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Laughing and Coughing

24/4/2012

What's been going on the last few weeks? Well as we Melbourne Food and Wine Festival packed up, Melbourne Comedy Festival came a-rollin' into town.

Comedy Festival has also coincided with Steve's busy period at work as he gets to work on his busiest client so we didn't take advantage of as much as we'd have liked to. Acts in town included Stephen K. Amos, Simon Amstell, Dave Gorman, Tom Green.

Tanya recommended and organised a trip to the Spiegeltent to see Ali McGregor's Variety Night where Ali McGregor would introduce various acts. Having never been to the tent we thought it would be a good thing to do. This was before we realised the show started at 11:30pm!

Anyway in for a penny, in for a pound and we had a relatively relaxed Saturday before a late dinner and trip to the Spiegeltent.

Here you see us all ready for the show. And it was a fun show. Ali sang a few songs including a memorable rendition of Kylie's "Can't Get You Out of My Head". I now perceive the song in a whole new way. And there were a few acts including a very funny Bob Downe. Bob is one of Australia's most loved and enduring comedy characters, the creation of Melbourne born journalist, comedian, actor and broadcaster Mark Trevorrow.

The spiegeltent itself is very cute with mirrors everywhere and little booths round the edge.

After the show there was a little bit of a knees up in the tent with a live band and a talented trapeze artist / hula hooper. Steve and I were the party animals and stayed behind for an hour or so before calling it a night.

So here I was thinking I was the party animal only to wake up on Sunday with a very sore throat and no voice! Oh no! My physical being, weakened by one late night was wracked with a heavy cold that I'm still getting over almost two weeks later...I spent two days off work recovering and since then have been a bit of a coughing and spluttering mess.

Friday soon came round and there was a work gathering celebrating the previous quarter so we enjoyed tapas and drinks together.

Afterwards I met up with Steve as well as Claire and Martyn and continued the comedy gigs with a session at the Palais with Ross Noble - a very funny man. We met up with Rachel and Tim afterwards who also had tickets to see this funny man and had a late dinner and drinks. Rachel and Tim are so happy in Melbourne which is just a pleasure to see. They moved house this weekend from their serviced apartment and I can't wait to pop round.

And that's us brought up to date. Won't be as long next time!

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Classic Cars, Port and Live TV

13/4/2012

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Easter brought a long weekend and an opportunity to head up to Rutherglen for a few days. Rutherglen lies on the Victoria / New South Wales border about 300kms north of Melbourne and has a reputation for port and other fortified wines - so a perfect weekend break location for us.

A call in at Chez Dre bakery for journey snacks preceded a mid-morning departure and resulted in us hitting the Easter crowds meaning slow progress for the first couple of hours. The frustration was eased by the fact that in order to encourage drivers to take a break over holiday weekends volunteers offer free tee and coffee at reststops.

A stop for lunch by a pleasant lake in Benalla was followed by the final few kms up to Rutherglen.

Arriving in Rutherglen we headed to our B&B, a quaint little house with three rooms and after a short rest we headed out for dinner at the local pub. A decent meal was accompanied by local beer and a bottle of local pinot gris. We were then considering desert and but decided to plump for another local speciality - a bottle of durif - a heady red wine that tends to be pretty high in alcohol. We were sold on the basis we could take it home if we didn't finish it - but of course we did!

Saturday was wine tasting day and Minda had arranged our transport to ensure we could both enjoy the tasting. My limited car knowledge means that I have no idea what the model it but you can see from the photos that it was a pretty cool way to spend the day.

To keep the day simple it was four wineries in the morning, lunch and another four wineries in the afternoon. We found some decent wines and pretty wineries and the region certainly lived up to its reputation with a series of very good ports, muscats and other fortified wines.

In more detail it was Andersons (decent sparklling), Jones (very good varied selection, jolly man doing the tasting, couple of bottles bought), Scion (vineyard was also sold photos by one of the winemakers - very cool nature shots), Cofield (winery ok - but bought some salad dressings), St Leonards (pretty expensive but tasty and live music), All Saints (cheese shop, took a bit of a tasting break), Pfeiffer (turtles in the river, unusual selection of wines and a pink port bought), Stanton and Killeen (very tasty fortifieds - went back the following day to finish the tasting).

