of margaret river – day 2

Day 2
In which we ate and ate and ate

Myle found a little container the day before with oats and seeds in it, labelled with instructions to sprinkle some out on the verandah.

We were delighted to wake up to a couple of birds braving the open space for the feed.

Leaving to just buy some groceries, we ended up going souvenir shopping hahaha. So we got to the Wine Festival in Cowaramup about an hour later than we intended and was a bit worried about parking. Our fretting was unfounded when we discovered that we were about the 10th car there. Laughing at our city thinking, we collected the free wine glasses (printed with Margaret River Region Wine Festival) and proceeded to get sloshed do some wine-tasting.

We learnt that it was best to drink white first, then come back to do reds, as the reds are much stronger and would overpower/mess up the lighter white taste. We also learnt that it was acceptable to pour the remainder of our wines on the grass, though Sokhan and I were quite uncomfortable with that.

The festival was smaller than I thought it would be, with most probably about 20 wine companies (plus the odd brewery) lined up in a horseshoe shape, but by the time I got about 3/5ths of the way through, I was quite flushed and quite cheerful. XD

I ended up buying the Cabernet Merlot (for Ram) and Noblesse from Amberley Estate and a Pink Muscat from Stella Bella. Ruby bought a Chardonnay from Clown Fish and I think both Sokhan and Ruby bought the Noblesse and Pink Muscat as well.

There was at one point that Myle caught up with us, as we prowled the outskirts of the people milling in front of the wine company tables, and exclaimed in fretful tones, “Slow down! You’re going too fast! And I think you’re skipping tables!” She added, slightly accusing. That alone should have alerted us how hard going it would be to make her leave the festival.

Each one of us who went into hustle Myle would come out carrying bags of wine bottles. =.=;; When she finally saw how many she had bought, she dazedly uttered, “Oh my God! I think I’ve bought too many wine.”

We left much later than we had planned and so had whiz through The Cheese Company (bought the deluxe platter for $25) and The Chocolate Company (where the gurls helped themselves to a very generous serving of free chocolate bud thingies – its name eludes me at the moment) to make our 2.30pm booking at Tealicious House.

We kinda got lost on the way, taking a much longer route, but we did stumble upon somewhere rather nice.

It took us ages to get the jumping shot right and there were quite a few cars that zoomed by… I wondered if they were thinking we were just a bit nutty in the head. XD

There’s something about Devonshire High/Afternoon Teas that really appeals to us, though I have no idea what it is. While we’ve had better fare at The Tea Room and The Victoria Room, it was amazingly filling (I guess 2 pots of tea each would have done it XD) and the service we got here was undeniably friendly, helpful, and positively cheerful; Summer (who’s the owner) was also very attentive.

Absolutely stuffed with food and tea, we rolled about in Dunsborough (trying to digest) and checked out the local artist, Mandy. We listened in as Sokhan chatted to her about her art and her inspirations.

Not wanting to miss out on another sunset, and the skies were a bit clearer today than yesterday, we thought the lighthouse at Cape Naturaliste would provide us with unbridled glorious views. We ran up the slope as the sun slowly set on another day… only to find that we were barred!!! >_< Argh. Talk about being rorted!!

It wasn’t only us who were thwarted, there were at least 5 other people who had come up to the lighthouse to bask in orange-y goodness – 5 other not happy campers. Remembering an unsealed road that might lead us to unobscured views, we zoomed out of the car park and… ah… so pretty! We must appropriately mark the occasion! =D

We had some time to kill before heading to Amberley Estate for our 7.30pm dinner, so we mosey-ed down to Yallingup via the beach, as recommended by John.

John told me that Yallingup Beach has hosted some international surfing competitions because of the massive waves it gets. Boy, he wasn’t kidding. Ruby and I were standing at the base of the stairs and we could hear this muffled-like roar of the waves crashing about in the distance.

