Of the Apartment

The Apartment, originally uploaded by jonolist.

I forgot to show everyone where we're living for the next six months. Its along franklin st, walking distance to RMIT and Uni Mel. We live just next to Victoria Market so all you have to do is hang out at teh balcony and listen for the offers for cheap fruits and meats and you run down to get them..cool ah.

Anyway we get sun in our place all day so it keeps warm at night without heaters....save $$$.

The kitchen has no gas, everything is electrical which sucks, i need to see the flame!!!

anyone wanna to come over??

Of MART

MART is like the deathcab of the indie food joints. Everyone thinks its isolated and cool and unknown but really EVERYONE KNOWS IT! The crowd who visit it are the whose who of indie singers, writers, artiste, and some breakfast bloggers....okay what the heck did i just type? Its just too cool to be cool already.

anyway MART is a great place to chillax for a brunch and their breakfast is damn good!

MART, originally uploaded by jonolist.

the cool thing i love about mart is that its actually a TRAM stop.....as in you can walk out of a tram and walk in. (thus the word play if you haven't got it yet). This also makes it kinda hidden among the main road even though its on a tram stop...because you'll never thought a restaurant could function in a public transport node.

anyway the main stars of the day





and then it was back to apartment hunting again....because our "almost" potential would be aprtament near rmit and melb uni got lucked out because the landlord was going to rent it out to relatives on last minute #@%!51! wish us luck dudes and dudettes!

Of Fish and Chips!

today Sophia and Daniel brought us to this place called Clamms.

so we took a tram out to St Kilda's because we were hungry and wanted to eat fish and chips....oh boy were we in for a feast.
Here's Mel going hyper with his deep fried battered rockery fillet.



and here are the yum yums

Of National Gallery of Victoria

NGV National Gallery of Victoria, originally uploaded by jonolist.

Spent the whole day here today. Was surprised to see works by Matisse, Manet, Bernini, JWM Turner, Picasso (its was a post guernica painting, really small, but hey its a Picasso), Hockney. Oh and a small Hnery Moore sculpture....i tired myself out and had to be lead out when it was closing time. Its been awhile since i was so satisfied with a gallery.

anyway here's some info for the archi peeps

Mario Bellini and Métier3 from Melbourne were invovled the extensive renovation works of this gallery by Sir Roy Grounds. Please go if you have the chance, its the best intervention work i've experience, the building is really wonderful, its a pity i checked in my camera in the cloak room. Do check out their 16-17th collection, my jaw dropped there.

Of Fish and Chippery

Fish and Chippery, originally uploaded by jonolist.

Top Catch Fish & Chippery along Errol Street. We were settling our bank accounts at the nearby bank when we got hungry so the staff at Commonwealth bank reccomended us the fish and chippery down the road.

15 Aus for a huge load of fish and chips. The gravy sauce was sinfuly good on a cold breezy Melbourne afternoon (7 degrees with 42km/h winds). Now if only they sold some beer here......

Of walking around the city.

Mel the roommate had to enrol today, so house hunting took a break (although we did see one we really liked and if all goes well, we'll live pretty near victoria market! YAAAAY! fresh produce!)

So i went touring around with camera in tow. Here's what what we get to see or walk past everyday! enjoy!

The graffit art here is amazing, damn good, the sticker ones are impresive too, they make the singapore variety look elementary.

grrrr, originally uploaded by jonolist.

Council House 2 or CH2. I never notice the side facade with the vertical garden/balcony. There's a pretty good cafe at the ground level too.



St Paul's Cathedral...is impressive acoustics..you must go there to hear it



ACCA, Australian Centre for Contemporary Art by Wood Marsh Architects


Then there's the Expo by DentonCorkerMarshall, Southern Cross by Nicholas Grimshaw and alot more i probably didn't know about. Anyway this is only within the city. THERE'S a whole load out there to explore! yay!

oh shit 6 months may not be enough

Of what i can wake up to everdyday!

what i can wake up to everdyday!, originally uploaded by jonolist.

ahhhhh

is cold now, can't type much but enjoy! will post more when i get a stable and warm internet connection

Of the propeller that really wanted

the propeller that really wanted, originally uploaded by jonolist.

as unglam as its gonna sound i thought this was very poor thing/beautiful

i was taking a piss at some random neighbourhood shopping mall before running off to attend a friends malay wedding. and just above the urinal was this little skylight window with a exhaust fan stuck to it..

