I guess most of you have read the recent news where Fat Mama was presented with a Honorary Degree by Curtin University in Perth. The award has created one of the biggest blob in Curtin’s history as most Malaysians and Singaporeans alumnus are opposing to the decision.

Well, most of you know Curtin is not any fly by night types of university. Though they don’t offers degrees like some Online Colleges, they have many branches in Asia. And I think that was why the entire decision got into hot soup when most of the alumnus opposed to the decision.

Since I am part of the alumni, I too have the same sentiment. What has Fat Mama contributed to the community???? Mind boggling indeed!

One of the things while we are away from our birth country is to make sure that our kids do not forget their roots. We are very proud of Darrius for picking up Mandarin when he spent 2 years in the kindy. His grasps of the language is not excellent but I can say it is sufficient for him to pick up more if we give him the opportunity.

Of course we will never let him slide away if we can. Therefore, we made the painful search for the right school to send him to so that he can continue learning the language…

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I must say, there are plenty of such weekend schools in Melbourne! Most of them are run by native PRC who have migrated here and most of the students are also PRs from China. We visited 2 schools over the weekend and evaluated the classes that was being conducted and we are happy that we found one which is very near our place and the teacher is a very experience middle age lady.

Initially we thought we put Darrius in the Year 1 class but discovered that it was too easy for him so we asked to change him to the Year 2 class. Though he has already learned some of the words in the Year 2 syllabus, we figured that it is good for him to slowly blend in and not push him too far.

According to the principle, the syllabus of all the Chinese classes are developed by the Ministry of Education in China specially for overseas students. Each session is 3 hours and once every weekend. The kids get two 15 minutes breaks in between so they won’t fall asleep! The course will cost of $320 for the whole year…

Hopefully Darrius will be able to continue and learn more! He is our hope in preserving our roots!

When I first arrived here in Melbourne, I must say there are so many stuff I’ve not seen before when I visited the farmers markets! Though I have been living in Perth for 2 years 10 years ago, there are just too many new things here to be discovered! So, life is definitely interesting and exciting here!

A couple of weeks back, while shopping at Coles, I came across this weird looking fruit…

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Well, they don’t really look weird actually… they do look a bit like palm oil fruits but they are hard. I was wondering how to open them up. They don’t come in cheap either. The first time I spotted them, they were on sale for $7/kg.

These fruits, called Achacha is actually a type of tropical fruit from the Amazon! It is now being commercially produced here in Australia. To know more about Achacha, check out this link.

So, how does it look like inside and how does it taste???

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I actually have to use a knife to pry it open (I did not check the website earlier prior to opening one) . Someone told me that it is something like mangosteen. The husk (the orange skin) is kinda sappy and the fruit inside… well, it tasted a bit like mangosteen! There are just 2 sections inside and each hold a seed. It is not as sweet as mangosteen but it is not sour or bitter for sure.

So, if you happen to see these fruits being sold, do give them a try…

Today I have to take 2 tests. It is for my driver licence conversion. First it was the computerized test with 32 questions and the other one was the hazard perception test with 28 questions. The computerized test is something like the ‘Undang-undang’ test in Malaysia and I did quite well in that. As for the second test, I was lucky that I passed coz the questions are extremely tricky!

I am glad I managed to get through both tests and now I only have my practical driving test to worry about which will take place in a month time. I have yet to engage a driving instructor. Not that I don’t know how to drive but just to have a few sessions to get myself familiarize with the testing routes.

After the tests, Piggy Beng drove around the area and we stopped by some shops to check out some stuff. In one of the shops, we saw some really fancy electrical switch plates on sale but we don’t have our own nest yet so did not get any. probably we will when we got our place next time.

I must say all my investment in those bento gadgets are finally put into good use as it is a MUST to prepare lunch boxes for school going kids here in Australia. Darrius has 2 breaks a day so he needs to have a snack for morning recess and preferably a hot/warm meal for lunch break.

Luckily the school only starts at 9am which gave me ample time to prepare his lunch boxes. For the past few days, he has been getting all these…

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I have yet to unpack all my bento stuff so I am just using what are out of those big boxes… thus not much of fancy stuff yet. Still can’t find all my cutters so for now, only basic stuff but that should suffice for time being.

What matter most is that Darrius is enjoying his hot/warm lunches so I am really happy.

