Last week....

My birthday was 2 weeks ago and the Mr took me to a carb galore dinner and a chocolate making class (bought it in Groupon) last week. The man knows me well.

Had this pasta at Portfofino in Leichardt. It was okay but Shitake mushroom in a pasta dish is a bit weird..

Our chocolate class was at Kimberley's chocolates in Lilyfield. Here is the chocolate man who taught us how to make those yummy ganache filled chocolates

That's the Mr, overstuffing his chocolates with ganache. He actually did a great job, his chocolate came out much shinier & in better shape than mine. I really enjoyed my short 2 hours class & would recommend it. On Fridays they do the basic chocolate making class and on Saturday they teach you how to work with chocolate- making cakes, tempering chocolate etc. Hopefully they do groupon deals soon so I can go to the Saturday one!

Love pretty cups

My Rowenta vacuum is still working but as it is a bagless and cordless, it is pretty much useless in sucking up my long hair from the carpet. I gave up on brushing the carpet/picking up my hair from the ground before I vacuum last week and bought this new one from Appliances Online from Sunday. It comes with lots of vacuum heads and the turbo cat & dogs vacuum head works like a charm for my carpet. It picks up all the hair so easily. Loving this vacuum, it's 11/10 (so far)

Priceline had 40% off skin care this Monday and Tuesday so I picked up a couple of things. I'm loving the 10.0.06 mud mask & I should have bought more of them. Other than the above I also got some Burt's bees chapstick and Garnier hand cream. 

A colleague took me to Lorraine's patisserie, which is in the Ivy complex & close to my work. Bought this Frangipani tart. It's the bomb I tell you. It looks spongy but it's not spongy, sweet but not too sweet. Serving size is perfect for a 3pm cheat snack. Love it love it. Apparently the Cheesecake is great as well ('Best I ever had' said the colleague). I'll come back here later today to get one full cake for my mum and bro...

My dad's flying into Sydney tomorrow so the next 2 weeks shall be interesting. 

Have a great weekend guys xxx

domesticated

So I spent the last 2 weeks moving in to my new crib. Moving houses is such a pain. Before my current place I lived in a spare room at my cousin's apartment in the eastern burb and boy do I have a lot of crap. 

That's only half of my stuff. I did some major cull prior to my move and I still have lots of stuff. I shall do cull #2 sometime in the next couple of weeks. Watch this space. I've finished unpacking everything now but I still have bits and bops here and there, but that is because I don't have anywhere to put them as yet. 

Here's a story about my move. I had to get a fridge and washing machine because well, they are essential. Mr Liz is a cheap ass though so he insist to buy second hand. We did manage to snag a second hand fridge for $200 from an apartment a couple blocks away from my apartment. We didn't bother to hire a ute/removalist for this because we thought that a hand trolley should be sufficient. That trolley was quite helpful and we managed to get the fridge up to my apartment on level 3, but not before giving me the biggest bruise I've ever had in my life.

A friend of my cousin kindly gave me his old washing machine for free. I happily accept this because hey it is free stuff. This guy also live about 500 m from my apartment. Unfortunately the hand trolley I used to carry my fridge up to my apartment is available-no-more (long story) so I had to recruit 2 of my man-friend to help Mr Liz and my cousin's friend (a dude..) carry this up. The washing machine was really heavy even when there's 4 dudes carrying it and it took a lot of effort to get it up to my apartment. They did a good job so I paid them with beer. All this moving reminds me of the scene in Friends where Ross was trying to carry a couch up the stairs with Chandler and Joey. "PIVOT!!!" 

Lesson learnt: Removalist are expensive for a reason........

 Bought this vacuum during Myer mid season sale. It's pretty good but I should probably get a bigger "real" vacuum cleaner. It sucks well & really flexible. Loving not having to fuss on cords when I'm vacuuming.  

My living room looks like this now. The curtain came with the apartment. It's so ugly. I'm thinking of getting a cheap IKEA one to replace this. The sofa is $100 sofa bed that Mr Liz got from Gumtree. It's still in a good condition and love the leather-ette. I thoroughly vacuumed & obsessively wiped this sofa with ajax spray and white to disinfect and basically un-gross it. 

