Horse riding at Uncle Nev's
Finally had my long-awaited horse riding trip! =D It was organised by the Spore students society so got to know several other singaporeans there as well. It took us around 1 half hr to get to Uncle Nev's by bus. I saw cows, sheep, horses grazing on grass along the way there! hahaz nothing much actually but coz finally saw the wildlife, open plains or more of the country-side style of living in Melbourne as had been in & exploring ard city & suburbs only.
The horse that I'm riding on is called "Rossa". She's 10 yrs old and the female trainer told me that she's one of her fav horses =) Initially, I felt rather apprehensive when I just got onto the horse. coz was suddenly sitting at a much elevated level and didn't realise that horses are quite big animals =P While waiting to start on the trail, Rossa kept vibrating her body and stamping her feet and wandering ard to congregate with the other horses. I was not given any advice or instructions on how to control the horse =S learnt them along the way only. Suddenly, all the horses started to follow the horse that the trainer was on and ambled out in a single file. ~ whoa ~ hahaz realised that the horses there were really tamed & well-trained & that it seems like I dun even have to control the horse at all. niwae I was wrong! once out onto the trail, Rossa kept stopping to eat the grass on the open plains or even any leaves or bushes that were on the mountain. She stopped on her tracks to do her business for several times along the way too. heez many of the horses had similar behaviours too. At times, it was quite hard to get them to start moving. Moreover, sometimes whenever a horse stopped suddenly, there'll be a chain reaction - the horses behind it will follow & stop too! den it'll take some time to get the horses kicking away again =P The trainers kept shouting "gallop" or "up" (in a slightly diff pronounciation) along the way to keep them moving. hahaz if not they'll tend to laze ard & stop on their tracks or start to eat any grass that they can see =P
felt comfortable with riding on the horse after a short while.. heez I trust Rossa not to turn wild suddenly. They whipped this particular rope & gave certain commands along the way to make the horses go fast or slow. It's really exciting when the horses started to gallop =D there's this time when we reached a level sandy path, they sent us off 2 by 2 & made the horses gallop real fast! gosh I was trying to hold on tight to the rein & seat handle while feeling my helmet rocking hard on my head & butt bouncing vigorously on the horse's back. hahaz felt the rush of adrenaline thru my body to the max.
We rode from the open plains through to the State Forest of Mt. Disappointment...was wondering why would they want to name a mountain as "disappointment" =( sounds so pessimistic. heez but knew why after riding up & down the narrow, steep & winding tracks on the Mt. The trees were tall & kinda bare hence the few canopies & the ground was mostly covered with sand & rocks. but I guess all these made the trail much more challenging =P
one of the broader tracks that we took in Mt Disappointment..where there's rather bare trees & sandy ground
stopping for a drink! one of the horses went all the way down into the pond & the gal riding on it almost had her legs submerged in water..phew
like this pic at the open plains..turned back to take it while still riding on the horse =P
The view from the balcony where we stopped & rested at a homestead for some refreshments. ~breathtaking~ can see the whole stretch of the open plains & mountains
Really MisSed the trail & Rossa! hahaz can say that my fav animal now is horse! they r elegant & cute though their shit stinks horribly :P
a pile of soil ~ nope it's a day of horses' faeces juz outside their shed!
Dutch National Nite
one of the national nites at IH where we celebrated Dutch culture for this yr's sem 1 . we were served Dutch food.. =( supposed to get some Dutch pudding for desert but coz they couldn't find it so end up with some weird cheese, "preserved stuff" & biscuits instead (kinda horrible) but what I remembered was that the chicken in main course & meatball for entree were not bad.. hahaz
skits, games, dutch dances were performed & there's choir too! hahaz I
joined the choir. we sang the Dutch national anthem in Dutch!!! had several practise sessions heez but tink Dutch is kinda hard to learn.. didn't quite get the pronounciation of some words accurately =P after which there's this slave auction of the O weekers for contribution to club/IH fund! which u can bid to "buy" them for 2hrs?!? the bid went higher & higher progressively (if I dun remember wrongly the highest record: ard 150!) whoa.. gonna have another nat nite in sem 2 where we freshies will get to vote for the country that we wanna celebrate =)
set-up/deco on table [really nice hand-made windmill, pop-up menus (blue), paper flowers]
my table (one of the choir tables) =P
decorated dining hall.. painted backdrop & banners on the walls. notice the flags of various countries hanging from the ceilings? they rep the countries from which the students came from.. unique characteristic of IH's dining hall as compared to other colleges =)
clinical placement & misc
my clinical placement's in Zone 2.. arghz I need to take ard 1.5hr to get to Broadmeadows, a suburb. need to get a daily tic (zone 1 + 2) which cost me $9 plus per day! hope I'll get posted to the clinics in city areas next time =P heez but it's an experience to go the the suburbs. It's really nice & tranquil there with no high rise buildings at all. Houses that are smthg like the semi-detached ones are what u can mostly see in the suburbs that are further away.
