strawberry farm

one of my high school friends was kind enough to bring me to a strawberry farm for one of the australian experiences. i loved the visit. it was quite a hot day though. from a distance, the strawberry plants didn;t look very exciting. you had to go closer and squat by the little shrubs to look at budding or growing or ripening strawberries for your heart to be delighted. we had to pay a certain amount and then given a tub to put the strawberries that we picked into. as you can see, the bright red of the strawberries against the sun was beautiful. then i had freshly baked scones with cream and fresh strawberry jam with some light tea. finished with the farm's award-winning homemade strawberry ice-cream. hmmm....

chocolates!

hmmm...chocolates! is there anybody who doesn't love them? i ABSOLUTELY do. so does my husband. and so do my kids. we love them! is there any reason not to? let's look at the reasons why they are lovable - they taste lovely, they are such a comfort for whatever mood you're in, they come in a thousand and one varieties, AND, have you heard how they are good for your health? a little square of dark chocolate a day helps you lose weight (no kidding!), is good for your heart, and is a perfect drug-free antidote for digestive problems like hyperacidity and gastric. i have digestive problems and i've tried this. it works like magic. my bio scientist doctor friend confirmed this fact as well. i like milk choc but i've switched to dark choc just because they are healthier for you. and have grown to like it. the ones with min 70% cocoa mass are the best for you. most commercial dark chocs contain abt 46%. milk choc only contains abt 23%. but anything beyond 70% is difficult to stomach. i once tried lindt's 85% and it couldn't get past my tongue. had to spit it out. but of all the chocs from different parts of the world i've tried, the winner is definitely SWISS CHOCS! better than belgian. swiss chocs for me, anytime! malaysian chocs (cadb, voch, kand) are sadly a waste of time and calorie allowance. if i had to have a choc emergency, it would be van houten milk choc with roasted almonds. that's the closest acceptable malaysian choc (don't know if they're made in malaysia, but available in malaysia la) because it has more of a chocolatey taste than just being flat sweet like local cadb. of course there's your other imported snickers and mars but i don't really like them. zip wafers are actually not bad. i grew up on them. love ferrero rocher. my dream choc will probably sound like SWISS 70% DARK CHOC WITH ROASTED ALMONDS. i never liked the fancy schmancy stuff like choc truffles with champagne and all those boutique nonsense. give me a simple ol bar and i'm happy.

pics above are some chocs i picked from melbourne. left are dark choc with hazelnuts and dark choc with almonds and orange from this fancy choc boutique and cafe called koko black. their choc drinks and choc desserts are to die for. be sure to visit one if you're in melbourne. have you ever tried a DARK HOT CHOC WITH ORANGE SYRUP DRINK? nearly knocked me off my seat. it's absolutely fab.

the ones on the left are from a gift shop up in mount dandenong. they have a catchy packaging (sorry pic a little blur) - the ultimate balanced diet: choc for breakfast, lunch and dinner; oral pleasure; and, choc makes it more bearable (this one a bit lame la). don't know if they tasted good. thought they's make good gifts.

simply fun and pleasure

i tried my hand at origami when i visited a japanese festival called the Osaka Festival in melbourne one day. i was walking around and passed the origami tent and thought "why not" and so just sat down with a nice smiling japanese woman who obviously couldn't speak a word of english. she had me choose from an array of pretty paper and then choose what i wanted to fold. so i chose these 2. and i just followed her step by step. i definitely waould not have been able to do it on my own at all.

normally i would have just not bothered to try this, thinking it as child's play. but as i just loosened up and did something just for fun, it was just that! simply fun. so i've learnt that sometimes we just need to take our circumstances a little less seriously and that it's ok to sometimes do certain things just simply for fun and pleasure.

my first sketch

my first attempt at sketching. i was sitting in an organic store and cafe at Brunswick Street waiting for my friends and decided to try sketching. never mind that i wasn't any good at it. just for fun. so i just sketched from my mind my home, the living room, with me watching tv. and the top bit something i had been doing quite a bit lately, in comparison to the past years when i had just been sitting around in the office being quite unproductive. and i had grown to like this bit of what i do - spending time with people. contrary to what people used to perceive of me and labelling that i wasn't a people person, i've instead discovered who i really am and been vulnerable enough to let that part of me live. i would not now proceed to label myself as a people person, coz there's just no need for labelling of one's personality in the first place, but rather just live one day at a time doing what i enjoy doing as God would lead

soul survivor melbourne

i had the privilege to be a part of the soul survivor festival in melbourne in april. it was a wonderful time of retreat for me. i was given a nice room to myself at the speaker and team's lodge, away from the noisy campers. the lodge was in belgrade heights, which as the name indicates, is on a higher ground and therefore much cooler than the other parts of melbourne i've been staying in.

i wasn't primarily there for the talks or ministry time, but rather to meet geoff and lynne oliver for the first time and to spend time with lynne talking, but as God would have it, they couldn't make it. unfortunately because of a family emergency. it turned out very good for me tho, coz i think God just wanted me to have a nice quiet time with Him. i had a lot of time for solitude, and picture-taking. and talking with Him and journalling. at worship times, i strangely identified with king saul when david ministered to him with music. not that i was demon-possessed, but i was still troubled in my soul at that early stage of my sabbatical, and the ministry of music and worship was like "enjoying a spa". it was wonderful.

all these photos were taken from areas within the lodge, mostly at the backyard. i just sat there most afternoons, taking photos and journalling, and in the mornings kookaburras will come and beg you for crumbs off your plate. it was cool.

i also learnt, from my new dutch soul survivor friends, that van gogh and rembrandt were dutch, (excuse me if i'm the only one who didn't know that) and that the proper way to say their names were "faun how-oh" and "rum-braunt". and that they had their own museums in holland. would love to visit them someday, their museums i mean.

thank you God, for that wonderful retreat. and for the chance to see a persimmon tree. it was beautiful

geelong & great ocean road

i have to say, there was nothing much to see and do in geelong, melbourne. thus this kind of picture-taking by the riverside.

i was there over the easter weekend in april to visit some high school friends, and it also happened to be my friend's birthday, so it was a special time. there were four of us there and we had our little reunion. it's funny how i have 3 high school friends in melbourne and they all didn't know that each other was there and it took someone from back in malaysia to reconnect them all in melbourne. it's good tho. i love it that we're reconnected at least through email after 20 years.

we had a easter picnic by the river and i took a walk to take some pictures. passed a couple of guys fishing, and this was one of their catch. he was a huge bugger just lying there choking to death. felt sorry for him, but hey, we enjoy the fish we eat, right?

of course, i went for the Great Ocean Road drive again, and of course it was still as beautiful. it was hot! but beautiful. i had a lot more beautiful pictures taken but can't possibly put them all here. i'll put them in my flickr account. and what do you know, you can still find someone's art piece out there by the ocean. someone or at least a couple of someones had jumped over to the restricted area to carve their impressions on the natural rocks. can't quite make it out, perhaps it's one of those i love so and so carvings.

i thought it was quite nice. etched in time.

my favorite quote

work like you don't need the money

love like you've never been hurt before

dance like no one is watching

- anonymous

freedom