aaaaand we're off on the great camping adventure v.2!

aaaaand it's raining.

aaaaand will continue to do so over new years.

happy bivouac!

we are going camping again! apparently this trip will have the perfect balance of outdoorsy ruggedness and luxury. the mister is in charge of the camping equipment, and yours truly is in charge of meals.

during my search for summer-appropriate camping food i've discovered that according to the american internet, american campers have a predilection for hobo food. more creativity required please! us jolly swagmen-and-girls would really rather not have images of meals-cooked-over-oil drums-filled-with-burning-tyres while we're eating.

there will also be fishing involved, although "it would be quite amazing if we actually caught any fish". as an act of faith though, i'm bringing sambal and limes.

one is never too old to be a ninja

t minus 10 to dumpling city!

when i get my laptop back there will be a post on our excursion to singapore's last kampong.

flollop!

was, we thought:
the onomatopoeia for a guy taking his swimmers off.

but is actually:
"A method of locomotion used by seals and similar mammals on land whereby they propel themselves by bouncing along on their bellies."

after waking up at 4 to get to the airport by 5 to fly off at 7, we're in vietnam!




highlight of the trip so far has been eating durian at the market. mmmm ...

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

o perth, you are exactly as i remember you to be.

things are well hectic ..

but only one more day before it's all over !!

..... for this year. /bowbow... come back once more next semester/

quite a bit has happened but it's not really flowing from mind to print. if i see you round i'll tell you all about it! i have my new spectacle frames off ebay and they are spectacular. they look just like my current ones, only they're made of wood. that's right, timber-framing. so architectural.

the big puunkroc wedding is literally days away. 75% family reunion! dramz! champagne! pretty dresses! and i'll get to crack out the hot shoes that k-dawg got me for the HIA awards ^___^

and speaking of k-dawg, here's a couple of pictures he drew a few sundays ago on his phone's sketchbook.

this one is called sunday art:

abstract

and this is a "portrait" he drew of me:

isn't that sweet? apparently it's a perfect likeness. it's my train face. reserved just for you if you are being a goat, or wearing leggings as trousers. or worse, leggings that look like jeans (which i read are called 'jeggings'). here's a tip: do some squats, burn your sham trousers, then take this $30 and get yourself a pair of real denim jeans from anywhere.

like a naf jeanery perhaps?

urgh. jeggings.

+ 1

+

can somehow has a really strange effect on your mood

dear mental block,

please go away.

L

i don't know where raleigh finds these random things, but i thought i'd share. and you have to watch these videos.

and just in case your mind is completely boggled, wikipedia is here to illuminate.

the original blue hearts version is better, but this girlie cover version is fun too =) and it reminds me of the mini-loos:

here's a song i haven't heard in awhile that just popped up on my playlist:

GUTS DAZE!!

buuuuuuuuuh?

things i/we set out to achieve this holiday, an update:

1. go hiking and camping
2. organize/streamline/re-arrange my room
3. get k's fishtankaquascape set up
4. catch up with people i haven't seen in ages
5. catch up on uni work .. in progress

i don't really know whether this counts as flogging a dead horse, but i don't think i'm ready to let this blog go yet for some reason. so anyhoo, in some attempt to keep it afloat i'm going to blog about my mid-semester break.

things i/we set out to achieve:

1. go hiking and camping
2. organize/streamline/re-arrange my room
3. get k's fishtankaquascape set up
4. catch up with people i haven't seen in ages
5. catch up on uni work

so obviously only one of those targets has been achieved. no. 2 is in progress, no. 3 will happen tomorrow hopefully (i just want to name the fish), 4. has been postponed to next week and 5. will happen .. eventually.

and oh by the way the trip to melbourne was fucken A thanks for asking (^____^)

i think we probably managed to squeeze in a week's worth of activities into 4 days. a car was rented, there was a dali exhibition, much eating, some shopping, caught up with stoo, caught up with mun, caught up with clinton and hannah (k's friends), had a stickybeak at a five-axis router workshop (romantic!), and went hiking/camping at wilsons promontory.

the weather was shit, and wilsons prom was bitterly cold, thus i was way too lazy about taking my hands out of my pockets to take photos. k however, took some extremely pretty photos and i was given the go-ahead to put them on my flickr page.

