What is it with parking fines and me?

Thinking it was a tuesday, with $1 DVDs and cheap petrol, I tried to encourage myself that it is a great night to head out. You know, pump petrol, buy some milk for my kopi and basically, pay the DVD store a visit after a 3 month long hiatus.

So happily, I lured my housemate, YH, to tag along, with the bait of $1 DVD storewide. Being the gullible daredevil, along with tomorrow being Anzac Day, yet another Australia public holiday, YH agreed with much enthusiasm.

When we arrived, there were NO parking space cause everyone was busy eating and getting wasted, with the string of restaurants and hotels along that area. Thinking that it was late (already 9+), that nobody will be issuing tickets at this ungodly hour (based on Australian standards), I decided to be lazy and just park at the taxi zone opposite the DVD store.

So happily both of us went in and selected our cheap DVDs only to realise my biggest horror when we were boarding our car. A white strap of paper on the bottom left hand corner of the wind screen. I thought to myself, SHIT, this can't happen! :( What can I say? SHIT HAPPENED! :'(

On my way back, I was cursing to myself. To think I still told YH that we should be fine given that it's late. I should have heeded the advice of YS & Botak to just stay home and study. For a moment, I thought about doing it the Singapore way. Write a letter with a pitiful plight of how I was suffering from diarrhoea and needed to relieve myself badly but had problems finding a carpark space, and given the fact that I am repentant and that it was my 1st offence, and plead for mercy. Then, I thought of the 10 commandments in the Bible, 'Thou shan't bear false testimony'. Boohoo, that got me resigning to my fate!

Then I thought of all the parking fines I had within the time I spent in Melbourne (less than a year). And I realised that with the $ I am feeding all these unsympathetic bullies, I could have done the following with all that $:

• Fly to Sydney
  
• Buy 20 or more bottles of Omega 3 oil pills
• Eat 20 kebabs
• Rent 100+ DVDs at $1 each
• Countless feasts
• Countless kopis
• Buy a new kopi maker

And the list goes on...

As if the night has not been traumatic as yet, I came home to YS telling me that my retain (work schedule depicting the jobs I had) has just been smacked with a 2 months job in May and June, where many are on AVAILABLE TIME.

Sigh, what can I say? It's a really bad day! :'(

Aussie Road Trip - Day 1

Stepping out of the arrival gate into a 5am Melbourne dawn, my emotion is a mix of fatigue from the 8-hour long flight and keen anticipation. I had imagined my reunion with Michelle countless times before this day. Many times, I envisaged us crying in each other's arms, like a scene out of the movies. That did not happen in the end of course, me being too self-conscious to weep in public. When I beheld Mich standing in front of me as I walked out of the airport, what I felt was a sense of relief. A sense of coming home to the most familiar place on earth after what seemed like a millenium of endless wandering. To be home is to be by the side of Mich. As I walked with her, I was once again entranced by her soulful eyes and her animated way of talking, both of which I have come to love so much over the years.

Dawn in Melbourne was quietly beautiful. I stared out of the window and indulged myself in the cool morning air as Mich's small car breezed through the highway. After some time of travelling, we approached Melbourne city. The city is the only place in Melbourne where one can find high-rise buildings; the surrounding country is so vast that for miles and miles only farms and short houses exist. The high-rise buildings are statuesque and many of them carry the same dark-glassed splendor as Suntec City back home. Very soon, we reached Michelle's apartment, which is just across the street from where she worked.

Well, her apartment is a mess (notice the present tense); it's hardly what I had imagined of a place where two girls are staying. Random articles lie all over the place and amass into one big pile at the back of the living room. The overall atmosphere is one of a junkyard. Making a mental note to address that before Mich and I have a home of our own in the future, I proceeded to take a nap while Michand Yishan departed for work.

When I woke up, it was 3pm. Remembering that Mich had told me that the shops in the city close at 6pm, I hurried out to explore the city. I began by strolling around the perimeter of the city and Melbourne, like most other modernised cities, looks almost the same as Singapore. What is interesting is that Melbourne is divided into two sections by a river, and when you stand at one side of the river and look towards the other, it feels like a scenary out of "A Tale of Two Cities". The people of Melbourne are very diversed; everywhere I turned, I saw Asians. There were Hongkies, Chinese, Taiwanese, Koreans and Indians. I saw some interesting sights like a group of international student boycotting against their university for raising school fees, but otherwise, everything was prettty mundane. Soon, I tired of buildings and people, and strayed off-path to find the nature which I had so look forward to seeing on this trip.

