Post christmas shopping

Big sales come after the Christmas day and everyone go shopping on the 26th. There are queue everywhere during post Christmas shopping because you can save nearly half price of a lot of items. As a fan of retail therapy, I went shopping on both 26th and 27th and got quite a lot of items. Even though not all the items I bought are on sale, I still save quite a lot. "You always have to spend money to save money"

List of items Tao and I bought these two days:
1. 2 bath towels - save $25
2. 1 set of sticker - save $2
3. 1 formal pants - save $32
4. G-star raw skirt - save $48
5. underwear - save $25
6. 2 T-shirt - save $20
7. 1 bed sheet set - save $175
8. 1 bed quilt cover - save $ 38
9. Dried flowers - save $ 14
10. Mimco bag - save $150
11. Table cloth- save $4
12 Puzzle roll up mat - save $ 5
13. Wall decoration sticker - save $3
14. Natio body scrub and body lotion - save $10
15. Nike Dunk High- save $ 30

A total of AUD $581 saved...Um...not bad but it was so tired to walk every shops to look for great bargains as there were so so many people. You have to sacrifice to save money...hehe

Blind Day

Christmas day should be fun. It seems not the case for me this year. Christmas becomes my Blind Day because I can not tolerate the dust on the blinds at home. They are full of dust and dirt and it was very dirty once you tried to get through to close the window. My arm will a bit dusty when contact with blind and it was very annoying.
It was raining heavily today and the rainwater mixed with the dust on the blind make it even worse. I can not hold it anymore and decided to wipe all of them. Before, I did not want to do that cos there are so many of them. I ended up wiping 14 blinds in total. After cleaning that, I am exhausted and decided to call today as my Blind Day.

The Chelsea

I wanted to try the breakfast at The Chelsea for a very long time after I saw the adv on newspaper. I end up having the dinner there yesterday. I ordered the crab cocktail for entree, salmon with yogurt sauce and steak for main. The salmon was so soft and still pink inside. So yum..hehe...I really like it. The steak was great too as I tasted a small bite. The steak was tendered and soft. ....Yum..yum..

Poor cookie with collar

Cookie has desexed this Tuesday and also has his three big tooth taken out. I saw the teeth and they were so long....much longer than the upper part out of the gum. I wondered so painful he would feel at that time. He now has to wear Elizabeth Collar to prevent him to lick the wound or get the stitches out from the wound. He looked so upset these days with the collar and kept on yelling when no one accompany him. Hope he will be better very soon and able to play ball and walk outside .

Home spicy home

Tao wanted to cook a meal for ages and it becomes sth so difficult for him as I am a control freak. I am always so afraid he will make a big mess in the kitchen. Finally, I gave up and allowed him to cook the dinner . He cooked the spicy beef and grilled mushroom. The beef was not spicy because he did not add a lot chilli. I guess it was better if more chilli has been added. I like the mushroom...hehe..I always enjoy the grill mushroom as it was full of favor and so tendered. Yum....

Giant cake

This was the giant dessert cake I had in Perth. Base on proportion of folk, the cake was really quite bag. I appreciated the size of cake but not really like the taste of it. Um...I guess I will not go there anymore for just the dessert.

Vivienne westwood x melissa

I like Vivienne Westwood as I like the funky and classic crossover style. Also, I really like the brand logo as I find it very special. I have quite a number of wallets from its Japanese line.

Once I saw the Vivienne Westwood x Melissa shoes range, I fell in love with them. They are cute and colourful. At first, I really wanted to get a pair of heels with the cute heart attached at the front top, but I find it a bit too outstanding for me. I prefer something a bit subtle . And in coincidence, I need to buy a pair of flat shoes and immediately thought of this cute black shoes . I went to try it and it was quite comfortable. I was hesitate to buy it at first because I was afraid it would be quite uncomfortable wearing plastic shoes. But it was so cute and decided to add it to my shoes rack. Hehe.

Cafe Del Pescatore @ Scarborough

We went to Scarborough beach and enjoy a wonderful sunset there. We did not know which restaurant was good and we just picked the one that got most customers. We decided to give a try of Cafe Del Pescatore and it was a restaurant with nice seafood and we were able to see the sunset there.

Tao ordered the Oyster Kilpatrick for entree. It was nice with sufficient BBQ sauce and bacon. It was fresh and did not over cook. I had quite a lot and did not have stomach pain. Most of the time I will have stomach pain if oysters are not clean. But luckily I was fine with it.