this camping trip brought to you by audi

some of the others can be viewed in his stalkbook album.

things we learned from this trip:

1. no more flights that leave before 9am
2. never keep snacks in your tent when there are wombats about (hah to you people in the neighbouring campsite)
3. wombats like sakata crackers
4. order your wet-weather gear at least 2 weeks before you leave for your trip
5. mini-hotpot is a great idea
6. watch for low-lying branches
7. always add 2 hours on top of your time estimates for any plan you make
8. most continental cars don't have fuel-cap release buttons anymore

cycling while tired is dangerous too

ever since ju left, we haven't really been taking care of the plants at home. at least e and i haven't. i think y waters the succulents once a week, but that's about it. the agave on the balcony however, has proved to be extremely hardly! and so in a fit of procrastination, i decided to save him. dead leaves were pulled off, he had a drink and was then duly christened jonas*. i thought it was quite appropriate.

also i thought i'd try out the different settings on my new-ish camera, so there are a couple more hastily-taken photos i took just before i felt guilty about skiving off the masterplanning obligations.

*in case you didn't get the reference. ahh the 90s.

plans for the september holidays have been decided!! we are going to wilsons promontory.

i saw mun's pics on stalkbook and got totally envious, so instead of going to the blue mountains i put forward a motion that we head over there instead, and since all parties involved had never been there before, it was accepted.

so far the proposal is to fly over to melbourne for a day, hire a car and drive down to the national park, do a 2-day hike/camp, drive back to melbourne, then fly back to sydney.

and now i can't wait for the holidays o(^___^)o

see you in september, raleigh !!

zoot has left the castle

buuuuuuh =_____________________=

once again miss singapore world is the pride of the nation. according to dee she speaks "authentic singaporean", which is a lawyer-to-be way of saying her english is a flipping nightmare. what a surprise.

watch her interview! it is funny/painful*:

my favourite bit is "if i'm feeling norrty then i'll wear someting RETT! and LOUTT!"

dee likes how she says "a piss of bee-gee-nee".

sheep just says "alamak, honestly ah .. i don't know what the fuck she was talking about"

/insert evil sheepman cackle/ we all so beetchee.

* i couldn't actually sit through the whole thing, so you'll have to tell me how the rest of it went.

1 . 2 . 3 . ngawwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww.....

obviously i'm procrastinating because i have a ton of stuff due tomorrow, but if you read this blog then you know this is how it works.

in reverse chronological order:

1. week 2 of studio612 design lab's save-eric's-house-extension-project has come and gone, and we've put up all the beams! everything is going well, and he is still paying us in food.

2. while we're on the topic of food, we had a massive barbecue last week to celebrate the end of winter and the coming of spring - before the actual end of winter and coming of spring - just because the weather was good. o spring, you could not get here sooner. i'm getting tired of layering up.

WHUT?!

so my end of year plans are sorted! after christmas, we are going to nepal. and by we, i mean me and whoever else wants to come along. it will be fun ^__^

today i agreed to help eric of studio612 fame do some renovation work on his new house. the previous owners had built a really shonky extension to the original house and eric wanted to convert this hovel into his studio space. the ultimate goal is to insulate the place, drop the ceiling, add some windows and lighting, build a sideboard and overhaul the bathroom.

this is exciting because despite being at archi-school for years, i've never built anything this big in my life!

today was a half-day (my bad) but we did succeed in sorting out what to do with the really oddly-designed bathroom, as well as putting up the first primary beam and the associated secondary beams. this is more work than it sounds like.

be sure to check back here for progress! all one of my remaining readers ^__^

never put it past singapore to come up with the some of the scariest things in the world. ever.

for the assemblage component of this art elective, we were divided into groups of 3 - 4 and told to use our $90 budgets to procure as much as we could of one or two types of clothing. then, we had to turn said clothing into some kind of work of art.

one group chose men's shirts and bras, another chose jeans, and yet another chose coat hangers. we chose shoes.

after much opshopping and garage-raiding, we managed to collect at least 25 pairs of shoes and not a clue what to do with them. initial ideas involved making dinosaur suits and giant shoes out of de-constructed individual shoes, but those ideas were nixed in favour of a more dynamic shoe sculpture.

