Australia Day 1

My WHOLE family arrived Melbourne the night before and some of us were still exhausted from the long hour flight. We got ready early morning where my younger sister cooked breakfast for us. It was heavy one because she wanted to make sure we were well feed before the long drive for the day. This trip consists of my parents, my elder sister with her husband and two babies, my 2 younger sisters ,myself, my sister who is studying in Melbourne and her cute and hardworking partner.

The plan for today was to Phillip Island and on the way there, we will stop at Maru Animal Park to visit some rare and furry creatures that only live in Australia..

We paid $13 for the entrance fee each person and were allowed to spend as much time as you want in the park. We fed kangaroos. OK, not "we". It was only my sister, dad and brother in law because the rest of us were scared of animals. We just stood aside and looked in amazement.

This is me acting brave when my dad was feeding the kangaroo. Some of the kangaroos actually have babies in their pouch.

This is the lazy koala bear. It was sleeping when we came and still sleeping when we walked away.

Emus.. The weather on this day was good. Clear sky.

Dingoes.. a type of dog.

Tazmanian devil, looking safe to near to. But the sign there said it will jump and bite of your finger if you put your finger near the fence.

There are some other animals in the park and I feel lazy to list all down. :P

5 sisters (with a baby. she is stucked)


Then we carried on journey to Phillip Island and stopped before the brige that going into Phillip Island for photos..

In this picture, there is the nobbies, sea rock at the back (look like rough line of rocks) and bass strait.

This is my youngest sister with the nobbies blowhole. It is a 12metre long turnel drilled into the cliff by strong wave.

We stopped at the road side to take photo with cows because the grass looks so greenish and cows so healthy.

Then we went along the road and stopped at this place called the Anzacs beach where surfers surfed in the cold freezing water and dangerous current. Bear in mind it is winter now in Australia. At night I think the temperature goes as low as 3 celcius. LOL

PHOTOLOG #22: 20090620

Will be back again in 2 weeks time.

Australia, WE are coming!!!

It is nearer to our family vacation date and I am getting very excited. With so many things happening in my life lately, I feel restless but at the same point looking forward to all of them. It wasn't an abrupt planning or so whatever. The plan was drafted half a year ago, and only got finalized lately when my sister in Austrlia started her vacation. She drew out a very beautiful planned itenery with all the rental car booked and transportation prepared and research on the direction and prices of each visit route.. It is not an easy job to put in 11 adults and 2 babies in a trip. I will write a nice entry about our trip when I came back...

PHOTOLOG #21: 20090518

Today as 13-5-2009

Today is a historical day. It is easy to figure that out.

I have not lifted to write anything here since photolog started and I abort the photolog temporarily due to heavy work load I am having through the past weeks. I had tried to mantain photolog earlier by stealing 15 minutes from my work hour previously but now I really don't even have 15 minutes spare to use. Now is 6.35pm. I am pushed to write a little because the headache I am having is stopping me from thinking wisely in work. I went for a short toilet break and bang my head to loosen the nodes. After this short blogging I shall be back to the job.

My life has been good outside work. At least it offsets the nightmares I have. Both my younger sisters achieved superb result in SPM and STPM and one has been offered a scholarship and the other one still waiting for the result. Regardlessly anyone of them getting or not getting a scholarship, I still think both of them are wonderful. They coped with work and studies well and managed to score high points in their exams. Family has been good and personal life is better than best. I am happy outside work. I am stressing outside because in work, I am depressed, exhausted and sad. No matter what, work is work. I won't bring problem in work back into my personal life.

I recently received an inspiring/educational email from a colleague at work.

"When two people are angry, their hearts are far from each other. Thus, in order to cover that distance they need to shout at each other so that they can hear what they are saying. The more angry they become the louder they have to shout at each other for the distance is getting farther and farther."

"When two people fall in love? They do not shout at each other but they talk to each other in soft, tender voices; for their hearts are close. The distance between these two hearts is very small. The more they are falling in love with each other the less they have to talk, they don’t talk they just have to whisper and then they grow even closer than ever. Finally even they don’t need to whisper, just talk with their eyes, they need nothing more to communicate. This is how close two people are when they love each other.”

The moral of this is “when you argue with someone do not allow your heart to grow so far from one another. Do not say words that can separate you even more. If you are not careful it is possible in the future that the distance grows so great that neither of you will be able to find the way back.”

