Ph(f)oto Friday: Puppy

Don't play play - I'm a tiramisu cake!

Some sort of sequel to my colleagues, D & T's story. It was D's birthday a couple of days back and T wanted to do something funny. As D is cranky and grumpy most of the time, T thought it would be funny to gift him a cute puppy cake - it's funny in terms of how the situation was. Cute dog vs grumpy D. :P

We got this 3D cake from Breadtop, an Asian franchise bakery in Australia. It comes with 3 different flavours - mixed fruit, chocolate and tiramisu. We were not quite sure which cake D likes, and the option was between chocolate and tiramisu. We ended up getting the tiramisu one, after all, we know he likes chocolate, coffee and booze! As T said, since we had the say of how the cake looks like, we will get one that he will like. ^^


Side note: Hols finally coming up!

Merry Christmas :)

Merry Christmas and enjoy a cupcake, or two :)


Side note: And a very happy new year!

Ph(f)oto Friday: Best view

This is got to the best view... 

 



... from a cross trainer (I have seen by far.)

Side note: Ha! Little pig in Greek is called γουρούνι, read as gouroúni ^^

Weekend trip to Shire of Hepburn

Shire of Hepburn is a local government area as part of Western Victoria. It includes the towns of Clunes, Crewsick, Daylesford, Hepburn Springs and Trentham.

Yup, in the ABCD order

As part of our weekend trip, we visited a couple of places in Daylesford, Hepburn Springs and a bit of Trentham. It is probably one of the nearer drive from Melbourne CBD, taking only about 1 hour and 30 minutes, making this an easy getaway without taking extra annual leave, if you are in the annual-leave-saving-mode.

It was a success, many thanks to Little P who drove and make it happened. I am still not qualified to drive, as Malaysian driving license if not one of the recognised license allowable for conversion. Yup - will need to do all that tests from scratch.

The very summarised version of our trip would be - some bits of nature, a little of relaxing and plenty of eating.

Side note: I am in need of a break...

17th Japanese Film Festival



Promotion leaflet doubled as origami paper

Umm.. ya - I'm the failed blogger (again!) as the festival has ended as of Dec 8th, Melbourne being the last stop. It had made a tour around the country, started since September. I found out about this annual event back in 2011, and the movie I watched was Oblivion Island: Haruka and the Magic Mirror and Tokyo Marble Chocolate. I went as a audience by myself.

 

Thereafter I found out about volunteering for the film festival and roped in my partner-in-crime to volunteer in the 2012 festival. We did both pre-festival and festival sessions. Pre-festival sessions are basically promotion sessions, we went in to cafes and shops, and asked if we could leave some leaflet (booklets in the past years) in their shops as promotion. Festival sessions are sessions during the festival itself, we gave out survey forms for completion and collect them back thereafter. This year, we also need to man the film festival booth. It was fun and easy volunteering session. ^^

We watched Thermae Romae and Bunny Drop. Initially we wanted to catch Rurouni Kenshin but it was sold out.

 

Up the flight of staircase to cinemas

Fast forward to this year - we volunteered again as we had fun last year.This year we were assigned to ACMI again. Historically, there are two venues in Melbourne - ACMI and Hoyts Melbourne Central. Somehow both times, we were assigned to ACMI.

 

A table was set up across from the staircase, for promotion of movies :)



We were seated here on parts of our duty session

This year's movie list

 Our pick this year... Midsummer Equation, movie version of Galileo ^^

 

Oh look! Masaharu Fukuyama

 

 

Side note:

 



Ph(f)oto Friday: Shiroi Koibito

Hey! Look what I found? Surprise! Shiroi Koibito in the heart of Melbourne City. I didn't get any, but got this instead. ^^

Side note: Year is coming to an end...

Melbourne Night Noodle Markets 2013

This was part of noodle market, not some lantern festivals

I am not too sure why it is call noodle markets in the first place as there were other food on sale, not just noodles. In short, the market basically is just a place where some restaurants bring their food and sell/showcase outside of their usual operating eateries.

I have been to the market once in Sydney, but I heard it was the first time it was held in Melbourne, from 18th November for two weeks. Little P and I checked the market out on a Friday, the 22nd of November. Umm.. so yes - I am a failed blogger again, as the event has been completed.

We, however, had some good food though ^^

So were a lot of people too...

For entree - we had this from Chin Chin



Pork sliders with sriracha and burnt chili mayo

First course, from Longrain

Grilled chicken, rice noodles, coriander, yellow bean

Little P said the sauce reminded her of superior chu cheong fan from her hometown in Ipoh.

