"First Bitter Then Sweet"

For the past two weeks before my mid semester break, I was trying very hard to earn some money. I went to sit for the paid experiments conducted by the psycho psychology students in my uni.

My temporary "office".

I spent about one to two hours everyday in my office for the two weeks.

Name of my company.

I was paid about Aud$10 an hour just to sit for the experiments conducted by the students. That's considered a lot compare to working in the oriental stores which have tougher work but was paid the same amount of money.

Inside my office.

Most of the rooms in my office are for the white ratsstudents to sit for the experiments conducted by the psychology students.

One of the experiments.

The objectives of most experiments are just to determine how a human memorising their stuff and how human categorising things. You just need to sit there, stare at the monitor, think for a while and click at the mouse for one hour and you will be reimburse for your time and travel expenses. As easy as ABC, right? ;)

After numbers of experiments, I finally managed to buy this...

An external hard drive and a flashdrive.

Actually Danny bought that flashdrive to replace my old flashdrive which he has accidentally broken.

Just an ordinary hard drive.

It is a Maxtor 250gb IDE external hard drive which costs me RM350.

Happy family.

I need an extra hard drive to accomodate my photos, songs and programmes. My laptop's hard drive could no longer support my extensive use of space.

Sandisk Cruzer Mini 1gb flashdrive.

I actually contributed some amount of money to upgrade it to a 1gb flashdrive. It comes with two extra caps and a neck strap.

A simple designed flashdrive.

This flashdrive retails for RM87 in Kuala Lumpur.

Goodbye to my old Kingston Datatraveller 256mb flashdrive.

I have to say goodbye to my 1 and a half year flashdrive which serves me well. I have to thanks Brian for helping me to bring these two stuff all the way from Kuala Lumpur. Thanks Brian!

Actually some of the money of the hard drive comes from my dad but of course, most of it comes from me. The moral of this story is "first bitter then sweet" ("xian ku hou tian" in Mandarin). It means, at first, you have to work hard before you get to enjoy in the end. :)

P/s : Stay tuned for my next post about my tulips trip.

Craving For Miri's Food

It's midnight now. Suddenly I feel like eating one of those food in Miri. So, I browsed through the photos which I have taken earlier in Miri and found some photos of the food. Arhhh! I miss Kolo Mee. One of the stalls in Open Market, Miri, which operates ONLY in the evening daily, serves the best Kolo Mee. At least, I think it's one of the best, ok?

Members of the family busy with their business.

A family-owned business, they normally start their business at about 7.15p.m. Known as "Gai Zhuk" (chicken porridge, in Cantonese, which they are famous with), the noodle stall is packed with customers almost every night. I'm not quite sure about the actual name of the stall although my family and I are regular customers of the stall for a long time. If anyone happens to know the name of the stall, please notify me. ;)

A glass of Teh C Peng (ice milk tea).

Normally, after successfully getting a seat (a seriously difficult task since most of the time the place is packed), I'll order my favourite drink, a glass of Teh C Peng. Seriously, I miss the Teh C Peng back in Miri...

Yummy Kolo Mee.

I always order a bowl of Kolo Mee and an additional bowl of chicken porridge. The potion of a bowl of Kolo Mee there is not as much as the other places in Miri. I'm pretty sure you'll need another bowl of chicken porridge or Kolo Mee.

It's simply too delicious.

A bowl of Kolo Mee there, if I'm not wrong, is RM2. That's one of the best thing about Miri. Eat anything won't cost you more than RM10 per meal per person. Unlike here in Perth. *Sigh*

Chicken porridge a.k.a Gai Zhuk.

A bowl of porridge costs the same as a bowl of Kolo Mee. Actually chicken porridge is what they are famous with. That's why the stall is more well known as Gai Zhuk instead of the actual stall's name.

My saliva is dripping now.

The porridge is mixed with slices of chicken, lettuces (which is quite special) and a little bit of "dong chai" (prickled vege?). Of course, I won't know any secret receipe behind this bowl of porridge.

A plate of chicken is another famous dish of this stall.

Steam chicken is actually a quite famous dish at this stall. It's just a simple plate of steam chicken but I still recommend it as a side dish. It goes well with the porridge and the Kolo Mee.

Make sure you visit this stall which is at the Open Market if you haven't done so! I am sure you won't regret after that!

