24th July 2008
I was invited to attend Van's party. [grin] It would be my first time going to her new house in Auburn. Since she needed to borrow the glasses from me, she came to pick me. Woot~! Car ride~! [lol]
When I arrived at her house and walking to her apartment, it felt like a hotel. [grin] I think her new place was very cosy. [nod nod nod] I was put on balloon duty... Not that big a deal if you didn't have a fear of popping balloons... But I'm always gamed to take fear head on. Well, at least I try. [lol]
At least I got to use a foot pump, although I'll point out here that I do have a healthy pair of lungs [nod nod nod] That's what they told me when I did my annual checkup early this year. So when the first balloon popped and I wasn't scared, hurrah~! I'm semi cured. Not keen on blowing the balloon by mouth. No thanks.
All the food for the party were handmade by Van. And they were pretty simple to make. [nod nod nod] This one is toasted bread with chicken breast meat with a bit of avacado sprinkled lightly with black pepper and salt.
Again with the toast, but this time with tuna with a bit of cucumber... there was another with scrambled eggs with mayo ^_^
Then there's sushi~! This one is with tuna and cucumber... of course wrapped with Nori seaweed and Japanese rice mixed with rice vinegar (for those who never made sushi before)
This one is the scrambled eggs with cucumber... can you see the clever lil cycle of ingredients in the food here. ^_^
This one is with salmon... with avacado. [grin] Lovely.
Sandwiches. Tuna with lettuce. There was the chicken with lettuce and egg sandwich. ^_^
The funny / interesting thing about this party is that we didn't have big plates to put the food on...
So Van took the whole table as a big plate, covered it with cling wrap then laid down some A4 paper and arranged the food like a buffet table. I think it's pretty clever~! and easy access for everyone to take the food. [nod nod nod]
Although Van did invite a lot of people but only myself, Cindy, Ram and Alan showed up (Van is the one in salmon pink and black skirt)... Cindy and Ram were her classmates from cooking school and Van knew Alan through Cindy.
The boys were pretty cool. Ram's from Nepal and totally down to earth and funny. Alan's from China and doing a master's in multimedia in Swinburne. Yup, he's my sempai and he's only 1 year older than me. Ram and Van is a year younger than myself. I don't know about Cindy but all we know is that she's older than all of us. XD
It was very fun. Thanks again, Van for bringing us good food and sharing your good company with me. Cheers~!
Saturday, July 26, 2008
Van's Belated Birthday Party
Friday, July 25, 2008
Melbourne Open House
20th July 2008
Hey guys.. Yea... I know that this post is a bit overdue but it's just a lot of photos and I was bleh. Hahah~! To make up for the delay, I added more photos... which made it a bit later than I had planned. [lol] Enjoy~!
The first place we went to was the Chapter House. Inside was a recently reconstructed and beautifully repaired room that is available to cater formal functions...
They even had a setting for me... I mean for people to see.. XD would you know how to eat with this table setting? Rule of thumb, you work your way in.. so you'll use the outer set of fork and knife for the appertiser and the inner set for the main course. the ones on the top if I'm not mistaken the salad fork and the dessert spoon / for the sorbet...
Walking from the chapter house, we took a shortcut and came across this big mirror which we of course tried to utilize it into a photo moment.. [lol]
Shoes on sale~! Starting from $395??? What kind of sales are we talking about here? If it's $395 for all these shoes then coolz but one pair going for that price.... that'll be close to RM1,200... [pales] [looks across]
Oh look. An advert for Chanel... Another expensive brand... Ok... Moving on...
I forgot to mention that we got free balloons at Federation Square... Here is Annie's balloon... Mine committed suicide while we were exploring the Design Market. How to kill a helium balloon - don't let it fly by holding it down.
Anyway, after the Chapter House, we had to line up to get into the Plaza Ballroom...
There were a lot of people... Would be pretty cool if I had my SAM ball here...
Look at all the pretty things to look at... [lol]
This place can easily house 150 people, if not more...
I really like the many wall decorations.
Even for the ladies bathroom, the sign for it was so pretty to look at...