Second course, from Mamak. Mind you, this 6 skewers did not come cheap at all. I am sure my mother will choke on her saliva on hearing that these tiny bits of meat easily comes up to RM 27.

Satay chicken

Third course - grilled octopus from Grilled Calamari. Somehow I can't find any photo on this dish, must've been too busy gobbling up one of Davy Jone's long lost relatives. :P

Looks like the glutton one was only me, I was saved by Little P - she took a snap!

Dessert - 2 scoops of ice cream from Serendipity Icecream. Our pick - Japanese Green Tea and Sticky Fig & Honeycomb. Both were really good, though if I need to pick on it, I hope the honeycomb to be in smaller piece, rather than the big chunk.

We were ready to call it a day, then we saw these on our way out... food trucks!

We settled for Ghost Kitchen (above).

Sweet potato fries

Salt and Pepper chicken

After a very full-filling dinner, we called it a day.. after taking a couple of more shots of the lanterns.

Side note: I learnt my first Russian word - поросенок (pronounced as porosenok), meaning little pig

Ph(f)oto Friday: Bumblebee

Little niece was digging through the box of Lego and said she was looking for bumblebee. After a while, she took this block out. So, does it look like a bumblebee? :)


Side note: I was such an idiot today, left my house key at office and had to go back to grab it.. bleh

Ph(f)oto Friday: Advent Calendar

I first learned about Advent calendar after I came in Australia. All I know was it is used to countdown to Christmas. Probably mostly for little kids, as the more common ones I see are those in the form of a large rectangular card with "windows" and each window contains chocolate or something.

I suspect there's something in my genes that I have an affinity to boxes. Despite my messy desks and all, but I like containers, boxes and all to store things. LOL.


Side note: Last Friday of November...

2013 Skechers Spring into Shape

Spring into Shape is a series of 3 runs, one each in September, October and November. We got the promotion email because we joined the expensive The Age Run. I happily moved the email to my trash bin but Little P's eyes shined at the sight of free running T if one signed up 2 out of the 3 runs.
I am now fully convinced that she practices some sort of powerful voodoo, cos I signed up for two 10km run at one go. *gulp*

We missed the Spring Race 1 in September but did Race 2 on 27th Oct and Race 3 today.
We were late for both runs, despite a lot of buffer time were planned. I hardly see any runner in front of me, and there was no one behind me either. It almost feel like I was doing some casual runs if not for the random event organisers.

Both runs were tackled with much cursing and swearing at myself for signing up. Even more so at today's, I think I started at just a mere 3 km and even contemplated to just do the 5km (1 round). LOL.

There's no finisher medal for this run but I think there were podium medals. For a signing up fee of $70 for 2 races, we received a free Skechers technical T-shirt (that's the word they use, I don't know what it's call technical T-shirt). Upon finishing, each get a bottle of water and some Emma & Tom's Juice (poured out into cups). There were booths for free massages and a booth giving out free muesli samples to promote those healthy eating.

Clearing of booths - we were fashionably late

Side note: Early night to roll on the bed... to curb the headache too

Ph(f)oto Friday: Brinjal Prawn

Mmm.. ya - Brinjal prawn is my translation. I have no idea what it the actual name.

Little P and I went to have yum cha brunch. We have a few default dishes that we usually take - egg tarts (how can one not like egg tart?), liu sha bao (ahh.. the yummy 'lava') and this brinjal prawn (in pretence that we also have vegetables in our diet). Somehow in our last yum cha session, this little morsel was nowhere to be seen. The wait staffs told us it would only be ready later, so we sat around enjoying the tea and chit chatting waiting for this dish.

Little P almost asked every wait staff who came to our table and I stopped a waiter who wanted to clear our table. :P


Side note: Melbourne Noodles Markets...

The Race That Stops a Nation

Pin and win!

When I was staying in Sydney, all I know about Melbourne Cup was it is a big race event, and work organise sweeps, nibbles and drinks were provided to watch this horse racing event that probably goes for just a couple of minutes, followed by chats and probably early day off work.

