wanderings

The Crowne Entertainment Complex is this gigantic casino on the Yarra River. So after leaving the lab on Friday, we went to the casino to see what was going on. We walked through a row of lighted trees, and it totally reminded me of the Christmas season. All that was missing was some lively Christmas music and maybe some light-up reindeer on the sidewalk. Here's a picture of the place, but it's really dark.
We got dinner at the casino, and here's Michelle with some Japanese food. There are these sushi places that sell just sushi rolls for pretty cheap, but every time we want to find them, we can't find them! but seriously, they're EVERYWHERE - one of those things that are there when you don't want them, and not there when you do. It's one of our goals to find one when we want it, one of these days.
Oh, and here's our own version of okonomiyaki, like the Japan PRIME-rs had, although theirs must've been better.
The inside of the casino was pretty huge - we didn't really walk on the actual casino floor much, but I noticed that the air was pretty good. It's because on 7/1/07, Australia passed a law that bans smoking indoors. Awesome. (: But other than that, it was pretty similar to the Vegas casinos, although it was newer. There was a full-on cinema inside, weird thing is, pretty much all the cinemas only play American movies. There were a couple of show rooms, and clubs, as well as a couple of bars inside the casino. We visited a couple of the pubs, and it was interesting seeing all the different people. There was a live band that played oldies at our favorite one.
The lobby of the casino hotel was very nice and spacious as well. I'm not sure if you can tell, but the ceiling is basically a whole bunch of glass - it kind of looked like rain.
We lost track of time, but luckily hopped on the last train out of the city.

On the way back from Thomas's seminar at Clayton last week, which is the main campus of Monash Uni, we passed by a large mall called Chadstone Shopping Centre, and decided to visit and see what a shopping mall in Australia is like. Actually, it was more like Saleh really wanted to go and dragged all us girls along. :P [on the train]
And then we had to figure out how to actually get there, and got a little confused by the bus system and which side of the road we were supposed to be on. After more than a month we're still a little confused by the road system, but by the time we leave, we'll get it down. We got off the train at our beloved Caulfield campus and had to ask a taxi driver for specific directions on how to get to the mall.
We figured it out and got on the bus. We'd never gone on the bus before, but they're pretty similar to the ones in the States, although the seats are slightly cushier and more comfortable, and the whole vehicle is higher up.
The mall was pretty similar to malls in the states, but the shop interior designing and overall design aspects were very unique. Here's the outside of a shop dedicated entirely to tea, and we got to sample lots of different kinds including one that tasted exactly like hot apple cider!
We wandered around the mall and came across a Target! It was really big and seemed a little more high-end than the Targets at home. Then we headed back to the Claremont to get ready for dinner at our friend Anil's apartment.
Anil is this guy from India that we met at the Claremont. He studies IT at Monash so we bump into him sometimes in our building. Here's all of us squished on the couch.
He made us a lOT of Indian food, and it was all very very good. There was rice with chicken, and naan with this spinach stuff and this eggplant stuff, followed by this desert of sponge-like pastry substance in rosewater syrup with tons of fresh fruit.
He kept wanting us to finish it ALL, and it was all so good that we were stuffed.
We had decided to bring our special microwave cake to add to the mix of delicious food, but this time, bundt cake with the lemon frosting and Milo! :P
Sunday left us all lazy and so we slept in. However, early afternoon Saleh and I decided to go into the City, since we couldn't find anyone else. Apparently it was just bad timing, and the rest of the girls had just stepped out of their rooms for a short period of time. It was a beautiful day in the City, and we basically just wandered around all afternoon. We are both extremely bad at directions, as evidenced last week too. xP Anyway, we strolled by (really fast) many places that we hadn't before.

Quite interesting were the Public Baths, which we had been very curious about. Inside it was actually just a gym and several large swimming pools. They're just called Public Baths because in the 1800's, the water in the River was very polluted, so they constructed this building for people to swim in. It's now over 100 years old and party of Melbourne heritage, so they can't change it and the name stuck, but it makes for an interesting structure.
We also passed by the Melbourne Gaols, which is actually the old Melbourne city jail, much like Alcatraz. Didn't want to go in because it might be haunted. oOooOO... just kidding! Es[ecially since the little girl I accidentally took a picture of is so cute! (:
Here's a view of the City from an angle we hadn't seen before.

