Home Turf

This is not the first time I've said this, but, I'M BACK!!!!!!!!

I'm so happy being home. Seriously. Everything is so familiar but new. =D I'm seriously so happy. Home is really the best place to be. Sigh.

Anyway. I flew back from Melbourne at 1am on the 8th (8th, Fri, 1am) (Aus time GMT +11). Stopped in Jakarta, then KL, then finally arrived back home. Yay. Oh, and we (me, Kat, Kev and dad) got upgraded to Business Class!!! It was the second time I got upgraded for free. The last time I was travelling with my dad, also coming back from Melb. It was awesome! When we were boarding, we got our new boarding passes and we were all so exuberant. In addition to the euphoria I had because I was heading home, I felt so happy I could explode. We were all excited and high-five-ing each other. It was awesome. We (cough, I mean me) don't travel luxuriously usually. Even flying MAS was a treat for us because we usually fly Air Asia. =D =D =D

I don't know why (except because I'm a bit weird) but I love airline food! It's sometimes really bad but I always look forward to eating on the plane. Even in Air Asia, I always buy something to eat. But gosh, did I eat a lot this trip back home. Seriously. Before we left Melb, we went to the Golden Club Lounge (though only my dad is a member) and hung out. Me and Kat shared a Won Ton Noodles. It was 12am+ at that time. Then in the plane they served us 'dinner' (or breakfast?) and in Business Class they give you an entree/appetizer, then the main meal and then dessert (wheeeeeee!!!). I only tried the entree because it was too weird, it was some potato thing. For the main meal, I had braised beef or something. That was not bad, the beef was really tender (ugh, chemicals) but quite salty. I didn't finish that too. And then the air stewardess offered me dessert which was cheese cake. Mind you, I LOVE cheesecake. How could I refuse? The dessert was really good. I felt bad because I could only make myself eat a few bites because I was sleepy and full. But it was very good. They put some strawberry jam on top of the cheesecake and some sugar thing. It looked sort of like mustard, but it was sweet. I had that before but I can't remember what it is. (Thumbs up though)

I watched Cloudy, With A Chance Of Meatballs in the plane. I watched the beginning of the movie before in the house in Melb, but never finished it. It was good. I love the humour in the movie. Seriously so funny. After that I slept. In Business Class the seats could recline all the way down until you're sort of lying down flat like a bed, but not quite. (Excellent feature!) Even then, I still had trouble sleeping. I kept waking up. We stopped in Jakarta and when we left, breakfast was served. I was still full and was not feeling very well because of the lousy sleep but... it was a meal on a plane! I really enjoy eating them! (ashamed) Haha. I had Mushroom Omelette because I love omelettes (the ones they serve in hotels for breakfast are awesome!). It was not very good, just ok. But I was more interested in the bun. What a big difference. They came around to serve you the bread and you could choose from croissants, plain buns, and something else. They did that for dinner, but it was a different selection (I had garlic bread then). In Economy Class, they just gave you a relatively hard bun. I thought the difference was amusing. =D Anyway. I had two buns with butter and strawberry jam. Yay! Oh, I also had a Milo. Hehe. And the Milo was the only thing I finished.

All good things come to an end. We arrived in KL and of course, we traveled in Economy Class. It was ok though. In KLIA, I felt so home. Seriously. It was raining then, but you couldn't tell unless you looked out the windows. The first Malay sentence spoken to me was at Immigration when the officer asked 'Pergi KK kan?'. Haha. It was a really empty flight and on that flight (sigh) I had Nasi Lemak. It. Was. Awesome. Really. I guess I'm just used to Air Asia's Nasi Lemak that I think the one in MAS was awesome. But I really enjoyed it. The rice was so fragrant! I really enjoyed it. =D =D

Oh and on that flight, Kat was sitting beside me. And at one point, she put her head on my lap to sleep. I wasn't thinking and I opened the 'table' and Klonk, it hit her head. Ouch. I seriously did not mean to do that!!!! I guess I thought the table would be those type that don't go down unless you pulled it down. Haha. A small spot on her head swelled a little bit. It was hilarious (sorry Kat!!!). Kat recently got sick and her voice is now those sexy Sophia Bush types. Anyway, we arrived in KK at about 12 noon Malaysian time. =D Yay. But just our luck, our bags didn't arrive. That was yesterday. I couldn't get used to the heat at first, but today has been good so far. In terms of the heat I mean.

