August 31, 2009

Detector Dog

While waiting to retrieve my luggage at Tassie (short for Tasmania) airport, I found this little cute puppy doing his round of inspection with a local officer. SO CUTE!

detector dog


Here's a video.




I never knew dogs can be so obediently adorable!

August 29, 2009

McLaren Vale Wallpapers

Short Note: Just blogged out about the best Chocolate Cafe in Adelaide. Check it out on my food blog.


Just before I forget, here are two wallpapers from McLaren Vale, South Australia for you.

mcclaren vale wallpaper

Click here for 1600x1200 size.

Click here for 1280x800 size.


hugh hamilton wallpaper_1600x1200

Click here for 1600x1200 size.

Click here for 1280x800 size.


And here is one for those who uses wide monitor screen.

hugh hamilton wallpaper_wide

Click here for wide 2560x1600 size.


Enjoy. :)


August 28, 2009

Project Alpha

chandelier

7 bloggers.

7 stories.

1 show.

1 hot chick.

I had the chance to hang out with the lovely Jojo Struys for two consecutive days during the shoot of Project Alpha.

light stand


And because I live out of the suitcase most of the time, Michael the great

Michael lim


decided to cast me as the homeless friendless bohemian hippie and had Sunway put me in their really posh Sunway Resort's Arabian Suite.

arabian suite sunway resort


Right. As if I live in such luxury everyday.

"Of course I stay in RM1500 a night with your very own club lounge to dine in three times daily every night." *roll eyes*

fruit platter
And for that price they give you this pretty nice fruit platter in the room


People are going to get the wrong perception of me!

I'm not friendless!

nicole and casey


Casey was supposed to be my friend in the show but Michael decided to steal him away and make him a cast (and later decided to put him on the second season anyway T_T)

Sigh.

But Dayumn! It was a really nice room!

me and my arabian suite in sunway resort


Can someone, like, buy me that really soft 10cm feather bed??
I want to sleep on it everyday!!!!
(Does anyone know how much it cost? I really really want it!)

*swoon*

And the view from the room~

sunway lagoon


talk about the grandest artificial view ever

coffee maker machine


They even have a personal coffee maker machine in the room!

little espresso

"Care for an espresso?"


Now since Adidas Active 3 is the sponsor, I have to wear something sporty.

me and white parrot on my shoulder


Can someone say "Little Miss Sunshine"?

me feeding white cockatoo parrot
Perfect photo ad for a deodorant brand.


And god I really hate my wetsuit tan, I wanted to wear something to cover up but I didn't want to end up looking like a diver on land.

me and white cockatoo parrots


So you get to watch my half tan in action on hitz.fm soon. T_T


macaw and cockatoo and me


It's not everyday you have a Macaw on one hand and a white Cockatoo on the other.


We took some amazing animal shots in the wildlife park in Sunway Lagoon.

white parrot
Cockatoo


red macaw parrot
Macaw


jojo struys and cute pink addidas gym wear
A very rare pink species of the royal peacock family.


pelican
Baby carrier - Pelican


otter
Otter


furry guinea pig
Furry Guinea Pig


python
Python


golden gibbon
Gibbon


And my favourite of all - Kiki the Gibbon. Or was it KK? KayKay?

kiki the gibbon


kiki gibbon


This little brown gibbon was adorable to the max. When I got near it, he ran toward me and spread its arms and wrapped me around me neck when I bent down.

me and kiki


He was so cute!!!

I also met Budiey and Beautiful Nara doing some crazy stunts in the other part of the lagoon.

G force


I have no idea what were the scripts like for Kenny and Audrey & Tim. Though I heard Sixthseal was going to eat some fire later that evening.

I did manage to catch a glimpse of Redmummy in her red apartment on video though.


Anyway, I had the privilege to come close to some really endangered species in the world, like the Great Hornbill.

great hornbill


And a creature so so so special, it was my first time seeing one live, which I don't want to reveal what yet. :p

Here are a list of beautiful shots of Parakeets, probably my favorite birds of all time.

parakeets


parakeets trio


hand feeding birds


light blue and green parakeets


couple parakeets


I know. Great camera.


Follow on Part 2 here.

August 27, 2009

McLaren Vale: Cleanskin

Who says wine and ice don't mix?

O rosemount glass


In McLaren Vale, you will come to a rosey winery called Rosemount, one of the most popular wineries you'll find in this region.

rosemount winery


rosemount winery entrance


red roses


Rosemount has this sparkling sweet delight called O.

O rosemount sparkling wine and glass


It comes with its own O glass where you can fill it with crushed ice (preferably) and is one of the easiest wine you'll ever drink.