From one queue to another, we found ourselves in a very long line to get into the next building - Melbourne Town Hall.
While we waited, Annie and I chatted and looked around to the streets. Here's one of the city carriage that you can hire to see the city. I like horses.
Here's the Manchester Unity Building... it was across from where we were and we could see that there was a very very very long line to get into that one... we agreed to tackle this one after eating lunch first...
The reason why there was quite a queue was because they have to limit the amount of people in the building itself... Can you imagine this hallway packed with people.... [shakes head]
This was the olympic torch during the 2004 olympic games in Australia...
I don't know what this is except that it's Japanese... [lol] It's a shrine of sorts...
I like the cherry blossom plate instead. ^_^
Even the carpet was pretty detailed to look at... XD
The rooms are named after some places in Melbourne... This was in the Yarra Room...
The intricate design on the ceiling skylight...
This is the top view of the queue that we were in just now....
Whee.. a good view.. The flag banner reads "Design is a verb"
The queue is pretty long... about 3-4 tram lengths...
Here's Annie posing... oh yea, I forgot to send her these photos... XD will do that later... Xp
A look at the clock tower from the balcony of the Melbourne Town Hall... cool~!
ere's some photos of the winners of Miss Melbourne... makes sense for me to presume that the photos are of the winners but I'm not too sure.. [lol]
Here in the Melbourne room.. a fancy piano. Was eager to touch it but I controlled myself... though they didn't say we couldn't touch it...
Waaaa~! Such a pretty Japanese doll~!
Oh? An agreement letter / contract from the Queen... Hahah~! I didn't settle long enough to read what it was about apart from it was from the Queen...
A really posh office... Would anyone get this picture perfect office in the future?
When we walked into the Council Room, I thought there was some court case going on since the air felt pretty serious... but when I saw the guy ship out his camera, I was like "ceh~!!!" [lol]
But seriously lor, they build here so pretty... people got admired them ka? I mean the everyday people who come here to work on cases and discussions..
Since we were in the Council Room, sitting in the biggest chair is a common tourist shot.... XD oh well...
I like stained-glass windows... all the pretty colours... I presume the words are latin and would have something to do with upholding justice. [giving a wild guess][nod nod]
These are the royal banners hanging just outside the council house... wonder if they are washing machine friendly... XD
After seeing so many things and all the walking, I brought Annie to eat Nandos.
The poor girl never tried Nandos before. Normally the service is pretty fast but they totally forgot my order and came late... I wasn't angry or anything and I still managed to finish faster than Annie. [lol]
I also eat rather slow... but Annie wasn't use to eating quarter chicken with the bones and all. [shrugs] After filling our empty stomachs, we continued to the next location...
It's called the Council House 2 (CH2) "Setting a new world standard in green building design"
Sorry that I didn't take photos of the unique interior designs... Was too interested in the talk. XD But it's really really cool. [nod nod nod] I remembered to take photos when we were at the rooftop. Hehehe...
The view from the rooftop..
So yea.. they had also made it a point to make full use of the rooftop space as a place of relaxation for the office people and also try to grow greenery. Growing rooftop greenery in Melbourne isn't as easy as other countries like South East Asia.... the biggest obstacle they face here is the lack of rainfall here...
This building isn't very far from Flinders Street station... Or maybe it's the illusion I'm getting from being at the rooftop. [shrugs] head to http://www.ch2.com.au/ to find out more about this 'green' building.
Next stop... Capitol Theatre... Notice the interesting structure of the ceiling.. The main idea was they actually wanted to build a crystal ceiling but when they found out to cost to build an actual crystal ceiling, their eyes went 0__0 and their jaws hit the floor.
However they were very clever to create this structure and in the crevices they install a colour globe light (I forgot the actual term for the light) and when they were lit, the lighting bounced (bm = pantulan) and refracted (bm = pembiasan) and gave the illusion of the crystal ceiling...
