Its all so quiet.....

Damn, I haven't blogged for so long now!

Did you know that Taureans are creatures of habit and get very restless when their routine is disrupted? That will be me for the next few weeks.

Matt has gone off to the States (yes, again....) and I have the whole house to myself.

Yah? Nay....

This was how I spent Thursday night, the first night Matt was away.
5:45 pm : Came home to a very cold and quiet apartment
6:00 pm : Went to the gym and had a ultra reluctant workout.
7:30 pm : Started coking dinner.
8:45 pm : Started eating dinner. Took me a whole lot longer time to cook dinner for myself because I don't have anyone waiting to have their meal.
9:10 pm : Quick shower.
9:30 pm : Flicked channels about 20 times because the TV networks were being assholes (transmitting shit).
10:30 pm : Checked email. Had 8 emails trying to sell me Viagra.
11:00 pm : Went to bed.
12:30 am : Still trying to sleep.
12:45 am : Received SMS from Matt telling me how exciting Vegas is.....
1:15 am : Semi asleep....

How exciting. And its only Day 1.

Its strange I don't realise how dependent I've become on Matt over these years. The place suddenly seems too big for me.

Alright I need to stop moping before my depression become infectious.

Had quite an ok day today, did my usual Sat grocery shopping in Chinatown. I will be embarking on a healthy diet next week because my BMI indicates that I am still overweight and need to lose a bit more weight, about 3-4 kg. The diet (which is a typical 4 meals a day diet, nothing drastic, just cuts out the fat a bit as I have been quite indulgent lately in cakes and deep fried stuff) will also help me to build some muscle from my workouts in the gym. So we'll see how it pans out over the next couple of weeks.

I have been known to latch onto well connected people, and my most recent victim is Gerald, the gym instructor mate whom I may or may not have mentioned in my previous entries. Gerald gave me 2 free tickets to watch a movie of my choice and I decided to invite Firman along for it. Nice of me, isn't it, not inviting the person who gave me the tix? Well, Gerald complained he was sick yesterday and I thought I better let him have a bit of a rest at home. See how caring I am? Watched Bridge To Terabithia (not a sequel to Bridges of Madison County). Thought it was quite ok, mostly due to the fact that I did not have any expectations for a free movie. Very close in its structure to Chronicles of Narnia. My only gripe with it was that the special effects only took up 15 minutes of the whole movie, although the trailer seemed to suggest that the whole movie would be a special effects fest...still an ok movie overall. I am officially sick of the sequels season we are currently facing at the cinemas. Pirates of The Caribbean 3, Spider Man 3, Shrek 3, Fantastic Four 2, Hostel 2 (which I will never watch).....bbbooorrrring!

Credit where its due, Gerald has been providing me with heaps of freebies in recent months. First we have the above mentioned tickets. Last week he actually got me tix to the Guns and Roses concert, but I was unable to go as Matt's parents came and stayed over at our place. They wanted to see him before he scooted over to America. I am still feeling a bit guilty about that as I almost blatantly demanded the tickets from him and when he got them, I couldn't make it....

Now this I'm excited about....am going to the Live Earth concert next week!!!! Again thanks to his goodwill. This Live Earth thingy is a series of concerts staged across the world over 24 hours (each country stages it for a few hours before passing the baton on to another country) and Sydney will be kicking it off! Basically its a concert to raise awareness of global environmental issues. Other countries involved include Japan, Shanghai, Germany, US, UK and Brazil. Should be fun. Will bring camera.

Ok better stop now. 1 am already. Should try to sleep.

Adventures of 2 Alkys in Sydney

Just for those of you not in the know, "alkys" is Aussie slang for alcoholics, which was exactly what me and Matt got up to last weekend!

We've been having horribly wet weather in Sydney since mum left and we were actually planning on doing absolutely nothing that weekend. But after going to the gym, Matt felt a sudden rush of energy and seeing that it wasn't storming outside, we decided to pursue our spiritual calling. Yes, you've heard it right, we trotted off to the Domain where the Dalai Lama was giving a free public address. The combination of free enlightenment and bad weather was simply irresistible. Plus I've read a few of his books and have a genuine interest in Buddhism (really!).

The pic is not very clear here but there must have been at least 5-10 thousand people there for the talk. The presence of hippies and squishy muddy ground gave it a somewhat Woodstockish feel. Oh yes, and the talk was good. Very simple words from a very humble and wise man with brilliant comedic talents who seemed able to make sense of the disarray in the world today. Fantastic!

