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Archive for the ‘Melbourne’ Category

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Whiling away the hours: My favorite YouTube videos

In culture, Melbourne on April 29, 2012 at 5:08 pm

What’s your favorite way to while away the hours on a beautiful Sunday afternoon? For me, I love to watch YouTube videos of my favorite shows and video clips (did you know you can practically sing any song you want on karaoke on it these days? Saves a trip to the downtown karaoke centre.) Since I don’t have anything to moan or complain about today, I’ve decided to share with you some of my top YouTube videos of all time.

1. Charlie bit me

This has to be the cutest video ever. My sisters and I like to mimic the elder brother’s intonation and adorable British accent – “Charlie bit me! Ouch!” Too.Cute!

2. Jesse Campbell vs. Anthony Evans – Battle Rounds The Voice 2

This has got to be the best battle duets ever seen in the history of television. I get goosebumps all over even though I’ve watched this hundreds of times! Christina, you are a dumbass for sending Jesse home. Like, don’t you even want to win?! Really, there are no words.

3. Stand up comic Hannibal Buress

I watched this when I was in Melbourne last year. He was performing as part of the 2011 Melbourne Comedy Festival gala night and I thought he was easily the most hilarious of them all. I wanted to go watch him in person but timing schedules did not work out for my and my work mates, so we ended up watching Mark Watson, who was also equally hilarious (although a little loud). Pics of our trip were as posted here.

4. Cover of Born This Way by Maria Aragorn

This little girl is so talented and I think she was only like, 9, at this time. (I don’t even like this song, so this shows how amazing she is to make me actually like this video). Since her covers on YouTube became popular, she has gone on to bigger things and made appearances with other singers such as Gaga herself and on the Ellen Degeneres show. My sister and I think our niece Marsya could do a YouTube cover like this as she’s just as good, but no, she has to spoil it all by being too shy. (Boo.)

5. Ellen Degeneres show

Speaking of Ellen, once I get to her YouTube channel, i always end up surfing through wayyy more videos that i originally planned. I’m no LGBT rights fighter, but I seriously love Ellen and how great she is with interviewing the celebrities and making them look so comfortable and down-to-earth.

6. My son’s videos

In his early years, my husband and I were working and living apart from each other. Due to the distance, he desperately missed our only son and created two really adorable video clips about him. The first one was when he was around a year old, and the second was when he was about 2 and featured scenes from a trip to New York that we had (although I’ve discovered this one has been annoyingly blocked – why? why?!). Makes me smile every single time i watch them.

7. Fousey Tube’s videos

I came across this guy through a hijab fashion blog that I follow. It’s interesting to know how Middle Eastern families are like and realize how they are so similar to the local Malay families’ conservative culture. This guy is, again, so funny (I’ll bet you can notice a trend of the genres of videos that I like) i reckon he should be on television. Stat.

8. Hijabi fashion tutorials

Speaking of hijabis and being a modern hijabi myself. I like to watch hijab tutorials to get ideas on how to cover up but yet wear scarves stylishly to cover your hair. Right now my style is more relaxed and rebellious as it shows the neck, but when I’m ready to fully cover it I’m going to follow Yaz the Spaz’s style here which is my favorite. I think it’s great that girls are growing more confident and asserting their personalities in the face of the modern world, trying to find balance between succeeding in life yet remaining as Allah’s humble slaves.

9. Makeup tutorials

Although I’m actually not a big makeup and fashion girlie’s girl, I do like to watch beauty and try to learn how to recreate it for myself (whenever i get bothered enough, like if I was attending a dinner function or something) so hail the YouTube makeup tutorial queen Michelle Phan. I learnt a lot from watching her particularly when I was in Melbourne – if i’m home in KL, i normally get my sister to do my make up for me. Heh heh.

10. Fashion tutorials

Again, although my daily fashionista style is almost zilch, I do like to read women’s magazines and surf basic fashion information. I’m not interested and bothered in trends, so my learning curve is limited to just basic and classic pieces. A good video i’ve seen is this one by Chriselle Lim where she shows how to make 14 different looks from just 7 basic pieces. Since I wear a scarf and cover my hair daily, I can’t really implement everything I see in these sites and magazines, but I still like to watch anyway. Maybe when i’m a 100% domestic goddess i can try dress up like this at home for hubby (yeah… right :P ).

