Domesticated = Me

Due to Esther's arm still being in cast, I've taken on the role of homemaker in the apartment.. That means all cooking, cleaning, washing, and grocery shopping is done by yours one and only, me. Not that I mind too much, but one night as I was scrubbing the pan at the sink I felt an odd sense of WTF. It was weird. The situation just became a little bit too..surreal, ha. I'm not meant for this. Once that cast gets off, I am not doing dishes for another month..minimum :)

Anyways.. My first and second weekends here were spent at Box Hill South. Just a couple of snapshots of the area and weird animals you definitely do not see back home.



(side note: I'm really stingy on internet/updates because I'm paying $50 for 3gb of bandwidth over 2 months, it's way too expensive over here)

On Sunday, we went off to the Caribbean Market, why it's called the Caribbean Market when most of the vendors are either Asian or Caucasian is beyond me. There are lots of things to buy here, sort of like the Richmond Night Market. Fresh produce, expired chips, knock offs, souvenirs, etc.. It was in the mid 30s this day though. We left around noon and the place was only getting busier and busier. If you don't go early enough, the produce is all gone.

We headed back to the city for lunch at some upscale-ish cafe. There are many many cafes here in Melbourne. I'll be trying many of them out during my stay here. I mean this literally, there are honestly countless hole in the wall cafes scattered around the downtown core. You go into random alleys that an obese person wouldn't be able to fit in, and you could find the best Moroccan, Chinese, Indian, French etc.. food.

Just a couple of snaps of the city including Chinatown, the area where I'm a block away from.



I like taking pictures from the view we get. I should do a day by day of the same view..the weather here is crazy. But, too lazy :)
Our first cooked dinner. Food bills are going to run me to the ground, I can already tell. At the moment I'm following the Canucks game online. I miss me hockey and Olympics. I don't care how much it costs me internet-wise, I'm going to be streaming the hockey.

Okay, I have Melbourne Welcome, this orientation program for International students, coming up tomorrow till Wednesday. Hopefully I'll meet some more people my age and get myself even more acquainted with Melbourne. School starts on March 1st.. only a couple of weeks left! I'm slowly welcoming the idea of school, it's been a while since I studied or took any notes.

First days

I'm alive and in one piece. Stepping off the plane in Melbourne I immediately felt the heat. It wasn't overly humid, but definitely a huge change from Vancouver. I was in jeans and a teeshirt.. already I was sweating from just moving my luggage out of the terminal.

Here's the first picture I snapped of Melbourne. Gorgeous eh?

I traveled to a suburb called Box Hill South where it's basically Richmond in a nutshell. Extremely Asian (Chinese) here and .. yea, pretty much all Chinese everywhere. One of Esther's relatives kindly welcomed me into their homes (HUGE HOUSE..) and took me to the mall to shop for some initial necessities. This shopping cart consisted of ~$350 worth of stuff. Things here are not cheap..

The second day we moved into our apartment. APT 1710/39 Lonsdale Street, Melbourne 3000, Victoria, Australia for those who want to mail me anything good :) Apartment size is pretty decent. I will say though.. the area I'm in is extremely Asian as well.. Thai, Chinese, Vietnamese, Korean, Japanese and Indian cuisines were abundant everywhere. I've had more Asian food these past couple of days than I have in Vancouver. I tried desperately to look for white man food today for lunch. I failed. Apparently, there aren't many in the Downtown core. :'( I want a burger damn it.

Living room+Kitchen

My room

View from our apartment. After the first day, it's been raining *lightly* here. The weather does change constantly throughout the day. It was extremely windy .. The weather was about 20ish degrees today, a nice change. I went out in tees and shorts whereas everyone else was in jackets..

Oyaku Don for dinnarr last night, too lazy to cook just yet.


We went to Sofie's today for dinner. It's like Antons, but the Australian version. Holy hell, their portions were HUGE. A small pasta was more than enough.. I can't imagine how a large pasta would be. The weird thing is, the prices were dirt cheap. $12 for a meal that two can share. We all had the Gelato to share. I'm not sure if this picture does it justice, but it was a good 8 inches high..packed full of chocolate, hazelnut, pistacio, orange, strawberry, chocolate mint and.. something else. $6.50 only... Now this place, I can afford.

