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Juicy BBQ Lamb Chops at Mario’s

iamthewitch — Fri, 30 Jul 2010 01:41:23 +0000

Everybody, meet Mario! A charming and funny guy, he’s one of Saucer’s counterpart in Australia, who cooks fabulously! I mean, really! During our stay in Australia, Mario and his wife kindly invited us over one night for a BBQ dinner at their home. When we reached, Mario was busy cooking his Boerewors. Hailing from South Africa, this man talked passionately about his country and her cuisine, which was simply mouth-watering.

Mario cooking Boerewors

Look at the sausage! What does it remind you of? *LOL* It was long and spiral and more importantly, cooked with Beer! Yes, you heard me right!

Boerewors cooked with beer

It was apparently a common way to cook it back in South Africa and I was definitely looking forward to give it a try. After cutting it up, each piece was solid, huge and very filling! It had a strong peppery taste and the beef meat was coursely-ground. Interesting sausage really, never had one so huge before. *LOL*

Cooked Boerewors

Look at the feast we had that night! Lots of potatoes, bread, sausages and of course, the main item – BBQ lamb and chicken!

Dinner spread

Bread rolls

Mario cooked the potatoes for the longest time and they turned out to be so soft and yummy!

BBQ Sweet potatoes

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Playing with the Snow at Mount Donna Buang

iamthewitch — Wed, 28 Jul 2010 02:12:38 +0000

One thing that Saucer was looking forward to in this Melbourne trip was to play with snow! Since we’re there during the winter months, there was snow on most mountains in Victoria, and we went to the one nearest to Melbourne. About an hour’s drive away from the suburbs of Croydon, we went to Mount Donna Buang, which is a snowfield in the Yarra Ranges National Park. The snow had just fallen about 2 days ago, so it was not exactly thick and fluffy, but good enough to play with.

Mount Donna Buang snowfield

But the good thing about going to a snowfield which is not as popular/commercialized as its counterpart Mount Buller, is that entrance is free! And there were not that many people considering the snow just started falling not too long ago, hence not very thick.

witch at Mt Donna Buang

The weather was obviously freezing cold! 1 degree Celcius! And I only wore a pair of jeans and suede shoes for the activity. Definitely not very cozy for my legs. *LOL*

Saucer was better clothed

Us at Mt Donna Buang

witch and Saucer having fun at the snow

Look at how foggy and cold the place was! Visibility was also poor but once we threw snow at each other and ran around, we sort of got used to the low temperature and it was fun!

Roads at Mount Donna Buang

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Visiting Mount Dandenong and Pie in the Sky

iamthewitch — Tue, 27 Jul 2010 01:17:09 +0000

Hello people! I’m BACK! After 2 amazing and fun weeks in Victoria, I’m finally home sweet home. My body is still following Aussie time which is 2 hours in advance, which means I find it easier to wake up at 7am now (which is actually 9am in Aussie) compared to before.

Anyway, let’s continue with my posts from Melbourne, shall we? After visiting the city twice, we pretty much saw the gist of it, so we resorted to visiting the suburbs instead. Our plan next was to go up the mountains of Dandenong! This was me waiting for train at a station called Ringwood, which was near our serviced apartment.

witch at Ringwood train station

witch with the railway

To get to Mount Dandenong, one of the ways was to take the metro train to Belgrave and take a bus from there. The good thing about transportation here is that you buy tickets according to the time duration. Which means if you buy a 2-hour ticket, you can take whatever mode of transportation as long as it’s within 2 hours from your first swipe. This makes it that much easier than calculating the fare each time you want to transit and go somewhere. We got daily tickets, which meant unlimited traveling for the day!

Terminus at Belgrave Station

Once we’re at Belgrave station, we walked down the stairs and reached a terminus or a mini bus station. Look for Bus 694 to Olinda, which is the town in Mt Dandenong.

Can’t help but laugh at the picture below! *LOL* Can you guess what Saucer was doing? The fact is, it was extremely cold that morning, and with us being so close to the mountains, it was almost freezing! We could see water vapour forming every time we exhaled, and I tried to capture it on camera but failed. But how funny!

What is he doing?

Soon, the bus arrived and we continued our journey up along a slightly windy road with rain forest surrounding us. It was quite a pretty sight. There were a few stops that we could go, so we decided to start with the peak of Mt Dandenong first, called Sky High.

