Don't my nails look freaking awesome?

I've been quite diligent in painting my nails so no more Wai Loon come asking me "Is this a trend? Why is there only a patch of colour at the centre of your nails?"

Pasta Zanmai

Chinese New Year this year felt a little short but still fun nevertheless. Nobody truly enjoys a holiday until they start working. This year could be the last time I get to celebrate CNY with my family. Sad, but some things need to happen. Will reveal when everything is in my hands. Remember I said something exciting is going to happen? Well, it IS happening. Soon. Exciting, but scary at the same time.

And no, I'm not dying.

Some pictures of Wk and I at Pasta Zanmai. First time eating there. Verdict? Overpriced fusion food. Worth trying though cos some dishes taste interesting, but don't eat the typical Japanese dishes cos it's a lot more expensive than if you were to order it in Sushi Zanmai.

Spaghetti with Unagi and egg. Not bad but nothing to shout about. This is around RM 23 or 26.

Spaghetti with prawn tempura and sesame paste sauce. This one tastes really interesting. It's a mix of Japanese, Oriental and Western in a plate. I think this is around RM 26.

I shall end with a picture of me being my usual self (obsessed).

Hair colour's fading already huhuhu T_T

Tong tong tong chiang!

Bored!

I shouldn't be cos I have a shitload of things to do but I have not felt bothered to get anything done so I shall blog now.

Major change in my life? What else... my hair of course. People who follow me on Twitter or are friends with me on Facebook will know that I have turned from brunette to...

... a redhead!

I posted this picture in my Facebook and Kin Wai asked, "why the lala pose" and I answered "lala hair colour of course must do lala pose"

No offence and please don't perasan, I'm not generalizing redheads as 'lala', it's just a joke. Everyone's definition of a 'lala' is different so don't get too sensitive.

When I first saw Mustardqueen's new hairdo it instantly made me want to go get my hair done. I've been wanting to dye my hair red since forever (no, I'm not saying this only to justify myself just incase anybody thinks I'm trying to 'copy' Mustardqueen, it's a fact) but everytime I'm in a salon deciding on what colour I should dye my hair, the hairstylist will persuade me to not go for red saying it will fade very very quickly and once it fades it won't look nice, the colour isn't versatile blablablaaaa.

Her pictures inspired me so much that I didn't want to give a shit anymore. Do it now or never, how many youths does a woman have, right? And if another hairstylist ever suggests me to do otherwise, to hell with it. 

I went to the same place she did (Wenawave @ Times Square) and I'm glad I did, the stylist didn't comment on a single thing about my decision. Of course she did tell me it will fade quickly which I do not blame her because it's just how the dye and Asian hair work. Once I said "Ok, do it" she told me "You're gonna look like Rihanna".

They use L'oreal and I'm not sure which one I picked, it was either a shade from the Majirouge  or the Majirouge Mix+ series. I didn't expect the colour to turn out soooo vibrant even without bleaching! Well honestly, I wanted something different, not just a burgundy or a mahogany but something... different. And this is exactly what I wanted! But for a day or two I was too afraid to show the big change to the world I wore a cap around -.-

By now, the colour has already faded slightly. It's still red, but not as vibrant. Each time I shampoo, the foam turns pink. I see water with red tint running down my hair. It stains my towel and when I'm not careful, my wet hair will stain my clothes! Well, I'm not complaining since this was what I wanted. I just wanna share a little bit of info just incase anyone out there wanna do this this, at least you're prepared.

I paid RM 220 for my length (it's over my boobies) and RM 95 for the treatment. The place is quite small and  busy so I suggest making an appointment before going. The creative director (whom I consulted) is Yen but the one who did my hair was another stylist.

Now I need to scratch my head and think of what to do once my hair grows out. I can actually see a little bit of regrowth already :(

What's up doc?

On the 3rd day we went to Wet & Wild which is a water theme park, like our Sunway Lagoon but with 9875341089 times more scary rides and nicer pools. Didn't manage to get pictures cos it was obviously et everywhere and it's not only because it's a water theme park, but the fact that it was raining that day :(

It was raining till around mid afternoon when the rain stopped but the sky was still gloomy. Then while we were queueing for a water slide, it started drizzling. We were queueing for about 30 mins? 45? I'm not sure but people there were that crazy. Despite the rain people still wanted to have fun and the amount of people was crazy by just looking at how long we had to queue for one slide.