Different wineries had different things to offer from turtles living in a river next to the tasting room to sculptures made from old barrels and a variety of cats and dogs.

An enjoyable day saw us flagging by the end but with a few bottles of wine in hand to take home we returned to the B&B to get ready for dinner. Heading to the Terrace restaurant was made easy by the restaurant sending a car to pick us up which also took us home at the end. Dinner was fine but not remarkable with most courses having something that was not quite right - still an enjoyable evening however.

Sunday saw us buy pies from the award winning pie shop in Rutherglen before heading out for a bit of a drive along the river heading to a couple of wineries for tastings of our own. Warrabilla has a reputation for making the biggest durifs and that was certainly true having tasted them. We came away with two bottles (16.5% and 19% alcohol) and headed to Stanton and Killeen who on Easter Sunday were offering tastings of their vintage ports.

Five ports were on tasting going back to 1983 and all tasted slightly different and had their merits but it was actually the non-vintage 12 year old tawny port and muscat that impressed the most so a two bottle purchase was made.

Dinner was at a relatively new restaurant in Rutherglen and was again made interesting by the fact that there was a live band playing for Easter Sunday in the courtyard of the restaurant. The funny thing was that they were effectively playing to themselves as all of the guests were eating inside.

Monday was breakfast followed by a steady drive home with our haul from the weekend. We are now thinking of hosting a wine tasting evening with a few friends with a focus on ports and fortifieds - sounds fun but potentially dangerous.

The weekend away was followed by an interesting surprise. Minda managed to secure two tickets to be in the audience at the Footy Show through her well connected manager. The show is a live TV show about the AFL that has something of a cult folllowing in Melbourne.

It is something like a cross between Football Focus and Fantasy Football where serious discussion of football is interspersed with comedy sketches. Despite me offering, Minda was not that keen on going so I invited Demery from the office and and along we went. Turning up at 8.00 for a 9.30 show made for a pretty slow start with us having to go through scanners and check in mobile phones.nWhen we gave our names we were handed Post-it notes not knowing what that meant.

It didn't take long to find out as we were shown to seats in the front row of seats in the audience. A few special guests sit at tables on the floor but we were the next best thing. So the question - did we make it onto live TV - the answer - yes......................just. The panning shot at the start of the show shows us both clapping and welcoming the hosts and we also make it into shot for a couple of seconds later on - not exactly stardom but it will do us.

It was quite an interesting experience really having never been to a live TV show before. We were encouraged to clap and cheers teams, even if we didn't support them, to make sure there was always some support and whilst nobody held up a board with 'APPLAUSE' on it there was a floor manager telling us when to start and stop clapping. What was also interesting was that depending on the segment of the show and what camera was being used for the live show there was always something happening on the set, whether it be touching up the make up of the (male, ex-footballer) presenters or changing props etc.

After the show the presenters stayed behind off-air to answer questions and it became clear that some people had been on waiting lists for 5 and 7 years to get in the audience - we didn't do too badly then - and certainly enjoyed our TV 'appearance'.

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Family Chan Reunited

1/4/2012

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I've had a truly amazing 2 weeks with the most important people in my life.

Lil sis, momma and poppa came to visit and arrived in the morning of Tuesday 20th. As they arrived we bid farewell to Lorraine and Tim!

By the time of their arrival, I hadn't seen my dad for 18 months and it had been almost 12 months since I-Lin and my mum were here. And my sister was bringing someone special with her - her little baby bump!

I'm really pleased that the run up to their visit was a busy and fun time for us what with entertaining the Eastwoods and the Food and Wine Festival and the Grand Prix as that made the time go by fast. And before I knew it we were heading to the airport and I had that flurry of excitement in my round tummy.

