this just in!

looks like i've a two month holiday (at least!) after my last exam. 

this email made my week.

swan valley

began with a breakfast run to yelo, a charming cafe on along the coast. i've never had such yummy wraps. my chicken wrap with banana chutney was insane...

and after we filled our bellies, it was off to the swan valley for some wine.

at this vineyard, A$2.50 was all it took to have a full tasting of over 10 different wines. 

and after savouring the gorgeous wines (well, more misses than hits but what can one expect for A$2.50?!) we went on to support local farms by stocking up on freshly plucked strawberries, more wine (this time with complementing cheese), chocolate from the margaret river chocolate factory and local ice cream. we ate our way through the valley, then again, quite embarrassingly, we seem to eat our way through everywhere.

and after a little too much free wine, we started to take flying photos over the vineyard. do note that A is too tall to fit the camera frame.

A brought us on a scenic drive around the swan river in the city and we passed the governor's boatshed that is the most popular wedding photo spot. takes a bit of imagination, doesn't it.

A went to work in the evening and simon fetched us from casa mcfaull and brought us to grill'd. grill'd serves the best burgers ever, and believe it if you will, they are healthy. healthy burger sounds a bit oxymoronic until you take a bite of these babies and i suddenly understood why they're promoted to be 95% fat free. well, the patty at least. it felt like i was eating good quality steak, albeit in ground form. in fact, i even deconstructed my burger and ate it layer by layer so as to enjoy each aroma and sensation individually. the avocado and bun made a nice avocado sandwich, the veggie tasted like a salad and the patty like high-grade beef. mhmm :) did attract strange looks though but i maintain that my mouth and hands are too tiny for the monsters they served up. so there!

and we rolled out of grill'd and into helvetica, a bar named after the font. one of the nicest bars i've been into, crowded but not packed on a saturday night and with a great selection of whiskey for the whiskey fans out there.

as if helvetica wasn't enough, we'd a toss up between going to green's (?) for cake or the wembley to see A. of course we picked A over dessert and swung by to watch the bar pro at work. was fun to go, 'hi A, i'd like a sweet cocktail please.' and watch the cogs in his mind turn as he went to work concocting something special. i'd 'the A special' and if i tell you what went into it, i'd have to kill you. but i felt special all right :) and my +1 had some export quality tiger from the tap which left us swearing never to have tiger back home. not like he drinks tiger, anyway.

scarborough beach etc

started the day bright and early with A and jeanne. A brought us to this delightful roadside eatery called the wild fig with a gorgeous view of the ocean. we played with the iPad, fantasied about breakfast and had a very hearty start with the wholesome mains. i can't get over how fresh produce tastes in perth. the eggs and milk have a distinct 'something extra' about them. could have also been the very attractive company that gave our breakfast that added boost.

i'd never seen a pink potato, much less a pink potato patty, before this!

all ready to soak some rays at brighton beach

doesn't the surf look so inviting, minus the bone-chilling wind...

occupational hazard. growl.

definitely more baywatch than the pratice.

back to A's for some double coated tim tams. i realised, with absolute horror, that i've just wasted innumerable calories on regular tim tams. the best or nothing!!!

a sight for sore eyes. nick and his wheels :)

and then nick brought us from A's to simon's,

and from simon's to boubar.

incidentally, it was at boubar that we received the fateful email on the afore-maligned crackberry that tkx had scored us a dinner reservation at restaurant amuse and it was celebrations all the way.

but before dinner, nick and simon gave us tourists a tour of the city by night from the vantage point that is king's park. sweet :)

restaurant amuse was a life-changing experience in and of itself. we were changed people when we met up with the gang at greenhouse bar along st. george's terrace and saw the poncho man who was wooing sheilas with tomatoes.

