Westfield Albany -Temepara George!

Note: This was written on Wednesday so if I wrote “yesterday”, you know I mean Tuesday…Confused? because I am.

Last week some time, Aunty Swee invited me to collect donations at Albany Westfield for Autism House New Zealand. I gladly accepted because this would be my first time seriously doing some charity! There was going to be a performance by Geoff Sewell who is a singer (no idea who he is) and I was even more excited when she told me we would meet Temepara George and Stefano Oliveri (from Dancing with the Stars 2008)!!! So after a 1/2 hour drive to Albany yesterday, we went to the foodcourt to get a bit of lunch and then walked infront of Pascoes where the performance was to take place! AND right infront of us were the celebrities themselves. Temepara & Stefano were just standing there and no one had noticed them because they were dressed so casually. I calmly pointed this out to Aunty Swee who went into a “Oh My God! Where is my pen??” Temepara and Stefano looked at us, smiling as always while Aunty brought out 2 pictures of them she had printed off in the morning. They asked to look at the photo and commented on how nice they looked. We told them we’d look for them later because we forgot our pen. And that was phase 1 of our brush with celebrities for the day!

After that excitement, we went to Columbus to look for the other collectors. Aunty Swee’s boss gave us these T-Shirts which were pretty cool and this is the back view of it!

We were handed a donation bucket each where we were to walk around
collecting the money. This painting was on display. It will be auctioned off at the Manukau Westfield on Friday where it’s expected to be sold for $10000!!!

Unfortunately, while we were collecting, we were too far back to
watch Geoff sing and Temepara & Stefano dance… but we got these photos with them!

Aunty Swee asked me if there was any way to edit Stefano and Temepara into the same picture. It looks pretty bad but hey, my digital editing skills aren’t THAT great yet!

This is Geoff Sewell. We caught him while he was packing up and ready to go home

Signing autographs!

Me with Stefano & Temepara

A scanned picture of their autographs!

Okay, after some time collecting money (believe me, it is not easy collecting money. It’s really hard when the people have their backs to you and it’s even harder to go up to a stranger asking them to give money to you. Sometimes when you ask someone, they’ll just respond “I gave some to the other collector” Just great.)

So, afterwards we went back to Columbus and got a frappe and took a drive back to Auckland.

Overall, it was a great experience and I’d do it again any day!

Grocery Store cont’d

Okay, unexpectedly, I just received another email attached with a picture from the grocery shop set. This refers to the post I just wrote hardly 5 minutes ago. Please read the other post as well which would be under this one! Okay, this is an interesting picture… It’s of the cashier at the till in the store. Doesn’t sound interesting? Well the thing is that there were about 5-7 other customers waiting behind us when we were at the till. And then the cashier girl’s mobile phone rang! huh? a phone ringing on the job with a line of customers waiting for you? That’s okay isn’t it? If you turn it off or turn it on in your breaks, no problem. Well the thing that gets me is that she actually picked it up! WHATTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTT??????? What sort of service is this? You could see the disgruntled faces of the waiting customers, while me & my dad were just staring at her. She didn’t even say to the person she was talking to, “gotta run, talk later! bye” . She talked for a good minute or so before telling the person she was at work. *sigh*.

Yup, she talked long enough for me to take this photo. Amazing? You bet.

Grocery Store

Note: I love the grocery store and the one I am at is the Botany South Garden Orchard, or something like that. It was a short visit with my dad to get some fruit and meat!

Yup, since the start of the school holidays I’ve been posting blog posts every single day with the exception of yesterday. I’m not sure why, just didn’t have want to because I didn’t feel the need to write. But today, I was looking at the pictures on my dad’s phone and noticed that a couple weeks back I took some photos at the local Asian grocery store. AND I had no idea how to transfer those pictures onto the computer so I innocently sent them on multimedia which is a decision I regret well & fully. Because unknowingly this costs money! haha, and here I was thinking it was a cool free service like Bluetooth. But, oh well it’s done now and I better make the most of the $4 something I spent for sending 7 pictures. I feel like such a dumbo… Enjoy!

These peacharines are so DELICIOUS! and as you can tell by the name, it is a mix of peach and nectarine. The flavour is a tangy sweetness and its texture is nice & crunchy! You should definitely get your hands on some of these, but I don’t know if the price is worth it or not… I’m guessing not or else they would be pretty common in every household.

 

 

These Peacharines look more like peaches than nectarines though. Inside is yellow meat with a splash of red near the stone/pip.

