Vivid Sydney is now on until 13 June. I remember I enjoyed snapping away in the cold in 2009 but missed the event in 2010. This year, I lugged my own equipment - a brand new tripod making its debut for this festival and my old but faithful dSLR - instead of the borrowed gear I had to make do with two years ago.
I don't remember these skycrapers being lit up in 2009 but I may have been distracted by the other lightings back then.
This light sculpture named Jellight depicts three giant floating jellyfish and is the creation of a multinational team of lighting designers and architects from France, Australia and Singapore. It is the largest light installation that greeted me when I arrived at Circular Quay.
These trees have been there for like forever and have been part of Vivid Sydney since its inception.
And of course, the highlight is the colourful projections of 3D images onto the sails of the iconic Sydney Opera House. It was a bit more difficult to capture the illuminations on the sails this year because each set of images changes too rapidly and partly because the water traffic right in front of the Opera House was exceptionally heavy that all the pretty light reflections on the water was disrupted all night long. My long exposure on the camera ended up just showing a bright glare where the lights fall onto, losing all the intricate designs. And the streaks and breaks in the water from the boats that were zipping past every few minutes just added to my frustration. Below are the only nice shots I deem acceptable for public viewing that I managed to capture due to a combination of a lot of patience, some luck and a little bit of good timing.
As it got later into the night, approaching midnight, people started to make their way home.
vivid sydney 2011
sweet and sour pork (咕噜肉)
The classic Cantonese dish - sweet and sour pork (咕噜肉 or "goo low yok") - is the one zi char dish that I miss the most from back home. Although it's easy enough to find instant packs of batter and sauce for this dish, I find that they still somehow cannot deliver the crunchiness of the pork and the zing of the slightly tangy sauce to the standards that I want.
So I mixed and matched a few recipes for the pork marinade, the batter and the sauce, and combined the resulting self-created recipe with an extra coating for the pork that was a method I learnt from an ex boyfriend's mum a decade ago to yield a more than satisfactory outcome that I am very proud to say is better than what you can get at a lot of the zi char stalls in SG. Give it a try to find out for yourself.
For the marinade:
- 1/2 tsp corn flour
- 1 tsp rice wine
- 1.5 tsp light soy sauce
For the batter:
- 1/2 cup water
- 60g plain flour
- 30g corn flour
- 1/2 egg
- 1 tsp cooking oil
- a pinch of salt
For the sweet and sour sauce:
- 2 to 2.5 tbsp ketchup
- 2 tsp plum sauce
- 1/2 to 1 tsp white rice vinegar
- 1 tsp oyster sauce
- 1/2 tsp worcestershire sauce
- 1 tsp corn flour
- 1 tsp sugar
- 2 tbsp water
(you can adjust the proportion of each item here according to taste; some like it sweeter - add more sugar; some like it more sour - add more vinegar etc etc)
Other ingredients:
- about 250g of pork tenderloin cut into bite sized pieces
- 10 pieces of plain Hup Seng cream crackers
- 3/4 of a green bell pepper cut into small pieces (about 1cm x 1cm)
- 1/2 an onion cut into small pieces (about 1cm x 1cm)
- 2 pieces of pineapple slices from a can or fresh sweet pineapple cut into small pieces (about 1cm x 1cm)
- cooking oil enough for deep frying the pork pieces
Marinate the pork pieces in a bowl. Cover the bowl with cling wrap and put it in the fridge for at least 30min. Mix all the ingredients for the batter well in a another bowl and set it aside. Mix all the ingredients for the sweet and sour sauce well in a third bowl and set it aside.
Pound the cream crackers in a mortar and pestle until fine - see the 2 pics below.
Here you see all the prepared ingredients ready to hit the wok (left to right, front to back): the frying batter, the marinated pork cubes, the sweet and sour sauce, the cut up ingredients - onions, pineapples and green bell pepper, the crushed cream crackers.
In a deep skillet, add enough cooking oil for deep frying and place it on medium heat. Transfer the pork cubes into the batter and then coat them with the crushed cream crackers - make sure they are well coated.
