17 October 2011

Cooking

One thing that I have definitely enjoyed and improved in Melbourne, is cooking.

With the freedom of cooking whatever I want, I can sense that my general cooking skill has been constantly improving (chopping, frying, seasoning etc) and I am always trying to cook something that I've never done before. here are some of my recent ones:

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Scambled Egg sandwich in bite size, ham and tomato salad in truffle balsamic vinegar and olive oil 
(yes it's not really cooking, but the egg was pretty fluffy and soft, i was pretty happy)

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天津飯 (てんしんはん)
Its a Japanese Chinese cuisine that really has nothing to do with traditional Chinese dishes. Since I have never eaten it in my life, i can only imagine what it's like and make the sauce purely out of the blue. in the end i used smoked salmon and ham instead of crab stick/crab meat and made a hot and sour sauce instead of...watever sauce. 
 
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Gyoza or Dumplings and some vege soup. The main focus of this photo is the fact that the dumplings were frozen when i fried them. After 8 months of eating frozen dumplings, I can claim myself as a master at frying frozen dumplings. Period.

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Yakisoba (焼きそば) basically it's just japanese fried noodles, mixed with chicken liver, pork, cabbage and beansprout, nothing special, but tasted bloody good~~

Walking in a Smokey Forest

I didn't know why did I stop posting about half a year ago. I would've thought that moving to a new place that excites me wouldve made my blog more interesting, but life in Melbourne turned out to be quite different to what I thought it would be. and the major reason, is uni.

Everyone told me that master is such a bludge, you don't have to do anything so coming from my bachelor, i would take it the same way. It turned out that I would go to uni for 4-5 days a week, despite the fact that I am only spose to be there for 3 days. Most of my weekends are spent going to different group assignments, and eventually go home to work on it...

but either way, i think overall i am having a great time here, despite the fact that its not really what i had in mind a year ago when i decided to come.

so this should be another re-start to my blog, hopefully the next one won't be half a year apart.

12 October 2011

Multicultural Impact

Prior to this post graduate course, I expected roughly 6:4 ratio of local student and international students. However, I was surprised at the fact that it was more like 7:3 international to local. Being a Hong Kong Chinese that grew up in Australia, that moved to Melbourne purely for this master course, i find my identity slightly blurry. Seems like at times i am perceived as an Australian by international students, but on the other hand, my lack of knowledge towards Melbourne made me look like an international student. Little did I know this has actually became one of the best thing that can happen to me.

As I speak fluent English and Chinese, I was able to communicate with a most of the students in our course. As most international students came from China, I was able to meet many Chinese students from different part of China, which I was not exposed to back in Brisbane. On the other hand, I would consider myself as an Australian as well as a Hong Kong Chinese, which allows me to associate with local student from Melbourne. Alongside with other students from other countries such as Singapore, Germany, Denmark, Malaysia etc, everyday you can hear opinions from all different ethnics and background on one topic. This is a very helpful aspect of this course as the cultural barriers between each countries and races are becoming thinner and thinner (thanks to the help of the almighty internet), globalization is something that we will have to understand and work with for the rest of our career.

*Much like the book my Thomas Friedman: The World Is Flat, I think it is the same for Advertising Industry. Media and information are being spread across the world practically with no delay whatsoever, advertisers needs to be aware of how the rest of the world will see their work*

In one of my course, International Advertising, we learned about the importance of Globalization + Localization = Glocalization. Having such a diverse group of students studying together everyday, it is like glocalization conference in every class. For example, having the chance to meet students from Germany made me realize how open their country is towards nudity in TV advertising, and on the other hand meeting a student from Indonesia has also opened my world towards country where religion plays a really big part.

In a personal benefit point of view, getting to know all these people from around the world also means expanding my personal network worldwide. As mentioned in previous posts, the rise of social media is something that will change our life, if it hasn't already done so. Maybe one day, because of my multinational network on Facebook, I would be lead to places that I have never considered or thought about, who knows?

09 October 2011

The Constantly Changing Industry

If there is one thing I learn about the constantly changing industry, it would be the rise of digital and social media. As we all know, mobile phone and social media has already become a fundamental part of our daily lifestyle. Traditional media such as TVC and prints are nowhere near as effect as they were 10 years ago because people are simply not watching them nearly as much as they used to. As Tim Evans has stated in his interview, mobile advertising is one of THE area that his team will focus at; coming from the largest digital agency in Australia I think it's fair to assume this is because it has the largest potential.

