iamthewitch.com » Fun

Playing with the Snow at Mount Donna Buang

iamthewitch — Wed, 28 Jul 2010 02:12:38 +0000

One thing that Saucer was looking forward to in this Melbourne trip was to play with snow! Since we’re there during the winter months, there was snow on most mountains in Victoria, and we went to the one nearest to Melbourne. About an hour’s drive away from the suburbs of Croydon, we went to Mount Donna Buang, which is a snowfield in the Yarra Ranges National Park. The snow had just fallen about 2 days ago, so it was not exactly thick and fluffy, but good enough to play with.

Mount Donna Buang snowfield

But the good thing about going to a snowfield which is not as popular/commercialized as its counterpart Mount Buller, is that entrance is free! And there were not that many people considering the snow just started falling not too long ago, hence not very thick.

witch at Mt Donna Buang

The weather was obviously freezing cold! 1 degree Celcius! And I only wore a pair of jeans and suede shoes for the activity. Definitely not very cozy for my legs. *LOL*

Saucer was better clothed

Us at Mt Donna Buang

witch and Saucer having fun at the snow

Look at how foggy and cold the place was! Visibility was also poor but once we threw snow at each other and ran around, we sort of got used to the low temperature and it was fun!

Roads at Mount Donna Buang

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Sneak Peak on the Great Ocean Road

iamthewitch — Thu, 22 Jul 2010 09:30:48 +0000

Phew!! After hours and hours of driving in the daylight and in the dark, we finally settled down for the night at an inn along Great Ocean Road in Port Campbell. The drive was absolutely magnificent with views I couldn’t take my eyes off from. Yes, even when it was my turn to drive! It’s pretty distracting but I couldn’t help it.

Now, I have taken loads of pictures using my camera but to give you a sneak peek of how it looked like, here are some pictures taken with the iPhone. Sorry for poor resolution pictures!

Along the way, we stopped by plenty of places whenever we saw anything interesting. There was a stop which was at the lightstation and we drove right to the top, very near the lightstation. And it was amazing!

It’s called the Split Point lighthouse and views from there were simply breathtaking. I mean literally, lol! The wind up there was so strong it took our breath away!

Ok that’s all for now! I’ll write more about this when I get back, and certainly with better pictures! Til then, wish me luck for the second stretch of my Great Ocean road trip!

A Day with Kangaroos at Healesville Sanctuary

iamthewitch — Mon, 19 Jul 2010 01:37:37 +0000

Hello people, I’m still in Australia! We are currently staying with our host Kendal, who’s been so very kind in bringing us around during the weekend. He brought us to Healesville Sanctuary, one of the zoos in Victoria, just about half an hour away. We were heading towards the mountains and it was so cold outside! First thing to do, get tickets!

Entrance to Healesville Sanctuary

Tickets are sold at AUS$24.80 each for adults. The whole zoo was not very big, we managed to finish it in less than 3 hours. I’ll just be showing you pictures of animals we saw that day, of course, the main attraction being the kangaroos and koalas.

Emu

Don’t remember this bird’s name

An over 70 years old Eucalyptus tree – plenty of these in the sanctuary

Australian Dingo – An Australian canine which is decreasing in population

We were in time for a bird show, called Birds of Prey, featuring birds that eat animals.

Audience at Birds of Prey show

Brown falcon

Wedge-tailed Eagle

Eagle getting ready to fly

The huge wedge-tailed eagle with its trainer

At the end of the bird show, an extra performance followed by an aborigine who showed us his culture and played the Didgeridoo, a musical instrument developed by the indigenous Australians. He also showed us how to throw a Boomerang, which was pretty interesting. Check out the video I took of him below!

Blowing the Didgeridoo

Throwing a Boomerang

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By the time you read this…

iamthewitch — Sat, 10 Jul 2010 03:59:45 +0000

I would be roaming the lands where Kangaroos jump,

where the country flag is blue…

where it is also known as down under! Where is it?

.

.

.

No other than Australia! Well, Melbourne to be specific.

Hopefully I’ll get some chance to update my blog while I’m there. Saucer can be very restrictive. *LOL*

Til then!

Dim Sum Making Workshop at Hotel Nikko

iamthewitch — Tue, 06 Jul 2010 01:37:01 +0000

Once in a while, I enjoy eating dim sum, especially with my family members back at home. But driving to the restaurant, waiting for tables, shouting to get the waitress’ attention and eating with plenty of eager eyes staring at you don’t seem to constitute a fun dim sum experience, don’t you think? That’s why, I decided to learn how to make dim sum myself! Nothing like good old, home made, loving dim sum for the family.

The kitchen table

I was lucky to be able to join Chef Lo Tian Son from Toh Lee Chinese Restaurant at Hotel Nikko on his quest of making dim sum. Upon arriving, all the required ingredients were nicely placed on the kitchen table, awaiting to be used .

