Bondi Pizza (Take 3 and 4)

One of the things I love most about being a Bondi Pizza VIP is the free pizza! They actually send you decent deals/freebies, so everyone should just sign up, and it's free.

First time going to the Parramatta one, and it's actually quite big. There's a Macquarie Centre one opening soon, I was hoping to use my birthday voucher there, almost a month after my birthday, they still haven't opened it yet...

dinner time!

Marinated Chargrilled Lamb: Tender marinated lamb backstrap fillet, fetta, balsamic onions, roma tomatoes, rocket, sweet potato crisps & our creamy Caesar sauce 12" pizza-$25.95

Lamb was cooked/grilled to perfection. Still pink in the middle, soft and full of flavour. Didn't get much onions, and would have preferred more caesar sauce and potato crisps. I think since dinner service is busy, they just dumped a whole heap of rocket on it rather than spreading it all out, but I don't mind, feels like there's more rocket than normal, which has a nice bitterness to complement the savoury parts.

Succulent grilled chicken, baby spinach & creamy porcini mushroom sauce tossed through linguini served with crispy pancetta (bacon)-$23.95

Was slightly disappointed with the serving of this dish, seemed to be on the small side compared with other people's pasta dishes. The sauce wasn't overly creamy/rich, smelt really fragrant, and loved the pancetta crunch element. Pasta was cooked well, but some parts of the chicken was a tad bit dry.

loved how to food came in 10min after we ordered (the bill took longer than getting the food)

Lunch views at Bondi Junction

Smokey BBQ Pulled Pork: Smokey BBQ & tomato base, parsley, cheese, balsamic onions, pulled pork, finished with a drizzle of smokey BBQ sauce, coleslaw, coriander & a lemon wedge 12"pizza-$25.95

This was another one of there new flavours which VIPs can try for free! It's convenient to go after uni if I end not too late, and Bondi Junction has amazing views of Sydney Harbour. I always opt to sit inside since outside is always either too hot/windy/sunny. The lemon wedge did make you hands smell a bit like lemon...pork was slightly on the dry side but they may have changed it slightly since this was on the menu....but overall nice thin base and some salad on top to go with it :)

       

Massive congratulations to Happy Apple!

(all my post these days are super delayed)

We all knew you would get there in the end. All those years of determination, perseverance, hard work, dedication is truly spectacular! Praise God that prayers were answered :)

Never giving up despite what you were faced with, and now at the end where you're going into Usyd Med! Feeling proud and happy for you :)

It's amazing how you still managed to keep up super good grades for uni, placements in different places, still had time to go events/outings, serve at uni and church, lead Bible studies, work both outside and at home...those time management skills, and never sleeping past 7am...pls teach me

Now you can relax before intense things start again next year :)

Yay, I have super smart friends :)

how ironic. today was r u ok? day. 

no, i'm not ok. got smashed.

40% mid sem, and 5% disease all within an hour of each other. no time to study since still had to attend classes, pracs etc. had a day off yday, but still not enough time.

pharm doesn't make sense. it's so dry, worse than physiology or babs. like disease kind of links, but pharm has a million drugs which i can't pronounce, mechanisms, actions, side effects etc. disease names are hard to memorise, but they eventually sound familiar. so glad i never did pharmacy. i like my chemistry, but the pharmacology we do isn't really chemistry related...MC was hard ): i think if i studied harder/more time to study, the test was doable. but unfortunately my study time flew by, and i bombed out on the test. people writing a whole full page, whilst me trying to ramble and just filled 1/2 a page.

diseases, well, no one really studied for it since phar was worth so much. hard to make up for diseases since i'm still averaging a fail, and if these module tests are already hard, i know finals is going to be a nightmare. last year they had a 96% pass rate which is pretty good, but our lecturer keeps telling us we're not as smart as the other grade. well, our structure has slightly changed...

so aqua s has become my post exam sadness pick me up. well exams over 20% weighting...

worst looking ice cream yet. it was already dripping when he started to swirl it. probably the parts of the edge wasn't 'cleaned' off properly from the previous ice cream, so it was just melting...

English breakfast tea and strawberry milkshake in a cone-$3.80

they don't swirl the 2 special flavour anymore ): so the bottom pic was just to show i did have the other flavour. both were very sweet. i prefer my teas strong, so the tea was overly sweet and not much tea flavour. the strawberry one tasted like artificial strawberry milk shake, so if you have a sweet tooth go for it...otherwise probs wait for next week...

still 3 assignments, 1 disease test, 1 presentation, 2 quizzes, 1 major prac exam to go before mid sem break. probably lost track of other things...

and now i'm not sure if i should get the new iPad or just get a macbook...

