Bizarre Canberra Trip

I went to Canberra to have my passport renewed on Thursday. Cause I rejoiced over my tickets to Japan only to find out that my passport was gonna expire in 5 months' time.

What I expected to be a boring long day trip to Canberra turned out to be a strangely whimsical ride.

Train to Southern Cross Station. Last thing I saw was Hughesdale Station and the next blink it was Southern Cross Station.

Skybus to the airport. Again, I was nodding to sleep, memory of the ride similar to the flickers of old films played.

Airplane to Canberra. My body defied all the usual spoilt demands for food, water or entertainment opting to sleep all the way. The flight was a bit turbulent. At one point, it seemed like the whole airplane was engulfed into a grey blob of angry clouds. But I was too tired to panic.

Taxi to the High Commission of Malaysia. It was freaking expensive for a 15 minute ride. Went into the office in a daze. The office was filled with Malaysian chatter. Nasi lemak, lah's, mah's, walau's, uncles in golf pants. It felt in a way familiar. Submitted my application. Took a set of passport pictures with me looking like a candidate in amaid agency. Was told to pick up at 3pm.

It was only 10.40 am. 4 hours of boredom and possible death from boredom?

Is there anything else interesting around this place, I asked. No, they replied.
Are there any places to eat around here, I asked. No, they replied.
How is the weather like out there, I asked. Rain, they replied.

Do you want to go to the city for lunch with me,a lady asked. Yes please yes, I replied.

BMW ride. Yes, in a turn of luck, I got to ride around town in a BMW 530i. Catching not only lunch, but coffee and great company. Befriended some Malaysian Melburnians and back to the office to collect our passports. All of us looked ugly in the shots, apparently although no one was willing to share.

Walked around the city looking for a cab while talking about property investment, family and career. Everyone is having a 2009 filled with change and surprises, it seemed.

Taxi to Canberra airport. Flight at 7.20 pm but it was only 4 pm and no I was not allowed to catch the earlier flight. Why oh why did I purchase the cheap tickets which did not allow me that flexibility? *Pretty obvious why huh?*

Read in the book shop, sudoku-ed, read some magazines, listened to my MP3 player. Finally it was time for boarding.

Airplane back to Melbourne. Another lapse of sleep. Not much memory here.

Skybus back to Southern Cross Station. Woke up in time to hear the driver saying . . "This used to be called Spencer Street Station. . " before sleeping off again.

Train back to Huntingdale Station with WenJi. Talked about life, girls, family until we were forced to come down at Caulfield Station to take some service bus back to Oakleigh Station. The horde of people from the train into one tiny bus?

Bus 900 back to Huntingdale. Took almost 30 minutes plus almost missing out stop thinking someone else must have rang the bell.

Back home and showered.

Woke up with a ringing headache the next day and fever in the afternoon. What an adventure. I feel like Alice, in the Wonderland. Oh make it Alice in Resident Evil. Umm mm.

Last Day On Earth

There is this song I have not gotten sick of despite the highly repetitive fashion it is played on the radio.



I like how her voice sounds so fragile but feels so powerful at the same time.

Exactly the type of voice I wish to have:-(

One in Canberra

I am going to Canberra tomorrow. Alone.

Any fun activities for one in Canberra?

Sandakan, today?

The air here is so cold. The heater is on and Shiro is licking my heels.

This makes me miss dear old Sandakan.

Rainy days in Sandakan were always a hassle. With no shopping malls around (at least during my time), one can hardly walk around town. But it is the only time I could wear my jumpers with hoodies and act like it is winter. Or maybe Mount Kinabalu to be more 'realistic'.

On rainy days, my favourite places to go were bakery-restaurants like what used to be called Thiam Kee and Cool Bubble Tea for their Polo Bun.

The topic of eating brings me to the fishing villages. The Tai Fen soup with seafood for breakfast, fresh seafood sale in the evening and the less than AUD100 seafood banquet for 10 people for dinner.

How I miss the taste of crabmeat. And the sight of floating artificial 'jellyfish' (plastic bags) in the shallow waters. Oh and commenting about the smell of salted fish.

Highly similar to the houses in District 9, except that not Prawns but Salted Fish stay there. And they are mighty friendly and pleasant to your senses (sight, smell, taste).

Ultimately Sandakan is all about family. The old family house withstanding countless powercuts, watercuts, fighting dogs and family feuds.

For the first half of my life I lived with my paternal grandparents, aunties and uncles. A big family, indeed and without Astro at that time, lots of time bonding over rental dramas, chinese dessert and playing cards.

Then there is the picture of Grandma cooking in the kitchen - something I used to see everytime I reach home - a picture of assurance and home.

I used to always poke near to her and ask, "What are you cooking for tonight, Popo?"

Instead now I ask over the phone, "Are you cooking shark's fin soup for everyone tonight?" To which she will reply, "Not until you come back. I won't cook for the rest of them!"

This is the water tank. Sturdy fella.

The superbness of meals prepared by my Grandma. Always a bowl of soup for everyone. Mine without spring onions :-)

Like the little gestures from my Grandma (leaving out spring onions in my bowl of soup), it is the little things about Sandakan which make me miss the place.

