It’s like Valentine’s day, but instead of chocolate, you give each other Pocky instead!

Remember, 11 November (11/11, just like Pocky sticks!) is Pocky day!

Probably one of the interesting things I learn from my Korean classmates while in Shanghai.

Photo credits: Stolen from Jojo’s blog. Hehe.

Exams in a week.

Dying.

Unit 71

Celebrated J’s birthday last night with lots of laughter and random events. Pretty sure our neighbour could hear us blowing those party-whistle-thingys all night. For some reason we found that really funny and couldn’t stop laughing. Hehe.

Adelaide can be a little Zzzzz… at times, and doing assignments for long hours makes you just wanna sit and stare and do nothing. Okay, I’ve been told that I tend to space out a lot, but that’s not the point. Anyway, recently I just picked up fishing and whenever the weather’s good, we’ll head out to Brighton to catch some squid. Yesterday was the most eventful fishing trip. We caught 6 squids in total! Together with 2 squids from a previous catch, we had 8 squids for dinner last night. Haha.

Second Valley

We’ve tried our luck at Second Valley too, the place is so pretty with the clear blue seawater and the green hills. But we caught nothing there.

Still at Second Valley

So we started climbing the rocks instead, haha.

Yesterday, other than catching the most number of squids ever, we spotted dolphins from the jetty! I was so excited I was screaming into the phone to TT about the dolphins. And then when I turned around, I saw that JTWW had caught a seagull with his fishing line.

Roast seagull tonight?

The poor bird kept struggling. I was laughing my head off.

Anyway, we all ended up with a squid overload from last night and have decided to stay off the squid for a little while. Hehe.

SQUIDDD!

The people at the jetty are usually really nice people (except one or two), everyone’s usually just standing around, making jokes, peeking into one another’s pail to see who’s caught what.

Fishing = An awesome way to destress.

They were showing this while we were visiting OCF Melbourne City.

The mid-semester break went by so fast. But it was good. Spent the first week doing nothing, just bumming around and what not. And then the second week of the break was spent in Melbourne. It was a super last minute trip. I got woken up by JTWW (who has adopted AA and I as his ‘daughters’) and TT on Monday afternoon and was told to start packing because we were going to leave that very night. Yeah, they kinda like came into my room and I woke up to two figures sniggering at my bedside. So, I had a couple of hours to pack and then the next thing I remember, I think I had dinner and then we were leaving Adelaide. The housemates were mortified when they saw me walking out with a huge bag as I waved goodbye. They were shouting ‘Come back here!‘ demanding goodbye hugs before I was allowed to walk out the door. Awww…

At Queen Victoria Market

Anyway, we left Adelaide at 1.30am and JTWW drove 8 hours to get us to Melbourne. It started out with TT in the front seat, and then she got sleepy so I went in front and got hungry at 3.00am. I’m a horrible road trip companion because I don’t talk much thus not being a very useless person at keeping the driver awake. Plus, I fell asleep for a while at around… 4ish 5am. Hehe. So poor JTWW was left to fend for himself.

The tall burger that wouldn't fit into my mouth

When we got there, we were all half dead and we couldn’t check into the hostel yet because they only start check-ins at 2.00pm. So we had to wander around for a while. When JTWW and TT asked whether I was hungry or if I felt like having anything I replied ‘Bubble tea‘ to which they gave me the ‘whaaaaatttttt-we-came-all-the-way-to-Melbourne-to-get-you-bubble-tea?!’ look. And because my brain was already half asleep during that time, all I remember was that we had lunch, hunted down a bubble tea shop, when to Max Brenner where TT had hot chocolate and then we went back to the hostel to check-in. Took a shower and I took a nap with my very wet hair, was too lazy and tired to blow it dry. Oh,oh, and texted A and Flo to see if they were free to meet up. Woke up and went off to dinner with TT’s friend who won over $400 at the casino that night. And he bought us yummy dessert. Hee.

The next day, it was lunch at Grill’d. Think A was the one who told me that the burgers there were suppose to be healthier than other burgers you’d normally get outside. Anyway, the burgers there were too big for my mouth, so I removed the patty and ate the burger and the veggies first and then proceeded to spear the patty with a fork. Went shopping in the city as well as the factory outlets. And then a Thai food dinner at Lygon Street and A came to join us! She’s now known as my eating-friend. She’s the one who’d pigout with me, hahaha. Didn’t get any pictures with her though. Had hot chocolate from Koko Black before sending A home.

EJF!

