Eating mochi in Japan

Apologies for not posting very regularly, but I live a student life (Though I can imagine my sisters going on right now about how their work lives are much busier). And currently there are no holidays :( In other news though, my debate team (consisted of five girls including me) had our very last debate of the year against Huntingtower school, and we won! We were the negative team for "We should tax all fatty foods." However, I do actually agree with the statement, but studies have been done and they say that it needs to be 20% tax, in order to be effective. And the thing is, to impose a tax, it is rather difficult in terms on how effective it will be, jobs etc.

So anyway....

Dear Japan, I think your atmosphere is amazeballs. I visited in 2010 as a just-turned-13 year old. Such a tragedy in 2011, I cannot imagine anything like that. I am so thankful that Australia rarely has any major earthquakes, since we're not in the ring of fire.

Most people who visit Japan, typically love it. I did for sure! First of all, I am in love with Japanese food. I love sashimi, tempura, sushi; all those typical Japanese good! And the culture there, there's just something that makes you feel really good. You get a sense of closeness within the communities, and the high intelligence and precision they have. In contrast with Melbourne, as much as I love Melbourne, the 'precision' isn't really there and what I mean is in terms of transport; the stupid Metro trains... They spend millions of dollars and we get trains that aren't even on time? 

The bullet train there is crazy. It goes so fast, and is on time. Always. Japanese transport = smart and innovative. Sigh, if only Melbourne had that. 

I went with my parents, and with my relatives! All on my mum's side. My Yi Ma and Yee Cheong, Yi Yi and Li Yiing (Yi Ma and Yee Cheong's daughter and in other words, my cousin!) and also two of my parents' friends. We went on tour with Reliance. It was nice to have Li Yiing there hehe :)

My cousin, Li Yiing.

 We visited Japan during the 'Sakura season' which is the cherry blossom season in late March- early April, which is in spring. Melbourne also gets cherry blossoms during spring time, it is absolutely beautiful! In fact,  I went for my jog on the weekend and saw the first signs of spring; the bare trees starting to bloom pink blossoms.

Things I love about Japan:

. I love how Japanese people are so polite. And how hygienic it is.

. The toilets, oh the toilets. THE TOILETS ARE HONESTLY JUST SO COOL THERE. I think it's kind of like a 'bidet' (AHAHA learnt that in French last year). But I just searched it up and I think you call it a 'washlet'? I don't know.  So the toilet right, you can warm up the seat, you can apparently wash your butt or something (I didn't do that.). AND MUSIC LOL. I wish we had these in Melbourne. Or you know which country would find them extremely useful? MALAYSIA. The public toilets are filthy, especially those squat toilets. How are those any more hygienic than a normal western toilet?!?!? You get the picture.

I somehow can't find the picture I took, but I had to search for an image on Google.

Happy anniversary!

You know what I'm really longing for? Summer. I see other food blogs and whoever who lives in the Northern hemisphere having their summer, and I am so envious, because I can't wait for those days where you wake up and not have a single worry. I'm dying to try out a whole bunch of new recipes, to have movie marathons, sleepovers, go the gym and read all day! I haven't had the chance to read novels because of assignments and tests! I have been holding onto my school library books for too long, you know you have when you attempt to borrow a new book but the librarian doesn't allow you too, and says you have to return the books and put on hold on the new books. It's really poop.

Well, still have another semester to survive. Another 2 months of the bitter winter and then spring.

So Wednesday, the 20th marked my parents' anniversary! Their 30th anniversary. 

Riding an elephant in Thailand.

Last year, around my summer (keep in mind that I do live in the Southern hemisphere and that is why I have my summer holidays during December- January) in January, I visited Chiang Mai, Thailand with my family! Yii-May also came along, which was good to have a sister accompanying.

Visited some silk place.

Silk worms. Disgusting.

Baking

The Salzburg post is the last post of Europe '10. The next day, we went back to Munich, then flew to Dubai. Our flight from Dubai back to Malaysia was at 2 AM, I actually fell asleep. My dad had to start hitting me lol! I'd really like to actually visit Dubai one day. The things I've heard sound amazing, especially the pictures. Looks like an extremely modern city with uber awesome places.

But Europe in 2010, was seriously an amazing trip. I never thought I'd be able to visit Europe until a few years time, and to just see those places, which you pretty much don't normally see on your first visit to Europe (Paris, London are those kind of stereotype places you go to on your first visit to Europe) and experience those countries which used to be part of Yugoslavia. I loved the balance of the scenery change in that trip, from the alps to the Dalmatian coast. Um well except for the cathedrals, I kind of got sick of them.