My wanderlust brought me to a park, where I lingered on for the rest of the afternoon. It turned out to be quite a disappointment, really. Though the parks here were vast, they weren't as nicely decorated as some of the parks back home. Obviously, the real scenary lies outside the city. Come evening, when Mich and Yishan had finished their work, we went to have dinner at the Chinatown. The food was ok, but I questioned the need to eat Chinese food having just left Singapore half a day ago. When we were done, we went back to the apartment to retire for the night. Mich and I were going to visit Philips Island the following day, something to look forward to.

The clock keeps ticking...

Gosh, somebody help me! The lazy bug in me has been nurturing once again! Shit man! 8 more days to my tax exam and I am still in a lethargic state of mind. Keep thinking of going on holidays and slacking. Boohoo.

SOMEBODY SAVE ME! :'(

What a joke!

Haha, with my ego boosted, I tried on this website with another recent pict of mine. What can I say what can I say? I'm like super chio I can spend the whole bloody day just fiddling with this website to boost my ego...Haha, for now, I am sure I will have a good night's sleep! Till then, it's really time to start being a nerd!


Till then, everyone, quick go boost your ego! ;p

Check who looks like me!



Haha, got this off a random blog website. So qi was right when she commented I look like Shuqi! Gosh! Ha everyone should check this out man! :)

http://www.myheritage.com

Judgement day?

It's been a long time since I read the news or got in touch with any happenings of the world besides my own.

Just tonight, after a disturbing morning newspaper scan of the Virginia shooting massacre, I browsed Channelnewsasia for the first time in months and took a look at the world happenings.

• Bombings in Thailand, Baghdad
• Shootings in US, Brazil, Japan
  

Why is there so much hatred and violence amongst mankind? Must we really cause a blood rift between us all only then will we feel satisfied and accomplished?

It's been a bad week, for both the world and myself. Exam is coming, with no mood to study due to unforeseen circumstances, ridiculous syllabus workload and low morale. When I look around, there's tragedies all around the world it is almost too hard to look.

The world today saddens me to a great deal. My outlook on life today saddens myself. Hello Armageddon, bye Universe.

My trip back to Sunny Singapore....pics long forgotten...

Haha, guess the title says it all... Slipped my mind that these pics existed until Lionel uploaded them onto my laptop for me when he was here. Haha, oh well, busy people always can't be bothered about stuff like this...

Now, time for some eye candy...

Us having fun @ East Coast Park. After cold broody Melbourne, I thought I could get some sunny weather back in tropical Singapore. Look at the skies! But still, always people who perceives the glass as half full, we did not let the weather spoil our wonderful day at the beach!

Oh well, I hate to admit it, but I do miss my botak very much...sobz...December come quick! Oh yah, everyone, I'm coming home in mid Dec so let's meet up! Woohoo! ;p

Haha, what an interesting test! Try it out, people!

Read my VisualDNA™ Get your own VisualDNA™

My tarot card

You are The Empress

Beauty, happiness, pleasure, success, luxury, dissipation.

The Empress is associated with Venus, the feminine planet, so it represents,
beauty, charm, pleasure, luxury, and delight. You may be good at home
decorating, art or anything to do with making things beautiful.

The Empress is a creator, be it creation of life, of romance, of art or business. While the Magician is the primal spark, the idea made real, and the High Priestess is the one who gives the idea a form, the Empress is the womb where it gestates and grows till it is ready to be born. This is why her symbol is Venus, goddess of beautiful things as well as love. Even so, the Empress is more Demeter, goddess of abundance, then sensual Venus. She is the giver of Earthly gifts, yet at the same time, she can, in anger withhold, as Demeter did when her daughter, Persephone, was kidnapped. In fury and grief, she kept the Earth barren till her child was returned to her.

What Tarot Card are You?
Take the Test to Find Out.

Aftermath of a fearful friday

So, yesterday was the long awaited day where we were due to get the results for our 1st CA paper, Audit and Assurance. When I first got reminded at the beginning of the week that results were due on friday, I did not feel at ease for the entire week. The thought of having to withstand my fate being reflected on the computer screen within minutes of pop up sent shivers down my spine. Am feeling kind of old for this kind of nerve wrecking shit huh. Tsk tsk.

