Mixed Feelings

In 48 hours, I had the almost all the feeling you can describe. 48 hours ago, I woke up with a terrible headache. Yep, not enough sleep. Funny huh? Being an unemployed self-employed person, how can he be possible lack of sleep. He can just sleep all he wants and never wake up I want to do that as well. I am trying to regulate my sleep pattern, so that when I really do have a job, then I will probably tune into it better. I practically had some insomnia I guess. Besides I needed to do some of my permanent residency application stuffs.

Okay, besides having headache, I was hungry. I went to gym without lunch. Very Clever! I walked out of the gym and still don't feel anything. Once I have down with my protein shakes, something kick in. The stomachache was so bad that I need to find toilet ASAP. Underground public toilet along Collins Street is a no go (no tissue paper....., but looks clean. No point, no tissue paper means no go). I walked up another bloody block in the CBD and into one of the toilet tucked away in some of the alley. Thank god there was toilet paper. If not I would have be in deep shit.

So right after the run, I feel the urge to eat. I was superbly hungry and need to find foods ASAP. It was already half past three before I have anything to eat. Now my stomach is the one facing the music. It has been pretty bad the whole day today.....

Today I decided to stay back, cause Ammie and Wei Chao decided to hibernate for the spring. So I was pretty bored the whole day. Applied for some jobs, and watch a few TV series that my sister download from Malaysia. But just when I was bored, I was reading the Microbiology Australia Magazine. It is a free magazine for members of The Australian Society for Microbiology (basically means almost every microbiologist in Australia). I happened to be one of the members and I gave a presentation in that conference (refer to the previous entry). Now my name was out in one of their segments! I was thrilled!!! Although it was only one line, saying what I presented, I felt rather honoured to have my name there!!!

Okay here are some of the rants and ramblings. You think I am going to celebrate Malaysian Independent Day? NO. This is how I celebrate independent day, by ranting and rambling.

Path to Gluttony

I don't know what had happened to me. Two entries in 1 day. Anyway what I wanna say is gone is the day where you were happily jumping on the trampoline that you felt like a feather.

After high school, most of us have grown so much. Both in mentally and waist. Some cognitions were still the same, but the waist definitely have grown to a size of 38 ( I am not talking about me). Eight out of ten of my friends were in the same boat, maybe I can be regarded as one of them. As you grow older, your height stop growing, but not your weight. It is growing like a tropical tree fighting to get space. But we have all the space we want, gaining the horizontal size is not good for anyone.

Some of my friends even lost their bird eyes view on their down under, if you know what I meant. But some of them were trying to re-encouraging themselves by saying " I don't need the bird eyes view, all I need is my girlfriend to "view" the bird". That's a very tacky yet sad quote that got me laughing till my stomach hurts.

With this new trend of men, who pays more attention on their appearances, it is not a shock to see more men are in hitting hard in the gym. "You will have to lose of some of the extras" has been hitting hard into the brain of subconscious men. Gone were the days when fat men were viewed as prosperous. Fat men might as well regarded as uncontrolled food consumption or having some sort of depression.

After coming back from Penang, I have this urge to eat good fatty foods like coconut milk related stuffs, and all those chips that I managed to break free from. I am pretty disappointed with myself for letting those sinful foods into my stomach and into my spare compartment, but it is once awhile, so I guess I shouldn't complain so much. Now I should stop walking on the path to gluttony and into a healthier choice. Wish me luck!

Tao - A Japanese Feast

Like I said, I will post about the restaurant that I went with my family during my Penang trip. I think I should call that a Penang trip cause I was in Penang 90% of the time. I missed Penang foods a lot you know.....

Anyway the restaurants I went were all very classy this time around. No longer squatting at the road side while eating a bowl of wan tan mee. I never do that anyway. But Penang has developed so much that I was ooh-aah-ing for the first few days, and my friend got annoyed by that.
The restaurant Tao is located in E-Gate, don't really know how to describe it cause I was there only a few times.

It is a Japanese buffet and the best thing is they serve you per order, and drinks are included! These means they only cook the foods per order and drinks are mostly juices and japanese tea! I think you'll have to look on your own and compare it to the rest of the fishes in the sea. The front banner.
I think this running water have something to do with fengshui..... But it does looks like the person from the other side of the wall was peeing over the wall into the vase?
Very zen style. All the wall was decorated with bamboo.
Scallops! Yummy, but not as fresh and big as those from Aus
Sashimi!!!! My fav!!!! They are very good actually. Ordered heaps of them
Can't remember what is that. Could be Salmon Teriyaki
Prawn Tempura
Grilled Eel. The waiter was very friendly and help us heaps. We were suppose to finish the rice, but being a clever and calculative Chinese, we don't want to eat the rice and reduce the stomach space for other good foods. Although they weren't allow to take the dishes if we havent finish ALL the foods, one of them just quietly sneak that away!
Some tofu dishes, can't remember what it is called, something start with "A"
Tempura prawn sushi!
Something pipi. Can't remember, it has been awhile and my memory is as bad as the next goldfish
Some fried udon. I don't really like them cause I was bloated by then.
Deep fried mantis prawn. Likie!
Lamb Chop. That's very yummy. Only my dad and I ate them, cause others don't like the taste. And how my dad and I enjoyed that!

I think we ordered almost all the dishes that they can offer from Tao. Okay, except all the sushi. We are not suppose to eat rice in these restaurants. You might wonder how much this restaurant costed?

