Ola

First stop in Spain was Seville, home to the Sevilla Football Club. Got a glimpse of Barcelona while there on transit but quickly had to jet off to Seville. Flying in from Amsterdam was such a change. It was freezing in Amsterdam but when we got to Barcelona, it was so hot and humid!

Seville is a quaint little town with heaps of history and traditional Spanish architecture. The buildings also have a strong Moorish influence which is evident in the interior of many buildings. I loved how the houses all had an indoor garden/ courtyard type thing smack bang in the centre of the house. The biggest thing we had to get used to was the siestas in the afternoon. Everything was closed between 2pm and 5pm! It seemed like people dont really work in Seville. Even the Australian Consulate only operates between 10am and 12 noon everyday! After 5, the life begins. All the restaurants, bars and cafes start buzzing during this time. It was simply amazing. Swing Sister and I enjoyed our first Sangria at a local cafe and quickly got hooked onto it. It became something we drank at every meal, even breakfast. The tapas in Spain was devine. Although, I must say Spanish tapas in Malaysia comes quite close to the real thing.

Spain is famous for its Iberian Ham or better known to the locals as jamon. Every tapas bar had legs and legs of jamon hanging from the ceilings. And it was so yummy! If Ball Breaker was on this trip with us, she would've died. Most of the dishes on the menus in Spain were pork. One of my favourites in Seville was the Salmorejo. It's a cold tomato soup with ham in it, much like the Gazpacho. Thinking of it now makes my mouth water...

We stayed at a boutique hotel called Hotel Petit Palace in the Santa Cruz quarter. This is the best part of Seville and the hotel was beautiful. I highly recommend trying out the Petit Palace chain of hotels if you are ever in Spain.

Mr S, Swing Sister and myself experienced an original Flamenco dance performance at a local bar. It was the most emotional performance I've ever witnessed. The flamenco dancer looked like she was going to kill someone. Scary stuff. But even scarier was the guy that tried to pick Swing Sister up. I dont even know what he was. He spoke German, French and Spanish but he was neither Spanish, French or German. He looked like an Arab actually. Poor Mr S, had to pretend he was our brother the whole time. After the emotional show, we went to a club called Cathedral. Thankfully, Arab didnt follow us there. As usual, I'm always the DJ's number one groupie. Getting to know the DJ and the bar manager was a great thing. Swing Sister did her thing and got us a whole heap of drink cards. Good work Swing Sister!

We did do quite a bit of the touristy thing and visited Seville's oldest and largest Cathedral. We also visited the Alcazar Palace. Our trip to Seville mainly covered alot of eating, drinking and walking. By the time we left Seville for Barcelona, we were all kinda sick of tapas and was craving chicken rice or sushi or something Asian. I always knew that you could take me out of Asia but can never take the Asian out of me. What a loser I am.

Too Much Feggalicious

I know I've been slack and havent updated my blog in weeks. Sigh, some people have to work ok. I'm so bad, I havent even finished writing up about my holidays in Europe. Just when I thought I dont have anything interesting to inspire me to write, my dear friend Siew Yum offers me some material.

Of late, our friend Ball Breaker has been obsessed with Fegg, maybe she's always been obsessed with him, but those emotions were smartly supressed. But now, it's in full swing and Ball Breaker has started calling him Feggalicious.....eeewww...Let's put it this way, she just cant have enough of him and this is the best way to describe it:

Patient: Ball Breaker

Prognosis: Feggititis

Symptoms: Insomnia or Turbulent dreams from lack of smses. Excessive swearing from lack of smses. Excessive display of 'womanliness' in close proximity to feggititis carrier

Cure: Unknown.

Current Trial Treatment: alcohol and insertion of more fegg virus into patient

Dosage: Patient's discretion

What should we do as friends? Laugh? Cry? or just sit back and sigh...... ?

