Friday

Caught up with 5 old work friends (plus bubs) for lunch at Wagamamas King St Wharf. Mayura who was my assistant at Hudson introduced me to 4 month old Arnav and Mandy who has just returned from Maternity leave took Jordi out for the day.

Arnav is so cute, he has the chubbiest cheeks and the biggest eyes


This is Jacky holding Jordi at the end of last year?...I think. Jordi is the baby with the curly hair in the first picture, they grow up so quickly!

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St Patrick's day

Happy St Patrick's day!! What a great excuse to bake cupcakes :P

Kam Fook Bondi

The popularity of Yum Cha has come such a long way. I went to a primary school of 200 people where for the longest time there were only 3 Asians who attended. Kids can be so mean, to fit in I would try hide my lunch whenever Mum gave me rice, dumplings or sushi rather than a sandwich like everyone else. The kids at school also thought that yum cha was 'weird' and I remember the disgust on their faces (during international day) when they were told the Chinese ate chicken feet. It wasn't till I was older that I began to really appreciate and embrace my culture.

Last Saturday we went for yum cha at Kam Fook at Bondi, despite the 30 minute wait there was a long line. I began to look around and to my surprise the ratio of Asian diners to that of other nationalities was about the same. I was so glad to see that the times have changed.

Still reception venue hunting

Pai Gwut (pork) with garlic, black bean & chilli, Gai Lan with oyster sauce

Siu Mai, Har Gow (prawn dumplings)
The siu mai was delicious, they were big in size and contained a good mixture of meats.


Chinese beef meat balls with vinegar, Rice with a meat & mushroom filling wrapped in a leaf and Steamed

Not pictured is the Char-siu buns and egg tarts that we had (I was so busy eating that I forgot to take photos). The total bill for 8 dishes came to $54.95 which leans towards the expensive side for yum cha in Sydney. I'm not sure what they charge for the tea but 8 dishes for $55.00 averages just under $7.00 per dish. For yum cha regulars you will find that Kam Fook Bondi contains a big selection of different dumplings but not so much the traditional dishes like tripe, congee or chicken feet etc.

The place is bright and modern and the seating is comfortable. Parking is free for the first 2 hours at Westfield Bondi Junction.

Kam Fook Bondi
Shop 6010, Level 6,
Westfield Shopping Centre
Joo Oxford Street
Bondi Junction
Phone: (02)9386 9889

Words of advice

My manager just said to me that:

"The best thing about working in HR at a Law firm is that wherever your go next it will be an absolute walk in the park compared to what you do here. There is nothing they can throw at you that you have not handled already".

I'll remember that the next time I have a bad day.

I've been invited to draw nude people

My Manager is getting married in 2 weeks and her hen's night is next weekend. Her girl friends have arranged for an afternoon of nude drawing at the Artful Hen followed by a night of eating and drinking at Cafe Pacifico (I had a crazy time there the last time I went).

Drawing is going to cost $60 and then another $30 for dinner and drinks are on top (that's a fair bit of money when you're on a budget). I'm still deciding if I am going to go to both, but it sounds like it'll be a lot of fun! Luke and Sally's wedding is the next day so it looks like I'll have a massive weekend installed.

Home Stuff

I added some paintings, the wall doesn't look so bare anymore.

I Also bought these yesterday (to get rid of the expense of buying fresh flowers each week). they were $8.90 a stick from Japan City and I bought 10 sticks, actually mum insisted on paying because I paid for yum cha (thanks Mum!). I'm generally not a fan of fake flowers but these cherry blossoms look really good with the room in real life.

Vroom Vroom

A few exciting things happening this weekend, after 10 months of should we or shouldn't we? Can we or can’t we afford Foxtel? We’re having it installed Saturday morning! We figured that we both work really hard and we need to treat ourselves to things now and then. The deal was a pretty good one, the first month is free and we get free installation and the premium package free for 1 month. We also only need to sign up for 12 months rather than 24 (at $36.95 per month that’s only an extra $406 a year).

