A gift of love

I just received my first birthday present for the year! And my birthday is still 2 months away...\(^V^)/

Like jane said, good surprises once in a while spice up life and give your heart some positive boost... But life is life, nobody can avoid bad ones too ... Let's just hope these ones don't happen too often :P

My friend passed me a nicely wrapped present a few days ago. She said she couldn't wait til my birthday to give me, hence an early birthday wish..... I, on the other hand, COULD wait for my birthday to come because I wanna stay at 25 forever.... but any early birthday presents are sure welcomed ^^

What could it be?

Like others, I shook the present up and down to try and guess what's inside. It totally made no sound! Also, holding the gift in my hand felt.... 'empty'. It was like having nothing in my hand! Then I started to wonder if my friend was actually playing a joke on me... is it really... empty? >_<

Can't blame me for having such suspicion because once upon a time, I was tricked...... by very own flesh and blood sister......

One year, we siblings decided that we should have gifts exchange on Xmas day.... presents started to pile up under the tree and one big box had my name on it. It was darn heavy too! I was so excited.. What could it be?

On 25th of December 1994 (yes, i remember the darn date too!), I practically tore open my present.... The gift box was filled with paper balls.... i dug thru them and at the very bottom, I found a big chunk of rock! Ha! I wish it was a big diamond! The rock wasn't even new! It was taken (or should i say, borrowed) from our garden! You couldn't imagine how disappointed I was.... then something made me smile thru my tears... there was a set of pinkish heart-shaped hair pins! They were so pretty... and what made it special is that, it was a gift from my sister's heart....

Back to my original topic, although the gift felt as if it was empty, i was sure my friend had stuffed her 'love' in it... it's a matter of whether I could feel it or not.... I carefully tore open the present and guess what i saw....

A kitty cat in my favourite colour! My friend handmade it herself...

Say meowwww....

Am so touched *sob sob*

You know, nothing can bother u if you have a positive heart and mind....

Mum is in action again....

The aroma of freshly baked moon cakes filled the house this morning. Yup, mum's baking more moon cakes ^V^ she wants to give them as gifts to a few friends as appreciation. No gifts are better than gifts with hands and hearts :)

Gifts from mum's heart

I did request mum to make me an egg york only moon cake. But she said "CANNOT!" It's too high in cholesterol... :( It's alright... because mum wants me to be healthy ^^

Mum's golden mooncakes

It's Lantern Festival next Monday... Hope it won't be cloudy on that night coz I wanna hang colourful lanterns around my car porch (if I'm up to it that night :P), eat homemade moon cake, sip green tea, enjoy the evening breeze and watch the moon.....

Some people always say 外国的月亮比较圆. Is it true? I wanna say, YES, it's true! The moon in Aus is HUGE! Esp when it's full moon! I remember looking out from my dark room one sleepless night and saw a gigantic moon! It was amazing! It's like if u really look at it, you could see the species living on it.. or you could see ET & his friend cycling over the moon, or a cow jumping over the moon hahaha... too much movies and kiddy songs is not good huh? haha... The moon was indeed very big and bright. I remember reading under the moonlight on that sleepless night... I wasn't exaggerating. I really did that as I couldn't turn on the lamp because that would wake Jane up... ah, the good old days....

Wait..... walking down memory lane is a sign of aging! haha....

中秋節快樂!

知足常樂

我在上班時間有聽音樂的習慣。快樂的環境很重要嘛。呵呵。。。 由於不方便大聲聽，我都會用耳機聽音樂的。有沒有很有公德心？:P

但我的耳機有個小小缺點。

不知何時開始，一邊的聽筒燒了。升為持家勤儉的好女孩，我沒有嫌棄它。還是乖乖的照著用。只是一次只有一邊的耳朵能享福。 右耳和左耳很合作，他們沒有打架喔。是和樂融融的。這樣的日子也過了很久。

那天，我的‘單筒耳機’竟然沒聲音了！沒有音樂的辦公室立刻變成灰色的。好悲傷的顏色啊！ 假期一來臨，我趕緊去買了一對新的耳機。是可愛粉嫩的粉紅色喔。看了就讓人心情愉快！

星期一，我帶著期待的心情來上班。哇，我的世界又再次充滿了色 彩，而且是粉紅色的！不但如此，我的左右耳終於得到公平的對待了！雙耳聽音樂的感覺很棒！

第二天，我仍帶著快樂的心情上班。來到座位時，我沒發現掉在地上的新耳機，結果我笨重的身體踩在上面，還‘卡’了一聲！！往下看，是我可愛的新耳機 耶。

幸好它沒有粉身粹骨。耳機還能用啦，只是我又倒回去單耳聽音樂的日子。

只能說，我的雙耳沒有福報。 呵呵.....

