united airlines

jake's flight was delayed today. he managed to get himself into the Air NZ flight that leaves tonight.he even rang me from the plane on his cell phone. hehe. quite amazed. i think i am so outdated. i am still in the era where all eletronics must be put away whilst the plane is airborne.

meanwhile, i am trying to plan a tour for his mom and the auntie. gosh, it's mind boggling.
planning for 2 women. so far, i have bought the airticket. they are going to christchurch. booked and paid for the ticket on qantas website.

i have bugged anita to ask her motel to stay in chch. she's recommended me a couple nice places. i just need to decide what activitites to do and plan the journey. i realised i have lost all abilities to plan journey. my brain is like so switched off. i still remember planning trips to sydney, tasmania and so on.

those days seems so damn far away.

luckily i have a lonely planet New Zealand with me. hehe.

p/s: jake forgot to bring one of his jacket. he said he will be frozen by the time he gets to Minneapolis. i told him to buy a jacket from LA. oh and he's taken the camera with him. so i will be cameraless for a while...*darn.

bags..

i spent saturday having yumchar in the morning and then hunting for luggage bag for jake's travel and my upcoming trip. our aim was to find a very light, reliable, and cheap and ugly looking travel bag. preferably, something big too, that can fill 20kg of stuffs.

was getting real tired also, checking out the materials etc and the zips etc..

we finally found what we wanted (more what jake wanted) at the red shed aka THE WAREHOUSE(where everyone gets a bargain).

bag was 74cm tall and black in color. it's 4kg and i have so far filled up half the suitcase for jake's stuffs. he's bringing the bare minimum. hehe.

he's leaving tommorow :( it's the longest time we will be apart for..

short week

i am feeling slightly better now. maybe those herbals granules and supplements i been taking are working. but i have turned 'coughy'. is there such a word? it's like i kept giving out small coughs.

time past real quick at work due to month end. posting so many journals. i am going mad. and the system is going cuckoo every once in a while to piss you off.

p/s: i also sneeze a lot. Sheesh. i think it's developing into a monstrous cold.

sick

jake must have passed his germs to me. i have developed a sore throat now.
hate that feeling in my throat. i can still remember not too long ago, i wish i was sick so i could take time off work, but now that i am truly sick, i can't take any sick leave because there's too much things to do. grrrrrrrr...

to make things worse, i was imsoniac on monday...i didn't sleep a wink.
i think i can understand how an imsoniac must have felt.
it's yuck when u can't sleep.

for the short labour weekend, i went to muriwai beach. jake's auntie is here. so we brought her to muriwai to see the ganet colony. and was supposed to show her the fairy falls at waitakere national park but it didn't happen coz we were all so unfit. i can feel my heart popping out of me when I was doing the mini track. we had to stop half way and walk back to the car...
on our way back to auckland, we stopped by lots of vege shops to stock our fruits and greens ...

encounter with Horsie

there was a fenced up field nearby my house. there were horses grazing there.
lately there're more horses there.
i am so tempted to go pat them.so when i went for my walk tonight, i ask jake to go with me to check out the horses.
i called out, "hi horsie" ..and clapped my hand on my lap..
one of them responded... :) HEHEHE
he came close to the fence and put his head out ..waiting for me to pat him??
i got scared ..i scared he will kick me or 'bite' me.
jake said, " go ahead, he's waiting for you to pat his head. (horsie lowering his head) he won't kick you coz he's behind the fence".
so finally i pat his face and head..ehhehe..he's so friendly.he's just like a dog :) HEHEH
had to say goodbye to him before i walked home. i felt so silly but i think he understands ..
might go and visit him more...

