CNY 2009 - Year of the Ox (Moo!!!)

Saturday, 24 Jan 2009 - 2 days before the first day of the Lunar New Year, those of us that did not return to our birth countries to celebrate the festivities with our family, gathered to celebrate it with friends in our adopted country.

12 of us came together at our place to have a steamboat reunion dinner to usher in the new Moo Moo year.



We also took the opportunity to have a surprise belated birthday mini celebration for Rey...
















And after the food, we worked it off with our current favourite activity - Wii...














The action continued till past midnight (as usual....) but it was fun....

May the Year of the Ox bring back bull markets, prosperity for everyone, health and smooth journey in everything we do.....

Happy Chinese New Year!!!

The Perils of Wii...


Saturday, 17 Jan 2009 - After we have had enough of Wellington Point, we proceeded back to Brisbane and rejoined at Haw's place for reunion barbeque with Roger and a little Wii action.

After the food, we gathered at the lounge and we took to challenge each other in turns for a piece of the action on ...

Wii!!!!













First up to go, the guys ....















Then the girls...













The only person that didn't get a piece of the action is.....

Little Megan.... look how bored she is.... but she was good... she sat there and watched us play, occassionally playing with the No-ho-hons...




Things got so heated and the competition was so fierce that people started to get hurt! David whacked Haw on his right arm and within 10 minutes, Haw took his revenge. Not on David, but on Peter's bum! (for all these in real life action, go to my facebook and view the videos!!!)


















Roger: REF!!! That was clearly out!!! I wanna challenge!!!

World's Hottest Burger - Wellington Pt, QLD

Saturday, 17 Jan 2009 - More than 10 of us made our way to Welling Point on this day so 3 courageous man who would like to challenge their pallates to the World's Hottest Burger just because they want to ...














get their names on the wall.... (it was so serious that they had to sign a disclaimer to discharge the diner's responsibility should anything untoward happen to them in their quest....)

And the 3 courageous men are....



Rey, Esmond and Haw....


and here are their cheerleaders....

And before they can sink their teeth into their challenge, they decided to cut the burger into quarters so it would be more manageable (the burgers were bigger than a tea saucer!)














With encouragement from all around them, they begun their quest...















After the first 3 or 4 mouth full, Haw decided to pull the plug. It was too hot for him... Esmond and Rey badgered on... with running noses, red faces and sweat...













Twenty minutes on, and Esmond was on his way to "licking off his plate"....
















When he's done, he had to wait for another 5 minutes without water or puking in order to qualify.

Esmond said that the hotness did not bother him at all. What bothered him was the sourness from tha jalapenos and the dry beef patty and the general bland tasteless (other than hot and sour) burger.... In fact, he found it quite disgusting (and to think that he paid $14.95 to make himself suffer...)

And after 5 minutes, Esmond was officially a "winner". He can have his name on the wall...



























Ten minutes later, Rey had also accomplished his challenge.... (the challenge to Rey is not the hotness but the size of the burger. It was too much for him! So much so that he had to unload some after we've left the diner....)

And so, for their bravery, steel palate and engorged tummy, they have their names (complete with country code!) down onto the register...



The victors!



Since we were so full, we decided to walk it off at the beach...

But instead of walking on the beach, we were up in the trees... well, 5 of us anyway (Michael Chan, Roger, Kin Onn, Esmond and me....)




And two of us decided to come down in another way - a la koala or roast pig way....

It was a blustery day at Wellington Point and boy did we have fun...

But the day did not end there..... (see next post!!!)

Look who's back....



Mid Jan 2009, our dear friend Roger dropped by in BrisVegas for a week to catch up with friends....


Most of all to catch up with his badminton kakis.....


Look at the two posers below...

















Act like pro sia.... ha ha...


As with all reunions, there were loads of makans with different groups of people at different venues... One of them being the Old Oshin (forgot what the new name is....) at Sunnybank Plaza....

The boys even took the chance to pose with Rey's cool bike!



It was good to have you back in Brissie Roger... Too bad it was only for such a short period of time... Next time, make it permanent!!!

Project House No. 2!!!

Last year, with Heng Onn and Christina's help, we did some painting in the house to get rid of the atrocious maroon, pink, orange, blue walls....

This year, with Kin Onn and Glady's help, we changed the flooring in the lounge and the 3 bedrooms.... We had engaged people to help rip up the carpet and install laminated flooring....



But before we could do that, we need to empty out the rooms. So, when we came back from our picnic at 17 Mile Rock, we came home to pack and put all moveable things from the lounge and the bedroom into the dining hall and kitchen...



Early the next morning (29/12/2009), the installers arrived and started their work...

Before long, the carpet were ripped off and the cement floor underneath cleaned to ensure that it's leveled.



Then up goes the underlay....



Then came the separate pieces of laminated flooring and the skirting around the edges....

In one day's work, they've changed our carpet floor to laminated floor....

The work was done at around 4pm +... We had then proceeded to clean up and put the furnitures back to where they belong...

Now the house looks brighter!

The only down side is that there's no where the dirt can hide now so we need to clean the floor more frequently compared to when we had the carpets....