I have a dining room!!!!! Can you believe I haven't had a meal in a dining table for over 4 years (the odd dinners at my aunt's excepted) My cousin don't have a dining table in his apartment and the place I lived before that was a boarding house and their dining table was totally gross. 

I love IKEA, for once I went to IKEA and actually bought furniture. I'm not finished with decorating as yet so I'll visit again soon....

I bought fresh flowers & put them on my dining table. I used to think that fresh flowers are waste of money, so I never bought it, until my friend told me that fresh flowers makes her happy and less lonely (both of us live alone) so I gave flowers a shot. They do make the house look fresher & less depressing..

I'm trying to incorporate seafood to my diet so tried Swordfish for the first time ever yesterday. It was quite good. and how good is Woolies' olive sourdough ??? love them. especially when they are on sale for $3.. and still warm!

Ordered this bling-tastic iphone cover for my work phone. They're only $13 or something including postage from eBay. Run don't walk. These babies are usually $30 in shops. rip off I say

If you follow my instagram, you'll know that I bought 2 pairs of new shoes from Wittner. Love them, so comfy.

Ok I probably should start doing something productive. 1.5 hrs to go till the weekend. Enjoy peeps. xx

In which I went to many gigs

Well well, looks like I've been naughty again and not post for a month.. Ideally would like to post more frequently but life gets in the way! oh well. Last month has been busy as because of work and also I have my assessments due for my diploma degree. Can't wait for this to finish, I am just so over it.

There was this one week where Radiohead and Coldplay was in Sydney. I, of course, was there to see them. I didn't buy the tickets for Radiohead but the boy hunted down some ticket sellers on gumtree who was willing to sell their tickets on fair value so we're so lucky :P

 

Had these before the concert from Dixon food court in Chinatown. These was from the chinese place next to Gumshara ramen. They were yummmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm and so great in value as well. I didn't finish my meal so I pack it home for lunch the next day. 

Have I proclaimed my love for Singaporean-style hainan chicken? so simple yet so mindblowing-ly delish.

Did not take any pics from Radiohead because it was so dark and we don't exactly have the best seats.. beggars can't be choosers. I'm pretty happy with the concert because they play a decent amount of good old songs. Being in their concert is kind of like.... walking when super drunk in a rainbow coloured tunnel is the best way to say it. Love them love them. Anyone reading my blog went to the concert? did you enjoy it? (you better) 

I went to the NSW state library on the weekend. Not because I am an artsy booksy type like Carrie Bradshaw but because I needed to do my assignment - was gonna do it at work but turns out that I only have 5 days a week access :( so library it is. The library itself is stunning.. they had this Australian Ballet exhibition going on until I think February.. and its so pretty! I never thought too much about ballet and how big of a production it is. Loved all the costumes, can't believe how incredibly detailed they are. 

Luff this wall

 I went to Coldplay's Sunday concert. It was fabulous. Just look at those lights!! the lightning arm band is just a genius idea. I never thought that Coldplay will be so good live - Chris Martin sounds exactly like how you hear him on the radio- maybe even better.  My facebook was jam packed with 'omg Coldplay awesome' post on the Saturday and I came with high expectation and they did not dissapoint. Luff it 10/10. Anyone reading my blog went to Coldplay? I swear half of Sydney must have gone - 55,000 people that night + 55,000 on Saturday night. That's a looottt of people!

Very happy to feel summer coming. Love it love it. Just can't wait!

Stay safe everyone xxxxxxxxx

didn't get fired after 1 week so hooray!!

Hi all!!! I had a damn busy week and I'm glad but sort of lost. You know that feeling when you are consistently busy and then suddenly BOOM you have nothing to do? .. OK I should be doing the washing and cleaning my room but I.. just.. can't be bothered.