The ingredients #1

Ingredients #2

We were about to make 4 types of dim sum that night! *excited* Plus, one of them was my favourite prawn dumpling too!

witch with Bok, Uli and Vialentino

We were all pretty excited to get it started! Look, I was even having fun mixing the chicken around. Don’t look down on this small act as it required quite an amount of energy to make it starchy!

Mixing the chicken

The first dim sum that I made was the Steamed Diced Chicken Dumpling with Scallops. I found the challenge to be placing the scallop on top and wrapping the skin around it neatly. How did I do? Not bad for a first-timer I hope! *LOL*

Steamed Diced Chicken Dumpling with Scallops

OK, next up, my favourite – Deep Fried Crispy Prawn Dumpling. OK, I have to admit I love anything with prawns. And I love it much more when it’s deep fried! It’s not exactly healthy but it’s allowable to indulge once in a while. (Yeah right!)

witch wrapping prawn dumpling

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The Versatile Witch

iamthewitch — Sat, 03 Jul 2010 04:28:57 +0000

OK I’m sure by now most of you would know that I seldom do tags. In fact, I only remember doing one tag before in my blog. But, since Caroline has been so nice to me, I’m going to give her face and dedicate this tag to her. *LOL* She recently tagged me with this award “The Versatile Blogger“.

The Versatile Blogger award

Apparently the rules of the tag are

1. List 7 random things about yourself

2. Share the award with up to 15 other bloggers

3. Link to each of the recipients and let them know they’ve been tagged via comments on their blogs

4. Thank and bring the love back to the person you won the award from by linking back to them

So, here goes my 7 random things:

1. I love my husband.

2. When I see a toilet bowl covered in public toilets, I would not open the cover and would move on to another toilet instead. You don’t know what you’d discover beneath eh?

3. I haven’t gone to the gym for the past month! My gym membership is wasted.

4. I love my grandmother’s cooking. I used to complain being bored eating home cooked food every day but now I miss her cooking when I’m out working!

5. My blogger friends call me Maggie Cheung or Cheung Man Yuk because they think I look like her. And a few friends told me I look like Taylor Swift. Even Saucer.

6. I have problems shopping for shoes because I have big feet.

7. My fingernails turn purple when I’m too cold.

Done! I would tag the following:

Saucer
Uli
Xin
Esther
Andrew

Of course, anyone please feel free to do this tag and leave your link here, because I’m very interested to know 7 random things about YOU.

Meeting the famous Louis Pang

iamthewitch — Wed, 23 Jun 2010 03:37:44 +0000

No food post for today, instead, I’m going to post some pictures of someone very famous in the world of photography. Guess who?

Last weekend, Saucer and I attended a wedding dinner of our ex-colleague in Ipoh. OK, I think they’re going to kill me for blogging about their photographer instead of them! LOL!

The dinner was held at none other than East Ocean restaurant, Ipoh Garden. Surprisingly, the food was pretty good that night. Servings were prompt, food was warm and tea was filled occasionally. Really, one couldn’t ask for me for a wedding dinner. My only gripe was that they cramped too many tables within the area, making it almost impossible to walk without bumping into someone or something.

Ipoh Garden East Ocean Restaurant

My table was also filled with guys! But luckily, no shortage of food. *LOL*

My table

OK as I mentioned earlier, no food post today but I just had to show you this cute fish dessert that was served at East Ocean that night! They called it the lucky fish dessert, so cute don’t you think? In fact, it was something similar to agar-agar, with some filling in the middle. Very creative!

Lucky Fish dessert

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Potluck Poolside Party

iamthewitch — Fri, 28 May 2010 05:47:05 +0000

Last weekend, I was up to something cheeky. Together with my Kai’s fiancee, we planned a surprise birthday party for him. I was in charge of roping in Kai’s colleagues and to make sure they didn’t leak the secret out. I think we did a pretty good job because Kai didn’t suspect anything at all throughout the week. On that day, all of us gathered at the poolside of his apartment, and we brought all sorts of food! Just look at the huge spread!

The potluck party

Lots of puffs

Most of the food on the table were contributed by Kai’s family. There were lots of muffins, chicken pies, kaya puffs, pizza, KFC and don’t forget the huge pot of fried noodles!

Lots of food and big bowl of fried noodles

These muffins were a big hit that night. I think they were vanilla flavoured muffins – really soft and spongy.

Delicious muffins

Another popular hit was the chicken pie, which I only had a bite of because I was already too full! The kaya puff was the box below the chicken pie.

Chicken pie and kaya puffs

As for me, my contribution was nasi lemak! I bought them from an aunty near where I stayed, and there were only 15 packs left so I bought all of them from her! They were not bad, and the most notable feature was that the whole packet was wrapped with banana leaf. You know how hard it is to get nasi lemak which is wrapped with banana leaf completely? Usually, they just put a small piece of it inside the packet. Banana leaf very expensive now, is that it?

