The Blue Water

PS3 320GB PlayStation 3 Slim Limited Edition Silver Console

2011-12-26T15:19:00.004+08:00

Saw this online at local retailer Mr. Dick Smith for AUD$399, couldn't stop my itchy fingers from clicking and now is for collecting... Was actually aiming for just a second controller for my PS3 games but this offer came out so yeah!!!

Will have to part with my 1 month old common black PS3 soon...

I will try to post a video of the unboxing soon :D

PS3 Playstation 3 320GB Console with Uncharted 3 bundle

2011-12-26T13:59:00.004+08:00

PS3 Playstation 3 320GB Console

On my way to the local Harvey Norman at Wiley Park to grab myself a new PS3 Playstation 3 320GB Console with Uncharted 3 bundle. Yes this will be my first Playstation and also my first Playstation 3 :D ooh was undecided at the harvey norman, so went to the local JB Hifi where I managed to get them to price match and throw in a free HDMI cable for the same price!! AUD $387 total....

Uncharted 3 Drake's Deception PS3

This is quite a nice game with lots of in game cinematics. It's like watching indiana jones and playing it at the same time!! What a ride...

Wardrobe malfunction Taylor Swift

2011-08-24T12:32:00.000+08:00

Still a big fan... Entertaining blooper...

Funny take on the economy. AA+

2011-08-12T15:40:00.002+08:00

Money is honey, and honey is free.The market will crash and stock options will flee.
Jump in the streets and shout out with glee.
All you have worked for, flushed out to sea.
Money all gone, leveraged, borrowed and spent.
To the top one percent is where it all went.
Americans can no longer can work, play or pay rent.
The end is not near, we can still pitch a tent!- Yahoo Finance Comment board - Dustin McKinzie

Cousins Visit Sydney

2011-07-09T15:52:00.001+08:00

Woke up really really early today. It was actually just before daybreak, but just before daybreak is very early for me.

Visited Victoria Park fed birds...
Sydney Uni Quadrangle walk...
Sashimi and Oysters at Fish Market...Ate Dairy Bell Ice Cream...

Cousins had a good time. But now that I am back in Johor Bahru, I'm not really in the mood to blog anymore about this plus the fact most of the pictures are with my cousins...

Just leave you with a pic of massive amount of CHATIME we had during the member celebrations...
干杯！！ Gan bei!!!

How to get smashed by a whale

2011-07-08T16:52:00.000+08:00

Apparently just go deep sea fishing off the coast of Australia!!!

My Western Digital My Passport Essential HDD

2011-06-16T21:39:00.001+08:00

Today another happy upgrade has been added to my electronic collection. Finally I have joined the 1 Terabyte storage universe. Won't have to worry about keeping the TV series and movies I download anymore!! yay!!

So this is my new HDD from Western Digital. It is only about the size of my classic old Ipod from like many years ago. I really like the nice metallic silver. We initially had a 320GB one from Seagate which has been working pretty well for the past year but filling up rather quickly. Though I do not have any USB 3.0 technology on board, the option to be able to use that in the future is pretty cool. Apparently its supposed to be ten times faster at data transfers compared to USB2.

How did I end up with it? Well, after a horrid day trying to get 'official' things done with the tax office/bank/etc... with the end result of nothing being completed at all, I went down to Officeworks and tried to price match a new portable hard disk. (I'll add more about price matching with officeworks) With larger part of the day having been lousy, I would probably be just as unlucky trying to get the price match, or so I thought...

Initially the HDD seemed to be sold out, but on closer inspection, right at the back of the high shelf lay a last one! The nice guy working there did a quick price match and I managed to get a AUD$124 price down to AUD$104.50. What a bargain. Damn I just love getting bargains, its like a modern version of ambushing prey and successfully bringing it down with minimal effort... Good thing is it's working fine, till 2TB comes around :D

Taree's Easter Bunny

2011-04-27T22:06:00.000+08:00

Yes I was the Easter Bunny doctor doing the long weekend of shift this Easter 4 hours in a hospital up north... Can't divulge the name due to professional reasons. But anyways I was the only junior doctor on for most of the day, whilst it was fun looking after everyone admitted in the hospital, it definitely was not easy and for the most part very busy. Good thing is nurses there were very good, much more skilled than those in the city. I guess it takes more skills to survive in a rural setting.

Well as usual its been raining like nobody's business here in New South Wales, so I didn't get to go anywhere fun. Just went out for dinner with a couple friends and that was it..

Well gonna enjoy a 5 days break before doing a couple more days back in Campbelltown...

Nuclear Autumn

2011-03-27T15:09:00.001+08:00

Ok ok I have left the video of panty raiders in taiwan up for quite a while, while I left my blog in gross neglect. How do you like the new pic, he does not seem very happy, neither am I of the current nuclear mess.

Well welcome to a new season! Yes it seems like its going to be a nuclear winter/spring in Japan. But down-under we have just had the beginning of autumn. After a couple weeks of rains, the temperature has suddenly plunged two days ago, right down to 11 degrees at night from a previously balmy 26 degrees. Not that I mind, but to get back to topic.

It's been two weeks now since the earthquake, tsunami and nuclear disasters hit Japan. I for one was glued to the news the first week, wondering if there would be an outright nuclear explosion. However I then found out the light water reactors they have in Fukushima Nuclear Plant were the type that overheat and meltdown but don't explode. The few blasts the did happen were just from built up pressure and hydrogen gas. Unfortunately, overheating and melting down can cause radiation to leak and get into the environment as well. Water, Food and Air have all been contaminated.

Where are those left alive gonna go? Well two places they can go, one is to the empty buildings in USA(Detroit i heard has quite a few empty apartments) the other would be the empty mega-apartments in China (China is using construction of ghost cities to make its GDP look good!)

Oh and I just found out from the good 'ol BBC that CHina just detected its first whiff of radiation from Japan. Those people better start stocking up on iodine tablets instead of salt.

Ok, I have to go watch some of the Australian F1 GP. Nothing like some mindless speed to make me forget about natural disasters... I leave you with a very 1980's looking picture of the control room of the Fukushima nuclear reactor taken like really recently, I expected big touchscreen with cool graphics...

Taiwan Panty riders

2011-02-19T15:39:00.001+08:00

About to go for a run around the neighborhood and then attend a cousin's wedding dinner. But whilst checking the internet for the dinner venue location on google maps, I stumbled across this post in my google reader...

Enough said, just check out these ladies hired by reebok. Their shoes actually look quite nice, but I don't think anyone was looking at them shoes.

Chinese New Year 2011

2011-02-10T23:26:00.001+08:00

Heloz and a very happy Spring Festival to all! As per the moon, today is the 7th day of the chinese new year! :D Oh how glorious it is that we have 15 days altogether to celebrate this mega-event every year. That means that there are 350 days left after this, in which we can live for another new year to come...

Tis good to be back in Malaysia, tough the humidity as always takes some getting used to, the weather gods have been kind and on this cool windy night i don't even have to have to turn on the fan . With my new mosquito vanquishing toy at my side I am enjoying blogging on my now almost outdated Core 2 Duo PC, seeing text displayed on a Samsung widescreen, wondering if I should widescreen my blog. I guess for now I am too busy with life to convert the site, quite happy with the 720 width I have for my pictures now.

Add-on. As it got too late last night and I was side-tracked to talking to dad.

It's Day 8 of CNY 2011 now.Well the four days spent back in my hometown of Batu Pahat were great. We even had the chance to stop by an uncle's house in pontian on the way back, and my cousin introduced me to a local hawker center with great food! There were 2 stalls selling my favourite fried oyster there, and a smattering of other stalls including a pork satay stall there. This hawker center has been there for ages but I never knew about it and so never had the chance to check it out..

So now I am back in Johor Bahru, wondering what to do tomorrow and for the next 2 weeks. Still have a whole list of shopping to do and a couple friends to visit. Well happy chinese new year to all.

Pic above is from a house we visited, the little flowers look like little birds don't they?

Here today, gone tomorrow...

2011-01-27T22:29:00.000+08:00

Yes I am still here typing this in Sydney. But tomorrow will be my flight back to singapore and then the usual pick-up by dad and car trip back to Johor Bahru Malaysia... Oh... so fun!!

End of Term, End of Year...

2011-01-15T22:15:00.000+08:00

The picture above is a wierd fruit which I noticed on a trip to pulau perhentians back in Malaysia in 2009. Never found out what plant/tree this was. I guess it shows how my work these past few years is starting to bear fruit.....

Not only has the end of 2010 gone by, the end of term has passed by for my work as well. Finally after working hard for 2 years, I have completed a small part of training that has to be had in my line of work.

The next step I guess would be to just continue picking up work when I can and save up for the future. Plus as I have mentioned before this ear will be a year of travel. 2011 is indeed going to be an exciting year ahead. Let the holidays begin! Somehow I feel my second 'mini' retirement has arrived again..........

Almost End of Term...

2011-01-11T22:36:00.000+08:00

Well only 3 more days till the end of term for me. It will also be the end of my basic 2 years of training as a medical professional. Though I will still be doing medical work to feed the family, for me it is time to move on, on to things that are less brain intensive and more fun. In case you are wondering these are pictures from my food archive. Above is an omelet made with homegrown onions and below is a pot of soy bean soup with homegrown chinese chrysanthemum...

Indeed it has been fun to grow my own veggies at the current residence/house I am renting. We'll see how things go, hopefully I will be able to get a house of my own soon...

Lazy Sunday morning...

2011-01-02T09:33:00.000+08:00

It's breakfast/lunch time here. This pic was actually from a few days ago. Wife made us toasted bread with hot spanish salami, plus a bonus fried egg for me. I never knew there were different types of salami. The sun is still baking hot as usual today, but at least that's better than the cold.

Not much will happen today. I will probably go for my long overdue haircut at the nearby chinese area of hurstville, if the shops are open today. Otherwise it will be another day of enjoying the warm weather but hiding from the skin damaging australian sun.

New Year's Day 1/365

2011-01-01T19:42:00.002+08:00

Hi all, for the first time I am doing a new year's day post! :D

In sydney, new year's eve is always celebrated in a big way with fireworks (invented in china and probably made in china too) and for the first time, it was broadcasted in china on CCTV. Well I watched it on a big screen teevee down at the local club.

