I took a ONE month holiday in the month of February. Everybody say… WAHHH~!!!

All I did was eat, take photo, play, sleep, eat, take photo, play, sleep….

I didn’t even bother organizing my photos actually. I just took everything and dumped the photos in Mat’s laptop, and continued eating, taking photo, play, sleep.

The photos that you see in Mat’s facebook was forced upon me to put it up by my dearest. If it wasn’t because of his daily nags, the photos wouldn’t be up on his facebook either.

So happen today is my off day, so I shall start writing my blog again

Day ONE

Mat’s family (mum’s side), has a family reunion once every 2 years. And this year, is in Kota Kinabalu, Sabah. We stayed in Yaho Hotel.

We arrived there on the eve of Chinese New Year. So of course, there’s the CNY eve dinner.

CNY eve dinner buffet style

After dinner, we had a time of Praise and Worship. We even had a theme song for the family reunion 2011. So here, we are learning the actions to the song from our next generation of Tings.

Praising and Worshiping God together

One of the photographer (Mat’s cousin), with his canggih camera… in comparison to mine, I think I better go hide it.

We also had a session of playing games together. One of the games was rock paper scissors.

Kids can’t have all the fun, so it’s the adults turn.

After a time of fun and games… comes the BEST part for the kids. And the WORST part for those who are married!!!!!!

ANG POW GIVING TIME!!!

The ones who have to give ang pow had to line up on one side, and the ones receiving, lined up on the other.

I wish I was one of the receiving ones lah….

Look at all those happy faces on the receiving line…

Look at all those happy faces!

Day TWO

After a time of devotion and some breakfast and some sharing, we went to Harbour Sutera hotels.

And took some photos there.

While the little kids were swimming in the pool, the “older” kids played with UNO.

Who is this Ta Yi Long?

One of my favourite photos

We went to places in a van. If the van can squeeze somemore, we squeeze in somemore. Baby pram also squeeze in.

Bursting out of the van

Advertising for Bleu

No matter where in Malaysia, no matter how much water people around you tell you to drink, somehow or rather, someone is going to get a heat “stroke”. And one of the victim is Uncle Bruce. I think throughout the reunion, at least 5 of them kena heat “stroke”.

If you’re complaining of signs of wanting to vomit, headache, poor appetite… beware…. Mat’s mum is ever ready to pinch the heat our of your body!

Day THREE

Today, we’re going somewhere quite far from the city. So Mary (another cousin, the organizer, and the one doing the peace sign in the picture below), hired a bus so all of us can fit in. So ya… as you can see, there are around 40 of us altogether.

We went to the hot springs on Mt Kinabalu. We didn’t get a chance to soak in the hot springs, but we did go up the canopy walk.

Another favourite photo!

On the canopy walk

On the way back down… too tired already.

Day FOUR

We sat in the bus again, and this time, we’re on our way to see monkeys and fireflies. Before seeing the monkeys, we had a fish spa session.

What you do is, you clean your feet, then put them into this “pool” with all these fishes and the fishes will start eating off the dead skin on your feet.

Somebody’s feet has a lot of dead skin!

My feet only had 1 or 2 fishes

Your feet has to stay quite still so the fishes can do their work. If you start moving them, the fishes will swim away. And while the fishes are feasting on your feet, it’s actually a very ticklish experience.

Mary here is trying to make herself keep still because it is very ticklish.

After the fish spa session, we geared up and sat in a boat, and went off to see the monkeys.

And at this point… my camera batteries went flat

I couldn’t take pictures of the monkeys anyway because they are so high up in the trees.

Devotion time – studying the word of God. Scripture today is 1John 5:13

And of course…. no family reunion will be complete without a group photo.

And a funny one for keepers!

Had a great time getting to know all Mat’s uncles, aunties, cousins, nieces and nephews. Thoroughly enjoyed it.

See you all again in 2013!

Attended a wedding.

The venue of this wedding is held at a Uniting Church. The inside of the church of course… as you can see… who doesn’t want to get married in this church? But the big curtain on the wall behind the altar raises a question mark from me…. anyways… I shall not dwell into that.

This is my first ever wedding that I attended in Australia. I thought the whole service was very solemn to tell you the truth. When the bride marched in, of course we all very excited to take pictures of the bride right? So quite a few of us was snapping like crazy.

Then, when the bride reached her groom, and the reverend stood in front of them, she announced “There are a lot of photography fanatics here. Please be reminded that this is a religious ceremony”.

@_@

I thought weddings are suppose to be a joyous occasion.

