Downunder Day 7..errr another long one..

Easy going day for me, another buddy (school mate from Form 1) came to pick me up to visit her house. Thank goodness all my friends were staying around the same area, like 10 to 20 minutes drive from one another). We caught up at her place for a bit and then went out for lunch. She bought me Shanghainese food for lunch and we ate too much again! The minimum order for the dumplings were like more than a dozen pieces leh but only of us to gobble eat them up.

 

Mind you, the size of the dumpling was kinda big compared to ones here…

 

Bob’s Kitchen famous for the dumplings located at Glen Waverly

After heavy lunch I went off to the city to meet another buddy who’s going to bring me shopping. Yeah she’s the culprit to my breaking my vow of not buying anything…yes, Angie, I’m so eating up my words, “I will not buy anything one la, crazy meh, the exchange rate x 3 leh!” Well, the first stop was Myer, our favourite hang out during uni days (should be libraries, tutorials or lecture halls, really). I was to meet Ms W at the front of the store but I was early and saw something interesting in front of Myer, Bourke St Mall. I don’t remember there was this figure here the last time I was here..something new again? So can u tell me if it’s a real statue or someone dressed up for art’s sake?

The moment Ms W saw me she immediately took me to Myer to grab some off season bargains. Yes branded goods like Chacharel, Alberta Ferretti, Donna Karan etc going at more than 50% off…unfortunately or fortunately I couldn’t find something to die for so I didn’t buy anything from there! But Wendy is not about to give up as Amah the shopping queen did NOT buy anything! So she brought me to another smaller mall called Australia on Collins.

Ms W has a VIP card to Country Road (Australia’s home brand) and Amah can’t resist visiting this store. However, I find the brand has sort of lost its appeal or maybe all of their clothes are now made in my ancestors’ homeland. During my student days, there used to be at least one range that are made in Australia but now..zilch..and the material used are no longer that good as before…such a disappointment..BUT BUT, I still couldn’t resist their signature canvas bags. Since the VIP card has a promotion offer, meaning if I buy above AUD150, AUD50 is automatically deducted, so I ended up buying 3 bags! (one as a gift la…)

The pants next to the bags was mistake and a buy under pressure from the DFO in Homebush, Sydney, a David Lawrence 3/4 pants made in my ancestors’ homeland, way overpriced for its design and material, well to comfort myself, the cloth does feel really good!

After Country Road, Ms W still did not give up and strived to continue to encourage Amah to contribute more to the Australian retail economy. Ms C another old friend turned up to meet me and off we went… There was this outlet located on Collins St, called Luciana, or something like that la..It carries off seasons branded bags and shoes, Amah’s so dead cos that’s Amah’s greatest weakness, BAGS & SHOES!!!! But really, how can Amah resist these…..

There was a much higher version (I think 4.5″ heel) for this pair which I soooooo heart-ed but due to practicality, I bought the 1.5″ kitten heel version…Ungaro at RM250..I think it’s a pretty price!

Then there was another pair also Ungaro, golden straps and sooooo comfortable…price was cheaper than the first pair…cannot resist lor.. The orange Nine West was bought on the last day at the DFO in Melbourne, err can’t remember the place but it was not too far from Springvale. Also a good price at AUD39, about RM110+/-..

I can’t remember how long ago was this bag from but it was so gorgrous and at a really good price, about RM600+ for a Prada Sling bag! John, you tell me if it’s a steal or what??

Since I bought 3 items, plus Ms C bought one pair (a pair of Tods wedges supposedly in my size, BUT somehow didn’t fit me!! DARN!), we managed to bargain down the prices somemore! And I was able to claim GST refund at the airport, which is another errr…alamak forgot how many percent but quite good la!

