Federer wins Australian Open!!

I'm glad he has won, and won straight sets so I can go sleep now!! heheee

And did anyone see how he drove himself in a 4WD to Melbourne Park? that is so cute.

I was sitting in the lounge of a very swish hotel the other day, and I saw one of those Kia vehicles (you recognise them only cos of those AusOpen stickers stucked all over) pull up the front, but hadn't a clue who the lady was? She definitely wasn't a player since she was pregnant.. ermm

I hope Federer wins all 4 Grand Slams this year, then we'll all be even more happier, and maybe then... he can relax after. :)

btw, I blogged about Day1 at AusOpen in recent days.. you can refer back if you have missed it..

Melbourne vs Sydney

Just recently my friends had come down from Sydney for the long weekend. It's just this comment they made about Melbourne as compared to Sydney, and what most Sydneysiders seem to enjoy about Melbourne, that I think it's worthy of a blog:

- "Shopping is so much better in Melbourne and much more variety" : that I don't quite agree in terms of variety since most labels would definitely be found in Sydney, just that it's easier to find in Melbourne (meaning it's not so scattered, it's a smaller city afterall) like you'd be able to find plenty just being on Little Collins St. Plus it's so much easier to get around, say within the city to get from one end to the other you simply hop on the tram. And within those laneways you can always find up-and-coming Melbourne designers. Then there's Chadstone, Chapel St... Even in recent weeks, I was down in Balaclava and managed to find a lovely one-off store named Eliana and well I picked up 2 dresses and a gorgeous black rose necklace with black leather band (alternates as wrist tie, seriously hot). It's nice to just discover shops like these, service is very good... and I was really only in Balaclava getting some food ahaha : )





- "Food" : definitely agree we are on par, only gripe is I think our choices of VERY good yumcha is poorer than Sydney, although we have been fortunate to have Kam Fook open up in Doncaster early 2009. The last meal truly memorable in Sydney for me however, would have been sometime last year at Quay Restaurant, Overseas Passenger Terminal @ The Rocks. How do you describe it? Wow. I remember the entree clearly because the dish was perfect - Yellowfin tuna with dashi jelly, abalone and horseradish cream (pictured, apologies I had already started on it as you can see). The dessert also deserves a mention (by then we were seriously stuffed), had the 7-Texture Chocolate Cake (pictured simple but spectacular just like the restaurant's views of the harbour). We just don't get quite the same views in our super restaurants here unless you head to ermm maybe Eureka 89. Whether the food is any good is still a question since it hadn't been tried and sits nowhere on my list of where to go.

Back to Quay, I am happy it has rightly made it to one of the top restaurants in the world ranked 46 (2009). Tetsuya is usually in the top 10 year after year, but had dropped slightly to 17. Vue de Monde is nowhere there... I say this all the time, but the next time when I'm in Sydney I must try Sailors Thai. But for those Sydneysiders, I believe it's our warmth, unpretentious feel to many of our establishments that truly wins them over.

- "Laneways" :yes we good old Melburnians do love all those hidden places, or cafes in every laneway, or a bar/lounge down underground.. .

I added, the greenery, European feel to the place, artsy, culture, whilst Sydney is typical of in-your-face big city. Oh and of course, Melbourne is still more affordable in terms of land value for something comparable to what you can attain in Sydney.

And on top of that, work :) only because I've worked in different cities in Australia and Melbourne's definitely a good place to be.

I'm not sure about Sydney's public transport though. We aren't really happy with ours, including the recent poor rollout of Myki cards. But other than that, I think we're a pretty happy lot. heh.

Here's the list of top 50 restaurants in the world for 2009:
www.acehighwine.com/2009/04/21/the-spellegrino-worlds-50-best-restaurants-2009/

Australian Open Day 1

What a way to finish up my holidays, yes at the Australian Open. The day came with rain, the cold, and well, it really wasn't the best day to have ground passes.

What was great however about being in Melbourne Park is, how you can head around to all the stalls, entering comps, playing games yes..even Wii, or if you need replacement racquets balls anything, there's plenty to choose from. Atmosphere amongst all would be what I truly enjoy, the live feeling that TV never has, seeing the crowds and plenty of tourists (we watched Gonzalez play (pictured) and anyone in the crowd wearing bright red were the Chileans!!).




What's also great about being there during the first few days is that all players will be out on courts either on Day 1 or 2 guaranteed. And even better, big players such as Federer whom wasn't playing a match on Day 1 would be on practice courts. Meaning, you can see them up close. And that's exactly what happened! Except by the time we arrived there, Federer had just done his stuff.. I didn't even manage to take a pic of him, by the time I got the camera out, he's gone!! arghhhhh

By the way, I've only blogged this when the Open is coming to a close, and Federer's just gone through the semis. And, if you heard his speech after, the guy's just so funny. And the best word to describe him, effortless. When one is born with a natural talent, things the person does always appears easy. Don't you agree? Yes you gotta love all things Swiss including the great Roger Federer.