Anyways….  I shall not dwell into that any further as well.

Below, is a picture of all the best men surrounding the groom. No, they are not praying for him. There seem to be a wardrobe malfunction somewhere on the groom’s suit, and the best men are frantically trying to fix it. Got fixed in the end fortunately!

The groom is our friend. He used to be in our cell group, but ever since he met his girlfriend (now wife), he dissappeared from our cell group (cause his wife is from another church). Nevertheless, we’re happy for him! Congratulations!

On a different occassion, another cellgroup friend invited us for Christmas lunch 1 week early, because they had holiday plans.

Awesome lunch! I cooked roast potatoes cooked in duck fat! YUMS! And also roasted veges (pumpkin, onions, carrot, eggplant). And we also had roast pork, and roast turkey, and mango salad… yummy!

And for dessert, Jit Jing baked us the best bread and butter pudding I’ve ever tasted! Absolutely divine!

On a different occassion before the year 2010 ended… Mat and I had a romantic, quiet, relaxing, Christmas picnic at the Royal Botanic Gardens.

It was such a beautiful day. It was cloudy, but yet not cold, not hot. We had sandwiches, cake, chips, drinks, chocolates…

… and a spectator…

A group of chinese tourists:

A lady with 2 mini gray hounds:

Played 2 games of scrabble…

and then had a lazy rest of the day!

Till then, hope you had a great start to the New Year!

Wishing you all and myself a very blessed and eventful 2011!

Lots of Love,
Flo

The undecorated cupcakes:

Selina decorating her cupcake:

Marie decorating hers:

And look at all the beautiful decorated cupcakes.

Pwetty kan? Especially when it’s all put together like this.

The Birthday Girl: Jit Jing!

Jit Jing opening one of the presents:

The expression on her face, priceless!

Have to assemble her own birthday present somemore… hehehe.

She was very amused with this next present.

It’s a stuffed toy with holes for nostrils and a belly button. Jit Jing loves poking her fingers into the various holes… looking for gold I suppose.

Lovely ladies at the cupcake party.

This was such a great idea. Thanks again Jit Jing for the lovely afternoon!

Nope… not jelak yet! Still loving it! Finishing the last of it today.

This is what we have for breakfast everyday for the last whole week till today:

Looks more like fruit platter with milk ya… hahaha!

And you know what happened after this?

We have never touched a single kiwi until now…. so yah… lesson learnt… do not be greedy!

Got lah… when we eat out, and when there’s some bits of kiwi in our dessert, then of course eat lah. But we have never bought a single kiwi since. Really really.

It’s November now, and summer is just a month away. And… you guessed it…. fruit season coming again!

WOO HOO!

So guess what I did on Saturday?

I bought something impulsive… AGAIN!

Did I really learn my lesson?

Guess what it is…
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Ta dah!

A BOX OF MANGOES!

40 of them to be exact!

I absolutely LOVE mangoes!

And you know how much is this box of mangoes?

ONLY AUD10 !!!!!

Great bargain eh?! And the mangoes are SO SWEET!!!!!

Right…. who wants to be my neighbour?

Ok…. I have to start eating mangoes for Breakfast, Lunch and Dinner for the whole week!

WOO HOO!

**thoughts running through my head…. mangoes with cereal, mango chicken, mango chutney, mango with ice cream, mango smoothie…..hmm… **

Last night, we went to a turkish restaurant to celebrate his birthday with some friends. We chose the restaurant. We actually wanted to try a Lebanese restaurant, but after researching for reviews, we decided to go for this one. This restaurant is called Alasya.

We ordered the King’s Feast and Meat Lover’s Feast

First of all, Salata (salad).

And then, bread to be eaten with the different type of dips. The bread is freshly baked, from a wood fire oven. Nothing beats a freshly baked bread, and the dips, delicious!

The pink colour dip is very nice. We couldn’t figure out what it is, but maybe it’s beetroot dip. Very nice!

The meat platter.

I think there was too much meat until we can’t finish it, had to take away

And of course, a jolly good group of friends to eat with ^_^ Fantastic company!

Finally, of course, the dessert. So far the bread, the dips, the meat, they’re all good. But the dessert was a little disappointing. It does look nice. The problem with it was that, it’s SUPER DUPER sweet. I’ve never eaten anything sweeter than this. It’s even sweeter than a block of sugar. I think we all got a sugar rush after this.