Oh ya. I know. This post is so jumbled! But on the 6th of Jan, in Melbourne, my parents celebrated their wedding anniversary! 26 years. Wow. Happy Anniversary!!!! =D It was nice. We had a proper dinner at the house. Proper dinner as in there was roast chicken (Coles!). Me and Kat bought a bouquet of flowers. We bought Carnations. The flowers looked very nice. Seriously. They actually bloomed properly, unlike the scrawny ones here which never bloom. Anyway. The dinner was good. It was funny. Kat kept going 'I'm Hannah Montana' because of her voice. Then she added 'And you're watching Disney Channel (I thought she was going to stop there, but) movies (and there too, but) movies movies (echo)'. Hahaha. And my mum did a salad and my dad was like 'Why does the salad look so dirty?'. That was pretty funny. We all deduced that it was because of the cheese my mum put that made the salad 'look dirty'. There were a lot of things that kept me laughing (or rather laughing inside as I'm too lazy to move my facial muscles. Hah) but I can't remember now. But it was a nice dinner. My dad even wiped the dining table after dinner and washed some dished. It was cool. The first time I saw him doing any house work. I was like 'Look! Everyone LOOK! Dad is wiping the table!!!!!'. Haha. We took pictures as evidence. =D

I think in the end, it was a good holiday. I guess. For my dad, it was. It was the first time I had seen him so relaxed. Usually when we go for holidays he still goes on his phone and paper work and stuff like that. But this time, he really relaxed. He went on his phone only about 2 times this time. He spent a lot of time sitting on the porch (of course in the 'garden chair', not on the porch), just reading the papers. He went jogging in the parks close by. It was nice to see him totally unstressed.

Anyway. I'm HOME! I'm really happy. It feels like.. HOME. Really. I missed the toilet floor upstairs. It felt good under my feet. My bed, I realized yesterday, was harder than the one in Melb. It felt so solid, like the ground. But it was MY bed, it was just.. home. =D I enjoyed listening to people talk in BM in the airport. I enjoy the kitchen at home! There's a space for everything, not like the one in Melb. I enjoy the TV channels, the radio channels, and the internet. No limited internet! YAY! Seriously. I feel so weird surfing the internet, surfing YouTube, not worried about streaming eating up the internet. It's just HOME!!!!

Anyway. Seriously glad to be back. See next post! =D

Service

Haha. Just now I was using my mum's laptop. Then Kat came over and asked me to move because she was using it just now. Which is true. She left to help my mum in the kitchen for a little while. I looked at her and she looked at me. Then she said that I could use Kel's one. So I pointed to my water bottle and asked her to help me fill it up. Then I stood up and walked to the study room where Kel's laptop is. Passing the kitchen where Kat was filling my water bottle, I said, 'Send my bottle in there'. Then she yelled, 'You're so mean!' And I looked at her (it was funny). She said, 'Take it yourself! It's done already!' Haha. So I walked over to take my bottle from her. She filled it up at the sink where my mum was cutting up some vegetables. Then as I took my bottle, my mum said, 'What kind of service is this huh?' Then me and Kat both spoke at the same time. 'Ya lohhh!' I continued, 'How can she not send it to the study room? It's so close.' while she continued, 'How can she ask me to send it there? She can do it herself.' By that time I was in the study room already and then after a second or two, Kat said, 'Are you scolding her or me???'

Haha. So funny.

Anticipating Tur's email! FASTER, TUR!!!!!!!

(Finger) Food I Like (Question Mark)

Remember this fact: I'm not normal.

Bread with Brown Sugar!

Normal, fresh bread; spread butter; then spread brown sugar. Excellent!

Phoebe's Sandwich!

Normal, fresh bread; spread butter (optional); spread jam; then place a digestive biscuit on one side and fold in half. Leave for a while if you prefer biscuit to be a bit soft. Excellent!

Nestum Bubur!

Make a bowl of normal Nestum but with less water; add some milk; add a bit of honey/condensed milk; add slices of banana; then mix. Excellent!

Morgan!

Hah hah. Because I'm so bored and my friends have deserted me for dinner (TUR AND PEI!!!!!!), and I've finished watching all of the downloaded episodes of Big Windup! (or Ookiku Furikabutte) (only 5 of them), and Clif and Denise are online but are not responding, here's something that made me laugh inside... since I'm too lazy to actually exert my facial muscles to make the ends of my mouth go upwards. Enjoy!

2009 Stuff

On the 30th of Dec last year, me and my family and Uncle Lai and wife, went to the Suzuki Night Market which started at 5.30pm. It was so hot that day. 37degrees C was the forecast. But I really don't know what temperature it was. It was just so hot! There were a number of shirtless people walking around. Haha. Anyway. We went there and I could instantly smell the smell of fried food. It was quite interesting, like a bazaar (yay!!) but much more interesting than the bazaars I've been too. We were a bit early, we were there at 5pm. By 6pm, there already were quite a lot of people and many more were coming. It was so lively. There were 3 stages throughout the market and the live music was quite good. The first one I heard was a one-man band!! It was cool. There was a lot of food from many different places like South Italy, Africa, Spain, Persia, Holland etc. It was very interesting. I walked around a lot and it was really tiring, my legs were so sore! There were some cool stuff on sale, but it was very pricey. Towards the end we just sat and enjoyed the Spanish music from the live band, though we couldn't see it because it was too crowded. There were a lot of people dancing before the stage. It was so lively. The market finishes at 10.30pm and it is on every Wednesday until the 24th of Feb. Worth going just to enjoy.

