mamak me!

Mamak opened on Goulburn Street in Sydney just before we left for London. I remember going there and having the roti canai, noting that it was pretty good, but not phenomenal. It was easier for me to go to Kammadhenu in Newtown for roti.

well.

Mamak sure has up the ante! We went there for dinner last night, queued for over half an hour – it felt more like half a life time as we were hungry and right there up front is the roti guy flinging the light and delicious dough around in the air - what a tease! We even tried convincing Mel C to show some flesh to get us in faster, unfortunately her morals got in the way, dammit. After an eternity we were seated, we ordered immediately and I sat patiently sipping on my milo ais, waiting for the food to hit my tummy.

we ordered two serves of roti canai, roti telur bawang (egg & onion), two serves of maggi goreng (yeh, we were hungry), half a dozen chicken satay (which in retrospect should have been a dozen) and a serve of ayam goreng (fried chicken). We absolutely inhaled the food, and then backed up with a roti bom (unbelievable), a roti tisu, and an ais kacang, which I have to say was the only vaguely disappointing dish of the evening.































the verdict? Un-frickin-believable. Kammadhenu? What’s that? It doesn’t matter, you don’t even need to know. Mamak conquers all. The wait is well worth it for the reward, the flavours are authentic to within an inch of its life, and the prices ain’t Malaysian prices but hey for Sydney, it is pretty damn good. In comparison, we had Sushi-e (one of my favourite restaurants in Sydney) the night before, and I would hands down rather go to Mamak again.

and indeed I am, this Saturday for my very last meal in Sydney!

the hazards of ironing

so, a couple of weeks ago, i was happily ironing away here at mel & cam's place. as I finished one garment, i propped the iron up on the board and turned around to get the next item of clothing. unfortunately, my fat ass got in the way and bumped the ironing board. the iron went tumbling face first onto the carpet.

instinctively i dived onto the carpet to grab the iron, and burnt a long fat blister on my thumb in the process. but that was not the worst of the damage done. Within seconds, the iron had branded a big fat triangle into this fabulously shithouse acrylic carpet. right in the middle of the floor.

i almost died, seriously, I haven't felt that bad in a long time. and for weeks we've been staring at the brand, and it stares straight back at you, never blinking.

but today, the carpet repairers came... and saved my life. these guys are frickin' brilliant. they cut a square of carpet from the wardrobe and patched the damaged carpet, so skillfully that you can barely see the join... except that the new patch is clean and white.. but we can fix that!

hallelujah!

new shades!

still in love

did you think i'd forgotten about him already? Hah, not quite!

at the brink of finishing Breaking Dawn, and I'm still magically, breathlessly, tragically in love with edward.

And now, i've found someone else equally obsessed as me. I won't name her, she'll kill me.. but m'dear how glad I am i can share this with you! Can i come over and watch Twilight with you over and over and over and over again??

leon

on possibly the first day of uni, i was in class with this guy who i thought was a bit of a tosser, to be honest. one of those class clown types, and when he leaned too far back in his chair i would wish he'd fall over, and inevitably he would, and I would have a bit of a giggle. I was also cursed because this guy had all the same classes as me, lectures and tutorials alike, and there was nothing I could do about it.

so i just went along to class and saw him every single day. eventually, the curse laid on me was so powerful that Leon snaked his way into my life and became one of the largest, most solid and most unshakable parts of my life. He's seen me at my worst. In fact the only other person who has seen me worse is Loreen, and I would have married her if Felix hadn't gotten in the way. But Leon also has, and loves me just the same.

i can almost say I've done the same for him. I've tried to be there for him, from a distance, when he needed me. Sometimes i feel like I'm failing him, but sometimes I feel like the distance has strengthened our friendship. From the northern hemisphere to the south, we still manage to chat almost every single day of the year. That's something, isn't it?

