Journey to Aussie Land.. - Fun in Gold Coast



Gold Coast - Quiet and breezy weather made our walk around the city comfortable
















Yummy-licious food we explored



Sea World - Gold Coast



Movie World... it was great fun to the max...

A Quiet & Relaxed New Year

Happy New Year 2012!!


New Year’s here…had a long New Year’s holiday. 1st of January, we stayed home, decided the night before that we shall stay home the whole day, didn’t want to go crowd up with people. So, we still need to eat and we went and get ingredients for the little home cooked feast on New Year’s Day Roasted chicken wings and tea were served for lunch, I had marinated it the day before, and the flavor was great. The ingredients to marinate was real simple, some cooking wine, sesame oil, ginger wine, oyster sauce, soy sauce, salt and pepper to taste. While roasting, basted some honey on it to make it a little sweet and golden brown. Had a compliment from J, he said the taste was just nice, not too salty not too sweet. The flesh was tender and juicy… Awww… thanks a million for that. *shy & blush*.


Lazed around for a few hours and it was time to prepare dinner. We had steak with coleslaw and tomatoes for dinner. Marinated the steak with BBQ sauce, Chivas, butter, salt and pepper, a little sugar and honey. The steak was cooked well-done, he doesn’t like medium well so I shall just follow suit. It took about 20 minutes to cook in the oven, 5 minutes before the steak was cooked; I popped in the tomatoes to bake it a little. It turned out quite well as to what I expected


So, there goes my New Year’s first home cooked meal.

Dinner at Home on Sunday

It was a sunday morning when we woke up and decided to stay home the whole day. With this,it was time to put my cooking skills to the test again. I was like a little mouse digging through my little fridge and found some ingredients which was sufficient to put up 2 meals,lunch and dinner. Lunch was simple, pan fry baby potaoes with cheese and a baked fish with lemon and seasoning. It took about 80 minutes to properly cook the fish, and when i checked it out, it turned out peefectly. The taste of it was nice, the lemon worked its way and covered the 'fishy' smell while the seasoning brought out the freshest taste of the fish with its juicy flesh flaking up easily with just a scrape of our forks. The pan fry potatoes were delicious, with the sprinkles of some chilli flakes, it sends a slight tingling of spiciness to our toungues. Prepared an asian dinner in 60 minutes. We had sweet and spicy crabs and stir fry okra in spicy prawn paste (a.k.a lady's finger to malaysians). The crabs was delicious. It's my first time cooking crabs and i can say i'm quite satisfied with the output. The taste was all just nice, sweet, salty, spicy all just right, nothing too much and nothing too little. We enjoyed our dinner, and we got our fingers dirty without others looking on. Normally if we have crabs in restaurants, we will try our best to use as few fingers as we poasibly can to peel and crack and eat our crabs while being polite and decent. So, at home, we just didnt need to bother about glares from the other table and feel shy or embarrassed. It was a day of home cooked food me and fed the man and happy to see his satisfied look and tummy.

Giveaway - BubCap Home Button Covers

While I was reading through imafulltimemummy's blog (http://www.imafulltimemummy.com/) I came across this great giveaway and it's opened to the whole world. Can you imagine it? opened to the world as long as you have an Internet access, and fortunate enough to stumble upon this blog of hers... Yes, advertisements are a great source... Anyway, back to my story. While reading through those posts of hers, my eyes spotted a great giveaway. Since she said it's opened to all, without thinking twice, I clicked away to add my entry into her database.

This is an interesting product, imagine myself touching on the only button on my iPhone extremely often, what if i have this protector to protect my phone and slows down the wear and tear process, i shall let my luck do the job. So, my fingers are crossed and just hope my luck is activated and i can lay my hands on this super-duper product...

So, that's all about it, BubCap is current having this great product to protect the HOME button on the iPhone, iPad, and iPod Touch...

