Friday, June 23, 2006

Post-Exam Days..考試後的日子....試験後の日々

There was a mist over Melbourne last week...so i took this photo as it looked cool...



Continuing my previous post on what i have been up to this few days after my exams....

On mon, i went to buy a soft-shell crab sushi roll at a japanese place in the city. There is a cute, very fit korean guy who works there and i just assume that he is korean given that i can differentiate between korean and japanese ppl pretty well....anyways, when he saw me, he smiled very friendly and i thought, ok.....then when i was gonna go pay, he asked 'you are N's friend right?' and i was so taken aback! I mean i have been sorta perving on this korean guy since last yr cos he is like quite cute and i don't mean to be a pervert but his chest is so well formed that its so tightly stretched against his chest....hehehe...i like men with nice full chest...anyways, having this guy smile at me like this and mistake me for someone else was like..wow...how can this be happening....anyways, i told him he was mistaken but he still kinda didn't believe me saying 'You r N the chemist friend right? You came with him the other time?' i took this opportunity to confirm whether he was truly korean and asked 'so where r u from?' And he said Korea....I KNEW IT!!! Korean men always attract me physically...sigh..can't help it...anyways, before i left, i thanked him in Korean and he laughed...hehe...what luck i have for him to mistake me as someone else....
Then i also met this really handsome korean guy when i went to takeaway at this place i frequent...he was there for take away as well and he sat at the same table as me waiting for the food...i chatted him up and he said he was studying at Melb Uni doing medicine..(wow, so smart somemore...)and i was VERY taken aback when he said he was korean cos he DID NOT look korean at all and i thought he was malaysian or singaporean chinese...even he says koreans don't find he looks korean...


I went for the NAATI translator test from Chinese to English yesterday and it was pretty hard...i am doing this translation test which if i pass is accredited nationally and qualifies me as a professional translator for Chinese-English and equals to 5 points for my Permanent Residency application for Australia...one passage is in Simplified form and the other in Traditional Form Chinese...i had to do 2 passages and an ethics of the profession section...i chose one passage on China's energy problem and another passage on the bird flu in Asia....so it was quite tough with the second passage with all the medical terms...i hope i pass...if i become a translator, i can obtain part-time income with a translation of half a page apparently worth $60 (RM 150 plus).....

Old Kingdom:


I went to the famous duck place called Old Kingdom on Smith St yesterday with my Penang friends and the duck comes in a 3-course meal includ. peking duck,duck vegetables and duck soup costing $48...and then we ordered a few other dishes like spare ribs, oyster beef,etc...the food was only ok so i don't know why it is so popular that u have to book in advance and there are 2 sittings, one at 6pm and 8pm. I shall NEVER go again cos i was SO SUPER PISSED OFF at the attitude of the chef/boss who had this unreasonably lousy attitude problem...even when i made the booking, he was like speak up, talk why aren't u talking, how come order only one duck ....then when we were chatting, cos it was our first time, we didn't know we had to arrange the cucumber on the wrap ourselves and he was so RUDE and said 'stop nagging and arrange the food properly' and we were all shocked cos it was the first time in my whole life that i had encountered such rude treatment...then i said 'we are not nagging...we are chatting amongst ourselves' and then he said you should 'respect the chef...' and i retorted 'and u should respect your customers too' (yes, out of the whole table only i dared to talk bck, gosh the others all too weaklah..i may look the most gentle and soft-spoken one but believe me, when ppl treat me with no respect, my lawyer's defensive skills come into play and u will know!!) then he said, 'I am not here to argue with u, your duck is not the only one, i still have to cut other table's duck..' I was gonna say ' Well, i know our table is not the only one but still it doesn't mean u have to be this rude right?' but then i just kept quiet as i didn't want him to spit in our food....we were like what the F? He even told me to put back one cucumber cos i had taken two...i mean we were like we can have how ever many we want ok, it is none of his F ing concern....what a F ing bitch ..i found him a SUPER f king bitch...i AM NEVER going there again and i would advise other Melbournians NOT to go....
MY COCKTAIL...hehehehe, cos i can't really drink, finished only half of my wine and my cocktail and my poor friend had to gulp everything down for me within 5mins and he kept saying he felt drunk and is he saying weird things....hahaha...poor friend have to help me finish the drink


