Baking Time!

Baking a cake is indeed an activity which can kill time and at the mean time, gives the feeling of satisfaction that you want. I baked a cake with my housemate, Chris, last night. Of course the simple one which is pre-mixed earlier. Banana cake is what we baked. Baking a cake using a toaster is never an easy stuff. We have to switch it here and there to get the cake baked evenly since the toaster is not big enough for the tray. After some time, here come our fresh baked cake.

Banana cake. Not sweet enough.

Don't play play. I can finish it all ok?

Nah, just joking. I can't finish everything by myself.

Actually before this, we have baked a chocolate fudge cake. Few weeks ago? This one seem nicer.

Just take everything out from the box and follow the instructions on the back of the box.

Still fresh in the tray.

Cake very expensive in Australia leh...

This one I can swallow it all!

Interested? Looks ~YUMMY~? Grab a packet of one of those pre-mixed cake and give it a shoot! It's easier than you study!;)

Friday 28th?

We all probably heard about Friday 13th (the sixth day of the week which "coincidently" falls on the 13th of the month) means an unlucky day. I don't know it is whether or not a superstition passed from generation to generation but some claimed it is. In a year, there would be one to three times Friday would fall on the 13th of the month.

But, today is not Friday 13th. It's just a Friday which falls on the 28th of the month and it seemed like a lot of unlucky things happened. Of course, not happen only to me but also the people around me. In the morning, one lecture and one tutorial were cancelled today. You can hardly get any classes cancel in the university. The lecture was cancelled as the lecturer has a volcano in his throat and the tutorial was cancelled due to unknown reason.

After I bought my lunch, I went back home and saw James was freaking panicking. He said he overslept and he was late for a 30% test. He wanted me to send him to uni using his car so that he could sit for the test. Wahlao! First time driving in Perth leh... Since it's so urgent, I agreed.

After lunch, I went to uni for the last lecture of the day. The lecture was supposed to start at 2p.m. sharp but the clock showed 2:10p.m. No lecture again?!?! We all waited. Finally, the lecturer showed up on 2:15p.m. He thought the lecture is at 3p.m.

I went to buy some grocery just now. Since I have to walk for like 20 minutes to the nearest supermarket and another 20 minutes to go back home, I was quite tired walking and carrying about 7kg stuff (3kg of muttons, 1 litre of milk, 2 litres of fruit juice and some other stuff). So I took a break under a short tree and put everything down to rest for a while before continue. I bent down and got all the stuff. When I got up, my head knocked one of the branches. Wahlao! Got so unlucky or not?!?!

Aparts from that, one of my friend, Brian didn't come for lecture as his legs are painful and Jono also not coming to uni as he is sick.

Don't tell me there is this Friday 28th!

Anyway, forget all about the bad stuff. Today is the first time I drive in Perth! Lucky enough I didn't bang his car. Thanks to James!:D

Why this is not Ferrari? :P

Secret Message!

I didn't know there is something like the International Morse Code and the Phonetic Symbols until my housemates told me yesterday. I find it quite fun, so I try to search for it on the net and found this.

International Morse Code and The Phonetic Alphabet
Letter(Phonetic)[Code]
A(Alpha)[.-]
B(Bravo)[-...]
C(Charlie)[-.-.]
D(Delta)[-..]
E(Echo)[.]
F(Foxtrot)[..-.]
G(Golf)[--.]
H(Hotel)[....]
I(India)[..]
J(Juliet)[.---]
K(Kilo)[-.-]
L(Lima)[.-..]
M(Mike)[--]
N(November)[-.]
O(Oscar)[---]
P(Papa)[.--.]
Q(Quebec)[--.-]
R(Romeo)[.-.]
S(Sierra)[...]
T(Tango)[-]
U(Uniform)[..-]
V(Victor)[...-]
W(Whiskey)[.--]
X(X-ray)[-..-]
Y(Yankee)[-.--]
Z(Zulu)[--..]

There are other numbers and punctuation for the code but then, I don't bother to show it here.