I'm into my 2nd wk of clinical placement .. 1st wk is juz orientation. there's only 4 of us who are posted there & we'll r divided into 2 grps to go over once every fortnight. just had a hydrotherapy session this wk! there were 6 outpatients who came for hydrotherapy sessions & we kinda like teach & guide them the exercises that they're supposed to do.. totally a diff kind of experience as compared to what we do in the pool ~ which is to swim =) while for them, they find the buoyancy when in the water really helpful. & juz realised that Alex drives! he drove his gigantic family car there.. gave me a lift to the train station =P hahaz can't expect him to drive all the way into the city when he lives so near there. arghz too bad we'd diff classes & timeslots if not will get a lift from uni. My 1st time to sit in a car in Aus.. Once the engine was started, he accelerated the car rather hard & fast. =P yea tink they generally drive much less safer ?!? At times, on the road, esp when road's quite clear of traffic, the cars will turn rather fast & at times can hear the skidding sound. hahaz
went for horse riding today! so FUN! but my butt feels kind of sore now =P heez.
hmmz so many things to do & need to do research for PBL.. half day left to complete them if I can wake up early tmlo. But it's a sun! planning to grocery shop..arghz or look for smthg to wear for IH ball nex wk.. gonna witness the closing ceremony for the games tmlo too =) but heard that it won't be as spectacular as the opening ceremony alr coz the highlights will be mainly in the stadium. no more water fountain on the fish floats anymore too. shall see how it'll be like tmlo ~
Commonwealth Triathlon
SaturDay morning~ woke up early in the morning to catch the triathlon! didn't buy any tickets for any matches so went to watch competitions that r opened to everyone. hahaz it's obviously only the triathlon & marathon. almost got free tics from the Spore student society to watch badminton but coz they didn't get into semi-finals (tink for the team event) den ended up having no tics =(..
We headed down to St. kilda beach where the starting & finishing line were at. By the time we reached there, we realised that it had already started and saw a few groups of athletes cycling past us. Soon after, it was the last part of the race which was 
running. Didn't manage to go down to the finishing line but we went down to explore the beach. hmmz dun tink that the beach's that nice. =P heez it's like very "commercialised".. rather small too.. tink only had 2 stretches of sand & it was deserted. hahaz maybe it's not that bad after all..juz the lack of activities or people on the beaches that somehow made it seem dull & unappealing. (all watching triathlon!) many of the locals said muz go to the beaches in the suburbs instead coz they're much much nicer! =)
really big crown-shaped tree!
us the early birds who woke up early on a weekend to watch the game!
near the finishing line ~ words on the banner:
"United By the MoMent Melbourne 2006"
a big crowd of people gathering to look at the live screen
DOGS! haha coz a lot of them brought their dogs along. they're so cute, furry & of such a wide variety! don't remember seeing quite a few of the species back in spore =P
TiMe
"To realise the value of ONE MONTH,ask the mother who gave birth to a premature baby.To realise the value of ONE WEEK,ask the editor of a weekly newspaper.To realise the value of ONE HOUR,ask the lovers who are waiting to meet.To realise the value of ONE MINUTE,ask the person who missed the train.To realise the value of ONE SECOND,ask the person who has just avoided an accident.To realise the value of ONE MILLISECOND,ask the person who won a silver medal in the Olympics. "..yes time is precious & more time is all I need now for my everything, anything..