From the interview, research and what we learned in this program, I would say the way to deal with changes is to accept it, study it and become part of it ASAP. It is always important, especially in this industry to become a leader and get your name out there. For example using Facebook as a media channel was not something that would be included in a media plan 4-5 years ago. However, the first person that started this method would have became leader and dominated the market, atleast during the initial stage.

So my take on changes is not to go against, but go with the flow as soon as possible. In terms of impact, it is too early for me to predict what area of advertising will I fall into, but it would be a great accomplishment if I can one day become the innovator to start a trend within the Advertising world. For example the use of Facebook and Twitter as a marketing tool.

05 October 2011

My Future in this Industry

At this stage of my study, the area that attracts me the most in Strategy Planning. As I have no prior education in the field of communication, advertising, design or media, creative and media agencies are out of my target list. The reason i want to be a part of the planning department is because it seems to be everything about advertising packed into one. It requires thoughtful research and thinking, as well as creative ideas about the direction of the brand or campaign.

In terms of skills and knowledge, I don't claim to be the most hardworking or intelligent student. Many students in the course have worked in the industry and have much deeper knowledge than I do and others just simply work harder than I do. I would consider myself as a better employee than a student, because I somehow take more responsibilities in others' work and business, rather than my own grades. However, that being said I am confident that I have learn what I need to enter the industry, and because at this stage of my life, this is what I want to do the most, I am very eager to learn from the real world and ready to push myself.

Although I grew up in Australia since 8 yrs old, I am still very familiar with the Hong Kong and asian culture and I would actually like to start my career in Hong Kong. Partly because I have never really experienced what it's like to work there, but also I find myself having a great advantage of speaking fluent English, Chinese, Cantonese and although not relevant, conversational Japanese. As Hong Kong is one of the major city that links up the Chinese market and the Western market, I feel like it is an exciting place to work at with opportunities to venture into the China market as well as other Western countries.

The challenge would be adapting to the fast pace living style and the fact that I have no prior working experience I guess.

27 September 2011

The Digital Team (or we call ourselves The Great Team/ The Perfect Team))

When team first formed, the idea behind it was relatively simple. The first four member of the team was me, Quinton, Josh Dorevich (Josh. D), Josh Oakley (Josh. O) and Jonathan See (Jon). If you didn't realise, this is actually 4 of the 5 guys in our class. Having known Josh. D and Jon from pretty much every class since semester 1, it was a logical decision to group as everywhere else seemed to be groups and groups of young ladies. When Josh. O sees us forming, we assumed he just wanted to be a part of the boys group, even though we haven't met before. And as the other groups were getting too big, Natalia Alessi (Nat) and Amy Gao were added to the group and this is how the group was formed.

We did not assign a particular leader or anyone to organise our work as we all get along quite well during the class and out of the class. It wasn't until Josh. D got us an interview with Tim Evans through one of his friend then we decided maybe we can let him be our spokesperson for now. We let him decide on the date and time, which more or less follows the Tuckman's model of forming.

Ever since the assignment have started, we meet up on a regular basis, discuss related or non related topics on our own Facebook group page and slowly building up a relationship between each other. Of course there were times when we have disagreements, but as a whole, I would say each and every single member of the group are relatively easy going and after all, we all understand that we are here to get the job done. I personally felt that team building, whether for a uni assignment or in the workforce, if the team atmosphere is good and everyone are striving towards the same goal, the final outcome will always be better than a collective of individual work.

Of the 5 stages in the Tuckman's model, I would say that the fifth stage, Adjourning is the hardest part. Regardless of the final outcome, we have put in a great deal of efforts in our assignment and as a team, we are very proud of what we have accomplished. Throughout the whole process, we were enjoying ourselves but at the same time learning about the topic and how to work as a team. For example Jon is the most skillful in the area of multimedia, so he took up the role to produce the power point and the layout of the report. And since Nat and Amy were not very confident about their speech, we all helped them out prior to the presentation, hoping they would feel less nervous and confident about themselves.

At the end of the day, of course we wouldn't have difficulties moving on from this group, but it was a great experience and I am sure we will be keeping in contact in the future. This is what a great team building to me is all about, it is not only about how well you performed in your assignments, but how well did you end up knowing the person in your team and build relationships with them. I would say we were very lucky to have found a handful of people that get along with each other, and there really isn't much negative comments I can say about this Digital a.k.a The Great Team. Again, regardless of the result, we all put in our effort for the presentation and report and I am sure as a team we were very happy with what we did.

21 August 2011

D.T Digital and Tim Evans

Before I engage into the actual blogposts, I must say I am grateful for this assignment, or else I would probably never update my blog again. So thank you Kerin.