My favourite country that I visited in Europe? Croatia! Dubrovnik and Split are such lovely coastal places. I would definitely recommend anyone who visits Croatia to at least go to Dubrovnik. The  buildings and the colour are pretty vibrant, not to be missed!

I also hope that sometime soon, I will be able to go to the U.S. I really want to visit, because 

1. The food.

2. The shopping. 

3. Scenery.

4. It's the U.S.

5. I want to take lots of pictures. There's this photo competition I want to enter hehe.

6. OOHH I want to see my little nephews in San Fran :) 

But really, I love travelling to anywhere in the world. It's just something I can see through my eyes and learn about the roots, the history and the beauty. The thing about travelling is that you usually experience the unexpected, see how a culture differentiates with yours and taste different flavours. Sometimes, you see things that really make you appreciate for what you have. 

So anyway, I may be just doing a bit of random posts like Japan, Thailand, Gold Coast. Not really a follow up, unlike Turkey, U.S.A and Europe. Expect a post about Thailand soon!

I also baked some cupcakes for my friend's birthday, Tina. She's my cute, tall and somehow eats like a pig, yet stays so skinny (high metabolism) Korean friend,and I decided to bake her rainbow cupcakes. Don't worry. It's not sickening sweet. It's just a vanilla cupcake with added colouring. And with cream cheese icing. The next time I make cupcakes, I want to use this piping flower tip my mum has which I think would look incredibly cool.

Oh if only you could see the layers and explosions of colours when you ate the cupcakes... But I couldn't, since I brought them to school!

I don't know what is with me, but I love baking for people. I love that feeling when you create something spectacular, or something so simple yet tasty, and it brings smiles. Put it this way, baking is like a science experiment. You have your different variables, your method, and even just one alteration can change the whole thing. 

Oh and did I ever mention that I love science?

Mozart

I'm sorry, but I'm going to have to make another pancake post. I'm starting to make it a tradition to make pancakes for breakfast on Sundays. After a good jog, it feels good to whip up some kind of pancake batter, top it with my favourite fruits like blueberries and banana, honey and cinnamon. I like to use whole-wheat flour. My mum bought a whole tub and I was interested in using it, because I like to experiment and also to cook or bake in healthier ways. This time I made banana pancakes, topped with real maple syrup and a bit of kiwi fruit. The best kind of pancakes I've mad so far! Doesn't get better than this for a breakfast!

Recipe: Whip up any kind of pancake batter, I used Taste's, but I did not have any whole wheat self-raising flour, so I added some baking soda and I also put normal milk instead of buttermilk. I did not use honey as well. I also decided to chop up small pieces of banana in to the batter, so the banana gets cooked! You can even put small bits of chocolate chip or blueberries. There are endless possibilities of pancakes, whether it's a peanut butter, chocolate pancake, or even I've heard, RED VELVET pancake. I'm a pancake girl! 

Salzburg Austria:
On the way....We made a stop near by, and we had to pay for les toilettes. But apparently, the tour guide said that we actually didn't need to pay, they just saw us and decided to charge us.

I wish I ate that.

Salzburg is very pretty indeed. In fact, all the countries I visited in Europe are actually very pretty, I need to stop using the word 'pretty'. Salzburg is the musical capital; the location for The Sound of music and the birthplace of only one of the best composers who ever lived, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart.

Cacao green.

They have Starbucks here in Melbourne. Very few of them.

No new travel posts at the moment,soon I will be posting about Salzburg (Where I visited Mozart's house!).

My new obsession: frozen yogurt. My first taste was in Malaysia,over the summer. One of my closest Malaysian friend's, Wan Xin took me there. I've known this lovely girl for years, I remember how we first started talking in standard 1 (Grade 1) in primary school and using our animal pencil cases to play with each other. Anyway, we went to Tutti Frutti, which is a frozen yogurt place. Definitely going back there the next time I go back!

I had frozen yogurt in Melb a few weeks ago, with my friends in the city. We came across this place, it's a really cute, neat place. It's opposite Starbucks, and we were dying to sit down (Starbucks was over crowded..For some reason. Starbucks isn't even that popular here?) and wanted some froyo. I did not expect it to be full of incredible goodness. Cacao green, I think on Swanson street in the city, has some pretty good organic frozen yogurt! I had the pomegranate, since I have a slight obsession with it... And the price is reasonable too. By Australian standards I mean. Melbourne has been listed as one of the most expensive cities to live in. But yes, speaking in Australian terms, it's quite reasonable. It's $4.50 for a junior serve, and it's pretty big! It is $6.70 for a regular and $8.20 for a large.