To see more of Darrius bento or school lunches, do pop over to Bento Fun!

Our shipment arrived early this week and we have managed to unpacked most of the boxes (less mine coz I get tired easily now). PiggyBeng has been busy setting up our work stations as we do not like to work on the lappie as much. I still prefer the old desktop with the big monitor screen. Probably I’m getting old so my eye sight is not as good.

The only thing I dislike is all the messy stuff like all those cords hanging around. I already told PiggBeng to get those cord management gadget so that all those mess will not be shown. Men! They just don’t care about aesthetic stuff!

Gosh! How time really flies!

Though Darrius was supposed to be attending Primary 1 early this year like all his peers, but due to our move to Melbourne recently, he has to starts a month later. That is because, the new school year for Victoria only begins in early February.

The timing was great as it gave us some time to settle down in our new place and gave us ample time to prepare. We got him registered to a school nearby our house (just 3 minutes drive away) and everything was set! His first day was yesterday (2 February 2012) and he was pretty excited about his new adventure!

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Most schools here start at 9am in the morning and end at 3.30pm. The kids get 2 breaks in between.

We brought him to school at around 8.45am and the school compound was already filled with cars of parents sending their children to school. We have to park quite a distance away.

On our way to the school’s office, we bumped into the principal and he brought us to Darrius’s new classroom which is just opposite the school’s car park and playground. There are a total of 5 Year 1 classes this year with 20-25 students in each class. Darrius is placed in 1E which is the last class since we only registered him a week ago.The setting of the classroom is very much like his kindy in Penang. They are seated in groups and all writing materials are provided. Oh, did I mentioned that there are no books required??? Yes!!! We have not been asked to get any text books!!!

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The students are required to remove their shoes upon entering the classroom. Not sure why they have this rule but I saw the teacher had her shoes on…

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Once the clock strike 9am, the class teacher made all the students sat in a circle in front and lessons begin. Pretty fast for a first day!!! Parents still mingle around but within 10 minutes, they have all dispersed! I’m surprised as this was actually the 1st day of school! There were a few sobbing kids in Darrius’s class (I am proud of Darrius as he did not shed a single tear!) but they soon stopped once the sat down in front.

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When we went to pick Darrius up at 3.30pm, he was so excited and can’t wait to report to us what he had for the day. He was so happy that he got to play at the sand pit and the playground. He told me he has a few new friends and did a whole lot of stuff with them! The class teacher even gave each of them a tub of yogurt for morning tea break! Well, looks like he is really enjoying school! No homework, no stress! Good for him and good for me!!

Darrius’s new school does not include music classes in their curriculum so we have to have alternative and send him to music schools elsewhere. We still do not have to time to check these centers out yet since we are still trying to settle down before the new school year begin next week.

I’ve spoken to Darrius and asked him which musical instrument he is keen to pick up and he can’t decide between piano, tenor saxophone or the violin. Personally, I prefer him to pick up the piano but I guess all will depends on his interest. I don’t like the idea of forcing him to do something which he might do it half heartedly later and waste our investment.

Will check with him again after he is more settled…

We have been here for 3 weeks now and I could say we are slowly settling down and adjusting to the new routine and time. We managed to sleep at our usual time but tend to wake up slightly earlier than before because the sun rises earlier since it is summer now. The sun don’t set completely till about 9pm now.

It is weekend again and we have planned to visit Ikea in Springvale again to get stuff which we did not managed to get the other time we were there. At the same time we’ll be going to the Vietnamese market to check out if there’s any fish market around to get our supply of fresh fish. Maybe we could find some baby puffer fish for Darrius to keep as pet too!

Will update our find later…

The past one week, we were literally shopped till we dropped! We went from store to store to check out furniture and electronic goods for our new place. The weather was not so ideal as it was really HOT! I think it was around 35 degree Celsius at least if not more. Can feel our skin burning each time we have to get down and up to the car at the parking lot. The thing is, there are very few sheltered car parks in Melbourne.

Since we are renting an empty house, we have to practically buy everything besides the stuff we shipped over. We bought furniture and all electrical goods here as we did not shipped any of those.

Besides that, we also have to stock up on groceries so we can start cooking our own meals as eating out can be a real expensive affair here. We have yet to go look for those cao cigars which a friend asked us to get for him. Still so busy beautifying the house!