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. 

端午节

端 午节 (duan wu jie) or otherwise known as dumpling festival or dragon boat festival falls on the 5th day of the 5th month on the lunar calendar. this year, 5th day of 5th month falls on 31 May. coincidentally, it is also my deceased maternal grandma's birthday.

anyways, as the chinese settle on any parts of the earth, they will bound to remember all the different chinese festivals in the year.

this year, my in laws made many bak zhang or rou zong zi /meat dumplings. they made a cantonese shaped dumpling but with hokkien ingredients. i'll let the pics tell you what's it got.

My orchid-Paphiopedilum Insigne

*pics taken at different stages while its flowering. (took about 1 week to record it to full bloom)



somewhere in 2004, i bought this paph from the orchid society trading table.
it must be my 3rd or 4th orchid. it has one flower when I bought it.
after it finished flowering, i left it outside per the instruction from book and seller, but it hasn't done very well. as in not much growth and no flower. earlier this year, i moved it indoors and it started shooting new growth and then a stalk appeared -it's going to flower. i am so pleased and so proud of myself.
the blooming itself took about one whole month. it stayed as a bud for weeks (something like 4 weeks?) and on the final week, i managed to capture the bloom, day by day up to when the flower finally bloomed.

My orchid- Prologue

the bud of my paphiopedilum insigne ..this is the first photograph of the bloom.
it stays tight lipped for a long time. 

Lays-Sea Weed flavour

on one of our trips to T-Mark (taiwanese groceries), we found Lays -Sea Weed flavour chip.
it has subtle sea weed flavour and tastes light.
totally recommend this chip. trust Lays to make good chips.

Beginnners Guide to ..

YES. my passion for the moment, gardening. this post is especially for stace ;) i am trying to infect her with my gardening bug. *Grin.

here's my recommendation of beginner fool-proof plants.

main reason for picking them:

• super undemanding (can withstand some neglect)
  
• hardy
  
• multiplies giving you sense of achievement
• very colourful, looks cute
• can be decorative
• can be grown indoor and outdoor

• Echeveria imbracata (aka Monster flower, given its huge rossette forming structure)

- they have very interesting colours. they tolerate almost any type of soil (although the book recommend sandy soil) but they thrive on almost anything.
-with a little bit of attention, it will spread and produce many baby plants.
-they produce pink flowers with yellow linings to the petals
-recently I have tried and succeeded to propagate by using single leaf of the succulent.
-good for borders, pots, anything.

• Crassulae ovata (Jade plant)

-they come under a sub- species, for eg, some are green leaves, and some have green leaves with red rims.
-they have thick leaves and i grew mine under a bit of shade to give that dark green color on the leaves.
-sometimes they will flower too.
-to propagate, use single leave or a little branch.

• Pachyphytum oviferum

-sometimes called moonstones,
-they have very thick leaves and flowers is pale pink.
-can be propagated by single leaf or stem.
-when grown indoor, it can be very white but in sheltered dry outdoor areas, the sun brings out a pinkish color in the leaves.

• Haworthia attenuata

-my dad's friend gave him some bunch of these when he visited him in Auckland. he left me one baby plant and has since multiplied to two pots.
-narrow spiky leaves with bands of white tubercles give the outside of the leaves a zebra patterned look.
-they look a bit like zebras.
-in spring, they give out sprays of tiny flowers.

• Pony tail palm (Beaucarnea recurvata)

-my dad grew this in Sibu. they grew really big but takes ages to grow.
-am surprised to discover it's a type of succulent. it has a bulbous base.
-they like the ocassional drinks. if you grow them indoor, the leaves becomes very dark green.mine seems to have tinge of red on the leaves (maybe due to low temperature)
-what i really want to increase in my collection is palm with two bunch of pony tails on the same bulb.

• Sansviera (mother-in-law tongues)

- this is a really tough plant. it grows upwards so is suitable for any place.
- by tough i mean, it can withstand much neglect. i went on my trip and don't think it received a single drop of water. it still survived.
-after repotting in feb, it has produced many new babies and has grown much taller.
-having said that, i killed jakes first sansviera by standing it under full sun and full rain. (sometimes the plant label can be very misleading).

i think this is enough to get started ;)

new york city -being traffic engineer

after chicago, we flew to new york city. we flew into la guardia airport. it was good coz it wasn't crowded. unfortunately, we had to stay at queens. to be fair, the subway was really convenient albeit it was unlike the singapore or hong kong subway. it was less well lit and much older..they are like what you saw in tv.
i spent my first day at a traffic centre. jake's decided to bring me with him to meet his business contact. so i was 'traffic engineer' for nearly half a day. :P i pretend to be super interested at the traffic system. one cool thing was i could see traffic at times square from the control centre.
L:R the DOT 's numerous screens;funny how they call it air circulator when it is a fan; the server room; emergency response room they even have the news channel constantly on, CNN wasn't their choice of news channel; the system used by the operator in the emergency response room; NYC DOT logo;chart of every traffic light available on Manhattan; the bigger screens of the streets around;in walters suv, passing by one of the bridges; another view of the bridges;NYC has so many bridges, i donno which one is which; their EZ pass system you instal the 'machine' in your car and your car get scanned each time you past the bridge/tunnel; streets in Manhattan; some tunnels we are in; the great mural across the restaurant where i had my fabulous steak; 5th avenue pre christmas time.



