Honfleur, France

So here goes our honeymoon snippets!

Upon landing in Paris Charles de Gaulle Airport, we picked up our rental car and started driving towards our first accommodation. It wasn't an easy drive for the both of us firstly because Wk had to drive on the left side and keep to the right side of the road for the first time. And then there was the rain. Plus after all that flying (total of 19-20 hours of travelling+transit) we were both exhausted. 

The thing I hate about roads in France in the cities or towns is there aren't many cross junctions with traffic lights, instead, they have roundabouts. LOTS of roundabouts. I usually only get motion sickness on winding roads, but the amount of roundabouts in France was enough to give me a really bad motion sickness. So bad.

However, the moment we stepped into our hotel room all that suffering disappeared. Stepping into our room felt like the biggest reward we have received in our lives after a really long, painful struggle. I know I sound dramatic and like I'm exaggerating but I'm not.

Our room Chambre Or, was divine! It was warm, clean, spacious, comfortable for 2, well facilitated and very tastefully decorated.

It is an 18th century property which Aline, our lovely host, bought and renovated. Aline herself used to be a film director, who enjoys a bit of interior designing. 

 

Pictures below is the living area on ground floor where guests are served organic, continental breakfast. Eggs can also be requested, she will cook it to your liking.

The stairs to get to our room was the most narrow and steep stairs I've ever climbed! 

A picture before we said our goodbyes.

Aline insisted I must stand slightly aside so that the camera can see the fireplace behind us XD

Maison de Honfleur

06 78745993

21 rue Saint-Leonard, 14600 Honfleur

maisondehonfleur@orange.fr

Read my review here on Tripadvisor (to be linked when it's approved)

After checking out from the hotel we explored the town a little before moving on to our next destination.

Our companion for the entire France trip

Apparently most Europeans, or maybe just the French, drive manual cars. The only auto the company had was this Citroen C4, which unfortunately wasn't a very good car for us; very slow pick up - a pain in traffic lights and parking and can be very 'jerky'. The size also isn't ideal when entering historical towns with narrow streets - absolute nightmare! Other than that, it's spacious inside and comfortable enough when the car isn't jerky.

Back to Honfleur. We walked along the port which has a beautiful view, went into a few churches, got lost in the stone-paved laneways and admired some of the timber walled houses. 

Honfleur is a small maritime town situated in Normandie, a region in France known for its dairy products eg. milk, cream, and cheese. Especially the soft cheeses such as Brie and Camembert. There's actually a place in Normandie called Camembert! Assuming it's where Camembert cheese originated. We didn't get to go there because it was a bit off from our travel plans.

 

 

Most of the churches were built based on naval construction, out of chestnut wood which according to Aline, is a natural spider repellent. Whatever that is, we NEED it. Our house is full of spiders! Anyway, if you look at the ceiling in the picture above, it's looks like an upside down ship's hull.

 

For lunch Aline recommended and kindly helped us make a reservation at this restaurant which serves traditional Norman cuisine - exactly what we were after since we were in Normandie!

Complimentary peanuts and marinated olives for appetizers

Foie gras terrine

Some kind of shellfish baked with garlic butter

Scallops (or St. Jacques in french) with lemon butter

Grilled beef with potato galette, salsa and salad

Norman cheese plate

A concoction of Nutella sauce, creme Chantilly aka sweetened whipped cream and nuts

Tarte Tatin

Restaurant L'homme de Bois
02 31897527
30-32, rue de L'Homme de Bois
14600 Honfleur

We had the 4 courses menu (own choice of entree, main, standard cheese and dessert) each (so 8 plates in total) which sent us into a food coma! 

Our favourites would be the mains. My scallops were so sweet and succulent. Wk's beef were cooked a bit too rare and it wasn't a good cut of beef but the highlight was the potato galette - SO delicious. The foie gras terrine wasn't what I expected to be and to be honest isn't the kind of foie gras I enjoy. Wk's shellfish was good. The desserts although nothing wrong with them, they were forgettable. The cheeses as we have expected, were really good cheeses since it's the main produce of the region. Unfortunately it eventually upset my tummy :( More about that in future post. 

We took a short stroll after the lunch to get some digestion going since it was such a heavy meal, before driving to Mont Saint-Michel.

  

I won't pretend I know or am interested in history (lol) so from my understanding, Mont Saint-Michel is a tiny island with an ancient town in Normandie which has a famous abbey and a beautiful view. And lots of Japanese tourist, which is not a problem or anything but we found it odd that it's as though this place is frequented by Japanese tourist that the souvenir shops have Japanese words and Japanese speaking sales assistants.

 

Our tiny room and tiny beds

 

The red arrow points to our room's balcony which overlooks the bay

I remember clearly I didn't sleep well and woke up feeling sick in my stomach the next day FML. I'll leave the rest of the details of our stay in Mont Saint-Michel in the next post.

