Why bitch when you can blog

 

January 2008
M T W T F S S
« Dec   Feb »
 123456
78910111213
14151617181920
21222324252627
28293031  

Recent Comments

Tags

Adventures on two wheels Bali Be@rBrick Japan Korilakkuma M'sia NZ Party Road trip Spending money

    follow me on Twitter


    Categories +/-

    Archive +/-

    Links +/-

    Meta +/-

  • Archive for January, 2008

    Pear & Ken’s wedding

    DSC09867.jpg
    Two lives, two hearts
    Joined together in friendship,
    united forever in love. 26.01.08

    Ordinary

    This month has been a very slow month for me. Not sure why. Somehow after I’ve competed all 6 seasons of SATC, I felt a bit lost. It’s very strange. Am I suffering from tv series withdrawal symptom? Anyway I am looking forward for SexandtheCity:the movie which will be out in May.

    DJ bought his surfboard 2 weeks ago and therefore I have inherited his body board.

    big bat.jpg

    DJ and his 3rd wife- The BIG BAT. This is how it works in the family.
    1st Wife is the snowboard and I am the 2nd wife but the best part is I am legal with a marriage certificate and the other 2 wives only have receipts as proof of purchase. LOL. I’m going bananas with all the boards we have at home.

    We have been going to the beach quite frequently since beginning of this year. It’s good in away so that I can avoid the city during the weekends which usually end up with impulse purchases. i.e shoes!

    Last weekend was Pear’s hen’s at Cookie.
    KatsuDon and I was there for drinks and dinner but we went home after that. We were so tired after spending the whole day at the beach.

    cookie bar.jpg

    L-R: Pear, KatsuDon, Yauie and the Filipino me! I had to edit the photo cuz I have this hideous uneven tan all over me. I’m not very sure how I’ll look like after the summer season ends.

    Congratulations to the Doll master(s)

    KXHV.jpg
    Love does not consist in gazing at each other
    but in looking together in the same direction.
    ~ Antoine de Saint-Exupery
    A very big virtual hug and kisses to my dearest friends KX & HV who recently got engaged at Krabi, Thailand.
    Welcome to the club soon-to-be Mrs.O Kiss.gif

    Yarra Valley | 28-30 Dec 07

    This is a very back dated post.

    Our very first stay over at the winery. It was a wedding present from DJ’s cousin. Excellent :mrgreen:
    Ainsworth Estate is located at Yarra Valley which is almost an hour drive from Melbourne.

    Our winery package consist of 2 nights stay at their luxurious self contained one bedroom apartment which includes breakfast and a two course dinner in the Ainsworth Estate restaurant and a bottle of wine.

    Day 1

    DSC09215.jpg

    We arrived at the winery around lunch time. It was 39 degrees at that time we arrive and decided to have lunch at the estate restaurant.

    DSC092481.jpg

    For starters, we shared a platter of antipasto because I was so damn hungry. The platter was alright. Nothing fancy just the usual stuff. The smoke chicken breast was yummy- very salty, me likey :)

    DSC09259.jpg

    I had the barramundi with mango salsa on roast potatoes and rockets.

    DSC09257.jpg
    DJ ordered the pan fried calamari stripes.

    After lunch we checked into our apartment and had a nap before cooking dinner.

    DSC09262.jpg
    View from the living room.

    DSC09299.jpg
    View from the balcony

    DJ cooked dinner with only 4 ingredients
    -2 chicken Maryland
    -frozen peas & corn
    -a can of Campbell’s chicken noodle soup
    -cauliflower

    Ta-da, here I present you his creation of an all in one dish dinner.

    DSC09302.jpg

    Day 2

    DSC09314.jpg

    Our first stop was St Hubert .DJ didn’t really like the wine selections that were offered for tasting. I in the other hand quite liked the late harvest Riesling. I have a very bad sweet tooth for Riesling *grin*

    DSC09329.jpg

    Then we went to Punt Road estate. DJ was trying on all their wines that we offered for tasting. He immediately fell in love with the cabernet shiraz. He was all smiles after his first purchase.

    We did a quick stop over to Green Point Wines which are famous for their Chandon bubblies.

    DSC09335.jpg

    As always, at Green Point Wines estate is usually packed with tourist trying out wines and champagne so instead of waiting for our turn to for the tasting; we took a mini tour around the estate.