Now in Box Hill South again, went around to the surrounding suburbs like Glen Waverley and.. something else I forget. Was a bit awkward to take pictures of people's houses since I didn't know them (they're Esther's relatives'). But all of them are mansions..and under 1 million each. I want I want.

First leg: Brutal-ish

So I'm currently awaiting my flight to San Francisco.

Check in was brutal. Brutal. Brutal. The initial parts were okay..nothing too bad. Luggage put through, tickets/boarding passes printed. Fine. Then came the first security check point. I've brought along a duffel bag as my carry on and a small little shoulder bag as my second "personal item".. The guy at the security check point looked at my duffel and told me to put it in the cage, ensuring it would fit in there. It sort of didn't, so I tried explaining to him how I've never had trouble with it. He wouldn't take any of it. I was getting a little nervous because I have a lot of important stuff in there. So I flattened it and mushed it and put it in finally, tearing off the sign in the process..shh.

He glares at it, and says it's fine but my shoulder bag HAD to go into my duffel in order for it to go through AND I had to put it in the cage again. I was pissed. There are signs up all around the counter saying we're allowed one carry on bag and one "personal item" such as a laptop bag, purse, stroller..etc. This douche bag at the gate says "you have two BACKPACKS, you can't go through"

This other guy with me was in the same situation, he had a small backpack and a regular sized one, and he wouldn't let him through either. So we started bitching this security guy out, and some other agent comes out. We argue with her, and I'm livid because the guy now says my duffel is going to be too big anyways and I can't go through. So once again, I shove the bag into the damn cage to show them it fits and then he says "but your other backpack isn't in there"..

I proceed to tell him off, "look, we are allowed a purse on the plane. I don't care if you want to call me gay or whatever, go for it. This is my purse and unless you're saying all those signs out there are wrong, I'm taking it on. Now let me through." By now he was going a bit red in the face and threatened to call security. I called him on his bluff, he never did.

The other woman finally lets me through. This entire process took about 30 minutes to deal with. They blamed the Americans in the end, "this is their policy, not ours." Uh, more like, "we are incompetent, illiterate, uninformed, ignorant idiots that don't know how to flipping run a security check point."

Then there was some crazy man in the holding area who had to deal with some medical insurance/visa bill issue last minute with his dad on the phone. The guy was in his 30s.. and kept going, "Daddy, I'm scared. Daddy, tell me you love me. No, you have to say it. Say it again please, I don't want to fly away now."........ HOLY HELL. That was very disturbing. Everyone around me was snickering.. can you blame us? Thankfully there's no cell phone service on the plane because he was on that phone for a good 20 minutes.

Anyways, United flight to Sydney was a pretty tight squeeze.. not the most comfortable. Not gonna lie. Didn't want to take pictures of the food.. it was THAT cramped. Funny though, on both flights (to SF and Sydney) a medical emergency arose.. I wish I had my First Aid certification, then I could put on my light and be like, "yes, I have medical training" :)

Errrrrr... okay. In Melbourne now.. shopped all day for food and necessities with Esther's Aunt and then housing at her cousin's for the time being. Will update tomorrow when I move in to our apartment.

Is it weird that the jet lag hasn't hit me yet?

Au revoir

It's starting to hit right now that I'm actually going to be gone in about 24 hours. I'm not ready. Nothing's packed..literally, just t-shirts. I have lists made, I have stuff I keep trying to remind myself to bring.. It's all a bit too much. Throw in my mother's nagging and it gets even more chaotic. This excitement is starting to wear off.

Now I just want tomorrow, 4:20pm, to come. I'll be at the airport, with all my bags stuffed full, hopefully under 50 pounds each.. and then it's bye bye rainy Vancouver, hello sunny Melbourne. Many have asked me just why I'm choosing Australia of all places to go on exchange to. My answer is simply, because of grade 4. Those who went to elementary school with me may realise the significance of this year. This country's enthralled me for over 10 years and despite the cost of living being so much more than Vancouver ($1100/month rent!!), I'm going to take it all in. I might be down there for grad school, who knows? The accents are also a bonus.