~ arghz mgging for test but sleep is precious too! ~
zzZZZzz
fireworks at yarra!
finally registered for the first aid course with sj.. arghz it's like $185 for just a 2 day course.. need to obtain a first aid cert which is part of the requirements for my course. mine expired already =S soon after coming back home, had to rush down to meet the others to go down to Fed sq.. so exciting heez coz it's the Commonwealth Games opening ceremony & there'll be fireworks! all along the Yarra River, at Federation sq and even the parks nearby were flooded with so many people! several live screens were displayed. we didn't manage to squeeze to the other side of the river so that we can get a better view of the screen (niwae over there's flooded so pointless also =P) we were by the side of the river sitting on a sloping grass patch. could still see the screen from sideways but it was partly blocked by the stereo sound system.. hahaz
first time to see fireworks shooting up & exploding into the night sky right in front of my eyes. there were fireworks shooting up into the sky from3 diff locations.. 2 of the areas were nearer to the high-rise office buildings while the other one was shooting right from the fish floats on the river. deafening, exciting, full of surprises, colourful ~ indescribable ~ (= really nice fireworks =) ~ hahaz we were kinda screaming throughout. heez can hear our screams from the videos that I took =P There were also boats with the flag of the diff countries speeding past the river & fire sparks shooting from behind them.. didn't manage to catch Spore's =S
[ can check out some clips of the fireworks tt I took ]
Fireworks 4 (with finale!)
Fireworks 3
Fireworks 2
Fireworks 1
oh yar hahaz there was this man who was standing on the platform in the middle of the river & wearing only boxers. He had a swimming float around his waist and was doing funny actions, supposedly dancing along to the music I guess. Soon after, he started to jump into the water & swim! 3 motorboats of policemen charged towards him and one of them jumped into the water to grab hold of him, finally managed to drag him up onto the boat. gosh heez maybe the guy's drunk and was high??!!
which reminds me ~ On labour day, I was at Smith St. We were eating at KFC when suddenly we saw this grp of "naked" cyclists on the road! the front few were half naked while a few others behind totally naked!!! they had some parts of their bodies painted. should be going on some kind of labour-related protest but not really sure coz didn't get to see the signs clearly.. =Z an aussie was in fact shocked when I told her abt it coz she had never seen such thing b4 though..said that it's actually rather rare to see it in city & maybe coz we were in the suburb area. eh hahaz k =P
day time
dusk
night
us patiently awaiting the fireworks!
at flinders ~ dawn & amy & me holding my food from Mc =P
the fish floats all along the river, each rep a country (couldn't find spore's :/) which act as water fountain that danced to almost every song
the slower-moving boats which we cheered for almost every country that went past us =P
some came to join us later at nite! dunno why the photos turn out like this instead =( arghz dun tink my camera's good with night scenes..but switch it to night scene mode alr??!!
highlights of O week
had an ultimately fun, crazy and packed O week! guess it wouldn't have been fun & memorable if not for International Hse. IH rockz! hahaz it started on the sat that was 2 wks ago & basically had the normal registration stuff & some lunch with parents that was being served. It had been rather quiet in IH before this as many pple had not move in yet. With such an influx of fellow IHers, suddenly, I just can't seem to remember names very well any more. heez but at least can recognise the faces though. With time, I know I'll remember their names. =P we had this session of room cram at nite. We were all squeezed into this tiny room which was so small that all of us (~160+) had almost no standing room space. The O-weekers were standing on a table & teaching & leading us in IH chants *loud & deafening* till towards the end you can see condensation of our sweat vapours on the walls of the room. gosh..The whole room stinks of bodysweat! It felt like I was in an oven! *so stuffy* & the people in front somehow kept shifting back that eventually, I can't even raise my hands to clap along. hahaz wat an innovative way for people to learn cheers. come to tink of it now.. it does makes the session memorable but I wouldn't want to experience it again though. hahaz once in a lifetime is enough =P
It was practically parties, dancing & more dancing for the next 3 nights. had some seminars about cross cultural living in the afternoon. It didn't turn out as boring as I'd expected it to be, guess mainly coz the o-weekers put up really funny skits & we played this "war game". hahaz I was in the group 'warrior' & all we can speak is "hugashaga" & we always grab pple's left shoes. haha coz tt's our treasured item & we worshipped them somemore!
