Dander Nawngs

Ah, summer, where the days are hot and the nights... are just as hot. Where the stifling heat induces a lethargy causing one Malaysian boy to laze about in his couch and watch the cricket.

"How much cricket have you watched, HK?" I hear you ask.

I have watched so much cricket, I nearly understand the game now. That's how much cricket I've been watching!

I'm just glad Mum is here, and also if you haven't been updated yet, my brother has a girlfriend now!

(WHAT??!! I hear a scream all the way from Melaka/Kuala Lumpur. I can see her as she speeds off in her car towards the airplane, driving at breakneck speeds down highways, screeching to a halt in front of the KLIA, jumping out, infiltrating her way past the security guards, getting onto the airplane, getting off at Melbourne International, desperately flagging a taxi, hurrying the poor taxi driver to our address, slamming the taxi door as she gets out, ringing fervently at the doorbell, and then when my brother opens the door, she slaps him across the face and asks, "WHEN WERE YOU GOING TO TELL ME?"

Soon, little sis. Soon.

I was just about to ring you and then you showed up in front of the house already...)

Anyways, because Mum is here, we've got to do all the fun things that we normally wouldn't have done before! And we decided to visit the Dandenongs today! The Dandenongs is this beautiful mountain ranges about an hour's drive away from the city, and it has two main features:

1) Breathtaking sceneries and fairytale quality forests

2) Restaurants that have tried to retain a certain British country charm about them.

We made the drive up today, and Mum was equipped with her brand new state-of-the-art pink hat to face the blazing sun. We started off in the mornings at this beautiful vantage point called the SkyHigh Viewpoint. It was a cloudless day and we could see Melbourne sprawled before us:

We lost a dollar in this telescope machine because my brother and my mother read the words ' Out Of Order' out of order. I wish I was making this up.

What is my brother looking for?

Found her! And now, to locate a chiropactor.

There's a trend developing here: We have something against tables.

Mum with the right hat for the occasion. This is like something out of an Enid Blyton book. I offered her my pink cowboy hat, but she rightfully refused.

My brother and D said something to offend me, so I shrunk them, but only for awhile.

We had our fill of photos and panorama, and then moved on to Olinde, one of the nearby stuck-in-the-1800s-English-towns, and had a wonderful lunch at a lovely restaurant called Pie In The Sky (cleverly named, but, the acronym is not flattering at all!):

We had our pick of food...

The food was great, but there was an intense shortage of chairs...

There were some marvellous pies up there, and I really enjoyed my beef curry one, but I thought that the ones my brother and D had, with burgundy and Guinness had that extra zing about it! (My brother was drunk and singing Christmas carols loudly by the third bite!)

We had our fill, and Mum browsed around in the local shops for awhile, before we finally headed down towards Sassafras, for the legendary Miss Marple's teahouse. This teahouse is based on a character from an Agatha Christie novel, and serves really good scones and desserts. We were full but that didn't stop us. Nothing has stopped us since Christmas Eve, come to think of it.

Bliss.

In the foreground is the scones for which the place places it reputation. There is a lovely intense strawberry jam and whipped cream which goes with it. Mah-vellous, deah!

The ice cream in the corner was called 'the Vicar's folly'. It should have been called 'The Road to Hell Is Paved With...' It was sinfully delicious! There was whipped cream, hazelnut ice cream, and big broken Crunchie bits added into the ice cream! Can you see the satisfied furrowing of my eyebrows and the soft guttural 'Uumph' arising from my mouth as I bite into this one?

"Don't you watch your calories?" "Yup, for about three seconds before I devour them!" (old joke!)

"Wait! We're not ready to take the shot yet!"

"Okay, NOW we're ready!"


Jingle bells, jingle bells, Christmas was last month,
We'll continue, to use the store, as a money laundering front!

And there you have it, ladies and gentlemen, New Year's resolution decimated to nothingness in less than a week. For advice and guidance on discipline and self-restraint, please read someone else's blog. Happy New Year!