Would be cool to see it... in the 1924... It was bought over by RMIT in the 1999 and currently used as additional lecture theatre. Unfortunately, the old technology is lost and reconstructing it with modern technology is hard (in the past, there weren't concerned about safety regulations) and costly (replacing all the old, low watt lights, rewiring and putting on the new, higher watt lights and turning all of them on) *Ka-ching~!*
This is the nicholas building. It was suppose to participate in the Melbourne Open House but they pulled out (I know neither what the building is nor why they pulled out). We headed to the Manchester Unity Building but because all the buildings are to close at 5pm, we weren't allowed to enter the queue... Poor Annie. She said she really wanted to see this building too. The silly girl didn't tell me earlier..
We headed to the St Paul's Cathedral instead. We had wanted to visit it first but that time, there was the Sunday service going on so we couldn't and saved it for last...
The lovely stained-glass windows...
There were quite a bit of people in the church but it was a comfortable amount of people... think most of the people are at the other buildings, lining up to view the buildings...
I think it's nice to end the day with a visit to a calm and holy place. Hehehe...
More stained-glass windows... more often than not, the stained-glass window depict the biblical story or house the biblical figures.
Echoing through the church was the pipe organ music...
Even the floor has detailed tile designs....
Behind the pipes of the pipe organ was a circular type stained-glass window?? [zooms in with the original photo] Yea.. small round stained-glass put together with other ones and forming a bigger circle.
I overhear a lady telling other tourist to look up at this point to see something... I looked up and saw this... owie owie owie... glaring lights...
But looking past the glaring lights, I saw this... it's was called ermmm.. [looks at some websites] lantern canopy. XD [grin] nice isn't it?
Annie asked me if she could light a candle where there were some candles lit but I refrained her from lighting it since we didn't know what the candles were for and what it symbolizes. Best not to do things we don't fully understand... but anybody out there care to enlighten me about the candle practice?
I like to photograph inside churches because there's just so many little things to photograph... XD I like the gothic architecture design as well (most churches I know are built during that arts movement era). The gothic I mention here is not the gothic fashion, ok? There are 2 different things.
So we managed to hit 6 out of 8 buildings that were open to the public on Melbourne's Open Day. Just a short recap.
1. The Chapter House
2. Plaza Ballroom
3. Melbourne Town Hall
4. Council House 2
5. Capitol Theatre
6. St Paul's Cathedral
We missed
7. Manchester Unity Building (time limit)
8. The Labyrinth, Federation Square (fully-booked)
Oh well... Congrats if you made it here... You have just viewed 71 photos of this post. [lol] I had selected 84 photos to post actually but reduced it to 71. Lazy... Cheers~!
Hey guys.. Yea... I know that this post is a bit overdue but it's just a lot of photos and I was bleh. Hahah~! To make up for the delay, I added more photos... which made it a bit later than I had planned. [lol] Enjoy~!
It was a sunday that the Melbourne Open House was on... it was also Melbourne's Design Festival... 
It'll be cool if we had this festival back in Malaysia too... but I think the main excuse they'll use is design being still rather young back at home and that we Malaysians aren't open enough to accept these "unconventional" designs.. [sigh]
Nonetheless, equally as excited as I was, I met up with Annie for today's walk. Yay~! There were product designs at Federation Square. It was curious to see them displayed in these transparent plastic bubbles...
From what I've seen, all the products were eco-friendly and created because there was a need for it. Form follow function.
Walking in from the cold, we stumbled across a poster design competition... I like this poster. In case you can't read it, it reads "strength" and there're made up of numbers.
This one was really really cute. Elephant with a mass of balloons.
All the posters here are themed after the saying "strength in numbers"
From the poster gallery to the design market... There were a lot of people down at the carpark basement of Federation Square. The items offered here ranged from designed t-shirts to quirky messaged badges, uniquely design shower curtains to detailed jewellery... For me, they were all see, no touch.. Too expensive... Hehehe..
Coming out from the carpark, we saw this. I thought it was really really unique and eco-friendly. [lol] It's not strange to see a rotating advertisement [points to the black box] but normally they aren't human-powered~! Heheh. Apparently he's been at it for 14 days now of 21 days [points to the text in the black box on the ad] Don't think you can read it from here...
