Brunch, Magic Coffee, Chocolate, and Pasta Perfection

Melbourne’s reputation for excellent brunches was confirmed at The Hardware Société. I enjoyed a beef brisket with pearl onions and a soft-boiled egg, as well as an ahi tuna dish served with soft-boiled eggs and hummus.

I had heard of Melbourne’s reputation of having a really strong coffee culture, and I was eager to try the local specialty known as a “Magic”. This Melbourne invention consists of a double ristretto (a short, concentrated espresso shot) topped with steamed milk in a smaller cup than a standard latte. The result is a strong, creamy coffee with a rich flavour profile. While the coffee didn’t impress me as much as I expected, I really enjoyed the latte art.

The city’s culinary scene extends beyond coffee. I noticed a trend of adorning dishes with edible flowers, which adds visual appeal and subtle flavours.

I also visited Koko Black, a local chocolatier. While their actual chocolate tasted mediocre, their chocolate with embedded Tasmanian honeycomb stood out. The sweet, crunchy honeycomb added a nice crunchy texture and flavour to the chocolate.

One of the culinary highlights was dinner at Tipo 00, where we tried their pasta tasting menu. The freshly made pasta was cooked to perfect al dente, offering just the right amount of resistance to the bite. Their squid ink pasta was particularly memorable. This striking black pasta had a subtle briny flavour, with a silky texture that paired nicely with seafood. We took some leftovers home and they still had that al dente texture even after going through the microwave. Although I tried some wine pairings, they paled in comparison to the exceptional wines we had experienced at Oakridge Winery. We also attempted to dine at Serai, a Filipino fusion restaurant, but our poor planning meant we were still too full from our earlier meals to fully appreciate the experience.

On a lighter note, we spotted an ice cream shop called “Bing Chillin,” which I thought funny because it’s essentially a reference how John Cena says “ice cream” in Chinese. No idea if it even sells ice cream or whether it’s good.

Oakridge Winery

The culinary highlight was an indulgent four-course meal with wine pairings at Oakridge Winery in the nearby Yarra Valley. In my excitement, I committed a traveller’s cardinal sin – I forgot to take pictures of most of it.

The menu featured dishes that were a symphony of tastes and textures. We savoured duck with celeriac, chard, and blood orange. Another standout was the Smith & Jackson sirloin (local from the Yarra Valley), accompanied by spinach, charred leek, and horseradish. I particularly enjoyed the interplay of the beef’s richness with the sharp horseradish and slightly bitter charred leek. Even the potatoes served alongside were perfectly crisp, adding a satisfying textural element. For dessert, a chocolate torte arrived paired with artichoke ice cream (I was skeptical about the artichoke, but found surprisingly delightful). In addition, we indulged in a silky smooth buttermilk panna cotta served with sorbet.

Being at a winery, it seemed only fitting to opt for the wine pairing. The 2017 Oakridge Blanc de Blancs was a particular standout. This sparkling wine offered crisp multi-dimensional notes of citrus. Too bad this wine isn’t available where we live. For one of the wines, the waitress could point out in the distance where the grapes came from because those grapes came specifically from this plantation as opposed to the other Oakridge plantations in the area.

We spent nearly three hours at our window-side table, savouring each course while gazing out over the winery. The view of neat rows of vines stretching into the distance added to the overall sensory experience. Our waitress guided us through each course, explaining the intricate details of every dish. Even though her explanations have escaped me, I still appreciated the experience.

After our leisurely meal, we had hoped to take a stroll around the winery to walk off some of our indulgence. However, the weather had other plans. Despite it being only 12°C, the cold felt more biting than we expected.

Queen Victoria Market

This sprawling complex houses vendors selling everything from touristy trinkets to fresh produce. While some areas featured items of questionable quality, the stalls offering movie poster prints and art prints of landmarks of different countries interested me the most.

The market’s expansive food section was particularly impressive, reminiscent of markets I’ve visited in other cities like Vancouver’s Granville Island Market or Toronto’s St. Lawrence Market.

Laneways and Arcades

Melbourne’s laneways are a defining feature of the city’s urban landscape. These narrow streets and alleys, once neglected, have been transformed into vibrant pedestrian thoroughfares lined with cafes, boutiques, and street art. I explored Degraves Street, one of the most famous laneways, and was captivated by its European-style atmosphere and array of eateries.

