20th February 2009 Ballarat

In all effect, I'm actually getting ready to head back home. [lol] All the packing is done (thanks to mumsie and daddykins). Just have a few random things about to be packed on the last day. =P

Continue with the blog narrative...
Unpacking was easy to do so it was more or less done pretty quickly.
Kitchen stuff... {though at this point, the kitchen is messier}
Daddykins, Khuan and myself went to visit Ballarat with a tour. The first place they brought us was here... It's a big castle out in the middle of nowhere.
As the castle did not interest me, I spotted 2 horses in the fields beside us.
I was more interested when our tour guide / van driver approached the horses. [shiny eyes]
Before going gaga over the pretty horsies, I got Khuan to photograph how closely I do my macro shoots.
We then returned our full attention to Sunsilk (I think it's the brown horse that Khuan is patting) and Squall in the background there (the white horsie). Why sunsilk? Because it had nice shiny hair. And why squall? Errr.... because we can? [lol]
After we finished patting the horsies, we made our way to (Khuan, intro).. the MAN.
[lol] we didn't really go specifically to see that statue but rather the gold museum where the statue was placed outside of.
There were plenty of gold nuggets to drool over. Seriously, they were huge~! Imagine all the DS, PSP, Playstation 1, 2, 3, n+1, etc.... [drools]
[wipes drool] We got to see loads of photo of the era of the gold rush.
This was a little side tracked if you ask me... in the same museum, there was this little section of the display of ermm... brassiere decorative competition.
right... back to more photos taken during the gold rush madness...
This was the section that showed us how gold was used...
If I could take away just one, it would have to be this one. [grin]
As you can see, here we were back outside and taking photograph of the statue again.
I believe we actually took a lot more photos than what I'm uploading here. =P As usual, I just took to display the "best" ones.
The signage of the gold museum..
Or was it old museum... [snicker]
After that, we made our way to this place... ermm... it's something like a "back to the past" kind of place to show tourist how it was back in the gold rush days.
It was pretty interesting to be in this place...
It was like I was in a movie set or something. [grin]
What I like was that they put small details like putting up these posters.
And there were horse drawn carriages travelling the streets. I don't think they were used to bring tourist around though...
Included in our ticket fares was a trip down the gold mines. We were told to ensure that we followed closely to our guide.
And when we went down the shaft (45 degrees machine operated mine carts), I can see (technically I could hardly see) why they told us that advice. It really was that dark. Good thing our eyes can adjust to light (or rather the lack of light).
In this photo was apparently gold in its natural form. This is how gold looked like when you find it in the mines.. can you feel the gold rush madness?
Anyway, back out in the sunshine, we made our way to the camp which is near the river to try our luck?
This would be the excitement one would feel if you found gold while panning the river....
Not that there would actually be any gold left in that river. Khuan got interested in buying a pocketwatch for sale though (not made of real gold, of course) {we ain't that rich...}
Got her to pose with her new pocketwatch. The design of her pocket watch had 3 horses on the front, amply named sunsilk, squall ... I don't know the last one. [grin]
We decided to have a pie each for lunch. It was yummy~! Hehehe
After lunch, there was this event / performance? (I'm not sure what they called it). Let's go with the word show instead. We waited in the square.
There were a lot of people also waiting for the show.
The show of firing the rifles~! Don't play play. They came marching in and stuff.
The men lining up after they were given permission to put in their ear plugs.
Ready, Aim... FIRE~! What I found more interesting was after the firing show was done, the captain actually gave the fall out command + photography session. Can't really remember how he said it but it was an unusual command. [giggles]
There was this scale thingy, we decided to weigh Khuan and see how much we would get if we sold her off.
The problem would be there weren't any numbers on the scale thingy. [lol] It made for a nice little seat if that was anything.
During the gold rush era, lots of chinese came to try their luck too.
Here was a temple with some TVs showing some stories about the gold rush in the point of view of the chinese.
There was a chinese village replica. Here Khuan and I were looking at the "glued-down" equipments.
Here was daddykins, pretending to be a chinese gold miner getting out of bed.
Here's him, when he was told he just struck gold~! GOLD~!
Included in our tour was this trip to this winery...
I've been to a few other winery before but this one you can buy the alcohol and then purchase these casks to put the alcohol in. Interesting.
We didn't opt the casks but brought back this big bottle of dessert wine. Yummy. This reminds me that we can drink it when I get home. Bwahahah~!
The ballarat trip was a lovely trip. ^_^ This last photo is of the Great Eastern Store, at Russell St. I go there to buy frozen har gaos. [lol]

That's all for now. Until next time, cheers~!

Time certainly flew out the window

[opens the window shutters] [fluffs out the blankets and pillows]

my goodness. the stale air of my blogs. the poor things...

the blog is still stuck in the beginning of the year. and here we are at the end of the year...

oh boy~!

been slacking with the blog I know but at this point, my focus is on the last 2 animations that needs to be done before the course is over (10th december).

I've just finished editing the audio clips, doing the transcription and drawing out the storyboards.... a lot to do. [sigh]

at least i've finished the website that might be shown in the exhibition.

http://www.swinburne.edu.au/design/portfolios/users/ychan

there you can see what i've more or less been up to while I'm here and also some old works from The One Academy. [snicker]

I think I'll actually be continuing writing down what happens in my 2009 year in Melbourne when I get back home on the 31st December. [lol] Like I said, the Internet here at home is bad bad bad.

love you all and missing ALL of you dearly. cheers~!

17th - 19th February 2009 The Current House

17th February 2009
Daddykins came down with me and Khuan, just to make sure we were setttled in [hugs] love ya daddykins. Mumsie didn't come down with us though. These photos are the empty apartment that welcomed us when we touched down at Melbourne.

