chocolates (mostly tim tams) from australia!

 

I have a great love for chocolates, dark chocolate especially, but Tim Tams even more so. During my six month overseas exchange student program in Australia, I was enraptured by all the different flavors of Tim Tam available there, so much more then Malaysia! So this time round, when my parents went to Perth for a holiday, I asked them to bring back some chocolate, Tim Tams were my special request.

And boy did they go all out. I think they came back with half a luggage bag full of chocolate! I was most excited when I saw these three, the Adriano Zumbo collaboration special edition Tim Tams!

I broke open the raspberry and white chocolate one first, and I did not regret a single bite.

It was delicious! The raspberry tinge beautifully contrasting, both in color and in flavor to the white chocolate coating of the biscuit.

The chocolate brownie one was normal, like any other tim tam, but the turkish delight one was interesting. My friends mom who loved Turkish Delight, loved this one, but I found it so so, probably because i never liked turkish delight in the first place.

I was ecsttatic when I saw the Red Velvet special edition too! This one was the best of the lot.

She also brought back the vanilla flavored Tim Tams sandwiching vanilla creme, but the Red Velvet edition still triumphed. The red biscuit plus cream cheese middle was gorgeous, tasting exactly like a red velvet cake!
She also brought back a selection of truffles from Danvers Chocolate Confectionary in Perth, and each had one flavor. The chocolate truffle in the middle of the harder chocolate coating, complimented each other perfectly.

I especially loved the strawberry one!

Now I’m left with my final Godiva bar, but I’m refusing to open that just yet. Savoring! xD

long weeks ahead!

Its the end of the year, so things are winding down as we go through the last few events in school, as well as input all the information and get the kids ready for their final exams/IGCSE. As a result, we’re all super busy, and by the end of the week I just vegetate at home, so much so that I don’t even think of blogging. But because we make the best of our weekends, quite a bit happens!

Had to go through maths intensive training with my teachers, and Bee bought pizza for everyone. Because I had a sore throat though, I opted for a Greek salad instead, which I love cause of the feta cheese they give along with it!

The pizza at the end of the day. I love how it looks like a pie chart! Sarpino’s serves the best pizza, as always. xD

One of the weekends, we decided to splurge on Bulgogi, especially because its been super rainy these days. When we get a choice to choose what to have for dinner, we usually go for some BBQ or steamboat or shabu shabu, something that goes with the storm that rains down like clockwork everyday by 5PM at least.

I also managed to get myself in to an accident, where this woman rear ended me in a jam. I was going at 20km/h! How that managed to get me rear ended, I have no idea. Luckily, the woman was pleasant and we managed to settle it. Sad part was, my car was rendered out of order for a couple of days, as the bumper was mashed in and rubbed against the tyres. Couldn’t be driven, so Bee had to send me home that night. It was a good thing we had Deepavali holidays the following day for the rest of the week.

He got me dimsum that night, a nice little perk me up after that annoying car mishap. I haven’t had dimsum in so long! D:

Been eating a lot in the office too, because so much good food comes in! Especially all the muruku after Deepavali, I’m developing a sore throat now. xD

We did some cafe hopping during the holidays, and covered some of the new (quaint too!) cafe’s in Subang and around SS15.

Got ourselves new headphones too! Sony headphones that played at 3 hertz, because we went for some brain activation study that tested our brains. Sounds a bit silly, but I think it’s quite accurate! The study managed to identify parts of myself I never said anything about, and the person in charge suggested to make this voice recording and merge it to be heard by me at 3 hertz, so that my brain could be recalibrated. It’s fascinating, and may sound fairly far far fetched, but there’s nothing to lose by trying!

Friday night we joined our colleagues for dinner at Klang, Boston Baru! Our favorite place, but this time with so much more people and so much more food!