Nasi lemak

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Disappointing Karaoke at Red Box

iamthewitch — Tue, 13 Apr 2010 01:07:10 +0000

After making appointment with Foongpc one MONTH in advance (yes, he’s a very busy man and actsy some more *LOL* joking!), we finally decided to go for our long-awaited karaoke session at Red Box at The Curve. Before that, we had some other suggestions to go to Neway or Red Box at IOI Mall but at the end, Saucer preferred to go to The Curve, so I made the reservation a few days before. I did some research online to find out about their rates and hours. I saw this on the website, stating that Lunch session would be from 11am – 2pm, with pricing of RM14++ onwards. So I made a reservation for 3 persons and confirmed the pricing.

Pricing of Red Box, The Curve

We reached there promptly at 11am and asked for our reserved room. To our horror, instead of the listed 11am – 2pm (3 hours), the receptionist told us that we could only have the room for 2 hours (11am – 1pm)! What nonsense! All 3 of us were shocked to find that out, and upon further query, only we were told that 11am – 2pm was only valid for 6 persons and above. That is ridiculous! No where in their website did they state that the hours were going to be shortened to 2 if we had less than 6 persons. None! And even when I called to make the reservation, the operator didn’t inform me of the 2-hour period as well! Basically, we were all led to believe that we could sing happily for a good 3 hours (and hence adjusting our schedule accordingly) until we stepped into Red Box itself, which was by then, too late.

When asked how much did we have to top up to get the extra hour, it was a freaking RM50! Blood-sucking don’t you think? RM50 just for that extra one hour, to be divided into 3 persons. Doesn’t make sense at all. What to do? Since we’re already there, we just went in reluctantly and told ourselves that it was our first and last time there. This is some trick they pull off, I must say. Putting all the figures clearly on the website (which I believed naively) and then disappointing us when we’re there. Surely, other customers who had made the reservations like us would still proceed with their session, no doubt with a dissatisfied feeling.

Well that aside, Saucer and I did have a great time with Foongpc. This was our 3rd meeting in person, and we always enjoyed the time together. However, this was the first time I heard Foong singing! Do you want to hear him sing too? I have actually recorded a short snippet of the 3 of us singing “Heal the World” by Michael Jackson but of course, my voice somehow sounded louder since the recorder was near me. *LOL* Don’t vomit after you listen ok! Don’t say I didn’t warn you!

Saucer and witch singing – Pics courtesy of Foong

After the karaoke session, Foong said that we were supposed to meet Merryn at 2pm. Of course, because of Red Box ruining our schedule, we now had 1 hour to kill. So we went over to Ikea for some hot dogs before meeting up with Merryn and pulling a prank on her. Don’t be mad at us ok! We love you! It was a fun afternoon chatting with the bloggers at Starbucks. And Merryn’s son Ethan is ever so cute!

Ethan driving

Shy Ethan

Merryn, witch and Saucer

Thanks Foong for the pics! Let’s do this again soon!

My Sanyo Xacti Experience at Resorts World, Singapore

iamthewitch — Sat, 20 Mar 2010 00:28:45 +0000

Have you ever heard of Sanyo branded cameras? No? Neither have I! The Sanyo Xacti series claims to be the world’s smallest, lightest and thinnest dual cameras and I can safely affirm to that. With the release of Sanyo Xacti series of cameras, amateur video enthusiasts will now be closer to realising their dreams of producing their own quality movies with the effects of professional film-making like wide-angle shots, close-ups, brilliant clarity colour, fast-speed action shots – all captured in full-HD glory.

So what say you? Believe it or not? Follow my journey of discovery and you shall know. The group of us bloggers started our journey from LCCT airport and flew all the way to Singapore to meet up with the Sanyo counterparts there.

Goodbye KL!

Hello Singapore!

Once we reached the airport, we saw a group of people waiting at the arrival hall and thought since when did we become famous. *LOL* They were apparently waiting for some Taiwanese superstar to arrive.

Mad crowd

As for us, we had a local driver who fetched us from the airport to the hotel. We’re the Malaysian delegation! *woot*

Malaysian delegation

Our bus

We were placed in the Grand Park Hotel, City Hall, which was located strategically near the MRT station.

Grand Park Hotel, City Hall

Staircase at Grand Park Hotel

Lobby of Grand Park Hotel

My room

After placing our luggage and having a quick lunch, we were then ferried to the newly opened Resorts World Hotel at Sentosa. The press conference was starting very soon at the Resorts World Convention Centre.

Resorts World Convention Centre, Sentosa

The signboard towards Sanyo Xacti launching

Once we reached the function room, Mr Hiroshi Fuji, Manager of Product Marketing Division was giving a product presentation.

Mr Hiroshi Fuji

One of the product presentation slide

Next up was a presentation by Mr Vishinu Metharam, Director of Emjay Enterprises from Malaysia.

Mr Vishinu Metharam

After the presentations, out came some very gorgeous models bearing the even more gorgeous and slim cameras! I was impressed at how compact and shiny they were, and couldn’t wait to get my hands on them.

Model showcasing camera #1

Model showcasing camera #2

Model showcasing camera #3

Model showcasing camera #4

CLICK FOR MORE MODEL PICTURES