This would be my room. It came with the bedsheets and pillow+pillowcase.
This is the hallway outside my room.
This is Khuan's room.
The other side of it. We had switched the position of the bed and the table later because the ports were above the bed...
And this is the bathroom / toilet. Nothing extravagant, not that we need it.
This is Khuan, resting after 8 hours of flighttime.
I told her to strike a pose for the camera and this was what she gave me. [lol] Original-ness. The sofa is in the living room / kitchen / dining room. It's technically all the same room / space.
The sink area (came with the chopping board)
The kitchen part of the room. Set with microwave, refridgerator (it's a brand new one, sweet~!), toaster (which was cranky that we got a new one from the management) {I remember that overburnt bread will set off the smoke alarm so best to get a new one) and a waterjug (which we didn't use because I got a better one from my old housemate from Unilodge, thanks Brett wherever you are)
We wanted to get our stuff that was in the storeroom but Frank was out so we ventured to see Khuan's university, RMIT. From where we stayed, it was virtually next door.
We walked past a bilboard in the city and it was advertising "Wicked" the musical. Daddykins was really interested in watching it (plus he needed to find something to do on wednesday since I had to register myself for my course and Khuan had orientation I think)
While waiting for Daddykins to buy his tickets, I was just looking around in the reception area of the ticketing kiosk... delicate structures.
I like this. Too bad there isn't a backdoor to fantasy land...
Looking around some more. Daddykins was in luck since wednesday was the matinee so it's was cheaper.
I'm thinking if it's originally like this or there made it for the Wicked set....
Can see that there are some setup for the Wicked stuff in the foyer which were behind the doors that were locked. So I just took a photo of it behind the glass.
The other side of the "You are now leaving Oz" poster.
Went back home to document the original stuff that we were provided.
The stove top and the plates. There are the electric type so no need for matches or starters.
The empty cabinets (though there were some ermm... chicken stock cubes but I threw them away since who know how long it's been there)
And this is the dining / living room part of the space. We got this small but sufficient sized television to watch (beggars can't be choosers). After breakfast, we got the stuff from the storeroom and started unpacking there and then.
In a few hours, we unpacked the kitchen stuff (bought a new rice cooker since the old one that we brought over died in the end) {I'll point out that we are currently using a 2nd one (exact same model) now because this one died about 5 months later and I couldn't find the receipt} [points to the right most] that's the water jug that we are using now.
The hallway. There's an intercom phone. To get into the building, you need to have the building's passcard to unlock the double security at the main floor. Else, you call the person you're visiting via the intercom. There's a button that we can press to allow people to come in.
That's just me preparing lunch.
In the hallway, we placed this shoerack (one of the many things we salvaged from the place people throw out stuff in the building - just washed it and strengthen the structure with rafia strings) and a collapsable? laundry basketbag thing (that I found someone put outside in the lift area of Unilodge) Really handy. ^_^

The laundry rooms are on the even numbered floor on our building. We're lucky to be on one. Hehehe~! There's a washing machine (aud 4 per wash) and a dryer (aud 3 per wash) in the laundry room. Random, we had bought this HUGE box of detergent powder (10 kg) in the very beginning of 2008. So far we've only used 6.5kg.... What am I going to with the rest... [lol]

This is Khuan's room after we did the switch.
It makes much more sense to have this position anyway.
My room. It was pretty easy to unpack, may as well since it would be a bother to search for stuff in boxes. [shrugs] Don't know how Evelyn lived like that last year. I understand her logic about no point unpacking if she was going to move again anyway...
Think this was us preparing dinner. The dustbin (this was just one of 4 that we picked up from the rubbish area - don't worry, we got them all washed down and disinfected before we used them.)
There wasn't a balcony area to hang our laundry though. So we just open the window and hang them nearest to the window. Random, I only bought one of these clothes hanger-thingy... now I have 4 of them (3 were my ex-housemates' at Unilodge)
Daddykins had the kitchen / living / dining room as his bedroom while he was staying in Melbourne. The sofa is also a bed but it's got poor back support so he normally just take the floor.
Nothing much different in the bathroom / toilet. Just put a mat down and the shampoo and soaps, toothbrushes and stuff.

18th February 2009 Federation Square

We didn't go anywhere much after settling in. We looked around in the museum in Federation Square. Took photo of the funky looking interior ceiling.
There was this big screen in Federation square, just real-time feed of people walking around federation square. This was daddykins' five minutes of fame. [lol] before we just walked away.

19th February 2009
Just photographed the outside of our room. I do recall that the night we went to fetch my elder sis from Southern Cross (she came to visit us from 22nd - 26th May 2009), we saw this SUPER duper drunk girl unconscious on the floor in front to those doors. I could see that the girl had vomitted and that's how I concluded she was drunk. We were rushing to meet my sister so we left her there. When we came back, there were some people attending to her. [shrugs]
Anyway, we continued documenting what we were provided with so that later we know what we bought and stuff...
Daddykins just photographed all the utensils while I just wrote it down in my organizer just in case.
Nothing much to cook with. Just a skillet and frying pan. I had a small pressure pot from Neha (thanks darling) and we bought a big pot (which we use a lot) later.
That was the big luggage bag that I came with. Though I think it'll be very heavy in the year end when we travel back home.
Think this was just us preparing breakfast. I concluded that from the messy bedhair of mine. [lol]
That's all for now. The next post will be of the Ballarat trip we took with Daddykins. Didn't post it just yet since there are quite a lot of photos to sort through for that one. =P

Til next time, cheers~!