Going, going.....

There was another first for me last week. I attended my first auction.



Auctions appear to be very popular in Australia - for selling anything on ebay as well as for properties. When a house or land is for sale, I often see sign boards set up outside its front yard, advertising whether its 'For Sale' or 'Auction'. More often, the better properties will go for auctions as the owners hope to fetch a better price. The auction date and time is always stated and it is usually on held on Saturdays, around 12noon to 1pm.





The way the property sector here works is very different from Singapore's. Unlike Singapore where property agents will accompany you for viewings anytime at your convenience, even evenings and weekends, here you can't. There are fixed timings for viewings (or inspections, as they call it). Better still, the time range for the open house can be around 15mins only, so you better be on time.



There was a piece of vacant land in our suburb, 720sqm big, located just opposite a peaceful lake and home to many ducks, swans and birds. It was the only piece of land along that stretch that hasn't been built on. Last Saturday, it went on auction at 1pm. Hubby had called to enquire about the reserve price but of course, the agents wouldn't reveal.

I've always wondered what an auction is like. So even though Hubby was not around, I brought the kids out for a walk along the lake around 12 plus and hung around to see the auction. Though we were quite interested in the locality of the land, Hubby had briefed me already not to raise my hand, unless the price is so so so low.







Judging from the turnout, I doubt it will be so. Despite the economic gloom and bad financial news all around, I'm quite surprised to see at least 20 interested groups turning up. Wow, people here do take auctions seriously. Everyone stood around the area, opposite the street facing the land, talking to their friends or family. Most were dressed casually since it was a hot day. The agents were clearly identified by their shirts and ties, but I couldn't quite determine who the owners were until much later.



When the auction started slightly past 1pm, everyone gathered around, just along the pavement outside the land. The agent first read through a whole long paragraph about the terms and conditions and the legal liabilities of the auction process. In between making sure the kids are safely waiting inside the hot car, I heard that the successful bidder will have to pay a reasonable amount of deposit immediately if he got the deal. Well, that person cannot be me then, since I've not bought any extra cash with me.....haha.



The auction formally started with the agent asking for a starting price. Any price? Someone said, "$80,000" but the agent turned it down, saying it's too low. He asked for around $200,000 and someone offered $180,000. Then he asked for the next bid at $10,000 increments. Slowly the price inched up. It turned out that, despite the turnout, there were only a few serious bidders. The rest, like me, probably gave up when the price crossed their treshold. When $10,000 increments became not possible, the agent accepted bids of $5,000 increment, then $2,500, finally even $1,000 increments were fine. I noticed that the 3 very serious bidders were of Asian origins.



The final offer was $271,000 but there's no sale. The agents convened with the owners to discuss and finally came back to say that the price was below the owners' reserve price. Which means that they can refuse to sell to the highest bidder as it hasn't met their minimum price. They announced that they will next deal with this highest bidder exclusively and she (a young lady in yellow t-shirt and denim shorts) will have 'first right of refusal', whatever that means.



I left as soon as I hear this announcement as the boys were already steaming inside the car. Looks like no deal. The owner obviously hoped to reap more profits but buyers are not too willing to pay too much in the light of current situation.



On Monday, I was surprised to receive a call from the agent. He was calling to see if we're still interested in the land. He claimed someone came later with a higher offer of$277K. The owners' initial hope was for $300K but now they will let go if it goes to $280K. Not sure if he's calling everyone and it's a marketing tactic but I told the agent that's price is not within the price range, thanks.



We are very hopeful that property prices in Melbourne will continue to fall further in the days to come. Though it was an ideal location with a view to die for, we have decided to exercise patience in hope of securing the best deal for this long term investment.

My First Focaccia

I finally made my first focaccia bread. Hubby had attempted to make one long time ago but I vaguely remembered that it wasn’t very successful. Focaccia is an Italian flat oven-baked bread which may be topped with herbs and is widely available here. But there’s no beating the satisfaction of eating bread made by your own hands. Plus, with the food scare currently raging in China and Singapore, anything homemade is definitely doing you and your family a favour.


In fact, I was even going to use our home-grown rosemary herb for this bread, except that after sighting the infancy of the plant, still barely 10cm tall, I really should leave it to grow a little longer before harvesting.


