New office

Having a test run posting a blog from my phone ^_^ My office recently moved. Gone are the days when I could walk to work.

My lunch view in the vicinity of my new office

I am Back

I can't believe that it has been over 2 months since i last updated this blog. If Yiing Chai had not prompted me about my inaction, i probably would not have bothered to do anything :-P Can't really say that i have been lazy. Lots have been happening.

Work has been hectic coz my manager resigned and i was offered her position. She only gave 2 weeks notice, thus the crazy handover ordeal. I am still trying hard to get everything in order. I will manage.

Ivy and me were back in Spore/Msia for a few days in early October (5 days to be exact). SIA was offering really cheap return tickets but i only had a few off days. It was super rush, but i am glad that i made the short trip back. The older i get, the more i miss having family around ( i know i keep repeating this line). I didn't get to catch up with most friends coz of the short time. Sorry....

They following are snapshots from the last couple of weeks. YYee has been reminding me about the photography club that i suggested to everyone. I will make the effort to get it going !! Expect an email from me in regards to this soon.

Ivy and me had a simple picnic at Penrith. I made a vain attempt at climbing this tree.... knees just can't handle the strain anymore :(

I try to play badminton whenever i can. Ivy found a badminton group for me join...but they play rather infrequently. Ah well... begger can't be choosers. Picture of my cousin HJing (visiting frm melb) and me.

Posting tis photo without permission :-P (Krn, buzz me if you want me to remove tis photo ^_^) Just had to post it coz Teagan looks like a photocopy of karen ^_^ The khoo's were in Sydney for a visit in late Sept. Good to catch up with them.

Guess where i am. Ivy and me managed to get really good deal for a few days stopover here

A few of my colleagues organized a deep sea fishing trip a few weeks back. That would be my 1st and probably the last time i am going deep sea fishing. Caught ikan billis sized fishes. I didn't get sea sick but the crazy boat rocking is not something that i wanna experience EVER again. Just look at my sick colleagues in ta photo :-P

Celebrated my bday a few weeks back. Time flies so fast these days

Our activity this weekend. My colleague opened a tiny stall at Balmain markets selling photographs and turkish earings. Spent sometime with him at his stall.

Malas

Yup, the title says it all.. I AM LAZY ^_^ Can't really blame laziness for the lack of blog entries, bad events have happened, shan't dwell on it. Ivy and me have been keeping ourselves busy. Photos below:

Back to bush walking with kim, ernest, alex and suzanne (ivy's is censored as usual ^_^) Some place called Wildflower Forest. It was a 2 hrs+ walk with a good mix of terrain. Nice place.

Do i look like the guy in ta photo ???^_^

Ivy and I were at Luna Park one of the weekends. We were only there coz there was a nearby sunday crafts market that ivy likes. The photo is blur not coz of my photography skills but it sure saves me the time to edit ivy's face out ^_^

Ivy and I decided to take advantage of the good weather to go fishing at one of the many parks around here. We seem to be visiting a new park almost every week and there are still heaps more which we have not visited. This time, it was Akuma Bay. A beautiful place... can't say much about the fishing though.. caught nothing (as usual :-P)

I get along with this one colleague in the office, Bora. We went hiking with our partners at a place called Bottle Brush Forest. This is easily the best trail we have been thus far. There's a little stream with amber green tinged water along the trail. A 2hrs+ trek with varied landscapes. We will definitely visit this place again.

My work team.. from left, bora, me, ken, mohd, ashley, amanda, kate, lucy, alin, victoria (my manager) and maria. The large object (which i photoshopped in) is called a pressure reducing valve. That's what i install all around sydney ^_^

Vivid

My monthly blog entry is here! Winter isn't exactly the most exiting time of the year. It seems colder this year and I absolutely hate the the 5pm sunsets. I made quite a few trips to the city this month coz of the vivid sydney show. Nothing outstanding, it was mainly the sydney opera house getting illuminated with different patterns and a few light exhibits around the rocks area. But.. i had to make 3 trips there coz i constantly had different people who wanted to go there. Photos below are snapshots of the last 3 weeks.

