melbourne without school work

the past weekend has got to be one of the more happening weekends i've had. maybe happening is not quite the word. pleasant i should say. because it's the first weekend after the start of school, there wasn't much work to do (i didn't do anything at all).

i had to get up super early in the morning at 9am on saturday to go running (or more like SLOW jogging) with oj, vern, ee jen, sticky and josh. yes. i got all the names down this time. it was not a bad run. the last time i went running was 6 or 7 months ago.

dong and i headed to cafe sweethearts for brunch after that. heh we almost got lost on the way there although we've been there together once before - a long long time ago. the food was absolutely scrumptious! the mushrooms just made me wish there was a real willy wonka who can make me some mushroom flavoured gum. ok i think i just made the mushrooms sound quite gross, but man! check out what we had for brunch!

banana and pecan pancakes with their infamous eggs (scrambled) and smoked salmon and YUMMY MUSHROOMS on the side.
that's him forming a barricade (without realising it) with his little tea set. so ocd.

i also popped by su ling's for a bit because she was having a garage sale which i remembered wrongly as starting at 3 instead of 1. i kinda feel bad for not getting anything, but i wasn't quite in the mood for buying stuff (unless it's food).

later in the evening, i met chu phu and his two friends (billy,ian). we were supposed to meet jolene and lishan BUT they were all over the place and we decided that it was too troublesome to meet up. SO, i had dinner with the 3 guys before we all headed down to the moomba water festival to check out the carnival stalls AND watch the fireworks.

the atmosphere down by the yarra river where the festival was was fantastic! i took my time as i walked and the three guys tagged along. haha.. i people watched a lot. but i don't think that necessarily makes me a good people-watcher. i guess i was more of taking in the energy. too bad i couldn't get photos because i didn't bring my camera (because i was afraid it might get stolen - how silly). we walked through the carnival and checked out all the different fun fair games. chups tried to win this big stuff toy for me at this water shooting game BUT he couldn't. haha and im not complaining because i am not a soft-toys person. yeah.

the fireworks were amazing! well.. ok actually, i reckon the fireworks at the national day parade rehearsal i was at in primary 5 is still much grander and prettier. but imagine this - the 4 of us were just 4 international students in the wonderfully diverse gathering of people some of whom were fellow international students, others of whom were victorians. families, couples, cliques of friends, father and daughter hand in hand... i loved it. well. anyway. i couldn't stop smiling as i watched the fireworks because they were really really pretty. i would say not many things would beat sitting on a little slop by the river, watching bright colourful sparkles get shot up into the night sky from little floating platforms on the river.

:D

i went again on sunday night but with dong, after a really satisfying dinner at vinabar that satisfied my craving for really good diced beef on red rice. yum.

i had lunchw ith aimee again today. we went to our garden eh heh heh (sounds so exciting right. it does to me. dont judge me.). hannah couldn't make it cause she skipped school to go out with her family! it's a public holiday but not a uni holiday see. aimee and i shared a curry (with rice) and she made me a bun with cream cheese and smoked salmon :D yay! so nice of her really.

dong and i went running at princes park today after checking out the poster sale at the union house. i couldn't even complete 4 km. tell me HOW! how how how. how to run for the kids next month?? 4km's just half of what we used to do leh! i feel quite bad about it. i don't know if i've got enough motivation to push myself for more than that. we might have to keep running at princes park instead of go down to the yarra river. RAHHHHH! noooooooo....