When the oil is hot, deep fry the coated pork cubes until golden brown.
Dish out the pork cubes and set on paper towels to drain out the excess oil.
In a separate frying pan or wok, heat up a tablespoon of cooking oil over medium heat. Stir fry the onions until translucent. Add in the bell pepper and stir fry for about 30 seconds. Add in the pineapple pieces and stir fry for another 30 seconds or until you can smell the aroma of the bell pepper.
Give the pre-prepared sweet and sour sauce a quick stir to mix it and swirl it into the frying pan/wok. Once the sauce thickens and you can smell the tanginess from the sauce, add in the pork cubes and give it a quick stir fry to make sure all the pork pieces are coated with the sauce. It's now ready to be dished out and served with rice!
Doesn't it look good? Just like what you get in a restaurant and it tastes as good if not better. ^^v
five spiced braised pork belly (五香鲁肉), sweet sour and spicy napa cabbage (糖醋白菜)
These two dishes have been on my to-cook list for a while. I was a bit intimidated by the amount of time required to braise the pork belly and hence never really seriously got to it. As I re-read some of the recipes I have in my favourites folder, I came across a few on this dish and decided to finally give it a go by combining the best three recipes I sourced.
Ingredients for the five spiced braised pork belly (五香鲁肉):
- 800g of pork belly with the skin on and lots of fatty bits
- 6 eggs (optional)
- a few pieces of dried beancurd (豆干 - tau kwa) (optional)
- 3 tbsp five spiced powder
- 2 tbsp cooking oil
- 3 tbsp dark soy sauce
- 3 tbsp fish sauce
- 1 large onion, diced
- 3 cloves of garlic, peeled and crushed
- a knob of ginger about 2 inches long, thinly slice half of it and chop the rest finely
Ingredients for the sweet sour and spicy Napa cabbage (糖醋白菜):
- a whole Napa cabbage
- a handful of dried chilli
- 5 tsp white wine vinegar
- 1.5 tsp light soy sauce
- 1 tsp chinese rice wine
- 4.5 tsp sugar
- 2 tbsp cooking oil
- 2 tbsp finely chopped ginger
- a pinch of salt
First I prepared all the ingredients required for the pork belly (and laid them out nicely to take photos LOL).
Heat the cooking oil in a deep frying pan over medium heat. Make sure the pan is big enough to lay the whole strip of pork belly in. Add the diced onions to stir fry until translucent. Then add the chopped ginger and five spiced powder and stir fry until fragrant. This takes only a few minutes.
Lay the pork belly flat in the pan over the spices. Flip it over after a minute. After another minute, add enough water to cover the pork belly and throw in the garlic and sliced ginger. Add the dark soy sauce and fish sauce and bring it to the boil.
(Optional) While waiting for the above to boil, I threw several eggs into a separate pot to let it boil for about 8 minutes. De-shell the hardboiled eggs when ready and stand by for adding to the pork.
(Optional) Wash and cut the dried beancurd and stand by for adding to the pork.
Let the contents in the deep pan boil for a few minutes on high then transfer the whole pot into a slow cooker. Add in the hardboiled eggs and dried beancurd (optional). Let it simmer in the slow cooker for at least six to eight hours, or until the pork is soft enough for your taste. I did not have so much time to spare and so I did without the slow cooker but let it simmer on low heat in the deep pan for about three hours.
While the pork is being braised, prepare the Napa cabbage and the ingredients required for the dish. In a small bowl, combine the vinegar, rice wine, soy sauce and sugar and stir until they are thoroughly mixed together and then set aside. The actual cooking of this dish only takes about five minutes so stand by all the ingredients and only start cooking it when the pork is ready to be served.
When the pork is soft enough to your taste, most of the liquid should have boiled off, leaving the pan looking something like this.
It's now time to cook the cabbage. Heat the oil in a frying pan and add the chopped ginger when hot. Stir fry until fragrant. Add the cabbage and dried chilli and stir fry until the cabbage is soft but still crisp. Add a pinch of salt. Give the prepared sauce a quick stir and swirl it into the pan. Stir fry to mix everything together. Ready to serve.
