chirstmas

I adore the atmosphere of Christmas season. All thanks to the Christmas tale, the joyful songs, the pictures of white snowy Christmas accompanied by the jingle bells. However, my family don't have the tradition of celebrating this festive, thus my dream of having a christmas tree at home, with presents all around it, never come true. For this year's Christmas, it was just a normal day for me, no hang outs, no celebration. Instead, I accompanied my family to attend a wedding dinner lol. Luckily before I came back from Melbourne, I managed to have some fun just browsing through the selection of Christmas deco in Myer.

Christmas sock! I've only had one in my entire life =X

all RED !! so festive !!

Or something more romantic?

So so so many choices!! If I have a Christmas tree in my house, I don't know how am I gonna choose the accessories. They're all so pretty! So since I don't have a Christmas tree at home, B got me a teddy bear with a reindeer hoodie cap, how lovely is this little teddy!!

Plus, spotted this super classy Chanel snow globe on their counter to celebrate Christmas. Welcoming the season with minimal yet classy deco!

Mid-Autumn

Happy Mid-Autumn Festival people! 

So much memories when comes to this festival. Still remember vividly how I used to make lantern in schools almost every single year of primary education. We even have competition for the most creative/ best lantern. And we have teacher that is really good in it, he even taught me how to build lantern in lotus shape and some other shapes. Not kidding you ok! and it's not one lotus, its a big lotus to be the main one , the some small ones at the side to decorate it. It was really nice that's why I still can remember till now. Too bad I don't have pictures back then to keep all these memories. I guess I've lost quite abit things to be captured with pictures back then that's why I'm so into capturing moments now. And the story behind this festival, which is about The Lady (Chang Er/嫦儿) and Hou Yi, her husband. Full story here.

Last year I celebrated Mid-Autumn Festival in Adelaide. It was a really big event there. Luckily found out about this Mid-Autumn Festival event here in Melbourne too =) It was held at Queen Victoria market from 9am to 4pm. It was a rather small event though. There was about 20 Asian food stalls. But most importantly there was lion dance, something that really brought my soul back to Malaysia.

And after the lion dance, we spotted this lantern making stall. I was happily looking at this little girl drawing her own lantern design. And then the guy from the stall asked to join so we decided to give it a go haha.. Just like returning to my childhood. We had so much fun and took a while to finished it lol..

He gave us 6 bamboo sticks to start off. Step 1: fold it into a circle and fixed it with the tape.

Then stick the colour paper onto it, and cut it into round shape.

He even offered to take candid picture for both of us lololol

Tadahhh!!! My red lantern and happy me!

Although it wasn't a big celebration nor in Malaysia, I am happy enough to get to celebrate it at least. And made my own lantern after so many years haha. Had so much fun, didn't see myself making lantern in Australia at all.

Ending this with our lanterns and mooncakes =D
Hope all of you are enjoying yourself no matter where you are!

Tesselaar Tulip Festival

Tulip is my favourite flower ever! And I'm so lucky that there is an annual Tesselaar Tulip Festival in Victoria. It's not all year long, just during spring, 13th Sept till 9th Oct for year 2012. The venue is rather far, at Melway. It took us an hour train ride and another half an hour bus ride to reach the destination from Melbourne CBD. But, it's all worth it. The tulips are just stunning. There's special theme on weekend so we've decided to go on a Sunday, which happened to be Dutch-themed. Costs us $3 for return bus ride, $18 for adult entry ticket and $15 for concession.

This is the first part that we ventured after we got into the farm. OMG all the colours! This is my first time seeing and being this close with such huge variation of flower colours, and not just any flower, but tulips :O OMG OMG!  Ok I guess some are not tulips, not so sure, because some don't look like tulips, or perhaps they're some special species? 

Me, Suzanne and Shereen. First day meeting both of them, but it's really nice to know them. Glad that we're quite ngam lol Got windmill as background somemore *happy* don't need to go Holland dy haha.. just joking, not gonna give up any chance to travel!

Oh hai B!

More photos from the tulip farm below hehe.. They also have statues and deco all over the farm.

Since it was Dutch-themed, there was Dutch performances and food. We didn't pay attention to the performances because we were busy admiring the tulips lol. I notice that everytime there's any festival, the Dutch Poffertjes will always be there, what's more when this is Dutch-themed. It's sort of like little pancakes with various toppings to choose from. It was having such good sales that Suzanne and Shereen had to wait for 20 minutes to get theirs.

And when I had been mesmerized by the tulips on the part I went above, I saw this! This view beside the poffertjes van. So breathtaking!

Seriously, no words to describe man!

And..... and more pink tulips!

Not sure what flower is this, but it's pink. so both of us went "OMG I wanna take picture!!!" haha funny moment..

colours in between the grey

Now is the period when everyone get so busy with the mid-semester tests and assignments. They're like trying to kill us with the due date and heavy weightage. Oh well, that's the typical life of a student. Luckily we have festivals around these weeks too! Definitely a great news for us to release our stress, and enjoy the fun atmosphere. There are 3 festivals happening, Royal Adelaide Show 2011, Malaysian Carnival and Moon Lantern Festival! The date of Malaysian Carnival and Moon Lantern Festival are fixed at 11 and 12 of September respectively while Royal Adelaide Show is held for a period of 2 weeks till 10th of September. To suit everyone's timing, we chose to go on the last day, which means we went for the festivals 3 days in a row! 

Royal Adelaide Show is pretty similar every year. Last year's one? HERE. Its about all FOOD, RIDES, ANIMALS, SOFT TOYS, SHOW BAGS and of course FIREWORKS! However, last I missed all the animal shows, at least this year I got to watch dog competition and pig racing and diving show.

This is the stall selling the famous turkey legs, but we didn't get to eat it because it was freaking sold out! But I get to eat my favourite churro! Didn't take picture of the stall because I was too excited, the next thing I know is I'm enjoying it already haha.

Next day its Malaysian Carnival, and here he is, our famous Chef Wan in Adelaide! He is demonstrating some recipe, I did not listen through the whole cooking, but he is super funny!

Nasi Lemak? here we have it all! Most of the stalls sell nasi lemak, so we got many choice to choose from. Other typical Malaysian food also available. But do not expect them to be exactly the same. But good enough  I guess?

Look at the queue and the crowd!

Lastly, is Moon Lantern Festival! I missed it last year so this is my first time celebrating it here in Australia. It was so impressive. The first thing I noticed when I reached there is Chinese songs are playing in the air! It has been ages to be in such atmosphere. There are performances by Adelaide's sister city in China, Shan Dong. Their performances are incredible, the best that I've ever seen in my life! Then there are food stalls, lanterns, parades and finally fireworks AGAIN! So blessed can see fireworks twice in 3 days. And more importantly no ordinary fireworks, they are really great firework shows. It was so crowded, it's like the whole Adelaide-ians were there, not only Asians, but literally everyone.

Andrea and I

the biggest lotus lantern EVER !!!

pascal? =P

Astroboy !