Well... I finally touched down safely in Perth on Sunday 27th August. The flight was pretty good. Uneventful (which is good). They showed a movie, R.V. Runaway Vacation during the first half of the 4-hour flight. I watched it while eating my lunch of pasta and meatballs. I had a window seat, so after dozing on and off for a while and looked out at the wide expanse of clouds and a blue horizon. It was such such such a beautiful day. I spent at least good hour staring out the window, soaking in the beautiful coastlines and farmland stretched out before me... and pondering on what was awaiting me in Perth. After the plane touched down, i switched on my mobile.... beep beep... there was a message waiting for me. It was from hubby... "I lost my wife and am locked out of the flat "... what could that possibly mean??? After unloading 5 boxes and 2 suitcases from the baggage carousel, I called hubby to investigate this mysterious message... Horror of horrors! The key to our apartmen...

Today was such a beautiful sunny day. We decided to walk around and enjoy the sunshine and to reminisce at one of my favourite places at Sydney: Darling Harbour Hubby sitting back and getting comfortable for a short siesta in the sunshine Me getting bored... hubby trying to think of ways to entertain me Chasing the rabbit Thumb wrestling Dunno what we trying to do here Sigh... I will miss you hubby

The daffodils are out! Spring is nigh! Yippee Hooray!

Today is the eve of my departure from Sydney to Perth. We spent the morning at Zilver for yum cha (dim sum) with friends KK&K. I think this place serves the best dim sum in Sydney I highly recommend their siu-mai, honey pork ribs, yau-char-kuai, green tea bun and especially their mango pancakes which taste just heavenly... mmmmmm... just thinking about it makes me swoon... Hubby likes their pei-tan-juk too! These are friends, KK&K, who invited us out for a final yum cha session together... The har-gao is not bad too! We ended up eating too much (which is quite usual when eating dim sum) but feeling very happy and satisfied. I look forward to another yum cha session at this place the next time we're in Sydney...

We are making some progress Luggage all packed and boxes all sealed Friends coming to pick us up tomorrow at 8am

Look at that... so huge!!! Cost around AUD8.00 Definitely enough for two of me But the ideal portion size for hubby

Went shopping at Myer on Tuesday to get some gifts for various friends... including some for our connect group... I had a lovely time on Tuesday night wrapping up the pressies. I'd forgotten how nice it felt to do a little craftwork... lovingly crafting each piece to make it looks as pretty as possible. Hubby thought it seemed quite pointless to put this much effort on something that will be just torn up and discarded... but he diligently sat beside me and helped wrap some presents as well, so I can't complain. Gooood hubby... pat pat pat..... hehehehe See the little flower I made at the corner of one of the boxes? Cute eh? I comfort myself by imagining the recipients looking admiringly at the wrapping before painstakingly peeling it off carefully without tearing it.

Our place looks like it's been struck by a tsunami... Thought you could use some visual aid to help you picture our current state It's very frazzling.

I didn't think that I would have anything to write about cooking nowadays because I didn't expect to attempt any interesting culinary experiments since I am basically bereft of all the seemingly basic kitchen equipment (I don't even have a microwave, fridge or even a kettle now!) But then I had to crack my head to think of ways to finish the food in our larder (besides instant noodles). I boiled the rest of the eggs (10 of them) and kept them aside for hubby and I to eat for breakfast over the next few days. Next I made a simple rock sugar syrup to go with the can of grass jelly... yummy indeed! And then I pondered over the spaghetti and can of tomatoes. Then I had a sudden inspiration ala Surprise Chef . Earlier, I also had gone out to get a small slice of fetta cheese. All I had left was a teeny tiny saucepan, a mini food processor and two teaspoons... I made a desperate attempt to create a culinary masterpiece... I blended the tomatoes with some garlic, a dash of red wi...

Weeeeell... last night the last of our "BIG" items was sold off... i.e. the sideboard, the vacuum cleaner and the microwave.... YEAAAAH!!! Quite a relief... the fellow didn't even bargain and paid everything according to what I advertised it for. So here we are... vaccum cleaner-less... and microwave-less... how will we survive???? somehow we will.... we are SURVIVORS! But oh my... packing is hard! Why does it always seem that we don't have that much stuff but when we actually start packing you then realise how much stuff you REALLY have... So far I have packed 5 boxes and 2 suitcases of STUFF. I am targetting to limit everything to a limit of not more than 6-7 boxes, 2 suitcases and 1 big duffle bag. WHY ON EARTH DO WE NEED SO MUCH STUFF??? Oh yes... I just bought my plane ticket today. Initially I wanted to leave on August 24th, a Thursday. But today when I went online to the QANTAS website, I saw that they were having some promotional sale for Sydney-Perth flights ...