Remove the pork belly from the pan and slice into pieces.
Serve with the eggs and dried beancurd and drizzle the braised liquid over them to serve.
I had the above with rice. The pork is moist and soft, the fatty bits sweet and juicy, the cabbage tangy and slightly spicy. Very yummy. ^^v
finally, a successful girls' night out
Clubbing in Sydney has been very challenging for us girls as almost every single attempt we had in the past two years to try and have a boomz night out ended in failure due to a myriad of reasons from the key people getting drunk on home booze before we even set foot out of the house to bad timing where all decent nightspots were closed on particularly special long weekends such as Easter or Christmas.
This time, we swore we would make it happen as it was the last chance we had before Char went home for good. Though the turn out was a little disappointing with a couple of them hardworking ones having to mug for exams, it still proved to be the best girls' night out in a long time.
We did the usual pre-drinks and girl talk session at home before hitting town for economic reasons; it takes a lot of whiskey to get us chirpily high.
Despite it being one of the coldest autumns I can remember since I got to Sydney in 2006, the dress code was to dress sexy. Most chose to flaunt their boobs but I chose to flash my legs LOL.
We still didn't manage to get into the one club we've been targeting to get in for years - the Tank Nightclub because they had a private function that night. Such a spoiler. So we did a slow crawl along Darling Harbour instead.
And once the adrenaline got pumpin' to the rhythm of the booming bass, the rush of alcohol infused blood to the head got us making weird faces, as usual.
Halfway through the night, these two guys - friends of Van's - dumped the three bimbos they were with to crash into our party and from then on we saw our enlarged group having a lot of such roadside conferences as we migrated from club to club trying to find one that we liked.
We put on our best angry faces here and I look an angel. LOL
The finale was supper in Chinatown where we devoured three huge pots of piping hot congee before we got to crach onto our comfy beds past 5am.
ampersand cafe bookstore
Thanks to Pawpaw for this amazing discovery of a gem, I spent an idyllic Saturday afternoon in Ampersand Cafe Bookstore situated along Oxford Street in Paddington. It's not just another cafe along the street full of them, but one that is part of a three storey library of over 30,000 used books with big comfy couches tucked in discreet corners where you can enjoy endless cups of great coffee - I had the best, creamiest Chai Latte ever there that afternoon - while enjoying a good read you pick off the bookshelf right next to you. They also offer a full breakfast and lunch menu in addition to the usual coffee sweets and pastries displayed at the counter.
I managed to get a seat on the uppermost floor by the window that overlooks the vibrant street outside so I could people-watch while getting my caffeine fix or when my eyes are tired of reading through those tiny fonts on my favourite books. I even managed to pick up a humongous cook book that contained over 300 Chinese, Far Eastern and other Asian dishes for only $3.50 thanks to a special promotion where a pre-purchased $10 voucher entitled us to five cups of coffee and a book up to a value of $15.
I absolutely love the place and don't mind spending a few more weekends there. Oh and by the way they do cash and bookstore credit exhanges for pre-loved books too and can even organise home visits if you have a book collection of more than 200 for sale. Fits in nicely with my plan to try and clear out some space in my overflowing bookshelf to make way for more good reads.
Here are a few pictures taken with my iPhone of the place. It's worth a visit there yourself when you have the time.
the wise man's fear
Since finishing The Name of the Wind, I've been looking forward to the release of its sequel with great anticipation.
And so when I heard that The Wise Man's Fear is out in the market, I quickly went to hunt for it in Borders and was disappointed they had none in store. I was referred to their online store that promised delivery within 24hours and I placed my order without any hesitation.
Only after the purchase was confirmed did I receive notification that the book will only be shipped in two weeks' time because they didn't have stock in country. Like WTF? And so the impatient me went and bought one in Kinokuniya a few days later when the wait proved to be too agonising.
So ya, I have two copies of The Wise Man's Fear, one of which is completely new and not read by anyone. Who wants the book?
