Matfoo’s Weblog

It’s Christmas Day and the public transport is FREE!!!! So we took this opportunity to travel around. After the church service, we went to the Shrine of Remembrance and Royal Botanical Garden. The Shrine of Remembrance is the place to remember the sacrifices the Australian soldiers made during the war time.  Again, let the pictures do all the talking.

A famous statue of a soldier carrying another soldier located outside the Shrine of Remembrance

The Shrine of Remembrance

Some silly-cool pose

More silly-cool pose

A nice view from the Shrine of Remembrance

Flora adoring the well-built soldier

The Royal Botanical Garden is located nearby and this place is best for those nature lovers.

The garden is big. Check out the map. The walking path sums up to about 1.5km.

Some nice flowers in the garden.

It’s a nice place to have picnic and to be with the nature.

We started the journey feeling very excited

After almost 3 hours spent around the shrine and the garden, under a quite hot weather, we were exhausted.

It was the eve of the Christmas Eve (23rd Dec 08). With Vik Tor visiting from Brisbane, we decided to visit the Phillip Island. It’s about 150km from Melbourne and the journey (by car) took us about 2 hours 30 minutes.

We departed around 9am and we’re hoping to catch the Pelican feeding session at San Remo at 12pm. San Remo is the last town on the mainland before crossing the bridge to Phillip Island… and we did manage to see the feeding session.

Pelican feeding session at San Remo.

We had our lunch at San Remo and stuffed ourselves with Fish & Chips with Osyter. Personally, I didn’t like it. It was Vik Tor’s idea to let us try. At the end, he ate most of it.

Waiting to eat

Fish & Chips

Before I proceed, it’s best to clarify how did we get to Phillip Island. I DIDN’T buy a car. I DIDN’T rent a car. Thanks to Simon for letting us to use his car during his holiday back home to Malaysia. Thank you so much. And just to show off a little bit

My 5 minutes of fame.

Ok…back to the journey. After lunch, we crossed the bridge to the island. We visited the “AMaze N Thing”. Here, I’ll let the pictures do all the talking.

A room filled with water (I wish we can enter it)

This mirror thing is really cool and confusing

A quite tricky Maze

Yay! We “conquered” the maze.

There’s mini golf too.

I wouldn’t recommend this. It’s a 18-hole mini golf course. By the time we reached the 6th hole, things started to get very very very very……………. (you get the point) BORED! I think it’s because we suck in golf, I can’t find better explanation for the boredom.

Next stop….Phillip Island Grand Prix circuit. This circuit hosted the MotoGP as well as A1 GP. For me, this is a must visit. Unfortunately, when we reached there, it’s almost 5:45pm. It’s closed. Well……. a picture will do, even though it’s outside the circuit.

At least…..

The highlight of the island is of course the penguins. These cute little penguins will come back to shore near sunset. The sad part was, since now it’s summer, the sun set very slow. The arrival time for the penguins the night before was 9pm. So, since we have around 3 hours to kill, we decided to have dinner in Cowes. After dinner, we went off to Nobbies for a bit of sight seeing before “waiting” for the penguins to arrive. We weren’t allowed to take any pictures of penguin.

At Nobbies.

The penguins eventually arrived at around 915pm. Some tips. Just get the cheapest ticket as you still can see the penguin up close. Left the island at around 1030pm and reached Melbourne around 1am.

This song from Don Moen’s latest album entitled “I Believe There Is More”.

One song, “Grace Is Enough” caught my attention as I listened it and meditate upon the lyrics. Don Moen co-write this song and the lyrics emphasizes that God’s grace is enough for us despite us failing Him all the time. Everytime I play this song, I just feel like crying with tears of joy. Tears of knowing that God is so loving and so patient with us.

Here’s the lyrics. God Bless.

I can boast to many works
Done out of insecurity
And credit many conversations
To my immaturity
And while I’m misunderstood
You are understanding me
And showing me
How grace is enough

For everything that I’ve done right
Seems a thousand I’ve done wrong
And I keep on losing count
Of all the times my flesh has won
And when the light of Christ that’s in me
Is overshadowed by the fall
You’re showing me
How grace is enough

When I feel unworthy
And so undeserving

Chorus:
Still I can come, just as I am
For I find Your love
Is free of condition
So I will run to Your wide open arms
Where I am accepted
And I am forgiven
Grace is enough for me
Your grace is enough for me

I’ve been quick at passing judgment
When I’m worthy of conviction
And the times I’ve measured virtue
Only based on my religion
But theology it seems
It’s not the things that’s saving me
Your are showing me
A grace that’s enough

When I feel unworthy
And so undeserving

(Chorus)

Bridge:
Though I was blind, now I see
Sweet is the sound
Of Your grace over me
You said it all on the Cross
Your grace goes beyond
All that I’ve done

When I feel unworthy
And so undeserving
You love me beyond
All my failing and hurting
It’s not who I am
But who I can be
And I know You are working
Your purpose in me

(Chorus)

Your grace is enough
More then enough
Your grace is enough for me

For the sample of the songs, you can visit Don Moen’s official website here.

It’s Flora birthday. Since her birthday falls on a weekday, and being very busy at this moment, we decided not to go out for any dinner celebration. To compensate all that, I’d decided to cook for her. I disallowed her to enter the kitchen to help me as she is the star of the day, no work for her in the kitchen.