at night walter and wife brought us around manhattan. we had dinner at this upbeat restaurant. and walter drove us around in his wife's SUV showing us the bridges, traffic system. i lost count of the number of bridges that we crossed. traffic was really jammed ...
we were on 5th avenue in the SUV and it must have took us 1 hour to get from one end to the other. it would be faster for us to be on our feet.

busy Saturday

with jake gone fishing since 6am, i was left to my own devices. since my laundry is overflowing from my hamper, it's time to put them into the washers. i figured out if they have gone fishing, it must be a good day. i started my first load at 6 am. gosh!!!!!!! and i logged on to read blogs etc.

then stace came online. that was good. we get to chat on MSN :) HEHEHE.
whilst talking to her, i loaded up some pics into my yahoo photoalbum. sal can finally see some pics of my wedding.

then i went to the bank to sort out the signatories for the orchid society. right after that, i went to shop for baby showers gift. that's when headache struck me!!!!!!!
there are so many choices available. they are all so cute. i must have been to about 4 baby places in the mall. most of the shops are filled with mothers and their prams. i finally saw a really cute 2 piece pink fleecy things from the craft market at the mall. one of my friend sells her hand made jewellery there. this time i stopped by one of this store which is tended by two nanna . they were knitting and i spotted the cute bunny rabbit 2 piece baby gear. i asked if she's made them and she said YES. i immediately bought them. i think i like to support local made products :)

then i drove to the horticultural society autumn show. i promised marnee that i would make it to the show. it was a chrysanthemum show and it was such an eye opener. i have never seen 'chrysanthemum' of that size. it's almost as big as a newborn baby's head. some were bigger. then i realised i left my camera at home. M was there and she showed me around.

next year i must go back and this time with camera. there were arrangements made by herbs, and people can compete with the fruit they grown at home. it's amazing what they have at the show.

i bought another houseplant from the trading table. *hiak hiak . i haven't checked out its name yet. it has kinda stripey look and has a shiny purple on the back of the leave.


here's jake's catch for the day, i think the snappers were in the freezer already by the time i took these photos.

mutated radish

recently i saw this giant radish lying around in my kitchen. it has the oddest shape, and weigh at least 2kg.

nevertheless, it still tastes good like normal shaped radish.
lesson of the day: Never judge a book by its cover. 

what i did last saturday afternoon

i pot up most of the goodies i got from marnee into pots.
that big cactus is one of jake's babies. the cactus' getting a new upgrade-much bigger pot!

new collection

on saturday, i went for a short meeting to glen and marnee's house. (my friends who babysat my orchid while i was away). len the past treasurer wanted to hand over the 'books' to me. after the short meeting, we had waffles with home-made jam. M's a great cook. i somehow ended up in G&M's garden. Next thing I know, M is busy pinching, pulling out bits and pieces of her ever growing collection of succulents and plants. first it was a bag, then there was the bigger 2nd bag

after len left, G then started to pull out even bigger plants for me :P like plum trees and big bromeliads.

i spent the rest of the afternoon, potting up the new plants i have got. it also involved some 'hole-making' process. i made some drainage into these plastic pots. the holes are not nice ( don't have /can't use a drill) but who cares, as long as the water drains out.


i spread out the baby plants, cuttings etc onto the ground.

chicago - the wind city part 2

random photo collection-cinderella window display



in chicago, marshall field also displayed the cinderella story. they displayed it on all their main windows.. whereas in minneapolis, we had to go to a different floor and see the display. they had more space in Minneapolis hence the more elaborated display and storyline.

chicago - the wind city

the moment i stepped on the O'hare international airport, i can feel that people are rushing. it was a big airport and at the same time people are on every nook and corner of the airport.they were walking real fast and the driver that drove us to our hotel spoke super fast too in her african american accent. wow! hehe..and another thing that i noticed was the incessant honking on the street. everybody just honked..and it was blimming cold too.i was in my layers and layers of clothings.

i got to explore chicago on my own for 2 days. we were there for 3 days. jake has to work for 2 days so i was on my own during office hours. at first i dreaded that he wasn't there but i soon came to enjoy exploring the city by myself.

we stayed at knickerbocker hotel. it's very 30s and i love it. the doorman wears their warm coat ...recently the Millenium hotel chain bought it. the location was good. we were like 1 min away from the Magnificent Mile. i guess Magnificent Mile is like the Singapore version of Orchard road. there's so many big stores to go too, i don't have enough time.

the highlights of chicago for me was going to its greektown, the lincoln zoo, and the Christkindlmarket ..

