My 30th Birthday :)

I turned 30 last weekend!! :) well in Indo that would not be a celebration as I'm single and a female. People would raise an eyebrow and think or say '30? Not married yet?? " that's why I chose not to be in Jakarta for my birthday even with my bestie offering to throw me bigger celebration in Jakarta :P

Anyhow, my friends threw me a surprise party last Saturday. Hmm... I was kind of expecting it though XP within our group, when someone turns 30 we always throw him/her a surprise party Indonesian style with the cone shaped tumeric rice dish. But who knows? Within the last few years, more and more of our friends go back to Indonesia, and with only few people here, the minimum number of guests attending to order that dish is getting harder to meet too. Plus, the person who usually arranges for all this supposedly already flew back to Jakarta before my bday too.

So, on Saturday morning, my friend Kazeman took me out for yumcha. He said he would treat me breakfast for my birthday. I was thinking, is the surprise gonna be yumcha?? It's easier and we can have it with any number of guests. So I was kind of hoping. But when we arrived at the restaurant, no, there wasn't anyone there.

So we started eating. Just an FYI he eats a lot lol. He kept asking me if I could still have some more and of course I said yes since it was obvious he was still hungry. Anyway when we finished, I was FULL.

What funny was, right after we were seated, he said to me, "after yumcha, lets play Just Dance, shall we??". I was like errrr... -.- I just got to City for yumcha, and have to go back home again straight after?? Oh well... All right... Maybe there is something up at home.

After yumcha we went to Daiso. I needed to buy a frame for my jigsaw puzzles. I actually wanted to look around more, but I felt bad making him following me. So after that we went back to my place.

Kazeman was VERY occupied. Typing on his mobile almost non-stop all the way home. NOBODY was chatting in our whatsapp group :l I said to him, "You're so busy, did you join Sultan Agung group??" (that's another friend's high school group whose members we believe have nothing to do coz they chat nonstop everyday). He replied, no... It's my highschool group. In my head, I was like, "since when you have a highschool group?".

Then when we arrived in front of my apartment, he looked uneasy... Like he needed to go to toilet to do number 2 lol XD I said to him, "why? U need to go to toilet?". He replied confusedly, "um... It's ok, we're already here anyway." Hmm... :l oh btw, I did keep an eye on the cars around my apartment, checking if my friend's car was parked somewhere hehe :P

When I opened my unit door, I saw streamers hanging on the ceiling, then my sister said "Surprise!!!". But err... Only her and my dad were home -.- the guests haven't even arrived!!! I didn't know if I should cry or laugh lol XD the tumpeng was on the table, and decorations were up, but no guests yet.

Apparently Kazeman's task was to get me out of the house in the morning, and bring me back home at 12. And he did exactly that, when I opened my door, it was exactly 12! What he didn't anticipate was people were late, and that kebelet face (needed to do number 2 face) was actually when he read the message saying ONLY my sis and my dad are home huahahahhahahahaha.... He couldn't come up with any reason to go somewhere else so he just let it be lol.

Few minutes after, Pipit called my sis and Kazeman for help getting the drinks up. When they didn't come up after a while, I called her asking where she was, to which she replied "i'm at my apartment carpark!". I was like yeah, right, why did you call my sister to pick up drinks then? Lol

Then people started coming, including my friend who has same birthday as me. Even my bestie's sister, brother in law and their children came too! I was so happy seeing them. They are some kind of special guests lol... Just like other young families, their attendance to gatherings depends on the children. If the children are sick, or just not well behaved, then they won't come. So it is really a special occasion lol :)

But the one who really made a surprise was my bestie!! She was "supposed" to fly back to Indo on my birthday. So she lied to me about her departure date, even to the smallest details I.e. i'm already at the train, my luggages are with my sister coz the car is full so I have to take train... I'm already at the airport, your sister don't need to come, I'm going in soon, etc. Even to "i feel bad for ur sister coming to send me off, but I could only stay with her for 10 minutes" :P she even called me before she "flew" lol

I must admit she really thought it through. During the time she was "flying", she did not show up on whatsapp. And when the landing time passed, she came on whatsapp saying "it's HOT!" Lol

She did have a mistake though. When she got home, her WiFi automatically turned on. Making her "last seen time" to be updated to the time she was still supposed to be on air. I actually noticed that, and thought isn't it a bit early? But I thought maybe whatsapp was having issue and didn't think much of it. Plus, not long after, she noticed it and frantically blocked me completely lol.