After, we went to 'the Bureau Melbourne' on the corner of Queen and LaTrobe St..it is this very classy place and they have Jazz on Thursdays...so i recommended we go there cos its like very very close to my apartment...we had some cocktails, wine, and the tiramisu was SUPERB! The jazz was short though and ended very early but there was this super, and i mean super, cute chinese guy there, wah, all i can say is his skin was very nice and his body was even nicer,hehehe*blush,blush*...then another penang friend and his friend joined us and we drove to Crown..before they came over to my place to get this girl's cucumber that she put in my fridge...and i don't know what it is, the 2 guys had so much fun saying cucumbers....like E is going to hcpen's house to get cucumbers, something about her getting my cucumbers at my house, some nonsense lah,they just kept repeating it and the girls and me were like rolling our eyes....boys...anyways, cos E's apartment is right across Crown,we parked in her garage and had a short toilet visit to her apartment...and my goodness, it is the grandest place i have EVER seen in Melbourne...it is one of the penthouses and when everyone entered the living room from the corridor, we were all like WOW! The living room has glass panels overlooking Crown,Southgate, the MCG and Yarra and so the view is so super good! And the rent is cheap somemore....wowowow....anyways, went to Crown but everything closed so called it an early night...came bck home, chat with ppl, bathed and slept...

Today, set my alarm clock for 12 30pm although i needed more sleep as i only slept for like three hours the night before, but i had to rush to meet a Japanese friend of mine( she is the one from Tokyo Uni on exchange here and has a former Geisha grandma) for lunch...as usual i was late again and had to ask her to take the tram down to City Baths to meet me....we went to Blue Chillies on Brunswick St for lunch. It is this Malaysian place i take japanese friends to for malaysian food cos many have never tried...it is very expensive but the atmosphere is nice...we had lorbak(damn nice!), assam prawns ( i always order this for my japanese friends to let them know what assam is) and hokkien noodles...for some reason, our conversation revolved around homosexuality most of the time...her family is really special, she and her mother AND her grandmother all like gay men for some reason and will watch cross-dressers competitions on TV and judge whom is prettier,etc...and they will also always say ゲイの男いいですよね。。。。(gay men are nice right...)..i mean her grandmother is so old, it is shocking for her to be able to accept this kind of stuff but she likes gay men for some reason...AND thats NOT all, her grandfather who is over 80 now has a gay friend who is 80 now....wow, how can he accept it? His generation didn't even understand what it was....further i have NEVER heard of an 80 yr old gay male...and he is japanese and went over to the States more than 40 yrs ago, met his long-term Jewish boyfriend AND his Jewish boyfriend who DID NOT know ANY Japanese moved to Tokyo to live with the Japanese gay man...but sadly he died in recent yrs...my friend also went to the gay district in Tokyo 二丁目 (shinjuku nichome) for the purpose of meeting a gay friend, at first i was like why did u go there, it is well known to be a gay area....and she was like she wanted to make a gay friend and have a drink with them, but sadly she failed cos none of the gay men were obviously interested in her...hahaha...and she couldn't enter many of the places as they are off-limits to women...(i've been there when i was in Tokyo, it is a REALLY cool place where the men on the streets in the entire district are almost ALL gay...) anyways, she made her very first gay friend today or she realised she had a gay friend today,hahaha...and we were discussing about the cute japanese guys in Tokyo, well maybe I was discussing more...hehe...was going to the nice Japanese cafe for Green Tea Parfait which she loves on Smith St for afternoon tea but it was CLOSED...arrghhhh!!! So i have to go with her another time..said our goodbyes before we both fly bck home tmw(i am flying bck on the 3pm flight and she is on the 3 50pm flight via Singapore to Tokyo)...

