Self Portraits

2 self portraits for those back home. :)

On the steps of the iconic Sydney Opera House.

While waiting for the bus.

Mark of A Divine Promise

This beautiful sight greeted me as I left the house about 2 weeks ago and this promise from God came to mind:
"I will never leave you nor forsake you."
Deuteronomy 31:6 , Joshua 1:5 , Hebrews 13:5-6

Had to struggle with increasing rain and strong winds to get the shot, my umbrella got blown inside out and I had to keep wiping my lens to clear the rain drops. But considering that rainbows are fleeting and unpredictable, especially complete ones like this, it was all worth it.

I know I have not been updating as often as I should be.... perhaps I should just post up more images and not worry so much about the text....

My Virgin Skydive

How does one describe the feeling of free falling from 14,000ft (abt 4.3 km) up in the air? The heart racing sense of anticipation as you pause at the open door of the plane looking down onto a blanket of clouds. The exhilaration and immense rush of adrenaline as you push off and begin free falling through the air.

To skydive have been something I’ve always wanted to do and I was not disappointed. My first jump was everything I had imagined it to be and more!

I would be lying if I said I didn’t feel nervous at all. Yes I felt the nerves a little when the jump door opened and I felt the rush of cold air. But as my tandem instructor and I moved nearer to the door for our turn the nerves very quickly turned to incredible excitement.

The moment when we jumped out of the plane felt a little like jumping off the 10-meter diving board at the swimming pool. But that was only for a split second. The sense that you are actually falling is very quickly replaced by one of floating. I think that’s described as reaching terminal velocity although I can’t be sure. But whatever it was that 60 seconds when we were spinning and flying through the air must be THE MOST incredible time of my life!

This may sound strange but I felt a greater sense of fear after we deployed the parachute. I saw the ground very far below us and there was nothing inbetween that and my dangling feet. I felt a knot in stomach most acutely in the last few seconds as the ground rushed up at us when we came in for our landing. I suppose it would not be proper if I didn’t feel any fear throughout this whole experience since skydiving is considered an extreme sport.

It is also interesting to note that during the few days after my first skydive nothing was interesting or exciting to me anymore. Whatever activity I did seemed so bland and boring. I think I was suffering from a mild case of adrenaline rush withdrawal syndrome. :)

Looking at the images and writing about it now really makes me want to do it again. This time I would like to go for some training to that I don’t have to go tandem and can fly solo.

This activity is definitely not for the faint hearted but if you can find the courage to leap out a plane and fly through the clouds, I can guarantee that you will never forget the experience! I know I won't.

My Sydney Abode

Ok I think it is time for me to put up some images of the place that I call home during my current adventures in Sydney.

It is a lovely apartment located in a nice quiet neighbourhood on the eastern side of the city.

This is the view across the street.

Although it’s small but my room is bright, cozy and sufficient for my needs. The bed is surprisingly comfy but it didn't come with pillows so I went out and bought myself 4 really nice and soft pillows. Am wondering if I should pack them home with me... :)

My bright little room.

Here is where I get my dose of TV whenever I am in. I'll indulge in my favourite past time of eating dinner while watching whatever is showing at that moment. This shot was taken about 2 weeks ago. The room looks slightly different now with an added couch and shifting around of some other pieces of furniture.

The lounge room in the middle of the apartment.

Apart from my own room I think the other room in the house where I spend the most of my time would actually be the kitchen. Yup, I have been cooking alot since I moved in here. It started out for budgetting reasons but then I really enjoyed the process. There is a certain sense of accomplishment and of home for me when I sit down to enjoy the meal I cooked. Especially when it tastes good. Although there were a few disaster meals.
I'm glad that this house has a nice clean kitchen where I can rediscover the joy of cooking and my love for it.

However I also do admit that it is so much easier when cooking for just 1 person. I don't think I'll enjoy it very much if I had to do it everyday and for 10-12 people. My mum does that everyday and I don't think we show our gratitude to her often enough. So Mum, on behalf of everyone A BIG THANK YOU for taking care of us everyday for all these years!

The kitchen: the room where I could recreate a little bit of home for myself whenever possible.
We now have a proper dining table where the small round table is.

And there you have it: my shelter from the elements, the roof over my head, my cozy abode, my home in Sydney.

Author's Note

To those who have been following my blog:

I felt its necessary for me to put in this short note to explain a little about the lack of updates.

There are actually lots that I would like to blog about regarding my days here in Sydney. But an unfortunate combination of tiredness, a bit of laziness, and a good dose of lousy internet connection where I am staying at the moment has resulted in the aforementioned lack of postings.

We are expected to have proper broadband internet in the house in about 15 days so hopefully I'll have less of an excuse for not writing more often.