p/s: blogger is a bit weird. i am not going to put any more pics.
feeling tired.

creature in my garden

*this post is not for the faint hearted*

early this morning i have discovered something on my garden bed. took me a while to figure out what it was. it wasn't a snake, wasn't a garden lizard. then what is it!?!?!?!?!?!?!

it's a SLUG!!!!!! it's nothing new but what i have witnessed this morning is definitely something new. the darn thing is 6 to 7 inches long!!!!!! what a revolting way to start my day.

anyways Slug is like a snail but without a shell. So imagine escargo without snails.
anyways, i saw 3 this morning. Wonder if it's my bad luck or theirs ..i decided to sprinkle granulated coffee on them. read somewhere that these creatures hate coffee powder. they started to shrivel a bit but secreted lots of slimy silvery looking slime. but after those sslimy thing, they appear to have gone back to normal. so i decided to use the ultimate weapon.
SALT! remembered they dried up when their body come in contact with salt.

so i started to sprinkle them with salt and the two of them started to shrivel quite badly and even looked kinda deformed. then i decided i would leave them alone as i wanna go and prepare to go to work.

wonder if they are dead by now.

i was so motivated to find out more ways to kill slugs that i spent my lunch time googling about them. argh ..can't believe myself. but seriously they are such a pest they make holes in the lamb's ears i am planting.

so here's the gory pics. i took several of them but none turned out exceptionally well. most of them are blur.
*you might have to squint a bit to see the slimy creatures. they are almost as long as the width of the fence! *EUWWWWWWW

if you squint harder you will be able to see the silvery slimy thread they left on the soil.

am only putting one pic coz they look so offensive.

Repotting

a few weeks ago, i repotted the jade plant which has outgrown its pot. it was like a tug of war between myself and the plant. the plant has probably spent at least 2 years in its old pot. after shaking and pulling, the plant finally came out of its old pot.
the roots has formed around the pot

the plants soon-to-be new home. see the upgrade.. hehe.

here's how i repot my plant: (according to my own method)

• mix the potting mix and compost. i used a 1:1 ratio. for pot of that size i probably used about 10-12 cups of potting mix and compost each.

• i mix the both mixes in the wheel barrow. (round about this time, you can mix some slow release fertiliser with the mix)
  
• then i find 3 stones to place on top of the drainage holes. (remember the khb txtbooks?) so as not to block the drainage of the pot.

• then i fill about 12-15cm of mixes in the new pot and then stand the plant together with its old mix inside the pot and start filling up the mix.
• after potting, i ensure they have a good drink of water.
  

plant settling in its new home. hopefully next year, the plant would be taller :) i am already seeing new growths after repotting.

Minnesota - City of Lakes (Part 2)

This is a continuance of previous post about the highlights of my stay in minnesota.
i particularly liked these peanuts gang statutes scattered about in the city park in St Paul.They look so cute..they were taken couple of weeks before i arrived.


by the time i went,the grounds were covered with snow..


other highlights were :
disney on ice

christmas decors by marshall fields - apparently marshall fields (a nationwide dept store) puts up a christmas display in their shop every year.
it was colorful and some special effects was used throughout..i thoroughly enjoyed the display. the 2005 display was the Cinderella.

steven curtis chapman and mercy me concert - it was my first time going to christian concert.
it was a great blessing for me. i probably shed some tears along the way as i was very moved by the songs.

Minnesota - City of Lakes

jake has finally burned our trip photos from his laptop to dvd. we took so many picst. i will just summarise the highlight of each of my destination. stuffs i remembered fondly..

minnesota- is a state located in the midwest of US of A. so in winter it gets pretty cold (much colder than in NZ and it snows too) It has two city; Minneapolis and St Pauls. I stayed in Roseville which is 10mins away from Minneapolis.

things i like most about Minnesota:

ppl were very friendly. it reminded me of good old adelaide.

the highlights for me were: (in no particular order)

• the sculptured garden (although i was frozen into my bones)

Left: Sculptured garden feature was covered with snow







Right: 3 weeks earlier, jake snapped the pic at the sculptured garden

• minnesota insitute of art (jake has to drag me out from the place)
• watching a NBA game (between timberwolves(Minnesota team) and LA (not lakers but clippers)

left: cheerleading squads. they change their costume and location several times in the game.







right: Crunch, the Timberwolves mascot.

eye soother

i decided to do picture blog today. been busy plus lazy..is there such a combination of feeling/mood?
been to the library today ..raided the gardening magazines and almost broke my shoulder carrying those reading materials in my library bag.
anyhow,these are the pics I took of flora & fauna following my trip to lake matheson in south island. it was an hour's walk and i lose count of the number of types of ferns I saw.
i only took pictures of the ones i haven't seen b4..i believe some are moss like plants. they are so pretty ..and they sooth the eyes

sempervivums, echeverias and what not

i have been struck by gardening bug lately. In Style magazine don't really get my attention, and I been reading gardening magazine a lot..cc said i have turned into the Ultimate Si Lai. My interest in horticulture probably runs inthe family.. i have uncles and mom who's into all sorts of plants. one probably dominates the orchid scene in sarawak/malaysia and one owns a nursery.

