My life log

上班族的生活

2007-09-20T00:07:00.000+10:00

上班的生活，平淡无奇。。。
总是冲冲忙忙的赶巴士、赶地铁，步伐快到不行啦！
望着人来人往的地铁站，不断地问自己，到底这么忙忙碌碌的是为了什么？
为理想而奋斗吗？也不见得。。。
那到底是为了什么呢？。。。

Whinging around

2007-09-13T19:58:00.000+10:00

It's been long time I have abandoned my blog and it's time to catch back my niche. Working life is not fun at all, as you will need to face a lot of different personalities individual and they may not be your ideal working partner.

I would say office politic is everywhere. More importantly is how to get rid of all the shits. As in to work well with other and still be able to show your capability. One of my friends always say that in order to survive in a new environment, one must always act stupid. Chinese idom says that " 大智若愚" but i really don know how true is it.

It is really a forever learning knowledge to go well with your colleagues and friends. Communication is very very important.

I always thought that as a newbie in a company, we must work hard, never complain, do whatever stuffs that assigned to you. But I think I have done a big mistake. People has the tendency to take advantage of our kind assistance, once you have started showing your helpfulness, the job will stick to you like a parasite forever. If you reject the task in the future, they will think that we are irresponsible. What a cruel fact....

I'm not saying that i'm working in an unhappy environment but I need to deal with people in a more tactful and diplomatic way in order to survive. I feel myself to be so dishonest and have lost my naivety. How sad...

Back to Singapore, back to the real cruelty

2007-06-18T17:10:00.000+10:00

Holiday ended, IA ended, everything resume into the normal routine here. Have been looking for job for 2 weeks, still waiting and waiting for oppoturnity. It's not that I'm incapable or suck in interview skill or my resume is not-worth-a-view kind of document, but It's my principle of giving myself a one last chance to get into the work I love.

However, I need the living expanses and I don't have income at the moment. Feeling frustrating, lossing my patience, and almost wanted to give up my ambition. Life is tough...Reality is cruel...

Nonetheless, I'm being optimistic at all times, I believe in myself, believe that I would be able to find a good job-a job that I enjoy. Well....still, I need to be rational. I'm giving myself one month to look for the job I like and thereafter I need to look into other jobs. Holding...I'm holding until the end...

Wish me all the best. I really need luck and chance...!

Where am I?

2007-05-21T23:26:00.000+10:00

Sitting in front of the computer at the Backpacker hostel, today is my last night in Sydney, will be flying back to Melbourne tomorrow evening. Backpacking is a great experience but it's also a very tiring journey. Everything from transportation to schedule is on your own judgement. But It's really really a must-try experience to explore a brand new territory. I enjoy backpacking, more freedom and more flexible.

Will be sharing my Sydney trip soon when I'm back in Melbourne. We have taken heaps of photo...nearly 1GB...haha...need to filter some of them.

Alright, gotta let other backpackers use the come and it's time to rest as well. Have done heaps of walking today, my feet sole are so painful now.

Night.

Perth day 3

2007-05-10T20:01:00.000+10:00

3rd day in Perth. Perth is such a lovely and simple city. I could not make a conclusion whether I like this place or not cos travelling and living are totally different thing. But at the moment I think this is a nice place. Not very complicated, safe and peaceful.

My uncle is my private tour guide and he brought me to all the attractions. Hmmm of course not too far away from their house. I wish I could go to see the Pinnacles and the wave rock but these places are few hours drive from Perth. Madness...so I guess I would not have the chance to go anyway. However, I'm not very ambitious in exploring Perth, I'm only seeking for leisure tour with good foods and little sight seeing. As I was not expecting my uncle to bring me from day to night. It would be too tired for him.

Today we went to Perth Zoo and The Perth Mint. So I guess I would not want to go to Zoo in Sydney and Melbourne. haha...hmmm the Zoo is not too bad at least the price is good not like the Australia Zoo in Sunshine Coast which cost $42 per entry. We did not go anyway. The zoo is well organized but few things were not in my satisfaction list. Quite a number of animal exhibitions were under construction and some of the animals were unable to be seen. A bit disappointed. For instance, Quakkas, which is one of the specialty animals in WA, was taken off from the display for the reason of under construction. Big disappointment. Deduct few cookie points.

My favourite Penguins

The other dissatisfaction was the orang-utan exhibition. hmmm...from biology conservation point of view, even though the animal is housed in the zoo, it should be given the most natural possible living area. However, they built a concrete play ground for these man of the forest. So...I think I'm not on their side for this. It's too man made and in fact it's not good for the animal. Sad case.

What do you think of it??

We spent 3 and a half hours in the zoo and left for lunch after that. We had Vietnamese food for lunch. The waitress recommended hot and spicy rice vermicelli to me. It's very tasty especially the specially made chilli but too big portion for me. yummy!!...But I cant accept the way they serve the bean sprout in raw...the raw smell and taste is out of my acceptable range. Nonetheless, I ate half of the bean sprout. Haha...proud of myself man! My high tolerance of food varieties. Now even better!

The Perth Mint was the next stop after lunch. It is one of the oldest Gold Mints in Australia. I went for the guided tour in which including a briefing on the mint history and a demonstration of gold pouring. Cost me $13 for a concession pass. So nice of them to accept my Student ID. They accepted my ID for the Zoo concession as well. Add a few cookie points for WA.

The only photo of mine of the day-at The Perth Mint entrance

Called it for the day. Dinner..I think it's affordable to skip. 50% of the noodles still occupying my stomach.

Eventually, we had Indian cuisine for dinner. We ordered few roti nan and masala tosai, went with some dahl and curry. I thought the dinner will be better cos I already told my uncle that i was still full, still, it was another blotted dinner. I really worry my mum could not recognise me after my Aus trip. But the curries were really tasty!! Yum yum..

Perth day 1 and 2

2007-05-09T20:05:00.000+10:00

8th May, Tue

View taken from my seat-Sun rise

View of Perth from the Jet plane

Landed on this city of light early in the morning. It was freezing cold. Heard that the previous night was only 8 degree Celsius. pheww... My uncle fetched me from the airport and then we went home to drop my stuffs before went to have McD brekky. At first, I still feeling a little tense and anxious cos I have not been meeting my uncle for years. I worried that I might not be able to communicate well with him and family. The tension was gone soon after I started to chat with him. He is a very humorous and friendly senior.

The first day we didn't do much. We went to the city, which made up of 4 main streets, namely Wellington St, Hay St, Murray St and St Georges Terrace. The Hay St and Murray St are the main shopping precinct where shops are dotted alongside the streets. The is one small alley which lead to a mall named London Court. It made me feel like standing in the middle of a London street. The architecture of this small alley is so much similar with those in London. Cool...

London Court

We had Japanese food for lunch. I drank 2 bowls of Miso soup. Oh man! I was craving for it! Hmmm but did not manage to eat my favourite octopus. =( It's alright next time I'll have it.

Swan River

After lunch we continued to walk at the St mall to watch some busking show and also to help digestion. Overeating from the lunch. My Uncle then drove me to a port named Hillary Boat Harbour. It has a resort, some shops and is a harbour for private boats and ships.

At night, I had dinner with the whole family included my cousin sister and her husband at a Chinese restaurant named Happy Meal. Another overeating meal...

9th May, Wed
The second day in Perth. The first destination was Kings Park. It's a park in the city where you can have a good lookout overlooking the city. It's quite similar with Mt coot-tha in Brisbane but the view from Kings Park is more stunning. It is because the Swan river which flowing through the city, that soften down the hardness of the concrete in the heart of the city. This gives the Kings Park's view additional cookie points. I would say It might be one of the few jaw dropping views that I've ever seen.

Humongous Cuckoo Clock on the floor in Kings Park

Kings Park

But I've a hard time walking in the park cos i was wearing my heeled boots. The cold precaution became my nightmare. My feet were so sore but just could not do anything. After Kings Park, we went to Perth Museum and the art gallery. haha...Auntie Dot was amused as she was saying I was one of the few youngsters who like to visit these places. Why not! They are free and in the meantime it's educational activities. Where to find man!

The only photo has me in it of the day-at Kings Park

The time spent in these two places enough to kill the whole afternoon. High tea, dinner and end of the day. My day in Perth was all about 'eat, drink, play and fun'. What a piggy life!...estimating to gain 2 more kg before I go back to Sg. Sian...!!!

In Melbourne

2007-05-06T22:30:00.000+10:00

Today is my second day in Melbourne. Ting dropped me at the Victoria Market before she went to work. I walked alone in the city for about 4 hours before she came to join me again for lunch. We went to this Vietnamese restaurant to eat lunch. Melbourne City is a very well-planned city whereby everything is just within the square. Even the worst direction learner could be able to walk in the city without getting lost. I reckon.

The weather today was not as cold as what I thought. I just wore simple jacket with a singlet. May be the cold time is not there yet!! pheww....After lunch, it was already 230pm and Ting had BBQ party at night and the invitation time was 400pm. So, we rushed back home when her friend who lend her the BBQ pit, was on her way to Ting's house.

The BBQ ended quite early, around 8pm. One of her friends came late and there were no more food left so they wanted to have supper. I tagged along with them. 3 pharmacists and 1 doctor...but they are quite funny and easy going. We went to a Nasi Kandar shop at Boxhill. No roti was served and the teh tarik was cold.

7th May, Monday. The third day in Melbourne.
Today I spent most of the time at home packing, resting and watching drama at home. Cos I'll be leaving for Perth Tomorrow. At night, we went out with ting's friend to have dinner at Lygon St. It's a street famous for its dotted Italian restaurants. But we ended up eating nasi lemak. haha...it's not too bad anyway. I like the sambal. After dinner coffee is a-must-custom here, I reckon. We went to Brunetti coffee house to have a cup of after dinner coffee. I had Italian hot chocolate which is a very thick and rich chocolate drink. It was quite surprising that I actually finished the whole glass.

We left the cafe at around 930 pm and reached home around 10pm. Left with less that 5 hours sleep after we cleaned ourselves. My flight is at 605am in the next morning and the airport is 45 minutes drive from our place. Madness...Really grateful to have a friend like Ting. Thank you so much to spend ur time with me...and sacrifice ur sleeping time.

I feel sick

2007-05-04T14:00:00.000+10:00

The weather here is so darn hot now. Heard that it is 30 degree celsius outside. huh...Last night the temperature was still below 20 degree. The changes are so extreme. It made me feel sick. I feel sick...not only the weather but body just not feeling right.

Last day of my attachment, reports have been done, performance evaluation form has been faxed to the school, nothing to do at the moment. I just feel like going back home lying on the bed and resting. so sickkk....=(

Dozing off

2007-05-03T15:21:00.000+10:00

In the midst of writing my final report, facing with thousands of words, undergoing after-meal syndrome, I'm almost dozing off. Damn!!...the main culprit is lack of self-control in watching drama for the last two nights. Only had less than 5 hours sleep a day. Tired...zzzzz....@@

I CANT CONCENTRATE!! Arrghhh...