Anyway this time she really came to my place by train lol... Coz her sister's car was full with her niece, nephew and her luggages hahaha... So she really had to take train. She brought all of her luggage to my place, so on Monday she can take train to my place, grab her stuffs and then take a cab to the airport. It's only 15-20 minutes taxi ride to the airport from my place , whereas it takes 2 hours using bus and train to get to the airport from where she lives.

Pipit's bro and his wife actually met me the day before when I went to get my free birthday Chatime :P they didn't say happy birthday to me that day, and I did say to myself, "why aren't they saying happy birthday to me??". They said they didn't know if they should pretend or not, and decided to pretend they didn't know and say it at the party. Lucky I didn't shamelessly say "it's my birthday today lho!!" I do do that sometimes lol :P

The food was good. The bad news is, I was really too full from yumcha so I couldn't eat much hahaha... I ate more of it the following day though. My bestie did say, "I scolded Kazeman, why yumcha?? She would be too full and it is too far to make up stories to come back!!". To which he replied, "but she wants yumcha". My bestie thought, she wouldn't eat much after.... Just to clarify though, Kazeman suggested yumcha and I okayed it coz I was full when he asked what I wanted to have. And. I didn't have any other idea :P For our birthday cake, we got mango and blueberry mousse cake from Ella's patisserie. It was really nice! The mango part was frozen, just like having ice cream.

About my presents, I got things I've been wanting for a while hehehe... My bestie gave me SeeByChloe perfume which I've been eyeing for a while, she always knows what I want :) I don't know how she does that :p Her sister gave me BodyShop cherry blossoms gift pack and also the perfume.  I actually laughed when I saw the perfume. It reminded me of long time ago, my bestie's sister had a BodyShop perfume that I really liked, it was moonflower, which is discontinued now. And back then I was still a stingy student. So I said to her, if I won lottery, I would buy that perfume. She laughed hard hearing that, saying "how pityful you are! This perfume only costs $30 and you have to wait till you win a lottery Huahahahahaha" XD I don't know if she still remembers it. 

Pipit and her bro and his wife gave me Big Bang Theory's Bernadette and Amy POP Vinyl =P hehehehe... Been wanting it for a while :) but when I opened the present and saw it, I straight away looked at my cousin. I told her I wanted those when she asked me what I wanted as present. And early that day she told. Me, those 2 are so hard to find, so she had to order it. I was worried she already ordered them. Luckily she hasn't. Turned out that she went to shops look for it that morning, but luckily they didn't have any hehehe...

My other best friend, Helen, who I have birthday with, received 2 Body Shop Cherry Blossoms gift pack lol! When Pipit saw the present she got from Eva's sister, she cried out "Ah?? Isn't that the same???". She offered to exchange it for Helen, but Helen was okay having 2, so she is keeping them both.

The party was great. We talked nonstop about anything. Was so much fun :) plus, Kazeman's PS4 is actually at my place now. Then the boys played Just Dance including my dad!! Lol it was sooo funny! Which reminded me I have to upload those birthday photos Hehehehe :P

Around 4-4:30 they left. But most of us met again in the city later on for Korean BBQ dinner hehehe... Afterall, Eva would really fly back to Indo on Monday, so we'd like to have maybe the last dinner before she goes back.

She went home straight away after dinner while the rest of us took a walk to Darling Harbour. It was nice. Nice weather and not too crowded. And good company of course :) To top it off, there was fireworks show too!! What a way to end the day :) Before we finally went to station, I just remembered that I had a birthday voucher from San Churros for free churros for 2! That's the last day I could get it, so I stopped by to get it. Not bad, I got 6 pieces of Churros with 2 dipping sauce. We shared between 7 of us and each of us had pretty decent bite size I think. Another icing on my already pretty cake :)

Quite a fun day I must say. Definitely making my turning 30 way easier and so much fun. I think I made the right decision to celebrate it back here in Sydney :)

Thanks guys, and love you all :)

Ps: Photos provided by Hello Kitty. Thanks for lending us your new iPhone for the day *hug hug kiss kiss* :)

What A Hell of Two Days!!