Thanks guys for showing up, last minute and all. I won't make it all sappy, but it's nice to still see all of us DT kids (most of us anyways..) can have a 2+ hour dinner with no awkwardness. Perhaps in 5 years this won't be the case, but until then, it's always a good feeling to have such a core group of friends there despite all of us being in such different post-secondary paths. Graduation's coming up in a little under a year, but I won't think about that just yet. We'll always have Facebook if I start missing any of you ;) Here's to me hopefully coming back with a faux-Aussie accent.. I'm going to try my best (and most likely fail). Like I've been saying to some people recently: stay safe and don't make babies.

Four days

Four days, and I'll be gone for a good half of a year.
Four days. Holy shit, I never thought this day would come so fast.

Anxious, nervous, excited, and a little relieved.

Time to pack. So much stuff to find/bring/deal with still. My traveling buddy, Esther, broke her wrist so she's stuck in Singapore. That means I'll be on my own through 3 different airports until Melbourne. I hope nothing goes wrong. I'm also going to bring 2 iPods along.

3 sounds better than 2.

In under 3 weeks I'll be gone.
In under 2 weeks I'll be gone.

The latter sounds a lot scarier than the former. Meaning, by next Monday I'm going to hope I have most of my things in order. I thought I would have ample time to get everything organized and ready to go. Alas, this is not the case. I'm just starting to make my packing list. I still have a lot of crap to buy (i.e. shampoo, toothpaste, sunscreen); all those everyday things we use is more than double the price down in Australia. Most likely due to their minimum wage being twice as high as ours.. and our dollars are practically at 1:1 right now, not good.

Meanwhile, I'll try my hardest to see a couple of my closer friends before I leave. If I don't get around to you, well...

And will people please stop thinking I'm Mandarin? Once again on the bus I get mistaken for some Chinaman that knows how to converse fluently in Mandarin. I don't even look like I know the language, well I don't think that I do. Even at work I have Cantonese guests who just go up to me and say something like this,

"You! Young man! You understand? Good, I want ........"

Making sales in Cantonese at a White Spot is more difficult than you can imagine (for non-native Chinese person) especially when they ask me what's better about the Monty Mushroom vs the Bacon Cheddar burger and what I would recommend for them to order. Oh, and you should have witnessed my pathetic attempt at trying to say/describe what mayonnaise/relish (OOO sauce) is to them. This has happened to me twice already. The next time I'm going to fake ignorance.

Sorry mom and dad, those years in Chinese school did me no good.

If only I knew more about photography..

Shameless Tourist in my Hometown.

So far it’s taken me about two days to update my new iPod. I’m too lazy to copy all my old songs from my old iPod to my new one because.. well I’m lazy. Too much work. And I have so much crap on there anyways, I might as well make a new collection. Problem is, I have way too many songs. I’ve been deleting countless old CDs I downloaded. All American Rejects, sorry, I’ve outgrown you. Fall Out Boy, you were High School. Yellowcard, I only like one song from you these days. The Juliana Theory and The Early November, you guys are not mellow enough. The Get Up Kids, I don’t even remember why I have 8 of your songs.. Delete. Delete. Delete.

Back to San Francisco, before I forget all the details.. We went to Alcatraz on Christmas Eve.. I know, weird thing to do. Not going to go into too much detail here. The audio tour was pretty long, but had some insightful monologues and stories the prisoners and prison guards told. The cells were actually really..small, as expected. Going into one, it was smaller than my arm span. How someone could live in there for months on end without any kind of freedom is pretty amazing in itself. The island was really nice. There weren’t many flowers out and blooming, the prisoners used to keep one running and is maintained by volunteers today, but it had an awesome view of San Francisco. No fog, no wind, no clouds.. Okay, I’ll stop

I just realized how hard it is to post crap in here. Damn Blogger.


Amazing view of San Francisco here. This crappy cell phone picture doesn't do it justice.
The view of Alcatraz on the ferry.



After Alcatraz, we continued to Union Square again. It was insane. So many people everywhere doing their last minute Christmas shopping. Canadian Boxing Day sales were put to shame by the regular American sale. Another reason why I like America more, your dollar goes further. Heh. I got a headache though once again from shopping. Stuffy stores and me are not a good combination. As for the attitude of the salespeople in all the stores, it was dismal. None of them looked happy. All of them had a permanent scowl; no greetings, no offers to help you find anything (except in AE), they were robots hired only to fold clothes. Urban Outfitters was a gong show. The sale racks resembled that of a dumpster or yard sale at best. Everything was just thrown in 23891 directions, on the floor, on the racks, on the shelves. No sense of organization, and no one seemed to really care. Can I blame them? No. If I were working there, I’d be in a bitter mood too. I did get mistaken for a worker there, I have no idea how that happened. Just because I was being courteous and folding the the XXL shirt back..