So on the 17th of August, me and my team (consists of me, Josh Dorevich, Josh Oakley, Jonathan See, Natalia Alessi and Amy Gao) went to D.T Digital to interview the Digital Strategy Director of Ogilvy Group Melbourne, for our group assignment about Digital Agency. Before the interview, we all went and looked up on Tim Evans and wanted to know some background information about him. So we found out that he started off in Fashion industry, then moved to BBDO and eventually Ogilvy.

here is a picture of the man himself:

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For most of us, that was the first time entering an actual agency and being the biggest digital agency in Australia, we were pretty excited. As we were nervously sitting in the reception area waiting for Tim, we started fantasizing about one day working at somewhere as awesome as D.T Digital. Situated in top floor on St. Kilda road, 360 degree view with creative looking people walking around, we were sold to the advertising world. Shortly after when Tim arrived, all the boys were shocked, but later we all came to a conclusion that this man in front of us is what we are aiming for (although the girls denied, but we think they lied). Firstly he is young, being 26 years old and already a strategy director has already amazed us, but it was his passion, his confidence and his knowledge that really got us excited. And the worst of all? He was actually quite a good looking guy.

He took us for a short tour, then we sat down at the pantry for a short interview and said our goodbye. Throughout the interview, Tim not only answered our questions related to our assignments, but also shared some of his personal insights about the industry and advertising in general. Obviously, being the leader of a digital group, he is very aware of how digital and technology are affecting our lifestyle. What i got out  of him is how supportive he is to the industry, but also how excited he is about all the change that is going to happen, and most important of all how is he going to be a part of it.

He told us how mobile technology and social media have become the dominant focus of their company and the reason behind it. Ever since the introduction of iphone and the smartphones that followed, we have changed our way of communication. Tim himself is very excited about having the ability and power to be a part of this revelation and is willing to make a change.

What I personally got out of the interview is a question to myself: What role do I want to play in this industry?

Being a student with no prior knowledge and education that relates to advertising, I can honestly say that I do not have the passion or objective to change anything. However, it seems like for the next few years after I graduate, I would become a part of this industry. Which occurs to me that in order to become someone like Tim, it is the driving force that sets yourself above your competitors and how much do you enjoy your career. As I have not gained any working experience in this field, it is too early to comment, but I think it is very important for me to treat Advertising as a part of my lifestyle, rather than part of my education and future career, if I want to become someone like Tim Evans one day.

24 March 2011

Japan

I haven't been really up to date with what's going on in Japan, not because i don't care, but because i care too much about my favourite country (apart from Hong Kong and Australia, of course). Call me pussy but i am actually scared to know what IS going to happen to this beautiful country. I was once 100% determined, and still am to go to Japan one day to refine my Japanese and be fluent in my best subject, ever. but with the state of the country, i don't know when can i fulfill this dream. I have always believe that the world is on its own track and everything is bound to happen for a reason, but i still hope the people at Japan can overcome this nightmare, and only to grow stronger and better.

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i found this picture from Flwrider, and it's a before and after picture of Tokyo, one of the most technologically advanced, beautiful and highest population density city, in the world.

after the earthquake in New Zealand, Flooding in my home town Brisbane, and many many more natural disasters, I have even more faith that something is going to happen in 2012, be it the end of the world or not.

with all these disasters happening, it's really hard to believe that the world is not coming closer, but missiles are still fired between countries, best wishes to the innocents over at Libya too.

Things in my new home

since living by myself, i've been trying to cook as much as i can and started out my new collection:

Whisky

whisky is probably my favourite alcoholic beverage, right next to beer. (mixed drinks not included) 
and now that i have all the time to myself, i have decided to start experimenting and collecting whisky. of course with my financial situation and my on going habits (cds, books, bike, ps3, DVD, shoes, camera, jeans....shit), i can only start off with something SLIGHTLY better than say...Jack Daniels and Black Labels. and to start it off, i got myself a Glenlivet Single Malt 12 years

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bonus shots of my cooking
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meal

12 Apostles

a while ago, Deena and Chris took me along to a road trip to the 12 Apostles. If you are not familiar with it, it's 12 (used to, it's only 7 or 8 now) limestone stacks off the cliff nearby. i call it a road trip because it's a 4-5 hours drive that felt much like a road trip...