Dinner With Sock Boy

It's always good to catch up with old friends and this I did couple of nights ago. I met up with Free & Easy at 3 Degrees for a few drinks while waiting for Ball Breaker. Sock Boy was supposed to meet me at 3 Degrees at 6pm but you cant teach an old dog new tricks. He didnt show up till 8.30! Ball Breaker and Sock Boy are really old friends and this didnt seem like anything new to her. Apparently he's famous for being late. Thank God F&E was there to keep me company. F&E had problems of his own. He had spoken to me earlier on in the day and was feeling rather depressed over his new target. He's doing all the giving and she's doing all the taking. And so he has now decided to just be free and easy, thus his new name F&E. The poor boy thinks this is karma. He's let down too many girls in his life and this is retribution. From the sounds of things, it seems like this girl is taking him for a ride. But he obviously doesnt think so. She keeps telling him that she's not ready. Should he keep waiting for her to be ready?

Mr S and Swing Sister dropped by to meet us too, and all of a sudden it seemed like a big party at 3 Degrees when Siew Yum and November Cleo showed up.

Ball Breaker and I ended up going to Meshiya for dinner and Sock Boy met us there. I cant believe he was so late and couldnt even give me a call to tell me he was going to be late. He deserved to pay the bill that night! Hmmmpph! I enjoyed dinner and tried the Sashimi Moriawasen bento box this time instead of the Chirashi Don. It was just as yummy. For some reason Ball Breaker ended up with food poisoning all night and we both ordered the same thing!

Sock Boy was very nervous and anxious about his upcoming wedding reception. He was whinging alot about his future wife and how demanding she's been of late. She wants renovations and refurbishments done to their house and she wants them done yesterday. And done with top quality accessories. They spent $12K on their sofa alone!! Poor Sock Boy. Ball Breaker and I tried to tell him that she's nervous too about her family coming from overseas and she wants them to see that she's marrying well.

It's such a shame that I wont be here to attend the wedding at the end of this year. I would've loved to have been there. But the highlight of the night was when Sock Boy told us that Bob had invited him to his wedding in KL. WTF? Sock Boy was a little surprised, as he isnt really Bob's friend. Obviously Sock Boy cant attend his wedding in KL cos he's got his own wedding to organise, but I doubt he would go even if he wasnt getting married himself. But I dont think Bob is aware that Sock Boy is getting married. Looks like the whole of Melbourne is invited to Bob's wedding in KL apart from Ball Breaker, Princess Model and myself; errr.....but nobody is going. Well, that saves me some money to shop more in KL :-)

Collingwood Children's Farm

Sunday was such a nice day and it would've been such a waste to be indoors. Luckily I decided to tag along with my NBF, Siew Yum, to Collingwood Children's Farm. I had always wanted to go there to check the place out. Now I'm satisfied that I've done it. It's a very small patting zoo for kids right in the heart of the city, well sort of in the city. Siew Yum was there with her god son and we had a great time patting the cows, goats, pigs and horses. Siew Yum wanted to catch the chickens but I warned her about the bird flu! Hahaha.... The pig, actually the pigs, were ginormous. They were so massive that I think it had difficulty getting up and walking around. But they were oh so gross but cute at the same time.

Cant say I would go back there again. It's a case of been there, done that, not doing it again. But there is a lovely cafe outside the farm, ideal for breakfast or lunch on a sunny day. I'll go back there for that. Next destination is the Melbourne Zoo. Havent been there in a long, long time. Wonder if it's changed much.

After the farm, Siew Yum and I headed down to Riverland for a few drinks. After all it was 27 degrees, great drinking day. The two of us spent the afternoon having D & Ms, just chatting about ourselves and what we can do next year to put our focus on the big $$$. Kam came by to join us and so did the rest of the crew. November Cleo came down with Mr S and Swing Sister. These three are OOC and MTK. November Cleo partied all the way from Thursday night right through to Sunday. Good effort. Ball Breaker and I didnt join the rest of them for dinner. After 6 beers (I lost count after number 4), it was a good idea to just go straight home. Had a good night sleep and so not looking forward to the big week ahead. Not a big week of work, a big week of events and parties. Sigh.....

International Whiskey Experience

Ok peoples, I've been invited to an International Whiskey tasting experience and I can bring 3 people. So if you get my email invitation, please sign up. Let's go get smashed for free! Sounds too good to be true, but what the hell. If we dont have to pay, I say we should be there with bells on!