So Amah shiok or not??? As if not shiok enough, Ms W was so sweet to treat me n my great hosts in Melbourne a beautiful seafood dinner at Boxhill. Pictures in the next post la! Tired la me…

Downunder-Day 2

The weather was a bummer as it rained the day we arrived. The rain continued till the day we left Sydney!! Nevertheless, we still managed to do at least half of what we planned to do there. My main priority was to catch up with my cousins and 80 year old aunt. I think I’ve lost count the number of times I’ve been to Sydney but I still did not manage to see most of the tourist spots there!

On the first night, after my cousins picked me from the airport and of course my request for dinner was naturally Vietnamese Beef Noodles! It’s like the best I had and I reckon is better than the ones in Melbourne! It’s seriously good lor…they have a branch in Paramatta (next to Westfield Shopping Centre) and one in Blacktown I think… I slurpped all the soup up and the pho (noodles) were so smooth that you can actually accidently slurp it in without having the chance to actually chew it!!! The beef was fresh and so tender!

Me and Mr D went to visit the Hillsongs Church which happens to be quite near to where I stayed and one of my cousins was gracious to send me there as there are no public transport available. We were really impressed with the church. It was huge and the equipment they used were state of the art and the music was of course EXCELLENT!

 

After church I die die oso want to go to the city eventhough it was like raining non stop lor…That’s when I sms’ed  Moz and Lil Miss May to meet up for lunch. Moz was reluctant to come out due to the heavy rain but I managed to convinced him to come out at the end and we had a good time catching up and of course feasting!! I will definitely not be able to forget the food I had! It was simply amazing and the view from the harbour was so “lomantik” lor!

 

 

More to come!!!!

Another Eventful Weekend

On Friday nite I went galavanting for a bloggers meet and was rushing like mad thru the jam picking up Kieran from school (cos Apah also went out galavanting..) and dropped him at Apoh’s place. Wah each time we meet we go to a new place to eat, shiok! This time we went to this place called err..what ah? Ayo forgot ledi, some Italian restaurant and the food was quite good especially the dessert which was called Elvis Presley bla bla..it was banana and peanut butter on a slice of pizza. It was super yummie lor!

We had to go to the loo and it was past the shopping hours so we actually had to sign in with our IC in order to use the facilities! Since it was first time for us we didn’t know that the ground floor toilet was not ready for use despite the signs all over the place! See la, late ledi we all also berblinded! Then we went to another floor and I wanted to use the sitting toilet instead of the squatting one cos of a very obvious reason…don’t want my friends to hear me poot poot la! But damn, cannot use the sitting toilet cos of this! Liddis oso can!

Since we finished quite late, I didn’t want to lug the kids back so we slept at Apoh’s place but I didn’t bring change of clothes for the next day! So when I reached the office Angeline thot I didn’t go home at all, partying all nite long! hahaha..

Later in the afternoon I went with my sis in law to check out the studio photos we had taken last week. Wah we spent 3.5 hours there screwing choosing and re-negotiating the package as the photos didn’t turn out that well. Of course Amah very fierce with more experience was kinda intimidating la so they finally agreed to give us more free photos! Muahahahha..

Sunday was as usual, to church and this time Amah helped Kylie with her craft work but it was embarassing as I couldn’t even do it properly lor. At the end the Sunday School teacher had to help me correct it! LOL!

Then we went to Tesco to buy groceries and poor Kylie fell asleep in the trolley! She was very hyper and couldn’t sit still the whole time during lunch and was jumping up and down in the trolley but when I scolded her she sat very still and I didn’t even realise she was sleeping until other shoppers started to make remarks and were laughing at her!

I told myself this weekend I must bake something and yes I did, choc chip cookies! YUMZ!

Weekend Updates

It was a pretty normal and wet weekend we had. As usual I sent Kieran to music school on Saturday morning and sit at customer’s place till they pay me visited a customer while waiting for him. There was a car wash facility outside my customer’s shop so I had my car washed at the same time. (Maid too lazy busy to do that!) Customer paid me of course and we created small talk la…and then it was time to go and as I was leaving…plip plop plip plop dollops of rain started to fall! Drats! I just had the car washed la!

