Nobu

I recently started watching Gossip Girl. I know, I know... I am the only person left in this world, that have not watched this popular and highly addictive TV show yet. Everyone started watching this about 4 or 5 years ago, and here I am.. at the 3rd quarter of 2011, only starting Season 1. I find myself having difficulties discussing this show with anyone at the moment, only because everyone else is now going on to Season 5 and they cannot remember the details of Season 1! Haha. Anyways, the good news is that I finally finished Season 2 today, and the finale was so good! I was nearly in tears when Chuck finally told Blair he loved her! They are by far, my two favourite characters. I texted my friends to say how happy I was by the end of Season 2, and.. my weekend is now complete! Oh god I am a hopeless romantic.

As promised, I wanted to share with you some pictures of when my BFF was here.

At Mamasita's. Straight from the airport.

This is us at Nobu in Crown casino. It was our first time there, and I had pretty high expectations of the place. Again, we are probably 4 years late in trying out this place.. hehe everyone raved about it back then when it first opened. We always found an excuse not to go, but finally when Little-Miss-Drink-A-Lot came to visit, I thought 'hmm.. would be good to try Nobu'. 

I don't know, after this Nobu experience, Grumpy and I have come to this conclusion: most of the restaurants in Crown are completely overpriced, overrated and overcrowded. Yup, we are so OVER the restaurants in Crown. The Nobu signature black miso cod was good, but the rest of it was pretty average to me. 

Also, with the last picture, haha.. I must tell you how obsessed I am with miso soup since returning from Japan. I love love love miso soup. I have tried them in many places, and some restaurants do whip them up differently. The most expensive miso soup I had, was at Izakaya Den for $10. It was delisshh, a seafood broth miso, with clams. So when I opened up the menu at Nobu and saw a miso soup for $7.50, I said out loud "I must try the miso soup here!" Much to my disappointed, it was a very ordinary miso soup from a pre-made paste, with two tiny pieces of tofu, and that was IT! Even the complimentary miso soup from my regular sushi place (Sushi Monger) makes better miso soup than this. There goes my $7.50 that I will never get back! 

Okay, apart from the bad miso soup experience, it was still a good night, hanging out with two of my most favourite people. 

Low

Just a quick post to say that I have been caught up with various things, from painting my bedroom to catching up with close friends, to training for the 10km run next month at the Melbourne Marathon. Grumpy informed me about some news over the weekend, and it just annoys and frustrates me when he agrees or commits to things without checking with me first. He has a weakness of not having the ability to say No. I don't know. We have our highs and lows, and lately it has been a lot of lows. Yes its true, I am feeling low. Maybe I should make a trip to the Buddhist monastery this weekend.

On the flip side, I had BFF Little-Miss-Drink-A-Lot visit two weekends ago, followed by Little-Miss-Bargain-Hunter here last weekend. Both weekends were awesome and so much fun!

Here is a sneak peek of Little-Miss-Drink-A-Lot and myself at Mamasita. We snacked on their popular chargrilled corns and sipped on margaritas. More photos to come...

Good night...! Tuesday-itis tomorrow!

Hello 29!

I finally celebrated my 29th birthday last Saturday. Unfortunately I had a fight with Grumpy, and so instead of being really happy about my special day, I was sitting at home feeling sorry for myself. Grumpy is pure genius at ruining important milestones. Despite all that, I still thank my lucky stars because I have family and friends wishing me well from everywhere and I know I am still loved... by someone out there. 

Fast forward all the sad stuff, I got some lovely gifts. Grumpy surprised me with an iPad 2. I kind of knew he was going to get me one, and when he handed me a box for my birthday present, and I opened it, it turned out to be a brown box?! I was worried for a minute there that it was not an iPad. But after the brown box, came the Apple box.... So that worked out fine, I guess. My friends the wombats gave me a gift voucher for Endota Spa, which is my all time favourite spa. My brother and his better half surprised me with this Yves Saint Laurent arty oval ring, which I absolutely love! 

                                         

When Grumpy and I were in Japan, I was hunting for a YSL boutique so that I could get one of their arty rings. It was quite a difficult search, because the address was in Japanese, we could hardly figure out where it was, and we were going round in circles. Finally on our last day in Japan, when we were not looking, we actually found a YSL store in Kobe by chance. I was so happy, and they sold the arty rings too! Unfortunately, after the FX conversion, the ring worked out to be really expensive. I did not end up buying the ring, much to Grumpy's annoyance. He insisted I get the ring, as we had travelled all the way to Japan and spent all that time searching for a YSL store, but no, I decided against it. Hey, I was disappointed at that time too. Hehe So when I opened up the little gift box last Saturday, I was very happy indeed!

