Christmas Freebies

After work, mom and I went to check out the food at the Pasar Malam that started near my place on Monday. Well it was actually I who checked out the food while mom waited for me in the car. Anyway, after getting a few tea eggs, I wanted to get some Vadai for mom but they were all really small and I would have an earful if I bought them. I decided to get two bags of min vadai instead. The stall keeper must be really eager to close his stall as he asked if I was alright with getting a little more vadai for a dollar more. After agreeing to that deal and looking to get a stick of chicken liver and hearts for Barkley, he started donating the rest of his stall to me. I ended up getting a pack of chickpeas, four of the vadai I did not want to buy, a small bag of Keropok Lekor, a dhal vadai and two veggie vadai. Must be the Christmas spirit!

Om Nom Nom...

Contractors And Hampers

Got home from work tonight and mom told me we got a hamper delivered to us this afternoon. About twenty years ago, we used to have hampers delivered to us during Christmas and Lunar New Year from some of the contractors my dad use to work with during his time in the hotel industry. 

This time, I could say that the hamper was for my dad being the contractor while we were staying at my sister's place. While over there, my dad had been doing quite a bit of electrical work, cleaned out the cars, created a veggie garden in a patch that was being wasted with nothing in it. 

Thanks for the goodies!

Om Nom Nom...

Early Christmas Present

Went out with Didi and Eugenie last week and Didi passed me a bag from Universal Studios Singapore (USS) when she got in the car. Did not think anything about it but she told me it was an early Christmas present. She had gone to USS for a little getaway with her husband and got some gift for a few people while in there. I did not really expect to get such a cute Cookie Monster doll, and especially not one that has a mouth that can clamp down on a iPod. So Cool!

Thanks Didi!

Cool Coke Tumbler

While out getting our two piece and a biscuit yesterday, Adi and I spotted this cool Coca Cola cup stuck onto the drinks dispensers at the Texas Chicken counters. I found it quite cool and I wanted to add it to my small collection of Coca Cola items, but I did not have enough money. Thank goodness I had Adi, who basically paid for my new tumbler. Not sure if I would put it to use though. 

Thanks Adi!

Natural Blue Dye

Got a message from my aunt this morning that she found some Butterfly Pea flowers in her neighbourhood and asked if I wanted some. She also asked if I wanted the plant and I knew that my dad has been wanting to get a plant for himself. Since I had something to pass to her as well, mom and I went out meet her and she showed us the area she found all the flowers. 

Seems it might just be the right season as the patch of land had a lot of plants and they were all flowering. My aunt actually brought a spade to dig up a few plants, while mom and I went around picking a few flowers. I did not have any idea what I wanted to make with them yet, but I did think that I could at least extract the colour and use it later if I wanted to. 

Freebies of the day!

More Goodies From Japan

Met up with Angie earlier to do an exchange - I passed her my members card for a bag of goodies she brought back from Japan! It is her second trip to Japan within the year and I will not be surprised if she ends up there at the end of the year again. She went to a whole lot of different places in Japan this time and I think there was something from every area.

There was a pack of potato sticks my dad enjoyed while in Japan, a cute salt and pepper shaker set for my collection, and something that looks like a pair of breasts but I think they should be my favourite Japanese snack, the dango. There is also a cup noodle that looks like it might have come from the Tokyo Skytree gift shop but has lots of cartoons on it. A pack with takoyaki on it and I think it might be part of the masak masak range. She even lugged back a big box of spicy ramen!!

Now when to start trying all the food...hmm... (I know she would say "now now now!")

Winning Again!

My uncle had asked if anyone wanted to join them for the F1 Practice sessions today, and I decided to let my dad go in place of my cousin since he wanted to see some cars zooming by. We then receive another message asking if anyone else wanted to go as another uncle could get another pass from a friend. Well since it was free, I might as well use it!