And of course, Mat received a couple of birthday presents

This one is to prepare us for Christmas eh? We don’t have a christmas tree at home, but we’ll figure out somewhere to hang it up for christmas

And the next present…

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Was totally unexpected…

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Mat… no… even I.. was speechless… when Mat got this present from a group of friends from Uni…

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Get ready for it…

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TADA!… A COFFEE MACHINE!

If you’re Malaysian…. everybody say…

WALAU EH!

If you’re not a Malaysian…. everybody say…

WAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHH!!!

Ok… now I have to find a space for it in the kitchen.

I LOVE yum cha.

On Saturday, we went for yum cha in the city, at Shark Fin Inn, with some friends.

The service here is very good. One of our friends came with a baby in the pram. And the staff automatically helped her carry the whole pram with the baby inside, upstairs.

There were 2 babies at our table. Both were offered a baby chair automatically. Service…. tick!

I wouldn’t say the food is superb superb, but pretty good. They serve more or less the same type of dim sums as any other place, but this one is interesting. You char kueh chiong fan. Interesting right?

So food… ok lah.. tick!

The reason we came together for yum cha is to celebrate 3 birthdays!

All these 3′s birthday is one after the other, with Mat’s birthday coming up first.

The birthday boy and girls (not the baby)
I love this photo. One is just getting ready to blow the candle, one is half way about to blow, and one is blowing already.

And after they blew the cake, the staff automatically sliced up the cake and served it to us. Good service kan?

Price, not too bad, about $20 per person. And this is eating until cannot eat anymore, even though it’s not a buffet. Price, tick.

Mat always gets to celebrate his birthday twice here in Melbourne, because of these three. So ya, he’s going to have another celebration AGAIN… this Tuesday, 19th…. so people… *tsk tsk*

I signed up for a short course!!!

So will be back-to-school for a few weeks. Not looking forward to the long hours in class. But nevermind… tahan for at least 2 months!

HUARGH~!

*putting on game face*

huhuhuhuhuhuhuhuhuhu~~~

Me writing this last day makes me miss Japan lah…sigh…

Anyways… let’s start the day with a buffet breakfast, courtesy of the hotel. Yay!

Mat’s got a bedhead

The breakfast has both western and Japanese style. Of course we ate both. The Japanese one is very filling though. Because there’s rice.

At first, we thought of waking up at 4am in the morning to go to the famous Tsukiji Fish Market.

Why 4am in the morning? Because that’s when the excitement comes in. You’ll get to see the Tuna auction. But upon visiting the website, they have limited the number of people who can experience the auction.

So in the end, we decided not to go so early, maybe just see the normal wholesale fish market. (Actually the real reason is that we don’t want to wake up so early ).

If you go there early in the morning, you’ll be expected to see this:

Picture taken from Japan-Guide.com

So, we decided to go right after breakfast, that was around 8am in the morning.

When we arrived at the market, we expected to see this:

Picture taken from Japan-Guide.com

And this:

Picture taken from Japan-Guide.com

But NOOOOooooooooo~~……

When we turned the corner to the market entrance…. we saw this:

Eh…. eh…..

Where are all the people and the fishes?

@_@

And then we saw this:

Phiang phiang phiang……. (sound effect for dramatic effect)

Heeeeehhhhhhhh??????????~~~~~~~~~(this is a Japanese expression)

What!!!!!!!!! CLOSED?????!!!!!!!!!!!

Thank God I didn’t wake up at 4am just to see this. We even went to the website and double checked that it opens. But it didn’t say anything about being closed today… grrr…..

What to do? Wasted…. so we just walked around the town a bit.

Saw a very cute “poster” most probably drawn by the fishermen there.

It’s basically them complaining about the tourist who visit this market. They think the tourists are a nuisance (which I agree to some extent).

Because of all these nuisance tourists, that’s why they limit the number of people to watch the auction, and limit the tourist only to a certain section of the market.

One of the most important rule: DO NOT TOUCH ANYTHING!

Because most tourists are such nosy people, they keep touching the prized Tunas, and this will contaminate it, and the auction price drops. Visit the website for more rules, and please… obey them!

We walked around the town for a bit, and really, nearly everything was closed. This tamago shop is open. While Mathias was lining up for the tamago, I was busy taking photos, and when I was done, I turned around, and eh? how come Mathias beside me with no tamago? What happened to queuing up for it? He said he suddenly doesn’t feel like it… aiseh….

In case you’re wondering, the whole block is made of eggs, just that they have different “flavours”.

So since the market is closed, let’s move on to our next destination then.

Mat seems like quite an expert at taking the subway now, after 2 weeks in Japan.

