Mona and Bao's Wedding

The other reason many of the Londoners made the long haul flight back to Oz was for fellow Londoners Bao and Mona's wedding. The was no blistering heat encountered at Meme and Steau's wedding day, instead Melbourne turned on it's best grey day yet. *sarcasm*

Waiting for the blushing bride to arrive, a few snapsnots were taken:

The three of us dressed in similar colour-schemes. I only realised this once I saw the photos! Not purposely co-ordinated I assure you. Though we do look mighty fine haha.
Man of the Moment - Mr. Mona in his coat tails.

How many Asians can you fit in a pew? This many!

Bao was not only punctual but also arrived in time for the heavens to open and rain a little on her parade.

The lovely bridesmaids making their way down the aisle. You can't tell from this photo, but this was Bao and her Dad running down the aisle. Exchanging vows in front of the priest who had difficulty with pronouncing Bao's name.

We give you Mr. and Mrs. Bao! Making the slow walk out of the, basking in their celebrity.

While they bridal party nicked off to take some infamous, sexy photos, I shuffled down to Lygon st and had pizza with a few others. Mmmmm pizzaaaaaa.....

The reception was held in the Port Melbourne Yacht Club where we were treated to a lovely dinner. I'd forgotten my camera in the mess of preparation so I had to source these photos elsewhere.

Part of my dinner table plus J.

Here we all are testing our parenting skills with a most cutie-pie baby who happily claimed anyone as mama or dada.

The first dance - not robotic at all!! Mmmm the square cupcake wedding cake.
Lil Miss J entertains the crowd with a quiz for Bao. Mona attacking the garter. The footy mark by which the garter was caught was quite spectacular.

Also, a special mention to the best man, Dr. Wong's speech who managed to keep us all captivated with his tales. The night was capped off with some cheesy music (yay!!) and some asia-style-standing-in-a-circle dancing.

Congrats to the happy couple and I'll see you back in London soon!

Baoey's Hens Night

Baoey's Hens "night" began during the day with the inclusion of her beau-to-be, Mona and something that drives their relationship - a competition. A scavenger hunt, a-la The Amazing Race had been organised and teams were chosen. Teams were decided and I ended up on Bao's along with Mooey. This was to our distinct advantage as 1. Mooey was considered the native given that rest of us have been residing overseas for at least 1.5 years, 2. Mooey will do anything with no embarrassment and 3. Mooey is trivia queen.

The meeting place was the old IS building at Melbourne Uni. Here's eveyone strutting their stuff. Didn't manage to get a pic of Baoey (escorted by her ma) nor Leesh. Oopsie.

The tasks involved obtaining objects and photos some of which were related to Bao and Mona and some not so related. The best bit was when Moo took the actual Dirty Dumpling menu because no takeaway menu exists! Needless to say - we won! *pumps fist*

Afterwards, us chickees checked into the Punt Hill Manhattan apartments in preparation for the final pillow fight Bao would have as an unmarried woman. A nice warehouse conversion serviced apartment me do thinks and would recommend for anyone wanting something that is not a hotel when staying in Melbourne.

Pre-dinner drinks were at Manchuria, one of my old haunts. I'm happy to say it looks the same and the menu hadn't changed.

All the sensible girls on one side of the room, posing correctly. The not so sensible girls, posing incorrectly.

I was a bit reluctant to post the following photos as I thought May might punch me, but I've been assured by Kt that it's funny enough and that Meme would do nothing of the sort. Check out the sequence!!

Kt and I having a lady-like conversation.

Kt goes in for the kill. Meme wanting to be a part of it.

Meme decides to leaves us alone.

Meme makes her presence known, forcing Kt into the background.

Meme deciding it was all too much for her.

We've reached the climax. Meme relaxing with a ciggie and me going nuts for the alcohol.

After the cocktail warming session we head to Sung's Kitchen for din dins. It was Chinese restaurant not located in Chinatown and oddly, near the backpacking district. The food was unexpectedly good! Unfortunately, I didn't take any photos.

A question and answer session was directed at Bao which she demonstrated exemplary knowledge of Mona. A little (fake) baby was presented to her, a training device for the real thing. It even made baby noises!

All of us having a shot with the 'baby'. Lymbo doing a very good job indeed - she must be hiding infants in her home.

Full from dinner, we headed back to the hotel for some more drinks and girly squealing. There was even an attempt to fit all of us on the sofabed - not successful.

We cancelled the pillow fight and exhaust from the day's activities, snuggled up in our beds.

Nobu Melbourne

Boy, boy, boy was I looking forward to this! Ever since I ate at Ubon, part of the Nobu group of restaurants, I was always looking forward to my next visit. When I found out they were opening at Crown and that the prices were almost $ to £, I did a little happy dance on the spot.

