Toowoomba Flower Festival

I went to Toowoomba for the Carnival of Flowers (finally!) last weekend. It was a bid to check out my placement area as well, but we pretty much just hung out in the streets and main mall of Toowoomba. It really is a lovely place, with roads lined with trees (very much like Singapore), and parks and gardens close by.

Ironically, we only spent about a total of 40 minutes in the actual flower display at one of the gardens, and spent the bulk of the time walking around the mall, catching Johnny English, and eating (as usual, haha)

It took us about a 15minute walk to get from the mall to the actual flower display at the Queens Park (I think that's what it's called), and we were greeted by the sight of lucious, beautiful flower displays! It is truly refreshing to see so many colours and flowers, though there are quite a number of lovely flowering trees and bushes blooming here in Brisbane too. But knowing that someone specially planted and arranged these flower beds just seems... nicer. =)

This was already the second last day of the carnival, thus it wasn't really that happening.

Heaps of tourists too! And avid photographers of course!

 And of course, what would a weekend trip 120km away be without some touristy photography right?

I deliberately wore a floral dress to suit the occasion, ahhaha...

The Magpies are apparently really ferocious.. They had signs like these all over the cordoned off areas.

 

 Just look at how vibrant all the colours are! A nature photographer would've gone mad!

We bumped into a couple of Mark's friends from vet school who had actually gone around to all the different flower sites and gardens, they said that this one was actually not that fantastic. Perhaps next year we'll actually spend the day looking at flowers instead of Rowen Akinston!

After we'd had enough of the flowers we attempted to walk back to the mall where I had parked my car. Unfortunately, due to horrible road planning, we ended up in the residential area and walked pretty far to get back to the main road. I guess we were just unfamiliar (it's like getting into some bukit timah estate in Singapore I suppose).

 However I loved the quaint little houses we saw on the way back! The architecture was all pretty classic and nice.

 And a really old car we walked by! Look at where the side view mirrors are, I honestly wouldn't know how to drive this I reckon.

OF course we had to stop for tea right? The whole point of a 'holiday' is to have the excuse to eat more frequently due to the walking (though we just ate and ate and ate). And you know what there is in Toowoomba and nowhere else??

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PAPA ROTI! All the way from Malaysia! 

It tasted fantastic together with the peanut butter milkshake. (If any of you are heading to Toowoomba for a weekend or something, please go there!!)

Love of My Life!

Presenting the love of my life.....

The one whom I cannot do without..

One of the things I always miss when I go on a holiday without...

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BOO BOO!!

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 Booboo is my bolster which I've had ever since I can remember. The previous bolster case had been so worn out that it was literally thread bare. It eventually had the consistency and transluscency of organza. My mum couldn't take it finally gave in and made me a new bolster case from her nightgown (which I traded with by burning the latest season of 24 for her), which I absolutely love (albeit the gaudy colours) because it now has an element of her too!! A bolster has 3 important features:

1) Softness of the case: it is ESSENTIAL that it is baby skin soft, you wouldn't want to rub your face into a sack cloth right?

2) Lumpiness: The amount and distribution of lumps must fit your body shape just right. It has to fit between your legs without stopping your blood, and yet without being completely flat

3) Smell: Of yes, it's ABSOLUTELY got to smell of familiarity! Why else would you want a security item if it didn't smell secure right?? Right???

I bet a lot of you are cringing now, thinking 'Ee yer... never wash one...' BUT I DO OK, (just not as often as I should). But booboo's normally washed at least once a semester la, which is probably more frequent than how many times you guys wash your comforter! =P
 

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.I honestly think that my bolster's probably one of the most precious things to me. I'd be more devastated if I lost it as opposed to losing my phone. I mean, lost phone, $200. lost booboo, PRICELESS.

Security items are actually much more important than we realise, especially for children. They help the child learn to self sooth and rely less on you, which might sound like a bad thing at first, but think about when you want to go out to work in the future knowing tha your child cannot be comforted by anything but you, how worried would you be? It's like a nanny!

I'm definitely going to give my child a security item once I can, and in case you're wondering, no I'm not goin to give boo boo to him/her. BOOBOO IS MINE.

hehh =)

Just a silly post to distract me from exams, haha..

Interlaken Jan 2011

Carless for the weekend! =( But hopefully it'll be back and I'll have a 'brand new' car to drive on Monday! I promise to show my car all the lurve, care and respect it deserves! =)

Since I'm unable to upload pictures due to my lousy cranky computer, I stole photos from our weekend family trip to Interlaken (Switzerland) early this year from my sister's online account for Gaby-photos. Quality of the photos are AWESOME as they're from my brother in law's awesome DSLR, (even though I played camera man, which wasn't very awesome, ut camera made up for it). 

The trip to Interlaken required the rental of a hugehuge diesel vehicle, so that we could all sit comfortably with Gaby in her new car seat. It wasn't awesomely comfy though and did get quite squishy at some times. The drive took about 2+ hours, not something I'd recommend to someone with a baby who hates being strapped.. and for those who ge tmotion sick too.

 

Journey started a little later than expected as Lionel had to finish up his research paper, my sister boasts that he can complete writing a journal article in 3 weeks apparently! haha.. 

 

Here's our little darling still quite fairly easily entertained. She chews everything, and I was happy to let her chew on my sun glasses as long as she didn't start screaming...