Good thing this year, new year's day is on a saturday, so I get monday off as well. So 2 more days of pure lazing around. My current downloads today are the new season 4 of Californication and Year End Hot 100 billboard hits, you can find them on http://www.freshwap.net/forums/ and on http://k2nblog.com/ both are websites I frequent for getting direct download links. My internet connection here at work doesn't allow torrent downloading. Gotta wait for next year after I move to better lodgings and get unlimited internet access before I can start crazy bittorrenting again.

In the meantime, I will just be watching my zucchini, spring onion and herb patches grow in the backyard garden. Enjoy the New Year everyone!!!

Online @ Hospital 2

2010-12-26T05:23:00.002+08:00

No I am not in Japan. Wish I was though.

I am still stuck in hospital, finishing up Day 6 of my Christmas 2010 medical night shifts. Due to the holidays there has been less work, so I have had the chance to rest a bit more on the nights.

Should be catching some Zs now but feeling a bit too hungry. So I am enjoying a cuppa tea with some pan-fried salmon rice in sambal. Mmm Mmm Mmmmm. Nothing like a good breakfast to start the day and end the night shift!

Hope I can get my circadian rhythmn back next week. I always end up being unable to sleep well for a few weeks at least. On the bright side, this will probably be my last set of night shifts ever.. 1 more night and 2 more weeks of work then Asia here I come!

Online @ Hospital

2010-12-12T14:40:00.000+08:00

Due to my current crappy lodgings, I have had to make a quick trip to my workplace to get online. The internet at my workplace is superb, just doesnt allow access to quite a few sites, including facebook hahaha... Anyways at lest they dont block this website so I can still blog...

Coffs Harbour Holiday

2010-11-10T18:34:00.001+08:00

Things have been quite hectic of late. When this happens my blog falls into ruins with neglect again... Well what can I do. The new place is quite nice, there is a garden where I can get organic veggies planted and a nice clean toilet with a leaky shower, at least the water pressure is more than adequate.

Last term at the far away hospital was really busy. Despite a lighter term, there was lots of overtime to do. So much so that I got pissed, took some days off and decided to accept a good friend's invitation to Coffs Harbour to stay. Yay. Did my fair share of fishing at the docks. This is a picture of me hiking down Mutton Bird Island, which is a small peninsula populated by mutton birds. These seafaring birds actually make nests buy digging underground.

Needless to say Coffs Harbour was a load of fun! Still have some fish leftover in the freezer. I must say there is nothing like fresh fish caught by yourself.

Moving to a New Place

2010-09-10T22:06:00.000+08:00

Have not been updating my blog enough. With the busy weeks at work, plenty of overtime and whatever free time left spent with friends it has been hard to find time to edit my photos. Well finally had to move out of my friend's nice little granny flat and into a house which belongs to an 'uncle' of one of the nurses I met at work. Will be talking about my new place in upcoming post. Above is probably the last picture I will have of a burning good time at the granny flat. This fire-place was a really fun addition to the cold winter nights. Spring is coming but not fast enough! :D

My trusty Hyundai Getz has finally reached a hallmark 30,000 kilometers! Wow have been doing so much driving. Though the steering is quite hard at times, this car has enough power to get me zipping around. Wish I had more money to upgrade to a Camry Aurion though. Went down to the Bankstown Peninsula Hyundai service center the other day to service the car, that place has good service and very friendly personnel.

Well off to bed now. Need to upgrade my camera....

Mosaic at The Westin

2010-07-24T22:21:00.022+08:00

ent down to the MOSAIC restaurant at The Westin, downtown in Sydney today. Had a really good dinner there. I must say I wasn't disappointed at all!

We got there about 8pm on a friday night. The place was quite empty, only about 3-4 tables taken. Most probably all the Sydney urbanites were busy chugging down beer and wine at other "hotter" locations around town. Only a split second wait for our seats as we had booked before.

There were many many bottles of wine on one side of the wall as you walk into the main eating area. Wow, whole wall of wines, that's what happens when you plant too many grape vines and don't know what to do with all the extra grapes you get.

In particular, white grapes are made into this super expensive drink. This is supposed to be a famous champagne MOET and CHANDON, made in 2000(thankfully not made in china).

Why are they still keeping it on the shelf? I say drink it already! Maybe they are waiting for the queen to come by...

Well we were seated by a cute italian waitress who taught us some italian. and were given some time to think about what to order.

Good thing we had our uncle to act as the food guide and we quickly ordered three 2 course dinner sets.

They soon brought us some on the house bread. It was toasted and warm, with side dishes with butter and balsamic vinegar in olive oil. I think this way of eating bread is italian in origin.

For the first course we all had the same caeser salad. It was probably the best salad of any sort I had ever had. You know why? Look below! Two big fat super sweet and fresh Yamba prawns, strips of crispy oven baked bacon, couple anchovies, 3 year old cheese shavings and you get a very satisfied customer. Despite the anchovies and cheese being a little too salty, which I had to mix in some of the multigrain bread from before, I thought this salad was pretty yummy!

Next on my menu was Wagyu Sirloin Steak with beans. I ordered it medium-rare, and it came really medium rare. Very soft, very red, with blood dripping from inside. Could not see much marbling though once its cooked, probably when it was fresh and frozen the fat would have been white streaks. Hope I don't get any intestinal parasites from this....

Wife and uncle had a healthier selection. This was called the Seafood Trilogy. Consisted of once again the super delicious Yamba prawns this time done tempura style, some Kingfish and also some Jewfish(Mulloway).

As you can see the food not only looks good, it taste super good too! Total price for a 2 course dinner during this promotional period was AUD53. Remember to drop by the MOSAIC restaurant in Sydney at The Westin, 1 Martin Place if you come downunder...

Mount Coot-tah by night

2010-07-12T21:58:00.002+08:00

After the Zoo trip and dinner, we decided to visit a look-out at Mount Coot-tah. Though it was pretty cold up there, it was still worth the short drive up. From here you get a really good night view of Brisbane city... Can you see the "Brisbane Wheel" on the right of the picture? Seems like everyone wants to copy the london wheel concept.

North south east west, which direction would you like to go?

An early day map of Brisbane city found atop a granite mounting. Shows how the Brisbane river run through the land mass into the sea.

As it was getting a bit cold after taking some night pictures, we decided to head back down to the city and have some hot drinks before heading home. Bye bye Mt. Coot-tha.

Housemate of my sis said he had been to a nice coffee place which was near to a french Eiffel tower. I was thinking why is there an Eiffel tower in Brisbane?? Last I knew this was a British commenwealth nation, the only french stuff being Vietnamese bakeries that made french bread and croissants. I looked up the GPS and picked a cofffee place in the city. Ended up driving to this place called DOLCE VITA CAFFE. YES!! It was actually a much smaller version of the Eiffel Tower in the middle of town. Can't scoff at local knowledge, just like fishing, local knowledge is best.

This place was packed and looked like a really promising 'hang-out' spot for night time hot drinks. Sis went bonkers and bought a freezing cold peach ice tea with ice cream float despite being pretty cold from the trip to Mt. Coot-tah.

Wife and I decided to share and try out an italian hot chocolate. This hot chocalate is made by churning hot chocolate in very warm container. It was really good, but it was so thick even the tea spoon for stirring was suspended on top of it!

This place was full of people waiting to watch the world cup on TV and had flags of the various football nations hung around. Found it really festive, but then again the management and staff were italian and they really love their coffee and soccer. We only hung there for a while and decided to go back for an early night in preparation for the long trip back to Sydney...

Crikey! Australia Zoo Part 3

2010-07-07T20:21:00.059+08:00

Welcome back to the final part of my trip to the Steve Irwin Australia Zoo!!!

What can I say except that halfway through the day we got hungry and went down to the eating area place to get some food to eat. Food on sale here is not very fancy, just some normal cafe kind of food. Wife and me settled for this fish and chips meal which cost only 7.50. The other stuff was much more expensive as expected of a tourist place.

Our american friend had to have a good old american styled hamburger. According to him it was very yummy, even had some strips of bacon in it.

As usual my super health conscious sis who was freezing settled for a vegetarian burger. Which I suspect wasn't very good.

Back to the zoo animals. This was a cute wombat. They looked like they just woke up...

Then after they really woke up the zoo keepers took them fora walk around the zoo, I guess they are like dogs. Can be very stubborn too, sometimes they refuse to walk and the zoo keepers have to carry them back.

This was a huge emu. It looked at us and not very friendly.

There was this enclosure with many types of birds you go get up close too.

Look at this smiling koala. So cute! We were once again allowed only to rub its butt area...

There was also an animal show at the crocoseum. This was the second show where they had birds like the big macaws from south america and an andean condor! below is a kookaburra not sitting on an old gum tree but on the zoo keeper's hand.

A majestic australian wedge-tailed eagle. Birds like these can sometimes be seen on highway roads feeding on roadkill so when you see road kill in the distance slow down as an eagle might sometimes be there feeding and not fly away in time to avoid your car.

For those who need a ride, there is a tram that brings you to various stations scattered around the zoo. We took it for only a couple stops though. At one of the stops we were so lucky to see them walking a cheetah. The zoo keepers really like walking their animals like pets. You can even pay extra to book a walk with a tiger!! First time I ever saw a real life cheetah! Sad thing is these beautiful endangered creatures may not be around in our world for long...

After a fun day at the zoo we drove back to Brisbane. Decided to have dinner back at a Chinese BBQ restaurant I went to before and raved about the char siew / BBQ pork rice. Sis ordered this wonton noodle soup. the noodles were not much good but the wontons were quite big and nice.

The rest of us ordered BBQ pork rice. Unfortunately seems the boss has hired some staff to do the chopping and serving. This time round the pork was not as nice though it was quite thinly sliced like they do in malaysia.. they also put very little rice on each plate this time.. Damn, can't really recommend this place anymore...

But what a good day at the zoo, even though dinner was sub-par we still felt quite happy!

Crikey! Australia Zoo Part 2

2010-07-02T21:29:00.003+08:00

Some more animals in the Zoo as I continue the story of our day out in the Australia Zoo... This is a wild turkey, one of many that we saw walking around freely, digging away at the ground. Only later did we find out this bird digs the leaves into quite a high mound and uses that as a nesting site.

This exhibit was part of the building which had the food outlets upstairs and gift and photo shops downstairs. Was a little freaked by this HUGE but comfortably asleep python.

Nevermind they are non-venomous, they can eat you up...

The Echidna exhibit, a native of Australia, these cute pokey little creatures just waddle around looking for stuff like grubs to eat.

Really difficult to take a good shot with it moving around and with me being on top.

