Sydney – La Perouse

The time to relax is when you don’t have time for it.

Imagine yourself unwinding by the shore listening to the waves hitting the rocks on a lazy afternoon….hmmm… relaxing!! I love spending a lazy afternoon at the beaches, it helps me to relax and de-stress.

Whenever we talk about beaches in Sydney, I’m sure mostly everyone (tourists) will think of the Bondi Beach. It’s for sure one of the best beaches around town – close to the city, easily accessible, and with many nice restaurants around, no wonder it’s voted as one of the best Sandy Beaches in the world by Lonely Planet. However, I do find Bondi Beach could be a bit crowded from time to time, and it’s a bit too commercial.

Bondi Beach on a weekday morning

Last time when I visited Sydney, my local friend brought me to another beach. Hmm.. It’s not exactly a beach, but it’s more like a seaside area. It’s called La Perouse, you can still swim there, but it’s not once of those white sandy beach places.

Looking at Bare Island

It’s one of the most popular places for weddings, and a great hang out spot for a weekend Barbie (Australia slang for Barbecue). As there are not that many parking spaces around the area, it could take you some time to find an empty spot on the weekend; but the plus side is, this place is easily accessible by bus. There are buses coming directly to here from the city center, so for those who are travelling without a car, there’s no need to worry.

Other than having a barbie, I would also strongly recommend you to go and walk on the rocky plains of Bare Island, or take a visit to the Bare Island Fort to learn more about the history of the place. On Sundays, the Bare Island Fort is open for guided tours, make sure you have made you bookings beforehand. Tickets can be purchased prior to the tour from the La Perouse Museum.

Let me introduce you to “Sally Lunn” from BATH

When we talk about Bath in the UK, the first thing that comes across our mind is usually the Roman Bath or the famous Pulteney Bridge. But, Bath is not only famous for that, it is also the birth place of “Sally Lun”.

The famous Pulteney Bridge of Bath

The Roman Spa Bath

Do you know Sally Lun?

Coming from a non-English speaking background, when I first heard the term “Sally Lunn”, I thought it was a person’s name. It was only after some explanation done by my British friend then did I realized it’s a name of a type of bun.

A Sally Lunn is a large bun made with a yeast dough, and could be enjoyed with either sweet or savoury accompaniments. The bun has a similar taste and texture to the brioche breads of France, and is first recorded in 1780 in the spa town of Bath in southwest England.

When I was visiting Bath in my last visit to the UK, I finally had a chance to visit the famous “Sally Lunn’s” tea house. It’s extremely crowded on weekends and during lunch hours, so I would strongly recommend you to go either on a weekday, or around 11 to avoid the lunch crowd.

The tea house itself is one of the oldest houses in Bath, and is in the center of the wonderful city of Bath. It’s about a 5-10 mins walk from the Roman bath.

Sally Lunn 2 Course High Tea – £12.38 – A round of Sally Lunn Bun topped with finest Scottish Salmon followed by the world famous Sally Lunn Cream Tea

The World Famous Sally Lunn Cream Tea – £7.48 – Half a toasted & buttered Sally Lunn BUn served with the best Straberry Jam and clotted cream

PS. The bun is actually quite big, so be sure you don’t order too much!!

Aussie Fish’n’Chips

The sun is out, the water’s crisp and you’re hungry. What to go for?

You can’t go wrong with Fish’n’Chip!! The whole of Australia is basically surrounded by the ocean, thus we have some of the best and freshest seafood in the world. That means,  you’re almost guaranteed fresh fish, served with salt and lemon, wrapped in yesterday’s newspaper or white wrapping. Yummmmmmmm!!

There are fish’n’chips stores in every single shopping malls, but usually the best ones are near the sea by the shore. “A waterfront pavilion gets the moonlight first” – they do get the freshest seafood first hand, so it all makes sense.

Each time when I go back to Brisbane to visit my family, there is this one fish’n’chips shop that I cannot miss! It’s called the Morgan’s Seafood  at Redcliffe, and is right next to the Moreton Bay Boat Club. Not only will you get the freshest locally caught Queensland seafood direct off the trawlers or straight from the fishermen, you are also going to be enjoying your food with the stunning view of Scarborough Boat Harbour dotted with luxury yachts, and the Glasshouse mountains! To top this off, the Thurecht Park is right across the road, you could even throw a Barbie party there!!

Morgan’s Seafood

View from the seating area, stunning!