Wedding of The Year

Yeah, I know this post is long, long overdue, but better late than never right? Ever since I got back from Europe, I've been too busy at work to spare any time for this blog. Actually, I've just been lazy!

So, the wedding of the year was in KL. A very small and tasteful set up, unlike those typical Chinese wedding banquets. Everyone from Melbourne was there. Well, a shame really that Bob and FF didnt show up. Was so looking forward to seeing them. The day started off with the groom and his entourage picking up the bride from the house. The girls had such a blast giving the boys a hard time. Cutey enthusiastically covered all the sushi with mountains of wasabi the night before. Even Ball Breaker played a big role in the guarding of the bride! It was such a hilarious sight to see the groom try to climb over the gates. He made it to the end, but not before having to serenade the bride with his own rendition of "Oh Carol".

The wedding reception was held at Ciao Italian restaurant in KL. A marquee was set up in the garden area of the restaurant and it was beautiful. Unfortunately, it decided to pour all night but that certainly didnt dampen anyone's spirits. The bridesmaids were gorgeous, especially Cutey, so smart in her white outfit. The biggest highlight of the night had to be SJ's speech. Well, she was the best friend after all, so it was her role to do the speech, and I had to hold her hand and walk her up to the stage. SJ had been dying for this moment. No, dont get me wrong, she was literally dying. She had tried to pawn of the duty to me and Ball Breaker, but neither of us wanted to deliver this speech. Back in Melbourne, SJ had a well prepared speech and act she wanted to deliver. She even practiced her speech infront of Azamat and Boyscout one night at Cookie Bar. Well, all that went down the drain didnt it? It was really quite funny, cos for someone so loud and confident, she really had no idea what she was doing on stage. So much so that she called the groom "Lob" instead of "Rob". I just couldnt stop pissing myself on stage. But I'm pretty sure nobody really noticed SJ's speech, cos most of them couldnt take their eyes of her white g-string under her white dress (yeah, the bridesmaids had to wear white). So, it was all good in the end :-)

SJ was noticeably pissed on the night. She spent quite some time chatting to some guy and the guy comfortably had his hand on her lap. It all seemed like it was going the right way, but didnt anyone tell SJ that the guy was gay? That was too funny.

The after party moved on to Palate Palette. Ball Breaker and I didnt stay long though. We left with Ribena and AJ to check out Sky Bar at Traders Hotel. After all we were spending the night there. The bar was beautiful and the view was even better. Could be a good place to celebrate New Year.

Are Women Just a Piece of Meat?

Over a couple of drinks at 3 Degrees, two wise men enlightened me on the topic of sex and human behaviours. What the hell would these two know? WMDM believed very strongly that men, ALL men have no emotions. What he was implying was that a man can have a physical relationship with a woman but yet have no emotions attached. I'm sure alot of women can do that too. Why the hell would people have f**k friends, right? But what infuriated me was WMDM implied that all men think this way. Sex is just that, sex. Sure if you're single and the other person's single, no problems there. But if you're married or attached, would it be acceptable to have sex with somebody else and tell yourself it was just an act and there were no emotions involved? Well, apparently these two wise men think there's nothing wrong with that. Somehow I feel that married men who stray, always tend to find ways to validate their behaviour. They come up with excuses and reasons like "I take care of my wife and kid financially, what more do you want?". Is this a reason to stray? Single men do it because they can. It's a wonder then that Ah Sook is WMDM's idol.

I was also told that marriage is like a business transaction. According to Fegg, it's just a merging of finances. So what happened to love? And living happily ever after? Does it really not exist? Cant be true. I refuse to believe this. WMDM even believes that relationships are all about investments. It's about making the right choice and choosing your best option. A man should lay down all the women he knows and make a choice based on which woman would be a sound investment. Is this really how all men think? Granted in this century, many women are independant career women, would any of these intelligent beings allow a man to treat them like a piece of meat? I dont think so. The Chinaman mentality is so yesterday but yet there are still men like this around. Princess Model and I had this discussion once and we've worked out that we know atleast 4 men like this, which is just perfect for a game of mahjong! The four of them can swap emotionless stories and validations for their mere existence.

