Wen: Minsoo's Birthday Celebration

My friend Minsoo turned the ripe old age of 20 a few weeks ago.  We went out to lunch then hit up a dessert shop... yes.... they only sell desserts.

All the things in the background are cupcakes.  They specialize in fancy gourmet cupcakes!

We each got a cupcake and Minsoo got two.  Mine was called Black Forest or something.  It's actually the one on the far left side.  It was sooooo good.  There was cream filling lined with rasberry jelly.  Too bad they were $3.50 each, or I would totally eat these things like bread.

 We ended up at the Town Hall.  We wanted to climb the clock town, but unfortunately I think the building was undergoing renovations and the whole building, including the tower was closed!

Instead, I climbed the stone lion in front of the tower!

Aftreward, we went and had bubble tea.  I got taro flavored tea, which is why it is purple... anyway, it was decently good!  The tapioca pearls were awesome.

Wen: Iranian rice and Japanese curry fest!

This was a while back, but I'm a little behind on blogs!
My friend Mehryar invited a few people over to his house for some international food!  There were students representing Germany, France, Korea, China, USA (I guess that's me? Haha!) and of course Iran and Japan.
They made Persian rice, BBQ chicken, Japanese rice and Japanese curry.  It was incredibly delicious.  There was even tadik!!

For dessert, the French guys made crepes!  We added Nutella and Vanilla ice cream.  It was SO DELICIOUS.

Wen: Doomben Racefest

I got free tickets to see horse racing a few weeks ago.  I've never had the urge to see a horse race because:
1. I do not enjoy gambling
2. You can't eat the horses (only joking!!!)
Anyway, so I went there with Ling, but Ling wasn't able to get in because she didn't have her passport.  Which brings me to my next point of how horse races are just an excuse for women to dress over-the-top and for everyone to get drunk. 

The actual racing part was quick.  Apparently there were simultaneous races going on around Queensland.  The races were staggered so you could watch and bet on races in other cities like the Gold Coast and Sydney etc.

Apparently afterward there was a mini concert by a singer named Ricki Lee.  I had never heard of her, but apparently she's semi-relatively famous in Australia.  Also, they kept mentioning the fact that she has a song in the new Sex and the City 2 Movie. 

















Anyway, so her song was good I guess.  Also, it was cool to see a semi famous person up close. 
I left soon after because the other songs all sounded like padding for the CD. 
I went shopping at Chinatown afterward and got awesome food!

Wen: Chinatown and the Brisbane Lions

Ling and I went to the Brisbane Chinatown in Fortitude Valley on Saturday and I got to pose with the awesome stone Lion.



















Afterward, we met up with Feli and Minsoo to go to a Brisbane Lions vs. Fremantle an Australian Football League (AFL) game.  The game was okay, but I think we had more fun taking pictures than watching.  Also, the stadium had different colored seats to give the illusion that it was filled when in reality it was only about 40% filled at the most.















Headline from an article online the next day:
"Brave Brisbane Lions fall short against Fremantle at the Gabba"
and ...
"UNDERMANNED, under-sized and under the pump from injuries and umpires, a brave Brisbane suffered its first-ever loss to Fremantle at the Gabba on Saturday night."

Apparently Brisbane lost 113 to 100.  Oh well... we only found out after because I had to leave after the first quarter due to bus issues.

Wen: More food!

I made this a while back for dinner. Some chicken and baby bok choy (bai cai... I believe). I hadn't had bai cai in a while, so it was really good!











This is what I had for breakfast this morning... French bread with avacado slices and smoked salmon on top. It was really good! The avacado was incredibly savory, given all the fat it contained!

Wen: ANZAC Day Aboriginal Cultural Experience and BBQ

Today was an absolutely amazing experience! Ling and I went to the Quest sponsored ANZAC Day celebration at Kangaroo Point.

Here's the Wikipedia explanation of ANZAC Day:
"Anzac Day is a national day of remembrance in Australia and New Zealand, and is commemorated by both countries on 25 April every year to honour members of the Australian and New Zealand Army Corps (ANZAC) who fought at Gallipoli in Turkey during World War I. It now more broadly commemorates all those who died and served in military operations for their countries. Anzac Day is also observed in the Cook Islands, Niue, Samoa and Tonga."

We passed a maritime museum and I took a picture with a turbine or something.










When the Aboriginal dances asked for volunteers to dance with them, I naturally said I would do it. It was pretty easy, but I managed to do it wrong considering I'm super uncoordinated and it was painful jumping around with bare feet.













At the BBQ, they had kangaroo and crocodile meat! The kabob I'm holding has two pieces of kangaroo meat and one piece of crocodile meat. The kangaroo meat tasted like a mixture of lamb and liver. The texture was very much like liver. Yum... jk.
The crocodile meat was like fish but much chewier. It wasn't like fish that would just break apart in your mouth.
Apparently the crocodile meat was $40 AUD for half a kilo!

The red stuff on the plate next to me is actually beets, or they call it beet root. Australian add it to lots of stuff, like sandwiches and burgers. It's actually pretty good as an addition.

I'm also wearing contacts to try out. They're okay, but not THAT great... but it's nice not smudging my glasses all the time.



We climbed this awesome tree at the BBQ park and I was afraid I was going to fall off. Nevertheless, it was an awesome tree. I couldn't remember the last time I climbed a tree.

Wen: Smoked Salmon and Tomato on Baked Pita

As I told Dahvid Davda:

Lebanese bread cut into slices and dabbed with olive oil.
Baked until crisp.
Lox pieces placed over them and sprinkled with ground black pepper.
Thin slice of tomato placed over lox.
Delicious snack.