Monday, June 27, 2016

06/01/2016 Perth Trip Day 1 - Mercure Perth, Nao Japanese Restaurant, Coles Supermarket, Hungry Jacks

The honeymoon trip happened roughly 1 month after the wedding which I thought it was pretty fast. It doesn't felt that long since the previous time we flew but anyway it feels shiok to travel when everyone went back to work/school after the festive season haha! 

Anyway, we chose Perth to be the honeymoon destination simply because of Quokka, the happiest animal on earth.

In any case if you are wondering how they look like, Quokka look like this:



They can be found on Rottnest Island which is just a short ferry ride from Perth

We chanced upon a land tour package by Singexpress which covers Perth and Rottnest Island and we signed up for it without having a second thoughs haha! Since it's pretty much what we want and we just need to book the air tickets to Perth will do. 

The land tour was planned by the tour agency and everyday we have different reporting place for the local tour. The first and last day was free and easy day which gave us ample time to explore Perth ourselves. 

Our flight was early in the morning and I roughly remember we have to checked in at 6+am. So we will reached Perth in the afternoon. The flight duration is roughly 5 hours.



#welfie before departing..



Our luggage and the bag packs which we brought along with us. Didn't really have to bring much because it's Summer over at Perth. 

\
R2D2 spotted 


We went to have a quite heavy breakfast after checking in which we sort of regretted because not long later we have another round of meal on the plane haha! 



Time to board the plane..


Once again, using the customized passport holder from our last year BKK trip.


Can't wait to board the plane already to enjoy the inflight movies




Both of us were still quite full when the in flight meals were served but we managed to eat most of the food down slowly then haha! 

We took quite sometime to clear the custom because I failed the face recognition test. If not we can clear the custom within 5-10 mins.

Basically the whole process is pretty automated by going through the smart gate and they will do a face recognition. If the system can't match your face the the passport photo, you will be called to the another counter. Everything is very systematic and automated. Anyway, after some verification we are good to go.

Upon collecting our luggage and done with the custom check, we started looking out for the hotel transfer coach.


Not very difficult to spot because it's so big just right there. The driver is actually holding on to a paper with our names on it.

It was a quick ride to the hotel and the traffic is very smooth in Perth. It's not one of those crowded and congested kind of town. We were the only ones on the bus though. 

We were given a list of hotels to choose from. After doing some research, we decide to go with Mercure Perth because of the good reviews and the location is of walkable distance to the shopping malls and also eateries. 



They have bikes for you to rent to cycle around Perth. In fact, there's actually a bicycle lane on the road too :) 


The reception area






Free drinks for hotel guests



Plenty of sofa around for those who are waiting
Some pics of the room..





The hotel room is generally clean and cosy. Pretty much similar to what we have expected because we did lower our expectation and didn't expect it to be like our local hotel staycation kind of room with nice bath tub lol.

After checking in, we put down our stuffs and quickly went out for our late lunch. We were famished by then. 

We headed to a Japanese ramen restaurant called Nao Japanese Restaurant for our late lunch. Yup we can't do without asia food haha. It's located just around the street from our hotel.

While walking there, we spotted lots of asia stores around.


They have the Korea supermarket which sells lots of authentic korean related stuff. Derp bought his spicy cup noodles from there. Just like he always say, a overseas trip/staycation is not complete without cup noodle because eating that in hotel is mandatory.


Japanese restaurant easily found there. 

So after some navigation, we finally found Nao Japanese Restaurant. It has pretty good review online so we decide to give it a try.



The restaurant is rather small and can get crowded during meal times. 


The drinks we ordered. I can't remember the price of it but not cheap.


Derp ordered the Spicy Miso Spinach Ramen (The noodles is green in color)


I ordered the Shoyu Ramen


#onthetable 

The whole meal costs roughly AUD25 or so. There's no gst and service charge at there. I will say the cost is pretty much comparable to that of local ramen restaurants.

The portion was just nice for us but the taste was quite different from the local ramen we always eat. Perhaps it's less salty and less oily too. Defintely a healthier choice haha! Anyway, it was good enough for some comfort asia food. However, we don't find anything special about their ramen.

NAO Japanese Ramen
117 Murray St, Perth WA 6000, Australia

We went to look for Coles Supermarket and explore around Perth CBD area after the late lunch.




This is actually their post office if I didn't remember it wrongly. 



Took a #ootd infront of their post office and I only had few hours of sleep hence the sleepy face.


Their train station.


Jamie's Italian is located opposite Coles Supermarket 

During my free time in Perth, I did google and checked out the menu and price of food sold at their Jamie's Italian. Not much price difference hence we did not give it a try.