The words are floating...my eye lids are dropping...!#*&~^*%

"/

Last thursday on the Gold Coast

2007-05-03T11:18:00.000+10:00

My last thursday on the gold coast. Then it'll be the last Friday and last Saturday. I have been busying for last coffee, last meeting, last cakes and so forth for these two weeks. So popular, cant stand it! =p (haha...phuut len,just kidding la, man!)

Truth to be told, I have not really packed my stuff yet. May be I have had enough experiences on packing, have been doing so many times of major packing througout these years in SG. So worry not, gimme one night, everything can be done. Thanks for all the helping hands in shifting my humangous luggages from one place to another in PGP, at times, there was no trolley. Especially thanks to BB, Dan, Dinesh and the girls. U guys are my heroes...hehe...=p

Nobody is going to help me carrying my stuffs this time round. So many airport transfers in the upcoming month and I'm alone most of the times. I hope I'm still surviving by then...muahaha...

BB said last night they went to watch Spidey 3 with 15 people (huge gang). I also wanna watch...sad. "(... miss the gang there ler..really...I miss all the 'chap pa lang' languages over there, our trademark Hokkien-Malay-English-Mandirin-Cantonese mixed conversation. Damn Funny!

I miss home town too...miss penang laksa, char kuay teow, hokkien mee, kuay kak, 'gu chai' chai kuay, cendol and countless hawker's food, though some of them are really unhealthy. There is no way to get the same taste sensation in other country. The ambience is different, people is different, materials used are different, nothing is the same at all. I could not find road side stall like in Swatow lane, Newlane, Chai Leng Park, Gurney Drive, and so on. I'm craving for sugar cane and soybean drink.

I'm just too much...you guys will definitely say:

" This girl ah, so hard to please eh!!! should not she be enjoying herself so much in this southern end of the globe? Has gone to so many places, has eaten so many good food and has tried ans seen so many new things....Dunno how to satisfy her. Jia lat la...!!" =)

>_<

Cos I strongly believe that whenever you go, you'll still longing and remembering your memories deeep in your heart. No matter how long it has been there, you'll still trying to recall them at times. I do. New memories are adding into our memory log from day to day, and we tend to forget the old. I don't want to.

So please allow me to be nostagic at this moment. I want to remember everything in the past, present and in the future. I'll absolutely remember the span of times that I've spent on the Gold Coast, that I will be spending in Melbourne, Perth and Sydney. It's life time memories. I don't enjoy the feelings of leaving and farewell...I don't like the dramatic picture of cuddling and sobbing...I can't stand seeing people crying, I'll cry with them. haha...

Pen off...I'm starving.

Lunch menu: 2 pieces of meatlovers pizza + 1 piece of mud cake.

My schedule in the following two months

2007-05-01T11:50:00.000+10:00

4th of May - last day of Industrial Attachment

5th of May - flying from Gold Coast to Melbourne

8th of May - flying from Melbourne to Perth

8-13th of May - Visiting my Uncle in Perth and sight seeing

13th of May - flying back to Melbourne from Perth

13-17th of May - preparing and planning for Sydney trip and sight seeing in Melbourne

17th of May - flying for Sydney

17th-22nd of May - Sydney backpacking trip

22nd of May - flying back to Melbourne

22nd-31st of May - free time in Melbourne

31st of May - flying back to Brisbane in the morning and catching follow-on flight back to Singapore in the afternoon

1st of June - perhaps moving house

9th of June - Graduation dinner at Highlander Bar & Restaurant

the month of June - Job hunting and house cleaning

22nd-29th of June - Academic Dress collection

1st of July - perhaps going back home and bring my family to attend my commencement

4th of July - Commencement date

One year older...Sian!!

2007-04-30T10:48:00.000+10:00

Today is my Birthday. Well, I'm officially one year older now. Not feeling sad, but was having some sort of mix feelings, contradictory feelings. Now I realised, for me, birthday is just a normal day, a formal notification of aged. I'm not looking forward and anticipating for surprise or something to happen as much as I once was in teenage. Seriously!! I just want my day to be peaceful and flowered with love from friends and family and of course you, Bie!!!

First of all, thanks my sweety mum for giving birth to me 23 years back. I felt your pain.

Thanks BB for being the first one to greet me at 12am on the dot. (Although I was the one who called you. :p)

Advance celebration has already been done on last Saturday at Paradise Room in Seaworld. Kwang planned everything for me, the chocolate mud cake, the table celebration and also the buffet lunch. I was very pleased and touched cos I din expect the celebration. The buffet lunch had already pre-planned and all of us knew about it. But not the cake and the celebration. Thanks Kwang.

Thanks Fel for the bracelet and the birthday card. It's a great chance to know you better in this 4 months and forgive me if I happened to make you feel sad and bad.

Thanks Wayne for the Birthday card and the funny scratch card. I hope I could win some money. You have been a great host and housemate throughout our stay. I'm very grateful to know you.

Thanks for all the messages, wishing and posts.

Birthday Wishes

I wish love and peace with us at all times.

I wish you gals manage to find another house soon. Nth is impossible. Let bygones by bygones. Don't keep the hard feelings. Peace...!!!

I wish I could grow taller though It sounds ridiculous. haha... I'm so dying to wear nice gawn and boots. =( But Dear said it's okie to wear hot pants and sneaker...so I'm ok too...=p

I wish may healthiness always be with my family and friends and of course myself.

I wish I would be able to find a job soon after I'm Back to Sg.

I wish Bie is with me now...=(

Mt Coot-tha lookout and Sunnybank

2007-04-25T18:30:00.000+10:00

Today is ANZAC day which is also a public holiday. Kwang was saying that we are leaving soon so he suggested to bring us to Sunnybank for some Asian food. We left home at 1115 am. hmmm...We actually appointed at 1030 am. They got lost somewhere in the freeway, as what he said Wayne's house is difficult to find...haha..

Kwang, Ty, Keegan and Jesse were going today and not to mention two beauties with them. We headed straight away to Sunnybank to have our lunch. I ordered Penang Prawn Noodle (Hokkien Mee). Oh my goodness, the portion was so so huge. I've to ask for 6 bowls so that they could share my food. All the guys ordered Hainanese Chicken Rice. Overall, the food from that restaurant are not too bad, may be I'll rate them 7 over 10. Of course, I can find a better one in Penang. But in western country, It's considered very good.

Apparently, the bowl is quadruple my palm size. Massive...!!

After the overfed lunch, we headed to Mt Coot-tha which is about 20 minutes drive north from Sunnybank. These two places are within Brisbane territory, but located at different zones.

Mt Coot-tha is a famous lookout place which overlooking the Brisbane City. It's mainly just for the panoramic scenery. They have restaurants and coffee houses at the lookout plateau. It's not a very high from sea level though. It's about 15 minutes drive from the ground. We had a very great chilling out moments at the lookout point and the coffee house. Not to miss was the cakes from the cafe. We shared three pieces of cake, Chocolate Mud cake, and two unknowns.

Cakesss....

One of my favourite photos on the Coast. Cheers!!

View from Mt coot-tha lookout

The gang

We left the plateau around 420pm and headed down to the Botanic Garden at the Mountain foot. After a short and leisure walk, we left at 500pm cos Jesse had a tournament at night.

Guess who??..

It's a very great outing with those guys. We were having a great time chit chatting. However, we felt bad on kwang's generosity. He wanted to pay for everything and he did. A bit uncomfortable with this. May be we should have just treated them on our farewell dinner dated on next Tuesday night.

Called it for the day. And need to work hard on my reports. One final report to be handed in to School and the second progress report to the company. I've only done 10 and 20% on each. Sian ler...I don't enjoy the feeling of having so many due...

Sunshine Coast

2007-04-24T12:49:00.000+10:00

21st and 22nd April 2007

The day started very early. We left at 615am. After one and a half hours of traveling, we reached Nambour-one of the suburs on the Sunshine Coast. Well, I slept throughout the journey; I just have the weakness of uncontrollably falling asleep in any vehicle. Damn! It’s not a good sign when you are traveling with other people.

Wayne dropped us at Nambour train station and we bought daily return bus ticket that permitted us to travel unlimited trips within the covered zones. The first stop that we went to was Eumundi Market, which well known for its size and variety of goods selling. But frankly speaking, I find all the markets here look similar and standard, plants, art crafts, ready to eat food, fresh fruits and vegetables and etc. Nonetheless, It’s a very good place to kill your spare time.

From the market, we traveled to Noosa Head by bus, which famed for its beach. But we didn’t go to the beach at all. Our plan for that place was to cruise through the river and stop at a place called Noosaville, we paid $12 for half way return. It has scenic view throughout the journey but the destination was like a dead town with few shops and cafés. We were so disappointed and whined for the unworthiness to take the pricey ferry. Yet, we realized the bus that we took back to Nambour passed by Noosaville. Huh…we were so mad…!!! Speechless…*^%$!@ =(

Above:-Noosa head ferry Terminal on the left; scenery captured on the ferry on the right

The journey back to Nambour was quite long, about an hour. We waited at the bus stop nearby the badminton court and Wayne fetched us from there. Then, he drove us to our stay over accommodation, a caravan park. We were so exciting to see how does it looks like cos Wayne described the condition as bad as he could. Haha…but not at all. The very small cabin can accommodate up to 5 people. It has a ‘triple-decker’ bunk and a queen size bed. Not to mention, Wayne hogged on the queen size bed and we got the bunk bed and slept beside the toilet. Hmmm…not too bad for a short stay. Most importantly, they priced quite reasonably.

Temporary bunked in spot. Rainforest Caravan Park

We had Thai cuisine for dinner at this very dull, quiet and secluded small town. But the price was not corresponded with the location at all. Supposedly, a country town should have a cheaper spending rate, isn’t it?? Sigh…I spent twenty bucks for the dinner and it was not very nice though, super disappointed on the Tom Yam Goong…I think the chef sprinkled sugar as the salt, otherwise it wouldn’t like a bowl of sweet soup.

After dinner, we went to another famous beach, Mooloolaba-about 20 minutes drive from Nambour. Hmmm…this place is heaps more happening, just like Gurney Drive in Penang. There are lots of coffee house and dining rendezvous. I guess I’m just too city girl to live in the country town and hence I feel alive when I was in Moololaba beach. We had after-dinner coffee in Starbucks, actually I had Hot chocolate instead…Muahaha…The wind by the beach was very strong, I was shivering badly although had my jacket on. Need not to say, I definitely love to have a cup of hot chocolate at that moment. We headed back to our cabin after the coffee and called it for the day.