They brought us to "Savers" where it sells cheap & 2nd-hand clothes for our Poor Taste Party at night.. all I can say is that the clothes there r definitely "unsightly".. very suitable for our party theme manz. bought this puffy blue retro-style top (the ugliest yet still wearable one that I can find) & a purple furry scarf (tink this is a good bargain hahaz may wear it again). Everyone looked so different & comical with the weird style of dressing. but it's funky! =D makes the party a unique one.. heez tink not such a common sight in s'pore. really fun to have such funky themed parties! the music seems to be from a variety of genres..”locals seem to prefer rock & trans music more as compared to asians liking R&B more” as quoted from Eddy (an O-weeker) which is what he told me.. yupz haha guess that’s quite true. The DJs always tried to cater to both.. which was why sometimes u’ll see the Asians or the locals coming back to dance =P
The following night: Cocktail party! This time round we get to dress nicely instead hahaz. Heez wore the one I wore for prom again coz really have no other dresses :P There were cheap alcoholic drinks sold which were concocted by the o-weekers themselves.. had to admit that some of them r not bad! =) socializing & dancing again ~ saw more new faces & knew more pple though not very good with names still =P
Had “Silly Crazy Games” on the following day afternoon. It’s definitely memorable manz. Started with a game which we need to hold up a hockey stick & spin around for 20 times then run for the chair followed by the tagging game of trying to snatch each other grp’s flag. Next, each person in a grp had to crawl on the grass up to the table & finish/stuff whatever kind of food they gave us. I had an ice pack, expired hard bread, uncooked raw spaghetti which I of coz puked them out of my mouth into this rubbish bin that’s provided for all the “vomittin”(the contents inside r really disgusting) *arghz* some others got meat pie or had to drink oyster sauce. After which comes the truly disgusting & unforgettable part. We paired up, tied our legs tog & need to kick a gigantic ice cube all around IH as fast as we can. Thot that the game is just as simple as that but they have various stations along the way where water, flour were being threw at us, oyster & salsa sauce, pizza crumbs, eggs & etc. sometimes not sure what stuff they r throwing at us also. Whenever we saw them looming juz in front of us, wanted so much to run away from them! They didn’t even warn us beforehand! Heez the path of ice kicking seems so long & at the end of it we really smell horribly. The o-weekers started a mud bath/war at the water hose cleaning area. Hahaz I’m thinking that they being covered in mud was so much betta than we with all the food stuff =P think it’s worse than the dirty war games played at HC orientation but come to think of it now it was fun though . =D
Another night of dancing again.. this time round we had Bush Dance! There’s this country band that came to play & sing songs & teach us the dances moves. heez some of the dances r rather confusing/ hard to catch initially. There’s lots of linking arms, turning around, clapping & jumping where you may change partners or dance around in grps. haha 3 nights of consecutive dancing. really fun & burnt lots of calories too. A good thing since had been eating so much =P
Went to the Melbourne Zoo which I didn’t realize that it’s only 350m away from IH! Hahaz niwae that day was so hot & glaring.. most of the animals were sleeping/ lazing ard.. esp the Koala! Had been so excited abt seeing koalas but disappointed to see only 1 koala which was back facing us & all curled up on the tree sleeping. =( shall go Philip island where I know I can see them for sure!
at the butterfly park: her mum was asking her to pose for us who were focusing our cameras on her =D hahaz she's so photogenic. really like this pic =)
behind the cage : "help me!"
cute sleeping position- forgot the name..tink it's some bear :P several sea gulls walking around!
the sleeping koala =( can't even see a thing
monkey with long legs, tail & arms!
