Through the eyes of a child....

....ordinary things take on a new perspective.



This afternoon, I asked XX to help me wash some roughly shredded vegetables (actually it was a ploy to just let him play some water and be entertained while I busied myself preparing lunch). He picked up one leaf and exclaimed "butterfly", then he made its leafy green wings flap. I was amazed, I've never seen my vegetables like this before!





I picked up some more leaves and asked him what they are. Here are his answers, see if you can see it too:

Top row (L - R): Car, Batman

Bottom row (L - R) : Boat, Butterfly

Hanging Rock

Sunday 28 June being our first anniversary in Australia, I thought it would be great to celebrate with a nice dinner outside. Hubby added on with a suggestion to have a picnic during the day at the Hanging Rock, 70 km from Melbourne and a few kilometres from Mt. Macedon.





Hanging Rock is located within the Hanging Rock Recreation Reserve. Besides bbq and picnic areas, there are also a number of walking paths and a discovery center for visitors. The Hanging Rock is a rare volcanic formation called Mamelon. The unusual type of rock there is known as solvsbergite and is only found outside the region only in Norway and Sweden. Erosion and weathering over time has caused it to look like what it is now. Read here to know more about this distinctive geographical formation. There's even a book by Joan Lindsay and a 1975 film based on it called "Picnic at Hanging Rock".

We nearly didn't make it as XX had a fever on Saturday night. Luckily, he recovered the next morning, bright and cheery. The weather was very fine but cold. This is what I really like about the lifestyle here. As long as the sun is out, there are so many possibilities for a weekend outing besides just shopping centers.

It was a simple picnic. We brought along our outdoor cooking stove and cup noodles! Throw in some shaved ham and it was perfect. There's something heavenly about eating piping hot and spicy noodles out in the cold. After noodles, we made hot chocolate and expresso coffee on the stove. Magical!

After the picnic, we decided to check out the surroundings and walk the 1800m trail up to the summit. It was supposed to take about 50 mins return but we took much longer due to the many stops for pictures. I must say it was a good walk. We had fun as a family talking, taking in the beautiful scenary and looking upclose at the giant rocks. Towards the top, the path ended and we had to continue up climbing over boulders and improvised steps. We feel a bit like Indiana Jones on an adventure! For Hubby it was a good workout as well for he has to carry XX who always says he's "tired". KK was very enthusiastic and asked a lot of questions about the rocks, trees and plants we saw. Natural learning at its best.

KK at the summit

The summit was simply the peak of the rocks and the view was awesome. KK was very daring and wanted to climb up all the rocks but Hubby didn't let him as it was too high and dangerous. Some guys managed to get to the highest rock and sit there admiring the view but for me I'm content to just stand nearby with XX as my knees already go weak when I look down at the steep rocky structure I'm standing on.

There were many wildlife there, even koalas. We didn't see any but we did spotted kangeroos and this group of red and blue birds, probably cockatoos.

The day ended with a nice Italian dinner of pizza, pasta and risotto at Lygon Street.

Looks like a heart wedged between the rocks

Four Seasons in Australia

I have now experienced what it is like to have the 4 seasons! That's one wish fulfilled.

3 more days and it will be exactly 1 year from the day we moved to Melbourne. I still remember bidding a tearful farewell to my family and relatives at the Changi airport and then arriving Melbourne airport the next Sunday morning with 100kg of luggage.

Looking back, it was a year of many firsts for my family and personally. It's the first time I DON'T earn any money and depend totally on my husband's income. It's the first time I have to look after the children and cook every single meal for them without any outside help. I have shared my many other small "first times" in this blog - like baking bread, making soya milk, apple pie, jiaozi, sewing a quilt etc etc. I don't think I would have done all these if I was still back in Singapore.

Yes, it does feel strange at first, like losing a part of your identity, not having a profession to belong to. I'm no longer a 'trainer' or 'AO' or 'consultant', just KK and XX's mum and Hubby's wife. Well I do admit feeling that tiny bit envious of my friends travelling around for work and making big progress in their careers. BUT as my friend Gladys has reminded me, there's no looking back and it is a choice I'd made very consciously. The choice to spend more time with my children in their childhood years.