After seeing all the product designs and the items at the Design Market, we started to make a dent at the list of places to see for Melbourne's Open House. It's a special one day only event...
[quotes from brochure] "Melbourne's most interesting buildings and hidden architectural treasures will open to the public as part of a new initiative to be launched in conjunction with this year's Melbourne International Design Festival" [end quote]
The first place we went to was the Chapter House. Inside was a recently reconstructed and beautifully repaired room that is available to cater formal functions...
They even had a setting for me... I mean for people to see.. XD would you know how to eat with this table setting? Rule of thumb, you work your way in.. so you'll use the outer set of fork and knife for the appertiser and the inner set for the main course. the ones on the top if I'm not mistaken the salad fork and the dessert spoon / for the sorbet...
Walking from the chapter house, we took a shortcut and came across this big mirror which we of course tried to utilize it into a photo moment.. [lol]
Shoes on sale~! Starting from $395??? What kind of sales are we talking about here? If it's $395 for all these shoes then coolz but one pair going for that price.... that'll be close to RM1,200... [pales] [looks across]
Oh look. An advert for Chanel... Another expensive brand... Ok... Moving on...
I forgot to mention that we got free balloons at Federation Square... Here is Annie's balloon... Mine committed suicide while we were exploring the Design Market. How to kill a helium balloon - don't let it fly by holding it down.
Anyway, after the Chapter House, we had to line up to get into the Plaza Ballroom...
There were a lot of people... Would be pretty cool if I had my SAM ball here...
Look at all the pretty things to look at... [lol]
This place can easily house 150 people, if not more...
I really like the many wall decorations.
Even for the ladies bathroom, the sign for it was so pretty to look at...
From one queue to another, we found ourselves in a very long line to get into the next building - Melbourne Town Hall.
While we waited, Annie and I chatted and looked around to the streets. Here's one of the city carriage that you can hire to see the city. I like horses.
Here's the Manchester Unity Building... it was across from where we were and we could see that there was a very very very long line to get into that one... we agreed to tackle this one after eating lunch first...
The reason why there was quite a queue was because they have to limit the amount of people in the building itself... Can you imagine this hallway packed with people.... [shakes head]
This was the olympic torch during the 2004 olympic games in Australia...
I don't know what this is except that it's Japanese... [lol] It's a shrine of sorts...
I like the cherry blossom plate instead. ^_^
Even the carpet was pretty detailed to look at... XD
The rooms are named after some places in Melbourne... This was in the Yarra Room...
The intricate design on the ceiling skylight...
This is the top view of the queue that we were in just now....
Whee.. a good view.. The flag banner reads "Design is a verb"
The queue is pretty long... about 3-4 tram lengths...
Here's Annie posing... oh yea, I forgot to send her these photos... XD will do that later... Xp
A look at the clock tower from the balcony of the Melbourne Town Hall... cool~!
ere's some photos of the winners of Miss Melbourne... makes sense for me to presume that the photos are of the winners but I'm not too sure.. [lol]
Here in the Melbourne room.. a fancy piano. Was eager to touch it but I controlled myself... though they didn't say we couldn't touch it...
Waaaa~! Such a pretty Japanese doll~!
Oh? An agreement letter / contract from the Queen... Hahah~! I didn't settle long enough to read what it was about apart from it was from the Queen...
A really posh office... Would anyone get this picture perfect office in the future?
When we walked into the Council Room, I thought there was some court case going on since the air felt pretty serious... but when I saw the guy ship out his camera, I was like "ceh~!!!" [lol]
But seriously lor, they build here so pretty... people got admired them ka? I mean the everyday people who come here to work on cases and discussions..
Since we were in the Council Room, sitting in the biggest chair is a common tourist shot.... XD oh well...
I like stained-glass windows... all the pretty colours... I presume the words are latin and would have something to do with upholding justice. [giving a wild guess][nod nod]
These are the royal banners hanging just outside the council house... wonder if they are washing machine friendly... XD
After seeing so many things and all the walking, I brought Annie to eat Nandos.