The next day, the early bird winner went to Fel. I was awakened and conscious on her moves but was just lazy to wake up physically. Lying on the bed until all my sleeping worms ran away, I woke up and it was already 830 in the morning. Having breakfast, washing up, packing and ready to go, we checked out at 10 am. We went back to the badminton court to support the rest from the badminton club. We watched about three matches before leaving for one of the most famous tourist attractions on the Sunshine Coast-Buderim Ginger Factory.

We followed the Taste of Ginger Tour that cost us $10.95. The owner of the factory is super duple clever to transform the dull factory environment to a very interesting tourist spot. They created a ginger town in the factory boundary. The tour included the briefing on the history of ginger, the processing of the ginger from the farm to the factory, an on site factory viewing and a ginger tasting session. It’s a very brilliant way of carrying the tour, especially the tasting session. It could easily promote their products that selling at the Ginger shop within the property. I had Ginger chocolate and Ginger mango ice cream that selling at the ice cream parlor. I bought a jar of Ginger, Lemon and Lime jam as a souvenir.. Pheew…I was thinking to buy more but I’m super worried of my luggage. I’m kinda figure out I would have an overweight luggage with me. so…no more buying…sian!

Ginger chocolate and Ginger mango ice cream...have you ever tried before???

5 samples were given for tasting. Ginger refreshing drink, Sweet chilli + Ginger + BBQ sauce dipped with meat ball, ginger cream cheese with cracker, pickled ginger + cheese with cracker and last but not least ginger pineapple cubes.

On the way back, we stopped by a peculiar pub in terms of its outlook, decoration and atmosphere-Ettamogah. We got a free drink from Wayne. I was kind of not used to drink in day time. Feel strange to see a super red tomato face from the mirror. Hehe…

We didn’t have proper lunch, Uncle Wayne was kinda craving for food and he said he would be able to find a Fish & chips shop on the way. He found one in Redcliffe. It is just 20 minutes drive up north from Brisbane. I was not sure whether he knew that place earlier or just followed his gut sense to reach that quite famous Fish & chips shop. It was very crowded and had a very long queue. I’m not sure whether the crowd was there for the taste or the price or the variety. For me, I think the environment is the best cos fish and chips taste quite standard as my taste buds told. Sitting by the port, enjoying the picturesque view with countless ship-boat-yacht parking at the port, seeing the flock of seagulls flying in the azure sky, feeling the tranquility of dusk, and eating fish and chips, it was such a sinful indulgence. At that moment, I swear I had no regret to leave Gold Coast. I have gone through those very precious moments in my life which yearning by many people. I’m just lucky to be here, to live with Wayne and to share my memories with you.

Redcliffe

We headed down south and back to my so called home on the Gold Coast. It was a very contented weekend. Thanks Wayne for showing us so many places.

Left with one public holiday-ANZAC day on this coming Wednesday-and a weekend, I was kinda upset when I stared at the aeroplane flying freely in the sky. No long from now I’ll be sitting on the plane and heading back to my origin. I reckon I would have flooded by so many things by then. Therefore, in this coming month, I wanted to fully utilize my time and relax to the extreme most.

Btw, I realised I put on weight...can feel the flesh is horizontally adding on my body...sian...!

Badminton's gang outing

2007-04-20T21:29:00.000+10:00

Yesterday was Felicia B’day. We didn’t celebrate over her birthday cos as usual Thursday night we have badminton session. But the badminton’s guys are planning to have a proper dinner to celebrate both our birthday and in conjunction with our farewell. I made 2 red painted eggs for Felicia early in the morning, a very Chinese style of greeting. I remembered someone told me that birthday must eat either ‘shou mian’ or red egg. May be it’s just old fashioned belief. Indeed, I’m conservative and old-fashioned minded at times, at least I’m believing in some of the beliefs.

We went to the court as usual. After one game, Kwang and Felicia were discussing about having a quick coffee at somewhere near Surfer’s. hmmm…While I was still recovering from the badly beaten match, they asked me whether to go or not. At first, I was hesitating cos we were wearing such lousy workout attire and perspiring and stinking after the game. I didn’t feel good going in that condition. But Eventually I followed the majority and had a quick coffee at Coffee club in Surfer’s. Kwang was kinda generous. He treated everyone on the table for cakes and coffee.

He works in Seaworld and they are given few free entry tickets annually. He knew that we still have not been to Seaworld and hence offered to give us the free ticket that cost $62 normally. He even said that we could swim and snorkel with the reef shark for free whereas those guys that are going need to pay $20 discounted price instead of the normal price $60. Sounds good isn’t it?? What if we could know him earlier, cos for all the theme parks they can do internal ticket swapping among the staff which means he could get free tickets for Movieworld, Dreamworld, Paradise Country, Oz Zoo and Oz outback show. So darn great...man!!! However, moral education teaches us don’t be too greedy. Yes! I’m applying it so well…hehe…anyway I’ve been to 2 out of 5 and will be going to Seaworld next Saturday. sooo...I'm kinda satisfied!!

Photos taken at coffee club.

Can you see how horrible looking was I?? Always that very limited piece of home clothes, carrying my identity as a NUS student all around the world. What the hell...!! Should not have brought this shirt.

Let me introduce the gang from the badminton club. They are Jesse an Oz (Thai-Singapore mix), Ty from 'Meung Thai' (Thailand), Bounmee from Laos, Kwang an OZ (from Sg) and Keegan from Indon. I think their age range should be from 18 to 40++...haha...Quite diverse right!?

When I said I could understand a bit of Thai, it amused Ty and Bounmee. Laos people could speak Thai too. Thereafter, there were trying to test my Thai! OMG...I only studied level 1, what do they expect from me? I cant understand more than Khop Khun Kha and Sawatdii Kha...Alamak! But anyway, they said it's quite impressed to know that a chinese girl from Malaysia could understand Thai. Learning language is very fun (sanuk) and interesting. If I were to have more time to study, I would like to learn more than that, may be Japanese, Spanish and etc.

Tomorrow we'll be going to Sunshine Coast which is 2.5 hrs drive up north from here. Wayne is having badminton tournament over there so we are tagging along to sightsee.

My many first timess in Aus

2007-04-17T19:33:00.000+10:00

My first time to eat something similar to blue vein cheese with plain crackers and went along with port. It tastes really distinct, strange, unique....hmmm may be it could be described with one word, that's peculiar...Aih...Hard to comprehend by words, must try physically. We studied about the process of the cheese and knew that this particular one is full of mould, however, edible mould. It has a very stink smell and very complex taste. I reckon the taste is very similar to yeast extract. A bit gross when I first bite but I got used to the taste and adapted to it pretty fast. Some people even like it very much. Hmmm...Why Ah???. May be something similar to chinese 'rotten bean curd', smelly but the taste is not bad at all.

My first time to drink Port. I didn't even know what was Port before last night. The explanation from Wayne was Port is a kind of aged fortified sweet wine. Those we had last night was a good quality Port. It cost around AUD$40. The port tastes better than red wine, not as astringent as wine, but much stronger and well-rounded than wine. I could feel my throat was slight burning when I swallowed it. And guess what, I'm such a clumsy girl, I spilled my glass of Port on the floor. Luckily the glass was saved immediately. I could imagine Wayne must be feeling heart pain when he saw his port was on the floor, serving the 'floor God' (Di zhu gong)....haha... I felt bad on it. Next time I'll be more careful when I'm handling those 'posh' stuffs.

My first time to eat custard apple today. It's similar to sour sop in terms of the shape and texture, but taste wise is slightly different. Custard apple is sweeter whereas sour sop is more sourish. I like sour sop better though. May be the Custard apple that I had was way over-ripen. Fear not , I still have one more sitting on the table. Let's try again tomorrow.

My first time to taste Vegemite, ate with crackers, some day in the first week here. It is yeast extract thingy. People spread it on bread, cracker, or eat it with porridge. It's kinda salty and strange. But I think it would be nicer to eat with porridge. Should I buy some back???? May be as souvenirs...haha...=)))

My first time to eat lontong. As what they said it's malay food, but how come I never tried before, so strange. I started to question my nationality already...haha....My lady boss cooked lontong for us today. Lontong is compact rice like ketupat, only differ by the shape. Ketupat is wrapped in banana leaf or something and it is normally square. Whereas, lontong does not have particular shape and can be make in any feasible way. We ate it with veges curry, has got bean curd, cabbage, long bean in it. She mixed laksa and tom yam paste together and got that very own flavour. It was very nice though. I ate 2 bowls for lunch, so greedy!!! Don't care!!! I have not been eating chinese/Malay/Indian food for a long time. Must eat to the max...=p

First anniversary

2007-04-16T13:00:00.000+10:00

Time passes so fast, today is our first anniversary. Low profile celebration is dated on 2 months later.

Just wanna say millionsssssss thanks to my dear. He has been doing many things and putting lots of effort to develop our relationship. It would not be able to sustain without him. The bond between us was strengthened since then. Thanks for being so patient with my terribly mood swings, impatience and bossiness.

Another thing to share on top of our 1-year anniversary, we’ve found a double-storey flat located at Jurong West, will be accommodating 8 girls from Northern Malaysia. The price is reasonable but it’s a big amount when I need to pay 2 months deposit, agent’s charges and the first month rental soon after we have moved in. They will be moving in on the 9th of May, meaning to say that I would need to pay one month rental for nothing. But it’s good if I put this situation in another way, I don’t need to move and worry of my scattered stuffs of being abandoned. It’s very stressful whenever I think of my financial matter. =( I’m pondering a lot these days…Arghhhhhh….’Pek Cek’

I could foresee the conflicts that would happen under that one roof with 8 different personalities and characteristics. However, I strongly believe that as long as we could have a serious discussion, and of course need consensus and compromisation for some household matters, nothing is difficult. Hmmm I even started to visualize my future temporary living area, how to decorate them and should I buy something special from Aus to decorate my room or even the living room. Haha…Just day dreaming, I don’t think I have such budget to spend on those unnecessary stuffs.

It’s written at 8:20am. I woke up so early today….=p

O'Reilly's on Easter Monday

2007-04-15T20:17:00.000+10:00

After three lazing days, finally, I stepped out from the house and went to O’Reilly’s plateau located at Lamington National Park with Wayne, Felicia and Nathan. O’Reilly’s is famous for its tree top walk and a network of rainforest walking trails. We went there for its tree top walk where a series of hanging bridges were built by connecting from tree to tree. The bridge allowed only six people per span on it to prevent over loading that might cause unnecessary accident.