After picking Kieran up went to another customer’s place to send some goods and then off to Tesco again! It’s either Tesco or Ikea hor?? hahaha…weekly groceries ma…We ate at Chicken Rice Shop and didn’t realise we were sitting next to someone familiar looking…another customer eating with his family. Kieran started looking over after I said hello and said this..

K-How come they have so much food and we have so little?

Me-Shhhh…no manners…they have more people ma, if I ordered so much you can finish eating or not?

Upon reaching home, we had to clear the car immediately and store the stuff I bought as we had to go to a birthday party at Sg Long! Yes Bandar Sg Long as in the Sg Long near Kajang! At the beginning I already drafted the route to Apah but of course Apah being Apah had to miss the first turn and our nightmare began… we somehow took the wrong turn and ended in Kajang Silk where there were toll after toll and we ended up paying RM7 and one hour to reach our destination! AYoooo..so when we went back I drove and of course we paid half the toll but the travelling time was almost one hour..

The birthday cake had a Hello Kitty picture and it was so beautiful! I don’t think I can reach that standard la…they had the McDonalds Birthday Party team over their place but there were not many parents involved in the games so Apah and Kieran sapu most of the gifts la! hahahahaha…

Sunday was as usual church and then to shopping again! Ayo this mega sale is really taking a toll on my pocket. By the time it ends it’s almost the next sale season again! We went One Utama. We have this One Card which allows us to park at the priviledge parking just RM1 more than the normal parking but little did we know that we must have a MINIMUM VALUE of RM5 in the card before you can enter the parking using that card. Apah kept inserting the card and it kept rejecting it without telling us anything. So we had no choice but to take the ticket and park at the normal parking space. However, after rounding about 15 minutes, Apah dropped us and continued circling and I think it took him 45 minutes before he finally found one!!!! FREAKING CRAZY isn’t it? We had late lunch because of that but thank God we were quite stuffed from breakfast and the kids had snacks in Sunday School.

We ended Sunday with dinner at Apah’s parents’. Apah’s twin brother & family had moved out of Msia due to a job posting so they had no cousins to play with. So Kieran monopolised the toys and even squeezed in the toy car which was meant for his cousin’s size!

Hong Kong Part 4-More Food and Shopping

 After shopping one whole day Kieran began to whine and complain and he insisted on a ride in the double decker bus. The first time he spotted the bus he actually screamed out loud, “Look mum! That’s a double decker bus! They have double decker bus here in Hong Kong!!!” Ayo so embarassing! So he was bugging me to bring him on the bus but I was with “Ku Cheh” and she’s the type who takes only taxi one leh…ayo…so Ku Cheh told him it was going to rain very heavily so cannot take bus…bla bla bla..but he didn’t give up kept bugging us cos it was not raining that heavily and in fact it was like slight drizzle here and there only! So we gave up and took him on the ride! See how happy he was!

Then we dumped all our shopping in the hotel and went for the buffet dinner downstairs. As it was a popular place, walk in customers usually are not entertained but since I was a hotel guest, we were given a table! When I saw the buffet spread I nearly fainted! The food was like sooooooooo amazing and it was definitely one buffet spread which was gonna cost a bomb but I wasn’t sure how much. Even our little friend enjoyed so much, but of course the dessert part only la! He was playing with the prawn heads and was creating a mess..so embarassing again!

 

I ate so much till I nearly collapsed on the table! Seriously, towards the end of the trip my tummy bulge was like when I was 5 months pregnant! Thank God now hilang-ded ledi!!! hahahaha…I think it was gas! When “Ku Cheh” paid for the bill I nearly fainted cos the bill did indeed cost a BOMB! Thanks so much my lovely “Ku Cheh”…to payback for her kindnes, my next trip I have to bring her 10 packs each of nasi lemak & char kuey teow!