Also celebrated Brandon’s belated birthday at the same time, and the Fluffy was so happy.x D

Saturday was super busy! Morning we had to attend Rebecca’s wedding at Kajang, which was super far from our places. Had to fix Bee’s car windshield at the same time, so we left the car at the place and drove my car to Kajang. Right after the lunch, we rushed back to get his car and take a break for a bit.

Because we had another dinner to attend at night! This time, it was my grandmother’s 80th birthday. We also invited all the family, aunts and uncles from Melaka to come down for the dinner to make my grandmother happy, so it was a fairly big affair. I loved the pau’s they served! There was a big pau, surrounded by regular sized pau’s around it, and then had tiny paus hidden underneath the big pau’s!

It was a vegetarian affair for my grandmother’s sake, but for a vegetarian restaurant, it was such an art to see the soy-made mock meat look so real, even the abalone! Tasted fairly good too.

Baked the cake for my grandmother’s, my standard banana sponge cake because she rarely eats any other form of cake. Spent quite a while making the deco for the cake too.

Made 3, because the whole family together came close to 30 people, and even then it wasn’t everyone there. Big families ftw!

Highlight of my Sunday! We decided to take a break away from the family and be alone for awhile, so we ended up in 1utama for dinner on a rainy Sunday night. Maybe because of the weather and stuff, not many people were around 1utama considering the fact that it was a Sunday night. But because of the lack of people, we managed to grab a cake from Uncle Tetsu! I mentioned it in the previous post, but it was deelish!

Now I just can’t wait for the end of the year!<3

Oriental Pavilion, Jaya 33

To celebrate my uncle’s birthday the other night, he bought the whole family (two tables!) a nice dinner at Oriental Pavilion located in Jaya 33 on a Tuesday night. I usually am unable to join dinners on weekday nights, but since it was a birthday, and Bee was down with conjunctivitis anyway, I decided to head there.

Granted since work finished at 7pm, I got there late as dinner had already started. My parents had saved my first two courses for me though, so I immediately started off with the appetizer platter!

It came nicely plated this way, and I especially loved the poached prawn dipped in mango mayo sauce. The sauce was refreshing. On the left was a bacon rolled sausage topped with fried lotus root chips, which I found a tad bit too oily. I skipped the fried stuffed chicken wings, since the chips were oily as it is.

Second course was this chicken soup served in a teapot, with a slice of ginger in the cup we’re supposed to pour our soup in. The soup was immensely flavorful, and don’t be cheated by the seemingly small pot! There was quite a bit of soup in there, and I didn’t manage to finish the soup till about the fourth course.

Next on the table was a delicious ginger scallion and onion topped roasted chicken. I’ve always loved chinese roasted chicken, and the mixture of onion, ginger and scallion topping made it even more flavorful!

The next serving was plated again, a nice pork rib grilled with some tasty sweet sauce. The meat was tender, but with a bite to it that the Stepdad loved. I found it delicious too, but perhaps I prefer the fall off the bone texture from the ribs I’ve tried in Morganfields and Chicago Rib House.

This was hands down my favorite dish of the night. Poached cod fish in orange sauce, served in a nice hollowed out orange, with more sauce at the bottom to bast in. It was amazing! The tinge of sourness and sweetness complemented the superbly tender fish, and the single piece was simply not enough.

We ended the night with a normal plate of stir fried bihun, and then my aunt brought out her famous cendol jelly! I love the cendol jelly she makes, not too sweet and perfect balance of milkiness from the santan.
She also made the two layered cheddar cheese sponge cake my stepdad likes, which I don’t fancy. Nevertheless though, it was an amazing dinner with the family.

 

for the delay!

It’s been an insane past couple of weeks, especially since Bee went down with conjunctivitis at the tail end of the week before last, so I had to take over the running of the tuition and classes until he can come back, hence my lack of time to blog.

But he’s back in full health! First order of business week before last was to pick my parents up, because they came back from their two week stint in Melbourne and Tasmania, and they brought back literally a luggage bag full of food and chocolates!

I did specifically ask for special flavored tim tams we can’t find here, but she brought EVERYTHING back. So there was a bit of a chocolate overload for awhile.

