All things christmas

This year it looks like I wont be worrying too much about my christmas shopping. I have been doing what I love most during my lunch hour, wandering into streets and shops in the city looking for that special gift for my special family.
Luckily I have only a small family to shop for. I am proud to say I have got the gifts in the beginning of Dec.

Here are the gifts I have bought for little family:
Keane - my 2 year old nephew, sweetest boy in the world, full of smiles/kisses/hugs for everyone. I bought a Playskool Glide 2 Ride Bike. It is supposed to be a better way of learning how to balance on a bike as opposed to training wheels. The pedals are removed at the beginning of their training. The kid learns how to push and glide the bike along using their feet until they are comfortable balancing on the bike.

Kayla - my god daughter also my 1 year old niece, cheekiest little girl, feisty and naughty. Ok, every girl loves a set of pots and pans, cups and saucers to invite friends and pets for tea. Wouldnt it be great if they have their own kitchen instead?

Obet - my brother in law, a bit intellectual, only economist in the family. Love all things old like history and biographies.

Angela - my sister, this is the hard one to shop for. Just like my mom, she isnt
into clothing, accessories, shoes. She's constantly rushing for work, at work, to pick up her children, to cook. She needs pampering. I bought her a clutch cum handbag, patent black with gold zips very classy. What I really want to get her is a ticket to watch Eliott the musical with me. But that's in March 09.

Alex - the love of my life, my husband who happens to have his birthday on the 19 Dec. I wanted to surprise him with a PS3 or Xbox but I gave up trying to find out which one is better. So I asked him and we got the PS3 together. But I am also getting him a surprise gift. Everytime he goes on a bike ride, he doesnt recover from muscle aches and lethargy for a long time so a compression pants might help.

Hmmm, I wonder what they are getting me??

Best of the Best 2008

As most normal traditions, December is the month we slow down our normal life to catch up on perhaps what we had been neglecting - our family, friends, hobbies, cleaning up, organizing, caring for the less fortunate, perhaps even our faith. And it is also a time to remember and reminisce what 2008 had been like.

So I thought it might be worthwhile to nominate the Best of the Best 2008.

Best of the Best for Coolest Place visited this year:
Gold Winner - Warburton, VIC with its hills, charming forest, romantic river walks, interesting shopping and people & delicious food.
Finalists - Warrnambool, Bright

Best of the Best for Most yummy restaurant:
Gold Winner - Il Bacaro on Little Collins (went there twice & both times the food was scrumptious)
Finalists - Comme at Alfred Place, Lim Nyonya's Hut

Best of the Best TV programme:
Gold Winner - Touched by An Angel 2 episodes on W2 every Sunday morning (never fail to make me feel God really loves me)
Finalists - Project Runway, CSI

Best of the Best Achievements:
Gold Winner - Skiing on intermediate slopes (and causing me to tear my ACL at the same time)
Finalists - Negotiated to pay $30k for $150k worth of newspaper advertising, convinced my husband to attend a week with Anthony Robbins with me in April.

Best of the Best moments in world affairs:
Gold Winner - Obama elected as President (Reading about the first black man winning US elections only makes me emotional)
Finalists - Oprah Winfrey exposing Eckhart Tolle and his teachings to millions, Randy Pausch (the computer science professor who lived his life to the fullest not letting his fatal disease affect him or his family)

The list could go on...

22 more sleeps to Christmas

It's 3 Dec and the temperature in Melbourne today at topst was 22 degree celsius. It was so cold, everyone was still wearing their winter clothing and women were still in boots. All the shops were filled with people. More people were out having lunches trying to catch up with friends before the year is up. Even more people are looking for presents. I could everyone feels relaxed and happy. 22 more sleeps to Christmas!

This is an important time for most of us. And I ask myself what would be a perfect christmas?
My family do not celebrate christmas so everything I imagine are from the media or being in friends' homes. I remember Mary, my god-mother's invitation to join her really large family for christmas get-together. So large, there must be 4 generations with kids of every age that comes with a set of boy & girl too. There were some chairs for those who may want to sit down at the table but we were free to take our food and eat elsewhere whilst catching up with cousins, aunties, uncles, distant cousins. There would be multiple rooms for different interest groups - ladies sharing stories, the kids playing with some video games, men talking about politics & sports. And when the night falls, the host gathered everyone to the table and hand everyone a small glass of port wine and a piece of brandy soaked fruit cake. Oh my god! I could still taste the cake & the wine on my tongue. This is the best part of the evening, the cake and wine is so sweet and warm. It can only be a special occasion and it was. The host would be the first one to toast, the others follow suit. That's my kind of christmas - family, noise, kids, brandied fruit cake & port wine, a toast to mark a year passed and welcome a year coming.

