Vivid Sydney 2013

In Sydney, there is a light exhibition that is held specifically in winter. Even though it was winter, it wasn't really cold. I survived with only a sweater. In Japan, there is a similar exhibition called "winter illumination". In Sydney, the exhibition only focuses on six points around Circular Quay and Darling Harbour. Whilst in in Japan, you can find them at different places, e.g. Roppongi, Ginza, Shinjuku, etc.

My most favorite from all of the exhibits is this "jelly fish" fiber optic lights. The pots are hanged under the railway track of Circular Quay station. The lights changes into different color and it's just oh-so beautiful. It sparks some idea to decorate the balcony with it.

As you walk towards the Opera House, you will see more of free-standing exhibitions, like the light gradation wall and the "light bulb". When I arrived at the Opera House, there were soooo many people, despite that it's on weekday. Taking pictures there was simply not worth it.

Then, moving on to the other side of Circular Quay, which is the Museum of Contemporary Art. The building is used as a huge projector screen where moving images are projected to. There was loud electrical-pop music playing along as well to make the exhibit feels more dramatic. I really love bold colours on this, just so pop!

Then, if you walk further towards the Harbour Bridge, turn to the Garden of Eden to get a spot to take pictures of the Opera House. It is much much better than going to the Opera House itself and you can actually see the moving images a lot clearer. Unfortunately I forgot to bring my tripod, which means I had to hold my hand still to get a sharp picture. It was hard, but I managed some that are quite nice. And also, that place is packed with photographers with tele lens or tripod, so getting the right straight angle of the Opera House was a fierce competition. Below are just a few of my favorite pictures from hundreds of images I took of the Opera House.

Lastly, we went to Darling Harbour to catch the water show. We passed the light exhibitions at the bridge to Darling Harbour mall and the Maritime Museum but didn't take any pictures of it, because I thought it was boring. Now that I think about it, I think it's my fault that I didn't play around with other angles.

The water show was spectacular, but Disney Sea's water show is even better, hahaha. There was water screen as well (I first watched water screen in Odaiba in 2009), which is a "screen" made from bursting water where images are projected to.

I didn't get to take picture of the Harbour Bridge because I was too tired of walking (and too scared to cross the bridge at night). Anyway, overall I enjoyed this event and can't wait for next year's Vivid Sydney! 

Trekking at Mt. Kosciuszko

We started this year by spending 3D2N at Snowy Mountains to go to hike Australia's highest point, Mount Kosciusko. This trip was on my bucket list to do in Australia because, you know, I just love hiking! That feeling of accomplishment when you reach the peak, defying all odds, it's just unbeatable. And the view of the blue sky and deep blue shadows of the mountain range are just so breathtaking.

After some research within the past 1-2 years (yep, I've already planned it that far) hiking to Kosciusko is best done in spring or summer. In summer the weather is just perfect and you will be spoiled by gorgeous view of the alpine flora, whereas in spring you can still see some remaining glacier or snow. We decided to go in summer to make use of my inefficient compulsory annual leave.

DAY 1
We drove from Sydney on the morning 2nd of January around 6 hours.We arrived at the hotel pretty late so we didn't do much other than just browsing around the area and figuring out how to take the chairlift to the start of the track.

We stayed at the Thredbo Alpine hotel, which is just across the chairlift station. The hotel is literally like a ski lodge. The walls were made out of wood, so does the creaking stairs. Surprisingly (?) the hotel rooms don't have air conditioning, so we had to open the windows widely just to get cool air in. However, the room is in decent condition and the bathroom is clean.

DAY 2
The morning of the hike, we woke up early and get ourselves prepared. This is my husband's first hike, so I needed to ensure that he's all warm and stocked with necessities (felt like I'm bringing a baby).

There are actually two tracks that you can hike to the starting point of Mt Kosciusko track (Kosciusko Express Terminal) which takes around 2-3 hours walk. We skipped that track and cheated our way to the starting point by using the chairlift. I heard several people say that the chairlift tickets are expensive, but I think it saves a good amount of time and also reserves the energy for the actual walk. We had purchased our chairlift ticket online days before, so we didn't need to queue too long to get the chairlift pass. At the end of the terminal, we were welcomed by strong cold wind and we had to take out our fleece jacket to keep us warm. We then followed the Mt. Kosciusko track up to the Mt. Kosciusko summit.

The whole path is elevated metal track, which helps reserve whatever plants or living things underneath it. It is very easy for anyone to walk the path. I even saw families with small kids walking along the path.

