It was Amanda's bday today. Met up with her and wanted to have dinner at a Vietnamese restaurant along George Street but by the time French lesson ended, the restaurant was closed for the day so we went to good ol superbowl instead.

Don't be fooled by the Ang Mohish name. It's really quite a fantabulous restaurant for cheap hongkong cuisine served up by real hongkongers. you get the greasy chinese restaurant floor, the weak chinese tea in metal pots, the chaos and also the efficient clearing of tables which consists of sloshing gravy into one big plate and staking all other plates up with gravy filled plate at the top most.

Amanda: yao mo ping suey ( do you have iced water)

Waiter: pink suey??? *in a gwei lou accent*

Amanda: iced water

Waiter: orh.... peng suey...

Amanda & me: *laughs* heh heh....

we are hongky wanabes.... and we get a lesson in proper cantonese enunciation.

Dinner was great. Plain white rice with yummy dishes... haven't had that in yonks... i miss home and home cooked food. We had stewed beef brisket and radish, kai lan and oyster sauce, dough sticks, deep fried crispy beef, ba wang chicken and deep fried squid with spicy salt. The best way to feel warm and fuzzy inside is to have hot food down the gullet.... mmm....

Weather in sydney is turing cool. A sign of wintery months ahead. In a blink of an eye, summer is over. Sigh... so much for living it up this summer. It seems i've barely achieved anything. was initially planning to hermitise myself this week to get myself up to speed with the banal necessities of existence like laundry, ironing and the like but then life is to bleeding short to be tied down by unnecessary necessities.

anyway, amidst our little celebration, both of us felt a tinge of melancholia. It was sobering to realise that we're so far away from home. The yummy dinner that reminds me of zhi char at kopitiams, the absence of close friends who care... family...

not that celebrating birthdays was ever that big a deal to me but it's sad when you feel that no one in sydney would really take the effort to. And i feel bad that i didn't make more of an effort for Amanda's bday too... Bah... i'm a bad friend...

Fortunately, the guys were really sweet. Gen drew her a little portrait which i thought was so sweet and they bought her a pudgee toy and gave her flowers and balloons.... awww.... which also kinda reminded me of my bday when eugene, wen cong, hector et al came to my place, bought me a balloon and gave me mr bean's bear... and then the realisation that my friends are all NOT HERE..... waahhhh.............. wahhhhh...... waaahhh........

if only i could transport them here... *sniffles*