Weekend Updates

A very big thank you to well wishers and your prayers, Kylie has fully recovered already. In fact her spots were very mild and didn’t increase from the day they appeared. She was fine all the time even when she had the spots, still her very active and fighting with her kor kor as usual. I reckon it’s thanks to her her strong immune system, weyo? Well, she walks up and down barefooted around my office stairs and picks up stuff from the floor and put into her mouth all the time. Anyway, we still quarantined her from other kids, except for Kieran la…but so far so good…he’s still ok.

Thank goodness she got well so Amah could still go ahead to go kai kai to celebrate some friends’ birthday last Saturday. Amah again pandai pandai (act clever) baked a cake again…I took the whole day again…I was not too pleased with the presentation but since I’m still so new in this,,,I forgive myself la!

There was this friend of mine kept saying this to me,

F - Amah you sure baked this cake?

Me - Ya lar…I baked la, see la the flaws here and there, buy cannot liddat one…kakakakka

After the dinner party we went to karaoke till 4 am! Sei moh? I already whole day making that cake, not enough sleep ledi, and the following day, I die die went to Ikea with my 2 legs and came back with 10 legs! No I didn’t grow legs, I bought the chairs for my dining table! Cannot tahan la…Since we came back late, Apah only managed to install one chair. So the whole day again didn’t rest much!

Came back should have gone to bed straight but didn’t and watched tv instead! So what’s the result?? I woke up in the middle of the night and felt really cold. Asked Apah to get me the thermoscan and the reading was 38.6°C! See la! Whole night singing not enough still went shopping! Serves me right! Now I really should be resting…but I’m blogging! Blueeekkkk!

Vegetarian Dish

Went to this Vegetarian restaurant at Kota Damansara to celebrate my customer cum friend’s birthday. Sorry forgot the restaurant name…but the food was really good. We went there just past lunch hour time so the restaurant was like soooooo quiet. Then came this heavenly dish, dip fried mushroom in butter sauce. It was really really very yummy lor…

Since the above was so yummy, I decided I wanted to cook up my own version and try it out. Then I realised I didn’t have fresh milk in my office. So? Make do with evaporated milk la….so here’s my version….

So how’s the taste? Not as happening la and I blame it on the milk. So “em kam yuen”, I tried again today for lunch and the result was……amazing! It’s sooooooo yummmmieeeee…ok self praise is no praise…please ask Angie la!

Anyway here’s the “ai ya ya a la la” (my made up) recipe if you wanna try!

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1 box/prepacked Organic Shitake/white mushrooms (from supermarket)

Tempura flour

4 stalks Curry leaves

1 full tbsp Butter

1 tsp salt (less if you don’t like it too saltish)

1/2 tsp sugar (more if u like it sweet)

some onion shallots

5 tbsp fresh milk

some corn flour solution in milk

pepper

Method

Mix tempura flour in water to make batter (instructions should be on the box!)

Then dip mushrooms in the batter and dip fry

Leave on plate

Butter sauce

Put 1 tbsp oil in the wok to heat up then put in the curry leaves & shallots (and some cili padi if you want) to fry till fragrant and crispy

Add butter, salt & sugar and then milk

Then finally before taking up the sause pour in the corn flour solution to thicken the sause a bit..

Finally pour sause over the dip fried mushrooms and serve immediately!

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Try it out! I guarantee it’s yummy one! cheh…self praise again!

Weekend Updates

As a lot of you may already know, I had a joint celebration birthday party for Kylie together with these handsome guys & this pretty girl. We had a real swell time together-gether and you can read more about this here, here, here, here & here.

I woke up like just before 7 in the morning to start baking as my dear friend who was supposed to help me bake the cake had a wedding to attend so can’t help me…so I took up the challenge to do it myself. Not that I can’t afford to buy la but I just wanted to have something homebaked. Sorry to bake myself is definitely more costly than buying off the shelf cos all the ingredients I got totalled up to a bomb ok! So here’s my so called birthday cake, I am not too impressed with it of course but nevermind la!

