Whaddddupppp everybodeeehhh!!

i think this is my first post ever since im back in Syd. haha! things have been going pretty well over here (if any of you guys are wondering), but im still trying to adapt back to the cold & chilly weather here. :/ cold weathers aren't really my thing, i'd prefer warm BUT not humid climate :)

my lovely gf Zuii and tom choi came to airport to pick me up. so sweet of them to cancel their shift to work that day and pick me up. heeeheee!


straight after i placed my luggages down, zuii and i went for lunch at her chinese/canto restaurant.

yummy yummy tribe

cow stomach?

SUPER YUMMY SCALLOP!!!

zuiiii zuiiii zuiiiiii!

 After lunch, we walked around, caught up with one another, shopped for some stuff. Then, we wanted to catch a movie, but i've already caught all those that we showing in Singapore. hahah! soooooo, we headed back to her apartment and took a quick nap which resulted in a 6hour nap. -.- after that, woke up, went to korean restaurant for dinner with susan! :)

my favourite egg with cheeeese!

super super duper spicy fried beef with egg and cheese

tom joined us halfway cus he was in the area

soju+beeeeer for all!

speaking of cold.. it really beats me but i freaking attended my 3 days diving course in this winter climate! yes,call me mad crazy insane stupid whatsoever, but yes i did it! i dived in the ocean at 15 degrees! well, most of you might go oh 15 degrees doesn't seem that bad, but trust me, the water felt like 0 degrees seriously.

so i had my open water diver course over a span of 3 days with Prodive.

Day 1, all of us gathered at Coogee outlet to complete the theory components of the course, which included a final theory examination, explanation on using the dive tables, watching some dive awareness and safety videos. After passing our exams, we got suited up in our wet suits, fins and masks and loaded all the cylinders, BCD, regulators, fins, masks onto the vehicle. we were driven to the Manly outlet where they had a nicely heated swimming pool over there! changed into our swimmers and got into the pool. This marks the beginning of the second component of the course; the pool training. first up, we had to swim 10 laps, then tread water for 10mins. Then, we exited the pool and learnt how to put our equipment together. I cant really explain how to do it step by step cus i think its pretty hard to visualize. hahaa! so after what seemed like an hour, we finally gotten our equipment suited up, and our weight belts done up! In we go into the pool once again. During the 6hour pool session we had (yes, no breaks in between), we learnt everything about diving. how to clear your mask, learn about buoyancy, practice ascending and descending, equalizing etc etc etc. Finally, we learnt the Giant Stride (whereby you take a big step off the edge and jump right into the water) and we were done! washed our equipment, packed up, and drove back to Coogee. 

Day 2 was our first open water diving. We headed early in the morning at 8am to Shelly Beach. Though it was pouring that day, it didn't dampen our high spirits. Suited up, took a group photo (the one and only one) and went in to dive.

yes that's how i look, retarded as you may say. hahaha!
 My take on going in from the shore is CHALLENGING! wearing fins and walking backwards, coupled with the waves beating at you constantly, boy was it tough to just getting inside the water. not to mention the surge of extreme cold that gushes up to your neck once you submerge yourself inside. what mixed emotions i had.. be happy to getting the weight off my back or crazily overwhelmed by the sudden coldness. hurhur. nonetheless, we got ready and dived down. It was hard to get used to in the beginning, but you just get so mesmerized by the underwater world and the creatures that you just forget about all the discomfort you're facing. that was how i felt when i was down under :)
i even caught sight of a Grey Nurse Shark! how lucky i was, or rather my diving group, to sight a shark on our first dive trip! According to our instructors, these sharks were supposed to be long gone from this beach. they dont usually stay at this beach, but surprisingly they were still here! By 4 sharp we ended our dives for the day, packed up and left back for Coogee where we washed up our gears and left for the night.



Day 3 was the second and last open water dive. This day we headed to Camp Cove at Watsons Bay, somewhere further up. Got suited and equipped up and in we go for our dive! we dived to about 15m deep on this dive and boy was it gooooood! at 4m, my left ear couldn't equalize and i was about to panic, but fortunately it equalized and i could continue. yay! when we were at 15m deep, the temperature on our dive computer recorded 15 degrees! dear o dear, it was REALLY REALLY cold. Visibility down under was very poor, we had to hold hands and swim forth. At certain points when the sand was kicked up, we couldn't even see our own hands infront of us, it was that bad. but this day, i had lots of fun exploring the underwater life. we sighted seahorses, stingrays, gropers, fluteheads, rock fish, octopus, schools of fishes, seaurchins and many more. i even stuck out my pinky to let the seahorse tail curl on, they felt.... rough. hahahaha! but omg it was so fun! i think i got addicted to diving! im going for another 4 shore dives and 2 boat dives. On one of the boat dives, im going to brave myself to dive at Magic Point. It's a renowned site for SHARKS, lots of them! wobblegong shark, grey nurse sharks, its their territory! im soooo gonna get photos of sharks and myself! im so stoked for my next dive, but its gonna be in awhile's time cus i wanna dive in the summer so i wont freeze my ass again.