M.Y. L.I.F.E I.S L.I.K.E H.E.L.L.

M.Y. L.I.F.E I.S L.I.K.E H.E.L.L.

working with hell "colleague" in hell project

MY life is in a mess.

PHOTOLOG #20: 20090426

It was ridiculously tiring. I slept 8 hours out of 2 days (48 hours), and spent the next 9 hours painting the kitchen. The kitchen is sparking white but around my eyes were corpse dark. By 9pm the third day, I was already doozling and not even know when did I crawled from the floor onto the bed. I took a rest on the floor but waking up on the bed. Proven crazily tired. The picture was taken on the 2nd day night where I dined in Queensbay and saw the crowd. It took me very little time to realise that an artist was coming to meet her fans there. Fish Leong, a pretty silly name with tiny size but sweet voice.

PHOTOLOG #19: 20090421

PHOTOLOG #18: 20090420

It was tough to figure out who gave this.. anyway thanks a bunch.

PHOTOLOG #17: 20090419

Chocolate indulgance to pay the weekday's hardwork...

PHOTOLOG #16: 20090414

PHOTOLOG #15: 20090413

Little souvenirs

PHOTOLOG #14: 20090412

Saturday night treat cassata tiramisu, Haagen-Dazs new creation. Heaven

PHOTOLOG #13: 20090411

While I was burning midnight oil on Friday night, he got obsessed with his new toy. He even timed himself to solve a all colour mixed over cube in 1.5 minutes. Marvelous.

PHOTOLOG #12: 20090408

I am super busy. Sorry aunty Fong for missing out another day of photolog yesterday. *slap myself twice* (for that)

PHOTOLOG #11: 20090406

Everyone has their own comfort zone. Where's yours?

PHOTLOG #10 : 20090405

PHOTOLOG #9: 20090404

I am not a fan of snack food. But I still buy satay jelly, Rocky and Cadbury dairy milk chocolate sometimes.

PHOTOLOG #8: 20090402

We received a desk calendar from the company for our contribution to community service throughout the year. By hanging it in front of my eyes, I am reminded of how fast time flies everyday! It is April 2009 already.

PHOTOLOG #7: 20090401

I received a small gift from a sweet girl today, for coaching her in some work related stuff

Cooking recipe: Prawn stir-fry with egg

I just came back and haven't shower. I still have work to do and training foil to create but I could not resist not to post this entry. The reason is simple, because this dish is one of many Weeliem's favourite. He begged for me to tell him how to cook this because he said he doesn't need me anymore after he mastered my recipes. It is not funny at all!

The step is very simple and you can easily make it with the throw of all ingredients.

Ingredients :
Prawns medium size (200gm). Cut off the sharp end and the whiskers using scissors.
1 egg. beat
4 cloves of garlic. minced
a small piece of ginger. minced
salt & pepper to taste
cili padi (if you have). cut into small cubes
soy sauce. a teaspoon

Method:

1. Heat up a tablespoon of oil

2. Saute the mixture of garlic and ginger until the ingredients became golden brown

3. Throw in the prawns and stir fry.

4. Add salt. Add the cili padi here if you have it.

5. Control the fire to medium and fry until the prawns turned pinkish. That would be really quick

6. Pour in egg

7. Mix and stir for about 20 seconds.

8. Sprinkle about a teaspoon of soy sauce and serve with rice

Serve 2

Enjoy!

PHOTOLOG #6: 20090331

PHOTOLOG #5: 20090330

My love confession on Rocky

PHOTOLOG #4: 20090329

Earth hour: 28 March 2009, 8.30-9.30pm

PHOTOLOG #3: 20090328

PHOTOLOG #2 :20090327

Taken yesterday but can't post it on time, because I fell asleep.

PHOTOLOG #1: 20090326

Thebakingengineer and I agreed to post a photo each day with small caption. We called it PHOTOLOG. That's the photo where our friendship kinda started, so it will be my first photolog

Cooking recipe: Curry chicken

The decision to cook curry chicken on a normal weekday really took some efforts. I peeled and cleaned the shallots the night before because I knew I would not have enough time to do so when I wanted to cook it today. I had half packet of curry powder left from rendang chicken and I felt uncomfortable looking at half of the packet left in the cabinet. That was where I had the thought to make the food something similar to old town kopitiam chicken curry with rice. I managed to get coconut milk from the store but didn't have lemon grass. So I have to get going without this important ingredient. However the curry chicken turned out pretty good and spicy too. Weeliem sweated while eating his rice with the thick curry.