The view was just magnificent! Wildflowers everywhere, glacier lakes, and from the peak you will be spoiled with deep blue shadows of the neighbouring mountain range. We had lunch at the peak and took a couple of shots on the obelisk which marks the highest point, and walked back down the track.

At the intersection between Mt Kosciusko track and the Main Range track, we made a turn to see the Seaman's hut. The Seaman's hut is a small brick shelter intended to harbour stranded hikers on a bad weather.

DAY 3
We didn't do much on Day 3. We checked out in the morning and made our way back to Sydney.

 

Last photo was taken when were were just about to go back to Sydney with Snowy Mountain on the background.

My 2014 Review

Just realised that I haven't done my 2014 review post (and now it's almost the end of 2015). Now I feel it's compulsory to post this kind of topic to review how much I have achieved in the past year. It's always good to look back, appreciate your achievements, and give yourself a pat on the back :).

Thankfully, I managed to find my new year resolution via my journaling app, OneDay app. Although I haven't written anything in my blog, I'm rather active in my personal journaling app because most of the things that I tend to write about is my complaints and gratitudes - something that I don't think it's appropriate to be shared *grin*. OK, let's just move on to the achievements for 2014!

I only managed to achieve 30% of my goals. Well, I have to admit that my new year's resolution is too optimistic. But, hey, you should always aim as high as the moon ;).

WATCH NYE FIREWORKS IN THE CITY
We braved the crowd and waited for almost 12 hours to watch the fireworks in the city! I'm already trained to doing some crazy queues and waiting, so I was mentally prepared. We secured a spot in Bradley's Park (Milson's Point station). It was definitely worth the wait. But if someone asks me if I would do it again, perhaps not in the next 5 years.

FINISHED HALF JUZ A DAY
This year I participated in the Half-Juz-a-Day movement. Initially it was a part of my preparation towards Ramadan so I can finish the whole Quran in a month during the holy month. Alhamdulillah I did manage to finish half juz a day for about 1-2 months.

I think the movement is really good to encourage people to read Quran more frequently. However, the way they run the program just doesn't completely fit me. I constantly had timing issues because I usually start reading after work or just before bed, and that would already be too late for them to close off the whole round of khatam for the day. Also, the ways they deal with the shift if someone was on period is just not how I believe it should be. Thus, I decided not proceed further with the movement.

HAJJ AND UMRAH
Alhamdulillah alhamdulillah alhamdulillah, Allahu Akbar! We are very fortunate to be able to go for hajj this year. It was a miraculous journey, and I can't thank Allah enough for the invitation. It was a journey of a lifetime and we really hope to be able to return there very soon.

GOT A PERMANENT FULL TIME JOB
Because my employment status before I went for hajj was still a contract, I tried to look for a permanent job around my office before I go for long leave (if I didn't have to resign).

I was rejected for two permanent position because I was going for a long leave for hajj and they needed someone quick to fill in the vacant positions. I was half doubting, "how will I be able to find a permanent position within 1 month?"; and half pushing myself to keep the faith in Him. Somewhere in my heart, I was trying to tell myself, "Allah knows that you're doing this for Him. He won't let you down."

Then, when I was doing one of the interview I referred my colleague within my team, whose position was about to be made redundant, to the interviewer. Long story short - eventually, my colleague got the job. And because her position then became available within my team, I was promoted to full time employee! Alhamdulillah! Indeed, Allah didn't let me down. He, again, showed me how anything is possible for him, as easy as flipping the palm of your hand.

WATCHED WICKED THE MUSICAL
The only musical I would ever be excited about! And we got the chance to watch it at the Capitol Theatre in Sydney, not only once, but twice (due to a stupid mistake that I did).

At the first show, where I bought the tickets on pre-sale, we were lucky to have all main casts there. Lucy Durack and Jemma Rix singing were flawless! Worth every penny that I spent!

MY FIRST EXPENSIVE BAG
Yep, I've always wanted at least one :P. It's not a Louis Vuitton, Balenciaga, or Chanel. It's a humble Tory Burch mini double zip bag. I got it on 30% off from mywardrobe.com (unfortunately they have closed down since). But guess what, until now, I still haven't worn it anywhere.

NEW CAMERA MACHINE & LENSES
I didn't realise that this was even on my list! Since we already own a DSLR, although it's old it's still working wonderfully, we settled on a new mirrorless camera. And I also got an additional portrait lens.

Happy birthday to me!

Yesterday was my birthday! Wohoo! Happy birthday to me!

