There are no dresses in Brisbane (or I just don't know where to look). They are either too expensive (Temperley, Alannah Hill, Wayne Cooper) or too cheap (low-quality imports flogged for designer prices) or not suited for a wedding party. I'm trying the Valley today and if all else fails... eBay.

LOL.

In the meantime I've been busy eating my way through my trip. Roy took me for a famous sandcrab lasagne at Il Centro the night before and we had lasagne again last night at La Dolce Vita. And I had all sorts of breakfasts and lunches and snacks in between. Being here makes me feel instantly healthier for no reason other than most menus have little coded icons that represent 'Gluten Free', 'Low GI', 'High Protein' or 'Low Carb' food items. And all the little juice bars peppered around the CBD and freshly squeezed valencia orange juices at cafes reminds me not too fondly of mamak 'fresh orange' juices and Sunkists bad excuse for packed OJ in KL.

So far have managed to catch up with a couple of friends while Roy and Phuong are at work (Hsin being one of them at breakfast yesterday). Had a sleepless night due to 9pm coffee consumption at Milton with Roy and Dan (rare night that they are not home playing WoW because the server is down for maintenance) so I've only just woken up and showered and wondering if I should play WoW.

I am so bored. Forestdale is retirement retreat central with lush acreages and kookaburras so I'm moving to Roys' tonight. It's hard to tell a city girl to relax and do nothing for 24 hours. Especially after my 90-hour stint working last week. I'm not good with extremes. And I feel a tidal wave of retail therapy coming on.. hahaha!

My semi-permanent digits > 0401878903

Am in Sunny Queensland now and:

a. My uncle's place has undergone major renovation and now the new extended lounge is twice as big as the old one, there is a soundproof drum-cum-av room and a photography darkroom.
b. There is broadband wifi here now, which is a significant upgrade from dialup (hallelujah!)
c. In the frenzied rush to get my shit together 2 hours before left for the airport, I forgot to pack a dress to wear to the wedding.. although in retrospect this might be a good thing after all because I have an excuse to buy another dress...
d. The weather is abso-f*cking-lutely gorgeous (16-22 c on average)
e. A new mall just opened on Queen Street in the city
f. A new outlet mall is opening in September (which is only a couple of days away) near Brisbane Airport
g. I am trying desperately to disconnect from work (still thinking and worrying about it occasionally)
h. Am attempting to not smoke so much (which should be easy in constant company of family members)
i. Missing Nik already
j. No jetlag!

This past week has been somewhat of a blur. In between a few 3am working nights and crashing out, 9am mornings and morning coffee runs I have had no time to even think about packing. I mean, I am excited and all but it's been so crazy at work that I've just been procractinating and putting it off. Mom has been bugging me all week. I still have a couple of hours more till I have to leave for the airport. I just hope I don't forget anything important like, you know, all the shoes I meant to pack.. or something..

If for some reason you need to contact me I will only be roaming till I get an prepaid but I will still sporadically check my Maxis line for stray SMSes.

Have a great weekend!

It finally hit me that I will be leaving for Australia in less than a week. Actually, Nik reminded me over the weekend that this is my last weekend here for a month. And all of a sudden I'm panicking - I've got so much work left to sort out, loose ends to tie up, friends to see, lunches and dinners and drinks, clothes to pack, essentials to buy.. I have no idea how I'm going to do all that in 5 days! OMG!

But I really am looking forward to my cousin Justin's wedding:

Justin in Brisbane about two years ago

My earliest off-camera childhood memory of us was when our families drove to Kajang for satay. His dad had just bought a new Volvo with a sunroof, and a few of us stuck our heads out for the drive. Sunroofs were such a novelty then, even more so when you're 7 and with a bunch of peers. Now I look back and wonder if we swallowed any bugs that night screaming on the highway.. hehhehe. I wish I had a picture of us then.. I have no recollection of the satay.

And now one of us is getting married. My only bugbear is that I have nothing to wear to the wedding!!

After a week of confirming dates, changing plans, cancelling and reinstating them over and over again we finally managed to hook everyone up on the same evening and have dinner with Julian. The original plan was that Doreen cooks dinner on Sunday but we ended up at Tarbush at the newly renovated Starhill Gallery Food Village tonight instead.. which is probably a good thing in retrospect :)

Julian's moving on to greener pastures in Hong Kong and this is his last weekend here. We'll definitely be missing him, and when he leaves I will have one less food kaki to check out new restaurants with. Not to mention that I will also have one less RISK/Scrabble player to play with. But it does mean I have someone to visit in Hong Kong.. which is always a good excuse to travel!

I'm well impressed with the new lower ground area at the Starhill Gallery, which is by far the nicest "food court" I've ever seen. Have definite plans to go back and check out the other places - anyone up for dinner? Some pictures from the night:

Dinner at Tarbush

Julian stealing a kiss

Justin licks the bush

Mythai restaurant. Wonder if it's as good as it looks

Village Bar. Of all the places I think I like this one the most for uniqueness.

Drinks at W after - Steph, Justin, Nik, Doreen and Julian

Am so glad the weekend is here. This week has been very taxing at work. I have enough work to keep me working through the weekend and still have an avalanche on Monday to deal with but I've decided I need my weekends to keep my sanity intact. Thus, I have limited the rest of weekend plans to Reese's Peanut Butter Cups, Formula One and a lot of good food. Kimi is on pole! Whee!

