.Day of Flight II.

I'm flew back home to join Eid Celebrations with my family. I'm looking forward to see how this ends... well, starts. It's been years since the whole family has come together for Eid Celebrations. Good news awaits.

Some how this photo makes me think of those vintage movie scenes of fighter planes. I shot this after the plane took off and started ascending up to the heavens. It was a pleasant flight.

And guess who was beside me throughout the journey?? Yup, another Melbruneian student who was going back home for a 1-month (1-MONTH??!) holiday. Lucky guy, I wish I was in his position at the moment. Exam-free, stress-free and full mode for celebrations.

Melbourne Cake Lollies

I made these batch a while back. Got bored on a cold Melbourne afternoon and was suddenly struck by the sudden urge to bake - maybe it was just an excuse to stand in front of the hot oven to keep myself warm? Hahahaha... Nonetheless, it was good. By the end of it, I had discovered one of the few pleasant delights in my life: Cake Lollies. Nice warm home-baked cake lollies.

The idea dawned on me when I came across my mother's foodblog, or as I like to call it: flog hahaha - now that I've said it out loud.. it sounds ugly. Hahaha.. anyhow back to my mother. My mom is so cute!! I just adore her. Over the summer, I taught my mother this new idea of making cake lollies, or as she likes to call them cake balls and ever since I left for Melbourne, I had completely forgotten about them up until I came across my mom's.... flog. hahaha

So yeah, there I was walking about in the kitchen, pondering on what I could make when I saw... the pack of lolly sticks in the inventory drawer and the mountains upon mountains of chocolate in the cupboard....

Ten minutes later, voila!

Mama's Kitchen: Triple Layer Cheesecake.

.
.I love my mommy.
.For more reasons than one. ....But she sure is one hell of a baker.

Cultural Dinner 101: Teppanyaki

Mom and I decided to organise a little dinner at home to celebrate the Gameboy's birthday, but sadly it turned out that majority of the family members were out and about. Dad was still working, attempting damage control by floods, Ms DT was out with her friends and Kim had a badminton game. We had wanted to invite my grandmother to the house for dinner but unfortunately she too couldn't make it. So yeah... it turned out to be one quiet evening. Until we decided to organise a teppanyaki dinner. oh yeah, everyone came home!

.Teppanyaki at home.

For those of you unfamiliar with teppanyaki: it's a japanese form of cooking where food of various sorts are cooked, usually self-cooked, upon a hot iron plate. The word itself is japanese, derived from two concepts: teppan (鉄板), which means iron plate, and yaki (焼き), which means fried or broiled. Teppanyaki - definition according to wikipedia.

.Before: marinating whilst cooking.

.After the lid was lifted.

Normally you'd see teppanyaki restaurants, particularly in Japan and Asian corners in some western countries. There in these restaurants, people would seat themselves along a table facing a huge flat iron surface where a chef would cook customer's dinner to order and occasionally play some fancy tricks, such as juggling their knife-like scrappers or create a fire performance.


.Preparing my dipping sauce.

.Other food awaiting to be cooked.
Unfortunately at home, we don't have that huge iron surface to play with.. Good call mom and dad, wouldn't want your kids to play with fire and sharp objects, now do we? And besides, where on earth would you place a huge iron plate in your house, right? Instead, we have a large teppanyaki plate which mom and dad had bought from Japan way back.

.Mom lifting the lid: ready to eat?.

Occasionally at home as family we organise a little teppanyaki session for dinner, usually accompanied with steamboat, however in this occasion we opted for the first. You can pretty much cook anything and almost everything in teppanyaki. In our case, we have an assortment of vegetables, meat, seafood and whatnots... complimented by an array of condiments. I usually just have a dipping sauce: a mixture of soya sauce, lemon juice and a dash of chilli sauce or nando's peri-peri. To check out what other things you can cook on with a teppanyaki grill plate, click here.

.Some of the food for teppanyaki.
I always look forward to our family steamboats and teppanyaki nights: each person gets to call dibs on their own pieces of food, and cook it themselves. And besides, it's also an opportunity for me to show my family some of my mad chopstick skills... oh yeah baby!

the BruONz 2009 Finale

Last Sunday the BruONz student committee held their last get together in celebrating their successful launch of the BruONz Gala Night. Just a little heads up as to the happenings of that night: 280 people and it was a full house with more demands for the tickets to the event. Everyone was dressed to the nineties - men in full on suit blazers and neatly pressed shirts whilst the ladies flowed about in gowns and dresses. Dashes of smiles and flashes of camera - it was a scene one could never forget.