My cousin HJing from Melb was in town, thus my 1st visit to the vivid show. It was drizzling and cold that nite, and i was also feeling a little tipsy coz i had just attended a cocktail party to celebrate my company's success in winning an extension to our current project. Yup... i will be stuck in my current project for another 7 years. By they end of the tenure, i should know every pipe main, undeground cable and pipe main in Sydney :-P

My 2nd trip to the vivid sydney thingie. This time it was with ivy and my new colleagues. I was too lazy to censor ivy's face in our group photo, so i decided to post this mistimed photo instead ^_^

We had a 3 day weekend 2 weeks back to celebrate the Queen's bday. It's funny that they celebrate the Queen's bday on different days depending on the state. Anyway, ivy and me decided to use our bike's for the 1st time this year!! Took us about 30mins just to pump the tyres and clean the dusty bikes ^_^

We went fishing on another day during the 3 day weekend. As usual, we caught nothing ! Sigh

My 3rd trip to vivid sydney. This time with my ex-colleague Sonny. He was too sick to tag along the last 2 times. At least this time, there was some fire show at the harbour. They were simulating the sinking of some ship which happened about 100 years back. It was entertaining ^_^ at least the fire helped keep me warm.

Snapshots

Since I have been really slack at updating tis blog, I have decided to post snapshots of our last 4 weekends.

Who's tat gal.. Pretty sunset shot at the Armory Cafe (Olympic Park.. sort of). I like tis place. It's just a few minutes drive from our place, has a long smooth bitumen road for roller blading, a unique cafe that used to be an armory warehouse and beautiful sunset views ^_^

Moon light view of Ettalong Beach. We randomly chose a new coastal town to spend our 3rd Anniversory, and Ettalong beach was the lucky location. A lazy seaside town 1hr from Sydney. Amazingly, what stood out from the trip was our visit to the local cinema. I wanted to watch Wolverine, so I dragged ivy into the local cinema which was named Cinema Paradiso. The cinema rooms had oil paintings on the wall and multiple sculptures ^_^ Pretty pretty. Anyway, don't think we will be re-visiting that town anything soon :-P

We wanted to do some bush walking in the nearby Lane Cove National Park... but we landed up renting a row boat instead. Ah well.. it was still good exercise ^_^

Look who dropped in ... Ms Chui Chui ^_^ Mich was in town for a nite (business trip stopever) Ramen in a cool winter nite with an old friend..nice. Talk about ramen, Ivy and I have been on a ramen hunt lately. I should have a blog entry dedicated to the various ramen shops in Sydney ^_^

Mich, Ivy and I were walking along Darling Harbour and were treated to the Harbour's 21st Anniversory fireworks celebration. Lucky us.. too bad i didn't have my big camera with me ^_^

Fish Cold

It's ta cold/flu season and i am one of its victims. The weather temperature has dropped tremendously. Just one week ago it was mid 20's and now it is high teen's. I suspect tat's how i caught ta cold. All is well.. we managed to go roller blading when the weather was still warm and i tortured myself by fishing in a winter like night the following week.

On another subject, i finally have a photo of yyee's family. The last time i saw his family, his 1st daughter was only 3 months old.. and now there are 4 kids!!! Aiyaa

The path sure looked good on google earth.. too bad you can't spot pavement blocks from there. We lasted 30mins before we gave up....pavement block sucks for roller blading.

wooden planks are worse for blading.. sigh. But the beach sure looks good

Tis was all i caught for the night... the drive there took 1.5hrs. We spent $35 on bait.. and tis was all i caught. Sonny fared no better :-P

The Tan's. Can't recognize any of ta kids! Left-Right: Xin, Jie, Ser, Ern

For the photographers out there: Nikon D700, 85mm f/1.4, 1/125 at

f/1.4, handheld without flash. (i just cut and pasted what yyee wrote ^_^)

Easter Treks

Before i write a little about our long weekend, catherine+ling passed me some photos of their twins and their updated family photos. I have no idea who is Claire or Cheryl.. you guys can guess ^_^

who is who ^_^

ling.. why the eye bags :-P

I had wanted to write tis blog entry tomorrow coz there is one more day to the good friday/easter long weekend, but i decided to keep tomorrow's activity for another blog. We wanted to keep the long easter break simple coz most places would be fully booked or just over priced. We organized a bush walking trip to a place called lime kiln bay, somewhere south of sydney together with kim and company. It was a simple but really scenic walk. I am contantly surprised by the number of nice parks and walking trails around sydney and am equally surprised that you hardly see anyone walking the trails.

errr.. where are we?? ^_^

pretty spiders ^_^ 

the gang. not a gud shot coz of the back lighting...from rigth: me, ivy (censored by request ^_^), tien hock, ernest, kim, laine, laine's dad.