anyhow, i have acquired some sempervivum and echeverias when i last went to the hospice shop. i actually went to check out bric-a-brac but discovered the volunteer has brought in those plants.

sempervivum and echeverias are a type of succulents. they are mostly a bunch of hardy and tough cookies and i like them in my garden given that they thrive well with or without attention.

sempervivum and echeveria forms rosette like structures and they are quite colorful.
they produce long stems of flowers (true for echeveria)

here are my humble collection:

good ol's fish & chups

thanks everybody's for your concern regarding my pc. it has improved slightly but MSN Messenger is still dead. i am too lazy to do anything further at this stage. i mean i have reinstalled MSN Messenger but it still refused to function.so i am using windows messenger. ancient version of MSN messenger.

anyways just want to blog about a place we went when my parents were here.
we drove past the Fishmonger and decided to stop by for quick supper. Fishmonger is a fish and chip shop ; a modern one with clean look but still smell greasy..has salads to choose from.

we decided to try the hapuka fish with potato and kumara (sweet potato) chips
the fish comes with slices of lemon and it's absolutely divine to have the fish with the lemon juice.

btw, the Fishmonger is located at parnell road.

i just googled and if you guys are interested can take a look at the website
they actually have another shop in remuera.

p/s: notice the cute vinegar bottle ;) doesn't it remind you of the minyak cap kapak bottle? KEKE

sick pc

my pc's currently not its usual self. it's taking ages to load etc.

and worst of all, my msn messenger won't start. even after i reinstall. something is wrong with my connection :(

i hope the problem can be sorted soon.

other than that, have been busy at work with month end. reconciliation after reconciliation.
i get bugged so much by all sorts of people at work too, argh. some wanted to know where these figure has gone to, some wants to know why this figure was found there..etc...fortunately i have a really cool boss. i have nicknamed my boss my tuition teacher (TT) ;) hehe. TT is what i called godsend ...TT has taught me many tricks in the past couple of weeks. :D

Butter Chook-shortcut method

last thursday i made some butter chicken. stace asked me how it was made, so i decided to blog about the dish. it was real easy and quick. reason being.. i used the maggi packet rather than made the materials from scratch. (i know i am cheating but it saves all the extra time)
the things needed for the butter chicken:

1 onion
1 bottle of cream
1kg chicken
2 packets of maggi packet
1 table spoon of butter

1. melt the butter and add in the onions. sautee the onion until it's soft.
2. throw in the chicken and start mixing them well.
3. add the content of maggi packet and blend well with chicken.
4. after about 5 minutes, pour in the cream.
5. let simmer until chicken is cooked. occasionally, mix the chicken and the cream.

*finished product

my new craze -dahlia

meet my new tuberous friend.
the dahlias.
i fell in love with these plants on my visit to the christchurch botanical gardens.
they will be my next project ..

Around Auckland City - Lantern Festival 2006

since i have relis around, we also brought them to Lantern Festival..it's an annual festival held at Albert Park in Auckland City. There are lanterns around the park and also food stalls. There are also Corporate stalls like HKSB and Lee Kum Kee selling their products. the various martial arts bodies also come to demonstrate their art and ppl also sing and play instruments at the Albert Park rotunda..

Around Auckland City - mt eden crater

i have been real busy during the CNY festival. gone back to work *GREAT .. and relis visiting.
we brought uncle richard to mt eden crater on the eve of chap goh meh. btw, Auckland has one of the highest number of dormant crater in the world... mt eden is just one of them.

when we were there, there were so many tour buses there..we managed to take pics at the spots we like...

here are the views of the crater ...there are cows grazing inside the crater also. that patch of gooey thing is the souvenir the cows left around the area...

happy chinese new year

dear all,

i am finally back in auckland and slowly the routines are coming back. i went back to work on thursday (*Yikes)

today is the first day of CNY for the year of the dog (can't remember what dog it was this year, whether it's wooden or gold or??)

anyways, for sure, i am red as lobster today. my family at over in auckland for CNY and me and jake brought them to pick mussels at coromandel and went tramping at karangkahe gorge.
it wasn't even scorching hot today and yet, i am already red as a lobster...grrr.

i am in the process of scanning my studio pics. please be patient. i know some of you are waiting to see it.

alrighty, just a short post.

in Sydney airport

hey everyone,
one step closer to home. i have spent the last 3 days with pinkcocoa& shinchan. haven't seen pinkcocoa in 5 years. last meet was during Olympic 2000. it was good meeting them.
we pig so much, i seriously need to diet for jan 20!!!!!

i miss everyone. can't wait to meet you guys up ...

just short post.

eileen, man, what a long silence from you. finally saw you in ccie's blog. ;) hehe.
yeah good idea man, let's meet up. i still haven't found the fg and rb's stuffs.
where are you now?

okay my plane is flying off in 1 hr ...arriving in NZ at 2300..

