Here’s a photo based story on my visit to Hahndorf last friday!

Thanks to this picture I realised I’ve been spelling Hahndorf wrongly…

Went there with these four lovelies:

First stop: Beerenberg- for picking strawberries!

Ah why do I have such sexy friends?

Apart from a LOT Of beautiful big red strawberries like these…

I found some really cute ones!

Like this mini strawberry:

Or this apple shaped one:

Both of which ended up in my stomach just after the photo was taken. They were very sweet!

I just like that picture so I put it up. Look- It’s Vi and YM in the background!

Then we had the German Platter for lunch…

Mich looks a bit intimidated by the size, but YM was totally ready to tuck in!

For dessert we went to No5 chocolate cafe…

Had one of my best latte’s ever there

=The end=

Friday 12th February 2010.

I just realised how… um… special that date seems. F, F and 12 of 02 of 2010. There’s just something about it. Right? Or is it just me…

Anyway.

I was at the Adelaide Entertainment Center for Taylor Swift’s sold-out, 12,000 audiences concert. (oh look, its the numberes 01 and 2 again! OK, you can ignore me now.)

As with any big concert, there’s always opening performances by less well known bands and this time it was a band from Nashville, Tennessee called Gloriana. I’ve heard a couple of songs from them before, surprisingly.

Funny thing is, I don’t even know where Taylor Swift came from… I should go find out… OK she’s from Pennsylvania (what is up with American states… they’re all impossible to spell right the first time round. ><)

Oh, before I start, I just wanted to say, I truly apologize for the lack of good pictures, but I’m still waiting to get my hands on some better ones as well. Maybe I should have nicked mummy’s camera before coming back to Adelaide afterall… (but it was bulky and not so very user friendly! although it took nicer pictures)

Anyway… presenting:

Gloriana!

To be truthfully honest, it did get a little boring after about 3 of their songs. They went on for a while~

Then Finally… After all the waiting… Swifty appeared!

She opened with You Belong With Me, wore this ridiculous looking marching band costume, which later got ripped off by her dancers to produce a sparkly dress underneath. It was like, “WHOA what happened to the costume!??” I didn’t realize how it changed it until I saw a video recording of it later on~ (wanted to post it here, but can’t seem to find it…)

She used a bunch of actors and stuff to act out songs like Teardrops on My Guitar (some lucky guy got to play Drew) and That’s the way I Loved you (she had a guy in a neat suit, and a rocker guitarist to contrast…)

And she had a really pretty set for Love Story:

That’s Taylor in the Red dress on top by the way… a little small >< And ballroom dancers at the bottom~

She played the piano for You’re Not Sorry if i’m not wrong… (I didnt know she could play the piano)

Did a strange drumming performance…

… she’s the one on your right.

And of course, she played the guitar.

I LOVE that sparkly guitar of hers. If there was any one thing I could steal from her, I would steal that guitar. No wait, I’d steal her talent, and then buy myself a guitar like that.

There was lots of confetti when she sang the Valentine’s Day song.

So pretty!

Oh, and did I mention she loves her hair? She loves her hair. Very very much. She was swishing and swashing it all over the whole night. Miraculous how it doesn’t look like a big mop on top of her head at the end of the night after all that. But then she drenched herself in water after her last song… so if it did look like a mop, it wasn’t for long. I hope she didn’t fall sick.

Not sure if you can see, but there’s a curtain of water behind her… which she walked into after finishing. I’d love to explain to you what they did with that water, but It’s a little complicated… so I’ll pass. Was really good though.

Between the different sets and costume changes, they kept us entertained with videos which included some interviews with the guys that Taylor Swift supposedly wrote about. It was quite funny.

The concert ended at 10:30pm. sad sad. But glad I got a chance to go!

Below is Cheryl and Tracy, whom I went to the concert with. Chris was there too.  He took the photo.

After the concert I was hungry so I joined C and Vi at pancake house!

=End of Night=

…and what am I doing?

Sitting on my ass playing bejeweled on facebook.

My dad’s not feeling well so he’s sleeping in the living room. Mum’s having a nap too. So I can’t go on the piano, like what I usually do every single afternoon anyway.

I would like to go for a swim but I’m still fluey/coughing, so I don’t think people would appreciate me contaminating the pool.