[Magical Mystery Tour] The o-weekers brought the whole grp of us freshies (with painted faces) out into the streets & the city where we ran & kept doing the IH chants along the way. hahaz it seemed like a procession was going on. Some of them were waving signs that said “Horn It If You’re Horny” at passing cars or trams. & a lot of them sounded their horns, including the trams! So funny! Haha it felt as if there’s a traffic jam at the junctions coz so many cars were horning consecutively or one after another. we flooded the trams too & even cheered while inside the trams. Heez felt quite bad disturbing the other commuters. We formed one big circle on the ground floor in a shopping center & cheered & did hokey pokey dances. Everyone started to stop & look at us or looked down from the floors above at what we’re doing. We even went to HMV & requested for them to play “Pump It” which is our dance song for the orientation. They really played it Hahaz & of coz we performed the dance on the streets! We stopped by a few shops eg. Mc & chanted at the shop front “Burgers are better than Hungry Jacks(Burger King)!” & did chicken dance at KFC! Hahaz it’s really crazy & rather embarrassing but guess when everyone was doing it tog it’s fun & enjoyable instead =P
went to Royal Botanic Gardens for our Moonlight Cinema. A very scenic & big nice park! The bad thing was that the movie “Good Night and Good Luck” was actually a black & white movie which was on politics & media abt communism in America. All I know for sure is that the politician always say “good night & good luck” at the end of his speech. they were saying tt it’s actually a rather new & well-acclaimed movie. Haha simply not my type of movie =D Chronicles of Narnia & other movies were to be screened for the next few days but we can’t catch those instead coz it doesn’t fit into the o-week schedule. So sad..juz our luck! heez
missed the IH dodgeball games but went to meet up with shumei, stacy & laura who 
r studyin at La Trobe Uni =) we ate at this Chom Chom S'pore restaurant which was not bad! missing the local food already =P It was raining so heavily in town. my 1st time to experience rain in Melb hahaz it had been so hot for the past few days but that day turned out to be really cooling & wet.. heez & 1st time I saw hailstones too! it was for a short while only. The ice cubes were not very big but heard that there were times when it can be so big such that the roofs of cars were damaged. whoa~
the pic's not very clear - the white spots are the hailstones!
chicken rice, chicken cutlet noodle, cha kway diao, laksa!
[Cafe Crawl] supposed to “crawl” from cafe to cafe from Lygon st all the way to Federation Sq but it was raining. Quite hard to “crawl” hahaz so they brought us to Max Brenner for some chocolate instead. Had dark choc frappie(ice-blended)! my gosh the choc’s simply indescribable.. freezing after finishing the whole glass of frappie when the night’s already so cold =P
Meet the seniors Toga Party.. Suddenly IH seemed to have more people around coz seniors have moved back in already. Really had no decent toga so we wrapped ourselves with our bedsheets instead =S I only have the one that I’m sleeping on (the blue one). Luckily my floormate has an extra piece of sarong hahaz so changed into that instead :P
random thots :P
Now's already into my 2nd wk of sch. There's definitely some adjustment involved. At times, realised that I’ll be trying to catch what some of the locals were saying coz think they tend to mumble and their voice somehow gets softer & softer some of the words r jumbled up tog.. hahaz guess it's basically their accent? think the locals are friendly but seems like the phenomenon is that the cliques are more or less divided into the locals & international students. Of coz we still mix around but guess there are occasional times when we’re on diff wavelengths ... It’s easy to catch what some of the locals are saying but for some, their accent’s rather strong or sometimes they speak quite fast.. they have "Auslish" like we have singlish in s'pore too hahaz =D at times, find myself saying “pardon” for a couple of times =P though been here for 3-4 wks (that’s quite short still right? heez) but only had sch for 2 wks guess things will get better with the passing of time ~~
the academic system & the style of learning are diff here too. We have tutor assessment which takes up a rather big % in our overall marks. I've no “tutorials” at all. In fact, what I have or what they call them is problem-based learning (PBL). We are given a case study which we’ll discuss for 2 wks in our small grp of ard 10-12 pple. 1st wk of my biomed science lectures are really introductory but dis wk is biochem & the lecturer is actually touching on 1 topic per lecture? & know what? we have 8 per wk! felt quite uncertain abt the curriculum & what we’re supposed to know.. but at least I did learnt some of the stuff back in JC but it was like 1 yr ago! Hahaz so definitely need to refresh my memory & dig up more info & do lots of reading! =S
In the afternoon, had our 1st international students support informal meetin with this really nice lecturer/coordinator from the sch who will help to address our concerns & etc. She has provided us with really good advice & insight. told us that it's gonna be like a weekly session to help us to communicate better or develop PBL skills ~~
Anyway, I had my 2nd immunization session today & I’m only weakly positive for my BCG skin test! …Arghzzzz …the person who assessed me was a student who’s still learning & the way she used a pen to mark out the lump on my arm seemed to be inaccurate! She marked & drew for several times on my arm. Mine’s like so swollen & red that I think shld have made it to 1cm! will have to take the skin test again hope that I can pass it coz definitely don’t wanna experience the horrible aftereffects of BCG injection again.