The poor girl never tried Nandos before. Normally the service is pretty fast but they totally forgot my order and came late... I wasn't angry or anything and I still managed to finish faster than Annie. [lol]
I also eat rather slow... but Annie wasn't use to eating quarter chicken with the bones and all. [shrugs] After filling our empty stomachs, we continued to the next location...
It's called the Council House 2 (CH2) "Setting a new world standard in green building design"
Sorry that I didn't take photos of the unique interior designs... Was too interested in the talk. XD But it's really really cool. [nod nod nod] I remembered to take photos when we were at the rooftop. Hehehe...
The view from the rooftop..
So yea.. they had also made it a point to make full use of the rooftop space as a place of relaxation for the office people and also try to grow greenery. Growing rooftop greenery in Melbourne isn't as easy as other countries like South East Asia.... the biggest obstacle they face here is the lack of rainfall here...
This building isn't very far from Flinders Street station... Or maybe it's the illusion I'm getting from being at the rooftop. [shrugs] head to http://www.ch2.com.au/ to find out more about this 'green' building.
Next stop... Capitol Theatre... Notice the interesting structure of the ceiling.. The main idea was they actually wanted to build a crystal ceiling but when they found out to cost to build an actual crystal ceiling, their eyes went 0__0 and their jaws hit the floor.
However they were very clever to create this structure and in the crevices they install a colour globe light (I forgot the actual term for the light) and when they were lit, the lighting bounced (bm = pantulan) and refracted (bm = pembiasan) and gave the illusion of the crystal ceiling...Would be cool to see it... in the 1924... It was bought over by RMIT in the 1999 and currently used as additional lecture theatre. Unfortunately, the old technology is lost and reconstructing it with modern technology is hard (in the past, there weren't concerned about safety regulations) and costly (replacing all the old, low watt lights, rewiring and putting on the new, higher watt lights and turning all of them on) *Ka-ching~!*
This is the nicholas building. It was suppose to participate in the Melbourne Open House but they pulled out (I know neither what the building is nor why they pulled out). We headed to the Manchester Unity Building but because all the buildings are to close at 5pm, we weren't allowed to enter the queue... Poor Annie. She said she really wanted to see this building too. The silly girl didn't tell me earlier..
We headed to the St Paul's Cathedral instead. We had wanted to visit it first but that time, there was the Sunday service going on so we couldn't and saved it for last...
The lovely stained-glass windows...
There were quite a bit of people in the church but it was a comfortable amount of people... think most of the people are at the other buildings, lining up to view the buildings...
I think it's nice to end the day with a visit to a calm and holy place. Hehehe...
More stained-glass windows... more often than not, the stained-glass window depict the biblical story or house the biblical figures.
Echoing through the church was the pipe organ music...
Even the floor has detailed tile designs....
Behind the pipes of the pipe organ was a circular type stained-glass window?? [zooms in with the original photo] Yea.. small round stained-glass put together with other ones and forming a bigger circle.
I overhear a lady telling other tourist to look up at this point to see something... I looked up and saw this... owie owie owie... glaring lights...
But looking past the glaring lights, I saw this... it's was called ermmm.. [looks at some websites] lantern canopy. XD [grin] nice isn't it?
Annie asked me if she could light a candle where there were some candles lit but I refrained her from lighting it since we didn't know what the candles were for and what it symbolizes. Best not to do things we don't fully understand... but anybody out there care to enlighten me about the candle practice?
I like to photograph inside churches because there's just so many little things to photograph... XD I like the gothic architecture design as well (most churches I know are built during that arts movement era). The gothic I mention here is not the gothic fashion, ok? There are 2 different things.
So we managed to hit 6 out of 8 buildings that were open to the public on Melbourne's Open Day. Just a short recap.1. The Chapter House
2. Plaza Ballroom
3. Melbourne Town Hall
4. Council House 2
5. Capitol Theatre
6. St Paul's Cathedral
We missed
7. Manchester Unity Building (time limit)
8. The Labyrinth, Federation Square (fully-booked)
Oh well... Congrats if you made it here... You have just viewed 71 photos of this post. [lol] I had selected 84 photos to post actually but reduced it to 71. Lazy... Cheers~!
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