Can’t watch tv or play wii, cuz again, dad’s in the living room. So what can I do???

I should go out. Doesn’t matter that the town is friggin 40 mins away (waiting for bus and all that taken into account…) I should probably make good use of my last day in Singapore. Doubt I’ll be doing much tomorrow since we’re leaving to KL on sunday morning (or even tmrw evening??) and I won’t be seeing singapore for another year.

That being said though, I finally went to a club last night. Jennie brought me to The Butter Factory on Wednesday Night with a couple of her friends. Ladies night is pretty awesome in Singapore. Free entry, and free flow of drinks, and RnB music the whole night (except for a random couple of rock songs in the mix a little later at night, I don’t know why). So I only spent on taxi, and a locker for my bag since I was staying over at Jen’s. Total cost= $4.

Initially I was rather reluctant to go. On the way down to the city (the second last stop of the red line, takes 30 mins on the MRT itself!) I was actually falling asleep. But when we got there, and the atmosphere heated up a bit, and the music got really good, I was back to my clubbing mood and having lotsa fun! haha. So much for growing old and giving up the clubbing scene. I think vi would really like this place. There’s poles on the stage and all

So. I think it’ll take a little while longer before i really stop going to clubs.

OK so mum’s up from her nap and apparently i’ve got some things to do before I can go out, so I’m gonna stop here now…

I’ll try to post pictures sometime later when I’m back in Adl I guess. I’m on my mum’s computer now. No pictures here… so sorry for the long boring entries the past couple of months.

Ciao!

After a year of Singapore nightlife drought, I finally stepped foot into Clarke Quay again tonight.

Surprisingly though, no high heels, no ID checks and no dancing.

But yes, alcohol was involved. And I had a good time.

I had dinner with JW at the really yummy Ramen place at Liang Court, then we headed over to Cafe Iguana to have their ‘Macho Margarita’ which was friggin MASSIVE. I swear I did not think it was going to be that big. But it was good. And somehow managed to finish it between the two of us (i think I had more than half of it!) Vi and Ed came and joined us at around 10ish. We had to leave around 11ish because we all had to take the MRT back and my last train is about 11:40 at city hall. (Actually, I don’t really know exactly what time the last train is for a saturday night, but the last time i checked it was 11:40pm from City Hall… Oh well. I managed to get home. Although my time with the girls and Edmund was cut short )

I was singing to myself ‘Love like this’ on the mrt back but then I don’t really know how to sing it and i wanted to try and stop my obsession, So i listened to Taylor Swift instead. Didn’t quite work though. As soon as I turned off Taylor, another SS501 song started playing in my head.

I’m still looking forward to Taylor Swift’s concert on the 12th of February though. *yay*!

So yea… I think I’m growing out of the whole clubbing thing. I mean, I love dancing in clubs still, but I don’t miss it as much as I used to I guess… It’s a bit like, I don’t care if I go or don’t go. If I go then it’s all good and I have fun, but if I don’t have the chance to go, I’m not that bummed about it.

I’d rather spend my day out shopping. Haha! I went to Bugis with mum today. Bought myself a really pretty blouse (i think its pretty!) on super discount which always makes me happy. Bought a new bag yesterday too at half price to replace my white one which is ripping on the inside

But yah. Discounts and sales and getting things half the original price makes me happy.  :)

Oh, and shoe shopping. Shoe shopping makes me happy too. Not that I buy lots of shoes, but I just like going around looking for something nice~

Hi all I’m back in singapore

The cough I developed when I went to Europe seems to have come back to haunt me and my family. So now every night I’m coughing like a smoker and I wake up with a painfully sore throat which lasts through the day and as soon as it doesn’t feel too bad anymore (it usually gets better after eating… o.O) i start coughing again and the vicious cycle continues. I’ve been sneezing and being kinda flu-ey the past couple of days too. But no signs of that today as of yet… so hopefully that’s gone.

This is so frustrating. I hate feeling tired all the time.

Maybe I’m tired because I haven’t been doing anything…? You know how people say you feel a lot more energetic after doing some exercise and being active…

But if you’re not feeling well the best remedy is rest, rest, and more rest. Right??

So what should I do??

