DAMN DAMN DAMN !!!! (a very angry post)

Fuuuuccccckkkkkk !!!!

Please pardon the french.

I've lost my mobile phone again!!!!!!!

This is the 3rd mobile phone I've lost in 2 years. Don't ask me how I lost it, if I knew it would still be with me, wouldn't it? And I wouldn't be so angry would I?

I'm a very angry angry (young) man!!!!!

And no, I DIDN'T back up all my contact numbers. Now I have to email every single one of you to send me your numbers.....SHITTT!!!!! I was just telling myself 2 weeks back...I've got heaps of photos, songs, and messages, I better start backing it up otherwise it would be catastrophobic if I lost it. And now.......Now I'm gonna lose some friends who I don't call on a daily basis because they will think that I'm snobbish and don't keep in touch....

Although I have insurance on my phone, I'll still need to pay a $150 excess to get it replaced....so I'm thinking I might just use my lousy 1st generation Nokia phone for now until I feel rich enough to pay that $150.

And those fucking phone safety straps that I bought from Japan which clip onto my trousers don't even work!!!!

ARRGGGHHHHH!!!!!

What hidden powers, huh??!!!!

Will it blind the thief that's using it??!!!

Can it walk itself to the police station????!!!

Will it cry and miss its original owner??!!!!

Ok, where's my valium.......................

Army Daze Part 1 and Sir Vivals

I WAS A MILITARY MAN!!!

Actually any (real) man in Singapore over the age of 17 would have had experienced some form of military training while growing up in Singapore. In fact, you are micro chipped (ok I'm kidding, but it might as well have been like that) from the time you turn 16, and you'd have to register in preparation for National Service (Military Service, basically). If you want to step out of Singapore, you have to get permission from the army to do so. Basically, between the age of 16-23, the army owns you. If you decide to go for a holiday when you registered for the army, you'll have to apply for an exit permit to exit the country.

I went into the army when I was 19, 2 weeks after I arrived back in Singapore from the States and Canada. I went to US for a holiday with my mum to visit my long lost cousin who left for greener pastures then off to Canada for Big Ben's graduation ceremony at the University of British Columbia (Big Ben is my brother lah!). Desperate acclimatisation aside, going into a forced discipline environment after such a long holiday was a big step for me, but not one that I had any other choice anyway. On that fateful day, mum and Big Ben sent me off on a bus at the community centre near our home. I honestly felt like I was being sent off for war, never to see my family again, recieve a heavily vetted, hand written, tear soaked letter from my mum once a month, and get hooked on heroin just to get through the training (yeah!!).

Nope, none of that! I was in the regime known as the sickly soldiers contingent (Hokkien translation : pua peh peng), and all my army buddies were all stricken with one kind of aliment or disease or injury. Well, it was a stroke of luck that my medical examination showed up that my haemoglobin count was slightly lower than the normal person. This meant that I was supposed to get dizzy spells, cramps and fainting events all the time. huhhhh??.....Before that examination, I have never fainted in my life, had a couple of cramps from the torturous (check spelling) Physical Education sessions we had in secondary school, dizzy spells from alcohol intoxication from nightclubs and thats about it. Well, if you say I'm too weak to be on the frontline, I'm not about to scream out that I'm actually quite fit to throw myself into the bayonets of our enemies.

Speaking of army medical examinations, its hilarious for me now looking back at it. It was daunting for an impressionable 18 year old immature kiddo. I was told to strip off to my undies ( I dressed up for the occasion, Calvins) in the holding room with other 18-20 year old kiddos and sit on a cold polycarbonate chair with full blast air conditioning to wait for the doctors to examine us. When my name ( WONG KANG LOOONNNGGG!!!!!) was called, I had to strut like a supermodel into the badly concealed examination pod (the tacky pink and white polka dotted screens were not even long enough to cover the examination section!). The doctor, with his commander-in-chief actions, motioned me over to another cold polycarbonate chair and told me to sit down.

