thought i was going to have a solo new year celebration watching the Sydney fireworks on tv when i called my friend back and he invited me to hang out with his gang.

so i went back to Guild House, saw a few friends, and we had Malaysian food for dinner.
there were 7 of us at the restaurant - the countries represented included South Africa, Malaysia, Taiwan, Sweden, Iran...
it was pretty yummy, especially the salted egg chicken.

then we went home to mix some South Africa drinks - green cream soda, sugar cane vodka, mango drink... there was cider as well.
the best thing was that we watched Simon Pegg and Nick Frost's movie The World's End - as good as i expected, with the awesome lame puns.

at about 11pm, we went to the south bank of the Swan River to watch the fireworks. Perth is such a sleepy city. there weren't any cars on the road to the city. and the park area was pretty deserted. we sat there with our drinks and watched 7 minutes of fireworks coming from 1 main spot across the river, with another smaller one about 5 km away.

we went back to the Guild House after that, chatted with the Americans, lit some sparklers, went to MacD's, watched a strange movie called Movie 43... and then i slept on the couch for 3 hours before catching the first bus home, which came at 8 am. urgh.
i remember that one of the Americans was asking, "when is the actual new year, when there are so many new years around the world?"
that is the beauty of globalization - where major cities join in the cultural practice of counting down to the new year and displaying fireworks, and we get to see and hear it about on social / mass media.

and now i'm watching some New Year celebrations from around the world on The Morning Show on channel 7 - the hosts are being more funny+wtf than usual.


as with every day, i wish for the health and happiness of the people i love.

having a quiet new year's eve reading up on attractions in Stockholm. : *

there's this museum for kids (aged 2 to 102) called Tom Tit's Experiment. what a name!
 i was intrigued but wasn't sure whether we should visit it.
but after looking at this blog entry about it, i'm sold.
it breaks the conventional idea of what a museum is by giving visitors an unstructured and playful experience. cool!

some other useful blogs i found:-
http://stockholm4foreigners.blogspot.com.au/
http://newstockholm.blogspot.com.au/
 
also watching Hairspray, the dance-filled campy 1988 film. one of its main story lines about racial integration!

which reminds me of the powerful book Cry, The Beloved Country by Alan Paton.
i finished it yesterday and cried like a baby.
it's really moving story about forgiveness and redemption, set in 1940s South Africa.
and it's been such a long long time since i finished reading a book that i haven't read before. /accomplished

oh, and i scored a free quiche at the supermarket because the scanner didn't pick up the item and the guy at the register forgot to key it in for some reason.

back in the day, when good penmanship mattered, folks wrote letters in cursive script.

there are some really nice ones here -

http://spitalfieldslife.com/2013/11/16/letters-from-the-society-for-protection-of-ancient-buildings-archive/

letters from the 1890s to 1920s, written on behalf of the Society For The Protection Of Ancient Buildings.
i especially like the one below because it is so neat and compact.

spitalfieldslife.com is a very interesting website about the history and people of the East End of London as it loses its heritage in the face of gentrification, amongst other things.

from my last day in Melbourne...
loved all the sights on Flinders Lane!

relatively deserted Degraves Street at 8 in the morning

nice pants and scarf, lady
there was a small cafe within St Paul's Cathedral. truly a cafe culture.

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watched the second Hobbit movie (Desolation of Smaug) with some friends on Boxing Day...

i know i shouldn't nitpick but i was pretty disappointed by it.
some parts like the dragon (Smaug) in the mines was downright awesome, and the images are visually stunning, but the opening of the film (conversation between the dwarf and Gandalf) already confused me, and the pointless show-offy-ness of the elf fight scenes, the lame introduction of the love interest (the elf Tauriel and the dwarf Kili)... sigh.
i was cringing at the soft-focus lovey-doveyness between them intercut with the action scenes. some guy behind us was snickering during those scenes. he knows what i'm talking about.
unfortunately, my friend ships the romance between Tauriel and Kili.

they showed the Fellowship of the Ring on tv last night. it reminded me of how that movie was really long as well... but it was quality stuff.

then i found a good 3-part interview on Wired dated 2012 where Viggo Mortensen is talking about acting and art... he was the main reason why i was such a big fan of Lord of the Rings.

Gilsdorf: For you, then, art is an everyday experience. What does art do? Why is art important?

Mortensen: Because when you don’t feel any connection to anybody or anything, then an emptiness can come that can sometimes make people feel like, well, what’s the point of going on living? A lot of people commit suicide, or become despondent, or angry, or hateful, or mistrusting, and nothing’s fun anymore. It can happen to people gradually without them realizing it’s happening and suddenly it’s like, Why am I so unhappy? Or someone just says to you, “Why are you so unhappy?” And you’re like, “Am I so unhappy?” “Yes, you’re unhappy.” “Shit, I didn’t realize that.” That can happen gradually.

Gilsdorf: Art combats that feeling?

