2009
Friday, January 02, 2009
So much for finishing the second half of the other post on time! Before you talk to me about procrastination, I'll have you know it's one of those resolutions that I've made obscene amount of times over and over again and failed just as much to keep. Mind you, I've also been plagued with this ridiculous flu for the past week or so. Although, visiting the karaoke booth two days in a row with a sore throat wasn't the greatest idea ever. Hey, at least I got to be Barry White for a day after that, how cool was that?
Still, while 2008 wasn't the best, it certainly wasn't the worst either. I had good memorable moments with (in no particular order) Chicago, pole, Proximity, more pole, Korea, swing and last but not least Australia. 2008 was the year of dance! Hopefully it'll stay that way through 2009 :p
2009 kicked off with a blast--we had Leng drunk sky high into the land of scarred livers and embarrassing YouTube-able moments. We ab-salute you Leng! :) Also, bonus points to myself for not doing a merlion after a few shots of that smashing Ukrainian vodka Terry had brought. Nasty, nasty stuff. I can't imagine sitting in the distillery for it--I would've passed out from the fumes.
Here are the remaining pictures from 2008, namely shots from Hobart and the funky stuff up till New Year's Eve.
Happy 2009 everyone! :D
Graduation, Hobart
Given the weird circumstances I was in right before the trip to Australia, I thought living on-campus in Hobart with my sis in one of the residential apartments was quite the ironic trip back down university memory lane:
The day before sis' big day, we headed off to Fish 349 to grab dinner.
It was quite a wait for the food but no matter, sis and I scanned the room for possible means to entertain ourselves while the folks sat about patiently. Lo and behold... they had color pencils and blank sheets to well, color.
Our kiasu spirits kicked in, and this was our subject of the day:
The unsuspecting fish
Our objective? To join the ranks of artists, who were quite possibly in the age range of oh... 3 to 9, up onto Fish 349's coveted wall of fame:
After minutes of furious scribbling and minor trash talking (naturally, my fish is better) we have the sexy SEAN FISH...
and the IM FISH:
And the two fishies together, just so I don't seem bias and such for peddling my own (heh heh):
My fish is way hotter.
Sis was supposed to go back in a week to check if they posted any of our fishes and had gleefully proclaimed hers to be on top. That and she threatened to torch the place if none of the fishes (or just mine) had made it to the board.
The big day finally arrives! "Pre-event" shots with the sis before she dons her gown and cam whores the whole campus:
Someone is soooo working the camera.
What happens when we finally QC the pictures that we took.
And off to the campus we went! Here's a pic of sis with the folks in UTas' School of Pharmacy's tiny waiting hall:
Everyone looking as pleased as a punch!
Magic doors to the underground dungeon of a computer lab.
Sis with dad.
Sis with mom.
Sex0ring the Confucius statue by the courtyard, lol.
I don't remember taking that many pictures when I graduated, so I'll cut it short and show you my favorite pic of sis on campus--here she is literally going "Hyuk! Screw you dispensing lab!" in front of the lab :p
No graduation ceremony pictures... everyone was moving way too fast for my camera to catch :p On the plus side, we went and drowned ourselves in cherries the next day:
And the folks posing with the camera with the bounty of cherries that we nabbed off the trees:
The best cherries are in the trees with the most worms! We perfected the art of tilting those slightly-out-of-reach branches into grasp without disturbing any of the worms lest they start falling into my hair T_T
After that we headed drove around mindlessly sight-seeing (it's all mountains and the coast, I swear) and bumped into the Pancake Train:
Of course, it's not actually a train train!
Sis and I were piggies once again:
Sis with her scallop pancake dish. She ended up eating half of mine instead.
My super sexy combination of bacon, apple and a truckload of maple syrup. Needless to say, mine was much better, bwahaha.
The last day (for dad and I anyway) in Hobart: we drove over to Salamanca in the morning and meandered through the morning market. No pictures because I was too busy shopping, sorry! :p
Christmas cookies, swing
It's Christmas! We baked cookies at Aizat's till the wee morning (and yes, bad photography because all images were taken using his cellphone):
So it begins--the Christmas cookie saga!
We dressed up:
And danced the night away:
The Christmas swing--Aizat, Dania and Ummi
Post Christmas and we were still baking (only because we were trying to finish up leftover ingredients before Aizat took off for Chile!). We had a killer brownie (aptly tagged "Sin" in the Facebook albums) and a resurrected apple lemon crumble:
The two chefs; third "chef" playing photographer.
