Matfoo’s Weblog

Last Saturday, had the opportunity to experience Dim Sum (a.k.a Yum Cha in Melbourne) in Melbourne. The restaurant is quite far from my place. It’s in the suburb called Glen Waverley. I think 30 minutes drive from my place. Anyway, our cell group leaders picked us up and off we go.

The place was like typical Chinese restaurant that one would frequent. Noting special. We reached there around 11am the place was quite empty with a handful of tables occupied. Unknown to me as I was sitting backing the crowd and our table are quite to the inside of the restaurant, upon finishing our dim sum, the place was jam packed till you have human traffic jam as we make our way out to the front door.

You must be keen to know me talking about the dim sum right? Yes, I would talk about it but just TALK about it. Sadly, while we were eager eating we forgot totally about taking pictures for this post although Flora had packed her camera ready since the morning. SIGH. Put it this way…. the food is good by my standard (for a non-dim sum lover of me). That’s how I named this post Dim Sum Indulgence where we were so indulged that we totally forgot to capture those moment. Thanks to Google Image that I managed to “steal” some pictures just to illustrate some of the nice things they serve.

We had standard Har Kao, Siew Mai.

The fried yam thing (see picture below), has been added a prawn to it.

We also had the Century Egg Porridge which I thought was good. Very tasty. Then Chee Cheong Fun, Yam Cake, Pao, Dessert of Mango Pudding and Sai Mai Lo.  (All terms are in Cantonese and I apologise for the terrible spelling)

The best dish for me was the Deep Fried Squid. I like that one the most. Unfortunately, can’t the picture in Google Image to post it up.

Well, the highlights for us was that we were blessed by our cell group leaders. Unknowingly to us they actually planned this eating to bless us. Thank you again J.G and E.M You guys were great! We are still lost of word for your blessing. Thank you once again.

An interesting conversation took place yesterday when we fellow PhD students were chatting near dinner time. To cut the whole story short let me just present the relevant topics to the title of this post.

One of them were surprised to know that I had close to 6 years working experience prior coming to Melbourne and there goes the title for this post – “My gosh! I thought you’ve just finished your undergraduate. I thought you graduated last year and I thought you were 22-23 years old.”

I still look 22-23

That’s a good sign, a good sign……..

Or…….. I should keep beard and mustache to keep up to my age, which may look like this,

Praise God. It took me almost 3 months to solve this issue, and I got it working. When I show the results to my acting supervisor (my supervisor’s away back and away again), she was as excited as me as well since we have been looking into this problem for the past 3 months. And the solution was actually very simple but we overlooked. Haha…. at least now I know.

With my river flowing solved, I can catch up to my Year One research plan. Been feeling really down for the past few days (except that I pass my exam). Every night I dream about Saint Venant and Preissmann (the two famous people that contributed to the area of hydrology). And solving this problem really get me excited again. Hallelujah.

This reminds me of a hymn called It Is Well With My Soul where the first line that sings “When peace like a river attendeth my way…” And peace does come when my river flows. Amen!

Ok…back to work.

The topic may sound very lame or duh….

It’s not easy for us to make a decision to watch movies in cinema as we like because a ticket would cost in the range from AUD 10-16 depending on which day.

But, yes, we finally went to the cinema. Thanks to the Easyrun fund raising movie pass, I managed to get the pass exchange for movie tickets for AUD 6.80 each. You may be asking what’s the catch? The conditions are

(1) You have to buy 100 tickets one go.

(2) You can only use the ticket for shows on Monday to Thursday only (any show time)

(3) You can’t use for movie premier

(4) Passes expires within 9 months.

(5) You can only exchange the pass for movie tickets on the same day (e.g. you are at cinema on Monday and you want to watch a movie on Thursday. That’s a NO-NO).

etc…….

So basically all the conditions are quite reasonable, except (1) right? Well, (1) is simply achievable if you are in the place of postgraduate student(s) who love movies but found movie tickets are expensive. So, if 10 of us get 10 passes each, problem solved. And it’s solved

So you get the picture now….

If Malaysia have TGV or GSC, for me as the first timer, I only know Hoyts in Melbourne. The cinema was fantastic, clean and spacious. Really spacious. (Of course I can’t take picture of the cinema for fear of the management would think that I am trying to do something…..) So, I get this picture from Hoyts Cinema website itself.