I must admit I was a little bit shivery. Oh no, I thought! The training's started already???......Its almost a game of power play, of master and slave, of BDSM...... There he was, in his powerful white shirt, crisp black pants and cheap Ang Mo Kio (a cheap town in Singapore) Central shoes, accessorised by his stethoscope, exerting his medical influence over a young, naive, scantily clad teenager. My only saving grace was that even though I was only dressed in my underwear, I felt more expensive than he ever will (Prada shoes, love! You'd ever go wrong with them....). After asking all the typical questions about smoking, tuberculosis and heart disease, the million dollar question came......

Doctor Cheap Shoes : "Have you ever engaged in any homosexual activity with another man?"

Calvin Klein : "Ermmm....nooo...."

Doctor Cheap Shoes : " Ok...take off your underwear now........and cough."

I passed the medical anyway, except for my blood test, which turned out to be my saving grace anyway. I was then channelled to do an "IQ" test which ultimately decided what camp and vocation I would be posted to. That's right, a computer program decides whether you'll be sent to the front line as a sniper, commando, officer to die first for the nation or if you'll be a adminstrative clerk stuck in the office adjusting the airconditioning to the perfect temperature so as not sweat a single droplet of perspiration when you are hard at work on your computer working out the leave balance of the soldiers in your company.

I became a mechanic anyway.

I believed I got through my 3 months of basic military training purely based on the force of my character and my sarcastic humour. I didn't have much physical strength to rely on, not that it was all that important in my contingent of sickly soldiers anyway. In the army, all classes of people are lumped together in a camp. You' get your IT nerds, smart arses, effeminent sisters, small time gangsters who try to act tough all the time and weirdos who talk to themselves (who may actually be "smarties" trying to get out of the army based on psychological reasons, but don't realise that these psycho records will work against them in the real world) There's always an abundance of bullies, and if you didn't stand up for yourself or be street smart about your surroundings, you'll be eaten alive!

Now, these bullies can ruin your life in there, getting you into trouble that will get you detained in the army camp over numerous weekends. Not to mention being the guest of honour for their blanket parties. Oh no, they certainly don't serve champagne and canapes in those parties. Basically, you get covered with a blanket while you are asleep and everyone has a go at bashing you up. You wouldn't even know what hit ya! Luckily for me, I became quite good friends with them and was actually protected against other bullies. Being able to act like an educated Ah Beng worked in my favour.........They were great, made me feel like a ganster's moll.

In our 3 months of intense physical and military training, we were only really confined for the first 2 weekends, with family and friends visiting on the 2nd weekend. Damn, the whole place looked like a carnival when that happens! My mum, godma, granny, aunties and cousins came bearing enough food to feed a Somalian army for a year! Mee goreng, chay tow kway, roast duck drumsticks, fried noodles, sugar cane juice and all the food I had taken granted for. In the army, as you would expect, the food was shit. Cooked by a bunch of imbeciles who play Euro Trash music in the at 5:30 am in the morning to "inspire" us, the food truly was a maggot's feast. I hope and pray that one day, justice will be served to these bastards who tortured us terrified teenage wannabe soldiers when they get to taste their own food, and hopefully choke and die from it.

Ok, enough army horror stories, I will continue again when I think of more army real life stories....

Now, to the survivor part.......I am slowly getting hooked, but I'm afraid to admit it at work....seems quite strange when everyone else is talking about Forensic Investigators, MythBusters, Beyond Tomorrow and other intellectual programs and I suddenly asked if anyone watched trash fest Celebrity Survivor. I may find the courage one day......

And why the hell did they vote Ben off??? He's useful (well maybe not in tonight's episode) and is one of the reasons why I'm watching the show.......Anyways...got to leave you guys with a pic....

G.I. Wong (Grand Idiot Wong) circa 1997

Gosh, I was skinny then!

I'll Huff and I'll Puff And I'll Blow Your Home Loan Down!

Its time to settle down.......

I've recently given some thought to buying a house, because everyone is doing it, so it must be cool. Nothing like having a place you can decorate and drive nails through the walls. And because its not like buying a kebab from the cornershop, I decided to sit down to do some Math about its feasibility.