Yesterday, I wasn't really in the mood for work. Not much appetite for lunch. But nonetheless, I had my favourite Boost Juice and some curry at the city with Joey. She tried her best to calm my fears but of course, to no avail. Haha, the worried can never be calmed down! Yishan managed a whole foccacia sandwich to herself. So much for us being afraid.

So at 5pm, I reached home, calmed myself down and started logging in to check my results. Alas! I passed! Haha, was over the moon, until I realised that Max got merit for his paper. I was like shit! Max would have the chance to keep boasting about his all time impressive record! Haha, oh man, injustice! But nonetheless, I was happy that all 7 of us cleared our 1st barrier in Australia. 4 more papers to go, hopefully every barrier will be just like this 1st one which we cleared.

Of course we had to end the night with celebrations. Went for a korean dinner in the city, feasting over chicken, ginseng soup and rice cakes. Then went to Joey's house for some kopi session, afterwhich we headed off to Boxhill for a spontaneous KTV session. Sang from 11pm-4am! Gosh, by the time we got home, it was near 5am. Haha, hell of a night.

Also got to know from my bro that my cousin did super well for his O Levels! Man, that's what an awesome day is!

Lonely, oh so lonely

It's one of those nights where I sit by my bed, feeling empty while watching the world go by. Tonight, I wonder what the past 5 months has moulded me into. What kind of person am I today as compared to before I stepped foot on Melbourne to begin a new chapter of my life? Do my friends miss me? Do they still care about me? Will things be the same when I return?

Tonight is one of those nights where I blast sad and moody songs to add onto my heavy mood. I don't know why, but somehow, I enjoy doing that when I'm feeling like this. Sometimes, I wish there would be fullness to fill up the emptiness within me. Tonight, I just feel like having a glass of wine by my balcony, with a cigarette, raking in the deafening silence of the night.

Good night, and good luck.

Road trip 2 (Continued)
So after some laughs and jokes about our stupidity from the dry road incident, we finally arrived at DA TULIP FARM! Being the resourceful me, I have done my research on the website and knew of a group discount if we are able to get people to pool $ together to buy tickets as a group. Our initial attempt to persuade a angmoh family was disastrous, mainly because I think the father is a racist! He has this 'stupid asian want to cheat my $' look on his face!

Of course, we weren't going to let this racist pig ruin our tulip experience! There was a wise Asian family who overheard our attempts and took the initiative to offer to purchase the tickets together for cost savings purposes! Woohoo! I think it saved us half the tix price. Now now, who's the stupid one? Tsk Tsk. That's why I tell you, not all angmohs are smart lor and, never be a racist!


Tadah! Apparently, this tulip farm is a family owned business. All year round, they family hosts events during the tulip season and charge visitors $ to see the tulips. On top of that, they sell tulips and have merchandise stores come in to sell their stuff as well. This week was the Dutch Festival. Check out the pics below.

Lots of couples dancing the Holland dance. See the big yellow clogs they have! Hee, it is the trademark of the Dutch!

Now, how can we ever leave this place without eating our fair share of Dutch pancakes? :) After all, it is the Dutch Festival!

A little knowledge on Tulips for flower lovers. ;)

Ha, don't you think the dancers look funny? Notice that the dancers are all old couples? Hmm, does that tell us anything?

Of course, we gotta take some pictures when we are there and flaunt our beautiful faces right?

More tulips! Aww, if only I have this whole garden to myself!

Cool eh? Looks abit like an wedding aisle walkdown in a tent. Haha.

Now, what's all these huge poles for? Oh well, as long as they make me look small, I'm cool about it. Haha.

I think with Yishan around, the poles make me look even smaller! KUDOS! HAHAHAHA....

Road Trip 2: Tulip Farm!
It's Spring time...Spring time...That means Tulip time! Armed with a traveller's enthusiasm in venturing all festivals all season in my short time span in Australia, I make it a point to do whatever activities listed on websites at each season! So here goes, our adventure to Tulip Farm in Dandenong! But first thing first, we gotta fill our stomachs right? And our housemate, Lynn, has recommended us this to-die-for place, Miss Marples! It is a quaint English Teahouse that is adapted from a story book and is apparently very famous.