RM49 per person. How cheap!!!!!! I gained 1 extra kg after that night...... But I would love to go back to this restaurant next time when I am in Penang. Maybe this time I will go to the one in mainland Penang cause they said the mainland branch have better foods and decoration. I am not sure.

Whales in Paradise

I am pretty tired now, so I am going to put up the magnificent whales that I watched from Surfer Paradise last month! It was taken with my mobile, pretty good for a mobile! Check them out!!!!

I am trying to go on diet, cause I had been eating too much back in Malaysia. Time to get some fat out of my tummy and it is about time now. What have I been doing? Exercise, and eating less at night. That's my diet plan. I know I can't go with those diets like Atkin and others, so I will just less fat induced foods and more veggie and fruits! Besides I am just looking to reduce a few kg, not until 10kg.

Wish me luck!

Taste of Belachan

Just a short entry to tell you my whereabouts. It has been awhile since I bloggged. I was pretty buggered from my trip back to Aus and I was busy with getting all the documents together for my permanent residency application.

I actually travelled for 24 hours from Malaysia to Melbourne. That's crazy hour of travelling, it sounded like I am staying in UK, where travelling for such amount of time is considered to be normal. How can I go from 8 hours of flight to 24 hours? Okay, let make them into a list!

2.00 pm (Malaysian time) - Reach Penang Airport
3.00 pm - Flight took off from Penang
4.00 pm - Reach LCCT Airport in KL
10.00 pm - Fly back to Aus (after 6 hours of transit)
5.00 am - Reached Gold Coast (7 am Aussie time)
1.00 pm - Fly back to Melb (after 6 hours of transit)
3.00 pm - Reach Melbourne (pretty buggered, and doped)

There you go, 24 hours. When I touch down Melbourne, it was pretty dark already. Thank god my uncle came and fetch me. I actually slept in Coolangatta Airport, on the benches and hugging all my luggages. I might be sleeping with a big mouth opened, and if there were flies, I could have shallowed heaps of them!

Now I am working my ass of to get all the documents ready. Body check, academic transcript, completion letter, etc etc. Thank to my cousin who fixed the internet connection, so now I can use the internet from my computer!

I guess I should stop ranting about what happened. Now that I am back in Melbourne, with coldness surrounding me, I should be please and be grateful.

When I was in Penang, I also had a lot of belachan foods!!!! Belachan Water Spinach, Belachan Chicken and Belachan Mantis Prawn!!!! So below is the picture of Belachan Chicken. The picture did not do its justice, of course the taste and smell are way better than what its appearance over here. I took it from my home, after my dad brought them back from the hawker stall. Oh btw, I will be writing about another good restaurant that I had back in Penang. It is called Tao, at somewhere I can't remember. It is a Japanese restaurant, although it has a so called Chinese name. I will talk about it soon!
Till then!

-lex-

Seafoods at Teluk Kumbar

I probably should say that I could not live up to my promise... I did say that I will not over-indulge when I am back in Penang. But I did. Now I am an all-rounded person, with a big round tummy, all thanks to the foods in Penang and a hyper persuasive mother.

Once they heard of what I wanted to eat, there we go, our next destination. I have been eating all those good foods and I should say I am indulging every single bit of it! Oh well, since I will only be in Penang for 3 months, and next Monday I will be flying back to Melbourne. So it is understandable that people will try to shove as much foods as possible into a tiny opening at the front of my face called mouth.

I did not go anywhere other than mainland Penang. I don't need to, cause this trip is suppose to be my Makan Trip, and my Home Trip. Most of the day it was so hot, I was scared of going out during day time! So I normally go out for dinner, and sometime being cheated to attend a Drink-All-You-Want feast with my friends....

Anyway, talking about the seafoods restaurant, it is a beach front restaurant. Once I said beach front restaurant, you might think it will be very classy and all those expensive stuffs. As a matter of fact, it is not classy and not at all expensive. I think for 5 persons, it only costed us about RM50. Which is about rm10 per person, with the seafoods, it is Al-CHEAPO!

Normally we get to sit on the beach and eat our seafoods, but since that day it was a raining day, all of us have to squat below a shelter. I did check whether the shop is still open, thinking it might be washed away by tsunami in 2004. After making sure the shop is still there, we hopped onto my brother in law's car and off we went!

The restaurant was behind an abandoned building, and it is very easy to miss that place. We missed that before and had to make a U-ie and drive superbly slow, making a row of cars driving slowly behind us, just to get into the driveway into the restaurant.

This is the front of the restaurant, it is a very small house aka restaurant with tables and chair all around the beach. The blue boxes are where they keep the seafoods, not in a very classy aquarium for the fishes. Remember, this is not a classy restaurant, but their foods are way better than those that charged us through our nose.

This is Sambal Kangkung aka Water spinach with sambal belacan sauce. My favorite!!!! Yummy.

Deep fried sotong, or squid!

This is Salad He-Koh, or Mantis Prawn Salad. Although it is very yummy, other people were saying it was a bit small.

Some kind of cockles. Can't remember the name of the cockles, but the sauce was very very good!

This is the last dishes, the CRAB!!!!!

Oh wait, I've forgotten to take the Satay's picture. That satay is very different from other satay, cause the satay was grilled with the spicy sauce! So yummy I could not remember to take it's picture.