I tend to say no to things more than yes so I am justifying this because Jacky has had two pay rises since Feb last year and we are both expecting increases July 1 this year. I’ve been sold on the Foxtel but now Jacky is trying to convince me that we need a DVD recorder and another flat screen for upstairs…..I don’t think so Mr Chan!

Sophia on the other hand is buying her first car tomorrow. It’s a rather old car but perfect for her to practice in (I wasn’t too keen on her practicing on my Pug! Plus my parents are buying a new car when Dad gets back). Sophia figures that if she gets a good 3+ years out of this car she’s happy. We bought it off a work friend who is moving to Boston to lecture Medicine at Harvard (he was a Mechanic for 10 years before that) so the car is well looked after and we got a great deal on price.

1992 5 door Auto Ford Festiva
Clairon cd player
Air Con
New time belt
135,000kms (that's only averages 9,000 kms a year)
$1700
I thought that was pretty good, especially when you compare it to similar cars for sale. My first car was brand new and I told Sophia that she really didn't need the added pressure of a new car when she's still getting use to driving.

So the purpose of this post is to warn you all that Sophia will be on the roads!!

Mum

I found this photo of my Mum and Sister on my cousin's online wedding album and I really like it. Mum rarely takes photos (so any photo of her is quite rare). Here the photographer managed to capture her smiling and happy, just like she always is.

By Simon @ Deyan Photography

Time Capsule

I still have a whole cupboard of my things at Mum’s house (mainly books & clothes) which I’m slowly sorting through. While I was going through a box of old year books I stumbled upon a booklet with a goal setting questionnaire that I filled out during my yr 11 retreat (this was filled out all the way back in 1998).

Things you want to achieve in the next ………

2 years
• Finish high school and score above 94 UAI to get into commerce at USYD or UNSW
(Tick that off the list)
• Learn to drive
(Didn't do this till 21, but that was because I had Jacky driving me around everywhere)
• Find a stable part time job
(was with Ansett for 3 years then Baku for the next 6!...actually I’m still there)
• celebrate 1 year with Jacky?
(Who would have thought....we've now been together for just under 9 years)
• Save enough to go Schoolies
(Schoolies was a lot of fun!)
• Save enough to go visit my Grandma in HK
(did that a few times before she passed away)
• Prove everyone who ever doubted me wrong.
(Refers to my HSC and some of my relos who gave mum a hard time – ha! showed them)

5 years
• Graduate by 21 (depending on course)
(done!)
• Buy a car or travel
(Did both! At 21 I bought a new car and went on a world trip to: Vegas, LA, Toronto, Ottowa, Niagara Falls, New York, Paris, London, China, Bangkok, Pattaya, and Hong Kong. I later went on another trip to Tokyo, China, HK but had to cut the rest of the trip short because of the tsunami).
• Have a career in HR or marketing
(I did 3 unit business studies in high school and loved HR...I didn't really think that it would end up being my career!)
• Make enough to help my parents out financially
(Paid off their mortgage in October 2005, it was a lot of money. I never expected to see the money again and I was fine with that, but my parent insists on paying me back at the end of 2007).
• Help Sophia gets into Uni
(Sophia does NOT need my help, I’m really proud of her. She’s in her final year of her commerce degree at USYD sitting on a D average, she turned 20 three days ago and is getting paid more than me per hour!.......go figure.)

10 years
• Save enough money for a deposit for an apartment by 25
(bought my first home at 24)
• Meet the man of my dreams
(Had him all along....)
• Get married by 26-27 (I hope)
(Wedding is scheduled March 2008)
• Have kids
(I am excited about having kids...not yet though, maybe in 3-4 years or when we can afford to).

It’s so scary….I haven't touched or looked at this list since year 11 but it's as if I planned my own life all those years ago. It makes me wonder if I am just dead boring and predictable?

