Blog Fail

sigh

I had hoped to blog lots and lots while i was away. I thought that if i was away from Melbourne I would be less busy and have more time to sit down, properly rearrange my thoughts together so that they would be coherent to persons other then Christine and then to display them in a fashion that is both interesting to read and pleasing to the eye...but alas i have not achieved any of the above *humph*...so instead of using this opportunity now to do something productive, i have instead decided to whine hahaha...!!

My imaginary hat goes off to you mei! You never cease to amaze me at your blogging prowess...i find it both a delight to read, coherent and nice to look at...t**hinko will now be my new blogeyecandy...bloyeandy?? blandy?? blogandy?...but then again there is mystical the world of my till then friend, a blog that makes me giggle, and prompts me to comment, but then after i've written my comment, its never witty enough to match the blog itself...alas then i delete lol.

But when i've been in asia for too long and yearn for some really good english, some really well written, beautifully expressed and insightfully recorded accounts of happenings at home, i turn to my friend whose chinese name i still know not, my dear 梁 doot doot!! Congrats again and again and AGAIN!! oh oh but i can't forget the adventures of miss maggatron whome i live vicariously through kekeke...last but not least the true master of spiffy herself...her few, few, very few words are full of wisdom...so deep that sometimes i even struggle to understand lol.

In a blog world full of characters, i feel unable to add my part. I can only offer an apology to you all and hope to improve my accounts to the best of my ability. Sorry :(
I miss you all soo so much T____T

Take care

Frankfurt, Germany

I don´t even remember what day i´m up to. Its freezing cold outside (-6) and EVERYTHING IS FROZEN! but is soo pretty and for once in my life i have been in the presence of the falling of snow. Yes, I´ve seen snow before but never seen snowing, this is the light fluffy type, the tight that you can catch with your tongue and when you pick it up it feels like powder! Beautiful! I´m in a hotel lobby in Frankfurt, Germany. I want to put up photos but that would take too long, I´ve already hijacked this computer for waaay longer than i should ;p
The past few days have been amazing though, Europe is jaw droppingly beautiful!! Every one should come over at least once in their life, I´ve seen, tasted, felt, heard sooo much funny and amusingly different things, its something i´ll remember forever! For the past few days, i´ve been to bits of London, Italy (Rome, Florence, Milan), Switzerland (Lucerne) and now Germany (Heidelberg and Frankfurt). Unfortunately, i won´t be able to go to Berlin but thats an excuse to come back right :D Next few days to Amsterdam, Brüssels and Paris!! I really need to write eveything down cause i don´t want to forget any of this, it´ll take a while, but thats something i´ll do when i get back to Honks! Snow is indeed so beautiful, its cold, very freezing but beautiful!

衝出亞洲

In a few more hours, we're heading off to HK airport to catch a 13 hr flight to London Heathrow Airport! I'm amazed, I didn't think i'd get to visit Europe this quickly but i guess here it goes!
Alot of people have said that its strange that we're going at this time of year, apparently its cold, windy and depressing, the sky gets dark at 4 in the afternoon...but i don't mind :D not one bit. I'm sure the people who live in Europe have to go through this every winter, so whats the problem? I'm looking forward to the very very cold winter atmosphere ( not like the winters in melbourne), the white christmas displays and the hot food and fireplaces! hhmmmm....
I reckon it'll be a really great experience and oh also, i feel less bad since i passed biomed lol. I checked my final set of semester 2 results and i passed everything yay!
I don't come back till the 24th and i don't kno if i'll have access to the net when i'm over there. So to all my beloved people, you kno who you are, i wish you all a very MERRY CHRISTMAS (just in case i don't have enough time to send it out then), enjoy the hot sunny beaches and icecream! wear t-shirts and shorts for me :D
Be safe and take care of yourselves!
<3

Time flies

ahhh....i struggle to remember what i've done for the past few days hmm.

Day 6 Saturday: The much awaited Shangri La Buffet!! ohh and hot looking food to take pictures of yay. What do you think mei?! Does my camera pass the food picture taking test :/ I still need to get used to some of the modes though, turns out 'Auto' doesn't always give the best image. For example, if your inside a room and the lighting is very 'yellow' then theres an option which makes the camera take pictures with a blue tinge, then somehow magically the colours balance out. I'm sure this is common knowledge to alot of people but i find it fascinating :D After dinner I went out to the harbour side, out at 尖沙咀 to look across the water. The same skycrappers set up gigantic Christmas lights that run across the building. It is always so beautiful everytime i see them

Day 7 Sunday: Went to church early in the morning with my Grandma, then came home for lunch. Spent the afternoon at Sogo with my aunt to purchase my long awaited MINI RICE COOKER AND COOKING POT!! They are the cutest things i have ever seen keke. I have decided to name my rice cooker Daomingsi and my shabu shabu pot Gyojunpyo ^_____^ Can't wait to try them out as soon as i can find some space in the kitchen.