As for the NYE pictures... well, let's just say whatever happened in Darby Park, stays in Darby Park! <3 to the extended family :)
So much for finishing the second half of the other post on time! Before you talk to me about procrastination, I'll have you know it's one of those resolutions that I've made obscene amount of times over and over again and failed just as much to keep. Mind you, I've also been plagued with this ridiculous flu for the past week or so. Although, visiting the karaoke booth two days in a row with a sore throat wasn't the greatest idea ever. Hey, at least I got to be Barry White for a day after that, how cool was that?
Still, while 2008 wasn't the best, it certainly wasn't the worst either. I had good memorable moments with (in no particular order) Chicago, pole, Proximity, more pole, Korea, swing and last but not least Australia. 2008 was the year of dance! Hopefully it'll stay that way through 2009 :p
2009 kicked off with a blast--we had Leng drunk sky high into the land of scarred livers and embarrassing YouTube-able moments. We ab-salute you Leng! :) Also, bonus points to myself for not doing a merlion after a few shots of that smashing Ukrainian vodka Terry had brought. Nasty, nasty stuff. I can't imagine sitting in the distillery for it--I would've passed out from the fumes.
Here are the remaining pictures from 2008, namely shots from Hobart and the funky stuff up till New Year's Eve.
Happy 2009 everyone! :D
Graduation, Hobart
Given the weird circumstances I was in right before the trip to Australia, I thought living on-campus in Hobart with my sis in one of the residential apartments was quite the ironic trip back down university memory lane:
The day before sis' big day, we headed off to Fish 349 to grab dinner.
It was quite a wait for the food but no matter, sis and I scanned the room for possible means to entertain ourselves while the folks sat about patiently. Lo and behold... they had color pencils and blank sheets to well, color.
Our kiasu spirits kicked in, and this was our subject of the day:
The unsuspecting fish
Our objective? To join the ranks of artists, who were quite possibly in the age range of oh... 3 to 9, up onto Fish 349's coveted wall of fame:
After minutes of furious scribbling and minor trash talking (naturally, my fish is better) we have the sexy SEAN FISH...
and the IM FISH:
And the two fishies together, just so I don't seem bias and such for peddling my own (heh heh):
My fish is way hotter.
Sis was supposed to go back in a week to check if they posted any of our fishes and had gleefully proclaimed hers to be on top. That and she threatened to torch the place if none of the fishes (or just mine) had made it to the board.
The big day finally arrives! "Pre-event" shots with the sis before she dons her gown and cam whores the whole campus:
Someone is soooo working the camera.
What happens when we finally QC the pictures that we took.
And off to the campus we went! Here's a pic of sis with the folks in UTas' School of Pharmacy's tiny waiting hall:
Everyone looking as pleased as a punch!
Magic doors to the underground dungeon of a computer lab.
Sis with dad.
Sis with mom.
Sex0ring the Confucius statue by the courtyard, lol.
I don't remember taking that many pictures when I graduated, so I'll cut it short and show you my favorite pic of sis on campus--here she is literally going "Hyuk! Screw you dispensing lab!" in front of the lab :p
No graduation ceremony pictures... everyone was moving way too fast for my camera to catch :p On the plus side, we went and drowned ourselves in cherries the next day:
And the folks posing with the camera with the bounty of cherries that we nabbed off the trees:
The best cherries are in the trees with the most worms! We perfected the art of tilting those slightly-out-of-reach branches into grasp without disturbing any of the worms lest they start falling into my hair T_T
After that we headed drove around mindlessly sight-seeing (it's all mountains and the coast, I swear) and bumped into the Pancake Train:
Of course, it's not actually a train train!
Sis and I were piggies once again:
Sis with her scallop pancake dish. She ended up eating half of mine instead.
My super sexy combination of bacon, apple and a truckload of maple syrup. Needless to say, mine was much better, bwahaha.
The last day (for dad and I anyway) in Hobart: we drove over to Salamanca in the morning and meandered through the morning market. No pictures because I was too busy shopping, sorry! :p
Christmas cookies, swing
It's Christmas! We baked cookies at Aizat's till the wee morning (and yes, bad photography because all images were taken using his cellphone):
So it begins--the Christmas cookie saga!
We dressed up:
And danced the night away:
The Christmas swing--Aizat, Dania and Ummi
Post Christmas and we were still baking (only because we were trying to finish up leftover ingredients before Aizat took off for Chile!). We had a killer brownie (aptly tagged "Sin" in the Facebook albums) and a resurrected apple lemon crumble:
The two chefs; third "chef" playing photographer.