Nowadays, life is much simpler. I'm responsible only to my family and what keeps me awake at nights are thoughts of what to cook for tomorrow's dinner, how to use up that cream in the fridge, when do I need to go KFL and why meringues weep...:)

And I really love watching my children grow. Waking up each morning to XX's smiling face at me, waiting for him to fall asleep, watching him eat toast with jam, listening to his attempts at singing, teaching him to jump, hop, sommersault.... Seeing KK come home from school each day with dust on his knees and sometimes a bruise or two, listening to his nonsensical improvised songs, watching him do silly dances in front of the TV..... Yes, these 2 boys keep me very busy and happy at the same time.

So what's the verdict? Do we like it here and are we gonna stay here permanently?

There are many things here that makes my blood boil, like Telstra's unfair and uncompetitive pricing, the Rudd governement's stupid distribution of cash policy and the shameful Brimbank council...just to name a few. But there are many many wonderful and refreshing things that we love here too. The wide open supermarket aisles, the cooler and drier climate, the big houses and backyard gardens, growing our own herbs and vegetables, driving to the countryside on weekends, cheaper and fresher meat, fruits and dairy products, large and well-equipped parents room in shopping centers, free carparks, BIG BIG specialty shops, juicy MacDonald's cheeseburgers...and so much more.

This one year away has made me appreciate Singapore's goodness in many ways and realise how important it is to preserve our Chinese roots. Ironically, I have never emphasized so much on the Chinese language and customs until we come here. At the same time, we also realise that there are some things we want that Singapore can never provide. I've always tell people, at the end of the day, there is no perfect place on earth. Every country and place will have its shortcomings and own set of problems. It really depends on what you want and if you can overlook the bad things for the good ones.

Honestly, we still have yet to decide if Melbourne is THE place we want to settle in the long term. Currently, we are still looking for the right suburb to be in. But we are in no hurry to make that decision. One thing is for sure, we will not give up this opportunity to have a 2nd option. And we thank God that we have this option.

Don't Cry For Me, Meringue

What is worse than getting fat from eating desserts?

Getting fat from eating horrible desserts - made by yourself!

It was a dessert much anticipated, at least for me. I have been eyeing this "Lemon Meringue Pie" for weeks. The 2 lemons have been bought long ago and staying fresh in the fridge waiting for this day to be made. I just needed some time and a reason.

There were no special occasions and no party invitations coming up but I did have some time the last 2 days since dinner was crockpot chicken stew and leftover crockpot chicken stew.

So the pastry crust was made before dinner on Tuesday and as it baked in the oven, the buttery aroma filled the whole house. XX ran over to me asking me what the smell was. I was so tempted to eat the crust on its own that night, but I controlled myself.

After dinner, I made the lemon filling. This was when things started to go wrong. I had set the filling to cook on the stove when I got distracted by KK who wanted me to make him a lemonade drink. I'm supposed to be stirring the filling constantly but I forgot about it for a while. When I did, which was just a few mintues later, I promptly turned off the stove, thinking I could come back later after helping KK. Unfortunately, the curd had already started to harden at the bottom. Though none was burnt and I did manage to stir till it was loosen, it was not PERFECTLY smooth.

I poured the filling into the crust and left it to chill in the fridge overnight. Wednesday night, I thought I would finally be able to savour this dessert. All that was left was the meringue.

The egg whites for the meringue were chilled in the fridge so I took it out earlier to get it to room temperature. But maybe not early enough. I'd made a meringue before for my Cuppucino Cupcakes and I noticed that this time my meringue was softer and not so fluffy. It was very glossy though. The recipe asked for hot sugar syrup to be poured into the beaten egg whites. I feel that's too much water since you need to dissolve the sugar in some water to get the syrup. I'm not sure if these are the factors that caused my meringue to weep. Yes, meringues can cry. Everything looked ok as I took it out from the oven. But after chilling it, I discovered that my pie was weeping. It 'cried' so much that there was a pool of water surrounding the pie.

Weeping's a common problem for meringues. You can read more on this site and this site. Happy Home Baker, whose recipe I used for this, has the same problem with her pie. She blamed the Singapore humid weather and her oven. But I don't have that humid weather here and my oven's pretty stable. So what went wrong?