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tourist, yeh yeh yeh

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the ones having their back against us are Deena and Chris~


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you are looking at Jesus' workers

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looking at this makes me wonder what Australia really looks like

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we all found this pretty funny

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windy as fuuuccckkk~

after 5 hrs of drive and 30 minutes of viewing, we decided it's time to go, and on the way back we had fish and chips at the nearest little town and off we go!

ps: i was the driver for the first half on the way back and i was having fun driving chris' integra pretending to be the tofu guy. but then a kangaroo got angry at my reckless driving and decided to play chicken with me~at the end i lost but he still charged at me...but luckily the the car, the kangaroo and all 3 of us are safely back to melbourne!!

it was a great day~

09 March 2011

Random photos

just some photos i've been taking that i feel like posting

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Grocery Shopping

the first day i move in to my new apartment, i realise there's shit loads i needed to buy before i can "live" there, even for a night. and since my car is down yet, i'd have to walk about 5 mins to the coles or safeway on chapel st to get my stuff (right opposite to each other...why?) and since i have so much to buy, i decided i'll take my mission workshop vandal with me. and after my trip to the bottle shop, coles, asian super market, this is what i got back with me.

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when it was fully loaded, but i am sure i've only used up to 70% of its potential

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what it looked like at the top

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more to come

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thats about what's in it, but i couldn't feel any kind of uncomfortableness or anything while i was walking back, one day i'll fully test its capacity!

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i've read about this Sunzest orange juice from a few bloggers and sites and all i've heard are good news and OH MY!! it's definitely the best bottled orange juice i've ever had in my life! this thing really deserves its own post. and while it's slightly on the expensive side, it is totally worth it, try it out people!

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this is the first dinner that i made in my new home, and funny enough, natto was the food i craved the most since i left brisbane~

life in Melburn

so! it's been 2 full weeks that i have been living in melbourne and things are looking better and better~
i crashed at Carmen's for my first two weeks and met her wonderful housemates(wonderful because they cooked for me, drove me to some places, offered many many electronics and furniture (but i didnt end up taking any lol), and gave me a good foundation of what melbourne is like.
and why isn't carmen doing that? cause she went off to japan after two days of my arrival and not coming back for 3 weeks, great friend.

during my first week there i was busy with house hunting and knowing my ways around melboure~
met up with Deena to get my student ID and had some cheapo dumplings (they were good tho) in this ghetto alleyway~and she also introduced me to Chris, which later on took me to a house inspection and let me chilled at his place bcoz i have nowhere to go and no home to return lol (for the first 30 seconds me and Deena returned to our pre-hk trip awkward no huggy greetings, but i think we overcome that ;))

house hunting was a bitch, but i ended up finding a SO FAR reasonable student housing in Prahran, about 5 min walk from carmen's place and 30 seconds from train or tram~

Uni has been pretty good, made some new friends from all over the world, and FINALLY met one person that speaks cantonese lol and the class seems much more interesting than what i'm used to (maybe it's the new environment) so hopefully this will give my masters degree a handsome report card at the end.

and right now, i am in my own apartment, typing on the floor because i have no router and the lan cable is not long enough, but i can officially say that i have settled down to a livable standard in melbourne, and i am happy.

really glad i made this decision to come!

23 February 2011

Bye Brisbane

I am about half an hour away from leaving my beloved brisbane and moving away to melbourne as i am typing this blog. I have lived here for the past 15 years, a place that has nurtured and taught me everything that i know and what i shouldn't know. I  met most of my friends and build up all the strings and ties that i have with anyone in this little sunny town, shared my youth and teen with her in return for love and comfort. I also met some of the most important people that have set foot in my life; be it friends, enemies, lovers, partial families and the list goes on. Although i am only 2.X hrs away from my home, leaving this comfort zone for the first time is quite a thrilling feeling, i am now equally excited and scared about what is waiting for me in this foreign town.

wish me luck Brisbane, i'll visit you more often that you and i expect. It's not till now that i am leaving i understand how much i love you!

26 January 2011

Syan and Maton

While i was having dinner with Stephanie, Raymond and Nicole, i also notice this little drawing from one of my music, culture, life and art idol - Mc Yan a.k.a SYAN @ LMF and Fu©kin Music

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and while i walk past Tom Lee in TST, i couldn't resist but to go back and visit this beautiful beautiful Maton Acoustic that I have never seen in Australia, such a lovely cherry red....me love.

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Before and After

to me, my favourite, and most important shoes to me is my pair of staple Black and White Leather Chuck Taylor Hi Cut. My current pair has lasted me 3.5 years and it's pretty much ripped and trashed (or Thrashed) in every single way.

