Christmas Dinner and Gift exchange

Christmas was a simple but sweet affair. The evening started with a grand dinner at Leen's place with some games and turkey, ham, roast.. all the works! Thanks to Leen and Soon Tek for being such great hosts! Gie has also been influenced by the Leen's art of hosting and is on the look-out for a nice tea-pot set, china plates and unique (oriental) ornaments to add to her tiny home!

After dinner, we headed off to St Patrick's Cathedral for carols and mass. The church was packed with people and we were fortunate (and slim) enough to squeeze four of us - Maddy, Kelvin, Jem and Gie - on half an aisle!

At around 2am, we headed off to Desmond's place for Kris Kringle aka Secret Santa gift exchange. Desmond and Edwin had just moved into their new place. Anyway, it was abit quiet when we got there simply because our friends got tired (and tipsy) waiting for us but things livened up again at the gift exchange! Everyone had presents so that was pleasant and cosy.

Unfortunately we were so distracted with the spread at Leen's place that we forgot about taking photos. And the pictures (secretly taken at the Cathedral) did not turn out too well.. so we leave you with pics from Desmond's place =)


Hot choc set from Bee and Freddy

The ladies (from left) - Sharon, Gie, Bee and Maddy

The LOT (from left) - Kez, Gie, Des, Edwin, Kelvin, Maddy, Jem, Kelvin aka Sai-b, Sharon, Bee and Freddy

Kez from Japan and our hosts for the evening

A small token of our appreciation

A Wet Mornington Weekend

The highly anticipated trip was literally dampened by Melbourne's unpredictable weather.. Unpredictable becoz no one expects a stormy, gloomy weekend in December but we all sort of saw it coming nearer the date and when the weather reports became fairly accurate. For some strange reason, we still chose to believe that Melbourne's unpredictable weather would turn in our favour and we (thinking extremely postively) did not prepare adequately for a wet weekend. Jem even left his sweater at home!

And so it begins, the rain started beating down on us the moment we hit the holiday house. The car ride to Mornington made us hopeful for OK weather but Mother Nature's twisted humour drowned out our hopes of a fun weekend outside. We spent that first evening indoors eating Kentucky Fried Chicken and playing Cranium (which, by the way, the girls (and Desmond)won all four rounds... woohoo!!) and other games.

The next morning, Jem made his famous pancakes for breakfast for us all and we prepared to go horse-riding that afternoon. Again, the rains gave us not a chance. Horse-riding was cancelled and we spent that afternoon shopping at Target.. or was it Kmart? SIGH. And after the shops closed, it was more rain, more games at home and La Porchetta dinner.

Fishing was still on for the last morning (thank goodness) and we headed off pretty excited. However, again the cold winds and rains made our trip less pleasant and we were all left shivering - this made it quite tricky to determine if there was a bite or not! Haha! Poor Gie had the misfortune of being biten by a flathead that got away from the couple-next-to-her's basket. %$#@^&!! It stung like a bee (I'd imagine) and swelled abit. But nothing's gonna stop Gie from catching more of 'em! Just that she would dodge them quickly whenever someone caught one! Everyone did pretty well that trip with SaiBee catching the biggest flathead and Gie's proud of the salmon she got! At least the fish we caught made it worth our while!


The crazy bunch


Fish to take back home.


Nice shot from the pier.

Christmas Dinner and the Phantom of the Opera

20th December was the choosen date for our Christmas dinner celebration. At 4.45pm, it started storming in Melbourne and the weather looked ready to ruin Jem's dinner surprise! Luckily the rain started easing up around 6pm and our evening officially started...

It was a nice dinner surprise at the Point! Dinner was fab and although the portions looked tiny, it was surprisingly filling! After dinner was a rush to catch Phantom of the Opera.. another surprise planned by Jem! Yayy! We finally get to watch Phantom together and the play was just stunning! Everything was pitch perfect and the settings were really impressive. Jem enjoyed it so much, we bought the CD and it is now currently playing on our stereo.

Now Jem understands why Carol-Ann (Gie's cousin) can watch it 15 times! In fact, he is planning for number 2 and better seats! hee..


Enjoying the nice view from The Point Restaurant at Albert Lake


Gie enjoying the entree.


Jem having the different types of beef.


Gie having the snapper


Capping of the night at the theaters with the Phantom of the Opera.


Nice shot at the Princess theater.

The one with Maddy.

Maddy's here!! So happy to have another familiar face in Melbourne! This was taken at Pacific House, our 1st dinner together in Melbourne. Also in the photo, Kelvin and Rachel, Maddy's housemates! Pity we only took a few photos here but there will be more to come so stay tuned!

Xmas parties

It's that time of year which calls for bubblies & dancing! Here are some pictures of Gie at PwC 2007 Christmas party at Docklands!


Start of the Big Night with Louisa!


Black tie boys


Sexy Gina, Buddy Lauren & Gie!


Renate from Canada!


The Bus Stop - Sychronised dancing!


