Life without the little colour box..
Without the idiot box (aka tv) in my life now, I've resorted to using a combination of the net plus a large dose of imagination to amuse myself.
Well, actually there's a tv downstairs. Which works. Has nice colour. 29 or 31 inch. But unfortunately my sense is attuned to Malaysian tv, be it the dramas or the ads. The ads here are really cringe-inducing, to put it mildly. Their shows - the less said the better.
Even more unfortunate is:. Last season SBS showed one live EPL match per week (is extremely miserable considering that in Msia I get access to minimum 5) and a weekly highlights show. The new season - zilch. Zero. Kosong. Means unless I subscribe to Foxtel, I don't get to watch any EPL matches at all. Aihh the powers of monopolies. Foxtel insisted on SBS paying higher fees for the rights to broadcast that single match and the highlights, which SBS rejected. End result - I have to get online and *watch* the game thru Soccernet's gamecast, which goes "...8th minute Scholes fouls Southgate. Free kick from 30 yards out..9th minute...." which is basically just a live commentary updated by the minute. Have to use my imagination a whole lot. Sigh that is just so SAD.
Another integral part of most chinese-speaking peoples' lives would be the good 'ol tvb/taiwan/chinese dramas. Here, I'm not that deprived. Have borrowed 2 series from my neighbour so far, plus some Taiwanese series from HauWei. Seems that alotof people watch it in Melbourne. In the city, there're video rental shops (not alot) with even ATV series available. But def won't rent when I can download for free..
Melbourne now is so *Asianized*. Food I eat here mostly Asian. People I see in uni also Asian cos my course has more Asians than Australians. Overheard a girl from China early in the semester exclaiming her delight at the number of *ya-zhou ren* (Asians) in the uni. I think there're more international students at my campus than elsewhere.
Of course, there're also lots of Asian groceries around. When one is at Springvale (for the Melbournians, Springvale's at the Cranbourne/Pakenham line, 3 stops after Clayton) it feels as if we're in an Asian country. Even at Victoria market, there're lotsof Asian grocers. One can get almost everything from those Asian groceries. Examples: Msian satay sauce (Yeo's somemore), laksa sauce, coffee from Msia, yee mee which comes from Kepong!, dumplings, all the assorted sauces etc, I even own the same brand of chinese cooking wine my mother uses back home. Basically most Asian food products incl. biscuits, rendang sauce etc are available here.
If one is particularly patriotic and decides to buy *Malaysian-made* products, there's plenty of choice incl snacks, biscuits etc. Of course there's also other stuff from elsewhere ie Thailand, Vietnam, China etc. Stuff like frozen durian also available. Actually fresh durians also for sale, but doesn't smell pungent enough =P Almost everything is available here (thanks to globalisation), but of course price-wise, one can't convert back to local home currency. I happily saw mangosteens at a grocers that day, first look - wah, mangosteens pun ada. Second look - $1.50 each. No third look. Then there were longans - at $17.99 per kg. I went to buy a can of tinned longans instead ;)
So anyone living in Melbourne is guaranteed against suffering acute deprivation of Asian foods. I personally am getting *jelak* of chinese food. Hmm, but dimsum's still okay.
2 of my housemates shifted out early this month, so we don't have to cook really proper meals. But I've found that adding mushrooms (chinese type) to meat/vege seems to work pretty well. That is, if you like the taste of mushrooms. Previously, when we (my housemate and me) said we couldn't cook, we probably meant *haven't tried to cook*, as my housemate agrees. Turns out most stuff we cook is edible. Some are more than edible hehhe. With the mid sem break approaching, will be taking some time to experiment with food. I've tried some soups. Thinking of making laksa one of these days, cos I bought the noodles (the real laksa type!) and the sauce.
About the mid sem break.. now is the most hectic time of my sem, as there's still 2 major assignments due next week. Looking forward to the break, to catch up on all my uni work. At first wasn't planning on going anywhere, but have signed up for a day trip to the Grampians with the photography club here. Thats on Sunday next week, and there's a dinner at the Gryph (uni bar cum cafe) on Fri. Then today heard there's another day trip organised by Monash International. Signed up for that too. At only $15 for a ride on the Puffing Billy (old steam train in the Dandenong Ranges) plus a visit to the William Ricketts Sanctuary and Emerald Lake PLUS lunch, it was just too good to not go. There's also a tulip festival going on too, which I feel like visiting..aihh..where to find time to catch up on my readings??
Shall stop blogging now. Time to return to slogging at my law assignment. I have no idea how I'm going to pass this unit this sem..Sobbbb..