I didn't put any toppings this trip, but I plan to put cheesecake next time. Toppings are at $1 each.  Highly recommend Cacao green for some froyo. Their menu also includes organic yogurt smoothies and gourmet waffles.



My Taylor-Swift-loving, generous, game-loving, nerdy, shorter-than-me, second sister, just recently celebrated her birthday! We had our traditional kind of family birthday dinner. Asian dishes like curry, noodles, pork belly and Laurent cake as usual. Le gateau- c'est fantastique. Layers of mousse, and walnuts, very chocolatey.

My mum made her tiramisu! Mum's baking and cooking is always the best.

Mother's day and Plitvice.

Happy Mother's day!Well, at least for Australia. And apparently the U.S...?
 Celebrating the women who give so much to their children; sacrificing, chauffeuring, cooking and comforting.

Who's that cute baby? 

Not the best picture but ; pancakes topped with bananas, blueberries, honey and cinnamon. Accompanied with a blueberry/banana/raspberry smoothie! 

I love my mum very, very, much. She's a wonder woman basically. I don't know what I would've done without her! I also translated my love into baking. I made her pancakes for breakfast! The past few years, I always used the pancake mix because I didn't know much about making food. Now I find the package mix rather sweet. I'm making pancake mix from scratch forever and ever! Think about how much sugar and additives they add into the package mix.... Think about how you can make fluffy pancakes that is so easy!I don't even add any sugar to it, I top with honey and cinnamon (I'm a cinnamon freak) always!

Well, I now bake quite often so I decided to make a decadent chocolate tart!

Cutting it isn't so easy, but the taste is pretty good!

To continue on with my Europe posting, after I visited Bosnia, I went to Plitvice, Croatia. The drive from Bosnia to there was horrible. Bumpy, windy road, oh and the worst thing happened. I didn't feel well, and motion sickness and me... I threw up. Don't worry, there were plastic bags on the bus. But yeah, worst part of the trip. Enough said.

Back to Croatia. Croatia is really beautiful. Plitvice is a national park, possibly one of the most amazing and stunning national parks I've ever been to. I'm not sure whether Yosemite in the States is prettier, it's not really debatable for me because , they're both so beautiful. And I wish I had more time to explore around both places. In Yosemite, I would've loved to go hiking, gone to more spots. In Plitvice, we didn't spend enough time there!

Plitvice has about 1209841038201 waterfalls.I don't know the exact number, but all I know is that there are tons of waterfalls over there. Big ones, small ones. You name it. There's a wooden path where you can walk on, which is really nice because it's so close to the water! The water is absolutely clean, some parts are pristine blue. There's a lot of flora, but I didn't see much fauna. No bears or anything :( I would've loved to see a big brown bear.

Trying the slow shutter effect! Always beautiful with moving water.

Dreams and appreciation.

After I visited Dubrovnik, I went to Bosnia! Bosnia is bordered by Croatia and Serbia. The Turkish also came centuries ago, so some parts you can tell are Turkish-influenced.  It is rather quite hilly and mountainous there, and it was really hot at that time! Bosnia is really pretty, definitely lots of natural beauty. 

The chocolate chip cookie

I absolutely love baking (Influenced by my mum). If I could, I would bake everyday but, I have school work + other hobbies. And anyways,I'd get fatter and fatter each day, eating up all the treats.I don't want to become a professional baker or anything,I just like baking for fun. And if I bake, I usually end up giving my treats away to my friends (My friends know I bake cupcakes kinda often) since none of my family eats them. Except if they're up to my mum's standard (Like her scones, cheesecake or chiffon cake).

 I also have a strange obsession of looking at recipes on food blogs , but at the same time , knowing that I'm not going to use all of them. The pictures look so scrumptious and wow, but sometimes I cringe at how much butter and sugar there is!

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Dubrovnik, Croatia

I just wanted to add a picture of macarons in. I had these about 2 weeks ago, my oldest sister brought them back from Sydney! 

Dubrovnik, Croatia. Dubrovnik is probably my favourite city that I've ever been to. The medieval feeling is pretty cool. The colours there are pretty vibrant, if only I had known how to use my camera more!

Sunrise

Hotel. 

