Goodbye Pooki

RIP Pooki, 28 Jan 2010

you were my first dog and i will miss you lots

you always made me smile with your cheerful face

always friendly and ready for a cuddle

loved water and swimming

hated being bathed but loved being dried with the towel

you sneezed, drooled and cried so softly when you were lonely

will eat anything and everything - even vegetables

lived through many scares - like a cat you had 9 lives

people thought you were a girl dog because you were so pretty

it looked like you had eye liner on because your eyes were so big and striking

sometimes you looked like fluffy harp seal, when you lie down with the legs tucked in

my dancing bear

my baby polar bear

love you always...

Bubba Gump Shrimp Co., The Peak, HK

After a day of shopping, we hopped on a train and headed to HK island to visit The Peak. The tram ride up the peak was crazy, the hill was sooo steep i thought it might roll back at any time. But we got there safe and sound.
At the top of the peak was a 5 storey shopping centre with lots of shops, restaurants and HK Madam Tassauds. We saw the sights and views, checked out the restaurants and decided on Bubba Gump for dinner. Only because i have a soft spot for Forrest Gump and the last time i came across a Bubba Gump Restaurant in Bali we didn't eat there. So i had to do it this time.

The restaurant is true to the movie, full of memorabilia and quirky gimmicks. If you wanted to be left alone, you just turn the following sign to "Run Forrest Run". If you wanted help you turn the sign to "Stop Forrest Stop" and the next friendly attendant will help you out. Even the condiments & napkins were put inside a Bubba Gump pail as seen below.

Our dinner - Shrimp Galore! tempura shrimp, coconut fried shrimp, boiled shrimp and beer battered shrimp with fries and slaw on the side.

We had a side of hush puppies, something you will never find in Australia, so i had to try it. Inside the bread crumbs were more shrimp (surprise surprise) rice, cheese and herbs. Very nice especially with the sauce.

Last but not least a hot bowl of seafood chowder, again something you don't find everyday in Perth. This soup came with all natural oyster crackers, they didn't taste anything like oysters, looked more like them but they went well with the soup. Because it was so cold and windy outside, the soup was just perfect, i could have eaten another bowl.

i had to take this photo, chocolates and all...

ciao.clio

ps: going down the tram from the peak was scarier and freakier then going up

HK snacks

Beween all the shopping and sight seeing, we did a lot of snacking in HK.
How could you not?
There's delicious snacks ranging from the low end to the high end.
Let me show you what we ate and why we came home 3 kgs heavier in 1 week.

I went GAGA when i saw this store.... macaroons!!! OMG!! you can't get macaroons back in Perth so i had had HAD to have one or two :D. i bought a pistachio/chocolate macaroon and hubby bought a dark chocolate macaroon. They weren't cheap, costing about $8aud for 2, but heck when you're on holidays you splurge! [a bit that is]. Mine was ok, but hubby loved his dark chocolate one, very smooth and delicious.. mmm can't wait to have another one!

There's a new trend in drinks in HK, naturally all the trendy drinks come from Japan. This was a pineapple flavour juice/cordial drink that you have to shake. The drink actually comes out in jelly form, very loose watery jelly. Weird. Its ok but not my favourite.

After a hardcore day of shopping and abusing the CC we sat down in a food court for a drink and a snack. We saw the table next to us order this, so we had to do the same :D..hehehe.. We ordered a pork, chinese cabbage & chive gow zhi / wo tie /gyoza dumplings. There were 4 different dipping sauces to go with this, but i couldn't read the chinese so i chose any random one. The bowl at the back was a hot and spicy soup, which was also very yummy - love love love hot and spicy soup [especially when some one else makes it!]
This lovely snack combo came to a very reasonable price of $5aud. If only we could get it this cheap back in Perth... sighs....