In Australia, most of the fish’n’chips shops have a large display cabinet showing the different types of fish/seafood they have for the day. So sometimes it kills my brain cells when I have to try to memorize the orders for the whole family!! Not only will i need to remember the different type of fish/seafood they want, I also have to remember the way they want it to be cooked (battered/crumbed/grilled)… Usually I will forget one thing or two at the end, ooh well. (Hint: usually they have pen and paper at the counter you could use to write down your order)

One of reason why I must visit the Morgan’s is because they have a food that not many other fish’n’chips shop offer. I’m sure most of you have tasted Deep Fried Calamari Rings, but have you ever had Deep Fried Cuttlefish? The Deep Fried Cuttlefish here is so fresh, and has a bit more texture than the ordinary calamari rings. It is my absolute favorite of all time in the Fish’n’Chips category 🙂 The oysters and cooked seafood here are quite nice too and reasonable priced, so why not give it a try also?

Smurf’s Exhibition

“I smurf you 🙂 “

I’m sure The Smurfs brings back lots of childhood memories to people across many generations! The first appearance of the Smurfs was back in 1958, and ever since then, The Smurfs made appearances in many countries thru different mediums, such as magazines, TVs, and even on the cinema screens!

We’re all Smurfs! This summer, led by Papa Smurf, Smurfs will embark on an Asian Art Tour to convey their beliefs in harmony without boundaries. Their first port of call will be Harbour City in Hong Kong! From 13 July to 21 August 2016, the Ocean Terminal Forecourt of Harbour City will become an enormous “We’re All Smurfs!” village with a debut exhibition featuring 36 precious original works of the Belgian comic Peyo.

“We’re All Smurfs!” Village

“The Smurfs House of Story”

“I’m a bad drawer, which lets me come up with very simple designs.” – PEYO

An Afternoon Tea Set you simply cannot miss in Hong Kong

“Come, let us have some tea and talk about happy things”

So yesterday, after a tough session at the gym, my friend and I decided to pamper ourselves with a fancy afternoon tea at the ATUM Restaurant. (Alright, let’s be honest here, we didn’t work that hard at the gym, and we have pre-booked this place before we decided to go to the gym, excuses excuses)

ATUM Restaurant is the second spot opened by the group, with their first one being a huge success!! A little bit different to their first spot which is called ATUM Desserant (you could probably guess by the  name, it’s a place for dessert, yay!! You would be able to google a lot of pages about this place if you are interested to know more), this new restaurant serves both sweets and savory.

The restaurant is a bit hidden inside the K11 mall in Tsim Sha Tsui of Hong Kong. You need to navigate your way thru all the little boutiques before you reach the entrance. The interior of the space resembles a bit of an art gallery, very simple, with some decorative elements.Again, it’s using my favourite elements of bare concrete and wood – simple, clean, and chic!

Seating Area is quite spacious, with lots of natural lightings

Instead of serving the afternoon tea set on traditional tied cake stand, they serve them on a flat long plate here, which makes it very different to the other places. The way they present the food on the plate makes it like an art piece here.

The tea set comes with any teas or coffees, and a salad. We ordered a 65% hot chocolate, and an organic berry tea today. All the food are in bite size, which is a great idea for no mess dining.

Award Winning Barista – Small Cafe in TST Hong Kong

It’s another lazy Saturday afternoon, and I need a coffee!

If there’s one drink on this planet that I cannot live without, I think it’d be coffee.

“I only need coffee on days ending with Y”

I’m not an expert about coffee, so I won’t be able to throw at you all the expert terms like the acidity, the body, the origin of coffee and so on… For me, a coffee is a drink that wakes me up, gives me the energy to last for the day, and tastes pleasant!

Coffee makes me happy

For me personally, I really enjoy drinking a cup of coffee at a nice chilled cafe with a touch of their own identity. Instead of coffee chains, I like individual cafes more. They usually have their own decoration, their own feel, and very importantly, the coffee usually tastes better!

There are so many nice chill cafes when I used to work in Sheung Wan, such as Coco Espresso, Brew Bros, Elephant Grounds and so on… However, when my office moved to Tsim Sha Tsui East, it was a bit difficult to find some nice cafes with good coffee. Well, this was the case until I discovered “N1 Coffee & Co”!

Entrance of N1 & Co

This place is a little cafe on Mody Road, the entrance of it is a bit hidden, so you may not be able to recognise it when you walk past. I love the decoration of this place, it’s got one of my favourite building element – bare concrete!! Inside the cafe, there’s also a Merry-Go-Round horse as a decoration piece, which makes the interior very unique! The identity of the cafe is Mint Green, which gives it a bit of cool refreshed feeling to it. I absolutely love the interior of this cafe!!!

How about some CHOUX for afternoon tea?

Happy Friday 🙂

Friday for me is always a happy day, because the weekend’s coming!! Com’on, who doesn’t like the weekend right?

“Better days are coming, they are called: Saturday and Sunday!!”