We also spotted other biggies during practice, swedes Robin Soderling (pictured in white) and a very handsome Magnus Norman, mmmmm (pictured purple shirt). Norman is now the coach of Soderling.


My history of tennis dates back to my teens. I was a huge fan and followed tennis all year round (pity my tennis skills sux). In those days I remember players like Lendl, Becker, Edberg, Agassi, Graf, Wilander, Sampras, and even those Sanchezs' and funny man Leconte!! But now returning back to the courts, there were plenty whom I really weren't familiar with.

Anyway we left the day remembering just how enthusiastic everyone was filling up Margaret Court to cheer on local Aussie Tomic, then rain came, play suspended, rain stops, courts get dried up by workers (they would have been very busy that day hehehe). Ready for play, court gets filled. Then rain came again, out comes the umbrellas/raincoats. Same routine for a few more times. Or like us, we pretty much gave up and ran back into the Arena to seek proper shelter. My jeans was drenched even holding an umbrella in Margaret Court... ahh Melbourne Melbourne. heehee

Well you know I love Melbourne for all the surprises it gives me day in day out. : ) that's what makes it very special. Let me blog this next...

Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission kicks off..

13th Jan marked the first public meeting of the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission, and will be a year long process with a report due to be submitted by 15th Dec 2010.

The opening session goes on for 3.5hrs with 10 members from the Commission throwing questions at Goldman Sachs CEO Lloyd Blankfein, JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon, Morgan Stanley Chairman John Mack, and Bank of America CEO Brian Moynihan. (pictured)

Commission chairman is Phil Angelides, watch him in the clip as he goes toe-to-toe with Blankfein, couple of pointers that are funny:

- Angelides compared Blankfein to a used car salesman “It sounds to me a little bit like selling a car with faulty brakes, then buying an insurance policy on the buyer of those cars.”

- Blankfein then referred to higher powers, comparing the market meltdown being hit by a series of hurricanes. Angelides responded "Mr Blankfein, I want to say this. Having sat on the board of the California Earthquake Authority, acts of God will be exempt. These were acts of men and women."

- Blankfein actually got pretty annoyed during the questioning, have a look at his response and how the company then releases a statement suggesting he said no such thing:

Angelides "I want to ask you about a very specific instance as a way of getting to how things worked and how things might be changing in the future. Based on the review of public documents, as you know, your firm sold a significant amount of subprime mortgage-related securities. And it appears, at least according to public documents and other reports, that you may have simultaneously betted against the securities you sold to clients. According to the reports, you sold about $40 billion in 2006, 2007. December 2006, I think you came to the conclusion the mortgage market was heading south and you began to reduce your own positions. And many of the securities that you sold to institutional investors, other folks, went bad within months of issuance. Now, one expert in structured financing said, the simultaneous selling of securities to customers and shorting them because they believed they were going to default is the most cynical use of credit information that I’ve seen. Do you believe that was a proper, legal, ethical practice, and would the firm continue to do that practice, or do you believe that’s the kind of practice that undermines confidence in the marketplace?"

Blankfein responded "Well, the way it’s–the short answer is this is the practice of a market maker, and I would like to explain this. But the answer is I do think that the behavior is improper."

So it appears Blankfein admitted to “improper” actions, albeit a tad jittery in his response. But then the company releases a statement as follows:
“Mr. Blankfein was responding to a lengthy series of statements followed by a question that was predicated on the assumption that a firm was selling a product that it thought was going to default. Mr. Blankfein agreed that, if such an assumption was true, the practice would be improper. Mr. Blankfein does not believe, nor did he say, that Goldman Sachs had behaved improperly in any way,”

John Carney from The Business Insider, states "A structured credit product – whether its as simple as a mortgage backed security or a complex CDO – is not necessary flawed if it produces losses. Even enormous losses. Indeed, it might be perfectly well-designed but still deliver the buyers losses... It is possible to sell a financial product without believing the buyer’s rationale for buying it. As long as Goldman wasn’t lying to clients or over-hyping the financial products – and so far, no one has shown any evidence of this – there’s nothing really wrong with what Goldman was doing."

At least from this hearing, the 4 heavyweights did admit their mistakes.

Here's Day One's hearing - Panel 1:
//c-span.org/Watch/Media/2010/01/13/HP/A/28350/Financial+Crisis+Inquiry+Commission++Day+One.aspx