Let's assume we wanna get a place worth $280,000 (which is equivalent to a one bedder in the city, although we could get a mansion for the same price in the middle of Marrumidigee, Northern Territory).

drrre-e-e-eam....dream...dream...dream.....

Taking away the 10% downpayment and First Home Owner's grant of $7,000, we'll be left to pay $245,000, which, surprisingly, we do not have and will have to resort to a loan from the honest banks in Australia.

Using the loans and repayments calculator provided by InfoChoice, and for the loan to be paid out over 25 years, we will frugally (is there such a word?) request from the honest banks a loan of $250,000.

Given the current interest rates of about 7.30%, the calculator told me we will only have to pay $294,523.43 worth of interest into addition to my principal loan of $250,000.00, making a grand total of only $544,523.43. Nothing much really, only half a million dollars.

money.money.money. must be funny. in a rich's man world.

Opps, I forgot to add the quarterlies that we have to pay because we will be living in an apartment (no more affordable houses in the city), say about $800 per quarter over 25 years, and that equals to an extra $80,000.00.

Which means after 25 years, we would have ended up paying about $624,523.43 for a unit advertised at $280,000 !!!

So our monthly repayments will come up to $2081.77 ($1815.08 + $267 for the quarterlies) and that would be $480 per week. Ok it may not look like its so much if I share it with Matt...but what if I look at it this way.....

We decide not to buy a home.
We continue renting for the next 25 years at $380 per week (I have allowed for rent increases, we are paying less than $380 per week now, $380 is a 30% increase)
We would have paid $494,000.

cos we are living in a material world, and I'm a mer..mer..mer material girl....

If we put aside the 10% downpayment and $100 saved per week into a high interest savings account for 25 years, at the current interest rate of 5.85%, we would have saved $415,488.03. From the 25th year, the amount saved would yield $2030.28 of interest per month, which can go towards offsetting the rent. That would mean we could possibly go virtually rent free in 25 years and still have about $400,000 in reserve for emergency use. And that is just a modest projection considering both of us would also have our personal savings plan of between $100-$200 per week, yielding the same return for us in 25 years. Of course we have to take into consideration that the interest may be taxed, but the tax would be paid off with our day to day accounts while this savings account will remain untouched.

Now at the 25th year we would have about $415,000 in reserve. For the unit to match that, it must have risen by about 48% of its original value. Given the current climate of Sydney's housing, I predict it is very unlikely for any city housing prices to increase to that level!

As for now, its time to start saving and buying more regular Lotto!!!

My dream house! Only a mere $2.2 mil!

This Blog Is Mine, So You Betta Thai Harder!

Ok, I've encountered my first critic!

Last week, after writing about a certain trashy TV show, I was LAMBASTED for getting my sporting facts wrong! Here's what the deekhed wrote...........

The Mighty Hawkes wrote,

"Dermott Bereton plays AFL....... Not Rugby!!! And it's spelt BRERETON... Brereton played in eight grand finals, and won five premierships with the Mighty Hawthorn club during his 189-game career. He was one of the game's greatest centre half-forwards in AFL History.....get it right!"

Oh my lord! I am being watched, every word I say or write is being scrutinised. There's actually someone checking on this website every second to see if there's more stuff to pick on, I might actually be photographed when I walk into Hungry Jacks with my pajamas to get a double whopper. Is my diet out of control???!!!! Have I become fat like Ian Thorpe? Am I gay too? I feel like I'm........in Singapore.......

Get a life, Mighty Hawkes! I may not have spelt his name correctly, but I sure got the meathead part right didn't I? AHHH...my pyschic visions have kicked in now, I see you lounging in front of the TV with a VB in one hand and a sausage roll in another watching grown men play aerial ping pong with an olive, while your poor wife is washing the nappies using her bare hands soaked in No-Frills washing powder. Your baby is crying in the crib but you can't get up to walk over because the centre of gravity on your belly is weighing down through your ass and pushing you further into the sinking 1960's couch bought from Saint Vincent's last year. You would have been a great blogger like me too, but I guess you need to know how to spell to do that. Is your name Earl?

