5 My Singing Debut: Yellow Coldplay cover by Ashley 104

My awesome singer housemate Rita Tsao and I decided to duet for the first time! We proudly bring you Ashley 104 (our house address) hahaha



Hope to get some feedback ;) Cheers!

6 Recap: A Homey Christmas

Dear readers, I would do some recap posts every now and then just to at least record what I have done in the past 6 months into this blog, for memory's sake :)

18th December, 2010

The holiday season this year wasn't quite the same for me. Being thousands of miles away from home was the hardest reason.



Exactly a year ago, I remembered counting down for Christmas in the middle of Potuguese Settlement Melaka with my girlfriend and our best friend.

I truly missed that moment and mostly, I missed my family and friends back in Malaysia.



Being a little homesick during this Christmas, a warm dinner with friends was what I needed. So a big Thanks to Aunt Mary and Uncle Vincent who opened their humble doors for us to have a nice home cooked Christmas dinner together.



Aunt Mary and Uncle Vincent are like the godparents for the Macquarie Oversea Christian Fellowship group and I thank them for having us over.



They have such a lovely and warm home, it felt like one of those wholesome family setting you see on Christmas cards or the Hallmark channel.

After a short prayer and by 7, dinner is served.



A scrumptious and wholesome spread of food. Aunt Mary is definitely a master chef and a classy one at that. She prepared the whole thing in such a short time and did most of the work by herself.

Hats off to the chef!



This beautiful baked salmon marinated in garden herbs is to die for! It was really moist, tender and flavorful.



My first helping, have to be moderate and a little decent. Got myself some ham, baked vegetables, salmon and other healthy food.



Some nice wine to compliment the dinner. Ehem ehem... I would like to propose a toast...



To friendship, old and new - "Forsake not an old friend; for the new is not comparable to him, a new friend is as new wine; when it is old, thou shalt drink it with pleasure"



To my two most beloved seniors, Shen-Ann and Kok Lian, who would be going back to Malaysia soon to be future educators - May you two stay healthy, happy and full of nonsense as always. Miss you guys :')



To Uncle Vincent, Aunt Mary and all my friends - Thanks for making me feel welcomed in OCF with a lovely evening filled with good company, food and wine.

Cheers!



The night ended with a night drive to see some of the best Christmas decorated homes.

Merry Christmas and looking forward to the next homey Christmas, in my own home with my family and friends in Malaysia

:)

17 I'm Back! with 10 Most Memorable Event in 2010

Dear friends and readers,

Words could not express how much I missed you guys and how much I missed writing in this rusty blog of mine. The sheer guilt of abandoning all of you has haunted me for the past 6 months, especially when several loyal readers asked about my well-being. Thanks :') But fret no longer my friends, for I am BIA - Back in Action!

I will be honest here. Life's been very difficult for the past few months for many mixed reasons. However, I have overcome it with lots of support and love from people around me. For that, I am truly blessed and thankful.

It's quite impossible for me catch up and even update you guys over the things that happened to me over the past 6 months in just one entry. But I hope this short recap would be a good start:

My 10 Most Memorable Events from 2010

#1 Coming to Sydney



It was 4 days before Chinese New Year that I left my family and friends in Malaysia. I haven't seen them for 1 and a half years now, and I kinda missed them...

Wanted to fly home end of last year, but Dad shooed me off, saying that the house has been 'cleansed' by a medium, and my presence would invite bad energy and break the seal. Lol nah, he just said don't waste money.

Anyway, life has been different here in Sydney. Feels like I have got the chance to grow up and see the other side of the world where the grass is greener, literally.



Oh yesh, I am a big boy now!

#2 Making new friends

I met some really cool people here in Sydney, who turned out to be really good friends who I could count on.

I missed my big sis Kit. She was my housemate, one of my first new friends here and the one whose prank failed and almost saw me naked LOL. I still laugh thinking about it now.

Life in Sydney would just suck big time without all of them.

#3 Hello Melbourne!

