Choccies!

ooooh I also got these chocolates for my birthday! Fanks, Yetapee!

Happy Birthday to Me!

That time of the year has arrived again to celebrate, as Lil Miss J would put it - the result of my conception. However, I *smugly* much like to regard my existence as my parents ticket to freedom from a refugee island. Hehe

Anyhow, a bunch of us had wanted to watch Borat last week but it wasn't released and coincidentally, the next tight ass Tuesday night also was my birthday! So yeah, we ended up having dinner at Ling Nan (mmm yam duck and pippies) and J bought a cake! Thanks babe, you shouldn't have! A birthday celebration was forced upon me.

Boys pie section of the table. Talking about work, computers and Moo punching each of them. Interestingly enough, they were as far away from Moo as possible.

Females (and wannabe female) section of the table.

RP (who's here to work for a few weeks)
and I. Too close to my face.

Tina and Shaz. Yes! I am part-asian!

Moo rudely blocking the only photo of Meme!!!

Me and J :D. Oh yeah and Moo too.

Dinner was followed with the embarrassing singing of the birthday anthem and me rolling my eyes. Mango gateau was served to all! Yum!!! I nearly spat on the cake trying to blow out that one candle.

After din dins, we cantered over to cinemas where we watched Borat. My cheeks hurt from laughing and I am scarred for life with horrible imagery. See Moo's blog for a Borat review!

Thanks again guys for all the birthday wishes from all around the world (hai smee!). It's nice to feel loved! muah!

I WILL PUT THAT ZARA VOUCHER TO GOOD USE!!!!! yay!!!!

Skype-ing with Kt

Oooooh Kt with her new fancy-dancy Mac book suggested that we have a Skype conversation together and Skype we did! Then she had the GENIUS suggestion of photographing each other as evidence of our conversation. Just to show the rest of you :P

Can I just say don't listen to Kt say she's fat, muffin etc, cos she's on the South Beach diet now. As you can see, she dun look fat here. Actually come to think of it, this is the FIRST time I have seen her (not in photos) since her departure in December 2005!

Kt trapped inside my laptop. There's a little MSN conversation box with Meme in there too.

Saturday Night

My friend JT who studied with me in Sydney decided to visit Melbourne and is here until Monday. She was catching up with some of her other friends and funnily enough I was the only native while all the others hailed from either Perth, Auckland or Malaysia.

We had dinner at Don Vincenzo on Brunswick street and then some drinks at Bimbo Deluxe. Not too big a night but a night out nonetheless. JT got a bit trashed though, but that was her aim for the weekend.

JT and I.

At Don Vincenzo.

Oh, it's Friday again!

It seems as though I've been living for Fridays recently. Well at least I'm ensuring I've got material to blog, however mundane!

J and I met up at Mitre Tavern for some quick drinks before having to part ways as J went off to a birthday. I'd never been to Mitre Tavern before and I guess it's quite nice, kinda like a little cottage pub. Not that I've been to a cottage pub before, but I'd imagine it would be something like that.

Next was dinner at Belgium Beer Cafe, all the way down St Kilda road. Our aim was to have a mussel feast and feast we did! Between the five of us (tsk tsk poor turn-out, Kahoons was napping!! Meme was studying!!) we shared four pots of mussels, some sausages, stoemp, frites (with mayo, or was it aioli?) and dessert!

Moo, Yetapee and Tina.

Pooey and Mooey taking their promo pic for the Pooey and Mooey show!

Sausages. I can't remember the Belgian name.

One of four mussel pots. Damn lighting was dim and photos are blurry.

The waitress was so nice and kindly offered to take a group photo. So efficient was she at taking away our mussel shells.

Dessert! Yum! Strawberry waffles, creme brulee and chocolate waffles.

Everyone left satisfied and eager for our next foodie venture. MoVida the likely venue for next week. Until then, bon appetit!

Work

All has been a bit quiet on the blogging front. Hmmm so I just thought I would post something up for all those who sit there and press refresh on my blog all day :p. Let's see, I started my locum work in the southeast and it's been pretty good! No back to back patients and on the first day I only saw seven!!!!!

Yay, it's such a nice relief from seeing about 15-16 patients per day with only a half hour lunch break by which you lose 10 minutes of it cos you're running over time and then you force yourself to swallow rather than chew your sushi roll.