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Where to go in Melbourne

In Melbourne, travel, Uncategorized on December 26, 2011 at 8:52 am

A friend called me recently to ask for recommendations on how to divide his upcoming holiday to Melbourne, Sydney and Gold Coast. I dutifully gave my recommendations (it primarily depends on your main objective for the holiday – if more city, culture, architecture and scenery go to Sydney and Melbourne, if more family entertainment then GC) but it then made me realize how i have never really written a post about my experience in where and when to go in Melbourne. For the benefit of friends and readers who’ve never been, here’s my take on the cosmopolitan city I called home for 1.5 years till recently.

If you only have a couple of days in Melbourne, a recommended itinerary is to begin your day having breakfast and souvenir shopping at Queen Victoria Market (except Mondays and Wednesdays when they’re closed). They have yummy mini-pancakes and oysters (if you’re a fan).

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Then spend the day touring the city on the free City Circle tram for tourists (although i think more locals hop on and off as they please to get across the city as it’s free). Melbourne city is easy as it’s shaped like a rectangle and cut into grids, just like Manhattan (my favouritest city in the world – sorry, Melbourne).

Get off at Flinders St and explore the city’s lanes; they’re my favorite thing about Melbourne. My favorite is Central Place; it’s got quirky European-like balconies and cozy cafes where you can drop by for lunch. My only complaint? It’s too short.

Cross over into Block Arcade and Royal Arcade where there’s the delightful Hopetoun tea room, halal Indian food (there’s loads of halal food in Melbourne, you’re bound to find one) and the world’s best hot chocolate at Chokolait. Then head to the shopping haven of the pedestrian mall Bourke St (or Collins St if you’re rich) for some Melbourne shopping. There are also some DFOs at Harbourtown and Essendon if you want cheaper prices.

Complete your day by having dinner and watching the fire show outside Crown Casino. They start out pretty harmless and small and then they do get pretty big so be careful if you’ve got toddlers!

If you have at least one more night and depending on the season, head to Phillip Island (2.5hrs drive south towards the Mornington Peninsula) to watch the penguin parade at sunset. No one is allowed to take pictures so I haven’t got any, but you can google it and see the professionally taken pics yourself. They’re the best touristy activity to do there and a definite must-go for me – seeing all those little penguins emerge from the sea after a day’s fishing and waddling their way home in a group is one of nature’s miracles!

If you have a bit more time, you can drive through the Great Ocean Road and see the beautiful scenery on Twelve Apostles and The Grotto. Stop at Geelong for great pier views, stay the night at Port Campbell and visit Warrnambool if you have time for some whale-watching.

My other favorite spots in the city are St Kilda and Williamstown. Both have spectacular views of the coastline – St Kilda has a great fishing pier to stroll on and penguins to watch at night, while Williamstown has a great park by the marina and has great views of the city.

I have loads of other suggestions and ideas, but here’s a highlight of the rest:

Day trip (or stay overnight at one of the lovely B&Bs) to Mount Dandenong where it’s got charming villages, beautiful parks and a view of Melbourne city on a clear day at the look out point. Eat yummilicious scones (Devonshire tea) at the elusive Miss Marples tearoom – it’s very popular, so go early especially on weekends or public holidays!

Go skiing or tobogganing at one of Melbourne’s ski resorts, such as this one at Lake Mountain.

Try to stay at a gorgeous B&B as part of your accommodation choices. Australia has tip top B&B industry, with ratings and online sites. They treat you really well and give you a delicious English breakfast to start your day.

I have recommendations for Sydney, Brisbane/Gold Coast and Hobart as well, but I think that’s enough for this post (which I am having the time to do since it’s the Xmas long weekend). Maybe I’ll do another post for those cities another time, or if anyone has a specific question feel free to write to me.

Merry Christmas everyone!

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Be careful what you ask for

In career, happiness, Melbourne on December 4, 2011 at 8:50 am

If you had nothing else to do on this glorious, sunny, shiny, happy Sunday morning, I would invite you to compare my posts in this last 1 year and divide them into two – Melbourne work life and KL work life (hey, why not.) You would see a few underlying differences, such as the reduction in frequency arising from the latter; as well as a lack of more wistful dreaming type of posts.