Nearby, The Block Arcade offered a glimpse into Melbourne’s Victorian-era architecture. This elegant shopping gallery, built in the 1890s, features mosaic-tiled floors, a glass canopy, and wrought iron fixtures. Inside, I discovered the oldest tea rooms in Australia and, surprisingly, a Dr. Seuss art store selling high-end paintings inspired by the beloved children’s author’s works.

Flinders Street Station

Flinders Street Station, with its distinctive yellow façade and green copper dome, serves as a major landmark and transport hub. Built in 1910, it’s Australia’s oldest train station.

It reminded me a bit of Toronto’s Union Station in the sense that they’re both iconic transportation hubs of their respective cities.

Motorsport and Automotive Experiences

As a mild Formula 1 enthusiast, I visited the Melbourne Grand Prix Circuit at Albert Park. I tried to drive around the track, but found some sections blocked off.

The lake at Albert Park offered a view of Melbourne’s skyline. To my surprise, I spotted black swans gliding across the water – a first for me, but probably an unsurprising Australian sight.

Dutton Garage is a great place to go for car enthusiasts. This rare car dealership and showroom houses an impressive collection of vintage and exotic automobiles. I was particularly drawn to the classic Porsche 911s, with their iconic sloping rear deck, round headlights, and rear-mounted air-cooled engines. The showroom also featured sleek Ferraris and a few McLarens too.

I also had the opportunity to visit a BYD dealership. While not available in North America due to market dynamics and potential import restrictions, I got to get a glimpse of these Chinese-made electric cars, that to me had Tesla-like qualities, but at a lower price point, thanks in part to Chinese government subsidies. A cool fact I learned about BYD’s innovative battery technology that they can make batteries that don’t ignite when punctured, potentially allowing the batteries to be integrated into the car’s frame to reduce weight.

Shopping and Urban Exploration

As far as Melbourne’s shopping scene goes, I discovered R.M. Williams, a store specializing in Goodyear welted shoes made of different types of leather (even kangaroo), known for their durability and ability to be resoled (and also very expensive).

We attempted to take the City Circle Tram, a free service that loops around the central business district. We had hoped to learn about the city from the onboard commentary, but unfortunately found it difficult to hear over the noise of the tram and decided to explore on our own instead.

Our exploration also included a leisurely walk along the Yarra River, which winds through Melbourne. On the Sandridge Bridge, it features the “Travellers” exhibit, which is a series glass panels that offer information about the indigenous peoples of Australia and information about the demographics of immigrants (where they’re from, how many there were, why, etc.), reflecting the diverse cultural heritage of the nation. A common theme was that in the 21st century, across the westernized world, we’re being less and less likely to take on immigrants from weaker economic backgrounds.

Check here to see more of Melbourne, and the Oakridge Winery

Before my trip, I had no clue what there was to see in Toronto except the CN Tower, and Niagara Falls, which I had already been to. Luckily, this reddit post helped me find few places less traveled.

Royal Ontario Museum

It’s a museum that displays different elements of world culture, art, and natural history. Think British Museum, but much much smaller. One thing the ROM has that a lot of museums don’t are dinosaur fossils! There other exhibits showing world history and culture as well.

Thomas Fisher Rare Book Library

Located on the University of Toronto campus, this library is Canada’s largest repository of publicly accessible rare books and manuscripts in Canada. Among its collection is a copy of Isaac Newton’s Principia from 1687.

Ripley’s Aquarium of Canada

This aquarium is exactly what you’d expect. Lots of different kinds of exotic sealife, sharks, manta rays, etc. The main exhibit is a giant water tank that contains these animals, and a giant conveyor belt takes guests all around. It’s a pretty good aquarium for those who are into that kind of thing

Casa Loma

This is one of the few “château”s in Canada. It was the largest private residence ever built in Canada and was the former residence of Sir Henry Pellatt, a former Major-General in the Canadian Forces. Now it has turned into a tourist attraction. The museum shows off similar things to what one would expect at a European castle: cool architecture, fancy decorations in just about every room, paintings and other art, antiques, and a garden.

And of course, a giant wine collection.

