Spring Fashion Week
It was the Melbourne Spring Fashion Week last last wk! Only managed to get the standing tickets for thur's parade titled "The Looking Glass". Regretted not buying tickets earlier for the friday's show "Object of Desire" (haha it even sounds more irresistible also) or get the reserved seating which costs just 3 bucks more! We were so afraid that we'll be blocked by all those tall caucasians and wouldn't be able to get a clear view of the stage. However, much to our relief, the standing room space available was only for a row of people :) Although we'd to stand throughout, think we still made the right choice in getting the standing tickets over the balcony ones which were much further away from the stage.
On wed, I went down to Myers and indeed caught a glimpse of Jennifer Hawkins during the public fashion show! Btw she is '04 Miss Universe from Aus. She looked simply gorgeous and definitely more alluring in person. When I arrived, I was trying to pinpoint which of the models was her but couldn't seem to recognise any and was starting to doubt if I've actually missed her. Haha it turned out that even if u've never seen her picture before, u'll know immediately who the star of the show was. At the end, she appeared alone and was the only model to be walking somewhat in her own casual style, smiling brightly and waving at the audience. The rest of the models looked so alike and were simply expressionless as compared to her. I guess it's not the models' fault anyway since they aren't allowed to smile in the first place. So it does look like only when one has become a celebrity model, only then can she smile and attract attention more to herself rather than the clothes she's wearing? haha. Caught the last 15 min of the show only and was standing on top of this metal bench, if not bet I can't see a single thing at all :p Steph arrived early and she was right in front! Met her for lunch in Melb Central and then saw another public show there as well :)
photos of her at the show adapted from theage.com.au
In comparison to those public shows, the parade on thur was much more professional and fanciful. The models were adorned with so many different accessories, be it the shiny bags, belts, hats and those super-ultra tall high-heel shoes while some were a combination of platform and high heels! Gosh I wonder how they maintain their balance so well somemore with so many pairs of eyes looking at them. Pity their spines which have to maintain such high mechanical stress throughout. There's a model who tripped slightly over the stairs and it was so obvious! Oops haha can tell that she was really embarrassed about it but she regained her composure and expressionless face immediately after. Here's some of the clearer snapshots taken of the models:
haha managed to capture this model who was smiling subtlely at the camera when posing..& i think she's the only one who actually did smile
there's this designer who had the models wearing sleeveless singlet inside the evening gown dresses and along with converse shoes??! A very weird combination indeed but felt that it'd made the dresses seem less appealing. Looks like the designer was trying to portray a casual image of his dresses.
outside the entrance to town hall
Make-up stations were set-up outside the entrance where they were doing some simple make-up and hair styling on the models. Not sure if that's where the real dressing room was might be more of a promo tactic?
the publicity image used for the fashion wk.. what a flawless porcelain face. haha bet there's some photoshop work done on it as well.
We head on to the free entry after party with our ticket which was held at The Calrton Hotel on that night.
"If you haven't experienced the eclectic world of The Carlton, here's you special invitation. Imagine designer cocktails around the decadent bar, plush velvet booths, outdoor courtyard with DJ Damo and DJ Eddy Mac on the decks."
The interior design rather's unique and there's some statues and animal figurines around. Wonder what theme they were trying to protray..maybe tropical? :p No chance to try the velvet booths. all occupied. a small outdoor courtyard with this fake coconut tree which was actually the smoking area. arghz hate the smoky smell. Luckily the bar inside was smoke free! Heard that the smoke free law was imposed on all bars and clubs recently.
The fashion wk cocktail special at half price. A glass costs just $5! It tastes quite nice haha but not sure what it's made up of. A kind of champagne with some peach pulp in it.
While on the way home, noticed for my first time that people were indeed playing with the big big chess set on the streets! Always thought that they were non-movable statues!
Instead of going to queen vic for pancakes and socialising, here I am instead at home in an attempt to catch up on my work but ended up logging in to here instead. Woke up in the morning with this horrible dry throat feeling and a throbbing head. The dry throat feeling had been there ever since friday, wondering if it's from the whole night of karaoke, or tons and tons of schoolwork or got it from my housemate. Hopefully the virus don't manifest into cough or me losing my voice which is why I'm drinking this bottled Doni Choice Herbal Tea now (costing merely 75 cents which makes one question about its effectiveness haha hmm maybe at least some placebo effect?)