So now that most things have been achieved here are some of my 'to do' for the next 10 years.

Things I want to do in the next ………

2 years
• Get married
• Travel with Jacky to parts of Europe that I haven’t already seen (Italy, Barcelona, Turkey, Greece and the more remote parts of France).
• Use up my 112,000 Qantas Frequent Flyer point (that's like a free return trip to LA)
• Perfect my cooking skills enough so that I can hold a Chinese New Year dinner at our place.
• Eat at Tetsuya's (I still cant justify paying $180pp yet)
• Buy that Diamond Longines watch that I have wanted for the last 5 years (Can't justify spending 3k on a watch when we have a mortgage)
• Become a HR Advisor (I think, still deciding if I want this career path)
• Eat healthy and make exercise a regular activity

5 years
• Go on a trip with my family around China to get in touch with my culture.
• See a Lee Hom Concert Live
• Visit the Barrier Reef
• Live overseas? (this is a bit up in the air but very possible)
• Have kids

10 years
• Upgrade to a new house (build our own one maybe?)
• Upgrade the car
• Family holiday with the kids

This time next year....

Dad went back to HK yesterday, it's always a bit sad to see him go but if all things go to plan he'll be back for good in July or September. While he was here, our parents met for the first time (yes in over 8 years our parents have never met! not formally anyway) and things went better than I could have ever expected *phew*.

It's really nice to see how excited our parents are about the wedding, it makes us realise how special this all is (and how much work there is to be done). Jacky's uncle and cousin called us from Hong Kong on New years to see when the wedding was because they all plan on coming, it looks like this wedding is going to be a whole lot bigger than we expected.

We're are still looking for a wedding band to go with my ring, I tried on this diamond one today and it's my favourite so far. The one pictured is a bit bulky and doesn't fit quite right but we can get it custom made to fit. Once Jacky decides what style he wants we'll go look for his as well....wedding band shopping has been so much fun (for me anyway!).

What do you think?

Dragon Boat Racing

I didn't compete this year because I was too busy to go to the training sessions before and after work. Despite doing pretty average last year we managed to fight off Mallesons, Freehills, Blakes, Argyle Partnership and Ebsworth to win the 2007 Dragon Boat Law firm challenge.

The sun was no where to be seen but there was still a big turn out to the event (even my parents came out to watch).

Winning by more than a nose, can't wait till we actually compete next year (Jacky's going to compete for his firm too).

John Fawcett Foundation

A few people in my firm are collecting spectacles to give to the John Fawcett Foundation for distribution amongst the Balinese people who can't afford to buy them.
Here is a link to the Foundation which can answer any questions you may have.
http://www.balieye.org/

If you have any old specs that you would like to donate please send these through to me at:

(Sorry didn't type this out as I didn't want my blog to come up on a google search under my name).

Dong Ba

My Dad works overseas but comes back home for 2 weeks every year for Chinese New Year. When he's here there's always 3 things that he wants to eat 1) Laksa 2) pho from Pho An 3) seafood from the fish markets.

Unfortunately Pho An always closes for 3 weeks during the CNY holidays (and we keep forgetting this!) so when we arrived at Bankstown on Sunday we had to look for an alternative. We would normally head straight to Pasteur but Mum wanted to try somewhere new. We noticed that Dong Ba looked really busy and thought that we would give it a go.

On entering the restaurant we were greeted by the enthusiastic waiter who tried to recommend dishes to try. He boasted that the spicy beef noodle soup was their speciality dish and 'very very nice' - with his big smile and excitement we were sold. It could purely be a matter of personal taste but we all thought that the spicy beef noodle soup was pretty bad. The taste of the soup reminded me of a Continental brand of Thai spicy soup that I once bought but with 10 x the MSG and a dash on washing detergent. I was also not a fan of the slices of processed chicken? pork? that was in the noodle. This was a first because I don't remember the last time that I couldn't finish a meal because I didn't like it.