The simple explanation for this is simply that KL work life is much tougher on a person. Unless you’re working in the government (or a company with an almost-government culture) or in a laid-back family business like my family’s (which I have been the only one so far to abstain from joining) and you can literally live the 9-to-5 schedule, the rest of us in the private sector have to work longer hours, and harder – meaning there’s no time for petty gossip talks, trips to the bank, etc.

Ironically, this is actually something i’ve always wanted all along – to work in a fully professional corporate setting, and with a more ‘realistic’ workforce – i.e. multiple races, and even multi-national at that. So now in my new job (still new since I’ve only started 4 months ago) I completely and utterly got what I asked for. And i am very proud to be associated with the professionalism and hard-working culture of this organization. But as with everything, there are pros and cons.

Primarily, the only con is the loss of free time. There are days that I’m working so hard, I have no time to go down for a complete meal during lunch and have to settle with tapau-ing and eating at my desk. One day this last week, I was completely bogged down with work and meetings that I realized at the end of the day (at almost 10pm) that I had not eaten any meals that day after breakfast. I have been taking my dinner at 11.30pm this last 1 week, after driving home for even longer that is necessarily so at that hour  (damn KL jams).

Hence you will see the impact on my blogging. Whereas in Melbourne, I could blog every day, now I blog every 2 weeks, at best. Before I had wider, more ranging ideas and topics to talk about. Now I have to keep resorting to ‘reporting’ to you what happened in my day or something that I thought of, as I have less time to daydream and fantasize like before. I know, I know, this is a good problem, and in twitter world, a #firstworldproblem, and like I said before, I asked for this. So I’m actually OK with this at the moment, especially as I know I’m learning by the buckets. And that’s the most important thing to come out from work.

I’m on a break!

In family, Melbourne, travel on May 31, 2011 at 1:07 pm

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On the tram with the fam: Our Oz holiday.
I’ll be taking a break from blogging. See you peeps later!

Outing with colleagues to Melbourne Comedy Festival

In Melbourne, travel, Uncategorized on April 8, 2011 at 5:50 pm

I’m gonna break my usual rantings and observations by blogging about this week’s outing with a group of colleagues to a stand up comedy show at Melbourne Comedy Festival. We went to see Mark Watson who was, simply put, hilarious (albeit a rather fast-talking one!).

We had drinks at Rooftop Bar (which has the cool Rooftop Cinema), a really cool bar at the top of a building on Swanston St with awesome views of the city.

And how cool are the collage pictures from my fab Andigraf app??

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We then went to Andre’s place and had extremely good mushroom risotto and salad (and Coke for me while the others had swanky expensive white wine).

A night well spent! Alhamdulillah. Although I really don’t get to do this very often. Hopefully back in PJ nanti can do more of this kinda stuff, with family support around.

On… localism

In happiness, Melbourne on January 27, 2011 at 10:36 am

According to Wikipedia, there are 203 countries in the world (10 of which have de facto sovereignty or independence but are not widely recognised diplomatically). And thus there must be thousands of races, cultures and value systems out there (although in anthropology there are apparently only 5 human races). However, most of the time it feels like there is only only main culture that rules the world – and that is caucasian Western, mostly Americanised, popular culture.

Think about it. What are the brands that dominate our days? The movies we watch? The reality TV programs we follow? The role models (ie celebs) that we admire and endorse? The music that we sing and dance to? The cities that we dream of visiting? Rarely, if ever, do we count other cultures – especially our own – into that mix.

And the difference between them (middle to upper class/high net worth white culture) and us remains enormous despite the GFC et all. Just try and read one copy of a magazine like Vanity Fair and start counting – although I suppose reading Prestige magazine back home would be a similar exercise.

My colleague Jon from Minneapolis himself admitted this over lunch the other day. According to him, even the 2nd generation migrants to the States eventually lose their culture and become more Americanised. Back home, the sociological gap between the upper-class urbanites (ironically more racially blended, or seems to be) and the middle to lower class is obvious. The urbanites speak, act and work like the western society, striving for class, money and power. They would likely turn up their noses at local popular culture and prefer their cultured trail of English literature and art most of the time (if not all of it).