Complaining aside…

For about 3-4 days I was stuck watching the Korean drama Boys Over Flowers. If you’re a girl, and you have some free time (around 25 hours) I suggest you watch it. All episodes can be found online. If you need a link, ask me But that show would put anyone in gaga land… So be careful. haha.

I also met Ritz again, this time for drinks at New Asia Bar. It’s located on the 70th floor of the um… raffles hotel building or something. The view was amazing. We also saw a really low cloud outside the window. That was a little strange. But I really like that place. So thanks Ritz for bringing me there!

Came the weekend… we drove up to Kuantan for my Grandfather’s 81st birthday celebration or was it the 82nd… I’m not too sure :S the reason for the strange age for celebration is that when he turned 80 it was just a little while after my grandmother passed away, so we didn’t want to have a celebration then. So my uncles organised a dinner this year. 5 tables, a little private dining area in some restaurant in Kuantan. Good food, and good company i guess. I finally get to meet my cousins. I couldn’t really recognise one of them because well… they’re at that age where they suddenly Grow and you come back a couple of years later and they’re not the same people anymore… So i thought he was his older brother when he’s not. ><

It was nice for me cuz I won’t be there for Chinese New Year again this year. So yah. Mini reunion. Just like the wedding dinner we had in Penang.

I got to walk down the beach and check out the new E.C. Mall in Kuantan (well, not so new anymore its about 2 years old but i haven’t seen it) and it was a nice big place with another cinema and all…  Then I spent sunday night with my primary school bestie and we had so much to talk about there wasn’t enough time because the kopitiam closed and we couldn’t stay out so late anyway…

And by monday night we’re back in Singapore.

And I’m like a slug. Sleeping in the car almost the whole way back (or trying to sleep… cars arent very comfortable~) and sleeping at home and staying home being all sluggish…

not sure how much sense im making now…. heheh.

Anyway… time to get off the computer. I’ve been youtube-ing quite a lot… guess since in Adelaide I’m restricted with the amount of internet usage I have~

time to play some tunes on the piano. Or should i say, make some noise?

It’s been a movie week.

Monday:
Drooled over hot werewolf guys with darling C. =D Apparently you’re either a vampire fan or a werewolf fan. Well, I’m definitely a werewolf fan. hahaha! Edward’s so… tense. you know… and cold, and hard, and pale… and guys aren’t meant to be like that. They should be warm and tan and comfortable… (dont know what tan has to do with comfort, but i guess they look better than pale white. haha!) Even tough I kinda like sparkly shiny things. Still. shiny men are weird i think. hahah. i like shiny jewelry.
Anyway, I loved the movie. It was hot, it was funny, it also had some pretty cool action and fight scenes. So. Me likey.

Tuesday:
I didn’t GO to the cinema. I’ve been wanting to watch The Curious Case of Benjamin Button for a while. It’s on my hard drive so I finally watched it. Very long movie… a little draggy… But when Benjamin Button was at a decent age… he was hot. haha. Duh. Brad Pitt… He’s Brad Pitt for a reason. I wonder how they made him look so young though. i mean, to look old, i get it, but to look young? and Teenagey?? Brad Pitt?? Im sure he loved that part.

Wednesday (that’s today!):
Went to watch 2012 with R. WHOA SO TENSE! i was going to chew off my fingers (cuz i don’t bite nails…) But that was one heck of a good movie. A little predictable at times, but it was good. So good… Like the soy milk. Ok. kidding. >< (if you dont know what im talking about, there’s a soy milk here called ’so good’ and Delta Goodrem advertises for them and they wanted her to change her name to Delta So-Goodrem. ok. enough randomness… i watch too much tv)

2012 was good. If you haven’t seen it I suggest you go and watch it. Oh and if you’re a girl, you should watch New Moon too. No wait. Not before you read the book. Go read them. Then go watch. Cuz it’s worth it. We all need a little fantasy sometimes~

I wanted to title this post- ‘the end of holidays’

But that just sounded very depressing, so I tried a slightly more positive way of saying it. I Hope.