The waiter would pace around our table looking really concerned that we hadn't touched our food and because we didn't want to disappoint him we just told him it was 'too spicy' (when this was clearly not the problem).

Spicy beef noodle soup $7.00 with sprouts and mixed greens

Jacky ordered the 'pork rib with rice $7.50' and said that this dish was ok. The prices here are very cheap and there are a lot of dishes to choose from. If i were to come here again I would probably stick with a rice dish.

Dong Ba
Bankstown
PH: 02 9708 0327

Boyz II Men & KCI & JoJo @ Enmore

*Warning* I'm just back from the concert and on an absolute high so the next post will read like it's written by a teeny bopper.

We Went to the last Boyz II Men concert (it feels like yesterday can you believe that was '05??) so we knew exactly how good this one would be but the added bonus was that KCI & JoJo were coming out with them this time. Originally they were only doing one show and these tickets sold out in 15 minutes! (they added another 3 shows as a result).

The standing area was sealed off into sections, we paid for tickets to be at the very front of the stage. It was money well spent! (Thank you Joel for lining up).

The Support Acts

The first support act was a guy called Mike Champion (he was actually alright he had a bit of the Usher thing going on), second was some girl called Natasha (I can't say I'm a fan) and then there was some random American girl who danced around and sang in a white bra top.

At 8:00pm the lights went dim and the crowd cheered as KCI & JoJo came on stage.

I didn't get to go to their concert in high school so this was me really making up for lost time. They were absolutely fantastic!!

At one stage KCI jumped onto a security guard's shoulders and they took him in a circle through the audience. He came so close I could almost touch him!

JoJo drank from a water bottle and threw it into the audience....guess what? I caught it!! I'm not really sure what I'm going to do with it, but it was very exciting when it happened. They sang for a full hour before they left the stage.

At 9:30pm the moment everyone had been waiting for........(that's the crowd behind us)

"Boyz II Men are back A-gain..."
Look how close to the stage we got - smack bang in the middle too, the crowd was also really good and it wasn't squashy like some other concerts that we've been to.

Shawn thanked us for the 15 years of support and for being the group that bought the tickets for what was originally their first show. He asked us to sing along to some of their songs and I watched as Nathan mouthed the words 'Wow' as he watched the crowd. It must be pretty amazing watching people from half way across the world sing to your songs.

They mixed up the night with some new songs from their new album and some old favourites (Bended knee, Water runs dry, Song for Mama, 4 Seasons of loneliness, I'll make love to you and End of the Road to list a few) .

It was a fabulous night and I'm really glad I went, the photos from 2005's concert is here and the photos from tonight is here if anyone is interested.

Be careful what you wish for

This time last year I had just started my new job and things were really slow. I told Jacky that I wished I had more to do because I wasn’t comfortable with doing so little. I should have kept my mouth shut because my workload has somehow quadrupled. It’s not all bad, I’ve been busy but I enjoy what I do and it’s taught me to work more efficiently so that I can do more in less time. My mid review last year went really well and they are now training me up to succession plan me into a generalist HR Advisor role (which is excellent for my career and the break that I have been working all these years for).

It’s also been great having Sarah back in the country, I run all my stupid ideas past her (and it’s a bonus she lives just around the corner). A lot has happened in the last 8 weeks but when I get home the last thing that I want to do is sit in front of the computer. My dad is still in the country for another week so I have been spending whatever free time I have with my parents catching up with old family friends.

I’m off to a concert tonight so I will leave you with some photos of a small cocktail party we threw recently. It's scary I actually dream about food in my sleep.

canapes filled with a tuna dip, feta and finished with a drop of cranberry.
Marinated chicken wings glazed with a Thai coconut dressing.

meatballs and vegetarian spring rolls (carrots & vermicelli)


Sushi platter, chicken skewers with a satay dipping sauce.