When was I going to move from Sydney to Melbourne, Melbourne Cup Day is the answer to Sydney's Bank Holiday to me. So I did not lose out on number of public holidays which is already low in days in Australia. (I know, I know, it's sad but.. got to rake it if I can)

Now that I am in Melbourne I realised there's more race days to just Melbourne Cup Day. Melbourne Cup Day is held on the first Tuesday of November, at 3pm. According to the official website, the Cup was first run on a Thursday in 1875 but changed to a Tuesday later on and has normally been run on the first Tuesday in November each year. (So there is no out of ordinary story there... and despite it would've been even more awesome if it's on a Monday, so it is a long weekend but a public holiday is better than none :P)

The race on Saturday before Melbourne Cup Day is called Victoria Derby Day, the Thursday after Melbourne Cup day is the Oaks Day and Saturday after is call Stakes Day. However only Melbourne Cup Day is the public holiday, and only around within metropolitan Melbourne and some parts other parts but not the whole Victoria. As for Bank Holiday above, it is only for those who works in banks and financial institutions.

So yes, if I am a full time blogger or being paid for this, I have failed miserably as the Cup day was held on 5th of November this year. Back to my story, one fine day Little P's company sent out an email on volunteering on race days as part of community service day. We decided to participate, both to do some community service and see what's this Melbourne Cup is about.

Pin & Win is the major annual fundraising activity conducted by the Victoria Racing Club as part of the Melbourne Cup Community Program. The volunteering work that we took part in was as a pin seller in Melbourne Cup Day in Flemington Racecourse. This year's official charity partner was SecondBite. In short, SecondBite is a charity organisation which identifies and collects surplus fresh food and distributes them to people in need.

Our shift starts at 8am in the morning and finishes at 2.30 pm. The good news was it was brilliant weather, the bad news was it was cooking hot by noon-ish despite low temperature in the morning and we were wearing a jumper on top on formal wear. On top on the jumper, we each sling a bag to keep extra pins for refill and water bottle, a small bag for our own things and an apron to keep money. Will all these 'top ups', it was a little tricky to take off the jumper in a sea of people.

We were in the middle of action at 2.30pm, with the horses getting to ready to start the race. Not by choice, but just that we were very close to the racing ground at that time.

Oh, and by the way if you have watched Pretty Woman before and remember parts of it, people do dress up for horse racing event. It is by no means cheap - women in their best dresses and fascinators while men in suits.

Oh and about that phrase, "The race that stops a nation?" It was promoted or marketed as that, which is true - a public holiday on some areas, at other areas or states, people do stop for a couple of minutes to watch the race.


Side note: Where has all the time gone?

Ph(f)oto Friday: Lozenge

I know it is might be a little strange to take a picture of a throat lozenge but the first time I was offered one, I was like, "Ooh, this lozenge is pretty!" LOL

So I decided to take a picture of it, and yes - still much to the amusement of my co-workers. After taking a couple of shots (got to get it right, right?) I turned and told my co-worker, "I'm not strange."
I could tell from his face that said, "Yeah, right." Guess it will take (a lot) of time to undo this.. :P


Side note: I'm back to chocolate and ice-cream season...

Ph(f)oto Friday: Part 2 - Payback

D has a lemon tree at home, and on off he would bring in one or two lemon to make lemon drink. So far I had drawn smiley face on his lemons and hid them, so D has a standing instruction that I am not allowed to disturb his lemons :P

He mocked my overnight oats, and as payback I've decided to draw a duckie on his lemon. :P
Why duckie? Ah - if you are familiar with this app call LINE, not too long ago, they launched a duckie sticker series - Sally. One of them is this sticker...

Sally (the duckie) is poking a caterpillar/wormie with a stick. Little P referred 'stirring' act is like Sally poking the wormie. Hence, I drew a duckie on his lemon :P


Side note: Where has the time gone!?

Dragon Boating in Docklands

Grab one and paddle away!

In her googling spree, Little P found out that we could try our hands at Dragon Boat Racing (or in our case, just Dragon Boat-ing, what race?) with Dragon Masters on their come-and-try-day to look for new paddlers.

We made our way to Docklands on a breezy cool-ish Saturday morning early last month for our first taste in dragon boat-ing. It started with safety briefing and theory on paddling techniques, then off we went on the practical side of things - on to the water!

I placed all my faith and trust on this boat - I can't swim...

As Dragon Masters Dragon Boat Club is loacted in Docklands, we had fun paddling in Docklands area. It wasn't bright and sunny that day but we were lucky enough that there was no rain.

It was fun and I really enjoyed the session, yes - despite I can't swim, gained a big bruise on my hand, near the thumb area due to my hand-eye coordination issue and sore shoulder muscle (a day after). We finished up with a morning tea, to replenish energy used! ^^

Side note: Headless pimple :(