Here's the recipe, pardon for missing some important ingredients because I simply threw whatever I can think of and available at home. It is kinda thick or more to kapitan curry chicken style.

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Ingredients:

a cup of coconut milk

a bowl of shallots, peeled, processed

ginger, size of thumb, processed with shallots

2 chicken thighs with legs

a potatoe, cubes

2 sticks of curry leaves, tore from stick

curry powder-half a packet

cili giling/boh

peanut oil

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Steps:

1) Fry potatoes in penut oil until the outer skin turns golden, leave aside

2) Heat up 2 tablespoons peanut oil in wok

3) Saute processed mixture for few minutes till fragrant

4) Add in cili giling and curry power, turn around the mixture to avoid sticking to wok

5) Pour chicken pieces into the curry mixture, mix well for like 5 minutes

6) Add in coconut milk, if you want the curry to be thicker, you can add more coconut milk, if the other way round, add water. Adjust according to your preference

7) Add in curry leaves, close lid and leave it to boil for 3 more minutes

8) Add in potatoe cubes, let it cook for 15 minutes to make sure chicken is cooked.

9) Salt to taste, serve hot with rice

Serving: 2-3

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Enjoy!

I need to post my first photolog now and then work!

Typical morning of a working day

Since today lunch time I didn't go out and I am feeling really tired of solving those issues which cramped my brain muscle, I decided to write something here.

The pictures below were taken on a typical day before I left for work.

The weather which was pretty good on the day "spring" arrived. There was rain on the day before. It is now the month after drought which drought in my definition for the first 2 months of the year in this country, heat that unbearable to human being.

Second picture is one of the many plant that my neighbour planted. She does a lot gardenings. There are/were chillies, pandan leaves, curry leaves, kaffir lime, lady's fingers and flowers. I would like to plant them if I have a garden.

Red petal flowers blooming on a tree along the roadside

This picture is too random. Felt tired of waiting..

Beautiful neighbourhood. Many people walk their pets around here and these people are the environment conscious type who pick up their pets' poo on their way.

Breakfast. Milk tea.

Off to work..

Cooking recipe: Stir-fry black pepper pork

I made this dish two weeks back and it happened a night before when I suddenly thought of making something using the black pepper sauce I bought sometime ago. The result when I cooked the next day was the pork wasn't that rich in taste because I did not have time to marinate it at all. I simply chose some ingredients I had in my fridge and rack and threw things together. Yesterday I repeated what I did again BUT marinated the pork overnight and it turned out pretty awesome.

I did not managed to take any photo because weeliem and I savoured the pork slices gluttonly and by the time the idea to take a photo came into my mind, the plate was licked clean.

Though I want to share it here because I love it to bits. The recipe is pretty simple and is easy to make.

To marinate meat:
Ingredients:
300g pork tenderloin into thin slices
5 tablespoon black pepper sauce (I use singlung black pepper sauce)
1 teaspoon salt
2 tablespoons starch

Method:
Mix well and put aside in the fridge overnight

To cook:
Ingredients:
1 spring onion. Sliced
ginger - size of a thumb. Sliced
4 cm carrot. Sliced
2 tablespoons soy sauce
salt and pepper to taste
marinated pork

Method:
Heat up oil in wok. Low heat.
Add in spring onion, ginger and carrot. Stir-fry until the ingredients for approx 1 minute.
Add pork and splash in drops of water so that the pork won't stick to wok. Medium heat.
Stir-fry for approx 3 minutes. Make sure pork is cooked. Stir to avoid browned bits of food
Add soy sauce, salt and pepper and let it cook a little while more .20 seconds. Stir occasionally.
Serve hot with rice

Note: serves 2.

Enjoy this simple recipe!

Crochet beret turned into crochet beanie hat

I don't know if this should be called failure project. I was trying to make a beret but the yarn and needle that I have doesn't make the size of a beret and I turned it into a beanie hat instead.

