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A busy month, but I mostly only took food pics? Oops.

We went out for gnocchi for my friend Jen’s birthday. Our group took up almost the whole restaurant. I had vegan gnocchi and it was a fun and delicious evening.

One of Scott’s #SMAJs was to take us to the Werribee Open Range Zoo. We walked around a lot and saw lots of stuff, like the elephants, hippos, zebras and gorillas… but we didn’t go on the safari bus! Which is apparently like the best part of the zoo!! Because we didn’t know that it was free!!!

(The key part of SMAJ activities is that Scott is supposed to do all of the planning and research and I just get to show up, so I had not talked about the zoo with anyone ahead of time because I didn’t know we were going.)

So a little bit of a SMAJ fail. We still did have a nice enough time, but maybe didn’t see everything there, and definitely not as close. It did make for some funny conversations at work the next day when they told me that the bus was free. I guess we have to go back some other time.

We went to see the Crash Test Dummies! I thought it was funny when they asked “Who listened to us in the 90s??? Who are the adult children of people that listened to us in the 90s???” (Me.) The dude still has a super low voice. They are one of the few bands that I know most of the words to their songs.

I voted in the Canadian Election. At least I think I did. The envelope has one of those Postage Paid printed stamps… I don’t know how high priority that gets sent through the postal system.

I woke up on a Saturday morning desperate for a cold cut sandwich. So we headed to Saul’s Sandwiches for lunch and had a lil picnic in the sun. It hit the spot.

Damien cooked up an epic Easter lunch for the whole family, with lamb and potatoes, and we all brought salads. Jemma made a delicious carrot cake. I feel spoiled.

Another #SMAJ! This time he took us out to try Burmese food, under recommendation from his new Burmese coworker. We just ordered things that we hadn’t heard of before. Everything we tried was tasty!

We had a very spontaneous afternoon games sess with Michael and Gina. Maybe it’s better to do it this way? Short and sweet and no pressure to clean and prepare everything perfectly. We played Finspan.

KNITTING UPDATES:

I started a pair of fingerless gloves because I wanted to try knitting with mohair, and finished the pair of slightly tweedy ribbed socks. I really like how the mohair looks, and how the socks turned out.

I nearly finished the drab sweatshirt, and then ordered a bunch more wool for a blanket and a cardigan and realised that maybe I am always drab.

Unpictured stuff:

  • Between Scott and I, approximately one million medical appointments. There was some concern that my heart was going too slowly but turns out everything is fine, I am just healthy.
  • I went to Hawthorn to watch the Oceania weightlifting comp. Enjoyed how supportive (aka LOUD) the Samoan team is of each other. Nice to catch up with a few of my old weightlifting buddies, but they did not manage to convince me to start weightlifting again.
  • Scott started working!!!!!!!!! He is enjoying the job and they seem really good and organised!
  • We planted 50 bulbs of garlic. If they grow properly, you may receive garlic as part of your Christmas gift.
  • I started going to pickleball drill sessions where we just do drills for two hours. Some might find it boring but it’s been really helpful for me and it’s very physically and mentally challenging. Ana is very strict about technique. I now do 2-3 social sessions a week and one drills session.
  • We went to watch the movie Sinners which I enjoyed quite a bit! I think it was good that I went in blind as well.

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Just a quickie little post.

Scott made chocolate shortbread cookies with the wombat cookie cutter he got at the Lost Trades Fair. He made them again another time with a shredded coconut “fur” as well. Adorbs.

I continued to play pickleball three times a week.

And I continued to minorly injure myself at pickleball. This was from my partner crashing his paddle into my hand when we were both going for the same ball. Lesson learned: remember to call the ball.

PS the bruise is gone but there is still a lump underneath the skin from this… several months later… should I be concerned??

I finished one ribbed sock. I think they look quite professional if I do say so myself. My most successful socks so far.

I continued working on my drab sweatshirt. Pretty happy with this one as well.

I went to a board games night at Bis’s where we played Rosemarie’s copy of Finspan. For a first time playing, five player game, it went quite well, it didn’t drag on too long. Finspan is simpler than Wingspan.

Unpictured stuff:

  • We did a barefoot bowls session at Scott’s club with my work team. Scott came and helped. We had a good turn out and the bbq was great and everyone enjoyed the cheap prices at the bar.
  • Scott had an interview at UniMelb and ended up getting the job! Hooray!!

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So after Malaysia, Rosemarie came back with me to Melbourne to hang out with us for a couple weeks while Scott was still not allowed to BLT (bend, lift, twist). She is a good sister/sister-in-law.

As usual we tried to cram a million things in so we had to have a group meeting about our goals, and a whiteboard, and a schedule. This is normal family behaviour, right? Rosemarie wanted to see an emu in the wild… unfortunately we didn’t find any of the four-legged variety for her.

We checked out Moomba. Saw some waterskiers and some jetpack people and some skateboarders. Got tacos and horchata from Dingo Ate My Taco.