 

Which, of course lasted maybe 15 minutes before she let her boredom get to her and she started yellin, that's her face pretty much most of the journey, =O We sang, told stories, shook stuff in front of her, all to no avail.. We still had to make a little pit stop about half an hour into the journey for her to get a feed! It's amazing how your life changes after a baby enters it hey? I always thought I was born to be a mum... until I saw my sister become a mum and then I figured.. hmmm maybe waiting isn't such a bad idea... It takes a lot to give up and sacrifice so much for your kid. You give up your figure (women), social lives, work especially, diets, freedom, fashion (or just not looking sloppy)... So many things for a baby!

 

Good thing Gaby needed a feed anyway, we all got to have some ice cream from the push cart! It was an expensive treat (everything in Switzerland is expensive, even the bloody trashbags are expensive), but it was nice to have something cold in the warm weather.. Plus, cheap thrill of buying ice-cream off the road! (Gaby had some too!)

 

Taken during another feeding stop about.. another half hour later. HAha.. This was some random pretty lake. It was really pretty though!

 

Finally, after 2 hours of winding bendy roads, lots of singing and story telling, (I think I heard the story of Goldilocks too many times), I learnt that I could come up with poems when a screaming/cranky/bored baby is presented to me. In that sense, Gaby's my muse! =)) the hotel we stayed at was awesome! Well, it was more like a studio/chalet styled place, but I really loved the concept and the entire surrounding area! They even had a TRAMPOLINE downstairs!

 

One of the many happy moments of Ah bee!! Look at the amount of teeth that little Jaws has! But they hurt like a bitch when you actually have to breast feed.. But she's sooo cute, I think it probably takes all the pain away, haha.. 

The beautiful views of the mountain tops! (Imagine the Sound of Music and them crossing the mountains to escape Nazis... cue cliche cowbell and yodel music)

However, Interlaken is a pretty touristy place. There were more Japanese and asians than Swiss in my opinion, and it was awfully crowded and hot at that time, though the weather was pretty good I suppose. unfortunately we couldn't find a place to picnic due to the lack of shade (and as typical asians, we NEED shade), so we ended up having a meal at one of the restaurants there. Pretty good food, typical expensive tourist prices. But it was all good, Gaby even got to make new friends! Look!

Tired Lionel and Gaby eating some grass.

 

Gaby's fascination with dogs was finally met and she got to get up close and personal with one! Haha, the dog was such a darling, he let her pat him in that typical baby-ish way. Don't they look adorable??

DEVASTATED!

I don't know why all the photos I try to upload from Europe are like this!! =(( I reckon it's an SD card thing, but these are the files that I've already transferred to my computer from the SD card, and they don't show up like this when I open the individual photos up, only when I try to upload them on blogger.. 

WHY

WHY

WHY!!!??

 It's as if it's a snapshot from the horror movie 'shutter', which, by the way, I caught with Korah and Mark a month ago (finally) and was disappointed that the boys didn't find it as scary as other films (I must find an Asian horror film that'll knock their socks off!). There's an on going debate between Mark and I as to whether Hollywood or Asia makes the best horror.

I reckon that the asians win hands down of course, and that blardy Hollywood just makes either a) lousy remakes or b) uses plenty of scary voom-voom soundtracks and that shoves an ugly ang-mor ghost in your face in order to make you piss in your pants.

I personally find asian horror to be chilly and oh so spine-tingling not only in their filmography and effects, but storylines as well. They're the kind that leave you with shudders even after you leave the theatre..

However perhaps that's just the feelings I got when I watched horror as a teenager some 8 years ago (man that's OLD). And I guess I'm less shakable now that I'm a quarter through my life, and I understand the concept of on-screen ghosts being just normal people in ugly costumes and having bad hair days. You know how a scary scene is scary? It's not always quite as simple

1) Scary music, if not, just uncomfortable silence that makes your breath sit in your chest like a decaying lump of cheese

2) Lots and lots of tension building up to that particular scene

3) A blurry unclear image of the ghost, it musn't linger for too long, or you'll realise that it's actually just a human. And I think this is actually the most crucial factor. I find that a lot of horror shows go wrong in the sense that they show you too much  of the ghost, and you end up being able to pick out the very human features in them (which thus totally defeats the initally aim of appearing as a ghost)

 I think the show that completely shattered the ghost image was our Singapore short series 'Incredible Tales'. Remember that? There was one episode with the famous pontianak of course, which comprised of this flour-faced, long haired asian chick with not very scary eyes, and what appeared to be a piece of otak in her mouth acting as a long tongue. Howdumb was that?? Oh well..

What a digression eh? I didn't even set out to talk about horror in the first place!

Oo look at this boy's face, you can't see it cs the picture's been cut off, but he was beaming SO much on the bus ride as he flirted and twiddled with the girl's hand. They weren't a couple, which I suppose, made it all much funner for the guy to try and cosy up to her as they went on their journey!

Doesn't that bring the butterflies to your stomach girls?? When that guy first flirted with you and gave you that attention which you craved but wasn't brave enough to demand for? Haha.. Being young is so fun..

I feel terribly old!

I removed my thumbdrive from my laptop for the first time in 3 weeks. Wow it's like having a good shit after constipation!

And I won't have to be looking at Times New Roman Font size 12 for a couple of days =))

PECS

I was just preparing some materials for therpy later and was looking for a picture to represent 'outside play'. Some of you might know of the system called PECS, which stands for Picture Exchange Communication Systems. It's a system used with many non-verbal children and adults who use pictures to communicate to you what they want. 

So I wanted to look for a good representation of 'Outside play', and naturally typed in 'PECS outside play', hoping to get a nice version from the PECS system, and this is what I found on google:

It took me quite a while to figure out why the hell so many half naked men appeared on my google search page! Is outside play some form of connotation related to male models or something?? Then I realised...

PECS.

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