Currently I have to lug my laptop around with me into the city if I wanted fast and stable connections which takes time and energy away from exploring the city and getting on with my photography.

Anyways, I hope that this little note will help fill in some blanks. In the meantime I hope you enjoy the latest posting below: 'My Quest for Comfort Food'.

:)

My Quest for Comfort Food

During the first 2 weeks in Sydney I was struggling with a really bad ulcer on the palate of my mouth near to the back. It was extremely painful to swallow anything in the first week as whatever that needs to go down my throat essentially had to brush up against that area. At times even drinking water hurt.

So as you can imagine eating became a major problem as well as finding the right sort of foods while I was in the city. But thankfully Sydney being a city with so many different cultures, it wasn’t impossible to find suitable soft foods to eat.

Found an underground food court while wandering around one day and settled on a bowl of Vietnamese beef noodle soup (Pho). The soft noodles went down relatively well, and by chewing longer on the beef and swallowing in smaller bits the meat went down with less pain then I had anticipated. It helped that I was also quite hungry at that time which gave the added motivation to keep eating. :)


Went to the fish markets on one of those days with Missy Em. It was so upsetting to see all those delicious looking seafood but not being able to eat most of them because they were mostly either deep-fried or baked. So settled for oysters, sushi and fruit salad instead. Missy Em got some raw oysters and some baked oysters with cheese. Surprisingly the raw oysters went down without any problems, which lead me to falsely think that perhaps I was feeling better. But the baked oysters brought me back to reality when I felt the all too familiar stinging sensation. However the pain caused by the rock melons in the fruit salad surprised me the most, although the sushi rice was a close second. The photo was taken Before I ate the food, which was a good thing. :)

While exploring Chinatown on another day I was again looking for soft foods. Was at Market City at that time and found a big food court on the upper floor that was quite similar to the food courts we have in Singapore. After walking pass all the stalls twice finally settled on a bowl of Cantonese style salted lean pork with century egg congee/porridge. It was by far the most satisfying meal I’d had while on my own in the city since getting the stupid ulcer. It took longer than usual to finish the bowl of hot congee, but it went down with almost no problems, tasted good and warmed my tummy comfortably. For food court stuff this was quite good. Also you probably could not find any food court stall in Singapore that served their congee with as much pork & eggs and at a lower price.
This was good comfort food. :)

As I recovered from the ulcer and the pain became a manageable ache I developed a craving for pasta noodles. On one cold and wet afternoon (happened to be Valentine’s Day) while exploring The Rocks on my own I just had to get myself some nice hot pasta (was actually thinking of PastaMania back in Singapore).
Came across this nice little café restaurant that had a lunch special on prawn linguini in tomato sauce. At this point I didn’t much care for the cost of this meal as I just wanted to get out of the rain and tuck into some hot savoury pasta.
Not sure if my pictures did much justice to the dish as I was somewhat impatient to start eating but the photographer in me needed to document this little detail of my adventures here in Sydney. The pasta was cooked just nice, the sauce just the right amount of tomato, and the prawns were fresh and succulent. My only complaint was that the portion was surprisingly small.
After savouring the last bits of my pasta I looked out the window and was reluctant to venture back out into the cold just yet. So I ordered myself a nice mug of hot chocolate. It was such a simply pleasure to be sitting indoors on a cold wet day with a steaming cup of hot beverage in your hands.
I am glad I took the time to photograph the pasta and hot chocolate. This way I’ll always remember my cozy shelter from the rain and the comfort food that I found within.

*Satisfied sigh....aahhhh.....*

Of Ethnic Sydney and Shanghai Baos

It’s been several days now since I moved out of Missy Em’s and into my current place. I know I should be more consistent with my updating so that I don’t have to constantly play catch up.

Anyways this is meant to be the promised follow up post to the previous entry about my 2 weeks at Missy Em’s. Staying with the family had been comfortable and there were some days where I didn’t go out anywhere. And the fact that it was raining made staying in much easier and less guilty.

While I was there Missy Em took the opportunity to show me around a few of the western suburbs that very few, if any, tourists ever get to see or have ever thought about visiting. You certainly won’t find these places as recommended attractions in any guidebooks. (It would be like recommending tourists to visit Ang Mo Kio or Clementi as an attraction while in Singapore.)
But having said that it was interesting to see how the various ethnic groups have grouped themselves into several suburbs. The concentration of a particular ethnic group is so great that the entire suburb is filled with its influences. From wordings on the signage of shops and restaurants, to small specialty shops that cater to groceries particular to that community.
For example while in Ashfield it is not difficult to realized that you are in a suburb with a very strong Chinese community. As you walk along the street, you’ll see many Chinese restaurants and Chinese provision shops.
And in Auburn you will immediate realize that you are in a suburb with a strong middle-eastern community. There is no lack of kabab shops and you will see signboards written in Arabic as you walked around town.
But the greatest sense of the community is in the people on the streets and in the shops. Sometimes you can forget that you are in Sydney, Australia while walking around in some of these western suburbs.