an action-packed first day and we wouldn't have had it any other way. i cannot stress how good it was to be with my friends again :) i, for one, was just happy to be in perth, in their city, exploring their streets and seeing their homes. you know it's for keeps when almost a year has lapsed and when you meet up, it's as if no time had passed. we picked up where we left off and that was it :)

goodwill

didn't take photos but was back at the atlantic dining room for lunch with my cousins. his runner (who happens to be a sous chef in civilian life) took fantastic care of us. he zhng-ed our mains, plied us with complimentary pre-dessert and made sure we rolled out stuffed and satisfied.

the green apple granita is one of the best i've ever had! it tasted like apple pie but icy and refreshing. mhmm :) i'm drooling just thinking about it.

and i'm so glad to have 3 cousins (we're a small family) whom i'm very close to. we're around the same age, doing about the same thing (the elder 2 girls are lawyers) and i love that we get along. have had brushes with obnoxious family and am pleased to announce that my cousins are nothing like that. they're the sweetest, most likeable trio and i think by stopping at 2 (twa koo and mama), my gramps did something right. 

oh and the point of this post, in addition to the plug for small families, is nothing deeper than my delight at sponging off his goodwill, because, seriously, how can i ever say no to dessert, and complimentary dessert at that :)

island ahoy

a dear family friend had his boat in singapore and very graciously brought us for a spin! it was great to see his lovely crew again, after getting to know them over a weekend in phuket earlier this year. for facebook friends, that dream weekend is captured in the album same same but decadent.

thrills and spills!

the little red martini glass marks the spot - this is where we stopped for drinks. incidentally, sipping champagne on the deck of a beautiful boat definitely takes 'doing drinks' to a whole new level...

cheese and champagne for us land weary travellors

cheese has got to be one of my favourite food groups. and it's even tastier when someone spreads my crackers for me :)

and all is right with the world.

after the most luxurious time out, we were hit with inexplicable prata cravings! at this point i thank god that i'm as happy eating cheese and sipping champagne while anchored off lazarus island, as i am tearing into roadside prata near mustafa. of course no prata expedition would be complete without a foray into the indian ikea, but that's a post for another time.

hope you'd a wonderful weekend!

chillaxing in hong kong

busy busy as the weekend was, we managed to make the most out of our room

what i really like about HK are the gopher trails that allow you to criss-cross from one building to the next without hitting ground level, or getting wet. it's like this little network of elevated pathways and oh-so-convenient to get around on, with a/c at regular intervals hehe.

and when it got too hot, it was off to the infinity pool for a dip.

view across victoria harbour to kowloon

the indoor jacuzzi before the jets came on. the steel rod-structure is for lying on, like a submerged deck chair. pretty nifty, eh? :)

more HK reflections to come!

hong kong

hopped to HK for the weekend to pick up my bag. it somehow felt as close to the adoption process as i can currently imagine. no, not knocking adoption or belittling it by likening it to collecting a bag (people and possessions are two very different things). but to me, at this point, that's how it felt.

defensive disclaimer aside, i'd been romancing this bag for years and after finally mustering up enough courage to ask for one, it all happened so quickly. thank god for fairy god-aunties who know people who know people, how they conjured exactly what i wanted within a fortnight (especially after i walked into the store cold and was snootily told to return in four years) is beyond me. but i am ever grateful :)

as i was unwrapping my bag in the hotel, not knowing whether it was inner or outer stitch i.e. soft or hard, i imagined that's what having a child would be like. like you want a child, but you don't know if it's a boy or a girl. and you don't really mind as long as it's a child but at the back of your mind there's a preference. so, rather embarrassingly, i shrieked when i felt the firm outline. it was outer stitch and suddenly all was very right with the world.

of course, there was more to HK then picking up my bag, so more on the food tomorrow.

day 35

saturday 12 june 2010 aix-en-provence

left madrid bright and early and was in southern france in no time. my inner francophile almost imploded with glee. france is beautiful, and i personally am a huge fan of the south, having spent two glorious weeks along the riveria in summer 2008. we began in nice, day tripped to monte carlo for F1, cannes for the film festival then took an overnight ferry to corsica. in corsica, we drove all around (and across!) the island and fell in love with bonifacio. after our island getaway, it was back to the mainland and we made our way from toulon to avignon, marseilles and lyon. but i digress!