We have been thinking to try Lebanese cuisine for quite some time but just didn’t have the chance. This is because the famous restaurant that we’ve been trying to visit close on Sundays. (Yea,  you can imagine how good their business is. Can even afford to close on Sunday). I decided to make her and myself Lebanese cuisine. Did some googling and found out two Lebanese cuisines that is quite simple and interesting. They are called Kafta and Tabbouleh. I can’t find some of the ingredient, so I did a little bit of modification.

Kafta is actually BBQ Skewed Lamb/Beef. I used lamb. Mix the lamb with big onion, parsley, salt and pepper. Then, bake in oven for about 40 minutes.

My version of Kafta.

As for Tabbouleh, it’s a salad kind of appetizer. (Google Tabbouleh for more details). The original recipe used “burghul” which is made from durum wheat. From the food glossary, it says this burghul is quite similar to couscous, so, I used couscous instead. Mix the couscous with tomotoes, big onions, coriander, cucumber, lemon juice, salt, pepper and olive oil.

My version of Tabbouleh

Then serve all this in a Lebanese Pita Bread.

Voila. Our Lebanese cuisine for dinner.

I thought the whole thing tasted quite good. I was quite surprised by the refreshing taste of the Tabbouleh. The Kafta, tasted good.

So, you must be wondering what birthday present did I get for her. Ta..da…. a quilling set.

Flora’s birthday present. A quilling set.

This set can’t be found in Melbourne that I need to order it online from New South Wales. It came just in time for her birthday. Phew!!!

I think Flora played with her new toy the whole morning….. and look at the things that she made….

Little butterflies and flowers

And one more thing….. I let her pamper herself with a nice hair cut.

Tada…. Isn’t that fantastic!

Happy birthday HONEY.

Richmond AOG Church has been extending work of friendship out to the community in Richmond. In conjunction with Christmas, the church organised a Block Party for the community. The whole street in front of the church was blocked and booths were set up to pamper the community. Food wise, there’s free BBQ, free Snow Cup, free Donut and etc. Non-food wise, there’s free face paint for the kids, free ladies’ pampering session, free petting zoo as well!! It’s the way the church say to the community, “We care for you all and we want to make friend with you all.”

The agenda for that day was:

1000-1130: Church service

1300-1600: Block Party Set Up

1600-1800: Block Party

1800-1930: Christmas Carol Concert in the Church.

Flora and I volunteered to help setting up the block party. We took about 30 minutes finding around what can we really do to help and really enjoy it. We tried moving tables and chairs, moving musical instruments. We also tried tying up balloons. I even sipped Helium to listen to how I sound. And I sounded so funny. Then finally, out of the blue, we were called to help in frying donuts. To me, it sounds fun and we decided to stick with that job. So, our job was to fry 500 donuts. Yup, 500. The donuts were made-ready. Just need to fry them in a deep fryer.

Before we started frying, we were briefed about the potential danger of the job. The way it was explained to us sounded like we were dealing with a nuclear silo. I appreciated their concerns but…. anyway, let me not go there.

Hehe…my experience working in KFC (yup, Kentucky Fried Chicken) can be put to good use. I used to fry french fries, wedges, nuggets, burger patties etc during those time. So frying donuts shouldn’t be that difficult. Ok, let the pictures do the talking.

Flora in action.

The made-ready donut from the box.

Fry for about 1.5 minutes and mix it with sugar.

Ready to serve

After the hard work, we joined the block party.

The block party

There’s musical band.

One of the lamb from the petting zoo.

There’s one important thing that need to be highlighted. Melbourne had been raining since Friday evening, the whole of Saturday and the whole Sunday morning. The little faith of me was asking about the damage the rain could do to the whole event. But during the service, the senior pastor, a man of faith said, “We’ll pray that God will hold the rain and the weather will be nice for the party to get going.” True enough, after the church service, the sun began to come out, blue skies started to be seen. and it sustained throughout the whole event!!! God is marvelous and awesome. Glory be unto Him.

It was a tiring day. We reached home around 2045, prepared our dinner and ate at around 2130. But it was a lot of fun and I pray that in the light of Christmas, the message of the true meaning of Christmas and the God’s love can reach the heart of the community. Amen!

Recently stumbled across this blog written by a racing fans like myself. What encourages me the most is his posts are about a tribute to Malaysian racers. How many Malaysian racers do we actually/really know apart from “err…..Alex Yoong and……I give up”?

My interest for motoracing started during my uni years (around 2001). That was also the same year Alex Yoong was recruited as the first Malaysian driver into F1 with team Minardi. And my passion for motoracing is still in me even up to today.

The involvement of Malaysian racers in competitive racing over the years is encouraging as well. To know more of your fellow countrymen who fought hard on track, you can go to this website (TRIBUTE TO MALAYSIAN DRIVERS) and have a read up of what these local racers have done over the years of active racing.

And just to highlight, we have a very young talented uprising racers, Jazeman Jaafar. If this impressive form continues, I reckon one day he can be a star to watch out for. Go Jazeman!

It’s one of the natural phenomenon and one that sums up God’s marvellous creation. Even the sky can smile. I’ll just put the picture that I took and for more details about this phenomenon, I’ll link you guys to Flora’s page.

Taken at 9pm

Taken at 10pm