Now not all snacks are created equal, we had a few dodgy tasteless snacks... unfortunately they occurred in HK Disneyland. In the plastic bag above was suppose to be crispy fried dough. Sounded interesting enough, looked like it had flavour ..so why not? The flavour was weird, very fake, very chemically (is there such a word?) just over processed and gross. We just chucked it out. Now the corn in the yellow plastic bag at the back was bland, was suppose to be buttered corn. It had no salt, no butter, NOTHING!! FAIL! i ate it anyway, was very hungry...

Now we're getting to the more exotic stuff, after a VERY long day of sight seeing and shopping this was our midnight snack.. [yes!! the shops are still open at midnight]
There's nothing better then food on a stick, deep fried in oil and smothered in an assortment of sauces. This is where my mum warns me... "don't be greedy, dont eat weird random stuff " but i completely ignored her warnings... where's the fun in avoiding all the good stuff?!!

Below is the snack bar, offering all sorts of wonderful offal and weird asian snacks in lots of different ways. Right in the middle of the pic below is "Stinky Tofu", we've seen this on TV before [Bourdain & Bizarre Foods] but we were told by our close friend it was actually quite delicious. So we had to try. The first thing you notice is the smell... you can smell the stinky tofu from about 100 meters away... [ i actually thought it was the rubbish bins in the alley way - but apparently not]. Stinky tofu is actually tofu that has gone off, then they deep fry it, serve it in a brown paper bag and slather it with sour chilli sauce. The smell is hard to take at first, it has a very sour rotten smell, but once you get use to the funky taste/smell, it's actually not too bad, i can understand why it has become a local favourite.

The amazing variety of food on a stick, we didn't get to try everything - our stomachs just didn't have the room. Would definitely have to come back to HK and try all the others.

Minute maid is an american brand which we don't have here in Australia. My hubby just loves anything aloe vera grape flavour so he was sold on the green bottle. I was more curious about the grape fanta jelly drink, lots of the young local people were buying this from the 7eleven stores and i just followed the crowd. It was thick and jelly like, just like the pineapple juice thing from before, but this was fizzy too which was unusual.

We saw lots of people eating noodles in plastic bags and we thought it was rather odd. Then we found the stall that was selling this stuff and thought we should give it a try, it was rather tricky because we didn't know how to order and EVERYTHNG was in chinese. So brave me pointed to a noodle bag that looked pretty innocent and pointed to the octopus picture. They added the octopus to the bag of noodles, along with chilli sauce, soy sauce and some other stuff [they were super fast] mixed it all up with a chop stick and viola - your noodles are ready! Ready to eat straight from the plastic bag, fast food chinese style. It was a tasty, spicy snack and a lot better then i expected it to be, a bargain at only 80c :D.

Deep fried fishballs basted in a sweet spicy sauce and served on a stick from our favourite street snack bar.

Can't wait to go back to HK!!

A little bit of shopping

Not only did we do a lot of eating in HK, we did a lot of shopping too.
We did sooo much shopping, it kinda made my credit card go sick and we had to start looking for another credit card to help it get better :P.

Now this is just some of our purchases.
We love love LOVE Domokun. A brown squarish tofu looking thing with a red angry mouth.
We found Domokun slippers for about $10 aud

And we found a Domokun pillow! I'm so glad i bought this pillow because the hotel pillows were too soft and feathery. Not my type at all. I just used Domokun instead.

I got all these goodies from the ladies market in Mongkok. Its a street style, late night market that sells all sorts of goodies at cheap prices. And because it's a market make sure you haggle to get the best prices!

ciao.clio

Tang Court, Langham Hotel

Hubby and i were HUGE fans of Masterchef in 2009. We were even more hooked onto the TV show when they went to HK for their culture challenges. During the show the contestants stayed at Langham Hotel, and apparently they had a reputation of serving up some of the best dim sum in HK. So naturally when we go to HK we had to go to Langham hotel to try their famous dim sum.

Scallop dumplings with roe- delicious! it had nice chunks of fresh scallops and steamed perfectly.