One of my friends used to say that looking up to the ceiling of Sandakan Airport makes her feel dizzy. True, I used to think it was the most amazing construction every - the high ceilings, the colourful glass ensemble, the . . well basically that's it.

But as I grew older, the airport became a bittersweet place. Bitter for all those times I departed only to wonder when I would get to return, sweet for all those times familiar faces appeared after such a long time apart.

My friends, when will we be meeting again in Sandakan?

A Korean-vampire birthday and a blinking cool dog

My Mum would probably kill me if I edit her pictures with the Halloween function on Picnik giving her pearly white skin with glaring red eyes.

But there are tons of Twilight fans out there and among these Twi-Hards, one's whose birthday was yesterday. Yay, to vampirifying the birthday pictures!

For her birthday dinner, Yiki called everyone to a Korean BBQ restaurant called Hwaro in the city. It was a really nice place and the food was good. I guess this was clearly obvious as there was always a crowd waiting outside the place for the whole 2 hours I was there.

Hungry on the way to Yiki's birthday dinner hence the extremely pale skin and angry-red eyes.

While looking on as temptation cooked in front of us. See how Wenji and Olivia appear washed-out white after editing? I wonder why my skin colour failed to achieve such an effect even after editing :-(

See what I mean? And my eyes just wouldn't turn 'red'. Sigh. I just want to be cool as a vampire for once. Sigh.

I loved the marinade and how the meat were all cooked to perfection here. Perfection, in my definition being slight burnt-crisp at the edges while the middle-inner part remains chewy.

I love Korean BBQ except for a few consequences of it: 1) The intense BBQ smell it soaks into your hair and clothes, 2) The oily face and 3) The pimple and 12 of its friends newly occupying your face. Other than that, meat, BBQ and more meat? Anytime, man.

Oh and I loved the rice wine with lemon. First time trying it there, first love on the spot.

During the dinner, we had several girly topics.

1) Body hair. A survey involving 7 people on our table found out that females in the modern times of today really do seem to have more body hair then males.

2) Losing weight for summer. The top urban legends of dieting we have heard: a) add oat into every meal, b) drinking isotonic sodas like 100-Plus, c) vegetable soup for dinner and d) grapefruit/lemon juice in the morning. All of them sounds a bit extreme to me and a bit ironic to all of us who were chowing down BBQ-ed pork belly and beef slices.

The management of Hwaro was kind enough to offer our Miss Yiki a surprise. While we just requested for them to bring out the cake, they switched off the lights and came out with a brightly lit cake elliciting the whole crowd in the restaurant to sing a very loud birthday song. So coooool!

And all my pictures from the night look like crap as I messed up with the size of the pictures grr.

Hence ended a very tasty night mm-mm. I can't wait for the next birthday celebration.

Why am I sounding like a glutton?

Well, with birthday celebrations, it becomes the rare excuse to splurge on food and drinks.

Why am I sounding like a cheap-o or so thrifty?

Well, with my Japan trip coming, I guess no further explanations is needed.

One of the reasonsmy skin was appearing vampir-white in the first picture is due my lunch for the past few days.

Delicious until. . . .

Anyway, let me end this post with a vampire-white dog. A cute cute one.

Shiro shrinks!

The core of every human is 'evil'. Why?

Almost 70% of my friends said Shiro was uber-cute the first time they saw him. And it was always followed up by, "I wonder what it will look like when it is wet!"

Does seeing fluffy-cute Shiro shrink into a skinny hot-dog make you that happy????

Well then your wish is granted!

We gave Shiro his first shower last Sunday.

It started out with some wholesome love (petting and brushing) and games (tickling).

Then Shiro was introduced to more games, Water Games. It eagerly followed Ray into the laundry room where the sink became his private bathtub.

One last look of 'Uh-oh I'm in trouble'.

One very last look of 'Save me'.

Now are you ready to see the REAL Shiro????

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Ta-da! Wishes granted?

Evilness.

Luckily Shiro has angels as owners *ahem* (Although I did say, "Dai sei. Not cute anymore, don't want you anymore."), so we started drying him up asap. . . .

. . . and laughed at his 'wet' look a bit.

This was lovingly brought to you by, Shiro.

Well to tell you the truth, we took a video. Erm, actually WenJi took a video of me and Ray drying Shiro with a hair dryer. But it is a super-fail video. Instead of a Shiro video, it became a Loretta-Ray-WenJi's-reflection-on-the-mirror video. And it was taken upside-down.

Bah!

The BIG BANG Theory

Some clips from my current favourite show hee haha.

A long train ride

"Love is in the air" , the song makes it feel like this phrase is for when you are utterly in love.

I think you feel "love is in the air" most when you are loveless.

I was in the middle of a phone call with long silences implying a tiring battle of words and emotions when I saw an old couple gossipping about a gothic girl by the road all the while chucklig. Then there was this power couple, the lady going on and on about her work while her man just smiled and rolled his eyes. A tourist couple from China nearby were joking around with a Melbourne map.