The weather on the plateau was colder than usual and it’s misty and breezy. Most of the visitors put on their jacket, jumper or at least long-sleeve shirt. For me, yeah, I’m a cold intolerant, so I wore more than others. I even put on my hat, which similar to a beanie, and it amused Felicia. She said that I was exaggerating. Haha…may be…but I was really cold. +_+

The Tree Top walk was quite impressed as they preserved and organized the place very well. I experienced this kind of tree top walk at Penang Hill, though, it was tinier and not as interesting as this. The outstanding part of this walk was the designated timber lookout deck at the connecting point of the bridges. There are ladders that lead to the 2nd and 3rd level deck. Each deck can accomodate only 3 and 2 people respectively. It is to protect the deck from overloading and collapse. The ladder lead to level 2 is still reachable by most of the visitor but the 3rd level’s ladder is apparently straighter than the former. It gave falling backward and insecure feelings to the climber. Therefore, some of the visitors gave up half way and headed down to the bridge. We managed to climb to the top deck and had a good lookout there. Of course, photo-taking session was undoubtedly a routine. I’m proud of our adventurous spirit and the courage of overcoming fearfulness. Hurray x 3!!!

The timber deck

Scenic view from the deck

After the walk, we stopped by the bird feeding area and fed the bird. The rainbow-coloured birds love sunflower seeds. We were holding up the seeds on our palm and waiting for the birds to come and stop on our palm for the seeds. At first, I was not daring to try because I afraid of the bird’s claws that might hurt me. In fact, it was sharp and hurt. Felicia got a few scratches on her wrist. However, since everyone was feeding, I tried it eventually.

We had lunch at the only café on the plateau. Haha…we had kids meal, a humongous kids meal which overfed me.

After lunch, we continued on another track that leading to a wishing tree. It was a short walk, which took around 30 minutes to reach. I made few wishes under the huge and aged tree for the sake of accommodating the situation. Hahaha….Don’t really have high hope to realize.

We headed back home after the wishing tree walk and rushed to do our grocery shopping of the week. We cannot survive without few staple foods like bread and milk and they close at 6pm instead of the usual 9pm on the weekday, due to Easter holiday. Easter Holidays are really meant to stay at home and rest. Shopping mall is close on Good Friday and Easter Sunday, and many places are not operating too.

Anyway, it was a quite contented day. It was the last day of our long weekend though. Hmmm may be I’m easier to please and amuse nowadays.

10 things that I do most on the coast

2007-04-13T11:35:00.000+10:00

eating pizza: scheduled every tuesday night cos pizza only $4.95 each on this day.
eating sandwich with salami or honey leg ham: scheduled every friday lunch, cos thursday night is badminton night, not cooking. And may be weekend, packed lunch for excursions.
eating 'purple brand' chocolate: average 2 big bars in a month plus occational small snack bars.But still prefer Meij* dark chocolate.
cooking: around 3 times in a week. Take turn with Wayne.
taking and editing photo: hmmm...I took heaps of photo, anything and everywhere. In order to upload more photos i need to edit them before i upload into my blog, friendster and etc. I'm a green horn in using photoshop, generally I only know how to merge photo and add text...haha...
blogging: I blog quite often here, cos I feel like documenting my travel and life experience on the Coast.
playing badminton: every thursday night since i came except two-lazy-and-tired-day.
grocery shopping: at least once in a week, sometimes we do 2 times, never ending buying...
talking on the phone: calling my dear nearly every night.
watching drama: I've finished drama series that I brought to Aus. A bit down without drama...argh...

Seems a bit boring, isn't it? Not at all though...I love my lifestyle now, it's even better with someone I would like to live with....then it'll be perfect!!! Hurray!

Happy Birthday to my dearest friends in hometown

2007-04-11T11:39:00.000+10:00

Happy Birthday!!!

to Yaling on 11th April 2007

to Xiao Mu on 12th April 2007

May you two have a great day on your birthday.

May all the best to your future undertaking.

May you have peace and love.

恭贺你：-

年年有今日，岁岁有今朝。

万事如意。

寿比南山。

身体安康。

单身的早日找到如意郎君；不再单身的感情日益剧增。

最重要的是要天天都过得开心！！

Few things to update

2007-04-10T14:36:00.000+10:00

Weather changed and I could not sleep well at night. I hate the feeling of having slight insomnia, whereby I have difficulty to fall asleep. I'm not sure whether it's because my mind was not in the resting state or it's just the coldness that annoyed me. Tossing here and there on the bed and trying to find myself the best position to rest, but it's just hard. May be something is bothering me deep in my mind, something which has been hiding for quite sometimes. Too much to concern.

Forget the sorrow and back to the happy news. I'm so glad to know one of my best friends has just started a brand new relationship. I'm happy. Happiness which made me grinned out from my heart. I sincerely wish her all the best.

Felt a little bit disappointed for not being able to extend my stay in Melbourne cos I could not get my flight changed. The dates that I'm eyeing at were all fulled. Sigh...

This would cause my schedules for the coming one month to be restless. Interval from one place to another is very short. To Melbourne from Brisbane, to Perth from Melbourne, to Sydney from Melbourne, they are all less than 3 days interval. But I'll have more than one week in Melbourne before I fly back to SG. To Perth is to visit my uncle. To Sydney is to experience my first backpack travelling. Everything is planned by ourselves. In Melbourne, I've my best friend with me, so I think I just need to lay-back and enjoy.

Looking forward to start my travelling journey. I hope this would be an exotic experience for me.

Easter Saturday

2007-04-07T17:47:00.000+10:00

Good Friday fell on yesterday. Surprisingly, we stayed at home, lazing around, for me, I was watching drama for the whole day. Haha...as usual, this is my style, drama marathon. We didn't even have proper meal at home, anyhow cooked soup noodle to fill our stomach. No lunch, no dinner, but late tea and supper. What a day! But for me I really don't mind living in that way as once you stayed long enough in one place you'll be localised gradually and not as enthusiastic as the first few weeks.

Today, again, I stayed at home and Felicia went out to meet her friend in Brisbane but the meeting was cancelled and she ended up loitering alone on the Gold Coast. For me, I was thinking to go somewhere where I can sit down and have a book with me. But I didn't suggest and choose to stay at home to read newspaper and do laundry.

The weather here is transforming into a colder stage. My hands and feet are icing cold at all times. No choice, I wear socks, long-sleeve knit wear and long pants. Sounds a bit too exaggerating?? Yeah...I think so cos they do not wear that extreme. May be it's just me.

Last Saturday, Felicia and me went to Brisbane for city walk. We went to Museum of Brisbane, Queensland Museum, Gallery Of Modern Art and Queensland Art Gallery. They are located near to each other. So we were hopping from one to another without any vehicle aid.

Although I'm not very artistic and may not be able to appreciate the art pieces as much as those artists, I was enjoying myself in the state of art. Some of the visitors were taking notes on the arts works. The art works are so amazing and some of them mesmerizing me so much. I admired their talents. There was one piece impressed me the most, it is from a korean artist. He used 'Hangul' characters to sketch a scenery drawing. It looks just like an ordinary pencil drawing if you were not looking closely. So impressive...I felt myself turned artist after staying there for sometimes.haha...

There is one corner in the Gallery of Modern Art displaying Jackie Chan's Movies, from the 80's to the latest New Police Story. It's so proud to see Asian productions are being displayed in a Western country. Besides that, they displayed numerous works of Asia Pacific's Artists, all kind of arts that you could possible imagine. You named it, they have it.

The best part is that they are all free admission and yet we could spend the whole day there. But the day ended with a bit of unfortunate incident, the train on the way back was stopped half way due to accident on the track. We were asked to alight and transfer by bus to the nearest available train station. The waiting time, the transferring time spent another one and a half hour on top of the original travelling time. We were totally mad. Grouchy and tired...But all the bad feelings were gone when we reached home cos the dinner was ready and it was so darn tasty. Thanks to Wayne again!!

Tommorow, has got no plan yet and neither on Easter Monday. Hmmm...How ah??

Living for good food

2007-04-04T09:01:00.000+10:00

I'm that kind of person who living for good food and of course I'm more than willing to pay for it. I wonder the horoscope descriptions for taurean are somehow quite true of which I think it's, especially the living for good food. I'm not fussy or picky on food but I have my own taste bud preferences. Of course we have the right to choose what to eat but some people they just don't eat a lot of things which I think it's good. What a waste!

How fortunate I am to stay with a used-to-be chef right now in Gold Coast. We were having so much excellent taste sensations in the past 3 months and Wayne's cooks were really delicious and he concerned on the presentation as well. I would say it's definitely comparable with those award-winning restaurants. (Am I exaggerating?? Hehe...*-*)

Below are some of the foods that he cooked in the past three months and I've documented them and wished to share with you.

Lamb cutlet with Gourmet quiche. This was one of the very first few meals that he made. Lamb cutlet was first pan-fried for few minutes and baked in the oven for 20 minutes. The Gourmet quiche was slightly more tricky cos it need a pastry to hold the filling. The filling was made from stir fried vegges, cream and feta cheese. It served with coleslaw contributed by Eillen, from K*C.

Burrito. This was a quick dinner that we had last week, Burrito, somehow modified Australian style Burrito. Apparently, It's Mexican Food. The meat filling was cooked with Salsa Picante sauce and with a bit of Chic Peas. As what you see in the photo, we wrapped everything in the Burrito and ate with hand. It was so tasty. The key for this meal is the meat fillings which contributed to most of the taste.

Chicken. The above two I haven't got a name for them so I'll just called them Chicken Cordon Bleu with bacon wrapped and Honey Soy chicken. They look delicious, ain't they?? haha...The Chicken Cordon Blue served with carrot, broccoli, pumpkin, mashed potatoes. It's massive and I could not move after dinner. The honey soy chicken which I had published before served with carrot, sliced potatoes and sweet potatoes and ground spinach. The green sauce for the Cordon Blue was capsicum puree and garlic mixture. What a brilliant idea to get rid of the excessive veges in our fridge. I don't know how to make the Chicken Cordon Blue because the dinner was ready when we reached home.

Pork. The above two sets are my favourite amongst the collections. Both are pork dishes. I called them Grilled Pork slice and Crumbed Pork Fillet. The former served with stir-fried snow peas, yellow squash and button mushroom, grilled eggplant and mash potatoes. He brushed the sauce mixture consisting of whole grain mustard, spices and seasoning on the pork slice and grilled it.

The latter served with broccoli, slice potatoes and some stir-fried mix veggies. The best part of this pork fillet is the Sauce, Aussie Sundried Tomato sauce from our company. Wayne said he developed it. The meat was so tender and juicy.

After all, we have slight contribution to my log as well. The above two made by us, Shepherd Pie and Grilled Drumstick served with Butter rice. The Shepherd pie is made by a layer of Lamb minced, mashed potatoes and Cheese subsequently. Baked for 20 minutes in the Oven. Everything is cooked before the oven. For the Butter rice chicken, it was just our experiment product. Taste good though.

Meat ball Pasta. This dish is special on the pasta sauce, Wayne broke the traditional cooking style of using tomato based sauce,he used satay sauce to cook it. It served with pan-fried mashed potatoes. As you can see, the satay sauce was cooked with carrot, broccoli and meat ball. It taste great! I guess this exotic dish is hard to find in the market.