SkullStore Oddity Shop

This place is SUPER out there. This is a store that sells the skeletons of random animals, the skin of snakes, human remains (bones, preserved brain, etc.), taxidermy, preserved bugs, etc. All cruelty free and legally harvested apparently. Half of the store is an actual shop selling these strange items, and the other half is a free museum of even more weird things that aren’t for sale

The Half House

This half a house just sits on the side of the street like any other building. There isn’t a sign explaining why this is, what it’s doing there or anything like that. According to this site, it’s part of the remnants of the neighbourhood that once was here, where the owners at the time sold only half the house, and so the rest of the community developed around it.

St. Lawrence Market

This place felt similar to something like Granville Island in Vancouver, or Pike Place in Seattle – a farmer’s market positioning itself on selling fresh local meats, seafood, produce, etc. It’s a bit out of the way from the downtown core, and when I went, it was almost closing time, so it wasn’t very busy.

The one thing this place has over other farmer’s markets I’ve seen (at least in Seattle and Vancouver) is the variety. If you zoom in on that picture, below, you’ll see what I mean.

Restaurants

Toronto is Canada’s largest city, and therefore has a lot of offer in terms of food. Of all the places I ate at, these two places were definitely the best.

La Palette

This is a French style restaurant near the Kensington district of Toronto. It’s got an interesting selection of game meat, which was the reason why my buddy and I went. They’ve also got a good selection of wine and staff that are knowledgable about it.

For those wondering, horse doesn’t have a strong flavour like beef does, and it chews like super tender beef. Elk on the other hand, tastes kind of like steak with a bit of gaminess, and is actually quite hard to tell the difference unless you’re someone with really sensitive taste buds

Diana’s Seafood Delight

This place is known for their quality oysters and sea urchin, and also precisely the reason why we were there. They have a selection of different oysters from different areas, but if you gave me a blindfold and asked me which oyster was which, I wouldn’t be able to tell you.

Photo albums:

• Toronto
• Ripley’s Aquarium of Canada
• Casa Loma
• SkullStore Oddity Shop
• Royal Ontario Museum

They took us around Markham, the so-called Asian part of Toronto. Pretty much like Richmond in Vancouver. Felt quite at home there. Eating Chinese food again was quite a welcome change from eating random fast food while in the states. I guess I also didn’t think of taking any pictures there since it seemed to me that things were “quite ordinary”. And people generally don’t take pictures of things they find ordinary.

The last time I was in Toronto, I was eight years old. I don’t remember much from that trip, sightseeing here was quite a new experience for me. We visited Niagara Falls for the second time.  There are people crazy enough to go up close to the falls too.

There’s also a bridge to the United States that lets people see the falls from the American side. No point to go there because the Canadian side of the falls is way more scenic.

If you’re rich, you can even stay in one of these hotels that look straight toward the falls.

Then to the world famous CN Tower.

Gorgeous view from the top.

This time, I’m not afraid of the glass floor.  I figure, what the hell? The engineers who designed it must have made it safe, otherwise it wouldn’t have been built in Canada and it’s lasted so long already without any accidents, so it must be safe.

Those two places are just about the only tourist sites we visited in Toronto. We spent the rest of the time with catching up with cousins and walking around the different Asian malls in Markham. I even got to drive my cousin’s GTI. That was cool too. After two and a half days in Toronto, we flew back to Vancouver, thus ending our two-week trip to eastern North America.

Photos here

Chinatown

My impression of a “Chinatown” in any western place has always seemed to me that the district was full of buildings that look to needing some good cleaning and maintenance or maybe even downright dirty (like gum stains all over the concrete) compared to more modern and nicer looking Asian districts like Richmond in Vancouver or Markham in Toronto.  The vibe in the Montreal Chinatown was kind of the same, but a bit better (see Wiki photo below).

They also have a fancy entrance sign.

The nice thing about Chinatown was the food.  For the past couple days, we had been eating a lot of random fast food (McDonalds, Tim Horton’s etc.) and so eating here was a welcome treat.  The restaurant even had shark fins on display at the entrance.  Looks amazing, but I suppose people shouldn’t be eating that anymore.

Complexe Desjardins

Because Montreal is so cold in the winter, there are some underground tunnels that take people around downtown.  One of the tunnels took us to the Complexe Desjardins.  From what I could tell, this place was just a mall, except, they had a really cool sculpture in the main atrium area.