Recipes are abundant all over the internet, but I decided to fall back on my favourite ‘Happy Home Baker’. However, I followed the original recipe and used 1/3 wholemeal flour and 2/3 bread flour. In addition to its higher nutritional value, I’m beginning to like the taste of wholemeal bread after coming to Australia. I don’t know why, but my only impression of wholemeal bread in Singapore was its dry texture. However, after trying out the wholemeal bread from Baker’s Taste here, I’m converted. Thus, I’ve purchased a kilo of wholemeal flour to add into my baking whenever possible.


One of our mutual friend from Singapore came over for dinner tonight. He’s a cabin crew and also Hubby’s ex-army buddy. He’ll be laying over in Melbourne for one night. The menu for the night was Neapolitan Pork Steaks with the Rosemary focaccia and rockets salad. I doubled the quantity of the focaccia recipe to make 2 loaves so that everyone can eat as much as he likes.




The kneading was supposed to take about 7mins but because of the huge quantity of flour, my poor mixer could not reach the bottom of the dough very well. I held it as it kneaded but still.... Also, the dough “looks dry”, according to Hubby. Thanks to his comment, I added a little more water to the dough. That’s my mistake. DO RESIST the temptation to add more water until all the flour is incorporated and you should touch it to decide if it’s dry, not just by looks! The dough now became very wet and sticky, thus after kneading for the longest time, I decided to take out one lump to add more flour and knead manually. Hubby also came in to help with the kneading. Finally, 2 hours after I first started the bread project and a substantial amount of flour later, we finally allowed the focaccia dough to rest and rise.


I was so afraid it wouldn’t rise properly after all the excessive kneading and extra flour. But thank God it did ‘rise to the occasion’ and pretty quickly too. After it doubled in size and when you press the dough and it doesn’t spring back, it’s ready to be punched for the 2nd rise.


The 2nd rise was beautiful as well and I’m beginning to be very hopeful about this bread. Not to mention the aroma of the rosemary! Finally, I poked the dough with my finger and distributed the rosemary on top. Then I sprinkled sea salt all over and drizzled more olive oil before sending it to the oven. My oven was big enough to accommodate both pans of bread at one go, so there’s economy of scale in terms of electricity usage and time.


25 minutes later, the breads were done and though I meant to keep the bread till the guest came, I couldn’t resist cutting out some for tasting. It was fantastic! Thank God all the additional flour and kneading did not create any damage to the bread. We couldn’t taste the garlic though. Not sure if I didn’t use enough or maybe because it wasn’t freshly chopped. (They were pre-chopped and kept in the fridge for convenience.) But the salt! My God, they were really unnecessary. I don’t know why the recipe calls for the salt to be added, the bread tasted very good on its own! It was so salty that we had to knock out all the rock salt crystals from the top before eating. So if you’re gonna follow this recipe, you can ignore the sea salt or just sprinkle in moderation.


I can’t wait to make my next wholemeal loaf! I’m also trying to find some biscuits or cake recipes that use oats. I think they’re a good way to introduce some oats into the kids’ diet. With homemade cookies or biscuits, we can also cut down on those that we purchase outside. While I cannot totally avoid buying processed food, it’s the least I can do to ensure some quality control. Nowadays, I’m rather weary when buying groceries. Who knows what strange things they’ll discover added to our food next?

Birds of the Wetlands

I decided to bring the children out for dinner today. Before that, I took them to 'feed the ducks' at a lake in the vicinity of our neighbourhood. I newly discovered this place when I joined the walking group at our community hub for a morning walk around the neighbourhood. There are a lot of ducks and their feathered kind living there amidst the wetlands and bushes. Just behind the lake, you can see houses and cars parked nearby.


Honestly, I couldn't really believe it at first that all these wild birds could live so near to human beings voluntarily. I was thinking that someone must be looking after them and keeping them, like the bird park. But that's me and my urban 'suaku-ness'. I couldn't see any fences and except for some people who feed them, they seem to be surviving pretty well on their own there.





In fact, today I saw these 2 large pelicans perching themselves lazily on the rocks in the middle of the lake. I actually witnessed one of them 'fly in'. They stayed there for so long, sun tanning and grooming themselves, totally oblivious to me snapping photographs of them. I was very excited to see them, especially so near to home. Back in Singapore, I would have to travel across the island to Jurong Bird Park and pay to see these birds in captivity.