Everyone is in the holiday festive mood already and looks like it's hard for me not to catch on it as well, moreover with my housemates starting to go shopping, watching movies, chilling out =.= My holidays only start a wk later; a 1 wk hols for me, basically for the physios and meds while it's 2 wks for the rest :S Well, at least I've got my 1st friday off this wk! That feels so great! Can't believe it for myself that I'm gonna have a 3 day wkend. A Korean dinner and a whole night of karaoke was in a way kind of friday-off or pre-holiday celebration I guess :P The wkend is now gone again when it's already sunday today >.< After my test on wed, I went on a cleaning spree! My neurons were basically overly electrified by all the electrotherapy stuff that they need to outsource. Laundry. Kitchen. Fridge. Toilet. Room. At least after that, felt that part of my life was in some order again. However, I didn't manage to vacuum..need to get the vacuum cleaner from sook and it kept slipping my mind. Last year, I only had my room to take care of and of course my laundry & misc with some occasional kitchen duties but now it had expanded to a full apartment which definitely has more to be done..
After cleaning the fridge, realised how empty it was and how low we're running on our food stores. Having missed going mkt for the previous week with all our tests coming up, we finally had it replenished after the trip to queen vic yesterday. It seemed like some of the fruits were in season again this time round possibly due to the change in season?
Those small rock melons were each going for 50 cents, not-yet-ripe bananas for $2 per kg, whole tray of kiwi fruits for 2 bucks....... I got a shock when I saw strawberries going for $1 per box and then as I went on, it became 50 cents per box. We saw this tray going for 5 small boxes for $1!! Believing that it couldn't have gone down any further, we just grabbed it. Then when it was nearer to the closing time, 15 boxes in that whole box tray were going for 1 or 2 bucks!!! Should have waited! Those strawberries looked so much nicer and ripe somemore. Looks like they were indeed depserate to clear their stocks! Haha which is why we always go on sat because that's the day when all the stalls will try to clear their stock for fresh goods to come in on sun. The minus point is that it's always so crowded on sat that it's so hard to push through the crowd along with the trolley and the shouts can be quite deafening at times.
Yesterday night was hc MAF!!! Missing it this year again :S Wondering how maf is like now with the merging and etc. But I guess no matter what the whole experience of seeing everyone again and looking at all the songs and performances eventually still bring back the nostalgia and memories :) Saw the ice cream mooncakes in chinatown yesterday. They looked so tempting! Yet so freaking expensive! In the end, to satisfy my pre-dinner growling stomach, I settled for an egg tart and red bean swirl bun instead :p
Leftovers
What to do with the unfinished box of soon-to-be-rotten apples which costs only $2 from queen vic? Apple pies! This was made last sem. Think it has too much fillings inside that it sustained a "bruise" on it's head (the brown mark). It burst halfway while in the oven and we put some cheese over the hole to try to salvage the situation. Btw in case you didn't realise it was a face..a smiling face was drawn on the top :P
What to do with the extra seaweed? Sushi! At the beginning of the sem, amazingly, we made sushi without using jap rice and the bamboo rolling thing. Plain white rice mixed with vinegar and aluminium foil were used instead which can be just as good although the shape didn't turn out as ideal :p
What to do with the ginseng left from making ginseng and cordyceps chicken soup yesterday? Ginseng water! A nutritious drink & made me thought of some of the chinese brewed herbal tea and etc. that my mum will sometimes make. Not that I want to be disgusting but the more I look at the ginseng, the more it reminds me of the aortic branches and arteries seen from the cadavers!
West meets East
Surprisingly, I had a lecture on dry needling a few days ago! Or rather it may be known more of as acupunture :) According to the regulations here, those who practise the needling techniques including Physios but are not pure tcm practioners can't call it acupunture but will have to term it as "Dry Needling". And I think dry needling targets the more superficial aspects such as subcutaneous tissue and muscles. It's definitely a totally different concept with regards to the functioning of the different body systems as compared to western medicine. But it's interesting to actually learn about the ideas behind yin and yang or zang and fu. When the caucasian lecturer was trying to pronounce all the names of the organs in hanyu pinyin, it sounded kinda weird. In fact, I knew it better than him haha but of course he's still the more knowledgeable one - that's the only thing I'm sure of :p He ended the lecture with "The concepts are examinable but not the acupuncture points." Kept us wondering if it was purely for informative purposes. With the emergence of alternative approaches and practices, whether if the concepts behind all those are proven or realistic, as long as it's beneficial, why not? But have to be sure that it's of no maliance and that will be one's sole responsibility as well not to seek the uncertified or back alley ones. Much is left to discover and unveil with an integrated approach :)
************
Beginning of the week, I'd an hour of pilates during prac which was conducted by one of our prac tutors who is also a pilates teacher. Always thought that pilates involve different kinds of equipment which is what makes it different from yoga. However, that session was purely done on a mat and we were instructed into different positions as well. Towards the end, it felt like I was suspending myself in mid-air and could feel maximal contraction from abdominals, back muscles and gluts and blood rushing to my ears. So what's the difference? As quoted from my PBL tutor, yoga is "training core with flexibility" while pilates is "training core with exercises" whici does makes a lot of sense and come to think of it now, it's a really apt description. I still feel that yoga integrates more mind and soul while pilates concentrates more on the physical aspects. Or maybe because of such a large class and in a way it wasn't a paid pilates class, the environment wasn't that conducive. Maybe I should try out the pilates session in the uni sports centre also to determine if my comparison is indeed as such.