aix-en-provence welcomed me in all her summer glory and i was thrilled to finally be in the 'heartbreakingly beautiful' city that i'd heard so much about. J often mentioned her home town while we were in stockholm, and to finally put faces to the names i'd begun to recognise was nothing short of sentimental. provence is so charming it hurts, and aix was no exception. P had once described aix to me as, "a small town trying to be a big city" and he's right, in the kindest sense of the phrase. aix had every modern amenity imaginable (hello? hermes, anyone?) and yet maintained an old world air of majestic nostalgia about it.

spent the afternoon touring the city with J and we visited her friend for pre-dinner drinks that lasted past midnight. the elasticity of time in summer is one of my favourite things about the season. we sat on C's terrace, somehow made our way through 4 bottles of rose, ate a little too much tapenade (so cliche but so good!) and  played silly drinking games as evening turned to night and finally to dusk. long daylight hours. woot!

aix was a dream, and staying with J and being the beneficiary of incredibly warm armenian-french hospitality was a bonus. i was spoilt rotten, and i'm so so grateful :)

day 27

friday 4 june 2010 barcelona

day 2

spent the morning at la sagrada familia. go early (before 11am) to avoid queuing for over an hour. i went at 10am and the queue was as long as my iberico sandwich (about 15min, but that's because i'm a slow eater).

After lunch, walk up Carrer de verdi towards parc guell. before that Lunch at plaza de grace (shadiest) plaza del sel and pl de la revolucio de Septembre

Walk up Verdi all the way until you see escalators on the right. Ride them to parc guell! Spend the afternoon wandering around parc guell.

i'd never have made it up without the magical escalators that just appeared out of nowhere and whisked me away. it was surreal! there i was huffing and puffing up the hill, cursing and swearing at the sun and my own poor choice of footwear (havis, way to go.) when suddenly, i saw 6 flights of escalators on my right. i thought it was a mirage! but i rode them, and at the very top i was gently placed on level with the parc entrance. who'd have guessed!

spent the afternoon wandering around parc guell and am very proud that i walked all the way there and back to the hostel. no public transport for me!

view from the rooftop bar of the majestic hotel

following up on the previous day's chance meeting, the very lovely L family invited me to join them in satiating their local food craving. they've gotta be mind-readers or something because by this time i was pushing 4 weeks without home food and about to implode in self-deprivation. had the best nasi goreng ever at the mandarin oriental along passeig de gracia. was initially debating between ordering pad thai (upon learning the chef was thai) and nasi goreng but went with the later and was well-rewarded for that leap of faith.

the rice came in a keropok boat so big it must've been on crack!

day 26

thursday 3 june 2010 barcelona

first full day in barca and it was full of surprises!

this is excerpted from my barca list.

Day 1

Walk south along passeig de gracia (sort of like champs élysées) and you'll reach la rambla (flower stalls, wet market called la boquaria, people in costume for you to take photo with). Nice to stop for al fresco lunch along the sidewalk. Most restaurants have a semi-decent set menu at lunch time, watch out for pricey sangria. Only order if you don't mind paying €9/mug. After lunch, continue southward along la rambla until you reach the old port. Face the sea and turn left, it's a nice walk. If you want to hit the beach, it's across the bridge at the old port.

When you run out of coast, turn left and head north inland through the barri gothic, historical part of Barcelona. Old roman buildings and quaint feel overall.

la bocateria off la rambla (random tourists)

life imitating art along the promenade

and this was the best part of barca! of all the zara outlets in the city, i bumped into some dear family friends at the zara off my street. didn't know they'd be in town, neither did they know i'd be around. but thanks to divine providence and their generosity, they invited me to join them for dinner at roig robi and i had one of my best meals on the trip :) enjoyed the balance of alone time and great dinner company.

i'm not a fan of processed food, or nitrate, but here's something i can't say no to.

iberico ham - the best or nothing!