Then i rushed to meet my other group of friends whom are my coursemates. Had Esteller Indonesian, i didn't eat but drank coconut drink and watched them eat as i had only finished lunch 2 hours ago..as usual being with those 2 girlfriends, the topic was so gory...one girl CP always like the gory films and she describes the scenes as if its a walk in the park like 'then the eyes are gorged out lor and then...'and me and the other friend TA will be looking at each other like...aiya, CP going on about the gore movies again...and TA and me discussed about women's rights,etc cos she is also into women's rights and wants to advance Muslim women's rights in malaysia being a malay herself...haha 2 feminist talking about women...she said she is interested about what guys talk about amongst themselves and i am lucky to have opportunities to know 'guy talk' but of cos all feminist, incl me, are VERY interested in the male culture cos it affects whom we really care about, women. Also learnt a new term today, 'lala boy' and 'lala girl' apparently Ipoh ppl or maybe KL ppl use the term..it means like samseng or truant, gangster teens...so funny.....Then cos CP's friend came over from Perth, we just went shopping at Melbourne Central and we came across this stall called 'Seacret' selling a nail and body care kit which includes a nail filing, body moisturising lotion, cuticle oil and this WAY COOL
'buffing block'. She demonstrated on a friend's nails by brushing her nails with the sand-paper like 'buffing block' and OMG, we were all 'WOW!!!!!!!' the nail became sooooooooo shiny...there was no oil put or nail varnish, the effect was the same as those nail varnish where layering a coat on ur nails will make it shiny but here the shininess came from our natural oils which are subdued in our nails and thus not seen until rubbed vigorously....You can get the nail care set for $60 or $33 each for 3 ppl or $30 for 4 ppl...and immediately, the 2 girls (1 girl was very attempted but in the end didn't buy) and me bought one...the body lotion also has three choices and i picked the 'cucumber and melon' fragrance which smelled the best...this is the first time i have bought any nail care products and i don't usually use ANY facial or other body care products except for the occasional mask which is very soothing and fun....haha..i just couldn't resist...and the shine lasts for 2 weeks so u only have to rub with the 'buffing block' every 2 weeks...my nail is so shiny now...hehehe...
Anyways, said our goodbyes, catch up next semester and then i came home, packed my luggage in 15 mins, and then went to meet my penang friends on Hardware Lane Monkey Bar for drinks (this is the Lychee Bang Martini place i blogged about last time)..i was very surprised they both never heard of it cos it is like very happening and well known especially amongst the Asian crowd cos its Chinese themed with the decor being chinese and all the waiters.tress are Chinese i think...and they go out more than me somemore...anyways, one of them said he will definitely come again with friends now that he knows....and the conversation is really funny...actually today i had conversations with three groups/types of ppl, lunch i practised Japanese with like 70-80% of the conversation in Japanese so i really improved my japanese language skills, then dinner with my girlfriend coursemates, is like 'girl talk' lor...haha..then after, with the guys at Monkey Bar is 'guy talk' and it was interesting for me to contrast the different content and way of usage of language...as a feminist and just a person, like TA, i are very interested in the mentality and way of thinking of the average beer drinking, football watching, girl focused non-Tongzhi guy..so yeah, it was interesting to observe our conversation at the bar was just so different from my earlier one with the girls, like this penang friend just kept talking about techonology stuff which girls would never talk about, and then we talked about soccer *quite boring for me actually* with the girls it was like women's rights, movies, what guys are thinking,etc...for the 'guy talk', ok i admit, i was the one who brought up the topic of porn but thats cos i wanted to know how frequent the non-tongzhi guy watches, in boys school what is it like,etc...cos like i was chatting with WK and he said guys don't d/l and watch porn on a regular basis and i am like what...so i decided to go investigate how common it is and from what i heard from my two friends(both ex-Chungling students and one who went to an all-boys school in Melbourne) porn is very common and i got to know so much about the 'boy school culture'..like they said its true during highschool groups of guys wil go to someone's house and watch porn videos EVERY WEEK! And then discuss......and also like in Australia, the guy who studied in the all boys school said porn was rife and everyone knew if someone was masturbating,etc like once he walked in to his friend's room and saw he was in an awkward position and asked 'hey, are u masturbating?' and the reply 'yeah, come back in 15 mins and i will help u out with the maths problem u have..' i was like WHAT???? Apparently it was so accepted in the boys dorm...talking about porn and masturbation was just part of normal conversation.....and also i asked my friend their porn viewing habits, one doesn't watch but the other does when he feels 'lonely and horny and unsatisfied'...and sometimes it means when he is dating a girl, none for 6 months or when during holidays like he said once he really really liked this girl and then she went back and he went gila-gila porn addicted every day...then of cos i needed to know the contents cos i have never seen the male-female porn and he said the quality deteriorate already and all the same, the american porn girls all look like sluts, not turned on by the humongous plastic surgery breasts anymore (actually he said very turned off now if he sees those humongous fake ones, he will just watch a couple of mins then delete the d/l...oh and apparently for japanese porn, s/m whereby girls tie up guys and whip them is the 'trend' nowadays...haha, i always learn so much about porn from the non-tongzhi guys...i asked my housemate also and he was really nice to be frank to tell me he sometimes watches those sick rape ones but then he says he can't control his 'urges' but feels really dirty afterwards...