Here's the link to the giveaway http://www.imafulltimemummy.com/post/2011/06/01/Giveaway-BubCap-Home-Button-Covers.aspx

Hurry and waste no more time...

Tony Roma’s @ The Curve

I was talking to my high school classmate the other day and one topic was about food. When it comes to food, I can go on and on without getting bored, and by then, my imaginations will go crazy, picturing sumptuous meals and a diversified option of food will be spinning in my mind.

I decided to go for dinner at Tony Roma’s as my taste buds were demanding for steaks and something from the Western menu. My man went with the flow and there we were, at Tony Roma’s having our dinner

First came the little loaf of bread with a small scoop of better and herbs, it was catching at first but I held my tongue for the entrée and main dish. We had a little chat and sipping a cold beer while waiting for our food.

Woo-hoo, entrée’s here, onion rings coiled up to 3 inches high with special barbecue sauce, chicken wings marinated in honey, and baked potatoes with bacon and herbs. The onion rings were perfect, but it had excess coz we couldn’t finish it, the chicken was great but a little bit too sweet and the potatoes were a little too dry… however, it was delicious enough that we directed them into our tummies.

Then, there came our mains, three pieces of filet medallions and a strip of ribs to complete the dish. The filets were cooked medium well which kept the texture and richness of the dish and the ribs were silky smooth. Perfect is the word.

To end my post as usual, here goes the pic

Sunday Brunch @ Dome, The Curve

It's was Sunday afternoon and we (a.k.a. my man and I) decided to go for a lunch date at a cafe and the first place that struck my mind was to Dome, The Curve.

The weather was really hot and humid during the day but despite the hot weather, we quickly prepared ourselves and within 20 minutes, we were on our way to our destination. We were seated comfortably at the corner of the cafe and ordered our food.

My man and I spent quality time together while enjoying our meals. The food that we ordered were great, the soup was really rich and creamy, the salad was up to taste and the pasta tasted just nice. However, the portion of the pasta was a little too small but anyway, the taste was great enough to savour.

Here you go, photos to tell it all with a glance...

Genji @ PJ Hilton

In January this year, I attended my company’s annual dinner and I was lucky enough to land my hands on some dining vouchers at PJ Hilton. After some casual research done with the help of the oh-so-informative internet, I finally decided to go for a Japanese buffet with my man at Genji Japanese Restaurant at the hotel.

We made earlier reservation and on a Sunday, we went over to start our relaxed and slow paced buffet lunch. The variety of food was ok but I didn’t really eat much coz I felt full that very day. The price for buffet lunch is at RM89++ and for buffet dinner, it’s at RM99++.

The buffet spread was 80% Japanese cuisine and the remaining was western. You name it; they most likely will have it. I had my fair share of sashimi and fresh oyster to start off. Followed by grilled unagi, tempura, sushi, baby octopus, tepenyaki, steamed egg, and last of all, ice cream for dessert.

The sashimi is fresh, but they sliced it a little weird, it’s a little small sized compared to the normal salmon shashimi which other places served. Overall, the sashimi is fine. The butterfish sashimi was also delicious, the plus point of Genji was, they had sweet teriyaki sauce available, so for those who don’t really like the normal shoyu salty sauce, you can opt for the sweet sauce instead.

The oysters were fresh, but I didn’t eat much of it. Lots of people lining up just to get themselves sufficient portions of fresh oysters, by the time its my turn to pick, it’s either all gone or only those thin and shrank sizes of oysters left.

The steamed egg (a.k.a. chawanmushi) was nothing great, it was too hard, most likely, they steamed it too long and made the whole thing hard. Of course, not rock hard, but to me, my perception and expectations of chawanmushi must be wobbly enough when scooped but, at Genji, it wasn’t wobbly, it was firm…

There were varieties of sushi and hand rolls, didn’t wanted to invest my stomach on those coz its rice, if I eat those, then I wont have enough space to try out other stuff. Sushi that day are fine, however, the salmon was very thinly sliced for the salmon sushi, so, rather go for sashimi instead.