KK had fun throwing the bread to the ducks. It was just a little piece for him to participate as I personally think feeding them too much is no good. If they're really wild, they need to learn how to survive on their own. Interestingly, the pelicans paid no attention to the bread. Think they've had their lunch somewhere else. Or they know it's stale bread anyway... haha.







This is another collage of photos taken at another lake, also in my neighbourhood. Here, we see beautiful black and white swans, in addition to geese and mandarin ducks. Can you believe that there are some lucky people who just have to open their front door to see this beautiful place just across the street in front of them?

Bugs Life

I have to write about this cos it's bugging me. Those bugs.

Since the weather thawed and temperatures can go up to the twenties on some days, there have been more 'life' than usual around us. And I'm not talking about the weeds and plants in the garden. The bugs too have woken up from their hibernation and are making more and more appearances in our house.

The bugs here are different from Singapore's. Except for spiders, I've never seen the others before in my life. There is one 'prehistoric' looking one that looks like a scorpion except the 2 pincers are at its tail and another grey beetle-looking one with spidery legs. I won't be able to show any pictures of them cos I couldn't stand the sight of them, much less take a focused picture. My hands will be shivering and I doubt very much they will strike a nice pose for me. Anyway, I only go near them when they're dead or when I'm about to kill them....haha.

Though we keep our windows and doors closed all the time, they still managed to find their way in. This morning, I saw 2 of the spidery bugs at the bottom of the stairs, near the shoe rack. They were already dead. They were not there last night and I wonder what happened? Did they came in to have a duel and killed each other or were they killed by some other bigger predators? Regardless, I sprayed a little more insecticide on one and stamped on the other to make sure they are not playing dead.

The can of insecticide is my greatest weapon against these unwelcome guests. I have one can upstairs and downstairs on standby. (Don't worry, I don't use them on humans.) Yesterday, a whole colony of black ants were having a fantastic time moving into my postbox. Maybe they're upgrading to a high-rise, cemented apartment but I'm not taking in tenants who don't pay rent. So a generous amount of insecticide later, this morning I checked, they're gone.

The most disgusting find was opening up my strawberry jam one day and seeing a 2cm 'prehistoric-looking' bug with pincers on its tail inside. My skin still get goosebumps when I think of that sight. It was crawling around merrily like its just had a strawberry bath. I dug out a lump of jam with it and toppled them into a pot of dirty water in the sink. That's the end of your bath, mate. I'm so disgusted that I'm gonna throw the whole jar of jam away. It's a waste, it's still a full jar. But I don't know how long it had been inside and how much of the jam it had contaminated, if it's laid any eggs inside......yucks, no way I'm eating that jam! How it got in is still a mystery. I don't remember leaving that jar of jam open for long. But they're around. I know it when I saw another one just now, hiding under a wet cloth I'd use to wipe XX's mouth and placed on the table. I just cannot leave food uncovered nowadays.

The other irritating insect appearing is the fly. Sometimes when the window or door is open, one will fly in and it's enough to irritate you. These flies are big as bees and they make hell lot of buzzing noise when they fly. Plus they fly so fast that it's hard to spray insecticide at them. Hubby uses a badminton racket to try to hit them and so far, he's managed to strike twice.

I think when summer comes, these bugs, spiders and flies will get more. Though they're irritating, I'm not as scared of them as the cockroaches and lizards we have in S'pore. At least, they're pretty small, except for the spiders, which can be quite big. Sorry to all insect lovers that I have to be so murderous. I don't think these creepy-crawlies will be extinct just yet.

Wild about Mushrooms

Did two new dishes using mushrooms that day. Reason being I bought quite a big box of mushrooms on sale and is looking for recipes to utilise them. I found out that amongst my limited collection of recipe books, I have "The Ultimate Mushroom Book" by Peter Jordan & Steven Wheeler, which contains a complete guide to mushrooms and recipes. Hubby is a great fan of mushrooms and he got this book on offer in Popular Bookstore many years ago for only $5.

I had some cream from my baking leftover, so I bought some Tarragon herb to make Mushrooms in a Tarragon Cream Sauce for brunch. It was very tasty served with toasted wholemeal bread.