I watched Australian Celebrity Survivor. I just love watching the Gray Teletubbie host Dicko raise his oars in episode one to shout out the warrior cry. Did you guys see it? It was totally un-coordinated and I felt tired just watching him do that. And then....he had to climb up the boat!!!! Gosh Channel Seven's not making it easy for our dear old senior citizen are they? He was exhausted from doing that!!! I think at least 4 pairs of hands stretched out to grab him when he was near the top, just because you could see that he was struggling so much from the moment he stood up on his canoe......ohhh Dicko, you'd fare much better in a studio I reckon. Leave the great outdoors to your fitter and younger counterparts will ya?

And finally, as inspired by the great Yellow Pages ad, here are some relatively funny names of Thai restaurants in Sydney. Do contribute to my comments section if you've seen any others that you think are hilarious.

En-Thai-Sing - Sydney CentrePoint
Thai Me Up - Oxford St
Five Stars Thaitanic - Newtown
Hob Nob Thai Restaurant - Collaroy
Bad Thai Kitchen - Petersham
Spice I Am (owners pronounced it Spicy I Am) - Wentworth Ave
Big Boy Thai (funniest oxymoron I've ever seen)
Ta Ta Thai - Neutral Bay
Thai Foon - Darling Harbour
Thai Riffic - Randwick
Thai The Knot (hahahahhha!!!!! wedding reception anyone??) - Maroubra Beach

Ok, I just made myself laugh so hard.......time to go....

Stupid TV Shows (Aussie Style)

Australia has recently been having an overflow of stupid tv shows. Not stupid like those ridicurious Japanese gameshows, but more of the yawn-yawn-curse-curse variety. Now let's analyse Torvil and Dean's Dancing on Ice.


First of all, who the fuck are Torvill and Dean?

Secondly, why would you want to dance on ice? What's next? Walking on Air?? Swimming on Cement? Driving on Alcohol? Singing on E?

Thirdly, what celebrities? Lets see.....

1. Lara Bingle - famous in the UK for being potty mouthed.
2. Jules Lund - resident clown and pathetic skater/dancer who only got this far with well rehashed jokes and pseudo smart quips.
3. Giaan Rooney - whooooo?
4. Karl Stefanovic - famous for having to put up with his giggling, irritating co host every morning from Monday to Friday.
5. Jackie Kelly - politician. Enough said. Australia must be the only country in the world which considers its practically unknown politicians as celebrities. Other countries usually see theirs as pests. Except Singapore.
6. Dermott Bereton - token rugby player to add a touch of himbo/meathead factor to the show (although Jamie Durie could give him a run of his money. Check out the timing and (fake) character of his laugh, always laughing when he can't think of something to say to the judges and contestants. And he laughs a lot)
7. Annalise Braakensiek - put in the show by the MythBusters purely to prove that you cannot get hurt falling on hard ice if you have surgically implanted crash balloons. They were wrong! She spent most of the time in front of TV on clutches purring "oh....I wish I could skate.....I really hope to get back in the rink next week...." She's been saying that for the last 5 weeks.
8. Michael Slater - cricketer. Yawnnnn......
9. Trisha Broadbridge - Apparently she's the Young Australian of the Year 2006. I didn't even know that, had to google her. I'm not gonna say anything cause she does do some good work with children and teens in Thailand. Except why did she have to bring her reputation down by going on this show????
10. Jake Wall - This one's got to be the best! Boyfriend of Jennifer Hawkins, who was Miss Universe 2004. Yah! I forgot the easiest way to get famous is to sleep with someone more famous. Yup, Rob Mills is super famous now isn't he? I'm sure he gets to use the Hilton toilets for free.

Ohhh yes.......Celebrity Survivor is starting this week!!!!

Opps! I Did It Again!

Hello Peoples!

Thank you all so much for your comments. They will certainly enable me to improve this blog, build up a fan base (from the current 8 or so of you who have actually botherd to leave comments), become a celebrity blogger and ultimately take over the world. As for those of you who refuse to leave me your pearls of wisdom, don't come knocking on my door when my world tour kicks off and comes to your part of the world.

I must admit I have never been a fantical manic for anything, maybe except for cooking. However, last weekend, I did something I've never done before.