Danny the Dog - the movie

watched another of jet li's movie. actually found it hillarious.

for the first 17minutes, he didn't speak a word. he wore a collar and as the name of the movie suggests, he's treated like DOG! as the movie moves on, it gets a bit better. the first word he spoke was YES. After several Yes-es, he said "Me Too", followed by NO... i thought he was dumb when i started watching the movie. as usual jet li's movie is incomplete without his kung-fu actions.

pin wheels

i have finally uploaded photos from my memory card to the pc.

i made some fingerfood (PINWHEELS) for a birthday party not long ago. learned to make them in the first year i was in aussie. gosh that sounds really long ago. nevertheless, the recipee was very simple.

ingredient:
1 pack of puff pastry (from supermarket)
1-2 capsicum, chopped finely
12 potatoes (the small ones)
1 big onion-chopped finely
100g bacon-chopped finely
salt & pepper to taste
grated cheese (i used parmesan, can replace with mozerella)

note: oven to be preheated and set at 180 degree celcius

method:
boil the potatoes until they are ready to be mashed.
mash the potatoes and mix in the grated cheese, the capsicum,the onions, bacon, and salt & Pepper.
when everything is evenly mixed, prepare the puff pastry.
lay the puff pastry on a flat surface and start spreading the mixed ingredients onto the pastry..like how you would spread rice etc on your sushi nori.
then roll them up and it will look like a long log.
cut them into 1cm thick, so they look like wheels.
put into oven and bake for 10 mins for each side and start watching the pastry puffed up.

in memory of my bald sarcochilus

that was in 2004 when it was flowering..sarcochilus is a native australian plants.
they bear tiny flowers and mostly comes in whites.

slack

i have been in MIA mode for the last couple of days. nothing much, but i was just not in the mood to write anything.

i have been neglecting my orchids for so long i am in deep guilt right now. Yesterday I went and water them and to my horror, my philadota chinensis which has new growth, has suffered burns on the leaves :( Shucks. lack of watering and weather has been heating up lately. but i suspect it was also due to the heavy rains not too long before. A few other ones has shrinking bulbs (lack of watering) my sarcochillus is completely bald, all the leaves are gone. thanks to the sickening slugs!!! ARGH i vow to kill them in the coming year!!!!!

what have i done to them?

i came up with this reason:

the plants need to be in a strategic location so access is easy. ie. access to water and fertilise them is easy. i haven't got this element ever since i moved here. so i haven't really watered or look at them much

what can i say, i won't have any flowering plants for next year, that's for sure :(

weekend's shorter than blink of eye

i have a long list of to do list for my weekend but i spent most if not all my time surfing on ebay.
what's wrong with me?

i met up my old colleague on saturday .. it was great, we exchanged news and she helped get my measurement. i am getting my wedding dress from ebay. yeah, kinda crazy and risky but hehe.
i am always adventure-loving. (aside from taking roller coaster ride, i count myself rather adventurous)

the weather started to warm up this weekend, so i managed to do some laundries.
that's something that i did do. my laundry were kinda piling up. GOSHHHH..
thank God for the good sunny weather.

there's another orchid meeting today, so i went religiously and brought cheeses to give away to some other orchid members. they helped me repot my plant last time and gave me heaps of advices.
i bought 5 litre of charcoal too.. charcoal is quite rare here, although mom use charcoal for all her orchids back home.

and for dinner, i made roast beef dinner with root veges ..i don't think i mastered the roast yet. i marinated it with thyme, garlic, lemon rinds, oregano, mixed herbs, salt, pepper and a bit of butter. i coat the veges with olive oil and salt. the roast turned out medium rare ..i love medium rare but the rest of the folks want well done, so I ended up reroasting it ..

tommorrow's Monday. YUCK! monday blues!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

yoga dvd review

i tried the yoga dvd i bought from lady avon. i didn't think it was so great. it was very slow and it started with corpse position. almost made me fall asleep first thing we started.

majority of the pose are not challenging. i have done them before. and there's like 10 seconds interval in between pose and i thought that is a waste of time.

but if i have nothing better to do, the yoga dvd won't hurt. will somehow incorporate that into my routine, somehow.

i have been so slack these days.