Day 8: Monday: umm...yesterday i....oh yes thats right. SNAKE!
My dad insisted we go out and eat snake :O I'm always a little hesistant when it comes to food in asia, espeically when this one doesn't even have any legs. But i have tried it before and to be honest, to me it tastes likes tough chicken. So off we go on this little adventure. They say this little shop is famour for snake, in fact they have a whole banquet of snake, meaning all the dishes they bring out is somehow snake related. I guess if you close your eyes, it really is just tough chicken, i fancy non-tough chicken chicken more though. It was a lovely night though, the shop was very old school and still had the cages where they kept the snakes. Some may call it run-down, cheap and dingy or you may like to think of it as preserving what the shops were like years ago, like walking into a museum. I like the latter.
ps. i felt fine afterwards.

Day 9 Tuesday: oh so today, I got an email from Unilodge offering me accommodation at Davey lodge!! GOOD NEWS very very good news indeed. Accommodation has alwasy been at the back oh my mind, i worry that all the rooms will be filled. But luck has it, they have a space for me :D Its a single studio, small and cosy! Can't wait to see the place properly next year and make it all homey hahhaha. I'm just relieved that everything turned out ok.

Chairman Kaga would be proud

Day 5: Friday 4th December, 21C

Got a new camera today!!

It doesn't look as cute as my old one but it'll do. This ones got alot more megapixles, so i'm assuming that means when i zoooom in i'll be able to see minute details. I just want my camera to be able to take really hot pictures of food hahaha...like minh's camera. THAT my friends, is one professional food capturing camera. Now all i have to do is find hot looking food but ohhhhhh man talking of food. Yesterday, I was lucky enough to try something that I've had on my 'must eat' food list for ages.

Oh yes, i ate TRUFFLES!!!!

well, more like savoured the small amounts that were there hahaha. My aunty came to visit last night, and out of her bag she pulls out this little box. As she opens it up, this intense smell (a little like petrol smell acutally) wafts all around. What she brought back was a chunk of white truffle, not the the black ones that we see on ironchef. Apparently this piece which only weighed a few grams was worth thousands of dollars already *gasp*, they call it white gold in chinese. It was soo exciting though :D She said the best way to try it is to take the truffles and grate/shave small amounts over ice cream! hmm...strange i thought, truffles over ice cream, but thats what she said she thats how i tried it lol. The smell is much more intense then the taste, the flavour was subtle but very very nice. It brought back memories of my childhood.......nom nom nom! Anywho, that was a nice little surprise.

I can seeeeeee....

Day 4: Thusday 3rd December, 19C

We've worked out that if you see movies really early in the morning, they are cheap cheap cheap and there arn't many people there meaning the floor is less less less sticky or crunchy lol. So this morning we went to check out movie times. I'm thinking of seeing 2012 and some more HK films. Anyway, later I finally went to visit my hairdresser. FINALLY!! I haven't let anyone touch my hair since he last cut it a year ago so this was a very much needed haircut =__=. Its a bit shorter now, but he reduced my front bits so now i think i have a fringe again. Yes, the world is indeed clearer without hair in eyes! Going camera shopping tomorrow how exciting, perhaps will check out some new phones as well, but i like my current phone. I'm so used to it, plus it does the cool flippy thing which makes me happy. Been having alot of HK milk tea though, I LOVE THE STUFF! Sorry bubble cup.

Day 3: Wednesday 2nd December, 23C

Today went and visited my grandpa all the way on the mountain top. He is buried in a Chrisitian cemetry which overlooks a lake, its said to be a very nice spot and they say he has a good view lol. Its funny when you compare the amount of space they have here compared to how much space they have in Australia.

See.

Walking down all those steps, I'm so glad I didn't PK @_@. It was nice to see him again, . As we were walking around and visiting some of my grandpas neighbours, my dads like ' I wonder if there are any To's here' and tadaa...he spots some random headstone with a 'To' on it. On closer inspection, hes like 'Oh my, i kno this person!'

My dad found a long lost uncle :O He even called my grandma to check. So, now we've got another person to visit each time we come back. So, if you're asian, then its very likely that you will randomly find more unknown family members.

