A Vietnamese Dinner

We went to have dinner at a Vietnamese Restaurant in one of the suburbs. According to Kenny, it is quite a well-known restaurant in Adelaide. He booked for a table at 7.30pm but it was fully booked (nah, you can see how hot this restaurant is), so we had our dinner at 8pm. This was actually the first time for me to try Vietnamese cuisine. I ever tried Vietnamese food before but it was just a cold roll not a proper meal like this.

The must-order : Make your cold roll yourself here.

The rice paper used to make cold roll. It is hard and dry at first.

Soak it in warm water.

Tada.. It then becomes soft and edible. Open it up on your plate.

You can also add some mint leaves if you wish.

Add lettuce, meat and sauce.

My cold roll.

Although it is made up of simple ingredients, it has its simple way of tastiness.

Soft-shell crab.

Hot pot king prawn and pork.

Quails aka 乳鸽. A whole one for each of us.

The food there was really nice and could be considered as one of my most enjoyable dinner in Adelaide. However, despite the awesomeness of the food there, the bill was unexpectedly high. It was $108.50 for four of us. They even charged plain water for $6.90 per bottle. OMG!!! (plain water is normally provided for free in most restaurants in Adelaide)

Crabbing

The first time we went crabbing was at one of the midnight at the end of September. It was still pretty cold at that time and even colder at the beach with strong wind blowing constantly. This forced us to wear like "bears". Before we reached the beach, Kenny had already planned how to cook the crab the day after: chilli, pepper bla bla bla.. hahaha..

The crab net, pails and baits.

Semaphore Beach

Settling the net

Sleeping while waiting for the crab. We got nothing to do while waiting for the crab because we forgot to bring any cards or titbits ( how stupid we were!!)

We got 3 small crabs in the end. As it is illegal to catch crabs of too small size in Australia, we threw them back into the sea and ended up nothing to bring back home =.=" OH, OUR CHILLI CRAB!!!

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Then we went crabbing again a few weeks later at Henley Beach. This time, the main aim was not to get the crab, it was to celebrate Gabriel's birthday.. Wahaha!!

A surprise for him. The birthday boy insisted to wrap himself in the blanket and slept on the floor despite the dirty floor of the jetty.

Happy Birthday, Gabriel!!

This time, we still ended up nothing home. And we had our 3rd attempt last week, still, we got nothing although it was getting warmer recently. Perhaps it was not the right season for crabbing.. hmm.....

Food Food Food ♥

Want to share with you all some food that i found "interesting" in Central Market, Adelaide.

Instant ramen

Even with seasoning pack inside

Canned pearl milk tea

hmm.. Have you tried this flavour before??

Fruits which you can find in Central Market: Strawberry, watermelon etc etc

And even durians!! But they are being kept in the fridge

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And some other Malaysian food products too..

Want somemore??

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Food in Ikea:

Ikea meatballs - always my favourite ♥

Chocolate tart

Pasta in weird shape :p

My Gold Coast-Brisbane Trip Part 3

The 7th Day

Hiang Qian suggested us to go to Lone Pine Koala Sanctuary-the oldest koala sanctuary in Australia. Honestly, I felt bored when I was told that it was actually something like wildlife park because I had visited the wildlife park in Adelaide, Melbourne, Sydney and now Brisbane!! Aih.. i had met kangaroos, tasmanian devils, wombats and of course koalas for a thousand times!!! (Don't beat me because of this, I am not showing off!! I am seriously tired of seeing them..)

BUT, something interesting happened. I actually saw koalas hopping from one tree to another. I never saw koalas that were this active before!! (They were usually sleeping or staying still on the tree eating the leaves) Therefore, this was not a bad experience after all.

We were having our dinner at Three Monkey with Hiang Qian's housemates-Yen Ling and Chia Yee.

Three Monkeys-hear, see and speak no evil.

The 8th day

We rent an Estima to fit 7 of us for these 2 days. We were now heading for Sunshine Coast!!!

Sunshine Coast

Then we went to Noosa Head. On the halfway, we stopped for the Ginger Bread Factory but everything was closed since it was already 5pm :(

Never mind, we could still take a picture with ginger bread man.

Noosa Head in the evening.

Talking and eating ice-cream on the beach.

After dinner, we had a thrilling decision - we would not go back tonight, we would sleep in the car!! wohoo!!! But should we just park our car on the beach and sleep inside the car at Noosa Head? Or should we go somewhere else?? We then drove the car around Noosa Head for sightseeing and it was at this time that Yen Ling suggested that we may go to Byron Bay, the most easternly point in mainland Australia to watch sunrise. Such a spontaneous and romantic suggestion XD

The 9th Day

So we did. The car journey took about 4 hours and we reached there at about 2am. Thanks to Gabriel who proudly shared his "honourable" experience in highschool, so we were not bored at all during the long journey. We got down from the car at 4 something to walked to the point that was most suitable for us to enjoy the sunrise view. So what did we do from 2am to 4am??? We were actually not sleeping, we were "playing" in the car. Hahahahaha!!!

7 of us watching sunrise together, how romantic it was (despite the strong cold wind and we were all in shorts. We went to the beach the day before, remember?) Words can't really describe the beauty of nature.

After that, we went to Mount Tamborine. Energetic har?? We all were actually sleeping all the way up Mount Tamborine. Pity Gabriel who drove us there but later we were told that he was actually "memancing ikan" when he was driving. At first, we planned to visit "Skywalk aka walking among the tropical trees" on Mount Tamborine. However, the whole car of people were actually sleeping outside the entrance of Skywalk for 2 hours. Everyone was just too tired and reluctant to get down of the car. Wahahaha.. We didn't visit Skywalk in the end although we already reached its carpark (ridiculous??) So later we had a walk in one of the town on Mount Tanborine (can't really remember its name). We bought chocolate, ate ice-cream and visited cheese factory there.

And finally, we were going back to Brisbane!! (I was excited because we can have a shower finally!!) We also visited Queensland University which is x9999999999999 times bigger than UniSA on our way home.

The 10th Day

6am flight going back to Adelaide.

* Thanks to Hiang Qian, Yen Ling and Chia Yee!!! You all are damn nice people. I ♥ you!!

My Gold Coast-Brisbane Trip Part 2

The 4th Day

I joined Matthew they all to QDeck, the world's tallest residential tower on the Gold Coast.

The spectacular view from QDeck.

After coming down from QDeck, we were shocked that everything was now covered in dust and yellowish in colour. Then only we knew that Sydney, Gold Coast and Brisbane were being hit by dust storm. This was the first time and perhaps the only time i experienced dust storm in my lifetime.

We had our dinner at Hard Rock Cafe.

My dinner ♥

The 5th Day

Spent our day at Dream World.

Later at night, we went yumcha at Max Brenner Chocolate Bar after our dinner. The ambience there was really relaxing and just nice to yumcha.

Chocolate Fondue

Chocolate pizza

The 6th Day

I went for whale-watching tour in the morning. It was quite a nice experience as I think I had never seen a real whale before.

After the whale-watching tour, we had a relaxing afternoon lying down and napping on the beach.

Then, we went to Brisbane at night. The train journey took about an hour to reach Brisbane. Here, I met Hiang Qian who is my classmate in secondary school. We hadn't seen each other for 6 years and unexpectedly, we met each other again in Australia after so many years!

In front of casino.

Guys were sleeping.

While girls were busy talking :p