This Zoo has a petting section for kids. A few of the BIG kids that came along had fun petting the farm animals. The sheep were quite friendly.

So were the calves, busy eating their lunch..

This was probably the most 'up close' part of the Zoo. There is a big enclosure where you get to pet and hand feed the red-tailed kangaroos. Most were tame and would jump up to you even if you only reached out your hand pretending to want to feed them, but not as tame as the wallabies we encountered in a Sydney zoo, i was unable to feel any of their pouches, they would jump away if I tried to rub their tums.

Crikey! Australia Zoo Part 1

2010-07-01T00:34:00.002+08:00

Once again I am back posting on me blog.. yeah.. promise I will be posting lots of stuff that's due. First off will be my Crikey! series. Recently visited the Australia Zoo, previously operated and owned by the famous crocodile hunter Steve Irwin.

Went with wife, sis, her housemate and an american friend to the Steve Irwin Zoo. Tickets were half-priced due to the 40th anniversary celebrations.

This was after a 13 hour drive from Sydney up to Brisbane and a day's rest. Our american friend had a fever the day after the long drive and we had to postpone the trip a day for him to rest, good thing too coz we were quite tired from the drive as well. Kept wondering how the place would be like before I got there.

We arrived early that morning, opening time is 9am at the zoo. We lined up at the printed tickets counter and after a quick glance at the printed out tickets, we were let into the zoo. Apparently they dont care too much for tickets, once you get in you are in the zoo, until you let yourself out.

We were very lucky on this day, right at the entrance was a cuddly koala and zoo keeper taking it out for a walk around the zoo... Sis got to pat it and was so delighted!

This place has very good signage. Though for some funny reason I always end up a bit lost in zoos. I think they don't draw the maps exactly as the zoo is laid out. Yes, the Crocoseum is the place to be if you wanna catch the daily shows.

Met another group of sleepy koalas on the way to the crocoseum. This fella was catching on some much needed sleep. Koalas spend a lot of time sleeping, helps with digesting the leaves. In this zoo, we were at least allowed to touch the koalas, but limited to the white patch around the bum area, there is like a thickened and hard disc of skin under this area which koalas use for sitting on tree branches, so patting this area is cool and won't irritate or alarm them.

Talk about digesting leaves. Apparently the baby koalas eat their mother's poop to get bacteria that helps digest the leaves into nutrients and more poop...

This was highlight number 2 of the day. We wanted to go see them feed otters but somehow ended up at the Tasmanian devil exhibit where they were feeding the little devils eggs and baby chicks! eww... but they are carnivors after all....

The two Tasmanian devils ended up having a big fight over some of the food. The keepers had to give them more food to stop the fight!

We then passed by the Cassowary enclosure and saw a couple of them. They look like huge prehistoric turkeys covered in what looked more like a rough fur coat rather than feathers... I think they were sleeping and only opened their eyes to wonder at all the funny humans taking pictures of them..

Our first taste of crocodiles at the Zoo. This Zoo used to be more of a bird and reptile park before they got more animals and made it into a zoo. These crocodiles were quite small, about the size of a tall guy, but i bet they still bite pretty hard... Already you can see where there are crocs, there's Steve Irwin!!!

Favicon

2010-06-15T20:08:00.000+08:00

Tried putting up this favicon on my site the other day. The .jpg file shows up on google and other browsers but not internet explorer. For some mysterious reason, the favicon for my wife's site shows up in IE but despite the same coding it just doesn't show up on mine.

Well don't forget to bookmark my site...

Food This Month 4

2010-06-05T11:25:00.000+08:00

It has been a rainy week in Sydney. Finally a sunny saturday morning. But the clouds seem to be making a comeback and this might prove to be a rainy winter indeed.

Fortunately there's always some good food being cooked at home! This was for breakfast a couple weeks ago. Made some home-made garlic bread and half-done fried eggs.

Housemate ordered a dinner box pizza, as you can see they have started making square pizzas. I personally think this is a good move as it fully utilizes the space in the pizza box.

The other night we had this healthy simple mix of pak choi and lettuce with oyster sauce for dinner.

Wife made some bak kut teh. As you can see it looks a little oily but this cut of ribs was really lean compared to the usual where you had to scoop oil out as the soup was cooking..

This is our usual lunch. Some organic soba with free range eggs. We finally found the cheapest place for 700g free range eggs, down in vietnamese town of cabramatta.

Well, its been a rather 'busy' sort of week for me. Good news is I have managed to get my old job back and will be working soon. Hopefully I will be able to afford some overseas travel soon..

Toadstools

2010-05-27T00:40:00.000+08:00

Saw a clump of cute little toadstools, poking out by the side of a huge eucalytus tree whilst walking through the drizzling rain today.

Went down to the New South Wales medical board today to hand in my change of address. Apparently they will cease to exist come July 1st. There will be a national register which will make things easier for everyone. About time, to think it would take such a long time, just goes to show how weak some things are here. Well going there always reminds me of a garden. The whole place consist of quaint little buildings.

This was followed by a trip back to my old hospital workplace at bankstown, to get some documents and meet my supervisors for references. Had dinner with wife at our favourite vietnamese noodle shop Dong Ba. The Bun Bo Hue(Vietnamese Beef and Pork rice noodle soup) there is just fantastico. Plus there is nothing like a big bowl of extra spicy hot noodle soup after a day of freezing rain. My damn shoes were leaking as well. Left them too long unused when I went back to Malaysia last year, so the right shoe bottom split apart today and let in a torrent of water. Sure feels funny walking around with a wet foot, felt like half a duck.

Supper today were some korean made rice crackers, these taste much better than the china ones and are much softer than the malaysian made ones. Another busy day over.

Maxthon 2.5.13.166 update

2010-05-22T12:33:00.001+08:00

Just upgraded my browser again. I use a combo of Internet Explorer 8 as a base and Maxthon as an add-on skin thing. It seems firefox is trying to push their browser with the new skins (a.k.a. personas) which is quite easy and fun to use. But maxthon has really good functionality like a drop down list that you can create to store passwords for different sites/forum logins.

Vanille from Final Fantasy XIII is shocked that I only update my browsers once every couple months, how often do you upgrade yours?

Lotteria’s Tower Cheeseburger

2010-05-22T11:57:00.000+08:00

OMG... What a huge burger! It's a 160 Yen (AUD$2.14) cheese burger but up to 10 patties can be added for 100 Yen each. Hmm.. I ought to try this out at the local hungry jack's.
From: JapanProbe

Move 2 completed

2010-05-21T22:50:00.000+08:00

Finished moving yesterday night. Yes this is the 2nd move since I became an australian permanent resident and moved over here last december.

It's been a rather busy day helping my friend out, driving his wife and him to the airport in the late afternoon and gettting stuck in friday afternoon sydney trafffic on the way to the airport sure was fun. This is my desktop now. How uncanny, I applied for a desktop support officer job at the stroke of midnight today as well heh.

As you can see, I am still running my trusty 5 year old Toshiba Satelllite L30 on an optimized Windows XP SP3. Time for an upgrade, this bugger just refuses to malfunction.

The poor plant on the table has been struggling/growing for the past couple years, but the right mixture of potting mix this year has seen it growing well. I am hoping for flowers next year.

Lighting in the room is pretty poor still so I will post some pics of the place in a couple days. The fireplace here is 'awesome.sauce'. hah. picked that up from a malaysian chick's blog. Got a wierd japanese comment on one of my blog pages, I think its probably spam but allowing it anyway just for fun.

Pics of the nice fireplace will be coming...

Slow month

2010-05-16T21:54:00.002+08:00

What a slow month this has been. Other than finally getting my driving licence in NSW last month, things have not been working out much on the medical job end in Sydney. Well just have to bite hard on the nerves of my teeth and hope for the best!

Now in the process of moving to better and nicer living conditions. Will be regularly blogging again once that's done.

Removed the chat box in the sidebar since it's not really being used, people can leave me comments if they want. I will be looking forward to setting up a platform where I can start trying out the new php 5 and practice writing some scripts.

Food This Week 3

2010-04-24T14:47:00.001+08:00

Nothing mch happened this week except for an interview at a nearby hospital where I previously studied at as a student. So just posting some stuff I ate this week at home. Will be posting a trip to another Korean restaurant in Eastwood soon.

This is a grilled mackerel which was done in the oven grill. Only managed to get one side crisp this time.

As you can see, on my second try I took half the fish off so I could finish off with both sides crispy.

More japanese styled food, this is organic soba noodles with generous sprinkle of thinly sliced crispy seaweed. I just dump soba sauce on the whole thing most of the time, sometimes can't be bothered eating it the usual style, with a bowl of cold soba sauce at the side.

Wife made this pork stew with white wine. Coriander gave it a really nice flavour.

Sometimes wife makes a salad.

Baked chicken wings sprinkled with sesame seeds. I like my chicken succulent whether baked or grilled.

Best dish of the week, lady's fingers stirfried with sambal, this type of dish always makes me feel like i am back home in malaysia.

Well gonna have another quiet weekend and hopefully get a job offer next week!

Lucky day at Penrith South RTA

2010-04-15T12:37:00.002+08:00

Say Say Say!!! As HardGay form Japan would say... I finally passed the NSW RTA Driving Test! Third time lucky I guess. I reckon its the thoughest driver's licence test in Australia. Seems NSW is the most stressed out state with their difficult tests and regulations. Imagine 45 minutes when other states still have the old standard 20 minute drivers test. Anyway good thing I passed, coz I bet it will just get harder for people from 3rd world countries like me. Last time all one needed was to do the computerized test to know the road rules. Now a driving test is needed. I bet next time all drivers from unrecognized foreign countries will have to get their P's too.

Booked my test last week at Penrith South RTA as it had a nice 3.05pm wednesday slot. Initially when I did a day of "stalk the ON TEST" cars last friday, didn't manage to follow them much, ended up just burning fuel and harming the environment. Did however scout out that Penrith south has multiple roundabouts, there is a big double laned one in the middle of town too.

Today, wife and uncle went with me again. This time got lucky, arrived there a few hours early, got a bite to eat at the local Subway, and went about preparing to stalk some cars. The weather was freakin hot and when we got to the RTA only 1 car was parked out in the tester area. So after waiting a while we decided to go into the RTA and see if we could register earlier. Well the nice lady there told us to come back 15 minutes before the test as we were too early.

Note : Penrith South RTA as with most RTAs do not have public toilets. I wish they did.

