Seven!

i've been enjoying every single moment of melbourne since i arrived. :) good that school work hasn't kicked in, and that i've the time to explore melbourne city. 3D2N ski trip with rachel, merrie, jonathan and kim seng this coming friday is confirmed, and i really can't wait for it. i've never ski before, but i bet it's going to be fun fun fun!

last night was one big night (more pictures up on facebook). went clubbing with the girls at seven after dinning at oriental spoon for korean food, and having our usual chocolate shots as desserts. we had free entrance as we went under some birthday boy's name. till now, i have no clue whose birthday it was.
we started off with 2 vodka limes shared among the four of us. went dancing a while, but still didn't feel the alcohol setting in. then we each took shots, it was so damn funny. all my friends know that i can't drink for nuts. i'm always either drinking mocktails, or cocktails. occasionally beer and wine, and i still can't finish one glass. to break the record, i took a shot yesterday. on the count of 1,2,3 we drank it. but loser me couldn't even finish one, while the rest were empty. i seriously don't know why i can't drink one in one gulp. anyways, we had 3 jagerbombs later in the night. that was nice, it was very sweet and i could hardly taste the alcohol. :)

love them all so much! it was the first time 4 of us went clubbing together. i really want more nights like this to come.

seven was surprisingly much better since the last time i was there, which was more than a year. the crowd, music, and drinks were good. the music especially, we did dance till our hearts content. met many old friends on the dance floor, and i guess that made the night even better. we all agreed that there were many cute guys too! oh, and this guy kept following me, he wanted a dance. it was so funny, no matter how rachel and merrie kept blocking him away from me, and telling him that i'm attached (well, i'm not) he just wouldn't give up. but he was nice, no evil intentions. haha!

the three of us found a corner to rest, and it was then this really cute hong kong guy came up to us. well, i find him really cute, but rachel and merrie don't. i guess its because he really looks like someone, but a player version of that someone, very freaky.

anyways, we girls got back home around 3 plus. didn't stayed up for long, but had whole lots of fun. woke up at 1pm today and went out with rachel the entire afternoon, we were being tourists and explored the sky deck. shall blog about that soon the next time i'm free, cause i'm going out tonight for another awesome party. :) i'm running late!

The Genes

this is my youngest cousin in my family, qiying. went with my mum to visit her last friday just before i leave singapore for another 4 months. when she was a toddler, she looked exactly like my youngest sister when my sister was around that age too. now that she's older, i can slowly see that she's starting to look like me. it's really quite scary, especially those eyes. yes, those single eyelids. :( i didn't know that cousins could actually look that alike. aren't the genes quite far?

anyways, mummy allowed me to drive to their house at alexandra road. frankly speaking, it was quite a distance and i was a little scared due to the heavy traffic on farrer road, but i did fine. just the reversing and parking, i'm not very good at it yet. actually, i took quite some time to reverse out of my house! haha, it was super funny, aunty jean was laughing so badly. what we learnt in school was just meant for the test, not for outside application. :(

its funny how my brothers and sisters kept sending me sms-es to pick them up from tuition and school. did help my mum to reduce her workload (by not stepping on the accelerator), but she still had to sit beside me as she felt that i needed an observation period. being a nice sister, i went to pick my sister up from rjc. i drove to the airport that night too, it was a full 30 minute drive on the highway man. just got off the phone with papa, and he told me that mummy said that my driving is very good. he sounded very excited, i think he can't wait to sit my car! he's so cute lah. wait another 4 months...

Legal Driving

got my driving license last thursday morning, and i passed with 12 demerit points driving a manual car. very proud of myself, as i suddenly had a damn strong fear that i would fail and the 12 points accumulated are due to minor mistakes such as insufficient acceleration, and checking wrong mirror? prolly a 4 points for abrupt changing of lanes, i blame the red car for dashing out so suddenly.