The plus side is I beautified it. I made a crochet flower put it on the beanie hat.

The colour of the hat is another thing. Earlier I thought of using the "turquoise" blue yarn but end up I didn't have enough of it. So I continued the other half using another soft shade of blue.

At last I completed my first project.. I kinda like my first crochet product!

Crochet beret - In making (1)

This is what I am up to starting today. I want to make a beret with my own hands. Let's see how long will I need to complete the full product. I am very tired and my sight getting blurry so I will stop now.

Super hot day

A very important thing to do on a super hot day like this is a long bubbly bath in your favourite scent. Sensual. I am having twice showers everynight since the heat arrived in end of January. Hopefully the weather will get better and no alien will come and rescue the earth from human mankind, us. Just like in the movie, the day the earth stood still

Happy Valentine's Day

Weeliem borrowed my pasta cookbook and brought me to the supermarket to get the right ingredients. He wanted to make my favourite food for Valentine's dinner, spaghetti marinara. In the other hand is to satisfy his own appetite. He loves seafood especially clams..prawns.. calamari..


The spaghetti turned out excellent and got my taste buds tingling.. I was joyful like meeting my love on the first sight. This time he was the main cook, and I was the low class helper.


Happy Valentine's Day dear. I knew Fang Fang and Kim were also waiting for their love ones's own cooked meal. Lovely day.

Tagged

I am tagged by Cathrane. It says you need to tag 8 people in your list where you have to list their name out at the end of the post. You got to notify them that she or he has been tagged in their chat box. There are 20 questions at below. You have to remove a question and add in a personal question to make the total 20. From the first sight, all of them seems to be love related questions which I kind of reluctant to answer. Hehe. Anyways, here it goes..


1. Do you believe love in first sight?
I used to believe when I was in high school. Now, I don't.

2. What is your most favourite thing to do?
I love to cook


3. What kind of song do you sing?
I don't sing


4. What would u do if u were to die tomorrow?
I want to spend the whole last day with my family



5. Is there someone in your heart right now?
Yes, absolutely. He always there.



6. Do you believe in true love?
I believe after watching a good love movie but it kinda fades away until I watch the next one. It doesn't means I don't believe in my boyfriend. I just know that I need protection from amost everything.

7. What are you afraid to lose the most?
Confidence and consciousness



8. What do you feel like doing right now?
I wish I can take a good shower, have a fragrant vanilla scrub, sit down sipping orange juice from the fridge and learn another guitar code so weeliem won't say that I never practise.


9. If there’s someone that you love, would you confess to him/her?
I do not need now



10. List 5 things that u will find in a bf/gf
Patience, willing to learn, smart, gentleman and knows a little music



11. What are the requirements that you not wish from your other half?
Temperous, sissy, stupid, lazy and dirty


12. So far, what things that make you proud?
The success of my younger sisters



13. Do you feel like killing someone at the moment?
No



14. If you had grant a wish from genie, what would it be?
I want to travel around the world, to cooler side of the earth, and to beautiful beaches.


15. If you had a choice to be rich or happy, which one would you pick?
I can't make the choice because I want both.


16. If you have a chance, which part of your character you would like to change?
Temper


18. Name one love song that you have in mind and why?
Angel song that played in Ai Chee's wedding



19. What is the one thing you love about yourself?
Intelligence


20. Given you a million dollar today, will you donate it to the needy?
No. I might just donate a small portion of it because I need the rest.

I feel lazy to tag.. Can I just tag 2?

xiao wei
chiupin
leng lui (new!!!)

Steamboat at friend's place

Apparently everyone is getting married and have a house of their own. This time we went to a friend's place for a little house warming. Ping is a good friend of mine from the university. Both of them are my coursemates and they are now married :)


She prepared a lot of ingredients for the steamboat dinner held at her home. Fishballs, squid balls, taiwanese sausages, abalone mushrooms, golden mushrooms, chicken, fish, vege, seafood taufu and others were wrapped so nicely, like the one got ready prepared from supermarket.

We played some games from wii nintendos. That's herhau doing her yoga pose. We left at 12am.

