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.

A Samsung Story

The happy buyer.


Spot the difference.


Bringing the TV home.


New love.


Hey there again! Time to share another rather interesting happening here in Down Under...

As you may be aware, we have become big Samsung fans since moving into our nice apartment. Samsung gave us a pretty good deal on our brand new refrigerator and washing machine... which we got for $800 in total! For branded goods and spankingly new - it's a steal! Actually, we had haggled the salesman for it, even volunteering to take the display sets just so we could get both machines at cheaper rates!

So when the deal was made, the salesmen started to load up the new white goods onto a trolley and wheeled it over to our rented van. At this point, the gleaming new machines were rather carelessly removed from their display stands and dumped at the foot of our van! Horrified that the expensive stuff was gonna roll around the back of our van and collect dents and scratches, we insisted on some cardboard boxes, at least to line the van.. The store apparently didn't even have newspaper... Can you believe that?! Well, we couldn't and refused to budge from not wrapping up the machines. In the end, the store people brought out new, un-opened goods and we got them at no additional price! Wooo hooo!! New goods for the display price! heh heh..

That was a month ago when we were setting up.

At that time, we squeezed out almost every last cent and bought a cheap, lcd, 22" slim tv.. We figured that tv was an absolute necessity.. (it is!) We would've bought a giant screen, old, analogue one but thinking that in a couple of months, analogue tv is gonna stop and the whole of Aussie will be switching to digital tv. Rather than spend more money to buy the digital tuner, we thought let's just keep up with the technology and buy a cheap LCD tv..

So we bought a tv from Hicon.

Yea... what's that you say? Our same response. We have never heard of it but a rather annoying saleswoman convinced us it's a really good deal. So, we bought her sell and..

The sound was bad. You had to turn it up to almost 90% to hear decently.

Picture quality was OK only. But worst of all...

It stopped receiving the digital signal 2 weeks later. (So we were stuck with watching analogue tv on a lcd.. sigh)

Finally last weekend, we rented a bomb (it's the name of the car rental place.. haha) and drove all the way back to Highpoint, Maribronyg and "persuaded" the store to let us upgrade for a better model. Actually, they already told us OK and we could upgrade our tv as long as we returned the whole part of the faulty set. We forgot to bring the remote control.

So we took another 45 min to return home, grab the remote control and headed back to Highpoint. When we arrived, that same (annoying) saleswoman asked us " where's the box?" And hearing that we had thrown it out, she insisted we take another new Hicon becoz without the box, they couldn't return it to the factory. Get this - so that they could repair it and resell it!!! Gie told her why can't they print a new box?! It probably only cost them 20c to do it!

The nerve of that woman kept insisting us to take the new Hi-con and if the 2nd one spoils, they have more reason to go back to the factory and get their credit back. What?! We have to wait for the Hi-con to konk out on us again, rent a car to drive it down, and argue with these people?! We already have a faulty Hicon with a 2 week life-line, why on earth would we want another one?!

Sometimes, these people really didn't make sense. Here we have a faulty set which would easily justify the store getting their credit back. But they want us to take another one and if that spoils, then they would allow us an upgrade. HUH? All becoz we threw out the box.. The manager could even tell us that he keeps all his boxes when we asked whether a reasonable person would keep all the boxes. He must be using appliance boxes as furniture or he has a really huge garage. We are giving them more business and they want to argue with us. Or maybe it was already 5pm and they wanted to close coz the WOMAN was so frustrated with us, she told the manager she couldn't deal with us anymore. The manager told us to come back the next day and we could resume our discussion.. we didn't want to leave until he gave us his word that we wouldn't go home empty handed.

Later that day, Freddy and co didn't seem supportive nor convinced that we could get our way. Haha.. perhaps we sounded pretty demanding and difficult but we just didn't see why on earth they wouldn't want to let us upgrade.. over a stupid box! But if 2 tvs spoil, then we could upgrade! Didn't make business-sense to us. In any case, maybe they went home to sleep on it.. coz when we arrived in the morning, that woman came over and asked us to choose which tv we wanted! Haha.. no fight or arguments or anything.. just walked in and bought ourselves a new tv for $600 more..