    DSC09336.jpg

    After purchasing some bubblies from Green Point, we drove up to Healesville town centre for lunch at the Healesville Hotel.

    DSC09352.jpg

    I kind of like this restaurant. It has this old fashion bar saloon type of feel dining area. Very retro yo.
    Most of the foods in the menu are seasonal produce from the surrounding area.

    We decided to have a light lunch since we’ll be having a 2 course dinner back at the estate as part of the package.

    DSC09369.jpg

    As for starter we had freshly shucked oyster from coffin bay S.A with cab sav granite. Having oyster on a hot day is so refreshing. I heart fresh oyster to bits.

    DSC09371.jpg

    Then I set for ceviche of scallops with lime, basil, avocado and soft herb. It was absolutely divine but I guess $17 for an entrée is a bit steep tho.

    DSC09373.jpg

    DJ ordered the roasted bone marrow and snail escargots with watercress and shallot salad. i tried the escargots and it tasted funny. Me no likey.

    DSC09383.jpg
    The cheesy man sure loves his formage.

    Due to the unbearable hot weather, we decided to go back to our apartment for a nap. I love my afternoon naps.

    At 7pm, we went for our dinner at the estate restaurant. We had the whole restaurant to ourselves.
    Sounds romantic right, almost like what you see in the movies where the rich guy book the whole restaurant for his girlfriend. Candle light dinner followed by a slow dance bla bla bla…
    Actually, I feel awkward and bad for the chef and the host to purposely come in to prepare everything for just the 2 of us. We even have to talk so softly because it was so darn quiet.

    DSC09396.jpg
    DSC09416.jpg

    We got a bottle of complementary wine which DJ ended up buying 6 bottles to so called keep for special occasion :roll:

    The dinner menu was the same as the lunch menu we had on day 1. *scratches head*

    DSC09398.jpg

    For starters, I ordered the pumpkin gnocchi triangle with Mediterranean vegetable sauce. It actually looked more like pan fried polenta. in fact it tasted like polenta. Weird. How come the chef called this dish gnocchi?

    DSC09397.jpg

    DJ had the smoked chicken, orange, pear and strawberry salad with vinaigrette dressing.

    DSC09430.jpg

    As for the mains, both of us ordered the eye fillet on roast potatoes and rocket with mushroom compote. The steak was cooked to our liking – rare.

    It was a very quick dinner. We finished our dinner within an hour and returned to our apartment to finish the complementary wine from dinner.

    Home time

    After we’ve checked out at 11am, we went to the Warratina Lavender farm at Wandin Yallock

    DSC09459.jpg

    There’s a little café / retail shop for lavender lovers at the farm. I ordered a lavender scone and tea for morning tea.

    DSC09468.jpg

    The amount of lavender that was use in the scones was tad little till I can’t even tell the difference between plain scones.

    DSC09493.jpg

    Last stop was Whispering Hills estate before we head back to Melbourne.

    DSC09510.jpg

    Overall the stay at the winery was indeed very relaxing and it was really nice to be away from the city for awhile but not too long. After all I’m 100% city girl that lives in the burbs.

    11 hours of sleep and I got yelled for being NICE

    I was so dead tired yesterday nite that I went to bed at 8.30pm!
    It was a fine Monday until I had to fix up someone’s shite at the very last hour of work time. I hate it when people are not responsible at their work and push the ball around. In the end I had to be the number 4 to clean up the mess.

    So this morning I woke up feeling all fresh [well I actually hit the snooze button 3 times] and prepared to start a brand new day at work.
    The train ride to work was alright. Mundane.
    I usually stand near the train door exit because most of the times I don’t get a chance to have a seat. I saw a very massive lady took 2 seats. Tsk tsk tsk…
    When the train was about to reach Richmond station, I was approached by an elderly Asian woman, I think she is about 70 years old. She asks if I was getting of soon. I replied “yup, I’m getting off here [Richmond station]”
    Then I remembered my mom always taught me to be polite to the elders and should always give a lending hand if they need any assistance. It’s pretty basic morale ethics we all learn at school rite?
    Well well well… hello… for no reason I got YELLED from the 70yr-old-asian-woman because I was TOO NICE to let her get off the train first.

    ME: after you
    70yr-old-asian-woman : I THOUGHT YOU WERE GETTING OFF HERE!!!
    ME: I am -_-”

    Ok, I know I shouldn’t hold a grudge on this little small matter. I shall treat this as the lady kind of so called deaf and she yelled at me because she couldn’t hear me clearly.

