Gone.....Disappear

Confident, is what I need
Confident, is which I build slowly
Confident, is which you destory within a minute

MEN and THEIR TOYS

Hubby is going to work his ass off because he got himself a NEW TOY. I will be taking over his OLD TOY very soon. Maybe in less than 2 weeks time?

NO MORE PERSONAL DRIVER :-(

Pro and Con of having another car

1. I will be force to drive a lot more! No more excuses not to practise my driving. Which also means I will fulfill my 2008 wishlist.
   
2. I can drive to client's place by myself instead of troubling my boss or colleague to fetch me around. GSK project going to kick off soon. It will be my 2nd home especially at the end of the year and having my own transport is going to save me a lot of time travelling.


3. Get use driving long distance. A lot of interstate project require driving long distance. I want to go for sponsor interstate trip! I'm not confident driving long distance + unfamiliar territory.


4. Currently we are house hunting for rental. Planning to move further away from the city. Don't think we will be able to afford the houses in the city when we buy our own house. So now is a good time for us to start getting use of staying in suburb. Plus rental is getting more expensive. If we can get a 2 bedroom house in the suburb with the what we are paying now, why not?
5. Once I get the hang off driving around Melbourne, I can pop into friend's place easily! I don't have to fit into Hubby's schedule. Also I can check places out myself!
6. More road trips! Hubby has to clock 15,000 kilometers for a year. A lot of driving is needed!!!

1. NO personal driver! I can't be lazy and ask Hubby to fetch me after work. :(
2. 1 more commitment! I still don't understand why spend so much on a car? It's a form of transport and we are not living in it. MENS AND THEIR TOYS!!!!
3. 1 more car to wash....as if we do wash them :p
4. Have to consider "house" for the car when we house hunt. Also when we are away, where can we find a safe place for them.
5. Definitly he will be working more extra to pay off the car. Know him too well. If he is able to pay off in the minimum time, he will definitly do it.

No idea when the car will be deliver to us at this point. Hubby has being working night shifts for the past few days. He might try to check with the salary packaging company later when has enough of his beauty sleep.

Irritating Cough

I'm still having a STUPID IRRITATING DRY COUGH! I have being coughing throughout the whole day yesterday and got better in the evening. At least I manage to have a good night sleep without waking up because of the cough. Just as I thought it's getting better, I started coughing non-stop again when I start work. ARGH!

It is due to the working environment or because of the food I took during dinner? Hmmm. All I know it's going to be a stubbon cough and I HATE IT!

Lunar Festival at Victoria Street

The Lunar Festival at Victoria Street fall on 20th Jan,Sun this year. Victoria Street from the junction of Hoddle Street is close till junction of Church Street. We knew about the event as we stay at the corner and planned to have our branch (breakfast cum lunch) at the festival. We attended last year and still remembered what food is available. =p

We woke up pretty early in Sunday but stayed at home sufing the net till 11am. Thought 11am should be a good time. Not to early, guessing most of the stall should have started business.

The entrance of the fair. Notice the dark clouds? Weather wasn't fantastic for a start. It was pretty cold! Both of us only had a sleeveless jacket as an extra. Wrong move in the start. 2nd wrong move was, we are too early! Most of the food stall had just set up their stall. Some just started firing up the BBQ pit and even the wok full of oil. After walking the whole stretch of stalls, we decided to attack the carrot cake. There are a few stalls selling carrot cake but only 1 manage to attract Hubby's attention.

OMG! I was really good! Very crispy which we both love and it has sauce at the bottom. Me guessing soya sauce + fish sauce + vinegar. Even till now, Hubby is still thinking of it.



There wasn't as much choice of food compared to last year. In the end, we had to have our branch at one of the restaurant along Victoria Street. After the meal, we stroll along the fair a few more times as Hubby still want to eat.

In the end, we had fried banana as dessert. Initially I didn't want any so he just bought 1. After his 1st bite, he forces me to give it a try and OMG! Immediate, he push the fried banana to me and bought himself another 1. The banana itself is sweet and even the batter is sweet, maybe they add sugar into the batter. But the batter is also super crispy! But on the other hand, it's very oily! But I guess it can't be help. It's totally impossible to fry food without using oil.

Fried Banana. Hubby tried taking a close shot of the banana but failed.

The 2 ladies selling fried bananas.

Few ladies selling Vietnam style mini pancake. We didn't have them this time round. We did tired it last year and found them taste alright.

Pineapple Tarts

As usual we went to Victoria Market on Saturday morning and do our weekly marketing. I managed to buy 3 pineapples at $3.50 each. Coles and Vic Garden vegetable stall are selling at $6 each....freaking expensives!