So... introducing the new love in our home... Our beloved Samsung sleek, black tv with a swivel stand, 32" LCD monitor with high definition and in-built digital tuner and we would go on and on but in short... It's a beauty!!! Hahaha.. So happy with it now and we both promised ourselves, no more no-name brands for us!

Here's leaving you with photos from Jazz in the park (a pwc event) and Cirocco (a diy sushi event).

The one with Indian food

Leicester Street boys at Indian feast


Guess who is behind the menu?


The lot.


It has been a while since we met up with the Leicester Street boys. Ever since we started working, we hardly even have the time to exercise let alone socialise. All we have been doing is making the house look nice, eat, sleep and WORK! So it was about time that we catch up with some of our old friends. So we headed down to a lovely Indian Restaurant on Lygon. Too bad we do not have much photos of the food (which was quite yummy but not quite the same price as back home) But no complaints, it was a nice catch up session and a nice evening out with the boys.

The one with Angie's Uncle & The Phantom

Big meals at Mosskito

Cousin Ann

Gie n Uncle Pius

Uncle Pius and the Cuckoo gang

Oktoberfest came early at Mt Dandenong!

It was an eagerly anticipated weekend that finally arrived.. the weekend where Uncle Pius and family came to Melbourne so that Gie's cousin Ann can watch Phantom of the Opera for the 14th and 15th time respectively..!! We're just happy that the Phantom has brought them here to Melbourne. =)

We rented a lil' car which began a weekend of eating, shopping, and more eating! The day of the arrival began quite smoothly until Gie took over the wheel when Jem headed off for the office. The city of Melbourne proved too much for Gie to handle - bear in mind that although the city was in grids and looked easy to navigate on the map, there were plenty of one-way streets and (&(%#*$) hooked turns to overcome! As a result of Uncle Pius' hunt for free parking (he doesn't believe in paying for parking), we ended up on the freeway and almost was on our way to Doncaster! To think we were just looking for a nice cafe with free parking!! boo hoo..

The first nice meal we had together was at Mosskito, the big place with a small name. Portions were humongous here and definitely not for the faint-hearted! The relatives took it well and finished (almost) all the food and dessert pancakes the size of our faces!

The next day, we found room for yum cha (dim sum) for brunch at Shark's Fin Inn - Chinatown. Probably the most Fab yum cha you would have ever had outside of Hong Kong! If you think about it, Singapore doesn't really have really good yum cha... hmm... so score one for Melbourne! Brunch was followed by an afternoon at DFO (Direct Factory Outlets) - the best place to shop! Shopping with Gie resulted in Ann contributing a few hundreds to the Australian economy! heh. Aunty Sheree also bought a tee for $1! Now where can you get such great bargains?

All too soon, it was the 3rd and last day with Uncle Pius and family. We went to church together in the morning at St Patrick's Cathedral and stopped for another short spree at Nike factory outlet. A few big bucks later and the grand total shopping bill for Ann amounted to $500!! Way to go girl!! Gie bought a nice pair of running shoes too, just to encourage her to do some running.. =)

In the afternoon, we took a nice drive to Mt Dandenong stopping for lunch at Cuckoo Restaurant, Olinda. It was a fun-filled experience and the Cuckoo staff were really cuckoo! So that was really fun and food was aplenty and yummy-licious! Again, we were too full from lunch to try the famous scones at Mt Dandenong... sigh... We've been here 3 times already and not once we found space for hot, famous scones.. sniff..!

It was truly heartening to have familiar faces in an otherwise unfamiliar place. Parting was surprisingly sad for Gie and the familiar creeping feeling you get at airport farewells sank in a lil' bit. I guess you don't realise how much you miss people back home until they appear in front of you and start to disappear again.. Thank you Uncle Pius for everything and hope you had a great time in Melbourne! Visit again soon!

p/s: Phantom has been extended to January 2008...

Ktv

After a long day at the races, we went back to Centurion to change and have a little rest before heading down to meet up for Ktv. Had dinner at Singapore Chom Chom (a place that serves singporean food) Gie thinks the food there is not bad, too bad did not have any photos at Chom Chom. Shortly after having dinner, we head down one of chinatown's ally for KTV. The night started off rather slowly, with Freddy and Jem singing, after which Desmond (dude in red) joined us after sorting out some cat problems with a friend. The singing and drinking session went on with alot of old Mandarine and English music. It was the first time when Gie sang so much, mostly backing up Bee but she had a fair share of her songs too. After Ktv we had supper at Chinabar and took a nice stroll back to Centurion after that.