It was such a good week there with my cousins, aunt and uncle. I had the best Dim Sum and Thai Food ever, enjoyed the beach house, saw the award winning penguin parade at Phillip Island, played tennis, basketball and footie with Jono, and went for a youth meeting and got in touch with my spiritual side.

All in all, for that 1 week, I had a blast, and only spent like 28 dollars :) Thanks to the family.

#4 Dining with the big shots



Had lunch with the Minister of International Trades

and dinner with the Deputy Prime Minister

That was fun...

#5 Went to Canberra for MASCA's Got Talent competition.



Won 3rd place with our dance routine...



Met a female dog.

#6 Losing AUD2000 in Casino

Ouch! Ok here's a lay down of what basically happened that fateful night. Went to Star City with a good friend of mine from 7pm till 6am in the morning. At one point we were on a winning streak and everyone was just staring at us and wanting to be our buddies. A China aunty even commented on why are we students playing so big. I was up AUD2200 and he was up almost 10K.

Well, we should have left... By 4am... everything went downhill. Ya, in the end I lost that much. I know i know, foolishness + greedy = big hole in the pocket. Haiz what a night to remember painfully...

P/s: Please don't tell my dad. I don't want a hole in the head.

#7 Hosted Malaysian Festival 2010



Me and my good friends, Tracy and Ilyana were selected to be the emcees of that big event. Well it turned out to be quite an epic fail. We didn't rehearse and I end up blurting nonsense on stage for hours and kinda embarrass myself in front of 10,000 attendees. Thank God for mr Raj to the rescue.



The good part out of that nightmare was I got to interview Adam from Masterchef Australia (and also poked him saying "omg you're REAL... i thought you're only on tv")

LOL, buat malu je...

#8 Got A Job in a Korean Restaurant

Worked as the hall staff...



Met this cute waitress...

flirted a bit...

and got fired after just 2 weeks working...

SCORE!!!!

#9 Got Hired by the best Malaysian restaurant and one of the top restaurants in Sydney.



Turns out to be the best thing that ever happened to me since I came here.
The irony is that it's just NEXT DOOR to the Korean restaurant. Yes rub it in their face.

Will let you know more about Mamak soon. That restaurant is worth a blog post by itself.

#10 New Year Countdown at the heart of Sydney

Went bar hopping with mr.Foo, met up with friends and watched the most beautiful firework display ever from the balcony of Homebar. Apparently the fireworks are synced to the music that was broadcasted on the radio.



Sydney is after all the capital of new year's eve of the world. It was simply the bomb and we partied till sunrise! woohoo!

and that my friend, is the 10 most memorable events that I had last year.

With that, I am officially back in blogging yo. Just wanna say thanks again to my readers for not giving up on me and hope to catch up with you guys soon!

Cheers!

37 My Top 5 Yummy Youtube Videos

It's that time of the year again that i'll be missing from the blogging world for a few weeks. (Sort of an annual routine already)

Blame all the endless meetings and assignments that I've gone through, and sadly they're not over yet. But for the sake of updating and for you people, I'm temporarily back! With more delicious stuffs to share!

So here's my top 5 yummy youtube videos. Enjoy!

#5 Goat's Pie



#4 Vanilla Lava Cake



#3 Cheesy Macaroni



#2 Spaghetti Bolognese

And finally...

#1 Strawberry Pancake

Since it's too yummy and youtube banned it...

CLICK HERE to view.

Aren't these videos just the best way to release assignment stress? :)

31 True Horror Of The 10.10.10 Tragedy

Many have came to learn about the horrific accident that happened in Alor Gajah Melaka on the 10th of October 2010. But only a handful have seen the true horror of what really happened at the site.

[Photos have been removed]

It was definitely a tragic day to remember as the accident took 12 innocent lives away and left over 40 badly injured survivors. Life's unpredictable and unfair isn't it?

One minute you're thinking of what to have for lunch, and the other, you're either gone leaving the ones you love or suffering in the hospital.

I would like to take this chance to extend my deepest condolences to the families of the departed. It may take some time, but I hope they will recover from their loss and go on with a deeper understanding of life.