In the front is jelly fish with pork [? i forgot], at the back is crispy friend fish [forgot] with salted golden egg yokes.

pork cheaks - tender & succulent dipped in peanut sauce [ HK people like their "satay sauce"]

Crispy fried rice flour roll, cooked in chilli XO sauce. This was a real surprise when it came out, not what we expected at all but was absolutely delicious.

All in all it was a great dim sum meal, favourites were the rice flour roll and the scallop dumplings. For HK prices they were pretty up there, but once we converted them to AUD, it was pricey but still reasonable. Tang Court is a fine dining restaurant, fantastic service, beautiful decor and very different from the normal dim sum back in Perth.

The food journey continues...

Day 2 of our holidays and we are spending most of the day in KL, because our flight to HK leaves at 4pm in the afternoon.

Which means i ring up my best bud Miss M to say hey and wanna eat?!
We asked to be taken to another local place and eat what the locals eat.
Miss M takes us to an old skool kopitiam (i think) to have a Malay/Hainan breakfast.
Break fast in Malaysia is not like breakfast in the western world.. its heavier, greasier and full of surprises.

i opted for the light breakfast, kaya jam, butter & toast. Not a big fan of big greasy breakfasts - i actually don't eat breakfast normally. So this was just PERFECT. I also had a half boiled egg but i gobbled it up before i took a photo - heheh woops.. If you do find yourself in Malaysia one day, this is one thing i recommend everyone to try - toast with kaya jam. Watch out though it can be quite addictive!

The old school kopitiam place we went to was famous for their "roti babi" which translates to "pork bread". As curious tourists we had to order this dish, as it was the house specialty.
Roti babi is bread stuffed with shredded pork meat & cabbages, then the whole package is dipped into a raw egg mixture and pan fried till you get the golden egg skin as you see above. Very unusual meal but very tasty. A savoury french toast maybe?

This was hubby's breakfast - fried hokkien mee, very saucy and tasty.

The only regret we have was not trying the other unusual menu items, such as the pork chop & chicken chop. According to history, Malaysia was colonised by the British and many Hainanese chinese people we hired to cook for the British expatriates. These chinese people were "trained" to cook British foods but put their asian twist to the above dishes. So the pork chop and chicken chop are a mix of fusion asian & western cuisine thats evolved with the times and remains to be a popular choice by the locals. [brief history lesson - if i got facts & details wrong i apologise & feel free to correct me - my info comes from Miss M]. I didnt even take a photo of the dishes, but we did see people eat them. This is definitely on my TO EAT list the next time we go to KL.

more KL food

Come to dinner time and we were hungry for local stuff. This is when the hotel concierge recommended us to Jalan Alor. Food stalls galore, full of surprising and wonderful snacks.
On our walkabouts we came across this "deng deng" stall. As indonesians we call it "deng deng", which is pork mince pounded into flat sheets, mixed in with an assortment of herbs, spices, and sugar. Then its lighlty grilled to give it a wonderful sweet smoky aroma. We didn't end up buying any tonight, but was tempted to because it's not something you can have everyday back in Australia. What was so fascinating about the above picture is the "bacon dengdeng" - i think it was basically bacon treated in the same herb and spice mix then grilled - this i had never seen before. The other side was just normal "dengdeng"

This is a picture of Jalan Alor, packed to the sides with food stalls, people and tables. See how the car just squeezes in? people and food rule here.

