Continuation southwest Victoria with cousins

Melbourne

Twelve Apostles Marine Park, Great Ocean Road

Torquay surf beach, Great Ocean Road

Werribee Zoo

Werribee Rose Garden

Ballarat Wildlife Centre. KANGAROOS!!!!

South Wharf bridge, Melbourne

(pictures thanks to cousins!!)

Two bands in a day

Went up to Melbourne CBD today for Incubus' concert at Festival Hall, and I bumped in to Khairil and a school classmate near Southern Cross train station. How awkward... I don't have many SMKSH friends (save a few handful), so seeing ex-classmates is something that I don't know how to handle.

We had to find a way to kill time before the concert, so we went down to Vic Market's night market and hung around watching the live performances.

When it was around 6pm, me, Julie and Feera headed back to Festival Hall for the highlight of the day (week? month?) - INCUBUS.

They were amazing!!!!!! I can't stress how much I enjoyed the show. They played 23 songs, including the encores. Around the end where they finished 'Megalomaniac' on a high note and left the stage, the audience started stamping their foots on the floor and calling them to come back for an encore. They did come back, and played 'I Miss You', of all songs. What a way to pull at our heartstrings! The show ended for real with 'A Certain Shade of Green', and then we had to reluctantly go back out to the cold 14 degrees Melbourne night : (

They played a lot of songs I loved like 'Consequences', 'Privilege', 'I Miss You' (of course), 'Talk Show On Mute' and 'Circles'. But my ultimate favs 'Pendulous Threads' and 'Just a Phase' never emerged... But that doesn't matter because it was still worthwhile. Topless Brandon omg 8D

(google is my friend)

Cherry sorting farm + vacation with cousins

This is an update on my personal life from a few weeks back. In summary, I quit my berry-picking job, packed my bags and hauled them up to Burwood for another job at a cherry-sorting factory with Mira and Julie. Met a whole bunch of cool people from work, then after two weeks we said sad goodbyes to the cherry factory people.

My cousins came over a week ago, but before that, I was hanging out almost everyday with my housemates and the Yuille people. Too much activity those last five weeks, so I didn't have much time to update my blog. Not that being alone and bored right now is gonna make me wanna make a proper detailed blog post anyway.

Sorry for the low quality photos, iphone 3Gs mah. Also,the photos are not in chronological order because I'm too lazy to organize it. So.

A look-out point on the Great Ocean Road trip with my cousins (we took turns driving -- and I got the worst route. The extremely boring, sloping, winding roads from Twelve Apostles to Apollo Bay, in which I spent 3 hours driving without seeing anything except forest trees). 

I don't remember the signboard being vandalized to this extent when I was here last year and two years ago... must be new. I kinda like it though.

Even though my cousins and I looked happy here, don't be fooled -- it was 35 degrees celsius and we were sweaty, grumpy, tired and hungry. Disappointed with the Werribee Zoo; was hoping to see kangaroos but they were all hiding from the hot weather (and us) :(

Last day working at the cherry factory. Ah, good memories, good times. Made a few friends here.

The cherry factory. I mostly worked on the upper mezzanine level, packing and making boxes for the sorters below.

Hanging out at Panache with cousins again. And the best part was that it was 10pm and the place was packed with people from the aftermath of the Geelong Sails Festival at the waterfront. Geelong felt like Melbourne for a moment there.

Back in December (before even quitting the berry picking farm job), Mira, her sister and I went to the Rose Garden in Werribee. I had taken a bunch of beautiful rose photos here, but accidentally restored my iphone to a previous backup and all those photos got deleted T_T

My cousins and I weren't satisfied with Werribee Zoo's lack of kangaroos and koalas, so we tried again at Ballarat Wildlife Centre. This time we struck gold. There were tons of kangaroos just hanging around like domestic cats would in a house, that by the end of the day I kinda got sick of them. Hahaha. Okay maybe not. No one gets sick of kangaroos evah.

Here's a picture of two male kangaroos having a playful fight. That's what the rangers told me, though. To me, they looked like they were being preeeetty violent.

A random shot of a beautiful beam of light peeking through my apartment's blinds. This is actually my concept for last two semester's Architecture Resolution class where I designed a surau. I wanted to have a beam of light through the mihrab space which will fall onto the floor of the prayer hall, to indicate 'direction'. Even though Des Smith liked this concept, I was mostly bullshitting (as always) and wasn't sure it'll work in real life. With this picture, I'm now rest assured that my concept does work.