And to all those who always asks this question

"What race died? Chinese? Indian? or Malay?"

I say F*CK YOU! Be human for once.

35 Dinner With The Deputy Prime Minister, Tan Sri Muhyiddin

Last month was lunch with the Minister of International Trades, Dato Seri Mustapa Mohamed. This time was dinner with our Deputy Prime Minister who is also the Minister of Education.

Stop blessing me God, I don't deserve it.

The event that was celebrated that night was the Tan Sri Muhyiddin's Charity Golf (TSMCG) which was successfully held in Sydney for the first time.

For those who didn't know, TSMCG came around in 2003 as a non-profit, non-governmental organisation to raise funds for charity through golf. This time they hit a new record of most golfers participating in the event - 51 in total.

The dinner and prize giving ceremony took place at the grand ballroom of Shangri-la Hotel and the attendees consists of Tan Sri Muhyiddin and his organizing committee, Dato and Datin golfers, UMNO youths ...

basically all the rich and influential people...

and then there's the performers and the selected few students from universities around Sydney...

and of course the hungry blogger and his 1Malaysia housemates :)

After listening attentively to the half an hour speech, not checking out girls around but being inspired by our handsome (and apparently good in singing too) deputy prime minister, it was time to get what I came for...

FOOD!

The dinner consists of a three course meal - appetisers, mains and desserts - with two different choices given for appetisers and main course.

The picture above of the delicious looking cream cheese salad is one of the appetisers.

The other is the one that I was given - Fried Squid with bean Sprouts and Coriander. Much better than that vegan delight.

The first choice of main is Fish, Broccoli and Rice with some kind of coconut milk based gravy. I guessed it's either green curry or lemak style. Either way it was very Asian, and really satisfying to the taste buds.

The other main, Aussie beef steak, was simply my favourite! As they say, a barbarian loves a good thick slab of meat.

Plus it was cooked just the way I like it - medium rare. Some of my really Malaysian friends don't like the blood and texture. Too bad for them, it's their loss.

The best part of all is that I had an EXTRA plate when one of the Dato did not eat his. Seriously, stop blessing me God, I didn't pray for so long.

Then finally the desserts came. Yummy but the jellies tasted like cordials - too sweet!

Because desserts was too diabetically hazardous, some of the Datos and Datins passed theirs to us. More chocolate cakes for me then!

After eating, everyone could use a light exercise. And so, the guests were invited to do the 'poco-poco' dance! Our Malaysian government just loooovvvvveeess this dance so much.

They even invited Australian aboriginals (made in Malaysia) to entertain us.

Continuing my buay-paisehness (thick-facedness) by asking for the minister's autograph lol.

Tan Sri Muhyiddin's autograph on my invitation card and on top of it is my number for the lucky draw that they had during the event. Fast buy Magnum 4d!

These are the 8 crazy awesome prizes to be won:

- x3 apple IPad 16G, 32G and 64G !!!!! - worth AUD700-1000

- x5 Return Flight Tickets (Sydney-KL-Sydney) for any airline of your choice!!!! worth too much to be mentioned.

only 8 winners and one of my friends actually won the return flight tickets!!

Arrgghhh I hate you Noli Taher, you cute penguin thingy!!! Hope they don't allow pets in the airplane. Pfftt.

33 My Guitar Debut

As some might have already known, I'm a beginner who is slowly improving my guitar skills and the elective subject that I took for this semester has helped me a lot in that process.

One of the requirements for MUS207: Guitar Principles is a guitar practical test in which we were already tested a few weeks back. Basically, the tutor will test individuals on chords, scales and a free choice of song to be played on guitar. This was my bit, a simple rendition of Muse - unintended. Hope you guys enjoy it.

(Sorry, a little messy with the audio video synchronisation. Kinda rushing to finish it)

I know it's lousy, but we've all got to start somewhere right? Hopefully this is just a preview for my future as a pro guitarist (ya right)

But for now, let this noob be happy with his current guitar skills. Thank you xP