Simple Pasta meal served with tomato based sauce. We like to make pasta too, cos it's quick and easy. Whenever we don't feel like cooking, we will just cook pasta or fried rice. haha...

Sticky Date Pudding. This was just made 2 days ago. The texture is soft and moist. It was so sinful to eat cos the whole pudding in a casserole plate baked with 250g of butter and plethora of sugar. Yet the sauce is made from 'Gula Melaka' and I guess with some other fattening stuffs as well. It served with cream, Icing Sugar and Shredded dark chocolate. OMG!!! So fattening but It's superb, cos in Asia it's difficult to find such a tasty pudding. It's such an indulgence, simply just in the heaven of sensations.

I'm thankful to be here. To have the chance to eat all these finger-licking food and I guess I learnt pieces and bits of how to cook them. Really! Millionsssss thanks to Wayne.

Purlingbrook Falls at Springbrook

2007-03-31T16:24:00.000+10:00

We went to Purlingbrook falls few weeks back, the day before we went to Warner Bros Movie World.

Before heading towards the National Park, we stopped by Mt Tambourine as Wayne was delevering chocolate to a lady doing bussiness there. After the delivering, he suggested to bring us to a smaller scale of water falls in Mt Tambourine, which is located at the Cedar Creek Section. It is a place suitable for picnicing and small outdoor gathering. We took a couple of photos and left after staying for half an hour.

On the way, we saw one group of locals were gathering and preparing for hang-gliding at this slope. We were so exciting. We decided to stop the car by the road side and went down to watch the activity.

Wayne asked one of those people there and learnt that they need to attend a short course before going for the real gliding. It looks so fun and I categorized this as must-try-once-in-a-live-time kind of activity. It's quite a rip off though. One jump cost $200++ excluded the courses. Expensiveeee sia!!!....May be I should have just gone for sky diving. Should have be much cheaper.

Besides, there was one guy parachuting together with the hang-gliding group.

Springbrook plateau is nearby Lamington National Park, famed for its Purlingbrook Falls. We bush-walked for 90 minutes from the plateau to reach the fall at the bottom. It's not as tough as Mt Warning, much milder and relaxing. I like to go for bush walking as the natural scent from the flora and fauna, the chirping of birds, the transquility of the rainforest, the breath-taking scenery, made me feel so peaceful and relax.

The fall that we saw is quite huge in terms of the height but not as spectacular as Niagara falls in Canada. The special of this fall is that we could walk under the fall as there is man-made tracking leading to the middle of the fall. You should be able to visualise the landscape from the photos below. The place where we took photo was the walking track. We walked through the fall and were slight drenched by the streaming falls water.

I like ourdoor activities as it normally make me feel rejuvenating. May be after much perspiring and refreshing, the brain will excrete some sort of hormone to lift the mood up.

Dreamworld

2007-03-27T21:07:00.000+10:00

In Gold Coast, they have three major theme parks, namely Warner Bros Movie World, Dreamworld, Seaworld and two water theme parks. Amongst the three, Movie World is the most well known internationally. I've gone to Warner Bros Movie World, no regret and worth the money back. cool...

Last Sunday, we went to Dreamworld which is famed for its Big 5 thrilling rides, The claw, Giant Drop, Tower of terror, Wipeout and Cyclone. They are really well designed and thrilling especially Giant Drop and Tower of terror.

I would say Giant Drop is the mother of all rides. It's a square pole thing that reach 119 metres from the sea level and the sudden drop accelerating to 135 km/h. There are east and west seating which consist of 8-seat in a row. The scenery at east wing could see Surfers paradise and of course the Pacific Ocean whereas the west wing could only see the hinterland of Gold Coast. So fast and so terrifying. I haven't got time to scream for the sudden shocked it has already reached the ground. It's really toooo fast to make any response. The feeling is like your guts and everything are still hanging on top where you have already reached the bottom. I don't like the ride that much but went for it just for the sake of experiencing.

Tower of terror. It is another ride attached to the Giant Drop's pole on the other side. In other words, the pole consists of 2 sides of the Giant Drop and 1 side of the tower of terror. We sat on a car and it was accelerating very very fast, as fast as the superman escape in Movie world. The car was driven towards the pole following a curve rail and it was dangling at the pole for 5 sec before it dropped back to the starting point. (It could be illustrated clearer with the photo above.) What do you think?? Have you ever tried a ride that goes backwards?? I was so mentally unprepared at that moment cos it was our first ride of the day. My tears were just burst out synchronizing with the shock feelings...haha...it's not frightening but just not prepared. I still got a bit of guts...I like this ride the most.

The claw. The most fun ride. The ride looks like claw as can be seen from the name where the claw is the cycle seating and the pole attached to it is the hand. It swings to left and right in an increasing speed and height and the cycle seating is spinning concurrently. Huh...just dunno how to describe. Two words: awesome and Brilliant.

Wipeout. The design of this ride is according to the current of waves. We were turned upside down, inside out on the 30-seater-in-a-row kind of car attached to the left and right motion poles. In other words, we were like in a simulation washing machine, man! But we laughed a lot for that ride. Those people who had heavy meal before the ride would be suffering for the ride so we played before lunch.

Cyclone is just a normal cyclone ride in a train running through two loops and slant rail. It's the mildest amongst all. It was fun as we rode under the rain on that day and we had twice.

The imperfectness of the day was it's raining and caused procrastinating in our journey. Otherwise, we would be able to have more fun. Other than that, the theme park has a lots of show as well such as Tiger presentation, farm show which has sheep shearing as one of the programmes and many more. But since we had already wasted a lot of times stuck in the rain, we din go for all the shows. It's alright...I think the main focus of this theme parks is the rides. I'm contented with that.

A few more rides that are also brilliant such as thunder Rapid ride which is the imatation of water rafting. Cool but we got drenched on the ride. The longest waiting time ride, Log river is the most not worth the waiting time, cos the ride exactly the same as the one in Genting. 4 persons in a boat and the boat will cruise to a slide and accelerate down to the flat surface and the water from the simulated river water will splash towards us. The main attraction of this ride is only for those people who eagerly seeking for complete drenched and wet. But still has the fun in it.

The day ended faster than usual whenever you are having fun. The park closes at 5pm and we went back exhaustively to prepare our quick dinner. The conclusion of the day was we had so much fun and laughter but utterly mental fatigue. At night when I was sitting in front of my desk, I could feel the giddiness as if i were still sitting on the ride, took me few moments to get back the balancing.

Heaps of back dated experiences to share but time is really precious here. Not much time to write. Will do it when I've a bit of spare time.

It's Autumn

2007-03-27T13:46:00.000+10:00

The weather here has changed. As what Dan was saying, it's like in an air-conditioned room but without much fallen leaves. It' heaps colder than before, the sun shine is no longer strong where it's covered by the thick cloud. I need jacket everywhere even in the house. Cool... I wonder How could I survive during winter?? Haha...What a cold intolerance!!...

Tiring day

2007-03-22T20:43:00.000+10:00

Today for the whole day I didn't do well. Made a few mistakes at work and bad feelings attacked me so badly. I'm soooo tired! Have been mentally torturing myself for the whole day, I need rest. At times, when we deal with those experienced workers, as a trainee, we really don't have the stand to do anything. They ignored our words.

No more you tube for me here. It was one of my most entertaining site. I miss you...

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Today wayne told me that he'll appreciate the coming six weeks so deadly cos after we leave he'll be alone in the lab for the whole afternoon. Will I have the post-leaving syndrome as well??

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Few days back, due to my clumsiness I caused a small accident at work. Before the accident happened, at the same position, I visualized the senarios in my mind and warned myself not to do it that way to prevent the occurence. But I take thing for granted and caused so much inconvenience.

I carried the 2 litres bottles into the lab for weight and temperature check. Then I returned them to the filling station after I'd done. When I standed beside the station and passed the bottles to the operator, my mind was visualising the senario. I misplaced the bottles and slamed on the startup button of the machine which just beside the place that I left my bottles. It caused double filling, the sauces spilled and the surronding became so messy. It was just in such a chaotic situation. I was in relief after I woke up from the mind wandering and walked back to the lab.

Half an hour later, when I did another weight check, may be I was too tired or not concentrating, the senario which was just in my mind half an hour ago happened in the reality. Everything was following exactly what I'd visualised. I'd no time to think and response at that time cos I was busying clean up the mess. Nobody really scolded me for being so clumsy but I felt so sorry and so bad. It ruined my mood of the day. And the cleaning task was horrible.

I was thinking, how could it be happened? Why was that in my mind before the occurent? Have you ever encountered this kind of situation where the whole process was playing in your mind before an incident???

I had similar situation happened in my childhood as well where I envisioned myself from jumping off the table and wounded myself on the knee. I'd even forseen the image of my wound. It's kind of terrifying experience and the whole situation still replaying in my mind vividly.

Years after, It happened again. I could not give myself a good reason to explain it. Can you???

随想

2007-03-20T19:24:00.000+10:00

很久没有用华文写字了，似乎变得有点生疏。
在澳洲的日子很逍遥。
虽然再好的东西也会有不足的一面，可是对我来说这已经很足够了。
这将会是一辈子的回忆呢！
我会好好珍惜的。

我这个人呢，很会钻牛角尖，又很情绪化，冲动鲁莽，庆幸的是我还算理智。
不然我很可能早就已经被数之不尽的后悔和遗憾溺毙了。

离乡背井了三年，以为自个儿已经习惯了一个人在外面的生活。
回头一看，我还是我，一个极需心灵依靠的丫头。
谢谢你一直陪在我身边，无时无刻的给予适当的提点与忠告。

想念朋友也想家，可是前途作祟，无法许可任何任性的举动。
为了梦想，唯独咬紧牙根，与现实拼个你死我活，边可找寻属于自己的世界。

这已经是我在这里的第十一个礼拜。
距离拜别的日子越来越近，心里日益的焦虑起来，矛盾的心情也越来越显著。
只好抱着天下无不散之宴席的心理过日子，希望可以安抚不安的心灵。
不舍怎么会有得呢？

Brisbane half-day excursion

2007-03-20T13:20:00.000+10:00

Saturday, March 18, 2007
Brisbane
Wayne had a badminton tournament in Brisbane today and we tagged along to support him. It was just a medium-scale competition where everything from knock out to the final completed in one day. Wayne won the open grade final. He is good in badminton, no doubts and his partner in the men’s double not bad too.

We watched two games and then he sent us to the nearest bus stop before the next game started. From there we hopped on the bus and headed to china town in Brisbane city. It was already 4pm. All the shops were started closing and we realized it was not a right time to wandering around China Town at this late time. The China Town there did not impress me much. In fact, I don’t feel like visiting for the second time other than getting cheap Asian groceries. The place is not clean and feels slightly unsafe as the hooligans are all active and loitering at the city after the sun set.