I went and watched a musical twice. That's right! For the loyal readers of this blog, you will remember that I've written about this little musical that Matt got me to watch up in the Blue Mountains. The musical is Hedwig and The Angry Inch. Thats right, I watched it for the 2nd time and it still moved me to tears. Someone else was moved to tears too, heheheh, but we'll talk about that later.

Really, no one would really understand what I'm talking about in the next few paragraphs unless they've seen it for themselves. This blog entry is a tribute to Hedwig, well, until I find the next superhero to worship. Sometimes I wish that Hedwig was a real person. I would buy her albums, go to her concerts and even queue up for her CD signings.

The great thing about this musical is that everyone takes away something from it, regardless of your background or musical liking. For a musical to do so much with so little (there is no set change, and the main difference between the Newtown and Katoomba show was the projections in the backdrop, which brought more of a visual impact to the story), it must have a really great storyline.

And what a story it was. The main message I got from it can be summed up from the line "To get away, you have to leave something behind". Well, maybe not in those exact words, but you know what I mean. I can draw many parallels between the musical and my life, having left Singapore in 1999 to Australia for a "better" life. I put inverted commas for the word better because I don't think I had a hard life back in Singapore. I can't say I've always been as outgoing as I am now. In fact, I was a typical Singaporean, very reticent about speaking my mind, moulded since I was young to take a certain path to "success". Success meant getting good grades for school, going to university, getting married and having children. These were the values my parents were brought up on. And I can understand why they would want the same for me, because bringing food to the table and having a roof over their heads was the number one priority for them and their children.

Now before you think I am an ungrateful borsted for chiding my parents after all they've done for me, don't. I'm not. I am utterly grateful to my parents, especially my mum, who single handedly worked as a cleaner to bring up her 3 boys and see them through university. Even though she was struggling, she never once complained and gave us everything we ever wanted, including what was considered as luxuries in those days such as computers, CD players with karaoke functions and a 29" TV. That I will owe her forever. However, there is something within me that wanted more. I wanted out and needed to break away. As I grew older, I became more bored with the the Truman Show lifestyle in Singapore. True, everything is provided for, its got a great transport system, food is fantastic, standard of living was manageable, its clean and safe, its got shitty weather but you can't change that...The thing that got to me was that it was soul-less. Nobody speaks their mind, everyone thinks in the same way, and there are no space for creativity.

Everyone is judged on the basis of their

1) JOBS

I'm a lawyer/doctor/accountant => wah! must be earning a lot right? set for life!

I'm a dancer/bank teller/artist => where got future?

2) CARS

I just bought a BMW/Mercedes/Lexus/Porsche => wah! nice car! come lets go jiak hong (Singapore slang for joyride)

I just bought a Proton Saga => ok....why spend so much money on COE to buy such a lousy car?

3) THEIR KIDS' UNIVERSITY COURSE

My son is doing doing medical science/law at National University of Singapore => wah! so smart huh? You lucky hor, no need to worry when you retire already lah!

My son is doing food technology at the University of New South Wales => foot technology? what the hell is that? Reflexology issit?

Forgive me if I sound bitter, I'm not. Really! I have had great memories there, growing up playing with my cousins, running amok at the playground, the mahjong uncles and aunties forcing us kids to run through dark and dingy backlanes at my grandma's place to get them their chicken satay & char kway teow and gambling & underaged drinking of Tsingtao beer during Chinese New Year. Every now and then, these memories pop up in my mind and bring a smile to my face. However, as I matured, the place just got more and more suffocating for me and my ticket came in the form of my uni course of choice. You see, food technology was not offered in any Singapore universities and I had to come here. I am certainly happy where I am now, although I do miss my family, espcially my mum. She does get out quite a bit, goes to dances and cruises with her friends, but I do feel a tinge of guilt when I call her some nights and she's just watching TV at home. She never says it, but I could sense that she's quite bored and I wish I could whizz over and share a bottle of wine with her. Well, you can't always get what you want, for now, regular phonecalls will have to do. Who knows, a few years down the road, Sydney's shitty train schedules, skin cancer inducing sunrays, exorbitant housing prices and nasty Asians who behave like pricks in the Midnight Shift may start to suffocate me. Then, it'll be time to move on. I think I might have been a Mongolian gypsy in my last life.

