Of Spicy Hot & Freezing Cold

Hidden in a secluded street along China Town of Melbourne City, this restaurant sells nothing better than red hot spicy chili that can give your mouth an eternity burning effect.

*Welcome to Dainty Sichuan Food， 天府川菜馆

(Picture adapted from rabbitsimsparadise.blogspot.com)

Inspired by me and suggested by Jason, after a whole day of boredom in the so-call science centre, we decided to spend our dinner in this restaurant without knowing the level of spiciness that we are about to witness.
Since this place is kinda 'hidden', we were forced to bring out man's best friend - GoogleMap. The first thing we saw upon reaching at the entrance of the restaurant is a long queue of homo sapien. Determined to taste the Sichuan dishes on that day, we waited for almost 2 hours to only deserved to be placed in the corner of the restaurant with no menu on the table. So, left with nothing much to do we observed our neighbor to see what is the best to order for ourselves later on. After 30 minutes of saliva-dripping session, finally the menu arrived and without much hesitation, we ordered a few dishes with a '3 chilis' icon beside it, indicating that this dish offer the maximum spiciness that the restaurant can afford to do so.

The dishes didn't failed us, they came within a minute starting with this bowl of THING....

*水煮鱼...

*To get a piece of fish out from this bowl of 'chili sea', you first need to submerge your spoon into it and let your feeling lead you to the fish =).

*Another dish with Chili to main ingredient ratio of 9:1.

*This is the only dish with '1 chili' marked on it. Still the spiciness can send you to heaven.

I stopped taking pictures for each and every dish that came after the previous one because that's the time I started to feel my mouth is burning and I am sweating like mad.

*So, a summary of what we ate that night.

*Look at his lips...

*Trust me, all these dishes are seriously extremely spicy....

*.... till this expression can be seen from someone who doesn't appear much in front of the camera.

*Ok, I gave up... Let's get rid of this spicy hot thingy with some freezing cold experience =).

*This transition can be so sudden -_-.

*||||Voice Recovering -- 37%||||

*||||Mouth Burning Treatment -- 67%||||

*||||Body Temperature Stability -- Checked||||

*|||| All Body Senses Status -- Operational ||||

*Ahem*... Ok... my voice is back (partially)... After a long sore throat due to insufficient water intake during the fallscreek trip. Finally I had my childhood dream realized, which is to get a touch on the snow which is really falling down from the sky, not the human-made one. In fact I did more than just snow touching up on the snow mountain. Hehe... Going to a snow mountain without trying at least a snow sport will be meaningless, isn't it? So, guess what?

*I chose snowboarding =)

Organized by both MUMSU (Monash University Malaysian Student Union) and SAM (Singaporean Association of Monash), this should be a winter break trip that lasts for 3 days. The reason they postponed the trip to the 2nd week of school is because they claimed that it is much colder up there compare to the mid year break period.

This trip started on Friday night... eh... I mean Thursday night (Friday morning)... Yes, we gather at school at about 12 am, 31st of July, Friday. The travel bus reached the school at around 1:30 am and we spent almost 7 to 8 hours before we saw pure white snow out from the bus window. That moment was truely amazing.

*On the way and someone has already got so excited.

Ok, practically there is nothing special to talk about throughout the entire journey. So, let's fast forward--->

*Welcome to Fallscreek =)

*... and here we are at our accomodation place

*So we quickly got all our luggages 'settled down' and off we go for fun!

*But before the real fun starts, we paid a visit to this Ski Hire Shop...

*... to get our 'VIP Pass'.. XD...

*... and our snowboards =) !

But the queue were shockingly long outside the shop. So this is the best time to take some shots around fallscreek =).

*So lovely...

*Let's introduce one by one, shall we? Isn't that a good thing to do while waiting for our snowboard =)?

*First to show up, we have... eh... doggy?

*Miss Vivien... and her lovely zuzu....

*... Kungfu Panda! aka Alan.

*Mr Bing, our honourable photographer, ...

*The snowman-builder-wannabe, Kha Liang, ...

*Mr Jason Cool, ...

*My long lost primary school mate (wait, did I mentioned this before?), Choo Hoe, ...

*... and of course not forgetting myself =). Ok, let the snow battle begin!

Snow battle and taking pictures were not good enough to kill time, so....

*... we build snowman =)

*And this is what you can expect an engineering undergraduate to come up with. -_-

*Looks like Alan and Vivien had got themselves their gears ready.

*Choo Hoe is even ready to go... and where are we?

*We are of course, still waiting...

*After waiting for like more than 2 hours, we manage to get into the shop... and wait again -_-"

Ok... We need some fast forwarding here again... ---> ...

*We finally got our snowboard and pass. So what are we waiting for? Let's go.