Well, actually there's a tv downstairs. Which works. Has nice colour. 29 or 31 inch. But unfortunately my sense is attuned to Malaysian tv, be it the dramas or the ads. The ads here are really cringe-inducing, to put it mildly. Their shows - the less said the better.
Even more unfortunate is:. Last season SBS showed one live EPL match per week (is extremely miserable considering that in Msia I get access to minimum 5) and a weekly highlights show. The new season - zilch. Zero. Kosong. Means unless I subscribe to Foxtel, I don't get to watch any EPL matches at all. Aihh the powers of monopolies. Foxtel insisted on SBS paying higher fees for the rights to broadcast that single match and the highlights, which SBS rejected. End result - I have to get online and *watch* the game thru Soccernet's gamecast, which goes "...8th minute Scholes fouls Southgate. Free kick from 30 yards out..9th minute...." which is basically just a live commentary updated by the minute. Have to use my imagination a whole lot. Sigh that is just so SAD.
Another integral part of most chinese-speaking peoples' lives would be the good 'ol tvb/taiwan/chinese dramas. Here, I'm not that deprived. Have borrowed 2 series from my neighbour so far, plus some Taiwanese series from HauWei. Seems that alotof people watch it in Melbourne. In the city, there're video rental shops (not alot) with even ATV series available. But def won't rent when I can download for free..
Melbourne now is so *Asianized*. Food I eat here mostly Asian. People I see in uni also Asian cos my course has more Asians than Australians. Overheard a girl from China early in the semester exclaiming her delight at the number of *ya-zhou ren* (Asians) in the uni. I think there're more international students at my campus than elsewhere.
Of course, there're also lots of Asian groceries around. When one is at Springvale (for the Melbournians, Springvale's at the Cranbourne/Pakenham line, 3 stops after Clayton) it feels as if we're in an Asian country. Even at Victoria market, there're lotsof Asian grocers. One can get almost everything from those Asian groceries. Examples: Msian satay sauce (Yeo's somemore), laksa sauce, coffee from Msia, yee mee which comes from Kepong!, dumplings, all the assorted sauces etc, I even own the same brand of chinese cooking wine my mother uses back home. Basically most Asian food products incl. biscuits, rendang sauce etc are available here.
If one is particularly patriotic and decides to buy *Malaysian-made* products, there's plenty of choice incl snacks, biscuits etc. Of course there's also other stuff from elsewhere ie Thailand, Vietnam, China etc. Stuff like frozen durian also available. Actually fresh durians also for sale, but doesn't smell pungent enough =P Almost everything is available here (thanks to globalisation), but of course price-wise, one can't convert back to local home currency. I happily saw mangosteens at a grocers that day, first look - wah, mangosteens pun ada. Second look - $1.50 each. No third look. Then there were longans - at $17.99 per kg. I went to buy a can of tinned longans instead ;)
So anyone living in Melbourne is guaranteed against suffering acute deprivation of Asian foods. I personally am getting *jelak* of chinese food. Hmm, but dimsum's still okay.
2 of my housemates shifted out early this month, so we don't have to cook really proper meals. But I've found that adding mushrooms (chinese type) to meat/vege seems to work pretty well. That is, if you like the taste of mushrooms. Previously, when we (my housemate and me) said we couldn't cook, we probably meant *haven't tried to cook*, as my housemate agrees. Turns out most stuff we cook is edible. Some are more than edible hehhe. With the mid sem break approaching, will be taking some time to experiment with food. I've tried some soups. Thinking of making laksa one of these days, cos I bought the noodles (the real laksa type!) and the sauce.
About the mid sem break.. now is the most hectic time of my sem, as there's still 2 major assignments due next week. Looking forward to the break, to catch up on all my uni work. At first wasn't planning on going anywhere, but have signed up for a day trip to the Grampians with the photography club here. Thats on Sunday next week, and there's a dinner at the Gryph (uni bar cum cafe) on Fri. Then today heard there's another day trip organised by Monash International. Signed up for that too. At only $15 for a ride on the Puffing Billy (old steam train in the Dandenong Ranges) plus a visit to the William Ricketts Sanctuary and Emerald Lake PLUS lunch, it was just too good to not go. There's also a tulip festival going on too, which I feel like visiting..aihh..where to find time to catch up on my readings??
Shall stop blogging now. Time to return to slogging at my law assignment. I have no idea how I'm going to pass this unit this sem..Sobbbb..
posted by xaverri at 7:33 pm
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