I spend my whole afternoon "working" on the pineapples. 1st uses my precious knives skinned the pineapples. OMG the 1st task is a breeze because the knives are so sharp. I remembered I had such a hard time "fighting" with the pineapples last year. I'm so in love with my knives now. (Hubby made dinner this evening and he too loves the knives)

Next was to grate the pineapples. Learn a trick from the internet and that is to use a juice extractor. Since I did purchase 1 during boxing day (we are having fresh vegetable juice almost everyday. Healthier than drinking juice purchase from the supermarket). This task became a breeze again. Hehe. Most important, I will not cut my fingers which I did last year.

Both tasks are completed in less than an hour. Below is the end product.

Pineapple And Juice

Next task is to stand in front of the stove and cook the pineapple. This is something which I'm not able to find an alternate method for it. In the end, I spend close to 2 hours stirring the pot of pineapple.

Pineapple Jam

Once I had finish the 1st step, 2nd step is my favourite! (Mum used to do the 1st step and me finish the end product.) I started baking on Sunday afternoon. At the end of less than 3 hours, I had more than 100 pineapple tarts. :)

Pineapples Tarts

It's so satisfying and worth spending the whole weekend in the kitchen when Hubby loves it and everyone who tasted it likes it.

No Drugs :(

I'm in my bed with the laptop on my lap. I'm feeling horrible(better now comparing to morning), lonely(hubby working), tired(think I will go to bed very soon) and sick! Woke up with a sore throat on Monday morning, resume my usual weekday routin and didn't really bother about it. By the evening, I wasn't feeling really great and popped 2 panadol before I went to bed. By Tuesday morning, I wasn't feeling comfortable. Decided to miss a day at work and stay at home. I got better but worst again in the evening. Popped another 2 panadol before I went to bed.

When I woke up this morning, I was feeling alright. Prepared myself for work and during my tram journey to work, I felt HORRIBLE! Giddy and headache. I can't concentrate at all. Since I'm already half way thru the journey to work, I thought why not get into office and see how I go later. It didn't get any better. It got worst instead. So bad that I had to ask my colleague to drive me back.

Made an appointment to see the doctor. Lucky I didn't have to wait till the evening to have an available slot. 5 mins was all it needed for consulation. When I exit the clinic, all I had in my hand was 2 days medical leave. NO DRUGS at all! My body have to fight off the virus my itself. Argh! I have no idea how long it will take. Especially my body have being taking strong medication everytime I fell sick in Singapore. I hate "waiting period"! I feel horrible! It SUCKS!

Tiramisu

Done nothing much at all this weekend. I had a training session with Maea(personal trainer) on Saturday morning and I'm in a lot of pain now. Lower body is still recoving from the torture by Maea on Thursday and he started torturing my upper body on Saturday. No Pain = No Gain. Don't think I really have the choice if I want to tone my body.

Invited Lynn and Peter over for dinner. I cooked up a typical chinese dinner. 1 meat, 1 vegetable and 1 soup. Meat : Maple Chicken & Ribs (Nigella Express recipe). Vegetable : Bean Curd with Vegetable. Soup : Egg, Bead Curd and Fishball Soup. I'm very happy that both of them enjoyed the dinner a lot.

Maple Chicken & Ribs ( sorry I didn't mange to take any picture of it)
All 4 of us enjoy this dish a lot. I marinated the meat since yesterday afternoon. All of us reckon that the chicken taste better compare to the ribs. Because the chicken has more meat + the skin is a bit burn and crispy. Another easy dish + delicious.

I also made Tiramisu (recipe again from Nigella Express). I made 2 sizes of Tiramisu. The bigger 1 for hubby to bring to work and share with his colleagues(he is working night shift today) and the smaller 1 between me, lynn and peter after dinner.

I seriously no idea how it will turn out. I found it too sweet when I taste the mascarpone mixture alone when assembling it. Scare that the espresso is too strong etc. But it turn out delicious! The sweetness is just nice. Lynn felt that the alcohol is too strong but Peter find it just nice. It really depends on individual.

Tiramisu

I'm really trying a lot of recipe on Nigella Express and I'm loving it! I even stick post it notes on all the recipes I want to try on the book. Told hubby he won't run out of trying new food now. :p

Oven, Hard At Work

My oven was working very hard during the weekend to help me achieve my wishlist for 2008.

I manage to carry all the ingredients I need from Victoria Garden after gym on Saturday. Main dish for dinner on Saturday night is Brandied-Bacony Chicken. Warm Potato Salad and a simple fresh vegetable salad as the sides.

Both the potato salad and the chicken recipe are from Nigella Express. I manage to wip all the dishes up without any effort.

Warm Potato Salad. Find this dish appetizing, think it is due to the vinegar which is mix with mustard.

Brandied-Bacony Chicken. I bought a free-range chicken to try this recipe. It's my 1st time baking a whole chicken and I manage to cook it just right! Chicken is so juicy and it's not salty. I was pretty afraid the chicken will turn out too salty because of the bacon. Also was wondering what it will taste like because not a single seasoning agent is use.