Of course, its nothing compared to what Hedwig went through.

Go see the show before it finishes!!!!

I think its time to stop whingeing, Grand Master Wong!

I LIKE IT!

Ohhhh My Lord!!!

Have you guys seen the new series of CoverGirl ads? I love them, especially this one.

Ok.....will do a proper blog tomorrow.

Lady Dashwood Cooks Pt 3

Kylie Schouten Kwong Cooks Pt 2

Cooking with Kylie Schouten-Kwong

GYM BUNNIES AND MACHO MARYS

Ohhhhhh....Noooo........!!!!

Yes, we have finally succumbed to it, we are now part of the elite gym bunny party. Gerald, gym instructor of the year 1902 got us a special offer to join McFitness First for about $25 per fortnight, and we decided to go in and see what happens. So for the last week, me and Matt have actually been to the gym 3 times!! I was a reformed gym bunny, having been a member of InShape gym for five years, gone down in weight comparable to the Biggest Loser and getting a heel injury that plagued me the last 3 years. Everything has come full circle hasn't it?

For our first class, we wanted to go slow and hence decided to go to a super intense class of Cycle. I arranged to meet Matt at the entrance of Fitness First Park St and we'll check out the lockers and go about our own thing, and guess who rocked up????

Lady Dashwood!!!!!!!!!!!!!

For those of you who are not in the know, Lady Dashwood aka Firman Schouten, is part of the pseudo-royal family in Indonesia who has been ignored by the royal family in England for 4 centuries. Having royal blood did not stop Lady Dashwood from wanting to get to know the commoners that roamed Oxford Street. She was so down to earth that she would even walk down the street at 3am in the morning to attend to people and their needs......Maybe that was why she's lost her connection to to highly strung royal family.

We strutted up to the male locker room to change, trying our bestest not to partake in the great scenery surrounding us. We were a bit slow in changing and impatient Lady Dashwood grabbed our towels, letting a shrill "I'm going first....." before prancing off to the cycle room in a very un-ladylike manner. You see, the gym gets very crowded after office hours and you'd only get a seat if you have a friend like Lady Dashwood who is willing to dash to the room and use our towels to reserve our seats. We strolled into the room and Lady Dashwood screamed for us to go over to our "thrones"(for the queens), classily covered with my blue checkered towel. It was a bit nervewrecking because me and Matt had to adjust our seats and we didn't know how to do it. It didn't help when everyone around us looked like they were ready to start the Tour de France. We finally managed to stumble onto our seats (saddles as they were known in gym language) and started to get "into the zone". The instructor came in and boy, was she a SCREAMER!!!

" EVERYONE FEELING GOODDDD???? WE ALL READY TO DO SOME SERIOUS CYCLINGGGGG???!!! "

No response, a few grunts and mumbles.....

She then turned off the lights and the whole room started to glow.....very dancefloory....and my checkered blue towel was glowing so intensely I was almost blinded. Damn, should have brought my sunnies......MMmmm...UV lights....exercise and tan at the same time......great idea!

And we were off!!! Pumping Euro music started filling the room and we were cycling really hard! I was looking at Matt and Lady Dashwood, giving them a "What have we got ourselves into"look.
30 seconds later, I was panting like a mad pug and was ready to go home.

5 minutes later, my legs were numb and I am having trouble co-ordinating the simple circular motions.

" SO EVERYONE'S WARMED UP AND ALL READY TO GO HHHAARRDDD????!!!!!! "

I almost died.

I did stick around for the full class, but I needed help to get off the bike. My thighs and calves felt like they were pierced by 6 million pins and I had a sore bum. (According to Gerald, I had to push my bum right against the saddle to feel more comfortable. Yeah Gerald, put dirty thoughts in my mind while I'm exercising). Matt did much better than me, he was peddling harder, and he wasn't complaining at the end. Made me feel more like a pathetic whinger.

The next morning, I woke up and couldn't feel my legs. Arrrggg......