Our very yummy black pepper mud crab. We were definitely licking every part of our fingers and crab shells to savour the flavours...

our yummy kung po beef claypot - servings were rather small so it was easy for us to finish everything.

our disappointing chicken satay. meat was dry and the sauce was bland and runny (fail!)

because we're on holidays, hubby and i turn into little pigs. on the way home we came across a super market and it had JACKFRUIT! i love LOVE jackfruit. jackfruit smoothies, ice cream, bubble tea, from the can and fresh - sooo good! This bundle of yellow goodness was about aud$3.00 but worth every penny. each fruit was super sweet and delicious, i could not stop eating them.

our other midnight snack was a crispy popiah from a local chain in KL. it was sooo good and hit the spot even though our bellies were full. what makes it crispy is the crunchy bits inside - as part of the filling of the wrapper skin. definitely a must try when you go to KL.

top floor food court, klcc

Our plane left for KL at 6am in the morning and arrived in KL at 12.30pm, so when we left the plane we were STARVING and i only had one thing on my mind : FOOD!!!

Luckily our hotel is close to KLCC shopping centre and there's food galore there.
This is our first meal in KL.

1. curry mee
2. tofu goreng (friend tofu)
3. kuay teow goreng

the curry mee hit the right spot. i was sooo hungry - so it all tasted really good. probably not the best laksa i've ever had, but that was what i needed .

we ordered a side serving of tofu goreng, which was probably the best of the three. yummy crispy skin, bean sprout and soy sauce filling. i think there was more to the filling then that, but we were so hungry we just didn't care.

hubby's friend kuay teow. he said it was "ok", not the best but definitely edible. it had little bits of "seahum" or clams mixed in with the noodles.

Day 1 : KL

ok ok i'm going to quickly recap the last 8 days of our trip.

we arrived in KL very safe and sound. Jumped into a taxi which cost us rm105!! thats like $35! a bit of a rip off but we let it go because we just wanted to be at the hotel as soon as possible. we went to KL last year and the taxi only cost us rm80/$25 or so. some killer inflation must of hit.

arrived at our favourite KL hotel - traders!! love love LOVE this place. [ask my kl friends, we always stay here for some reason]. great service, super clean rooms, very modern, free internet with printing servive [ great for online check ins and stuff] free shuttle to klcc.

we went to klcc shopping centre to scout our sales and bargains. few here and there but we wanted to wait for hk for the hardcore shopping. and hard core shopping we did. i have a seriously SICK credit card [which will need fixing up asap in perth]

for dinner we wanted something really local tasting, street style food with great ambience, so our concierge recommended jalan alor. so we went. what we found was a street jammed packed from both sides with food stalls, only a thin stream of cars can go through because the pedestrians were thick on the ground.

how do you choose which stall to patronise? you choose the busiest one of them all! a large crowd means good food right? anyways it turns out every stall pretty much sold the same thing, with flavours pretty similar to each other. We ordered a small crab, a beef claypot kong po style and some chicken satay. the crab & beef were fantastic, the chicken satay was a bit dry and the peanut sauce was a little thin - thumbs down.

then we slowly walked out way back to the hotel with our tummies very full...

luv.clio

day 2 : holidays!

so we are in day 2 of our holidays. not quite in hong kong yet, but we're about 10 hours away...WOOHOOO!

kl is great, took lots of pics of food (hehe no surprises there). Just shitted that i can't upload the photos straight away because these computers dont have SD card bits. oh wells... ill just have to remember when i get back.

i could use the iphone to update and upload photos, but because we are on roaming it will cost us an arm and a leg. its FREAKIN' expensive! seriously something stupid like $20-50 per MB download.
oh wells... we're just stuck on using the hotel computers.

ciao!
clio

hong kong here i come!!!

We leave for KL tonight and move on to Hong Kong on Wednesday!!
Soooo excited, can't wait. This is the HIGHLIGHT of my school holidays.

Still have a lot of packing and tidying up to do before we leave..

ciao!! clio

ps: i don't know what's wrong with my blogger but it keeps automatically choosing this font when i write. VERY ANNOYING. i have even tried changing the settings, but nothing works ... urgh... worry about it when i get back.

pork shanks

We finally went to Elmars in the Valley for a meal today. We've heard lots of good things about this place and their famous pork shanks. So with visitors from over seas and a group of friends, we made our tracks to the Swan Valley to show how we live it up in Perth.