We walked around China Town for about one hour for some grocery shopping at the major Asian food stores. We then moved to Brisbane CBD by train. We stopped at the central and went to the famous shopping area, which are Queen Street and Adelaide Street. Most of the posh fashion boutiques are located at these two streets. At one of the souvenir shops, there was one guy greeting to me, I think he is a Korean tourist. Most importantly, he is handsome!! (Don’t feel jealous BIE!)

The pubs lying at the city area were overwhelmed and packed, then only we realized today was St Patrick’s Day. It is some sort of Irish celebration. They do body painting, drink green beer and wear green. This celebration denotes lucky beginning, hence the clover leaves play a main role as well. Due to celebration atmosphere, the people outside the pubs and surroundings became a bit aggressive. They acted weird and it nearly scared us away. Some of them even asked us to join the party and some greeted us strangely. We loitering around the streets and had subway for dinner before heading back home.

The train frequency for gold coast express is low. May be it was Sunday. We waited for 35 minutes at the train station to catch the train back to Helensvale and it took 75 minutes to reach. The whole journey was so uncomfortable and I really need to comment about the train. The seats are not high enough to rest our head. We tried to take a short nap in the train but there was no way that we could rest well because our head were swaying around without any support. It was just horrible. When the train reached our destination, we alighted with that woozy mood as if still having the nap. Worst still, we need to walk back home in that tired condition because no one could pick us from the station. At one point of time, we nearly wanted to take cab home but we don’t dare to risk our pocket. So …walk lo!

This walked was shorter than the movie world one, only took 50 minutes. The funniest part was Wayne reached home 5 minutes after us, what a joke! Sigh….but I guess it was a good exercise for me as I missed the badminton session on Thursday. And walking through all the roads that we normally passed through by car, could actually give different sensations. It was slower in pace, allowed more times to enjoy the night scenery, and caught few star gazing moments. I’m always wanted to figure out which stars represent the southern cross constellation since it could only be seen at the southern hemisphere. I must see them before I go!

The day ended in a neutral mood. If the journey back was not that tired, it might sound better. Congratulation Wayne!! for winning the match and became Queensland number one.

Home alone

2007-03-15T20:39:00.000+10:00

It's thursday night, supposedly I should be with them at the badminton court but I chose to spend a leisurely night which I could have my own sweet time for anything. It's not that I'm being anti-social and whatsoever, just that we do need some privacy times and freedom to do whatever we like cuz living together with others sometimes you will lost the freedom and to follow the majority.

I'm easy going but I do think that every single of us live life differently. Living together as housemate or whatsoever is not an easy task and i knew the fact so well since I was still a kid . Years back in the childhood time, my family used to share a house with my relatives due to their house was gone in a fire. Even we are pretty close relatives, quarrels and misunderstanding did happen under the same roof. It was a sad memory for me but luckily things changed when they moved and the relatioship went back to the normal.

I think i'm still way too conservative in everything. I keep telling myself I need to meet more new people and explore the world. However, right now, at this moment, I reckon I'm still a very dependent person, on friends and family. And I still cant think out of the box. And I feel not contented without new knowledge. I seriously need some motivation to boast up my confidence and start all over a new me.

It's autumn now and i could feel the changed in weather. The breeze is cooling and I need a jumper to keep me warm!

Warner Brothers Movie World - Hollywood on the Gold Coast

2007-03-12T22:06:00.000+10:00

Finally, after much anticipating, we have made our way to Warner Bros Movie World yesterday at 10am sharp which is the opening time of the park. We had so much fun in the theme park and it brought me back to my childhood. My one and only theme park memory was genting highland which was years back.

Overall, I was so impressed on their advancement in technology and the creativity. When I compared with what we have in Genting, I realised it's so incomparable. The theme park has more things to see such as parade and shows and the rides are more thrilling too!!

The most impressed ride was the superman escape where the train accelerates from 0 to 100km/h in just 2 sec at the very beginning part. What a terrifying fast speed and rumor said the speed is comparable to a rocket. Wow! Besides, the train was riding in a inverted U shape and is vertical. There was one moment where I could not feel myself and my heart as if still hanging on top. That was the scariest ride that I’ve ever had. I think it would be 10 times scarier than the superman ride in Genting. Seriuosly! For those interested in thrilling ride, i think It would be a good challenge.

superman escape: The queen of all rides

Above: Taking photo with superhero-Batman, Felicia and I...Cool! We actually cut the queue to take photo with this guy. sounds a bit rude but there was limited shot for this guys therefore I was forced by the circumstances. hehe..

The policeman stunt show was funny and entertaining. The effects were especially good and real. There was an explosion scene which you could feel the heat blowing towards you. However, I was not fully concentrating on the story line at that moment cuz we sat third line from the front and it was so darn hot! We didn't realise the sun direction actually moving towards us when we were choosing the seats. Damn! Back to the topic, prior the show began, there was a staff in cadet uniform directing the crowd and he acted so funny. He was playing around with the audience by combing their hair, mustache, stealing their stuff, separating the couples from sitting together, spraying water, fooling around with the rubber band and etc. The audience were amused and laughed non-stop.

We managed to hop on all the rides but in a hurry pace. The park closes at 530 pm and we were still wandering around to take the very last piece of photo. Until the park attendant chased us out politely. So ambarrassing. But who cares! We must take 44 bucks worth of photos...! And guess what we took 312 pieces of photo in only one day! hahaz...no complaining...totally satisfied!

I guess reader could not really feel the excitement by just reading so I'll upload more photos to share the joyous moments. Personally, I strongly recommend to visit this theme park at least once in your life time. It definitely worth the money back! I think I'll revisit in a few years time.

We met this hero looking man somewhere in the theme park and curious on the overwhelming crowd who wanted to take photo with this handsome!

Lethal Weapon Ride. Ranking top 2 of the thrillingness. Damn our legs were dangling in the air and we were up side down for 3 times. After the ride, we felt giddy and off balance.

Photos taken in the souvenir shop there are heaps of them. Top 2 were taken in daily planet. In black robe was in harry potter house, i'm looking more fashionable than being a wizard like. The last one is one of the last few photos we took in movie world just after we rushed to buy the souvenir.

Above: In looney Tunes Village, memorable moment cos we were born in that era. I love to watch all these cartons years back, bugs bunny, tweety bird, sylvester and many more.

Batwing: Space shot. Slightly scary. The car is cool!

Wild west: Water boat ride. We were drenched after the ride. It's a good cooling session though.

Above: Shrek 4D adventure show. It was freaking cool where you can feel the sensation from the movie such as the touch of spiders, water from sneezing and the light effect.

End of the day, we decided not to disturb Wayne to pick us up from the park and walked back home. It took us 1 hour and 10 min to reach which need only 5 min to reach by car. Damn! But anyway it's reachable and walkable so don't be too demanding on the details. It was a fun day and also a hot day! I got tanned so much but still I enjoy it very much! Hmm...What's next! Disneyland?? Muahahaha... :))

Reality

2007-03-08T15:18:00.000+10:00

Handed in my first progress report for IA. Today I got back my report and it's full of red inks. A bit upset on my command of language or may be it is the report writing skill. Guess what my supervisor gave me 2 days to rewrite my report. I could visualise the seriousness. Meaning to say that she expects to get a much better version. She apologised on being so particular because she worked as a translator and book editor for 4 years before she came to AUS. But I think she need not feel sorry to correct me. I'm intending to learn and improve. Thus, I really appreciate her comments. At least she alert me to realise my compatibility.

I'm still not good enough in so many things and I realised I have not much time left before my graduation which equivalence to the starting point of my future career. I feel so unprepared. In everything.

At this point of time, I feel myself so low in self-esteem and upset over my unsatisfaction but when the time comes still need to back to the reality and continue with my works. I don't have high IQ but at least my EQ is still not too bad. Will be recovering soon for sure.

Byron Bay and Mt Warning

2007-03-06T21:19:00.000+10:00

Saturday, 04/03/07

It’s the weekend again. Weekend is our main motivation during the working days cuz we could have our own time for sight seeing. This weekend we’d plan to go Byron Bay and Mt. Warning bush walking with the Norman family and Wayne. We left home at 6am in the morning and started our hiking journey at about 10 to 8 am and reached the bottom of the mountain at about 12 pm, the whole journey was 8.8 km. It was a great and unforgettable experience that I’ve ever had and Felicia said it was an achievement. Well I think it was! I used to do more hiking back in the secondary school time but stop going since I started my uni life.

This hiking was a different one, the path was the same but there was one part of the mountain, we need to rely on the chain to climb up the rocks. It’s real steep and rocky and I’ve never been this unconfidence before, at least I think I’m doing well in outdoor activities, my legs are short and I could not grip on the man-made hole to support my body. Oh my goodness! I lost my balance for twice and luckily Darrel was behind me and gave me a helping hand. After the rocky part, we reached the peak of the mountain and the scenery up there was spectacular. This mountain has another name called cloud catcher whereby the mountain is located in between a few mountains and the cloud is being caught there. It was foggy and cooling on top of that mountain. After a short resting and enjoying time, we headed back to the starting point. The way back was much easier and better but the rocky part was still very scary, we were like abseiling down the rocks which has 70 degree of the steepness (my estimation). I knew that my calf muscle would be sore like hell though it was still a nice hiking trip. I enjoyed it so much. In fact, outdoor activities as such would be better than sitting at home for movies, dramas or lappie. Healthier and cost saving…haha…But only can be done occasionally. High energy consumption!

Cloud catcher, Peak of Mt Warning

On the way to our accommodation at Byron, we passed through a place called Nimbin where heaps of hippies are staying there and we expected to see a lot of funky stuffs. It was not though. May be I was in my unconscious condition after the hiking and could not really see what’s happening at that time, it’s quite disappointed. Throughout the journey towards Byron Bay, I was drifting in and out of my consciousness but I still managed to get down the car to buy Macadamia nuts nearby the Macadamia plantation. Raw nuts sold in a small ‘kaya’ container cost AusD$2. It’s quite a good price compared to the commercial one which will be around 20 bucks per kg. The nuts with intact hull are only 3 bucks per kg, so cheap!! But we don’t have the nut cracker. Sian…!

By the time we reached the apartment, it was already late noon. They hopped into the pool for cooling and I read my traveling brochure by the pool side. I wish I could in the pool too but I was not well prepared for it. No choice then! We then had our dinner at Byron Bay town centre. The 3rd time of my fish and chips in Gold Coast. Hmmm…not quite enjoy though. I’m not a fan of deep fried food. It makes me feel so uncomfortable and forceful to consume those 'heaty' and oily food into my stomach. However, traveling with other people we could not have a lot of freedom on choosing food. Need lots of compromise. They actually browsed through all the restaurants there to compare the price before making any decision. The first choice was fully booked and neither the second one available. So sad we need to get fish and chips. I was expecting something better than that but tagging along with others we didn’t really have the saying right.

