spaceboykhan

11:27am: haven't worked since sunday. had a small park session on monday on skis. can slide the box sideways fairly easily now. also tried a 360 on the box. nailed it first attempt. then progressively worse every attempt afterwards. also tried to do a 3 off a small roller. almost made it the first attempt. ate it quite badly on the second try. decided to stop trying after that.

was going to go to tsubo for dinner that night but it was closed. so went to cilantro for pot & paella night again. to start we had fresh sourdough with olive oil and some herbs & spices dips. then more bread with broadbean pate, which wasn't too bad. and some kind of meatballs after that. b4 the paella finally came out. wasn't as good as last time this time. just seemed to be rather poorly done and the ingredients weren't quite up to scratch this time. oh well.

then yesterday went to tsubo for our last house dinner before one of our roomates left. they all got the feed me again. i stayed with pork belly hotpot goodness again and some other stuff of the menu. the soy fried chicken and fried tofu and mushroom broth. this time they got some different stuff for the feed me. including soy honey baked duck at the end. which everybody struggled with cos we were all massively full by that point. i got to try a piece. wasn't that great. maybe cos i was also ridiculously overfull.

after we walked home i was not in a good place. really felt like puking. somehow managed to keep it down and fall asleep. and everything was back to normal in the morning.

8:18pm: epic fail on the level 1 ski exam. was to be expected. doesn't matter. it was a fun 2 days at buller. aside from the bullshit setup there. have to pay for gate entry and the village taxi to accomodation. cos you can't drive up there. you have park your car in one of the multitude of useless parking lots in the middle of nowhere, then you have to pay a shitload to get crammed into a back of a fucking troopie to take you to where your staying. fucking bullshit. highlight of the trip was little buller spur run. a really fucking nice long blue run. carved the fuck out of it on the 2nd day after the exam. too bad the chairlift up takes forever. 15mins up the lift, 2mins down the run. still, fully awesome run.

had a go on a sit ski on friday for adaptive training. was interesting. destruction on the lower back tho. was guided the first time. then had a go on my own while being tethered. was a bit difficult at first, fell or almost fell a few times. eventually got the hang of it near the bottom of the run, where it was a bit steeper and could get some speed. did another run while being tethered after lunch, was doing pretty well. then had a go at tethering on the snowboard. not easy and quite hilarious. luckily the guy in sit guy was decent at it. lost hold of the tether a few times and he even went switch once. fucking hilarious.

also end of season party that night at the local hotel. so didn't have to catch bus home afterwards. was pretty good. jungle theme, did something super lame and ghetto for "costume" last minute. some ok food and a presentation of awards for people and stuff.

was gonna goto white room on its last day for the season, for tapas. but closed at lunch time. oh well. then tried to goto cilantro for tapas, but booked out for private function. then to tsubo for light meal, not serving food until later. then tried at rundells, also not serving food yet. so much for that.

7:49pm: went to blakes at zirky's friday night. nose was a bit blocked so taste buds were a bit dulled unfortunately. still worth it tho. cos one of our roommates worked there we had a comp starter of the gnocchi dish. with moreton bay bugs, sage brown butter, and peas. really good.

for entree i had the quail, boned & stuffed, portabello mushrooms, serrano jamon, parmesan-polenta porridge. the quail was massive, the legs and wings still had bones. very large serving for an entree. yeah, it was good. dunno what else to say.

main was the twice-cooked belly of suckling pig, cavalo nero, qunice jam. obviously my expectations were too high. it was good but not the fucking amazing that i was hoping. fat content a bit too low and skin not like usual suckling pig skin. quince jam was really nice and the cavalo nero was fine.

dessert ended up going with the chocolate fondant pudding, white chocolate pudding. really wanted the hot hazelnut praline souffle, frangelico ice cream. maybe next time. was good. quite rich but not as rich as was led to believe. couldn't really taste the white chocolate flavour in the ice cream. oh well.

overall a good night. probably the best place so far. the waitress was also smoking hot from estonia. gotta love ee chicks. also got a 10% discount on the whole bill!


level 1 ski exam on 1st and 2nd at buller. leaving tomorrow. will most likely fail. but may pull something out of my ass. will try and pass as many components as possible. then can finally relax and enjoy the rest of the season. and snowboard more and do stupid stuff.

4:37pm: went back to the place we had the dego on monday night. there was only one entree we hadn't had, the goat's curd one. pass on that. had the trout and nori ravioli again. and the braised pork belly main. wasn't really that great. belly was quite dry with very little fat content, almost like over roasted pork. the rest of stuff of the dish was good tho. polenta cake was nice. scallops were good, even the roe part. and the crackling was awesome. one of the other guys had the angus beef fillet and braised beef shin dish. that looked so fucking good. so should've got that. for dessert got the dark chocolate pudding. can't go wrong with a dark chocolate dessert. for some reason all of our desserts were comped. that was nice.