When it was our turn to get on the slide, the rain became super heavy and there was thunder and they had to stop the operation.

MAHAI.

And we had to run over for shelter. It was pouring like cats and dogs and the wind was killing us. We waited for about an hour before the rain stopped completely, and everything was operating like normal again.

One of the wave pool where they have this outdoor cinema system called the Dive' n'Movies where you get to watch a movie while floating on the pool. They were showing The Grown Ups that day.

Overall, it was a really fun day and it would have been perfect if there was no rain. Absolutely worth visiting.

The next day which was also the last day we had in Gold Coast, we went to the Warner Brothers Movie World, which is a movie related theme park.

Upon entering, this is the first roller coaster ride you will see.

The Superman Escape

Freaking scary looking!

We wanted to ride it but the queue was guess what?

FREAKING 2 HOURS WTF.

They had a notice board placed outside the queue area of each ride, stating the estimated waiting hour. And almost all that we saw were 1-2 hours.

Major turn off :( In the end we didn't get to do any rides at all. There were too many people, I think December is a really bad time/month/season to visit Gold Coast.

Don't get to ride anything, so how? Pose and take pictures lah!

Batwing Spaceshot is like the Space Shot (I thought it was called Solero Shot but apparently not anymore) in the Genting Theme Park but Batwing goes up slightly higher than Space Shot.

Bugs Bunny and... girlfriend! Wtf. What's her name ah? 

We also watched one of the shows in the 4D theatre, that day they had Journey to the Centre of the Earth.

Then there's also the street entertainment.

That day it was the Justice League against The Joker and some guy I don't know.

And in the late afternoon there's the Star Parade, where the movie and cartoon characters parade along the streets.

The Green Lantern said hi to my readers! :)

Would you look at Fred? Even a fake one is as vain.

I'm gonna get killed for posting this picture but Ben & Jerry ice cream FTW!

There wasn't much to do since it was fully packed with people so we left the place early and chilled (literally) at the Surfers Paradise beach.

The wind was not as funny as how this picture may appear.

The wind was so strong it was blowing the sand up! When you walk towards the beach you'll feel as though your legs get pricked by some invisible needles. And if you're not carefull, you might even catch sand in your eyes. NOT FUNNY AT ALL.

Either it rains like crazy, or the wind gets crazy. And it's supposed to be a hot, sunny summer time when we were there. It was broadcasted that that December (2010) would be the wettest Christmas Gold Coast ever faced. 

We were unlucky for such timing and plus, since it's December, everyone's on their holidays so everywhere was packed with people. And not to mention, rude people. Wasn't pleasant at all. 

I guess the best time to go there would have to be January - April, where it's not the holiday seasons, and it's not too hot or cold.

We bought this ticket package to get into all 3 parks (Sea World, Wet & Wild and Move World). It's a VIP pass for about AUD 100, and not only is it cheaper than buying individual tickets for each park, the pass lasts for a year! Which means I can still go back there (any 3 parks) and enter without having to pay again! I'm not sure if the package is still available but just to let you know to watch out for packages and deals and not blindly go for the individual tickets.

Last picture of us at Gold Coast :)

We took LOTS and LOTS of footage through out this trip, I'll be compiling them soon. 

By the way, Chinese New Year is coming soon! Less than 2 weeks! Have you done your shopping? Well, I have and now I'm left with my hair. I'm thinking of dyeing it red, eventhough Wk doesn't really like the idea. What are you doing? :)

Gold Coast! (urm... non-halal pictures ahead)

My Australia trip post is coming to an end, finally.

If you ever visit Melbourne, don't forget to eat at The Meat & Wine Co. There's a few of the restaurant all around the world but I think the nearest to us would have to be Australia, Sydney in particular. And while you're there and while you're non-Muslim, please don't forget to eat the pork ribs.

No, not this one but this is really good too. It's their ribs platter which comes with small portions of lamb, beef and pork ribs. 

THIS. is their full rack of pork ribs. It may look gigantic but it's not difficult for 1 person to eat it up since most of it consists of bones, or ribs for that matter.

That full rack of pork ribs costs around AUD50+, can't remember the exact amount. Expensive? Yes. Worth it? Yes. Will I try it again? Absolutely. Why? Simply because I can never find something like this in Malaysia.

The last 4 days before heading back to Malaysia we went to Gold Coast, stayed at Surfers Paradise.