Each of the little water droplets go up and down individually and seemingly randomly (I have no idea how it works).  Here’s a video of it in action though (kind of shaky because I’m terrible at recording videos).

International Jazz Festival

I’m not exactly a Jazz person, but it was good checking out the atmosphere at the Jazz Festival.  Bands were playing on the concert stage (I didn’t know any of the songs), but the crowd seemed into it.

We probably only walked around for about an hour and a bit, and afterward, we headed home.  We would need good rest for the trip to Quebec City the next day.  I’m told it is about a three-hour drive.

More photos here

Flying to Mexico City

When we got to Dallas Airport, we had a stopover of few hours, so we decided to have some Texan steak – or at least as Texan as we tried to get without leaving the airport.  We ended up at TGI Fridays.  It was the first steak that I’ve had in a long time, and I definitely could use another one.  The steak even came with “Jack Daniel’s Sauce”, which made it that much better.

After eating, we met up with two others on the team who had flown from San Jose and Toronto.  After a four hour flight to Dallas, and other few hours of stopover there, we had to fly for another two and a half hours to get to Mexico City.

As my friend said, “it’s like China happened”.  The Benito Juárez International Airport was probably the most disorganized airport I’ve ever seen.  It’s as if every single flight landed at the same time.  The lineup to grow through customs took at least forty-five minutes.  During this whole time, everyone was tired and wanted get their sleep.  A lot of the people on the team hadn’t slept the night before (rather than sleep 2 or 3 hours to wake up early for the flight right?).  While in this lineup, we saw a couple of other RoboCup teams landing as well (Skuba, MRL, among others).  After finally getting through customs and a security check, we got a ride to our hostel via transportation that we organized with the hostel prior to our departure.

Hostel Mundo Joven Catedral

The hostel we stayed had very nice staff that really cared about making its guests feel safe there.  It’s a common feeling among travelers to think that Mexico City is definitely not one of the safer places to travel to.  To combat that, the hostel had its own security guards, security cameras, and they even called legitimate taxi’s for its guests.  They even told us which direction to walk when leaving the hostel to avoid going to the shadier parts of town.  Furthermore, it was situated in the historic center of Mexico City, within walking distance of the Metropolitan Cathedral of the Assumption of Mary of Mexico City and the Plaza de la Constitución.  From some of the rooms at the hostel, there was a nice view of the cathedral.

Work Day

We spent the next day working on the robots to make sure none of the mechanical parts had been affected during the flight from Vancouver.  We had packed all the robots in a regular suitcase with packing foam all around it to protect it.  Looking over the mechanical parts, everything was in order.  The main things we had to fix were tightening screws, adjusting the wiring etc.  The software team had very little to do because they’ve written all the code they could, and just needed robots to test with.  The electrical team on the other hand, toiled tirelessly to troubleshoot all the boards and make sure they were all functioning properly.

RoboCup Begins!

We arrived at the competition venue, the World Trade Center at 8 AM to find a slew of other teams patiently waiting to register.  After probably an hour long wait, we all finally moved in and set up our work places.  When we looked at the field the robots would be playing on, we noticed that the organizers hadn’t yet set up the cameras yet (required for the robots to “see” where they’re going).  This meant that no teams could test.  Teams that were ready could only wait until the organizers got those set up.  Because of this delay, the games had to be delayed as well.  This gave us more time to get the robots ready.  For the next little while, we were the first team to arrive and the last team to leave everyday.  The electrical team needed all the time they could get to finish everything.

Because we had already finished most our maintenance work the day before, there wasn’t a whole lot we could do.  The electrical team had to continue working on their stuff to get as many robots ready as possible.  For the next day and a half, we let the electrical team do their work and we’d help them along the way by replacing parts that were broken (encoders and such).  Otherwise, there wasn’t much we could help with.

Food for the next Week

When we got hungry during the competition, we did a little bit of exploration to find food.  Eventually, all the teams wound up at the same shopping mall for food.  There was a supermarket downstairs to buy water and a food court upstairs with a variety of foods.  We went to this mall pretty much everyday for as long as we were at the World Trade Center.  One day we’d try Mexican food, other days we’d try plain-old hamburgers and other days we’d try even Chinese food (at least the white person’s interpretation of it).  It wasn’t really healthy for us, but we figured it was only for a week.