After the kids’ birthday party Amah went to another birthday party celebrating this sweet girl’s birthday. Thanks to this happening girl for organising this event. The bistro we went was like derrrr….sorry ah, but I also forgot the name leow. It’s located next to Kelana Seafood Restaurant. This place was infested with life blood sucking mozzies and I was the unfortunate victim as I was wearing a skirt! Damn! Even the insect ultraviolet light thingy didn’t work which got me scratching non stop the whole blardy night! Then I ordered this kiddy meal in a form of a sheppard’s pie which took them more than an hour to serve! When I saw it, I was like, is that all? Not that I was expecting much but they took so dem blardy long to prepare! Cis! So that night was not really my night until the draw for the ‘Guess the football match score contest! (Manchester U vs Chelsea) Thanks to Ace I just simply filled in the form la. I told him I usually don’t have luck for contests but he told me to just fill the form, I mai fill lor… We didn’t even pay attention to the match only looked up when the guys were shouting!

I didn’t realise the match was over until the guys said so and our prediction was right! There were 5 other people who had the right prediction so they had to draw la. One guy went back so tough! Then they called out the names from 4th placing to the winnner. It was so kan chiong (exciting) lor. Then finally when they announced the 2nd place’s name we just jumped into the air and screamed like we won a million bucks! What was the price? Aiya, one lauya mia jersey, a super mini soccer lembik (soft) ball and

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tzeng tzeng tzeng!

A bla bla bla Sony Ericsson mobile phone

We are trying to sell this baby so we can used the money to go for another makan session…so any takers???

Weekend

Following the cancel Astro act, my son wrote me this note….

He wrote this inside but I couldn’t fit it into a photo..

“I love you mummy”

Me-Come Kieran, mummy love you too…

K-Gimme the paper…

Me-Why?

K-I want to write somemore..

The continuation of the note below the I love you part…

“So, can you please put back the Astro”

Me-wha hahahahahahahhaha…… ok ok but you must promise to behave when we ask you to, if not no cartoon, ok??

Weekend Updates

Last Friday had dinner at this Bangsar Seafood Eat All you Can for RM38++ but the food was soooooo saltish, ya I know why cos it was eat-all-you-can so they so clever made the food so saltish we can’t eat that much la! Aiya wasted, Angie should have been there to help us wallop more food as she loves saltish food! But despite the food, I had a real good time because of the company of course! Thanks to Angel for organising this dinner and hope birthday boy and girl had a swell time too! Happy Belated birthday!! pssstt…actually Amah prepared birthday gifts for you guys but Amah paiseh to give..so now all nicely wrapped up in my house…don’t know what to do with them! Blechhh…

Then came Saturday, lazed around and didn’t do much this weekend, no time to bake also…but was determined to bring the kids out at least. So when it stopped raining, we packed and left for Lake Gardens, it was almost 5pm but that didn’t dampen our spirits. But halfway through Federal Highway, it began to pour cows & elephants…OH….what a bummer!!!!!!!!! Then we decided to go to One Utama and let Kieran play at the indoor playground instead! While he played there Amah went shopping of course! So in love with the clothes at Gap Kids…couldn’t resist buying some tops for Kylie and Kieran. Then dinner was at Soho, dim sum & la mien place, food was good, service was even better but the electric was tripping of & on for so many times but we still ate like nothing happened, best of all Kylie enjoyed herself and didn’t create a scene and was eating by herself! Bravo!

Nice Deco

Siu Loong Pau (as good as Dragon I lei)

 

Dunno what dim sum but soooo yummmieee

 

Green tea

Boy chomping down food cos he was soooo hungry!

Kylie eating with her fingers

 

 

 

 

 

To Friend or not to friend?

Following a post from Tracy, it reminded me of an experience with my friend. She was an ex colleague from my first job. She’s kinda introvert type and even though we went our separate ways to different jobs, I’ve maintained contact with her. She’s single and living alone so I thought I should call her and check on her once in a while la. Then one day we decided to plan a trip to China way back in March 2003.