Piccolina vegan pistachio ice cream. Yum.

We made Nagi’s beef rendang and tried three player Unfair a couple times. Still hate it. Scott sold it after that.

Rose and I drove across town so I could play free pickleball and she could have a swim. Then we went to Girls & Boys ice cream shop, the completely vegan ice cream shop I love. The lady scooping our ice cream told us about her explosive diarrhea. But the ice cream was amazing, as usual.

The next day I dragged Rosemarie to my usual pickleball session where we accidentally dressed the same and confused every single person there. They still have not recovered from this.

We went to the new St Kilda Pier to see penguins for free. They haven’t opened the penguin viewing platforms though so instead you have to cram together at the fence and hope a penguin decides to come out into the open. A few did, but I forgot to put the memory card in my camera so this fantastic phone picture is the only photographic evidence you’ll get.

Rosemarie really wanted to use our new mixer to make a pavlova. It turned out great! We brought it to family dinner at Jemma’s house.

My friend Steph told us about a free archery session we could do for International Ladies Day. It was fun to try a new thing and catch up with Steph (unpictured).

White-plumed Honeyeater
Magpie Goose
A lot of Magpie Geese
Emu

We went on an excursion to Serendip Sanctuary, near Geelong, to try and find Rosemarie an emu in the wild. It’s a lovely state park, with lots of different short walks and bird hides. The emu was technically in an unenclosed area, however I think it does get its food from the park, so not sure if that counts as wild or not. Most of the emus I’ve seen have been in campgrounds though, so I guess that’s just kind of how they get their food.

On the way back we stopped at Tofu Shoten, where we ordered one of everything. This was something like a strawberry mochi red bean deluxe dessert. It had a lot of elements. I liked some parts but not the others. Rose and Scott got things with matcha and coffee and I can’t remember what else. We also bought some biscuits that I really liked, and some savoury tofu for cooking later.

Cookin’ sisters.

Our final project was to make roti at home. The dough was easy enough to make in the mixer, and once we accepted the sheer quantity of Nuttelex we needed to stretch and form and shape and fry the roti, they turned out pretty good. We made plain roti and egg roti, served with a random curry pack we had in the freezer, and then a dessert course of Mars bar roti. Epic meal.

Unpictured stuff:

  • Between each of these activities, we played A LOT of board games. We played Everdell, Orleans, Kingdomino, Wingspan, Unfair, Qwixx, Empire’s End, Drop It, Welcome To, Deep Sea Adventure, Concordia and Crokinole.
  • We did NOT play Finspan because it arrived two hours after Rosemarie left. Womp womp.
  • We took Rose to the footy and we got drenched by ice rain and had to move undercover but still had a good time.
  • Rosemarie helped me fix up the backyard that desperately needed some attention. We did some major lemon tree prunage. Thanks sister.
  • We went to trivia in the boonies with Ash and Charlie and we won!
  • Rose did a bit of work, Scott did a couple job interviews.

All in all, it was an excellent visit and we were sad for her to leave. I wish we could spend time together all the time.

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Just a quick little post as there’s only like 18 hours left of the trip, but I couldn’t skip posting about my favourite roti of the entire trip!

So we had one night back in Kuala Lumpur before we were flying back to Melbourne. We booked a hotel near the airport rather than bother going back into actual KL. After flying in from Kota Bharu we caught the free airport shuttle to the outlet mall, where I bought a cheap pair of Nikes, and then dropped our bags off at our hotel.

Then we walked around the neighbourhood to find something for dinner. We picked an Malaysian/Indian-ish mamak because it looked like we could get roti again, even at nighttime, a rarity.

The guy in the drinks booth was very funny. He was like TAKE A PICTURE OF ME WHILE I POUR THIS TEA!!! We had a couple more limau ices, delicious.

We tried rojak again, but decided it’s not our favourite. And we got some tandoori chicken that was GREAT. They really know how to cook meat well in Malaysia.

And some roti of course. Plain, and KAYA. They absolutely loaded it with kaya and it was amazing. (Not sure why they still served with daal though.) As a person who never really liked any breakfast spreads, the discovery of kaya has been life changing.

Happy sister.

Another reason we love Malaysia – they use Planta for everything, which is dairy free!

After eating the kaya roti I asked the man if they would be open the next morning, and he said yes because they are open 24 hours a day! So we went back the next morning and had it again for breakfast. :D

Happy Kat.

We went for a quick swim at the hotel and then headed back to KL airport, which is pretty much like a mall itself. We had curry laksa and got bubble teas to take on the plane. Great.

Even my $6 airplane nasi lemak was pretty decent for plane food.

And then Rosemarie and I headed back to Melbourne!