For New Year's Eve, we (same group plus Uncle Wong, wife and daughter) went to the city and got a spot by the Yarra River on the grass where we could see the city skyline. It was quite warm that day (yesterday). There were two rounds of fireworks scheduled. One was at 9.15pm at the MCG which we could still see from where we were, and the other one was at midnight and that one was from various points in the city. Me and my family took the train down to the city at 6.30pm and it was so crowded. Seriously. There was no empty seats and it was noisy and smelly. Anyway, on the river side, it was really crowded too. Every spot of grass was taken. Thunderstorm was the forecast that night. So we sat there, snacking on the food my mum brought and just chatted. There was music being broadcasted through speakers all along that side of the river. And around 8pm, an announcer said 'the weather bureau expects rain between 10pm-2am. Please be ready to take refuge'. Haha. The sky was getting darker, ominous clouds were moving in. Soon, the whole sky was covered by those gray clouds, the wind was blowing and it was just quite exciting. With all those people sitting on the grass with us, people started getting their raincoats out, or using those garbage plastic bags to cover themselves. The announcer came on again and said that the rain will hit us at about 9pm. It was true. It started raining. We fit ourselves under two small umbrellas, and two waterproof sheets/mat that we used to sit on the grass. It was so funny. When the rain started everyone started woot-ing and clapping. The rain was on and off and the first round of fireworks was delayed. But soon it was up and well, it wasn't that good. Normal fireworks, nothing special. When it finished, a bolt of lightning flashed right beside where the fireworks were. It was so cool. 'Natural fireworks', my dad said. It was still raining at that time.

After that the rain didn't let up and it was just steady rain, not heavy torrents. We left our spot and walked to the train station and just stayed there under the roof. It was really crowded. We wanted to look for a place to get a drink or something. But I guess it was just so wet, we sort of just stayed there and chatted. Until 11pm, it was still raining and we decided to head home. From the train station, we walked back to the house, it wasn't that far. But it was still wet and muddy and really dark (no one turns on their porch lights here. NO ONE). That was quite enjoyable. Haha. I took a quick shower and was in time to watch the countdown at the Sydney Harbor on TV. We were looking for the Melbourne one but I don't know why it wasn't on air. Anyway. It was really good. The fireworks were really good.

So yea. That was how we invited the New Year. It was fun. But how funny it is. A new year replaced the old and life still goes on the way it was before. We watched Tokyo Dogs (Kat's series) after that and even my dad joined her. (Oguri Shun so not good looking! Haha).

Anyway. Happy New Year I guess. . . .

Oh and here's something to start the new year off. =D

Queen- Under Pressure

I fell in love with this song when I heard the part from 2:37 onwards.

Can't we give ourselves one more chance
Why can't we give love that one more chance
Why can't we give love give love give love give love
give love give love give love give love give love
'Cause love's such an old fashioned word
And love dares you to care for
The people on the edge of the night
And love dares you to change our way of
Caring about ourselves
This is our last dance
This is our last dance
This is ourselves
Under pressure

2010

Oh my gosh. Can you believe a new year has arrived already and replaced the old one?

Seriously.

2010. I hope I will live this year up to my expectations. As for my resolutions? We'll get back to it.

I wish all a... well, a productive year.

Last Book Of 2009

Montana 1948- Larry Watson

Montana, 1948; and the events of one cataclysmic summer will for ever alter twelve-year-old David Hayden's view of his family. His father, a small-town sheriff; his remarkably strong-willed mother; his uncle, a war hero and respected doctor; and the family's Sioux housekeeper, Marie Little Soldier, whose shocking revelations forn the heart of the story.

As their memories unravel before young David's eyes, he comes to learn that the truth is not what you believe it to be. That power is abused. And that sometimes you have to choose between loyalty and justice...

Haha. This is the book which had a really good prologue I mentioned before. I finally finished it on New Year's Eve. It's quite interesting. The beginning of the story was not that interesting, but the interesting part came soon enough. I thought the story I imagined when reading the prologue was much greater than the actual one. But it was ok. I think it was written very well. The way of writing was really convincing, it made me wonder whether it was a true story or not. This book is one of the books I'm doing for English next year. Oh and the covers.. sadly, the one I got is the one at the bottom, the small, sad one. Haha. So yea.. A.. 4/5 for me I guess. I have to stop being so nice when I'm rating. I even feel bad when I want to give a 3! Oh well..

Happy New Year guys! =D