Aparts from being used in the military to encode and to decode messages, all those phonetics are actually useful to spell the words out in case you couldn't listen to the words properly. Most of us face this problem in our daily life when we are on the phone call and someone is going to spell a word for us. We might need to use this phonetics to spell out the words. But, what if we are to use this phonetics to make a sentence? It would be....

Decode the message please? ;)

freaking long and funny!

In case anyone is interested, you can try to click on this.

Surprise for Housemate

25th of April is a birthday of my housemate, James. My other housemates and me planned to give him a surprise. No birthday cake, no presents...HOW?

Our mission impossible went like this:

1. I go to arrange some candles on the floor and on the table.
2. Chris put an alarm clock in the kitchen so that it will ring on 12a.m. sharp.
3. Bake pre-made meat pie for him as a 'birthday cake'
4. Chris goes to his room and starts chatting seriously with him (i.e. Chris' problem) so that he won't be coming out from his room.
5. I light up all the candles.
6. Alarm rings and Chris leads him out of the room by asking him what happen to the house.
7. James will see the SURPRISE!

It was such a rushed when we have to do everything in like 15 minutes. When the clock struck 12 a.m.......

"Wah, so touch lehhh....," James keeps on repeating.

James with his "birthday cake" and the candles with the birthday song by us, the housemates.

Blowing off the candles.

He actually blew off all the candles which had a pattern of "=) 24!" before he blew off the candles on the table.

Crush Cut "cake" ceremony

James' meat pie cake.

After the cut cake ceremony, we made James drink a bottle of beer one go. Accompanied him drinking, of course not me, is Henry. And James is officially one year older now!

Girlfriend called. What's Chris doing?

We light up the candles again for photo session.

Together with the candles again.

F4 Housemates 2006.

Card games begin.

Today is James kor kor birthday. Don't play hide and seek ok?

In the middle of the game, *BOM*

Ouch! He broke back the chair!

James fell down from the chair!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, JAMES! =)

Sayonara Margaret River...

Time flies fast. 3 days 2 nights end just in a blink of eyes. I woke up as early as 7am, while everyone was still hugging their pillows and hiding under the warm blanket, to take the final look at the Margaret River town. And of course, took some photos for memories.

Only memories for Margaret River.

Margaret River's first dinner was here...

Volkswagen bangs through the wall!

The Volkswagen is actually a decoration for ANZ Bank but I have no idea how they 'glue' the whole thing on the wall. That's interesting.

I went back to the motel to meet the others before we checked out the motel.

Group photo before we left.

We left the Margaret River town and went to the first destination of our day, Margaret River Venison. We expected to see some deers there but in the end, we only saw deers' meat and skins.

I forgot to see how much it costs.

After the not so fruitful stop at the Margaret River Venison, we again stopped at some of the wineries since we are the "wine experts".;) I mean, expert at free tasting and not buying.

My friend, Yoong likes the dessert wine here.

Antique? And barrel for sale!

There's a funny stuff happens here.

After tasting the wines here, Yoong thought for so long before he decided to grab a bottle of dessert wine here. After he paid for the wine and about to leave....

Lady: Have a nice day. See ya!
Yoong: Ermm... *Scratching his head* Can I just try this wine again just to make sure?
Lady: *Giggles* Oh..ok... *Pour some more wine to the wine glass*

Very funny ok? We laughed all the way and kept teasing him. Poor Yoong! The wine he bought is only 375ml instead of those 700ml one ok? He just wanted to drink a little bit more so that it adds up the original volume of the wine to 400ml. *Trying not to laugh*

Our next stop was the classic winery in Margaret River, Vasse Felix. It is the first vineyard and winery established in Margaret River.

A must visit winery in Margaret River.

A restaurant in the winery.

Another antique to produce wine?

A bottle of wine has its own uniqueness.

Baba and Mama wines.

Kissing in public is common here.

There's even an art gallery here. Paintings and aboriginal arts are available in the art gallery.

We left Vasse Felix after the 'Kiss Goodbye' I have given to the statue. Since the time did not allowed us to visit more places, we decided Bootleg Brewery to be our last destination before we left Margaret River for Perth.