I ordered the Cesar salad with salmon and Tao had the scallops for mains. My salad was huge and with lots of bacon and salmon. The serving is for sure big enough for a huge guy but I think the bacon is a bit too salty for me. For the scallop, it was nice and fresh. With the lemon and some veggie to bake, it was not dry at all but very very tasty. I have not tried this type of cooking of scallop before and it is one of the best scallop I tried. YumYum...We wanted to try dessert but really had no room for it at that time. It is a nice restaurant to enjoy food and view.

Breakfast @ Adelaide Terrace

This is a very nice and modern cafe @ Adelaide Terrace in Perth. It serves very nice coffee and breakfast. It gets a very nice and modern french breakfast menu and I really love it. It is better to have brunch there as the serving is quite big. The environment is clean and comfortable and you can for sure enjoy a great coffee there.

Weekend @ Perth

This is the first time I go to Perth. I have not been to this city before even though I have been to most of the big cities in Australia. Perth is at the far west side of Australia and it takes around 5 hours flight from Brisbane. I hate long flight and I was relunctant to go.

I spent four days there and visited most of the iconic tourist spots there. I like this city although it is small. I went to King Park, Fremantle, Bell Tower, The Mint, Sunset Beach etc. I found that Perth is a very nice city and it has very good urban planning. It is free to take bus inside the CBD area and I really love it. It is very tourist friendly as you can take bus to go to most of the tourist spot without walking much. One of the bad thing was the climate there. I guess Perth has very nice weather most of the time unless there is heat wave. I experience 39 degree on Sunday and it nearly killed me. It was so hot that you could not able to walk under the sun. However, it has wind breeze most of the time and does not feel very hot even though it is around 30 degree. I do not mind going there again but I hope I can visit more places next time.

Old friend

Jo has arrived in Brisbane since Tuesday and we are able to catch up. She was from the same primary school but we were from same section. We met each other in secondary school and became friends. She migrated to NZ since F.2 and we still able to keep contact. The last time we met was already two years ago.

We met several times this week and had a very nice chat. We talked about our life, our memories and our past. Many has happened but it was so happy to share our experience again and exchange our advice via life. I have not had such a sincere and nice girl chat for a very long time and I really miss it. I have again saw the real and old "Me". I miss girl chat so so much. I found that talking via all of that enables yourself to think about what you have been and your future from another prespective.

Sport x Roman shoes

Honestly I do not understand why Nike will design this shoes. I cannot deny the importance of innovation and continuously creativity for the trendy sport brand but I think the design of this shoes is a bit weird. Is it a sport sandal or just roman style shoes with a Nike logo ? Most of the design from Nike are special and unique such as the woven air, presto etc, they are nice looking and comfortable to wear. However, this sandal is not my cup of tea and even though I support Nike for so long , I would not consider this at all.

Double yolks

Anything special from the picture. That is what I ordered at restaurant last Sunday and I found that one of the egg had two yolks inside. It is not the first time I found two yolks from one egg but it was the first time I got it from restaurant. Hopefully this is a good sign for that after all.

Meow

Cookie always sounds like a cat. I do not know whether it is common for dogs to sound like that but this is the first dog I met that sounded like a cat. He always makes this sound and I finally able to record it. It is very cute to hear that.

A bigger mirror

I always want to have a dressing table inside my bedroom. It is honestly important for a girl to have a nice dressing table with all the skincare, make up and accessories on the table with a big mirror attached as it is very convenient for doing the skincare routine and make up. In the old house, I just put a very small make up mirror. I dislike using that because I have to bend my knee all the time to adjust the angle every time. So, I usually did my make up inside the bathroom with a bigger mirror and more light available. But it was very troublesome as I had to pick the cosmetics or skincare to the bathroom and then put it back to the bedroom. So, I would end up walking several times from bedroom to bathroom for just having a finished make up. Even though it was a ensuite, it was tiring to repeat this step every time I put on make up or skincare.

After moving to the new home, I really wanna buy one but they are very expensive. Most of them at least cost about 500 to 600 aus and it was sure too much as I already got a chest of drawer in the bedroom. I guess what I need is another big mirror on top so I can do things easier. I saw a nice mirror at a tribal fashion shop yesterday and I decided to put that on top of the chest of drawers so I do not need to think of getting a dressing table but still able to do my make up just in front of all the materials without bending my knee any more. It is a nice mirror decorated with mosaic technique. It may not be the perfect fit to the style of the room, but I love to have something unique to add a bit of colour to the room.

