With no internet at the boarding house, and limited books (more are coming soon from the library) its a great time to catch up on all those classic movies, on the list, like Meet Me in St Louis, with Judy Garland. The story's lovely much like the amazing set and fun costumes, particularly the hats! The Halloween story is a bit wtf though...



 Meet Me in St. Louis is a musical film made by MGM released in 1944. Divided into a series of seasonal vignettes, starting with Summer 1903, it relates the story of a year in the life of the Smith family in St. Louis, leading up to the opening of the Louisiana Purchase Exposition (more commonly referred to as the World's Fair) in the spring of 1904.

It's a delightful, classic, picture-postcard Americana, and romanticized musical film - and one of the greatest musicals ever made. 72 years after it was made it's still being watched and talked about, while most old film lie forgotten in the attic. 

It tells the story of a turn-of-the-century family in suburban, midwestern St. Louis of 1903, who live in a stylish Edwardian home at 5135 Kensington Avenue. The city, and the well-to-do Smith family (with four beautiful daughters), is on the verge of hosting (and celebrating) the arrival of the spectacular 1904 World's Fair. However, the family's head of the house is beckoned to New York due to a job promotion - an uprooting move that threatens to indelibly change the lives of the family members forever.


























































At first I thought they were off to a wedding! As I don't think anyone normally wears that much white! Other than to the white ball. High necklines, mother approves.



Even the little girls, often seen as miniature adults (earlier on) were dresses well. Tootie, the one on the right is the only survivor, everyone else died. It's a bit scary when you realize no matter how rich or beautiful you are, you'll die.

Tuesday 29th December


This week's adventure was a trip to Oriental Teahouse on Chapel St, for their all-you-can-eat yum cha at $30pp. Add $5/10 to your expected spend for a drink of tea or two.

In September on a Wednesday we went to the Chadstone branch, which you can read all about here and now we're back for round two!



Chapel St. 8pm on a Tuesday night in that period between Christmas and New Years', where everyone's on break and no one really knows what day it is, was packed. I'd say sold out. We were lucky to secure a booking earlier that afternoon.



Being daylight savings and summer, the light lasted longer and we got a pretty good spot, being the second table from the window. Chapel St only has indoor seatings for yum cha, while Chadstone offers both.

Drink orders were taken, though did not arrive till an hour later. Plates were replace, as two of our plates were dirty and stuck together with a red sauce. Well done guys, you really need to check that everything is clean before setting up the table.

Three sauce plates were on the table: sweet & sour with the consistency of almost water (watered down?), pure chili aka sinacha, and soy sauce, but a house blend with chili in it. That or someone cross contaminated it. 



Let the feast for two invisible friends and me commence! Lola was stuck in traffic, with trams down, while jas was just, well, jas.



Starting the evening was an interesting surprise package, a sweet meat in a donuty ball. Lola could taste the msg, which heightened the pork and prawn filling. Though this could be a double edged sword, as while some people like it others mightn't. It could be like the other day when I thought what I put in my mouth was chocolate but turned out to be danish smoked cheese! 



Needs more sauce, and the sauce was a bit chewy in one. Doesn't taste good cold said Lola, who had so much to catch up with that she couldn't eat everything before it got cold.






Prawn Toast - The concept is exciting, but we need sauce, and there was the squech and flood of fishy oil as you bit into it!



Pork Buns - A classic, one that I was surprized was't served earlier on.

Steamed Dumplings - There was about three varieties, going around on a tray, we tried all but one. Har Gaw aka pure prawn was a favourite.

New smaller plates were set for dessert, and plates were cleared. 



Egg Tarts - A classic with very pale and flaky pastry case and an eggy custard filling that was so not sweet that it was almost savory. We need sugar!!

White Chocolate Dumplings - Stuffed w white choc, topped off with peanut parline. With lots of coconut. All we need is a salted caramel sauce. :P 



Custard Bun - I love buns!! With the custard filling being the consistence of a paste, think red bean paste, and more sugar then egg tarts this was a hit! Served warm it was beautiful. I'd love to have this while camping, by the fire.



Like at Chadstone dishes were bought around on trays and you could select one of each per person, each tray came around once, though a couple were offered twice. Due to our seatings (not being where the rounds start) we missed out on a few things, like the stir fry and wonka aka choc dumplings, which I saw others have. Seems to us like they under catered a few things, though we all booked.

With Lola & Jas completing our "if it's an all you can eat, we'll be here till closing" team, we ate everything that was offered! Consuming our money's worth for sure. 

Chapel didn't have tofu, vegetables, there were less deep fried things and steamed dumplings. And they ran out of some dishes before getting to us in the corner.