On my last day with the family and as a small gesture of thanks for their hospitality I decided to bring them out for lunch. After a bit of discussion, and recommendations from friends, we decided on an eatery that serves Shanghainese food in Ashfield called the New Shanghai Chinese Restaurant. They are supposedly well known for their Xiao Long Baos: the famous steamed meat dumplings with delicious soup inside.

The place was crowded inside and there was a queue snaking out the door. After waiting for about 10 minutes we finally got a table. On top of the obvious order for the house specialty, we also ordered hot plate stir fry beef ‘Mongolian styled’ (didn’t quite figure out what that meant), spring onion fried pancake (yiu chong bing), and baby kailan in oyster sauce.
All the ‘side dishes’ came first which perhaps was a good thing as it lead up to more anticipation for the baos. But to be fair all the other dishes were not too bad. Then finally the much-awaited baos came.
We ordered both the normal kind as well as the kind with crabmeat supposedly mixed in with the pork. The crabmeat ones came first and although it tasted good, the meat filling was a bit dry and didn’t carry as much flavour for my liking.
But when the ‘normal’ ones came the difference was quite apparent. The skin was softer, the meat filling juicier, and even the soup that oozes out as you bite into it was tastier and perhaps a bit more then the crabmeat baos.
The size of the baos was just nice as well. Not so big that you can’t fit into your mouth at one go (not that I’d recommend it since the soup will be hot), but not so small either that you eating it in 2 bites didn’t seem like a waste of time.

All in all it was a good lunch, although on hindsight I should have ordered more of the baos. Didn't seem enough to go around for the 4 of us.

Actually just writing this post and going through the images is making me hungry and craving for the baos. ☺ Wouldn’t mind going back there again, and this time it will just be for the baos and nothing else… (well maybe the pancake).

To commemorate my last official night at Missy Em’s I had to take a formal shot of us just before we had dinner. This was where I had all my dinners while staying with the family. Since there were 4 of us, the bigger table from the kitchen gets brought out into the living room along with the chairs. If it were just 3 a smaller table in the living room would be used instead and we would just sit on the couch. It was also at this table that I enjoyed my daily dose of Canto dramas with Auntie. ☺

Dinner was Bak Cheok Chicken (think Hainanese chicken), green veges and fried pomfret fish.

And so with this image ends the recounting of my stay at a home that was familiar to me in many ways while in a foreign land at the bottom of the world.

Just Like Home

Since I wasn't able to find a decent place to rent by the time I checked out of the hotel, Missy Em and family graciously took me into their home and gave me temporary shelter whilst I continued my room hunting.

It has been exactly 2 weeks since I moved in with them. I am moving out tomorrow (Mon) into a place I'd found. Feeling a bit reluctant as it has been great living with the family.

The house is a comfortable and cosy place that is unassuming with simple furnishings. Here are some pictures of my first home away from home in Sydney:

A shot of the apartment building facade.

The living room. Here's also where we had our dinners. That's Auntie channel surfing.

A shot of the simple but functional kitchen. That's Missy Em on her laptop.

The hallway leading to the rooms and bathroom.

Missy Em's room that I shared. My bed's the one on the right.

But what made it really like a home away from home for me (apart from Missy Em of course) was definitely Auntie. I am truly grateful to her for taking such great care of me while I was staying with them. I had home cooked dinners every night that I was in and sometimes even lunches if I was around. Since she is Cantonese the food was very familiar to me as they were similar to what my mum would cook. There was even boiled soup on some days.
And I also got my dose of Canto dramas when she watches them during dinner. I would sit and watch with Auntie and we would comment about bits of the show just like how I would back home with my parents.

I am thankful for being able to stay here for the past 2 weeks 'coz I was dealing with a very bad soreness that developed over the roof of my mouth that made it extremely painful to swallow anything including water. But a combination of good food, plenty of rest and a good dose of Chinese remedies helped my body deal with both the soreness/ulcer as well as getting used to the water.

It's getting late now and I need to sleep. Will continue to write about the rest of my stay with the family in another post.

Blog Resuscitation cum Start of Sydney Adventure

I've been putting this off for some time now... the revival of this blog.

It's so hard to start it up again after stopping for so long. Gosh, the last entry was more than 2 years ago!

Maybe it's also because I've not had a compelling enough reason for me to continue blogging then.

But now I find myself faced with situation that calls for the revival of this virtual diary. It's a good thing really. At least I have motivation to update these pages again (hopefully ;P ).