Here’s my dad picking some fruit from the fruit aisle. Love the colours!

 

Okay, I admit. I totally don’t know the name of this fruit even though I’ve seen it and heard of its name sooo many times! I’m guessing… Jackfruit? Help me out on this please! Anywho… it looks cool!

Honestly, I’m not sure why I have a picture of this little girl in a trolley… Oh yeah… it was because I liked her little ears on her jersey! I quickly snapped this shot while her mum was picking some food from the shelves and hadn’t had the chance to see me paparazzi’ing her daughter!

 

 

Over at the meat stand getting some… meat? Yea actually we were getting some pork liver. It always amazes me how cheap liver is. It’s like how many cents for a few slithers of it. I’m not sure if that’s cheap of not, but a few cents sounds cheap to me!

OH, I LOVE these! These are the little pay 50c (or 20c in some cases) for a round of lollies! In this case m&m’s

 

and my personal favourite, SKITTLES!!! Yummy. And you wanna know the truth? I’ve only had the honour of turning the lolly knob ONCE. 

 

Okay, you may have noticed that the captions for the pictures in the post have been pretty - s t r e t c h e d - but had to make use of them somehow right? Use your money to its worth! …now you know how much of a money freak I am…

 

5, 6 – 5, 6 ,7 ,8!

 

Note: Get up & boogey!

Okay, if you remember to THIS post, did you read the P.S. note? It said ‘watch for more dancing news’. And here it is! Today, my sister and I had our first introductory dance lesson! I wanted to start contemporary, but there were no classes near our house that offered this genre, so we decided on BALLROOM!

We went to the Let’s Dance Studio and joined the beginners’ class to which we found we were surrounded by middle aged couples! We had missed the first week, but had to fall in line and catch up with the others. Today’s dances were the :

FOX TROT and ROCK’N'ROLL!

it was pretty cool, Bronwyn danced with this really good dancer assistant, while I danced with the instructor. It was fun with all the 1, 2 – 3 & 4 beats. I’m always ahead of the beat but I guess these little issues will improve. We’re just trying out the different styles of dancing at the moment and seeing which one is to our liking. The course finishes in another 2 weeks because we missed the first one and it’s a short 4 week course.

Love Dancing! Got the dancing fever!!

Upcoming… Very Excited because on Tuesday I will have the opportunity to watch Temepara George dance at Westfield Albany. I will be collecting donations for Autism NZ (which was her charity in Dancing with the Stars) with Aunty Swee and will hopefully take a few photos for all of you to see. Temepara is one of the world’s best Netball Centres (a position on the netball court) and winner of Dancing with the Stars 2008!

MacBook Pro

Note: Dick Smith Electronics … L O V E

Dick Smith!

So…. yesterday was late night shopping at Botany Town Centre, so we did a bit of shopping at Valleygirl and then went to Dick Smith Electronics to have a play with their gadgets!

  

And what we bee-lined to was their laptops! and straight to the biggest one! MacBook Pro! Love A P P L E! it was on special for like NZD$3000 something and we were like WOAH! but hey, free to play right? So we clicked on Camera Booth & discovered our faces on the screen! Because the MacBook had an awesome camera feature! Check it out!

 

In all its full glory!

 

See that little black dot? Yea that’s the camera and it’s pretty clear too!

So…. we decided to play around with the feature and DICK SMITH is the best! It has Internet connected to all the computers, so I sent the few shots to my email & bron’s email from hotmail!

Presenting…

the Sepia effect/function!

 

This cool MacBook has the most amazing effects, you can put yourself in a different backgrounds (like in the clouds or infront of the Eiffel Tower) You can stretch your faces… I sorta deleted it though, but that was a funny shot! etc.

 

 

Thanks Dick Smith for not kicking us out for spending ages on your laptop!

 

Avocado Choc Shake!

Note: Yummy treat! Featured Drink of the week!!!

After lunch, we got home and started talking about a yummy avocado shake we had at a Vietnamese restaurant a couple weeks back, and with the abundance of Avocado we had at home, we decided to re-make the shake! BUT with a twist! a veeeerrrrrrrryyyyyyy good twist! Add chocolate ice-cream –> kindly suggested by my aunt (thank you!!!) who had tried an avo-choc shake in Indonesia! So, out came our Shimono blender (a.k.a Magic Bullet) a couple of avocados, sugar syrup, ice and Double-Choc Ice Cream! We whipped everything together and behold the beautiful sight!

The one and only SHIMONO!

Avocados in the garden!