Anyways, that was a looong post to make up for my lack of blogging for the past few weeks...i am leaving for Penang this afternoon for a 3pm flight...really looking forward...but u know what just happened, my friend who is like SUPER smart (he came from the top boy's highschool in Singapore and also got accepted recently into the Singapore law bar admission program which only accepts the top 30% of law cohort from overseas unis) at 9am, yes, 9am in the morning asking me whether i could go over his 5,000 word Advanced Legal Research Essay which he has been doing since Jan this yr, 6 months, and checked over it like for the umpteenth time and i was like 'U gotta be kidding right? Its 9 am?' but he was serious and so guess what i shall be doing in the plane flying towards Malaysia? Yes, i shall be checking a 5,000 word essay on drug trafficking law reform and comparisons b/w Aus and Sing drug law. How nice....anyways, the next time i blog shall be in Penang...so looking forward to eating delicious food including durian, watching my fav korean dramas and meeting friends:)

Thursday, June 22, 2006

I Am Back!...我回來了!...やっと戻った...

I AM BACK!! Exams are finally over!!!!! My last one was on Monday and it was a really hard paper! Was so stressed in the past month....phew....now all relaxed and enjoying myself:) To update u guys on what happened in the past month or so, i shall summarise:

I was at this session on migrating to Australia conducted at Melbourne Uni and there was this Indian guy in his early 40s and a Thai young man and other ex-students all telling us their experiences of migrating to Oz.... and i was thinking to myself, wow, the Indian guy has nice features, nice eyes, was very friendly(i have been thinking some Indian men are so sexy recently! Dun know y..)anyways, i also thought the Thai guy looks Tongzhi but later he said he had an Australian gf...and after i went to talk to the indian guy cos i wanted to ask about the HK PR system cos he lived in HK for 7 yrs but couldn't obtain a PR although he treated HK as a second home....and so when i approached him, we were talking and then suddenly he said he was gay and his bf is HK Chinese guy and if it was a girl, he would have been able to obtain a PR thru marriage...i was VERY taken abk cos i DID NOT suspect he was AT ALL!
Anyways, i didn't know how to react as i didn't expect a stranger to come out to me like that so i was just searching thru my mind trying to come up with an appropriate response and so i said cos we learn it in law alot 'oh....so they don't have a system for de facto couples in HK?'...anyways, i am so glad its my first indian-chinese gay couple i have heard of, such a breath of fresh air from the oh-so-boring chinese-white str8/gay couple that u see everywhere *boring,yawn*...

I got to to know this nice guy WK in May and he introduced this Tongzhi friend who studies at Melbourne Law School as well to me...the thing is he gave my MSN without telling me 1st so i was initially NOT happy BUT he apologised so i thought never mind lah...
the funny thing is this friend MK did not add me directly but rather asked his female friend to add me( he told me the reason why and i think it wasn't necessary but i guess i understand) one day i mes the friend and she wouldn't tell me who and how she got my MSN so i was like ok i am gonna delete u cos i don't talk to strangers on MSN and also its so weird for her to say the person who gave it to her, MK, wants to remain anon. Anyways, they must have been discussing at the other end and suddenly he decides he wants to add me....i was surprised and suddenly this person adds me...when i first saw his name, i knew it was familiar and when he gave me his blog( his blog has a blurred pic of himself) i knew instantly who he was!! I was VERY surprised cos i knew him from 2 yrs ago, we didn't even talk for past 1 min then, but the thing is since this yr, for some odd reason, i have been bumping into him either in the city, at law school,etc like once a month on average so i could recognise the blurred pic...i had been noticing him also cos i kept thinking he may be PJ, my once loyal reader, and as fate would have it, this yr after like seeing him 6-7 times on the streets, i got to know him better...he is very nice and friendly...and i passed him my constitutional law exam notes cos he said he had troubles with it...u know, in law school, law friends do help when it comes to passing exam notes to each other,hehehe...i hope my notes which aren't all that good helped him:) (Was gonna come out after the exams but then he left for KL on the day of my last exam so prob can catch up another time i guess...)