I checked out the temperature and told her it was going to be cold so be prepared. But she has to go with just a cotton tiny little jacket. The moment we arrived at Pudong Airport it was like below 10degC ok! She was shivering and jumping and I told her I only brought enough for myself so can’t help her!

The moment we reached Hang Zhao (took a bus from Pudong Airport), I wanted to just check in the nearest hotel but she wanted to go enquire one by one to check on the price…ayo…and she was the freezing one. Anyway, we managed to catch a meal and checked in and immediately went out shopping as she really desperately needs something warmer. Shopping with her was a nightmare too as she ponders on it for sooooooo long even for something so cheap. Then she was looking at this windbreaker, it was like RMB10 ok! I had to rub my eyes and then re-confirm with sales girl that it was like RMB10 as in RMBTen only, meaning it was like RM5.00 ok ! FIVE FREAKING RINGGIT! I was like, errr..what the F was she waiting for? Buy la. Wear ledi buang in the bin or donate to some street person la! I stress again, I was warm in my winter jacket so I can afford to F around but she CAN’T cos she’s bloody freaking freezing ok! Finally I got quite mad and told her to either buy it or leave cos even though I was warm and cozy I wanted to see other things. So she bought it! HALLELUJAH!

The whole trip was a torture from then on as she was always miserable and not wanting to part with her money, ayo liddat how to holiday la? Eh I’m talking about CHINA, what can be so expensive in CHINA? NOTHING OK! Biggest mistake was to go on this trip on a free & easy holiday without pre-booked hotels.

Then she pissed me off in Suzhao when she befriended a local China girl who was also touring. She invited her to stay with us for the night to save more $$ on the hotel room! I was like WTF?! How can she just simply trust her, sekali get friends over to gang rape us (maybe just me cos I definitely look better than her) or rob us (me again cos I have more cash!) how? Firstly they wanted to stay in this crummy place so I said fine, you stay here I stay there (another nicer looking hotel) which doesn’t cost so much anyway. Wah, so dem smart, fast fast change mind and said join me. Ok turned out the girl was ok but still I didn’t have peace of mind and slept with my money in my pants!

Then at Nanjing she totally pissed me off as she didn’t want to eat! I was like what? I have to eat leh…it’s cold…please…and she said I can eat and she will sit with me! HUH? How do you expect me to eat while she’s looking at me leh? F la…so I just bought some crummy corn in a cup to eat. Ah now I remember she didn’t want to eat when we were in HangZhao so I told her I will buy her lunch, then only she ate…So of course cannot always I buy she eat rite? WTF..The hotel in Nanjing, another story, she didn’t want to stay in hotel cos she said too expensive (again I stress,,,RM150 somemore divide by 2 of us, not expensive wat!) and sulked. So I told her I have to stay and since she paid for the hotel in HangZhao which was cheaper, I will pay for this in Nanjing although more expensive. You know what she said? She wants me to reimburse her the difference! Can you beat that???

The best time we had was in Shanghai as we didn’t need to pay a single sen as we stayed with my university mate, so he offered us place to stay plus belanja us meals somemore! Well, she is of course the happiest camper la! When I suggest we should buy the drinking water to replenish his, she said no need la, I don’t drink so much also! AYOOOO!!! Beh tahan, I bought anyway without her contribution.

Then I had to go down to Hong Kong and that’s where we parted our ways. GOOD RIDDANCE! I said, I was leaving, meaning she can’t stay with my friend la! So she got to get her butt out and she’s on her own for the next few days. I dare not think what and where about her.

We met again to exchange some photos (yes it was analogue age) and again she insisted I pay her the Nanjing Hotel difference as she didn’t want to stay in a hotel so expensive! I was like, so shocked, I Should be the one asking for the difference as the hotel she paid for was cheaper!!! How come she’s asking me to pay her the difference?????? So that’s the final curtain, and I told her we cannot be friends anymore as she’s totally impossible and I walked away and never turned back!

I do think about her once in a while, thinking was I too hard, or maybe I should have just paid her and forget about everything…I don’t know..WHAT DO YOU THINK???