We walked out and saw a young girl go with the lady tester to the car. Her instructor waited outside and started lighting a cigarette. I quickly said hi and asked her about the exit of the RTA and whether we had to stop before exiting. She said there used to be a stop sign there but its gone now so its ok to exit as a normal intersection.

Note : Penrith South RTA exit has a give way line right at the start, always look left for oncoming trucks which just completed their emmisions testing and right after there is a white line dividing the road for exiting left or right, usually you exit left for the test.

When the time came, got the lady tester whom by now had come back. She passed the girl before me, so I was a little disappointed as it was just like my first test, with the younger driver before me passing.

Then it was my turn. We checked the car, did my usual in cabin check and drove off. We didn't talk much until the first traffic lights which was quite a wait so I just started a conversation. Lucky I did, she was quite nice and spoke a little to me and was very friendly. Did a kerb-side and reverse parallel park, don't know why I am so lucky every test get many manouvers haha... Anyways came back to the RTA in one piece but not expecting much and hey ho dairy oh, she said I passed. Final mark 100/107, not perfect but not too shabby, I had seen and responded to 7 hazards even! Got a few marks taken away for observations.

Just felt pretty good after and satisfied that I had passed the driving test without having to hire a driving instructor! Neither did I have to resort to going to far away places like Bega or Shellharbour. Places with really high pass rates >70%.

Two tests

2010-04-13T13:05:00.004+08:00

This week I will have 2 tests, just completed one today, a job interview test. Only got asked 4 questions. One medical, one ethical, one employment and one was about past mistake on the job. Probably did not answer all of them that well but I am positive about this interview. Short interviews mean they already made up their mind to hire you or fire you hahahaha...

Tomorrow afternoon will be my driving test once again. Hopefully I can get my licence this time. Let's see if there is such a thing as third time lucky... Don't really care too much about it now.

Was feeeling kind of under a little the past few days, but now really looking forward to the rest of this year!

"Any plan you have often doesn't work out, in which case always have a backup plan..."

Ebay I Am

2010-04-07T10:49:00.002+08:00

I am now officially an Ebayer! :D Did my first little purchase using paypal and my credit card to get a small little cable for repairing the Samsung D880 mobile phone my dad gave me last year. Cost me only A$3.8 and I will be repairing the phone myself. Wonder how long it will take for it to get here from China.

Also winning a bid on another item. An Xbox 360 game called Dynasty Warriors 6, I am not usually into period or classic stuff, but the Romance of the three Kingdoms era in China has managed to really romance me. For me stories of chinese ancient times definitely beat western medieval folklore hands-down. I am now winning the bid at $13.10 with 7hours to go :D

Food This Week 2

2010-04-04T21:45:00.001+08:00

Nothing much happened this week but as usual I had to eat to survive. Once again some interesting Korean food. Hmm seem to be eating a lot of korean stuff lately...

These are all korean goodies from a korean cafe down in Eastwood. They are mostly rice flour confectionaries with bean paste fillings. We bought some dumplings shown in second picture.

Nothing special just some brocolli and pork stir-fry, just thought it looked quite healthy..

What better way to get warm than with some soup. Stock made with pork bones. This soup has a special ingredient, the orangey colored stuff is not carrot, it's sweet potato!

Went shopping the other day and instead of buying the usual loaf of bread, bought some muffins. They were transformed into bacon and egg McMuffins by me this morning. Nothing like making your own crispy bacon and frying eggs in the bacon fat! YUM!!!

My "McMuffin" with the yolk half cooked and runny when you bite into it. Just love my eggs fried that way...

Sydney is Cold again...

2010-04-01T23:14:00.000+08:00

Here in Sydney the weather usually warms up after a session of rain. Think its a warm front moving into a cold front that causes precipitation and the resulting rainfall. Thing is the weather has been pretty warm and nice, up till this easter. This is probably the turning point, and the end of summer here. Is raining on and off now but the temperature has really dropped quite a bit. I have to go around wearing me new white and blue adidas sweater now.

Yes I failed my second driving test again on wednesday. This time the lady tester at Richmond was fair and I only got marked down for the way I held the steering wheel when I turned, so not going to rant too much about it. Damn.. Well try again I suppose.

Food This Week 1

2010-03-28T17:21:00.003+08:00

I will be posting stuff I cooked or ordered weekly and probably monthly in the future if I have repeating dishes. I will start this week off by showing you something which can be considered an exotic food. Got this in a can from a korean shop in Eastwood.

And in case you can't see the name, picture is a bit blur as I took it with my mobile phone, it does say SILKWORM PUPA.

I suspect they are the end product from the silkworm industry. The silkworms are bred and then boiled to kill them and harvest the silk cocoons. I bet the leftover pupae are canned and eaten.

I just drained the fluid away and put the silkworms on my rice. They tasted quite woody, actually a little similiar to the cockroach smell, but tasted more like "wet wood". Not very nice, probably a better method of preparation would be to fry them. Wife felt totally disgusted and didn't touch a single one. Would you dare to try one?

I remember last year when I caught some snails from the garden and cleaned them by feeding carrots and celery for a week. After which they made a tasty sambal dish which I shared with my sister. That was quite exotic too.

Here are some korean translucent noodles. Quite similiar to the "dong fen" we have back home. It's packed in an instant noodle format, unlike those back home which come simply in a packet without anything else.

Some banana flavoured pocky for TV time or midnight nibbles. Tasted wierd and very chemically.

This costs A$2.70 a pack at the Korean shop. One of my favourites, this is a wafer like confection, a little like kit kat except the chocolate is in the inside. Shown here is a coffee flavoured version with a new anime figure on the packaging!

Gorgeous tuna and egg sandwhich bun thing made by wife.

Dumplings and some mushroom/long bean rice.

Char siew fried rice for dinner the other day.

Went very well with this tomyam soup with mussels, sweet potatoes and mushrooms.

Tune in for more Food next week...

Michael Jackson's Moonwalker

2010-03-25T15:38:00.004+08:00

Just completed this really really fun game recently. Never got to play it when I was a kid. My parents only ever bought me a Nintendo 16 bit to play mario brothers on and a PC. Despite loving the SEGA games back then, I must have been doing too much gaming on my PC that my parents weren't too keen on getting me a Sega.

There were a few versions of this game released around 1989-1990, co-developed with MJ's help. This is probably my favourite version which was created for the Sega Genesis video game console. You basically control Michael Jackson and you can do fancy kicks/punches/dance magic, and destroy enemies, at the same time trying to clear the stages by rescuing all the little kids (a small blonde girl) called katie. Even back then, Michael Jackson already had a soft spot for children. aww...

It features my favourite MJ tune Smooth Criminal and most of the stages are based on the moonwalker movie. There is a zombie stage though based on the Thriller MTV.

There were some rumors last year that they would be releasing a new updated version on the Wii soon. Hmm maybe then I will buy a Wii...

If you want to try it out you can download it free from Games 4 Win. This website has all the old classic games, a lot of them for free download. Once you have got it installed, use the left shift button for jump, space bar for attack and Ctrl button for special moves.

Nissin Cheese & Pepper Milk Cup Noodle Ad

2010-03-25T12:45:00.000+08:00

Cheese and pepper added to the milk instant cup noodle ad from Nissin. Damn its gonna taste like watery macaroni and cheese. Another entertaining japanese ad leaving me scratching my head.

Akira Kurosawa’s Birthday Doodle on Google

2010-03-23T12:17:00.005+08:00

Noticed that wierd film director guy on google's homepage today? It's a new doodle today celebrating Akira Kurosawa's 100th birthday. This name sounded quite familiar, so after a little checking on the internet I found out he was the guy behind Shichinin no samurai or seven samurai, subsequently also made into an anime Samurai 7 in 2004. I watched the anime first a few years back and then watched the 1954 film after downloading it out of curiosity. The story is in short about a village being attacked by bandits who take their harvest of rice and how the villagers fight back with the help of seven samurais. I must say I definitely enjoyed this vintage piece of film making.

Wow do they live to be really old in Japan, just take this guy in the same profession as me. I will have to go on a fully japanese diet if I wanna live that old and healthy too. Well happy birthday to Akira Kurosawa...

Hmm.. seems like they removed the upload image link on my blogger blog creation pad today, is blogger planning for us to upload and reference images in the future from photobucket or flickr?

TPG Internet Down...

2010-03-23T10:31:00.000+08:00

Well I should be perfectly happy with free lodgings at the moment, lots of good food (damn forgot to take a pic of the baked mackerel we had last night) and not to mention free wireless internet.

Last Friday, the internet went offline unexpectedly. Most probably got turned off for the weekend. Good thing is it has been turned on again yesterday. So I am back online and downloading. I guess the wife and me went through a short period of internet withdrawal :D

At the moment reading through another blog. This blog has good graphics and belongs to one of Malaysia'a top bloggers. Will do one read through first and see about commenting. New word I learnt this month, "play-through" which means to complete a game once. In some games players do 2 play-throughs and sometimes even 3 play-throughs.

Sigh.. kinda miss Malaysia now, despite being a permanent resident in Australia, still feel kinda foreign. Only good things here I guess are my friends, the easy availibility of good food and the possibility of racking up good credits by working.

Well its lunch time now, time to eat some stuff first. Tomorrow will be a hectic day as I prepare some paperwork for my job application. Applied in the morning and got the interview booked in the afternoon, just have to settle some paperwork by getting previous term assessments copied and sent in.

Malaysian Pavillion Shanghai World Expo 2010

2010-03-18T13:51:00.003+08:00

Apparently this will be the Malaysian Pavillion at the Shanghai World Expo 2010 to be held later this year from May onwards. Will have to give it a miss due to possible work commitments.

SNSD Girls' Generation Run Devil Run

2010-03-18T09:52:00.006+08:00

Enjoy the new MV from Girls Generation on youtube with Eng Subs.

You can find the links for downloading the full HD version without subs from Kenhnghenhac.Net

These korean girls are always entertaining. Still like their older songs better...

New Viewing Dimensions Here

2010-03-18T08:43:00.004+08:00

Have decided to expand the width of the main display area to fit 1024 pixel width monitors. What this means is just that youtube videos in wide screen format will be fully viewable and pictures will now be in 640x480 format! Maybe I will increase the page width further in the future, lets just see how this goes. Enjoy the nee pulau perhentian banner!

This pic here is from an iPhone/iPod Touch game called Pocket God where you are the god who decides the fate of these cute little pygmies... What glee...