Not long after the dinner, Talesia, the Norman's toddle, was screaming for tiredness so we moved back to the apartment to rest. Felicia and me shared a room and we both went to the bed at 9pm. Haha…we could not stand the exhaustion that we had throughout the day from Mt Warning to the journey towards Byron Bay and walking around browsing through the makan places. It’s indeed enough for the day and yet we need to wake up early in the morning the next day for Byron Bay market.

Sunday morning, we woke up pretty early but the rest was still sleeping. We went to the market slightly late than the schedule but it’s quite on time cuz the people here quite laid back, some of them still setting up the stall when we reached at 830am. I was baking under the sun of this sunny and hot day. I guess it would probably 37 degree. The market is big but it’s only one fifth of Chatucak in Bangkok, that’s what Fel said. For me all the markets in here are about the same, just that Byron Bay one could be more stalls and more things to look-see. I did capture a few funny and funky one but usually the good one will be more expensive.

We checked out at 1030am and straight away made our way to Byron Bay light house. It was such a painful journey because we need to climb heaps of stairs to reach the light house in our worst condition of sore calf muscle and worst still frying under the hot sun. What a mad journey! But it was worthy, the view from the light house was fascinating and we could see dolphins swimming in the sea from far. I took quite a number of photos on the fantastic view and also captured the most easterly point of Australia mainland,Cape Byron. I reckon myself love to take photo since I started to travel by myself; to add every single photo into my own memory log, especially those precious moment in life.

We didn’t manage to stay longer cuz the kids were tired after such a long journey. On the way back, we stopped by Byron Bay town centre for lunch. It’s not a proper one, we had cake and expensive sushi but Fel and I didn’t really eat sushi. I ordered miso soup which I had been craving for long time. On the way back, we stopped at Fingal Head beach and coincidentally there were surfing competition holding at the same time but I could not see anything from far. The surfers actually need to wait for a good wave to show off their skill; seemingly it’s all about luck, luck to wait for a really good and beautiful wave.

All of us were really exhausted after the mount climbing and sun baking excursion but we didn’t go back home straight away, Wayne brought us along to the Norman’s for a swim. At that moment I wish I could have my own transport to fly back home. We were so stink, sticky and sweaty yet we stuck somewhere and could not have our shower for the day. It’s the down side of traveling with others where you have no choice but to follow their decision. Anyway, the trip was great. We didn’t make so much noises and no complaining on all the imperfectness. If we were not tagging along with them, it would be quite difficult for us to reach that place unless we pay more to follow a day tour!! So ‘mai hiam bei pai la’!!

Demise of my 3-year old thumb drive

2007-03-06T15:47:00.000+10:00

Today while I was working on my report in the work place, my 3-year old thumb drive stationed at the USB port of the CPU underneath the working table. However, the owner was such an idiot to drive the roller chair collided towards the stationed thumb drive and it was certified demise at Tuesday, 06 March 2007, 330 pm.

Let's mourn for it and give myself a condolence. How sad I lost all the photos I edited last night for my Byron Bay trip and need to redo again. Well I'll learn to be smarter next time. Anyway anyone know how to retrieve data from a 90 degree bent thumb drive. Please inform me.

Just not in the mood of doing anything

2007-02-25T22:04:00.000+10:00

Another weekend has gone. We didn't do much things for this weekend as nothing was planned before hand. We went to travel expo at Gold Coast Convention Centre and hoped to get some information on the day trips or some good deal for domestic flight or whatever. However things didn't turn up the way that we anticipated for. Most of them were catered for international travelling and none of the stall exhibited local trips. What a disappointment. In contrast, Wayne was stuck there for quite some times to enquire about his asia trip.

Came across so many special deals on heaps of trip and tour, I wanted so much to travel around the world where I can see different things and feel their cultural, food and etc. It would be such a great experience. But as a student I still cant afford such a big expenses. How sad... Sign...

For instance, the other day I watched a variety show about Food, Food Safari, they showed Mexican Food that day. All kind of chillies that I've never learnt in my life and don't even know their existence, are used by them as a very important ingredient in cooking, like salsa sauce. It's so interesting to learn all these extra knowledge where we cant learn in school or visualise well through reading and only know best through experiencing.

I've no idea how's my life in the future would be, but I wish I could do a trip every year no matter where it is. I believe all the places that I've never been to is new to me and I definitely can learn something new and feel the atmosphere they have it there. How's the people there doing and what is their staple food, fashion and many more...most importantly the custom and cultural carry by the people there. It's sound so interesting!!

Working hard towards the dreams that I hold tightly. Thanks for a friend whom one time reminded me to grab every oppurtunity that I have. I did since then. Criticism from her was useful and help me to envisions my future better. At least I knew what I don't want in my life and sooner or later everything will be shown clearer.

Happy Chinese New year to all there. To myself as well. The first ever CNY without family. It makes me appreciate more on the precious time that I can spend with them.

Last weekend and my CNY

2007-02-20T23:02:00.000+10:00

Friday, 16 Feb 07. Went to surfers night market. Heaps of art crafts and funny stuffs overthere. Worth a walk. After a short walk we took our dinner at nearby chinese stall. The price was okie but the taste was so so. I would say the taste like what we have in PGP air con canteen asian cuisine, so much MSG and oil in it!

Stuff that I captured in surfers...

Saturday, 17 Feb 07. This was the date that we planned to go to Currumbin wildlife Sanctury Park. Hmmm...It had been delayed for weeks. At last we went there but It's quite scary at first cos it's drizzling at our place and yet we still heading to our destination which took us 90 mins of bus-train-bus journey to reach. It was such a good weather over there, luckily. phew...

That is a Wildlife park whereby animals e.g kangaroo, koala, birds, wildlife...can be found. Got the chance to touch kangaroo and others, it was quite a great experience. Most importantly was we spent half of the entrance fee to get in the park as we got the coupon from Lucky. Two at the price of one damn good. We always wait for this type of lobang so that we can save more and go to more places. We spent the whole day there and took bus back at 4pm.

We rushed back from the park as we'd appointment with Wayne to go to the drive in theatre. It's another eye opening experience again. Drive in theatre is theatre where you drive in you car to an open space and they show the movie in a massive white screen in front and we tuned on the radio frequency to receive the sound surround for the movie. Sound great isn't it? However the air was too cold that night, I could not stand and hide into the car while everyone still enjoying their movie outside. But I still could catch the movie in the car just that the sound surround was so loud in the car. Can you imagine how loud is it?They switched it on to the almost max volume so that they could listen clearly outside the car. We watched two movies, Ghost Rider and Casino Royale, at the price of $13. It quite cheap though. However, due to the exhausting during the day time, I could not really stay awake for the latter and may be because of the story line as well. Too complicated for me to think at that condition.

Back at home it's already 1230am and It was CNY reunion night and I believe over there would be very lively. I didn't make an effort to call back home as I was so tired and hit my pillow straight away.

Sunday, 18 Feb 07. Today was the first day of CNY and I spent it in Gold Coast without family. We spent our day at my boss's. All the chinese staffs in my company attended the luncheon, cooked by the lady boss. It's got heaps of food to eat just like buffet but lots of them, those deep fried food, had already turned soggy. What a waste. What I enjoyed the most was the chilli crab and black pepper crab. It's the best among all. However, compare with what we've in Tambun, It's still way to reach the standard. It's the freshness issue. Slightly disappointed on that particular issue cuz I perceived crabs from Aus should be in good grade. You know 'tai zap hai' le I wish to try so much. Still they said the crab was still alive before cooked. I was in doubt.

Another big concern of CNY is getting ang pao where we can increase the digit in our acc. Haha...I got 5 ang pao from them. Not bad!! Better than I get 10 in hometown. After lunch, they played poker card. Sg style of black Jack, In between and 3 pokers...so strange to see all the management people to play cards and yet they played with money. It's a little casino there. Overall, Singaporean celebrating their CNY not much difference from us. At least for those 3 main things that mz be present, food, ang pao and gambling.

Tomorrow is wednesday. Time flies, half of the week has gone. It's already my 7th week in Gold Coast. Tomorrow morning I need to drive wayne's ford to the mechanics and he drives his wagon along to fetch us to work.

Spectacular view at Q1observation deck

2007-02-11T11:33:00.000+10:00

Friday night, It was a tiring day cuz am lacked of rest on thursday night. After we came back from Broadbea, where we had our dinner. Eileen and Johan, the couple from our company, treated us a very nice dinner. I would say it's something quite luxurious for us in Gold Coast. We even had baby abalone but be frank there would be bunch of people appreciate it more than I do. I love seafood so much but stangely for me abalone is just a normal dish. I really cant understand why chinese love them so much. May be cuz it's sooo expensive....!!!

Overall the dinner was quite okie but the phenomenon was weird. It's quite sensitive to mention here but if I were wayne I'd feel so uncomfortable even the food are nice I won't be able to appreciate them. Too bad... When we reached home, it was already quite late and we didn't discuss our destination tomorrow and hit our pillow exhausively.

Saturday . We woke up at 9 plus and started to discuss where should we go. After a few hours of discussion, we made our desicion to Q1 observation deck at Surfers to catch the spectacular view of Gold Coast. Why did we take a few hours to discuss? The reason was...There are heaps of places to look-see but most of them are outbound area where we can't reach by public transport. It's imposible to ask Wayne to drive us there unless he offered. Also, some of them need to go by day tour where it needs reservations before hand. Worst still, theme parks are all not in our list at the moment cuz we are still waiting for the special. Therefore, after cracking our head and discussing over, we decided to go Q1.

It is claimed as the tallest residential tower in the world. The observation deck is located at 77 storey and 78 is a small theatrette where they play documentary of the history of gold coast. We stayed at the circular deck for 90 minutes and had a crazy photo snap shotting session. The view is awesome. You'll only be able to feel the amzement when you experience it yourself. When I looked at the ocean, the realm of pacific ocean, I felt I'm just a little tiny nut without the ability to gain attention from the world. Anyway, it was a nice trip.

Again, we walked to surfers and ate gelato there. Buy one get one free...good deal! After that, we planned to walk to broadbeach following the shore line but when we were reaching, the weather changed, it's rain, so we had no choice but to turn our direction towards the bus stop. Took bus to nerang railway station and heading back to helensvale. That's our day outside.

It's quite late when we reached home. Therefore, we just cooked 'mee sua' for dinner. Sitting at the dinning table, wayne and us were discussing about his asia trip at the end of the year. I felt so bad for not being able to introduce nice places to visit in Malaysia. Even my hometown where I always pround of my identity as a penangite, I can't bring out the attractiveness. Cuz may be I know those places would not be attractive enough for him. Would he want to visit all the famous temples, Kek Lok si, Sleeping Buddha...snake temple? I really don't know.cuz we have plenty of these. All I know is good food. On top of that, I really dont know where to visit in Pg. Generally, I know Melaka, Kl and Pg are the tourist spots. Haiz...sad...sad. I'm really a bad ambassador for the country.