Tung Tong Roong Thai

First work dinner of the year (and of all time, not incl Xmas dinner)

Went to a Thai restaurant in the surburb next door. Pennant Hills has changed so much. Got off the train and the old stairs weren't there but new stairs in a completely different location and lay out. Walked out of the station and didn't see any opal poles to tap off. I think since it was a Friday, people just don't bother with tapping off since it's supposed to be free after 8 journeys, but I needed to tap off or else I would reach the daily cap. Had to walk back up the stairs into the station, and found poles on the other side of the station (and I was already running late)

pad thai w/ chicken-$14.90, iced milk tea-$5

I've been to the other thai restaurant at penno, but first time going here. It was quite packed for a Friday night. Pad thai was average, decent serving, more on the pricey end (but average for the Hills area). Asked for no chilli on the side. They mixed the peanuts in so you do get some crunch. Chicken was probably a bit dry. The good thing was this dish was quite hot when they served it to you. After waiting for over 5mins for all the dishes to come (turned out to be 10min), still was fresh and piping hot.

They didn't specify if the milk tea was Thai or not. When it came I was disappointed at how thin the glass was. Not really authentic with the whipped cream and choc chips which was hard to drink/mix with just a straw. First sip and wow, all I tasted was sugar, and this is coming from someone with a sweet tooth and high sugar tolerance. Other drinks were pretty boring, but next time won't order a drink at all. Could hardly taste the tea.

ice cream-$6, fried ice cream-$7.50

Wasn't going to get ice cream, but everyone got it (so peer pressure). Desserts are good to just talk over work stuff with the tables mostly cleared. $6 for a normal, non homemade vanilla ice cream is super expensive. They put some whipped cream and sprinkles on it. Tried a bit of the fried ice cream, unfortunately it wasn't the nice filo pastry stuff you find at other Thai places. It was like the Chinese version, but not as doughy. The dough was quite thin and had some crushed nuts. You do get ripped off with ice cream, but the manager had stuff to tell us...Work paid for dinner, so can't complain :)

End of week 6

Derpest day ever. Mini rant on one of my fb convos

The calm before the storm. continuous exams, assignments, presentations and group work all the way from now until mid sem break, then continuous after the break until finals

so started the day off with forgetting my badge. without it felt so out of place

then i had my tea, but even though it was 2 cups layered, and used my fingers to wrap around it, still kind of burnt my fingers

tips of fingers still red lel

then went to clinic visit

and waited and the other people got called up

but then there were no more px in the waiting room so i went back up to reception

turns out the 4th yr noticed the post it note, but was too engrossed in what she was doing and didn't realise i was supposed to sit in

what's worse was that we both knew each other

then i missed the whole history and half the symptoms ):

so just had to copy what was on her record card

which was pretty messy imo

and then i only had 2 pieces of scrap paper, so awkwardly gave in a torn 2/3 of a sheet to slide under junghans door

then she told me the direction of the tute room, but i was looking at the wrong turn, and awkwardly waited near the staff room, but luckily the tute was 1/2 hour late, so didn

didn't miss anything

oh, btw, there was a super high myope as her px, so i guess that's why she was flustered

-15 and -17D!

with -2.50/-3.50 cyl

so cray, pinhole not improve

best was 6/9 corrected

its going to be pathological

back of eye with high myope like, but ret still intact

yeah, px knew he was a pathological myope

never can see things clearly unsure emoticon

then had to rush to dinner since tute ran over time

and my nose started to bleed on the bus...and i only had one tissue...

but it stopped for a bit. think i wore too many layers today

not sure what path myope is actually lol...

then managed to catch an express train

but then i arrived at the station, and it's in the middle of renovations, and nothing like was it was like 6mths ago

walked out of the station and was like where are the opal things?

had to walk back up to the station, and go to the other side to tap off...then walk back down...really weird...

then found the dinner place and sat down

and then bam

nose was fulling bleeding. how awkward. so glad i don't have to see them again until end of september

then had to get ice and go bathroom. what was worse was out of all the days, i decided i wear a white blouse and not my normal black one..but the white one ended up blood free lol

then had to awkwardly explain that i was going to ask my mum to pick me up

but colleague offered to drive me home

well, luckily i didn't have to pay for dinner

manager paid, or maybe it was company money.

so i guess it ended on a good note

end of rant...

hence all the derp (normally i don't use that word, but today felt like it)

also, since no one turns up to our optm lec, they started marking the role last week, they need names, student numbers and signature. this week around half the cohort turned up. but she realised there were more names than actual faces, so she took a photo of the class...so awks.

so, so, so screwed.