Two more months and I'll be back to Miri. At the moment, I can only stare at the photos and say sorry to my tummy.

I Love Strawberries!

My first outing of my mid-semester break, with a bunch of friends, was strawberry farm. Strawberry Fields, which is located up north, took us roughly 40 minutes to reach there.

2024 Wanneroo Rd. Neerabup.

The place is quite easy to find. Just that, it takes a while before you reach there.

Small shop of Strawberry Fields.

The shop sells different kind of strawberries products. We went in there first to get some information about the strawberries that we were going to pluck later.

Strawberries products.

There are different strawberries products which include strawberry jam, strawberry wine, strawberry beer and etc.

Wine tasting corner.

Before you buy any of the wine or liquer, you can definitely ask for a sip. I tried the strawberry liqueur. It was too sweet for my liking.

'Factory' behind the small shop.

The factory actually is for packing purpose. You can see lots of aunties workers inside, busy packing the fresh strawberries.

Ok, let's go on with the strawberries. Too much introduction I guess.

See how big is the strawberry farm.

The red stuff, which I was pointing, was the strawberries. I think those are the strawberries which do not meet the quality.

Strawberry plants.

It actually needs lot of space to plant all these. There are spaces in between but I don't have any idea why they do so.

The red strawberry was my victim.

Choose only strawberries which are firm, ripe, bright, plump and healthy looking. Only those strawberries taste better.

Pluck, pluck and pluck!

It was fun to pluck all the fresh strawberries. We seemed to be playing hide and seek with the strawberries. Find the ripe one and pluck!

Chris, you look like huge strawberry.

What size of strawberries taste sweeter you might ask. I think the bigger strawberries taste sweeter. More juicy of course.

That's a sweet one.

We were only allowed to eat two strawberries per person on the spot. But... of course I ate more than that. :P

Two handful of strawberries!

That's the results after about 45 minutes of plucking under the sun. We brought the strawberries to the shop to weight.

How many trays of strawberries we plucked that day?

One tray of that strawberries weight about 1 to 1.5kg. One kg of strawberries costed us Aud$10. I think it's quite a reasonable price since we got to choose our own strawberries. The good, big and juicy strawberries, we kept. The small, not ripe and bad strawberries, we left them alone.

Fresh strawberries.

The fresh strawberries are quite different than the strawberries that I find in the market. The fresh strawberries tend to be sweeter. I seldom taste any sweet strawberries which are bought from the market.

Yummy~!

I started to fall in love with strawberries after this trip.

Some facts about strawberries. The information is from the leaflet that I obtained from the farm.

Strawberries are a very good source of Vitamin C. In fact, half a cup of strawberries provides your daily requirements. As an added bonus, they are low in fat and kilojoules, which is the energy (155kJ/100g). Strawberries are also rich in foliate.

Strawberry farm is strongly recommended by me!

Huh..? Erm...

I notice that some of the lecturers do have the same habit when they are giving lecture. They tend to start or end every sentence with a phrase which they have never missed out in every lecture. I'm not blaming them, just that, I find that they have their own uniqueness. Maybe this is how they want us to remember them. Not to mention the lecturers, I, myself have some phrases or words from my daily conversations that I cannot miss out.

Below is some of the phrases which some of the lecturers like to use during their lectures:

Dr. A - "In that case..."
Dr. B - "you must agree with me that..."
Mr. C - "it's nothing but..."
Dr. D - "...right?"
Dr. E - "Yek... Yek..." (means yeah.. yeah...)
Mr. F - "but... I don't know..."

Imagine all of them are having a meeting...

Original photo taken from www.unusualart.com

Combine the phrases, starting from "In that case..." in clockwise direction. Each of them speaks a phrase and the phrases can form a sentence!

So, what are the phrases or words that you cannot miss out in your daily conversation?

Pre-Spring Feast

Spring Feast is one of the biggest annual event organised by the university's International Student Services in conjunction with Multicultural Week. Also known as Pasar Malam, there will be stalls setting up by the students and some from cathering services. It will be held at The University of Western Australia on 5th of October 2006. Those who are in Perth can come to The University of Western Australia and taste varieties of food, involve in games or even enjoy some of the performances.

Poster which will be seen on Nathan's stall, The Big Bugs Stall.