I squealed when I saw the more special ones though. My eyes spy a Godiva!

They didn’t do much shopping, so most of the ‘souvenirs that came back was food. I was happy with this vanilla bean though. Smelt heavenly!

There was also quite a selection of cheeses, since they went to cheese factories to visit in Tasmania, and we had them for afternoon tea with the lamingtons they brought back, and crackers and coffee. Felt so australian for an afternoon, but the cheeses were really good.

The week before, my school had theme day for our students, so on Monday night itself me and the events team stayed back to finish up setting up the school for the games, and preparing the prize packs for our students. I have never in my life bought so much food at one go before, it was astounding.

We used the whole area in front of our staff room to pack the piles of food to be given out! It was a hilarious process really. xD

And then we had candy to give out to the students to, to determine their teams. But we had so much candy leftover, we left them for the teachers. It was one A4 paper box size filled with candy… and they were gone by Wednesday evening. I don’t know HOW everyone manages to eat so much sweets. Its no wonder we’re all nuts.

The theme for this time was anything horrifying, as long as it was out of the box, and the teachers agreed to come dressed as someone sick/injured, as we are quite scared of that

Some of their costumes were ingenious!

The game was for our students to solve a mystery crime scene we had set up in various classrooms in our school.

We enjoy torturing them, so we specifically set up a couple of dark rooms. The students can only search with the help of a glowstick… its not easy. I tried. D:

And then by Wednesday night, I was tired as hell. Tuesday night itself, I had a dinner with my family too, so my lack of sleep on both nights led to me feeling super tired on Wednesday. Thursday i Had a full day of replacing classes, so blogging just flew out of my mind until the weekend… after Bee got the clean bill of health too!

I’m just relieved that he’s better now, and that nothing serious is going to happen. So we resumed our normal routine on Saturday! Intensive maths classes are ongoing at school though, so half of Saturday we had to make sure everything was smooth and our teachers were fine before we went off.

Then at night Williamm invited us for a steamboat dinner at Harbor in Puchong, and it was delicious! I think I had about 10 of the mushroom pork balls they had there, which was amazing. It was a rainy night too (end of the year, it tends to rain in the evening everyday. Love the weather!), so steamboat was a perfect way to end the night.

Now off to enjoy the rest of the long weekend. Counting down the days to our long holidays in November, but I have about three or four events to see through first!

visiting home

So I took a visit back home again in the recent Raya holidays! Ever since I started work, I’ve not had the time to properly visit the family back in Kedah, so I quickly took the holidays as a chance to visit.

The traffic to go up north was horrific the first two days of raya though, but luckily we opted to go only on the third. It wasn’t as bad… but I was still glad I packed my jar of oatmeal to munch on in between meals back!

The mosquito situation was nuts there! They aren’t like the normal mozzies here, but the water type I guess? The ones that buzz around lights, and are permanently annoying. EVERYWHERE.

We also met my cousin’s pet hedgehog again, at ‘daycare’ at his house while the holidays are on. He’s much cuter this time, but is super spoiled, handfed worms by my aunt.

Managed to try the cheesecake mousse’s from Pie Harbour in Gurney’s new Paragon mall! It was super smooth, but I love the peach one more then the oreo one, as that seems a bit heavy.

Also went grocery shopping quite a bit, as there was quite a number of people back home. We saw something amusing at the grocers though. 76 ringgit agar strips! Heck no. xD

Cooked up storms for the family! Made enough to feed a family of 25 one night, cooked up pasta both ways for the younger cousins, and prepared three tiered sandwiches another  night to feed people.

Also chopped off my locks there! Maybe cause it’s a small town, rates are cheaper there, although don’t expect super professional cuts la. I just had to get rid of my colored dip dye hair, couldn’t take it any longer. So dry! Happy with my short hair now. 😛

We were amply fed too of course. I got overloaded with my favorite apong in Penang!