Thursday

Gorge wildlife park, Toy Factory and Whispering wall. Places that I’ve been wanting to visit for a while, and Finally managed to go. With 23 other people! I Really hate planning events for MySA but once the event takes place and when things go as planned, or even better than planned, there’s this amazing sense of pride and satisfaction that just swells up inside

you. But then there’s always the post-event things like money, new members and all that that needs to be sorted out which kinda sucks. Then again its not directly my job

I HELD A KOALA. I mean, how awesome is that. Koalas are officially the Cutest animals on earth. OK. maybe nothing beats puppies but koalas are definitely on top. And they chew on eucalyptus leaves when you’re holding on to them so they actually smell nice! and they’re so soft… and ah… i want one. their claws are painful though. >< i had on this really thin blouse and it just went straight through. OWww! but their cuteness definitely makes up for it. the

y’re forgiven…. you can’t be mad at a koala…

ah so fat so fat! time to diet...

I climbed the biggest rocking horse in the world! And got a little certificate that says: “This is to certify that on the 23rd July 2009 Laurane Lim has climbed to the top of The Biggest Rocking Horse in the World at The Toy Factory” *Insert BIG grin* =D

the 2 black silhouettes up there... that's kavi and i :D

see, they're sooo far away! and i can still hear them talking almost gossiped about ppl across the other side then vi reminded me they can hear me!

I also spoke (not shouted!) to some people who were really far away from me without any form of technology! haha. ok. uh… the whispering wall.

Friday

Went to Vietnamese restaurant with Jo and YK. Rolls were good! But the rest of the stuff was just ok. Need to thank the girls for keeping me company that night for a while though. The last friday before uni starts again and I WASN’T WORKING! so I really didn’t want to stay home, and it was nice to just go out for dinner…

Saturday

Ballroom dance has once again started! So yeah… good fun. Then went for cake and lemon & lime bitters at Scoozi.

Came home and fixed a new set of strings onto my guitar after finding a ‘how to’ video online. It’s still constantly out of tune :S But im hoping its cuz they’re new strings so will take a while to completely extend..

Had work that night. One of the shortest saturday night shifts I’ve ever done on a saturday night (3h30mins…) but one of the worse shifts… I hate those weird in-the-middle-of-no-where shifts… Ended up doing lots of little odds and ends… random stuff like filling up the ice dispensing machines… that damn ice bucket so heavy. Changed bins in the dining area (4 gigantic bins which are over fillling~) mopped the floors… did lots of cleaning… topping up stuff… generally getting the place ready for the post-midnight rush. And the worst thing that night- cleaning up PUKE. UGH. seriously. It was only 10pm and ppl are PUKING already. eeugh. So yah. Since I was already doing random tasks around the restaurant It was my job to clean that up.

Sunday

Final day of the holidays. I’ve been planning to go cycling for a while… but I’ve been working late on sat nights… and ppl aren’t free on sundays and all that so Finally managed to go today

some of the slower, less 'canggih' ones...

Never trust Adelaide’s weather forecast. Yesterday it said ‘easing showers’ and this morning it said ’showers’ But we head out and all we got was a 3 minute light drizzle and no more rain. YAY!
So i borrowed a bike from Adelaide City Council cuz they’re awesome and we get to borrow bikes for free. Went cycling with YS who brought me to the parks in the south (Since the bf went somewhere else with her bf i’m assuming and JW wasn’t feeling well). Finally found out where the japanese garden was. A Small, but Very pretty little garden with a pond and all that. (no pictures! ah!!!) Continued cycling and we came across a ‘Pedal Prix’ going on! Basically… racing of those pedal cars… the different teams had different designs and all. You got some who just WHIZZ past us and they look super high tech with streamline designs and all that, but there was also less fancy ones which move a lot slower… haha.

So that’s it. And we’ve got only a few hours left before a whole new semester starts again.

And my room is still in a nightmare state and my notes are still all over the place and my laundry still hasn’t been folded and I still haven’t read my lecturer’s emails…

After a disasterous test on Friday I had to do something to take my mind off things.

What better way than to bake something new, easy and hopefully yummy.

So I tried Lemon Meringue Tarts. I saw the recipe in this month’s Woolworth’s free monthly magazine. Looked easy enough. And definitely looked good. But they suggested using ‘Woolworth’s shortcrust pastry tartlet cases’ which were ready prepared…  Well, I had all the ingredients, so i wasn’t going to go out to buy tarlet cases… I have a recipe book! Which is totally awesome and has recipes for all the basic stuff such as shortcrust pastry. So I followed that recipe instead and made my own tartlet cases.

