Festival of Nations

The Festival of Nations is an event that is on every year at melbourne Uni for International students and local students alike. Here many different cultures are showcased.

In previous years they had a lot of food stalls and it was at night. This year they culled it back by about half of them and more games. They also decided to do it during the daytime rather than the nighttime. Hence not as many people came as I saw in previous years pictures.

This year there was free Brunetti cakes for those that buy two or more things from their stalls and are Unimelb students. Since I cannot have sweets due to Sugar free month, I did not try. But Brunettis are amazing.

Here I had the char kuey teow from the Cantonese Students society. It was $6.50 but the rice noodles were not cooked properly and the beef was pretty bad. The noodles were rubbery and was hard to eat. They had one girl get the money but I did not know until I started to order. Perhaps they need to put a sign or the girl that collects the money needs to have a sign attached to her like the pacers do.

But the jian bing bought from the Hong Kong students society fared much better albeit messy. This was $6.50 but it filled me up. Here they had a sausage in this and this was cooked really well.

There was the dragon dance and I could hear the drums as I was going into Union house. This was exciting to watch.

Do come by to next years one. To the organisers please organise it for at night and have alcohol at the next one. At the next one there can be some different beers being sampled.

SOV's Intervarsity games for 2016

SOV is the Singaporean Students Society of Victoria. They have five universities under their wing- Melbourne, Monash Caulfield, Monash Clayton, RMIT and Latrobe. Sign up to any one of their societies to become a member of SOV. Being a member of SOV means that you would get discounts to 22 of their partners such as Gong Cha and PappaRich as well as Mr Loys Puff.

SOV has their Intervarsity Games each year and this year it was $20 for players to enter. Here unlike last year pizza and drinks was included. The organisers knew that there was no cheap food at MSAC (everything is pricey by the way) so they thought to include the pizza as a bargain. I did not know of this until I came back from my lunch break.

Basketball courtesy of Singaporeans of Victoria page

Here they day worked out well. First there was netball where the teams were very fericious and they were trying to win the cup. And then the football started with Melbourne Uni being the greatest team.

In the end over $400 worth of prizes was given out and Singapore Association of Monash won the cup.

Many thanks to SOV for having me and do check out their Facebook page

Greening @RMIT dinner

RNIS and all the RMIT community were invited to the dinner so we did not have to pay
As part of Bupa's best blog competition for 2015

This dinner was all about Fair Trade and to mark the end of another semester. There were lots of good memories of terrariums and gardens being shown. It was held during the Fair Trade Fortnight

There was even an Instagram competition where someone won a prize of terrariums.


I really enjoyed this healthy dinner made with lots of love and grown in their rooftop garden. Then there was a talk about fair trade as it is the Fair trade fortnight. So what does it mean to be fair trade? Hmmm a very tough question for some. But I think it basically means that farmers get a fair price.

I enjoyed the quinoa salad and the dahl as well as the other vegetarian curries. And there was a cabbage salad in there all made of love. The quinoa salad was very minty.

By the end of the night I was lighter.

Many thanks to Greening for the invite. And I hope to see you next semester.

Japanese Language exchange meetup vol 2

At the Bottom end on a cold Friday night about 550 of us braved the cold and the long line to get in. This was organised by the Fifth Corner project with the uni associations chipping in to make it a success.

There was food there but RNIS wasn't there for the food, rather the mingling. There were long lines at the alcohol but we had a good time without the drinks. We just met new people and talked over really loud music.

There was cake but we were too full from dinner.

Oh well next semester. Many thanks to the Fifth Corner Project and RMIT Japan club for having us. We had lots of fun with you guys.

RUSU's Multicultural Night

As part of Bupa's best blog competition for 2015 as both Sorghum sisters and Asylum Resource Seeker centre make lots of home baked goods

RUSU's Multicultural night was free for all and there was some really yummy food from the Sorghum Sisters and Asylum Seeker Resource centre. RNIS also helped to buy the drinks and snacks earlier at Laguna.