Anyway, back to Coles Supermarket. We walked around and bought some snacks and drinks only. Learned our lesson from previous trips whereby we usually can't finish what we bought so we try to buy the essentials only haha! 

The different Coke packaging they have.

So after some snacks shopping, we went back to the hotel to rest before heading out for dinner again, At the same time, we explore around to see what are the various food option around the hotel so that we can better plan our dinner venue.


Bump into this beautiful church..


Another #OOTD shot..





Spot this at one of their shop selling bed linen and etc and this is really cool haha! 


Fyi, those flowers are real. Both of us spend sometime figuring them out and went like O.O when we know they are real flowers and so well groom.

We randomly walk into a shop which sells lots of Asia's collectibles like soft toys/gadgets and even Kpop related stuff. 


Rilakkuma spotted even when in Perth. 


More Rilakkuma and other characters..

After reaching back the hotel, we started to test the GoPro which I borrowed from Darwis. Didn't really have the time to 'setup' ever since we touched down in Perth.

We brought it out with us for dinner and started to 'play' with it. We did took some videos too for keepsake purpose haha! Probably gonna have a good laugh when we look back to those videos when we are old :)

Testing out the GoPro


A random shot..


Another touristy kind of shot to capture the background behind us. It was 6+pm and the streets are almost clear by then. The good thing is we don't feel that shy doing/taking touristy shots lol. 



Chanced upon this alley which actually is part of a mall. 






Posing infront of this majestic clock  and if I didn't remember wrongly, every hour the clock will strike once. I can't remember what came out from the on top (where you can see 2 crusades on their horses) when the clock passed every hour.


Oh well, would have been a #OOTD worthy shot but I was photobomb.

Both of us kind of regretted wearing so 'little' out for dinner because the temperature starts to drop to 20 plus or less than 20 degrees that night. Whenever the wind blows at us, we were shivering badly lol.

Our dinner location that night was Hungry Jack's. Probably a street or two down the hotel. It's one of the popular and commonly found fast food chain around Perth. It's somewhat like our local Burger King.



 This is what we ordered.


Chicken fries were already launched when we were in Perth and few months later we saw it launching in our local Burger King.

A fast food meal like such costs us 20AUD. A burger, fries, drinks and chicken fries. And yup, no much difference from Burger King.

After dinner, we head over to the next door Mcdonalds to get ice cream. Okay it must be our greatest regret because it's already very cold and we are still eating ice cream haha!


Hot Fudge Mega Chocolate Waffle Cone

It cost 2AUD. They do have many flavors of ice cream, much more than our local Mcdonalds. However this ice cream is really very sweet. We reckon we can just make do with the normal type of ice cream. 

So we ate this ice cream while walking back to the hotel. A unforgettable experience to be doing it in such a cold temperature and wearing so little lol.

Before I end this post, I shall talk about the Changi Recommends Mifi Rental from Changi Airport. Throughout the trip, we were connected to the rest of the world via this Mifi we rented from Changi Recommends.

It allows many devices to be connected to the internet and have wifi everywhere we go.

It comes with a charger, cable and also the mifi itself. 

We didn't on it throughout the trip like a 24 hour thingy because we have free hotel wifi. The connection was mostly good and stable unless we are at some rural area but 90% of the time it was good.

It costs us roughly $40+ for the entire trip which is quite affordable because data sim card is not cheap over at Perth and perhaps the European countries too (unlike the Asian Countries). So getting the Mifi will be a better choice.

That's all for now, will be back to update Day 2 of the trip soon. Stay tuned!

Saturday, June 18, 2016

Lunch @ Wanna Cuppa

On the 3rd day of Chinese New Year, Derp and I were both on leave to rest after the festive season haha. Took this chance to run errands and a lunch date with Derp. 

It's a good day for cafe hoping since people start going back to work/school. I had to get to Clarke Quay area to run errands so I started searching for cafes near Clarke Quay.

To my surprise, there's actually quite a number of cafes at that area. After doing some research, we decide on Wanna Cuppa. It's just opposite Clarke Quay MRT, where famous eateries like Song Fa Bak Ku Teh is located, just probably a 5-10 mins walk.


#OOTD


The exterior of the cafe


The menu


Saw this interesting quote in the cafe


Sweet treats..


It was self service at the cafe and we were give the table number for the staff to bring us the food when it's ready.


Iced Tiramisu Latte and Iced Lemon Tea


The interior of the cafe has a 'garden' feel, not forgetting the mixture of vibrant colors into the cafe decoration.


A very neat and cosy cafe in general.

After a short wait, here comes our mains. Totally famished by then because it's our first meal of the day. As usual, we ordered 2 mains to share.


