Assorted last of Melbourne...

I'm preparing to head back to Munich now :'( so here are some things for which I don't have enough time to write full posts.

I went to Costco for the first time in my life. I'm not sure if I really enjoyed it (who really needs a 1kg bucket of vegemite?) but I was pretty happy to see this GIANT BEAR just hanging out. 

He was so huge that I actually found him kinda hard to manoeuvre so there was no way I could smuggle him home :/

Yumcha with the Vandepoons, Suboo, Kenboo, and Omar. Had to get my quota of chicken feet, har cheong and even more dumplings.

AND A CHA SIU BAO!!! CRAVING ONE OF THESE!!!!

And finally, here is my last meal in Australia - a calamari bocadillo from Bar Pulpo in the International Terminal of Melb Airport. 

So thanks to all my family and friends who caught up and ate with me. Hopefully we'll see each other again soon. Otherwise I should be back in Aus for CNY 2015!!!

Sydney - day 3

We come now to the end of this epic Sydney/eating trip, and we really saved the best for last - FISH MARKET TIME!!! Spu had never been here before at all and two more of Pooey's friends, Addy and Ben joined us.

We scored three tables right in the middle as well. I was so excited, I couldn't close my mouth.

While Ma guarded the tables from rampaging hoards of Asians, I took photos of animals that I really miss in Munich.

Like these live mud crabs.

Or these abalone which are as big as Pooey's hands

And as big as my face!

And these dead salmon.

And their heads and spines which make great soup stock.

But me and Spu would like to give them and their tuna and kingfish friends a double thumbs up for donating their fillets to our sashimi meal!

Titti Fritti!!!

Chili scallops. Also useful plates!

Grilled fish and chips!

But these dishes were all just entree for what we'd all come here for...

LOBSTER NOODLES!!!

While we were eating this (remember, smack bang in the middle of the market so EVERYONE could see us), four different people came up to our table and asked us..."Where did you buy that?!" which we then told them that they had to go to stall, buy the lobster first, and then tell them how you wanted it cooked. They should have paid us to sit there and eat it or at least given it to us for free for all the business and envious glances we got! The funniest thing though was that a woman, eyeing our lobster and estimating that we'd be done soon with the bulk of the body gone, decided to try and unobtrusively stand and wait for us to vacate our tables of honour. She estimated wrong, thinking that we wouldn't crack open the legs as well, and ended up waiting something like 20 minutes :D

And so we come to the end of an epic 48 hours in Sydney. I ate my fill and I hope it will satisfy me for the next year (although I know it won't in reality).

Sydney - day 2

After the downpour of Xmas day and the drizzly start to Boxing day...the rest of the Sydney trip was all dazzling blue skies and warm weather! Spu pointed out that the Sydney to Hobart yacht race starts on Boxing day, so we headed down to the Harbour to see if we could get an eyeful of some racers.

I don't think this counts, so I guess the answer is no.

Never the less, we took a nice stroll from Circular Key to Bennelong Point in order to get in some of the sights - sights that Spuey hadn't seen since the last time he was in Sydney about 2 decades ago!

Like this big bridge-y thing.

Ma was walking around using one of our umbrellas from the night before to keep the (strong) sun off. An Italian tourist came up and asked if she could take a photo with us and the umbrella!

Eventually, there's only so many photos you can take of the bridge and opera house so we decided to head back to Chinatown for a toilet break and lunch. For lunch that day, we decided to visit an old favourite - Menya!

Mmmm, takoyaki.

Trying to do my best sparrow face. I don't think it's working.

Mmmmm, nom nom nom...

Although the nomminess was a bit tempered by the fact Spu and I were sitting next to these Lard Master tubs. 

After lunch, we dropped Ma off at Bondi Junction Westfield and headed to the beach!

Time limitation meant that I couldn't actually swim though :(

But Spu and I did get to laze away on these lounges!

Mmmmm, waves

Wheee!!!!!!

One last beach panorama before we hit the road again!

The reason why time was so limited at the beach was the actual/original reason me and Pooey thought about going to Sydney: we were going to visit the cheesiness that is Madame Tussaud's Wax Museum! Some people asked me why I would want to go do this - surely we couldn't actually be entertained by this? My answer is that of course we are! People who think they're too cool for this don't know what they're talking about. You need to embrace the cheese. Once you accept that one enjoys the history/nerd/popular aspect of hanging out with wax figures, your experience writes itself!

Ain't that right, Arthur Phillip?

Hanging out with the Royal Family like it's something we do on any given day. 

Spu, Poo, and Ju(lia)

For anyone who's curious, the cockpit of this F1 replica is tiny. 

Pooey is totally into her ET experience

While Spuey and I wrestled with this wax croc. 

So the real reason why Pooey and I were going to Mme Tussaud's was so we could hang out with ONE DIRECTION!!!! SQUEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!1

Don't Niall and I make a great looking couple? Some people believed I was really with him until they took a close look and asked what Zayn was doing behind us. 

On that note, my ability to make any and all of the boys look like my boyfriend is a skill that Pooey lacks. When she tried to do the same, she looked a bit like a clingy stalker.

For dinner, we caught up with Amy and went to the Sydney branch of the michelin-starred dumpling restaurant Din Tai Fung.

Merry Christmas to you too, XiaoLongBao Xiansheng!

Drunken chicken and water spinach with garlic. We were all a bit surprised at how small the chicken was. Okay, it's listed as an appetiser but it did cost $10.80...

Prawn and pork shao mai, xiao long bao. No big surprises here. 

Pork and crab roe xlb, pork and vegetable jiaozi. Also good.

Chili wontons - good. Truffle xlb....disappointing. The Paradise Dynasty ones were much more flavoursome.

Shrimp and pork jiaozi. Also alright.

After dinner, we were all feeling a bit meh. While we had quenched our hunger, none of us except Ma felt really satisfied. Was it because none of us were blown away by the dumplings? Perhaps. After dropping Ma off, we decided there was only one way to get rid of this feeling - Second dinner! For this we chose Korean fried chicken at NaruOne on Pitt St. :D

Ooooh yeah! That definitely hit the spot.

NaruOne had a minimum order rule which was kind of annoying so we also got some or these noodles

And this baked tofu/egg thing that's like chawanmushi. Neither of them were as good as the chicken.

By now we were really full and waved goodbye to Amy...and Pooey and I got some bubble tea :D