 

Working hard in the kitchen to make the mouth-watering shake!

yummy!

More avo? Yes please!

Double Choc Ice cream!!! mmm…

Okay, to be serious, it doesn’t look all that appetizing anymore but believe me, it more-than-makes-up for in taste than for looks! Sensational! If I could post a taste-tester application on the Internet I would!

 

– Yummy!

 

Is that my stomach again?

Yan Yan sticks and Panda bear biscuits!

Note: Flash to the past!

Today, was a day for celebrating the success of my sister who just passed her driving restricted test! Congrats Bron! Now you can drive me around where I want to go! well, she did well and I’m happy for you! So, we decided what to have for dinner and went to the lot of shops near my house to get some things prepared for dinner. We went to the Mad Butcher and then to the Tofu Shop next door. And I chose out one of my absolute favourite kiddy snacks to eat! Yan yan sticks and panda bear bikkies! Yummy! These snacks always give me flashbacks of the not so long-ago past when I was a 7/8 yr old kid picking out these scrummy chocolatey bites to eat at the chinese supermarket.

I always knew my mum would never buy me these supposed unhealthy, expensive snacks so I turned to my godmother who willingly donated to Megan’s Snack-feed Charity. I’m forever grateful and as I sit merrily crunching on my sticks and my sister on her biscuits today, I cherish these little dips into heaven. These products are oh-so cleverly designed to tempt the weak, or the snack-crazy like me! But they’re so cutely designed and on my yan yan sticks, there are little messages to the eater. Like… SQUIRREL- a best friend or FOX- beware of lies…. who could resist?

 

Certainly not me!

No Doubt

Note: Very short piece -oh yea and the setting is in the quiet room of Botany Library where I found my “fruit” of inspiration.

Apple green walls bordered one side of the room, deep crimson painted the other. The window sill was splattered with pattering rain drops. The room was filled with active minds searching for that slice of motivation or bottle of inspiration. I found it, and plucked a fruit of inspiration from its blossoming tree. Where did its roots lie? In my imagination, no doubt.

Inspired?

Ticker Timer

P.S. I love you – Review

Note: Okay, I know this is quite an old movie of ‘07 but I only got to watch it recently

 

After many good recommendations from friends and movie reviews, I finally decided to plonk myself infront of the computer to watch P.S. I love you .

Starring: Hilary Swank, Gerald Butler, Lisa Kudrow, Gina Gershon

Plot Outline: It’s a sweet love story about a woman called Holly who was married to Gerry, the ultimate love of her life. They know each other so well and love each other to the end. Gerry dies of a brain tumour and Holly is having a very hard time getting on with her life without her soul mate by her side. Unbeknown to her is that, Gerry left her some help to get through her grieving period before he died. He left Holly 10 letters of advice, things to tell her and things for her to do, each ending with P.S I love you  hence the movie title. The letters brings Holly to many places such as Ireland (Gerry’s home) and a karaoke bar. Holly’s mum fears that the letters are taking her back to her past but they actually help her to move on. This takes place over several months and within the time, Holly has managed to free herself from her past and move on by changing jobs, finding new love and enjoying her time with her mum (who she didn’t really connect with at the beginning of the story).

 

With Sharon

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This movie is definitely one to watch with the girls, it involves a little tearing but probably none if you’re a tough cookie! It’s quite the chick flick and inspirational. I enjoyed this movie! It addresses the issue of young love (Gerry & Holly met when they were about 19), and letting go. I felt that in some places the movie got pretty boring because it was just the same situation in a different scene. But I love some of the shoe designs Holly draws. They’re really creative, a little Over The Top because of the intricate details but beautiful all the same. I thought that Hilary Swank was a really good actress in this movie and her crying is really genuine But my favourite scenes are the ones with Gerry in them. Gerald Butler (who plays Gerry) really lightens up the whole mood in the movie. I think without him and his witty dialogue the movie would be quite a drag. And I think it’s nice how Cecilia Ahern (author of the book, P.S. I love you ) incorporated a bit of her heritage in it by including many a scene with Ireland in it and Gerry’s accent.

oh yeah… Point of Interest: Cecilia Ahern is the Irish Prime Minister’s daughter and this was based her first novel (she has more novels)

 

This is Gerry’s spirit/ghost whatever you want to call it, looking over Holly’s shoulders as she reads one of the last letters.

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With best friends, Sharon & Denise (funny scene)

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Overall I give this movie a rating of : 7/10

P.S. I LOVE YOU