    Tuesdays are just as bad as Mondays.

    Why is it always ME! and it’s always got something to do with trains or train stations?

    Delayed spring cleaning

    What more can I say when we finally got our lazy arse to ikea on Sat to buy some shelves for my lovely darlings – Mah shuz

    shoes.jpg

    As you can see in the pic, DJ is very kind to let me have most of the space :mrgreen:

    This whole weekend was all about shopping for home. We haven’t really got into unpacking our stuffs since we’ve moved to this place. I cannot believe the amount of junks we have accumulated from our previous 1 bedroom apartment. The bizarre thing is, now we are living in a 2 bedroom apartment and I couldn’t figure out where to keep all our stuffs. *scratches head*

    The stupid vacum cleaner and washing machine decided to give us a surprise and died at the very beginning of the year. Great. Just what we needed. Extra debts to pile up on the existing I.O.U contract. Life is just full of debts and it sucks it’s damn FABULOUS.

    Christmas break

    Team BSP was in Torquay during the christmas holiday.

    Here’s a short description about Torquay
    It is located 95km from Melbourne city which is about 1 hour and 20 min drive.
    Famously known for it’s surf beaches in Victoria.
    Must visit: The Shopping Plaza- surf wear outlets – Haven

    Day 1

    IMG_0883.jpg
    Getting all ready for our road trip
    IMG_0899.jpg
    MonkeyKing made us take a photo at the Torquay sign. Very embarrassing tho
    IMG_0911.jpg

    All happy with the new beach tent. The weather was not very good during the Christmas week. It actually rained on the first day :(
    KatsuDon and I fell asleep inside the tent when it was raining. We were trying out the quality of the tent :mrgreen: so far so good.

    DSC09153.jpg
    Later in the day, we caught up with Iriya,Hj, Yauie & Eve for BBQ at the apartment.
    DSC09154.jpg
    Picture moment of the founders of Team BSP:
    Belachan Boy & Sambal Surfer posing for the camera. vain
    IMG_0916.jpg
    DJ giving some TLC to the sausage.

    Day 2
    The weather was not better than Day 1. It was so windy that our tent almost went kaput.

    This time is our turn to cook for Christmas Eve dinner. Well DJ did most of the cooking and I did my usuals – Dish washing.

    IMG_0971.jpg

    DJ has prepared a 5 course degustation menu for dinner. Everyone was so stuffed after the entree.

    IMG_0981.jpg
    Appetiser:
    Pepper crushed fillet of beef with fresh buffalo mozzarella, cherry tomatoes, basil & lychee balsamic reduction
    IMG_1004.jpg
    Entree:
    BBQ whole baby chicken in home made peri peri marinate with edamame peas & pea sprout
    IMG_1013.jpg
    Palette cleanser:
    Lychee with raspberry sorbet
    IMG_1040.jpg
    Main:
    Fisherman’s catch [mussels, prawns, clams, scallops & sand crab] in white wine and coriander broth

    Cherry scotch compote.jpg
    Dessert:
    Cherry scotch compote with vanilla ice cream
    TeamBSP.jpg

    On the last day we took a drive up to Bells beach to watch the pro surfers surfing and later we went back to Torquay beach for a last round of body boarding and surfing before we head back to Vo’s spit roast spectacular party.

    *most of the photos are taken from MonkeyKing’s camera.*

    I’m bored but happy

    Finally a stay home friday nite with no alcohol but just pure fresh juice made from the juicer. DJ and I are on a detox program…ahem…*cough cough*

    So much happened during the Christmas and NYE break. I am still trying to figure out where to begin…

    NY resolutions – I think I forgot to set one this year.

    Anyway, I am looking forward to see my dearly friend SK in less than 2 months for holiday!! :mrgreen:
    I love it when friends from M’sia comes visit me in Melb for a change. At least it gives me a bit of the feel that i am still in touch with KL… [don't worry if it doesn't make any sense]

    My Mii always ask me about the weather. Well, this whole week has been a very warm HOT week to begin for the NY. Absolutely hate this crappy weather.
    She also reminded me via sms that this year CNY falls on 7th and 8th Feb and I had to give out ang pows.

    I think I’m having a minor heat stroke now. Need to stop here. I apologise if this post does not make any sense at all. ahh just f*ck it