The Chicken with 2 side dishes.

On Sunday, I started baking CNY cookies. It is actually a trial as I have never bake Melting Moments before and want to give it a try to see how I fare before mass producing them. As Lynn wasn't working, I invited her over to bake with me.

Lynn and Peter came pretty late and I was finishing by the time they arrived. Lynn started to flip through my Nigella Express cookbook and the 1st page she turn was Chocolate Mint Cookies and we decided to bake that next. Lynn and Peter was actually the one who baked them. Lynn even mix up the vanilla extract with the peppermint extract while baking. Instead of having 1 teaspoon of vanilla extract into the mixture, she added 1 teaspoon of peppermint extract. Turn out the cookies are super minty. We all LOVE it! Conclusion, I'm going to change the recipe in Nigella Express. I will continue to add peppermint extract next time I bake this cookies.

Melting Moments and Chocolate Mint Cookies

To shape the Melting Moments, I had to use a piping bag. It was my 1st time piping but I enjoy a lot. It's suppose to look like a flower but I didn't have the correct size head so I had to come up with another design. Nice?

BULA (Part 6)

Day 5 13-11-2007

We were suppose to do another day dive with the dive operator station at Outrigger. But we cancelled it the day before as I'm too tired and I didn't want to tire myself out. Holiday is suppose to be a rest and relax isn't it?

It was already raining very heavily when we woke up. Can't go to the beach, can't swim at the pool and definitly can't sun tan without sun. So we laze around in the room watching Discovery Channel(can you believe we spend all our spare time in the room watching discovery channel!) and catching up with our beauty sleep. Tried to join the afternoon village tour but was cancelled last minute because of the rain. Don't see the point of going to nearby town as there isn't nothing much we can do at the town. So in the end we decided to pay freaking $30 to update ourselves on national news and also check our emails + blog.

We were so bored by the evening (it's still raining and we can't sleep anymore) that we decided to pay to watch a movie "Transformer" in the room and bought some food to go with it.
Hawaiian pizza. It's really tasty!
Pasta. This taste really nice too!

The dinner was so much better than the dinner we had on the 3rd night.

We made a right decision not to budget on the accommdation or should I say Hubby made a right choice. During this trip, we spend a lot more time at our accommdation compared to other trips. It's because there isn't much activity during the night unlike Phuket which you can visit the local night market. The only place worth visiting at night recommanded by Lonely Planet is Fiji capital Suva. But it is too freaking far away. Travelling back and fro will take me 4 hours + no idea how much on taxi fare. We did ask around the local and all told us the same thing about Suva. What you see in Nadi is what you find in Suva. No point torturing my bum. Agree?

Summary of 2007 and Wishlist of 2008

Major happening of 2007

1. Got my driving license
2. Being an Aunt!
3. Being a Godma!
4. Did my 1st Wreck Dive, Yongala Wreck
5. Did my 1st Shark Feeding Dive in Fiji

Hmmm.....doesn't seem like I achieve much. What have I being doing the whole year???

2008 Wishlist (I better not be too ambitious)

1. Drive more! So far only mange to drive twice by myself and both to the gym
2. Try more recipe in cooking
3. Bake more....hehe. Biscotti, Bread, Decorate cupcakes, Tiramisu, Ginger Bread Man.
4. Get healthy. Make full use of the gym and hopefully lose some FATS!Hmmm how am I going to lose weight if I'm going to cook and bake more??? Does all people who like foods tend to be overweight???
5. Back to school but it baking courses. :)
6. BE MORE ORGANISE! I didn't manage to send any X'mas card this year. Hopefully I will manage to send CNY card by end Jan.
7. Discover more places not only in Victoria but also around the world
8. Most important, SAVE MORE $$$$$$$$. "No $ = No talk"

Bye Bye 2007, Hello 2008

Welcome 2008!

We went to catch the 2115 Family Firworks last night. Because the weather is too warm, we left our place at 2030 (that's the advantage of staying near the city). Hop onto the tram since it's free and went to Alexandar Garden (our usual spot, we were there last year and also 2007 Australian Day Fireworks). Hmmm.....he mentioned maybe we should change the venue to Dockland next time or try to be in Sydney for 2009 countdown.

We only spend about 20-25minutes waiting for the fireworks to start. It was fantastic! We were is a very good spot, we are right in the middle of 3 firing spots! I loves fireworks a lot and he always makes an effort to make sure I'm there to watch it :)

At Alexander Garden. Notice the crowd behind me.

Hubby and Me waiting for the "Family" fireworks

Hubby....seem like he is trying to stay awake!



He didn't manage to take much photos as the memory card is full and we didn't check before using the camera...hehe