Mum's moon cake

Ghost month is ending.... That means it's time for moon cakes and lanterns soon!

Time really flies. I remember writing about my way of eating moon cake only not long ago. Has it been one year?

I started eating moon cakes weeks ago. *lucky me* I remember years ago when we were studying in Aus, moon cake festival felt like any other normal day. One day, we sat together and talked about how much we missed moon cakes and colourful lanterns back home. Mum being mum, she decided to make moon cakes for us to cheer us up.....

Mum did make 4 moon cakes with her hands. I remember them sitting on a white plate on the dining table. They looked exactly like store bought! We were as happy as a butterfly and all of us couldn't wait to dig in. Upon one bite, we realised that the moon cakes were hard like a rock! We even threw it on the floor and it was still in ONE piece! haha...

I remember dad laughingly said that if the world ever runs out of rocks and stones, we could get mum to make. Muahaha.. i imagine a house made with moon cakes instead of bricks. Would it attract lots of ants ah?

This year, my mum decided to challenge moon cake making again. I was a bit doubtful coz if they are rock-hard, what should we do with them? Use them as weapons or build a moon cake house for Tiger?

That day, i went home and found moon cakes on the table. This time they tasted superb! just like the moon cakes made by professionals!

Homemade mooncakes

They weren't hard at all... Mum said she used the wrong flour last time because when too much golden syrup is mixed with plain flour, it means hardened dough... Oooo....Mystery revealed!

I wonder if mum could make me a special mooncake with ONLY salted egg york filling...

re-live my memory....

Remember i mentioned before that my mum used to make super big sushi for us to bring to school as lunch when we were studying in Aus?

Mum must have felt my 思念 coz this morning, she made me two super big sushi!

When I came downstairs, the sushi were already on the table for me. I felt as if I was a kid, back in high school again...

Mum's sushi rolls

I still ate the way I did ~ holding the roll of sushi in my hands and munching away.... The fillings were oozing out just like how it was during school time. My heart was filled with happiness and memories of me sitting with a group of friends outside the classroom re-lived.

Mum's sushi still tastes delicious, just like the way it is many many years ago....

Fun with Family

It's super late but better than never right? :P

This year, after lots of mails sending and phone calls, our long awaited family trip finally materialised! *hip hip hooray!!* With siblings everywhere, it was quite difficult to decide on a meeting point. HA! And i thought setting a date that is OK for everyone is hard enough!

When I was small, we had family trips very often. I remember us going to Genting Highlands, KL, Penang, SIN, Perth..... Then when we studied in Aust, my parents would take us on family road trips during school holidays... We stopped at small towns along the way until we reached our final destination. It was great fun! While my dad drove, we, the kids just ate, talked, enjoyed the scenery, fell asleep then woke up, ate, talked, enjoyed the scenery, fell asleep then woke up, ... the cycle begins again & again..... Thinking back now, I really miss that kind of family trips! Simple yet memorable...

Now, we all live in different countries and family trips become impossible. We've been trying to arrange one LONG AGO but someone always couldn't make it :( That's the trouble for having big family and everyone scattered everywhere...

This year, my parents decided that we should have our long awaited family trip in Brisbane. Yup, a place with no CNY feel at all but it sure has a lot of sunshine (& seafood!) to offer.... Unlike summer in Perth, there are no annoying, as-big-as-a-black-bean flies to bug us! and the weather is not too hot...

We rented a car to drive around and we all think that Brisbane ppl are kind and patient. We did many last minute lane change as we were not v familiar with the way and not once did we get a 3rd finger greeting, 'friendly' shouts or being honked at! Amazing ppl right?

We also rented an apartment in the city.. and it overlooked Story Bridge. Very nice view... It was a relaxing family trip. We didn't try to do too many things in a day.. just taking it easy... oh, but we did eat a little too much in Brisbane... We never have any problem when it comes to food.... if only it was the same for our family trip arrangement, then we wouldn't have to wait so long for it to happen!! Haha...

And I drank lots of coffee and choc while in Brisbane.... just couldn't resist since these are their specialties. I can't imagine what their milk tea will taste like! u gotta eat and drink what they are good at! Gotta be flexible to change taste according to the culture ^^ That's my food philosophy when holidaying. But.... NO BUGS plssss....

Family time

Gold Coast

How I miss our family vacation.. I wonder when our next one will be.....

Park here and there

I thought parking illegally by roadside is bad enough. Yesterday, I spotted this

Someone parked his/her car in the MIDDLE of the road, blocking everyone else from entering the car park! Cool or not? The car may be small in size but the driver's ego is sure huge! hahaha...