Dubrovnik looks out to the Adriatic sea, very mediterrenean if you ask me. We went to the Old city, which is walled as it was used for defensive walls to protect its citizens, built in  between the 13th-16th century. Turks were trying to attack in the 15th century. The walls are well-preserved. I was also really excited to visit Dubrovnik, as The Amazing race went there for one of the seasons (I am a huge fan of The Amazing race. No joke.) and it just looked so beautiful on TV.

I forgot to mention, Croatia, Slovenia and Bosnia (Which I will write about later on) used to be part of Yugoslavia. Other countries were Macedonia and Serbia. I only learnt about this on the trip (Hey,I was 13 okay!

Dalmatia ( Zadar + Split)

Croatia is amazing. Probably the prettiest country I've ever been to. It's just so lovely there, I'd love to spend one summer there. We first went to Zadar.The locals there are also extremely friendly, we were walking around some pier place and there were Croatians saying hello to us (Since you know.... We're Asian tourists lol).

Lunch!

Walking around during sunset.

Church of St Donacus. Dates back all the way in 9th century.

The ice cream displays are amazing! I might've had ice cream about 10 times during the trip. Also, did I ever mention I love taking pictures of food?

Our hotel was great.  Best hotel throughout the trip! Since it was my parents & I, they actually gave us two separate rooms, and we really didn't need separate rooms! They were big enough to fit like a family of four.The buffet was also pretty damn fantastic because I had the biggest breakfast there. I ate pistachios and all sorts of things. Too bad we only stayed there for one night.

They had a waterslide. Um.wow.

Next stop was Split! Also a lovely city.

From le bus.

Austria and Slovenia!

Innsbruck- Austria + Bled, Slovenia.

We didn't do a lot in Innsbruck, but it's a really pretty place. I love the alps as the backdrop setting. We had a tour around the city, but to be honest, I really can't remember much from that.

It was cloudy that day.

We visited the Swarovski store because it made in Austria. The store is HUGE, there are like two or three floors? Crystals everywhere! I bought a Swarovski pendant.

Swarovski animals! 

A lot of the local teens were saying "Konichiwa (Hello)" thinking that we were Japanese hehehe!

On the way to Slovenia, we stopped by at Rosenberger for lunch. The food there is quite nice.

I'm a dessert freak.

3 sisters.

 AND we saw an abandoned castle while driving!

So we went by a boat (Lol someone actually had to row it for us) to this TINY, TINY, TINY, TINY island, Bled island.  You can literally circle around it. We visited the church there. To me, all the cathedrals in Europe look the same to me.The weather change from Austria to Slovenia was very lovely. In Austria, it was a bit cold, but when we went to Slovenia, it was quite warm! So you didn't really need a jacket or anything, and it wasn't burning hot.

We then drove up to the Bled castle! It's a medieval castle, so you really get that feeling of the medieval period, you know knights and the forts! It's pretty impressive that it was built on a very steep hill. The view from the top is really nice, overlooking Lake bled.

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Cali trip in 2008

So, I wrote about my Californian trip 2 years ago, in 2010 and I felt like it wasn't really done properly. So I'm rewriting about it! But it's mainly just some dot points. Cause we went to quite a few places.

Went with my family and my aunty, uncle and cousins, Aunty M, Uncle D, S and Z! It was so much fun to travel with them. I specifically remember playing endless hours of the card game, Bridge with my sisters and cousins since the road trip was really long!

Flight to San Francisco- We took United airlines which I also call the 'worst airline ever'. So wait what, we were on that airline in 08 and they didn't even have personalised TV screens? THEY HAD THE BACK-IN-THE-OLD-DAYS PROJECTOR WITH ONE MOVIE PLAYING. 13 hours of boredom, especially at that time when I was just an 11 year old kid, what do you expect?

Playing bridge!

I got sick of McDs. For once. As a child, I was always lured into those scheming happy meal toys, so I loved McDs. I ate too much fast food on that trip.

San Fran: 

I love San Fran. I could live there perhaps. It's really nice there, I love the feeling when you're in the city, I mean it's not over crowded, and there are trams every where and all kinds of good eateries and the scenery there is beautiful! Although I noticed the grass's colour. Very dry,  like country side Australia; yellowy and dry.

. We attended my cousin's (my dad's eldest sister's daughter) wedding - Her wedding was absolutely stunning, the venue, the ceremony, she looked gorgeous! It was held at the Stanford (The campus is extremely pretty.) memorial church then at a golf course, so really nice venues. We met her husband and his parents! The wedding was really fun, the food was pretty good, especially the cake!I had my first tea ceremony. I presented tea. The cake was really nice, there was chocolate, green tea and vanilla!