As for the NYE pictures... well, let's just say whatever happened in Darby Park, stays in Darby Park! <3 to the extended family :)
The OZ adventure: part one - Melbourne
Friday, December 26, 2008
Ah, December. The month of holidays... and traveling!
The folks and I went over to Australia for sis' graduation! She is now an official (and legit) drug pusher.
Sis graduating from the School of Pharmacy.
I have to say, flying Air Asia X was the most uncomfortable and torturous experience I've ever had. You think flying 14 hours in Northwest was uncomfortable? Compared to eight hours of Air Asia X, the 14 hours was a luxurious decadence with satin sheets and a butler on call with a bottle of champagne.
Also, since I really only take pictures of food while traveling... you will have to understand and bear with the lack of landscape images throughout this post. I tried, I really did.
Anyway! We stopped by Melbourne before we took off for Hobart, Tassie. We shopped, we ate, we walked, shopped some more and ate till or arteries gave way to the greasy bacon. Since I love pancakes so much the first place we ate at was the Pancake Parlour:
Pancake Parlour!
Family shot: they had this interesting (albeit dirty) mirror up front...
Mom and sis peddling the pancakes.
My pancake: blueberry, of course!
The IT pancake. Lock and load, baby.
Then we got up bright and obscenely early the next morning at 6:30 (you read that right!) to head off to Sovereign Hill, Ballarat to look for gold.
Cam whoring in the AM, before we passed out on the way to Ballarat.
Being the piggie that I am, I slept most of the way there (way too early to be up and it was raining!) but we managed to ninja some shots of the quaint Ballarat roads:
And we finally reach Sovereign Hill! Sovereign Hill is really an open air museum of sorts that shows off Ballarat in its gold rush days.
The miniature Sovereign Hill.
I think I was looking for gold... sorta.
Sis and dad posing with a bright red buggy.
It was damp and rainy, so we had to cuddle by the fireplace to stay warm... outdoors.
The mining/panning areas:
The trip set us back so much, sis and I had to start panning for gold...
Panning for gold, hey ho!
which was pretty much an epic fail. I got dirt, and more dirt. The folks tried their hands at it too:
Sis and I also took a tour into the mines:
After we had enough of hard work, we went over to the "town" to kick back and relax:
Sis bringing in some modern hip hand gestures to Sovereign Hill's old fashioned backdrop.
We also went to visit the theater, checked out some accommodation and dropped by the doctors':
Sis and I hogging the couch in the waiting rooms waiting for the rain to simmer down
Mom and Dad taking their turn
The doctor's tools :|
We also went to see how lollies were made at the confectionery shop:
The candy shop--don't get me started on the candy man...
And went to see the making of a solid gold bar (all $125,000 of it straight from its sexy liquid form), blacksmithing anyone?
Somewhere between the stops, we went for lunch. But I was too hungry to be bothered with the pictures (hey, always a first! :p). Our final stop at Sovereign Hill was the candle making barn:
Three guesses as to what these also look like. Hmm.
We hopped onto a city tour the next morning. Again, I had to wake up at the same obscene time of 6:30. My body was about to collapse. I had to drag my dead-weight self out of bed screaming and kicking. Sorry, minimal pictures. Doing more than sitting and/or sleeping in a moving vehicle makes me spontaneously combust and throw up.
We stopped by the botanical gardens...
as well as the shrine of remembrance, which had a fantastic view of the city:
Finally we got dropped off at the Queen Victoria market place for lunch and then took a nice stroll back to the hotel. Where we saw graffiti...
more buildings (this is some sort of government building, I forgot which one, zoinks!)...
and St. Paul's Cathedral in all its gothic revival glam (I hope this is the right building :p). Our tour guide said there was a sister building in Sydney but of course, the one in Melbourne is bigger... or so the people in Melbourne would like to believe. People from Sydney reading this are welcome to dispute the matter.
We came back to Melbourne and I headed off for Blues 101 at the Bendigo Hotel with Kay! Unfortunately, my camera chose to splutter and run out of batteries before we could cam whore the event :( Nevertheless, KL Swing! was at Melbourne representin'!
Part two, the Hobart edition will be coming soon! :)
Ah, December. The month of holidays... and traveling!
The folks and I went over to Australia for sis' graduation! She is now an official (and legit) drug pusher.