Our next stop is Omotesando. If you’re loaded with lots of money, this is the place!

A 3 or 4 story Louis Vuitton

Both sides of the street is lined with big fashion names like Louis Vuitton, Prada, Burberry… you name it.

This next picture has nothing to do with fashion (but then again, maybe it has). I was busy taking pictures of the streets, when suddenly Mat whispered to me, “honey, there’s a man carrying a Little Mermaid bag”. I was like, ” huh? Where where”… and saw this:

More images of Omotesando:

Burberry

This whole building is Ralph Lauren

And we saw a shop that we dare to go in! (and think we can afford spending money in)

Kiddy Land! WOO HOO!

This shop sells anything and everything cute. There’s hello kitty, snoopy, elmo, barbie, some studio ghibli merchandise as well. There are also boy’s toys as well, don’t worry.

And in the end, what did we buy?

NOTHING. (ai ya… we’re too big for these kind of thing already lah. Even if I buy, I also don’t know where to keep them. The black dust from studio ghibli is enough. And I’m not a fan of all these characters anyway).

3 full floors of Nike

Don’t think we should spend more time in Omotesando than we already have. Next destination, is also a perfect place for the eyes.

Harajuku.

If you come to Harajuku on a Sunday, you’ll see a lot of people dress up as cosplay (Costume play), normally as a manga or anime character. But because we came on a Monday, we only managed to see 2 or 3. But this is still a great place for people watching.

Harajuku Station

Cute tshirts. Look at the tshirts on the first column.

The 2nd: KFC and

3rd shirt: Sesame street. Notice where’s big bird.

If she’s dressing up as cosplay, I won’t be able to recognize which character:

Here, I received a call from my uncle (another uncle, not the one who lent us the iPhone), who lives and works in Japan. He just finished work and wanted to meet up for lunch. So we just sat down and watched people as we waited.

A very squirmy dog

And finally he arrived. He said he’s not familiar with Harajuku. So I told him, the last “city” that I want to see is Shibuya. And that’s the last city on our list to visit.

And he said he’s very familiar with Shibuya! AWESOME!

So we walked to Shibuya from Harajuku, and looked for lunch.

Somewhere in Shibuya

Randomly chose a restaurant. And this is what we ate:

And we talked and talked and talked until I forgot to take pictures of 2 more dishes that we ordered. Gomen Nasai.

Didn’t realize the time passed so quickly when there’s good company. Almost time for us to go to the airport. So I rushed my uncle and said, quick, I want to see the busiest crossroad in all of Japan.

I was told to take this picture because, this corner was used in a movie, is it Tokyo Drift? where the car drifted or something:

Some street in Shibuya

This building (next photo), all girls stuff (according to my uncle). He said, if you see a guy in there, he’s either ah kua, or he’s a pervert.

People…. Welcome to the most busiest crossroad in all of Japan!

You always see this busy zebra crossing especially in movies, or even commercials.

Just look at the amount of people!

This is the famous BIG SCREEN TV showing commercials, or any big announcements, etc…

This dog, is called Hachi. There’s a movie produced inspired by a true story. It’s a story about this dog, Hachi, who is very loyal to his master. Everyday, Hachi will wait in front of this train station to wait for the master to return from work, without fail.

So one day, the master, never returned from work (I shall not review why), but Hachi, continued to wait in front of the station, everyday, same time, without fail, in hope that his master will return.

If you do not wish to cry, don’t watch the movie.

And finally… a picture of me and my uncle! He said, he has never imagined taking a photo in the middle of Shibuya. Well… uncle, imagine no more!

And he HATES it when I call him uncle. He said he’s not that old to be called uncle. He’s actually only a few years older than me. Looks young to be my uncle right? Oh… and he’s single… anyone interested?… then you’ll be my AUNTY!!!! HAHAHAHAHA!!!!

We still had to go back to our hotel to get our luggage, and then off we go to the airport.

Using a 747 to go back. Wish it was the A380

Sigh~…. I miss Japan already.

It has indeed been a very adventurous holiday, at least for the both of us. It’s been challenging and fun to be travelling in a country where you don’t speak their language, no tour guide to tell us where to go, finding our own way through the maze of train networks, and getting lost a few times.

Of all the countries that I would go back again for a holiday, Japan is one of them. Maybe we’ll visit northern Japan next time.

Japan… we’ll be back!

I hope you have enjoyed reading my “Diaries of Japan” as I have enjoyed writing them ^_^

Domo arigato gozaimashita!