Till then!

Hello hello

Super long time no blog!

Last blog post was in October 2014. And it's now February 2015. Wow Ee Von, you surely suck.

I do have many posts saved as draft. It's like every time I start doing a post, I seemed to never have enough time to complete it. So I save it hoping that I will find time to complete it and have it posted  some day but obviously I never got around to do as I intended to. Some of them have been sitting in my drafts for over 6 months. I also have a 2014 year-in-review kind of post drafted.

I think the problem with me is I care too much about what I blog about that it takes me ages to decide what pictures to put, which words to use, what to mention etc. Consequently I ran out of time to complete it and then just proceed to leave it sitting in my drafts. This is bad. It's encouraging me to do things half-assed and procrastinate more, agree?

Soooo. My goal this year is stop drafting things. If I open my blogspot page and intend to blog, I will hit "Publish" in the end regardless. Worst scenario just put 'to be continued' hahaha.

We're flying off tomorrow midnight. I can't believe how quickly time has passed! Yah I know sounds super cliched but really lor, didn't feel like it was too long ago when we bought our air tickets ok. And we still have so much to do for the wedding it's not even funny. When we arrive, we only have exactly 1 week before the big day!!!

I don't think I've mentioned this before but basically, there will be 2 events. I know most of you will think bride's family reception and groom's family reception.

Wrong. 

Event number 1 is basically a ceremony followed by lunch reception. Event number 2 is the traditional Chinese pick-up-bride, tea ceremony and banquet dinner reception. To be practical, most Chinese couple will only need event number 2. 

Here is the story behind why there has to be 2 events.

For me, my dream wedding is to be able to walk down the isle with my dad/parents, say my vows to my future husband, exchange rings, and walk out of the isle as husband and wife. There's something beautiful about it that I cannot explain. 

So we looked for venues which has a place for us to do this ceremony plus have a banquet dinner after because a banquet dinner is one of my parents' requirements. There aren't many options in Klang that we like. In fact, there probably aren't any? And again, it's my parents' requirement that the dinner has to be in Klang because that's where most of our guests are from. 

We found venues that we like and they are mostly in KL. If we were to have the ceremony in KL and dinner in Klang, it would just be too much of rushing in one day. So we decided to do 2 days. And since people are coming all the way to attend our ceremony, we might as well have lunch. And also since this ceremony is what I wanted, it's only fair that we pay for it ourselves and not our parents. It's a very small event with less than 60 people, they're mainly our immediate family and closest friends. 

We wish we could invite more but frankly, we cannot afford to. Inviting people is not something you can just do without much consideration. What if the person you are inviting doesn't know anyone else there? Or what if you invite this person, you somehow have to invite the whole group of people and you don't have the financial capability to? So for anyone out there who easily gets offended when you're not invited to a friend's event, please stop being an insensitive prick by making the host feel bad for not inviting you. Thankfully none of my friends are like that. Or maybe I will get it AFTER the wedding? Who knows. 

"Eh why you didn't invite me?", now THIS is offensive - thinking you can decide on how we should spend our money.

I've been doing a lot of DIY lately for Event 1. Event 2 is in a Chinese restaurant which usually covers a lot of things like simple decoration, invitation etc so there really isn't much that we need to organize. But because we're basically hiring only a venue in Event 1, things like decoration has to be outsourced. 

One of the things I decided to DIY was our invitation. Since the invitation was for only 60 people, I thought I'll be fine hand making them. I did get a quote and to be honest, I wasn't sure if I was willing to pay for someone to design something that isn't quite what I wanted. 

Here's the final invitation that has been sent out to our guests.

Sharp corners for this one here who prefers it like that :P see, you so special ah!

Rounded corners for everyone else

If I have time I will do another post on the 'evolution' of this invitation. It took me a while to finally settle with this. Except for the main invitation wordings that was printed, everything else were handmade, handwritten and hand-painted. 

Ok time to go. 

2 days in a row now I have been freakishly lucky!

So yesterday (Sunday) I was supposed to start work at 10am. My shift was changed to 7.45am instead because a colleague was sick. Whenever I do 7.45am on Sundays Wk will drive me to work because there isn't a train that early on Sundays. So yesterday he drove me to work and left for a meeting with his business partners. When I finished work and was in the train station wanting to train home, I found out there was actually no direct train service to home (and from home to city as well) for the whole day because they were fixing the train tracks! If I was doing the 10am shift, I would not have made it at 10am to work. I wouldn't know there's no train and I would have had to book a cab to get to work because Wk would be gone for his meeting by then. If that isn't luck I don't know what is!

