Fish ball noodles and dessert

After an incredibly good sleep-in, mum and i headed out to Aberdeen for some infamous fish ball noodle soup at a place called "Xie Ji Yu Dan" 謝記魚蛋

Once there we ordered the fish ball & slice soup plus fried fish skin - these guys don't waste the fish. For those not in the know, fish ball and slice is made up of fish mince and since they need to use so much fish they definitely need to do something with all the fish skin. So they fry it and you can eat it just like that or throw it into the noodle soup for a bit of a crunch.

I've got to say the fish skin is much nicer that the stuff you get in the typical noodle soup in the busy parts of Hong Kong - those are just mass fried and delivered to the shops - this place does everything themselves.

So managed to stuff ourselves a fair bit, but we walked past a dessert place on the way to the 'main' meal so obviously we had to stop there for some dessert on the way out.

Mum had a "mai mai sa" which was made up of three types of rice, mine was a coconut, papaya (or is it paw paw) plus a fungus thingy that us asians like to eat - it was supposed to be cooked inside a steamer etc but they didn't. Instead they microwaved it, unfortunately they nuked it a little too much and the initial taste was like something you had over microwaved. Still it was enjoyable but would have been sooo much nicer if it hadn't been over-nuked.

Anyway afterwards we were sufficiently stuffed and wandered around the streets of Aberdeen checking out shops. Mum and I went a bit handbag crazy at one of the shops but we were still quite pleased with ourselves afterwards (it wasn't that expensive considering 2 of them were leather handbags - no way we could have got that price in Oz.)

Couldn't resist and had to sms Erica about it - will have to take her over there to check things out sometime.

After we had shopped ourselves out, we found there was a free shuttle bus taking us over to one of the housing estates over there - so we jumped on and headed over there to check the area out. It was nice, more suited towards family though here are some pictures of the area.

But first, here's one of mum showing off two of our purchases...

The one on the left is an 'environmentally' friendly bag, the one on the right is my new lunch bag!

Ok, back to the estate - this is what she was pointing to


So i'm also using today as a chance to test out my new camera an Olympus mu 840. It is really cool and has all these preset options including documents, taking photos of things behind glass (that would have handy in Europe & London) plus sunset options. The photos were pretty good as well

Another thing i had to test was the macro settings on the camera...

The verdict is... i'm quite pleased with the camera but the embarrassing thing was the reason i bought it was because i was sick and tired of the 'dots' appearing in my photos from my old camera but testing with the new camera i found out it was because of my ISO setting - doh! oh well my old camera has an excellent zoom so i'll still use it, too bad it sucks the batteries.

Ow....

I have just returned from a 50min foot/leg massage session and the only word that describes it was ow.... In the last couple of years of going to get massages i have not yet had a massuese (is that how u spell it?) how can make me cringe with pain but man, tonight the guy who massaged me made me twitch...

ok so i have massive calves... (it has to be genetic - as bev's friends have noticed...) but geez the guy was like "i haven't seen calves like that on a healthy person - it only takes one or two presses before his customers scream out in pain" - I am kinda proud i held out for a long time but i think he was deliberately massaging me harder to see how long it'll take before i gave up...

It was seriously the most painful massage session i have gone through, but afterwards i have to say i'm not hurting... maybe i'll take up his offer of being my massuese when i decide to go for a back massage hehehe - glutton for punishment...

the only good thing that came out of it was he hit all my accupuncture points on my feet and proclaimed me quite healthy (internal organ wise) - for those who don't know the feet have pressure points which are linked to all your internal organs so that the guys can actually tell if you're having problems sleeping, got a bad liver, get headaches, can't sleep - it's quite interesting.

And compared to Australia, this place is pretty cheap and clean as well - trying to relax during a massage in the middle of Westfields just doesn't cut it. Of course, it doesn't beat Dragonfly ... ahhh i could do with one of their 2hr massages...

We'll have to see if my legs are all bruised tomorrow morning...

Quickie Post

Weell just a short post on my favourite subject... food!



And because i'm in serious Aussie beef withdrawal...