Namyangi Korean Plum Drink

2010-03-17T15:10:00.009+08:00

Went down to Eastwood today and went on a grocery shopping spree of sorts today... Here you can see a 12 pack of a Korean plum drink, at home brand, HOME-MADE it says in korean. Apparently from this Korean company. As with most korean goods, it comes with very nice packaging. The DORT stands for dissolved oxygen removing technology, probably so that this drink does not need any preservatives, very clever. And it does seem the shelf life is a short 6 months.

Wife wanted only 1 but I bought a dozen instead. AUD $14 per pack, I got the last dozen with this flavour haha.. They taste kinda like the sour-plum drink we have back in Malaysia. They also taste much like a the alcoholic plum drinks from japan. Gonna try the peach flavour ones next time.

At the same Korean shop, we bought some pre-marinated pork(~$13 per kg), bulgolgi flavoured I think and wife produced this yummy stir-fry which actually tastes just like the one the served at the restaurant! Went quite well with the 2kg plastic cannister of kim chee we bought for AUD $12.

Creatures found 182m below ice

2010-03-16T19:08:00.001+08:00

Creatures found182m below ice
Very interesting article I came across today... Hope they can find out more, maybe that was a sweet prawn! :D yum...

Elmo Song Sesame Street

2010-03-14T13:13:00.001+08:00

I just love the sesame street characters. Chanced by this as I was surfing youtube...

Noodling for catfish...

2010-03-12T07:42:00.004+08:00

These americans really know how to do extreme fishing! Never heard about this until I watched the latest episode of Cougar town and went to look it up.

Wiki : Noodling is fishing for catfish using only bare hands, practiced primarily in the southern United States. Many other names, such as catfisting, grabbling, graveling, hogging, dogging, gurgling, tickling and stumping, are used in different regions for the same activity.

SNSD Girl's Generation Oh! MTV

2010-03-12T06:43:00.003+08:00

New Album from Girl's Generation. Only 2 new songs I find good in this album. The other two good ones Gee and Genie were from previous mini albums so they dont really count.

Wheat 麦田 2009

2010-03-10T21:53:00.005+08:00

Thought I would watch a chinese flick tonight. Wheat, the plant which plain flour comes from, apparently farmed for many generations in many places. Moderately entertaining, a film based on ancient china during the warring states period before the famous three kingdoms period. All I can say is the scenery was really something, wouldn't mind visiting the place they shot the film at.

Leave me a comment if you wanna find out where and how you can get a high quality version of this movie.

Still waiting for Little Big Soldier to come out...

Eastwood Korea meets China

2010-02-17T15:54:00.008+08:00

Fantastic sunny weather with a light cool breeze today. Went to Burwood to stock up on fresh soya milk and korean fish-shaped red bean ice cream today. On the way back, met a massive traffic jam on the M4 so I just turned up to the M3 and zoomed down to Eastwood for some more shopping. As there was a small jam right before i got there which wasn't moving, I decided to park and walk.

Crossing the train station, I arrived at the pedestrian walk in the town center. Passed by a jap themed cafe called sosaku where a chinese couple were still celebrating V-day with a meal of tonkatsu. (the girl had a bunch of red roses on the table)

This was what I saw hanging from the awnings. Bet you are as surprised as I was today, never seen this in my life. 청사초롱(Cheongsa-chorong) is what they call those korean lanterns, Though these were not made of high quality cloth as some of those in Korea. Interspersed were big Chinese lanterns, I wonder how this would look at night. Hmm very very so interesting neh!

Ok so I read wiki and apparently Korean New Year is generally the same day as Chinese New Year, Mongolian New Year, Tibetan New Year and Vietnamese New Year. As you can see the Chinese here seem to be on very good terms with the Koreans in Eastwood. Yes indeed, on one side of the train station you have rows of chinese shops and on the other side you have rows of korean shops, and I have never seen any violent looking asian triad members or gangs lurking around, thank god.

Today is day 3 of Chinese lunar new year and yes the industrious chinese are back at work, so is everyone else. (In Australia chinese new year is not a national holiday YET. hehe ;P)

As I walked down towards my usual fish monger and grocery shop, surprise surprise, all around the chinese section of Eastwood town center, someone had pasted this poster on all the walls. Jackie chan looks sooo cute in this poster for his new movie Jackie Chan’s ‘Little Big Soldier’(actually 大兵小将 should be translated as big soldier small general)

Yes he has done it again, another new film for celebrating the chinese new year, keep it up jackie chan! Let's hope this one is as good as shinjuku incident. Can't wait for the wife to come back and go watch it!

Oh and check this out! Jackie Chan's Official Website

My CNY eve dinner

2010-02-16T12:43:00.009+08:00

Not doing a lot this CNY. Been raining a lot in Sydney, which is fantastic weather by my standards, nice and windy, cool and humid. Well to recap my fantastic CNY eve dinner couple nights back.

This was the first dish, no cooking involved, cut the spring onions from the garden. Always nice to plant and have some fresh spring onion handy from the garden, 100% organic. As you can see, some roast pork and duck with a very yummy plum sauce, took about 20 minutes to line up for this at Eastwood Jade restaurant. But well worth the wait, had a good cut of roast pork with some spare rib cartilage and fantastic crackling skin. They even had cute little suckling pigs for sale.

In the mouth, this roast pork was comparable to the one at Burwood BBQ place I often go to, but was a little too fatty. Roast duck skin was ok but duck meat was really tender.

The highlight for the night, steamed New Zealand Snapper, very fresh, and flesh was so soft, fish head with eyes was so yummy.. The tail ended up very nicely curved up as it was pressing against the cover of the steamer. (They had two boxes of snapper when I bought this fish, the box i got this from was more expensive and as I noticed fresher, the eyes were more clouded in the other box)

Another dish to balance off all that fatty pork, some steamed kailan with oyster sauce, full of vitamins.

And always remember to pig out on dumplings after midnight, people in shan dong china do this every new year, you are supposed to eat until you can eat no more. Sometimes a coin is hidden in one of the dumplings and the lucky person can keep it for the year as it will bring good fortune!

Once again wishing all 新年快乐！

Nan Tien Temple Visit 2010

2010-01-28T12:42:00.002+08:00

Brought dad and sis to the Nan Tien Temple down in Wollongong, south of Sydney city. As with most big things in Australia, this temple is one of the largest Buddhist temples in the southern hemisphere. Found this bell for gonging at the top of a hill on the temple grounds. Hadn't noticed this big bell before, or maybe I did but can't remember. All of us took turns gonging it, quite fun I must say.

Windy white concrete road up the hill, reminiscent of the yellow brick road.

This is the Pagoda in which cremated remains of people are stored. Always find pagodas very nice to look at, makes you feel like you are back in ancient china.

After a romp around the temple grounds, we started to make the hour long journey back. Stopped by this driver reviver stop courtesy of the local lion's club. Dad started singing this wierd lion's club song from malaysia which the aussie members had not heard before. We got some free tea and coffee, and bought a couple of hot dogs which costs $3 each. The hot dogs were not very nice.

Nice view from a lookout on the way back. This lookout overseas wollongong city and the sea.

Also stopped by a shop selling fresh monster sized cage eggs and fruits and veg. This is when the heavy winds really started blowing. Look at the trees. The strong smell of compost also got blown in to the air, coming from the many bags of compost lying around. Dad loaded up on fruits and honey to bring back as gifts.

We later went to have a look at Stanwell Park and the wind was really billowing then. This old man took the chance to rig up his remote controlled flying model plane/kite thing and joined another younger guy already there having fun in the strong winds.

What a day out. Needless to say, some of us paid the price for being in the cold winds.. I got sick a day later and so did my dad's friend.

Walking Circular Quay and Dinner at Bondi Icebergs

2010-01-26T10:09:00.005+08:00

Brought dad and sis for a day out last week. As usual as this was their first time here, so after visiting my friend who stays in the city, we left by foot down to Circular Quay nearby and also to the landmark sydney opera house. Saw a few groups of aboriginal peoples performing with their Didgeridoos. NOt sure why there's a fake snake coiled up at the front of the instrument.

After a hot walk in the sun to the Opera house, friend brought us to the library which had some airconditioning. Any idea what eora means? They had a look through floor with Sydney City CBD model below showing all the buildings and areas in the city.

People reading newpapers and what not in the library.

We then drove over to bondi beach as sis wanted to see it. As dinner time was due, we decided to eat at the Bondi Icebergs cafe. Notice the two levels. Upstairs was the super upscale restaurant where heads of state from overseas eat with the prime minister and downstairs was where we had our dinner. Less pricey, with the same view of the beach and sea.

Inside of the cafe, very basic tables and chairs with TV showing foxtel sports. Australian tennis open is very big this time of the year.

The night view from the cafe. Hehe, I definitely need a better camera for night scenes..

ok now for the food.

Some hot chocolate. Yes, here served with cute little marshmallows! This is how you tell your cafe has a higher standard.

Sis got excited and ordered an antipasto set and some ceasar salad. Not sure how much she actually ate though.

Some mussels with tomatoes. Quite good, can tell they used live mussels instead of frozen ones.

Dad had a good meal with his steak! Quite good as I took a piece to try.

Some Blue eye Cod grilled and dressed up asian style. Tasted a bit like it was frozen too long and defrosted too quickly. No umami at all. Don't order this one.

This other fish dish I took, some breaded sea perch, good texture and some sweetness, not superb but much better than the cod.

Went down to the beach for a walk after dinner. Saw some guys playing with fire. There was a nice breeze and Dad almost wanted to sleep on the beach till next day heh.

Sydney Fish Markets Again

2010-01-25T16:36:00.002+08:00

Reached my parking space at about 10:50 in the morning. Did a quick park in this parking bay that had shade. Even though it was Friday, no buses would be coming by as students were still having their summer holiday!

Big lobsters. They like to cook their seafood before sale here in sydney which is something i dont really understand. Sure you can lock in the flavour of a live crustacean but what about having it warm and the flesh just well cooked so its still soft and bouncy.

Huge row of mud crabs from queensland.

Seasonal Chilean King crabs were on sale today...

A huge tuna head I found which they left lying around. Nice!

Lotsa good food, starting with the typical sashimi of kingfish, salmon and tuna (the tuna might have come from the fish from above) I often buy the sashimi from the stand at Peter's. Quite fresh.

This will probably be the last time I order these grilled octopus. Sister seemed to enjoy them though.

Salmon set. Not bad.

Swordfish set. Meat was quite hard and dry like chicken breast.

to cap off the trio, a snapper set. Nice soft flesh but not sweet, I suspect it was made from a frozen fillet which wasn't too fresh. The store across from Peter's has better grilled fish I reckon.