Old cucumber and pork rib soup

Today I cooked old (matured) cucumber and pork rib soup. The dried red dates and wolfberries in the soup made it sweet. I skinned the cucumber after chunking into small pieces but my mom just left it unskinned to avoid the cucumber from melting into soup. I should have de-seed the cucumber because I do not favour the feeling of biting into the seeds when drinking soup. I threw everything into a pot and let it boiled for 5 minutes, then simmered it for another 1.5 hour and added salt for seasoning. Served hot and it was cooled down my body instantly!

4th day of Lunar New Year '09

I did not join my friends for visiting during Chinese New Year for years now. The reason is I have to be with my family and relatives on this special occasion. So in this year I only met with my dear friends on the fourth day of Chinese New Year. Yes, I had yee sang again.

A nice combination of vibrant colour tops. We waited like one and a half hour before the food is served and the crabs came out dissapointingly tiny. The restaurant had finished their bigger prawns on earlier days of the new year, we guessed. The left over crabs on the fourth day were of the size of my alarm clock but the taste was awesome.

We ordered 80% of the dishes advertised on their menu board. Amazingly, we finished all the food and still managed to walk out of the restaurant to our next fun venue. :D

This is Kim and I eating crab <3

Group photos without the guys. yeah..

Kek Lok Si 2009

This was my fourth yee sang in this ox year and I still not love it. The taste is funny and not to my liking. :P Though I wish that when I scooped and tossed the ingredients high in the air, the greater is my luck, wisdom and fortune all year long.

My colleagues and I made a visit to Soek Junn's house in AirItam and had a short hike up the hill to the legendary Kek Lok Si beautifully lighted to welcome and celebrate Chinese New Year. We had scrumptious dinner before the hike, luckily. Everywhere is decorated by colourful lights and bulbs mainly of orange, yellow and red colours. The pagoda is standing up strong and forever in the heart of Penangnite.

All of us had good times camwhoring around the place. We took some photos and they are a few nice ones.

The temple was basically closed already at time we reached there. But the lights were on until about 11pm. They started turning off the lights little by little at 10.30pm and we walked back down to the Soek Junn place.

We spent a little more time in her house experimenting our luck in small card sessions. End of day.

Happy Chinese New Year

The photo is composed speacially for my sister who is now in Taiwan. She spent her Chinese New Year with none of the family members in this Ox year. We celebrated the new year moderately with the faces of joy and lovingness, and a new member of family. It is her first Chinese New Year! While the young one attracted a lot attention due to her always smiley look, the older one never failed to surprise us with a lot of screaming and mischievous behaviour. Cutie kid who loves the camera, caused everyone headache of her weep and cries but still her smile cured everything.

We have lesser people sitting on together on year eve dinner, and hopefully when my sister came back, our 2010 new year will be merrier.

Rose apples

Jambu air or rose apple. Weeliem has been eyeing for this fruit the whole week. He looked at the plastic bag contained the rose apples on the kitchen top which belongs to my housemate and wished to gobble them off.

I went to the market this morning and saw the red fruits arranged in the fuit stall. Of course they caught my attention with their rose red colourbeside the green and yellow stairfruits and mangoes. I got them for a little surprise to the big boy who was still sleeping at home. I came home with rose apples and the other usual greenies and poultry.

We had two after lunch. They were so juicy, sweet and crunchy!

After new year's Post

I think 50% of people in the world fall sick during christmas or new year time because I kept on seeing messages and notes in MSN/Facebook ,hearing coughing sounds in the office and people whinning about their sickness. While everyone is busy blogging about their new year resolutions, I am dreaming away in my own territory. By the way, I want to name two.

First, I would like to reduce 2kg of my current weight. That's called slimming down.

Second, I want to have more patient towards impatient matters because this thing is killing me. I can't sleep, headache and body heats up when I met with obstruction in everyday life.

This is a rather boring entry because I have not pretty photos to post. But what I want to say here is I am very happy with my life now because I have him. He is my happiness and all. I know I grudge all the times, but who doesn't? They just don't show it to people. :P I am the super expressive type.

My buddy has just came back from her 6 weeks vacation in US with beautiful news and starts to blog again. That's another happy piece.

I need to go to bed now as tomorrow I am going to have a full day soft skill training class again. Second day. zzzz..

Hello 2009 !!!

Today is the first day of year 2009 and I breathed the first 7 hours of the year staying awake in a surrounding of friends.

Hello 2009! I am looking forward for this year..

Happy New Year everyone!!!