Usually during Fridays, my colleagues and I will go out and enjoy a nice relaxed lunch. Since we moved our office from Shueng Wan to Tsim Sha Tsui East, it had been a bit difficult for us to look for nice relaxed boutique cafes and restaurants… Until today we stumbled across a little corner placed called the “Owl’s”. We were attracted by the White and Deep Blue decorative facade, and decided to go in and have a look.

The moment you step thru their door, you could already smell the aroma of baking!!

Freshly baked choux, smells sooooo good!

Brisbane Power House

Doesn’t time pass by very fast? We are already half way into 2016!! (And I have achieved nothing from my new year’s resolution list so far lol)

So, back to the topic “Brisbane Power House” – it is Queensland’s home for contemporary culture, often have performances, exhibitions, band gigs etc here! The reason it’s called the Power House is because, well, simply because it’s a power station of the 1920s reborn as an art centre on the Brisbane River.

“There is a big blue sky waiting just behind the clouds”

I remembered when I was still a high school student over 10 years ago, we had a school trip here to see a Japanese Taiko Show here for our Japanese class, and that was the only memory I had of this place. I didn’t really like the place then, because it was kind of in a ghetto area. However, this year in March when I went back to Brisbane, because I had to surprise my parents who’s doing Tai Chi in a park nearby, I had a chance to re-visit this place, and I absolutely fell in love with it!!

The architecture itself just look stunning! The old brick exterior with the very modern industrial interior matches very well, and the location is right by the river, a perfect hang out spot for a lazy Sunday afternoon!

Appreciating Australia

My family and I migrated to Australia in 1997, when Hong Kong was handed over back to China by the British government. It was a historic moment for us Hong Kong locals, and like many others, my family were not so sure about the future of living in Hong Kong, therefore, they have decided to move somewhere else.

As a little kid, I had no choice but to follow them. I had to leave all my friends, my relatives, and everything I ever known of, and move to a completely new place. Instead of moving to Sydney or Melbourne like a lot of other Asians would do, we moved to Brisbane instead. A little background information – Although Brisbane is the third largest city in Australia, when I moved there in 1997, it was like an old boring city. The fashion there was HORRIBLE, and most of the stores, including the supermarkets closes at 5pm everyday (except Friday night shopping which closes at 9pm).

“We never fully appreciate what we had until we don’t have it anymore”

I never really liked this place, so I’ve decided to move back to Hong Kong by myself in 2009, and had been here since. Although I love the people, the city, and my job, the longer I’ve stayed and worked in Hong Kong, the more I miss Australia. To be more precised, I miss Brisbane – I miss the food, I miss the weather, I miss him (Ok, I shouldn’t, someone slap me please), I miss everything about it.

It took me some times to realized, as human beings, we tend to forget how good things and people are, or how much we already have in life – we tend to focus on what we don’t have, or how bad thing and people could be… Until the day we lost it, then we start to look back, and noticed that, we already had everything. If you learn to appreciate even the littlest things in life, you will  be a much happier person 🙂

I will share more about the different places and restaurants around Australia in my next few blogs, so remember to stay tune.

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Welcome

Hello, and welcome to Kaleidoscope Living
“Kaleidoscope” – a constantly changing pattern or sequence of elements
“Living” – the pursuit of a lifestyle of the specified type

This blog aims to bring you to the different corners of the world, sharing with you what I see from my travels.

The idea of blogging all started because of a bad breakup that I have went thru a little while ago.I was so traumatized that I couldn’t sleep, couldn’t eat, and couldn’t go to work. I felt like my world has collapsed, everything seems dull and meaningless, and I find no joy in life. People who went thru depression would understand the helplessness feeling – no hope no colours no nothing…

After some psychologist sessions, and with the support from my friends and families, I was finally able to walk out from the dark, and get back on track with my life. It was not easy for sure, but if you are determined to stand up from where you fall, you will be able to do it!

“Remember to love yourself”

So, during my recovery period, I was encouraged to keep myself busy, by spending time with friends, or learning something new, picking up a new hobby etc. This strategy worked very well for me, the more busy I get, the less I remember the breakup that caused me a lot of pain. (Ok, sometimes I still think about it, but it hurts much less now)

I started to see that there are so much more to my life then this unhealthy relationship I was in. There are so many interesting things around me waiting to be discovered. I started to see colours back in my life, I started to laugh more, I started to realized that my life is worth so much more than what I used to think – I started to love myself 🙂

“If you just keep moving forward, you’ll amaze yourself”

 

The blog aims to share what I see in my everyday life. It will mainly be around food, lifestyle, and travelling. I hope you will enjoy the content, and stay with me on my journey ahead.

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