11:25pm: tsubo again on wednesday. the others got the $85 feed me option. which is a shitload of random plates from the menu. probably too much food for them. i got gyoza as entree, which was good but fuck all. only 3 pieces for $8. and the pork belly & apple hot pot proper this time. so fucking good. shitloads of pork belly. melt in your mouth fatty goodness. the apple "broth" complemented it very well. along with the potato and some other vegetable that was carrot or tomato. the others were full after they had the hot pot, so tried the last few dishes. the beef dish was well overcooked, not so great. sauteed mushrooms were not too bad. spinach had the same problem as the green tea noodles. didn't rate the mandarin souffle either. seemed odd.

4:28pm: went to poker last night. came 2nd out of 30. won nothing. had AJ and lost to 56 on the river. oh well. got lucky earlier when all-in big blind and won against 5-6 players. so it wasn't too bad. free shot this time was straight peach schnapps.

9:36am: went to dego last night
for the mountain fresh festival in hotham and dinner plain. at graze at rundells. did not have the wine option but tried them all anyway. really can't say if they matched well or not. 6 courses...

1. seared octopus carpaccio, smoked eel, muscatel jelly, caraway lavosh.
yeah... didn't really rate it. the jelly was cool. it all went together really well tho.

2. Harrietville mountain trout and nori ravioli, spinach and basil buerre noisette.
really liked this one. the ravioli had good flavours and the buerre noisette was yum.

3. cured highland venison, micro herbs, beetroot sorbet, roasted nuts, apricot puree.
hmm... all of it didn't really seem to work well together. the sorbet was a bit out of place. venison was interesting...

4. duck liver, milawa organic duck breast and croquette with witlof and beetroot jam.
probably best dish of the night. even the liver was ok. everything worked well together.

5. roast rack of organic Cherry Tree lamb, braised shank tart, white bean puree, black olive jus.
the lamb was fucking amazing. and the tart filling was so rich. pastry seemed a bit dry. maybe it was just mine. came with broccolini, which i hate. and don't rate balck olives either. but the lamb was good.

6. macadamia nut and saffron fingers with lemon curd tart and vanilla bean anglaise.
a dessert without dark chocolate is not a dessert... nah, it was pretty good. can't go wrong with anglaise.

overall a pretty good night. good food, good company. next stop probably tsubo again for more pork belly heavenly goodness.

10:54am: been out every night this week. wtf??

mon. pot (being what they call a 285ml of beer here (but everyone ended up getting the house red instead (alpine hill merlot or something like that (suprisingly quite drinkable)))) & paella night at cilantro, just down the road. started with a few tapas plates before the paella finally came out. first was some fresh sourdough bread. yum. still hate offal. though everyone else seemed to like the chicken pate. didn't have the barley tabouli. the mackerel was interesting... almost like the consistency of tuna out of a tin. then scallops on some fennel paste stuff. not a fan of the roe part. just the scallop bit is fine with me thanks. then finally the paella. had chicken, chorizo, bugs, prawn, scallops, squid, and mussels. not much of a crust on the bottom tho. was pretty ok. and finally we ordered dessert as extra. pear tarte tatin with toffee and custardy sauce. and dark chocolate ganache pudding with plum ice cream and cherry sauce or something. didn't rate tarte tatin that much, but as usual any dessert with dark chocolate is fucking awesome.

tue. went to apl poker. came 7th even tho i didn't chip up with the beer card. got a free shot (brain haemorrhage) for making the final table. apparently, also have qualified for regionals in albury. that wasn't hard.

wed. pot & parma night at high plains. had carlton draught last time, managed to get coopers pale ale this time. slightly better. parma is not too bad, decent size and comes with chips.

thu. trivia night at high plains. just the 3 of us. and most were not middle/upper class white person, so didn't too great. did well in half the rounds, but shit in the other half. maybe next week with more people...

fri. went to tsubo. "japanese style" modern australian. had already eaten stuff earlier so didn't have too much. the miso soup vongole. miso was quite strong, had mushrooms, (shitloads of) clams, and some other type of mushroom maybe. was pretty good. hadn't had miso soup for fucking ages. and green tea noodles with ponzu dressing. wasn't that good. dressing was way too strong. too much vinegar. best dish of the night was the pork and apple hot pot "oden". for the guy the got the $65 feed me option. twice cook pork belly and stuff in an apple broth/sauce/juice thingy. by then he was full, so had half of the pork belly. so fucking good. high fat content, melt in your mouth goodness. didn't care the dude that had it may have swine flu. totally worth it. didn't bother with dessert this time, mandarin souffle. looked good, but not a fan of mandarin.