*big hugs and kisses to all..

greetings from calgary

dear all,

been traveling around US and Canada in the last month. it has been awesome and tiring too.
met many interesting people and also met families.

just want to let everyone know i am still very much alive and kicking.
am in calgary and will be flying to LA for new year.

will update my blog with more pics and stories once i am settled back in nz.

take care...

merry christmas (belated) and happy new year.
let 2005 be a good year and 2006 be an even better one :)

p/s: stace, happy birthday to you. probably be internetless until i see you in Jan.

friday

my colleague organised a morning tea for me and gave me a wedding card. *Gosh i am touched.
there's lots of quiche, pies, sandwiches..and jocelyn she baked some chocolate eclair and strawberry pastry pie thingie.

in the afternoon, work was frantic. temp was still here and today she got to prepare the cash flow, while i prepare some other stuffs. of course i get bugged half the time by everyone. and my boss was giving this really tight deadline.

anyways glad i finished everything.

when i got home, i remembered i need to drop my baby phallie (My orchid plant) with glen and manee. Rang them and manee said it was okay to drop by( it was 8 30pm then). my plant was practically growing outside the pot..all the roots are dangling outside. glen reckons i am trying to grow it like an air plant;P he immediately took out the plant and gave it a 'root' cut. cutting off dry roots and repot it..baby phallie instantly look 10x better. so one thing less to worry. iknow my plant is in good hands. as for the rest of my troops, they are outside the house at a 'shady' place i hope. i appointed an official person to water my plants. *Jake's bro.. hopefully he remembers.

my packing-gosh i hate packing. it was easy when i pack for jake coz i just dump everything into his bag, fold and tuck them away. i didn't have to think at all. he's already determined what he wants. but for me, gosh i have 100 'what if' questions in my head, so i am still packing and it's 1 05am. Great. talk about being organised.

better get back to packing. grrrr...

oh, everyone please pray for me. pray i have smooth journey.
love you all...*hugs and kisses

ps: i just pig on pork chop with brocolli/cauliflower and rice coz my tummy's practically having a drum concert.

9 lamp posts

i finally went out for a walk this evening. i even tried to ran the distance of 3 lamp posts at a time.
after 7 lamp posts, i felt like my heart was going to burst.
so i walked after that. only the final 2 lamp posts i ran..

temp arrived

today jake's auntie left ...according to jake's mom, she had trouble checking in her luggage. she was overweight by 3 kg ? ie 29kg. they asked her to repack many times. even at 26kg, they still refuse to let her check her luggage. anyhow, she had to carry some stuffs as hand carry. i hope all the cheeses manage to go through. if not waste my 'sum kei' and my $$$ buying them.

the temp arrived today. she is a mature lady and is kiwi who had been living in Uk in the last 6 years? was showing her the ropes of my routines for the day. i got so damn thirsty and i felt like my energy just disappeared even though most of the time i was trying to show and explain to her stuffs. i tried to let her go on the 'driver' seat while i sat by her side.

i am going to start packing tonight. ie really putting in things into my luggage:P sharon, i promised in that email i will do it on monday nite? but i was so slack.

my invite still unsettled.i am sick of it. *Grr. completely no mood.

i am going out for a much needed walk. i haven't walked since Sunday.

p/s: my last assignment before flying off will be to put slug poison on my plants. i have to get baysols...apparently they stay in the pot forever, unlike cheapie brands. but so much work. have to drag my arse to the hardware shop to get them.

5 more sleeps

this week will be hectic for me.
i went to work early today. was trying to buy the materials for my invite but the shop was terrible. wouldn't let me see the content but they put up a sign saying check with them for samples.
when i check, they said no samples. NOT SATISFIED with that Shop.
btw if you are curious, i am talking about Warehouse Stationery (Manukau store)

i am trying to go to bed early these days. really hard *sigh
and i haven't even dry my hair.

alright folks, nothing exciting today. well it's MONDAY.
linked sharon on my blog today ;) KKEKEKE..

natural perfume

these are roses from marnee's garden. as i mentioned in previous post, they are sitting in a small vase and giving out this nice scent in my living room.

morning at glen & marnee's

i spent my morning at glen & marnee's place. brought them some cheese as a bit of 'buah tangan'. i took down the directions to their house from the online street directory. however i had forgotten to take down their house number. my instict was to look for a house full of orchids. i was wrong. their front house was filled with a full garden of roses ..fortunately i recognised their car.

glen had all his phalaenopsis (phallies for short) all near the kitchen. he has a 3 tier tray that house at least 30 phallies. it was a nice breakfast nook actually..with sunshine pouring in. marnee also had anthrium lillies etc everywhere in the house.