And then on Thursday before we went home, we took a day trip to Penang Island. First stop or me is Coffee Tree near Gurney! I’m no coffee drinker, but this coffee I’ll drink. It’s so very very good.

And of course, we went hawker food hunting to get the best hawker food. Kimberly Streets’ kwoy chap was closed unfortunately, but we still got the standard char kuey teow and stuff. And another round of apong!

Not forgetting the chee cheong fun that we all love from Jalan Terengganu, which is the BEST with the prawn paste and chilli

My super antisocial parents. xD

We drove back after 4 days there, and while it was great to be there, I felt good to be home too as I missed Bee loads after 4 days away. Still though, it was a great catch up with the family, and I do so hope I’d be able to go down during the grandfather’s birthday celebration. *crossing fingers*

 

 

meetups and D’Fong at Ativo!

I crave weekends ever since I started working! They give me a nice respite from work and the noise in the workplace. Plus, who doesn’t enjoy waking up at 9 or 10am without the alarm? Bliss, I tell you.

Saturday was fairly uneventful this weekend though, except for our ribs dinner. But sunday morning we headed over to Ativo in Sri Damansara for Bee’s cousins son’s full moon party!

The party was held at D’Fong, and it was delicious!

The place itself was gorgeous with blue and white theme going on. The food… was amazing.

There was salad prawns, pigs in a blanket which I took twice! Sweet bread, pork ribs, yee miens with prawns, big ass prawns might I add. There was even something called lychee deep fried and stuffed with mangoes! Innovative, creative and delicious.

Headed home quickly after the party and festivities were over, as we needed to head over to school to watch my students perform! It was the first time the students were tasked to direct their own plays, and the whole performance was amazing to watch. These teens are capable of more then you think, given the chance!

Met up with a couple of Bee’s ex students, and we headed over for dinner at Uptown. Cheryl just returned from USA, so we avoided Western and I brought them over to Fat Spoon cafe for dinner.

They had cempedak spring roll for dessert! These are the best, especially eaten with the super creamy vanilla ice cream they always serve.

Elayne also brought over a pie she bought from A Pie Thing. After coffees, RV cake and macarons, pie’s seem to be the latest craze sweeping Subang.

She bought us the Elvis Pie, which was banana layered with chocolate and whipped cream. It was a delightfully dreamy combination, and we quickly ate everything.

taking advantage of the sales!

The office is filled. with. food. Well, more like people keep shoving them in my direction. This was from Jessica, little honey bears in travel packs! The last week or so was long yet mildly entertaining. A lot of little things happening here and there, but the main reason why it was seemingly so long was because it was the last week before our raya holidays!

Bee also brought his Physics students along with the rest of his colleagues and all the upper form classes to Wet World on Tuesday for a physics experiment, so he got back early for once. Since there were no tuition classes that night, we decided to head to The Grind Burger Bar at Section 17 for dinner!

As teachers, we get school holidays too, so I get a week off unlike the usual 2 days. Kick started the weekend off with a nice brunch with my parents to do some catch up with them! Headed to J&D Espresso again, where I yet again had the pancakes. I love the pancakes in general!

Stepdad had the Big Breakfast, but Mama picked this french Omelette which was honestly quite good. Very fluffy, and encased bacon and ham. Super good!

Went for our usual grocery shopping to stock up on the stuff we need to bring back to Kedah over the holiday week, and spied my favorite Red Rock Deli chips from Aussie. So expensive here though. T_T
Pretty much had a lazy, well deserved Saturday before heading out with Bee to Setiawalk for dinner, and to send Bouncer the bunny back to his place for the week, since I won’t be home to take care of him.

Oh the stories that came out of this side order of sausage I got to supplement my poached eggs. We can get pretty retarded sometimes when the both of us are in the mood. xD What’s said there, stays there, but oh my. xD

Had our usual dance class in the morning, and then went for an impromptu shopping trip! I said impromptu cause we literally never planned this. I just mentioned how sales was everywhere!