It's the first time my husband and I have tasted a Lemon Meringue Pie. Tastewise, the lemon filling was too sour. The recipe asked for 70-80ml of fresh lemon juice and I'd used 70ml. It was too tart for my liking. Hubby didn't like the filling either. So go easy on the lemon juice if you can't take sourness. But the crust was good, if only it wasn't so soaked. The meringue was sweet and soft. So if you eat the meringue and the filling together, it sort of offset each other.

I won't recommend this recipe so I won't post it here. But I'll use the crust recipe for something else, perhaps an apple pie. Right now, I'm fantasizing about that crust and sweet apple fillings, topped by puff pastry. It shall be done...soon.

Flu Is In The Air

Hubby's pilot friend, Mark flew into Melbourne the other day. Besides having lunch with us, he was also our courier, bringing over some items we had purchased through a friend in Singapore. Along with the goodies, he left us with a copy of The Straits Times, Wo Bao and Today. Wow! You know, we can get Singapore news online anytime but there is NOTHING like a hard copy of The Straits Times to make you feel like home!

From the papers, I noticed that there is a lot of public anger and emotional response over the recent behaviour of some people who had contracted swine flu and went about doing things that risk spreading the disease to others. In particular, the 2 foriegn guys who attended a concert and business meetings respectively, got the most flak.

Honestly, I think these people in S'pore are overreacting and paranoid. I actually sympathise with these 2 guys. As if being infected and sick is not bad enough, they are now Public Enemy #1 and #2 in a land far away from home. Come on, give them a break. They're victims too. And I'm not saying this because I come from the "swine flu capital of the world".

Just put yourself in their shoes. If you had bought tickets to a concert, paying good money and anticipated the event for months, would you miss the concert just because you've got the sniffles? Or if you had flown twenty over hours and thousands of miles to attend some meetings that had been schedule weeks ahead, involving various important people you have to meet, would you stay in your hotel to sleep cos you've got flu? How are you gonna account to your boss? I know lots of people in my ex-company who go to work with the flu instead of resting at home. We wish they can stay away from us but I know it's usually because they had no choice. Who wouldn't like to rest in bed?

Well, that doesn't mean we can be complacent and let this swine flu invade our lives. Hubby and I are cautious here with so many cases. Though it's been reported that the flu has been mild so far, we are not so sure the course it will take if more and more people gets it. We are trying not to go to crowded places and gatherings but we are not hermits. We still meet up with friends, small groups at a time, for dinner. We make sure that we all wash our hands after coming home and disinfect our hands with hand sanitizers before meals but we don't wear a mask outside. In fact, I haven't seen anyone wear one here yet. And we haven't heard of anyone we know who has gotten the swine flu yet. We are playing it safe but this doesn't guarantee us immunity. There're just too many ways that the germs can be spread and there's no way you can control the movement of people. Life still goes on. There's grocery shopping to be done, letters to be posted, petrol to be topped up.... At the end of the day, it boils down to your luck and immune system.

WHY?

Is always asking 'why?' always a good thing? Most people and experts would say YES, because it means that person is curious and interested to know more. And curiousity is supposed to be healthy in a child.

My 6 going on 7 years old son, KK has been asking 'why?' a lot lately. People smile knowingly and say he's at this 'why' stage, huh? Well, yes, he's at this age where he's trying to make logic of the things happening around him, which is great. And some of the questions he asks are good. I should be happy but I'm not too agreeable that I like it so much sometimes. Here's an example to illustrate why.

Me: Can you go and wash your hands now?
KK: Why?
Me: Because you just came back from school and your hands are dirty.
KK: Why?

I go on to explain for the hundreth time about germs on the playground and classroom in school. He's still not satisfied.

KK: Why doesn't XX have to wash his hands?

At this point, I don't see any point in answering his questions anymore because he's just trying to wriggle his way out of doing what he's supposed to do. And it's usually the time I raise my voice (or the cane) to get the action I want to see.

We get questions from KK all the time for different instructions given to him and sometimes it's very difficult to give him a simple answer. "Why must I go to school?" "Why is being on time so important?" Or the reason is so plain obvious that it's a pain to answer him. "Why doesn't XX go to school?" or "Why must I drink water?"