When we got there, I thought, wow, what a fairy-like town! It's totally Hansel & Gratel! :) But all things great require patient people. Miss Marples does not accept reservations, only sincere people who are willing to wake up early can eat there. Though sincere, we were of course not placing Miss Marples above our warm and fuzzy beds. Hehe, so what happened? We had to wait 30mins just for a seat! Patience, my friend, is what you will learn in Australia. Simply because everything requires your patience here with the speed! Tsk tsk.

Off we went to explore the small town of Miss Marples somewhere in the Dandenong Hills. Just beside Miss Marples is a 'out of the world' coffee & tea shop! Such a wide variety of chocolate coated coffee beans, tea pots, coffee bean grinders, coffee makers, beans, and so much more! I felt like I was Alice in Wonderland.

This is just a small area of the store! Though the store ain't big, it certainly exercises great space efficiency!

Just look at the amount of coffee pots, tea leaves and tea plants! :D

Next up is a tarot witchery store! Look at all those voodoo stuff!

Of course, how can a witch store be without tarot reading? Hee, they even had women dress like fairies to tell your future! Ha, how reliable is that man...

Tadah! The long awaited MISS MARPLES! Cool quaint cottage eh?

Check out the size of the table! It's of course not true that we ordered too much. I mean, how can food ever be too much? Haha. Just looking at the cream and jam and you know we are going to have scones! Woohoo! The pot of tea is apparently some golden tea, that actually honestly just tastes like Lipton tea lor. Bleah.

This is the well acclaimed cottage pie! Being Australian, everything just gotta finish off with tomato sauce! Haha, but it's Miss Marples tomato sauce so nobody's complaining!

Just look at this! Can you believe it is actually a scone? I mean, it looks more like some frost tall bread! But then again, who is to tell Miss Marples that she is wrong?

Ha, this. This, my friend is simply mouth watering. It is called fingers. Toast topped with campagne ham and toasted with cheese on top. Awww. I can't even describe the wonder of this dish, except that my saliva is dripping as I'm typing away now.

Now, for the classic story that I will NEVER grow tired talking about. DA DRY ROAD! Haha, after our wonderful meal, we thought, what a smooth sailing journey to our tulip adventure. Little did we know our adventure has only started.

As we were descending the Dandenong Hills, I was manevouring the car like Jay Chou in Initial D. Suddenly, Yishan just announced with the cock sure map reading skills she has acquired in Melbourne.

Yishan: Ok, now, turn left.

I took a look at the dry road (refer to picture above, YES), looked at her in disbelief.

Mich: You're kidding, right?

Looking at me with the unperturbed expression on her face.

Yishan: No. The map says so.

Mich: ..............

Cindy: .............

Haha, so okay...Given that the map said so, we attempted our ascent up the 'dry' road. Ha needless to say, how can our steady 1 litre Daihatsu Charade possibly be able to withstand this blow? So halfway up the road, our car rolled backwards and got stuck at the side of the road, along with bushes.

Yishan and Cindy had to get out of the car and push to break the car free away from the clutches of the Amazon monsters. I was scared yet relieved. As I was at the driver's wheel preparing to start the engine, I had to juggle between not stalling the engine and at the same time, not allowing the car to slide back.

I tell you, never in my life I was so freaked out, trying not to endanger the lives of my friends. I never remember myself praying so hard to God for everything to be alright. Haha, by God's grace, we managed to free the car, afterwhich we had a good laugh and did a spot check on the car. Woohoo the car was fine! So off we went, unscathed, off to the tulip farm!

Ha, as I always told Yishan, it's yet another cockadodo thing we should add to our 'cock' list. Haha, but I'm really glad we escaped safe and sound, only to find that the car was leaking oil afew days later. Bleah. Oh well. :D

Hills and Vales, Trees and Flowers - a Cameron Highlands Trip (Day 2)


The next morn, we woke up too late and missed the breakfast at the hotel. Therefore, we decided to take a walk down to the market area to find some food. We ended up having nasi lemak and maize. The maize was simply amazing - easily the sweetest maize I ever savoured, no seasoning need to be added to enhance its taste. The delightful taste of the maize was only matched by its own glorious golden colour.






Having satisfied our hunger, some of us went on to shop around the marketplace for a second round while the rest of us decided to go about snapping photos.




Eventually, some of the group went back to the apartment to slack while Chee Weng, Godmom and me wanted to linger around the flowers a bit longer. Check out the photos below, they speak for themselves as to how beautiful Cameron Highlands is.