the morning proceeded with glen checking out the condition of my plant. we have a similar plant from one of the meeting. his plants was way smaller than mine when we first received the plants. of course under his 'expert' TLC, the plant flourished. it has gone double in size and the new growth was so huge. in fact his new growth was the size of my actual original plant and my baby was smaller than your winky finger. anyways i am doing it the correct way but i don't have the right location. so he asked me where my windows and everything are.. keke..that proves a bit of a challenge; i don't know the direction of my house. i think it is north facing but i couldn't be sure. he then asked me where do i see my sun set etc and then he got mixed up all mixed up coz i kept changing the location of sun set. all along, marnee sat knitting away and laugh coz she understood my place but glen couldn't ..we finally had it on paper...and he then told me where are the places to house my orchids.

we then went on a tour to see his shadehouses. he's got probably 1000 plants. he has 3 shadehouse and each of them is filled up with seedlings and grown orchids and each has their own sick bay. he also keeps each species in one house. i wonder how they keep up with so many plants. they also plant other sort of plants like bromeliads, roses etc. glen was going to give me this orchid plant to take home but i told him i will be going away so it will stay at their place until i come to collect them. hehe.

then we went back to the house and marnee's made some fanstastic cheese scone to go with green tea..she even had cucumber pickle on it. it was very nice. the pickle tastes a bit like achar we have back home.

anyways all these while, i thought marnee's a malaysian :P then finally discovered she's THAI.
we sat and have interesting conversation about anything..she also made chicken puffs and fish puffs. *yum....

before i went home, they even offer to baby sit my phallies when i go away coz phallies are a bit tricky to look after. marnee also gave me some roses from her gardens. they smell so nice, when i got home, my car was filled with the scent of roses...i put them in a small vase and they made my living room smells like rose garden now....*ekeke

shameless me also asked for a bit of the succulent which is growing in her garden :P she gave me a handful too..

looks like this evening, i will plant the succulent and also repot a few of my cymbidiums. some of the barks are falling out, i think they need to be repotted.

optical illusion

i have completed majority of my to do list.
anita thinks my jammed pack itinerary is workable ;) *phew
she will meet me on the last day of the trip ..kekek. real looking forward to that.

at work, they are getting a temp in to fill in my place when i am away. *rubbing my chin. are they trying to get rid of me?oh well.

tommorrow i am going to visit a couple's place ;) looking forward to that. i am checking out their orchids and shadehouse.



just being really 'mou liew', i thought i would include this 'mysterious' pic here.

at some angle, i thought it looked like a pizza cutter cutting through a pizza :P i wasn't even drinking.

anybody wants to guess what this is?

imsoniac again :S

i was imsoniac again last nite. i think the culprit is the chinese tea i was drinking when i was at the chinese restaurant.
*Darn...
i have a huge to do list to complete before i leave.
i still haven't finished all of them.
so far i came up with an itinerary for the south island trip.
5 days and jammed pack with activities. *keke.
haven't finished with my invites. more like i haven't even started.
i am sooooo slack!!!!!!

countdown...

9 more sleeps...and i am flying off.

p/s: this is my shortest post ever:P

orchid meeting

today i went to november orchid meeting. today's main topic was flower arrangement.
it was so inspiring. i think i wanna be a florist. the lady teaching us was very comical.
gave us examples how she gets all her 'equipment' from. sounds a bit like karang guni to me.
hehe. she goes nicking her neighbours bushes etc...(well the ones overhanging to her side of the fence :P) and she always goes around cutting off branches to use for floral arrangement.

anyways, i bought some raffles. and guess what? i won. just as i am going away, i won another plant, i don't know who's going to look after all my plants while i am away..*Worried..

i been rearranging all my plants. they didn't seem to like the corner i put them so i have moved them to a more strategic spot ..where i can easily water them :) but i really want a shade house!!!
am gonna ask dad to made me one when he comes over.

oh.. i found out some of my neglected plants were actually having new growths ...;) i am so happy!!!!! even though with all these neglect this winter, they manage to sprout out new babies. but some died too - see my previous posts:( i felt kinda guilty too. have i watered them more, fertilise more, they could be more growths, and no fatalities ..anyway, i am prepared for the worst when i return from my trip.

alrighty,i gtg now. csi is on...

mambo jambo

i am running out of idea what to put on the title.

anyways yesterday i was on the internet for almost the whole day..when jake's not around i get kinda out of control just surfing the net . seriously i donno what i am surfing either. so it's just purely wasting time. although in between that i got to chat with my bro, and with cc ..

the weather was really beautiful yesterday, so i washed my new sheets. I bought some embriodered polka dots sheets; ) gonna use it for the new year. which reminds me i need to get 2 european sized pillow. anyways the washing part is insignificant. it was the drying part i want to blog about. i put it out on the clothesline and by noon time, i discovered a splat of things on the duvet cover. *YIKES!!! I don't know if it's birds poo or birds puke or anything.
it has like lots of dried grass on it. or is that cats' puke. i had to spot clean it ...grrr

speaking of cats, my neighbours cat are treating my compound as their territory. seriously they prance around my drive way, sit on my fence and on my roof, on top of my car, on my door mat. AS IF my house is THEIRS!!!! not one of them but 3 of them. they all came at different time though. Does that make me their OWNERS as well?