One of my friends will set up a stall during the Spring Feast. Do check it out!

I'll update more about Spring Feast after the event is over. But...those who can come, PLEASE do come and enjoy the fun!

Remember, it's on 5th of October (Thursday) 2006, from about 6p.m. till 11p.m. or 12a.m.! All are welcome!

Tribute to The Brave, Crocodile Hunter

Most of us probably have watched "The Crocodile Hunter Show" in Animal Planet. It was hosted by an Australian naturalist, Steve Irwin.

Steve Irwin a.k.a The Crocodile Hunter.

Today, 4th of September, I'm sad to say that, the great Crocodile Hunter died while filming Great Barrier Reef off Port Douglas (Queensland, Australia) for his daughter’s new TV series. He was killed by not the fierce animals which he usually dealt with, the crocodiles, but by a stingray.

This is a stingray, in case anyone curious what it is.

Of course, that's not the stingray which caused the death of the Crocodile Hunter. (Full news can be read here)

His producer and closest friend, John Stainton said on Croc One today,“The world has lost a great wildlife icon, a passionate conservationist and one of the proudest Dads on the planet. He died doing what he loves best and left this world in a happy and peaceful state of mind. Crocs Rule!” (Quoted from www.crocodilehunter.com)

I think that's best describe Steve Irwin, still the GREATEST EVER... Crocodile Hunter. May your soul rest in peace.

Yan, Time To Say Goodbye...

Yan, a friend/a senior of mine has left Perth for good. Before he left, Yan (himself), Chris, Darren, Henry and I went to Conca's for a farewell dinner.

Seems familiar?

Yea, I did came here before when my sis was at Perth the other day.

Chilli mussels...YEAHHH!

Yan has chosen this place for dinner. I think it was a good choice. If not, we would ended up in a chinese restaurant that day and chinese restaurants are everywhere in Singapore (oh yeah, Yan is from Singapore). And that was the first time Darren visited Conca's.

Conca's special, chilli mussels.

Yan made the order, 2 large bowls of chilli mussels (which came with two serves of garlic bread) and he ordered an extra serve of garlic bread. The bill came out to be Aud$60 for 5 persons.

What are you doing, Chris?

While waiting for the chilli mussels and the garlic breads, we took some photos.

Garlic bread.

The side dish came out first before the chilli mussels which was the main dish. There were about 4 or 5 pieces of garlic breads per serve. And I can tell you, the garlic breads were awesome!

Chilli mussels!

This photo is much more better than the one which I have taken the other day. It's really yummy I tell you. Don't play play. :P We ordered the medium hot chilli mussels. I'll try the real hot chilli mussels next time.

Look at the mussels.

Mussels, unlike clam, is very juicy and it doesn't have a kind of smell which I totally dislike.

Don't eat first, look at the camera.

It was actually stomach-filling dinner. Full, full, full!

Almost finished everything, keep going!

One after one, all the chilli mussels were down to our stomach.

The last three pieces of mussels.

The last three pieces of mussels were dedicated to Yan. See how he enjoyed himself?

From left to right: Yan, Henry, Darren, Chris and I.

We took a group photo before we left.

The four Ah Bengs handsome guys.

It's actually quite a good photo if not because of my shaky hands. Should buy a tripod next time.

The second owner of the truck.

With that truck, we left Conca's for bubble tea at Northbridge.

Famousa Cafe for bubble tea.

I never been here before that. Famosa Cafe is actually a cafe which offers internet services, comics or novels rentals, bubble teas and also television entertainment programme (mostly the Taiwan entertainment show).

Bubble tea's corner.

Just right after you enter the cafe, you can see a bubble tea's corner. Various flavour of bubble teas can be ordered there.

Bubble tea sitting in the truck.

I ordered Lavender Milk Tea with bubble. But it didn't taste "lavender". A bit disappointed with the bubble tea though which costed me Aud$3.50

We later went to petrol station to pump air into Yan's (now Darren) bicycle.

Driving a truck doesn't need a helmet lah. :P

Yan with his 'baby'.

After all the procedures have gone through by Yan and Darren, the bicycle was finally handed over to Darren.

That's basically the last few hours Yan in Perth.

Yan, all the best in everything. Till then, keep in touch and take care!:)