Why am i ranting about this? It’s not even close to the topic of the day of the challenge (which i’ve kind of skipped for now – the titles are becoming pretty blended to me). Or maybe it does (Day 11: Something about which people seem to compliment you) because one thing that people do say about me is the fact that I seem to mix well across all races or groups, and I think this is due to my sincere belief that at the end of the day, we are all the same. Rich or poor, western or emerging, white or black, yadda yadda yadda.

Perhaps I am thinking more about this since I currently live in a rich society (although I am unfortunately not) and I am benefiting from most of the culture and lifestyle here – developed world infrastructure (although sometimes the Melbourne train system seems worse than KL’s), food, TV/movies, abundance of free library books/free newspaper, well organised local communities (for instance, the recent Brisbane flood which brought about the Mud Army) etc. But despite it all, I have no long-term desires to migrate and live here permanently and become a citizen because I still love who I am and where I come from.

On.. getting over the next hump

In career, family, happiness, Melbourne on January 21, 2011 at 2:02 pm

Humps and bumps are aplenty in life – we are reminded on this common sense daily through observation of our own and others’ life happenings. Read the newspaper and you will discover true stories which leave you with emotions ranging from horrified, teary, amused or envious. God seems to decide on certain situations for some people, while giving more (from the human’s flawed naked eye) to some seemingly fortunate ones.

The truth is, it happens to each and everyone of us at different times and in different situations. Mainly, a new development occurs and you are left at a sudden crossroads. Having weighed your options you decide on a solution, embark on overcoming the challenge and sigh with relief, shout with joy or become disappointed (depending on the outcome of the effort). And so you move on to the next one.

The next bump in the road may not be clearly visible right after you overcome the previous one. Rather, you may be taken on a straight and rising path – which at a time may suddenly appear smooth and easy to manoeuvre. When that happens, watch out – a big bump may be building up, and suddenly the road gets rougher; the ascent becomes steeper; uncertainty beckons and you become nervous about how you’re going to overcome this sudden ‘mountain’ upon you.

Fear not, as this is life – it’s meant to be that way. If you feel like you’re not strong enough, or you feel like you’re the only one that’s come up across this huge bump, or have been given a few in a row, much more than you’d like – there are times you may feel like there’s been anything but – try and keep the faith. As my mom said to me, “What is life all about if not overcoming these challenges and becoming a better person?”

I am now at one of those crossroads. It doesn’t seem such a bad situation when i think about it – at the worst-case scenario, a return back to square one is less scary because it’s a familiar, well-trodden path, and it involves having more loved ones in our lives. At best, i can use this opportunity to discover the world that may be available for me out there. And whatever happens, I will always have my 3Fs. And so far, they all say i have the tenacity and ambition to go further (nak cuba jugak fulfill challenge topic for today tu.. ha ha).

As my mom also advised, I should now pray more, perform more specific hajat prayers and tahajjud, to find out the right path for me to take. And of course, pray for Allah to continue blessing us and allowing us to embark on another journey – physically (growing a family, working and earning more, saving for a house to settle down in), mentally (discovering another exciting chapter at work, growing as a parent) and spiritually (continued prayers and Asking for the best of both worlds).

At least, this is what i know in theory anyway.. :P

Dream kitchen

In Melbourne on January 17, 2011 at 5:41 pm

I now know how my dream kitchen will look like. Every day on the way to work, I will pass by Outpost, a cafe near my office. It has a beautiful quaint open-plan kitchen and breakfast bar as shown in this pic below taken from their website:

I love to come here with colleagues (usually after pay day :P ) or even alone, just to be able to sit on one of the stools and watch as they rustle up dishes and handle orders. The staff are always friendly and they recognise me as a local already, always asking “How’re you doing? Haven’t seen you in a while” etc – not realising that my budget is limited and I have to pick the times and dates to go in!

Don’t you just love the pic? Imagine the ambience, the hustle and bustle. That’s how I hope my own kitchen will look, feel and sound like one day.