With the leftover Tarragon, I bought some ready-made puff pastry and pork sausages and made a Pork Sausage Puff with a Seam of Wild Mushrooms for lunch the next day. Actually the original recipe calls for thyme but I didn't want to keep buying fresh herbs when tarragon should worked just as well. It was pretty fun making this dish, cutting the slits on the pastry. I learnt that sausages need not always be cooked nor eaten in its skin. You just put it in water and the skin will sort of loosen. Then you just tear the skin and spread the meat like minced pork. The puff pastry I bought are those already rolled, frozen ones. You just need to take out one piece and defrost it before using. Very convenient and it's not expensive here.

Do let me know if anyone wants the recipes!

Since I've got more puff pastry and some more leftovers of the pork sausage and mushroom, I made another version for KK as his after-school snack the next day. But this time, I skipped all the elaborate wrapping and just do a simple rolled puff style. I cut the puff pastry into half and each half, I divided it some more into 4 rectangular pieces. For one half, I used the savoury pork sausage and mushroom mix. For the other, I decided to make some sweet puffs. I was kind of craving for Delifrance's kaya puff, so I took out my kaya from the fridge and spread it on 2 portions of the puff pastry, then roll it up. I did another 2 with chocolate hazelnut spread, just to experiment and see how they turn out.

I must say the kaya version turned out better looking than the chocolate ones. They taste great too! They were shared between XX and me, too bad for Hubby by the time he woke up from a nap.

Big is not Better

We've discovered that shopping for groceries in Australia requires more than just common sense. In fact, sometimes, it defies common sense.

We went grocery shopping recently and these are some products of Safeway whose pricing stategies we found incomprehensible:

Homebrand Chicken Nuggets
Bag of 500g = $3.49
Bag of 1kg = $8.79

Homebrand Jasmine Rice
Bag of 1kg = $1.49
Bag of 5kg = $9.99

Homebrand Butter
Block of 250g = $1.15
Block of 500g = $2.79

Do a little calculation and you will discover that it is cheaper to buy 2 bags of 500g chicken nuggets, 5 bags of 1kg jasmine rice and 2 blocks of 250g butter!

I've always thought that when you buy bigger packages or in bulk, you should pay less and achieve savings. Right? Wrong. Not always the case here. You must compare the prices for the different sizes and see which one gives you a lower price per unit.

Come to think of it, we should not be surprised that this land favours things 'small' - just look at its $1 and $2 coins.... :-p

I've wrote a little poem for this:

"It doesn't make sense,
you don't save when you buy more.
Do add up the cents,
you may be better off buying small!"

Happy Anniversary!

My spirits were deflated like my chocolate sponge after it failed to rise (See Chocolate and Lamingtons) but once I'd decided to do something, I'm determined to make it happen. I wanted to bake another cake that very night but by the time I put all the kids to bed, it was already 10pm and I was pretty bushed. So I did it the next morning, on the actual day of our anniversary.

This time round, I changed the recipe to a chocolate pound cake. Till I determined exactly what went wrong, I don't want to try the sponge cake again as I couldn't afford to fail that day. The chocolate pound cake took quite a long time to make. I think it could be my cold butter and the cold environment of the house, the butter and sugar took ages to be 'light and creamy'. Other than that, everything went smooth - KK was in school - and the cake turned out well in the loaf pan.

When KK came home, he was supposed to help me with the icing and decorating. He did pour the cream and icing sugar into the mixer but his greatest contribution was cleaning out the bowl that held the cream and licking the beating hooks spotless. I'd let him try some of the cream by dipping his finger into it. After that, he liked it so much that he kept 'stealing' it from the stand mixer. I'd to stop him or I'll not have enough for the cake.

Cream Filling

• 3/4 cup Thick Cream
• 2 tbsp icing sugar (I used the icing mix since it's almost all icing sugar anyway)

Method:

• Beat with mixer until stiff peaks form.

I successfully cut the cake into 3 layers and spread cream onto it. Then I put sliced strawberries on the botton layer and cover it with more cream. I did the same for the next layer but used kiwi instead.

The chocolate icing for the whole cake was made using this icing mix that I got from Coles.

Chocolate icing

• 1 1/4 cup icing mix
• 20g butter, softened
• 3 tbsp hot water

Method:

• You just melt the butter in the hot water and add it to the mix. Then you stir until it became glossy and smooth. Easy! But it was damn sweet.

Hubby and I personally don't like this type of icing as it's too sweet for our tastebuds but I needed some kind of icing to hold on the decorations on the cake. I was really proud when I added the sugar flowers to the sides and the bright red strawberries in the centre completed 'The Look'.