Softbank CM with Quentin Tarantino

2010-01-21T11:12:00.003+08:00

Was reading about how Quentin Tarantino attended the Golden Globes wearing a tuxedo/kimono combi and how he wore a phillipine national barong tagalog few years back as well.

This is a funny ad starring him from Softbank, japanese telco firm which is big on iPhones at the moment.

Kangaroo and Pig Burgers

2010-01-19T10:29:00.007+08:00

It's lunchtime again! Went over to my friend's house to make some burgers for them. Today's special was Kangaroo Burgers, made with kangaroo mince. We also made some pork burgers from pork mince.

My friend decided to buy some really big buns, so we had to make the patties fit the breads. Yes we made some huge half pounder burgers! Imagine that! They were as big as my hand, including palm and fingers! (600ml ketchup bottle for comparison). They used to make huge burgers of this size at the burger kings in singapore back in my younger days. The double whoppers are just not as big now.

As they were too big we had to cut them in half and have half a burger at a time. It is definitely best to make food yourself and eat it!

Pancakes On the Rocks

2010-01-19T10:03:00.004+08:00

Decided to go for some pancakes during lunch hour at The Rocks. And guess what, this is the original outlet in Sydney and yes it is called Pancakes on The Rocks. As usual being in the city area, parking was a painful $4.40 per hour. And we had to park quite a distance away and walk.

After waiting for a bit outside we were ushered in and followed the waitress downstairs. This place has 2 levels, upstairs lighting is slightly darker with the main kitchen and downstairs is brightly lit with LCD screens playing MTVs. This branch gave more of a young teen hang out place. No Wifi though. Quite cramped and small.

Wife ordered this BlackForest Cherry pancake. Lotsa chocolate shavings and wine soaked cherries. Quite good. The pancakes were chocolate ones and actually tasted more like pound cake.

My stack of buttermilk pancakes. Should have gone for the smallest stack of 2 pancakes. So jelak and full that I only managed to finish slightly more than half of it.

My mocha drink, which was good. I think a combination of fresh milk in it and the buttermilk in my pancakes did the trick of giving me excessive flatulance and a thorough colon cleanse!

My friend ordered Hot and Troppo and a cafe latte. This dish has no chillis,just has chocolate ice cream and some walnuts on the side. Friend said it was good.

All in all, this is the typical unhealthy sugar laden meal you would expect from a sugar loving country. Heck if you did this place more than once a year you would probably end up getting diabetes. I still prefer pancakes with more bounce. The pancakes at this branch were really cakey. Total damage today ~AUD$40.

If you ever want to try this franchise, please visit the far away Campbelltown branch which has free parking, more space and most of all much better pancakes.

Bak Kut Teh...

2010-01-18T16:27:00.003+08:00

Cooked some bak kut teh. A herbal pork-bone soup. First time I saw what herbs went into the soup. Most of the time the pre-packed dried herbs are ground and put in a bag for cooking so you don't get to see what herbs were used.

Going back for seconds after the first bowl. Yum yum..

赤壁 Red Cliff

2010-01-18T13:05:00.002+08:00

Can't believe I took so long to get about watching this film. Now I am glad I did.

Directed by John Woo and starring a power cast of tony leung and takeshi kaneshiro, this film is about some army generals in ancient china. With one evil massive invading army from china's north, trying to wipe out the southern forces cross into the south. Of course, the underdogs win the battle after much strategy and fighting.

Luckily I managed to get the 4+ hour asian version. Always better to watch the extended version. I should probably get the extended version of LOTR trilogy as well.

Exciting Trailer!

Low Speed Car Chase

2010-01-14T21:48:00.002+08:00

Just unloaded a heap of pics off my mobile phone. Thought i would share this one I took whilst driving my dad's old mercedes and trying to keep up with the new one in front. heh... Notice the number plate, as if from some terminator movie...

Sister Zhant Chinese Kitchen

2010-01-10T10:10:00.006+08:00

Went for dinner few days back at my new housemate's girlfriend's auntie's restaurant with wife and housemate. Small little restaurant with very good and simple fujian cuisine. They also have a wide variety of dishes based upon their hand-made noodles.

Housemate just got a special fried rice. Pretty good, not too oily.

I got a special seafood hand-made noodle dish. Very good, noodles were much thinner than the other hand-made noodle place I eat at in the city. Soft with just the right amount of bounce in the bite. The noodles were also very very long! The waitress offered to cut them for us but I just told her I preferred the long long noodles.

Char-Siew pork noodle soup. Once again using the same hand-made noodles, it had quite a tasty broth with generous helping of pork on top.

Fresh Orange slices as a complimentary dessert :D This quickly disappeared and only 1 piece left by the time I got around to taking photo.

Very nice hand-made noodles. Additive free in general. Will definitely come back for more and try the other fujian dishes next time!

My investment in plantation stocks

2010-01-08T22:34:00.007+08:00

Have been a fan of oil palm plantations, at the moment can't own one so the best i can do is to buy some shares in a company that does. Found this beautiful picture on Palm Oil HQ website.

Singapore plantation stocks this weekend..

FirstRes -- 1.120 +2.8
GoldenAgr -- 0.605 +3.4
IndoAgri -- 2.420 +2.1
KencanaAgri -- 0.310 +1.6
Wilmar -- 6.900 +2.1

Sea Shepherd Ady Gil Rams Shonan Maru 2

2010-01-07T20:15:00.006+08:00

How stupid are these 'green' protestors? Running a facy 2.5 million dollar designer boat into a titanic japanese whaling ship? They can harass the ship, but driving a small little craft into a bigger one, especially if your little ship is made of soft carbon-fibre and kevlar? maybe they were trying to proof it was whaling ship-proof.

Cafe Mix at the Shangri-La Hotel

2010-01-04T23:10:00.005+08:00

Visited my friend for lunch near his place in Sydney CBD. We walked from his place and arrived via the back door of the Shangri-La hotel and took a lift up a couple floors before arriving at Cafe Mix. This is the local cafe/restaurant in the hotel. The entrance has this big funny logo consisting of a wierd pattern.

After looking at the ala carte menu for a while, we decided it was better to proceed with the buffet lunch. At $40 AUD it was reasonable for hotel standards I guess. For me, I was prepared for an afternoon of extravagance.

Salad bar, a standard at any buffet. Quite good, items looked very fresh, I only tried the baked tomato with a soft filling in the center though.

Sushi station, only a few types of sushi. California maki, avocado and prawn sushi.

My first round. Sushi and lamb chops. This disappeared quite quickly and I started to look around again.

Wierd looking salt and pepper shakers on our table.

Bread Station. Many varieties of breads to choose from.

Onion soup at the soup station. I opted for some miso soup instead.

They have small little fancy bowls with stuff you can put in your soup.

Second round. Just some fried rice with vege, braised pork and a slice of salty preserved mackerel(i like).

View from the restaurant, another dark and rainy day.

Time for dessert. Chocolate fountain with strawberry, marshmallows and jelly beans you can dip into the fountain. Also next to this a shelf stacked with so many sweet cakes and dessert.

My production from the fountain.

Wife had fun with her sweet tooth. Lemon flavoured triangle cake on the left very sour, only thing not sweet.

Wife selection of cheese from cheese station. Unfortunately it got hit by a stray chocolate coated strawberry.

Time to wash everything down with a cup of hot chocolate and some mint gelato.

Cappuccino for the wife.

As we left, noticed that the wall at the cafe entrance was actually decorated with bottles of rosemary stalks preserved in oil.

Going to have to go on a diet after 2 days of heavy eating. My poor waistline.

Fisherman's Wharf Chinese Restaurant Yum Cha

2010-01-04T01:25:00.002+08:00

An old friend staying in Sydney called me up yesterday afternoon. A pleasant surprise as he was just checking if I still had my old mobile phone number. After a short chit-chat, we decided to meet up with him and catch up at the Fisherman's Wharf Chinese Restaurant. It's located just up a flight of stairs at one end of the famous Sydney Fish Market's main complex building.

View from outside the restaurant.

By the time we made it to the restaurant at about 12pm, he had already managed to book a place for us. how lucky! (note: During the weekend, at almost all YUM CHA places in Sydney, you have to wait a long time in line for your seat. the last time we did yum cha with my friend, we had to wait an hour for seats!) We took an outside table which was a bit cramp but luckily no one smoked near us. And the view was pretty good. But the sky was cloudy and some light drizzling rain did splatter on our table after a gust of wind came through. Inside the restaurant, most tables were taken up by caucasian people...(still waiting to see my first indian family doing yum cha :D)

First and most expensive dish of the day. My god just one small lobster cut into small pieces and fried in batter which was too salty. Cost us $35.80! What a rip-off.

Some chee cheong fun with prawns inside.

Fried dumplings with chives and prawn inside.

Steamed dumplings with prawns inside. Quite good.

Fried prawn wraps with sesame seed topping. Usually quite nice but this plate was a little over-fried i think, some of the sesame seeds were quite grainy, as if there was a little bit of sand mixed in.

After all the prawn-based items, a trolley came by with some Braised tofu and brinjal. Quite good with big servings. We also had some braised beef tendons, not bad either but I had to eat most of it.

Just some fried fish balls, didn't really have much flavour,

supposed to dip with this SUPER salty clam and shallot oil dipping sauce which didnt stick very well to the fishballs.

After all the food, my friend wanted to take away some dishes for his family. Again the service was disappointing, took him quite a while to get the waiting staff to get him his take away boxes and the items he wanted.

Took this picture of a group of young people having some really nice food below us whilst waiting for the takeaway.

Next time I will definitely go to the food shops downstairs. No more upstairs restaurant nonsense.

Smoked Salmon Fried Rice

2010-01-02T13:58:00.004+08:00

This is what I had for lunch today. A very nice fried rice with eggs and a nice big slice of smoked salmon.

Surrounded by a bevy of baby tomatoes for lunch today...

Orange Coloured Capsicums

2010-01-01T17:55:00.002+08:00

Saw these while shopping the other day. Normally they are red, green or yellow in color, much like chillis. It was really unusual to see orange colored ones. Maybe they will make some purple or blue ones next time. Ever seen other colors at your local supermarket?

Stanwell Park Fishing

2009-12-30T22:39:00.004+08:00

About a year has passed since I brought my friends here for a fishing trip. My friend Kwok was very enthusiastic about going there to do some fishing. So after getting our gear together, he drove us down to Stanwell park. Beautiful day after a week of rains, beautiful drive.