This came from Friday, when I my phone’s LCD screen suddenly died on me. So I took the hour lunch break I had to rush to Pyramid to let it be fixed. It was done within 3 hours, so I came back after work to pick my baby phone up. But in between running to the Customer Service Center, I saw so much sales! I whined to him a bit, and he suddenly suggested just going on a whim.

Funny story about the shoes: His slippers cracked before we even GOT to Pyramid, so one of the main reasons was to get his slippers for him. I’ve also been needing shoes to go to work with, so I got myself a nice black flats with zip rims, but I had to wear them immediately cause my slippers broke too! In the end, we both threw away what we entered Pyramid with, and came out with new shoes. xD

So we spent a good 5 hours in Pyramid on Sunday! Pretty productive, got ourselves a couple of new items of clothing. Had dinner at Ko Hyang and then we watched Hercules, which starred Dwayne Johnson. The movie was amazing! Humor in the right places, and barely any draggy bits too.

It was all in all, a pretty refreshing date day. Very enjoyable, especially since we’ll be on holiday all week too! Won’t be seeing him for 5 days though, since I’ll be heading to Kedah tomorrow. But we’ll persevere! We always do. xD

my week… in less then a nutshell.

With my weekdays filled with work work and more work, the fact that I’m working in a school does not help because that usually means weekends we have events for students. As such, I’m getting lesser time for dance classes, so much so that I may have to stop one of my classes. T_T

Doesn’t change the fact that I adore my job and my kids though, but time is so scarce these days! Luckily, we managed to make some time last week to head down to SS15 for a quick lunch with Bee. Spotted this extremely amusing car number plate on our way. xD

Nothing fancy, just simple pan mee, but my favorite for years! Something about the creamy half cooked egg with the dry pan mee tastes beyond this world.

Had dinner with the stepdad’s family on Sundya night, and then we proceeded to have 7 different fruit courses… AFTER an eight course dinner. Suffice to say, I rolled back to my room that night. xD

I walked in to staffroom on Thursday and squealed because there was creme brulee kit kat from Japan! Melinda just came back from a business trip to Tokyo, and I absolutely adore the special kit kats Japan has! ❤

And then we had a dinner with colleagues sponsored by Anne on Friday night, to support the Taylor’s students. But more on that later. Otherwise… that pretty much sums up my week. Nothing much happens while I work really, other then little anecdotes about my students here and there, but I don’t think many want to know that… do you?

Sunday would be the performance for the drama students in our school, and according to the drama teachers, the performance promises to be mindblowing, so I cannot wait!

first week of work!

It has been exhausting! As a little recap, let me just remind everyone that I’ve recently began working at an international school most of my friends work at, as a teacher and part time event manager for any and all of the school events held for the kids

Most of the time I’m the teacher though, and my schedule is mildly hectic. I have lunch breaks and all, but that’s about it. My wednesdays in particular, is insane.

The first week of work itself, this past wednesday, I was supposed to be in the main school building, but at  9am i was suddenly called to replace class at a different branch. So I quickly sped and drove there within 5 minutes, shocking everyone from the staff to the boyfie (much to his horror, really. xD) Lucky for me the roads were clear! But yeah, in a gist that’s how hectic the schedule can be

Ehhh because of how rushed I was though, I got a little careless while driving, and somehow ended up driving over a divider on Thursday when I was late, and somehow managed to puncture my tyre. Ended up 150 bucks poorer. T_T

But my job is so incredibly fulfilling! The students are young, nd needs plenty of guidance. It helps that the way the school teaches makes them (some at least) incredibly friendly and willing to learn, and I’m already fairly fond of a few of my students. Got this note from a particular one I had to help in Economics for a bit, in my first day at the smaller branch!

Then today, there was professional day in school. It’s organized and for the Year 10s and 11s, although the lower secs joined in the exhibitions as well, and largely for them to figure out their career path especially for the elder ones. I love the way they teach too! Help them in figuring out their dreams and live the life they want, instead of blindly focusing on purely stoic learning and not building up their character, life and soul.