. My cousins' were really nice and took us around (Ku Zhang's sons & daughter) San Francisco. My eldest cousin's wife took us to all of the cool outlets which are the best. One of them was Gilroy. We actually had to drive from one point to another, and it was so rush because my dad and my two uncles were going to the golf course so he was yelling at us when my mum was trying to get me a pair of Ralph Lauren sunglasses (They looked very kiddy, blue ones LOL) because they'd be late, oh and we had In and out. It was so good that I actually had a dream about it in the car when we were travelling to some place. I've got cravings for that.. I wish clothing were as cheap as American outlets  in Australia.... As of 2012, Melbourne is ranked at the 8th most expensive city in the world. I love you Melbourne, but why? A movie ticket costs $13.50. What is this nonsensical rubbish?

. Best clam chowder at Boudin! The delicious clam chowder inside a sour dough bowl. Can that get any better? Oh yes it actually can, I had my first taste of Ben and Jerry's and ever since I've had an obsession for that ice cream brand. And also Haagen Dazs.

Clam chowder.

Of course we went to the Golden gate bridge.

 We also had a family dinner. And on another night, we went to a restaurant for Ku Zhang's birthday , which I ate some pretty good steak!

. Went to Monterey. To be honest there actually isn't that much there, we didn't do much? I remember going to some famous golf course and seeing some what appeared to be cute from far, but then when you take another look, ugly fat seals.

Monterey + San Fran in the slide show

LAKE TAHOE

. Had huge ice cream. We all got kiddy scoop and I think that's equivalent to a regular or medium scoop? Crazy! Portions are huge.

. Very pretty place.

Yosemite

. The drive up there was rather scary! Very steep and I mean, you're going up this mountain, you look down, there's all these trees and all.

. Most beautiful (Well I'm not sure whether Plitvice in Croatia is more beautiful or not.) national park I've ever been to. The over night stay however wasn't exactly pleasant because there were a lot of bugs and we stayed in one of those tents with beds. There are actually bears so you have to put your food inside some kind of locker thing. And I didn't take a shower.

. Drove up to a point to see the sunset, saw a waterfall in the morning. Sigh. If only I had my Samsung camera back then, I would've taken some really nice pictures in Yosemite! Perfect setting.

Las Vegas

. Las Vegas is so darn hot in summer. Even at night, it was like 40 degrees.

. Our hotel, the Luxor was very interesting! It's a pyramid hehehe

. Explored at the Vegas strip! Went to Caesar's palace, ate at the Cheesecake factory and the cheesecake there is amazing. Saw the dancing fountain outside the very posh Bellagio hotel. HAHA some of my friends saw the Eiffel tower in Vegas picture and they get all excited and are like "YOU WENT TO PARIS?!!?".

Godiva cheesecake

I'm actually really disappointed that we didn't go to see the Grand canyon! We were planning to go on a helicopter but it was really expensive, might as well buy another Coach bag or something.

On the way to Los Angeles, we stopped at Desert hills which is huge.. If only I had bought more stuff! My mum as usual was VERY slow, we didn't even get to finish one section =.= She spent so much time at a Salvatore ferragamo shoe store debating whether or not to get a pair of shoes that I went with my dad to the food court to get Haagen dazs and when we came back, she was still there.

. DISNEYLAND. The happiest place for an 11 year old kid to go to. Really, Disneyland never gets old for me. Everyone went except for my parents and YV, and it was so much fun going on the rides with my cousins and aunty and uncle. Uncle D loves all these rollercoasters and stuff, and normally I wouldn't have ridden so many rollercoasters and scary rides but they (YM included) somehow persuaded me. My favourite ride would have to be Splash mountain! Z was begging to go out when it was like 2 minutes before we were going down a few stories. Uncle D and I got DRENCHED.

. Chinese theatre! Walk of fame, Kodak theatre. To be honest, I think those places are over-rated, I didn't find anything spectacular about those attractions in Hollywood.

. Sea world in San Diego! So much fun seeing all these whales and dolphins perform. I also went on probably the scariest roller coaster.

That trip was 4 years ago, in 08 , my second trip to the States. First time, I was a toddler so I can't remember anything from that trip except eating McDonalds with my dad at Disneyworld and experiencing the cold at Niagara falls. So, the second time, obviously I was more aware of things and I enjoyed it a lot more! I love the U.Svery very much, I am so eager to return back! But I'd like to go to New York the next time. Cali trip was so much fun! #bestroadtrip