The Surfers Paradise beach, which is loooooooooong.

It's a beautiful place but I guess we were there at the wrong time. It was raining everyday, the sky was really gloomy, the weather was wet and cold. Everything was underwhelming :( Because the sky wasn't clear, so was the sea waters. And the rain just didn't help at all.

Upon reaching we strolled along the suburb. Because it's quite a hot tourist spot, the price of everything's marked up like crazy. My advice for anyone who's traveling to Gold Coast particularly Surfers Paradise is, stay in an apartment and cook whenever you can. The food isn't exactly amazing, or at least nothing we tried was. It's not worth it to spend on food there, not even groceries. Pack instant noodles if you have to.

We had dinner at this Taiwanese restaurant. Like I've said, food was not impressive. But I quite like their bubble tea. The milk tea was so so, but the pearls were good. The place is called Hazel Tea Shop.

The next day we went to Sea World which was quite fun but again, the rain was a major let down :(

My favourite part of the visit is seeing these King Penguins!!!!! I almost couldn't believe my eyes when I saw how huge they are and how fake they look! It's like seeing a Mumble (from Happy Feet) and the rest of the penguins! Except that they didn't sing and tap their feet and dance wtf.

There were also a few scheduled shows peformed by the marine animals.

Imagine, the dolphin show.

Fish Detectives, where the seals and sea lions all came out to act!!! So cute!!!

Looks like one of the seals is getting horny wtf.

First time seeing a polar bear!

For dinner, we decided to try Bavarian Haus because they (Wk and family) were very interested in the pork knuckle, which is a popular German dish.

Such a disappointmet.

It's my first time trying a pork knuckle and unfortunately I didn't like it. Ok... I did enjoy the crispy skin (I'm a sucker for zhu yao zhar which I think is deep fried pork lard and siew yok skin which is the skin of roasted pork) but the meat was well, quite tender but smells strongly of... I dunno. Pork which has been kept for too long I guess? Not forgetting it was looking quite bloody as well, not sure if it's cooked. But if it's that tender I'm pretty sure it has been cooked for long so I don't understand why it looks bloody in the inside. And the strong, unpleasant smell of pork, gosh.

We also had several other dishes like the Wursts (German sausages), chicken schnitzel, lamb shank, pretzels... everything was just mediocre. Nothing impressive.

Try it only if you cannot contain your curiosity on pork knuckle. Otherwise, I wouldn't recommend that place at all. Environment is ok, but the food just doesn't justify the price.

Ok signing off. Will finish off the last 2 days tomorrow. 

Selamat Hari Thaipusam semua!

Snow in a tumbler

Thank goodness for Twitter or I'll never get to buy a Starbucks tumbler for so much lesser than if I were to get it here! 

One of my violin students was tweeting about the Starbucks tumbler being cheaper in Macau and I asked her about it. Technically it is cheap only if you purchase a drink but it's still a good deal! I can't remember how much they cost over here... prolly RM 40? RM 45? Over there it's only RM 21 after converting! They had a catalogue so she sent me pictures of it so that I could choose which one I wanted. Since it was around Christmas they have quite a number of limited edition (I think), Christmas-y designs which I thought were really cute! And I think some of it weren't even available in Malaysia.

I didn't expect much when I chose this cos the pictures didn't look that promising but when I saw it in person I loved it instantly! It is everything I've wanted in a Starbucks tumbler. I quite like the one my sister's having but that's the ONLY one I like compared to all the other tumblers over here. I've been holding back and not purchase it only because it IS very expensive for just a tumbler. This one I'm having right now is just perfect :)

Thank you Nikki!

My favourite part of the design is the little holographic dots all over the bottle, which resembles glistening snow!

 And random doodlings of cute desserts. 

Also, I've finally gotten enough stamps to redeem the 2011 planner! I was left with about 7 stamps and it was 2 weeks to the deadline (15 Jan) and I was thinking oh crap how can I drink 7 Starbucks drinks in 2 weeks. Then one day I was on the way to uni and I casually asked Cat on the phone to ask around if anybody in uni wanna get some Starbucks and then she told me to get 5 for the orchestra assistants! Wheeeeeeeeee :D

Honestly, I'm a little bit disappointed. The exterior looks a lot better and is definitely of better quality but function wise, I still prefer last year's. I'll elaborate more on this another day.