Snowboarding isn't as hard as what you imagine. It can be much easier than cycling (exaggerating). First, lock one or both of your leg onto the board. Stand up and get the balancing done as soon as possible and off you go!
And wondering how to stop? This is the easiest thing you will do in your entire life. In fact you did that since the first day you learn how to walk. What stops you down when you were walking back at the time when you were young? You fell down isn't it? Exactly! Same goes to snowboarding, you just have to fell down if you want to stop.

I am joking... XD...

Because I didn't know how to stop on the very first day of my snowboarding experience.

*Ladies & gentlemen, may I present to you.. My official first 'Stop'...

*The first photo as soon as we reached the hill top.

*A group picture after everyone got their ass touched on the snow floor.

*as well as some unavoidable camwhoring =)

*Oh ya... Almost forgot about this. Meet our second photographer.

As a bunch of noobies, we obediently attended one of the classes on that day afternoon. The instructor taught all the basic stuff of snowboarding, and most importantly how to stop appropriately, not by having the ass touching on the snow floor.

*The Beginner on the beginner's track.

Here are some proof that we actually attended the beginner training session.

*Oops... we got the wrong banner... This is for skier, not snowboarder.

*Nevermind, it is still the same =)

*Alan is trying to stand up, not fell down. Don't get that wrong. This is during the training session.

*And that's all for the first day.

*It's time to go have a look at our room. Time to check in!

*This is the best scenery picture ever taken. Great job buddy!


*The photographer deserve a good break after so many photos.

Let's give a pause with all the snowboarding and jump to the most delicious part of the entire post (excluding the Sichuan Food).

*This is what we had for our lunch.

*Don't underestimate them. Despite being so tiny in portion, they can cost up to the price of two normal meals.

*While waiting for our dinner.

*Our dinner, Potatoes and Lagsania (Food doesn't include Vivien in it)

*And finally, our breakfast.

We woke up extraordinary-ly early in the next morning. After got our stomach 3/4 filled and a short coffee break, we quickly put on our snowboarding suit and off we went up hill again. This time, we are going back with no longer as a noobies. We are now Beginners =)

*Noobies = Beginner = Noobies... Aren't they the same -_-" ?*

*The classical heater.

*It is approaching zero degree Celsius and our Mr Kha Liang is wearing short pants and slippers, enjoying his coffee out at the balcony. SALUTE!

*See... He become so famous that our photographer wanted to take a picture with him.
Who's next?

So on the second day, we became more 'beginner' than 'noobies'. There is this so called Green Track which is specially designed for us beginners to have a feeling of how real snowboarding feels like. Out of a few green tracks, we chose the easiest one as a good starter. Then after lunch time, we went to another green track which they claim to be a good track for skiing, but not for snowboarding. But still, we insisted on trying and TADA, we manage to reach to the end in one piece, but heavily damaged all over our body.

At the very last hour before the clock hits 5 pm, we took an alternative green track which eventually lead us to the village and some sort of place that we've never been to before. In other words, we are lost. So, we happily snowboarded along the road and hopefully it will lead us back to our accomodation. Unfortunately, the colour of the snow become less and less white and finally brown colour. And the next thing I knew was that I reached to a construction site. After asking direction from one of the worker, we walked for more than 20 minutes back to our room. At the moment I reached my room, the only thing I wanna do is to sit down and have a good long rest. *#%$ing exhausting!... I was partially a living corpse that night and went to bed at 830 pm. Surprise isn't it?

Ok, I shall have all the craps keep to the minimum level and let the photos to do the talking, again.

*Good morning... Hmm... refreshing!

*Ok, the weather doesn't look that good.

*But no worry, we have a tour leader today. Meet Jun Eu. He is the one who brought us to the green track.

*At the finishing point of Drover's Dream aka the easiest green track.

*Reminds me of that korean drama, Winter Sonata.

*That training session is so worthwhile.

*And I managed to stop, for real =).

*Sri Petaling snowboarder on the move.

*Taking break half way... And what's best to do now?

*Taking pictures loh...

*This is really very tiring. I deserve a short rest.

*Ok, ready to go for the next round.

*On the 'lift'... You might want to cover your face because the wind is so strong and cold. And it's hitting directly on your face which is kinda pain.

And for the third day, I will show you the photo below and you will know what we did...

*eh... not this one la... I can't be that energetic to show you 'PEACE' on the last day.

*This is the one. Yes, practically everyone is down.

So, you can see what is the outcome of excessive snowboarding? It will be a series of problem, starting with your friendly neighborhood sore throat (this is because of insufficient of water), flu, cough and most of all, body ache. And so I went to visit my school doctor again, and got quarantined again, and being told that "You are fine, son" again. But this time a little bit canggih, instead of giving me medicine or prescription, she gave me a paper listing a dozen of reasons "Why We Don't Give Antibiotics?" and some common sense "Must-Do-List" for example 'Maintain adequate fluid intake' and the all time favourite 'Rest' -_-...

P/S: I want my voice back =(

*I am waiting for you to come back, my voice. Must have left it up on the hill.