Well i should mention something other than food. So how about work... arghh it was such a long day today but not stressful or anything. Just ultra busy (so that time flew by pretty quick) but seriously had so many issues i haven't had a chance to look at all the issues that have been assigned to me *groan*

The weather is getting hotter here, i think it's going to get really bad in August *sigh* - if only they'll send me back to Sydney for training for a month (that'll be cool, avoid the heat for a while). Though it's not the heat that gets to me it's the damn humidity - waking up in the middle of the night all hot and sweaty is so annoying!

And the weekend rolls around again

Well after a nice sleep in on a Saturday morning, mum and I headed out to North Point for some traditional chinese congee, dough sticks etc.

Afterwards we wandered around the back streets of North Point to check out the shops (the area is good for people planning on doing renovations - tonnes of interior design stores, electrical, furniture and lighting stores) Then we headed over to the local markets to get the ingredients for dinner - it is a bit worrying that some of the stores are selling cooked and uncooked stuff right next to each other and they're not really stores but stalls...

The other weird thing is people buying frozen chicken/meats... ok when you buy fruit you tend to give them a light squeeze to make sure they're ripe but what is the point of squeezing frozen meat/chicken?? Bizaree...

The other nice thing about North Point is the little stalls selling craft stuff like scissors/elastics/lace - unbelievably cheap as well. Mum bought this really cute fold-away scissors that i can use for my cross-stitching it's really cool!
Check it out:


Oh well, that's it from me. We're going to go out and have a look at display apartments tomorrow - just out of curiosity...

A blog for my brother

Well bevan is quick to complain that i haven't written a blog since June (which is only about 2 weeks ago so it isn't THAT long) but anyway I am posting just for the sake of shutting my dear little brother up.

Reading my last post i realised i actually had passed my first month at work (only 2 more months of probation left!) I just finished a weekend of on-call support which was actually quite painful considering i didn't have a clue what was going on and there were scheduled changes that i had NO idea about which caused problems for me. So i ended up having to stay up until 3:30am on both Saturday and Sunday night, luckily I am on the late shift this week so i don't start until 10am (which in retrospect isn't all that different from starting at 9... except for the extra 30 mins of sleep i manage).

I have to say whoever works the early shift has 'the short end of the stick', because eventhough you can actually leave by 5 you never do because everyone else is still working so you feel weird/guilty/lazy if you leave before 6 - which is kind of unfair and the only reason you need to come in early is to perform a few checks which you could technically do at home - but anyway.

I am learning more (i haven't fallen asleep at my desk this week, but i've only worked Monday & Tuesday this week - since today i had off as in-lieu for working on a public holiday last week)

Update on my purchases, i didn't end up buying a TV - i think i'll put it off for a couple more weeks - it's not like i need it at the moment. So i went and bought a nice little Olympus camera instead. Now all i need to do is learn how to use it properly (that's the problem with technology, and with these new cameras having more than 6 different ISO settings u need to know when to use what otherwise ur shots look terrible). This camera is really cool, it even has a special mode to take picutres of things behind glass (so now more 'ghosts' of you and your camera when you sneak shots of things in shop windows!)

I have also been spending a bit of time with Erica (my cousin's maid of honor in the UK) and her husband Nigel (usually ends with us drinking wine at their place , i am soooo turning into an alcoholic, i don't think i've drunk so much in such a short period of time) - we have watched so many movies recently, Prince Caspian, Indiana Jones, Wanted and probably Hancock tomorrow) pretty much a movie a week.

There's another one that i'm really looking forward to: "Red Cliff" a John Woo production, good cast and it looks impressive (and the only reason i'm more interested in this movie than usual is probably because of all the Dynasty Warrior games i've been playing over the years)

Today, we headed out to Ching Chun Koon to 'visit' my grandfather then we went to Tuen Mun where we met up with mum's friend and wandered around the shopping centre for about 4 hrs. Bev/Ben/Dad, there is a restaurant that we'll have to try there so you can help mum try all the eel dishes they have there (*shudder*) - you should see the eels they have just sitting in the aquarium at the front of the shop (*gross*) one's like a moray eel. I should have taken my camera but anyway i'll remember to take photos when mom and dad go and eat there in September. The restaurant is called "Siu Shun Village Cuisine = 肇順名匯"

Oh well that's it from me, i'm drinking wine at the moment and it's making me sleepy...