Went to Bridge rd today again with some of the IH gals..to shop of coz! my 2nd time there! hahaz bought 2 tops though have been there not long ago but seems like I juz can’t help not getting anything. Coz they r really good bargains! ;P the shops are mostly factory outlets & having clearance sales which is like throughout the year kind *blehz* Most of the tops sold here are really long coz it’s in fashion here to wear 2 layers or to go with a thick belt across it. Had nasi lemak for dinner at IH. Really miss nasi lemak!!! Hahaz & lotsa other local food too.. though the nasi lemak had the uusual kind of ingredients e.g. curry chicken & a fully-boiled egg? But it’s nice still =) yea & at nite a grp of us IHers went down to the city to Max Brenner for some lovely hot chocolate. it’s so yummy! Oh gosh their chocolate’s really nice & esp like their dark choc drinks. They had so many diff flavours & even had choc pizza? But we were too full to try that =P choc contains stimulants so think we all got high as a result hahazz kept doing the chicken dance or IH chants. We even wanted to order pizzas but it’s rather late already & we’re simply too full! hahahz a fun & crazy night out =D
SunDaY
Decided to update abt recent happenings 1st..heez still working on my exciting O-week entry =P
Met up with shumei, ee fung & her room-mate today at Queen Vic. I ate this nice almond croissant =) got introduced to this shop in the mkt that sells reasonably-priced pastries.. hahaz shall try their other pastries some other time.. we sat at this alley with chairs & tables in the open & chatted for the whole morning. Melbourne’s lifestyle is definitely more café-like & laid-back. Moreover, the retail shops close at ard 5pm or so. Cafes & eateries are almost everywhere & think the local food there is more of the Italian style.. there r also food from many other countries there..& also this famous Vietnamese restaurant that I’ve been wanting to try.. no matter what think that they r all delicious! =D hahaz
Went to Lygon st yesterday nite sometime after dinner with a few of IHers to eat Gelato! Italian ice-cream! Gosh.. it’s my 2nd time in a week to eat Gelato.. ate it the 1st time after going to Queen Vic’s night mkt – Suzuki on wed. definitely gonna gain lots of calories shall go exercise soon. :P Feels like I’ve been having so many meals, teas & junk food etc. ever since coming here =P we walked all the way to and fro from IH to Lygon & came back only ard 1hr 45min later! (didn’t stop by to rest & eat though) It’s really a long walk =P which kind of help to burn the calories?!
Hahaz after that shumei & I went to explore the Asian supermkt somewhere in chinatown & headed down to Yarra River’s Sunday Mkt as suggested by them. Saw a long line of fish floats on the river which are for the Commonwealth games. They each had a different country flag beside it hahaz but didn’t see S’pore’s! guess it’s somewhere down the long river but will come again someday when the floats are lighted up to find it =D we passed by Federation sq & there's this screen on the building & we're in it! took photo of it for fun.. hahaz can identify us? there r a few others takin photo of themselves on the screen too =P
the Sunday mkt was actually an arts mkt.. full of exquisite hand-made painted crafts & stuff.. really nice but expensive too! Saw a few identical shops that were at the Suzuki mkt too.
Finally, we head down to Ikea which was rather out of the way from the city. The sh
opping center that it’s in reminds me of IMM.. hahaz maybe coz of the high ceilings & spacious interior? there’s K-mart there & it’s having a 25% sale! bought a pillow, a quilt & fleece jacket. Hee preparing for winter already =P we somehow had the feeling that we’re back in S'pore when shopping ard in Ikea. hahaz oh yar & they sell hotdogs there too. Tried them but not as nice.. prefer those sold at S’pore Ikea or maybe I’m not used to it. Realised that I’ve explored quite a no. of streets in Melbourne already hahaz & did quite lots of shopping!! either in the city or Bridge rd & Smith st where there are factory outlets of various sports brands & good bargain buys in many boutiques. Wonder where my next destination or venture will be at ~ ['',] ~