anyways, i will deifnitely miss my driving instructors in bbdc, especially mr tan, mr chua, mr bay. they were my most frequent driving instructors, and they are exceptionally nice to me. mr tan was so nice to pay for my PDL when i didn't have enough cash or nets, mr chua offered to buy me some kind of can food for me to bring to melbourne, sends me home after every lesson, and wants to me my personal taxi driver when he starts to drive his own taxi, and last but not least, mr bay bought me his favourite won tan noodles for lunch, asked me to add him on facebook, and sends me home. so nice right? besides that, they make me look forward to driving lessons everyday due to the very entertaining conversations we have. yeah, so much so that i always fail to check blind spots! thank god the tester was very quiet, so i remembered to check all blind spots. :)

went out for lunch with mummy to meet rachel and her mum. we went to wild honey at mandarin gallery, it's a small restaurant opened by people from melbourne. i love that place, very cosy and homely. the food was really good, especially the bread, awesome awesome stuff. no kidding, probably one of the best bread i've ever eaten. i had eggs benedict (last picture), decided to try it since i saw the contestants in masterchef having problems making hollandaise sauce. i don't know what makes a perfect hollandaise sauce but i was happy with mine. the bacon was really soft, juicy and sweet too. wanted to try their tarts and scones, but was too full due to their huge portions.

thereafter, we spent our time walking around mandarin gallery. first time walking IN the building and not just outside. quite a number of interesting japanese shops, and good restaurants. must definitely try the la mian restaurant on the 4th level when i'm back. rachel's mum couldn't stop raving about how good it is! went to paragon and got macarons from canele before sending rachel home while her mum went back to work.

i swapped seats with my mum at rachel's house. we were right at the doorstep to the lift, but rachel just didn't want to get off the car. reason being, she wanted to experience my driving!!! so funny, so i drove 50 meters from the lift to the security post to make her satisfied. that was my second time driving my mum's car, the first was a really short distance outside my house when i didn't had a license then. auto car is really much much more easier to drive, you don't have to worry about changing gears and clutch! i felt that i did pretty well, given that i'm driving an auto MPV, so different from the cars i practice on. i drove from orchard back to home, first time on the highway and it was real long...

went back home, picked my brother up and we drove to railway mall for a haircut. okay, it's my second time at the brilliant cut, i usually visit mazu at cathay. but i needed a haircut badly, and couldn't find the time to head to orchard again. my hair is now straight (no U/V), so from the back view, 4 inches are gone. i'm happy with it, but it costed me a bomb. my purpose for cutting in singapore and not in melbourne was to save money, but my plan was backfired.

for dinner, i met up with bram at holland village. we've been wanting to meet up since last year?! but both of us just seem to be very busy. anyways, last thursday was finally good and i had a lot of fun eating and chating with him. i'm really glad that i did not lose such a friend. :)

Heater Please

hello everyone, i'm back in melbourne. currently eating instant abalone porridge as i type this post. yes, reality has sunk in, and now it's back to fast/instant food. no more living in the luxury of good food everyday. not that melbourne doesn't have them, but it's just quite troublesome to squeeze such meals in while schooling.

have so many things to blog about; my photos in iPhoto is accumulating. now that i've cleaned up my whole house, and did some necessary shopping, it's finally time to slouch on my couch. :) let's rewind to last monday; i had so much fun. was out the whole day with rachel tjong.

after the both of us finished our driving lessons, we met up at sogurt at coronation plaza. we've been hearing so much about it and decided to have a go. honestly, i feel that it's very overpriced. the weighing technique is really a good idea, new and draws high margins. the flavours were pretty unique and good. i had chocolate and red velvet, while rachel had mango and blueberry. will definitely go back there again during the next hols.

thereafter, i went over to her place to slack and chill. ate and watched tv the whole afternoon till 6 plus, when we started getting ready to go out. i asked ryan to join us for dinner at sushi tei, and he agreed immediately. that was provided he finished his homework, and he did.

we ordered a wide variety of food. a good and cheap japanese meal was just what i needed before i return to melbourne. though sushi tei may be rather commercialised, but i still feel that the food there is above average and prices are very affordable. by the way, rachel's neighbour started sushi tei and apparently the owner is a girl in her late twenty's.

i don't really fancy any desserts at sushi tei, so off we went to big O for spike D. rachel and ryan was just watching me eat, as they had theirs in sushi tei. haha, i just had to have it as it's so damn good. :)

rachel's mum then sent me and rachel to meet up with jonny and his mum. chatted awhile before taking another short ride in jonny's mum's car to central. we were going to meet jon's friend, joshua, at helipad.