Oh yeah, WK, the friend who i got to know recently and whom re-introduced us is leaving Melbourne to go bck to KL...its kinda sad cos i would have liked to know him better...cos i was really busy and everything and we didn't get much time to know each other....but i am grateful we had yuan fen to get to know each other just before he is leaving...i went out with him for dinner tonight cos i am coming bck to Penang this Saturday and he will be leaving in 3 weeks time so if we don't meet now, there will really be VERY little opportunities to meet in the future...i brought him to a nice Japanese place i like near Flinders station and we both had Nabeyaki Udon and Butter Calamari.. then he brought me to this really nice place at Sofitel Hotel where u can see the view of Melbourne esp the toilet allows u to see the view too! There is no wall but glass....hehehe, actually we headed straight for the toilet to see the view after we got to the 30 something floor...haha so weird... we sat down for drinks at the lounge...i had a very enjoyable and pleasant long chat with him...he is a very smart, intelligent guy into chinese culture,etc...and that definitely made a good impression on me...he reads chinese classics which put me to shame....anyways, i bored him with my 'cheongsam talk' telling him the differences b/w a 1930s cheongsam/qipao and a 1960s cheongsam/qipao..hahaha...and i also told him about my thoughts on wome's status and Brokeback Mountain..gosh, i dun know if i gave him a bad impression with my rather 'unusual' opinions, but thats me and i want to be as true as possible..hope he doesn't think i am weird or something...haha...oh and he's going to my beloved Taipei for a holiday!!! I wrote down all the places and food he MUST try when there and i will be sending him another list if anything comes to my mind...so jealous, i wanna go to Taiwan to eat the nice food too:(
Anyways, WK, if u r reading this, 謝 謝 你 今 晚 抽 空 出 來 和 我 見 面 。 I appreciate our friendship despite its shortness and i hope we will have yuan 緣 sometime in the future to continue it, please keep in touch with me and all the best for the future. I am sure u will do well no matter where...Have a Safe trip Home! 祝 一 路 順 風 ﹗ 保 持 聯 絡 唷 ﹗

After, going out with WK, I came home and chatted with this new blogger friend of mine TK on Skype just now, really nice friendly guy, he said my Mandarin is so not malaysian, like China/Taiwanese.. i was so glad, haha... i like my Taiwanese accented Mandarin....he is such a cute guy and a pleasant person to chat with, someone i would recommend my female friends as a bf...haha..he broke up w/h his gf for quite awhile already so mayb i can intro another one...

Also i actually know someone who's grandmother was a Geisha!!!!! How cool is that! She is a Japanese friend of mine on exchange at Melb Uni, very smart from Tokyo Uni which is like THE top univ in Japan and her grandmother was a geisha and the coolest thing is that her grandmother's story reflects 'Memoirs of a Geisha'!!! She was sold to an actress and then resold to a Geisha house like Sayuri.. then she became a Geisha about the same time as Sayuri in the movie and she also went to the countryside during the last yr of the war to escape from American bombing like 'Memoirs of a Geisha' ...how cool is that!!!! maybe Arthur Golden got the idea from her grandmother's life history? Hahaha...so cool man, to know someone with a former Geisha grandmother...

yeah, rem i said about going to try this duck place on Smith St with Penang friends? well, we will be going tmw, already booked for 6pm the Peking duck which costs $48 which comes in a 3 course meal...will let u guys know how it tastes with of cos plenty of photos later....

Going back to Penang this Sat, so looking forward to eating all the nice food and also meeting ppl, speaking of which i just got invited to yum cha with some Tongzhi friends who are planning to meet this weekend and i will be able to join!!! Yeah!!!!!! They are planning to go clubbing at The Cafe, a Tongzhi club, on Sat night, but since i am gonna arrive that night, i am gonna skip, and just join them for lunch on Sunday, really looking forward to it!! Yeah.....
Sorry for such a long post cos i haven't blogged for so long....More blog updates to come so do keep coming...i am wondering who will be the 1st to leave a comment..hhmmmm....