The three of us had a really relaxed time down at the gardens. We strolled from picturesque spot to picturesque spot, snapping photos and chatting and laughing. Finally, we ended up at the edge of a hill and glanced down in awe at a farming village at the bosom of a beautiful valley.




It was mid-noon when we returned to our apartment - time for the second round of our planning session. Sean was rather distracted by his bottle of beer.




I was getting a bit restless towards the end of the meeting as well, so I decided to entertain myself by locking Jo out in the balcony and leaving her there to freeze. Check out her contorted visage of anguish.




By the time we were done, it was time for dinner. There's nothing quite like hot and spicy steamboat up on a cold mountain top, yum yum! And the star of the night was the succulent and juicy mushrooms! Everyone was enjoying the food so much that we ordered many more side-dishes.




When everyone is bloated and screaming "very full..", we went for a stroll in the nearby night market. It was buzzing with people and filled with stalls from street to street, much like the pasar malam back home. These stalls sold all kinds of food and sourveniers, and we bought some wild honey back so that we could enjoy honey-gazed strawberries. The combination proved to be heavenly.




Back in the apartment, Chee Weng was getting too relaxed and was sprawling on the sofa and stretching out his hairy legs in a bid to look sexy. The pose struck me as that of a dead insect.




After a while, people started getting bored so the guys went to the hotel lobby to play pool. I was feeling lazy and my toes were cold so I snuggled in my bed and read my comic. However, no rest for the wicked. I was soon arrowed by Boss to take photos for him and the girls. Apparently, they have been playing with some facial products and it was beginning to look like a freakshow. I made an excuse that I needed to join the guys for pool and made good my escape. Enough nonsense for a day.

Hills and Vales, Trees and Flowers - a Cameron Highlands Trip (Day 1)


Last Fri my department travelled to Cameron Highlands to have our annual planning session. Upon getting off the cab at the peak, we were taken aback by how cold the weather there was. Only an hour's drive from the foot of the highlands to the top and the temperature fell drastically from 30 plus degrees to 11 degrees. It seemed a world out of place. Below are some photos I've taken during the trip.

This is the apartment where we stayed. The interior is very spacious and the charges are cheap. However, there is no internal heating so it can get very cold. Well, you get what you paid for.





After settling down, some of us relaxed by slouching on the sofa and sipping a cup of warm tea as boring soap operas play on the TV.




Others like me, were more keen on exploring our surrounding from the balcony.






After some rest, we took a short walk to the strawberry farm near our apartment. There we saw various kinds of strawberry products including strawberry jam, strawberry-cream biscuits, dried strawberries, strawberry-flavoured lollipops and the most savory of them all... strawberry ice-stick!




Strawberries grow on wooden frames like grapes in a vineyard. You can pay 40 riggit to pluck them and keep them but I wonder where's the thrill in that.





We went slightly downhill to the market area of Cameron Highlands after we were done with the strawberry farm. Besides strawberries, the hills bring vegetables, flowers and other agriculture produce as well. Fresher vegetables I have never tasted. For one, the maize was juicy and sweet, better than any found in Singapore.






Strawberries were sold everywhere. The locals depended heavily on selling these reddies to tourists hellbent on buying local products in order to sustain their living.




The weather up at Cameron Highlands is volatile. All of a sudden, the sky looked like the boiling surface of a witch's cauldron. I couldn't resist but vainly try to capture the majesty of the clouds with my camera. Of all of God's created natural world, the sky enchants me the most. You will never grow bored of watching the sky. It is constantly in flux, it is ever varied. No two sunsets are alike and no two pieces of cloud similar. Yet, despite the sky's diversity, it is also the most consistent presence, the most enduring picture. Like its Maker, it is a certainty in an uncertain world.




All the walking and sight seeing had made us tired, so we went to the town for food. Our manager brought us to this cafe which he heard prepares the best beef steak. The steak lived up to its name, and the mutton was excellant as well. After the main course, we all shared lemon cheesecakes, scones, mud pies, and the famous strawberry cheesecakes.




This is my godmom and also, my fellow sister in Christ. She has a very kind heart and is generous to people. One of the many things I admire in her is that she greets every security guard, food stall aunty and cleaner she meets and befriends them. People like her in return; the food stall aunty always gives her extra portions -laughs-




Finally, after a long day of touring, we returned to our apartment for official business. People are dozing off as the manager goes on and on.