LewsTheri's

On the 23rd, Aya and I had our 'Christmas dinner' at Quay, with spectacular views of Opera House and Harbour Bridge.


Our reservation was at 6.30 pm but we arrived early. So we had a walk on the promenade, taking in the beautiful scenery around The Rocks and Circular Quay. We were lucky that it didn't rain that evening, as it had been cloudy and rainy over the Christmas weekend.

Quay restaurant was located on the top level of the Overseas Passengers Terminal for those large cruise ships at The Rocks so it had the nicest views. We were given a table on the protruded section of the building, which is the tower section of the building as seen from the above photo so we have clear and wide views of the famous landmarks in Sydney, The Opera House and Harbour Bridge.


We were planning to order the chef's signature menu but we weren't feeling that hungry as we just finished a barbie at Emily's apartment at around 3 that afternoon. So we decided to order individual dishes. We started off with a special entree of the day to share. It's a lobster and abalone dish with really good shitake mushrooms and their own handmade silken tofu. It had a bit of the Chinese culinary flavour and looks as you can see from the photos, but it tasted great.


For our mains, Aya had a crispy skin murray cod with scallops, radish, tofu and shitake mushrooms. As for myself, I tried their medium rare 300-day grain fed beef with a special green peas sauce. At first I misread it as a 300g steak so I was slightly disappointed by the portion of the steak when first served. But it was good. The steak was just so juicy, moist and soft that it seemed to melt in my mouth. In the end, the portion is just nice for we wanted to try their desserts. To go with the fish, Aya had a glass of chardonnay; and I had a glass of shiraz with my steak. The meal was really nice, can't say that it's exceptionally exquisite but it's definitely at a whole different level compared to a good steakhouse or cafe. It better be as we paid good money for the meal!


A friend of Aya's recommended that we must try one of their desserts, a five-textured chocolate cake. We did and it didn't disappoint. Why given the 'five-textured' label? Well, when first served, it looked like a normal thin chocolate cake. It appeared to have three layers, a chocolate biscuit base at the bottom, a chocolate mousse layer in the middle followed by a wafer thin chocolate layer on top. It looked like a squashed donut as it had a hole in the middle. The experienced waitress then poured a hot chocolate sauce into the hole and it started to melt from the middle. As we stirred and began in the middle, we discovered that it had a white chocolate layer in the middle that had been melted away by the hot fudge. Because of the five different types of chocolate, hence the name 'five-textured chocolate cake'. It was awesome!

We also had a another dessert, a raspberry-themed sorbet and fruit dessert. But it paled compared to the chocolate cake. We also had a delicious and fruity dessert white dessert wine.

Overall, it was a wonderful dinner. Great views, good service as expected from such a restaurant. Definitely worth a try but be prepared to pay up to 100 bucks minimum including desserts and wine.

Here are some night photos we took of the surroundings.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year from Aya and I!

Skydiver survived plunge!

I think he's gonna be rich with the video.

I really am looking forward to this Christmas and New Year holiday. It's a time for me to just do whatever I want to do. I have like 11 days 'cause I'm leaving for Sydney this Friday and will only be back on the 2nd day of the new year.

I have even listed the things I will be doing:
- Play with our new Wii game console
- Have a barbie at Emily's place for Ian's birthday
- Have made a dinner reservation at Quay, a restaurant at the Rocks with a 3-hat chef award, another one of our pursuits for glorious food.
- Shop for new clothes, preferably some working clothes on Boxing Day
- Have dinner with some friends at I'm Angus for their nice ribs
- Do a bit of extravagant cooking at Aya's place
- Watch some cricket, though we already know that Australia retains the Ashes
- Have booked a flight to Melbourne with Aya to visit some friends there

There's also the matter of doing some work:
- Write on a comprehensive journal paper detailing most of our research and results over the past 3/4 years
- Plan my Ph.D. thesis

So 11 days doesn't seem like a long holiday now that I've got so many things to do :)

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year, guys!

San su's so funny in this video. Check it out! Basically it's a lucky draw for a variety of prizes. It starts from the cheapest prizes to the more expensive ones. So basically you'd want to have your name called out later than sooner. It's just a funny scene to see him fooling around. :)

As I mentioned previously, my supervisor and I gave a quite successful departmental seminar on 12 December 2006 on our research and results on Shape Memory Alloy actuator control over the past 4 years. If anyone is interested, we have uploaded a video clip of the seminar together with the seminar slides on the web.

Note that the video had been recorded such that we are visible in the clip instead of the seminar slides on the projector screen. But it's not a problem as the slides are available for download. The more important issue is that audio from the clip is pretty good so you can hear our seminar as well as watch our body language.

However, the video clip file size is pretty huge, approximately 175 MB. Also, in the middle of the seminar, there was a technical fault with the slides so there was a short pause in my talk.

Link

Any suggestions or comments welcomed.