My old boss Belgian Chocolates surprised me with a copy of my favourite Vogue magazine from France, the special edition for AW11. I also got a nice Helly Hansen polar fleece jumper, which is so nice and soft from Mr Happy. And some other friends gave me a David Jones gift voucher. 

Back to my iPad 2, Grumpy and I got a Telstra mobile broadband SIM card for the iPad so that I can use it in the train or when I travel, which is great! Today he got me this cover which looks kind of dull... but I am thinking this is just temporary, while I look for a nicer more girlie one. 

And tomorrow, I call it my belated birthday present, hehe my darling BFF Little Miss-Drink-A-Lot is coming to Melbourne for 2 nights and we are going to spend some quality time catching up! We have heaps of stuff planned, which includes Mamasita (LOVE!), running at the Tan, facial and massage at Endota Spa and dinner at Nobu. I am so excited!!

A Day In The Life Of Me

Last week, my office started a program called 'Lunch And Learn'. This is where you bring your own lunch, into the sessions, and you listen in to people from different areas of the business talk about their jobs and how exciting it is, and then after, it makes you feel like 'Crap, I've got the most boring job in the world'. We had the same program at my old work, but I never attended any. And so when they launched it last week at my current workplace, I did not attend any because (a) can't be fucked (haha), and (b) I already have lunch plans with my friends. Until...... my boss sent me an email with only one sentence saying "I need to talk to you about this". I thought to myself, Oh man... I had better attend at least one session to pretend I am interested.

I was wrong.

Instead of just attending the session, she wanted me to present on behalf of my team and talk about 'A Day in the Life of a ___ (my job)'. She might call it 'professional development' for me, but I call it 'classic example of hand-balling'. Management probably requested for her to do it, instead she decides it should be me to present. Great, just great. I had to prepare one slide myself about A Day in the Life of me! I had no idea. My day is really not that interesting at all. I googled it.. I asked my friends..

This is what Little-Miss-Whats-For-Lunch wrote back to me in an email:

My name is Mrs _ Ng. My husband's name is M_ but he has a dual identity...... some call him K_. I have a dog named E_. I wake up at 2am because "the stupid dog" wakes me up so he can sit in the garden in the middle of the night. When I finally go back to sleep, it isn't long before my alarm goes off and I have to get up. While I get ready, I pump up the latest song of the day/week/month (which my friend 'Little-Miss-Whats-For-Lunch' had no idea about until I tell her) on my BOSE speakers while my husband is snoring away. I leave my home in Oakleigh and head for Oakleigh station to begin my commute into work. Upon arrival at Parliament station, I immediately proceed to Engels where I must check in (because I want to keep my status as the mayor). No coffee for me because it makes me feel weird. Chai latte is my favourite beverage at this time of the morning. I quickly walk down 1 and 1/2 blocks to 101 Collins Street and be at my desk by around 8:30am, ready for my meeting which is soon after. During the meeting, I tell everyone on the scale of 1 to 10 how happy I am (I always say I'm good.....as if I'd ever say I'm a panda), if I achieved yesterday's goals and what my goals are for the day. By the time I get to my desk, I usually have an email waiting for me asking me what my lunch plans are for the day. After a few emails, lunch is set and I just have to do my regular work until lunchtime comes. At around 12pm, I lock my PC and head towards the next lunch menu which was decided at 9:30am. During the day I work hard and make conversations with my colleagues around me. We talk about lots of things such as their kid's school trips to Europe, cross-bred (or not cross-bred) dogs......sometimes I get the odd cup cake here and there for no apparent reason. I get asked if my husband got a text message from a colleague for his birthday and I feel like telling him "its been 3 months, get over it!". I HATE being called Juju at work...... When it's time to go home at 5pm, I sometimes go past Fitness First but I'm frustrated because I think I have gained weight but no idea where or how! Finally, I go home and wait for my husband to cook dinner. Afterwards, its time to watch the Kardashians which I recorded on my Foxtel IQ but sometimes the husband and the "stupid dog" annoy me because they can't give me 20 mins of peace once a week to watch my favourite TV show! Bed time.....sleeping in my nice Peter Alexander pajamas. And then its 2am and it starts all over again......

