Goodbyes & Introductions

Hey guys!

This blog post is just showing you guys photos of me moving out of my ex-flat into my new flat. Haha get ready because it's going to be messy!!



Stole a cart from the supermarket to help me move somethings.. Haha.. Super desperate!!





All my stuff in boxes again. It's like back to square 1..





There goes my bed frame.. Haha I'm going to be sleeping on the mattress tonight..

After I packed my bags and dismantled our bed frames, me and Sis had to spend the night on the couch.. It was a fun last night of bonding together..

~Transition between ex-flat to new flat~

My new room shared with roommate, Alison! Does that blue plastic shelf look familiar?





My sister's white table is now in the new flat as well..

Hehe cute right?! We placed our beds together so we will have more space in the room.. I love my new room!!


Yes, so that's my goodbye to my ex-flat and introductions to my new flat. Sorry again for the long-awaited blog post.

My Excuses for not Blogging..

Apa khabar everybody?!

I know that I have been silent for the past 2 months, but I have some very valid excuses of why I haven't been blogging. I promise, you will totally forgive me for not blogging by the end of this post.

Okay here goes my explanation:

Excuse 1.)
Hillsong Conference was keeping me super busy! I was serving in the Kids ministry and I spent 15 hours with them for 4 days. Oh my goodness, *shivers*.. That's enough to K.O. a grown adult woman, which I also happen to be.

Excuse 2.)
Right after Hillsong Conference, I mean really the next day after Conference, I moved to a new flat which was just opposite from my old flat. Imagine my body all exhausted from the Kids and now I'm moving furniture! By God's grace I did it..

Excuse 3.) ~I hope you start feelings abit sorry for me by now~
2 days after the move, I started work at this Malaysian restaurant called "Mamak" (for more info about "Mamak" click here). I LOVE working as a waitress so much, it's like Diner Dash but in real life. So much fun~

Excuse 4.)
After working for 10 days straight, which made my wallet slighty fatter, I started College again. *sigh* Yes, it's true that I never full rested after the whole chaotic, busy month..

*End of sob story*

Okay, so those were my very pathetic attempts at gaining some sympathy from my readers. Haha but even though there's suddenly so many things that got crammed into my life, I'm still enjoying and loving every bit of it.

Everybody back home, just know that I'm missing you all and I would DEFINITELY be updating this blog soon. So just hold on to your fork~

With much love,
Sandra.

A Taste of Home..

Hey all!

Wow, it's been a month since my last post. The month of May and June were pretty quiet, because of the ending of Colour Conference and the coming of Hillsong Conference.

Around the end of May, I was facing one of the most stressful times in my College life.. I did not plan my time well, so I had to cram my assessments into one week and finish them in that time before the due date.

I procrastinated, as usual, and that brought me so much stress that week. To top it off, I got sick in that week too.. So basically, I had to do 2 big assessments & write a song alone.. Sounds like a load of fun.. But it was during that time that I felt such a great sense of accomplishment & achievement that I usually lacked..

Anyway, going on to "A Taste of Home...", this post is just my Singapore uncle, U. Roger, generously buying us dinner again. God bless him!! That dinner we had was one of the most memorable meals I've had since I stepped foot into this foreign country. The reason why it was memorable was because we ordered CRABS !!!!


C'mon people! Just look at the photos and drool..... This is fried crabs with 'fun see' (Cantonese) or Glass Noodles (Aussie English).

I was the happiest Asian in the place.. I took the time to take apart the shell and eat everything nice & clean.. I even cracked open the legs to get the meat (I know it sounds barbaric, but it was really good!!)

What else made me so happy was the waiters there actually brought out the live seafood in plastic bags to show it to you after you placed your order.. They never do that in Malaysia!!



So the first photo was of my yummy, still-alive crabs and the second photo was our fish and crabs together. The guy was sweet enough to smile for the camera. Hehe.. He was actually going back to the kitchen, but I called him back to take this photo.. Haha I know, so 'hou yi si' right??

Lastly why I was so happy that night was because of the really good soup that reminded me of those Chinese Restaurants in Malaysia.. I became a little nostalgic, because usually Chinese families get this huge table that sits like 10 people and everyone will be eating peanuts and drinking tea.. But that night, it was only U. Roger, my sister & I, so I felt our table was a little too spacious and empty.. Aww sucks for me..

Anyway here's the soup~



Looks good huh?! It tasted really nice too, not like the fake Chinese food that Australian's like..

Please is there anyone who wants to send me some Nasi Lemak as a B-Day gift for me??