Because it was a big group of people, we did a big order and shared everything. Starting with our entree.

Elmars tasting plate - cheese, pate, olives, and a range of german sausages - all Elmars of course YUMMY!

garlic cheese bread - soooo good!

chicken ceasar salad - our token green thing amongst all the meat!

and this was our mains! the famous pork shank with fried potatoes, saurkraut and mustard.
The pork is pickled then oven roasted till the meat is juicy and tender on the inside with beautiful crunchy crackling skin outside. Was soooo good... we are taking all our over seas and inter state guests here next time. Just make sure you leave room for desserts ...because we didn't and i regret it.

a very fappy ms clio :o)

note: 1 serve of pork shank can feed 2 - 3 normal people
you've been warned!

new word

learnt a new word the other day, thought i should share...

Fappy
	A combination of the words "fat" and "happy" Dad:"Would you rather me be fat and happy? or skinny and cranky?" Mom:"Fat and happy" Little girl at school:"My Daddy is Fappy"

this basically happens when you're in a relationship (bf, gf, married, engaged or what ever) and become very content, lazy and fat.

i know i have turned fappy - grrr... need to cut down the food and up the exercise

xxoo.clio

i hate ironing

out of allll the house hold chores around the house, ironing has to be the worse.

i hate ironing with a passion. i am also very SHIT at it, i cant seem to get rid of all the creases in the clothes. i hate figuring out where the "creases" of shirts, jeans, pants, short etc... blergh.. its too much for me. i prefer folding and letting gravity and weight take its toll. making clothes 'straight' by natural coincidence. i'm also better at folding clothes :o).

i never ever iron my clothes, unless i really REALLY have to - so its on a "as needs basis"

chores i'd rather do:

• weeding - im happy to weed for hours on end, there's a satisfactory feeling about getting rid of those nasty buggers from your garden.
  
• mowing the lawn - you see the fruits of your labour straight away - awesome. also makes the garden look "cleaner"
• washing dishes - something therapeutic about it- dunno (but i still want a dishwasher!!!)
• cooking - i'd rather cook to a man's heart then iron there..
  
• filing & bills & errands. i swear to god ironing is way worse then filing
• vacuuming - just not the sofa :P
• washing the dog & dog house - i like it when my dogs smell nice, but it doesnt last long - flithy buggers.
  

apart from ironing, there's other chores i hate doing

• poop patrol - those that have dogs, know what this is
• taking out the rubbish - i dunno, something about it is just yucky, oh... and tying up the rubbish bin - it just stinks! ewwwwwwwwww!!
• ironing!!
  
• washing the car - takes me forever!!! only because i want to make sure everything damn doggy hair is gone. doesnt help that my car is the doggy car (SIGHS...)
  

enough whinging.. back to house work...

ms.clio

eeeww yuck

i went to check out my plants and herbs this morning... as you do...

i went to tear a leaf off my mint plant to check the smells and stuff.. as you do...

little did i know ... while tearing my mint leaf ... i also squished a caterpillar in half!!! EEEEEEEEEEEWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW GROSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS!!!
with my bare fingers!!!!! YYUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUCKKKK!!!

now you say... how come i didn't see the stupid thing? and avoid the yucky muck? well the stupid caterpillar was underneath the plant and i couldnt see it at all!!

sigh.. im just not having any luck with creepy crawlies...

note to self: stay away from insects, bugs and other disgusting crawly stuff

xoxo.clio

note to self no. 2: finish your stupid RE assignment!

dear diary....

now that i have a bit more time.. i find myself blogging a bit more then usual.. and now that i have my sexy new lap top .. i find any excuse to work on it.. heheh...

well today is another extreeeeemely hot day in the perth summer - max of 38 degrees! yuck yuck yuck... the poor doggies came inside the house for a bit of air conditioning relief. they are spoilt little buggers.

