial, Johnstone Park

T. E. Bostock Memorial

Geelong is definitely a place to visit for those who are living in Melbourne. Despite having all the shops close on Christmas day, I still enjoyed the entire trip which I spent almost 6 hours on foot. I feel so fit now. Hehe. :P

Season's Greetings and Happy Christmas to everyone!