Skipping a day (or two)

In family, Melbourne on January 11, 2011 at 10:21 am

Oops. I’ve already broken one of my new year resolutions and the 30-day writing challenge by skipping the weekend and a busy working Monday yesterday. Therefore I’ve modified my resolution (because I can :) ) to say that weekends and some working days can be an exception and I can continue with the challenge the next available day, like today.

Day 4: Something that is part of your routine that you enjoy. Hmmm.. this is going to be a tough one. I’m not sure I would say there is any part that I absolutely enjoy, but there are several moments in the day when I can appreciate an angle to one part of the routine.

I’ve already discussed my typical working day, to which I’m sure my readers would agree there’s nothing there particularly enjoyable about it – ha ha. Thus, it’s got to be another part of the day – i.e. outside of work. I’ve recounted one of my favourite moments during my train ride – about silently cheering on other fellow passengers – so again it’s gotta be something else. I do enjoy catching a rainbow on the steps to my office on a sunny day – but this being Melbourne, a sunny day’s becoming an increasingly rare commodity – even in summer, so that probably won’t do either.

Having lunch and chatting with colleagues is pretty fun but due to my limited budget, I often end up eating by myself if the rest is out or running errands (it’s a very small office). Surfing during breaks and catching up with friends/family over social networks is another favourite time of day. But I would have to say, out of all the favourite moments or little joys during the day – the absolute best time is when I reach home and am greeted by my adorable, cheeky, grinning son.

And after dinner, when DH and I are curled up on the sofa watching a good movie – or our favourite Monday night combination of Glee and Undercover Boss (surprisingly addictive!) – while Umar is lounging around playing his train set – and the day ends blissfully – is when I sigh with satisfaction and feels that everything else is worth it, and thank God silently for all His blessings.

On.. New Year resolutions

In baby, career, family, happiness, Melbourne, postaday2011, travel on January 5, 2011 at 11:14 am

Yes, you’re probably bored to death of reading other people’s resolutions by now, but what’s one more. Last time I made them was in 2009, in which I wanted to (a) pass my CFA exams, (b) cook more often (or in DH’s opinion, learn to cook), (c).. tak ingat, so long ago. In 2010, my only problem was basically figure out how to come to Melbourne to be with DH during his MBA, and still hold on to a job. Alhamdulillah, I’ve managed to achieve all of them now. So 2011 is a good time to start new ones – which are:

  1. Have a baby (and a healthy and panjang umur one at that)
  2. Blog more (and better!)
  3. Advance in my career (if not by position, salary at least)
  4. Lose 2kg and get back to my preferable weight of 50kg (obviously unless I am blessed with (1))
  5. Dance and sing more (just because it makes me happy).

Tools to make me achieve them are:

  1. Going to back to what I used 5 years ago (coz they worked then) – ivillage.com message boards, charting or OPK, and also, err.. getting Umar to sleep in a separate bed! :P
  2. Gonna take up the Post Everyday Challenge, and use this neat 30-day writing challenge (thank you WordPress!)
  3. Maximizing my job satisfaction by calling/meeting people more (as from this earlier post, I realised that I draw energy from such activities and surroundings), CFA website, LinkedIn, articles from Oprah such as this!
  4. Just Dance on Wii, dancing and singing while washing dishes (try it! It works!)
  5. Deriving from (4) above, as well as being braver to sing by myself in public (e.g. train station) ala the quote “You’ve gotta dance like there’s nobody watching, Love like you’ll never be hurt, Sing like there’s nobody listening, And live like it’s heaven on earth.” — William W. Purkey

Starting off the first topic from the 30-day writing challenge - Day 01: Something you’re looking forward to this year; which is easy – I’m looking forward to my family coming in May! The plan for now is that the whole lot is coming after Hafeez’s graduation Insya Allah (my mom, sisters, brothers in law, and niece/nephew) which will be such a blast. Hopefully all will go well with work so that I can organise and have the neccessary days off. They want to go to Sydney, Great Ocean Road and Tasmania (which I’ve heard is just beautiful) so there will be some mighty planning to make it within budget.

Oh, and another smaller resolution – I’ll be changing the blog theme every now and then. I’m planning to be more carefree this year so I shall just change it whenever I feel like it! And I’ll ask my loyal readers (which currently number the grand total of 2.. hehe) which one they like best (because according to the post, I’m also a democratic leader :P ).

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