Famous Hot Pot

I met up with a friend for dinner the other day. He said he felt like having steamboat and I wasnt too fussed. Steamboat is good comfort food during this cold weather and that night it was freakin' cold. Anway, so he calls me and tells me to meet him at hot pot. All the steamboat restaurants in town are called hot pot! Which one??? He insisted this one was called Hot Pot; located on Peel St. in the city. We had this argument for over 10 minutes on the phone and I told him to just give me the address and I'll meet him outside.

So I get there and the place is actually called Famous Hot Pot. Small little Chinese restaurant that only serves hot pots. At $20 per head, the all you can eat is worth it. You can have all sorts of meats, fish balls, lobster balls, whatever balls you can think of, there's seafood too and the best dish of all was the drunken chicken. It was so good, we had 3 serves of it. The soup base for the hot pot was scrumptious, if you like herbal soups. Yumm....

The place is clean and service is good but only downfall is, the waiters dont really speak English. I'm guessing they're all from Mainland cos they only speak Mandarin. If you go, try and bring a friend who speaks the language, makes ordering alot easier....

High in Amsterdam...Not

My first stop to Europe was Amsterdam. What a lovely city it was. The canals and the houseboats were amazing. The canals pass through almost every street in Amsterdam and it can be quite mind boggling when trying to find your way back to the hotel when you're half drunk! Actually it was quite hard finding our way around even when we were sober. I so wished we got a houseboat for one night. Swing Sister was too scared of falling into the water, so we chose to get a hotel room instead. We got to Amsterdam during what was supposed to be Summer but instead was greeted with only 10 degrees upon arrival. And to top that off, I didnt even bring any winter clothing with me on this trip. Even though the weather was so shitty, the sun didnt go down till nearly midnight and that was strange. We'd have dinner at about 7pm and come out of the restaurant about 8 and it would still be bright outside.

The first night we were there, we went into Cassa Rosso (you wont miss the pink elephant outside) to witness Amsterdam's famous live sex show. It was live alright and the performance on stage was errr...... well performed? It amazes me how people can do this on stage to an audience, but it was entertaining. Actually the audience were more entertaining. As usual the Chinese tourists (from Mainland ofcourse) hogged the front rows. One even had a binoculars with him and he was sitting in the front row! The sex show was like any other sex show but professionally done. It was like watching live porn on stage and much better than the sex shows I've seen in Thailand. Better in a sense that the place was clean, the guys and girls were hot and they actually looked like they were enjoying themselves on stage!

The Van Gogh musuem was a good tourist site. I was utterly disappointed though that my favourite painting was not on display. Where the hell did Starry Night go??? We missed out on seeing the Heineken beer factory, which was a shame. I heard from Siew Yum, November Cleo and BBs that it was a must see in Amsterdam. Oh well, maybe next time.

Bed Supper Club & the lovely wall decoration in the toilets

We managed to squeeze in a night out to Bed Supper Club in Amsterdam. It's decked out exactly like Bed in Bangkok with the white beds set up against the walls and the dj playing right in the middle. It was certainly an effort to find this club. We walked through so many alleys and streets before stumbling on to this place. A great find indeed.

Didnt get the chance to go into any coffee shops, even though they were all over the place. Just the smell of hash, is enough to get me high and make me sick. Yes, I know everyone says you've got to try it when you're in Amsterdam. But it's really not my thing so I walked passed a few coffee shops, popped my head in to have a look at all the stoned customers, and that was about as adventurous as I got with getting high in Amsterdam. Oh, and not to forget that Swing Sister and I did try a hash lollipop too. Tasted like shit.

The other great tourist site we visited was Madame Tussaud's wax musuem. The wax figures looked eeriely life like. I really felt like I was standing next to Brad Pitt!

Fond memories of Amsterdam, from the beautiful scenery to the unforgetable sex show and the working girls in the windows at the red light district. But one thing you must try in Amsterdam is the fries they sell on the streets served with mayonnaise...... yum!