So here are the ready made tartlet cases. OK so they’re kind of ugly… but whatever. I didnt actually follow instructions to put baking paper over the top with rice on it (so the center doesn’t bulge up which i figured out AFTER i baked them cuz before that i was like what..!?? what for!? so ya… it was too much work anyway. And since these were so small, it wasn’t really necessary~ ok enuff rambling back to the main story.) I cant figure out how to make it all nice and smooth though. Maybe using a rolling pin would help

Here’s the lemon tart filling

And here’s the meringue!

And here’s the finished combined product ready to be baked.

You can probably see a couple of really weird looking meringue on the tarts, but i thought i should try make it spiky since well… it browns better? But then i thought they didnt look so nice so i stuck with little blobs.

Looks so cute right??? (ok sorry. Enough SSing…)

Baking…

And the final product.

Was a little runny when this was taken. It was still warm and I was too excited to wait for it to cool. But the next day the inside was a bit more solid. I don’t know if that’s a good thing… I’ve never had lemon meringue tarts before…

Overall I thought it was a bit sour. My lemon was one heck of a juicy lemon. I considered cutting down the amount of water I had to add to the lemon custard. And I thought maybe I should add a bit more sugar, but it was my first time making it I didn’t want to mess around with the recipe too much :S But then again ‘one lemon’ in the recipe is quite ambiguous.

Ayway, I had some left over meringue so I just baked them… low temperature, long time… I remembered this from the time we tried making pavlova at home with mum.

I could have made a little pavlova i guess but then I ndded cream and a bunch of other stuff to put together and i really couldn’t be bothered. My brother seemed to like these little meringues by itself anyway so i just baked them and they got eaten up!

On a completely non-related topic, here’s some other food I indulged in this weekend…

I went out for a movie later that evening then Marina picked Conie and I up and we headed to Brace Girdle. WHeee! finally made it there.

Here’s my strawberry indulgence… I really have no idea what its called but that sounds acceptable The chocolate was SO GOOD i took a spoon and scraped out every single bit from the tub even after my strawberries had finished. ><

Here are the darlings…

Then last night I went to the Casino to try the $5 roast of the day that I’ve heard so many people talk about for such a long time but never been there!

Here it is.

$5. Pretty worth it?

It was GOOD. The roast of the day was Veal. The meat was very tender. There was apple sauce and/or gravy, and it was served with beans, carrots (which were surprisingly sweet and Yummy. If you know me well you’ll know I DONT LIKE CARROTS but i ate every single one of them on my plate) And roast potatoes which were very tasty too although the outside skin was a wee bit tough.

I wont tell you what TIME i had this meal because if I did you’ll be shocked and tell me that’s why I’m gaining weight.

So I’ll just leave it at that

Anyway, thanks to all who made my weekend off so far one of my bestest. And no alcohol or dancing involved! hahaha.

Dinner tonight at Hog’s Breath with YinLu- HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!

Overall a good show.

Adelaide Entertainment Center is still under construction! (the outside of it…) So the venue itself looked damn depressing. We entered through the side entrance and all that. Back to the show though… I had actually expected something grander. Especially after having been to the Esplanade in Singapore and seeing what they’re capable of doing as they had a Massive stage and all that…here it just seems quite limited.

Nonetheless I was amazed by certain things…
Like the scene where the phantom brings Christine into his hiding place… with the boat and lights and mist… it really looked like a river.

And the phantom in the Mirror. Damn that was scary.

And the sound effects when the phantom was being freaky. His voice echoed from different places of the hall. It felt like he was behind us, then on the other side, then next to us again…

The costumes were amaaazing. Especially during the masquerade ball… I wish I had closer seats for that scene… the screen was good for some things, but when there’s so many details and colours and movement everywhere… the screen is far from the actual thing.

The singers were pretty good too. I liked the Phantom and Christine’s voices. Although Cristine looked a bit old for her part… But I could not understand that fat soprano lady when she sings. I can’t even remember her name >< And the Orchestra!! They sounded SO GOOD. And when they stood up at the end I realised how small the orchestra really was, but their sound was *wow*.

The show was a combination of romance, humour, horror, and sometimes very sad… I had chills running down my back a few times during the show. And goosebumps. And I think that’s what makes a show a good show. I wouldn’t go and watch it again, but I’m glad I went for it this time round