Week 26 in Melbourne

T and I just past our 6th month mark of living in the world’s best city (!!!) and considering that we may relocate in a few months, we are cherishing every moment… These are my treasured ones for the past week:

1. Walking under azure sky

It’s rare to get skies like this in Singapore! The cooling weather now permits me to sit anywhere outdoor to admire nature 🙂 Plus, the skyscrapers look even more outstanding against the bluest of blue.

2. Indulging in coffee & hot chocolate

You’d have no idea how much you miss your coffee machine until you’ve left it unused for 3 weeks! Okay, actually I had an idea – I kept telling T I longed to make and drink my coffee when we were away. So yeah, it felt really good to be able to have the magic in a cup daily again! 😀

San Churros’ hot chocolate was also another thing I yearned for. Hehe, I didn’t care that I had to be at my class in less than an hour; I walked to QV from TAA’s office, ordered the Spanish special, let myself appreciate the thickness and rich flavour, then rush to class. It was a fine decision 😛

3. Meeting the kids at class

I thought the kids didn’t care that I’ve missed two weeks of class, but hehehe, as soon as they saw me, they asked why I’ve not been around, where did I go and so on! They made me feel a little special, haha!

4. Cooking dinner

From dinners which I cooked from scratch to instant ones, I love being in my own kitchen and getting to be mindful of the ingredients I use to serve food for T and myself. That said, I did screw up one of our meals. Disclaimer: because it was a new recipe! Haha, T ate the over-infused cumin fried rice nonetheless ’cause he’s sweet. But okay lah, apart from that, the other meals were alright, with beef kicap being T’s favourite 😀

5. Reading Freud

Freud, tuna sandwich, and Melbourne’s temperature of 19 degrees were a perfect combination for a chill afternoon by the pier…

I didn’t expect Freud to be an easy read but he was. And while I knew he’s fucked-up, I didn’t expect him to be that fucked-up*. Thus far, I’ve only read his ‘Fragments of an Analysis of Hysteria (Dora)’ and boy, was Jeri Johnson (the one who wrote the introduction of this book) right in saying, “What does one know when one knows Freud? That knowing has everything to do with sex.”

*Maybe ‘fucked-up’ isn’t the best of terms to label him, but due to my lack of vocabulary, I’m saying he’s that for now. I don’t associate being ‘fucked-up’ as someone who is derogative or vulgar here. It’s more of someone who invokes the questions like “Dude, are you fucking serious?!” and “You want to see things that way, and thus you are seeing it in that way only! Are you aware of that?!” Anyway, I should read critiques on Freud and maybe I can come up with a more succinct judgement on what I think of him and his work.

6. Going on dates with T

T had to head back to office on one of his off days, but we managed to head into the city together that night as well as on the weekends! There is a Malay joke circulating on Facebook recently (click here to see it) and haha, fortunately he’s not that type of husband! (Memang die suka menyakat, tapi tak sampai gitu!) 

One of the recurring topics we have these days was about our past and particularly, about the other people we’ve dated. It’s pretty amazing and amusing, learning new things about your partner who seems to have been there forever. And it’s also pretty weird yet satisfying, reading back on things from your past. Weird, ’cause you cringe at certain things you’ve done before. Satisfying, ’cause you’re still proud that those things make who you are today…

7. Playing Heavy Rain

As what I’ve posted on Instagram, I finished playing Heavy Rain with a heavy heart ’cause I sucked big time. I didn’t have as much control over the game as I wanted to since my motor skills are pretty crappy for someone who isn’t disabled. But once I watched the other alternative endings to the game, I felt better about my tragic ending…

In case you’re wondering, mine ended with Ethan and Shelby dead. What made it really heartbreaking was just before Ethan was shot rampantly by Lieutenant Blake’s team, he promised his son that he’d never leave him again. Okay, only those who’d played the game would understand my pain. To the rest, these words mean nothing. Hurr hurr.

8. Having lunch at Ga and Di’s

Hehe, I am so glad I texted the girls in the morning or I’d have missed the wonderful lunch hosted at Ga and Di’s! Ga and De didn’t know T and I were back in Melbourne so the invitation came only a few hours before. T and I rescheduled our day, and everything went perfect 😀

Ga and Di are from South Africa so they served us a range of delectable food from their homeland – droëwors for snacks, chakalaka with pap for appetizer, and lamb roast for main! And De made lovely panna cotta for desserts! Over lunch, I learned more things about South Africa’s culture and about my friends… Watching the wild animals get drunk because of the indigenous African marula trees was the funniest!

9. Buying a loaf of bread

I usually hesitate buying a loaf of bread from the bakery despite being curious. It’s largely because there’s only two of us at home, and I’m super sure that we won’t finish the beautiful bread in time. But last weekend, I adopted the #okgo attitude and purchased a sourdough light rye bread. Holding it in my hand made me finally understand why the penjodoh bilangan for bread is sebantal. Betul-betul macam bantal! Gosh, fresh bread tastes so much better than the ones I usually buy from the supermarket… Will definitely try the other kinds of bread soon!

Week 14 in Melbourne

Last week was another chill pill week. I think I’ve finally gotten used to the everyday routine here and it’s nice to settle in. It’s a lot more laid back than what life was in Singapore, and I had trouble adjusting to it initially, but yeah, I enjoy it quite a bit now…

Anyway, T and I finally received the DeLonghi Icona coffee machine we purchased online a week earlier! We bought one of the cheaper machines ’cause we probably won’t bring it along when we move, and to our delight, it works pretty great! Not the best like the ones he used at his old workplace or the one I used at my class, but we like it a lot 😀 I think we enjoy frothing milk more than anything, so whatever drink that requires milk, we’d steam it just for the sake of getting the thick and creamy foam 😛 That being said, we still have a lot to improve on – from having the correct amount of ground coffee, to the ratio of coffee, milk and foam, to the coffee art. And we need proper cups. Not sure if we’ll invest in those though.