Anyway so as I have mentioned in the previous posts, I quit my good ole' job in the Forest and started a new gig in town. It was scary and exciting at the same time when I started- I was scared that people in my new job were going to be colleagues from hell type of person, but they are all lovely so all good (or maybe I just haven't figured out yet!!) They got me working from day 1 and get the whip out on day two by giving me a project (of sorts) with deadline on my 4th day there. That one ends up quite well and everyone seems to be happy with my work so it makes me happy too. The other thing that I enjoy is that, as I'm a junior no more, although no senior either, they take my opinions and suggestions and actually use it to make a decision. I work with the owner of the company on my last gig and they usually just use their own opinion to decide stuff for the business, so being able to suggest something and seeing the senior actually use my suggestions to make decision is quite something (To readers who are more established career wise, please pardon my giddyness, I'm still in that good ol' starting up years :P) I'm a bit disappointed that they don't do casual fridays but that's OK as they still have beer o' clock/more like wine o' clock!

OK no more work thingies. Last weekend I went to dinner in Hong Fu Eastern Chinese Restaurant in Paramatta for my cousin's birthday. The place is so smalllll and I highly doubt that the waitresses speaks English, but it doesn't matter because the food is goooooooooooooooooooooooooddddddddddddddd

Steamed pork ribs

Dumplings with chili oil... 

The whole spread!

 We went to Church St for dessert after stuffing ourselves with these fabulous food...went to my family's favourite ice cream joint - Nut & Fancy.

Gelato in a mug.. they could do better with their presentation hey.. I still like it anyways. I had berries and also mango gelato that day. yummm

The boy had this beautiful waffle and ice cream and also some choco milk shake. Greedy boy, he is. 

Outfit photos, stolen from instagram. last pic is from yesterday (Friday). You can see that I don't really care about dress codes on Fridays! Then again you can just throw on a black blazer on everything and you'll instantly look smarter. Mine is from Portmans and its fits me like a dreammmmmmm. 

Are you following my instagram? My ID is Frauelize :) let me know yours! xx

Last weeeekenddddd

I love fried chicken. I was craving for a bowl of these Korean style fried chicken with soy sauce last Friday so I went to grab some from Arisun in Sydney's Haymarket. They are truly awesome. I would go as far as saying that they are as delicious as the KFC variety. The boy thinks that KFC is more epic though. We had these with a bowl of slimey Korean black sauce noodle.. not too sure what it's called.. jjangmyun??? Korean experts please help me here. Anyway I'm not the biggest fan; I hated the instant noodle version of these but this one is Arisun is quite ok for me. Conclusion for my meal in Arisun: definitely get the fried chicken, after all these are what made them famous. The other Korean menu are ok too but they don't give enough side dishes (only kimchi). Price is not too bad but they are a bit more expensive than the other Korean restaurants. 

Mr Australia Bear took a bath along my laundry on Saturday. My dad bought me this bear on his business trip here ages ago, before I moved to Sydney, and I brought it along with me when I move here.  Anyway on Saturday I went for a friends birthday but the pictures there is not blog-worthy (too full of drunkard geeks)

Pretty flowers on my backyard. I love spring. Love it love it love it. How vibrant are the colours?

Do you know just how hard it is to take picture of your feet? I saw a lot of instagrammers/bloggers doing this. You actually have to lean forward a lot to take picture of your feet without your dress getting on the way. My dress is still blocking the way. The sandals are from ASOS btw

 Me and the Mr went for a drive after we went to the city for his work (no he's not that sort of workholic or corporate slave). I thought we should go to Watsons Bay but we wandered to Vaucluse and stopped on one road because we saw a couple with beach gears walking into a public but gated road. I found out that the property name is 'Carrara house' (sorry if I spell it wrong) and behind that there's the Milk beach which is gorgeous. You can see the city from here.

Yeah like that. The angle of this view makes it looks like I'm in Mosman in-the-other-side-of-the-bridge. Oh and hey there's my feet again.

                                     

Oh hey its me again. Not exactly in beachwear. Excuse me for being pale. Can't wait to get the summer glow again. 

 Thats the Mr doing the duck face. It's his favourite pose.

 We also stopped at Vaucluse house. Its quite pretty, but not as pretty as I expected. Maybe because its gardens is not in full bloom as yet?

I mentioned that I went to the city before Vaucluse. We went to Broadway and bought this baby from the almighty Tar-jay for $79 in their big home sale.Pretty sure that's in OK value. I LOVE IT. I didn't realise that I have that much jewels though. 