Recalling two years ago in 2010, my birthday was in between Tokyo-Jakarta. I bought a cake from my favourite cake shop Fujiya in somewhere near a station along the Den-en-toshi line and celebrated alone (one night in advance). I arrived in Jakarta exactly on the 21st of August and I don't think anyone recognised my birthday. Later that night I was very tired and went to sleep right away. The next day, my friends made a surprise visit (which was actually a failed surprise :D *my fault) to my home bringing me a wonderful & delicous mocca cake. Ah, I missed them soooo much and they were kind enough to make a visit and celebrate my belated birthday.

On 2011, my birthday was in the last 10 days of Ramadhan. Me & two of of my besties were doing i'tikaf at Masjid BI, our favorite place to go for i'tikaf. On that night, I was the first to arrive at Masjid BI because my friends had a break-fasting event at their office. When they arrived, to my surprise, they brought a round chocolate cake! Complete with candles. I was a bit panicked because blowing candles in a mosque is not appropriate. Some Muslim rejects to "blowing candle", and some just takes it easy... but since it was at the mosque (!?), what can you expect!?!? "Is it okay to blow the candle or should I just kill the candle with my fingers!?". Then, there was this lady whispering to me, "hurry up! just blow the candle." Maybe she doesn't want others to noticed the birthday accident :P. I was really touched.

On 2012, my husband was the one who gave the first greeting! Thanks, love ;). But he was too early though, it wasn't even August 21st yet in Indonesia! Yes, we were still apart at that time because my flight to Sydney was rescheduled to August 24th :(.

On 2014, my colleague was very sweet. She went the extra mile to bake me a red velvet cake with Lindt cherry chocolate on top. I would never thought someone from the office would be so kind enough to do that for me! *lots of hugs for Sarah*. The team celebrated my birthday as well with a morning tea, which I thought was also sweet, considering that I was 'supposed to' take 'birthday leave' on that day!

Cherry Blossom Festival

This year we managed to visit the Cherry Blossom Festival in Auburn Botanical Garden. The previous years, we usually missed it because we didn't know it existed. Auburn Botanic Gardens is regarded as the best place in Sydney to view cherry blossoms, so we just can't miss it this time! The festival itself was held on August 16-24.

It just feels weird having cherry blossom blooming in August. But, hey, this is the southern hemisphere! Spring IS in August!

The Cherry Blossom Festival is held in the Japanese garden area of the botanical garden. There is one main pathway with rows of cherry blossom trees on each side, and plenty of cherry blossom grooves on the other part of the garden. It truly felt like I'm going back to Japan. Even some people thought I was in Japan (well duh, it's August, so technically it's impossible!).

My 2013 Review

My 2013
End of the year! It's time to contemplate of what I have achieved this year and also time to make a list of resolutions for the upcoming new year 2014!

As far as I can remember, I don't think I actually made a list of resolution for 2013 *oh how I wish I had*. So, I will just share on what I have achieved this year - with no planning:

GOT MY AUSYTRALIAN PARTNER PROVISIONAL VISA (TR)
Finally I'm eligible to stay indefinitely in the land of kangaroos and koalas! This means I'm allowed to find a full time job too, alhamdulillah!

APPOINTED AS MENTOR FOR TEENS HALAQAH
I never thought I'd ever receive an offer to be a mentor. This is absolutely a huge responsibility! But with the help of my mentor and support from my husband, this has become a learning opportunity for me too in becoming a better servant to Allah.

GOT MY FIRST AUSTRALIAN JOB
I was offered a role in the same company and department that I have worked for in the past (for their Sydney office) after 3 months of intense job seeking and after 4 unsuccessful interviews. In this event, God's hand played a huge role. Because looking at my experience and current state, there is no way I would have landed a job without His miracle and also the du'a of my closest people. So, this is my greatest miracle, story, and achievement this year.

EARNED MY FIRST AUD!
Alhamdulillah my first official job pays well. The first time I got my salary transferred to my account, I was in shock. I've never earned that much money in a month! Let alone working in only four days a week. Even saving up my allowance money and seeing it reach $1000, seems like already a lot for me *terharu*.

FLYING SOLO
This doesn't mean that I went on a solo flight or a solo adventure :P. Flying solo here means that I'm trying to be independent financially by having my own little business. I opened a small shop at Etsy, selling my calligraphy artworks. Alhamdulillah I've sold two of my works so far. Unfortunately, due to the increasing busy-ness, I haven't had time to update the shop (I turned off the ad campaigns) and has been progressing very slowly in coming up with new designs. For 2014, I have to be more productive in making artworks so I can really keep my business going.