For dinner, most teams ended up ordering pizza from the nearby Domino’s.  We ate it so much that everybody got sick of having pizza.  Sometimes, we’d have dinner with other teams at our hostel restaurant so we could get to know them a little bit better.  After all, the competition is more about mutual learning and robotics advancement rather than about winning.

Let the Games Begin

Because our team wasn’t that ready to begin with, we had to forfeit our first game against the Immortals from Iran.  By the time we got three robots up and running, we played against the RoboJackets from Georgia Tech.  They only fielded five robots out of the total six.  For most of the game, both teams played pretty evenly, despite their two-robot advantage.  All was going well until one of the opponent’s robots chipped the ball that hit the top of one of our robots, bounced off and rolled into the goal.  In that particular situation, the referee had called an “indirect free kick”, meaning the shot, even if it went in the net, would not count.  But unfortunately, that rule was not applicable because it hit off of another robot.  It was an unlucky goal for us, and we definitely could not score a goal to tie up the game.  We ended up losing one-nil.  For the next few days, we kept complaining about that goal.

In our third game, we played against RoboFEI from Brazil.  There were so many good scoring chances in this game from both our teams that made this game so intense.  Even though we were only watching machines play, everybody cheered them on.  We had four robots on the field this game and they all worked like a charm.  The mechanical system, electrical system, and the artificial intelligence worked so well together.  It was a great feeling for everyone on our team – to see our design work.  After almost a year of hard work, this was it.  We saw our robots move, intercept balls, shoot on the goal, etc.  A lot of the robot shortcomings from the North American Open were also dealt with, such as the problem of the break beam sensors not working, and the robot not moving accurately on the field.  When we scored, we cheered so loud that every single person in the room could hear us (there were probably about 1000 people in that room).  We all got an immense feeling of satisfaction in seeing our working robots score their first goal.  A few minutes later, the other team scored a goal.  It didn’t matter to us, we were still high in the clouds in terms of our mood.  The game ended 1-1.  Despite the tie game, everyone on the team was so happy in seeing our robots work, it didn’t matter what the result was.

This was a great morale boost for the team because for our forth and last game, we played against BRocks from Turkey.  This time, we had our full fleet of robots.  We played our first six on six game.  Yet again, we saw our robots work.  Nothing broke down during the game and everything just worked.  It was quite rare for us to just put our robots on the field and have nothing go wrong.  At one point, our robot shot the ball into the opposing robot and a piece fell off of it.  We knew our design worked when stuff like this happens.  This game was less intense for us than our previous game, but we did end up winning.  That put our record at 1 win, 1 tie, and 2 losses – a total of 4 points.  Unfortunately, this wasn’t enough for us to advance to the next round of the competition and as a result we finished 13th out of 20 teams in the league.  Not so bad for having zero working robots when we got to Mexico.

After the official games, we played a couple friendly games with other teams.  The first game we played was against the Mannheim Tigers.  The game was going well, until we found problems where some of the screws on the robot weren’t tightened sufficiently.  As a result, things well off the robot when we played.  It was quite embarrassing to see.  At least it was only  something minor like putting in a screw, and not something major like a design problem.  In our second friendly game, this time against ER-Force from Erlangen, we found some electrical parts frying randomly on the board, which wasn’t good either.  Out of six working robots, we now had three – still a net gain I guess.

After we were done playing, we watched the other teams play for first place.  From watching their games, it was clear that they played on a way higher level than we did.  Everything that their robots did were way better than ours.  Shooting was faster, chipping went further, robots moved faster, kicks were more accurate, etc.  Everything about their robots was just better.  There is definitely a lot we could learn from these teams.  The final winner of this year’s competition ended up being Skuba from Thailand, who beat ZJUNLict from China.  Both teams analyzed each others strategies for days, but only one team could come out on top.  And now for the fourth year in a row, Skuba remains the undefeated winner of the competition.

Other Leagues in RoboCup

During our idle time, we walked around the other rooms to see how the other teams were working.  RoboCup has many different competitions under its name, while our Small Size League competition is only one small part of it.  Leagues range from soccer robots, rescue, simulation, to even home care robotics.  In the home care robotics league, the competition involved a robotic navigating through a mock house to perform certain chores such as picking up objects to hand to people, speaking and hearing instructions, etc.  It was an admittedly difficult task to do for these robots, but many teams were quite successful at it.