I felt that service was better at Chapel St, which had younger Australian staff, as oppose to 'you'll get better service if you speak our language' staff at Chadstone. For atmosphere I'd pick Chapel St, for parking Chadstone. Though there's plenty of trams that go to Chapel St.

Depends which night you're free. Tuesdays on Chapel St, or Wednesdays at Chadstone. Always pick the later session, as you don't want to have the staff ushering you out to reset for the second session.

Differences
Chapel St vs Chadstone 
Seating - Indoor/Both
Parking - Far/Plenty
How to get there? - Tram/Drive

Tuesday 29th December




My neighbor is driving me crazy! Today she wants my laptop as no one knows the pw for the communal computer and she doesn't want to go to the library around the corner. Doesn't want to get a free office account to use it online either. She just wants my laptop, which is a "mac" which not being a pc doesn't have word but she still wants it.

She also wants  $2, small amount so ok just this once. But no later she asks for more. Waiting outside my door knocking non stop for a good 10mins. I ignore her. She tries again later. Then when I go to the bathroom in the "middle" of the night  (5am for me) she's there waiting for me. Slowly driving me mad! Currently hating the sound of my name. Sounds so pathetic in her voice.




This week's adventure was a trip to Oriental Teahouse on Chapel St, for their all-you-can-eat yum cha at $30pp. Months after being to their Chadstone location, for a comparison review.

Friday




We finally watched 'Meet Me in St. Louis (1944)'. Everyone's dead except 'Tootie' Smith who's 78, and was mainly a child star. Well that's depressing... but the story's lovely much like the amazing set and fun costumes, particularly the hats! The Halloween story is a bit wtf though...





I love this analytical post about the costumes in Cinderella (2015), we did something similar when studying film. Loved all the Cinderella's except the Into the Woods version. Ella was the one with the best dress, set in 1800s (blue dress), Hillary Duff (Lizzie McGuire) as Sam was the modern princess who went to prom, and Drew Barrymore (1998) set in Renaissance-era France is a classic..  

Saturday

Can't believe its been a week since my birthday! Still collecting freebies, one or two to go. Some places I only had a week to get there, others give you a month to claim it.



Kit Kat Studio - Flavour of the Week: Passionfruit, Mango, Kiwi & Pavlova. Tastes peppery...



Kikki K - New year, new diary. The study one's new and I like it, though each month is a different colour, weekly views, and I'm not sure if I can deal with pink/yellow for 4week... hence considering getting the usual, which is cream and $10 more, with less colours.



Lunch at Oporto, their cheeseburger meal is $8.50, but $5 for the burgerr/chips between 11am-3pm. The chicken had a lime sauce that reminded me of Nandos. Chip serving was the smallest I've ever had...

Off to a dating event. Grandpa's being a creep. And there was more than one. Failed to talk to everyone. If you don't believe in google you're too old to be around.




Filofax is something new I'm working one, it's a folder of checklists that will live on my desk. Creating custom ones to suit me, though Officeworks says it'll be printed onto A4 and trimmed down. Issues: getting 2 on 1 page and getting the boarder to show when printing.



Ice Cream -Hokey Pokey. At $5 a scoop, it's expensive going out! Imagine if you had 3 kids... how do people afford them?



Glitter ugg boots! Can I get them? Are you a. American b. Asian? Yes and no. Are you a tourist? No. Then you can't get them. How would you even clean them?

Dinner from Shizuku Ramen & Craft Beer

On a Saturday night on menulog there are 6 places that delivery to the boarding house. And 4 of those are pizza places. Strangely S H II Z U K U, a Japanese bar located in Abbotsford is happy to deliver till midnight 7 days a week, to everywhere it seems, even Melb Uni and the Trade Centre! Though the last places is easy to find with parking out front. Delivery for us was $7. Very good considering we're on the other side of the river!

I love my bentos! Sadly there were no bentos, so I settled for a don (rice dish) and karrage chicken. I love white rice! Sadly that's no on my diet plan.








Looking at pictures we have been here before! During the year of ramen! Those spring rolls and deep fried chicken was delicious! Hope they haven't changed! - Pre-dinner expectations set.

est delivery 00.03 actual 11.40. The fried chicken was chicken katsu, needs mayo. Damn should have asked for some. Half was good, but the second half was chewy! The teryaki chicken was very average, nothing special.

That was surprisingly disappointing, as we've been there and everything was very good...



Galavant is back! And we can't wait! Here's a costume analysis with the summary being it's a "range all over the general medieval / renaissance period, vaguely 12th to 16th century".

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