From that point onwards, the day took on a decidedly sinful turn, as we marched in the rain to our next destination, The Good Food and Wine Show at Darling Harbour. As the name suggests, the show is meant to showcase different kinds of food and wine to the people, although we were really more interested in the latter. Although we had to pay $25 for entry, it was well worth it as there were hundreds of stalls offering free samples of their products, and...wait for it....64 wineries, both large and boutique trying to get us to buy their wine by enticing us with samplings.

Based on our calculations, 64 wineries x 2 tastings at each stall x 20 ml per tasting = approximately 2.5 l of wine each!!! Thats almost 3 bottles per person!!! Rubbing our hands with glee, we proceeded to stall 1.

This was our 6 step action plan to attain wine enlightenment.

Step 1 : Ask at each stall to try their Merlot and Cabernet Sauvignon.

Step 2 : Swirl the wine in our glasses while trying to hold back our drool.

Step 3 : Stick half our nose into the glass to take a deep breath, nodding our heads in unison and giving a slight thoughtful smile.

Step 4 : Scull the wine down and mutter a few winey words like "peppery, strong tannic notes, fruity with a touch of roasted coffee and blackberry, lingering aftertaste on the back palate"

Step 5 : Disappear and move on to the next stall.

Step 6 : Repeat step 1.

Well, what do ya know, by the time we got to stall 16, we were shiny happy people.

"Should we go try some of the food?" Matt asked.

"Weehat foud? I thought we ere ona liq-uid diet today!" I slurred.

Along the way, we were distracted by a stall offering half shots of 3 times distilled vodka, which is supposed to go down real smooth. Too smooth, I think. Further distraction came in the form of Cosmo cocktails from Cointreau, Frangelico with limes, frozen daiquiris and Pure Blondes (low calorie beer which tasted like water).

Now now now, lest you think that was all we did, we also attended a couple of cooking shows by celebrity chefs, namely Donna Hay. Matt was so very inspired by her cooking that he did the unthinkable......

HE COOKED ON SUNDAY NIGHT!!!!!

Damn! I'd never thought I'll see the day!

Well, ok, maybe I helped a little bit.......

Look at that!

Lamb shanks with red wine (what else) and tomatoes...yum...

It was a fantastic Saturday...topped off with perfect winter food (and a few glasses of wine) on Sunday night. Food for the soul and tummy.......

AUSTRALIA...ITS TIME TO VOTE!

The most common question I've been asked lately is whats up with my hair. You see, I've recently been trying to grow my hair out, not only because I cannot afford 10 dollars to go to my regular China Aunty barber on George Street, but also because the hair protects my brain from freezing out and inactivating my creative blogging cells.

As my hair grew millimeter by millimeter, I realised that it was actually doing a very good job of covering my prominent male pattern bald spot. So much so that even David, who usually only admires himself in front of the mirror, was commenting how less bald I look now (He'll never admit that I'm the better looking one).

Inspired by all the positive comments, I have decided to go bohemian all the way now, and abstain from cutting my hair until I get back to Singapore next Feb and then invest 80 Singapore dollars to get a, what do they call it...a STYLE cut....

Here's where I need your help...I've gone online to give myself a makeover and tried on millions of different hairstyles before deciding on these final two FAAABULOUS looks!

BRACE YOURSELVES AS I PRESENT TO YOU.......

THE BEETHOVEN ART STUDENT DAY LOOK

THE BEETHOVEN ART STUDENT NIGHT LOOK

and....

THE FASHION DESIGNER RUNWAY DAY LOOK

THE FASHION DESIGNER AFTER PARTY LOOK

Now tell me they don't look good!!!!

Now to add a touch of reality TV to this blog, leave your comments on which look I should adopt for my makeover and the look that is most popular will be unveiled next Febuary.

The power of my look is now in your hands!

WHAT IS AUSTRALIA?

As you all would have known, mum was visiting last couple of weeks and I had taken on the responsibility of showing her what Australia really is.

So here's the tourist viewpoint.