Also not forgetting the five full-on varying cultural performances, enjoyed by all who attended. It was the talk of the town, at least in the Brunei Australia-New Zealand turf. Back to Sunday....

The nice late morning brunch took place in the Emperor's Court within Manggis Mall. A packed day, as I could tell the minute we walked in... I was a bit worried that we may not be able to get any seats... as there were 20 of us... yes 20!! But we were patient and in the end were rewarded with two huge tables by the back.

It was a casual, low key get together with rounds of dim sum were enjoyed by many. Everyone seemed to be having a good time - jokes were passed around and food was plenty. Towers and towers of bamboo steamers were stacked onto the table. Now that I think of it, we should've organised a mini game: which table has the best tall tower? Mostly for bragging rights purposes, hehe. It would've been awesome, seeing that there a LOT of the bamboo steamers...

With this gathering, we took the opportunity to officially hand over some cash donation to each society, amounting to $200.00 each, and to pass around the sponsor's certificate of appreciation. We were quite a noisy bunch, with some of us table-hopping in attempts to socialise with other friends.

Oh and not forgetting to mention, MVision Theatre voucher tickets had been given to each and everyone one of us for free (to watch any more, any time at Empire) by a gentleman from a neighbouring table, which was very kind of him. I had to make sure that I personally thanked him. Everyone was soo happy... especially Sally who got extra tickets! lol.. if you're reading this: CHEATER! lol

We ended the brunch with several group shots in and out of the restaurant. It was fun and everyone was a good sport about it. I didn't realise how big of a crew we were until I saw the group photo! Wow! So comes the end to the 2009 BruONz committee: old friendships rekindled and new ones were forged. My dear private hopes is that if more than anything, we leave this year with newer
friends and happier memories of the BruONz gatherings, despite anything and everything.

.Lights Out.

Family Dinner in the Dark

Talk about having a romantic dinner... haha... I call this the accidental family romance. We had a power outage the other night that lasted for nearly 5 hours!! Everyone in the house was going mental including the cats, which was a first!

.Playing with light before dinner.

Out came the candles, torch lights and any form of light-emitting machines for us to juggle about with throughout the house. I'm certain anyone standing outside would think of those alien scenes from the movie shows where the house is in full black out but streaks of light can be seen running back and forth inside the house. Yeah, that's what it looked like.

.Scenes from dinner.

With everyone grumpy and bugged out, mom decided to lighten up the mood by organising a steamboat dinner with candle lights despite the darkness... It was a nice dinner, i should say.

.Teasing the cat with the laser.

.The much needed update.

.Melbourne folks.
Regretfully I have been neglecting this blog for quite some time now - since the New Year's celebration to be more precise. Sadly, I haven't had much time to sit back, relax, breathe and reflect on my thoughts - something I like to do once in a while to keep a reality check on myself.

.Sydney folks.

.On the day of practice.

Well, 25 days into the new year and many things have happened. However for today's entry, I think I'm just going to focus on the successful launch of the BruONz Cultural Gala Night. For me, it proved to be a memorable night: not because I had to head the committee but more because everyone enjoyed themselves and the BruONz Committee succeeded in serving its purpose: to create a platform for Oz-Nz students and parents (past, present and future) to meet, have fun and see what we're all about.

.Shopping for prizes.

.I think the girls got carried away.

Like everyone, I initially had my doubts as to the success or even launch of the event but still I persisted myself and tried to keep good faith on everyone, even though it was very hard at times. As much as it was stressful, I knew that in the end I couldn't and SHOULDN'T vent out on anyone, even if it were their fault, because what mattered the most was that making sure we get through the event.

And guess what? We did it! Two hours into the event and we were at full capacity: all tickets have been sold out and our phones went hay-wire! - there were still people wanting to buy more tickets! Events and floor management ran smoothly. There were some mishaps here and there but in the end all the hard work paid off and I'm happy to see that everyone or at least most of those who came enjoyed themselves that night.


Looking back, the only regret I have was that I didn't have the opportunity to indulge in Primo and take any photographs of the event. This was mainly because I had to sit and accompany our guests of honour. Nevertheless it was certainly an entertaining event with each student society performing their original cultural performances. I have to say, we have quite a number of extremely talented students - much to the delight of our guests of honour!

As I stated before, I didn't have much opportunity to take photos of the actual night itself, however I will indulge you in a few photos of the Committee members during practice. Enjoy!

.For more photos, please visit: Overdue - BruONz' 09.