Some of his questions are genuine but I began to realise that other times, his questioning is more a questioning of our authority and a delay tactic. Initially, we will automatically try to give him an explanation but then we realise he's not really interested in our answers, because he can ask why again when the same thing happens!

Nowadays, when KK asks us 'why' to questions that we have already explained the reasons, we turn around, stare at him annoyingly and ask him back, "You tell us why". And he can.

When extremely frustrated and in lack of time for explanations, we have to simply tell him not to ask why and do as we're told. At which he'll sometimes ask, "But why? YOU said it is good to ask questions."

Someone please tell me this is a passing phase....

饺子

My little family has grown fond of my homemade 'jiaozi' or chinese dumplings. Over the past 2 weeks, I'd made it 3 times. Hubby and I can gobble up about 18 jiaozi each for dinner while KK can do about 4 - 6. I'm not boasting, but they are very yummy. The meat is fragrant and very tender. I tried to make minced pork balls or wantons before but the meat is always tough. Hubby asked me what I added this time that makes it so good and I don't know why. The seasonings are all pretty normal stuff that most chinese families use.







It really started when KK mentioned about his classmate having that for lunch and asked me what it is. I asked him if he would like to have it and when he nodded, the 'filial mother' in me started looking for its recipe.

Though I've eaten jiaozi before and quite like them, I've never ever made one myself. The recipe wasn't hard to find really and it turned out really good even on my first attempt. Ok, I took the short cut of using ready-made dumpling skin. But at only $1.70 for 500gm of consistent thickness and size, really, I shouldn't bother. Besides the texture is quite good.

Here's the recipe for the fillings:


Ingredients

• 350 - 450g minced pork
• 1 tbsp sesame oil
• 1 tbsp Hua Tiao Wine
• 1 tbsp Light soya sauce
• 1 tsp salt
• 1 tsp minced ginger
• some pepper
• a bit of chives, coriander and spring onion (all chopped up)
• 1/4 small cabbage (chopped to small bits)

Method:

Preparing
Mince/chop and mix everything up. If you have a food processor, great. If not, happy chopping. Allow the meat mixture to sit and marinade in the seasoning while you chop up the veg. (Make sure the veg are not too wet and apparantly when mixing, stirring the meat slowly and in the same direction helps not to break the fibre that holds the meat together.)



Wrapping
Put a lump of minced meat in the center of the skin and fold over. Wet the edge with a little water. Fold pleats on the edge starting from right to left. Make sure you press it hard to seal the pastry together. Practice makes perfect, the more you wrap, the prettier it'll become.



Boiling

• Put a large pot of water to boil. Fill up the pot only about 50% full, leaving room for adding of more water as you cook.
• Put gently dumplings into boiling water. Try to stir them around initially to prevent them from sinking and sticking to the bottom of the pot. When the water boils again, pour in 1 cup of water and cover. When it boils the 2nd time, pour in another cup of water and cover. When it boils for the 3rd time and the dumplings float up, they are done. (You have to do this ritual to make sure the dumplings are properly cooked. Pouring in cold water each time prevents the dumpling from 'exploding' as it cooks.)

Eating

• Taste best when eaten hot!
• Eat them plain or with whatever sauce you like - soya sauce, vinegar, chilli, or those ready-mix dumpling sauce from Taiwan.

The Funny Things Toddlers Do - #2

In XX's toddler world, hiding is as easy as closing his eyes. If he can't see you, it means you can't see him too!

In XX's toddler world, cars are like human beings. They go to MacDonalds (ok, that's not too far off with drive thru'), go swimming and go to sleep (turning upside down)!

Cute!

$2

What can you get for $2 these days?

In Australia, the $2 is in the form of a small gold coin. Maybe because of this, many people seem to have this impression that $2 is loose change. I see many parents pop $2 into those kiddy ride machines for 2 minutes of merry-go-round for their child like it was just 20 cents. Call me stingy but I NEVER pay half that amount in Singapore, much less here.

The worse suckers are those that pay $2 for a try at those skill crane chocolate machines that allows you to move a crane over a pile of candies and chocolates to try to grab some. I have never seen anyone succeed with one attempt before. Please, bring your $2 to the supermarket and buy a bar of chocolate. You'll definitey get something to eat.