 

First selfie via the new mirror.  I wear a trench coat with this outfit on Monday. To think about it the bag doesn't really match the dress but it looks good with the trench.

A spare ribs with rice dish from a local Chinese restaurant named 'Delicious Chinese Cuisine'. They are not that delicious. I could have spent the BF's $8 on a much better Thai nearby. From these day on I shall be suspicious to restaurants that uses 'delicious' 'yummy' or whatever on their name.

Hope you all have a great weekend :)

white straps baby

1. Vogue Australia - September. I don't usually buy magazines but this month's cover is so beautiful so I just have to have it. pictured also Maccas' white chocolate iced mocha (GJ's ones are better)

2. Eating big breakfast at home like a boss.

3. Weekend uniform. I tracked down this leopard print jeans like a mad woman since I saw it at aelie's  blog a few months ago. I was so happy when I found it sitting sad in a rack at Cotton On for $15. I think it already paid itself considering the amount that I wear it. My ASOS Aggie boots have also paid itself too...(seriously I wear them everyday this winter - I got back to flats a few weeks ago and realised how much shorter I am without the 5cm boost.. sighhh) dont you love it when you buy stuff dirt cheap and they end up to be super comfortable and awesome in general??

4. just bought these ASOS Flipper sandals. 

5. Wearing my most recent ebay purchase to see Bourne legacy.. This shirt is an ASOS copy that I got from a Chinese seller on eBay. It actually has pretty decent quality so I'm happy. 

Outfit deets #1: Cotton On leopard jeans, Cotton on black top, Portmans waterfall knit cardi, ASOS Aggie boots. #2: Ebay heart prints button up shirt, the same cardi, Sass & Bide denim, plus the usual suspects: Michael kors gold watch, T&Co ring, Oroton Blum Hobo bag

xxxx

hunter valley and life lately

1,2,3 Views at the beautiful Hunter Valley 4,5 entree and main course at Cracked Pepper Restaurant, Hunter Valley, 6 Pho from Gia Hoi, Haymarket Sydney on a windy day 7 Little blue box from my boy

I went to the Hunter Valley in early July with my boy to see the winter festival thingies in the Hunter Valley Gardens. This is actually my second time ever.. my last one was on around the same time last year. We came fully expecting a beautiful ice rink by the lake and a big snow man but we left dissapointed as the rink turns out to be really small and the snow man is not even made from real ice.  One thing that makes our visit to the Hunter Valley Gardens better was the chocolate festival, which is running at the day we were there along with the winter festival.  Hunter Valley is beautiful as usual although the vines are still dry and the vineyards basically looks like lines and lines of dead branches. I should really make my way here again in summer.. vineyards when it is green and in its full glory should be prettier compared when they're all dead and brown in winter. We ate some really good food as well there - pictured above the stuff from Cracked Pepper restaurant in De Illius Winery. Food there is fabulous, those bread and dips thingies are to die for.

Sydney was so colddddddd last weekend especially because of the damn 100km/h wind thats been going on since friday. I managed to get my ass moving and went to the gym for a run on saturday though. I started on my running again with the help of the C25k app... it feels great to be running again despite all the pain related to cardio. Sunday was cold as well but I went to the city to have lunch the the boy.. we had pho in Gia Hoi which my vietnamese friend have recommended. It was great! Pho is possibly my favourite noodle soup ever... it probably surpasses my love to japanese ramen noodles.

Anyway I did get a year older in July and getting closer to mid life crisis.. I'm already having a terrible itchy feet syndrome now and I'm just so, so, so, desperate to GTFO my normal everyday life and just lay around like a slob on a nice beach somewhere (well for this I have booked my self, the boy, and my girl and her man a long weekend getaway in Gold Coast in September holiday). The boy gave me a little blue box with a white gold skinny band ring on it which he said is an upgrade from my old silver ring from him last year. No diamonds but I love it regardless. At this rate I'm expecting that he does another upgrade next year hopefully with real diamonds muhaha... (hear hear, mr liz)

Anyway hope you all have a good week - now lets go back to the all dreaded working-monday-day! :(

xxxxxxxxx