Poor little cookie

Poor cookie hurt his back leg last Saturday. He immediately screamed after he got hurt and started not to use the back left leg any more. He used his other three legs to walk, run but occasionally use that hurt leg to scratch his ears. I touched the legs and sure he did not break any bone. I guess he twisted the leg and hopefully he could be better within days. During the first few days he got hurt, he did not wanna play any toys he used to like. It is so sad to see his walk every time as I was afraid he would be like that forever. Luckily, he was limp for three days and started to use the hurt leg to stand and walk this morning. He also willing to follow me upstairs and I guess he will be fine by the end of this week.

Decoration

After putting all the big and necessary furniture and appliance in place, this is the time to put some decoration for our home. The first one is the drawing as shown above. This is a gift from Tao's uncle and auntie. This is a very nice drawing and Tao and I decided to put it at the entrance . The picture pops on the white wall and I really like it. I never put such a big drawing on the wall before and I notice it is a great investment for decoration. It makes the home not so empty and adds a bit of color on our ordinary white wall. Although I do not understand much about arts, I enjoy having it at home. I guess I will put some small pictures along the corridor as well.

CEO's hand

CEO's hand is the nickname of problem told by the doctor when I went to clinic today. I started to have a lot of little pox on my fingers especially around the joints. They are very small but very itchy. I found that nearly every day I wake up and I had to put my fingers in hot water to relieve the itchiness. It will not be so itchy in the afternoon but the skin on the affected area becomes hard and reddish. No matter what medicine cream available at home I try to put on, none of them works. I remembered I had that before but totally not as serious as this time. I tried to call my mum and asked for advice. She told me I have " internal poisoning caused by damp/ wet poison " , I do not know how to explain that. Anyway, she named several Chinese herbs to boil to drink but seemed it did not cure the symptom. So, I decided to see the doctor and what he told me is I was too stress before. It happened to quite a lot of CEO and that why it got the nickname - CEO 's hand. I guess I just became the CEO of cleaning at home and that why I got this problem. Hopefully, I will be better soon with the medicine.

Having its new teeth

Cookie is growing up. He is loosing his baby teeth and ready for the new one to come out. Wah, I cannot believe my dog is growing up so fast as it seemed not long again I bought him back as a little puppy.

I am a ice cream seller

I guess most ppl stock up rice once they move into a new house but that is not the case for me and Tao. Actually I guess it is not the case for Tao. He stocks up a lot of ice cream because it is on sale.We got it half price and Tao decided to stock up to 8....nearly fill up all the upper tier of the freezer. Omg. I guess he does need to plan his exercise routine in order to not being fat again. Heheh.

Dim sum from long time ago

Tao and I went to yum cha today. I saw this dim sum and immediate decided to try it. I remember I ate a lot when I was a small kid. However, after the chinese restaurant I usually went closed, I never able to find it in other restaurant. I have not tried this dessert more than 12 years.

I do not know how to call this dim sum but I kind of know what it is made of. This is a kind of dessert made of sago wrap with different filliings usually red beans or custard. Although it is not a wonderful delicious food , I am so happy that to try this again as it reminds me the time when I was a young innocent child.

Cookie @ new home

Cookie is now at new home and he felt quite comfortable now. Even though he is a curious dog , he follows me everywhere and did not explore much by himself. The most interesting thing is that he slides on the floor a lot because the timber floor is quite slippery for him while running. Once he runs, he will slip on the floor and it is so funny. Although he does not able to control his running skill here, it definitely a better sleeping floor for him as it is cooler compare to the carpet. Now he does not need to search for the cooler spot to sleep and be able to sleep anywhere .

Favorite dish to taste again

I love this dish a lot. Baked Broccoli with Butter and Cheese is a dish I usually ordered in most of the small cafe in Hong Kong. I thought it is a western dish and it should be a dish that can be easily tried in most restaurants in Australia. However, I have not seen any western restaurant here has this dish. It was until last week when I went to a Hong Kong cafe...I saw this new dish on its menu and I immediately ordered that. Honestly the taste was quite ordinary and the sauce should not be so runny. But I was happy to try this again without going back to Hong Kong.

Dinner @ Enoteca

After two days of hard work, we decided to treat ourselves a better dinner. I wanted to try the Pearl cafe again @ Wollongaba and we decided to have a try without booking. When Tao and I arrived, we found out that the restaurant was not opened because of a fire happened two months ago.....how come we were so unlucky ??!!!

So, we decided to try the other restaurant on the same street. Enoteca is a Italian restaurant and we decided to give a try as we saw quite a lot of customers there. Without booking ahead, we could only get the seat along the bar. We ordered home made bread, scallops for entree, baked tuna and rabbit for mains and peas with goat cheese on side.