But hang on. Bring your $2 to The Movie Store. You can rent a recent blockbuster movie for a week for $2. We just borrowed "YES Man" and "Slumdog Millionaire" for $2 each.

At the Food Court, $2 cannot get you a drink. A can of Pokka guava juice cost me $3. But it can get you a Deluxe Cheeseburger from MacDonalds. At the market, $2 can get you a kilo of fresh chicken wings or a bunch of spring onion.

Some rather uncomprehensible logic. I've given up trying to make sense but learnt to make my 200 cents go the furthest distance for me.

The Funny Things Toddlers Do - #1

This morning I asked my two and a half year old to "Tell Mama secrets". It's a silly game we play by whispering nonsense into the ears. XX came over to my ear and whispered softly "secrets".

The Black & White of Lake Mountain

What happens when you add trees and fire together? You get a "black forest"!

Seriously, that's exactly what we saw on our way to Lake Mountain this Sunday. Forests of tall black charcoal looking tree trunks standing at some of the sites of Victoria's worst bushfire disaster one Saturday in January 2009.

It's black, it's white

We decided to make a day trip to Lake Mountain, in the Yarra Range National Park, again because 1) we wanted to bring the kids out for some fun with the snow, 2) see for ourselves the aftermath of that area since the bushfire and 3) contribute our tourism dollars to help rebuild their tourism.

KK can't wait to have a snowball fight

Initially I thought the forest looked rather strange, as all the trees had trunks that were very dark coloured, almost black. It was only as we drove on that we realised that these trees have all been burnt by the fire. There were young green leaves growing on some of the trunks but they don't belong to the tree. Probably some ferns that found the charcoal bark a good source of fertilizer.




As we approached the township of Marysville, at the foot of Lake Mountain, we can see some empty plots of land with only the metal gate and perhaps the metal frame of what used to be a clothes hanger, telling you that there once was a house there. Some other structures were unscathed but many were burnt to the ashes.






The main building of the Lake Mountain was not burnt, thankfully, and with the snow season starting, business seemed to be as usual. It was another clear, fine day with lots of parents and enthusiastic kids on the toboggan slopes.




Tobogganing is fun on the way down. The not so fun part is the climb UPSLOPE, on slippery icy snow. It is more so challenging when you have to pull a two and a half years old toddler along at the same time. Worse when he tells you he's "tired" and wants to be carried!

The climb UP!

Even as you've finished your slide and trying to pick yourself up, one's got to be careful of other 'kamikaze' toboggan-ers who can come crashing uncontrollably into you. One such accident happened to me and sent me falling into the snow as I was trying to get XX up after a slide. Well, accidents happens and I wouldn't have minded. But instead of apologizing, she started to say "We were screaming (for you to get out of the way) all the way down. You have to listen!" Like it was my fault that I was attending to my child and not paying attention to all the screaming men, women and children behind my back.





After getting up on my feet, I tried to inform her that she can control the toboggan a little by tugging at the rope in front. She immediately pointed at her daughter and said, "She's the one who hit you." I stared at her in disbelief but before I know it, my son and husband came crashing downslope, straight into her!





I opened my mouth, not sure if it was of shock or I was about to laugh. The timing was hilarious and couldn't be better. I could see she was not too happy about being crashed into but she couldn't get angry cos she was a kamikaze toboggan-er herself just moments ago. Still, as she struggled to stand up, she had to justify, "See what I mean?" I just smiled and said, "We're Ok." I really mean, "We're Even." After that incident, we moved to another slope that was better organised, with a clear path for people to walk back upslope without getting bulldozed.

XX and our snow-men

All that climbing and walking soon got XX very tired and hungry. So we left KK and Papa to continue while we went to the car for a snack and drink. While waiting for XX to eat, I admired the scenery. Later on, we walked down a snowy slope, upclose to some of the blackened trees and spent some peaceful time there on the fluffy, untrampled snow, building snowmen and throwing snowballs.