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Prepare yourselves to see a lot of mango smoothies. :D

It was a bit of a journey to get to the Perhentian Islands, but it was seamless. We flew to Kota Bharu, then caught a one hour Grab to Kuala Besut Jetty, and then a half an hour ferry that delivered us right to our accommodation. We got the last two spots on the boat, right at the front with all the bags. This ended up being extremely painful because the boat only seemed to have one speed (very fast), and every slam of the boat onto the waves reverberated up our spinal columns and turned them into dust.

We had three nights booked on the small island, and two nights on the big island.

We ended up arriving at our hotel in Coral Bay way before our room was ready so we went for a swim, checked out the restaurant next door (10 out of 10 mango ice blended), walked to Long Beach on the other side of the island, and swam again.

Ramadan had just started, and it was only the very very beginning of the tourist season there, so probably about 75% of the resorts and restaurants were closed. Options were quite limited at some points but there was still enough open for us to be looked after, with some flexibility. And on the plus side, there was barely anyone around so nothing was busy or crowded.

The customer service at Ombak was really great, like fancy resort style, but our actual room was pretty dingy, so we didn’t spend a lot of time in there. And there was A LOT of mosquitos so you need to have bug spray and cover up as much as possible at night.

Playing games in the resort restaurant area with my emotional support bug spray and my anti mosquito pineapple pants.

The view from our resort.

We booked a full day snorkeling trip for the next day, as this was what we had come to Perhentian Islands for. We went to a bunch of different places and they were all pretty amazing. At one of the places we saw more reef sharks than I have ever seen before, combined. Dozens and dozens of them! Very cool. Another place had huge turtles. One place had sooooooo many anemone with clown fish in every single one. We also saw sting rays, and lots and lots of types of fish.

I don’t have any underwater pictures because my GoPro died on Christmas Island.

We stopped at a beach as well. Rose and I did a game where we had 5 minutes to find the best piece of coral we could. I picked mine because I think it looks like a lizard, and Rose picked a piece of ROCK ON coral.

Back at Amelia Cafe for a pre-dinner snack (and game) because how could we possibly fast from 5:30pm to 7pm while the restaurant people had a break during their DAY LONG fast. Hehe. We had banana Sneakers roti, and mango ice blendeds, of course.

Exploring the much fancier resort next to ours at sunset. (Waiting until we can eat again.)

Then fish BBQ for actual dinner! We tried barracuda and kingfish. It was like $10 for a big piece of fish, rice, potato, salad, and fruit. Loved it, although it did take a very long time to come out.

The next day Rosemarie booked a few dives so I had a solo morning. I went for a walk and found another big monitor lizard. And got eaten alive by mosquitos.

Alone-y lunch back at the local. Delicious nasi goreng and a low mango mango blended.

I saw a lot of support for Palestine all throughout Malaysia. So refreshing.

When Rosemarie got back from diving we went for a little hike up to the windmills. It was hot. I got even more mosquito bites. And you probably shouldn’t go for a hike in a damp full body bathing suit. We got really stinky.

We had fish BBQ for dinner at Amelia Cafe again. I got barramundi and Rosemarie got a whole squid.

The next day Rosemarie did one more dive and I tagged along and snorkeled.

We had one last breakfast at Amelia Cafe before catching a boat taxi to the other island. We had three types of roti. We always had the same waiters looking after us every time we ate there because they get no days off! They were always asking us funny questions. When we told the waiter guys it was our last meal there they wanted to take a picture with us, haha.

Quick and easy boat taxi trip to the other island. The big island is bigger, but has less options on it. Again the service at our hotel was great (complimentary banana bread!), but the entire building felt like it was made out of sponges.

Hammock time. And the view from the big island to Fishermans Village on the small island. We heard a lot of prayers sounds from that mosque, at all times of day.

This was not our best meal. Really missed Amelia Cafe at that point. Probably our fault for going out to eat right before sunset when the staff was probably at their most exhausted and hangry.

The next day we booked a half day snorkel tour that would bring us to a few new locations. It ended up being a private tour with just Rosemarie and I, and our very sun smart boat driver who looked like a ninja.

It was good to go to new snorkel spots but there is probably a reason why they weren’t on the popular tour. Some were a bit choppy and it was a bit harder to see stuff. But it was still great! We didn’t get to see any Napoleon fish unfortunately, even though our ninja guide told us exactly where to look and how many to look for (one, and four, lol).

Post snorkeling mango ice blendeds. These might have been the best ones yet. Look at that height! Look at that shine!

We were hanging out in the hammocks and heard a weird sound that we hadn’t heard before. Went to check it out… MONKEYS! The best!!

Trying out another BBQ joint. This time we split a whole tuna. I asked what type of tuna it was and the man was like “It’s just tuna tuna”. Haha.

One last mango ice blended. The two ladies running this beach restaurant just sat in the shade as much as possible. You want food, you get the menu yourself and come to them, ha. I get it.

And then finally we caught the ferry back to the mainland. This time we were much smarter and sat right at the back of the boat. It was much more comfortable.