Lauren, Meera & Gie - free flow of Heinies*~

Partners were welcomed at Mitsubishi's cosy Christmas dinner at 87 Colins Street. Dinner was fab with crayfish, roast & prawns! And of coz, after dessert, there was dancing...


Getting ready for the big night out.


Gie enjoying the spread of crayfish and prawns.


Jem & Gie with the Christmas tree.


Jem and his colleague Keiko in kimono.


Bee, Leen and husband Soon Teck and Gie.


Posing with MD Taki San.


Getting ready for desserts.


Winning numbers! Gie won a nice black folder from Olga Berg and Jem won 2nd prize! $500 voucher for Pepper Springs resort! Woohoo!!


At the lobby of our apartment.

Cheery CHERRY Cheer @ Redhill, Mornington

Highlight of this weekend was cherry picking at Mornington! We set off early in the morning and arrived bright and cheery, ready for some serious pickin' and eating'! The cherry farm we were at was pretty good... $5 entry fee for as much cherries as you can eat and pay for what you pick (ard $14/kg). For one bucketful, you get $5 off and a free bucket!

We gorged ourselves with so many cherries that we got scared of cherries - didn't feel like taking too many home with us!! The rest of our friends still got home with buckets full but not us.. we had our fill and brought a humble pack home to share with other friends. But enough of the talking, we'll let the pictures tell the story.. enjoy!

Toboggan Slide @ Funfields.. A Mitsubishi Family Day Event and Jan's visit

Arriving at the mini theme park.


Racer Gie (looking good while racing).


Crazy Jem.


Gie on the Toboggan (little did she know what to expect later).


Having a nice meal under the shelter.


Having fun at the Toboggan.


Jem enjoing being pulled up the Tobogan.


Golfers wanna be!!


On the green.


Fast and curious? Sad and furious!


9.40 am and we were off and away in Bee's car for a Mitsubishi Family Day at Funfields... far far away from the city of Melbourne (an hour's drive to be exact, and no train stops here!) It has been a really busy weekend so far. Jan (Jem's cousin) arrived on Thursday late night and put up at our place for 1st and last nights. The lucky girl took off on a short trip to the beautiful peninsular of Mornington.. one of our favourite places in Melbourne!

Back to the Family Day event.. the day started off really well and everyone was in high spirits, anticipating a full day of fun! The weather was lovely, sunny yet cool breezes kept us from burning up. The theme park didn't have many rides but just enough to keep us really occupied!

First activity we went for was the go karts.. This was Gie's first time so she didn't really know what to expect. The cars were bright and colourful (which were unique?) but they didn't go very fast (unfortunately.. haha) Jem had the fastest car in the track (this is proven after we raced 3 times n watched others race as well) and he even manage to overtake Bee and Gie on the rather narrow track!

Gie even tried to convince Jem to take up golf by trying out mini golf for starters! Haha.. of coz the course was designed for kids but who cares! One really friendly 10 year old even guessed that Gie was 11 years old, but really tall.. hahaha.. imagine that! So I suppose it wasn't difficult for us all to blend in with the *ahem* youngsters at mini golf...But we gotta say, Jem is a natural scoring a couple of birdies even! Hopefully, this is enough to entice him to take up golf on a more serious note... =)

Lunch was BBQ. Bear in mind that the BBQs here are VERY different from those we have had in Singapore! The only stuff on the hot pan (yea, no grill or charcoal involved)were only 2 varieties of sausages, beef patties and kebabs. So different from our BBQ sessions where we always overdo the food with heaps of chicken wings, beef steaks, sausages to ease that initial hunger, sting ray, prawns and the list goes on!! Anyhow, it was quite an interesting change and still plenty of yummy meat so we're happy! Don't worry parents, we would not eat too much beef (looks at Gie's mum)

Next, we queued for the Toboggan ride. For those Singaporeans who aren't familiar with the term.. think of it like The Lunge at Sentosa. This by far was the most thrilling ride in the entire park! Haha.. If some close friends can recall, Gie's really fond of "thrilling rides" (think Bintan buggy).. so you can imagine what that girl is capable of just for the thrills! Briefly to summarise, Gie zoomed down the slide without putting on the breaks (at all) and the day ended with Gie collecting a couple of bad burns and bruises... sniff... but all's still good! Nobody worry!

After Family Day, we went for a nice Chinese dinner with Jan and found red bean pancakes! Didn't realise how much we missed red bean pancakes until we've had it.. Speaking of missing food... Gie really misses Ang Ku Kueh!! She didn't get to eat any before she left! Boohoo... Having filled our tummies with Xiao Long Baos, noodles, (more meat) and tofu, we headed for Grecco's at Crowne to meet some more friends for cakes and drinks.

It has been a long eventful weekend and we're still paying for it in our own ways today at work, i.e. nodding off, yawning and avoiding touching certain sore areas... Although we must say, we're quite proud of the fact that we managed to wake up early enough to make pancakes for Jan for breakfast! Jem makes the nicest pancakes so it was a fab way to kickstart the week.. Watch this space for more updates coming your way!

P/S: Don't you just lurve the candy pink sunnies? Hee


Thank you Jan for the lucky plant in our apartment.