Next was the tempura stop, they have a variety of vegetables and prawn tempura. It was a hit that day, the chefs cant even cook it on time, and everyone was already lining up to fill their plates with prawn tempura. I managed to get only 4, so my man and I each had 2. we didn’t want to join the crowd, so we just watched the people in line waiting anxiously for the tempura to be scooped out from the pan.

We tried out the tepenyaki, we were given an option to choose our ingredients to be tepenyaki-ed, so my man chose squid and beef. The squid turned out to me a little rubbery and the beef a bit too stiff. Lucky we didn’t pick much for the chef to fry and we managed to finish up our portion we ordered.

And finally, we ended our buffet with mocha ice cream, of course, there were other flavors but I only went for green tea ice cream. I had a satisfying amount of ice cream before we called for the bill.

Once again, pictures tell a thousand words… here you go…

A getaway to unwind

Last month, my man and I went for a short getaway down south on a weekend just to unwind after a whole year of work. Although we usually have periodic getaways but nothing beats a nice vacation before we usher in another year of work.

We packed our stuff the night before, had a good rest and drove down to JB. I’ve been to JB several times, nothing much to shop there, so, I wont have any excuse to go out shopping. We arrived in the afternoon, checked into our hotel straight away and our unwind moment kicked off. First, was a short nap, followed by a warm bubble-bath. After that, we went out for dinner at a local restaurant which serves crabs. It was marvelous maybe because I really loved crabs. I had sufficient servings of it and my stomach was finally filled with crab meat…

My cravings for crab = MISSION ACCOMPLISHED!!

Our night was spent at the bar at the hotel, we had our cup of drink while enjoying the music and songs sang. The night was getting late, my man and I had a stroll back to our room and we called it a night. The next day, we had our breakfast in the hotel. The first think I thought of having, was a cup of coffee and some cheese for breakfast. So, off we went to the café for our breakfast.

Coffee – Checked

Variety of cheese – Checked

Lunch was at a Japanese restaurant before we headed back to our little home in KL. As for now, a picture to summarize.

Happy New Year, 2011

Hey there,

I know its being late in wishing everyone a very happy new year, but there's a reason behind this late wish. Even before the new year kicked off, my work was pouring in like a burst pipe, flowing in like no one's business. However, I have to be happy with this sign coz some people just don't have a job (*ehem* I'm a full time mummy: am I right?)

Things at work are settling in, it will be a really busy year for me but I will somehow try to squeeze some time to blog on interesting stuff.

As for the new year, I was celebrating it with my man and his siblings. We went over to The Hill at Damansara Heights for a drink and some snacks and we managed to count down with the crowd at 12 midnight. It was quite a great sight to see so many people chatting happily and having the time of their lives till the clock striked 12.

Now, it is already middle of January, my calendar for this year will be with a few vacations spreaded throughout the year. Just hope everything's smooth sailing and no hiccups (e.g. unapproved leave) along the way...

Till my next post, have a blessed and great New Year...

Signing Off, ciaoz~

Merry Christmas 2010

Christmas is here again, and this year, it's on a Saturday... Although it’s a great day to celebrate but the not-so-happy thing is that, I have to spend Christmas at my workplace. This is nothing new to me since the day I joined my new company 2 years plus ago. My Christmas is not really joyful as I have to work. This year’s Christmas is also the same for me. While others are happily celebrating with their loved ones, family and friends, I had to celebrate it with my PC, my work, at my work desk in the office.

My man also had to accommodate to me and my job so, he too had to send me to and from work today. I just hope, next year’s Christmas I won’t be celebrating it at my workplace again.

Lord, please hear me out as I don’t wish to celebrate Christmas at my workplace anymore. Amen.

To those who are celebrating Christmas, have a blessed one, and those not celebrating, have a great weekend

As for me, got to get back to work again... sigh...

Cooking time again...