so, after a whole day of drilling and chopping shoes up then lashing them together again, we decided that the result was pretty shit, and so we started again. the good thing is that the final final result is thoroughly satisfactory. as we were assembling our installation, this group of older ladies wandering through the tin sheds gallery came and spoke to us about how our shoes were so evocative of foot-binding. personally, i think the result is more like kinbaku than anything else.

the down side is that working with old shoes seems to have provoked an extremely unsavoury physical reaction in the form of the most toxic cough this side of the southern hemisphere. said illness has been dubbed "shoe flu" by the chickensoupdeliveryman.

process, mucking around and resolution can be viewed here! let the post-rationalisation begin.

update: it seems that someone on flickr is really interested in checking out my teammates, and less interested in looking at the artwork. the work is engaging too! seriously !!

as you may or may not have known, 3/5 of the loos came to visit and we went to the blue mountains. also, i hadn't noticed that i set the date on the camera incorrectly so these photos that were purportedly taken in the future were really taken last week.

and also, school has started! photos of intensive art elective will follow shortly.

team loo has arrived! it feels quite comforting to have them over =)

thank you penelope!

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courtesy r:

lasagne+mousse.lasagnemousse.moosemoose.

其疾如風

其徐如林

秦掠如火

不動如山

動如雷震

"swift as the wind | gentle as a forest | fierce as fire | solid as a mountain | strike as lightning"

- the art of war

zoot "ol' gal" p. and i had our first slumber party since moving out of cafe anthrax last night. and it was great! we will be doing this every week 'til she moves back to singapore.

also it seems that in her dreams i speak spanish with a mainland chinese accent. this is not true, as i do not speak spanish at all.

after my 2nd class in grade 2, i think i can safely say i'm in love all over again. \(￣▽￣)/

now onward to better things !!!

the initial solitude was nice. now kraft@karillon feels too empty. hurry back guys !! i miss you =(

the taste of tea (茶の味　cha no aji) is a surprisingly enjoyable movie.

山は生きている | the mountains are alive

it's been almost a week since studio612 broke for the holidays. somehow i miss it. i'll post up our proper design here in a bit.

i'm finally finally finally going for my kung fu grading tomorrow. oh gosh guys, i'm nervous. ganbatte lynnie loo!!

studio612 quotes

"kim jong il is a lovely dude"
"when i was in high school, i couldn't tell the difference between concubine and cucumber .. hahahaha i'm so stupid"

so ends day one of studio612's intensive 4-day plan to win the incheon urban design competition. follow our progress in photograph form here! off to bed. tomorrow's going to be another long day.

semester 1 is OVER !!!!!!!!!!!!!!! and stuie arrives in half an hour or so. woot !! ^___^ bring on the winter holidays and temporarily forget that we have a submission for our incheon project in 4 days

it is difficult to concentrate on studying for technologies when your friends constantly mime an old man biting tenderly (cf: the previous post) while you're in the library.

it also doesn't help that many old asian men look the same.

so the whole cramschool@carillon didn't exactly work out too well today. ratio of study to chatting/coffee/facebook breaks was probably about 70:30. yikes.

tomorrow we're going to the state library where hopefully the quiet atmosphere will force us to concentrate more. but somehow i think it's going to be more like:

罰ゲーム !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

bashoo-爺さん has a blog! i did not know. but now i do, and he is linked.

who's who?

like i said in my previous post, design submission for this semester is over! our projects were on exhibition for a week and yesterday we met up as a group to take it down. i think we had the best ever design group this semester and it's a little sad that we won't be working together anymore.

alia has all the pictures of the exhibition, you can check it out on her facebook page if you have facebook (haha who doens't have facebook? >__<) it's in an album called "the wait". or you can have a look at some of them on N's blog although they're mostly of his own project.

you can check out my final presentation booklet on flickr:

after damien's debrief/feedback session, ali, alia, nicky and i took some photos of our models. it only took a million years and a lot of sun-chasing but we finally managed it. i'm sure they'll be posting up pics of their own projects on their respective blogs.

here are the photos of my treehouse going for a walk!

final design submission was last thursday and normal life can resume once again! more or less. more updates on the band page -- o(^____^)o hurray! and i started revision for grading in wing chun -- O(^____^)V! double hurray!

let's just conveniently ignore the fact that i have something due next wednesday and also an exam on friday.

looky woo!