Honestly, I feel like I have experienced a LOT of things these past 2 days. Let's start with yesterday, Sunday 7 Sep 2014, shall we?

Yesterday was the day before the Moon Cake Festival, and my friends, my sisters and I rented a car and went to Cabramatta for the Moon Cake Festival. Firstly, few days before that, there was a drama too between our group about our plan for yesterday, but let's not go there. Long story short, just say it wasn't that smooth just to get to yesterday. Anyway, it was DAMN crowded in Cabramatta. Lucky we started early, so it was still okay when we got there.

Once we got there and looking at the stalls, suddenly my friends started queuing in front of some random stall. I then asked them, "What are you guys queuing for???" They said, "Don't know. But the queue is long! Must be great stuff!!". Honestly, Wah Banana's video on "Signs That You Are A Singaporean" flashed back on me lol I really felt like I was a Singaporean, as I started queuing too without knowing what it was for.

When we got closer to the front of the line, we realised that it was a queue for a lucky draw. You pay $2, and then take a folded paper inside a plastic barrel for your prize. The prize were either a bottle of water, a pack of rice (probably 1 kg), or a box of mooncakes. My friends were first, and they got bottles of water. Then my turn came, and I took one of the folded paper and gave it to the stall girl. She opened it, her eyes WIDENED, and she excitedly showed me the writing on the paper (which I had no clue about as my Chinese really is at kindergarten level). She then said, "You've got the Mooncake!!!!!". Honestly, what went through my mind was "Is it 1 mooncake or 1 box of mooncakes?" LOL A greedy girl, aren't I? XD

They gave me a box of mooncakes and then asked me if I mind if they took my photo and it would be published on tomorrow's paper (which is today, and I've been checking if my photo is on their website =P but I couldn't find any *sob* I would check on the paper in library tomorrow). How lucky hohohoho ^^ The unlucky part was, my friend's mobile phone froze when he tried to take photo of me with the prize, and after it was fixed, he took a photo of the prize WITHOUT ME -_-" I ended up getting him to take photo of ME with the prize later on at my friend's place, but it's not the same!!! >>>____<<< I want the stall's background hix..... T___T

Then afterwards, everything was normal. We went eating, shopping, had DIY rice paper rolls, oh, we also got to see Adrian Nakadoo performing at the mooncake festival which is pretty cool! He sounded exactly like in XFactor! So I guess all of them must be really good then. After all those, we visited our friends who just had a new baby girl. Though after I think about it again, something funny did happen there.... My friend, let's name him Sunny, bought some nappy sealer machine as a gift for the new baby. He likes those gadgets kind of thing. He did say that this machine only includes 6 bags, and the bags cassettes cost like $40 for 3 or 6, I can't remember, anyway exxy. When he showed it to his flatmate earlier, she said to him "When I give birth, don't give me this, alright?" LOL So he said well at least she gets to play with it. When my friend (the one who just gave birth) received it, she opened it straight away and had a look. And then she said, "I think I picked the cassettes the other day!!" (This friend of mine is just like me, cheapskates and likes to pick things up from the recycle room lol... As a matter of fact, I actually learned this from her hahaha....). She then went and took the cassettes she found, and they look similar!! She didn't try them on, but they really look similar. So she actually picked the cassettes before she got the machine XD What a talent lol

Then, another not so strange thing was, remember the mooncakes I won? My bestie wanted to buy some mooncakes in the festival, but all was sold per box, she won't be able to finish them, so she didn't end up buying. So, I gave her 1 of my prize. When my friend came to my place for dinner that night, he gave me 1 mooncake. Seems to me like it was to replace the one I gave away :)

Another thing was, yesterday in the car on our way home, my sister was looking for her mobile phone. She couldn't find it and asked me to ring it. It rang inside the car, really faint, muffled sound, but we clearly heard it, so we thought that it must have been in the bag and not to worry about it. However, later that night she tried to find it, she couldn't! She lost her phone!! We rang her mobile but we couldn't hear the ringtone! The phone was still on though. Unfortunately, the friend who hired the car was already sleeping so he couldn't check the car. I left him a message to check the car if he still could access it.

