TOFWD- The Organic Food and Wine Deli

tuna nori rolls

poster advertising the fact that going organic is healthy

my green tea

energy balls made from organic trail mix

spelt (a type of wheat) cereal

more organic goodness

my meal which included salad

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date: 24/3/11

                This deli is located in Degraves st, which is well known for their fine food. The people there are really lovely and the serves of their food are huge. This is pretty much like RUSU realfoods, except that they serve breakfast. Here I had two sushi rolls and tea, which all adds up to $10.30. I found that their rice was a bit dry and too much soya sauce. They used brown rice, which tends to dry out quickly in sushi. But the fresh ingredients and fast and friendly service made up for it. Im willing to give this another try.

Shuji sushi

Shuji Sushi

250 Flinders lane

Melbourne

                This is actually better than Tomodachi’s Sushi. I got a lot more value for money. All together my bento, tea and miso soup came out to $16.70.  My bento was $12. Not bad huh. This is a takeaway place as well as a eat in place, which is situated in Emirates House, on the Flinders Lane side.

Here is a picture of my bento (top right). This bento came with way too much rice so I couldn’t finish it all.

Service was a little bit slow. I had to wait a while to get my tea refilled and pay for my food.

Melbourne Central Oweek- 1/3/11-4/3/11

Melbourne Central Oweek- 1/3/11-4/3/11

            This week was the beginning of uni, where students needed to start studying. There was a party on Tuesday from 12pm-2pm, discounts on tomodachi food 3/3/11, cupcake masterclass and loads more. I didn’t get to go to the cupcake masterclass, but I did check out the shot tower stalls and the DJ.

There weren’t as many freebies as last year, which was a shame.

Note: I didn’t go to tomodachi because I have heard a few bad reviews about it and I didn’t have a lot of money. But I did enter the “Win free sushi for a year” competition.

Article on quinoa, found in the 3/3/11’s The Age paper

date:3/3/11

http://www.theage.com.au/lifestyle/wellbeing/keen-on-an-incan-diet-secret-20110208-1alah.html

All students should read this as Quinoa is another gluten free source of carbs that is Low GI. Even though this is expensive this is much better than rice.

Phone and Internet

Check out: http://www.prepaidplans.com.au/ for some of the best phone and internet deals. I personally don’t recommend Vodaphone. It is expensive and they somehow seem to screw you up by taking your money. Best spend it on Optus. Good value for money and they do have an Internet and Mobile phone bundle. They also have heaps of cool deals and you can win prizes.

Most students like to go prepaid because it is cheaper and you don’t have any contracts and you can spend as much as you like.
Dodo also has a cheap prepaid phone plan that was just advertised this month.

Skype is an internet program that has cheap or free overseas calls, that allow you to see the other person face to face. It worked for me. To sign up check out: http://www.skype.com/

Don’t go with Dodo; they are expensive and sometimes it does not work. Best to go with iiNet. If you are not sure which internet deal suits you talk to the shop assistant at a computer shop. They would know their product.
I have heard that some of my friends went with Vodaphone for their Internet connections and found that they did not deliver a single byte and people were charged for no bytes of information. People were being ripped off by this telco. Calls were really expensive too.

Market days and chill and grill days…

date: 15/3/11

Market days run every second Wednesday. You can pick up a bargain between classes.

The chill and grill bbq is on weekly (every Wednesday from 12:30pm onwards) in Bowen st, City campus. Here you can get to eat some yummy sausages and falafels for free. To top it all off there is some yummy organic salad. NB: the falafels are vegetarian and are from RUSU Realfoods.

Textbooks

date: 15/3/11

My advice: Wait until your first week of classes to see what your lecturers want you to buy. Wanna save more money on your books? Don’t buy your books from the bookshop, unless you have to. Instead head to textbookexchange.com.au to see how you can save more money. Or you can buy books from students on campus. Books will be advertised on the MYRMIT website.

Note: RMIT Bookshop no longer exists due to lack of funds. It has been replaced by pop up shops. Negotiations are ongoing.

Entertainment book

15/3/11

Wanna save some money? Well here’s the answer. Right now you can purchase the entertainment book at: http://www.entertainmentbook.com.au/ or from some RMIT clubs that advertise the book. It is only $65 a year and you can get that money back by going out to lots of restaurants and entertainment venues. They have 2 for 1 meal deals, 25% off deals, 2 for 1 game deals, $25 for 2 movie tickets, $11 Village movie deals etc. so why not sign up now and save?