And you know when old pals get married, you kinda have this sudden catharsis? like how your peers really took a different route from where you're going? and all that other thoughts about your so called "life"? I don't really see the link myself but i thought whoever placed the exhaust fan here must have talked to it and heard its dreams of being a propeller on some jetplane. The one that wanted to see the world and didn't want to be stuck in some random public toilet.

So whoever placed it there heard its plea and propped the fan up the window. Hereis where the setting sun shines thru, with the beautiful sky with the specks of cloud and the large plains where everyone seems so tiny(its in the Woodlands field...but well you make do with what you have lah). Here was where the propeller could pretend to be like the big props in the sky.

so take heart young propeller, one day you'll break out of the glass prison your in, get recycled and end up as a prop on the worlds first recycled plastic commercial airplane. (isn't recycling all the rage now?) There you'll see vast oceans and jungles that stretch into the horizon. Everyone else will hear your story and more exhaust fans will be placed on windows (which is silly but really nice! like in this picture) hoping to be a big prop like you one day.

So dear propeller, keep on spinning !

*the author is taking a 6 month study/exchange trip to melbourne and really hopes to see more beautiful skies and break out the glass prison. He thinks of himself as one of the few propellers that really wanted and finally could*

Of oh hey its almost thurs!

Last night was great meeting up with the peeps. We had dinner/ supps where Prawn, Andrea, Jia+Shux, Jy, Angmoh could celebrate Beatrice and Molly's birthday. Is fun to meet up especially when you get the healthy mix of the corporate workers and the not so corporate ones and the bummer me, you get many stories and exciting anecdotes, i like.

And i figured out then when the guys are accused of things like errr farting(which isNORMAL!) or when our single core processors are inadequate for this multitasking world, its usually Angmoh or I who defend or take one for the time, JY helps too fighting for our brotherhood but its SHUXIAN ah, that ninja who sits in one corner and acts innocent. Just quietly pretends not to be involve.d....is clever but eh we found out....WAHLAUPANGSEH the dudes....unlike that ronan keating song ang moh scored in kbox: you don't say it best when you don't say nothing at all dude. but hahaha neh mind you cool so you still brutha.

After that was karaoke (i know...omg i went k-box...you can buy yest's date for 4d)...well you could also buy today's date because we had a smashing good/disturbingly fun time till 2plus. You can see the staff in kbox grumbling under their "sir would you like to pay your bill" smile, as we try to look over him and sing "THE SIGN" (Ace of Base......my FAV!). We should be drunk singing all the songs and doing at that odd hand movement thingie but we weren't because it was just damn fun lor (ormaybe the room had no ventilation and we were just oxygen deprived)



Anyway it was fun, prawn was fantastic..best singer of the night, Beatrice is oldies queen (i meant that in gold 90fm sorta way...good), Andrea can errr dance and make hand actions look cool, Molly is like the only person who can sing Japanese songs without reading the kanji (because she memorises the sound and intonations...is amazing, like super brilliant). Shuxian FINALLY SANG A FULL SONG! yayyyyy! with Jia who sings canto songs brilliantly. Angmoh can do a scary good version of Beegees (one day this life skill of sounding like something smashed your crotch will come in useful, maybe in job interviews), JY is the kbox veteran among all and is very proud now because he finally got me to go spend money and time in a small dingy room with a tv attached to a very slow computer churning out cheesy music...............eh wait that's studio. Anyway thanks for the fun time man!



It was a long night but i woke up at 7.30 this morning, therefore having less than 3 hours of sleep, yet strangely i'm hyper now. I'm doing up the web cam in my parents room so we can skype (add me jldlin), printing out final documents and checking my luggage. Backing up hard drive, loading movies for the long flight to Oz, all while watering plants and reading the papers. I try to mix in a little normality amongst the chaso you see.

This 6 month exchange business is damn tiring man, but it's fun too with all the goodbyes and meet ups and travel advice, thanks alot everyone, i never felt so blessed before. (wah shit damn sappy in the morning *wipes tear)

anyway time for a haircut