Hoya Heart

The only Hoya I have heard of is actually the Hoya lens. This is nothing near a lens, in fact it is a plant. Some sort of a cactus. Pardon my ignorance, but I am not someone with green fingers. Thus far, if any plants that survived under my care are purely due to the plants own "survival will."

Anyway, Little P gave me this little plant as a trial to see if I am fit to take care of herbs in future days.

From the instruction, it looks fairly easy to care for... but we shall see...

Rest assured, at this time, it is still intact and well :P



Side note: Found ham chim peng with red bean filling!

Pre New Year Dinner

Super duper home made yee sang

Ya ya.. I know one can make yee sang (鱼生) from scratch but reading the recipe and imagining all the shredding of veges.. I'm just not up to it.

It appears that yee sang (鱼生) is traditionally only eaten during new year in Malaysia and Singapore. After all the painstaking task of shredding vegetables thinly, it was mixed using chopsticks and saying auspicious sayings as one tosses it. The main item of yee sang is of course the sashimi. This serves as a great on tray, in fact it is a very refreshing Asian style salad.

Of course, pre new year dinner also has a lot of other dishes, each carries some auspicious names, along the lines of wealth, health, prosperity, etc.


My contribution is that measley little flourless orange cake. I last mentioned it was the hardest cake I ever made. I deem it hardest as thus far, it is the most time consuming cake I have ever made, considering it is not those last minute cake, due to time needed to boil oranges.

If we are lucky, there will be round two of yee sang this weekend ^ ^


Side note: Fingers crossed for visa!

Lunar New Year in Chinatown

I took this picture this year, don't know why it's not snake though

Chinese New Year or maybe, more correctly Lunar New Year or Spring Festival (probably more politically correct version to it I suppose) is not a public holidays in Australia, unfortunately. However, at least it was on the weekend. Thanks to Little P and family, this year is the most festival new year for me in Australia.

Anyway, here are some pictures of Chinatown in Melbourne on days closed to Lunar New Year. If you are wondering, yes, there isn't much sign of any festival at all...

Side note: Happy Lunar New Year... and yay for the weekend!

Bangkok, a few years ago

I was contemplating of moving some of my old old posts on travel to this blog, just to keep things under same "roof". Was rather disappointed to find that one of the old blog I used to post, very infrequently has been closed down. I didn't get any notification so was not able to retrieve the blog posts prior to it being closed.

Anyway, I happened to blog up a couple of posts on my past trip to Bangkok and even more rarely, managed to make get encourage my travel mate to contribute to couple of posts as well. The information on the travel obviously is dated as of now, considering the travel was back in February 2006, and fairly short, it is more than justified for another visit to the land of smiles again. ^ ^

For old times sake (LOL)...

Lumpini Park

Victory Monument

Grand Palace

Wat Arun

Vimanmek Mansion

Khao San Road

On the way to Chatuchak Market

Side note: Flourless orange cake is hard work!

Happy Australia Day

Ok, Australia Day is on 26th January. So, this post was actually delayed by a couple of days. You must be thinking what has it got to do with the photo above.

Aussies don't call McDonald's as McD, it is known as Macca's (read as: Mac-kers, Mac as in Big Mac) here in Down Under. McDonald's changed their signage in a few outlets a few days prior to 26th Jan leading up to celebrate Australia Day. This unique Macca's signage will remain till 4th February 2013.

Oh, the photo was shot at Swanston Street's Macca's outlet ^ ^


Side note: I had Macca's for lunch today too.. lol, what a coincidence.