The sequel was a monster 60% bigger than the first book at almost 1000 pages. Even though it was still a good read, I got really turned off by how draggy the later half of the book. I ended the book rather disappointed there wasn't much progress in this sequel in revealing how Kvothe got to his current situation nor in answering so many of the questions surrounding so many key characters that arose from the first book and wondering how the hell Rothfuss is going to cover all these in the next book which is supposedly the last of this trilogy.
I will end off this entry with extracts of two sections that I'm particularly fond of before I continue to read while waiting for book three the many very interesting discussion threads at this forum that never fail to amaze me how these people can have the time and energy to read, re-read, re-re-read and study this Kingkiller Chronicle to provide such detailed and indepth analysis.
"So yes. It had flaws, but what does that matter when it comes to matters of the heart? We love what we love. Reason does not enter into it. In many ways, unwise love is the truest love. Anyone can love a thing because. That's as easy as putting a penny in your pocket. But to love something despite. To know the flaws and love them too. That is rare and pure and perfect."
"... There are secrets of the mouth and secrets of the heart.
Most secrets are secrets of the mouth. Gossip shared and small scandals whispered. These secrets long to be let loose upon the world. A secret of the mouth is like a stone in your boot. At first you're barely aware of it. Then it grows irritating, then intolerable. Secrets of the mouth grow larger the longer you keep them, swelling until they press against your lips. They fight to be free.
Secrets of the heart are different. They are private and painful, and we want nothing more than to hide them from the world. They do not swell and press against the mouth. They live in the heart, and the longer they are kept, the heavier they become.
... Any fool will spit out poison, he says, but we hoard these painful treasures. We swallow hard against them every day, forcing them deep inside us. There they sit, growing heavier, festering. Given enough time, they cannot help but crush the heart that holds them."
update on project clean-out wardrobe
I have just made my first sale on Gumtree - the Habitat skateboard. I feel sad having to part with it but sincerely hope its new owner will give it the due attention it deserves rather than just remain stuck in a corner of my wardrobe.
I have also updated my FOR SALE page and there is now a vintage Polaroid Cool Cam, a brand new never used Giro Bad Lieutenant ski helmet and a pair of K2 inline skates up for grab. More to come! Bags, shoes, dresses up next. :)
the search for new parents
Since before X'mas last year, I've been wanting to dig out all the long buried items - clothes, shoes, bags, accessories, toys and what-nots - in the wardrobe to do a one-time clean up of anything I haven't used in the last three years in order to clear some space for all the things I bought recently that had been piling up in a corner in the bedroom due to lack of storage space.
I finally got my hands onto it last week post the Orlando trip out of desperation as all the new Kate Spades and Victoria's Secrets need a home. A week into this cleaning and sorting frenzy has seen me re-discovering forgotten old favourites, being pleasantly surprised at how I now can fit into some (sadly not all though) clothing items that had been relegated to the I've-put-on-so-much-weight-now-I-can't-fit-into-these-anymore list and putting together an entire suitcase of clothes and bags to sell among other things, and I'm only halfway through this Project Clean-out Wardrobe.
As a lot of my beloved possessions are in near new condition and many others only used/worn once or twice in their lifetimes thus far, I am reluctant to just chuck them in the bin. I hope many of them can find new owners who will make them proud of their existence in this material world so they don't have to stay hidden in dark corners of the closet like they have for the last decade.
Thus you see the new link that now appears on the nav bar under my blog header banner now - FOR SALE. I have put up only 2 items for now - my K2 inline skates and Habitat skateboard - to start with and will slowly add to it. Please pop over regularly to see if there is anything that catches your fancy and do help to spread the word too. Unfortunately, for bulky items like the skates and skateboard, I am accepting cash upon pick-up only for people residing in Sydney as there's not much point trying to ship them anywhere due to unpractical shipping cost. However, once I've catalogued the smaller items - not easy! got to take photos, make measurements, research on market rates for similar products, set the price and tag them - especially the accessories and clothes, they will be open to potential new parents from anywhere on the globe.
I may also make an appearance at one of the markets - Glebe most likely - and will keep you posted if and when I do.
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