Foods and beverages that must be tried when you visit, Australia

Most (but not many) travellers demand to enjoy local specialty like food or beverage when they visited a region, village, city or even a country.

This time is Australia.

Its quite hard to find local flavour there coz Australia is a "salad", a mixed country consist of many culture and races so the people (or restaurant) tend to bring culinary flavour from their origin, luckily i found two traditional beverages and two traditional foods there.

The first two beverages is Bundaberg Ginger Beer and Solo soda. Ginger beer actually just a soda with ginger taste, better to serve chilled ;)

Solo soda is one of the traditional pub non-alcohol beverage, taste almost similar to Sprite, but i think Solo is has stronger lemon taste.

The first food must be tried is Vegemite, this authentic Australian spread or jam made from fermented barley which is side product of beer making. Taste like cheese (a bit) but it wont make you drunk anyway.
Some said that if you ate Vegemite, it will fluent your english and has australian accent :p

The second food must tried in Australia is Kangaroo steak! Yep, Kangaroo!
I recommend you to buy it in local supermarket like Coles or Woolworths than order it in steak house/restaurant (in case it will cost higher). In Coles 0.5kg Kangaroo steak costs around A$11, already marinated.
The meat is solid dark red, not marbling like wagyu or other beef cut.
The taste depends on the seasoning/marinating ingredients.
To grill it, dont make it well done, but try to make it medium/half to avoid it become hard.
Taste? Delicious! :q

Starbucks price in four countries

This time, fun writing. No more serious stuff :p

As coffee addict, who doesn't know Starbucks? The famous coffee chain in the world. 

So what's the special thing about Starbucks that I want to write today is about the price. I've been to three countries and I want to compare prices in Indonesia, Germany and Australia.

In Indonesia, the small/short cup of Caramel Frappuccino cost Rp. 34,000 or A$ 3.6, while in Australia it cost  A$ 5.3! On the other hand, a Tall Caramel Frappuccino in Berlin cost 3.90 Euro or A$ 4.9!

Here is some hint for what size is Starbucks cups has: 

Short - 8oz
Tall - 12oz
Grande - 16oz
Venti - 20oz

What I've bought in Berlin was Caramel Frappuccino in Tall size, as shown in this receipt.

So lets summarise the result on a table.

No.	Country	SBUX size	Price (AUD)
1.	Indonesia	Short	3.6
2.	Australia	Short	5.3
3.	Germany	Tall	4.9
4.	Japan	Short	5.2

The Japanese's Starbucks price was contributed from a friend that previously visited there, she said that the Short caramel Frappuccino cost Y 420 or A$ 5.2.

Well, the not-so-surprising data is that Starbucks coffee price is relatively low in developing country such Indonesia. But in developed countries as shown on table above it is quite surprising that Starbucks price is relative cheaper in Germany than in Australia and Japan!

I think I want to drink a coffee, not iced-coffee, but a hot black coffee from my kitchen :q

Happy sipping folks!

PPIA Victoria Gathering 2012

Most abroad students like to meet and greet their fellow country students, and students from some countries has a creativity, created a group to coordinate, meet, sharing and other activities.

Yup, human is an social creature, although abroad is an individual-culture countries, we still like to meet individual from same country, language and city. Around weeks ago I'm lucky to have a quick view (sorry, only a quick view) in one of their gathering activity, the community name is PPIA Victoria (Perhimpunan Pelajar Indonesia Australia cabang Victoria) or in English The Indonesia Students Association of Australia Victoria. 

The gathering was done in The Indonesian Consulate General Republic of Indonesia front yard, Queen Rd Albert Park Melbourne. 

This gathering begin with introduction from PPIA representatives from campuses in Victoria. 

There are also food stall like somay, pempek and many more. 

Also there art performance, mural and a mini concert. Some teens dress like an Indonesian elementary school, with red skirt and the short sleeve with OSIS badge on it.

The weather is cloudy, and a light rain occurred. But it doesn't make the guesses ran away. 

You can see the banner outside, behind that was the circuit of F1 Albert Park.

From my opinion, this activity is a great idea to gather up Indonesian students in Victoria, maybe the committee to improve the rundown, to make it better. (No hurt feeling guys :) )

Actually they have a bigger events at the first week of April called Indonation, its about charity night and they invite Andra and The Back Bone have a concert in Melbourne, and I'm totally forgot about it. damn -___-

Its an International World

No more heavy substantial topic. This time only for fun.

Here is some of the “international world” evidence.

Design in California, made in China

 I bought the iPad in Germany, and the iPhone in Jakarta.

 

Coffee bean from Brazil, manufactured in Taiwan, sold in Melbourne.

 

This product is more way confusing, consist of imported coffee bean, roasted and packed in Germany and then imported by a company from Victoria, Australia.

FYI, blue mountain is one of the famous coffee beans originated from Jamaica, click here.

Its an international world.

Australian Grand Prix 2012

This is my experience when hearing (you’re right, hearing, not watching) the Australian Grand Prix 2012 in Albert Park, Melbourne.

Yeah, due to the global crisis I can’t afford any kind of tickets stated in this link this link, so I prefer to hear the qualifying and follow real time qualifying tweet from @F1grid. So put my ears and eyes on! The F1 cars are there, behind those fences.

There are many spectators from rooftops from surrounding building. One information said that the F1 committee gave surrounding citizens/offices/local bureaucrats compensation ticket for the noise that was made during the event. The F1 committee also book certain rooftops in one of the surrounding building for regular people to see the F1, also for compensation.

I wish to have one T______T 

Luckily it is sunny, rather than rainy in the Friday practice. When I was walking on the Queens Road (see map here, I can see people gathered in the Lome Street intersection, I don’t know why but seems it is the best spot to “hear” the F1 cars, because we are between turn 12 and 13. (See the circuit diagram here).

The qualifying also presented a jet fighter, flying around Albert Park and gave its soundwave :p

When the qualifying session began, the loudness is awesome! It reached maximum 102 db measured using Decibel 10 app from my iPhone and I’m standing 20 metres from the track!

Most of the listeners only hear for 10-15 minutes, but me? Haha, I’m waiting until the qualifying session ended.  

While I’m listening, I saw some nasty viewers trying to climb the fence; at first it’s quite comfortable,

untill suddenly police car came! At first the police only warn those violators. The illegal spectators are leaving, the police left but a few stay...

And he met a friend.

No more police, lets watched it again....

But...,  the police car came again! A person got busted! And one is having a loong conversation and the police officer hands out some papers to write. I dont know what actually happened, this image was taken candid.

And the qualifying was done! Hamilton, Button and Grosjean are the top three drivers.

Its a great experience to see the qualifying (from twitter) and heard the voice, live :)