The purpose of this first post I suppose is to get myself back into the hang of writing stuff in here..... a Virtual Literary Resuscitation if you will... (VLR?) ... so bear with me while I ramble on a little more in this post....

Well, I guess first up should probably be about the motivation for this 'VLR'....

We finally managed to send me over to Sydney for 3 months to take up the workshops. So it would be good if I kept a diary of sorts about my experiences and encounters here since it will also be the first time I'll be away in a foreign land on my own for more then 2 weeks. It will also serve as a more detailed way of keeping family and friends updated.

Now to do a some back tracking.... (warning: this could be a long post)

As of the date of this post I have been in Sydney for 2.5 weeks.

Flew in on the A380 with Singapore Airlines and arrived on the morning of 28 Jan 09 feeling excited and happy but also tired, apprehensive and slightly worried

The flight was actually pretty good. The seats were slightly more spacious when compared to the regular economy seats as publicized. Loved the USB socket, was able to charge my Nano with it so that it lasted for the whole 7.5 hours flight.
Seating on the upper deck is definitely quieter in terms of the engine sound than sitting at wing level. Should have kept to my window seat though. The window seats on the upper deck has an additional side compartment by the window that also doubles up as extra table space when necessary.
All in all is was an okay flight. Would have been better if I wasn't trying to fight a growing sore throat the whole time. Didn't think it was anything to be concerned about while still in Singapore, but it got gradually worst as we neared Sydney, probably agitated by the dry cold air in the plane. I was still stubborn and didn't want to take any medication so just asked the stewardess for some salt and warm water. It did help to relieve the pain slightly for a while.
But by the time I touched down I just wanted to check into the hotel and sleep. Thankfully it didn't take too long to get through customs and I was let through without having my baggage checked.

Managed to get myself from the airport to the Four Points by Sheraton by train without any hassle. Was checked in about 5 hours earlier then expected (which was great!).
Was hungry by that time but was too tired to go out hunting for food so ordered room service instead. Got the banana and strawberry pancakes. Tasted quite good but could not finish it due my sore throat and tiredness.


After eating and a warm shower got a few hours of sleep before heading off for my first class. On my way back after class I took a wrong turn and ended up getting a little lost. By the time I managed to find my way back to the hotel I was so tired and just absolutely irritated by my throat condition. So bought some cereal and milk for dinner instead. Looks quite pathetic but it wasn't all that bad. However my tummy didn't quite like to be left half full so it complained enough to make me get up at 2 am and order a chicken & vege broth from room service for supper. Was too tired to take any pictures of the soup, but I do remember it being tasty and very oily.

After the rather exhausting first day I slept in on day 2 hoping to sleep off the soreness in my throat. But didn't really work. Even with the usual dose of meds, there wasn't the usual signs of relief. But I still needed to go out and get stuff done. Didn't eat much as nothing will go down comfortably. Bought some groceries at the nearest Woolworths. Had instant cup noodles for dinner that night. Was actually very easy to swallow as it was soft. It doesn't hurt that it was tasty either. :)

I had booked the room at the hotel for only 4 nights and I still had not found a place to rent for the rest of my stay. So the rest of the days were spent going through the websites for suitable rooms for rent and making calls and sending emails.

Decided to eat a little better on Friday night so stepped into a little Japanese place I stumbled upon while walking to the bank earlier that day.
Ordered the edamame, gyu-don, and ox tongue. The beans were nicely steamed, although not as salty as Hoshigaoka. The beef bowl had a lot of rice but the beef was tender and well seasoned. The ox tongue was tasty at first but after a few slices it got too salty for my liking. I probably would have enjoyed the entire meal a lot more if I was feeling better. Could not finish everything so asked to pack it up. Unlike in Singapore where they pack for you, here they will bring out the containers and you pack the food yourself. Strange and slightly embarrassing experience for me.


As I found out, trying to find a decent place to rent within a tight budget for 10-12 weeks near to the city within 4 days is being naively optimistic. Thank God Missy Em is back from the UK and she graciously offered that I stay with them for the time being until I can find a place.

After checking out of my room on Sunday and while waiting for Missy Em to come pick me up I treated myself to a nice lunch at the hotel's cafe restaurant. I ate there also because I didn't want to lug my laptop AND camera gear around with me while I walk the streets in search for food. Ordered the lamb dish but unfortunately wasn't too impressed by it. The lamb was quite tasteless although the sweet potato mash was nice. Had to eat the meat in tiny little bits so as not to further aggravate my throat. But although it took a much longer time than normal to finish everything, it did fill me up.

After lunch I spent the rest of the afternoon at the lobby searching for accommodation while waiting from Missy Em to come pick me up.


So that was the first 5 days of my Sydney adventure. The next part of my experience will be staying with Missy Em and family. But that will be for another post.

:)