We reached Stanwell Park after a short journey. My friend decided to go to a look out place where they have flying lessons. Beautiful view from up there. There's even an ice cream truck.

Well you dont fly planes here. It's actually a take off point for hang-gliding.

And also parachuting. Lots of people there, some enjoying themselves in the air, some like us enjoying looking at those in the sky.

A wierd bug I noticed on a wooden pike.

We finally got down to the rocks for some fishing fun! :D We didnt cath anything today but someone nearby caught this sea eel.

My friend's tiny dog, tired and sleepy after the day out. Slept all the way home.

We were so hungry, so my friends quickly ditched the dog at home and we went off to a HK style restaurant in Hurstville. The house soup for tonight was lotus soup. This restaurant standard not as good as the burwood one.

Ordered a 4 person set dinner. Comes with Steamed farmed barramundi, choice of BBQ meats and 2 dishes from the a la carte menu. all for $53.80.

We had soy chicken and roast duck. Average.

Steamed Brinjal dish , quite good.

Tofu hotpot with seafood and beef mix. I am really starting to detest the preperation of meat at chinese eateries. I think they put some sort of wierd tenderizing agent. The meat and seafood all end up soft and crunchy but completely loose their natural texture!

Well what a long and tiring day, all in the name of good fun!

Week in Sydney 2

2009-12-30T21:39:00.008+08:00

Have been taking lots of pictures lately (nothing better to do) So I guess instead of blogging day after day it would be much more efficient and interesting to just do a weekly summary, which would be good especially if I was busy, not that I am at the moment. Did some shopping at the many asian groceries at Eastwood. Bought a six pack of Chinese herbal tea drink, its actually more of a sugared herbal tea drink more than anything and is supposed to be cooling.

Just what i need to go with the Tom Yam paste i am gonna use for some hotpot action and some japanese furikake to go with my basmati rice.

Went down to have dinner at Burwood, this chinese BBQ restaurant has the best roast duck in Sydney! Had my usual BBQ pork rice but the special house soup they give every patron for free to start off your meal was very unusual. It was a normal chicken based soup but it had green beans and seaweed in it! Very sweet and warming..

Saw these wierd little plants growing in a field when we went down to feed the ducks at the nearby parramatta park.

Ducks and duckweed! With the rains finally returning to New South Wales, this duck pond has finally filled up to the brim with water, used to be an ugly swampy marsh.

A couple of resting ducks. The rest were busy eating old crusty bread thrown out by the wife.

Before we left, we had a look at one of the overflowing dams. There used to be a dam and concrete walkway across to the other side of the park but as you can see the flood waters have just over-run it!

Visited a local korean shop. Look at all the yummy ice creams in the freezer!

Prices of different instant noodles and products. I cannot read Korean, neither could my wife, we were just puzzled and tried to compare the script on each item to the list.

Finally decided to have some read bean fish ice cream. This is very good, sold at 1.50 at this shop, can get it for as low as 1.20 at a shop next door, but it seems they have closed down..

One of my favourite biscuits. Korean lotte waffle biscuits, not filling but crunchy.

Ham and Cheese Heads

2009-12-22T23:59:00.005+08:00

This is what I do during times when i am bored in the supermarket produce section. :D As you can see, one can find rather large items for BIG families...

End of first week in Sydney

2009-12-19T16:30:00.005+08:00

Whilst the wife has got some nice herbal soup with pork ribs going on the stove and the XBoX 360 is playing a DivX movie, "The Proposal" from my USB drive, I will put in a little blog entry.

Had a nice afternoon wandering around the huge mass of people at the Sydney Markets down at Flemington. This huge market happens every saturday early morning till evening. As the day goes on, the produce gets less pretty but the prices start getting rock bottom.

We managed to get cherries for $5 a kilo, 2 bunches of kangkong veges go for a dollar and 3 punnets of strawberries for $5. Most people buy in slightly bigger bulk.

Since its getting late, I would like to cap off this post with this picture taken on our drive from Brisbane to Sydney last week.

Rego Renewal

2009-12-16T13:52:00.005+08:00

Had a home made ham sandwhich for lunch today. Made of sourdough bread, ham, ketchup, some lettuce, tomatoes and cucumbers. Easy but very yummy. had 2.

In Australia, people call their annual car registration REGO. As my car has been sitting in it's nice little garage for almost a year now, I had to renew its registration papers by mid-Jan 2010. So went down to the Parramatta road transport department hoping to renew my rego. They call it RTA here.

Unfortunately they moved, so I had to drive to their new address down at Argyle street, luckily I could park easily and for free at the nearby Westfield shopping center. First counter guy told me to fill in some forms to change my address so they could send a replacement form to my new address. So I went off to my old residence to see if I could get the renewal notice that was sent out. Found the new tenant, she had just come back from work. She said she had sent all letters for previous tenants back to sender.

Another trip back to RTA, I filled in the forms there and the next officer lady i got was clever enough to help me renew my registration.. Finally my car will be registered till JAN 2011 yeah! Have to sign up for my Aussie license in the next three months though... boohoo...

Sydney Day 1

2009-12-14T13:04:00.003+08:00

I must have had too much coke to drink on the drive down from brisbane to sydney. Almost a thousand kilometers done in less than a day. Didn't sleep till 4am in the morning. And was awoken after a light sleep by the morning noises...

Have yet to post about all the food we had in Brisbane. but that will come some day... Paid up the CTP insurance for the car this morning. Now after a meal of char siew from Auburn chinese shop, starting to clear up the temporary residence. Very dusty and dirty! My nose is all watery and runny now...

Addon:

Went out in the night for dinner with on of my friends. He and his fiance took us to this place in Hurstville, a run of the mill chinese/hong kong restaurant. The ladies ordered wanton noodles. The wantons were huge, more like dimsums.

I ordered a tofu and fish with rice and my friend had a fried noodle dish with some gravy stuff on top.

It was nice to catch up with them. In the coming days I am planning to catch up with my other kakis in sydney...

Brisbane To Sydney Road Trip

2009-12-13T00:01:00.001+08:00

Without much happening in the 2 weeks I was in Brisbane, I decided to go back to Sydney and give it a shot there as I had some promising news on a job I had been eyeing for a while. So wife and me packed up once again and started our journey down the coast from Brisbane all the way to Sydney. We passed by many tree lined roads.

It was a long 13+ hour journey. After a few hours we were still passing by rural farms with kangaroos that jumped into the cow pens and horses with back warmers on despite the sunny weather. Thank god that a few hours out of Brisbane, we came to the Tea Tree Plantation, our first stop. Yes this was the second time(or maybe third time) we visited this place. Bought a box of lip balm and 2 boxes of tea tree soap as they were on sale.

As you walk from the parking lot to the shop, you will pass by a herb and shrub lined walkway. We walked past a lavender bush, and here you can see a pineapple plant and a bush of vietnamese mint behind. The aromas floating in the breeze, just splendid and refreshing!

There are also many wierd statues and sculptures scattered amongst the plants. They seemed to have moved and changed some exhibits in the past year.

Another wierd sculpture...

I needed to take a leak after the long drive. The toilet there was vapourising Lime.

Tea tree herbal skin wash dispensers at each sink, all the better to gently clean and kill those yukcy germs from your hands after you are done.

Feeling refreshed, we were on the road again. Passing by much the same scenery. For an hour or so we passed by a few towns that were into sugarcane farming. lots of sugar cane by the roadside, very tempted to stop and hack a few pieces to chew, but no machete and we were trying to reach sydney without too much delay.

Stopped by a fishing town, there is a fisherman's coop which sells fresh fish and chips and other seafood here. But quite small place.

Went down for a quick look-see. A coral art piece at the entrance area.

The usual seafood inside, nothing spectacular. However was the first time I'd seen oysters packed in bottles.

We decided to have a quick and easy hungry jack's stunner and angus beef meal for lunch. Free coke refills definitely gave me strength for the long drive ahead, unfortunately it also resulted in a few stops to pee...

Made one of the last stops at this petrol kiosk which had an adjoining restaurant. Bought a few small cute cans of coke from the kiosk.

Was a good and easy drive most of the way to Sydney. Occasionally a huge truck would tail gate you and increase your blood pressure. I just slowed down when i could and let those crazy drivers overtake.

In the end we got to my friend's old hospital accommodation. Another journey well done.

Vietnamese Pancake (Banh Xeo)

2009-12-12T23:24:00.005+08:00

Pho Hung Vietnamese restaurant at Sunnybank Hills in Brisbane has been visited by me and my wife again and again. Today we went there again and had this exceptionally yummy vietnamese pancake dish called Banh Xeo.

Why is it yummy? Well for starters, it's very crispy in nature, much better than the chinese or korean pancake dishes I have tried. It has pieces of fatty pork, beef and lotsa prawns, all integrated into a crispy crust, possibly from egg plus flour and a hint of tumeric. I once saw a travel program and this is supposedly a common street food in Vietnam.

These are the condiments and salad that go along with it, very typical of many other vietnamese dishes, they always have a side dish salad of mint/cabbage/sprouts.

To eat, we tear off a piece of the pancake and wrap it in a cabbage leave with a piece of fragrant mint leaf, then dip it in the sweet and sour sauce.

MMmmm!!! cost AUD$9 per set at this place, back in sydney it costs about $12...
So good... This is definitely a MUST TRY at any vietnamese eating place. Very nutritious too!

The Strawberry Farm, not a Farm

2009-12-10T11:42:00.000+08:00

Spent an afternoon at this popular spot just off the motorway from gold coast to brisbane. It was called The Strawberry Farm. One of the employees told us that there used to be a strawberry farm there but now they just sell strawberry products and since strawberry season has ended, the strawberries are sourced from more southern states of NSW and Victoria which have opposite seasons to Queensland.

We had a special strawberry ice cream. Costs $5 but has fresh strawberries stuffed in the cone, very yummy!

After a few chomps of ice cream you get to the strawberries...

One nice attraction here was the mini-farm in the backyard, in what used to be their strawberry farm. G-Force relatives in the guinea pig cage with babies.

A toy hen under a tree near the toilets.

FEEDING TIME.. The resident cow and goats chomping down on strawberries and stale bread from the shop kitchen.

Some strawberry based pastries for sale..

Sparkling apple and strawberry Juice, first time I have seen this stuff.

Recycling seems to be the theme nowadays. Got ourselves a small glass container of Pimpama honey too before we left from the gift shop.