Then there was this teenaged couple in tight embrace, laughing away at probably something pointless but their eye contact never wavered.

This reminded me of teenaged romance - the days when we have no care of the world and just loved the way we want to.

To jump into his arms.
To stay outside in the cold just to be with each other.
To call just to say 'I Love You'.
To sneak out for a late night stroll.
To talk about dreams and hopes for the future.
To go for long walks without an aim into the evening.
To take pictures of each other or together with every little thing.
To grin from ear to ear, genuinely, cheesily.

Whatever happened to the glory of love?
Or the passion in life?

While still on the call, I looked at the big clock of Flinders Station, its arms slowly ticking away reminding me that time is passing me by so do not let the world pass you by.

There is so much that I want to chase back right now. The time passed, the memories faded, the what-if's regretted.

Maybe it is not be too bad to cut off a part of my life now.

Whenever I cut something out of my life, be it an important object, an incident, a friend, a family or a lover, it is not really sadness or excruciating pain that I feel.

I feel light. Not the relieved-light, but emptiness-light.
It is not that I don't feel pain, but not the piercing-pain but the numbness-pain.

At least for a while, it feels like I am an observer of the world instead of an occupant.

Like, my heart doesn't skip a beat for the girl sprinting across the highway, instead my eyes just follow her. The green grass of spring catches me eye eventhough I have passed by them countless times before that. The journey seems faster even without an mp3 player.

It feels like a long long journey on a train alone. The sceneries passing you by is like 'the world and time passing you by'. You are just there on the train, inside your own little world.

This feels like a very long train ride for me.

Maps and Hotels

I have been looking at maps for the whole day and keying stuff into an Excel file.
Ray has been looking at hotels for the whole day and keying stuff into another Excel file.

The maps are multicoloured with the many colourful different train and subway lines.
The hotel sites are multicoloured with the many colourful hot deals tags.

The English on the map is borderline confusing.
The English on the hotel sites is borderline understandable.

Yes, we are going to Japan!!

Such a boring dude.

I am a boooooring person.

When I was young, Mum told me I would be reading/drawing my afternoon away silently at the corner of the living room when normal 3 year olds should be running/screaming their afternoons away.

During high school, I would rather pack my own lunch than to walk to the school canteen. And when I did, I arrived to overhear by accident, a girl who had just been transferred to sit beside me say, "Wah, I have to sit next to Loretta. It is gonna be dead boring."

And I was so boring that it did not hurt/annoy me. Meh, I thought.

As such, while my friends were super popular in high school, I evolved into a hermit (lack of hotness was another reason I guess).

In fact, I am still pretty much a boring person right now.

I love going shopping on my own - looking for bargains and trying new mall food.

I love small gatherings for intimate events like the Mooncake Festival mini-celebration last night. Normally, I prefer staying in with my big big family than to go out for a wild night or parrrtaaaaay. Yeah yeah, call me a bore.

Yiki and Daniel invited a few others to their home and cooked a meal of bah kut teh for everyone. What excited me most were the cincau drink and mooncakes.

During my last two uni years in KL, I developed a hobby of trying out innovative mooncakes with Dad - cheese and bacon, Haagen Dazs ice-cream mooncakes, five nuts. Mmm-mmm. This year, we bought some Hong Kong brand and it was so unique. Why? It was like a whole block of lotus paste with no mooncake skin (don't know what they call that) at all. Weird.

Is it boring to find this fact amusing and astonishing??

An extension to being boring, I am easily bored. Like the other day when Ray was fixing my beloved laptop at my place, I fell asleep in the living room as there was no one to talk to. Shiro doesn't talk. And I was tired of saying 'No!!' to Shiro. Shiro does bite. Guess Shiro and I mutually 'bored' each other out, we both ended up asleep.

Then Ray took this picture of us sleeping together.

Being a boring person, I again found this very amusing and have been looking at it more than 100 times.

Which reminds me of this time when my Sister and I fought on my Grandma's bed. In the end, she kept apologising while I kept ignoring her in anger. The next thing we knew, we both woke up from our slumber with the time showing 30 minutes ahead and her hand still tugging theend of my skirt. What kind of boredom was that? Until we both slept in anger and regret, respectively?

I have been trying to sleep earlier lately given my early working time. Trying to. One night, I was lying in my bed at 9+ p.m. (no night-time social life) then I realised something. Everything Mum has been buying for me have been in pink. Erm, I was crazy over pink during my kawaii-phase which was like, say a lot of years ago?

The pink bed sheets and pyjama pants. Has there been no life-transforming, lightning-inducing events in my life from my kawaii-phase until now which could have let Mum know that I might have changed? And I still enjoy receiving pinkness from her because 1) they are free and 2) maybe deep inside I am still hoping for kawaii-ness. No change = boring?

To top it all, there are afternoons I spents:

1) Filming videos of Shiro sleeping.

2) Wondering what kind of dream Shiro had to have that kind of reaction.

So amusing.

Do you think I am a boring person too?

Sigh, you do?

So I just booked tickets to Tokyo over the last few days.

:-) weeee.