friday morning

i am happy as it's friday again..the week has past so quickly.
i met cc online this morning. that gal can really sleep super late ;)
it felt as if she's somewhere in auckland with same time zone:P
too bad i have to go to work now..argh!
looking forward for my weekends. yipeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee

Cibo

went to dinner last nite in downtown at Cibo with a bunch of engineers (mainly). there's also a few planners and safety auditors. it was a celebration dinner, and i was a 'supporter'. keke.

anyways, the restaurant was a chic place. there were lots of ppl hanging there for beers and wines at 6pm, . we started off with wine. i picked a marlborough chardonnay...and people started to arrive.

i noticed the restaurant was full by the time my entree arrived. i had the day's special for entree which consists of scallops and a stick of salmon with some soba noodles. jake had whitebait omelette.

as for main, i chose lamb shanks . some of the bad lamb shanks i ate before took me a long time to eat them. last nite, the lamb shank was tender enough and moist enough. yummmmm...for unknown reason, i feltl like a dog too. probably because of the big shank.

i didn't enjoy dessert as i have made a poor choice. some treacle of coconut whatever.
it was to dry for me, and i didn't finish it. it's so unlike me not to finish desserts. should have gone for the trio of sorbets instead..

piano

i haven't been toTrademe for ages.
my searches normally consist of 'sewing machine', 'piano', 'palms' .
tonight i came across this seller. he mades me laugh.

No Reserve!! Stodard Piano

Current bid: $49.50 | Reserve met | Closes: Thu, 13 Oct

printer friendly page

Minimum next bid: $ Autobid

Bid history

I've just taken 5 years to perfect three blind mice! Its time to stop the torture and move on..... comment:i would love to check out this piano if he's around Auckland. Sadly, the seller's all the way in Invercargill (southernmost tip of NZ, almost anyway)

yummilicious ice bar

on one of my grocery shopping at the korean grocery shop, i came across this honey dew ice bar in the freezer section. i decided to try it and bought a box.

it has a nice packaging and the ice bar indeed, tastes of honey dew.


the ice bar is wrapped individually with koreans font written all over it.


before i finished the ice bar, i managed to snap a pic of the actual ice bar.

lady avon

today i received the product i ordered. i will try it out and find out how it's like. i am a bit bored with my current 15mins method dvd.

guess what this is?

SNAPPER FISH EGGS ...YUCK!!!!! THEY LOOK DISGUSTING I KNOW..
they must be millions of them
it's taken out of one of the snapper jake caught last Saturday

back in action

exam's finished and fingers crossed everything will be fine. thanks to those who pray for me, and wish me luck :) Really appreciate it.

last saturday it was a busy day for me. aside from studying, i was helping out at the orchid society at the admin table to be a certificate writer ;) hehe. the job is actually very interesting. had to start at 8am and finish before the general public comes for the exhibition.

there were many classes competing and there must be about 8 judges. they walk around and compare flowers, plants, etc. and when they decide who's the winner, there's a runner who would send the card (containing plants' name and name of exhibitor)my job was to write the name of the plant and the name of exhibitor. the hardest part of the job was to figure out what the name says. some of the spelling is so weird ie. hartmanii or bergaysii whatever that is


there're so much hybrids in orchid that you end up with names 10 words long. imagine naming your child with so many words. hehe. one of the name that stuck in my brain was mighty mouse "minnie" x something else. there's also last tango, or bee jay spencer.

anyways, the show was a success. there're more than 200 visitors and people were buying plants from the trading table like there's no tommorrow. the trading table is a good place to find species that you can't find in the typical garden centre.

again, here's what the judges do:

note:

they measure the petal to make sure they are of the acceptable size; they also deliberate which one deserve to be awarded etc


here're just general pics of the day. photos of members tags, the numerous cups, trophies to be won, judges deliberating and the different stands of orchids display ..there's lot more but i only snap what i can see from the admin table.