Seeing more

Ivy and I were tired of our weekly routine life.. so we decided to take short overnight visits to nearby holiday spots over the last two weekends. We thought it would be easy to book rooms since there is an alleged ecconomic slowdown.. what ecconomic slowdown nonsense! almost all rooms over most weekends in every known NSW holiday spot were fully booked. Anyway, we managed to hunt down rooms at wentworth falls in the blue mountains and kiama in the south coast. The good weather was a blessing and both locations were beautiful holiday areas.

our room view at wentworth falls. ivy likes the highlands... i am more of a beach person ^_^ however i dun think the mountain areas will be nice during the cooler months

the zig zag express at the blue mountains. nothing special.. we were taking advantage of a "buy one get one free" coupon  we had ^_^

me clowning around at a stop point of the zig zag express

pretty kiama

ivy doing the kiama coastal walk

we stopped over a few vineyards at southern highlands on our way back to sydney from kiama...the vineyards here are small. it's a lot better at hunter valley.

SIngle life

I was a single man for a week coz Ivy headed back to Spore to attend her younger bro's wedding. It felt unusual initially when I was home alone... but work took up most of my time and i did manage to do some photography with my ex-colleague Sonny. Didn't manage to take many nice photos mainly coz of the dull weather. Sonny is now working for a centrelink associated company..he handles those dole suckers. I was amazed on how tough it is to cut dole payment to these lazy people. Not many countries can afford such a wasteful system.

come cacti formation tat i felt looked unusual

sonny doing his thing

some cruise ship docked at the sydney harbour... if only there is a cruise that goes to spore

Sound of Music

It's getting harder to find stuff to write about these days. Weeks are filled with mundane routines. But we still try to find new things to do.

We had wanted to watch some play for Valentine's day (we saw Billy Elliot the musical last year), but there was nothing interesting showing in town. There's hardly anything worth watching at the cinemas too. Ivy managed to get some cheap tickets (buy 1 get 1 free ^_^) to watch a symphony performance in ta city. For some reason, most of the patrons were elderly people. Ah well... we did enjoy the Haydn-Beethoven-Mozart performance.

crabby photo of the symphony using my phone ^_^

Flaming Days

The title of the blog entry was meant to refer to the simple bbq ivy and i did for our CNY celebrations. However, the news have been reporting nothing but stories about bush fires the whole day. It has been hot, but not the worst heat that i have ever felt here... i guess the continuous 35'C - 40'C days in Vic and NSW is the main culprit. AKhoo was over here for the weekend. He attended the Top Gear live performance in Sydney. Dunno how it went :-P Pictures below from the last few weeks.

Ta 2 khoos. Pardon ta crabby photo.. didn't have my big toy with me ^_^

Our simple CNY celebration...in the absence of family, we treated ourselves with korean rice wine, bbq abalone, wagyu & prawns ^_^

Walking & Funny Items

It seems like a regular task for ivy and me to begin our new year with trekking activities. As much as we would like to trek/bushwalk regularly, the weather seldom permits us. The weather has been hitting 40'C the last few days. Unfortunately, we still can't find regular kaki's to drag along :-P

Parramatta park. I used to jog around this park regularly when i 1st arrived in Sydney.. i stayed just a few minutes away then.. seems kinda nostalgic walking there again. It does look like a regular postcard picture you see on catalogues ^_^

Wentworth Falls trek at the blue mountains. This track is challenging! Will attempt to bring more ppl the next time ^_^

I decided to take photos of the wierd items we have in our apartment. Needless to say, most of them were bought by ivy :-P

Sleeping sheep... ivy claims concentrating on tis sheep will help you sleep..whatever!

Everyone.. meet peanut.. our resident dunggu looking housemate. Shocking isn't he ^_^

ivy's kapoh looking barbapapa..always peeking at ivy's laptop ^_^

ivy's barbapapa collection.. wierd bunch

our new addition.. the hammer!