The bread was soft and I really like it. For the mains, I get used to eating raw tuna but the one I tried was quite nice. It was not over cook and the middle part was still reddish colour. The creamy sauce got a smokey flavor that I really loved. For the rabbit, I only tried a bit and it tasted like chicken. It was tendered and soft, totally different from the one I tried in Shanghai. However, I do not really like it ....maybe I felt weird eating a cute animal ba. For the side dish, it was quite ordinary but I dislike the goat cheese. The taste was too strong and I prefer something mild. So, I ate most of the peas and Tao finished all the cheese...lol

Time to settle down

It is the sixth day I moved to the new home. All the big furniture were put in the right spots and we got nearly all the necessities at the new home.

The first day we moved in, there was only mattress on the right spot. Other big furnitures including washing machine, fridge, rice cooker, kettle, computers were all in the garage as we could not move them in until Sunday night with the help of Tao's parents. We were able to set most of the necessities on the right spot and started to put all the stuffs on shelves. It tooked a very long time to put all the clothes, dishes, books, towels, pots on the right place. Even though for such a big furnitures like sofa, it tooked Tao and me more than half an hour to decide which combination of display could best obtain space efficiency. O ...I found that it was really troublesome to put things that you are familiar with in an unfamiliar place. You gotta think a lot before you can decide where to put them for convenience.

On the Sixth day, I finally get the internet access and be able to connect to the world again. It took around a week to get yourself able to settle in a new home with all the things you need in place. I was too tired of moving stuffs for this whole week and totally exhausted. I had not felt so tired for a very long time. Not willing to get up everyday as I could not felt my arms and legs on bed...but it seemed getting better today. So, I guess it is the day for me to feel comfortable and ready to settle down in this new home.

The only time I hate number 37

I like number 37. I guess most of my college friends may know the reason why for a very long time. It is still one of my favourite number when I fill in gold lotto. However, 37 became the number I hate yesterday.

Yesterday, I got to move all the stuff in my home because tomorrow is the settlement day. And so unfortunate that yesterday was the hottest day this year in Brisbane hitting 37 degree....o..my god. Although I started early , I could still feel the heat. I helped moving all the furniture as early as 8 o'clock. Luckily we finished at around 9 and then I had to wait for the cleaner to come. At that time, I already finished drinking 2 litres of water....o....It was so damn hot and even though I stayed in the shade and I could still felt the heat wave especially there was no electric appliance I could able to use at home that time. Later, the lawyer called and I had to rush to the office in a very short time and I nearly wanna die in such a hot weather. Then in the late afternoon, the cleaners still had not finished cleaning and I had to wait outside the house under the sun for more than an hour. No water, no umbrella and no shade......O....no wonder I had severe headache that night and luckily I was not dehydrated...if not..I don't know what to do when I am alone there...
I guess that was the only time I dislike number 37 to appear .

I am a carpenter

Since Tao is not in Brisbane right now, I have to do all the preparation before moving. In Hong Kong, most of the furniture are delivered as a whole or there are always carpenters to assemble that for you after delivery. I never need to learn how to do furnishing. Especially my father used to own a decoration company which customizes different furnitures , so all the furniture at my home was mostly customized and done by the carpenters in the factory.

However, there is a whole different story here in Australia. I wonder if everyone here can be a carpenter. You have to assemble everything you buy in shops. I could not imagine last time when I bought a exercise bike, I have to assemble that...?!!!wtf...Luckily, Tao knows much of that and he could assemble all of the furniture. ....But, he is not here and I just found out that I have to dismantle some reminding furniture. If not, they are not able to get out of the main door . I have to dismantle several furniture including a double bed, book shelf and a dinning table. Good that it is much easier than what I thought. I used around 20 mins to finish them each...haha....So, I guess I can be a carpenter.

Miss the old time

I do not know why I miss the old time a lot recently. I still remember it was very trendy to buy red wing shoes, Dr. Martin shoes for school, Jean Paul Gaultier wallet with the silver tag at front and bag, Timberland boat shoes, M. Duck bag, Kickers shoes, Donna or Gavin clothes , Mr. Friendly accessories, etc when I was studying in high school. At that time, these stuffs were very expensive and I used to save pocket money to buy this. I did not own all of that but I was able to save money to get a few as listed above. I already forgot quite a lot of these brands or goods and could not be found any more. But recently, I started to miss this old things and wanted to get back a few of them later when I back to Hong Kong. I am not sure whether I miss them because I could not get that when I was young or I just miss the old time - no need to worry so much stuffs and be a happy student.

16th on park

Tao and I decided to go to "16th on park" last Friday for dinner as we were not willing to cook after going back home. This restaurant was always on the top list to go if we were near park road. We have not been there for a few months and their menu changed. So, we were able to try some new stuffs. The new menu did not have as much selections as before. Sometimes it was not very easy to decide when the menu offered too much choices.

