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

Wings of Glory

The Wings of Glory is in South Melbourne just outside a tram stop and in a shopping mall. They are famous for their chicken wings done with many different types of sauces. I first heard about this place through Gastrology who was invited there.

This was a zomato event and we got the chance to meet the owner and Zomato staff. Here they were really friendly to everyone. And cool and calm is another way to describe them. For this event I tried their legendary blue cheese sauce. With that I got twelve wings and a lift for $12 which filled me up until the end. I had chips last night and I wasn't have it again. And the chips were expensive at 4.50 a pop.

But that sauce was tasty. It worked well with the lemon chicken wings. There was a fury challenge going on where participants had to eat a plate full of spicy chicken wings within four minutes. They could not drink the milk as they would be out of the challenge. It was $15 to participate.

I ran into the Melbourne cheapskate and the guy was just cool. He didn't win the fury challenge they had going but oh well. There was a girl and she won within 2minutes. She won the 50 piece platter which is pictured above. Her face appeared on the wall afterwards.

Many thanks for having me Zomato and Wings of Glory.

Migrants scammed yet again

 Migrants are scammed yet again. We explain below

Image courtesy of australiaforrum.com

This time they are scammed by a Mr Prasad of SLV legal services. About 20 people were scammed in February 2016. Students could not sleep and were left penniless after they were scammed $17,000- $41,000 in fees. They never got any jobs or a visa. Most could not sleep after finding out that they were duped by this con man. Some were suicidal.

Ashley Chen was one such student after paying $41,000 for no job and no visa. She was threatened by Prasad who said that he knows where she lives and she was suicidal. Other students were stressed out about losing their money.

Mr Prasad has been arrested by the Police and the Police are working with Immigration on this matter.

This visa scam is a concern for us as we want International students to have a good time in Melbourne and not waste any money. Unfortunately these things happen.  But there are always ways to avoid the scam, such as seeing a registered migration agent with a MARN (Migration Agent Reference Number). One such agency is the Education Migration Agents Service. This is a legal service which is based all around Australia.

Be careful of scams such as these. Students should use their university support services to assist them with finding a registered migration agent.

CAV has a new campaign for students

The Consumer Affairs Victoria has a new campaign on housing for students. Here we talk about this in more detail and what you can expect in the welcome desk information kits.

Consumer Affairs Victoria is a subdivision of Department of Justice. Here they assist renters with information about their rights. For years International students have been mistreated in their homestay or rental properties by unscrupulous landlords. For years they have advocated and fought for tenants rights.

Their new campaign is aimed at helping International students in their early tenancy stages such as living in Melbourne for the first time.

In order to make sure that they tell students about their rights they will update their online presence from time to time. They do have a Facebook page.

These info packs are distributed at the welcome days and in there are some information about the types of housing, checklist, your rights as a tenant etc.

Students say that this is a good idea as many students don't know about the types of housing and their rights when it comes to dodgy landlords.

Do check out the CAV site for more info on your rights.

Tetsujin now opened in Emporium

This is a new Japanese fusion venture opened by David Loh of Rice Workshop. They were open for about two months before we tried it. It was the week in where we got paid by Weekend Notes and we were celebrating the pay and good articles. And an invite.

Here they have reasonably priced lunch specials and friendly service. But I did notice one waitress eating her own lunch of Woolies salad. I found that a little mind boggling. Most restaurants give employees free meals for every shift that they work. At Realfoods I used to have this sort of thing going.

They have two seperate sections- one for the BBQ and the other for the sushi train. I have no idea as to why I was ordered to sit in the BBQ area eventhough I was ordering a lunch special and not BBQ. Now my clothes smell of BBQ.

Here I had the $18.9 Salmon don special which comes with sashimi, salad, sushi, csalmon don and miso soup. The soup was great. I loved the little jellylike things in there. The sashimi was fresh but in my sashimi don, the fish was not deboned properly. One of the pieces had a bone in there. The sushi rice was good though and so was the salad. I really loved the subtle hints of dressing in there. They did not overdress it too much which is good as it brings out the flavour of the fish and the rice.

Sashimi don and miso soup

All the sushi on the train is $3.30. So I tried my usual favourites of egg (tamago) and inari. The inari was really small and they could have filled the beancurd sheet right up to the top. The tamago was really sweet and yum.

Rating: 15/20- I would love to try their BBQ one day as it did look like a lot of fun.