alia posted this on her fb but i thought i'd share with all you archinerds that may or may not read my blog:

f.l.w. lego! waaaaah! i'm not f.l.w. fan but i'm guessing this is part of their architecture range. as if i needed more things in this world to help me spend the $$ i'm not earning (yet).

is it mandatory for all kung fu practitioners to have a nerdy sidekick?

to laugh or cry? you decide: 

LOL @ 1:10 though. "it is just so creadive! brudders an sistez do you wanna hear summore from dem!"

another reason to miss home

(as related to me by babyloo)

dad holds out his hand to babyloo so she holds it, and he says "ugh. so clammy."

so he holds lyndiiloo's hand instead and says "oh so nice and dry ... but that means you are devoid of emotion."

the truth about architecture #35

you get proficient at nurbs and v-ray renders but simple things like formatting in ms word or excel baffle you. 

mayday was soooooooooo good! ^__^

i swear 阿信 and i had a moment. doodoodoodoooooooo

dear j,

the house feels so empty without you around! see you at the end of the year.

j is packing to go back to singapore for good and it's kind of bringing the mood of the house down. and by "the house" i really mean me and eunice. he seems so excited to be going back home! not even a hint of being sad or sentimental. i totally can't believe it. e thinks it's because boys are not sentimental but i'm not so sure about that. 

anyway, we are a little sad. bye bye j, we'll miss you. 

it's like phua chu kang's house times ten. and somehow it makes me feel uncomfortable.

is this for real?

gobo?

TAMAGO?!

i wonder if the new spate of "how well do you know me" quizzes on facebook actually turns friends against friends. especially if you're meant to be "bff" and you score anything less than 100%. facebook can be so silly.

i think studio 612 seriously needs to learn to focus. we were supposed to have a quick dinner, and start the meeting at 7.30pm, then get as much done as we could. how could such a simple plan go awry? when we decide to have hotpot for dinner before the meeting. but hotpot in a restaurant's so expensive and besides we want it to be a fairly quick dinner, so why not make it ourselves and save time by cooking at uni? 

being asian and severely underestimating the time required to cook hotpot, the timetable changes slightly.

6.00pm :: get picked up to go grocery shopping

6.45pm :: reach uni and start setting up. 

7.00pm :: realize there's not enough food because of unexpected people turning up and wanting food. unable to say no, 2 people head off to get more food. one group member decides to start printing stuff out but encounters computer network problems. spends ages trying to get around it.

8.00pm :: finally start cooking

8.05pm :: wonder why the soup's not boiling. oh we need more gas.

8.06pm :: new gas canister inserted, soup starts boiling.

8.15pm :: finally start eating. 

and eating

and eating

and eating

10.00pm :: start cleaning up. 

10.20pm :: sit down to start the meeting. some attempts are made to sketch on our immense site.

10.21pm :: group splits up to keep on printing as before. the printer problems continue.

11.00pm :: group finally all sit down together. we're finally getting work done! oh wait what's that? you want to take pictures for the cockamamie fanclub page? great!

2.00am :: we need to call it a day because of 11am class the next day.

even if the other sydney uni team has dropped out and the unsw teams are to architecture what the wacky races are to f1 racing, that's still another 992 teams from another 39 countries we're up against. 

i think a lifting of game is required. maybe next week?

studio +612: boldly wasting time* like no group has ever done before.

*but also having way more fun than we should be having with 2 weeks to final submission ^___^

our band blog is up but not really running. watching it blossom will be like watching a child grow. you know you want to be a part of this. 

i sparred for the first time today and it was exciting! of course my 师兄 went totally easy on me to begin with. but he didn't take long to speed up and hit harder and i managed to keep more or less on par! o(^______^)o

i've been wondering for awhile whether i'd actually be able to hold my own in a fight with random punches coming my way and while sparring still involves pulling our punches a bit (without safety gear on), nobody really holds back in terms of speed or sneakiness so it was good. 

totally can't wait for my grading. then i can play with the big kids!

update: i guess this makes me totally not a samuraibunny anymore but that's okay. i'll just retain the name for convenience.

it's a primary school insult, to call someone daggy. winky babu didn't know what it meant so i urbandictionary-ed it for him. and here's something i did not know. 

