ELECTRIC BLANKET

What a wonderful invention! It keeps you warm during those cold cold winter nights, uses very minimal power, cheap to buy, and provide something very valuable even money can't buy: a cosy night's sleep. Of course, I'm referring to the ELECTRIC BLANKET!!!

Going through my 12th winter here, I just realised how much comfort this thin flat piece of material and bits of wires can provide. Can't believe how come I didn't buy this wonderful invention sooner! I suppose I haven't really needed an electric blankets in the past as houses that I've lived in in the past have been quite warm and the winters haven't been as cold as this year's or other obvious reasons.

In the last few weeks, I've been woken up in the wee hours of the morning feeling so cold that I'm unable to go back to sleep, (hate it when my xxx dreams are interrupted, hahaha). So, started my quest for the perfect heating solution. Of course not everything is as straight forward as it should have been. I started to think that since I'm going have heating, I might as well go for something that would be able to warm up the different rooms that I'm going to be in and easy to move around the house.

There are so many different types of heaters available out there that it became a BIG research project for me. There's the fan heater, convector heater, gas heaters, oil column heaters blah blah blah, the list just keeps going on and on. Since a lot of people have been recommending oil column heaters to me, I decided to give it a go.

Monday, bought a 9 fin column heater. Tried it in the lounge, waited waited and waited for it warm up the whole room. I think I'll be waiting till summer at this rate. I think I was expecting too much from this poor little machine. I was hoping to be walking around the house in my boxer shorts and either singlet or T-shirt while watching TV. How wrong can I be. I doubt that it even warmed up the surrounding areas. I think I felt more warmth (and even broke a sweat) from lugging this thing up from the garage to my lounge and taking it out from the box! Not light you know...

Tuesday, returned it! Hahaha.... I think may be I should have given it another chance given my unrealistic expectations. However, I wanted instant results... Surprise! I exchanged it for an electric blanket! Even for e blankets, there are so many sub-choices to make. Do I want 2 switches? a gazillion heat settings? fleece? sizes? feet warmers? fitted or tied down? In the end, I thought since this is a trial run, I'll just grab whatever that's on the shelf in the big red shed that we all fondly know as The Warehouse. What a bargain! Half the price of the heater some more.

They were having a 20% sale for all electric blankets so must be my lucky day. When I got home, I decided to change the sheets of the whole bed to really be able to indulge in the "experience". Fixing the electric blanket onto the bed was a mission as the strings have to go all around and underneath the mattress. One by one, got it all tied up. Deciding where the switch should be. Then, there's the deciding which duvet case, pillow cases to use and changing the duvet case.... Phew! (hot already, no need blanket hahaha...) After all the mucking around, it is all set up! Fresh crisp luxurious sheets, big cuddly pillows and puffed up feather down duvet.... my intention to create the ultimate sleeping experience is almost done. And FLICK!

Straight away set it onto the highest setting available. Hop onto the bed immediately to see if can feel the heat... chee sin one. Of course can't feel it so fast but I thought I'll try anyway, can't resist the bed. Left it turned on then went to downstairs to continue watching my canto drama. All the while, was hoping there's no fire engulfing my bed upstairs.... hahahaha... touch wood.

Judgement time has come, feeling anxious, slipped my hand under the covers... OMG!!!! The bed is warm!!!! Wasting no time, immediately hopped into it! So nice, so warm, so comfy, so cosy, BLISS!

Flick, turn off blanket and zzz... zzz... zzz... zzz.... zzzz.... zzzz.... zzz... zzz... zzzz... (too much zzz?????) GREAT!


P/s: 2nd night, I forgot to turn it off (on full power) last night and fell asleep... lucky, I didn't get roasted, or worse, char-grilled. Gosh, so hot... have to get the hang of this.... my latest toy :)

P/s/s: Do you think I can wrap one around myself while it's turned on to watch TV on the sofa? or even just pop outside for a ciggie? Believe me, if it's not so difficult to set up or take it off the bed, I would have tried by now :)

Nite nite!

DRINK MORE WATER!

With the constant rain, it is damn depressing when you are falling sick as well. I actually like the rain in winter, especially if you have tonnes of dvds and tv series to catch up on. However, when you are feeling extremely cold and lack of any energy, the winter chills and rain can be DAMN depressing!

So, at the moment, my body is becoming a huge dam for hot honey drinks and warm water. What is the first thing people say when you tell them that you're not feeling 100%? "Drink more water, ok?" hehehe... this is like the old grandma remedy for every sickness under the sky. DRINK MORE WATER. What to do? Drink more water lor....