Light. Sweet. Bubbly. And Fun.

drinking sparkling wine


It only cost AUD10 but I didn't have enough luggage space so I had the forgo the purchase. T_T


Anyway, back to the beginning of my trip.

malaysia - melbourne - adelaide


On the day of my graduation, I met Max, a professor from University of South Australia. He invited me to dinner that night to talk more about my profession (blogger?) and wanted to conduct an interview with me for his radio channel in Adelaide.

max in chapel hill
Max


Over our chat, he found out that I was to be in Adelaide only for a few days, mainly just to attend my graduation and I would be on my way for the next few weeks traveling further down south.

He also learnt that I wanted to do a roadtrip down to McLaren Vale - one of the three wine country I have not visited in South Australia state. The other two being Clare Valley and Barossa Valley.

on the road to mcclaren vale


So spontaneously, as always, he invited his friend and we all drove down to McLaren Vale the next day.

max and friend


Such was Australian hospitality. ;) (Thanks Max!)

26km to mcclaren vale


mcclaren vale


old small methodist church
A very old small Methodist church we passed by on the way


Our first stop over was a cute little winery called Chapel Hill (located at one of the northest part of McLaren Vale).

chapel hill winery


This house was a ironic little thing because Chapel Hill was really, a Chapel.

chapel window


chapel turned winery


Right. So they turned a holy place into a winery. Sweet.

tasting wine in chapel hill


standing in refinery
Check out their refinery!


It was also here in Chapel Hill that I learnt about the existence of Cleanskin wine.

cleanskin


Max explained to me that Cleanskin were actually label-less wine that's sold at a cheaper price than its label counterpart.

Why? Because there are simply wineries out there who tend to produce too much wine and in order to prevent selling them off at discounted price which would "lower the value" of their brands, they bottled them up and sell them off as Cleanskin.

cleanskin on sale in rosemount
Rosemount Cleanskins


Apparently, this is also a very Australian thing.

Cleanskin is very bit the same as a labeled wine,

chapel hill wines


so if you know where to look for (particularly at the wineries itself) and when, you'll be able to buy really good wine of your favourite winery at a dirt cheap price.

drinking wine from rosemount


(Once they go into wine shop, you'll never really know which winery they come from, apart from the region it's produced)

wink
Now you learn something. *wink*


We stumbled into Oscars while scouting around for food.
(Click on link to view my food blog review)

oscars restaurant in mcClaren vale


Now Oscars has to be one of the nicest Italian restaurants/bars I've ever been in my life. Situated in a wine country, I couldn't ask for a better ambiance and environment!

And the pizza was just to die for!

two types of pizza


max and food


Later we stopped by a few more wineries for more wine tasting and cam whoring sessions.

me and weird looking tall bird


The more wine we took, the funkier we got.

max and bird


"Max, stop harassing the bird."


homey winery setting
Couldn't remember which FINE house-looking winery is this. But LOVE the setting!


We drove passed rows of grape vines and realised that we were all alone in the area, with no one around.

grape vines


So we did the only thing anyone would have done if they were in our position.

.
.
.

We got out the car and started plucking the grapes.

me and grapes on vines close up


me holding a bunch of grapes


Bunch and bunch of beautiful tiny grapes~!!!!

grapes


mini seedy grapes on vines


grapes on vines


So many of them!

me and grapes on vines


Such abundance!

me in vineyard


Rows after rows.

me posing in between vines="


Even Max's friend was going at it!

maxs friend


grapes in hand


hiding among vines


holding a grape


It was already early April so most of the grapes were going to drop off respective their vines. Some were beginning to shrivel up.

dried up grapes


Natural RAISINS!

raisins on stalk
Man they're sweet!


We gathered just about enough, had enough fun, before deciding to climbed back into the car and silently drove off.

grapes in car


white grapes
"Can someone say fruitful event?"


Don't worry. Those growers have more than enough to share a few bunch with us.


Later driving around McLaren Vale, we came to what has to be the valley's prettiest winery.

hugh hamilton overview


Hugh Hamilton.


entrance sign


When you drive up to the winery from the entrance, you'll be parking in front of a row of olive trees.

olive trees


Now I've never seen olive trees up close before, so it was a rather interesting point of fact for me.

green olives
Raw green olives.


I did learn that, no matter raw or ripe, NEVER attempt to eat an olive straight out from a tree!

ripe olives


They tasted foul!!! Bitter right down to the pit of your stomach!


Back to the beauty of Hugh Hamilton.

entrance to hugh hamilton


Love the design. Love the vineyard.

me in front of hugh hamilton


me overlooking hugh hamilton vineyard


Love the panoramic view of the vineyard from the circular winery.

me and vineyard


Love the grape vines hanging from the roof.

max friend looking up


Love the fact that they used sheep as their mascot.

oyster knives sign


Or the fact that they sold oyster knife?

oyster knife


But mainly, love their sense of humor.

sheep dip


Sheep Dip! Haha!!

(If you don't know what Sheep Dip is? Google it up)