"additional to the previous definitions: australia (and new zealand) are sheep-farming countries and our populations are familiar with many of the aspects of farming livestock. a "dag" or "dags" is the colloquial term for the dung which collects and mats into the fleece immediately surrounding a sheep's anus; it hangs in dried-out dangling clumps which make a sound when the sheep runs, hence the phrase "rattle your dags". a sheep should be "ring crutched" to avoid or relieve this condition: crutching is the removal by shearing of all fleece surrounding the genitals usually in a circular shape or ring. a sheep not cared for properly in this way will otherwise collect dags - hence the possible connection to insults concerning fashion and appearance. the sight of a daggy sheep is unattractive and comical, although the mats of contaminated fleece may be painful and usually attract blowflies and other pests; and therefore to call someone "daggy" is to liken them directly to a neglected sheep's anal region suffering from this condition." - urban dictionary.com

har!

finally cobbled together a new banner. i think it suits this new look quite well ^^

ok rhino time. brr.

today's jam went swimmingly! i think we'll get cool duet band out of this: nicky + lynette on the roooooooad. 

actually we've already planned the look of our first single, and also our merchandise. hoohoohoo!

last thursday i agreed to go jamming with a friend. i haven't touched a drumkit in years! uh oh. we'll see how it goes.

who'da thunk architecture magazines could be fun too? mad magazine eat yer heart out.

today is sheepman's birthday! happy birthday sheepman! baabaabaa. for your birthday i shall give you the gift of laughter. 

behold:

this week's auntie pratma-ism:

people said that pigs would fly if america voted in a black president. 100 days after obama became president, pigs flu(ew).

/dies

dear the people who were hitting walls with hammers this morning at 8.00am,

wherefore do you start hammering at 8 and stop at noon?! ON A MONDAY ?!?!?!

granted not everyone has 11.00am starts on a monday. all the same, to wake someone up half an hour before their alarm rings is just mean. 

if i see you i will ... glare at you. then you'll be sorry.

roar

l

saturday saw craig's 30th birthday party come and go with shenanigans that younger folk only dream about. 

as his birthday, 3 may 1979 was the day maggie thatcher came into office, it was obvious that the theme for the party was villains. most people stepped up to the theme and a wicked time was had by all. 

amongst those in attendance were several bikies, a couple of pirates, 2 jokers, a harlequin, alex (was he really a villain or was he just misunderstood?), keyser soze, dick dastardly, the evil queen from snow white, the wicked witch of the west, corporate america, nicotine, skeletor (in disguise), a priest, a yaoi manga and of course, moooojo jojo! 

happy birthday craig "gallian magdallian" brown!

most of the photos were taken off zoot's camera, but humble dingo was the photographer for the evening. except when she was in a photo. out-of-focus ones not taken by me. 

nicked this off a friend:

a guy from my studio group posted this up on our wall, "just for me". i don't know if i should be insulted. i think maybe a little? 

still, it's a pretty funny website. i hope those shades are a joke, but i don't think they are.  

p.s. i hope my picture never winds up on this site

some highlights from da's trip to sydney up on flickr. the rest are on her facebook. maybe if you are nice and friendly to her you'll get to see the rest of it!

also the photos are all out of order thanks to flickr uploadr. 

the baby of our family has turned 17! 

(^  3^)/ ~~~  happy birthday young slurm we all love you very much

australian "news" has finally caught up with twitter! like omg guys you are so two years ago. or whatever. and suddenly, 

also, after months of trying to figure out how to add a twitter badge to my blog, i realize i am not technologically savvy enough to do so without succumbing to blogger's strange requirement that only helps you out with twittering if you use one of their standard templates. hence, this new layout. actually, i'm kind of liking it! plus having a tweet might actually resuscitate this floundering blog.

anyhoo da's coming to visit, i've got two deadlines due next week, and i've got to sort out a mojo jojo costume for gallian magdallian's villains party. mojo jojo! that is who i am. and the villain i shall be is moooojo jojo! so, for the time being there will be no fancy pants header graphic or anything to distract you from the woeful lack of substance and you'll just have to content* yourself with the quality um ... content* of this blog.

now i must go pretend to do some work. 

