sunny day

sooooo it's finally sunny today! :D pretty exciting - melbourne feels almost like an entirely new city, and i can't wait to have the weekend and actual daylight to go exploringgg! (:

last night after work we visited federation square, where they're actually having a pixar museum! i'm pretty excited by that as well. it's pretty much 3D models of the pixar characters and drawings at all different stages of production, i think. [large pixar lamp]

for dinner, we ate at this greek restaurant called stalactites. pretty interesting - the inside was designed like a cave with actual stalactites hanging from the ceiling!! well... mini ones. and my new favorite word is speleogen, which is a cave formation coming from the ceiling, but nOT formed by water, if that makes any sense. but the word is really fun. (: [look closely - heather's pointing to the stalactites]

oh, by the way, WE FINISHED OUR FIRST CROSSWORD yesterday!!! (: pretty exciting. well, we had to confirm the last word since it was pretty foreign, but basically completed the entire thing. today's looks almost impossible though.. :(

today i finally went and bought an adapter!!! (: so no more bothering liz to borrow hers, and then having her laptop run our of batteries while mine is charging - my bad. xP for lunch, we had sri lankan food and an incredibly difficult crossword, but the monash people are pro, so they get it. the sri lankan stuff we had was pretty interesting - pretty much like indian food, but you eat it with hoppers, which are these pancake-like things, but bowl shaped. i can't really describe it well, but i'll go back and take pictures.

>> i started working on the MATLAB code today to make it more user-friendly, so yay for progress.

in the cubicle

this is what we do in our spare time, for now. [working hard]

things have been somewhat slow in terms of work these past few days, but i'm sure they'll pick up soon. we've been introduced to nimrod, and will get a further introduction today, but for now, just hanging out and figuring out how to work the network still. i had some issues with the bank, but after getting a calling card, got that all cleared up.

last night we hopped on the train and explored parts of downtown melbourne in the rain and wind. basically, we walked down bourke st. other streets randomly. there are many many different parts of town - greek precinct, italian, and of course, the chinatown. it seems really similar to sf, although without the steep hills (but there are some hills). after walking around for quite some time, we had dinner at a portuguese place called nando's. it was pretty good, and definitely not something i had tried before. it's weird - many of the places we walked by were empty, perhaps because there are soo many places to choose from! [at dinner]

anyway, the train is pretty easy, and it'll be our main form of transportation, i'm sure, for the next couple of months. all the aussies are extremely nice, even the strangers! (: pretty exciting, although i can't seem to tell the difference between an aussies accent a british accent, yet. ooh and there was this little boy on the train that looked sooo much like harry potter, haha, uniform and all. i think we may go watch it.

the water in the toilet doesn't spin the other way

i don't think. errr i don't think it really spins at all. there's two ways to flush the toilet - half flush and whole flush. what that means? i'm not quite sure. they seem to be pretty much the same.

last night we got home and decided to go explore the area around the claremont. it got dark really fast (since it's winter - i still can't get over that), so it felt waaay later than it actually was (probably also 'cause we were tired from the plane ride). anyway, most of the stores were closed at around 7:00p, and many of the restaurants were pretty much deserted, but it was nice walking around in melbourne. everyone walks really fast, and we have to remember to walk on the left side of the sidewalk (don't know when i'm going to get used to that). anyway, our first dinner in australia was at a cute mexican restaurant called fiesta just a couple stores down from the hotel (apologies for the bad photo, we need to get pro at taking pictures of ourselves with 4 people). [at dinner]

anyway, it's winter here in melbourne. it's raining and pretty windy, almost makes us want to bust out our christmas music - pretty exciting. (: but, it's the end of june. so, this morning most of us woke up pretty early, likely due to jet lag of some sort. the claremont includes breakfast, and so we go down to eat. there's this spread in australia called vegemite, basically yeast extract. note: it's probably an acquired taste, so large amounts of it may not be so good.

anyhow, we made our way to the train station (luckily it's only a minute walk from the claremont), took the train (about 15 min) to the uni, and walked the minute to the building. we got here at around 10:00a, and there was no one here! at around 10:30a, people started trickling in. we're still trying to get all set up, and maybe learn a little about nimrod today. but for now, just chilling and hanging out. [in our cubicle]

>> NIMROD is the program that we came to Melbourne to use. From what I understand, the people in David's lab developed this program, and what it does is basically runs the program over and over again with slight changes so that we don't have to do that manually. (don't quote me on that, i'll get a more detailed descirption later :P )

day one. well, plus two

6/24 5:00p SFO arrived 6/26 8:00a-ish Melbourne, Australia!!!!
[the girls and i on the plane - michelle, heather, liz, me]

the plane ride, total, was pretty much 18 hours, and add in the layovers, and time difference, and we are now two days from when we left home. it's been an amazing time so far - the three girls (heather, michelle, liz) and i are pretty well situated. tom, in the lab, picked us up from the airport and we all crammed into his car and made our way to the claremont hotel, our home for the next 9 weeks. The living quarters pretty nice, though small; we all have singles and are in rooms close to each other. the view is pretty amazing as well. [a couple pictures of my room after unpacking]

after getting settled, luggage and rooms and all, we headed to Monash University (the "uni"), where Dr. David Abramson's lab is. there we met the rest of the crew, well, the people that were present, anyway. in addition to david and tom, we met roy, blair, prim, and some other people who's names i don't quite remember yet, but soon enough. the older people are soo cute, and everyone is just so nice!

on a side note, the cars all drive on the "wrong" side of the road on the left. i keep thinking we're going to crash into the other cars for some reason. crossing the street is a bit intimidating as well since we have to look both ways (not that we don't usually have to look both ways) and the cars don't really stop for pedestrians).

at monash university, the building we are in reminds me of calit2, with the high-tech feel. we got keycards and everything, so feeling pretty pro right about now. :P we're on the 7th floor so the view is pretty nice as well (i'll let you see when its not so gloomy out). anyway, almost first thing we do after getting introduced to everybody is go down for coffee with blair. and then do some setting up of networks and getting the computers all ready, and then it's lunch time! lunch was pretty exciting - there's a food court/ mall type building really close by with tons of choices. i can't wait to try all of them! but we settle on chinese take away (it's not "take out" but "take away"). there's a lot more asian influence here than i thought there would be - almost like at home in cupertino. i've heard many different asian dialects, but weird thing is, when they speak english, it's with an aussie accent, although i'm not quite sure why that is weird since we are in australia.

over lunch, blair and tom and one other introduce us to the cryptic crossword. it's quite the interesting. prety much, it's a regular crossword with clues and the like, but each of the clues are puzzles in themselves. i'm not quite sure how it really works yet, but we'll get it down soon enough, but pretty crazy. and then it was coffee time again! i haven't yet figured out if the coffee is a programmer's thing or an aussie thing, but i think they just really like caffeine. but the coffee is pretty good here, so i'm not complaining. :)