The seats are like a single sofa kinda seating. The only drawback I thought was the back chair was too straight so it may get quite uncomfortable after sitting for a long time for example watching The Dark Knight which lasted for 152 minutes. (You got the hint, yup, we watch The Dark Knight using those passes. The show was nice and …… hang on…. I’m suppose to talk about the cinema not the review of Dark Knight. Anyway….. )

A movie is not quite complete without popcorn. So we decided to try the popcorn. Comes in three sizes – regular, large and jumbo. It’s quite annoying as there’ no price tag, so you don’t know how much are those food sold for.  Good thing we ordered the regular combo of popcorn which comes with a regular coke. Mind you, the regular size here means large size in Malaysia. The regular size is like the large popcorn you get in TGV or GSC. Even the coke, the regular size coke is like the McD’s large coke size. So, if you are ordering Jumbo,…….all the best yea! Don’t get too excited yet about the size as I have yet disclose the price. The popcorn and the coke for regular cost about AUD 11. Oouchh that’s a bit painful to my wallet. But you must try at least once right? Looking at those popcorn reminds me of the caramel and sweet popcorn in GSC or TGV. While we are savoring for those taste and put those popcorn into our mouth……………………………….

SIGH………………….. It’s SALTY flavored!!!!!!! We were quite disappointed. Not to our taste bud and it’s not nice considering your mind was set for the sweet and caramelised taste and what you get is salty popcorn I guess that would be our first and last popcorn in Hoyts. Consider it a consolation for us as we would save on cinema food in the next visit.

So to summarise….

Cool: Spacious seat, sofa like setting, good view, clean

Not cool: Back of the seat a bit too straight and popcorn is salty

Result for my advanced postgraduate graduate course was released on 11 July 2008. Praise the Lord! I passed!

It was a tough journey doing this course of Linear Systems Theory. After all those scenarios that I’ve been through in here, here and here, I really thank God that I managed to pass. In fact what did surprise me was it’s no a mere pass but quite a solid pass.

All glory to Him and thank you for praying for me.

Praise God that I’ve found one reasonably priced second hand bass guitar. Recall my previous post on choosing a bass guitar, I chose none from those selections. Using a search page from a friend, I found one bass guitar that cost AUD 160 (approx. RM 500). It’s a Hartke. The sound is pretty solid and more importantly it does the job.

This guitar belonged to someone involved in recording. Tested it at the fellow’s place and like the sound/tone it produce. Since the price is alright and been doing some savings, that’s how Hartke ended with a new owner, i.e. me.

Debuted it last Tuesday during worship practice. I still need some time to get used to it.

Thank God that now I can practice bass at home prior worship service. Glory be unto Him.

Last Saturday, the cell group organised a social and steamboat outing in one of the cell group member’s parents’ house. The house is a mansion! I didn’t have the chance to capture the picture of the whole house and it’s not appropriate to do so too. Hence, I will only put the sketch of the house plan just for illustration. The size may not be accurate (in fact it’s not accurate at all). But again, just for illustration.

Just look at those red circles! Use your imagination yea…..

So, we started off the day with lunch in one of the restaurant in Boxhill. Personally, the food was just o-k, despite a multi award winning restaurant. After lunch, we went shopping for the materials for the steamboat. It’s a good timing for steamboat too as Melbourne is getting colder and colder to embrace the arrival of “real” winter.

The steamboat was good. Have a lot of leftover. The dessert was beautiful.

The whole gang

You may be wondering why our hands are in those position. Cause we were playing Mahjung (NOTE: Just for fun as no money’s involved)

The dessert

It was something I really need after the whole week of wondering how does the river flow mathematically. This outing is a good break for me and I really enjoyed this break.

Water, being the most important element in the world has really tested my patience.

I have to deal with the physics of water flowing in natural geometry variation. That means I have to go into the details of hydraulic.

And that is not easy ……

Water!!!! How do “you” flow in a river?

I tried something really “off” yesterday while preparing for lunch. The pasta that we prepared the night before wasn’t enough for both of our lunch. Hence, I decided to add “Indo Mee” to the pasta I had. This the result.

It’s not too bad. Have a go if you want something “unusual”