Hehe.. Sorry if this post was a bit too wordy.. Just had a lot that I wanted to tell you all!!

I MISS YOU ALL~~

Happy Mother's Day!

For the first time in my life, I'm spending Mother's Day away from my Mommy. It also didn't help that in Church, they were putting up pictures of Moms, flowers for Moms, gifts for Moms and even the sermon was for Moms.

Haha! It's not like I am depressed or anything, but I just felt a bit nostalgic and home sick. I only shed some tears when this child gave flowers to his Mom at Church. I was thinking,

"No one has given me flowers before..."

Lol! Yeah other than that, I had a really good & fun time at Church. All the women in our church were given a little gift on this lovely Mother's Day. This is me with my present:

Aaaahhh~~
Such as relaxing present.. I had a good 3 hour sleep after I took this picture today. Hehe..

Well this is my short little post about Mother's Day. Sorry I haven't been updating for 1 month, because my life has just been Church, College, assessments and serving and nothing much interesting.. Haha!

Have a wonderful Mother's Day all the mothers out there.

A shout-out to my Mommy:

Mom, I have to thank you for always being there for me. In every situation, you would patiently listen to me as I tell you all my troubles.

Thanks for being my spiritual mentor as well. You would pray with me every time before I lead in worship and you encourage me whenever I feel so inadequate and insecure about my abilities.

There are so many things I have to thank you for Mom, but I have to thank you for making me into the person I am today. Even the reason I'm in Hillsong is because you have encouraged me to take this step and and take 2 years away from home.

Mommy, Happy Mother's Day! Both Shirley and myself want to say, "I love you, Mommy."

~End of sappy shout-out~

Colour 2009!

Hello!!

I have been through the most busy 3 weeks of my life (Hehe my excuse for not blogging for some time)..

Lol, I had Colour Conference, Album Recording and our Easter weekend in the span of 3 weeks, along with 2 assignment deadlines slotted in there.. It was a very fulfilling time where I was stretched to my limits physically, mentally & emotionally.. So right now we have a short college break after Easter from Monday to Wednesday..

Colour Conference:

This year we split Colour into 2 conferences, so we had Colour 1 & 2. Each conference is 3 days and I thought I was going to be serving in Choir, but instead I was assigned to Kids: Cubby House (ages 0-2).

I thought I was going to pass out from serving in Cubby House for 6 days in a row, but thank God I'm still alive and going strong! The kids were so CUTE!! I had so much fun serving in Cubby House that the time just passed so fast.

Here's just some pictures I took during Colour. We weren't allowed to take photos of the children because of some Child Protection Policy, too bad..

The stage was set up to follow the theme of Colour: From a Whisper to a Shout. I don't know how they managed to get the picture of a dove on the platform.

This was Colour 1 and the place was super packed man.. Sometimes when I got to sit in for a service, I had to sit on the floor because there were no empty seats.. Unbelievable rite?!

This Esther Yap & me. 8 people have came up to me and told me I looked exactly like her. We look alike meh? I also feel like I lost my identity.. Hehe.. Maybe we do look a bit alike..

All the people serving in Kids have a certain "young" look wan, Hehe.. Cubby House leaders & volunteers:

Face-painting!! Let's do this in Vineyard as well~

All these lovely face-paints are all done by Giordana. Getting my face-painted is the one thing that kept me enthusiastic about serving at Cubby House everyday.

Thanks for reading!! Easter post coming up soon~~

Dinner @ The Wharf.

Hello~~!! I know it's been awhile since I last blogged. So so sorry!!

Anyway, my Uncle Roger from Singapore came to Australia again, so he brought us out for dinner. This time we ate at "The Wharf", which has been rated 1 hat out of 3 hats.

The Wharf has a beautiful view facing the Harbour Bridge and it is especially beautiful at night because of the many lights. The glass panels that confine the restaurant gave us a great view of the water coming into the harbour and many brightly-lit ships sailing in the night. Here are some photos of the dinner @ The Wharf:

The restaurant has a simple decoration with a warm and homely atmosphere, created by the dim lighting.

The only photo we managed to get the waiter to take for us. We don't want to be troublesome now do we? Behind us are the glass panels that allow us to enjoy the view.

This is way the menu would look if you place a candle behind it. Haha, I didn't want to use the flash on the menu, so I just used natural candle light. Gives it such a romantic feel, right?

This is a part of the beautiful view we face from our table and that is the brightly-lit ship lighted with nice hues of pink and yellow.

We ordered À la carte and shared the dishes among the 3 of us, except the main courses.