Lunch and Dinner

2009-12-08T20:57:00.000+08:00

Today's lunch. Always good when on a budget and not knowing what to eat for lunch, a $7 dollar foot long sandwhich from subway, with $3 fresh fruit juice.

For dinner we hit our favourite vietnamese joint in brisbane. Some herbs and bean sprouts that they always provide to go along with the noodle soups.

Wife got the beef noodle soup. Always order the small sized one, medium size if you eat like a hog, and only large if you havent eaten for a few days.

I wanted to try something different and ordered this pork chop combination special dish.

McDonald's Free Internet

2009-12-04T11:11:00.006+08:00

Finding myself without an internet connection whilst in Brisbane, I have to be thankful for McDonalds to provide me with free online Wifi access! :D They provide 50MB per log in and about dial-up speed. So can't do much downloading, not really broadband access. All the free online access in Brisbane seems to connect to a gateway in New South Wales.

It's 1.10pm now, hope the Hyundai people can get my car fixed by 2pm then I can have some asian sort of lunch with wife at Sunnybank Hills.

Happy Chef BBQ Brisbane

2009-12-03T19:06:00.002+08:00

First few days back in Australia, wife and me went down to the local chinatown place in Brisbane. Its located in an area called Fortitude Valley. Unfortunately it was just a tiny street and this last symbol was to be pulled down as well.

The local police kiosk with a unisex toilet just beside! First time I have used a unisex public toilet! Initially planned to eat at a place I found online with good reviews called asian fusion. Unfortunately, it was closed in the afternoon and we needed to wait a few good hours before it opened. But we were very hungry from not having lunch yet.

Luckily we chanced by this Chinese BBQ shop and looking at the meats hanging in the display window we decided to try it. The boss was having dinner with his family, good thing he was nice and quickly finished his meal and took our order.

Unlike the sydney BBQ restaurants, they don't give you a complementary house soup here, so we ordered an unusual named soup from the menu. This soup is a bit like the shark's fins soup but has bamboo shoots and mushrooms in it.

As usual I had to try the BBQ pork rice. I must say this was the best BBQ pork I'd ever had in Australia. Sweet honey flavour and just the right amount of caramelisation. Yum! :D

The duck rice was also pretty good. All in all a pretty good place to eat if you ever drop by Fortitude Valley in Brisbane.

JB Road-side Cafe Brunch

2009-11-22T00:28:00.004+08:00

Back in JB, we have a few places that we often like to go. One such place is our local coffee shop. Paris has it's roadside cafe, we have our roadside cafe too!

What better to go with coffee than some Toast. This is a toasted piece of white bread with a filling of Kaya jam and butter.

As this trip was around almost lunch time, we managed to get a pack of nasi lemak.

You can usually get some good malay food. Pick from a choice of many typical malaysian dished and put a scoop onto your rice. Today however we opted for something lighter and had some mee rebus.

Will update this post as I find more pics...

Log Entry PM

2009-11-12T12:57:00.003+08:00

Sunshine in the morning and humid heavy weather in afternoon. November has been nice so far. Despite the humid afternoons, some evenings have been especially pleasant with medium to heavy showers.

Having some oolong tea. Lots to do in the coming month. Need to get my travel plans sorted.

This is it!

2009-11-12T00:03:00.004+08:00

Just returned from a once in a lifetime screening of micheal jackson's THIS IS IT. It will definitely be a once in a lifetime experience for me. I only want to experience this once. More like a docu-concert film. Yes I was sucked into the money churning machine and after almost dancing to SMOOTH CRIMINAL performance, I got rather bored rather quickly. Just shows that it's impossible to convert a good concert into a good film.

Hope this will be the last exploitation of MJ's franchise. Unless they need money to pay off his debts, otherwise I feel sorry for the man. RIP.

Cruelty to Hello Kitty

2009-11-02T18:10:00.004+08:00

Saw this on the internet yesterday, this british person apparently has a coat made of hello kitty dolls. Very cute but very overdone. I would call this a Bri-taku!!

Girl's Generation Chocolate Love MV

2009-10-31T14:14:00.006+08:00

This is the new Chocolate Love MTV by Korean Pop group Girls' Generation, to introduce the new LG Chocolate phone, the world's first widescreen HD phone! :D

LG has been making chocolate phones for a few years now, but this new phone the LG Chocolate BL40 is rather ground breaking with it's 4” HD (High Definition) LCD and fashionable looks.

More details at this official LG Chocolate Phone promotion website

This phone will make it to Singapore/Malaysia sometime in November!

RM39 million Ecstasy haul

2009-10-30T19:29:00.001+08:00

From the daily chilli, new malaysian news site....
RM39 million Ecstasy haul

Caught some indonesians in penang manufacturing pills...
Cool... OFF WITH THEIR HEADS!!!

Sleeping Pilots in the USA

2009-10-27T11:14:00.004+08:00

Check out these guys whom I think were sleeping despite their excuse of using laptops.. Should ask the flight attendent who woke them up if they took a while or a long time to respond to her call..

One thing I don't like about flying, your life is in the hands of the pilots... I would like to fly myself.... if i could... i surely would...

Via Yahoo News

Asian Music and MV Sharing

2009-10-25T23:47:00.004+08:00

In recent years I have started listening to both Jpop and Kpop (no they are not different kinds of popcorn) but rather Japanese and Korean pop songs.

Used to have lots of trouble finding the mp3s for these non english artists as not that many people listen and thus the availability of this media is limited to hard to find fan groups. After much searching around I found Jpopsuki, quite a slow bit torrent tracker which had a lot of the songs I was looking for including MTVs. But now they have started a version 2 of the site that requires an upload ratio to be maintained.

I still get my videos from there but now get new releases from this free blogger site with links to the downloads. check out JB Asian Music here

To XP or to 7

2009-10-25T14:43:00.005+08:00

With the recent release of windows 7 by Microsoft, it seems the windows franchise is finally seeing some proper OS production. From early reports, it seems that Windows 7 is indeed performing very well, needing only as much RAM and processor power as XP does.

Impressive boot-times compared to XP and Vista as well...
http://blogs.zdnet.com/hardware/?p=3187

Unfortunately this new OS takes up a hefty 16GB installation compared with my WinXP which has less than 2GB on first installation.

The usual rumors of driver incompatibility and wireless connection problems and what not are circling around but it seems most people are impressed with this new product and new drivers should be out soon..

This guy shows you how to install a new copy of windows 7.

I will be waiting around until a stable version comes along or until my next OS reinstall! :D

Sailor Moon Anime Eyes

2009-10-25T00:09:00.005+08:00

Impressive special effects!! Michelle Phan (Vietnamese?) shows you how to look like the protagonist of Sailor Moon, Usagi Tsukino. This girl has a superb knowledge of using make up. Maybe she is a pro make-up artist?

Guitar Hero Game Commercial..

2009-10-24T23:35:00.005+08:00

Oh my.... Very interesting commercial from the Guitar Hero 5 game :D The fat dude is totally gross!!! More like a beer ad.

Tis another older but equally fun video from last year of hot super model mom Heidi Klum (amazing figure after 3 kids!!!)

Pan-Kun Flower Arrangement

2009-10-11T16:04:00.004+08:00

My favourite chimpanzee doing some flower arrangement or as they call it in Japan Ikebana ...

Eye Tooth

2009-10-11T15:46:00.004+08:00

Alright so everybody has an Ipod of some sort... Well this woman has an amazing eye-tooth, a cornea implant grown from her own dental tissue with a modified tooth! Damn... Amazing!
Read more here

My Thunder Crab Lunch

2009-10-11T14:18:00.013+08:00

After spending a few months frozen in my freezer, mom decided it was time to cook the stone crabs (Myomenippe hardwickii). I caught from nearby Kong Kong river-mouth town in Johor. These crabs are also known as 'thunder' crabs by local chinese as they say that once their pincers grip you, they wont let go unless there is the shocking sound of thunder! It is also been said that only the claws can be eaten as the bodies are poisonous... hmm sounds a little dodgy to me so I had a snoop around the internet.

From what I found, it seems that fishermen only eat the claws and most of them get dumped back into the sea with one claw or none... A Malay fisherman at Kong Kong I met had told me if you eat the body you get 'mabuk' which means drunk. So maybe they might be slightly poisonous, giving a hallucinogenic effect much like the famed puffer fish 'fugu' of Japan. These two other species however are poisonous.

Red egg crabs (Atergatis integerrimus) can sometimes be mistaken for the stone crab.

And this death dealer, Mosaic Crab (Lophozozymus+pictor) is super super poisonous!!! Notice all these crabs have black tipped claws...

Ok so I cleaned up the claws and cleaned up the body of 1 crab just to see if the myth was true. One of the female crabs had those eggs just like the first picture. Steamed them with some light soy sauce for 4-5 minutes. Meat was very sweet, flavour was better than flower crabs! But due to freezing, the meat turned out a little grainy but still texture was good! The crab roe, slightly smaller than ebikko but similiar color were very good, like the flavour of the sea as you crunched on them.

Lack of pics as my hands were covered with crab meat.

Mom thought she felt a bit 'high' after eating them, though I was the only one who ate the body of the crab. So far after 1 hour still no effect. I think the haze and smoke today is making me feel worse than the yummy crabs. Will definitely go catch more with my new crabbing equipment soon!

King Of Fighters Preview

2009-10-11T02:37:00.001+08:00

This one is going on my to watch list. Probably will be as crap as mortal combat but the action will be good!

Girl's Generation Etude Performance

2009-10-10T17:10:00.003+08:00

Girl's Generation or 'So Nyeo Shi Dae' singing Etude...
This apparently shows them performing at some stage in some theme park place???

World Ranking Carbon Dioxide Emissions

2009-10-10T17:07:00.004+08:00

Carbon dioxide emissions of the world, countries led by China, USA, Russia, India and Japan! Looks like the main polluters are China and USA...

Laptop Upgrades...

2009-09-04T00:14:00.004+08:00

The last time ye olde laptop had an upgrade, I added more memory to its brains... it went from 256MB RAM to 768MB RAM(Random Access Memory). Having flown back to Malaysia, it no longer has its 2.1 Creative SubWoofer and speakers. So finally picked up some upgrades for it at the local TESCO.

Logitech S100 speakers, clarity about 90% but not much bass. But for this size and a paltry RM38 I am not going to complain too much... Also comes with a yellow Brands essence of chicken free LED USB mouse! Gonna give the mouse some polka dots one day...