No free tasting here!

Bootleg Brewery is not a winery. It's a place for the beer lovers. However, beware! There is no free beers tasting here.

How beer is born into this world.

After we had enough aroma of the beer, we say sayonara to Margaret River.

Best photo of the trip featuring Fei Mao me and James.

Guys, when is our next trip?

The Second Day of Margaret River

The second day of Margaret River began with a simple breakfast. This breakfast was provided the day before by the motel's staff.

Cereal, bread, coffee, tea, milk, jam and butter.

After breakfast, we started our whole day trip. Our main destination is Augusta which is on the extreme south west point of Australia. Wineries were the places which we visited most since Margaret River is famous for it's wines. There are about 80 plus wineries there!

One of the biggest vineyards we have seen.

The grape tress.

Grapes which are later turned into wines.

That is the first wineries we went. Too bad we were too early for them and they were not yet opened for us to taste their wines. Most of the wineries open at 10 a.m. and closed at 5 p.m. We visited quite a lot of wineries today and of course, we bought some good wines after the free tasting in every wineries.

Redgate Wines presents a huge barrel in front of the main entrance.

Some of the displayed wines.

Too much wines in the morning. We continued our journey to some other interesting places. We passed by one of the cave's and decided to take a look. Free entry, we will go in. If not, continue our journey. That's our decision.

Entrance fee is Aud $16 (approximatedly) per adult!

Can you see the ant?

So expensive for the entrance fee. I might as well go back Malaysia for the Mulu Caves or the Niah Caves. We stayed for a little while before we continued our journey. We went through a so called 'scenic drive'. It's just a road and trees on the left and right. The road is so bumpy along the 'scenic drive' which might be caused by the 4 wheel drive. The 'scenic drive' lead us to the top of the 'mountain' (somewhere quite high).

Bush fire which destroy all the trees and bushes.

On top of the world!

Our destination is near to the ocean. Without wasting our time, we hopped into the car and "VROOOM".

Coastal drive to Augusta.

We managed to stop by for photo session of the beautiful scenery. Rocks with crystal clear water. And the strong wind and waves accompany. That's really amazing.

After a drive of an hour or two, we arrived Augusta. We headed straight to the main tourists' attraction, Cape Leeuwin Lighthouse. There, you can see the Indian and Southern Ocean meet.

Cape Leeuwin Lighthouse since year 1896.

It costed us Aud$9 to go to the top of the lighthouse. Nobody is allowed to go to the top of the lighthouse without a tour guide. If you think it's too expensive, then, browse around the the surrouding of the lighthouse since it's FREE.

On top of the lighthouse, everything seems so tiny.

Where two oceans meet.

On top of the lighthouse, you can really see the place where two oceans meet. How to identify? The waves flow in opposite direction. This is kinda interesting. This lighthouse is strongly recommended by me. This is a place with nice scenery and somemore, this is the extreme south west point of Australia. It's really worth the time and money spent on it.

After that, our tummy started to rumble again. We decided to find something to eat at the city of Augusta. We had fish & chips for lunch that day.

"Shiok" chalets and mooncake restaurant?

After we filled up our tummy, we went back north again towards Margaret River city.

We went to The Berry Farm, Margaret River Horseback Tours and another winery, Watershed Premium Wines.

The Berry Farm with lots of berry products.

I managed to grab a bottle of mango dessert wine which is the only bottle of wine I bought at Margaret River. 375ml for Aud$18. I know it's EXPENSIVE but you came all the way down to a wineries heaven and you didn't buy a single bottle? That would be a waste

Prince riding a white horse, every girls' dream.

We didn't manage to catch a ride on the horse since they need a reservation and of course, some fees for that.

Watershed Premium Wines is a new and grand winery.

Huge vineyards. How many bottle of wines can they produce using all the grapes here?

At the end of the day, we went to Margaret River Mouth, which is a popular surfing point, to enjoy the sunset.

The wonderful sunset, perfect for couples.

The Margaret River's trip to be continued.....