LEARNED NEW COMPUTER PROGRAMS

• Adobe Illustrator - Essential for my calligraphy business :)
• R (statistics software) - Learnt this while I was still looking for a job. I tried to enhance my skills in my area of expertise, which is market research and data acquisition, so I took classes related to statistical methodology, computation, data analysis, and marketing.
• Easiquest (questionnaire design software) - Learnt this in office as a part of my role.
• Unix (systems) - Learnt this in office as a part of my role.

I CAN FINALLY SEW! 
Finally, after abandoning my sewing machine for some time due to my fear of failing in sewing, I gathered the courage to actually start! I tried to make a skirt, but foolishly cut short the front side of it after realising that the front part and the back part of the skirt don't actually align. But I succeeded in making curtain covers for my shelves :D.

I have prepared a new list for 2014. It is quite ambitious. I'm not even sure if I can tick all of them by the end of next year, but at least I know what I want to achieve :).

InshaaAllah me and hubby will be spending our New Year's Eve at Bradfield Park, Milson's Point to see one of the best fireworks in the world. So excited!

*reposted from my old blog

Don't Let Your Dreams be Dreams

Source: http://bazzerio.tumblr.com/

The sentence in the above picture is one of the powerful sentence for me, I have it up on my Twitter page. It gives the sense of refusal to give up and strong will.

Sometimes I see people with goals and dreams, but seems like they didn't prepare or actually did something to achieve it. For me, every second counts. Once you fail to make a good use of your time, no one knows how much you will regret it in the future. Time keeps running, yet sometimes we don't act fast enough to keep up with the pace.

Don't let your dreams be dreams. Act to achieve and realise it. It's a reason you're living your life day by day. To be able to go through each and every day. Sometimes the end result just doesn't matter. The path towards it, the ups and downs you went through, is nothing but to make you a better person.

Don't let your dreams be dreams. How do I do it?

1. Make a list of what I want to achieve. No boundaries, just write anything that you want to achieve, even the most ridiculous ones. Because I believe, by writing it, it will remind us of our target so we can focus on it and unexplainably miraculously will help us achieve it. I have a couple of personal experience where my dreams that I wrote in a piece of paper came true one by one, and I never ever expect it to actually happen (sometimes I even forgot).
2. Make bullet points of the things you need to do to be able to achieve it. Sometimes I do this, sometimes not. But if is a big goal that I need to structurally plan the small actions, I will definitely make bullet points.
3. Don't just work hard, pray hard as well. I personally believe that what I had achieve is not merely because of my skills, but God's hand plays a big role in my life, my plans, my goals, my dreams, and my achievements. So, if someone says I'm lucky this-and-that, I'd say alhamdulillah, this isn't luck, I prayed hard for it.

So, what are you waiting for? Have a dream,write it down, and live your life realising it :).

Keep Calm and Stay Positive

Uncertainty after uncertainty, that's what I've been going through in my journey in job seeking. At one point I was on fire and another point I was desperately pessimistic. Every time I was feeling down after I heard no news after an interview, I would lose the will to look for more opportunities. But I keep feeding my positive dog with positive thoughts. It's hard, I know, but I know I've got to do it. I keep telling myself not to stop looking, not to give up trying, it's just a matter of time inshaa Allah. If I stop looking, I might miss out on a really good opportunity. If I give up trying, it means I'm delaying my success. With all energy that I have left, I'm still pushing myself. I refuse to give up. 

Last week I gathered up the courage to start applying again. It was on Saturday. I was quite bored and I thought that I didn't want to miss any opportunity that came up during that week, so I applied to some vacancies. I counted the number of applications that I sent. It was seven; seven applications. On Monday, I got a call. Surprise, surprise, it was from my past employer (I sent application on that Saturday). I was very happy. That was the phone call I've been waiting all my life here in Australia. I got an invitation for an interview the next day. I prepared beforehand and made sure I wasn't going to be late like my last interview (which was embarrassing). I made sure everything was perfect. I did my best, and will let Allah do the rest. I still haven't got a call back though, but I'm hoping it will come in soon. But if I didn't get the job, I will go back feeding my positive dog again and reminding myself again "just a little bit more...". 