The Sorghum sisters are a health food, not for profit organisation. They are a catering company located in Carlton. The Asylum Seeker resource centre are in Footscray.

We really enjoyed the injera breads as they were fun. Katherine wasn't fan of the meat one and we both loved the vegetarian one.

The dolma was good eaten with the vine leaves. Some people liked it without the vine leaves but we were told to eat this with the vine leaves.

We loved the different balls as they were nicely made. The cheese puff was quite nice too and I loved the Turkish delight. We weren't fans of the beef thingy as we were trying to be healthy.

But we did love the Asian snacks that we bought and in fact we took some of it home such as the Pocky. We were getting too full.

The film was Persilade and it was an animated film. It was also a French film set in Iraq and Vienna when the war went on. Some of us were moved to tears and some of us left early. Btw it is a black and white film.

Many thanks for having us RUSU

RMIT has a new event for new International students

RMIT has a new event for their students and RNIS was invited to it.

Making long lasting friendships is important in University lifestyle and what better way to do than outside in the Alumni Courtyard on a nice sunny, smog less Autumn day.

Here this is an event that encourages students to mix and mingle with one another it is not like your traditional orientation day event.  Hence there were not many stallholders, rather there were more roving performers in which everybody can talk about their good skills afterwards.

And Melburnians can certainly do it better over coffee and ice cream. What a nice way to cool down over ice coffee.

Coffee

Bianco Latte ice cream

Flavours

It was the first time that I got to see the new Vice chancellor and I wish him well in his endeavours as he knows what it is like to be a newbie at RMIT. He certainly put himself in their shoes during his speech.

And the MC was good. I think they used to work for RMIT Link before they moved to housing and student services. Someone complained on Facebook about not enough opportunities to meet new people but there certainly were in the temporary outdoor lounge and in the queues for food.

Weibo stall

Roving entertainers

Ambulance Victoria stall

OHSC cover

Student specials

The craft table

Face painting

Study Melbourne's stall

Some of the students won prizes and many wrote on luggage tags which were tied to the clothes line. The clothes line fitted well with this event and hence it felt very homely.

I also got to mingle with some old friends at the stalls and who knows I might just be one of the stallholders next semester and offering students activities and prizes.

Look out for me next semester.

Melbourne Uni's new farmers market

As part of Bupa's best blog competition for 2015

Melbourne Uni has a new farmers market which is every Wednesday from 10:30am-3:30pm. Here you can samples heaps of local produce and hear farmers talking about growing their own.  Everything here is almost under $10 with the exception of the oils and the jams. I went a couple of times.

The pop up patch which featured in the first visit

Free tomatoes and potatoes

Totopos from La Tortilleria

Tonic

Sampling cheese from the Milawa stall

Olive oil tastings

Jams

Labne (some sort of cream cheese) tastings

Peking duck wrap and dumplings from Mr Duk

I would love to try goat some day

Strawberries

Eggs on special

Someone's beef sandwich

Onions

Someone's frittata

Sign

Apples

5 and Dime bagel

Some sort of weird ale

Preserved vegetables

Heirloom tomatoes

Chai

Watermelon at La Tortilleria (2nd visit)

More fresh produce

Radish

Big chillis

Heirloom watermelon

The first time I tried the 5 and dime onion bagel for $2. I really enjoyed this as it was very oniony and fresh. It went well with salad and other things.

The other time although I walked away empty handed I learnt a lot about heirloom tomatoes and how sweet they are compared to the commericially grown ones which are sprayed with everything.

This time there were a lot more stalls such as Dench Bakers. But this time there were no talks and no plants to show. There wasn't a bike and blend. Instead there were more produce stalls and I loved that most things were priced from $3 to $6.

The duck risotto was priced at $5 and pies were priced at $5.50- $6 for one. These are great healthy dishes for winter.

Do come on by to grab your lunch and your grocceries if you are at uni. RMIT students also welcome