My only gripe is driving to the southeast, which takes 50 minutes on a good run, and freaking 80 minutes on a bad run. Good thing I start at 10am. Hehe. I now understand why they are building EastLink.

U2 - The Concert

Excuse me? Are all bands THAT good when live in concert!??!?!?!???

I'm not a humungous U2 fan, but who hasn't heard most of U2's songs? Regardless, I have to admit I was probably undeserving in my attendance given that certain siblings of mine are much bigger fans. Oh well!!!

I was given a ticket for my birthday last year for the original concert in March 2006 (thanks Circle!), however the concert ended up being rescheduled for November 2006. For all those who had to forfeit their tickets, you guys really missed out - sorry!!

I can count all the concerts I've been to on one hand but still, you have to give credit to U2 for an absolutely great show. I guess their music is one of the most suitable for outdoor venues, and in this case, Telstra Dome. Last night, the weather was great, warm but not humid and not a single rain drop fell.

We had general admin tickets and here we are in the crowd with the stage right in front of us. Woo hoo! We were fairly close but too short to actually see people on stage.

We all managed to get there by 6.15pm for a 7pm concert start. However, this just involved a lot of standing around, watching stupid ppl doing the wave and punching beachballs in the crowd. The latter activity was somewhat bizarre and revealed the primitive competitive nature that is within men. I mean honestly, when the ball the came near, stupid men were jumping all over themselves just to get a punch in. "Kick it to me! kick it to me!" *rolls eyes* Poor SW got punched in the face several times by one particularly stupid fellow in front of her.

Sorry about the poor quality and lack of photos but we were told that no cameras were allowed, hence I had to use my phone camera. What pissed me off was that people managed to bring in cameras anyway despite bag checks!! Grrrrrrrrrrrr

Meme and I.

SW, J and Meme.

Taking another photo. Nothing else to do in the crowd while waiting for the concert to start.

U2's supporting act was Kanye West who came on stage at 8pm, rather than the 7pm start as advertised. I felt a bit sorry for him as he had a bit of difficulty working the 'rock' crowd. But kudos to him! He sang Gold Digger and Touch the Sky and as long as he did that, then I was happy.

Someone on the big screen. Actually Kanye's only back up dancer/singer.

Kanye on the big screen. Ugh, I ain't saying she a Gold Digger!

Kanye gone, now more photo taking. SW and J looking like sisters.

Standing around in a crowd doing nothing is kinda boring and people are so rude. There was this one particular rude couple who pushed through everyone saying 'Excuuuuuuuse me, can I get to my friends' and in the end they parked their fat, tall asses in front of us. They obviously had no friends. The tall, fat boyfriend also spat when he sang and managed to elbow May in the head several times during the concert.

Meme also wanted to add that we had some hobbits behind us, who were great as they truly loved U2 and thoroughly enjoyed piggy-backing each at various times during the concert. Oh and someone inconsiderately farted in the crowd too. Yuck.

U2 finally got on stage by 9 ish and there was a huge roar as they opened up with City of Blinding Lights.

Ok, I actually stole this photo from the Herald-Sun website (as if we were that close) but Bono did appear onstage with an Aussie flag.

I think this photo is of the opening song. Not sure.

Look! It's Bono!

U2 performing 'One'.

Ummm that's a bit of the Australian flag on the giant screen and I can't recall what song they were singing at that point.

This is my poor attempt at taping part of the concert during ' New Years Day'. Try not to have your speakers on too loud as the crowd and static is awful. Oh and if you suffer from motion sickness, it's best not you play it. Btw, that is not me 'woooing' in the background.

I can't remember all the songs U2 sang but I found an obsessed fan's listing of the songs they performed:
(in order)

• City of Blinding Lights
• Vertigo
• Elevation
• I Will Follow
• New Year's Day
• Beautiful Day/Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club (snippet) / Here Comes The Sun (snippet)
• Stuck in a Moment You Can't Get Out Of
• Angel of Harlem
• Sometimes You Can't Make It On Your Own
• Love and Peace
• Sunday Bloody Sunday/ Rock The Casbah (snippet)
• Bullet the Blue Sky/ When Johnny Comes Marching Home (snippet) / Hands That Built America (snippet)
• Miss Sarajevo
• Pride (In the Name of Love)
• Where the Streets Have No Name
• One
• The Fly
• Mysterious Ways
• With or Without You/Never Tear Us Apart (snippet)/Love Will Tear Us Apart (snippet)
• The Saints are Coming
• Desire
• Kite

U2 were fantastic to watch and it was hard not to get caught up the atmosphere. It would've been really good if everyone who was originally meant to come were there too. :`(

Our night ended about about 11.30, by which we were all starving. After circling the city for about 40 minutes we had supper at Ling Nam and stuffed ourselves with congee, pippies, fried noodles and yam duck. Too much food for that time of night.