Day 2 was worse, I limped all the way to work, and I actually took a longer time to walk down the stairs to Museum Station than another old lady with a walking stick (I'm serious!!!).

We felt good though. Its great that we've finally started to live a healthier lifestyle, and it was quite enjoyable too (after the 5th day).

Things never come easy, but it is inevitable that we will look like this in about two to two and a half month's time.

Gosh, we look beautiful!!

The video is here!

The video linked to my last post is here!



Did anyone noticed that I fucked up the formatting of the paragraphs and the pics in my last post, so the pics and words don't match greatly reducing the impact.....I am improving but....we've got videos now.....

And peoples please please please leave comments so I know who has viewed my blog!!! You can do that by clicking on the "X comments" next to the pencil symbol at the end of each pos and then follow the instructions.

Seeyas soon!

IS IT ARIBA???

AYE ARIBA!!!!

Straight after I blogged my last entry about my cravings, Sharon rocked up to our place. We were planning to go out for dinner but haven't really decided where we were going, because Sharon is very careful with what she puts in her mouth (sometimes). Out of the 6147 food types that she cannot tolerate, I shall list 3 as examples.

1. Chilli (too hot! duh?)
2. Onions (stinks!!!)
3. Chinese (me and Matt are partly to blame, she's heard the chicken feet, beef tripe, snake stories from us too often. Ahhh...isn't Yum Cha a great way to catch up with friends while you are chewing the skin off a perfectly pedicured chicken foot?)

After our "what have you been up to?" catchups and a few (2 half each) glasses of wine for me and Matt,we "all" decided to go to a Mexican restaurant (Sharon : "Its my favourite restaurant but we can go somewhere else...." ===> emotional blackmail) near Bondi Junction called Fiesta!!! Such a festive sounding name!!!! Keith, who was busy finding a soul mate online, decided to join us too, but he wasn't gonna eat because he had a late lunch. "Maybe I'll have a little bit to drink......" Ha!

So off we went in Shazza's car and we were blasting loud music like the wogs we are, the only difference being the classy girly pop music we were playing. Watch the video below! I can't get the video embedded!!!! You guys have to use the link to view it until I get it fixed.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MmkfMJgm-qg

Found a parking space without much trouble and in we went to the restaurant. I loved it! It doesn't smell like the Mexican restaurant we used to go to in Kensington. Although I wasn't a major fan of Mexican food (all the beans makes me feel like getting someone to pull my finger all the time), the place was really impressive and homely, almost Americanish with its nice little booths and cheap leather/PVC seats. The alky squad went to get some grog while me and Shazza looked through the menu. Went with some garlic bread and guacamole first to shut our growling stomachs up, Matt then ordered Mexican Steak (rump cooked by a Mexican) on a hot plate, Shazza had nachos with minced beef and NO CHILLI, NO SOUR CREAM while I had tacos and Mexican spring rolls (spring rolls cooked again by the same Mexican who cooked Matt's rump). I had to get some Asian representation at the table because I am always fighting for Chinese rights and I am the supreme grand master level 2 in Fa Lun Gong, an Asian branch of the Church of Scientology. Keith had A LITTLE champagne. His eyes were hung-rier than his tummy.

The food came!!!!

Such strong masculine poses with beautiful props!

The only time you'd ever see Shazza with something so small in her mouth! (this pic is gonna fetch heaps on ebay)

Our complimentary side dish of greasy boobs came (pardon the pun)

Now you know why Shazza HAD TO eat that spring roll.................

Hey, how come there's no pic of Keith? He's so shy sometimes, I just have to include a picture of him.

No wonder!!! He's chilling out! Well, he did say he wasn't gonna eat.

For entertainment tonight, we have the 3 AMIGOS!!!!

The tequila kicked in and the whole restaurant went crazy!!!! The other patrons were getting worried that the three amigos were gonna break out into "Speedy Gonzales" and left the restaurant in droves. By 10:30pm, the restaurant is almost empty. Then we got bored and left too. It was a great night, thanks Shazza! Yum Cha next month?!!!

Til next time!

ADIOS!!!