The first appetizer we ordered is:

Jamon Iberico with shaved calamari, fennel, witlof & sherry vinegar. (Jamon, pronounced hah-moan, is just Spanish ham)

Next appetizer/main course:

Risotto with field mushrooms, bacon & peas.

I really liked this risotto. It was yummy and filling. Haha I must be biased because I love any type of rice.

Shirley & Uncle Roger's main course:

Herb crumbed market fish, garlic buttered chard and mustard dressing.

They both ordered this so I got a small piece from both of them. The fish is quite fresh and springy, but after eating awhile you might get bored of the taste. Wait til you see my main dish.

Mine was the yummi-est!

TADDAA~~!! This is what I ordered:

Braised duck leg with rice noodle rotollo and water spinach.

It was SUPER nice!!! Very Chinese kinda dish actually. They actually used fried-crispy "keow teow" together with the duck and spinach. So nice.. Kinda made me a little homesick though.. Haiz.. I can't wait til December!! I miss my car..

So because I felt homesick, we ordered 3 types of DESSERT!! Kidding, sad or not, we wanted to have dessert anyway.. Here goes~

This is so cute right?! I saw the table beside us ordering, so I followed and ordered as well. It's called "Strawberry and vanilla ice-cream slice".

The middle circles are made up of lemon, lime, orange & rapsberry sorbet. I really liked this one, because it looked so colorful~ Made me happy..

For the last 2 desserts, we had the "Peppermint and chocolate souffle" & the "Chocolate and walnut bavarois with cognac anglaise".

The souffle was interesting because of the peppermint, but the chocolate bavarois won because of the cognac in the middle. Alcohol fans agreeing with me, thank you!

Haha all in all, it was a fun night full of fellowship & good food. All is well in Sandra's world.

Until next time, SEE YA~~!!

Cooking Mama - Breakfast with Sandra.

Hello!!!!!

Sorry I have not blogged for so long. These days there's just been college going on, so nothing interesting to share with you all. Not like some "people" get to go to concerts and stuff. Hehe I'm kidding la. No flames.

So this post originated from the breakfast I made on Sunday. The American Breakfast (Bacon, tomato & cheese omelet and mashed potatoes) I made looked really tasty and well presented, so I thought I could just post something up until more interesting events come up, like COLOR CONFERENCE that is in 2 weeks!! I'm going to be so tired then, but I will try my best to keep this blog updated.

Breakfast for me and my sister. She's so lucky to have me. Hehehe..

Just a brief description of how I made this:

The bacon was pan-fried to a crisp.

I mashed the boiled potato, added soy milk, butter, salt & pepper.

I put chopped tomatoes, cheddar & mozzarella cheese in the omelet.

~The End~

The Church Goes to Capitol Theatre.

Okay first off, some information!

The Capitol Theatre is one of the most famous theatres in Sydney. It is located in the heart of the city and many plays have been held there, for example, The Lion King, Miss Saigon, etc etc. It is a beautiful theatre with the ceiling designed as the night sky (twinkling stars included) and many statues decorating the entire theatre.

But the coolest thing is the management of the Capitol Theatre gave Hillsong Church an opportunity to test out the theatre. So, last Sunday we had church at the Capitol Theatre!! It was super cool and the seats are so comfy that it was so hard not to fall asleep. Best of all, I was on Choir too so I got to be on stage. Okay okay, anyway the Choir got to use the dressing rooms to warm up and keep our bags, so these are some pictures of the dressing room.

These mirrors with the lights just remind me so much of those Hollywood stars! So GLAM!! These are my friends from Choir.

The singers from Hillsong were using the "Hollywood" mirrors to put on their make up & I wanted to use the mirrors too so I took out my lipgloss. Hahahaha!

My friends Summer, Sneha & Eun. By the way, this was taken at 7:30am so my eyes still cannot open yet.

I can imagine the costumes from "The Lion King" all hanging here. So cool la this dressing room!

Hahaha this is the bathroom. I was too excited to I took pictures everywhere.

The view of the stage from my seats. After doing Choir, we had to sit all the way up on the balcony.

The balcony is pretty huge & it can sit quite a number of people. I wanted to sit at the box seats, but I didn't know how to get there.

The seats look comfy right?! I told you.. It's so soft and your body kinda sinks into the seats.

The statues decorating the theatre. It's a very Roman kinda feel to it with statues without the arms and stuff. (Sorry for the dark background because the lighting in the theatre is very dim)

My most favourite piece of the theatre would have to be the ceiling. The lights are programmed to look like twinkling stars and it gives me such a magical feeling to worship under a ceiling like this.