Then this morning he checked it out, however he couldn't find it. He checked the seat, the floor, tried ringing it, but couldn't find anything. I pretty much lost half of my hope. Unfortunately Sydney is not as great as Japan in terms of lost property, so if someone finds your phone, you pretty much have higher chance that you won't ever get it back. But saying that, I still return wallets that I found on the street or on the bus.

I tried locating the phone using Android's Device Manager, however my stupid sister couldn't even remember her gmail username and password!!!! Grrrrrrrr -_____-""" So while trying to crack her account, I sent an SMS to her phone hoping someone would reply. And they did!!!! I rang her phone and a girl answered it. She said she found it in the car last night and so she took it with her, coz she thought somebody else might take it if she left it in the car. She also said sorry that she didn't pick up the calls last night because she was already sleeping. How nice!!! I was SO SO SO SO relieved!! Really thank God for it :))

And you know what, last night's dinner was for my friend's birthday, which is today. And this morning he dropped his iPhone and had the glass cracked XD Oh man, so many things!

This afternoon, I was looking at the time on my PC and I just realised that today last year, my sisters and I were in Tokyo. Gosh!! How quickly time flies!!! I miss that time so much. Today last year we were eating and shopping in Sensouji, went to Shinjuku to see Tokyo view and met my friend for lunch. Eventhough towards the end of the day we were drenched at Harajuku, didn't get to see the cosplay and had to get back to the station straight after arriving at Harajuku because it was raining SO hard, it was the best time we ever had. So I wrote a little email to the ryokan owners we stayed at in Tokyo, just to say hello. Simply because I miss that time. To my surprise, they replied to me straight away with a really long email and are as warm and friendly as before :)

That's not all. This arvo water tap announced in our VIP group that Blondie had resigned. Blondie didn't give months of heads up just like what superexcited expects everyone to do and was very shitty about it and pretty much told Blondie to piss off. So the last day would be this Friday :(( I don't get it really, according to the colleagues, Blondie hasn't got much to do these past few weeks and has been pretty bored. Plus, si bawel always says that we don't have a lot of things to do, we're pretty much free and rah rah rah... so, isn't it good if someone leaves voluntarily? He won't have to pay for the next 3 months :/ Plus, Blondie is not exactly si bawel's preference anyway, so I don't really get what's the problem :/

After I left work tonight, Ms Green was looking for me on Whatsapp, asking if I already left. Sensing something is up, I sent multiple messages asking why. She then said, she wanted to tell me before they announce it tomorrow, she's officially resigned >>>>>>_______<<<<<< Her last day would be a month from now >>>>>>>>_______<<<<<<<< Everybody's leaving me TT_______________TT

See? What a hell of 2 days... I don't think I've had 2 days as full on as these 2 days.

Now, off to the Cotton Island!

Sleep tight :)

13 Days of Surprises - Day 1!

I had so much fun on my birthday last month. My best friend invited our friends over for dinner and cooked all the meals for me! There were 4 different dishes. She actually started preparing the dishes 3 days before my birthday. I didn't have to do anything for the dinner! She also came up with all those sweet ideas for the party. And, she ordered a personalised birthday cake which was really pretty ^^ It was a red velvet mud cake covered with cream cheese, decorated with butterflies and little pink and purple flowers :) The cake was combination of me and my other friend who's having same birthday as me. Purple is my favourite color, while red is her favourite. Her original plan was red flowers with purple butterflies (I love butterflies), but she left it to the cake maker and it turned out really nice. I'm not putting it up here coz I want it to only be mine :P

Because I was so happy that day, and I do appreciate her effort very much, I came up with this idea to celebrate her birthday this month :) I'm not a party type of girl, so I can't arrange a party for her. I'm also not creative to come up with such a surprise pretty looking cake for her. So, I came up with this. See below, I think it explains better :)


I hope that's readable?

