Footy, followed by a short walk around Asia, and dinner in Saudi Arabia

Saturday we hung out, being mildly productive until about 4pm. Marshal, one of our friends who lives in Sydney through Study Australia had come down the night before and stayed over so her could go to the footy game with us also. At 4:30ish we donned our red attire in support of the St George Illawarra Dragons, and headed to the Five Islands Brewery for a drink while we waited for Matt to get in from Sydney. He and his friend go in at about 6 and we went to go stake out a place on the hill. The game was a lot of fun - it was the Illawarra Dragons vs the Cronulla Sharks, and we whooped their asses. Like, the end score was 38 to 0. Yet to score, is how the commentator kept putting it haha. Matt treated us to meat pies, as is necessary to have at the footy game :). While it wasn't a very close game, it was fun to be on the inside of the stadium when we can always see it from the outside in our apartment. The stadium was so much smaller than the Melbourne stadium that I was at a couple weeks ago (though that seated 100,000...).

This morning we hopped on the bus since the train wasn't running to the south, and made our way down to Unanderra. The largest Buddhist Temple in the southern hemisphere, Nan Tien Temple, is a short walk away from there, so off we went. Amy and Jason had been there before, but none of the rest of us had. It was really cool - it was like taking a short trip to Asia haha. There were indeed a bunch of monks walking around, complete with shaved heads and long brown robes. We went to the tea house and got lunch - I decided to forgo the tea as it was pretty warm today, but I had pretty good dumplings. When we got home Marshal left to go back to Sydney and we hung out until 6, at which point we headed next door.

Fatima had told us a few times before that she would teach us how to cook the kabsa that she cooked for us, so I texted her last week asking her if she was free to teach us this weekend. Tonight, obviously, was the night we went over to see how she cooks it. It was actually pretty simple - moreso than I thought it would be anyway. It's just remembering everything that will be hard - we will have to get a written out recipe from her I think. Some of the spices were different as well, but mostly pretty straightforward. We watched as she made the meal, and then ate it of course. Delicious as always. I'm just always amazed by the feast they give us when we go over there - we had coffee and dates before cooking, and then the kabsa, salad, fish, and these calzone-type things, followed by cupcakes and the little cinnamon roles she always makes (my kryptonite lol), accompanied by more coffee, followed by tea.... sooo much food. And sooo yummy. So yes, hopefully some time in the future I'll be able to cook my very own kabsa :D.