Monday at Hikaru

The other day I was reading The Bull, which is some student-run magazine here in USyd, and I came across the page where they were reviewing cheap food and booze in the vicinity of the campus and all, and my roving eyes stumbled hungrily devoured this little paragraph describing the chicken katsu set of this Japanese place somewhere on King Street (somewhere in Newtown). So I eagerly approached a couple of my coursemates and told them eagerly (real eagerly), that we had to go and try it out. Imagine my happiness when one of them said she'd been there before! So we arranged to hike our way over to Hikaru (that's the name of the place) after today's class (which ended at 5.30 pm) for a nice dinner. Of course, I chose to have the chicken katsu set (that's what caught my fancy in the review), and it's basically chicken fried in some batter and topped with tonkatsu sauce (don't ask me what that is, that's what it said on the menu, if I remember right). All the mains came with mini edamame (some green beans in some tough-textured pods, dunno what their actual names are), miso soup, a generous portion of salad greens, and steaming white rice! I also had a bottle of Schweppes dry ginger ale to wash it all down with, and I must say I'm very impressed with the place. For one, the prices are really very reasonable (the whole meal cost AUD$12.30, which is really very cheap for Sydney standards), and the portions are pretty generous. Flavours are good, too, so I was a happy camper.

It was a bonus to have such good company: Yin, Hema, and Maria were a bundle of laughs, and we must have cut a pretty impressive picture, us studious postgrads with our thick heavy books of literary criticism and all (just picture lugging around a hardcover dictionary, that's what it looks like). I really had a good time, and I'm happy I had the chance to try out some 'famous' (i.e. it got reviewed in a magazine, that's gotta count for something, right?) Japanese restaurant (dunno if you can call it that, though... the place was tiny!!!!). Hmmmm. Now to look for another place to plan my next dinner visit! Cheers, people!

DFO + Hot Pot!

Like I said in previous blogposts, here's me attempting to be a more frequent and regular blogger! So yesterday (Saturday) was a very fun-filled day for me! I woke up at 8.30 am (the earliest in a long time) and got ready to meet Su-Wen and Yu Ning in the foyer. Then we walked to Central and caught a train to Strathfield, and from there we took the 526 bus to Homebush, where the goal of the day was: DFO! It was a crazy rush about, shopping shopping shopping! By the end of the day, I managed to get a black jacket/sweater, a belt, bronzer (what little was left of my blusher fell tragically into the sink one fine day a week or so ago), a pair of tartan slip-on shoes, a pair of sunglasses, and a pair of tan boots. I was feeling quite ravenous and parched by 4 pm, so I went to Oz Kebab and had a chicken kebab and a can of Coca-Cola. Bliss! Then I caught the bus and train and bus back to IH and finally reached at about 6.10 pm. I was so proud of myself cos I went back alone (my friends went back at noon). Before I carry on with the rest of the day though, lemme just include a few snapshots of my new belongings:

And then it was a mad rush to my room to grab my camera and then it was another bus out to Chinatown with Su-Wen, Yu Ning, Emila and Lisa. We walked to this place called Shencheng Hot Pot King or something like that, and the rest of the party were already there: Andy (birthday boy whose 21st we were celebrating, and who very kindly and generously treated us to a fantastically delicious dinner), Neil, Eric, Jake, Sherry, Joanne, Michelle, and Marian. And really, words are quite useless where food is concerned, so here's the evidence of our great feast:

And that's it. It's been a great and eventful weekend, but it's now past 5 am on a Monday morning, so I better catch some sleep! I've got class tomorrow afternoon and I've yet to finish all my readings! So good night, or rather, good morning, and cheers y'all!

Update!

I know, I know... *long weary sigh* I've been saying it everytime, and I'll say it again: I really have to learn to blog more regularly! It horrifies me to know that the last time I blogged, the new semester hadn't yet started, and now here I am, 5 weeks into the semester! How quickly time flies when you're not paying attention! Lots have happened since the last time I blogged so, as usual, I'll try to bring you guys up-to-date with everything that's occurred in the past month. There's lots to tell you guys, so I'll try to go as quick as I can and hope the pictures explain all I haven't.

People started coming back to university (and IH) around the 26/27th July, but Su-Wen came back on the 24th of July, which was when she treated me to dinner at Italian Bowl in Newtown. I had a nice cafe latte and a linguine carbonara. No pic of the carbonara though, the lighting was bad and the flash spoiled the picture! *sad*

Then on the 31st July, with all my old friends back, a whole bunch of us decided we were in the mood for Japanese cuisine, so we went to town to this restaurant called Makoto. We all shared in chowing down some strange-sounding but yummy-tasting stuff. Then dessert was next, and for that we walked across town to this ice-cream parlour place called French Riviera Cafe (the place was run by Asian ladies, so really I have no idea what makes the place so 'French'). As usual, I chose to have the chocolate milkshake. Yummy.

The first week of August passed pretty much without anything shocking/interesting/terrifying, but 10th August was Lorenzo's surprise birthday party (the shots of us hiding behind the counter and almost under the table didn't come out clear, what a pity), so here are some shots from that night too:

On the 14th August, a few of us took the bus to Newtown to satisfy our chocolate cravings at Max Brenner's: I had a cookieshake as I'm one of those unadventurous, I'm-sticking-to-what-I-know-tastes-good kinda girl.

Then just last Saturday was the IH Stargazing trip, and we took a bus all the way down south to Berrima where the IH log cabin is, and that was painfully cold (I think I couldn't feel my hands several times) but fun. When we arrived it must have been about 4 in the arvo, so we took a walk through the 'forest' first before having dinner of hotdogs, frankfurters, salad, barbequed meat, and my new discovery: boiling hot Milo with Pascall marshmallows! It got dark pretty quick, so we peeked at the moon and the stars through the telescopes with the help of the oh-so-professional astronomy people. They pointed out the planets Mars and Venus in the nightsky, and really, you could see them even without the telescopes. Of course, they just look like bright dots of light in the sky, but still it's something to talk about eh?

Last night I went to support the IH choir as they competed in the Palladian Cup group vocal category. It was at the Holme Refectory, and it was real grand and all (I think there were like 300 people there? maybe?). And at midnight last night (well, technically that would make it this morning), a whole bunch of us surprised Andy as it was his 21st birthday, and it was real fun, especially when we realised it was past 1 in the morning, and then it was hilarious to see everyone scrambling back to their rooms.

So that's it! The last month summarised into one paragraph descriptions and plenty of pictures! I'm really seriously thinking I need to, like, schedule in a certain amount of time each day just to blog, or it's just gonna add up and bog me down all over again in a month's time! And in case you're wondering, I'm doing fine, much happier too, since I finished my third presentation this afternoon, which means I only have one more presentation to give and that's only in like Week 11 earliest, which means life will be pretty relaxed for me after this (as in there are still readings to do, lots of it, but I can slack off and not read and just pretend to have read and nod my head like I'm all smart and stuff... kidding!). And due to today's presentation, I am now convinced that Pride and Prejudice is one of the best works of fiction ever, and that Mr Darcy is now on my list of top five most heartwrenchingly perfect literary heroes. Cheers you all!