As you might know, the Christmas sales here are crazy. There are sales everywhere! But even so, things still aren't that cheap here. So my mum arrived on the 17th I think. We had a small birthday 'celebration' for her after dinner with the tiramisu she and Kat just made that afternoon. Before my mum arrived, we were busy making her birthday card. After she arrived, we've been busy in the kitchen. I've been helping out in the kitchen cooking. For Christmas, my mum was holding a Christmas dinner in our house. It was the first ever Christmas dinner we had which wasn't at home. These dinners were a normal scene back home where Christmas Eve, Christmas and Boxing Day nights were all just a blur of dinners with family friends and relatives. But this time it was much tougher, because we don't have the help of our kakaks anymore (=(), we only have one fridge to store food (back home we have about 3), and everything here was just so expensive.
So as Christmas drew nearer, the time spent in the kitchen just got longer and longer, regardless of whether it was simply cooking, or just cleaning up the mess after cooking. On Christmas Eve and Christmas itself, we spent a lot of time cleaning up the house too. On Christmas morning, I found myself peeling apples for the apple pie and just helping out. It was sort of hectic. For me, anyway. In the end, with the help of Aunty Sophia, the dinner went fine. It was quite boring for me, as it always were. The only person from back home who was here in Melbourne was Javier. It was quite nice to have him here, made me think of all the other family friends who I'm actually not close to. Oh well. Skipping this part.
On the 23rd, some (I think) shopping malls were open 24hrs. I think that is really cool. Me and my family (that time my dad and Kev had already arrived here) went to Chadstone at 8pm. It was really crowded and just so.. lively. We just walked around, milling about with the crowds. We had Pancake Parlor and then Nandos. Went home about 1am. It really was nice just to watch everything that was happening, though the crowd was giving me a headache. I would have loved to go shopping at 3am in the morning, but everyone including me was just to tired. Maybe some other year I hope. I just really enjoyed how spontaneous it was and how lively everything seemed. At Borders, some of the staff were wearing pajamas to work. Borders had a 30% discount on all books from 2am-3am. How cool is that? Haha.
On Christmas Eve, we realized that my dad, who was supposed to buy drinks for the party, didn't buy. Mum told Kat about what vegetables and stuff we still had to get, but didn't think to mention the drinks to us. So me, Kat, Kev and dad went down to Box Hill to grab those stuff. My dad, being so dad, bought an Arnott's Butternut Snap Cookie instead of the drinks. So we went home with carrots, potatos, cabbages (etc.) and a packet of biscuits. No drinks. Then that night, when we realized that we didn't have enough drinks, and that all shops would be closed on Christmas, we hurried out on a drinks hunt though it was about 10pm at night. It was quite exciting, really. The whole family except mum went. Mum was still in the kitchen and was with Aunty Sophia. So we went for a drive. At that time, all shops were closed. After driving for quite some time, we got lucky and found one of the Bottle-O shops open. We got out drinks and went back home. That was quite fun. =D Butternut Snap Cookie, we owe you one.
On Boxing Day, we went on a road trip with Uncle AhLai and his family. It was pretty good. We went down to Mornington, where the beach was. It was really, really beautiful. The colour of the sea was so bright and green. Somehow different from the one back home. It was just brighter and lighter. Really nice. Then on the 27th, we went to Sharks Fin House in Chinatown for Dim Sum with them too. We were lucky to get a table. The dim sum there was ok, nothing special and not the best, that's what I think. The up side was that I got to eat the dessert! The sago and yam dessert thing! The first time me and Dana tried that, we had a second one. It was really very good! I think the one where me and Dana had it was better than the one in Sharks Fin House. The down side was that I ended up overeating and felt sick afterwards. We just walked around the city afterwards, and then went home. It was tiring.
On the 28th, we (the same group minus Kel and Uncle AhLai's children, add Mrs. Tio) went to Daylesford, Hepburn and some other places along the way. That was really a longer drive than to Mornington. It was really tiring. We didn't really do much there. Ate at some random restaurant and went to the Ice Cream Parlor. Nothing special. We were all hungry because we all had to wake up at about 7+am and had been driving/in the car since then. We went to Lake House Hotel in Daylesford by recommendation from Mrs. Tio to see whether we could get lunch there. Me, dad and Kel went into the restaurant and a worker there asked us a table for how many. For 9 please. Then he told us we would have to wait for a table in the 'waiting area' which was where we were. Why? Beats me. I could clearly see empty tables in the restaurant. He suggested we looked at the menu and decided what to order first and handed us the menu. Wow. Posh, much? Kel said that they only served 5 mains. One for lamb, one for chicken, one for duck, one for pork? I don't really remember. The last one was vegetarian. My dad asked how long would the food take to arrive after we got a table. The guy said "Oh.. about an hour and a half." Omgosh. Seriously? We left after that. Haha.
That's when we found a random restaurant in town and just ate there. After lunch we went to Hepburn Springs. It was where we were to get Mineral Water. Like those serious mineral water from a pump which gets the water from underground (obviously). Those water which really had minerals in it and which was apparently good for your brain or something. It tasted horrible! Seriously! It was like sparkling water and it was so metallic. Yuck. The aftertaste was really bad! We brought empty water bottles to fill up with that water. But until today no one has drunk it except for my dad. It just tastes too horrible.
Anyway. We got back in Melbourne at about 7pm (tired!) and had to go for dinner. We just went to this random Chinese restaurant which wasn't bad. I was just too tired so I didn't enjoy it much. Went home and we were free. =D
Yesterday, my mum cooked laksa (seriously YUM!) for lunch where Uncle Lai and wife came for lunch and just hung out. I was relieved we weren't going out anymore. One can only take so many days of outings. Anyway. Today, they went to the Carribean Market I think. I didn't go because I wanted to finish up my blog before New Year's and wanted to finish my book too. Got scolded for that. "Why didn't you make it clear that you weren't going? You just made people wait for you pointlessly. Wasting people's time!" I wanted to vent my anger at Kat who was the one who announced I was going even though I had said otherwise. But then I thought "Positive people don't put others down" and didn't. Hah..haaa. (Darn that poster!) Oh well.
So that's what I've been doing. Gosh I can't believe so soon after Christmas, New Year's is just a day away! @@
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