10:16am: kinda hard to post without decent internet
quick summary

went to melbourne. hung out there for a few days. went to hotham for hiring clinic. just made it in, i think. went back to melbourne for a week to recover from poor high altitude conditioning.

someone found some rather expensive accomodation in dinner plain (15kms down from hotham central), so one less thing to worry about. too bad there's three of us in the one bedroom, while the 4th guy (who found the place) has a whole room and double bed to himself. nice. and he doesn't pay more rent. whatever.

then back to hotham for more boring training.

found out would be working with the 3-6 yr olds. wasn't happy. but after some shadowing of it, didn't seem too bad. then they changed it to 3-5 yr olds. and got moved to working with the 6-14 yr olds. which is ok too.

last few weeks have been busy as, thanks to school holidays. should quiet down now. more free time to try and improve skiing. cos it's still pretty bad...

8:32pm: hooray, it's finally cold
tried and failed miserably at surfing a few weeks back maybe. got dumped quite a few times. also on the same day, wasn't allowed onto sanctuary golf resort driving range cos we didn't have closed shoes. fucking elitist racist fucks. that's a bit harsh but who would have a wedding there? and thongs never stopped us at any other driving range ever. ended up finding a book from my (very short) books i guess i want to buy list, at a quite decent price in a quite very nice 2nd hand condition ((probably) cos it was previosuly owned by an asian chick) at a good sammys or something similar.

played the embleton/bayswater par3/4 course almost not too long ago. didn't do very well due to lack of adequate visual aids.

hotham in under a month. should probably book a plane ticket there or something like that maybe possibly.

5:19pm: south west abouts
went down south about a week ago. nothing much happened. went to must margaret river for dinner. the gnocchi with duck and mushroom dish was awesome. and the dry aged rump too. can't remember last time had steak, but yeah. dessert was fucking amazing again. fresh churros with dark chocolate dipping sauce. fuck yeah. drank all the leftover sauce afterwards.

went to proper par 3 in busselton. did very well considering ((complete) lack of) driving range form. 9 holes ranged from 90m to 170m or so, good variety of distances. nice course, nice greens. some kangaroos were hanging around the first hole too.

went to some wineries and had lunch at duckstein. overrated and overpriced. disappointing. bratwurst was ok, but didn't rate the kassler cutlet. portions were too small for the price too. and went to a few more wineries.

7:55pm: east coast revue and many ranting
back from the almost 2 weeks on the east coast. suppose i should write about it. tho much will be omitted...

took two (red eye) flights to get to gold coast and straight to movie world. fuck me, i didn't want to go there. what a waste of fucking money. the superman roller coaster was alright tho. that's about it. oh yeah shrek 4d was ok too i supposed, the 4th 'd' being having water and air sprayed into your face.

wet'n'wild water world the next day. main fucking i reason i went. waterslides are fucking awesome. and you get to perv at hot chicks with big tits in bikinis. highlight of the trip. would've liked to've gone harder but by after lunch there were practically no lines anyway, so it was possible to do loops of the rides. best ride that wasn't closed, probably the tornado. might be cooler with 4 people, then i wouldn't've had to carry the floatie on my own most of the time. would've been nice if at least half of mach 5 was open.

then to byron, where it pissed down with rain non stop the whole fucking time. hoofuckingrayray. went to the most eastern most point of (mainland) australia tho. 2 down, 4 to go. (wtf?)

next was coffs. didn't rain so much there. wasn't too bad. not as fucking backpacker touristy as byron. fuck i hate backpackers. so coffs was ok. went to the big banana before we left and it started pissing down with rain again.

stopped at a service centre in taree for kfc zinger burger ultimate meal with 3 wicked wings and chips upsized instead of the potato & gravy for lunch. great value.

then down to jewcastle and stopped there for a little bit. climbed the queens wharf tower or whatever it was called. that was cool, decent views. walked along coast/jetty/beach/breakwater/whateverthefuckitwas. saw a lot of funny and cool dogs.

then finally to sydney for phase 2 of trip. thank goodness no more fucking driving. only crazy people drive in sydney. even with the gps it was like a fucking maze. spent almost a week, didn't really do much in sydney. been there enough times. starting to grow on me, not as bad as i first thought on intial visitation many years ago. (perth has really turned into an overpriced shithole tho.) went to real estate to talk about property. walked around the city a bit. walked around crows nest in north a bit. went to look at property, wasn't too bad. food highlight of trip came at lunch on last day. fresh roti kaya with ice cream at mamak's. so fucking good. the contrast of the fresh hot roti with the ice cold ice cream made it even better. fucking dessert bliss.

and back to perth for 30+ weather. it's the middle of fucking autumn. what the fuck is going on? the fucking middle of autumn not the fucking start or 1st third, the fucking middle. fucking cool down already. fucking global warming or some such shit cunts.

ps. NO to daylight savings. it's fucking gay. the end.