So, on the first day, I had lunch with her and gave her that note and the first day gift :)


Ferrero Rocher is her favourite chocolate. I remember she said once, she preferred to get Ferrero bouquet than rose bouquet, so I thought, okay, I'll just make one for her then :) She's never received a bouquet before too. And thank god she loved it :) and just to clarify, I did make the bouquet myself, not from the florist :P

Stay tuned for Day 2 gift! :)

My Cousin's Birthday

Yesterday was my cousin's birthday, and she invited me and my sisters to her birthday dinner @Manly (or what my colleagues usually call Mantown :P). Anyway, she's treating us dinner at the restaurant where she works, China Beach. And we ate A LOT. Seriously it was A LOT. We didn't do the order actually, the waitress asked us if we wanted to order or just let the guys in the kitchen send whatever they wanted to send (yes she works with the waitress of course). So my cousin said yeah, just let them send whatever. At this point, I actually hoped they would send good stuffs lol :P You know people's tastebuds are different, so I hoped they didn't send us weird food :P And these were what they actually served us:

3 Entrees (Mittle Leaf with Fish (I think that's what it's called, too lazy to google daun sirih :P), Tea Smoked Quail with Roasted Garlic, San Choy Bao and Fried Duck Dumplings)

5 Main Meals (Spicy Fish with Extra Coconut Sauce, Beef with Mushrooms and Bamboo Shoots, Duck with Lychee, Stir Fried Pork Belly, and Scallops with Spring Onions)

2 Side Dishes (Steamed Veggies and Roti Prata)

Steamed Rice

4 Desserts (Panna Cotta with Raspberry and Ginger Sauce - It was red and tasted like Raspberry so I think it was raspberry :P, Honey + Watermelon + Lychee ice cream with Praline, Crispy Waffle with Palm Sugar Sauce and Fruit Compote, and Sago)

And we brought Coffee Brulee Birthday Cake too :)

We were STUFFEDDDDDDDDDDD!!! My tummy is actually still feel tight right now :/ But it was so good. The entree was all good. The mittle entree was good, but I don't like smelly leaves so it was kinda distracting, but the fish itself was good. Quail was hm... I never use this word for food, but it was beautifully cooked! San Choy Bao was good too and the fried dumplings were ordinary, but the taste reminded me of some food I had in Indo. Can't remember what it was. My cousin was like "err... Kuo Tieh?" lol :P but nope, not that :P

The mains were all good too. The highlights were Scallops - the texture was great, I loved it, and the sauce was good too, the fish was SOOOO GOOD!!! The coconut sauce was delicious, spicy but not too spicy. I'm glad they gave us extra coconut sauce :P And the pork belly, omg, it was good and crispy and tasty ^^ and the cuts were big and thick lol I love thick meat hahhahaha :P Duck and Beef was good too. The beef was the least I liked though.

Steamed veggies was normal, it can't be very special, can it? Roti prata was good. I said to my cousin, it was even better than Mamak's. And she said "Of course, I'm the one who usually go and buy it". Hmmm so handmade doesn't necessarily better than off the shelf products :P

I loved the Panna Cotta. I don't usually like ginger, but the sauce taste like the ginger lollies that are usually sold in Puncak (Indonesia). It's my all time favourite lolly. So I liked it :) The crispy waffle tasted like kue rangi and lupis :P it was good, but I think it was a bit too sweet. Even that, some of us still declared it their favourite out of the desserts. The ice cream was great too, my only complaints are it was too fast to melt and the lychee was too sweet. I don't like watermelon, but the watermelon ice cream was good :) And that Lychee ice cream was actually made by my cousin herself :P The sago was good too, if I didn't fall in love with the Panna Cotta in the first place, it could be my favourite :P Most of us loved it the best.

So yeah.. that's the review :) Again, my tummy still feels so tight. But hungry :/ you know when u eat too much the night before, you usually wake up starving. Just like that.

Btw, I missed the E50 bus yesterday to go to Manly, so I had to go to Spit Junction and changed bus. The 230 bus driver was so nice. I stopped him and asked how to get to Manly and he said just hop on, he'll tell me when I need to get off. I said "Oh okay, so what My Bus should I use, 1 or 2?". He then said to just hop on, don't worry about that. @__@ so nice! So I saved a bus ticket :P I thought it was just like around the corner, so no need to pay (I didn't know where Spit Junction was :P). Turned out it was like half way to Manly @__@ it should have cost me My Bus 2. Don't know why he told me not to pay, but thank you :)

Anyway, gotta take shower now, I woke up at 6 this morning due to bad dream -_-" I don't usually wake up that early that easy lol.

PS: I can't wait for Friday yayyyy ^^