The sun had set maybe 30 or so minutes beforehand, leaving this nice glow on the horizon. When we looked up and up… and up (we were almost bending over backwards!), there was an astounding myriad of stars sparkling in the sky that seemed to curve over our heads like a giant planetarium; we could very clearly see the milky way… and I’ve never seen so many stars before in my life. It was one of the most gorgeous and awesome sight I ever had the privlege to see.

The distant roar of the waves seemed to have gotten closer and we realised while we were held fascinated and dazzled by the stars, the tide had brought the waves in and were crashing about at the rocks we were standing on. Feeling quite threatened by the strength of the waves and the noise it was making, we scuttled back up to the carpark.

I was trailing behind and when I looked up, I just caught one of the gurls passing the lamp, casting a silhouette and had this neat orange halo around her form. I called for her to stand still for an experimental shot… and we ended up mucking around with the light for about an hour. =D

Rather bizarrely, I felt horribly car sick on our way to Amberley Estate. Practically bursting out from the car as soon as it was parked, I ran to the toilets and spent quite a bit of time there trying to sort myself out before joining the girls at the table. =.=;;

We had envisioned stuffing ourselves silly here (well okay… maybe it was only me), but what with still being full from the tea and me feeling a rather lingering queasiness (I had to go out and sit in the cold now and again), we ordered very little food with no desserts *sad panda*.

Hoping to avoid the carsickness I asked to drive home. The Margaret Region is quite a rural area with very few street lights, if at all – though I guess we shouldn’t have been so surprised at that considering – so at night we usually drove around with our highbeams on, turning it off only out of courtesy for oncoming traffic. Only problem with this was that everything not in the headlight’s path was pretty much pitch black… which is a bit freaky when you have looming trees lining the winding road (and it doesn’t help when the trees suddenly give way to what I know are fields/vineyards, but it just seem like more intense pitch blackness T_T ).

I tried to joke about hoping things don’t come popping out and Sokhan thought I was talking about kangaroos and wombats (we were warned that driving on Caves Road after dark has a high probability of hitting in to the local fauna). As soon as she got what I meant, a thickish band of mist/fog suddenly appeared in front of us. >_<

We both kind of tensed up and squeaked as we drove through it, waking up the gurls in the back. They asked what was wrong and we quickly said nothing... nothing that I want to talk about at that point in time anyway!!! >_< Gah. I swear I got chills when we drove through it, I didn't even risk a glance in the rear-view mirror. >_____<

Anywho, I tried to capture the glorious sky when we got back to the cottage

and I think I kinda failed lol.

We decided to see how much wine we actually bought before calling it a night.

of quiet nights in

Friday was a tough day at work, so I kind of just wanted to go home and read/sleep, but the girls called me out for dinner and a movie… and somehow I ended up going to the dinner even though I had “lunch” at 4:30pm. =.=;;

It was nice to catch up with some of the gurls though. ^_^

Betty, Ruby, and Myle popped over to watch a movie, but while we were waiting for Myle to drop Tien off, we started to watch Top Gear’s Polar Special… and ended up finishing it.

We didn’t end up watching a movie ‘cuz it was a bit late and the gurls were rather tired at this point. So we called it a night… and with plans of a mini leech fest in the future (yay!) XD

Saturday was pretty chock-a-block with sleep. hahahah XD I didn’t get out of bed ’til about 3.30pm. I know… I’m such a slug-a-bed. XD

Ram picked up me up at about 5:30 to go to Tim’s birthday dinner… only I wasn’t ready because I was too busy mucking around with the new eatshowandtell theme. I’m just glad I can get ready pretty quickly.

While driving up to Concord, Ram paused in his chatter and ventured, “You’re grumpy… umm… what’s up?” Grudgingly, I told him that I was trying to work out this problem I was having with the theme and I was just about to implement one of my solutions when we had to go… I just wanted to stay at home and fix it, damn it! >_< He laughed at my silliness and was relieved to find out it wasn't something he had done unknowingly (lol).