Halal Spot: Billu's Indian Eatery

Sorry for having delayed this post for sometime! A couple of weeks ago when we were moving out, me and husband went to eat out at Billu's Indian Restaurant. It's my second visit there (the first was in January). As the name says, Billu's is an restaurant located in Harris Park which specialises in Indian cuisine. Billu's has been around for 23 years. The restaurant is quite fancy, but you don't need to dress properly tho. I realised that on my trip this time, they have this exclusive menu book and the waiter/waitresses looks very preppy as well! It's as if you're being treated in an exclusive dining. Love it!

This time I ordered butter chicken and basmatti rice, while Honey opted for biryani as usual. On our first trip in January, I ordered chicken tikamasala and cheese naan. The butter chicken was really nice and tasty! And it goes really well with basmatti rice (or naan). The biryani is very flavourful. You can really taste the mix of the spices. Oh, and it tastes really spicy (for my tongue). If you love strongly-spiced flavoured food, then this is it. Their naan bread is really wonderful! And, oh, you should try their cheese naan (eat while it's hot). It's the best! Can't go wrong with that.

Aside their Indian main course, they also have glass display full of sweets that you can buy in bulk (in kilograms). We tried one of it, gosh I forgot the name, but the shape is like a big chocolate ball. It tastes awesome! The inside is solid, it's not like a sponge cake. It's sweet and you can taste a hint of lemon in it. I would definitely buy more to stock up at home! But unfortunately we still have some cookies left, so we would like to finish it first. I can't wait to go there again, as I would really love to try other sweets!

I really recommend this place for dining out (dinner) or just hang out with your friends at daytime to enjoy the sweets. I would definitely go back to try other menu!

Billu's Indian Eatery

62 Wigram Street

Harris Park NSW 2150

www.billu.com.au

(photo will be posted when I have transferred the pictures from husband's iPhone :P)

Black Forest Cake

On Eid Adha, my husband's pengajian held a family gathering. I was assigned to bring cake (as usual; I got a nickname "bakery" from my pengajian). And some of the wives requested something chocolatey like a blackforest cake or a mud cake. There's actually a mud cake that I've been really wanting to try from The Great Australian Bake-off book, but since a mud cake look too plain, I went for a blackforest cake instead (even tho I'm not that fond of blackforest). 

I used a recipe from Allrecipes.com. I got soooo many compliments with the cake. My friends said the cake is not too sweet or too milky-tasting. And when I shared the recipe, another friend of mine said, "it looks really easy to make". Indeed! You don't need to cream butter and sugar, which is a lot of time saving.

INGREDIENTS:

Cake:

• 2 1/8 cups all-purpose flour
• 2 cups white sugar
• 3/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
• 1 1/2 tsp baking powder
• 3/4 baking soda
• 3/4 tsp salt
• 3 eggs
• 1 cup milk
• 1/2 cup vegetable oil
• 1 tbsp vanilla essence/extract

Cherry filling:

• 2 (450 gr) cans pitted cherries
• 1 cup white sugar
• 1/4 cup cornstarch
• 1 tsp vanilla essence/extract

Frosting:

• 3 cups whipping cream
• 1/3 cup confectioner's sugar

DIRECTIONS:

1. Preheat oven to 175 degrees C. Grease and flour two 9 inch round cake pans (I used square pans).
2. Combine flour, sugar, cocoa, baking powder, baking soda, and salt. Add eggs, milk, oil, and vanilla essence/extract and beat until well blended. Pour the batter into prepared pans.
3. Bake for 35 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the centre comes out clean. Cool cake in pans on wire racks for 10 minutes.
4. Drain cherries, reserve 3/4 cup juice. Combine 1/4 cup of the reserve juice, cherries, and sugar in a saucepan. Combine the other 1/4 cup of reserved juice and mix with cornstarch. Heat the saucepan and stir just until the sugar dissolves. Then add the cornstarch mix and cook until it thickens (use high heat if you don't want most of your cherries to break apart). Turn off the heat, then add vanilla essence/extract.
5. Combine whipping cream and confectioner's sugar in a chilled bowl. Beat with mixer at high speed until stiff peaks form.
6. Assembling: Split the cakes into halves. Crumb one of the halved layer for decorating the sides (I didn't do this, I just saved the layer to make a mini blackforest, as pictured in this post). Brush the layers with the last 1/4 cup of reserved cherries juice to moisten the cake. Spread 1 cup frosting on a layer and top with cherry topping. Repeat process for the second layer. Top with third cake layer and frost sides and top of the cake. Shave some dark cooking chocolate, sprinkle it around and on top of the cake and decorate the cake with the remaining frosting.

Source (with small changes in directions).