Friday Night Drinks

Friday rolled in and once again it's sorrow-drowning time. Not that I had anything to cry over as I had only worked two days this week! hehehe It's been great waking up at midday! Meanwhile the G20 summit had severely ruined some people's day with about half of the CBD blocked off to traffic. Nevertheless, it was just another excuse to go have some drinkies.

J and AH had tickets to the 'Make Poverty History' concert and so I had to farewell them off for the next four hours. Boo hoo. Don't worry! They're going to meet up with us again after the concert.

Yeah J, you work that camera. Work it!

Bidding our farewells.

Tonight was a little bit different, as we (me and Moo) decided we were too hungry and so ate dinner first. J Cafe it was! In the end, we were also joined by some others before deciding to head off to 3 Degrees to meet up with CC. We had some pretty shite drinks there (the coke and whisky looked like urine) before deciding that it wasn't worth staying and CC had to eat anyway. Next stop was an old favourite, Manchuria. Chetty dropped by to say hi (he says a special hi to you Bao! Ok, maybe I'm putting words in his mouth but he did say hi to you, maybe not a special one though).

Moo and Kahoons making the difficult cocktail choice. Moo getting stupidly excited at big sis paying for her drink.

Munabuna, Moo and Kahoons.

Round one cocktails. Look at the pretty flower on my martini!

Me and my Bella Bois Martini. I think I am a martini girl after all!

Moo and the flower. Can someone wipe that stupid grin off her face?

A disturbing picture of Kahoons. I wonder what CC will think?

My turn with the flower. Munabuna refused to wear it. Party pooper.

Round two cocktails.

Enough time was spent at Manchuria and so we headed off to meet CC again, this time at Hyde bar.

Me and CC.

There was little else to do in Hyde except squash up against a wall, however, we were notified that J and AH had finished up at the concert and were a bit starving. So the night ended in Chinatown with us eating congee and chicken rice!

Checking the menu.

J's congee. I forgot to take pics of the other food.

My New Ipoddy

Well if you remember this post, you may recall that my Ipoddy died on me. *sigh* Well, in the spirit of replacing a dead pet, I got a new Ipod! YAY!!!!!!

I have been waiting a while for this Poddy to be released as I originally enquired about it in September by which they had told me it would be available in the first week of October. Well October came and went and it still wasn't here! I asked about it two weeks ago at the start of November and it still wasn't here! Today I finally got my new Ipod! I have decided to call it Shuffy.

I got so excited that I had to put on my Ipod almost immediately. Don't worry, I'm not that sad. I had uploaded some songs on it.

Old Kingdom

Tonight's dinner was at Old Kingdom, a place whose specialty is Peking duck. Usually, this dinner would be at Lygon St at Papa Gino's but we all felt a bit tired of that. Duck it was!

I always kinda thought that their Peking duck was a bit not-quite-like-Box-Hill-honkie-style and it was only upon "researching" on Wikipedia did I find this entry which makes me think it's Crispy Aromatic Duck. Or maybe not. Maybe I just got it wrong from the beginning and the Old Kingdom duck is the true Peking duck. I could ponder about this for much longer but it is a waste of precious brain cells. Why I was looking up roast duck on Wikipedia is a totally different story altogether.

Notable absences were J and Meme. J's excuse was that she needed to shack up in a cheap motel in Adelaide for work (U2 are in town!) and Meme had some family thingy.

I actually didn't bring my camera again *shock horror* but luckily Shaz brought hers. Yay! I just realised that I'm not in any of the photos so I could be lying to all of you about my presence.

The duck in all its glory. We had four in total!

Yetapee and Kahoons were so happy to see each other that they insisted on sitting together. Aaaah true love! Reminiscing about high school days behind the shelter shed.

Yetapee gnawing on a duck drumstick. Kahoons taking far too much enjoyment from his chopstick.

Moo, always either drinking or eating or both!

Shaz and Tina.

AH, Glend and Hoon.

A very natural photo of Glenda and Hoon.