My chronic disease

There is one serious flaw about me. I’m a klutz. Seriously.

Today I told myself that I have to try really hard to not drop anything. Failed. Miserably. For example, this afternoon, I took out some ingredients from the fridge to cook fried noodles. While trying to balance a quarter of onion, a carton of eggs and a container in my hands, I almost dropped the eggs on the carpet~! That would have been disastrous. I quickly stuffed the eggs back in the fridge. In the midst of the chaos, I dropped a box of ‘chee cheong fan’ on the carpet. The box plonked open and the soy sauce drenched the carpet and in matrix style, the droplets of soy sauce painted the walls with eeky dark brown stains. My jaw dropped because that meant hard work. I hate cleaning the carpet. I cleaned it last week because wine was spilled on the carpet. And a few weeks before because I broke my eye shadow and the loose powder stained the carpet. Anyway, I quickly grabbed the stain remover cleaner and odour removal cleaner. Surprise, surprise, I dropped one of the bottles on the floor. Was absolutely disgusted with myself. And just a couple of minutes ago, I dropped my pen, and literally 30 seconds later, my laptop adapter. “Very lady-like,” was what a friend of mine commented the other day as I stumble over a chair.

As I was frustratingly blotting out the glaring stains, I remember telling myself that I would learn to be less of a klutz when I was a little kid. That meant not dropping food all over the floor and table every single dinner. haha. Never worked. I remember holding a bowl of fried rice and just dropping the entire bowl on the floor. And toppling my entire bowl of cereal on the floor. Actually, I thought I was quite smart because I intelligently placed the bean bag over the evidence. I was quite proud of my deceitful plan. Little did I realise that I was the only one in the household eating Kellogg’s sugar cornflakes.

This klutziness is like a chronic disease I tell you. It’s something I can’t get rid off. Oh well, my saving grace is that I have reasonably good reflexes. I can’t recall the number of times I almost humiliated myself by almost tripping down the stairs or being a split-second away from falling on a FLAT road. Most times, I manage to regain my dignity by holding onto the railings and acting all adult about it – which is of course, pretending that the last 10 seconds were wiped out from history.

Sigh. How now brown cow?

The world's local bank

I officially declare HSBC the worst bank in Australia...They have the worst customer service..ever. It spells inefficient and incompetent~! Everytime i request for something, I have to do it at least 2 to 3 times before I actually receive the item. Argh...And it doesnt help that each department likes to point fingers at other departments for their faults.I have half a mind to close down that account and start up a new one in another bank.


"The world's locak bank"

haha

Ahoy! Me hearty's birthday! Yo-ho-ho

Last Saturday, we celebrated Stephen's 23rd birthday pirate-style~! It was pretty exciting - almost everyone dressed up for the occassion. I got overly-excited and bought a whole heap of pirate gear - pirate flag, pirate gun, pirate sword, pirate binoculars, pirate eye patch, pirate earings and pirate bandanna.

Btw, 'me hearty' is pirate talk for 'my friend' and 'Yo-ho-ho' is pirate laughter.





Me and me jack (Pirate talk for flag)


I luv Nadia. She crack me up~! We make a great team together. On the way to Steve's place, we tried conjuring up a script and feasible story of our pirating life. Initially, we decided that we would be Malay pirates based in the Straits of Melaka.

"Kami ni lanun dari er...Straits of Melaka. Mari kami rompak rumah Stephen..." (We are pirates from the Straits of Melaka. Lets rob Stephens house)

"Kesimpulannya...kami akan ambil..."

Pheebs stared at us in disgusted and told us that we failed miserably as Malay pirates. "No Malay pirate would speak so formally...'kesimpulannya'." (kesimpulannya means 'in conclusion')

Then we tried to be Chinese pirates from China with our very very broken cantonese.

"Ngo dei hui tao go 'nasi lemak" (Lets steal the nasi lemak)

"Ngo dei cho Robin Hood...tao zao go nasi lemak...ngo dei hui pai nasi lemak pei yan" (We act like Robin Hood. We will steal the nasi lemak and distribute it to others)


Pirate mum and pirate baby


Birthday boy + E-gene with his parrot...I mean, duck. haha. He pinned the duck to his shirt. Its so cute~! The duck goes 'quack quack' when you squeeze it.




Bryan is such a classic.


Pheebs and I.


Love Wil's improvised hook.


Love Sue's sword + belt.




Steve's parents are so game~! =)


Upon Sue and Matt's arrival, everyone shouted, 'hey...no pirate gear~! Youre dead!". Apparently, our faces will get drawn on if youre not dressed up for the event. They quickly scrambled downstairs and came back up again...


Matt, "I'm Sue's parrot"


Shiver me timbers!(an exclamation of surprise, to be shouted most loud)
Stephen's treasure island cake. I didnt even realised that it was a cake till Ivy pointed it out. She baked the cake~!! I thought it was a toy of some sort. It even came equipped with doubloons (pirate talk for pieces of gold)


The woman behind the successful party =) Ann and I told Stephen the other day that he was one lucky man. He cheekily pointed to Ivy's fourth right finger and said, "Why do you think I got her the ring so quickly? I need to secure the deal asap."

Happy 23rd birthday Stephen Lim~! =)

Mt Dandenong

Here's some photos to brighten up my blog =) (Finally pics aside from food~!)

Ann, Ives, Stevie and I headed up to Mt Dandenong today.


First stop - Miss Marples


We had to feast on the scones. Whats a trip up without having THE scones.


Soup of the day - butternut pumpkin soup. A must-try~!


The lovely couple. Oops, the pics are huge~! I was playing around with my camera settings today. I think this is the wide-angle mode.


Miss Marples and I


Okay, a better view of the cozy Miss Marples cottage


We walked around for a bit to digest our food


I never fail to pay this toy shop a visit every time I'm up here.




Us - an old married couple. haha

We didnt make it to 'Pie in the Sky' - the famous pie shop. Rumours had it that the quality of the pies had deteriorated =( Anyone care to clarify this with me? PLus, we were feeling a little full. It was a pretty short trip but was a good getaway from the city.

Cooking 101 - thai-style steamed fish

One of my favourite dishes. Its quite easy to cook but its full in flavour - sweet, sour, salty, spicy, all in one dish. Plus, I love the aroma of the kaffir lime leaves~! They always give an added zest to a dish.

Ingredients:

1 Onion
Lime juice
Kaffir lime leaves (crush it slightly to release the aroma)
Hot small red chillies (chilli padi - remove the seeds, otherwise your tongue will burn in pain~!)
Sugar
Fish sauce
Coriander leaves (for garnishing)

1 small barramundi fish (silver bream is a good alternative)

p/s: Not sure if it's exactly Thai-style but I tried to imitate the Thai restaurants to my best abilities.

Malaysia's ex-Prime Minister, Dr Mahathir started a blog~!

http://www.chedet.com/

First entry received 955 comments~!!!

One-dish recipe

Stir fry chicken, french beans, baby corn, capsicum, cashew nuts, Lebanese eggplant with soy sauce, Japanese soy sauce, fish sauce, vegetable stock, oyster sauce, a little cornstarch plus Chinese rice wine


This is my favourite one-dish recipe that I usually eat with rice. I usually cook this dish when I'm cooking for myself and I want a simple, healthy meal. I love the variety of colours in this dish - it makes me feel happy looking at it and a variety of colours generally mean a variety of nutrients?!?