Derby Day - Lead-up to Melbourne Cup

It's officially Spring Fest in Melbourne - Flowers are in full bloom and the city is vibrant with gentlemen looking smart in suits and top hats and ladies in chic and florals, with feathers in their hair. Melbourne is bursting with life as everyone dresses up and heads down to Flemmington for the Derby Day races, the final race before the Grand Melbourne Cup on Tuesday. For us first-timers, it was an exciting yet somewhat stressful time as we struggle to find the right outfit to try fit into the crowd at Derby Day (i.e. hat for Jem and feathers for me!!)

It's amazing that Melbourne Cup is such a big deal in Melbourne (they have declared Tuesday a public holiday just for the races) yet, many people we met have not been to the races! We would've missed out this year as well, since our pockets are pretty light from furnishing our home, if not for Jem's good fortune at work - He had won tickets at a monthly company drinks session! So sometime last week, he texted Gie the good news while she was out shopping with a couple of colleagues (Meera and Laura - in pic) and the frantic search for a pretty but affordable fascinator began...
Fascinators is a term for those ribbons, feathers and flowers that you can fasten in your hair.

You wouldn't have an idea of how much effort and money the Melbournians put into dressing up for the races until you step into the shops. Glamorous big hats and all sorts of fascinators with funky feathers fetched up to hundreds of dollars! Gie and her colleagues had gone to Myers to try on some hats and even though Gie was convinced that she looked stupid in hats, those $700 hats looked absolutely gorgeous on her... Of course, that is why they cost so much! Last weekend, Jem and Gie went shopping with Bee, Freddy and Desmond at DFO (Direct Factory Outlet - wallet friendly shopping) and there, Gie found her black ribbon with white trimmings and some sparse feathers for only $25!

Opps, just realised that we have yet to introduce some people to you... Meet Bee - Jem's colleague at Mitsubishi and Freddy, Bee's boyfriend! Bee had won tickets to Derby Day as well so the four of us went together. Before Derby Day, almost all our weekends and nights were spent feasting like kings and queens, drinking like drunks and ... playing Monopoly...!! Heh.. in fact, the very first time Gie met the gang (oh almost forgot about Desmond - you'll see him in some pics later), we had stayed up all night playing Monopoly until Macca's bfast at 7am... Freaks!! Anyhow, back to Derby Day...



Initially Jem was reluctant to buy a hat for that one day, but as you can see, even he gave into the spirit of the races and bought a hat for that one day! Weeee!! Freddy thought he looked like the Italian Mafia boss.. heh!

The atmosphere was just awesome! We had arrived sometime in the afternoon and Flemington (home of The Cup) was packed with people! All trains were re-directed to Flemington and if you didn't know how to make your way there, you could just follow the Hats! Upon our arrival, we followed Laura and her friend Luke to the track area and caught our first race! Bee and Gie stood right next to the tracks and watched the horses whizz by, the crowd went wild nearing the finishing line and some people were happier than others.. Gie was just thrilled to be in the thick of the action with the horses galloping right in front of her!

Freddy and Jem also made some bets and we actually won one of the races! The one we won was the tri-factor where we bet on 3 horses to win and to our glee, they won! Such flukes, the bunch of us had absolutely lil' idea what was going on, let alone the names of the horses we were vying for! We included a lil' video of the winning race! Don't expect too much becoz Gie was so excited that half the time, she wasn't filming much! Unfortunately, that wasn't the only bet we placed so at the end of the day, we still lost about $20 but if not for that particular race (we won over $100), we would've lost quite a bit more!

After an afternoon of bubblies, speeding horses, people gawking, we called it a day at about 5pm and the skies started clouding over. Jem nGie n many drunk Melbournians made their way back into the city and home. There, we turned back into normal people who wear simple clothes and prepared for a night of Karaoke with Desmond, Bee n Freddy!

For more photos, view it at shutterfly here---> http://share.shutterfly.com/action/welcome?sid=8AbNmTJk3btWGV