"Sam Sengs....."

On 28 Dec 2008, we headed to 17 Mile Rocks (just like last year!) for a picnic with the same gang (minus Heng Onn and Christina who were in London - freezing their a** off!) ....



What a spread we had! (of course lah, we'll always have a spread with Peter and Oi Hung around!! What's more, we now have Kin Onn and Gladys!!! ha ha ha...)



After gorging ourselves silly with food, we played "heart attack" until our hands are sore before deciding to work it off by exploring the park.

The park used to be an old quarry...

One thing caught our attention and before long, we were clambering up in no time...

A space cube (that's what I think it's called....)

Esmond and I were the first to climb onto it... we were then joined by Michael Chan and Peter too!



It's not as easy as it seems to be... you have to navigate into / around all the different ropes / cubes.... sometimes you have to be a contortionist to get into a particular cube.. ha ha


That was the highlight of the day (at least for me... he he...).

When we've had enough of the park, we went for a little retail therapy at DFO - Jindalee before heading home for the day....

X'mas Eve + Haw & Yan's House Warming Party....

X'mas eve of 2008 was celebrated at Haw & Yan's new home... Their purchase of their home was completed in early December.

Thanks to their tremendous effort, they managed to get the house ready for the party in 3 weeks time!

Haw and Yan had organised a BBQ session at their place. Loads of people were there (as evidenced by the cars parked along the street)!



A few of us took turns churning out food for the crowd....

As we were too busy eating and catching up with our friends, there weren't much photos taken of that event...

We had a gift exchange and stayed till past midnight (again!)....

It was fun. Thanks to the wonderful hosts....

O'Reilly's

A few days before Christmas in 2008 (4 days in fact), we went on our 3rd hike for the year.

This time, to O'Reilly's.

O'Reilly's is located in the heart of Lamington National Park, 2 hours by road south of Brisbane. It is 930 metres (3,000 feet) above sea level.











It is a mountain occupied by the O'Reillhy family since the early 1900s. Till this day, the family still stays on the mountain and produce their own line of wine. In addition to wines, the family also owns the O'Reilly's Rainforest Retreat and have operated business since first opening in 1926.











On our way towards to top of the mountain, we stopped by the vineyard and tasted some wines. Though you have to pay for tasting the wines, it will be fully refundable when you buy any from them. They have quite an extensive range of wines. Red, white, sparkling and even dessert wines. In the end, all of us when back with at least 1 bottle. (We bought a dessert wine with lychee flavour. Tastes sweet and refreshing... Too bad I forgot the name already...)














We saw rows upon rows of grape vines when we drove into the vineyard and we decided to explore and see if they have grapes on them. And yes, they do. In fact, Esmond had stealthily plucked one and pop it into his mouth... The verdict? It was one of the foulest things he had ever ingested... it was so "siap" that he spat it out the moment he bit onto it....

Once we are satisfied with our purchases, we proceeded up the mountain in search of a good picnic / bbq spot. We were lucky because we found one with a gazebo as it had started drizzling.











As usual, each party had to bring their own contribution and share. So out came all the plastic containers, thermal pots and cookwares filled with goodies. Once we've had our fill and the drizzle let up, we promptly bundled up our wares back into our car boots and headed off in search for the hanging bridge...

Before we came to the bridge, some very colourful creatures had stopped us in our paths.












Lorikeets! and they weren't scared of humans! They have grounds for you to hand feed the birds...

When we are done with the winged creatures, we headed off for the adventure. The climb on the hanging bridge is gentle. However, it belies the height it was hung above the ground.














It wasn't as steep or as harrowing as the hanging bridge which I climbed when I went on a school trip to Shah Alam's Four Season's Park in 1991. That bridge only allows for us to climb in a single file. And it was more like steps as we had to literally climb the hanging bridge as if it were a flight of stairs (coupled with the fact that 20 or so secondary school kids jumping and prancing and shaking the bridge as we cross....).

The hanging bridge is a lot sturdier and gives us a much stronger sense of reliability. The highlight is the Tree Top climb. There's a ladder which leads up to the top of the canopy and at its peak is about 30 - 40 metres above ground. Not everyone had the nerve to clamber up the steep ladder.

With Esmond and me being the usual "sam seng", we went up there like monkeys (i.e. no hesitation - not howling like one!....)














It was a pretty tight climb and there were two levels. The first can accommodate up to a maximum of 3 and the second (higher) level only 2. So at any point in time, the tree can only accommodate a maximum of 5 persons. Given the size of our group, not to mention the other visitors, there was soon a queue of 'monkeys' who want to get their butts up the tree.

When all the "sam sengs" are done with the tree, we proceeded with the track and came across a garden. It wasn't anything spectacular but we saw some R-rated activities going on there...

Two green and gold flies were having a good time on the ferns...

It wasn't a very long track so we were done in an hour. Before long, we were back where we started and sat down at the cafe for some drinks.

When we've quenched our thirst, we headed back to Haw's place to have dinner since we have so much leftover from lunch.

As with all our previous outings, this has been wonderful - especially with the company of our great bunch of friends....