Afterwards, we went to my mums old apartment. This is the place where she grew up. Its the smallest littlest apartment at the top of a very steep street, Electric Street :D Its amazing how my grandparents managed to raise 10 kids in this place!

Spent the rest of the evening candle shopping hahaha and went back home for dinner and then...MAHJONG!!!! My grandma refused to play with me cause she said she would fall asleep. Anywho,i dragged my uncles to play with me :) Won HK$2 LOL. Thats not even enough to buy a cone at maccas.

hi kml

SHOPPING!!

Day 2: Tuesday 1st December, 21C

Spent the whole night listening to trams echo through the alleyways, gotta get used to this noise again or else i'm never falling asleep. This is the only downside to living in the heart of the city. All worth it though, just happy to be here! Trammed down to Causeway Bay to finalize our Europe trip then had lunch back at home.

My grandma invited us to watch her dance practice at the local senior citizens center....it was the cutest. thing. EVER!! I'm so proud of her agility and coordination. The oldies are all so squishy and smiley ^__^ Then spent the afternoon walking in and out of random shops. See the trick to shopping in HK is go exploring, you'll find the most unexpected shops in the oddest places. What looked like some shady side escalator ended up leading me to this awesome arcade full of little boutiques and clothing shops. To cut a long story short, at the end of day 2, I have already accumulated 6 tops, 2 jackets and a pair of flats over 2 hours :O success!! WOOOT! ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh....i'm so happy. I love being cheap and finding bargains lol. But, if viv were here, i'm sure we could have cut my spending today to half. Went back home for dinner and met up with more fam. I saw my little cousin again and shes grown taller and looking more asian, she can't help it though lol

Where's Andy??

Day 1: Monday 30th November, 21C

OH WOWIE!!! Once again I can't believe that a WHOLE year has gone past already. I'm back in the motherland again with my mother and my mothers mother lol. :D


I'm definitely excitied about attempting to keep an online journal of my trip this time round. Firstly cause I love stalking everyone elses blogs (they make me smile) so hopefully this will make you smile and secondly it'll give me something to do hahaha. I was immensly inspired by Lan's piggles, so I went around the house trying to find something to play my starring role, so i found a star GAHAHAHA lame... everyone pls meet the BIOMED 2009 star...


So, nothing much today, packing, flew to sydney early in the morning and guess who I saw on the plane!! Hamish from Hamish and Andy....but i didn't see Andy though hhehe...my mum was staring at Hamish... =_=


Finally got on the plane and watched 4 movies as per my usual routine. I saw:

Up (yay)

The Time Traveller's Wife (yay)

Slumdog Millionaire (yay)

Julie & Julia (nay)

Got to Hong Kong International airport at like 11:00 cause we were delayed for like 2 hours and then :D HOME! It was strange though, When I walked through customs through the HK permenant residents line I felt so proud hahaha...why does this place feel like home?! I guess I missed it waaaay too much back in Melb. Anyway, we dragged our 3 giant suitcases and went to catch the bus for a 1 hour bus trip to my grandmas place inthe heart of WanChai <3>

A graduate I am

I graduated!! what?! I wonder if time ever feels like how long its meant to be....like 3 years sure didn't feel like 3 years. I sure don't feel like I've retained enough information to say that I now have a Bachelors degree in Biomedical Science majoring in Microbiology and Immunology...like seriously huh?!?!

Holy Moly

I have my fingers crossed that my chicken pox injection is my very last shot!!

Yes, I have had the 'clinical' infection as my doctor likes to say, in other words i got it but i'm meant to be forever protected yes?!? Well, my confused little body can't decide whether it wants to give me immunity or not. So the blood test results came back saying there was evidence of past infection but very low Ig levels =_=...hence to be on the safe side i got the shot *sigh*

As I was at the reception paying for shot, the receptionist looked me up and down and said 'we usually only give the chickenpox shot to little kids' ...well yea, build a bridge and get over it lol

anywho, exam study is boring as hell. Still have 2 more days till my 2nd exam!! 2nd!

As of now, i can count 1 hole on my right arm, and 3 holes on my left.

Yesterday was nice!

i got to spend the day with 4 out of my 5 best buddies!! Awesome day, just awesome.

Buddy number 5, I hope you're well lol. shall talk to you soon and rub it all in.