Sis graduating from the School of Pharmacy.
I have to say, flying Air Asia X was the most uncomfortable and torturous experience I've ever had. You think flying 14 hours in Northwest was uncomfortable? Compared to eight hours of Air Asia X, the 14 hours was a luxurious decadence with satin sheets and a butler on call with a bottle of champagne.
Also, since I really only take pictures of food while traveling... you will have to understand and bear with the lack of landscape images throughout this post. I tried, I really did.
Anyway! We stopped by Melbourne before we took off for Hobart, Tassie. We shopped, we ate, we walked, shopped some more and ate till or arteries gave way to the greasy bacon. Since I love pancakes so much the first place we ate at was the Pancake Parlour:
Pancake Parlour!
Family shot: they had this interesting (albeit dirty) mirror up front...
Mom and sis peddling the pancakes.
My pancake: blueberry, of course!
The IT pancake. Lock and load, baby.
Then we got up bright and obscenely early the next morning at 6:30 (you read that right!) to head off to Sovereign Hill, Ballarat to look for gold.
Cam whoring in the AM, before we passed out on the way to Ballarat.
Being the piggie that I am, I slept most of the way there (way too early to be up and it was raining!) but we managed to ninja some shots of the quaint Ballarat roads:
And we finally reach Sovereign Hill! Sovereign Hill is really an open air museum of sorts that shows off Ballarat in its gold rush days.
The miniature Sovereign Hill.
I think I was looking for gold... sorta.
Sis and dad posing with a bright red buggy.
It was damp and rainy, so we had to cuddle by the fireplace to stay warm... outdoors.
The mining/panning areas:
The trip set us back so much, sis and I had to start panning for gold...
Panning for gold, hey ho!
which was pretty much an epic fail. I got dirt, and more dirt. The folks tried their hands at it too:
Sis and I also took a tour into the mines:
After we had enough of hard work, we went over to the "town" to kick back and relax:
Sis bringing in some modern hip hand gestures to Sovereign Hill's old fashioned backdrop.
We also went to visit the theater, checked out some accommodation and dropped by the doctors':
Sis and I hogging the couch in the waiting rooms waiting for the rain to simmer down
Mom and Dad taking their turn
The doctor's tools :|
We also went to see how lollies were made at the confectionery shop:
The candy shop--don't get me started on the candy man...
And went to see the making of a solid gold bar (all $125,000 of it straight from its sexy liquid form), blacksmithing anyone?
Somewhere between the stops, we went for lunch. But I was too hungry to be bothered with the pictures (hey, always a first! :p). Our final stop at Sovereign Hill was the candle making barn:
Three guesses as to what these also look like. Hmm.
We hopped onto a city tour the next morning. Again, I had to wake up at the same obscene time of 6:30. My body was about to collapse. I had to drag my dead-weight self out of bed screaming and kicking. Sorry, minimal pictures. Doing more than sitting and/or sleeping in a moving vehicle makes me spontaneously combust and throw up.
We stopped by the botanical gardens...
as well as the shrine of remembrance, which had a fantastic view of the city:
Finally we got dropped off at the Queen Victoria market place for lunch and then took a nice stroll back to the hotel. Where we saw graffiti...
more buildings (this is some sort of government building, I forgot which one, zoinks!)...
and St. Paul's Cathedral in all its gothic revival glam (I hope this is the right building :p). Our tour guide said there was a sister building in Sydney but of course, the one in Melbourne is bigger... or so the people in Melbourne would like to believe. People from Sydney reading this are welcome to dispute the matter.
We came back to Melbourne and I headed off for Blues 101 at the Bendigo Hotel with Kay! Unfortunately, my camera chose to splutter and run out of batteries before we could cam whore the event :( Nevertheless, KL Swing! was at Melbourne representin'!
Part two, the Hobart edition will be coming soon! :)
[ soon-to-be useful ]
previously on nekomatta.com
timeless bitchings
nekomatta is...
Sean Sean Tan;
sarcastic wordsmith, dirty in oh-so-many ways, fun-loving IE-hating CSS worshiping markup "engineer", anime-styled arm flailing expressive communicator, proudly self-initiated member of the cult of milk and caffeine, snotty pink crayon lover, tree hugging hippy organic designer, pole dancer wannabe, swing-a-ling lindy hopper, rabid arcane mage/bitchin' disc priest/annoying resto druid--sometimes spazzy, often giggly, always loud.
20% sugar, 80% kink.