Sunday. Felicia went to church and wayne went to Mt tamborine to deliver some goods. I'm home alone cuz I chose not to wake up early. haha...

Friendship

2007-02-08T16:01:00.000+10:00

Surfing through friends' blogs and I realised to get along well with new friends is not an easy task. May be taurean are too conservative and they like to live in their own way. So I found it difficult. Those who know me well should be able to understand me.

We are created as an unique individual and there are billions of different characteristics and personalities indivitual living in this world. Despite, we still need to rely on each other for surviving. Therefore we'll be meeting heaps of strangers from all walks of life, from young to old, from wealthy to poverty in our daily life and none of them are the same. So...We need to be able to tolerate, be patient and not too calculative. Give-and-take could be a very good terminology to describe but at times we tend to forget.

I feel upset and not contented cuz my best friends are far apart from me. Although I'm living well, having fun and enjoying , I feel something is missing which cannot express through words. Apparently, we need companionship and someone to share our exitement as well as dissapointment. I would say I'm kinda between good and bad. I knew that I'm too greedy but that's my feelings.

Even I knew something had happened miles away and I'm so so down to hear all these crappy stuffs. It's not easy to make friend and know each other well. I definite it as fate and it's the destiny that make us met. I wish we could appreciate what we own and never ever hurt others' feelings as possible as you can. It's not a good feeling.

On that day when I was extremely sorrow and bored, I wrote this crappy poem: (sorry for those who cant read chinese. Apparently my mandirin is much better!hahaz...)...Maybe I should finish the rest of the poem...but no inspiration at the moment.
"志不同道不合。
天之大地之大，道同之人不易寻；
道不合之人遍地皆是。
日复一日，燥气攻心，自寻灭亡。"

Appreciate the friendship right in front of you and me. I believe as long as we treat people well and with whole-heartedly, they will definitely feel our sincerity.

Need to knock off and continue with my works, I have heaps of them.

Apology and thank you ain't too difficult to convey...please do it if you think you need to. Good Day!

Nice dinner

2007-02-05T23:05:00.000+10:00

Mood: dangling

Wayne cooked something very nice tonight. He made gourmet quiche and crumbed lamb with patota salad and coleslaw. It was so nice. I think it would cost us 20 bucks to get such a good meal. Hahaz...we are really lucky to stay with him. He is superb cuz the dinner was ready in just 130 hr. I think I would be able to catch up with him forever cos he graduated as a chef. Ha...

I've started on another phase of my IA which I need to use my brain and do some paper works. I keep clicking on my mouse and sitting there for the whole day and yet I feel exhausted. Strange hey...

Nothing much to elaborate on today. Basically it was just a mundane day.

Yesterday. I’ve spent the whole day at home cooking for Sunday lunch and dinner and Monday lunch. We cooked porridge for lunch, those with dried shitake mushroom, dried scallop and dried shrimp and pork, sprinkle a bit of shallots (we called it spring onion there) and garlic oil. Hmmm…I think that’s my style of cooking congee. We had a late lunch as it takes quite a bit of times to cook the porridge. Wayne said this was the first time he ate this type of porridge. Guess what. We ate porridge in the hot summer afternoon. Gees…what a mismatch! We should have just cooked soba noodles with ice cube on it. Hmmm…hope it won’t be too bad anyway. After an hour of our lunch, we started to cook dinner. Hahaz…Yeah we’ve been cooking for the whole day.

I didn’t do much thing, laundry, reading grocery papers from all the supermarkets and looking for good deal. Sounds like ‘obasan’ hei…precisely! Cuz I’ve low budget. The company should have known that the allowance is just enough for us to eat rabbit meal. Hahaz… Should have just told the lady boss, it’s definitely not enough!! I’ll feedback to them and may be it could benefit the next intern.

The night is getting colder after dawn. Not even needed a fan and yet I’m having my long pants on. I guess I’d just die during winter time. I’d just watched “step up”. It was a nice show. I don’t know whether is the story line or the enthusiasm on dance that touched my feelings. It led me to the memories that were hidding somewhere in my mind. I realize I love dancing so much too. However, we tend to forget what we like and what we interested in. we keep doing things that we don’t like and struggling for surviving. What a cruel fact!

Listening to canon in D, it even brought me to somewhere far which I could not reach myself. In reality, sometimes we can’t do things that we like, we can’t follow our own path; we keep following others and eventually we lost our destination. Come to think of it, I’ve been doing nothing for my entire life. I keep asking myself what would my future be. Would I satisfy with the routine work? What should I do to make life more meaningful and better?

I have nothing in my mind. Probably, I’ll be just looking for a stable job after IA and settle down.

Waitangi Day

2007-02-04T12:32:00.000+10:00

We went to waitangi Day celebration yesterday. To understand why they celebrate Waitangi Day you may visit

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waitangi_Day.

Our main purpose to join the celebration was to eat hangi. Hangi is a NZ moari word for a method of cooking in an outdoor pit oven. It is done in New Zealand as an alternative to the BBQ, but often saved for special occasions due to the large amount of time and preparatory work involved. (Quoted from Wiki).

However due to the overwhelming responses, the first batch which came out at 1230pm was sold out in just a few minutes and the second batch will only ready at 230pm. We could not afford to wait there for such a long time as Wayne needed to visit his mum. Therefore, we decided to give up hangi and went for our grocerry shopping. Three of us were so dissapointed especially Wayne.

The photo below was taken in the tent for stage performances. I watched some of the bands from Waikato U and Moari Dances from some dance groups. The performances were so profesionals especially the dances. Two things I observed from the Moari dance, one, you need to keep long hair, two, you need to have big and firm bum. hahaz...

The photo below was taken at the spit that I went last weekend. There is a 6 stars hotel named Palazzo Versace owned by the designer label Versace. It just beside The Mariners Cove and opposite Sheraton Mirage (5 stars).

Mariners Cove
Behind me is a Shopping centre named Marina Mirage mainly cater for filty rich people.

The summer fruits are very cheap. Peaches, nectarines, plums, mangoes....range of 1.00-1.99/kg or sometimes even lower price. so cheap and so tasty! Yummy.

A little intro to my friends here...

2007-02-02T00:42:00.000+10:00

Wayne is the landlord here and is also our company QA staff so he drives us to work everyday. He is an OZ and once a Kiwi with a little bit of asian mind set. The most important thing is he is a good cook. We will take turn to cook dinner cum lunch so there would be chinese and western food rotating. I believe most of the caucasian cant really eat rice everyday neither him. hahaz...But he always cooks better than us. No worries, I'm catching up...my mind is always thinking about food....How to make it better. Firstly i need to know the spices well.

He runs a badminton club in Southport, Gold Coast for more than 10 years. Thursday is the club meeting day. I just went to the badminton session with him. Thank God I still have one day of exercise per week. Just cant imagine how would I be after 4 exerciseless months. Hahaz...I've determined to make it a weekly habit.

Believe it or not, I hit my nose with the stupid racquet. (I know someone would say I'm stupid.) Damn! Almost running down my tears on the spot. Luckily I could control it quite well otherwise I would become big news in the club. Poor thing Felicia not as lucky as I'm. She got cut on her foot just before we leave the house, she was almost in tears also but we girls are tough..muahaha...Hope she could get well soon. Oh ya, Felicia is my coursemate who came here with me for our attachment. Thank God there are two of us. Otherwise I cant visualise the situation. Be frank, I have a little difficulties to understand the OZ accent. Damn! I should have watched more english drama and movie. I regretted not listen to dear, haiz...In Sg, the practise is just like peanut and the accent is totally different.

Anyway, tomorrow is friday. I need to wake up at 6 plus in the morning and my hair still freaking wet. I'm gonna get headache tomorrow. After work, there it starts our fun weekend.

Yo...keep my mood up... oops...it's raining outside. Aus is facing drought. They will appreciate the rain so so so much....

Carara market & Surfers Paradise

2007-02-01T23:29:00.000+10:00

Sat, 20th Jan 2007

Wayne dropped us at Carara market on his way to his dad’s. It’s like a flea market where you can find a lot of stuffs there from food to garment. I found it quite interesting cuz I saw they sell animals' hide eg Koala, Kangoroo and Cow. It’s an eye opener for me. However, it’s hot so we didn’t stay long and heading to Pacific fair which is the biggest shopping centre in Gold Coast. For us, we don’t really feel like shopping. The reasons are the price and also the fashion. I realise Caucasian and Asian actually have different senses in fashion. May be our figure are not meant to be wearing their fashion. It’s not fit at all. May be I could find something better in the future.

In Surfers paradise, they have shops along the beach. The Ripley’s is one of them. There is this place, Q1 observation deck, which can view the surfers, Broadbeach and Mainbeach in a row. It’s got 70 plus storey!! Hope I could get up there soon and capture the nice view.

First and Foremost

2007-01-31T22:43:00.000+10:00

It’s a hot night. It’s already the 4th weeks of my stay in Gold Coast. I’m using dial up hence it’s pretty inconvenient to access to the net. There are 3 of us in a house and we are sharing a phone line. There you can easily imagine the situation. However, we still able to catch some free time to check email in the work place. It could save a lot of the loading times at home.

My location now is at a suburb called Helensvale. I’m 45 min drive from Brisbane city and 30 min from Surfers Paradise, which is one of the famous beaches in Gold Coast. WB movie world is just 5min drive from my house and 15 min to reach Dreamworld. Both of them are theme park but with different attractions. Dreamworld is more to thrilling rides and all that whereas Movieworld has got the characters from WB cartons eg. Batman, Bunny, and blah blah…

In only 3 weeks time, I’ve already gone to a few places. The most significant one is the glow worms’ trip on last Saturday night. They are something similar to Fireflies that we have in Kuala Selangor just that they are different type of creature. They have the luminous ability and it’s amazingly beautiful in a dark cave. We got to walk in the bush for 15 min to reach the cave. On the way we could hear the sound from the nature; from the running water…and etc. The place is called natural bridge located in Lamington Natural Park, 45 min drive towards the southern from us. We spent 90 min to travel just to enjoy the 15 min of fun it was a great trip. People actually come to see the glow worms by tour and it cost quite a bit of money. Phew…how lucky I’m! Big saving…

The Aussie (OZ) just celebrated Australia Day on last friday. We went to southbank in Brisbane city to join the joyous moment. It's fun to get my first Aussie tatto on my face and neck. They had fireworks display at that night too. It's great but I believed we have campatible one in sg as well. The funniest thing is that I took a couple of videos of the fireworks but eventually I discovered my camera could not record the environmental sound. silly me...In the coming weekend they have Waitangi Day celebration which I have no idea what is that. I think should be NZ day or something like that.

More funs coming up...