The glistering white snow covering the ground formed a very stark contrast with the blackened tree trunks. It's beautiful yet eerie. Fire ravaging five months ago and wintery frost everywhere now. The extremes of temperatures. The beauty and threat of Mother Nature.

Toying with ideas

At home, XX spends his time watching his favourite cartoons - Spongebob Squarepants and most recently, Wow Wow Wubbzy - and playing with his toys. He'll fiddle with his brother's Transformers, push his cars everywhere or ask me to hold a robot to make them fight. He also likes to cook up "biscuits and donuts" for me to gobble up like Cookie Monster or we'll have a pretend fizzy drink and then go "burp!".

I've no problem with him emptying all the bags of toys everyday. Afterall, what's the point of toys if you don't take them out and play with it? Even one night when he and KK decided that dumping ALL their toys into a toy hill was fun, I reasoned it as just a new way of playing with old toys. We only have to keep them afterwards. The kids will help if I ask them to but generally, every night there is a recurring scene of mummy or daddy combing the living area and packing all the toys into their respective bags and boxes. Even though I have a separate bag or box for the different types of toys, even after packing them, I'm still unsatisfied with the sight of the pile of plastic bags and odd sized boxes sitting on the floor at a corner of our living room.

Since we moved to Melbourne 1 year ago, the toy collection has grown so much that the few plastic boxes they came in no longer contains all of them. The ugly toy corner really irks me and I begin to look for a storage solution.

This 'project' took me a few weeks. First, I need to convince my Hubby that we NEED a toy storage. He was initially against spending unneccesary for an additional piece of furniture. As we are still staying in rental property, the idea is to have as little furniture as possible so that any move out will be easy. To meet that criteria, I need to find something that doesn't cost too much, is re-usable and easy to move around. At the same time, I want a storage that can allow me to categorise the toys and one where the kids can self help themselves. It should have compartments that are big and small enough for the different types of toys.

I explored online shopping websites and consulted toy stores, storage retailers, big and small. I found many toy storage units but they cost at least $100, plus the compartments are all one size and usually too small for the big toys. They are also not reusable. Meaning, when there's no use for toys, what can I do with it? I'd considered plastic storage boxes, but I hated the lids. From my experience, the lids are usually not used and thrown around. It also means I have to fit all the toys inside nicely for the lid to close, which is too much effort everynight. Stacking them up too high is dangerous and the kids would need help to get at a box. Scattering them around on floor level is going back to square one.

I decided that a drawer system would work best. The choice is between a plastic one or a wooden cabinet with plastic pull out boxes. Plastic ones are not that cheap, with a simple 3 drawer unit costing almost $50. The capacity is not sufficient too. Finally I decided a trip to Ikea is neccessary. I was eyeing the Trofast toy storage system. The wooden frame comes with slots and in different sizes so you can combine from 3 sizes of bins to fit the frame. The only prohibition is the cost. I would have to spend at least $180 for a unit that can fit all the toys.

Alas, at Ikea, we found a better solution - The Antonius system. Like the Trofast, it is basically a frame with slots. Only it is a metal frame and much cheaper. $20 for the 120cm frame with 6 slots. There are 2 sizes of the plastic bins, $9 and $12 each. An alternative is the wire basket that only cost $5 each but that's not too suitable when it comes to small toys that will fall through the holes. Of course, it doesn't look as colourful and pretty as the Trofast. But I'm willing to overlook the aesthetics for a total price of $68 and a much bigger capacity.

Looking at the toy corner now, I'm a happy woman.

Cuppucino in a Cupcake

My friend Jane was on her honeymoon in Australia and came over to visit us 2 days ago. I made this Cuppucino Cupcake as a dessert. Up till the last minute, I was undecided if I should make this or a lemon meringue pie or simply serve up some red bean soup. The choice became obvious when Hubby couldn't find time to get some groceries for me, including the frozen shortcrust pastry sheet needed for the lemon meringue pie.

The original recipe was for a whole cake but since I just bought some pretty cupcake paper cups, I decided to make them into little cupcakes instead, with the meringue on top resembling cuppucino froth.