It was good to see everyone happy and smiling. I did alot of smiling myself YAY!

and to finish it all off with pizza/pasta and midicup trampoline icecream ^____^. was meant to be a minicup but i had once again struggled to read the menu. squinting doesn't help anymore lol

i love my friends and i'm glad i met you all.

chincha chincha saeng il juk ka hae minh!

~

Injections :(

Ok, so to begin my loooooong journey ahead i have to start right at the bottom right?!

So today i had my first doctor visit to get a blood test done. As required by ANU, i have to get 6 things checked so i was expecting my doctor to be taking viles and viles and VILES of blood. However, due to my inexperience in blood testing (this was only my second time ever), he actually only took one vile hmm...pleasant surprise :)

it wasn't bad at all, a little prick, i reckon removing a band-aid is more painful! I did refuse to watch him do it though! My doctor was really good at it, perhaps i should have watched him do it so i could gain 'experience' lol...but i didn't like the fact that with the visual also came the sensation. I'd much rather see someone else getting their blood taken cause then i won't feeeeeel it. What i'm not looking forward to is the freakin TB Mantoux test!! oh I've heard ALL about it in lectures, but actually having one done on me, not such a fan.

Anyway, during my visit, i asked my doctor for some advice and all he did was smile at me and said "Enjoy it...and be prepared for a life of misery" HAHAHAHA....

oh dear

자장면 사랑해

I'm meant to be doing my microbial cells and genome assignment now, but 자장면 is more important and thats all that matters really :D Might as well do this now lol

It has come to my attention that I have indeed fallen in love with this korean black bean noodle. I have tried the Chinese equivalent 炸醬麵, but the koreans just do it so much better so...

Over the past year and a half or so, I have been on a mission to find some damn good 자장면 :

Here is what I've found...

HK 炸醬麵 from a Shanghai Restaurant in Times Square central. It was meaty, grainy and lacking in sauce.

HK 炸醬麵 from a Dumpling house in the backstreets of Wan Chai.

Once again lacking in sauce, noodles were cold and the size was just shocking!

Xian 炸醬麵 from a small eatery next to the orphanage. As you can see the quality is slower getting

there,

More sauce, but the noodles were different.

But pretty much at that time I was gonna eat anything lol

Xian 炸醬麵 from a restaurant opposite sandy's aparment. As you can see,

the girls got to mixing the noodles before I had a chance at taking a proper pic. Was ok...

Korean 자장면 from White Tomato on Bourke Street, Melbourne.

Despite the not so appealing appearance, it wasn't bad.

But heres the thing, this one had too much sauce!!

The noodles were nice...

I remember eating this with my 2 best buddies whilst boys before flowers were playing in the background :D

But after all my adventures and attempts at finding the best one,

I have to say that there is only one bowl of 자장면 that I've tried so far that has made me

go back time and time again...

presenting the one and only:

Korean 자장면 from Han Guk Kwan on Victoria Street, Melbourne.

I love this one with all my heart <3,>just right 자장면

Good amount of sauce lol, noodles are yummy, not to mention the place, the service, the waiters

*cough*

I'll miss you the most when I go to canberra!

you and bubble cup!!

~toby.

hmmm msg...

I had a gaytime yesterday.

yes it was so gay that it was even...dare i say..GOLDEN.

It was like the first time in a whole year since i ate at KFC again, it was pleasantly nice.

Good food and good company, what more can i ask for? :D

think, think, think

I said something really embarrasing today.

want to find hole and hiiiiiide.

Sometimes I think a little too simply...why can't the world be simple, without misunderstandings and without people taking it the wrong way. I guess this is what happens when i don't think enough lol. so remember think. think. think. think.

does this make me a deeper thinker?! =_=

I DID IT!!!!

OH MY OH MY!!!

I got into ANU MEDICAL SCHOOL

WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOT!!!!

It was such a long long day. They didn't call me till ~8ish, so i spent the whole night standing and sitting and twirling and sighing and checking my email every 2 seconds lol. But the wait was worth it totally :D

Found out early this morning that Nyssa got in, and so i called mum and told her to glue herself to the computer and call me asap. But seeing as ANU were going for the personal approach, they decided to call all their candidates alphabetically...oh dear my last name 'To' left me all the way at the end of the list. I had to ring them up and leave a voice mail message, but they called me back straight away!!

Straight after the call, there was ginormous group hug with my people and we all broke down in tears hahahaah...it was sweet though. I'm so happy that I've done something to make them proud. Then it was calling all my dear relos!!. My grandma decided she would announce it to all the family in HK, and probably to her friends at the market and her mahjong buddies :D

We decided to celebrate by all sitting down around the kitchen table and eating ice cream. It was a lovely moment <3

My mind is racing at the moment. I STILL CAN'T BELIEVE IT!!!!