It’s cooking time again for me today since it’s a holiday for us. I had a request to cook something nice for them since my man’s siblings will go back to their own hostel tomorrow and will only come over to our place 2 weeks later. So, their request was for me to cook them chicken curry and Chinese bean curd seafood soup.

At 3pm, I was there in the kitchen preparing all the ingredients since it was quite a lot of preparation to be done just to cook something like this. Although it sounds easy to some of you, but for me, it’s a task that had my skills put to test. The whole preparation process took more than 3 hours coz I had to start from scratch e.g. peel, chop, and blend garlic, onions, ginger, etc…

At 7pm, it was dinner time, lucky thing my dishes came out well enough for them to go for second helpings and the look on their faces showed that it was a satisfying and hearty meal.

In the future, when I have funds for a small little oven, I’ll try my hands on some roasts stuff. I don’t have a sweet tooth so baking will be out of my list… maybe roasting a chicken or bake some potatoes, etc… got to start at the beginner’s level before I can be a pro like my mum…

A Saturday spent planting a Tree, Carey Island

It's the end of the weekend again. The 5 working days didn't move smoothly, there were so many walkthroughs and meetings to attend and suddenly, there were too many things to do with so little time given.

However, the weekend was better. My man went for tree planting at Carey Island in conjunction with Alfa Romeo's 100 year anniversary. We started off our journey at 7.30am and headed to Auto Connexion's sales office for the flag off at 9am. The whole journey was great coz there was a straight convoy of 78 cars with escorts all the way to the island. The weather was a little upset coz it was drizzling off and on throughout the activity. The whole event ended in the afternoon and by the time we reached home, we were dead tired.

Sunday was also another event related to cars. We went over to KLGCC for the Alfa Romeo’s car show. All owners of Alfas were given the privilege to see an almost full collection of Alfa Romeo antiques to modern makes of the cars. It’s an event worth going for car enthusiasts’ coz everyone was able to have a close up view on the cars.

And now, it’s 9.15pm. Time for me to take an early rest to charge up for the week ahead. Tuesday’s a holiday for us and I’ll hope I can spend time at home resting, but I can foresee I got to prepare meals since I have guests at home.

Till the next post soon… Good night…

Bavarian Bierhaus @ The Curve

On Monday 2 weeks ago, I took a day off work and spent my time with my man. It was also my birthday so he brought me out for a dinner. We were supposed to go down to KL for some Thai fusion food, but it was quite late after his car service, so I decided to drop by The Curve for a pork knuckle meal. It was at Bavarian Bierhaus and they serve pork knuckles, and sausages as their specialties.

My man and I ordered a meal which consists of a knuckle, a sausage, some preserved cabbaged and sautéed potatoes.  The knuckles was fried to perfection, keeping the outer layer, a.k.a the skin crunchy, and the flesh juicy. The sausage was of great taste too, it has a rubbery coat outside and succulent inside. The rubbery coat wasn’t bad so don’t imagine it will have a texture of a rubber band. We had our beers to go with the meal, my man had his usual Carlsberg while I had hoegarden.

It was a satisfying meal I could say and to top it off, I received my gift for this year, and it’s a little handbag to add to my collection.

I’ll load the photos later to sum it up…

A memorable Sunday lunch @ The Apartment, The Curve

Last week I met a primary schoolmate over the internet and we started chatting for a while before we decided to meet up one day to catch up real time. So, I instantly decided on a date which is 21^st November 2011 and she said OK, we’ll meet.

And now, it was a hot Sunday afternoon and we met at The Curve, Mutiara Damansara. I have not met her since we graduated from primary school in 1994, we were both just 12 years old and we parted to proceed with secondary school. We kept in touch through letters (yeah, you read it right… we wrote letters to each other the traditional way) but it died down few months later. Our letters became less and then vanished. So, that was where we stopped and didn’t keep in touch at all.