We picked up Minh and headed to Chillijam. The place was packed and the kitchen was really bustling (we were sitting right next to it). Minh was lamenting at the slowness of dishes and argued with my reasoning of being really busy that if you can’t cater for so many tables, then you shouldn’t have so many in the first place! To be fair, I think she’s got a point there.

Afterwards, we went to Rhodes’ Reading Cinema to watch Get Smart. We were surprised at the hugeness of the cinema – it has an upstairs and downstairs section like at a theatre… and we pretty much took out the entire middle row. Or we would have, if the second to last seat on the right wasn’t sopping wet with Coke that someone had spilt in a previous session (or at least I’m maintaining it’s Coke >_< ugh). I had the joy of discovering the spill, which luckily pretty much dried by the time the movie was over.

Ram and I tried to watch Fight Back to School, but we were pretty tired and I soon realised that I had watched this already on SBS a loooong while back. So we decided to call it a night. =)

of good movie experiences

In Sam’s own way, he managed to convince me to watch Speed Racer on Monday night and Ram came just in time to catch me in the line (due to work, he was suppose to come later).

I’m so glad that I went because it was a darn good movie experience and I think if I had watched it any other way, it wouldn’t have been as good. The cinema was near-empty, but there were one or two noisy people (clomping up and down the stairs is so annoying!). We giggled at each other’s good-natured jibes at parts of the movie… because, you know, we’re so mature and all. =P heheh

I really liked the bouncy ball foam thing that people get encased in when their racing car gets smashed into bits and/or blown up! Sam, I think, loved the whole themed racing teams: “…the snake guy who’s got a snake car that throws snakes!” And Ram… I think he rather enjoyed the cheesy-ness of it all ^_^

I somehow managed to drag TimZ to a Body Balance class tonight and when I looked back after the warm-up bit, his forehead was covered in sweat droplets. He caught my eye and kind of gave a slight zomg-that-was-hectic shake of the head. XD

Dorothea *really* pushed us tonight. “Higher!! Lift them higher!!” Arrrrrgh… but so good! Myle loved it, which I was glad and relieved ‘cuz I was a bit worried that I might’ve hyped it up a bit too much. Jackie suggested her to do the Monday 5.30 BB class, followed immediately by the 6.30 Body Pump class… and she suggested it to me… and I’m thinking, whuuuuut, I don’t think I can do a cardio class after a hectic strength/flexibility class. I mean, TimZ looked dead on his feet after the class and sounded slightly dazed when he said, “I can’t stand properly: my legs are like jelly.”

So I’m not sure I can do 2 classes back-to-back… but I suspect I’m just being a big pansy. =P

of an expensive weekend

I’ve been looking to this dinner last Friday with some trepidation – not because of the couple of negative reviews I’ve heard, but because of its ambience lighting: I fretted how the photos would turn out.

Happily, I think the photos turned out okay. (We were seated in the corner, where I hogged the seat with a downlight overhead lol)

Dining at Tetsuya’s is definitely an experience: we were greeted at the door by a snooty maitre d’ (with a posh accent to boot!), everyone was unfailingly polite and attentive, and the food… oh my goodness… the food. We were there for about 6 hours for a 12-course degustation, so the food was kind of rolled up in a big hazy ball of yumminess. There were some dishes that we weren’t too impressed with, but there were more than a couple that were truly delicious.

I’ll write a review on eatshowandtell later, detailing what we ate and the experience, when I’ve finished processing the photos (175 photos!! =.= Obsessive much?).

Anywho, so Tetsuya’s! I think it’s definitely something people should do at least once – just to know what it’s like. =)

Ram and I had a glamorous dinner of Oportos and McDonalds the following night just before watching Phantom of the Opera.