Note: the RMIT student union might also sell them, so it worth asking

Banking

Check out these sites for more information. www.commbank.com.au (Commonwealth bank), ANZ(ANZ bank), www.nab.com.au (National Australia Bank) and www.westpac.com.au (Westpac bank). I found that the Commonwealth bank is the cheapest and much more efficient ways for student banking, but there might be a better option that suits you. And the plus side is that they will give you a bag of freebies.

Most of them offer $0 fees for students and a savings account just for students. All you need is a student id or a confirmation of enrollment to apply as well as a passport for id. If you have arrived in Melbourne less than six weeks then a passport will do for 100 points of id.

And then you can take out heaps of money from any atm belonging to your bank for free. If you take it out from somewhere else they might charge you a fee of $2.

RMIT has a Commonwealth bank branch at the city campus and for all other campuses an ATM from the same bank. It would make sense for students to sign up to this one as there are no ATM fees.

Don't forget that the bank does charge dishonor fees (or overdrawing fees) of mainly $10 if you do take out more than you have. They only allow you to do this once.

Try and also get an online banking account as it allows you to earn interest and you can check your account online at home. You can also buy things online this way. Try and keep most of your money in this account. If you lose your card then you don't have to worry too much about losing all of your income. 

Cheap lunches if you subscribe.

 Are you out of money? Well here’s an answer. http://whatsforlunchmelbourne.com/aboutus. Here you just write down your email and the team will send you some deals for cheap lunches.

campus information

date: 21/3/11

For information on your RMIT campus check out: www.rmit.edu.au

The Environment collective meeting

            Today I went to the environment collective meeting. Here we discussed the bike lockers, permaculture garden, the cafeteria which is not sustainable, public transport and the furniture cage.  The permaculture garden was the main topic for discussion, with the motion of the “City campus needs to have one on the rooftop garden”. One person suggested that it might be worthwhile talking to the uni about the new building.

We are pushing to have a more sustainable cafeteria, where people bring in their own cups when they buy coffee. Also there needs to be more drinking fountains at uni (especially city campus) as well as a proper system for recycling rubbish.

a note on donut king coffees

date: 22/3/11

Don’t buy coffees from Donut King. They are really bad. The one time I went there my chocolate had no foam and tasted like shit. I was lucky enough to have a buy one get one free voucher. My chocolate costed me around $1.70 Even then it tastes like shit. Don’t waste your money going there. Spend it on good places (there are good places aplenty in the blog)

Postgraduate lounge at RMIT city campus

This is located in Building 28. There is a ramp outside of it. The postgraduate lounge is a place for all postgrad students to study, hang out and relax. There are lockers at the Postgrad lounge.

Housing

            You can find housing on these websites: www.housing.rmit.edu.au , www.domain.com.au, gumtree.com.au. You can also check out the on campus noticeboards and the notice board at the readings bookshop. The university also has their own property, known as the RMIT Village, just ten minutes walk from the city campus. But that place fills up pretty quickly.  It’s better to search for housing before you come to Melbourne, as places may fill up. But don’t pay any money until you have looked at and accepted the property. some online providers have been known to ask you for your money before you see the property and then you never get to see it. this is known as a scam.

staying safe

There are many ways to stay safe in Melbourne. Melbourne is a safe city.  Don’t go out too late at night if you can help it. If for some reason, you cannot avoid it, travel with a group of people and walk in well lit streets. Travel near the driver’s carriage or sit behind the driver.

Also when you are in the library or any other public places, watch your bag. If you are going to the bathroom take all of your belongings, unless you have someone (like your friends) to watch it for you. If sitting put your bag in your lap. If standing put it between your feet or carry it. Thieves target the streets of Melbourne and suburbs.

Watch your drinks. Drink spiking regularly occurs.

You should check the train, tram or bus timetables at: www.metrotrains.com.au or at www.metlink.com.au. Here you can also find out journey times using the “Journey Planner” to plan your journey.

The International Woman’s Day lunch @ Bundoora Campus.

date: 8/3/11

This lunch was great. Many people turned up. I heard that there was a champagne lunch in the city, but unfortunately I was stuck in Bundoora. The lunch was pretty boring, nothing much decent, so no photos. But it did give me a chance to explore the new women’s room. I loved all the décor- it was so warm and inviting.