Before the meet up, I was thinking how awkward will it be when we really met face to face but I just stopped thinking too much and went on with the ‘date’. We found a quiet restaurant (The Apartment) and ordered our meals before starting off with all the updates and news that we’ve missed. Come to count the years, it’s been 15 years since we’ve last met and now, we are all adults and living our lives well.

We had a long chat bout our classmates and it was a great thing to know and start refreshing our minds with those people that we hang out with when we were kids. Spending 6 hours in class doing mischievous things together, making fun of each other, and playing together. Time past so fast that now everyone is in the working world and getting on with their lives as adults.

This is the start to our small little get-together and I know there’ll be more to come. As for now, I’ll be signing off… till the next post… Have a great week ahead.

Dinner @ Craft Brew

It was a special day for us on the 11^th of November. With this special day in mind, we thought of going out for a quiet dinner while spending some precious time together refreshing our memories on the event held last year.

We decided to go try out the food in Craft Brew at Mutiara Damansara. I read some reviews on the restaurant and got to know that they had Spirulina Beer as one of the drinks on their menu. After work that day, my man came over to pick me up and off we went for dinner there. We ordered their house specialty “Honey Mustard Roasted Back Ribs”. In addition to that, we also ordered pasta coz I was hungry like a bear. While going through their drinks on the menu, there were too many beers to choose from (btw, their beer is something really special). We couldn’t decide on what to choose so we finally went for the Red Dot sampler which has 4 different types to sample and taste. It includes 3 core and 1 seasonal beer.

It was overall a nice dinner spent together and I will definitely visit the restaurant again for a full pint of Spirulina beer…

2011 Starbucks Planner

Here I come! 2011 Starbucks planner… when it was the beginning of November this year, my mind was all about the planner which Starbucks had. Every year, Starbucks will come out with this planner for the following year which we can exchange it by collecting stamps (of course, we had to purchase our drinks there to collect a stamp). I managed to complete my mission last year and woohoo! A 2010 planner was in my hands.

This year, the design is not really appealing compared to other countries, but I am still standing strong to get one. So, with this target in mind, I will very often be having my breakfast with my man at Starbucks starting from now. I just cant wait to get my hands on one of the planner so, here goes, my coffee drinking spree.

I am all along not a coffee drinker, since young, I wasn’t trained to drink coffee, so I’ll just have to stick to my hot chocolate as usual while my man can have his coffee. 

Starbucks spree, here I come…

Wall Art

It’s a Sunday afternoon, I was talking to my man about redecorating our little home with something new and suddenly, wall decoration struck our minds. We’ve been staying in this little house for almost 3 years and we thought of getting something new to refresh our home.

So, off I went browsing the internet for some modern wall stickers and murals and only I noticed that there is so much to choose from. However, nothing really nice, simple, classy, and modern came my way so the only thing I got to do is to continue searching for it.

At the same time, we also thought of giving our hall a makeover, discussing on how to redesign our TV rack and cabinets. However, there’s still much to be discussed so just hope that there’ll be some progress. So, anyone with any ideas on some modern contemporary designs, do share with me so that I can have some ideas on how to go about refurbishing my little home.

Anyway, tomorrow’s the start of a working week so I have to call it a day earlier to have a good rest before I go back to my pile of work in the office.

Happy Deepavali

Yesterday was a public holiday (Festival of lights which is celebrated by Indians) and I was invited to my colleague’s house for a gathering session with delicious Indian home cooked food.

We had a whole variety of spicy food a.k.a. prawn sambal, chicken masala, mutton rendang which went really well with putu mayam , nasi birayani and tosai. These are all Indian delicacies which we are able to find everywhere however, there’s a little twist to it as it was prepared the home cooked way. Everyone enjoyed it and we were all sweating away because of the spiciness level that boosted our taste buds…

We spent almost 2 hours at my colleague’s place chit chatting while filling up our tummy with food on the table. It was a great lunch and we gobbled down everything that is edible served. Kids were having a great time playing while the mums gathered for catch ups on motherhood. Meanwhile, the men were also having their topics about automobiles and cameras. The weather was really hot but we had refreshing juice to quench our thirst and kept us cool under the heat.