We plan to get a sturdier and smarter coffee machine when we get our own place. (Haha, the current one is a little noisy and doesn’t hold the cups steadily and doesn’t automatically cut the water when the espresso is done. But what did we expect when we paid less than $160 for it, right?) So super excited for that! We’d have pretty cups and heavy glasses and cute teaspoons and a range of coffee and tea and milk and hehe, I could go on… *dreamy*

T and I dated out a couple of times last week, trying out new restaurants. We had burgers and milkshake at Merrywell. The peanut butter milkshake was absolutely devine! It’s silky with bits of peanut crunch, and surprisingly not muak at all, yummm 😛

We also tried sushi and don at the japanese shop opposite Hardware Societe. I didn’t catch the name. Back story: We wanted to eat at MacD for breakfast, but apparently we were late for it. We reached the outlet at 10.24am and they were already serving lunch. I asked the staff what time breakfast ends and she said it ends at 10.30am daily. Hurr hurr. So T suggested we eat at Hardware Societe instead. We made our way there and hoho, the queue was crazy long. We were too hungry to wait so we popped by the shop nearby and filled our tummies. They were not disappointed 😀

We also finally met up with our good friend’s brother, Ra! He moved here a few days before us, and we’ve been meaning to meet sooner, but we got caught up with stuffs and all. So yeah, we met and had a chillax night out sharing our experiences of relocating and recommending to one another of places to go to 🙂 I know Ri and Ra are brothers but I didn’t expect their voices to be the same – if I wasn’t looking at Ra, I’d think it’s Ri. Hah!

Speaking of our close friends in Singapore, CC sent us a photo which made me drool:

McSpicy burger is the best chicken burger and McNuggets’ curry sauce is the best curry sauce to pair with nuggets, and I miss these, amongst other Singapore food. Uploading this photo here is making me crave for them so badly… Haha, this is probably the only reason why I’d want July to come fast!

Week 12 in Melbourne

Wowz, we’ve been here for over 3 months already? Time flies by so fast, too fast! But I guess that’s a great indicator that T and I are enjoying our time here… Oh, I can’t imagine how we would feel when we need to move away from Melbourne in months to come. Hopefully the next country will be as exciting and as beautiful, wish us luck!

Anyway, Week 12 was a really lively week 🙂

1. I got myself to a 5 hours barista course! T has always told me that coffee making is fun – he was a barista in his teenage years – but I didn’t think I would enjoy it since I never liked coffee much. But lo and behold, when we moved to Melbourne, coffee tasted great and I decided to give the course a go. I did some research and settled with Australian Barista School since the certificate given at the end of the lesson is nationally recognised. The instructor has a well-rounded knowledge of coffee and coffee machines, and her teaching and coffee making skills were impeccable. When the lesson concluded, I can safely say that I can make good coffee BUT hahaha, I need to practice on the art.

2. Look:

Do you think whatever this bunny is doing is easy? Haha, if you’re thinking that I have signed myself up for pole dancing classes, you’re right! But heh, if your answer to my question is ‘Yea, that’s easy peasy’, you’re so wrong… Honestly, I don’t know what my thought process was that led me to attend this class. I’ve always have some respect for pole dancers ’cause they make dancing and spinning looks so effortlessly sexy. And I know a lot of strength training goes into making that happen. So perhaps, it’s me wanting to work my muscles while having fun and learning new skills were the reasons.

T was shocked when I told him about it, but as usual, he supported my decision. But hehehe, he had to listen to me complain non-stop after my first class ’cause I struggled horribly. Damn, working the pole is hard. Torturous, even. My muscles ached and my skin got sore after an hour of dancing. I even had a blue black on my knee ’cause I fell clumsily. And don’t get me started with my hands-legs coordination! I now hold higher respect for pole dancers.

But ok lah, I went to my second class yesterday and I’m getting better at it. Watching youtube videos on pole dancing and working out to PopSugar at home helped. And oh, my posture got a hell lot better after my first lesson, so girls and boys, if you’re looking out for something to straighten that posture and strengthen your body, pole dancing’s for you!

3. I get to go on a 3-days date with T! We spent a lot of our time eating and walking around the city. Gah, I’ll never get sick of exploring new places to nomnomnom at…

We had two conversations worth noting down on this blog. One of it was us being 6.75 years together. We’re not a fan of celebrating monthsery, but I still am amused at myself for being with the same person for more than 6 months. Before meeting him, boys used to bore me pretty quickly and I never thought I’d be able to commit myself to a proper relationship, let alone marriage. But heh heh, T proved otherwise and I’m grateful for that 🙂

The other conversation was our hopes for the next location(s) we’d be posted to. We each had a top 3 list of our desired destinations with mine being 1) Bali, 2) Amsterdam, 3) Japan or Korea (I couldn’t decide!). The conversation sure made us psyched for the future but we’re not ready to leave Melbourne just yet.

4. On Sunday, we hosted an early dinner at our place for Mi and Er, and supper for Ha 😀 I love hanging out with friends, new and old. You’ll always get to learn new things and carry out new activities together, like randomly watching a horrifying thriller movie. (I swear, the killings were outrageous, especially when one guy died as his head/skull/brain got blended.) And having people at our place always means that T and I get to practice and improve our cooking and plating abilities, haha! We hope our guests enjoyed the food prepared, and I really loved the chocolate pie which Mi baked 🙂 To more meet ups!

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Lazying, on a rare Sunday afternoon together, at the 100th Starbucks store in Singapore, sipping Christmas coffee and watching half of Hannibal Season 2.