mango custard pudding

had this for dessert the other night, courtesy of my sis-in-law who made them.
she used real mango slices to garnish them. 

happy birthday , bro..

i just remembered, it is my bro's birthday today.
happy birthday, bro.

*pics taken at suspension bridge @ karangahape gorge earlier this year

new york city - by feet

we set off from queensboro plaza, and it takes about 20 mins to get to manhattan. however, we have decided to go catch the staten island ferry to see lady liberty. (add another 15 mins)



it was a new ferry terminal and i saw this interesting poster pasted at the terminal. FEED A PIGEON , BREED A RAT. Pigeon is equivalent of rat in NYC. they are a nuisance and their poo probably is toxic too. the ferry ride takes about an hour and the wind was very chilly.
took some blurry pic of lady liberty.

after that, we venture to canal street (the china town). there're rows of stalls selling trendy jewelleries by mainland chinese. after 2-3 stalls, you will realise that the stock are pretty much the same. the price is cut-throat for us. but the angmohs buy them like hotcake. suffice to say, those seller don't 'layan' people like me.

there're lots of cabs (yellow) around. just had to take a pic of the cab :) HEHE. Little Italy is just adjacent to Chinatown. there's lots of restaurants and interesting little shops. it was very christmasy too, since it's only 12 days to Christmas.

finally we went to Times Square, the famous landmark in NYC. Honestly I was expecting a huge clock somewhere but we couldn't find it. but it was very colorful and full of billboards.

the rockerfeller centre christmas tree again. throngs of people were trying to look at the tree. i was one of them.

the amazing St Patrick Cathedral. It was very beautiful and grand. It was so peaceful inside eventhough it was crowded.

we only explored NYC on our own for a day. there are still many places yet to be explored. maybe that gives me a valid reason to revisit NYC sometime in the near future *Grin

Commercial Grower at Drury -part 2

i also had the opportunity to visit another grower. was greeted by his little terrier. he's real camera shy.
This grower is more old-school. interesting point to note, he hails from holland too. he plants mostly anthuriums. he also had orchids. *mainly oncidiums (the yellow coloured orchid), some odontoglossum


he had so much variety of anthurium around , they were really spectacular.
here's some sample of his beautiful collection.

*putting them on a grid like this do them no justice, but that's the best i can come up with.

Commercial Grower at Drury -part 1

i went to a commercial grower at Drury, about 30mins from South Auckland on the last week of May. it was part of an outing organised by the orchid society.
I was expecting muddy, and drippy places.. but i came to something totally opposite.
the area is sterile. it's an eye-opener.

*seedlings are grown on the floor of the enormous glass houses. there's at least 1-2 acres of glasshouse. some workers were working on the seedling. there were anthuriums, bromeliads, ferns and orchids grown inside the glasshouse. was told there were also vegetable seedlings too.. the roof captures the heat and sunlight. the whole facility is based on dutch technology. the dutch actually came and build the facility.

*that's one of the partner of the nursery. he was giving an extensive talk about growing phalaenopsis in the commercial sense. there were rows and rows of phallies in the glasshouse and he supplies them to the florist or the plant shop. he has worker whose job is staking the phalies stocks. guess what's cooking in the drums?? hehe fertiliser. there were a row of about 5 big drums, and each contains specific fertiliser for different plant group.

*baby phallies, and the various type of bromeliads.

what i have been up to

i think i better write a little of what i have been up to aside from posting pics of newly acquired plants or existing plants.

work has been quite hectic. lots of small deadlines. my boss would ring me even though he's just 2 doors away and my ancient phone does not have caller id so each time he rang, i said Good X, J's speaking.

i prepared a list (to be done after work) of " to do list" today and marked it off as i go.

• picked up society's bank statement from Marnee;
• updated society's member list;
• still haven't draft /write to R walker, society auditor (i am so slack)
• typed up lyrics for next choir song. still not convinced that's the song we will sing. i just want to tick off the list. in case you wonder what song i picked it's an old song by Maranatha.
• finally, updating my CV! i realised i haven't touched it since last April.

in between the to do list, i actually went to Ezibuy, Freedom Furniture and 2 supermarket after work. in the first two establishment was just window shopping. was wanting to get something for my bro's birthday and also hunting for sunblock. also read the magazines without buying. read the most recent NZ Gardener and NOTEBOOK (this one looks so yummy, I almost bought it) and browsed through Better Home and Garden.

from sunblock, i end up getting snail and slug pellets, a bottle of echinacea and cotton buds.

newly acquired plants

few weekends back, i went to a plant sale. they are ex-hire plants. so some of them are really huge. some of them had been deprived of attention. i wish i had a trailer so i can buy those bigger plants.

i picked up many bromeliads, and some houseplants. couldn't resist the phalaenopsis too.