Definitely will be looking forward to another Deepavali open house next year…

A sunday spent in my little kitchen

I was busy with trainings during the past few weeks and didn’t have time to update anything. Life was fast moving and I had so much to do at work till sometimes I think why I am doing this while others can just do something that they like and enjoy.

Anyway, life is all about problems which it’s our responsibility to search for the answers and solutions. So, for now, I will just be satisfied with what I have but however, trying to get my hobby into a small skill.

I was clearing my documents in my PC coz I need to send it for a reformat, so I can’t work on any photos till I get my PC reformatted. While getting it done, I am currently browsing through the net and reading up some books on photo compilation. Just hope this will increase my knowledge and skills and improve for the better.

It is a relaxed Sunday for me and I was busy preparing meals for my man and myself. I had this sudden rush to cook the whole day so I started off with getting the ingredients ready for our lunch. We had stir fried potatoes with abalone mushrooms with teriyaki sauce and stir fried broccoli with baby corn (a typical Chinese dish). When I dished out and when the foods were in our little belly only I realized that I didn’t take any pictures of my little success. As for dinner, I learned from a cooking program a recipe which needs a little extra time to prepare. I named this dish Steamed fried rice with fresh water prawns (coz this dish was to fry the rice, then steam it together with the prawns). Hmmm, the dish came out quite nicely and it was surprisingly delicious for a first timer to cook this dish.

I can’t say I’m good in cooking but I had a great mum which thought me how to cook and she even wrote a step-by-step guide just so that my dish won’t taste weird. Thanks mum…when I started working my mum kept asking me to learn to cook so that when I get married and have a husband, I can feed him full with home cooked food (Chinese always believe that, in order to make a man happy, we will have to fill his tummy with good food). However, I wasn’t bothered on learning to cook coz when I come home everyday, there will be dinner served on the table.

Now that I have a man in the house, it came in handy when I realized that I actually knew how to cook. I have the ability to figure out what ingredients to prepare for some basic food. So, I decided to go to my walking recipe library (a.k.a. my mum) for help. And yes, she thought me so much that my cooking skills drastically improved and now I can say I am able to cook some decent food to feed my man…

I will try to take some pictures of my little success next time… as for now, I need an early rest after a whole day in the kitchen.

A hobby of Photo compilation ...

I suddenly pondered about doing some online reviews and doing marketing on the internet instead of sitting in the office, tied down with the fixed hours unable to do things that I want at any given time of the day.

I just realized that there’s still so much things that can be done on the internet and I’m not saying about selling some clothing or some physical stuff online. I would like to use my own spare time to do something that I enjoy, and in this case, I like to compile few photos and put all of it into one picture. Although I know my designing is not up to even a beginner’s level compared to people who are into designing, but, for me, I just think that I will no matter how start from somewhere. I don’t have any super duper software to do the work for me, all I do is just plain ole’ compilation the way a greenhorn does it. No harm trying out something new and who knows maybe one day I’ll just succeed *dreaming on cloud 9*

Of course, with the more pictures I practice with, the more I’ll get the hang of doing it better and automatically, I’ll have more ideas on how to compile pictures better. As for a start, I’ve done the compilation with my own pictures during weekends. I just like doing this and I can easily spend long hours compiling it.

The pictures that I compile are for my own use of course, and to satisfy myself. Instead of seeing a plain picture one by one, why not just compile all of the pictures that I like and add some touches to it and make it a nice one. Maybe some people don’t like the way I do things, or the way I arrange it but it really depends on a person’s taste or preference.

As for now, I’m trying my best to experiment on this hobby that I like doing since long ago and maybe one day soon, I could provide this service to someone who appreciates it. Currently, this will be some photo compilation by a greenhorn, a.k.a Myself

Till then, have a great day