FOR NOW, I AM A CERTIFIED OPEN WATER DIVER!!!! OOOYEAAAHHH!!! 


Azuma
okay, enough of my diving adventures that im so stoked about, here's more on my meetups i had recently. The day following my dives, i had a dinner meetup with Andri! we always wanted to meet up before i left for SG, to celebrate us Jan babies bdays. So now that im back, we had our jan babies dinner! I brought him to this place i read on a random food blog, its called Azuma Kushiyaki :)
Surprisingly, it was just a stone's throw away from my apartment! 

An entire row of sake greets you at the door

cosy interior :)

Andri's Sake

My Choya

yummy Agedashi tofu

 This is really one good agedashi tofu! the outer crispy layer just melts in your mouth and soon enough you can taste the rich tofu inside. Flour is just nice, not too much, not too little :)

Saba Mackerel

Wagyu Skewer

 A little disappointed in the wagyu skewer. It was a tad too salty on the outside and the meat wasn't up to my expectation :/

Andri and myself :)

 After dinner, we went next door for desserts; Azuma Pattisserie.

range of tartlets, cakes, icecream sandwiches etc

our selection of desserts that we ordered :)

signature ice cream sandwich

 My favourite of the day was the yuzu tart. A rather surprising choice i made. If you guys know me well enough, chocolate has ALWAYS been my favourite everywhere i went. but surprisinly enough, the yuzu tart won chocolate! well, lately i've been telling myself to explore the world beyond chocolate, in order to enjoy other flavours and open myself up to the world of food! so here's baby steps to it :)



Beef Pho, Hinky Dinks
Following day,  i met up with meeeeelissssssaaaaaa for dinner and some drinks. she insisted on bringing me to Bankstown to try this fabulous PHO, something she claim is the best she's ever tried. so here we go, 45min train journey to Bankstown, this dodgy looking town. hahaha!

im just fascinated that we got an entire cabin to ourselves! :B

 After dinner, we headed off to this bar that i read off a food blog. Apparently it has quite good reviews for quirky cool cocktails and 50's style themed bar. Was located at kings cross (red light district.heh heh), so we took a train there! :)

signature hugeass cocacola sign

Hinky Dinks! the bar we were headed for

 Upon sitting down, the staff gave us a small cup of popcorn. aww how sweet of them, and it was bacon flavoured! how unique!

My Hinky Fizz

   My Hinky Fizz was made up of Strawberry & prosecco sorbet, Bombay Sapphire, Saint Germain, peach bitters, grapefruit fizz
Mel's Flor de Jalisco was made up of Cazadores Blanco, fresh lime, triple sec, grapefruit bitters, blood orange & corriander gastrique

my cute cocktail cup!

super huge Beer battered onion rings!

  Nice saturday morning, met melly for brunch, shopping and possibly drinking, buttttt we didn't even make it past brunch. sorry melly :< i'll make it up to you other day! 
Anw, we headed to The Vintage Cafe at The Rocks after i saw really nice photos of the place on Nat's instagram :) 


The Rocks is a really nice place to hang out for brunch places, so is Surry Hills. tucked neatly in a corner of the alley, we found The Vintage Cafe. Took some photos while waiting for our food to arrive.

really diggin this shot!

THEN, came 2 really pretty colourful parrots. at first we were like, oh how nice of parrots to join us for brunch! we have nice company, and also photos to take. they were wild parrots so i guess they just randomly fly to random people in the cafe, WHO ORDERS COFFEE. let me tell you why later...

really love this shot i took for melly!

My Meditteranean breakfast

Melly's English Breakfast

Wellll, what happened after this wonderful day (meant to be), was that i got attacked by sudden awful cramps and we had to take away our breakfast. yes, i even had to cab home. Sorry for ruining your day melllll.
Luckily we're meeting tomorrow. heh!


That's all for my update, Stay tuned for more more more!
XOXO