On the third day we had breakfast at the Queen Victoria Market, wandered around for a bit before we went off in different ways to meet our friends. Met up with Flo & Jojo! Haven’t seen Jojo in the longest time! And it was great catching up with them and taking random photos on swinging chairs with China’s National Day Parade playing on the TV in the background. It was almost like the good old days. Went shopping and the three of us got a Mango jacket each for $30! A steal! And Jojo was really happy with her buy that day. Haha. And I got a pair of shoes from Rubi for $10. Walked from the city to their place and kinda melted into their couch while waiting for JTWW and TT to head off to dinner. Took a whole bunch of DVDs off them too, to bring back to Adelaide to entertain myself. Haha. We had dinner at Lygon Street again, but this time it was Italian. Met TT’s cousin’s girlfriend to talk about our plans for the next day and had churros and hot chocolate at San Churros. When TT texted her to say that they were in Melbourne with JTWW’s adopted ‘kid’ (i.e. me), she thought they literally brought a kid along. We couldn’t stop laughing about it.

Brunch with JTWW & TT

Woke up to move to another hostel because the room wasn’t available for us to stay another day. And then we went to the city to exchange something TT bought as well as to look for a $30 Mango jacket for TT, but we couldn’t find any in the city. Picked TT’s cousin’s girlfriend up and she brought us out for brunch at a small quaint cafe which was at a tram stop. Food was yummy and the place was done up in a simple way that gave the cafe a cosy feel. Went shopping at Bridge Road and almost froze while walking from one shop to another. And we spent a long time at Crocs picking out Jibbits, who would have ever thought that one could spend that much time at Crocs, haha. JTWW fell asleep while waiting for us to pick out our Jibbits, that was how long we were in there.

TT & her cousin's girlfriend with their San Churros hot chocolate

Headed off to Harbourtown for more outlet shopping but most of the shops were closed although it was suppose to be Late Night Shopping. Tried to hunt for the $30 Mango jacket, but the store was closed, much to TT’s disappointment. We thought we saw the jacket on the racks through the windows. Went back to the city for hot chocolate from Chokolait and concluded that we liked San Churros’ hot chocolate the best.  Went to OCF Melbourne City, and I was so tired that I fell asleep during the message. Was told it was a good one, but I was too tired to pay attention. Oh well. Dinner was at the casino, we decided we should treat ourselves to good food on our last night in Melbourne so we had seafood! It was good, and we were saying how AA was missing out. Stayed at the casino till 5.00am-ish, went back to the hostel and collapsed into bed.

All that food

We only managed to get a few hours of sleep (think about 2 hours, maybe?) before we had to get up to check-out and then send TT to the airport before heading to Harbourtown again to check if they had the $30 Mango jacket for TT. Which they did! Grabbed it, took a short nap in the car before starting on our journey back to Adelaide. I was asleep for most of the car ride, I really wanted to stay awake to help JTWW to stay awake but I just couldn’t. I kept dozing off, sometimes I didn’t even know I dozed off till I woke up to doze off again. Oops, sorry JTWW. Hehe. There was a point when I had Tic Tacs in my mouth, I was happily sucking on it and then I dozed off. When I woke up a couple of hours later, the Tic Tacs were still in my mouth because I stopped sucking on them. It was pretty funny, because I woke up to find candy still in my mouth and I would tell JTWW, who just shook his head at me. Passed by a couple of dead kangaroos on the way back. Stopped at Ballarat to get oil for the car, drove around Ballarat looking for the shop to get the oil from and found out that Ballarat has Starbucks and Adelaide doesn’t. Ballarat is a countrytown and Adelaide is a city and we don’t get Starbucks in Adelaide?!?! Pffttt.

Anyway, got fuel and headed off again. Got back in Adelaide again in the evening, took a shower and went out for dinner because we were all too tired to cook. And proceeded to fill AA in on our trip over dinner. Shortly after I came back from dinner, AM came back dead drunk, and as much as I wanted to go collapse into bed straight away. AM being drunk, rolling around the shower, mumbling, was pretty entertaining.

Slept like a log that night. Tiring, but I enjoyed the trip heaps

Photos up on Facebook! And I realised that my Shutterfly is super outdated, haven’t been putting pictures up there for my parents. Oops. Hee.

Daddy’s back home and the surgery went fine. A little bit of the tumor could not be removed because it was in a sensitive area. Heard that there was fluid under the skin where the wound was and was removed using a syringe. We’re hoping that the wound would heal fine. Other than that, everything’s good! Hehe. Parents should be returning to Shanghai again a month later.

Parents are back in Singapore for my dad’s medical checkup. And unfortunately there is tumor growth (again) and my parents have scheduled my dad for his 4th brain surgery. Thankfully, according to what my mum told me, the growth is only on the surface (what surface? I have no idea). I think his surgery is on 1st Oct, again I’m not sure whether is it the 1st or the 10th because my mother typed the date out in her email as ‘1Oct’, so it’s like, did she think the ‘O‘ was a zero or what, while looking at her screen. But I shall assume my mother isn’t that blur and that she meant 1st and only forgot to tap the spacebar between the one and the ‘O‘. So anyway, his doctor is concerned with healing of the wound and stuff because this is after all his fourth surgery.

At the moment, the plan is that my parents will return to Shanghai after my dad’s surgery and followup, which would mean that they’ll be in Singapore for about a month or so. We’ll see how things go.

Thanks for all the prayers.