Given the relative difficulty in getting a booking at the London restaurants, I figured we would be in strife trying to get a table for 6 with four days notice. But no, nothing of the sort! I guess that's what happens when you live in a city that is about 1/3 of the size of London and not full of celebrities and wannabes.

I'm gonna cut to the chase. After all the hyping to friends and family in Oz about Nobu and how cheap it was relative to London, I was left disappointed (and still kinda hungry). Admittedly, I've never been to the Park Lane or Berkeley St restaurants but if the Melbourne restaurant is meant to be a replica, it doesn't really feel or look like a top class restaurant. But I guess that could be, you know, us Aussies and the casual attitude we have. When in Rome, live as a Roman or in this case, decorate the restaurant for the Melburnians.

While Mooey nit-picked their service, I'll look past that given that as a sextuplet we looked like a bunch of second year uni students instead of professionals. By all means, that is not justifcation for poor service and like Mooey said, no one was blatantly rude, however I do wonder how the vibe from the staff may have changed if we were all wearing suits and maybe had a stethoscope around (some) of our necks. Hmmmm......

Everyone ex Mischka who was camera man.

We ordered several dishes, which if my memory serves me correctly were roughly the same size as the London versions. One of the dishes included the signature Black Cod with Miso which is served up for £26 (~ $60) but we got it for the bargain basement price of $42.

I never had this dish in London, so I can't do a direct comparison, but I do have to say it was delicate and nice but.......not $42 worth and certainly not £26 worth. And um, this could insult a heap of people but really it just tasted like fish with a honey-soy marinade. Maybe they put in a lot of effort to make it taste so simple.... maybe... or maybe not! Is it expensive because the fish is shipped in from Japan? Is it a producct from a non-sustainable source? Who knows.

It ended up being about $90 a head, which is a little less than what I expected. That equates to about £40 which is something I wouldn't bat too big an eyelid over in London - in fact at Nobu, I would think it's cheap. Not that I'm loaded, but your state of mind becomes quite skewed when you live in London - £20-25 per head would be considered normal (if not in Chinatown).

I'll assume a native Melburnian's opinion and I would be aghast at a $90 bill, especially since I was still a bit hungry. We ain't a bunch of tightasses but we haven't bought into to the "Be There To Be Seen" culture yet!

This all brings me back to my original opinion of Nobu and the general raves I had for it. If the Melbourne restaurant is the antipodean replica of it's London counterpart, then sorry, I will have to retract my praise. Maybe I was so impressed because decent, cheap Japanese food is hard to come by in London and maybe I was just really really starving that day in Ubon.

All the above being said, I might have to pop into London Nobu again and confirm my opinion. I might eat at Nobu Melbourne again too. Don't get wrong, it wasn't bad, just not fantastic and I do have an inkling that it won't become a permanent fixture on the Melbourne restaurant scene.

A Night out with the Kiddies

Well, well, well.... the mishap on Friday night cast many shadows of doubt on whether I would/should go to BLVD. I had all day to mentally prepare myself for the likely outcome of me staying at home and *sob* not going to the Asian RnB night that we have been deprived of since being in London.

I'm happy to say and the evidence of Facebook photos showed that I did indeed go and have a hang at BLVD. My feet were somewhat comfortable in a pair of low heels although I did limp from the carpark like the Lil Trooper that I am.

You can all refer to Moo's blog to read about the tragics we saw. What is it with people in nightclubs wearing ridiculous things and thinking they're genuinely cool? Don't you all realise others are laughing at you?

So, yes I did have fun last night, but given that average age of us was closer to 30 than 25 and the average age of the rest of the club was 18-19, I did feel a tad bit old. Ok, not a tad bit - I felt REALLY old. Really clinging onto my youth there. Another observation was that at times, I didn't recognise a lot of the songs played. Hence, either the music was shite or I am out of touch. But I guess I can't expect the DJ to play 'Too Close' by Next, 112, or anything that was on the hitlist from my time in first year uni. Yes, um ok, I am out of touch.

I'm surprised I didn't see any of my younger cousins at BLVD. You know, cousins whom I held as newborns. Maybe they know cooler clubs than BLVD?

A Night out on the Town

Tonight was Good Friday and while we were all aware that the city would be a ghost-town, we were equally convinced that there would be a few bars open. Drinkies - yay! The lack of the usual Friday night post work drinkers meant that we could monopolise the bartender and seating areas.

Knowing Melbourne and it's ever-changing bar scene, it wasn't too surprising to hear about the new bars that had popped up in our absence. We visited The Red Hummingbird, Eurotrash and New Gold Mountain. Yeah yeah, some of these bars are not all that new but I hadn't been to any of them before!

Some of the folks of the night.

Lymbo and I at Red Hummingbird. Me hating my new fringe very much.

No drinkies night could be complete without something exceptional happening and that exceptional moment involved me tripping in my heels on the section of the footpath which merges onto the road. I rolled my ankle and while it felt so-so during the night, by the time I got home, Mooey had to impersonate a crutch.