This is the first time I'm attempting a meringue looking dessert. After reading Happy Home Baking's site, I'd check out some links on tips and problems of making a meringue before I started. This caused me to deviate from the recipe a little. The recipe called for the whipped egg white and sugar to be added to the unbaked batter and baked together at 180 degrees for 45 mins. However what I read about meringue is that it needs to be baked at a high temperature (like 230 degrees) for only about 5 minutes.

Thus I put the cupcakes into the oven to be baked for about 20 mins while I whipped up the meringue. Then I took out the cupcakes and spooned the meringue on top, before returning them to the oven and increasing the oven temperature to 230 C for another 5 mins.

The end result looked quite pleasing. The cake was moist and soft and the meringue was like toasted marshmallow, soft and sweet. All of us gobbled up our "cuppa" over a cup of Lavazza coffee. Definitely caffeine overdose that night.....lol

When transformed to cupcakes, the batter was only enough for 6 cupcakes, but with the meringue I whipped up, I could easily have covered 12 or more. I think this is because I'd either used deep cups with small surface area or I'd overfilled the cakes. With the leftover meringue, I baked them in a small baking dish, thinking I could perhaps make a pavlova base.

After searching a few sites, I realised that although a pavlova base is essentially a meringue, the method of baking is different. Pavlova is a traditional and popular Australian dessert that is usually topped with fruits. Salt and cornflour is usually added to the egg white and sugar and it is baked on low heat (100 - 130 C) for a long time (1 - 1.5hr) until it is firm and crispy. It is not essential for them to be tan looking. For meringues used in desserts such as Lemon Meringue pies, they are softer and have slightly browned peaks on top. To get this effect, we should go for a high temperature and shorter baking time.

Now I wondered if I had followed the original recipe, would I have ended up with a crispier and whiter 'froth' instead?

Once Upon A Time

Did you know that there's a fairytale theme park in Victoria? I've never heard of it until KK's school organised an excursion for the Grade Ones this month. We have a theme park just at our door step (about an hour's drive away) and no one's told me!

Of course, the reason why this one's so obscure is because it is not like those in Gold Coast. There are no roller coaster rides, no 4D performances and no parades. Built 50 years ago, Fairy Park is just a fairytale display park built on top of a hill. Nonetheless, we decided to check it out so XX can have a chance to get familiar with some fairy tales as well.

We got there after some scenic driving through farmlands. As we approached, we can see a castle built on top of a granite hill, that looks pretty fairytale-like. Our first stop was the Camelot playground, at the request of KK, who found the experience there most memorable from his school trip. A playground is a playground, you can't run away from the usual slides, swings and see-saws. But this play ground is built around a medieval theme and has interesting features like tunnels, peep holes, concrete towers and fortresses. There's even a headless medieval lady statue sitting nearby carrying her head in her arm! (I'm sure I won't want to be there alone at night....) Anyway, there were plenty of fun activities for the kids to exhaust their energies. I had a go at the "longest slide ever" and couldn't contain my scream as I swoosh a long way down. On hindsight, I don't think I ever heard a hoot from the other children who took that slide.

The attractions and exhibits were all planned along a very scenic and nice to stroll uphill route. There was the Frog Prince, Snow White & The 7 Dwarfs, Cinderella, Pinnochio, Jack & The Beanstalk and Ali Baba, just to name a few. All our favourite fairytales and some we've not heard before were there. The displays featured some dolls that can move when you press a button in the wall. There are also narrations of the stories. All the attractions are built at a low height so most children can view it and press the button themselves. XX walked most of the way, though we had his stroller on hand. He enjoyed seeing the dolls move, though I'm sure he has no idea which fairytale they belonged to. Some of the exhibits are pretty old though and not exactly what I would imagine them to look like. I mean, Cinderella has long straight blonde hair while her Prince Charming has long hippy brown hair that covered his eyes! And the way Sleeping Beauty sleeps - slumped backwards over a chair with her arms spread out! I thought it should be more demure?

All said, we had a very enjoyable day at the Fairy Park, not just the children but me and Hubby too. The weather was kind to us and the place was not overcrowded. The slow uphill walk, with stops to look at the beautiful display windows, is some form of exercise for us. Most importantly, it brings us back to the fairytale world, a world that many adults has forgotten to believe in. But it's nice to be reminded that once upon a time, far far away, fairytales do exist and dreams do come true!

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