So today I head to the Padang area and I was lucky enough to get a pass for the grandstand, which meant I had a seat. A seat I really really needed as the walk last night hurt my back a little. The seat was not the best spot as it was right at the point the cars would speed up to the sixth gear and trying to get any good photos was tricky. Worse still was my camera battery died just as I was getting better shots. 

Oh well, I think I did good for a first time. 

Winning!

Checked my email the about two weeks back and thought that I had received another email that deserved to be chucked into the spam list. However, I got a little curious when I saw the preview saying "congratulations on your win", and wondered what interesting story I would be reading. Upon opening it, the logo for the Singapore Grand Prix loaded up, and it got me really excited. I had actually won tickets to the Pit Lane Experience and quickly checked to see if the instructions to get my tickets were legitimate. 

Only after receiving the email with my tickets did I think to check if I would be back in Singapore for the event. I posted a screenshot of the win and I suddenly had people asking me to bring them, but I already had someone on my mind. My one camera whore, the one who will pose with anything and everything, Adi. 

So we started our journey by taking a really slow walk from the Singapore Flyer (where we saw Vettel), through Suntec City, and finally reaching the gate close to Nicoll Highway train station. We were forty-five minutes early and while waiting for the gates to open, people started forming two lines, one which snaked almost halfway back to the train station. Finally the gates open and we were greeted by the sounds of Wicked Aura Batucuda and a line of stalls selling merchandise for the teams. 

I wanted to get a tattoo, but decided that the designs were quite boring and I was more interested in getting some drinks into my system. In the end, we walked past the merchandise and head towards the food. In the end, we head past the food and got a glimpse of the safety cars passing by as they were doing their laps round the track. There was a few activities available, and lots of photo opportunities throughout the area. Entertainment that night was also alright, but the pit lane walk was definitely on everyone's minds. 

After the safety cars were done, the track was then open to everyone for a walk around the pit lane and even before it was open, a line started forming. Adi and I decided to get a few more photos while we waited for the line to shorten and managed to get rather good photos without anyone blocking our view. That was also the time she also tried her hand the Pit Stop Challenge - changing the tyres for a Formula One car. 

We end up getting in at the end of the line and it was really bright, so bright that I doubt the drivers can actually see anyone in the grandstand. Bright enough that my transition glasses got a few shades darker than it should. Saw Vettel (again) as we were walking towards the pit lane. As we got to the pit lane, it seems there were some teams waiting for something and we soon found out that they were actually waiting for everyone to leave so they could start work. Well it seems that Torro Rosso did not really care about everyone taking photos and videos and scared everyone when they tested their airguns. 

Would have been a really great experience if the ushers were a little more organised, but we saw what we wanted to see, and probably more. So I would say we enjoyed ourselves. 

Perth's Good Food & Wine Show

I had been aiming for Perth's Good Food and Wine Show for a while before I arrive in Austalia and even asked if my sister would have any access to free or discounted tickets. Unfortunately, she no longer works with the national newspaper and thus did not. Lucky for me, I waited quite a bit before buying my entry tickets for dad and myself and managed to get a 1-for-1 promotion, basically paying half-price for our entry tickets. The show already started well with me on that note. 

On the day itself, we got there just about 11am, which was about an hour after their doors opened, and saw a huge line at the entrance. I wondered if it was a line to enter, and was happy to find that it was just people getting last minute tickets to enter, while another was getting their own wine glass. I was wondering why there was a huge amount of people getting wine glasses with a lanyard, and hung them around their necks like it was their pass to enter. I soon found out after entering that they would use them to taste almost every wine on offer (probably more than 300 wines) and basically get quite tipsy, thus hanging it round your neck reduced the risk of losing it. 

The event took up a rather huge amount of space (3 Expo halls), yet it didn't feel too claustrophobic nor did it feel like it was lacking in anything. A third of the floor space was taken up by wineries alone so you can imagine how much wine some people were consuming. I would say for someone who loved drinking wines, the $35 entry fee was actually well worth it. Since I was driving, I kept my tastings to stuff I know I would most likely like, and we used a tiny plastic tasting cup we got from one of the booths. 