Sky High Mt Dandenong

Sky High is supposed to be an ultimate viewing point in Victoria since it’s up on the mountains but it was just not our lucky day, for the weather was pretty miserable. It was cold and wet, sometimes drizzling but the worst was that it was foggy throughout! Which meant we couldn’t see anything from the top! *sigh*

Look at the fog!

Not to mention it was freezing cold, so we couldn’t help but get ourselves warm with a cup of hot chocolate!

Hot chocolate with marshmallows

Cafe for hot chocolate

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Sneak Peak on the Great Ocean Road

iamthewitch — Thu, 22 Jul 2010 09:30:48 +0000

Phew!! After hours and hours of driving in the daylight and in the dark, we finally settled down for the night at an inn along Great Ocean Road in Port Campbell. The drive was absolutely magnificent with views I couldn’t take my eyes off from. Yes, even when it was my turn to drive! It’s pretty distracting but I couldn’t help it.

Now, I have taken loads of pictures using my camera but to give you a sneak peek of how it looked like, here are some pictures taken with the iPhone. Sorry for poor resolution pictures!

Along the way, we stopped by plenty of places whenever we saw anything interesting. There was a stop which was at the lightstation and we drove right to the top, very near the lightstation. And it was amazing!

It’s called the Split Point lighthouse and views from there were simply breathtaking. I mean literally, lol! The wind up there was so strong it took our breath away!

Ok that’s all for now! I’ll write more about this when I get back, and certainly with better pictures! Til then, wish me luck for the second stretch of my Great Ocean road trip!

Beautiful Lake Mulwala in Yarrawonga, Australia

iamthewitch — Tue, 20 Jul 2010 07:20:28 +0000

We just came back from a romantic sunset walk at beautiful Lake Mulwala in Yarrawonga. It’s our second day here and I can’t help but fall in love with the breathtaking beauty that sparkles under the sun.

I didn’t bring a computer with me here so I’m trying to blog this using my iPhone. The weather at the lake side is extremely cold and chilly! Must be the breeze from the waters.

Saucer and I love sitting at these benches located next to the lake while waiting for the sun to set. It’s so very romantic and we did it the two days we’re here. I wish we could do it everyday!

Look at the sparkles and glitters on the lake. These pictures were taken with my iPhone and I assure you, they do not do the lake justice.

Sunset happens around 5pm here during winter. And sky starts to get dark at 6pm. We find ourselves having dinner earlier and sleeping earlier here too. But not waking up earlier! Lol!

Love how the sky turned into hues of purple and pink right after the sun sets. The brief moment of dusk. Simply amazing.

A Day with Kangaroos at Healesville Sanctuary

iamthewitch — Mon, 19 Jul 2010 01:37:37 +0000

Hello people, I’m still in Australia! We are currently staying with our host Kendal, who’s been so very kind in bringing us around during the weekend. He brought us to Healesville Sanctuary, one of the zoos in Victoria, just about half an hour away. We were heading towards the mountains and it was so cold outside! First thing to do, get tickets!

Entrance to Healesville Sanctuary

Tickets are sold at AUS$24.80 each for adults. The whole zoo was not very big, we managed to finish it in less than 3 hours. I’ll just be showing you pictures of animals we saw that day, of course, the main attraction being the kangaroos and koalas.

Emu

Don’t remember this bird’s name

An over 70 years old Eucalyptus tree – plenty of these in the sanctuary

Australian Dingo – An Australian canine which is decreasing in population

We were in time for a bird show, called Birds of Prey, featuring birds that eat animals.

Audience at Birds of Prey show

Brown falcon

Wedge-tailed Eagle

Eagle getting ready to fly

The huge wedge-tailed eagle with its trainer

At the end of the bird show, an extra performance followed by an aborigine who showed us his culture and played the Didgeridoo, a musical instrument developed by the indigenous Australians. He also showed us how to throw a Boomerang, which was pretty interesting. Check out the video I took of him below!

Blowing the Didgeridoo

Throwing a Boomerang

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Melbourne – Dining at Balsamic, Eastland

iamthewitch — Fri, 16 Jul 2010 02:45:21 +0000

First of all, I’m sorry for not dropping by your blogs for the past week! It’s just that I have a limited time to go online every day and I spent it on blogging. Worry not, I’ll definitely catch up once I’m back ok! Promise!

