Friday, September 28, 2007

Great Time!

We're now back in Perth, after a whirlwind of Sydney for 3 days, 4 nights, Melbourne for 3 days, 2 nights. Managed to do all the things we intended to do plus more. Managed to take a respectable amount of photos (in my standards) and felt like a full fledged tourist with my camera around my neck. I don't know how the pictures actually look like on the computer screen yet. Thanks to Wendy's timely advice, I used the P setting on my camera for most shots instead of auto.

Sydney: We walked the entire city on the first day we arrived. From the Opera House to Darling Harbour to Paddy's Market. And it was a really cold day too. Next day went for a day tour to Blue Mountains, stopped by a Wildlife park, went to see the Olympic stadium and took a ferry under the Harbour Bridge into the Quey (alamak, I can't remember what the name of the Quey is!).

Met up with KS' relatives, it was good to spend time with his aunt as I've only met her once before briefly. She's lovely. Also caught up a little with Andrew, the eldest son.

Melbourne: Ron took us to the Tulip Festival (where we discovered there are SO MANY types of tulips) and then to the Yering Estate vineyard. Very gorgeous place.

Next day we went to Soveriegn Hill, Ballarat. I couldn't quite remember it from the last time I went over 10 years ago. But it was great this time as we didn't have to rush and meet the tour guide's short timings. Attended some shows like Musket Shootings, Making Carriage Wheels and Gold Purifying. Again, it was a freezing day.

Then yesterday we went to the city and walked all over the place. KS finally got his Melbourne city photo taken at the Yarra river.

And all throughout our stay, Ron prepared fantastic meals, which he made look simple to prepare. I shall henceforth be inspired to try out at least once the carbonarra and baking of pumpkin & potatoes with some meat. Of course, what took him less than half an hour could very well take me over an hour.

So, today, we're going to shop in Perth and our first stop would be at this interesting place that sells soap www.lush.com. Chilli mussels on Sunday!

Sunday, September 16, 2007

Parting Ways

My colleague had her last day on Friday. She was my closest colleague and has really been a friend especially during these last couple of weeks. With her, I can be as zany and carefree as I have ever been. She's my stress reliever, my confidante, my occasional profane conversationalist, my her-Chinese-is-worse-than-mine-so-it makes-me-look-better banana partner...

And because she first thought Mozilla Firefox had something to do with Godzilla, I know she will never find my blog and see this pix of her taken while she was super angry:

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I am so going to miss her :(

Fickle?

You know, sometimes you wish for something and you go all out to get it, and when you finally get it, you don't feel that joy that you're supposed to?

It's happening to me for the last couple of weeks now. Decisions made, from career to gadgets to food, can't seem to please me. Suddenly the grass seems greener on the other side and I get agitated thinking I've landed myself with this decision that's going to be somewhat permanent. That feeling of loss opportunities rather than being glad about achieving what I wanted in the first place.

Hate this fickleness. Or maybe I'm just going through a rough patch at the moment. Man, I so need my holiday.

5 More Days

Can't believe we are flying off in 5 days. Reason for saying this is because I am so ill prepared mentally to leave, what with my darn project which will be launched while I am away. There's things to pack, what bag to bring, cash to convert, logistics on where we're leaving from etc.

And yet, on this glorious Saturday morning, I awoke thinking about work.

My New Camera

After much internal debate, I finally got myself the Canon S3 IS. Since it is an old model, not many shops stock them, and had to face insistent salespeople who wanted to push the S5. Special thanks to Monster for tagging along and basically held my hand as I swiped my credit card.

Anyway, I'm now trying to learn how to use it, not very successfully. Am not too happy with the images, as I had expected to see sharper pictures. Either that or I haven't mastered the art of focusing. But hey, when it's on automatic, it SHOULD focus automatically right?

I've posted 4 pictures up on my Flickr. The one with the sky was taken from the rooftop of my office. Got slightly arrogant, thinking I roughly knew how aperture, shutter speed and ISO settings would affect my pictures. Thus the grainy effect, alas! So, since then, I still don't know what is the effect of all those things on a picture. I need a crash course!

Sunday, September 09, 2007

Branding

Branding has always been company logos, taglines, corporate colours, less popularly jingles or short clips (think Harvey Norman and Intel) but "I personally believe..." (sorry, can't help but quote Miss South Carolina there) that there is the branding of smells, which is not very apparent to most people.

I received the 2008 IKEA catalogue and it smells of IKEA. And when I drive by the IKEA warehouse in Shah Alam, it smells of IKEA. The wood-smell always makes me think I'm breathing in sawdust. Now that the catalogue has sat on my desk for more than 48 hours, the smell is less pungent. There must be an IKEA fragrance out there which they soak all their stuff in for this branding.

Talking About Persistence...

Since we aren't home most of the week, we bought the cat a feeder which is able to store quite a fair bit of cat food in a container which then is supposed to spill out when the bowl at the bottom is empty. You know, like for chicken feed.

Unfortunately, the thing doesn't quite work and the food refuses to naturally tumble out of the storage. Ang Ku just eats what's in the bowl and has tried once to paw the food out, she's given up after that first try.

If we come back next week and the whole thing is empty, we might have just fed the entire neighbourhood strays. Oh well, at least we would have tried. And what with our trip coming up, she won't have her weekly feed for at least 2 weeks.

At Last!

I've just finished watching the final episodes of Gilmore Girls and I'm happy to announce that the two main characters finally, FINALLY got together again. When she married the other guy, something didn't feel quite right but the finale made everything right.

So, after 7 seasons, they kiss and make up. And just like this drama, I have 2 friends who's had their boyfriends wait for them like forever, one for less than 5 years and the other one, at least 15 years! Despite circumstances not looking favourable to them, these fellows waited and watched on and continued to hope.

Fuen, as you can see, I am still shaking my head and smiling at your news about finally dating Seng Yeu. No, Josie didn't spread the news, so let me do the honours! :) The first time I knew he was after you was when we were about 15 years old. If this were a drama, it would have been in Season 16! All the best to you both.

Saturday, September 08, 2007

That's It!

For the past year, every time I visited the loo at work, this tune would keep playing in my mind. Unfortunately, I can't describe it so that Ron can tell me immediately what it was. I wasn't bothered to write down the notes and was hoping that as soon as my Skype worked, I'd be able to sing it to him.

Anyways, yesterday at CG, the hosts were playing some songs for their baby, one of those Classical for Babies, while we were having our dinner. Suddenly, the song played and I stopped everyone's conversation just to listen to it and demand that I know the title immediately. I guess they must have thought it weird.

Now I know it is the Polovtsian Dances (Prince Igor) - Dance No. 17. Now I can hum that in peace in the loo, knowing the title.

Friday, September 07, 2007

Self Censorship

Okay, so I practise self censorship. Guess I'd rather not remind myself of moments of anger.

Anyways, this Sunday, I will be going for a talk on how to use Adobe Photoshop C3 (I can't remember what course it is) to enhance your digital photos. And thereafter, I'm going to get my camera! Yay!

Very sleepy. Will blog more tomorrow.