first time there and it's really a nice open rooftop bar (at the 5th level). was telling jon that it's quite a nice place to hold a 21st party there by booking the entire floor (not that i want that for myself). the guys did their shots (sex on the beach), and we had our cocktails and mocktails. anyways, glad that we could get along with joshua. if we can click with jonny so well, what's the problem man? since they're both best friends.

we had so much to chat, literally talked non-stop for 3 hours before leaving the bar at 11.45 pm. i really hope that their business plans do succeed, so rachel and i will be their VIP customers. haha! the four of us were also intending to club on wednesday night at zouk, but plan failed. had driving test the next day and i didn't want to risk failing, and poor rachel was sick. sigh oh sigh, didn't get to club in singapore this july. :( was really looking forward to visit zouk or butter, but i guess i just have to wait for december then.

JB Day Trip

went into JB on wednesday to visit my relatives, the main reason was to pay my respects to my late grandmother. didn't manage to go into JB earlier, as we went to taiwan and my mother had to surrender her malaysian passport. it took quite some time for her to receive her singapore passport. yes, she's a singaporean now, which makes my whole family singaporeans.

this shawn, we call him shawn shawn. haha! he's my eldest cousin's son in my mother's family. he's so cute lah, he always has that smile on his face. very smiling boy! the little dimples make it better. we bought him this inflatable disney mini pool, a airplane kite and sweets. he was estatic!

ah kim also bought durians for my brother and i, as we are durian lovers. i don't know how many seeds we ate that day, we were so bloated. she then brought out mangosteens, which i also love, and i couldn't resist it despite being so full. she also got us like 2 big bags full of durians (8-10 i think), and one big bag of mangosteens. now, our car and house is filled with durian smell. bram came over last night, and he immediately asked why does he smell durian when he was just outside the gate. overpowering!

thereafter we headed over to my father's elder sister's house. spend some time chit-chatting before going off to another cousin's house. for dinner, we had really good chinese meal, very big variety of food, so good. went back home, and celebrated my cousin's birthday. a very mini celebration, yet fun. the 3 little kids were really very mischievous. too much to handle sometimes, but their cuteness over rules.

my aunt also bought us a big bag of rambutans. so, we went home with plenty of tropical fruits. just the right time, as i will be heading back to melbourne tonight. speaking of which, it's 1pm already, and i haven't even started packing at all!!! this is really serious, and i still have to fetch my little sister from school at 5pm too. oh yeah people, i have my license already. 12 points, manual car. not bad right? :) have been so busy the past 2 days, and masterchef is still glueing me onto my chair when i'm home. oh god, anyways, i'm really glad with the final 3- adam, claire and callum! like all of them, and don't mind either one of them winning. finals on sunday in melbourne! :)

okay, i'm going to have my favourite chicken rice for lunch, and home cooked steak for dinner tonight.

Difference

finally! a full day for me to rest at home (besides driving lessons in the morning). have been having so much fun the past few days that it didn't really occur to me that i'll be flying off on friday. so fast, one month's gone. back to the usual studying routine in a week's time. :(

last friday was merrie's very belated birthday celebration. initial plans was to go for a mac donald's picnic at marina barrage. but the weather didn't agree with us; it was raining cats and dogs. anyways, we still chose to hang around raffles/marina. finally out of orchard!we went for lunch at this german restaurant- brotzeit. had typical german food, sausages. they tasted good, but not really my type of food.i love the underground passage to esplanade from citylink mall, always filled with new art exhibits.

finally reached our destination after a very long walk. cause jon and rachel wanted to blow the cake at raffles hotel, but there wasn't any suitable location. anyways, what better location to be at, than esplanade's rooftop garden? we had the view of 3 singapore attractions- marina sands, esplanade, and the flyer, and there were live bands too!

love the cake that jonny got for merrie, just the right cake for chocolate lovers. it was really very good, sadly rachel couldn't taste any due to her gastric. the best thing about it is that you wouldn't feel full or jelak from the huge amount of chocolate. :)

later, we went over to jonny's place to chill/slack. we had so much fun digging into jonny's past/photos, some serious laughter man. we then decided to play cranium, the board game that we got for merrie's birthday. first time playing it, and it's really fun! can't wait to play more of it when we're back in melbourne. :)

checked out the masters program requirements for london business school, london school of economics, warrick business school, and kings college. half of them requires at least 2 years of working experience, 1 requires you to graduate with first class honours, and the other needs you to qualify for honours. this is not good news since the reason for doing masters is to escape from work for another 1-2 years, and i don't want to do honours due to an extra year of studying in melbourne. only warrick university is looking good, but that means i have to study extra hard to at least qualify for honours. sigh oh sigh, continue studying and searching!