And today, because said colleague was still sick, instead of 9.45am I had to do a 6.30am shift. Didn't have a problem at all getting to the city via train. Apparently it was raining the night before but it stopped when I was on the way to work, and even managed to slip through and be at work before the heavy rain started pouring again! Thought that was lucky enough, until Wk told me that all train lines were basically screwed the moment it started pouring heavily around 7-8ish, which is already a peak hour to begin with. What normally takes 30 minutes to get to work took an hour and half! So if I was trying to get to work at 9.45am today, I would basically be freaking late. And best part is when I left work, the rain has stopped! Brought my umbrella and didn't have to open it at all.

Now I say this luck is freaking me out because they say things come in strings of 3 and then something of the complete opposite happens. Seriously hope this is absolutely not true.

Matcha Creme Brulee Recipe (Where to buy matcha powder in Melbourne)

Spot the photographer!

Only made creme brulee once, it was good but vanilla custard isn't really my favourite thing to eat. I don't mind it, I would order it for the sake of having desserts if it's the only thing on the menu but I just don't love it enough to want to make it again.

I've recently bought matcha powder to make mooncakes and of course there would be leftover powder which I needed to quickly use up since they don't have very long shelf life. Was thinking about green tea creme brulee when Cooking With Dog posted a video tutorial of Matcha Creme Brulee, wow, it's like they can read my mind!

My brulee looked very uneven. It's nothing, just bad torching technique plus I put in way too much sugar, big no no. The over browned sugar layer was hard as rock, not to mention way too thick to be enjoyable too. So do not follow my mistake. 

Failed brulee aside, the matcha custard tasted so. freaking. delicious. The bitterness of matcha balances the sweetness of the custard perfectly! This is definitely my favourite creme brulee, or matcha dessert. Ever!

Recipe below is exactly from Cooking with Dog's, only doubled (trust me, it's never enough!). Also added a few of my tips and where to buy matcha powder in Melbourne. Enjoy!

Matcha Creme Brulee Recipe

Recipe from: Cooking with Dog

Yield: 4 ramekins 4cm tall, 9cm diameter/140ml

• 200ml Thickened Cream
• 160ml Milk
• 4 tbsp Sugar
• 1 tbsp Matcha Powder
• 4 Egg Yolks lightly beaten

• Extra sugar for torching/brulee

1. Dissolve matcha powder by adding milk a little at a time. Once completely dissolved, mix together with the rest of the ingredients except for the extra sugar reserved for torching (duh).
2. Heat the mixture over low heat till sugar dissolves and mixture has thickened slightly that it coats the back of a spoon. Do not overheat or the eggs will scramble. 
3. Sieve the mixture evenly into 4 ramekins.
4. Bake at 140 degrees Celcius (120 fan force) for 20-25 minutes in waterbath. Basically submerge ramekins in a tray of water (water has to be at least half the ramekin's height). 
5. Let the cooked custard cool down to room temperature. Then chill it thoroughly in fridge for at least an hour before bruleeing.
6. Thinly coat the top of custard with sugar, torch the sugar until it melts and caramelizes. Leave the caramel to cool and set before serving.

*Only torch sugar when serving, caramelized sugar will melt when left in fridge for too long.

*To check if custard is cooked and not overcooked, tap/shake the ramekins gently. The sides should set but the centre should jiggle slightly.

*When torching, keep the flame moving and avoid staying in one spot to avoid burning the sugar.

*In Melbourne, Matcha powder can be found in major Asian grocers in the green tea section. I got mine (which looks like this) from Laguna in CBD. Another place you can find more variety of matcha powder is Fujimart in Prahran.

Home improvement

So nothing much is happening (including wedding planning) except for work and shopping for our new home on Saturdays. It's going really slowly because Saturday is the only day we both are free to do stuff together. There really isn't a whole lot of things to do since this house is at a pretty livable state but its making it cosy that requires some effort. And to make it cosy, we need to spend money. Before spending money, we need to research and decide for the best option to go for. And that's the time-consuming, hair-pulling part. 

But of course there are also some no-brainer decisions like decorating the living space with a few stalks of flowers.

Just a nice vase and a few stalks of flowers can really change the way a space looks. Even when they're only buds.

And even prettier when they blossom.

One thing I've learned from this is to get rid of all the extra leaves on the stalk. I didn't realise this was necessary until I was at a cafe once and they had the exact same flower except theirs looked really neat, there weren't too many leaves on the stalk crowding the vase. Lenny said the leaves need to be removed so that there wouldn't be too many leaves and flowers fighting for the water. If one doesn't get enough, it will not survive. Which probably explains why some of the leaves turned yellow and wilted.

So yesterday the moment we got this new bunch of flowers, I removed all the extra leaves before placing them in the vase.

Looks much better! But this is one is a different species, the leaves damn a lot! So definitely need to clean it up a bit otherwise it'll be really ugly.