The cake was meant for dessert but KK couldn't wait and kept asking if he could eat it. So we cut it at about 5pm. Me and Hubby held the knife together, as if we're cutting our wedding cake years ago....haha...except this time he was carrying XX in his other arm.

The cake was kind of hard to 'break through' at first and I was going like 'arrgh' as I sawed on it. Luckily, it was just the top crust that was hard. The rest of the pound cake was moist and soft. As it's a pound cake, it is heavier and not as fluffy as a sponge. This recipe, from My Kitchen, My Laboratory, is very chocolatey and the cream strawberry and kiwi fillings was wonderful. Next time I'll put in even more fruits and a lot more cream. That would be heavenly! Just don't think about the fat and cholestrol.

I'll end off with a joke to encourage all bakers and would-be bakers out there with failed attempts. Don't be disheartened if you fail once, just press on!

It's in Chinese though:

Q: 蛋糕跌到了, 谁鼓励它站起来?

A: 小猪. 猪鼓励蛋糕．（朱古利蛋糕）

Get it? Duh!

Chocolate and Lamingtons

For our wedding anniversary this year, I wanted to make a chocolate cake as chocolate is Hubby's all-time-favourite flavour. He would have been equally satisfied with a plain old boring chocolate cake, but I wanted to try making a cake complete with cream fillings, icing and decorations. Like those sold in the cake shops. I've never ever done this before, so I made sure I compared a few recipes, read up exactly how to cream the icing and got the right ingredients.

I finally chose a chocolate sponge recipe from Happy Home Baker's as it didn't use as much sugar and butter as the others. However, it did require the use of 4 eggs. At least they're nutritious.

Alas, instead of our anniversary cake, the chocolate sponge cake turned into Lamingtons instead.


Well, here's the full story. I'd started making the cake yesterday as I wanted to allow time for myself today to focus on cooking lunch and frosting the cake. KK was home from school and in trying to involve him in the occasion and letting him have some fun, I asked if he would like to help me. He replied enthusiastically.

Here's my biggest mistake. I allowed him to crack open an egg. I had already cracked 3 eggs into the mixing bowl and for the fouth one, I knocked it a little and asked him to simply pull it apart. From the way the boy held the egg, I should have guessed a disaster was coming. It did cross my mind, what if he screwed up? I thought the worst that could happen is he dropped the whole egg into the bowl, I'll just pick up the shells. But it was worst than that. His clumsy fingers applied so much strength to the egg that he literally burst it! A huge amount of yolk and white splashed and landed OUTSIDE the bowl and even on his sleeves. Gosh, how am I gonna salvage the situation now? The kid still had the cheek to laugh, until I scolded him. But I know, it's all my fault. So much for cooking with kids. I often read about the fun parents have baking with their kids, I wonder if it is really true. To me, it was really 越帮越忙.

Hubby thinks it's alright to just add in one more egg since quite a lot spilled out. I don't know, but what can I do? I don't want to start again and waste the 3 eggs. So my cake had about 4.5 eggs, and they're extra large eggs somemore.

I'm not sure if the eggs had an impact or was it the way I folded in the flour that caused my cake to fail. I could see that after I mixed in the chocolate flour, the batter suddenly became quite little. I was expecting a big cake since the egg mix was pretty volumous. Also, I had forgotten to preheat the oven earlier, so the batter was like waiting for about 10 mins for the oven to be ready, and I thought it shrank even more as it sat there. The cake did not rise much in the oven but the aroma was fantastic.

KK kept asking if it's ready so I actually stopped the baking about 5 mins earlier than the required time, when the skewer turns out clean. I'm not sure if I'd let it complete the timer, would it make any difference. Another lesson for bakers - never be forced by hungry children to short-cut the baking time.

As you can see from the picture above, the bottom part of the cake is not rised properly. It was such a flat cake that there is no way I can slice it into 3 parts to put in the fillings... :(

The taste is not bad though. The man and boys in the family loved it. I trimmed the corners of the cake to make it square and they gobbled it up.

I decided to bake another cake for our anniversary and transform this sponge into Lamingtons. Lamingtons is a traditional Australian cake, usually a sponge cake, in the shape of a cube, coated in a layer of traditionally chocolate icing then desiccated coconut. Lamingtons are most likely named after Charles Cochrane-Baillie, 2nd Baron Lamington, who served as Governor of Queensland from 1896 to 1901. I first learnt about this from KK, who said he ate some in school. Personally, I'd never eaten nor seen Lamingtons before, though it shouldn't be hard to find them.