Ho-hum. This might affect my presence at BLVD tomorrow night which we've been anticipating for months! But... but... I can't dance while limping!

Meme's Post Hens Night

A subdued post-wedding Hens Night was held for Meme at yours truly's house and in the spirit of re-living my uni years, it was complete with sleeping parents in the next room. All the girlies, re-united in one city again after about 3 years!

27 Dresses was the movie of choice and fulfilled the criteria - chick flick, chick flick girl of the moment - Katherine Heigl, weddings, bridesmaids dresses, predictable storyline. I'm not about to write a movie critique (I'll leave that to Moo) but I dunno, are chick flicks getting more blah? Or is it just me? Don't get me wrong, I didn't HATE it as much as I detested the painful-wanna-punch-my-eyes-out-cringe-fest that was P.S I love you - never read the book, but I'm convinced it would've been better - but it was just..... blah.

I'm definitely not a chick-flick hater; I liked Ghost, The Notebook, Notting Hill, Love Actually and I can't wait for the Sex and the City movie *glee* but there was nothing notable in this film. Not even the display of dresses managed to elicit anything beyond mild interest *shock horror!*

Nevertheless, it was cosy way to spend the night with the girlies, celebrating our transition into Grandma Gossip Club - chit-chat included of course!

Meme and Steau's Wedding

Well, one of the reasons why I ventured home and delayed my original return date was due to Meme and Steau's wedding. The wedding was held in Daylesford at the Lavendula Lavender Farm - the place where Steau and Meme decided that being friends wasn't quite enough. Like the previous day, it was set to be pushing 40 degrees. A bit uncomfortable for those in suits, but hey, that didn't apply to me! For a outdoor wedding, better it be hot and steamy than have a bride wander through wet farmland.

Carpooling was the best idea given that none of the Londoners who returned for the wedding owned a vehicle anymore. We had to re-live the past as uni students who had to ask permission to borrow a car.

Lil Miss J, T, Kt and I shared a brrrm brrrm and made a pit stop at Maccas. I had a McFeast!! There was much joy when I found out it had been resurrected and ousted the McOz. Mmmm, my all time favourite Macca's burger. I consider it the healthiest because it includes tomato and lettuce.

Group accommodation had been organised at Sailor Falls Estate (thanks Kt!) and was ideal for the 10 of us staying overnight. We had the entire house to ourselves! By late afternoon the weather was still blistering hot as we made our way to Lavendula.

A few of us under the marquee. We sampled some Lavender Lemonade as we waited - unusual but delicately refreshing!

A stray duck managed to wander onto the bridal path, signalling to us that May would follow soon. We found out later that the duck had not been employed by the bridal party and was in fact, a gatecrasher.

Meme and her daddy. Steau and Meme exchanging vows.


Meme looking pretty damn stunning in her lavender-tinged gown.

The flower petals thrown instead of confetti - pretty!

After ceremony we were guided to the lavender farm and treated to rustic Italian food. Steau, Meme and others made their speeches with Steau bringing the guests to tears and SM, the best man making us cry from laughter. SM later admitted most of speech came from his friend, Google.

Group shot, err but not all of us in there.

Lil Miss J and Mr. L doing the romantic posed photo. Lymbo and I attempting the same photo but not doing it quite right. Look! We have the same coloured dress! Not planned! Just impeccable taste despite purchasing our dresses on opposite sides of the planet.

The cake and bonbonniere. The cake was awesome! I had two slices hehehe. No point wasting good cake.

Enjoying the food.

The weather remained warm into the night and with the fairy lights glowing in the dusk, it made for a perfect way to end the night!

A big fat congratulations to Mr. and Mrs. Steau and wishing you all the best for the future!

Home!

Yippee! It's been 15 months since I've been back home and yee-haw, was I looking forward to it! The recent Aussie heatwave was not a deterrent on any level. Nah-uh-uuuh. Over the period of June-August I was subjected to what they euphemistically term a 'British Summer'. Really they should have just called it 'Sprutumn' as all that seems to happen is Spring merges into Autumn. The only semblance of Summer was in the uncomfortably humid, body odour suffocation that is the Tube. Definitely not one of your 'glorious Summer days'.

Finally seeing the Australian soil was yipee-fying, although it was a little sad to see how dry it was, especially as I'd gotten used to the green British Isles. Waiting for the plane to land felt like an eternity because I could not wait to experience the 38 degrees - woo hoo! Enough of the ersatz Summer.

Spuey picked me up (hai Spu!) and I refused to allow the car's air conditioning be switched on, preferring to bask in the warmth. After about 15 minutes in the car, the warmth turned to scorching and I succumbed to the wonders of modern climate control. Here's to unseasonbly warm weather!

Oh no, I've become British. All I do is talk about the weather.