When I was staying Hong Kong, I was invited to Sue & Peter's christmas dinner. We were at their home in Discovery Bay early, the turkey was already in the oven with parsnip. We enjoyed the afternoon by taking a leisure walk near the quay, played with Charlotte baby, shared stories and when the turkey was cooked after 8 hours or so, we sat down on a beautiful table with light blue table cloth and silver cutlery and enjoyed our meal. We finished off with christmas pudding flamed on brandy (again!). We opened our christmas presents and had a laugh. Then we watched The Queen's Christmas message on TV. Sue, Peter & Liz are Brits. Now that's my kind of christmas - turkey with stuffing, parsnip, crackers, beautiful christmassy decor, sharing stories with friends, pressies and slow cooking to savor every minute of the holiday season.

What is your perfect christmas like? These pictures are some additional things I would like to add to my perfect christmas. Happy holidays!

Reconciliation lesson from work

Today I spent more than half a day at the office reconciling invoices. There seemed to be more invoices than the actual services received, there were different amounts that dont tally to the media plans, some were cancelling out each other. What's going on?
My first reaction to my boss was "let's just get them to tell us what's going on, we just dont have the time to match up the numbers!". Obviously taking the high road approach of clients have every right to demand for anything since we are the ones who are paying.

In the end, without really thinking too much into it, I focussed all my energy to wade through the details almost as if I was unraveling some deep mystery. I love numbers and analysing & solving complex work problems. I managed to reconcile the invoices after some time and it really made me feel good. It took me a long time to find this balance at work. This is one of the many triumphs I had after moving to Melbourne.

How I can apply this sort of "love my work" attitude to my personal life? Too many times, I gave up on trying to understand my husband or even analyse to solve complex home life problems. Silently I gave up and wallow in despair. It's just seemed easier to deal with the situation when I adopt indifference. That's why the first thing that I would do after an argument is go to bed and tried to avoid the problem by sleeping into unconsciousness. Perhaps as I would in work, I should just dive into the problem without thinking too much of what it would cost me. Study the details of the situation, conversation, argument, emotions, gestures to understand what they really mean. In the background, always knowing in confidence that I would find the answer instead of passing up the problem which usually is my very first reaction.

The Real Thing

This morning on the train, my ipod played "You to me are everything" by The Real Thing and it brought back so much good memories. My heart was light and my lips curled into a smile. And everything from the Yarra River, to the buildings, people walking on the streets, cars, everything I lay my eyes on seemed beautiful as it is.

I could still imagine someone dear to me singing that song to me and those words melted my knees and heart. I am pretty sure even though the song is as old as 1976, it would make a love slave out of just about anyone. Although that person is no longer around, mysteriously it is comforting to know it was loved shared and never lost. That love could really move a mountain just as the lyrics suggest. And I count myself blessed.

Watch the video and remember the happy times in the discotheque. (Ferdi in heaven, remember disco-d-q?)

Rare Superb Lyrebird captured my curiosity

Is it a peacock on the road? my husband asked when we saw a rare sight in front of our car as we were driving down from Mt Donna Buang on the Yarra Ranges. "Yes yes I think, but wait. I've seen this somewhere." Scrambling for the printouts on Yarra Ranges National Park and trying to pick up my camera at the same time. Before I could snap, it ran into the bushes carrying its long beautiful curly feathery tail. Wow, we saw a Superb Lyrebird which is unique to Australia and it's a stunning beauty. LyreB stayed on my mind, I feel even more blessed than blessed, caught in a rapture to be able to come into the presence of LyreB.

The more I learned about LyreB, the more I understand how special our experience had been. This bird immitates natural and artificial sounds in their surroundings, natural sounds such as other birds, human noises or other animals and artificial sounds such as machinery (chainsaw?) & musical instruments. LyreB is an ancient Australian animal, having been in the wet forests of NSW & Victoria for more than 15million years. Is this a sign of Australia opening up to us? welcoming us to their ancient land? I hope so, we have been waiting for our permanent residency visa for more than 15 months now.

LyreB would only lay one egg and takes care of one chick at a time. Even ostriches, the largest bird would lay 15 to 60 eggs at a time. Oh yes! we are coming back here for the christmas weekend...

Traveling the world in my own backyard

This is my favourite way of spending the weekend. We drove to Warburton, a town about 76kms from Melbourne in the Shire of Yarra Ranges. This is our second week there, we were there last week with Koe, our fur kid. We tracked up La La Falls (La La means welcome welcome in aboriginal).

I loved it so much, it's so romantic, lush, the trees, the valley, hills, river, shops ..so inviting. We went back today again. Just being in the forest and surrounding hills makes me feel nourished, my soul fed and ahhhhh...