i went to school earlier this morning. i'm still cleaning up and organising my 'new' classroom. it's taking me forever and it's so dusty and disorganised right now - all i want to do is just turn away from it. but there is just so much to do!! argh... i dont even want to bring my mum around to help me clean up, it just wouldn't be fair. i'm not even moving a house, but i can just imagine how much i would hate doing it. i really can't believe how much crap i have, not only that i have also 'inherited' all the year 7 books and stuff. not only do we have year 6 stuff to organise but somehow manage to fit in all the yr 7 reading, math and text books. i dont even know if i make sense or not. im just whiney and whingy at the moment.

i still have the classroom store room to organise - SIGH...

did i also mention that a stupid cockroach crawled across my feet today!! in the classroom - urgh! it's so gross! i killed 3 cockroaches today, 1 outside my room and 2 inside - ewww...
my buddy teacher says that you should never step on a cockroach directly with the shoe/footwear you are wearing because the cockroach guts will get stuck to the sole of your shoe and turn into maggots. then the maggots will spread to where ever your shoe has been.
i've never heard of this before, but i do hate maggots and they totally gross me out...
has anyone heard of this before? is it true?

anyways... i'm going to do some work now :) cleaning, filing and general errands... the holidays are never that relaxing...

xx.ms.clio

new stuff

so i have succumbed to my inner material girl/shopping addictions... (yes i am just like becky bloomwood)

i have bought myself a new lap top ... hehehehe

i know my old lap top was still working, and yes i did put up with only being able to use 2/3 of my screen. but ... argh... i was sick of it.

so we went to harvey norman today... with the jingle going through my head.. 33 months interest free.... go harvey go harvey... and i came across a very respectable HP lap top that caught my eye. Sooo.... 2 hours later, after many discussions with the sales person and then the finance person.. i got a new laptop and a new credit card with a pretty insane credit card limit.

so im pretty chuffed with my new lap top... it is very sexy in deed ... but not as sexy as some of the latest offerings from the mac section.

so we went over just to check things out... and i was very impressed. i'm not much of a mac user, but since hubby got an i phone, i'm getting converted... the screens, the key boards.....wow!
all i can say is... its all VERY SEXY indeed.

maybe one day i will buy a mac, but for now its just not practical, we all use normal pc's at work and it would be just too hard going back and forth between the different systems.

but for now it's piqued my interest and i will keep an eye out for a mac

new years resolution

wow... another year is here and i am about to write another set of resolutions.

im scared to look back at last years reslutions ..only because i know i did not fulfill them very well.. heehee... woops...

well a new year, means a new clean slate ... this year i will TRY harder to stick to my resolutions.
and here they go...

1. i will not procrastinate. just get the stupid thing done, as soon as possible.

2. spend less on material things. woooo boy this is a tough one... (did i mention i have a bad shopping habit?)

3. put more money into my savings account or put more money into my mortage. (2 mortgages to pay off... daaaaaaaay-em!)

4. walk my dogs more often. more exercise for me = fitness = lose weight (i hope)

5. mark kids school work asap - don't be lazy, giving back work to them one month later is NOT good enough.

6. eat more healthy and eat less! (small portion sizes)

7. be MORE organised...

8. stop WASTING time .... be more efficient

9. put home and family as number 1 and work number 2 (i find this really hard to do!)

well those are my most important resolutions.... heres a few more - but they are more of a to do list...

10. put a full length mirror near the front entrance (i've always wanted a full length mirror)

11. change the carpet in the bedrooms to wooden floors

12. change the spare bedroom into a walk-in closet :o)

13. install the last set of blinds in the games room (morning sun reflection on tv is NOT good)

thats it for now... i don't think i can handle any more ... but they were the most important ones i could think of.

what are your resolutions?.....

ps: happy new year everyone!

may the coming year be filled with prosperity,

joy and friends!