She describes A Day in the Life of me... most accurately. She is absolutely spot on! Haha I swear I nearly fell of my chair laughing when her email came through.

Anyway, I was able to come up with some real work on a slide for my preso, and I even got Little-Miss-Drink-A-Lot to help make it look pretty. Lifesaver!

Finally yesterday, I stood behind one of those formal brown stands where they lay the laptop and the microphone, next to a projector screen, in front of more than 50 people.... and I spoke about my team, what we do.. who we are made of.. yada yada yada. It was certainly most nerve wrecking and I did not even recognise my own voice. I spoke reallyreallyfast. OMG I have done this before!! Many times!! In my old job (in three different countries, in fact, even to the CEO from Canada)!! But I guess being in a new environment, in a new business, and being relatively new to the role.. I could not hide the nerves.

At the end of the presentation, I was so relieved. Many people came up to me telling me I did really well, which I sort of have my doubts, because it feels like they were trying to reassure me or something like that, especially after seeing me so nervous in front of my audience. My boss said she got terrific feedback, which I mutter under my breath 'Yeah right'. That might be the end of my presenting career perhaps? Just glad that its over!

Somebody That I Used To Know by Gotye

This video is very cool! I love this song, it is constantly on repeat on me iPod. Love the body art!

Hope you have a lovely weekend!

I Do Not Watch Much TV These Days

I do not watch much TV these days. One of the main reason is 'time'. I just DO NOT have the time to watch TV. It sounds silly but its true. I just don't. During the week days, Grumpy hogs the TV (he only watches TV shows which involve a lot of screaming, killing, golf and Rick Stein). On weekends, I am probably too busy running errands or doing boring things like laundry, cleaning the house, walking the dog, whatever, you name it. I guess another reason is because my two of my favourite TV shows, Modern Family and Glee are taking a season break here in Australia. We pay about $115 a month for a very expensive Foxtel package, and I hardly watch any of it.

There is one exception though. I am watching the current Season 6 of Keeping Up With The Kardashians on 'E!'. The new episodes are on 9.30pm every Tuesday, and I record these episodes so that I can watch it at my own convenience at a different time. So last night, after the dishes were done and my shirt ironed for work, I decided to watch this week's episode. It was funny, I love it, the girls are just hilarious. And while watching this, Grumpy is next to me, going on and on about something random, and then he plays with the dog, and the dog is annoyed because it is his bed time, so the dog starts barking and screaming... and this is all while I am watching Keeping Up With The Kardashians. OMG! I was so annoyed, I said to Grumpy, "I only use 30 minutes of the TV, in one week, to watch an episode of KUWTK and I can't even watch it in peace! In fact, it is only 20 minutes or so, because there are ads in between and I can fast forward the ads on Foxtel IQ! TWENTY MINUTES!! Can't I have TWENTY MINUTES of friggin' peace to watch KUWTK?!?!??!"

Both the husband and the dog go silent, and finally I can watch the remaining 5 minutes of the show uninterrupted.

Here is an interesting video.. it is Mr Tickle's 40th birthday (Mr Tickle was the first among the Mr Men characters created), and Adam Hargreaves (the son of creator Roger Hargreaves) shows us how to draw the oldest character of Mr Men.

Cherry Blossom

Yesterday was the 8th of August. And that marks the 13th years Grumpy and I have been together. Thirteen years! It also means that we have spent nearly half our lives together. We did not celebrate yesterday... no, only because we are trying to get used to a new and different anniversary now, which is our wedding anniversary. To be completely honest, if you asked Grumpy when did we get married, he would probably stop and have a good think about it before giving you an answer, what more, a correct answer. But with the 8th of August, it was easy.

As the warmer weather approaches, I have started noticing the leaves grow back on trees, and flowers in bloom. My current favourites are cherry blossom. I never really took real notice of cherry blossoms, until I went to Japan in Spring for their Sakura season. It was absolutely beautiful, and now that I know what cherry blossoms are, I noticed we even have it here in Australia! In fact, the houses on my street have cherry blossoms too. They may not be real cherry blossoms, but it could be plum blossoms or other blossoms. I kept raving about these blossoms on my street to Grumpy, and he kindly pointed out that even our little dwarf peach tree have blossoms appearing... in my own garden!

Here are three photos I took in Japan of the cherry blossom or plum blossom. Three different colours that are so pretty!

This is a weeping cherry blossom, as the branches fall down. Outside the Osaka castle.

Tada!

Thirteen years, my darling. I love you!