Mortensen: What art does is it makes you feel alive and makes you feel like you’re connected. It doesn’t guarantee that you’re going to live beyond death or that you’re not going to be afraid to die. …. It just means that while you’re here, for whatever reason that you’re here, for however long that you’re going to be here, you have a choice to make something of that experience.

even though i like art, i don't make connections half as much as i should.
and there was another part where he said that even though we're all going to die, it doesn't mean that we should stop trying to learn and be generally awesome.

 glad my colleague let me join this xmas dinner - she's part of a big Chinese charity organisation and they had a potluck dinner at their house. they are very close and treat each other like family.
they fussed over the cute little kids and made fat jokes and discussed whether to play paintball.
 4 of my colleagues from the cafe are part of the charity. i actually got to know about the job through one of them.

curry puffs, bee hoon, pasta, salads, inari, etc... all vegetarian
 desserts
and cake (didn't have any because i was too full)

we played blackjack until some nice ladies dropped me off at my house.

the other day R told me about the ice cream shop in Singapore when you can make your own ice cream on a stick. it seemed popular.

today i saw a blog entry on a bakery in Ginza where customers chose their own toaster and made their own toast.
what a nice business idea...

less photos here ~

i started the day with a pork roll ($3.5) from the nearby Vietnamese deli. comes with meat-like starchy products!
had coffee at Quint Cafe (323 Victoria Street)
my latte and R's chai latte. i would say it was "gentle" coffee.
eat at Quint for yummy looking big portions at low prices!!
got lost trying to find the Ian Potter Museum of Art because i didn't consult google maps.
we wandered around Melbourne University for a while - this is one of their cute dept buildings.
finally found the museum. small, housing modern contemporary art (read: difficult to appreciate).
went to Brunetti at Lygon Street. holy smoke - fancy cake central! o.0
aisles among aisles of whole cakes, pastries, tarts, mousse desserts, savories, ice cream.... :9
i only got a escargot (pastry roll) $4.10.
for R's advance b-day treat, i decided on Cantina Napoletana at 183 Elgin Street.
we found it by wandering around the Carlton area.
why?
it served Italian.
it was closed before 5pm, which means they are focused on food.
there was a nice old man at the door who was friendly.
it had a whooping 92% rating on urban spoon!

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i'm dog+house sitting since auntie P went for her holiday.
this is her dog - Frodo - it's small-sized and has separation anxiety. it basically follows you around the house and it scratches people/doors to get its way.

last night was the first time i'm alone with it at night. i wanted it to sleep outside so i closed the bedroom door. the other time auntie P left the house before me, i found the dog on my bed when i woke up. she said the dog might cry if it wasn't let into the same room.
little did i know that it would be scratching at my door every 5 minutes. and it was desperate, making the door thump like crazy. it was scary to hear its efforts in the dark quiet of the night. i ignored it for 20 minutes, my head spinning with guilt but also determined to not give in.
but when i knew that it would not stop, i gave up, let it in and put its sleeping mat on my floor.
Frodo was a noisy sleeper - the licking, snorting, shaking, rolling, dragging noises kept me up.

this morning, it greeted me with a wagging tail, and is sleeping in front of the tv as i type.
sigh. this dog wants for very little except to have a human within its sight.

i really like reading the Guardian.

they have articles on budget eats in London.

and i am interested in Victorian era (1890~) underground public toilets like the ones in Melbourne. lol
(here's a bit of history on the public loo.)

so, check this out - Attendant - a cafe/restaurant located in a former public toilet on Foley Street in London.
you can eat whilst admiring ornate Victorian urinals. how cool!

the Guardian describes it as being almost "painfully trendy", if not for their simple and praise-worthy philosophy on food.
they source ingredients from independent and responsible farmers and make their own food in their kitchen.

not many places have public toilets on the street anymore. so i was quite surprised to see seemingly random public toilets at traffic junctions in Melbourne. but it does make sense - they were in areas with high volume of people, but those areas don't have fast food restaurants or shopping centers. otherwise, people have to go into actual restaurants and small shops, which have stricter toilet-use policies, i imagine.

hey, a nice list of books!

top 1001 books as featured by loved.la

it's nice because the list has images of the book covers, a short review, and it's in a auto-loading scroll down list.

oh, this is better -
Guardian's top 1000 books. :)

this post contains about 80 photos. :P

we went to the the CBD in the morning and found lots of street art.
i think most of them were from Duckboard Place.

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 went for some free concerts in the park.

 this was the West Australia Symphony Orchestra. they say there were 20 thousand people in the audience. i find that hard to believe. think it was 10 thousand in the park and the rest online.
ended up dozing off. but they had some fireworks in the end. then my friend woke me up.
i liked the songs from LOTR and Schindler's List.

 this was another one, organized by my friend's church. maybe 2 thousand people? carols and stuff. quite entertaining. in front of us was a brunch of young people speaking in a European language i can't identify.
the highlight was their festive parody of Ylvis's the Fox song.

 treated auntie P to a dinner buffet at the Hyatt because i wanted to eat oysters and also wanted to thank her for letting me stay at her house.
according to everyone, the Hyatt and the Atrium at the casino offer the best buffets in town.