i also went to the art supply shop in the afternoon. i checked on their website they had lots of product for sale and they also advertised their physical shop ..i went there to check out, they hadn't got much stock in the physical shop. in fact they don't have the ones i want to check out. disappointed... kinda waste of my time!! but i got to buy more melon ice cream when i went to the korean grocery next door. i love the korean grocery..
everything is in korean and i can only understand the price displayed :P apart from that, all the description they display is in korean.

dress fitting

my dress arrived yesterday by courier. the seller has packed it only to about the size of a really thick magazine. i opened it up and hm... tried it on...darn* :S the zip won't zip up..was trying and trying..so disappointed and frustrated.. cc was over the msn saying how is it, she wants to see the pic.
all i can tell her was i couldn't zip up the dress. was gloomy :( my 50s inspired dress didn't FIT me!!!!cc started to churn out ideas. to take out the sleeves etc ...to complain to seller...so on and so on...

pinkcocoa also came to the rescue. she was on MSN too ..so i poured out my agony to her.

i even tried to measure it and they seem to have tailor it to the measurement i have given. man i was frustrated ...

i rang jake to complain. he tried to cheer me up. he kept burst out laughing when i said i don't like the dress anymore.

anyways i waited until jake's sis come back from work that night. i asked her to pull up the zip.
she did..and Voila~the dress FITS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!*Paiseh. the dress needs another's help in order to put on...

so i have had an evening of suspense, disappointment, frustration, and finally RELIEF ..

computer

today my home computer went beserk. i mean its appearance. someone must have used it and messed up with the settings. the icons were huge and everything is messy on the desktop. it looked so strange too.

luckily met hua hie and voon siong online. they gave me some hints etc. so i set it back to normal.
the conclusion i reached was i am such an inflexible person. my computer has to look exactly the same. i don't like the location of task bar to change, the icon to look big, and the file to be on different place on the desktop.

other than that, i borrowed a whole heap of book from the library. i must have 'sapu-ed' the cooking portion of the chinese literature section. borrowed books on making soup (like i am gonna make any)

i went with the intention of returning all my books but i have borrowed even more now.

i had chicken and abalone soup for dinner. i am not a luxury food person. find the abalone kinda taste funny. i think it's just me.

nothing much to report. just wanna go to bed early but it's already 10 30pm.

wednesday

i have mixed feelings about wednesday. at times i am happy as it's mid-week meaning weekend is just two sleeps away. today i have to process lots of expenses claim. took me 3 hours to do it.
better not talk about boring work stuffs.

on lighter stuffs, i went out to walk today. walked for 40minutes..it's quite fun to walk alone.i can walk fast or slow as much as i like. there's nobody to wait.

i added sal's link into my friend's link. been meaning to add things but took me a while to look for the LINK part in the template.

i should go now. it's bedtime for me.

countdown

countdown
A	noun
	1	countdown
				counting backward from an arbitrary number to indicate the time remaining before some event (such as launching a space vehicle)

countdown is also the name of a chain supermarket in New Zealand. it's a bit warehouse like with not very fancy shelving or lighting but has cheaper price and wider shopping aisle.


why am i talking about countdown? in 2 and ½ weeks i will be traveling.that's probably why i am doing the countdown.

to digress a bit, i remembered in pri 6 and form 3 i started the countdown to the public exams on the blackboard. i think it's just my excuse to doodle on the blackboard.

anyways, i am excited today. i got my temporary resident visa for canada. YAY..one less thing to worry about.

my ebay seller has emailed me too. eheh my dress is on the way. should take a few days..the seller also gave me a tracking number..so there's another countdown for me :D

what i did on the weekend

i am avoiding 'cold' drinks, or anything cold these few days.
i think i am less 'coughy' now with all the medication i am taking. i am only coughy now first thing i wake up and late at night.

anyways i achieved a few things this weekend:

• i compiled a fact sheet of Sibu for my coming wedding since i will have several out-of-towners that will attend the wedding. some of them have never been to malaysia let alone SIBU:)
• typed out the order of service for the church ceremony :) this time it wasn't so hard doing the chinese words for the hymns.
  