Lately, I've come across many engagement/wedding announcements from my peers from secondary school... It almost feels surreal... I look at the faces of these crazy girls I used to see every day at school years ago ( only just a few years ago it seems ). Many of them have been living the ideal Sex and the City girls' life. Partying... Trying out different men as they would try out shoes... Working in high-flying careers... Or ekking out a living doing their dream job... And basically just having a good time... And one by one... they meet The One . And then it seems almost instantly... we hear wind of another engagement... another wedding... another one of us has gone off to tie the nuptial knot. Then come the photos on Friendster or on their blogs/websites... (I love looking at people's wedding photos... it always gives me a warm mushy feeling inside to see the ear-to-ear smiles on the couple's faces )... Another happily every after is over and done. I know it's no...

Soooo... for the past week, we've started the arduous process of packing and selling of our things. Try imagining the place looking both messy and bare at the same time. Let me just paint you a somewhat unstructured picture of what's been happening lately... Our apartment is looking like the early days when we just moved in with hardly anything. Early last week, we started putting up ads to sell of our furniture and appliances. I advertised it as "MOVING SALE - NEED TO SELL OF EVERYTHING!" We started receiving numerous enquiries almost immediately. Seems like there's also a lot of people moving to Sydney from somewhere else. Saturday was the busiest day. We had one couple who just migrated to Sydney from Beijing who pretty much wanted to buy everything. They arrived with nothing and were moving into their apartment that day itself and wanted to cart of everything on the spot (they had hired a truck and movers ready to transport the things). They basically cleaned ...

Food is very important to me. And the art of preparing it is becoming increasingly more important too. This blog is peppered with recipes and stories of my attempts at being a culinary genius. Recently, I recalled one time my mother showing me a little file or exercise book with some note scribblings and magazine/newspaper recipe cutouts, and telling me that these were my recipes. I remembered feeling quite touched that she had collected this recipes for me. But at the same time I felt somewhat unworthy then because I had not been cooking at all when I was still living in Singapore then (instant noodles do not count). But now in Australia, the kitchen has become a very important place to me..... I stand there every day to prepare basic daily meals, recalling all the little basic cooking skills my mother ground into me. Not that I had any difficulty in remembering them, but I just felt nostalgic on the mother and daughter bond formed in this ritual of passing on these knowledge and ski...

My Significant Other has a particular quirky habit. He's really into games and puzzles. I'm not blogging about this to box him up or label him in anyway (hubby abhors such things which may lead to stereotyping). I'm simply trying to put down my thoughts, get things in perspective and possibly try to understand him better... or maybe I'm just rambling. Sometimes after ending a long business meeting with some issues yet to be resolved, he'd open a mini puzzle game on his computer screen to do some electronic battling...... finally drawing a sigh of contentment after he has beaten his electronic opponent... (as if a way of disentangling the unresolved issues off his mind). Also, sometimes before starting work on some database systems project, he'll open a little computer sudoku puzzle and proceed to work through it...... and after finally solving it, he'd straighten up and get down to business... (maybe some kind of warm-up exercise to get the brain juices flow...

I just got a call from the manager in Perth, aaaaaaaaand...... the results of my 3-hour test have come back! The first thing the manager said was "my gosh, you're a nutcase!", to which I replied "I see, and you guys like nutcases I suppose". "Yes, we do actually" said he... *chuckles* So what do the results say about me... Well in terms of my Verbal Reasoning, I'm in the top 11th percentile And in terms of my Abstract Reasoning, I'm in the top 6th percentile Remember the 318 questions? These were suppose to profile my Temperament; So here's what the test said... I am very flexible but at the same time have a keen eye for detail I have a very structured and sequential approach in tackling tasks I plan out my activities and follow through I tend to be very analytical, objective and logical I am a dedicated and committed person I am a quiet achiever "who will get the job done without too much fuss" On the flipside... I have a tenden...