Because there is ALWAYS a difference between what you think is going to happen and what really happens. So its nice to have some concrete evidence :D

Now I will continue to have all my appendages crossed for the rest of my biomed crew. I believe in them SOOO MUCH! I wish for them to feel all this happiness and sense of relief that i'm feeling now. HANG IN THERE GUYS...NOT LONG TO GO!! the wait is worth it!

ahah...now that I did get in, means i get to continue this blog and write all about my adventures, YAY, i can't wait!

Still hasn't hit me yet...lol. Perhaps on my first day next year in Feb...

~toby.

One use of cat...

oh oh i like this new look...thanks tash!!

I found this video taken on my phone, all the way back in first year Biomed 2007 heheheh...

This is what I got from a whole semester of physics...

Canberra

Here are some pictures of my adventures to Canberra for my intervew day on 24th Sept. 2009.

Well of course the most important thing i need to address is CHINATOWN!!

-TADAA-

Here it is!

After searching long and hard, my mum and I found it. 2 asian restaurants that make up Canberra's centre for all asianess. If you ever come visit, this is where'll you'll find me!

This is the ANU campus and the white building on the left is the Peter Baume Medical Building. Inside is where I had my interviews. It is indeed very beautiful, with all the green grass, blue sky and treeeeees!

The building is so new looking, guess where its located on the campus map.

F4

gahahaha no really :D its meant to be...

This pic is taken from union court. Its this GIGANTIC space for students to do union associated things I guess, to eat, mingle and buy plants apparently ...


Theres no people!! It has space, lots of space and thats pretty much it.

More photos later...

Co, where are you?

Butterflies for my other half

in about 5 minutes my other half/long lost sister/bestie is going to have her medical school interview and I want to be there with pom poms and ballons, perhaps a big band and 2pm to cheer her on.


I know exactly how it feels at this very moment, I wish I was there to give her a hug


but I guess my support can only go thus far. So, i'm going to telepathically tell you now....with about 2 minutes left...





JIA YOU MEI!! FIGHTING!!





this is something that you've worked so hard for, i kno ALL your hard work WILL pay off.


just like what your mum said 'if you love it, its worth doing'


so this is just another moment on you're journey where you get to shine.


oh its 3pm now!

I don't kno whoes hand it is, but it'll have to do for now.

Jie, will be sitting here in her room, waiting for the good news... :D

2 days to go...

It was so lovely of my friend to give me another mock interview today. She really did put on the whole scary face and 'hmmm...' when I answered a question badly lol. Quite professional really :) but the thing that worried me the most was when she said that she could see the FEAR in my eyes when I didn't know how to answer a question. Like a train crash in slooooow motion.

oh man....

nows about time to put on my happy face, and pretend that i DO know the answer to everything and that I CAN answer every question that they throw at me. Oh stupid questions about rural and funding grr.....

2 more days to go, and yes...I have also finally decided that I will be wearing PANTS!! woot!
I love my suit pants, contray to what most people say about looking female, soft and professional. At least I walk better in them LOL.

9 days to go...

Inteview is in 9 days....oh dear...

starting to feel kinda nervous/pumped/confused/hungry?! Thought i'd experiment a little with options available on this posting page, as you can see, i am very. noob. at. computers. but theres always a first time right lol

i liked this picture, somehow it encapsulates my feelings towards the interview at this moment in time. plus its kinda cute ^___^

i shall experiment more when i have the time...perhaps try another picture, or some colour changes oh oh oh even maybe a new font LOL.

It all starts here...

Its scary to think how far I've come...to get to this very moment. Never did I REALLY think that it was going to be a reality...but as it stands, I have an interview offer...YESSSSS....and so now i owe it to the ones who believed in me to properly document this journey of a scary new life. So here it goes!

I'm so happy for everyone!

Who would have thought, 3 years of biomed together, all with the same goal and SHAZAM, all who dared to apply got an interview offer. I'm so proud of everyone!!

Now is the all important month of waiting for the interview day to come. What to say, what to wear?! who knows....lol

I love it how under personal details the very first thing you wrote down was 'I love F4' ...

strange huh...how that seems to be the first thing that comes to mind...but yes i totally agree ( and i know you agree with me too) that yes, F4 is indeed very loveable <3

Thursday

Hi, my name is Christine.

Welcome to my blog :)

~i dedicate this to my one and only mei, who made this blog for me!~