Springvale, Melbourne & BBQ!
Seriously, this is Melbourne, albeit the part which is unknown / unheard of to the 90% of the foreign student population here.
Have some pics of Springvale, a suburb in the SouthEast of Melbourne. It's known as a Vietnamese area and is easily accessible (Cranbourne / Pakenham line, 3 stops from Clayton).
Although its a Vietnamese area, alot of the shop owners speak Cantonese / Chinese as well. You can get basically anything Asian there - fruits / vege / fresh seafood etc. Even the leaves to wrap "zhong" (rice dumplings), mooncakes in September, pandan leaves, all sorts of groceries from various Asian countries incl Msia, HongKong, Taiwan, China, Vietnam, Korea etc.
The range of foodstuff is rather mind-boggling. Msian foodstuff I can think of - frozen durian, Yeo's drinks, even the HupSeng crackers, mangosteens at $14.99 per kg (or $2.88 PER mangosteen), various sauces and condiments, laksa sauce, curry paste, Kopiko sweets, white coffee and more! Basically, you-name-it, they-have-it..
Alot of Melburnians don't know about /go to Springvale. One will hardly see any Aussies there, majority of people you'd encounter are Asians (Vietnamese / Msians / HK-ers / Chinese / Indians / Indonesians etc. Perhaps its the distance, or perceptions that that suburb isn't so safe. Heard from someone, if you're a car-owner and stays in Springvale, the car insurance's higher, only for that suburb (due to higher crime rate). But during the day its rather packed with shoppers, it always gives me the impression of being in another Asian country, doesn't feel like Melb at all. First impression was - "eh looks like Sibu or a typical Msian small-ish town like Muar"..
Was actually in Springvale Saturday to meet up with some mates and have a good meal. Dim sum yumm.. =P
Have some pics of Springvale, a suburb in the SouthEast of Melbourne. It's known as a Vietnamese area and is easily accessible (Cranbourne / Pakenham line, 3 stops from Clayton).
Springvale train Station
A glimpse of Springvale
Just a structure I'm curious about..
The range of foodstuff is rather mind-boggling. Msian foodstuff I can think of - frozen durian, Yeo's drinks, even the HupSeng crackers, mangosteens at $14.99 per kg (or $2.88 PER mangosteen), various sauces and condiments, laksa sauce, curry paste, Kopiko sweets, white coffee and more! Basically, you-name-it, they-have-it..
One of the supermarkets there - aisles upon endless aisles of every Asian foodstuff u'd want!
Sauces and condiments. Probably even more variety than Malaysian stores. (I always tell my mother - we can get everything here, even Brahim's curry sachets!)
Alot of Melburnians don't know about /go to Springvale. One will hardly see any Aussies there, majority of people you'd encounter are Asians (Vietnamese / Msians / HK-ers / Chinese / Indians / Indonesians etc. Perhaps its the distance, or perceptions that that suburb isn't so safe. Heard from someone, if you're a car-owner and stays in Springvale, the car insurance's higher, only for that suburb (due to higher crime rate). But during the day its rather packed with shoppers, it always gives me the impression of being in another Asian country, doesn't feel like Melb at all. First impression was - "eh looks like Sibu or a typical Msian small-ish town like Muar"..
Was actually in Springvale Saturday to meet up with some mates and have a good meal. Dim sum yumm.. =P
At the start. No pictures taken through mid meal cos we were all too busy stuffing ourselves with nicee food hehe..
WeeKee, me and WaiKuin
YuanMeng and MunYee
We had a great meet-up, sitting there till the waiters probably would've chasen us away, basically just yakking and catching up.
Its true when they say one shouldn't compare. Why? When I do, its so unfair! That the rest have a much lighter workload than me this sem! (they- 1 assignment, 2 tests. (poor) me - 4 assignments, 2 tests, 2 presentations) blahh.. time management is central to my life now. Without it, I'd be an "always complaining whiny person".. But fortunately my "work hard play hard" mentality's keeping me sane..
Saturday was my "rest" day this week. For the first 5 days of the week, having a total of 11 hours of sleep had taken its toll on me. Really no mood to continue doing my work, hence an "off day" to rejuvenate my moods!
When my housemates suggested a bbq for Saturday night, I went "can also, anything le" cos I knew I wasn't going to be free to organise/prepare.. Happily it wasn't cancelled. We had it in our backyard and some of my housemates graciously did the preparation and setting up of the pit / charcoal etc.
Its really a good thing to have guys in the house. They take care of everything hehe =) of which I'm certainly very appreciative of. Somehow I belatedly realised we have no pics of the guys. They were too busy in the kitchen while us girls did the bbq-ing / makan-ing / yakking / posing.
A taste of Aussie lifestyle - the quinsettial BBQ
Some of my housemates (L-R): Echo, Peggy, ChiuYue, Min, Amber, me, MunYee, FeiFei, Rebecca
Most of my housemates are from China, exceptions being Peggy, MunYee, me, Danny, Paul plus another guy from Msia, Min from Korea..
We all walked down to Dairy Bell down the road after the BBQ (*note Dairy Bell - ice-cream manufacturer) hehhe
A relaxing Saturday.. but was sick today.. slept it away and unfortunately now, its time to hit the books again.. another long night ahead =(
posted by xaverri at 1:21 am
2 Comments:
*waving hands to your photo* Hey, it is nice to put a face to the blog. Cheers!
5xmom: *waving back to you* hehe didn't realise you were visiting my blog while I was at yours. Have some other pics as well in older posts, just started pinging PPS last mth..
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