Last time we passed the Royal Exhibition Building on the way to the IMAX movie, it was night time and there were strange night creatures hiding in the trees. In the day time, it is beautiful in the middle of a park. There are so many random parks in Melbourne - I love it!
Behind the Royal Exhibition Building was the Melbourne Museum, which is actually free with a student ID card, but we didn't go in since someone forgot his ID card..
And there were guys of all ages playing hockey on unicycles in front of the museum! How they do that, I'm not quite sure since riding a unicycle would be challenging enough.
And I love how there are random old buildings, mostly churches, in the middle of busy city streets, but they pretty much all look the same..
There are sidewalk artists just like in San Francisco! This piece was amazing, and then we walked a little further, and there was this old man drawing tiny pieces on the sidewalk, which was a little sad.
We decided to head home, after snapping a couple pictures of the City at dusk.
The work is going fine, although slowly. My mentor, Anushka, returned from her Bulgaria trip and we heard back from her today. I'm making good progress on my Matlab code, and am running jobs on Nimrod, although sometimes it takes a long while, so there's lots of down time. However, I think I may have found parameter values that stabilize the model, and I'm waiting to hear back about my results. (:

birthday

Going down dodgy alleys..
.. in search of a place.
With sushi..
.. and fireworks.
Then a cake.

Eating, or should I say, being eaten?
Our best cake yet?
And some dancing.
Happy Birthday Liz!! (:

dodgy six

Our new friends are beginning to move out of the Claremont and finding their own accommodations for the remainder of their time here - ranging from 6 months to 2 years. Thus, Friday night after work, we met up with Xiaomin, a girl from China, to check out her place and get dinner.
Apparently "Aussie" pizza or anything "Aussie" contains egg. It's a little weird. I guess it's because there's no distinct Aussie food, and they decided to just adopt egg as typical Aussie cuisine.

So bright and early Saturday morning, we hopped onto the bus and started our day tour to the Great Ocean Road. Here is our tour guide, Eddie.
He wasn't so pleasant to start out with, but he warmed up and was actually a great guide. As far as accents go, comparing Eddie's to Peter's (our tour guide last week), they were quite different, even though both of them were born and raised in Melbourne. Perhaps there really is a difference in accents from suburb to suburb here.

After quite a long drive, we arrived at the beginning of the Great Ocean Road. This Road is built along the coast, similar in idea to the 17-mile drive in Monterey or around Big Sur), but it goes on for foREVER. There are three sections to it - the Surf Coast (where surfers go and there are good waves), the Green Coast (which is basically National Park), and the Shipwreck Coast (appropriately named due to the many many shipwrecks along this part of the coast - 180 in just 40 years!). Anyway, our first stop was to Wikipop Bell's Beach where there were indeed a lot of surfers, even though it was pretty cold outside. Apparently when it gets even slightly warmer, even in winter, there are a lot more surfers.
The beach was really nice, and the weather held up nicely the entire day.
Michelle found some pretty shells..
.. and they made cool sounds.

And then it was time to move on to the Great Ocean Road memorial arch. Eddie called us the "dodgy six."
Everywhere along this road was amazingly beautiful, even a random place we stopped for coffee and bickies.
Apparently this beach and town is crazily full in the summertime. But in the winter, there's barely anybody around.
Koalas still exist in the wild, so we stopped at some random forest and went koala hunting. They were really high up in the eucalyptus trees, but really cute all the same. (click on the picture to see them better)
Lunch found us at this little beach town; we ate really fast so we could go explore and play on the beach.
And who knew there were rainforests in Australia?
With huge trees and giant ferns..
.. and this crazy looking tree that is actually just one tree but looks like three.
And then a long drive through the Green Coast, through rolling pastures full of sheep and cows, clear blue sky, and green.
Then we arrived at Shipwreck Coast, which was absolutely beautiful. Basically it was cliffs along the coast, and lots of rock formations. Even though it was a relatively calm day, the waves still crashed really powerfully against the rocks. Imagine in a rough storm, the waves would be even stronger, causing many ships to meet their end.
These are the 12 Apostles. Why they call them that, I'm not quite sure. There's only 8 of them, but one fell down, so there's only 7, I guess. But we were only able to see 6, including the one that fell.
And after viewing them from the lookout, we got to see them from the beach. It was quite the different perspective, and seeing the waves up close and personal was pretty amazing.
[It's supposed to be PRIME - we can spell (: ]
And then we headed home.

Sunday morning we went bike riding with David. Well, as long as we could keep up. I hadn't been on a bike in forever, so it was a little difficult.
Saleh, David's friend Henry, and I eventually got separated from the rest of the group, and we ended up going pretty far. I'm not exactly sure how far, but it was definitely farther than I had ever gone on a bike. We stopped for coffee and really yummy muffins along the way. I learned about gears on a bike, and the differences between mountain and road bikes. We rode along the bike trail which was on the bay, and it was really pretty.
Got honked at a couple times because we were going too slow. Explored many suburbs in Melbourne. It was pretty fun. Then when we went back to return the bikes, we met up with the rest of the gang and walked around St. Kilda. Last time we went to St. Kilda, it was pouring rain. This time, it was great weather - sunny and bright. There was a little craft fair going along the pier, and an amusement park. It reminded me a little of the Boardwalk up in Santa Cruz.
Anyway, my research is going. NIMROD is working, and I'm trying to figure out how to get it to work properly. And our bottoms are still sore.