Rarely a TV person, I had to resort to channel surfing when I was stranded in sleepy Wagga Wagga for 10 days due to work. And to my extreme surprise, there was an English dubbed episode of anime showing on a random channel that kept me pleasantly entertained for about 30min! Who would have thought country Aussies are into anime?!
With 8 more nights to kill and captivated by the extraordinarily beautiful people in that random episode I caught on TV, I went online to search for that anime and ended up finishing the entire 26-episode series - Vampire Knight and Vampire Knight Guilty - before the end of my stay in Wagga.
Having abstained from anime for an extended period of time, I was once again reminded of the reason I like watching them in the first place - all of them have inhumanly good looking people in them - Kakashi Sensei, Ichigo, Zero Kiryu, Lelouch, Takumi Usui just to name a few of my infatuations - who are always the hero saving the pretty damsels in the nick of time, with most series having happy endings. :)
Japanese manga and anime rock!
vampire knight
a stroll along henley marine drive
In a bid to resume some sort of exercise regime after years of inactivity, I woke bright and early on a Saturday morning at the start of spring to join the boys for a relaxing walk along Henley Marine Drive in Drummoyne, hoping to gradually increase the pace to a slow jog after a few such sessions. As I expected the elderlies' pace to be rather slow, I lugged my entire camera gear along hoping to get some good snaps. Below are a few of my favourites from that short photowalk, one of which was a result of extremely great timing - the water polo's anguish at missing a shot. All the other pics can be viewed here.
weekend in melbourne
I had a weekend getaway to Melbourne in August courtesy of Pawpaw. As there were so many places and activities covered in that short time frame, I'm too lazy to go into details for the whole trip. Instead I'll let the pictures and the brief captions show you the highlights.
On the streets:
lights bokeh from traffic/cars/buildings
neon boards in Chinatown
purple wigs for a tv commercial shoot
playing with fire in public
hire a bicycle anywhere in the city to reduce your carbon footprint
back alleys and lanes full of artistic graffiti
The parks and the gardens:
Captain Cook's Cottage in Fitzroy Gardens
Fountain in Carlton Gardens right outside the Royal Exhibition Building
Fountain in Carlton Gardens right outside the Royal Exhibition Building
Doing the signature tourist jumps outside Captain Cook's Cottage
Doing the signature tourist jumps outside Captain Cook's Cottage
Doing the signature tourist jumps outside the Royal Exhibition Building
Along the Yarra
Random school girls posed for my camera
Art Galleries and Museums:
Had a history lesson with King Tut
Aboriginal art
Taking the Dinosaur Walk in the Museum
The science corner
The State Library:
Majestic entrance
Inside La Trobe Reading Room
The famous domed roof
Cowen Gallery in the library
The food:
Hearty breakfast on Lygon Street - the little Italian suburb
The Soup Place off Flinders Lane
Best macarons in town from Brunetti's
Best macarons in town from Brunetti's
Lastly the most indulgent splurge: a date with Andrew Lloyd Webber that you can read here.
And that's all folks. Til the next trip.
a date with andrew lloyd webber
I'm a big fan of Andrew Llyod Webber due to the music we played in the band in the secondary school days. The Phantom of the Opera remains one of my favourite musicals for its heartwrenching love story - I'm a hopeless romantic at heart despite the stone cold appearance I put up - such that I've even read the book and watched the movie at least twice.
Hence, the moment I heard about its sequel - Love Never Dies - being played in The Regent Theatre in Melbourne, I had no patience to wait for it to come to Sydney and decided to fly that distance for a super date with Andrew Lloyd Webber. Lucky for me, I managed to buy some discounted tickets for extremely great seats for their value.
Because Phantom was such a sensation, and still is after so many decades, Webber has a lot of Phans' expectations to meet. I was blown away by the spectacular sets, lighting, costumes and choreography - they were amazing compared to the Phantom experience I got in the Lyric Theatre in Star City, Sydney 3 years ago.
As for the music, I still prefer those in the Phantom. Despite me listening to its OST over and over after the musical, there's not one single signature piece from the whole album that creates an impact like so many of the pieces from its predecessor.
Plot wise, there are a few things in Love Never Dies that I couldn't reconcile with the Phantom. Are they meant to be watched as standalone musicals? I couldn't quite match some of Christine's feelings in the sequel back to the Phantom. *shrugs* Also, I felt that whoever came up with the storyline together with Webber tried too hard to please everyone with the ending. It is precisely the sad and imperfect endings in so many legendary love stories that made them linger on in people's hearts decade after decade. Happy endings get forgotten in a jiff.
All in all, I still thoroughly enjoyed Love Never Dies and would urge all to catch it, if not in Melbourne, then in Sydney when it arrives here next year.
uggy warmth
Just when we thought we saw the end of the cold season, my winter present - Pawpaw's Ugg boots - arrived. It's been such a cold spring so far that I've had to rely on these furry comfies for tromping around at home.
bael fruit tea
I never knew the existence of the bael fruit (Wiki here) until my visit to Chang Sabai for a Thai massage one weekend. I was served a warm cup of extremely fragrant tea after the hour and a half massage and promptly asked for more information on the tea, after which saw me leaving the spa with a bag of this dried fruit.
I put three slices of the fried bael fruit into a pot of 1.5 litres of water and set it to boil for about 15 minutes. In the absence of Manuka honey (anyone heading to NZ can you please get me some???) I added a few cubes of rock sugar as I like it a bit sweet. It's currently my favourite after-meal warm beverage.
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