I loved the dramatic music, the mind-boggling amazing set (I really wanna know how they controlled the “boat”), the costumes, and the wonderful performance given by all (some bits were also surprisingly funny because of what the actors decided to do with it)… except I didn’t really like the story-line…

I didn’t really like Christine because I thought she was a bit too wishy-washy, but I was assured by several people that she’s suppose to be wishy-washy, bimbo-like, and rather dependant on others. O_O Raoul was just… meh. And I really felt sorry for the Phantom.

In a way, it felt like the underlying message was: if you’re ugly but very talented, you’ll lead a horrible life and then died tragically alone, but if you’re pretty, you’ll be okay because people will look after you =.=

There was one thing that REALLY disappointed me: the chandelier scene. The thing’s suppose to come crashing down, make big noises and be all ZOMG!-like… but it just fell… very… slowly… tinkling a bit as it touched the stage. Gah.

Oh! And I also didn’t like the whole Raoul and Christine singing their love for each other. Blergh. It was waaaaaay too much.

A couple of weeks ago, I heard there was a bit hoo-ha that the main performers, Anthony Warlow and Ana Marina, got sick and so their understudies had to take their place – much the “fury” of theatre-goers who came to see them but didn’t (which was a bit harsh I felt). So I was curious whether or not we had the understudies, but if they were the understudies – they were amazing!!!

Turned out, they weren’t! Lol so it was a bit of post-excitement that I got to see the original Phantom perform.

Managed to get some photos done before heading off the see our final Sydney Film Festival movie: Appleseed Ex Machina.

Dou had piked on the movie, so we needed someone to take his place. I got Ruby to come and I was a bit puzzled with her attitude each time we spoke – something was off, but I couldn’t put my finger on it.

Ruby greeted me enthusiastically and leant on me as we walked to where the others were standing in line (regrettably, the line she was standing in was much shorter than the one we were heading too – something that Ram muttered under his breath a couple of times). I realised quite soon that she was rather inebriated hahahha.

She came from the Good Food and Wine Festival and she gleefully told me, “It’s like the wine festival at Margaret River, but times FOUR!!” lol the nutbag… she was still rather tipsy after the movie, so Ram and I decided to take her home, instead of staying out for whatever the other guys were going to do (I was feeling surprisingly tired anyhow).

of war and body balance

On Monday and Tuesday night, a few of us went to watch a couple of documentary films on the Iraqi war: Taxi to the Dark Side and No End in Sight.

Despite them being pretty disturbing and distressing (and shown at such a late hour – got back home at 12:30am!! Gah), it was definitely an eye-opener to someone who has had only a vague gist of what’s been going on these past few years (namely me). I tried to take it with a grain of salt as both films were quite biased (Taxi was essentially funded by wealth liberal lawyers), but it’s hard when what they’ve shown is all you know. So it was good when we were discussing the films that Leon would question/criticise the films’ motives/stuff they’ve left out, as well as back-filling me with more details about the war.

During the anarchy phase just after Hussein’s loss of power, some people trashed the museum – you could see fragments of priceless art and historical items on the floor during No End in Sight – and the National Library was burnt down.

What. The. Hell.

Who would do such a thing? Why would they? I don’t understand. It’s so bizarre and upsetting… One guy was standing outside the National Library with its blown-out windows and charred walls. He pointed to the library and said that the looters had burned the library – documents, parchments, manuscripts of their history, heritage and culture as old as 7,000 years old were completely incinerated and lost forever; he said it with such dead, dead eyes.

Don’t get me started on the innocents and the grunts doing their job.

*sighs*

Yeah… it was also quite depressing. I think humans by nature are quite cruel and devastatingly violent with a streak of selfishness and hedonistic tendencies… unless curbed, of course.

I’ve been attempting to become a bit more dedicated to the whole fitness thing… which saw Myle and I having to put up with a horrible sales person when we were at Fitness First last week.