Yum Cha at Star Capital

Trying to find decent Yum Cha's in Sydney, or in the Hills area is actually getting harder these days. Many restaurants have new managers, smaller portions, poorer quality. Was originally going to take my relatives out to the city, but since they've been there before, decided to head to Chatswood. Another day of uni skipped for food w/ relatives

This place normally specialises in seafood. My parents have been here before for a dinner, but not for yum cha, so decided to give this place a go. Pretty packed at around 1pm. The main difference from my last yum cha place was that the food was actually fresh and piping hot! There was probably at least 3 times the variety, and so frequent as well. The cups and bowls were also a little bit fancier with gold rimmed and a tea cup handle rather than the normal non-handle cups. Eats just easier to hold the tea for people like me who can't hold hot things...Tea is expensive here $4pp, but I guess thats what you'd expect in Chatswood, plus relatively cleaner things and trying to be fancy with their lights. Food was also more on the expensive side but it was decent. The har gaos had large, plump prawns, the pan fried turnip cakes looked cold on the trolley but were actually quite hot inside (hence actually fresh), deep fried stuff not too oily. Only down thing was the pastry pork bun things had a pretty thick dough. According to me relos from HK, they said it was decent (unlike last time where that place was actually bad). Service is pretty good here, which is always a plus.

some of the food. ended up with 16-17 dishes

~$180 for 8 people

(This was also in my drafts folder. Haven't had time to write something up for my 21st yet)

Party-Behind the Scenes

so just before i post about the actual night...needed to just get this out...

i originally wasn't going to hold a 21st, and was just going to save it up for travelling. events like this isn't cheap, i'll just say a few thousands...but since some of my relatives were going to come over, i decided to hold one anyway for the memories :)

i've always wanted to hold something at The Grounds because i love their food and atmosphere (although i'm told the food there isn't as great anymore). however, that was way out of my budget, at least $10k for the indoor one, and at min $20k for outdoor exclusive hire. the outdoor daytime patio was reasonably priced, but a pax of 30. well, they are currently renovating so that location wasn't an option.

also wanted a place with decent food. i wanted people not feel bad for having to pay for present/cake/dinner, rather just have a good time. didn't want a kind of dinner w/ cheaper asian food...wanted a canapé style event, but not too fancy and more on the small side.

emailed/researched a few other places, and each place was so, so expensive. around $100pp. nice weddings these days cost $200pp, decent $150, and ok/cheap are about $100, but i wasn't going to spend that much when i wasn't even planning to hold an event in the first place.

so finally i settled on Haven Cafe. again, they charge for pp.

deciding who to invite would always be tricky because i don't have many friends, but once you invite friends you sometimes only talk to, then you have to invite everyone. i wasn't going to invite church people, but ended up inviting some. also, some people commented about how there were no guys invited lel. i have no guy friends #foreveralone. no but if i just invite 1/2, it'll be awkward for them (apart from those plus ones), so then i would have had to invite a whole bunch, and the number of people would just blow my budget since in terms of family/relo there are at least 10 of us...so even though some invited me before, i couldn't invite them back ):

which brings me to the main rant. invited people even though they didn't invite me to their 21st. then other's who didn't hold a 21st yet i still invited them. then 2 hours before the event, they're like 'oh, dad's coming back from overseas, soz can't come' or 'something came up tonight-can't come'. whatttttt. as if you didn't know your dad was coming back that date. why did you tell me you're coming then not come. the place is charging me pp. then there was someone who had a reasonable issue the night before, and someone who really wanted to come but bf's mum got sick...but those other last minute ones...really shows how even Christians can be 'two-faced'. does stuff at church, but then don't have the common courtesy to even give advanced notice, or doesn't want to come so they don't have to bring a gift. like you went on a month trip to europe and gave gifts to other people in front of me without acknowledging me

even those who came empty handed...yeah, i did risk asking people for a monetary gift for something in a few months...but even if you didn't contribute, at least a card would be nice. sometime there parents may feel that we owe them something 10yrs ago and they feel that no giving something back repays it. yes, church/some people are complicated. ended up having 5 people i counted for not coming...which is almost the equivalent amount of my birthday cake wasted...hence the extra food...so if i had known those 2 people (whom i've known since i was a toddler) never had the intention of coming, then i could have invited more guys...

only invited them since mum told me to...but i regret not inviting others, which now post-event, people are holding a grudge on you since you didn't invite them even though we kind of talk, or i've asked them for favours before, and people secretly hate on you for not inviting them...

yes, that's one of the main reason why i didn't want to hold an event apart from the money side, people distancing them from you if you didn't invite them. 

i should have been like another friend who boldly stated that the place is charging pp, so click if you're going (or else i feel that if you don't go, you'll have to pay up)

but i'm thankful that i still have friends that i can rely on (and don't judge me if i ask for stuff)

sorry, that was bubbling inside my head for the past 2 weeks (along with diseases).