* homigosh y'all, see what i did there? homonym alert!

or maybe "underhaul" is a better word to use. 

visual overhaul in progress. please stay tuned.

courtesy of winky babu, my premium friend:

holiday in melbourne is over! no pictures yet because i have to get them developed off my new holga ^___^ hopefully they turn out okay. 

also, lent is over so i can officially swear again. thank goodness. that swear jar was really full. 

lots of people say that digital architecture is rubbish; that it's all about form and that at master's level we shouldn't be doing such a tiny project. it's really way too much trouble to argue with them, because the debate would rage 'til the cows came home. and then went out again.

for the record though, i would like to state that i'm greatly enjoying digital design this semester. yes my project is tiny, and yes it's not terribly complicated. but not having to worry about a master plan or sustainable strategies is giving me the chance to muck around with little models and devote time to materials research, and bar this litle bit of blogging procrastination, i'm finding for the first time in ages that i'm actually looking forward to doing work for design. 

recently, sydney's airport had the dubious honour of being rated the worst in australia, and i'm kind of not surprised. i've only been to the international airport once but amongst the features was a really disorganized security process, exposed ducting and zero way-finding landmarks. 

the domestic airport is really not bad at all, but the way there is pretty shameful. check it out! this was the train on the way to the airport. do you really want tourists seeing this ?! icky plop =(

the welsh have waaaay too much time on their hands:

so i had my first wing chun class yesterday, and it was. so. fun !! i love it. can't wait to go back tomorrow and learn more!   ☆･*:.｡.(●≧▽≦)^☆ 

things i learned yesterday: 小念頭 (siu lim tao), centreline punch, side parry 'n punch, low heel kick, stamp kick and snap kick. 

check out yip man's version of  小念頭:

especially for zoot:

after many moons of talking about it, i've finally signed up for wing chun lessons. aw yeah! maybe now i will have to change my domain from samuraibunny to kungfu bunny. we'll see. 

some handmade goodness from craft @ carillon; 

shirts for zoot and gallian, and curtains for my room!

brand new this weekend:

an enormous zit on my forehead. hurray.

i've been watching this anime series called natsume yuujinchou and one of the characters is this cat called madara who loves eating manju. so anyway, he guzzles manju like naruto slurps ramen and it always makes me want to eat some! the only thing is i have no idea where to get manju, or what it actually is. it just looks delicious in cartoon form. so, i googled for manju recipes and lo and behold, what it really is, is a japanese tau sar pau (-___-|||).

anyway, to distinguish these from an ordinary tau sar pau i decided to tweak the recipe slightly and add green tea powder to the dough mixture since green tea and azuki beans complement each other nicely. and at first it didn't look green enough, so i added more powder and then it was way too green. now, instead of a delicate-looking culinary delights, i now have these camo-coloured buns that look ready to wage guerilla warfare. 

e was very nice and supportive and said they tasted pretty all right and it was just the colour that looked kind of unappetizing. in any case, i present you with:

auntie dingo's camouflage pau!

new everything

new dwelling :: everything in the new place is more or less settled. you can tell, because my room is already so messy lived-in that even i feel a little ashamed to post them on my blog. the room is really huge! which means more space for all my stuff to spread out in .. this has already broken my resolution to be a neater and more organized person.

new semester :: school starts again tomorrow, with a lovely day of advanced technologies 2. hopefully E and i and being flatmates means that we will help to motivate each other (harharhar) - having mondays that start at 11 should help too! and so far it seems fun, we've got matching timetables and matching lunches (a tuna sandwich with bruschetta mix). 

new membership :: at the uni sport and aquatic centre. twice-weekly swims, here i (hopefully) come!!

anyway, apparently the first step toward bringing positive attitudes to a day of horrendously dry lectures is an early night and a nice long sleep.

see you all tomorrow!!

this year for lent (as with every year) i'm going to give up using the lord's name in vain. please don't laugh, it's true! i will. and i'll have a swear jar. 20 cents for each bad word, double that if a deity is involved. 

also, melbourne is where the rockparties are gonna be at over easter break. aw yeah!

so i'm doing this intensive screenprinting unit and what fun it's turned out to be! here is the collage of my final project that i'm going to print tomorrow.

more pictures of earlier exercises to come when i bring my portfolio home.

sometimes watching bones while eating dinner is not such a good idea. 

some people have way too much time on their hands !!

roast-a-que [rōst-a-kyōō]