Managed to squeeze in a meetup with the best friend after a really long time! Ever since she started working and now that I’m working as well, we haven’t been able to go out and connect with each other. We still talk on FB almost every other day, but meeting up is a wole new different spectrum! It was a great night after 4 gruelling days of working 8am to 10pm.

Finally picked up the tickets and the keychain that came with the prebooked tickets for our Transformers movie tomorrow! Mr NKY has been wanting and waiting for Transformers since forever, so I know for one that he’s super excited for it, and I just love watching movies in general. xD

Ahhh finally, dinner at home. Four days of being out from 8am to nearing midnight from Monday to Thursday, and being able to be home by 5 on Friday and have dinner together with my parents never felt better. It’s the simple things in life that can give joy sometimes!

Off to make my medical checkup for my teaching license tomorrow morning, and its gonna be a busy weekend before the week of work starts again!

 

 

 

of dumpling and interviews

That ghost looking creature is me, yes. xD After our trip to Midvalley, the boy found out one of the shirts he bought had a small hole, so we took a quick drive to Midvalley to change it, had some breakfast at Yeast in Bangsar before quickly hurrying back so I could get ready for my interview at 3PM.

Wearing formal was never my favorite, but the occasional dress up can be fun. I bought this dress from Elements last year in preparation for me getting interviews this year, and I could finally wear it! Pair it with my newly bought formal shoes, and the interview went splendidly of course. 😛

To celebrate me getting a job (although s tarting date is TBD), the boy brought me out for a nice dinner that night at SS2’s Sanbanto, and we had awesome un-halalness for food before catching Edge of Tomorrow at Citta Mall on Friday night.

The movie itself was amazing! Although adapted from a manga, it’s a fresh kind of science fiction movie that gives a new sort of plot twist that’s never been seen before. I loved the concept and the whole plot of the movie, plus Tom Cruise and Emily Blunt was amazing in their roles. Emily Blunt especially, and her body in that movie is to die for. D:

Saturday was specially reserved for my mother, since I haven’t been able to spend time with her in awhile. So we headed off to Midvalley for a shopping day out! Met up with my aunt and uncle from Penang there too, and we had a quick lunch in Midvalley before returning home by 4.30PM. Partially to avoid the jam, and partially because we had my stepdad’s company dinner to attend that night!

Quickly went through my haul for the day before preparing for dinner. Got great deals from Somerset Bay and Laura Ashley! Usually their clothes would be too expensive for me to even consider getting, but due to sales it’s way better! Plus, got a pair of RM35 skinny jeans from Forever 21 too. Initially wanted the pair from Uniqlo, but they cost a whole lot more.

Plus, loving the new sports top I got from Forever 21, cheaper then the ones available in Nike and Adidas, same design but twice the price!

The function that night was in Damansara Heights, at a rented bungalow on Jalan Dungun. The company rented the whole lot out, and erected tents and some lights, all in all making up a pretty nice night for a dinner and party.

They catered some food, and I loved the chee cheong fun roles and my usual favorite, the nyonya kuih’s.

But the main star of the night had to be my favorite roast lamb! To be honest, the roast lamb was the whole reason why I attended the dinner in the first place. :p

Sunday morning was my usual dance class, but when I came home, it was such a delight to find my family in my kitchen, aunts and cousins alike making the dumplings for the dragon boat festival! Nothing makes me happier then to hear and see my family members upon my return home.

The mother was leading the making process, and I stole a couple of bites from the prepared fillings before showering and attacking the nyonya zhang my grandmother gave the week before.

Its my favorite! The boy says its a bit sweet, and i do have to agree. But it carries my taste of childhood with me, so I cannot help but adore eating it.

My mother’s bak zhang was ready 2.5 hours later, and we attacked it ravenously too! This festival comes by once a year, and I only eat these things once a year. They’re delicious! xD