Pesto Aglio Olio - Prawn ($14.90)


Mushroom Cream Pasta - Truffle Linguine ($14.90)


#onthetable

The mains were good and both were our favourite. It's like having best of both world in a meal :) The food and ambiance of the cafe was good. Definitely worth going back one of these days! 

WANNA CUPPA
15 New Bridge Road, Singapore 059385 
Opening Hours: 8:30am – 10:00pm (Mon-Thu), 8:30am – 12:00am (Fri), 10:00am – 12:00am (Sat), 10am – 6pm (Sun)

Wednesday, June 08, 2016

CNY Preparation, CNY Reunion 2016

It's CNY once again which means lots of eating and of cause the much deserved rest :) 

Not forgetting all the preparation work that needs to be done to get ready for CNY. No complains afterall it's a one year once event and it's only during CNY we get to have 2 public holidays instead of 1 pathetic day. Oh well, better than no rest at all!


The CNY deco was up 1 month prior to CNY. I reckon the best way to not 'waste' the deco is to have them up as early as possible haha! 

Still love such red and velvet CNY deco and I've used similar one for the previous year too. It doesn't look too old fashion and yet classy at the same time. I'm definitely not one who goes for those loud design when it comes to CNY deco. 



My nails to welcome the monkey year

My nails incorporated 2 cute little monkeys on my thumb nails haha! Other than that it was the usual floral and glitter which I find it most apt for CNY. 

CNY nails done by SIL :) She did my 2015 nails too, You may view it here.


Close up of the nail art.. 

The yearly affair with chi ku chips has never stop even though I've shifted out. I make it a point to head back to my parents' place to help out in making these chi ku chips. Okay it's more like I'm the one who QC the quality, test it and ensuring all is well before I pack them into containers. 


My mum has long washed them clean way before I reached. Mind you, they don't look clean like these when you purchase them from the market. Infact, it's actually covered with soil/mud just like lotus root.

Lots of work need to be done to ensure they are really clean before slicing them up to fry. 



The very first batch :)



And within the next hour of deep frying/seasoning it/cooling it , that's how much chi ku chips were made! 

Nah they weren't for my personal consumption but more of distributing to my friends/colis.

Other than the chi ku chips which were DIY, there were other home made goodies too. 

Last year, I fully utilized the air fryer and made lots of CNY goodies but these year it was just German Cookies and Crab stick snacks.  You may find the recipes with regards to CNY snacks made using air fryer here.

This time round, only the crab stick snacks were made using air fryer and we decide to make German Cookies using the oven instead. 


Waiting patiently..



And here we have, a tub of German Cookies for our consumption.

Btw, I've accidentally poured in the corn flour instead of potato starch and decide to go ahead with it so as to prevent wastage. I only realized it after Derp have mixed finish the dough and getting ready to mould the cookie shape opps! 

But anyway, we couldn't really taste any difference so we decide to keep it instead of throwing it into the bin.

Last but not least, we have to get ready all the Hong Baos for distribution. 



It's our first year so we are kind of enthu even though it will mean taking money out from our own pockets to distribute. It's a one year once event just like why people buy presents for everyone during Xmas so we don't find a need to brood over it that much. #justdoit

And just like any other years, Derp's family side has a early reunion lunch on CNY's eve eve. We only did our spring cleaning on CNY's eve itself before heading back to my parent's place for reunion haha. So much for being last minute.


The CNY #selfie 



#OOTD for the first CNY reunion gathering


Reunion Lunch by Neo Garden Catering at Derp's Uncle's provision shop.


Fresh Luo Hei provided by the restaurant next door. 

As usual group photo..


With Derp's uncles/aunties, cousins and niece :) 

Glad that the number of family members turning up is still going strong. We should keep it going over the many years to come.

On CNY's eve, we managed to sleep in before we finally get down to do the spring cleaning. Back to 娘家 in the evening and a table of sumptuous food await us. 


Homecook food is still the best! 

As much as I will love to have homecook food, I would rather my parents to rest and just go out for reunion dinner but they always find joy in preparing food (be it reunion dinner anot) for us over the years. 

Never did they once complain how troublesome it is to go to the market to shop for ingredients and all the time and effort they spend in making this meal happen. I can only say a parent's love for their kids are always selfless :)


The expensive fish which has really thick and fresh meat bought from the wet market at wee hours by my parents. 



Our own version of 一品锅. 








It's time for Luo hei (again, my 3rd time of the year) once my brother and SIL bought back the 鱼生 to join us. 


Family #welfie before the luo hei

Okay Derp's face was crop away because we didn't have our selfie stick with us and yet we have to squeeze in so many of us haha! 

As you can see, even before the arrival of CNY, I've already stuffed myself with lots of good food lol! More to come over the festive season and will blog about it soon :) Stay tuned :)