Last night, before meeting up with the guys to see No End in Sight, I went to Definition in Haymarket to see if I liked it any better than yucky Fitness First. And happily, so I did. However, it struck me as… odd… to do something that relaxes the mind and invigorates the body, and then go to see a war documentary. =_=;;

Just felt that Definition (although much smaller and smelt more gym-like) was much more welcoming and friendly – the Body Balance instructor (Dorothea) is such a hard task master (and a bit shouty), but it felt so good afterwards. =D

Jacqueline asked me how I found out about the place and I told her that I’m friends with a former Definition personal trainer. Turns out, Jac was Cham’s boss! Hahaha… small world, neh?

of dinner and yet another movie

We had dinner at Meat and Wine Co. on Friday night – they’re always so busy there. Food was pretty good though and so filling. Carina’s boyfriend, Sam, ate a 600gram steak… compared to my measly 200grams lol. It was amazing, he actually finished it!

Afterwards we went to a pub and chatted. Surprisingly, time went by pretty quick – when we left, it was just past midnight… and very, very, very cold.

Saturday saw us returning to the State Theatre to watch In Bruges. Leon, Sean, and I were running a bit late to the screening and because it was General Admission, the group kind of had to split up to find spare seats.

I was rather distracted during the movie ‘cuz I was so hungry, but happily we went to Ichiban Boshi in the Galeries Victoria for some yummy ramen. ^_^ Mmm…

of kung fu panda

We went to see Kung Fu Panda tonight to kick start our Sydney Film Festival watching-ness. Over the next couple of weeks, we’ll be watching: In Bruges, Appleseed Saga: Ex Machina, and Taxi to the Dark Side.

The seatings were pretty much a free-for-all, so we got there about 30 minutes before the session time to hopefully grab some good seats. They were showing a live feed of what was happening outside and we realised that we had JUST missed on seeing Jack Black!! He was gallavanting outside, cavorting with various cameras (fans and professionals, digi. cams and videos at like).

I think I saw Cate Blanchett come through the doors, as well as Rove and his girlfriend, ummm, I can’t remember who else. I sent Ram off to get me some popcorn (while I minded the seats of course muhahahha – nevermind that Leon, Teresa and her friend were there too lol), but when he came back a long while later, he was empty-handed.

“Popcorn!!!” I exclaimed a bit sadly.

“Yeah, the line was heaps long,” he said apologetically. T_T Bah. “I was talking to Jackie O when I was waiting in line though,” he added nonchalantly. For those who don’t know, Jackie O is a radio presenter on 2Day FM and is, I guess, quite famous in Sydney/Australia. “She’s actually quite pretty in real life.” Leon made a disbelieving noise and Ram returned with, “She really was!!” lol XD

Anywho, Katzenburg (”the K in Dreamworks: Animation SKG,” Ram whispered to me) came on stage – introduced by the executive producer of the Sydney Film Festival – talked a bit about the making of the movie and then introduced (I think) John Stevenson, one of the two directors… whom then introduced Jack Black. The kids went wild. lol It was also funny to see all the mobile phone cameras out, recording the introductions and stuff.

Because I’m going to repeat myself if I talk about the movie here, see the movie review in/from the sidebar of what I thought of it =) hahah so lazy.

Oh! I did eventually get a box of popcorn though =) Yay Ram! ^_^ *hugs*

Leon was feeling like eating something, so while we were driving to Hurstville to eat at Sunny BBQ Restaurant I asked him about the differences of all the Christian “off shoots” (e.g. Anglican, Baptist, evangelist type) and that conversation lasted for quite a bit. =) Very interesting though and I should look more into it when I get a chance to.

Anywho, Leon had the Beef Brisket in Noodle Soup, Ram had the Noodle with BBQ Pork Spicy Sauce (to which he added heaps of chopped chilli and chilli sauce, defensively saying that it was too weak), and I had BBQ Pork with Rice (yes, rather boring I know, but it really hit the spot!).

of margaret river – day one

Day 1
To which we woke up super, super early

While we ate our (oh so healthy) Hungry Jack’s breakfast in the Domestic Terminal 3 food court, we joked about how late people get their names over the PA system and when they get onto their plane they’re greeted by stony faces of the other (seated) passengers.