Australia is the land of

Cowgirls

Boomerangs

Whiplash

Sheepdogs

Sheep shearing

and The Great Barrier Reef

I'm telling you, it feels really strange to be doing touristy stuff when you've lived in Australia for a long period of time, mainly because of the way the sites pander towards the Asian clientele. The most hilarious place I went to was the Paradise Country Farm on the Gold Coast(see videos above). I found it strange because I have actually seen a real working farm, and this was definitely not one. It purely caters for tour groups (apparently you can't just walk in and buy a ticket at the door, has to be through group tours) and demonstrations are translated live by a Korean, Japanese and Chinese hostesses (again the Asian slant). This farm does a really good job of portraying Australia in the same vein as movies like Crocodile Dundee and Kangaroo Jack, where koalas can be plucked from a tree for a photo, where every Australian knows how to hunt using a boomerang, and when there's nothing much to do, we shear sheep and make billy tea. I guess if I was a tourist, these things would be pretty intriguing to me to, but I sometimes wonder what goes on in the minds of the demonstrators at the funny farm, cos their acting skills are so well honed their enthusiasm is almost believable. They must love their jobs.....Well, as long as mum enjoyed herself, and i think she did.

And now we come to the part where I think mum enjoyed the most, FOOD! Honestly, that must be where I got my foodie gene from, as mum has always been a purveyor of fine food. Below are just a few of the food she sampled while she was here.

Baby custard cakes which are also available in Singapore I know, but not in such micro sizes.

This was the first meal Mum had when she got here. David and Lily brought us all down to the fish market where we had raw and cooked oysters, the freshest ocean trout and salmon sashimi and a giant seafood platter (consisting of succulent char grilled baby octopus, crispy beer battered fish fillets, crunchy breaded calamari rings, bouncy cooked prawns in seafood cocktail sauce sitting on top of a mountain of chips). And we devoured all these on a picnic rug under a sunny blue Sydney sky, and was Mum's introduction to Aussie style alfresco dining!

We had to have a obligatory Chinese meal, which is somewhat different from the Zi Char style in Singapore. The Chinese food in Sydney is more skewed towards Hong Kong cooking, attributed to the number of Hong Kong immigrants here. The unidentified gold brown stuff on the right is actually deep fried salt and pepper calamari, a signature dish of the restaurant we went to. Alas, it was a bit disappointing that night we had it as it was a tad overdone and ended up quite rubbery.
This is steak tartare, Japanese style. Basically raw beef infused with mirin and superior shoyu. You break up the egg yolk and mix it in with the beef, which coats it and gives it a silky mouth feel. The spring onions and seaweed counterbalances the sweetness imparted by the mirin. Mum liked this very much.
This is Bahn Xeo, a wafer like Vietnamese pancake made with a batter containing rice flour and coconut milk. Enclosed within the pancake are copious amounts of beansprouts, mung bean, prawns, paper thin slices of pork belly and an assortment of fresh herbs. Its then wrapped with lettuce leaves and dipped into a sweet, sour and salty sauce which perfectly complements the rich nutty flavour of the crispy pancake.
And here's mum enjoying her dim sum (otherwise known as yum cha in Sydney, which is grammatically wrong as yum cha is a verb where dim sum is the noun, therefore you eat dim sum, not eat yum cha, as the direct translation of that means "eat drink tea", which doesn't make sense, but I am sensing you don't really give a fuck so I will stop here now). While dim sum is more expensive here in Sydney, I proclaim the quality and variety here to be 650 times better than that in Singapore. And I have my mum and her friend to back me up on that.

Now these pictures are meant to prove that my mum was actually here...It was a good trip, I learnt some things that I don't even know, even after being here for 8 years. Best of all was that Mum enjoyed herself tremendously and went home with truckloads of chocolates and nougat....another successful Aussie export.

Now for the real Australia....

100s of thousands of Australian families took to the streets to protest about the government's industrial relations reforms as it meant workers were no longer as protected from unfair dismissals or had as many benefits as they use to. I will not comment on this as I have not studied it enough to make an informed comment.

6 gunshots were fired into a club in a drive by shooting right on our street less than 2 months ago. Fortunately no one was killed, 3 people were injured. I would love to say that the community and law enforcement agencies were shaken up and took pro-active measures to prevent it from happening again. Sadly, it was business as usual for the club the following night.

Now thats Australia for ya, behind the happy kangaroos, merino wool products, beautiful blue skies and the friendly people saying "G'day" to you.

Very very relaxed....very very lazy....

Yawnnn....aahhh....12 days of holidays with mum flew by in a flash. Being on holidays, my metabolic rate has slowed down, rate of energy generation has decreased, fat to energy conversation is inefficient, resulting in inability to concentrate, sluggish movements, constant anxiety, depleted oxygen supplies, deflated ego leading to ......

INACTIVE BLOGGING BRAIN CELLS.

I should bounce back before the end of the week.