Tao ordered Bruschetta as the entree. It was marinated tomato with onion on top of the crusty bread. It looked like a strawberry cake when I saw the waitress bringing it out from the kitchen. It tasted quite good but I prefer more dips for the bread.

For the main , Tao ordered the steak and it looked yummy. I tried a bit of the bean and it was spicy. I did not know how to describe the spiciness. It got the ginger smell of it....a bit weird to me but Tao said the steak was okay. I ordered the salt and pepper calamari tapas and the Caesar salad. I really liked the calamari as it was fresh and tendered . The salad was pretty good but I have not had salad with dressing being mixed before serving for a long time, so the taste was a bit too strong for me.....I prefer to add the sauce by myself and it was easier to control and prevent it to be too soggy...then it would be great salad for me.

What 's that....???!!!

I saw this reptile just outside the garage when I walked out to check the mail box. I have no idea what exactly is this but I am not very scared of that. But I guess if my dog saw it , he will for sure trying to play with it cos he is too playful and not scare of anything....which is kinda bad..cos I am not sure whether it is dangerous for him. I better watch out carefully bring him to walk later....

Act of Ant

"Moving as the ant" described what I have done today the best. Because of some reasons, Tao and I have to move majority of stuffs before the mid of next week. So, we started moving some small furniture and stuffs today bit by bit to his parents home first before moving them to the new house weeks later. What we could move today was greatly restricted by the car. We used a four wheel drive to start moving from early 9 o'clock. Every time we had to carry bit by bit. We had to divided three single beds into parts. We tried to carefully fit all those sharp parts of furniture inside the car not allowing them to make any scratches. It was quite difficult to lift those furniture up the car especially the mattress (They were quite heavy and slippery after we wrapped them with the plastic bags. They slided off the car easily as the drive way was a deep slope...so tiring. Even though it was not a far way from our home to his parents house, we drive 7 rounds to move most of the big stuffs . We finished at 4:30 as we were so tried and not willing to move anymore...O..I could not imagine another time to move those things to the new house again.....also needed to include around 20 boxes that we have already moved to his parents home last few weeks...O...Headache, not to mention another challenge for me the week after....

More fun with Cookie

Cookie is very cute and has brought so many fun to me. Although he is cute, he is very lazy. Only food can let him move around but not staying in one position doing nothing. He just had the final vaccination last Saturday and we could take him out for walk ..no more boring at home playing with the monkey...

At first, we tried to train him to walk with the leash but seemed he did not like that. He stayed on the floor and and not willing to walk a step. I nearly thought that I could not bring the dog outside to play. Luckily, after a while outside the house, he kinda got used to it and willing to walk besides me. Yeah....he was very excited with everything, eg. fallen leaves, birds, butterflies ..

Maybe he was too excited that day being able to walk outside the house...he did a very silly thing that night. I heard a noise when he walked to the bed and I went to have a look. What I saw was his bed flipped and he just stayed still there. I guess must be he was so excited and jumped to the bed and his weight made the bed slip and he was kept between the bed and the drawer....So funny that it seemed nothing happen to him.

Ghost story~~~

I keep reading the blog of Su Yan Tian Shi and found her last post about a ghost story. She strongly reccommends that and I decided to read the whole story. The story is posted on the hk discussion board website. If you are able to read traditional chinese and not afraid of reading ghost story, it is definitly one that you will enjoy.

The author is "jemdogdog" and it is a very long story. Although he uses a lot of foul language (claimed to more accurate to describe the true feeling) and the timeline of the story was a bit complex and confusing, it is still a great scary story to read. I recommend to read it during day time ...feeling more safe ...hehe....cos you will get scared by the detailed description...

Hair cut

Cookie was acting a bit weird recently. He cried at night while sleeping which it did not happen anymore after the first few nights we brought him back. We thought he might need to go to toilet but still the same after he finished his toilet time. He was okay during the day time but we found that he did not sleep on the bed anymore. Finally, we found the reason -- his hair is too long and it was too hot to sleep on the bed .

So, I cut his hair. I tried not to cut it too short as it does not look lovely with too shorted hair and pointy nose exposed. I kept the face hair to be long and cute the hair of the body. It seemed that he is getting better and feeling more comfortable while sleeping at night. He is willing to go to his bed now and did not cry ...yeah....Sleep tight ...

is it a ordinary sleeping pose?!

Cookie sleeps in a very special pose most of the time. He usually sleeps with the stomach up and all the legs leaning upwards. I guess he looks like playing boxing while sleeping....so cute.