Another third of the space was taken up by demonstration kitchens and areas where they held talks. One of these demonstration areas was held by Barilla, which gave a hands-on class to make Italian Sausage and Winter Vegetables with Pasta in a Ricotta Tomato Sauce. Dad had a bite of one of the participant's dish and was raving about how nice it was, that the sauce was not tart and was quite well balanced. I suggested he should go for the class and was not interested until I told him that they gave away goodie bags and the recipe. We were lucky enough to be able to get into the next class which started in about thirty minutes. After getting his pasta on, dad had enough energy to walk and discovery more things without feeling too shy about tasting things. 

We got round to tasting some really great food from all over Australia, as well as some stuff that were produced in Western Australia. There were lovely cured meats by Salumi Australia, Connoisseur new Cuban Mocha ice cream samples, interesting WA Sandalwood nuts, Fremantle marinated sardines, and some really refreshing fruit juice & soda drinks from Nudie. We ended up getting more free stuff, bought some yummy wines, stinky cheeses, and even a pot of sardines. It then got a bit heavy and we got a trolley bag set, which included 2 wine glasses and lanyards, a cooler bag, and a trolley bag (the kind the smart old ladies were using). 

Dad was getting a bit tired, and his back was hurting due to the uneven flooring, and we finished exploring the whole place at the cheese alley. I told him to just have a seat while I had a blast tasting all the cheeses on offer, especially the one not made with cows milk. Grandvewe Cheeses got me going straight to their booth as every cheese was made with Sheep's milk! Moondarra Cheese had some interesting flavoured cheeses, one of which is chocolate hazelnut (this one I plan to taste with Adi). Sadly they didn't have a taster for that, but I took my chances on it, along with three other blocks that I did get to taste. The last booth I was stuck at had some nice buffalo cheese, and that was the last buy at the event. 

Good thing the trolley bag had wheels as it made it so much easier to cart the stuff to the bus stand as we parked at Aunty Nene's place to save on parking. Bigger bonus was getting a free bus ride back to the car!

Never Say No To Fish Curry

We still had some rice leftover from the Nasi Briyani we cooked for Aunty Nene and I asked dad if he would be up for making some fish curry. After getting some tips from Alfred about having to ask for fish heads, we head to Drovers yesterday to get some, as well as check out what other free stuff was on offer. This week it was 2 cucumbers per family, perfect to make some raita to go with the rice and curry. 

Dad managed to get a nice fish head, but I was fighting some bug and didn't want to bother with bones or eat with my hand as I didn't want to mix snot with my food (TMI?). So I went on a little hunt and managed to find a nice piece of barramundi for dad to cook. 

As curry is always better a day after, we had the curry this afternoon for lunch. Simple and satisfying, and hopefully the chilli burns the bug to death. 

Om Nom Nom...

Roadside Watermelon Patch

While we were heading towards Malaga market the other day, I stopped at a traffic junction and dad got excited about something he saw. He slid the window down and then excitedly exclaimed that there was a huge patch of watermelons hidden in the grass. I took a look and realised he was not just talking about a bunch of watermelon that fell off a truck, but rather a bunch of them growing as they were of different sizes and one was almost yellow. Dad decided he was going to go grab a few of them another day, which meant that I had to drive him back there.

So today I decided to go let him have his pick of watermelon and dropped him off at the junction and then drove back to pick him up. Good thing there were no police patrolling the area while we did it, and no one really bothered with what he was doing either. We ended up getting four melons, and I'm sure he'll go back for more.

Good Deals

While searching for things to do in Australia, I came upon a blog that said something about Drovers giving out free stuff every week. I wondered if they were writing about some other Drovers, but it was the one that was close to my sister's home. So today, after getting some things for dinner, dad and I went to one Drovers before heading back to prepare for dinner, and we finally saw the board showing today's giveaway. This week, it is a kilogram of nicely washed potatoes, good for a pot of leek and potato soup (which was also given out free), or a nice roast dinner. Score!