Nothing ever turns out like you'd expect - I actually went out on the weekend! So on Friday night I decided to catch up with Irene and Tse Wei (old schoolmates) and we headed to Souled Out, then I get a call and head down to the Ivy (Gwen's just back).. and then barhopped to Blonde (Tommy's in town).. then to some mamak.. and got back at dawn. And then Saturday I had dinner with a bunch of people I'd just met at someone's place in Bangsar.. followed by some beers at dLounge. And on Sunday was that alumni gathering followed by (free) dinner with the whole jimbang at TGIF. So, umm, I have nothing to say for myself.

Girls like me are allowed to be inconsistent some times, no?

Can't wait for the weekend to come. First of all, I get two days off work which means NO work. And then there's this alumni gathering with old uni mates from NZ. And I finally will have time to catch up with my books (have picked up a few recently which have since been sitting on my shelves gathering dust) and magazines (research) and perhaps somewhere in between all that I will have time to catch up with some friends I've been meaning to meet with.

Notice it doesn't say clubbing anywhere in there. Hehe. I'm officially an ex-clubber/party person (I'll leave it to the young 'uns!) but I think I'll still be up for the occasional rave/bar visit/girlie club night when its called for. I strangely don't miss it much.

Fucking hell, I can't step out of the office without feeling like I'm going to choke. Not that its any different indoors because its smoky inside Midvalley also. I have a constant mild headache but it's distracting enough to make me constantly irritable.

The smog is getting a lot worse so do your part and see if we can all make a difference. (Site's just up so I'll send something in later)

Still no news about David's operation so I am guessing he must be in ICU like he told me. He should be there for two days so if anyone is visiting, go on Friday.

I spent my day at a photo shoot which lasted longer than I thought it would. The haze in the valley has gotten worse. Some of my colleagues are falling sick and I have a massive headache from being out in the heat. Visibility is somewhere around 50-100 metres today. Pfft.

Got bombarded by shit when I got back to the office. It's not even my shit to begin with. Am having a moment of loathing for people who can't keep track of their own shit. I don't know why I have to deal with other people's shit. Fuck that shit.

Shit, that felt better :P Now see how many times you can count that shit word in the last couple of sentences..

My friend David has just been diagnosed with liver cancer. I went to see him today at the hospital. It saddens me to see him go through all this, because if you know David you'll know that he is one of the nicest people you'd ever hope to meet and people like him are one in a million. I pray that he will be okay.

There are friendships, and then there are friendships. The sort you can fall back into after a long time and find that things are just as they always were. I met up with one of those friends yesterday. Someone whom I've known for going on two decades now, ever since I think we used to hate each other, as far as hate goes when you're both 7 years old and unaware of the how harsh hate can sound. My mom used to scare me into being civil by informing me that if I hated a person [of the opposite sex] so much, I'd end up marrying him. Obviously, things are very much different now that we've both grown up and below-the-belt digs are taken far less seriously. I enjoy these meetings. I'm almost a different person in the presence of familiar company.. much less guarded (I am beginning to think that perhaps being guarded is the norm for me, thus being much less so is uncharacteristically disarming).

From a link at catcircusoddity:

+++++

Your past life diagnosis:

I don't know how you feel about it, but you were female in your last earthly incarnation.

You were born somewhere in the territory of modern Yukon around the year 1675.

Your profession was that of a leader, major or captain.

Your brief psychological profile in your past life:
Timid, constrained, quiet person. You had creative talents, which waited until this life to be liberated. Sometimes your environment considered you strange.

The lesson that your last past life brought to your present incarnation:
It always seemed to you that your perceptions of the world are somewhat different. Your lesson is to trust your intuition as your best guide in your present life.

Do you remember now?

+++++

I am wondering why a 'blast from the past' recently sent me a text telling me I'm not being very friendly.. when for years I had the biggest crush on him and he never saw me in that light. I get stupid around him, I clam up and I once even forgot my own name when he spoke to me. I swear, I was such an idiot. And then one day I realised that it was obviously going nowhere and gave up. And ever since, I never really got round to appreciating the flirtatious remarks and double entendres he some times throws my way although I usually return them in good nature when I'm not ignoring them. Hmm.

... that I had dinner with a gorgeous Brad Pitt lookey-likey on Friday night. Well, and 4 other people :)

Haven't been out in ages so I decided to unleash my socially-starved self amongst the innocent dinner guests at Mezzanote with Nik, Roy, Mark, Sharon and Barney Brad before heading up to The Loft. The Loft sucks, by the way. All that sound is really a lame excuse for music. So I left. Boo. Hiss.

Petting my (imaginary) cat while watching Big Fish turned out to be a more entertaining alternative. Please, anyone, tell me what happened to The Loft I went to when it first opened.

I decided to wander out to the shops today, just to see what's in store for the new season. Much more subdued, colours are darker and overall look is less boho and more bespoke. Reminded me of an article Nik brought up over the weekend about how luxury brands are redefining luxury via even more exclusive channels (like handstitched suits and handtooled hardware) and I guess high street fashion is happily tagging along where it can. MNG has even released an 'exclusive' range (limited editions) that's already sold out when I went there today, and MAC has just launched their Tailormade limited edition range (which, by the way, has been pimped all over eBay for the last three weeks following the sold-out US launch). Topshop also has an exclusive range that you can only buy online (no, they don't ship here) and many other brands are jumping on the wagon. I wonder, when Limited Edition becomes a norm, will it still be Limited? After all, in the fashion world, money can buy anything.

I dunno, I'm quite happy with my eBay finds.. and with the Ringgit unpegged.. even happier!