-noun

portmanteau for a sunday roast that really has nothing to do with a barbeque except that the meal is consumed outdoors, approximately 2 metres away from a barbeque pit. thank you craig!

also in this picture, mash by zoot and salad by dingo.

today was cafe anthrax's official disbandment, and of course auntie zoot and auntie dingo had to pick the hottest weekend in the millennium (no exaggeration) to move. and what amazing movers we are !! thanks a lot to gallian and tony for their help ^__^ 

oh and also, i got to drive a toyota hilux. FUN!!

i think if i see the phrase "happy 牛(niu) year" once more i'll go mental! 

it was mildly amusing when i saw it the first time. less so the second time. and now it's just lame. 

chinese new year in perth is never as hectic as chinese new year in singapore. we don't have a bazillion relatives to visit nor is the haul ever as big as it is in the motherland, but then we've always been good at summarising. 

last night we went to the hula bula bar for some fun cocktails and despite being dropped a few times, instax mini is still taking fun photos! 

also, went to the court for the first time ever and had a lot of fun watching the GL(noBT) crowd shake it like there's no tomorrow. 

and tonight, reunion dinner! get your stretchy pants on, folks and 恭喜發財萬事如意年年有餘身體健康 etcetc to one and all.

ho my goodness, best purchase EVER!!

many thankses to derel, without whom the purchase of this totallyfrickin'awesome camera would not have been possible.

squeeeeeeeeeeeeeeal!!!

so i was in singapore for a bit, and as usual i'm amazed at how much it changes from year to year. i didn't take that many photos, but here are some mildly amusing signs i came across.

yes, i'm juvenile etcetc but c'mon! they're funneh!!!

also, new years resolutions are:

1. shop less

2. save more 

southbound was the best ever! the hives were great and franz ferdinand was too. my only regret is that the moshpit was so treacherous that chris dangerous didn't see my t-shirt and therefore does not know that i exist let alone [heart] him. 

pictures are with milly, and i will get them off her soon.

so folks, it's the first post of 2009. and what a massive post it will be!! i will try to keep things succint because i haven't blogged since 18 dec 2008 and lots has happened lately!

first of all, congratulations are in order for daryl elizabeth kitty, elder brother of raleigh rockparty. come november next year, he shall be the first cousin on mum's side of the family (that we care about) to get married! 

now to explain my absence since the last time i updated here.

on the 20th we set off on our annual loo hq roadtrip, minus baby loo this time because she's away in france. this year we went to pemberton, which is about a 4-hour drive south-west of where we live. on day 1 we were quite adventurous, going walking on a bush-trail, completely undeterred by the misfortune that befell us the last time we tried bush-walking. this time, the signage was much better so there was none of that wandering-around-aimlessly-for-8-hour guff. 

on day 2 however, we were hit by really bad weather which we later found out was a downgraded cyclone. not only was it raining like a m*th*f*ck*, the power was out most of the time so we spent most of our time indoors reading. then the rain seemed to have eased up so we thought we could head out someplace for lunch. only to find when we reached the town centre that everything was shut due to power failures. thus, we dined on a gourmet luncheon of BP sandwiches and rolls while watching episodes of 'allo 'allo. 

day 3 was a bit better. most places had their power back, and even though it was still raining, there was enough sunshine for us to head out.  so, having all that excess energy from being cooped up the day before, we decided to climb the gloucester tree! about halfway up the 61m tree i realised that i was scared of heights, but dad said that if you climbed all the way to the top, you'd get a certificate after. so i kept going, but when we got down dad said "i'm not sure about this cert thing. anyway we've gone past the entrance already". so then, no certificate. however, there is photographic evidence that we did make it all the way to the top, so i suppose that's okay.

and then on day 4 we went home.

and then christmas came along where there was much feasting.

and then new years' came along where there was much feasting. 

and tomorrow, teenage rockparty is heading to SOUTHBOUND !!!!!!!!!!! 

many a-preparation has been made for southbound; food has been purchased (salsa, dip, 3 types of cracker not including matt), prepared (stay tuned for the tale of the smuggle bread!), and packed. we leave for busselton around 10.30am tomorrow. can anybody say the hives? THE HIVES?!?! T.H.E H.I.V.E.S !!!!!!!! excitement to the max with bells on!!

head over to flickr for photos and more in-depth commentary if you're interested, and see you in 3 days!!