Melbourne shrouded in fog

When I woke up last Monday, I was shocked to find the whole botanical garden was covered in fog. The next thing that came to my mind was... "Quick! Call in sick and get more sleep!" :D I wish I had done that.

Anyway... if I remember correctly, every time when Melbourne approaches autumn/winter, we will be invited by a morning of thick fog. "Borrowed" a number of photos taken from Eureka by Herald Sun.

Winter... bring it on!

MIA... but plenty going on

We have not been writing posts for the last number of weeks. As you would have guessed, work has been crazily busy for the both of us. It makes it even harder when everyone in the office work until 6pm latest. I am begining to "appreciate" Asia's crazy working hours. Well, the take away point is being busy is definitely better than not during this economic hard time.

On a more positive note, we finally bought our own house! After months of heartaches and disappointments, we finally triumph this time! It was an auction, which is a norm in Australia, very intense during bidding. It started from the seller's reserve price, with every bid worth $10k and slowly it dropped to $5k and then $1k. There were approximately 100 people at the auction but only a handful that were into serious bidding. Maybe starting bid worth $10k filtered those fence sitters. It was a very good experience and the whole time, I was telling myself to remain calm, put up a poker face and stay within our ceiling price. It felt good when we secured our house, everyone clapped for us. It was always the other way round.

We were invited by Mr. Saw, my previous Melbourne boss to have dinner with his friends at Mabrown (Malaysia food) at Balwyn North last night. To our surprise, my ex-boss from KL and his wife are in Melbourne as well and joined us last night. Yeap, both my ex-bosses are old time friends. :)

Anyway, Mabrown have 2 signature dishes - spicy quail and roast duck noodle. We tried both and it was sensational! We could not get it that nice back in KL. Like what my mom always say "satu makan, dua mau". :D One of Mr. Saw's friend brought three types of wine to complement each meat we were having, i.e. one for quail, one for duck and one for the fish. It was just hilarious when the wives put a limit of 2 glasses of wine and how it was always the second glass from the husbands' response.

Great food, great wine, great companies and plenty of laughter, it was really a good evening. Makes it worthwhile going to work, putting all you have and have a good time at the end of it.

Later we will be heading to Devin+Hennley's place for BBQ. Hopefully we can get some nice shots and put it up later. The weather forecast is excellent, with light winds throughout the evening. It will be another good evening. :)

Dragon Boat End of Season Dinner

After the Melbourne International Dragon Boat Race, the season has comes to an end with a dinner celebration on 14th March 2009.

The celebration was held in Pepper Chilli (85 Little Bourke St, corner of Exhibition and Little Bourke) with a great attendance of 41 people! When we first heard the name of the restaurant, we were hoping that not all the food served were spicy. It turn out to be a Sze Chuan Restaurant. Thank god that it was a set menu where we were given a choice of some of the dishes.

The Dragon Boaters on our table

Overall it was a great night with good company, speeches from the Captains and there was also award presentations.

It started off with the CERTIFICATE of achievements:

• Best Race Day Performance Docklands Cup: Kevin Wong
  
• Best Race Day Performance Falls Creek Mile High Championship: Miki Ishikawa
• Best Race Day Performance Victorian Titles: Karsten Arnold
• Best Drummer: Melissa Ong
• Best Sweep: Chris Walters

Then followed by the 2008/09 TROPHIES:

• Most Valuable Paddler: Joel Chua
• Best Male Paddler: Jay Sadler
• Best Female Paddler: Eva Bui
• Best Rookie: Nadja Wiedemann
• Best Team Spirit Male: Stephen Soo
• Best Team Spirit Female: Hennley Sah
  

Stephen with his trophy!

Close up of Stephen's trophy

Stephen with me and his trophy

A very Happy Hennley with her trophy with me and Ivy

Both Stephen and I were very surprise that he would get an award, as we didn't know what the award categories were. Anyhow, it is an excellent idea to give out all these certificates and awards to give motivation as well as recognition of every one's hard work and determination to the team. Great Work CYSM!!!

Ryan and Stephen enjoying the night

St. Ali

A day after our successful race at IMDBF, Devin and Hennley brought us and Ryan to a local coffee joint called St. Ali. My colleague told me before that this place serves excellent strong coffee but I never get the chance to try it and after a while, it sort of slipped my mind.

Finally tried it and am loving every bit of it. The coffee is strong, so good that I had to order another cup. The food is delicious as well, especially Lily's french toast. :)

A good morning dose of medication

Just by looking at it, you know this is one delicious coffee

Lily's brekkie - very tasty french toast topped with bacon and peach
(by far the best we have had)

My brekkie - scrambled eggs topped with smoked salmon with chili jam
(highly recommended)

St. Ali in South Melbourne

St. Ali - industrial interior

It was a relaxing way to start our day with tasty breakfast, delicious coffees, good companies and plenty of laughter. Our lives are truly blessed.

Melbourne International Dragon Boat Festival

5 months of training to live for a single minute!

That's what my team's vice captain said before the race. last Sunday, i.e. 8 March 09. I could not agree more. All the sacrifices everyone made to attend tough trainings 3 times a week, enduring sore muscles the very next day, it all came down to this race.

We were up against the national and state champion and we were pushing them all the way. I must say, we did really well by coming third. There were a couple of races that we only lost by a fraction of a second!!!

Even the champions themselves were amazed how far we have come in 1 year. :D

Overall, it was a very good experience, the excitement and adrenaline burst before the race were just sensational and knowing we crossed the finish line far better than our training best time, it was pure "awesomeness". And to be in a team that shares the same commitment and determination to win, it's out of this world!

I am already looking forward to the next major race!

Below are some of the race videos (My team in red, in case you are wondering).

Heats - Open 20s

Heats - Men's Power 10

Finals - Mixed 20s

Finals - Men's Power 10

Lily and myself during race break

The 3 "stooges"

No idea what we were trying to do

Yuin was in town, was supposed to be our cheerleader but forgot her pom poms!

The whole team that made it all possible

Our rewards! :D