Of course, in the height of my fever, I'm going to buffet lunch in an hour's time is not going to help my situation, right? I suppose, my reasoning is to eat more so that I can have more energy to combat the flu? Haha, that's my remedy for everything, "Eat more lar!"

Yes, I have been eating pretty well this weekend. I have tasted something which I have heard on hundreds of Hong Kong TVB series. Can you guess what this is? Chau Tau Foo? No. Tong Sui? No. Poot Chai Koe? NO! Give up?
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LOONG HAR YEE MEEN!!!!!!!! Ta da!

I have had lobsters thermidor, lobster salad, lobster california roll, steamed lobster, but never tried an actual lobster yee meen which I constantly hear those rich tai tais in TVB series place their order with skinny pale looking "care leh feh" waiters... hahaha... I have to say the lobster flesh was divine! It was firmer than crab meat and I felt that added substance to it... hehe... I must say, it blended very well with the noodles which you can't really see from the pic as it was under the mountain of lobster meat. YUM.

This dinner is actually a celebration of a dear friend CS's achievements. So what do you do when you want to celebrate something? BIG DINNER, of course! Along with this brilliant dish, we had something else which was only had in the olden days in the Song Dynasty by Emperors! Want to do the guessing game again? hahahaha... I'll spare you the torture, it is none other than "Poon Choi" !

My gosh, I'm gonna be late for my buffet lunch if I don't go and get ready soon. But what the heck, I'll type as fast as I can... as JL once said to me when met me after waiting for a good 5 minutes (may be 15 mins), "It's confirmed! You can never be punctual!" hahaha...

Anyway back to the Poon Choi. My first time having this dish as well. It is basically a a pot lined with various types of meat and veges on different layers. As you can see from the pic, there's roast chicken, roast duck, roast pork, prawns, mushrooms, veges, mussels etc. Delicious! Thanks CS!

We had this dinner in the relatively new China Restaurant in the CBD. The deco is quite beautiful and stylish, service is excellent. I hear that they serve yum char as well. So will definitely try it out sometime soon.

Nice?

So let's recap an important lesson from above when feeling under the weather, DRINK MORE WATER!!!!!!!!

LAKSA NIGHT

Last Friday a group of us were invited to a "Laksa Night" at Jeffery and Murray's place for dinner. What a nice way to start off Queen's Birthday long weekend, a nice meal with friends.

I have to say Jeffery did a wonderful job of creating a little bit of Malaysia in New Zealand. The laksa tasted superb! With the cold weather upon us, the aroma and spiciness of the laksa brought much comfort to taste buds....I especially like the tofu pok in the soup :)

Since many are away for the long weekend, we could all fit into the dining table. Which is a change to our usual gatherings where people tend to spread out through different parts of the house with sub-groups having their own little conversations.

After dinner, Jeffery gave all of us a surprise by bringing out a fully lit birthday cake for Murray! Yes, it was Murray's birthday last week and this is sort of a belated celebration.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, MURRAY! May you have another wonderful year full of interesting travels!
This cake is definitely one of the much better cakes I have tasted recently. Full of fruit, light and creamy. Bad experience with a whole cheesecake I bought recently :( However did I managed to finish the whole thing by myself though... hahaha...

After dinner, all of us sat around a chimmena (you won't believe how hard it was to find the correct spelling! Pronounced cheem-me-na? hehe.. Gosh, this one's expensive, no wonder no bids yet. Chimmena anyone? ) outside in the garden. For cold nights such as these, it was a such blessing. Sort of like sitting around a camp fire in your own backyard.

Wonderful dinner with great friends... what more can you ask for?
Once again, Happy Birthday Murray!

WINTER WONDERLAND

The rain is a sign that winter is indeed here! When you mention winter here in Auckland, it doesn't create a vision of little white snow flakes slowly falling from the sky, covering rooftops, smoky chimney and garden covered with white blankets of snow. But instead, what you get is this:

Yes you get, rain, rain and MORE rain! Silly me, I hung out a load of laundry yesterday late afternoon, I knew it might rain later in the night but I still did it anyway. I think it's my way of adding a little excitement into the whole laundry process. What's the point of hanging out the laundry knowing without a doubt it's going to be dry. hahahaa.... So, what's the outcome? Wet shirts, wet pants, wet towels, wet G-strings, wet socks, wet wet wet!

Secretly, I am hoping that one day when I wake up in the morning looking out the window, it would suddely snow!!! Hahaha.... I mean if you're going to experience winter, might as well get 100% winter feel, right?

There is one tremendous benefit to winter though, you get to eat non-stop while comforting yourself that it's winter and you need to eat more for the warmth! Hmmm... one down side to this is I haven't recovered from last winter! and we've been through last autumn, summer and spring! Oh well, this just shows that I'm consistent!

Food pics to come!