So what a treat it was that Leon came up to Sydney and spent one glorious day with me. We packed a weekend's worth of activities into a day, definitely ate enough for two days (breakfast, then oportos, then laksa, then opera bar, then max brenner, then hurricanes, then lindt cafe! and then i wanted to die..) and watched each others nervous laughters as we both had our second tattoo etched into our skin.











it was an amazing day.

three words

home. cooked. food.

i had the absolute pleashaaaaa of going home to Brisbane last weekend, and being force fed by my dad ain't such a bad thing when you haven't been home for a while. In my gastronaut heaven, my parents fed me...

malaysian curry fish with okras and eggplant

singapore chilli crabs with super fresh crabs that my dad caught

crab & sweetcorn soup, also with the delicious fresh crab

yum

bubbas. everywhere.

as i sit in the airport in Sydney, waaaay too early for my flight to Brisbane, i am confronted with the vicious beast that has been rearing its ugly head at me since i was all but twelve years old. this beast lays dormant most of the time, but occasionally, spurred on by the sweet smell of newborn babies, it surfaces and side swipes me into a blubbering quivering clucky mess of a person.

and my goodness has the beast been well fed since my arrival back in Sydneytown. Not only did I have six brand spankin' new babies to meet, cuddle and drown with kisses, there was also Milo, who is now a toddler (not so much a baby) but still my special, my favourite.

to quickly introduce them, there was Jude, Sarah & Mitch's brand new five-week-old wonder (and little brother of Milo); Keira, Gene & SK's little Korean princess; Linden, Ivan & Monica's chinese buddha of a baby; Alana, Ian & Stef's happy little chicken; and last but very certainly not least there was Lachlan, Babs & Brett's amazing boy... and somewhat the closest thing I have to a nephew. Lachie I just met today, and boy did I not want to let him go. Absolutely devine.





















and I still have chubba bubba Ashleigh to meet!

home is where the heart is

End of week 1.

I landed in Sydney on Sunday evening around 9pm, the perpetual 21 degree air conditioning in the airport disguised what awaited me outside. I flew through immigrations (ah, bless. Caught a flight full of Other passport holders), collected my bag and headed for the door. i dived headfirst into the muggy Sydney evening, and having come from crisp cold London, this was like... I don’t even know how to describe it. It was a little like walking through something solid, wading my way through goo, or maybe like Patrick Swayze in Ghost, where he could walk through something solid, but with a little effort.

In about two tenths of a second, I was drenched from head to toe in sweat, and it didn’t help that i had been on a 22 hour flight, with no showers in between. The BO meter was off the charts. I took deep, wet breaths and trudged on. By the time I got to the cab, I felt like I’d been dunked in the BO ocean, retrieved, and not wrung out very well.

BUT. This isn’t a cranky story. It could have been, had I just landed anywhere else in the world. But I was home. In Sydney. And i could smell it in the air. I AM HOME.

It’s been a week people, and I have fallen back in mad crazy love with the city which in truth, I had never stopped loving anyway. It’s like we’ve renewed our vows. I had the first two days off to play tourist and tour guide, and I wonder, why did I ever leave? This city is perfect in so many ways.

Lazing in the sun at Circular Quay, the ferry to Manly, the beach, the sun, the people, the food, the smells, the freshness of everything.












And lastly, on Wednesday night, a reunion of my pals in Surry Hills...


It actually feels like I never left. I'm even loving being back in the office, seeing everyone, and feeling right at home.

And Ying, if you’re reading this, I’m not even counting sleeps. Are you proud of me?

i'm such a wank

I'm sitting here in Metcentre, an old hang out, waiting for my friend Jo to come meet me for lunch. I'm here, with my beloved Netbook, hooked up to the world wide web with my 3 broadband wireless key, and with my mobiles, both my mobiles sitting next to me.

i do realise that i look like a complete and utter wank.

by the way, i'm now here in Sydney-town, enjoying the unbelievable warmth. It's a little muggy actually but right now, i welcome the underarm squish... yucky I know, but you can blame London for my sudden lack of hygiene!