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i have written on it during lecture

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given him a tail

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drew on it

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and full on ripped it from the inside

at this stage, i think my pair of Chucks is at its most matured and coolest condition, apart from comfortableness, i wouldn't want to part with it at all. It's been to Melbourne, Sydney, Taiwan, Japan, China and Macau with me, and definitely the first pair of shoe that comes to my mind when i think about a pair of shoes.


but sadly...no matter how comfortably we go with each other, Mr. Chuck is a pair of shoes afterall...and i think i have pushed him too far. Therefore, as much as i don't want to, i got a new pair to take his place.

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Before and After

when i tried it on, it almost shocked me how Stiff it is, i guess as anything ages, things go soft and loses its stiffness....

goodbye Mr. Chuck, you've done well enough, much better actually. I am sure Mr. Chuck 2 will take your place and we'll travel further and further together!

24 January 2011

Butao Ramen 豚王

After going home at 2:30am the night before, i woke up at 9:30am and headed out with Jerry around 10:15 to meet Ondy and Queenie at Central Station. why?
just because we want a taste of the hottest ramen in town, Butao 豚王.

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now you might think breakfast is too heavy, yeh i think so too. but since this top shit ramen is limited to 200 bowls a day and once it's gone, it's gone. therefore, in order to have a taste of it, people (including us) line up before the shop opens at 11 and patiently wait while our stomach is slowly digesting our intestine.

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there are roughly 40 people behind us after 15 minutes of lining up, and that's around 11:05, by that time we around the 70th customer of the day.

from 11:05...we kept lining up till 12:15......and finally we were seated.
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you get to squash your own garlic and other random sauce and sesame etc etc etc

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while we were waiting for our ramen to come...i tasted something else...a mixture of success and...foolishness...thats the rest of the 100 odd people waiting for ramen.

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finally, my Butao Ramen 赤王 (spicy red miso flavor)

and my comment about the ramen?
it is a decent bowl of ramen, the broth is thick and hot, the noodle is thin and chewy and the pork was definitely delicious. would i line up again? most probably, but not in a short while, and definitely NOT during winter!!
 (on top of the standard ramen, we also added another noodle for $10, extra shallot for $5 and extra pork for $10, just because we waited for so long...as a result, we were too full to even finish our coke)

for more information and proper photos (not my shitty iphone quality ones), you can check out CNNgo.

22 January 2011

Because of Love

lately this song has been on repeat and repeat, not only because it's a really nice song, but the whole concept. this is the theme song for a movie "將愛情進行到底" which is film by the same crew that shot the drama with the same name "將愛情進行到底" 12 years ago.

kinda like "Before Sunrise" and "Before Sunrise", it gives the audience a feeling that they grew up with the character and this song, just calmly, gently pieces all the memories and pictures together.

it's such a simple song, even if this song is done by one guitar only, with Eason Chen 陳奕迅 and Faye Wong 王菲's voice, i think this is a master piece. one day i will write a song just as touching and powerful, yet breaking everything to the simplest....

enjoy, because of love, 因為愛情

2011 continue

so continuing with my second part of 2011 post~

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deena and ice cream before our boat trip to long island

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photographer being taken by another

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being what i have always been - transportation

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triumph foto for climbing the pirate cave 張保仔洞


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next up is new years "1,2,3,4"!

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Happy New Year~

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definitely our best photos together

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most awesome taxi driver ever!

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SMACK!

on the first day of 2011 deena was actually...sick, so i went home and met up with my big brother for family~ (not related)

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what a happy family~

so on the second we went to have a lil adventure on my dad's mini cooper from 1972~which was named "Deena" afterward by...you guessed it, Deena~

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me and Deena

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deena and Deena

afterward that was macau day trip~
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new lisboa

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new lisboa

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ugliest Phantom EVER!!

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even nigo's camo has more swag than that!

at the end i lost 200 and she miraculously won $20 dollars from -300!!
next up, realise that we have pretty much no time left, we started to focus on our main goal again, MUSIC!

so we hired Pac to come record for us with a bowl of Pho~
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and hotpot

and the second last day, it was recording day again, but having an elephantis voice (deena's), it was a hard day's work
and whilst she was doing her recording, she tries to pack and make a card for my family at the same time~

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and finally~on the last day, we woke up, pack and watched Chung King Express, then went and check in at elements. she was actually feeling ill at the time but...she had to go :(
so after sushi, i sent her off to the airport and off she went to Tai Wan and back to Australia~

still misses Pretty Green after 2 weeks~~~~~~~
 and thats my 2 weeks of adventure with Deenacolada!