On Christmas, we decided to be tourists and went to take pictures of the GOLDEN GATE BRIDGE. HAHA. It was beautiful. It was embarrassing. It was … well, boring? I guess. I don’t remember much of my childhood, but apparently I used to play at Golden Gate Park a lot when I was a kid. We dropped by Sausalito, a city right off the Bridge when you exit. It reminded me a lot of Steveston. It was so calm and peaceful. Many small cafes and restaurants everywhere. My kind of place when I grow up. I can’t emphasize just how nice their weather is compared to Vancouver’s..

Let's see.. what else was there. We continued to the suburb of Sunset, the area where I grew up. It’s right by the SF Zoo, not that we went in. There’s supposedly a sea lion cave?mountain? there for us to look at. But we got there pretty late. The view out was still nice. Walked around here with my parents, sister, and aunt. I will admit, and don’t expect me to again anytime soon, this trip wasn’t actually all that bad, in terms of spending so much time with my family. Maybe it was because my sister and I actually got our own hotel room.. Freedom from the parents. And my mom’s uncontrollable 120 decibel level snoring.
We walked down to the shore. I was the only one who went into this cave…the women were too scared of ruining their boots.




As for the rest of the trip, the pictures are on my sister’s camera and my defective memory card.. I stopped using my cell phone camera as much. I got lazy. Sacramento was unexpected. A lot of farm land, I thought our friends there lived on one.. Driving in it was all farm road, I saw no signs of ..an urban center. Thankfully, they lived in a neighbourhood similar to one that you’d see in suburbia, dare I say it, Desperate Housewives style. Don’t ask. We watched Avatar in 3D. My eyes watered at the end of it, from dry eyes! It was one of the better movies I’ve seen. High recommended. Maybe not in 3D though.

Spent the final days just visiting family members. Went to the Great Mall. It was huge. There are 5 areas to it. I was at #2 when I realized this. Suffice to say, I didn’t get through it all. Damn it. I was looking to buy cheap tee shirts to Australia. My sister threw a typical fit over the lack of time there, and our family’s tardiness. My dad attempted to shut her up with new Coach bags. I don’t think it worked.

Ate at this ridiculously delicious place called Crepevine. Their portions were more than generous, and service was quick and efficient. There was a lineup out the door from the moment we got there around 11am on a Sunday, till we left (around 12:30). You actually order first while in line, and wait for a table to free up. Once seated, your food arrives. Hybrid of fast food/restaurant service. I won’t go through the menu, you should try it yourself if you ever drop by Burlingame. It’s just outside of SF, our hotel was minutes away from it. I wish I knew about it earlier, I would have eaten there every day instead of the instant noodles. Prices are very fair, only ~$10/meal. And again, the portions are huge.

Finally, on our last day, we had overpriced, not very good dim sum, and then departed for the airport. But we had a 30 minute pit stop at Japantown. I wish we had more time here, it was so unique and cozy. Their mall was just filled with countless Japanese restaurants, supermarkets, stores, boutiques and everything in between. Oh well, next time.



For those of you who can read Chinese, I found this sign hilarious. I didn’t believe my mom when she said such a street existed..until I saw it for myself.
So that concludes my San Francisco (area) trip. It was eventful, fun, nostalgic in every imaginable sense, and brought upon a sense of yearning for something different in my own life. Our family dinner on Christmas was like out of a Chinese TV show (A Kindred Spirit to those who get the reference). 10 people all around a large expandable dinner table, laughing uncontrollably over past memories, current ones, and stories everyone could relate to. I wish my family were always that happy. At home, dinner for me only lasts 5 minutes usually. For special occasions, maybe 15. The laughter and jovial atmosphere severely lacks, and will continue to because that’s how my family operates sometimes..silence. For that one night, my family felt normal.

If anyone actually read to the end, good on you. This is more for personal uses in the future when I come back and smile at these selected memories.

Have a Happy New Year!

Less than a month to go…