Accidents Happen

Just like in the North American Open, there was yet again another accident involving batteries.  Except this time, nobody noticed and the whole battery lit up in flames.  Somebody just yelled “fire, fire!” and started trying to pat it down with something.  Knowing that I was too far away to do anything, I just took out my camera and snapped a picture of the whole thing.  Eventually, someone just poured lots of water over it to put our the fire.  In retrospect, that might not have been a good idea since water in an electrical fire is not really a good thing.  Nobody got hurt though, which is good.  Afterward, the organizers didn’t let us charge batteries nearby our work space anymore.

Some Design Shortcomings

Knowing that our ball kicker would be able to withstand impacts of the ball, what we had forgotten to analyze was how well the kicker would hold up if it hit a object fixed to the ground.  We found out the hard way at the competition after a few games when we discovered that our robot kicker head was bent out of shape.  We also had a lot of turf buildup inside the robot that was enough to slow down the wheel during the game.  This turf had to be cleaned out after every match.

For the kicking mechanism, the robot uses a solenoid/plunger mechanism.  Activating the coil would cause the plunger inside the core to move quickly to hit the ball.  A rubber band secured to the end of it would allow the plunger to return to its initial position.  The problem with this setup was that the rubber band would easily break and had to be replaced after every game.  When we took out the rubber band, we could always see cut marks along it.  In another instance, a chipper solenoid on a robot almost popped out.  It’s not really clear why this happened at all, but it could have been a screw that was not very tight to begin with.

RoboCup Closing

To close the competition, there was a soccer game where humans played against the middle size league robots.  It was pretty funny to see the robots struggle to take the ball away from people who could handle the ball way better.  At the same time, the humans were really scared of the robots since if a human ever got hit by the kicker head from the robot, it would break bones.  The robot goalie however, proved quite competent in blocking shots – better than the human goal from what I saw.  Or maybe the human goalie wasn’t trying very hard.  I’m not sure who won the game since I didn’t watch the whole thing, but it was still really interesting to see.

Afterward, all the teams packed up their things and waited for the closing banquet.  At the closing banquet, they served a standard meal for everyone.  It was a really good chance for teams to celebrate their achievements and finally relax a little bit after the competition.  Everyone deserved a rest after all of that.

First Real Tour of Mexico – Teotihuacan

After the competitions ended, most teams stayed an extra day or two to see the sights in Mexico City.  The organizers of the Small Size League were nice enough to organize a tour for everyone the day after the competition ended.  Most of the SSL teams went with us to the Aztec pyramids in Teotihuacan.  The tour first showed us how their predecessors used different plants and minerals to make tools such as knives and sewing thread.  That part was interesting at first, but I think what a lot of us really wanted to see were the pyramids.  Afterward, the tour guide led us to the gift shop.  For some reason, most of the people were so interested there, it took about an hour for everyone to finish so that we could move on with the tour.  After the gift shop, we finally made it to the pyramids.

After walking up and down the pyramids, we had lunch and went back to Mexico City to see the Basilica of Our Lady of Guadalupe.  This was one of the most visited Catholic shrines in the world.  But because I had already visited so many churchs and cathedrals from my tour around Europe, this part of the tour was less interesting for me.

Historic City Center

The team would fly back to Vancouver on the day after visiting the pyramids.  But before leaving, we made sure to visit the Metropolitan Cathedral of the Assumption of Mary of Mexico City and the Plaza de la Constitución.  In the plaza, hung a giant flag of Mexico.  This is where the city center used to be, at least during the 19th century.

Going Home

After 10 days in Mexico, we all longed to go home.  It had been a long week – full of stress, adrenaline pumping excitement and overall a good experience.  But after all that, we were ready to go.  We flew out in the afternoon from Mexico City.  Apparently, at around the same time that we were at the airport in Mexico City, three cops had been shot to death.  While we were there though, we didn’t hear anything of it.  We safely arrived in Dallas for a brief stopover and arrived back in Vancouver at about 8:30 PM, just in time to go home, wash up and go to bed.

More photos here