 but they can't compare to regular Singaporean hotel buffets. it was a small spread - 3 stations - this is the appetizer and cold cuts station. the best thing was the oysters. they were the fat and creamy ones.
 salty smoked salmon, prawns, some salad..
 this was from the main section - there was lamb, fish, curry, roast beef and turkey.
beef was tender, turkey was powder dry. and i had another oyster.
actually i was already full from 2 servings of appetizers. but i tried to stuff 2 servings of meat in.
as a result, i over-anaconda-ed myself and couldn't eat any gelato. :(
the dessert station had cherries and waffles too.
we observed that the Australians liked to grab a handful of jelly beans or gummies from the jars at the dessert section even though those are very common sweets.

anyway, it was the festival season so the prices were higher - $69 - no drinks.
but there wasn't anything festive about this spread, so go during the off-peak season if you must.

we walked up Victoria Street and found a cool cafe that played rap / hip hop music. good music to wake up to. the address is 385 Victoria Street.
we went to Gertrude Street on the way to the Melbourne Museum and found some cool shops.
hand made aesthetic
R shopped at Little Salon which was at approx 65 Gertrude Street. i noted that the cafe/restaurant next door was extremely cool. look at their old skool outdoor furniture. i think they sold South American food. too bad we didn't get to try it.
yes we shouldn't eat shark fin soup
i lamented that i didn't capture the long-haired and attractive Asian man who walked pass this piece of building art.
we went to the Melbourne Museum. it is a hell good museum.
very extensive and the display were very informative and interesting.
i learnt that aboriginals wore possum skins - real thick and soft.
there was this articulated thing that they projected light on, for story telling.

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watched the morning news and they reported who the winners of the 70 million AUD lottery were.

it's a nice story - they are a group of ladies who live at Runaway Bay in the Gold Coast area.

10 of them pooled together loose change to buy tickets, so each will get 7 million AUD.
there was a funny comment about one of their husbands wanting to buy a race horse, but obviously the prize money is not his to spend.

at the same time, there was another news story about a bigger lottery prize taken by 2 winners in America.

$636 million! split between 2 winners.

that's really a crazy amount of money. they can get houses in Kensington Palace Gardens!

auntie P gave me a 'scratch and win' lottery ticket that cost $1 and i won - a free lottery ticket, which i haven't collected.
i'm not about to start spending all my dough on lotteries, but it's true, "you have to be in it to win it" and "give luck a chance".
that works for a lot of other things as well.

someone in Australia just won 70 million dollars on the lottery!

can you imagine?

seventy fricking million dollars!!

the prize winner hasn't claimed their prize yet...

if it were me, i'll give half to charity, quarter to my family and leave the rest to myself.

but first i'd learn about investing it and research the charities. and i'll be like Warren Buffett. don't need a fancy house, just an adequate one.

the median house price in Australia is about 550,000 AUD.
but, i'd like to live in Tokyo.
the average house price there is $325,000 USD. but it's $1.8 million dollars to live in Shibuya.
or Hawaii. a house in a nice place would be about $1.7 million USD.
learn how to take nice photographs and figure out how to use Photoshop.
eat good food every day.
and do a lot of travelling.

the average price of a people-moving car here is about 50,000 AUD.
i would like to drive on the auto-bahns in Germany.
the car prices there are about $36,000 USD.
but rather than driving, i would like to do the trekking tour of Mont Blanc.

interestingly, $70 million isn't enough to buy a home at Kensington Palace Gardens, because the average house costs about $85 million.

i guess it would be like peanuts to a billionaire... like Warren Buffett.

it was chilly and raining... good weather for sleeping

we went to the Hellenic Museum. it used to be the Royal Mint.
this museum houses a small collection of ancient Greek antefacts ... the real stuff. this statues date back to the B.C
stairs of the museum
simple lunch at the train station - falafel wrap. dry and dry.
then we went inside the State Library. dial-a-story booth was not working :(
it was quite amazing how they integrated the 1880 building with modern fixtures to make it functional and suitable for public use. this is the kids area.
someone's books. i found the multilingual library sign interesting.
the fancy part of the library.
we were engrossed in the 3 floors of an exhibition about books. it was so very good.
they showcased many things, such as the oldest books in their collection, as well as their smallest books, like this midget library.
a lovely high dome
the exhibition
old Australian comics - Bib and Bub
old Penguin books
prints of 19th (?) century tourists checking out the ruins of the Roman empire
shut this bloody gate
Australian's love this guy - Ned Kelly. that's his amour, with the iconic helmet.
and his death mask. from his photos, R remarked that he was rather handsome.
another view of the floor.
the cafe in the library - making our last orders because they closed at 5pm.
Mr Tulk coffee. pretty damn good.
hopped on a tram.
went to the Royal Exhibition building via the gardens
there was a private event for the museum staff who were all dressed up
then we went to Lygon Street. staff try to get you to eat at their restaurant. lots of Italian food. i thought there would be Lebanese, but that was at the other end of the street.
in the end we had Mexican. my beef enchilada was real good.
had dessert at Koko Black, which was next door. my junior plate - mousse, ice cream and chocolate teddy.
here is the Royal Exhibition building at night.