Our delayed 6.10am flight announced that it was boarding during our breakfast, so we scoffed down the rest of our breakfast and hurried to the other side of the terminal, where our gate was. Halfway there, we heard our names over the PA system, demanding us to come to the gate immediately.

Half panicking and half laughing, we ran the rest of the way, with me trying to pitch my almost full orange juice cup into a bin… only having it roll out and over the bin’s lip. T_T The girls chanted, “Leave it! Leave it!”, but I felt bad and stopped to pick it up.

A severe looking airport staff was walking towards us, and as we drew nearer, she tersely called out to us, “Going to Perth?”

“Yes!” we chorused.

“Well hurry up,” she snapped back, brimming over with disapproval. “They’re waiting for you.”

Argh. We got our tickets checked and thundered down the … that little corridor that attaches to the plane… whatever it’s called… only to stop at the end of the line of people still waiting to get onto the plane.

Well! We weren’t that late after all, and felt a bit rorted that we were rushed when it wasn’t needed. But in a way, we were glad we rushed cuz we didn’t want to be one of those people who gets glared at hahaha.

We kinda dozed fitfully, waking up for a bit to talk about what we should do first: drive straight to Margaret River, check in, then explore… or explore around first and then check in for the night. I don’t think we really came to a resolution, but we left it at that anyway.

The old lady sitting next to us asked if we were on a holiday and so we chatted amiably for a bit. I then asked her if she was coming back to Perth, or going there for a holiday. She and her friend was coming back to Perth and they were in Sydney just for a couple of days. I asked her if she went to Sydney on vacation, so ready to respond enthusiastically, when she answered after a brief moment of hesitation, “We went to Sydney for a funeral.”

…

Oh man, I felt so bad and murmured awkwardly, “I’m sorry for your loss.” Not really knowing if it was really adequate or appropriate at all.

After a loooong search for our rental car, we finally started to mosey on our way down south, stopping for lunch at what we incorrectly were lead to believe to be a tea room. Y’see, it was a tea room, not a tea room, which served Devonshire-style tea (scones, finger sandwiches, the whole deal), rather they served tea – the afternoon-style kind of food like pies and sausage rolls. *sigh*

But where we stopped at was so pretty and we couldn’t help but squeal quite girly-like at such a scene.

It was also where we did our first jumping shot.

So, we lunched on a private jetty…

Then stopped by Busselton for some information and take photos of ducks.

We saw an odd looking duck, whereby Sokhan was like, “Oooh! What a strange looking duck! Wait…. I don’t think it’s a duck…” The not-duck dived underwater. *gasp* “It’s a platypus!!”

*short awkward pause*

We all cracked up and Myle exclaimed, “I have caught your stupidity on camera!!”

After driving for a few more hours, we finally got to Bussells Bushland Cottages, mucked around in the middle of the driveway, checked in, and unloaded the car into Cottage No. 6.

Afterwards, we went in search of a nice place to view the sunset…

Only, we realised we were a bit too early and famished at that. So, we ended up in Prevelly for dinner at a cafe called Sea Gardens

When it got dark, the manager lit the place up…

She also told us about the barrel, go-kart race in the centre of town. They had closed off the highway (mind you, it’s the main street AND it’s only 1 lane each way hehe) and used the strip of road as the race track. Intrigued, we checked it out, only to find that it was well and truly over, with kids running around all willy-nilly and the adults crammed into this pub with live music.

It was surprisingly quite “happening”. lol

Seeing that we had missed all the fun (we spied lots of silly string, shaving cream, and broken egg shells about the place), we decided to retire for the night.

Sokhan and I did try to get the fire going… only it kept going out or stubbornly wouldn’t light up. Bah.