Today was extra special because of a few people we met on the way.

Danny the wood artist at Powelltown - he does carving and etching of snakes, dragons, eagles, chain saw on wood. Danny had long grey hair tied up in a ponytail, wore a flannel shirt with jeans, reminds me of some people I met in US. We bought a large piece of wood with coat hangers made out from steel bullhead rails taken from the old train tracks nearby (probably Belgrave - oh no...from Puffing Billy?). They dont make things like that anymore. This will be an antique one day. Ours had Ayers Rock inspired on it.

Then we met a Finnish woman at the shop in Warburton selling beautiful wood crafted home knick knacks. We shared so many stories about our families, how she came to Australia, how her husband proposed, how the other people view her in town and her interests. We also found out that her husband is running for local council. Hmmm...might be worthwhile to think about retiring in Warburton - they make really good bruschetta.

But the most interesting of all must be the Polish Jester, Kristof Kaczmarek. We ate at the Polish restaurant named Polish Jester. The owner treated us like his closest friends, he even shared his SPECK - hardened pork fat. His idea of staying healthy is revolutionary, he thinks fat is the way to go especially the saturated fat. He had facts to prove it - look at the top 3 countries with lowest mortality rates - Japanese, Greeks, Swedish - all with high cholesterol in their diet. He's also an actor and director for Russian plays. His restaurant has a rustic setting, with very thick and heavy handmade wooden tables & stools taking us back to the medieval european times. We joked about Polish sausages, had Polish saurkeraut, dumplings, hunter stew while sipping balsam vodka and drinking Okocim, a typical brand of traditional polish beer.

Just one short afternoon, I felt I had been to Route 66 when I met Danny, to Finland Christmas town when we shared family stories with Leila and into the comfort of Poland homes when we shared our interest in food with Kristof.

"Hello Mom, I know you are there"

Yesterday I experienced what I didnt had to go through since I left Singapore for Australia. I spent the entire week at work preparing for the newspaper ads to be published this Saturday. I am not a fan of last minute work so I had briefed the design and the copy early so I would have ample time to submit the materials by 5pm Thursday (yesterday). As it happened, you can plan all you want but if others have a different idea with timeliness, you are just stuck in their timezone when you rely on their work to get things done.

So Design took their time to produce the first piece of work late on Wednesday. Before we could get back with feedback for more changes they were off home. The next morning they went for an early breakfast party ignoring the urgent work pending on their desk. By this time, I was fuming inside, my body starting from my shoulders was so worked up, I had a terrible headache and the feeling that I had abandoned so long ago came back overwhelming me. The feeling of rushing, of wanting everything to be done quickly. If I dont have things done my speed, I throw up a fit. I then realised I do that even at home. If I dont pack enough activities for the weekend, I feel unaccomplished. If I relaxed too much and found that the laundry or cleaning is not done by Sunday afternoon, I get upset.

It was after reading a book written by a buddhist monk that I realised, I recognised this habit energy and it had been transmitted to me by my mother. My mom is always rushing, wanting everything to be done quickly, quickly, quickly. "Hello Mom, I know you are there". As the book advised, I embraced this energy of rushing. Recognising and taking care of the feeling as I would take care of a baby. Slowly I watched it go away, giving way to relaxation, peace, fun, appreciation. I noticed my senses heightened a bit more - the buildings, the trees, the train journey and the people so much more alive and beautiful. I think for this short while, I was liberated and the rush feeling no longer dominate me.

a little of singapore came to visit

Yesterday a friend was in town for a visit. He had just recently moved to OZ from singapore. Its been a while since I saw him. The last time I saw him was when we were both single. That must be at least 4 years ago.

He brought the warm and humid weather with him when we were forecasted for stormy weather. But more than that he brought back old memories of carefree early days of my singapore life. For a very short while, we were sort of seeing each other. But it was never made public to our friends because he didnt want to. And I got pretty upset with that and didnt wait for him to explain but left in person and so left the issue too.

I wanted to know why....it's one of those things you had to know. If he was just flirting or if he was interested at all. Even now that we are both married, it's something I want to know. and I guess I hope I wasnt taking for granted and there was a genuine fondness that went both ways. Perhaps it's better to leave it as a mystery. Maybe one day I will have the opportunity and the guts to ask him. For now, I'm more comfortable having dinner with him with other friends around.

Starting point

I am starting this blog because I felt a strong need within me to document my diaries online - I don't know how will I react if my friends discover the good, bad the ugly parts of me. It's the asian genes in me to only display the good parts of my life to others and work on the bad parts in private. Not that I have lots of skeletons in the closet but life just throws you all sorts of situations. It's about how I ride through them and how I deal or not deal with them.

So this is for everyone, this is for me.