Stop Collaborate And Listen!

Unfortunately, the title is a personal joke and those who were there would understand what I'm on about.

One fine evening me and my girlfriends decided to go for after work drinks at a bar called Sentido Funf. Errr.... I cant even say the name right. Situated on the corner of Smith and Gertrude St in Collingwood. It was a nice change to drinking in the city. The bar itself wasnt all too fancy but it had a huge outdoor beer garden, ideal for smokers. These days it's so hard to find a bar with a smoking area big enough to fit all of us. Princess Model and I found one on Collins St in the city, the new Collins Quarter. A very simple bar with four different areas thus the name Collins Quarter. The outdoor beer garden is great. With a rooftop to block out the ugly cold while people sit outside for a much needed ciggie in the midst of drinking. This bar is tucked away at 86a Collins St. A fairly hidden location as you have to walk through a tiny arcade to get in there.

SJ and I got to Sentido Funf quite early so we started off with a bottle of white. From what I remember, SJ only had about 2 glasses before she started rapping to Vanilla Ice's Ice Ice Baby. None of us could understand why she was so smashed! Princess Model brought cards along so everyone could have their cards read. Nice touch, wine glass in one hand, cigarette in the other and getting your fortune told at the same time. SJ was pleased with her reading. Apparently he loves her. Well, for some strangely mysterious reason, he actually told her he loved her two days later! Princess Model on the other hand couldnt get over the fact that there was another woman. She was grumpy and depressed all night over the cards. Girls, dont let the cards rule your life!

After our drunken fortune telling/ card reading episode at Sentido Funf, we moved across the street to Wabi Sabi for dinner. The outdoor dining area was sensational over looking the beautiful Japanese garden. Siew Yum acted as the gentlemen all night, ushering SJ to the toilet and lighting our cigarettes. Only thing she didnt do was take care of the bill! SJ was so intoxicated she caused quite a stir with the other diners seated in the outdoor area with us. She kept making conversation with the man sitting on the table next to us and Ball Breaker told her to stop because the girlfriend kept giving us dirty looks. But did SJ care? No, not really. Our table was so loud and so funny, I think we scared everyone else off.

The food was really good (loved the Salmon Avocado salad creation!) and I'd definitely go back there again. How I wish I brought my camera that day. Damn! A good night with great company and for once I didnt go home feeling tipsy but instead was high from happiness after sharing such a great night with my closest girlfriends.

Gwen Stefani Concert

After purchasing the tickets nearly 6 months ago, it was so good to finally go watch Gwen Stefani live. Her opening act was Gym Class Heroes (who sing Cupid's Chokehold) and apparently the lead singer was really hot! But Siew Yum, November Cleo and I got there late and missed out on their performance. Damn! Princess Model was there with another friend and was unfortunately seated at a different section. Shorty was with us and already drinking before the concert even started.

Gwen Stefani was brilliant. She looked sensational, sounded great and her Harajuku dancers were awesome. She had the body of a gym junkie and not like a woman who just had a baby. The songs were great and November Cleo, Siew Yum, BBs and I had a ball dancing and jumping around our seats. I wish we were on the floor but atleast Siew Yum thought of me when she bought the tickets. Cant complain.

The stage was a little small with not much effort spent dressing it up. So, basically the stage consisted of Gwen, her dancers and the band. Nothing fancy like Madonna's Girlie Show. But Gwen did make up for it by pulling someone from the audience up onto the stage. That was a nice act. She also went out into the crowd, then climbed up the stands followed by her band and gigantic bodyguards. What an effort! Siew Yum and BBs were drooling and hoping for Gwen to climb up to our seats, but we were way too high up. Sigh......