My lil sis, I-Lin was around for a week and my parents stayed around for an additional week. We pretty much spent most of our time eating whether that was going out or buying food from the market and my pappa cooked. It was so wonderful to see them enjoy their time and we really enjoyed his cooking.

Here we are examining the baby bump but this photo was taken after a big meal so we're not sure if it's baby bump or food baby! Either way my sis definitely looks different at 18 weeks pregnant.

The poor love is suffering from lots of sickness too. It's relatively uncommon (so I've been told) for the sickness to linger at this stage of her pregnancy but there are always exceptions and it seems she is experiencing some of the more unpleasant aspects of being a mummy to be.

During my sister's week we spent 4 days in a holiday home in Sorrento which gave us all a bit more room than our little apartment. The large open plan kitchen was ideal for daddy Chan to cook in and we enjoyed some good meals there. We also went wine tasting and had a day at the Peninsula Hot Springs where we enjoyed massages and bathing in the pools.

Steve and my dad also went on a fishing charter. The sea was pretty choppy and dad suffered from seasickness but he did come home with two little fishes. Apparently conditions weren't ideal and the usual fishing spots were unaccessible due to a trawler incident the night before. Nevertheless we enjoyed the two fishes that night.

My parents really enjoyed going to the different markets and buying fresh produce to cook at home and I liked showing them around. They also enjoyed dining out and we had some yummy meals at Nobu (twice), Shoya, Ten Minutes by Tractor, Mr. Hive, Claypots(twice), The Station Hotel, Pacific Seafood and BBQ House (twice), I Love Pho (twice) and numerous afternoon tea stops with cake and coffee!

Dad enjoyed the coffee here and the fresh seafood including the huge king prawns we had at Claypots (twice in 2 days!) and the wonderful Wagyu steak at The Station Hotel. Mum loved the unagi donburi at Nobu and the second time we went she was adamant she wanted one serve all to herself and wouldn't share it. Now my mum actually has a teeny appetite and rarely eats one whole main dish herself and we also enjoyed numerous entrees but she did eat probably about 95% of this unagi donburi! She also enjoyed fresh oysters and the king prawns and fish we had throughout the two weeks.

You can see how happy they look with their food in the photos - you can tell I'm their daughter as I am the same!

I also enjoyed taking ma and pa out shopping. We don't send each other gifts for birthday and Christmas as the postage costs just don't make it worthwhile so it was nice to be able to catch up and spoil them with some goodies whilst they were over here.

We're a family of Crocs fans. I don't wear the clogs and admittedly avoid them but I do love the flip flops and other more shoe like items they have.

Here Daddy Chan is a bit bored of shopping and has had enough so is entertaining himself with the giant Croc whilst Mama Chan is trying on shoes.

I love this picture as it shows Daddy Chan in his element. He stated numerous times that one of his favourite pastimes is cooking for his family. We certainly took advantage of this! Here he is making dumplings for us in our apartment.

I have two very vivid memories which never cease to make my smile, of conversations that occurred during these last two weeks.

The first took place in Sorrento when I-Lin and I were discussing baby names and laughing at some of the names some poor kids have. We read about three brothers called Jet, Fuel and Diesel...anyway Daddy Chan chips in and says, "Well, there's a famous movie star who has called their child Sunday Roast"! We can only assume he means Nicole Kidman who has a daughter called Sunday Rose.

The second one was a conversation Steve and I were having with my parents about visiting China in the future and going on a tour to see the sights. Steve started listing what he wanted to see, "The Great Wall, pandas, Shanghai to visit our friends Rakhee and Paul (who have recently moved there) and the teriyaki soldiers"...Tasty soldiers indeed!

The photos above show the delicious food my dad prepared for us. All very tasty and all made with so much love. We were spoilt with abalone that they bought over here, steamed egg, different types of fish and chicken, dumplings...all sorts of things.

There just wasn't enough time to get round all the restaurants and for Dad to cook lots of things! But I'm really grateful for the time we did have. They left this afternoon for Hong Kong where they will spend another week. I miss them terribly.

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Laughing and Coughing

Classic Cars, Port and Live TV

Family Chan Reunited

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