Dreams, do they signify what you want?

just came back from the airport with my mum, was there to send papa off to cheng du. he's going there for charity and will be living in temples in mountain ranges, and eating vegetarian for the next seven days. wonder when will i get the chance to do that, bet it'll be tough.

anyways, i have been going out every single day and i'm so tired. decided to stay home today and attempt to bake macarons, and maybe dinner outside tonight. bought i love macarons book with teresa last thursday, and hopefully the macarons today turn out decent. apparently no one gets it right the first few tries, so i'm just hoping for decent ones.

went shopping with teresa at orchard on thursday, finally get to meet the busy girl. she's so busy helping out her sister at a new manicure parlour located at holland village. checked out bags and watches but didn't see anything i like. sigh, why is it so hard to find the right stuff when i want to buy them?! anyways, we went for afternoon tea at paragon's canele when our legs start to get tired. really lost our stamina to shop, as compared to secondary school days.

sweet crepe- exotique. caramelised banana, chocolate sauce, passionfruit banana sorbet, vanilla tuile and vanilla creme chantilly.

classic french style pancake served with salad. paris ham, emmental cheese and sunny side up.

i had rose tea and it wasn't nice. same goes for teresa's watermelon tea, it was so sour. don't get their tea, try TWG!

but a definite must try are their macarons! we had caramel, rose and passionfruit chocolate. i love the caramel ones the best. i think its due to the fillings, very sweet and nougat-y. in fact, canele's caramel macarons are better than pierre herme's, i'm not kidding! thanks to rachel, i got the pleasure to try pierre herme's yesternight when i collected them from her house (flown all the way from london). but the rest of the flavours were way better than canele's. :)

continued shopping till the clock strike 7, and off i went to meet ming de for dinner at crystal jade. it was such a joke, i told him crystal jade la mian xiao long bao, and he ended up in crystal jade palace. so we were waiting for each other in 2 different restaurants! had a real quick dinner as he was late and we were rushing off to lido for inception at 8.30pm.
never like lido theaters, they are all so small and old. only LIDO 1 is good, and thank god the movie was screened there. it was so big and all seats were filled, none were vacant. the movie was really good and i like the ending especially, it leaves you wondering. but honestly, i didn't understand the movie totally, prolly just 60%. definitely need to re-watch it to understand the whole show. it's like, dream into dream into dream into dream. great film, it really reminds me of shutter island though, sends the same kind of creep. must watch k!

it was a 2.5 hour movie, so by the time it ended almost all shopping centers were closed. he parked his car at takashimaya, and we were kind of lost in this huge shopping center with doors and escalators locked, and there's hardly any soul out there. it was really quite scary, especially after just watching the movie. walked up and down just to find our way to the only unlocked door before getting to the car. got home quite late, and thanks for sending me home! :)

i had a dream last night.

3 Little Angels

i know they don't really look very appealing, but it's seriously god-like. i can eat 6 of them at a go. thanks to my brother who found these mini sinful things at a little corner in bukit timah plaza. it literally melts in your mouth. the pastry, cream and strawberry sauce makes a perfect combination. MUST TRY.

baked maple chocolate muffins last saturday night to settle my urge to bake. going to learn aunty jean's orange chiffon cake recipe soon, prolly today or tomorrow. really love baking cause its so fun! sadly, i can't do them in melbourne. i'm also thinking of trying macaroons, but learning from masterchef, i know it's not easy at all!

anyways, last week (in 1.5 days) i completed the hong kong drama serial- the seventh day. i love the 4 main casts. all so pretty and handsome. i watched this particular drama because of kevin cheng, but i didn't really like his character in the show, kept leaving his girlfriend behind. the other couple seemed more interesting, funny and cute!

watched toy story 3 the previous sunday with my brother and sister after having sushi tei with parents. the movie is really good for a cartoon film. i enjoyed it so much, and i can't believe i teared when andy reluctantly handed his toys to the little girl. the best one as compared to the previous 2.