Crazy Horse Paris

If you ever get the chance to go Paris, you must watch the Crazy Horse show. Very much like the Moulin Rouge and Lido show, the Crazy Horse is a dance show with 16 beautiful and naked girls on stage. Nowhere near as sleazy as the strip shows of Bangkok. This one was truly magnificent. The elaborate costumes (or sometimes a lack of), the well thought out choreography which apparently has not changed since the 1950s, and the gorgeous girls made the show so sensual. Nothing perverted about it, although a group of tourists from mainland China were planted in the front row seats for a good perve. Typical Chinamen. Overall, the show was tastefully and artistically done. I definitely recommend it if you happen to be in Paris. The tickets are not cheap at 100 Euros per person. Lucky for us, one of the dancers happened to be Ferrari's girlfriend! Ixo was kind enough to get four of us in for 100 Euros, which also included drinks. Her performance was brilliant. With the best body on stage and bumps in all the right places, Ixo sure drove the Chinese tourists nuts!

After the show, we managed to have a quick chat with Ixo and to my surprise she was a former ballet dancer with the Russian Bolshoi Ballet. Impressive. She told us that all the Crazy Horse dancers were either ballerinas or gymnasts. To become a Crazy Horse performer, she had to go through a very tough recruitment process. It's not just for anybody off the street. Ixo also told us about the history of Crazy Horse and how proud she is to be part of the troupe. Even Christina Aguilera wants to perform with them!

Bollywood Ball

The long awaited charity medical ball was a great idea for us to do something different. A chance to get all dressed up and all in the name of charity. The Darling St venue was perfect, but the crowd was so not. Firstly, I want to say I'm not racist. But when the ball is filled with 80% apus, it made me wonder if I had mistakenly walked into a high school prom in New Delhi. For such a prestigious venue, the food certainly didnt live up to our expectation. Safeway's roast chicken tastes better than the chicken they tried to pass off as main course. I cant even begin to describe the beef dish. To top it all off, can you believe they forgot to serve us our dessert?? Swing Sister had the right idea and kept telling us to drink $85 worth of alcohol. Yes, that's how much each of us donated to this charity. And till this day, I still dont know the name of the charity! The free flow of Hardy's wine didnt even come close to making up for the food. I'm told Hardy's only cost like $8 per bottle. We would've had to down 10 bottles each to make it worth while.

The music wasnt too bad, real 80s old school RnB tunes. HYC, SJ and I were reminiscing about the Billboard days. Half way through the night they had a lucky draw raffle type give away. Everyone had to look behind their seats to see if they had won the prize. Each table had one prize. Scar Face was the lucky one from our table. Can you believe he won a free Bollywood dance lesson? How ironic, considering we felt like we were at a Bollywood Ball.

Atleast one of us got lucky at the ball. How she found an Aussie amongst the apus, I will never know. But it may very well be a topic for my next entry.

Me, You and The Future

My friends and I have come to an age where we dont know what we want, dont know what we're doing and sometimes, we dont even know who we are. I sit in envy of those who are settled in their lives, with a good family, good job, nice car and a nice house. Are these the only things we work and live for? Part of me wants to live for the moment but part of me says I need to plan everything. Which one do I choose?

Ball Breaker and I often joke about the way our lives have turned out. She always brings up the idea of getting a couple of 6 pack UDLs and hanging out by the Yarra; just me, her and the future. And we always tell ourselves, we will still be doing this in 5 years. Man, that's scary. When will we settle? God only knows. And why should we settle? I'm so not into a life that's full of routine, day in and day out. Some people work all their lives to achieve this routine. Why???

Maybe this weekend Ball Breaker and I will actually hang by the Yarra with our UDLs...... just me, her and the future.....

Drinking With The Retirement Village

Was down in the dumps yesterday, filled with office politics. Life is never meant to be easy and to ease the pain I decided to have some wine. And so I had the pleasure of drowning my sorrows with the entire retirement village from 3 o'clock in the afternoon. Met up with Ah Sook, Ah Pak and Ah Yeh. Well, actually I met up with WMDM, Ah Sook and The Accountant for drinks at 3 Degrees. And as SJ says, that's the whole retirement village, only person missing was Fegg. Sometimes I wonder, do these people work? People probably say the same thing about me too. Aaah .... the pleasure of leaving work early and drinking the day away. If only the problems would disappear as quickly as a glass of wine.

Havent really had much motivation to do anything lately and that includes blogging. I cant even think of what else to write. I do have a lot of stories to share, but today is not the day. Maybe tomorrow.......