Festival of Nations
Last week was the yearly Festival of Nations which was held in front of Union House. Stalls selling various kinds of food from various cultures were set up by students :) In a way, think it's similar to the day version of the muoss night mkt. But seriously, the food weren't that impressive or maybe I'm just not in any luck in picking out the better ones. Heard from others that the nasi lemak was actually quite nice. Regretted not trying that instead. No chance to try the crepes too which were sold out pretty fast. These make me miss local food even more!!! They're definitely not comparable :S The korean rice cake wasn't that bad but they gave too much chilli sauce! My tongue was burning from the aftertaste! The most disappointing one is mee siam. We felt so cheated, didn't know that it comes with no gravy! Only 2 words to describe it: toooooo salty!
on the left - think it's trying to mimick mee rebus (diane has no idea at all what dish she bought!); a big big Cross; and the noodles used are spagetti which made it taste even more absurd!!
on the right - a big Tick; curry chicken and potato rice
tiny paper flags of diff countries hanging off the wires
country peformances with some people dancing to it
An ironic night
What a fine tuesday night, or rather it was known more of as the cheap movie night where one can catch any movie for 9.50 at Hoyts. So there I went with fion to finally catch the Harry Potter movie! Hmm but have to say that the movie is not that fantastic but not really disappointing either. Haha guess the excitement comes more from me wanting to continue the harry potter movie series. If I do start watching a movie in the cinema which consists of several series for example a trilogy, think I always tend to try and watch them all in the cinema, which I did for Pirates and Lord of the Rings :) To me, Lord of the Rings is still the best so far! Enough of rambling for here comes the main story: Surprisingly, after coming out from the cinema, we saw a few big yellow figures walking around some distance away. It's the Simpsons!! They looked so cuddly and cute and were waving enthusiastically at everyone! Haha we got really excited and were trying to grab each of them to take photo with fion's phone camera. In the end, only managed to take with Lisa before they disappeared and went inside the theatre.
Think it's my first time taking photo with a live cartoon character :p I'm gonna try to make a trip to Disneyland no matter what or when in this whole lifetime to see all the live characters for myself and relive my "lost childhood"! haha :D There was this Simpsons set where u can have free printed photos with it. So looks like we've got ourselves another souvenir for our encounter with Simpsons :)
Of course nothing is totally free. It's a promotion tactic by Canon. Quite an innovative marketing strategy but bet it costs a bomb. And it seems like I may have to pay $160 for that single piece of photo which certainly doesn't cost that much!!
After that, we rushed to the tram just in time to catch it before it left. There we were, happily chatting away and still excited when shortly after, just at the next tram stop, a tram inspector dressed in the usual long dark coats boarded the tram and loomed in front of us out of a sudden. That's it. "Listen. You've to understand that it's ... ..." So on came the resolute matter-of-fact talk whilst no room for explanation. We weren't in time at all to validate. Found ourselves seats and somehow got carried away that we didn't realise or remember that it had expired by the time we boarded the tram. It happened so fast and so sudden! >.<
In fact, I've heard about several such incidents of being caught or witnesss a few inspectors in their long dark coats or vests surrounding the young kids or teenagers and "interrogating" them. It is either intentional or non-intentional fare evasion or may well depends on luck, just missing the expired timing, forgetful or using a malfunctioning ticket machine. It costs international students $3.20 ($2.8o for a 10x ticket) for a 2 hourly trip and no concession for us. However, exchange and study abroad students are eligible for concession which I find that really bizzarre and needless to say, unfair?!! Seems like the uni's petition for concession prices have been unsuccessful so far. I still remember how shocked and unwilling I was to buy a tram ticket on the 1st day I arrived here that we decided to walk from home to lygon st to city to fed sq and just about anywhere and back home again. A whole day's walk while sightseeing indeed significantly made the distance seem less torturous. At the end of the day, guess what? We got lost while trying to find our way home! Didn't manage to get hold of a proper map till the following few days. Knew that we're somewhere near destination but just had no idea of our orientation! Eventually, decided to heed the advice from one of the passer-bys & ended up taking tram still, paying for the ticket with my first ever gold and silver Aus coins :S Arghz all the walk for nothing. It went back into the city and looped around which brought us back home finally. Haha how ironic.
Received the notice recently and here I am trying to edit my appeal letter which I plan to send it tomorrow. Shall cross my fingers and await good news... hopefully =.=
I tend to correlate simpsons with the number 160 now ~bleh. Yes but that shall not stop me from watching Simpsons or an attempt at simpsonsizing myself.. :}