Balsamic Restaurant

*Sorry for grainy pictures – no flash photography!

This post will be about a restaurant that Saucer and I have been to for quite a number of times. Balsamic Restaurant is situated in a mall called Eastland, which is just 3 minutes away on foot. This place serves wood fired pizzas, pastas, steaks and seafood.

Salt and pepper shakers

Glass of white wine (AUS$9)

The pictures here are accumulated over a few visits, so don’t be surprised! *LOL* The most noticeable thing of all would be the portion! Seriously, most of the time we shared our food because the portion was just so big!

Chicken Caesar’s Salad

We had oysters during every visit because they’re just so fresh. When I eat oysters, I usually just slurp it in and quickly swallow for fear of the fishy smell. But these were not fishy at all. I could take my time chewing and enjoying the taste of oysters. Fabulous!

Natural oysters (AUS$23/dozen)

And Saucer’s favourite Seasoned Fries! They were thick-cut fries with real potatoes inside. Sometimes you eat fries and inside there’s nothing! But these were good and delicious and crispy. Yummy!

Seasoned Fries (AUS$9.90)

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Dinner at maze by Gordon Ramsay, Melbourne

iamthewitch — Wed, 14 Jul 2010 02:17:07 +0000

I can’t believe I actually dined in one of Gordon Ramsay’s restaurants! I’m sure he’s no stranger to anyone, not only famous for his culinary skills but also, one might add, his foul mouth. *LOL* When I found out that he has a restaurant called maze in Melbourne, I immediately made a reservation online and the next day, both Saucer and I were there right on time. We were asked to wait for a while at their lounge called Maze Grill, while they got our table ready.

The lounge

Maze Grill coaster

Before long, we were shown to our table. Since we booked the earliest time available for dinner (6pm), we were actually the first table to be occupied! OK, before that, let me just warn you of the poor quality pictures ahead. Australians value their dining experience very much. Heck, I’m sure half the price they pay for fine dining goes into the environment. So, flash photography is pretty much frowned upon, simply because it might affect other patrons’ dining experience. Saucer learnt this from experience in another restaurant previously, so we didn’t use any flash to capture the food here. And the lighting made it very challenging to get good pictures. It was so very dark, almost candle-lit. So bear with me ok?

Maze by Gordon Ramsay, interior

After placing our orders, we were served with warm home-made bread with some seaweed butter. The bread was fresh and warm with slightly crispy crust. We enjoyed it very much and it was even refillable!

Complimentary bread and butter

We ordered from the ala carte menu and chose 5 courses including one dessert. The smoked kingfish was served raw, making it taste very Japanese. *LOL* But what we were very impressed was how the whole combination tasted so well-balanced. You would eat it and couldn’t help nodding away.

Applewood smoked kingfish, fennel purée, pickled celery, globe artichoke, Californian caviar (AUS$17)

And I finally had a taste of caviar! *noob*

Californian caviar

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Melbourne – Part 1

iamthewitch — Mon, 12 Jul 2010 03:47:11 +0000

Hello there! Managed to squeeze some time to update all the way to Melbourne people. I’ve been here exactly 2 days and I’m loving the weather! So far it’s been just cold, breezy and sunny. Well, let’s hope it lasts! Since I don’t have much time to write, I’ll just let the pictures do the talking all right?

Apartment where Saucer and I are staying

My first meal made by Saucer <3

Accompanying the salad above

Flinders Station – where our train stopped in Melbourne city

Our first destination was Chinatown for dim sum. Didn’t really know which shop was good so we just went in the first restaurant that was opened. It was called Dragon Boat. And we were pretty disappointed with the dim sum there.

Dim Sum at Dragon Boat

The State library of Melbourne

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By the time you read this…

iamthewitch — Sat, 10 Jul 2010 03:59:45 +0000

I would be roaming the lands where Kangaroos jump,

where the country flag is blue…

where it is also known as down under! Where is it?

.

.

.

No other than Australia! Well, Melbourne to be specific.

Hopefully I’ll get some chance to update my blog while I’m there. Saucer can be very restrictive. *LOL*

Til then!