One of the tougher decisions we've had to make was a dishwasher. Previously in the place we leased, the dishwasher was included. Back in Malaysia I have never used one in my life. When I came here I was skeptical. I didn't think it will clean efficiently but after using it for 2 years, we became quite dependent on it. Don't get me wrong, it's not a bad thing. My thoughts on it eventually changed and I actually find it useful and much more efficient than hand-washing so we decided we will get one for our new home since the seller didn't include one.

We didn't quite have a specific brand in mind but we knew we wanted a freestanding one, a cutlery tray not basket, a straightforward control panel (no need too many fancy buttons). Took us about 2-3 weeks when we decided we will go with Miele, for piece of mind. Also because the sales assistant was nice to us. It makes a huge difference, the selling technique. 

We were at Harvey Norman and were comparing between a Miele and Bosch. The Bosch one was more expensive and we were tending towards the Miele. The SA kept promoting the Bosch one and refused to explain more about the Miele dishwasher. That's a turn off seriously, he should provide the information when a customer requests for it. Not only try to sell the expensive one so he can make more commission out of it.

At the other place (where we ended up purchasing from), Jim, the SA was really helpful and knowledgeable. And he didn't try to sell us the more expensive machine, he said in his opinion the lower end Miele is good enough. Anything expensive is unnecessary unless you are living in a million dollar house and you have too much money to spare. At the end of the day, it washes your dishes the end. And that's it, we were sold.

This is not exactly a home improvement item but timber floors are so hard on the feet! It looks nice but when it's cold, it really kills my feet. Got this cute bedroom slippers from Peter Alexander. Really comfortable! Matches my pajamas some more.

Came home one day, checked our letter box and found this:

It's from our neighbour, super kind can?? And this isn't the first time he's being kind. 

Ok let me explain how garbage collection works here. Basically when you live in a property (not apartment), you have to buy a bin from the suburb's council, and it's the large, dark green kind. So on specific days, you need to have your bin ready on the street side before the truck comes. Once they empty the garbage, you can then bring your bin and keep it inside your house; for us, we keep it inside our garage.

So one particular day it was the garbage collection day and we have dragged our bin out to the street side the night before. On the next afternoon I came home to the bin sitting right outside our garage  door instead of the street side. I thought it must have been Wk who pulled it in before he left for work and didn't have time to keep it in the garage. I left it there because I was lazy lol. When Wk came home and saw the bin by the garage door he said "Wah so nice ah help me pull the bin in". Ok before I continue, the reason he said I'm nice was because we all know Ee Von NEVER touches the bin unless she really has to (eg. bin is overflowing with garbage). 

Obviously, Wk wasn't the one who brought our bin in. And it wasn't me so we guessed it must have been our neighbour, there wouldn't have been anyone else! It's a really kind gesture because we had a general and a recycle bin (2 bins in total), so he would have had to go back and forth to bring both bins in, and not forgetting he has his own bin to mind as well. It's definitely not a convenient thing to do as you can see. And of course, we did return this gesture. 

And this guy let me tell you, is fated to live next to us man. One day we were at an auction on another property in a nearby suburb that we had intentions on bidding. He was there! We didn't bid on the property because we knew that we could not afford it when it went past a certain price. He bid, but obviously lost it to someone else. 

And then one day when we were here in this property's inspection, we saw him! We immediately recognised him because at the end of that auction it was between him and this other girl. And we thought oh crap, this guy has quite a high limit (we know from his bidding in the other property) if he's interested in the same unit as us, we will lose it to him. Can only hope that he's not interested in the one we want.

Thankfully on the day of auction, he did not bid on ours (but another asshole did hmmmph!). He was more interested in the other one which he got in the end.

Win-win :D Seriously it's so crazy, who would have thought someone you saw in an auction will end up becoming your neighbour?

Ok back to next home improvement item. We bought a bin for our kitchen! And it's no surprise it's not an ordinary bin otherwise it wouldn't deserve a blog post.

Maggie calls this the 'royal bin'. Here's a video to show why:

How can anyone not like this bin?!?

I super hate bins with lids that spring up when you step on the pedal, and slams down when you release it. The springing and slamming action pushes air out and it disgusts me, feels like bacteria will be catapulted into my face wtf. Ughh. Noisy some more.

Whoever designed this is a fucking genius lol.

And just look at it, which part of it looks like a bin? None. That's the whole point, bins are disgusting inside so it should look as cool as possible on the outside so people cannot tell it's full of shit inside wtf hahahah.

Found this huge Asian Grocer near our place called Asian Grocer WTF HAHAHAHA what a good name! Stocked up on some Asian staples and junk. Super ring!!! Gosh I miss that stuff.

Ok time to go to work.