Robot Kitchen in Hong Kong


Photo by Paul Yeung/Reuters

Here's another funny Chinese menu with English translations.

link

The 10 most bizarre people in the world. Check it out!

link

I have been busy the last few days. Aya's mom was in Canberra last week so I brought her around town to visit some friends. Then we drove up to Sydney on Friday. It was Aya's company dinner and we had promised to go together.
On Saturday we took a ferry from Circular Quay to Manly Beach. It was a 30-minute trip so I had plenty of opportunity to take photos along the way with my N93. Unfortunately it was a bit cloudy that day so some of the photo did not turn out good. But here are some of the nice ones.



Compare the top two photos of Opera House with the bottom three. Look great in 'Negative' mode, don't they?




The last few days had also been a time of eating out because aunty is a good food lover. So we brought her around city, trying out different cuisines, from restaurants which we are also fond of. Here are some photos of our visits and the food we had:

Restaurant: My Angus
Location: Darling Harbour, Sydney
Food: Pork rib rack, Grilled barramundi, Greek salad

Activity: Ferry ride from Circular Quay to Manly Beach
Duration: 30-minute
Price: $12.40 Adult Return Ticket


Location: Manly Beach, Sydney


Activity: Looking at sea gulls hovering in the air, targeting unsuspecting beach-goers and their food
Location: Manly Beach, Sydney


Location: Sydney Fish Market, Pyrmont, Sydney
Food: Grilled swordfish, Prawn skewers, scallops, tuna and salmon sashimi, lobster mornay



Restaurant: Kobe Jones
Location: Kings Street Wharf, Darling Harbour, Sydney
Food: Lolly Pop Roll (shown below), Baked Dynamite Scallops, Volcano Roll, No. 1 Special, Unagi Somen Noodles,

We also had Yum Cha in Chinatown as well as Korean food in a Korean restaurant called 'Madang'. You'd never find it because you have to walk into an alley and make a turn so you can't really see the restaurant front from the main street. But it is always packed. We had to wait for about 30 minutes to get a table for three. Food was delicious!

I rushed back on Monday morning because I had a departmental seminar to prepare and present on Tuesday. More about that later.

An article on Forbes.com about one of my favourite authors, Robert Jordan, who writes the famous fantasy series of The Wheel of Time (WoT).

Forbes.com has published an article on their website which profiles Robert Jordan, his illness, and the outstanding support that his fans have shown. Several WoT fan sites are mentioned, including Dragonmount.

The article is filled with some great insight, and includes a discussion of the fate of the final Wheel of Time novel, A Memory of Light.

Two cool phrases from the article:

There are readers, and then there are fans. Readers offer condolences when a favorite author falls ill. Fans offer bone marrow.

The Wheel of Time is like Lord of the Rings on steroids.

More information on the series The Wheel of Time:
Dragonmount
Wikipedia

Australia Wins the Second Ashes Test!

It was one of the best turn arounds in test crickets. By the end of yesterday, a draw was the best result Australia could hope for but the performance by the Australian team today blows our mind away!

Here's a news excerpt from ninemsn.com.au
____________________________________________________________________________________
Shane Warne called it the greatest Test he'd ever played and Ricky Ponting was named man-of-the-match, as Australia completed an extraordinary six-wicket win in the second Ashes Test in Adelaide.

Led by Mike Hussey's unbeaten half-century, Australia were largely untroubled in chasing 168 off 36 overs, charting the path to an almost unassailable two-nil series lead in the final hours of day five.

Earlier Warne was the star — securing four wickets — as England crumbled for just 129, for whom Paul Collingwood played a defiant hand, finishing with 22 not out in an innings which lasted nearly three hours.

Day five belonged to Australia from the opening overs.

A nervous England contributed to their own downfall with a defensive approach, and were also unlucky to lose the early wicket of opener Andrew Strauss.

Replays showed he'd missed the ball when given out caught in close by Hussey, off Warne.

But his departure unhinged the tourists who then capitulated, led by the needless and critical runout of Ian Bell.

The England number three played to Michael Clarke at point, set-off for a run, started and stopped, and by the time he'd decided to go, was well out at the bowlers end.

Australia were relentless from then on.

First innings centurion Kevin Pietersen was bowled around his legs by Warne and, when Brett Lee accounted for Andrew Flintoff, England were plunging toward defeat.

Collingwood stood tall for 119 deliveries but no one could stay with him.

After lunch Matt Hayden caught Geraint Jones off Lee and assisted in Warne's 693rd test wicket, to remove Ashley Giles.

Warne then bowled Hoggard and Glenn McGrath trapped Steve Harmison and James Anderson LBW to complete the rout.

Australia were always odds on in the chase, and fittingly, it was Australia's top player in 2006, Mike Hussey who had the final say, hitting the winning runs to finish on 61 not out, as Australia went two-nil up with 19 balls to spare.
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Australia now leads 2-0 in the 2006-2007 Ashes Series.

Wonderful Christmas Lights Displays!

If you're in Canberra, you shouldn't miss this impressive Christmas Lights Displays in the suburb of Bonython in Tuggeranong.







When you reach Bonython, just follow the flow of cars. It will lead you right to the house. Make sure you make a gold-coin donation for the charity once you get there.