Hanging out at Glen Waverly shopping district (aka Kelana-Jaya-sesat-in-Australia) with Geelong kids and Mei + Michelle after the last day of work at cherry factory. Intriguing flavours, ain't it? In case you're wondering, the black(?) is black sesame and green is green tea. Yum.

Punch-in/scan-in cards for cherry factory work. Amira, Julie and Shaza :)

(Yup, lots of Malaysians working here)

Helmi, Rais and Aki praying underneath an (oak?) tree on the last day of work, because there's no proper praying space in the factory. I like this shot a lot.

Hanging out at the balcony of my apartment after a sweltering, hot day that forced us to dine outside the house because it was cooler than inside. It was surprisingly fun, where we watched the sunset while having dinner, then baking brownies for supper while playing Monopoly deal. The stoner neighbours next door decided to 'join' us outside by hanging out at the balcony as well, albeit doing... questionable things like smoking weed and sleeping topless on the floor.

The neighbours moved out a week ago, and I feel sad for no apparent reason. Maybe because they moved in exactly a year ago (when I was living alone for 3 months in Jan-Feb-March), so knowing that they moved out is a reminder that a whole year has gone by and that I, too, have to leave soon :(

Celebrating Australia Day along Geelong's coastlines

The Esplanade/Western Beach

Carnival on Rippleside Park/Western Beach

Geelong Sails Festival at the Waterfront/Eastern Beach

Panache at Waterfront :) Chai latte and banana crepe.

Trip to Barwon Heads

New Year's at Melbourne CBD

At Docklands/Harbour Town

View from Federation Square and Flinders Train Station (where I was)

Sychronized fireworks being shot from the top of buildings all over the city

Melbourne Arts Centre -- Beautiful grand finale of the New Year's fireworks display

I celebrated the previous New Year with my mom and aunts at the Geelong waterfront, so I wasn't expecting much when I went to Mebourne this time with my housemates and friends. But the experience was totally mind-blowing. After some shopping  (mainly for our parents), we headed out to the Yarra river behind Federation Square and waited around for the family-friendly 9.30pm fireworks at the Melbourne Cricket Ground. We chose a sloping patch of grass that looked right at the river and the Botanical Gardens, and so we just lazed around lying on the grass, looking up at the night sky with the spotlights making moving patterns in the sky.

Around 11.30 we headed back towards Federation Square and stood on the bridge, watching sychronized fireworks shooting up from all over the city -- so it looked like the whole skyline was filled with explosions in the sky. I think it lasted for a good half-an-hour, and the finale was lighting up the Arts Centre tower with fireworks on every level so that it looked like the tower was exploding into million lights of dazzling colours. Braving the crowd was totally worth it at the end.

We rushed back to Southern Cross Station and managed to take the last train (1.00am) back to Geelong. My head is still filled with thoughts of the fireworks. I spent two consecutive New Years in Australia -- I'm definitely gonna miss this place so much.

Summer job! Summer berries! Summer Christmas season!

Boysenberries (slightly tarty and tastes like a milder version of a blackberry)

Blackberries (sweet, light flavour)

The ripe blackberries are blue-black in colour and comes off easily

Raspberries (strong, sweet smell and flavour). A bit fragile to handle, though. The ripe ones fall off from the stalks very easily and the drupes tend to fall apart if too much pressure is applied.

First-grade raspberries (smaller containers) and second-grades (larger container). The first-grades fetch quite a sum, since all the produce in the farm is organic.

The 'berry' garden, covered with nets to prevent birds from eating the fruits. Outside the berry garden, are the strawberry fields (I posted it in a previous blog post before).

Resident mice-hunter, Jess. A beautiful but aged golden retriever.

She tags along with me when I go to the garden to pick fruits. But mostly she'll watch me from afar and sleep under the warm sun.

Youngberries, a variation of boysenberries. Look at all the ripe fruits!

First-grade and second-grade youngberries

Loganberries (sorry forgot to take a closer pic). The owner says that the fruit is bitter but makes great jam, but I tasted it behind their backs (hehe) and it's sweet and tarty. There is also a lingering rose-flavour aftertaste. When the berries are cooked for jam, the whole room gets filled with a flowery/rose perfume smell. 

We've picked almost all of the berry varieties. Waiting for a chance to pick blueberries and currents (for Christmas), the final last two >:D