It's easy to make them, using leftover chocolate icing for the 'real' anniversary cake and ready made dessicated coconut. Just cut them into cube, poke with a fork and dip or spread the chocolate icing over it and then dip or sprinkle the coconut over it. It turned out quite nice, like snow flakes on the cake and the combination of coconut and sweet chocolate icing actually makes my hard cake taste better.

I made another version when I ran out of chocolate icing. This time, I coated the cake with strawberry jam and then coconut. Also not bad and not as sweet as the chocolate icing. To differentiate the two, I used red paper cups for the strawberry version.

Singapore Day, Melbourne 08

Imagine this conversation between 2 Ah Bengs in Singapore:

Beng A: Wah! Read this headlines: "Thousands of Singaporeans get an enviable treat today - free food, free goodies and free entertainment."
Beng B: Where got such good things in Singapore.
Beng A: Got!
Beng B: Really meh? Where? Let's go leh.
Beng A: Melbourne.
Beng B: Kanasai.*

Singapore Day - held annually in different major cities with significant Overseas Singaporean communities and organised by the Overseas Singaporeans Unit (OSU) for Overseas Singaporeans. Last year, it was held in New York. This year it is held in Melbourne, at Sidney Myer Music Bowl today.

We had registered ourselves on the website but only made a last minute decision at breakfast today to go for it. The whole family, including my in-laws who were visiting from Singapore, drove to the Sunshine train station where we parked and took a train ride to the Flinders Street Station. This is an opportunity for them and KK to experience taking the train for the first time here.

It was a cloudless and sunny day as we took a stroll from the Flinders Street Station, through Alexandre Gardens to our destination. We were initially unsure where exactly Sidney Myer Music Bowl was but guess what, I suddenly smelt the familiar fragrance of chicken rice. I knew we were not far!

The venue is on top of a hill and from the bottom, we can see a lot of people thronging around but we had no idea the extent of the crowd till we reached the main entrance. Are there that many Singaporeans living in Melbourne? There was a bloody long queue just to get in! Queuing seems to be a characteristic of Singaporean events....sigh.

Luckily, a volunteer was ushering a family with kids to a hidden 'side' entrance then and I managed to realise that they have an 'express' entrance for families with kids. How nice and considerate of the organisers to think about us parents with impatient kids..... but so discreet.

Inside, it was another massive jam...this time, queuing for the goodie bags. There was someone to give you a chop on your hand and you show this to get the goodie. "Only one per family," stressed every volunteer along that line. Down the line, you pick up a cap and some drinks. The person who gave out the cap actually asked if you're gonna wear it now. You can only get it if you're gonna wear it. Ok, so I asked for one more, since we forgot our caps, Hubby's gonna need one too. No, one per family. But we're gonna wear it! Sorry, that's the rule. So many rules and pretty strange rules, if you ask me. A small voice inside my head replied: What do you expect from Singapore organisers?

The food stalls and its queues

Well, I didn't expect all the food there to be free, to be honest. I'm skeptical, like 'Ah Beng B' - 'Singapore where got so good one?' But I was wrong and there was quite a wide selection too. All the local favourites were there - Satay, Ice Kachang, Chendol, Bak Chor Mee, Bak Kut Teh, Mee Siam, Mee Soto, Roti Prata, Laska, Nasi Briyani, Kaya Toast, Hokkien Mee, Char Kway Teow, Chicken Rice, Nasi Lemak and Chilli Crab!! I realised then that Singapore's real identity is in our food culture. All these local favourites which Singaporeans consume everyday are what makes Singapore unique. I kind of miss Singapore when I see all these food.

Admire the Melbourne city skyline while you queue

The queue for food, though also uniquely Singaporean, was the major put-off. All these food stalls were divided into 4 areas and people queued for almost 40-45 mins each just to get one dish of food. If you want another dish, even from the same area, you're supposed to rejoin the queue. But the portion, it was so tiny, it's more like a sampler. One bowl of mee siam could be finished in 3 mouths. KK only eats the Roti Prata and he couldn't be filled even after queuing 3 times. One portion was half a prata and it was made pretty thin too... :(

Thankfully, the cool weather and the volunteers' politeness kept everybody's patience and I didn't see any 'ugly Singaporeans blowing their top' kind of behaviour. I would suggest to the organisers in future, once a person reaches the end of the queue, they be allowed to visit all the stalls and take as much food as they like from that area. This way, they will not be forced to queue again as his stomach couldn't be filled the first time. As a result, the queue also would not be so long. Also, give the poor Mee Siam auntie a bigger ladle for the mee siam sauce. At 3 scoops per bowl X 'I don't know how many' hundred bowls she served, I think she probably got an aching arm that night.