After stopping violin lessons for about 3-4 months, I've finally resumed to learning again yesterday. Enjoyed it very much, feel all motivated once again! :) 

The next few months are going to be rocky due to questions nobody can answer for now. Hopefully everything will go smooth sailing.

Ashcombe Maze & Lavender Gardens

More pics from Melbourne!

On we drove to Ballarat and visited the Sovereign Hill, which is an outdoor museum where you get to see live presentation of how gold is found, processed blablabla in Ballarat. The admission fee isn't cheap but if you look at the entire recreation it's not difficult to understand how much maintenance is needed to keep the place running nicely.

I've visited the place in winter 2008. Honestly, for places like this, it's worthwile to see it once but not another time. We decided to go again because his family hasn't been there before.

 

Wearing a winter jacket during summer =.=

And exploring the museum took up pretty much the whole day. Can't remember what else we did.

The next day which was also the last day we had the car, we drove around the Mornington Peninsula. We didn't get to do much since we had only one day and most places close at 5.

We wanted to visit a strawberry picking farm but it was not opened due to bad weather conditions. So we visited the Ashcombe Maze and Lavender Gardens which was beautiful! It was quite fun too because once you get in you'll be given tasks and challenges. Of course it is completely up to you whether or not you choose to accept and do them. Honestly, it'll be a lot more interesting to do it than to only stroll along the entire place looking at trees and flowers. 

The moment we entered we were asked to look for little gnomes and fairies in the place. If we could find all of it the reward was a lolly. The whole point is of course not to get a lolly but the fun of exploring every coop and corner, having an objective while enjoying the beauty of nature.

Yes, this is a maze, like the one you see in Harry Potter. 

Apparently the Ashcombe Maze is one of the oldest existing maze in Australia.

Lavender! I've never seen a freshly grown lavender like this in my entire life!

There's this Rose Maze which is one of the oldest circular rose mazes in the world. The challenge here is to get to the centre of the maze.

:)

Then we reached the most beautiful part of the garden, the Lavender Labyrinth!

I was too excited when I saw the lavender and couldn't wait to take a picture with the shrubs. And I accidentally tripped over the fencing =.= If you look at my hand you can see dirt. Wk quickly came over and took a picture before helping me up lol.

Speaking of falling down, I don't know why I always face misfortunes whenever I am in Melbourne. 

The first time I was at Melbourne in 2007, I fell down from a chair in the public while laughing too hard. In 2008, I had ketchup splattered all over my face because I didn't know how to open that shit, yes in the public. In 2009, I slipped and almost landed with my butt in the public again but I was lucky that Wk was right next to me and I managed held on to him. But the public still saw me slip.

This time when I was there, I tripped and fell onto the floor hard when I was trying to chase some seagulls away while we were having a break at Seal Rocks. Oh how could I have forgotten about this?! Some fucking stupid/inconsiderate Chinese couple who were sitting near us fed them for their own amusement. They were throwing potato chips everywhere and laughing at the seagulls fighting for it. 

It's totally fine if they want to be stupid but please do it far away without affecting others. When they fed the seagulls, more and more flew over and surrounded them and at the same time, surrounded us as well and I find it terribly irritating cos seagulls are not afraid of people, they will snatch your food and they are very noisy. That stupid couple then moved away to another table when the amount of seagulls became intimidating, but the seagulls won't leave just because the couple left. The seagulls knew we had food so they stayed and stayed irritating as everrrr. And that is why I got really annoyed and wanted to chase them off before landing on my elbow and knees, which of course still did the trick but in a more painful way T_T STUPID CHINESE COUPLE GROW SOME BRAINS LAH.

By the way everyone, PLEASE DON'T FEED THE SEAGULLS. If you want to do it, do it without affecting the people nearby. Your consideration is very much appreciated. Thank you.

Ok sorry I digressed. Then, fell another time at the Lavender Labyrinth.

=.=

We had lunch at the cafe inside the garden where of course, they serve lots of lavender infused dishes such as lavender scones... ... ok that's all I know wtf. There's also a home made lavender ice cream but we didn't try that. The lavender scones were alright, I still prefer their original unflavoured scones.

Before heading home we dropped by a random park :)

We had dinner at one of my favourite Korean restaurants there, Oriental Spoon :)

Seafood pancake, not very nice.

BBQ meat, best!

Crispy Chicken and Crispy Chilli Chicken, best!