• decided how my own version of invite will look like. will start buying the stationery tommorow.

things still hanging on the air:

• bestman undecided. we might have to use the professional bestman. *gulp, CURLY.
  Lang also used CURLY. i hope jake's bro can be our bestman.
• my parents south island trip. i want to use the tranzalpine train but look kinda dear at this stage. maybe i should cut out the glaciers out of my itinerary.

i better finalise these few items in the next week.

seeing doctor for the first time

in my 4 years plus in auckland, i have refused to see a doctor. previous experience in aussie tells me the doc will normally tell you to rest, drink more water. so i have self-medicate myself in the four years i am in auckland. thankfully enough, i just normally get cold.

but recently, i been sick with cold again, and my cough must have irritate the people in the house. i was forced to see a doctor. of coz i refused from day 1 when i got sick.

so today i didn't go to work and decided to go see a doctor. since i want to be well before my travel and also to find out what is happening to my foot. i have small lump on my foot (maybe from wearing bad footwear or from badminton). it's that lump that worries me.

little did i know it's so stressful to see a doc in auckland. partly because i am so paranoid and don't really trust doctors. funny how back home, any doc will do for me(i mean i am comfortable with several docs back home) but here..it was like a real huge decision. somehow, i prefer a female doctor, and i spent so much time checking out the practice's website. i tried ringing two practices, but they all don't have any place for me today. and one other website, the doctor i want to see no longer works for that practice.. finally i remembered my ex-colleague recommended me to a doctor at this particular practice near my house. and when i rang them, the receptionist said, patients don't need to make appointments. just turn up and wait (ala Sibu style)

so i went to the practice. the receptionist (male) asked if i have came here before.
was told to fill a form with basic details then sat down and wait. this medical centre only has AUTO magazine...didn't even have one woman's weekly or woman's day or those 'kaypoh' magazine. so i had to make do with AUTO magazine, reading about reviews of honda jazz sport and mazda 2 and some other automobiles.

a nurse then call me and i tot she was the doctor. she led me to the area to take my weight , height etc... i know i put on some weight, but still within the approved BMI and i wore jeans, so they must weigh more:P (excuses) and btw, i am like 0.2cm shorter...she took my blood pressure also. i think i am a bit on the high side. it was higher than 3 months ago when i donated blood..anyway, sat and waited for the doctor ..

5 mins later, she finally came out and invited me to her office. then just asked me some question.since it's viral infection (WHAT ELSE IS NEW?), she said she would give me some cough syrup to suppress my cough. she checked out my lump on the foot and said, there's nothing to be worried about at this stage. do i listen to her here? but at least i felt better when she said it's nothing to be worried about. i asked her what cause it, she said it's like a cyst? !!!!!!!????she advised me to keep observing it, it's gone redder or bigger, will need to come back and do something about it.

so i went to the pharmacy next door and the petite pharmcist got me my cough syrup and recommended me lemsip defence lozenges. according to her, that particular lemsip has vitamin c, echinacea and eucalyptus in it, it's really good to boost my immune system. it's unavailable in the supermarket so i got a box. i am such a sucker ...

when i went to supermarket to get milk, i went to the toiletry row and saw heaps of lemsip on the shelves:P i was like !?!?!?!?!?! but she's right. the ones she recommended me is unavailable.

on an even more extreme measure, i went to a health shop to get propolis extract. my mom has been promoting over the phone to take propolis extract. she said that it cured my dad's cough condition. 10 drops or something like that. i bought a bottle of super strength one. who knows if it really works.

i will have so many things to take and my immune system should boost up by next week. i can already feel myself feeling better after going through all these troubles.

p/s: this has got to be my longest post ever...

bored..

nobody is online these few days on msn. where's everyone? Must be deeparaya break i guess.
it's not a big thing over here. the respective community might have some events but no statutory holidays though.

jake's txting me quite a lot these few days. he hasn't got much internet access yet.

he likes san francisco ..he will be there for 2 days i suppose then travel up to seattle.
he said LA seem dangerous to him :P i will find out about LA when i get there.

i feel like i had so many things to do but donno what ..so far, i have finished booking the tour for jake's mom and the auntie. oh yeah, speaking of which, i must do an itinerary for them.
i think i will not bother with the dunedin city tour. when i read more of the lonely planets, the places the city tour will bring them is actually all within walking distance.

i am still coughing. argh. it gets very chesty in the morning. and at night. i have taken some cough syrup (Yuck) and it seem to make my cough dry..hate coughing...

palmerston north

been digging for pics in my computer. found this collection of pics i took randomly while i was having contact course at palmerston north earlier this year.

90% of the pics were taken around the uni campus.
the mobile phone pic was taken at the palmerston airport while waiting for the van to pick me up.

praise the Lord :) for He is good.

got my result today. am so pleased ;)
been feeling kinda stressed etc over the last 4 weeks over the exam i had.
right after i finished my exam i felt pretty confident. as days go by, i felt yuckier and yuckier.
doesn't help when my boss asked about my exam every few days.
that seem to be his only topic of conversation.

so finally today, the result is released on the website. i logged on at 12 pm sharp. but the website was so slow. obviously, everyone else is trying to check their result. i only got the result like 15mins later.

phone immediately rang ;) Hehehe ..my ex-colleague who also sat for the exam rang to check on me. hehe..

i passed i passed. yayy.....praise the LORD :)
have to cheah anita to eat ..she's scanned past year papers for me and gave me so much tips.
also thank you everyone else who prayed for me and wish me good luck :)