PCK entertaining the audience with his Singlish

Phua Chu Kang was there and so was DPM Wong Kan Seng. Hubby and my Father-in-law actually shook his hand when they were queuing for food. I joked to my FIL that he has to come all the way here in Melbourne to meet our DPM.

Some of the goodies

That's about how we spent our time, queuing here and there for food and goodies, having a nice picnic on the picnic mat they gave us in the goodie bag. There were even goodies to bring home too, like sponsored Yeo's products - Kaya, Nasi Goreng mix, some Myojo instant noodles, 2 Singapore story books. Earlier there were some heavy Singaporean themed t-shirts but they were all given out by the time we went there. I thought they were very well-designed except for the Singapore flag on the back... ;-p We left at about 3 o'clock. XX fell asleep in his stroller as we pushed him to take a tram back to Flinders Street.

Overall, I enjoyed my day and can appreciate the organisers' efforts and attempt to bring overseas Singaporeans closer to home. Tonight, there's daylight savings at 2.00am. When we wake up tomorrow, Melbourne will be 1 more hour further away from Singapore.

*kanasai - NOT a Japanese word, it's a Hokkien phrase, very difficult for me to explain, except that it's a crude word you use to express disgust or unhappiness.

Ballooning

Hubby and I went for a balloon trip last Wednesday, supposedly to be our 9th wedding anniversary celebration. The actual day is 9th Oct but we'd done the balloon trip on 1st Oct instead as my in-laws were in town then and they could help us look after the kids while we set off at 3.30am in the morning.

The meeting place was at Yarra Glen, at the Balgownie Estate Vineyard Resort and Spa and we were supposed to be there by 4.45am latest. It was still dark as we drove there and the sky was so clear, I had a wonderful time admiring the stars. The temperature was very cold though. At one point, it went as low as 1 degrees celcius!

From the vineyard, 2 vans took us, another 10 more passengers, 1 pilot + 2 crew and the balloon + basket to the site where we were to take-off, 15 mins drive away. We were to fly about 26km back to this area, given the wind conditions for that day.



We arrived at a big field to set up the balloon. There, we saw another balloon already set up and ready to take-off. The pilot and crew gave instructions for some of us to help by holding the balloon canvas as he inflated it by blasting hot air into it.

Soon, the balloon filled up as the day lighted up. We all climbed into the basket and after some instructions for the landing, we're up, up and away! The weather was really good that day. As the balloon floated gently, we had a very clear view of the ground - forests, farmlands, valleys, houses, roads and the Yarra river. From above, everythings looks very miniture, like some toy land. We were flying at about 2500ft, at a speed of about 56km/hr.

All too soon, it was time to land. The landing was surprisingly soft and gentle. None of that tipping over and falling out of the basket kind of stuff that I've heard somewhere. I must thank the pilot and the weather for that, I guess. I found out later that some people had had to experience a few cancellations due to bad weather before they finally got on the balloon. We were lucky that this was our first booking and it took off smoothly.

After we got off the basket, we noticed that there was frost on the grass. We found some frozen spiderwebs as well! It was so cold that all of us gladly helped the crew deflate and pack up the balloon. The exercise helped keep us warm and as we drove back to the vineyard, breakfast was not very far from our minds.

We were not disappointed. A buffet breakfast and champagne was waiting for us. Apparantly it was a tradition to have champagne to celebrate a safe balloon trip. It was standard breaky stuff - bacon, sausages, scrambled eggs, beans, bread, fruits, cereal etc. However the quality is quite good. I especially like their croissants - fluffy and soft. After half a glass of the golden bubbly, I was ready to knock out. In fact, during the flight, I was embarrassed to find myself yawning a few times.

It was a really nice break away from the kids, though it's just for a few hours. We found out that some of the other couples who were with us on the balloon were also celebrating their anniversaries and birthdays.

I'll be posting my ballooning photos in Facebook, so look out for it!