Last Of The Sith Lords

I've been bad, very bad indeed. Can't help myself again, had to get it coz it was on sale again. I am too weak to resist, the Force is too strong with the dark side and I am seduced!

Here's my latest addition to my Star Wars figurines that I got on Sunday in Kmart when they had the 20% off. Its the dark lord of the Sith himself, the epitome of evil, Darth Vader!

One beef I have with it though, it doesn't want to stand on its own! I had to use blue tag to hold it in place, what kind of Sith Lord is that! But still kewl though don't you think? Comes complete with his red light saber!

Come with me Luke, join me and we will rule the galaxy as father and son! It is your destiny! The Emperor has forseen this and together we can defeat him and bring order to the galaxy!

Do not be fooled by what Obiwan told you, search your feelings, you know it to be true..your feelings have betrayed you. You will join me or die!


All he needs now are his band of stormtroopers which I don't have yet but clonetroopers will do for now. Why not? This can be at the start of the Empire before the Rebellion. Embrace the dark side!

Music Festival

I went to the Northcote Music Festival on Sunday. Apparently the festival has been going on for the last 5 years and this is the first time I've ever been there just to check out what they have.

They had to close up High Street from Clarke Street right up till Separation Street. The festival was expected to be held between 10 am till 10 pm filled with musics of all types and from all corners of the world.

I got there quite early, around 11.30 am when the street was still quiet and vendors were just setting up their stalls. Did you know that it is illegal to drink alcohol in public places except for the pubs and restaurants?

It was a mild morning when I got there but the weather soon changed and we had a cold front coming through bringing heavy downpours of rain with gusty cold air. It was freezing after that but that didn't stop people from coming out after the rain eased and the party continued.

There were a lot of venues where you can watch live bands and performers but you can also see them performing in the street like this group here which I never knew who they were or what they were performing. I was just there to see the camel toes!

This bohemian drum band performed really nice drum music from Africa. All venues along High Street were free but you were supposed to make a gold coin or fold donation to keep the festival running in the years to come because money from the government is never enough for events like this.

I went into the town hall to see the opening ceremony and also because it was warmer and dryer inside! When I got there this band was playing, they're the Velika Buka, I think they're greek but I could be wrong but they played nice music but in a different language which I did not know.

Then came the opening ceremony with the usual speeches by the politicians which I'm not going to bore you with but during the ceremony they had this group of Aborigines women who came all the way from the outskirts of Alice Spring to perform their Walpiri Dances. Guys, please don't get too sexcited because of the NNTTL! If you don't know what NNTTL is, ask 5xmom. Enjoy their dance below;

See The World!

I went to see the world today and it only took me a few minutes. Yes, you read right..I saw the world in a few minutes! Its the cruise ship "The World" just arrived in Melbourne for a couple of days.

Unfortunately the ship nor the pier is open to the general public so we can just look at it from afar! This is a gigantic ship with 11 decks complete with pool and sports decks. Inside is even more spectacular but I'll never get a chance to see it. But you can have a virtual tour here!

This is the closest I could get to see it, from the shoreline. Its a floating city that cruises to the 4 corners of the earth while living a life of luxury onboard. They have everything they need on board so residences just enjoy their sheer quality of life across the surface of the globe.


I tried to compare it to the Spirit of Tasmania but from this angle it looks like its no larger than the Tasmanian ferry which is on the contrary because it is way bigger than that. Unker Ho, try paddling this boat!

The Eagle Has Landed

I've been borrowing classic 70's chinese Shaw Brothers martial arts DVDs from the public library and catching up on all these nostalgic yet crappy movies from my childhood. Didn't know better when we were growing up watching them in the cinema but now realising how bad the movies were made but yet I could not look away! I love watching crappy Shaw Brothers martial arts movies! Maybe I'll blog about them when I've finish watching them so in the mean time, no time to blog but enjoy this Eagle from Docklands.


This 25 metre high sculpture by Bruce Armstrong sits on the southern entry of Docklands. It is made of timber, aluminium and glass. The Eagle was inspired by Bunjil, the spirit creator of the Kulin nation and it keeps a watchful eye over the Docklands development.

Made In Malaysia

When I went back to Malaysia in 2003 after being away for 13 years I discovered a drink that I learnt to love straight away and practically everyday when I was there I'd be drinking it coz its just so good!

I'm talking about 100 Plus the isotonic drink that restores your body's hydration and electrolyte balance, so says the manufacturer. But I like it because of its taste and because it tastes better than tasteless bottled water!

Here in Australia it is quite hard to find this drink because it hasn't catch up with the general population yet but even if you do find them like when I was pleasantly surprised to see them selling in a Safeway supermarket, they are overpriced and I just don't feel justified paying so much for it. 98 cents for a 325ml can! I'll drink coke which is cheaper.


One thing that's got more bang for your buck is these Foh San Mooncakes all the way from Ipoh which I posted last week. Thanks to all the people who supported us and do tell your friends and family about it. There's still plenty available and you can still grab some for the Mooncake Festival on the 1st of October. Priced at A$27.00 a box with the exception of the red bean paste at A$18.00 a box of 4 these little babies are flying out the door! Email me with your orders at wuchingofthewhills@gmail.com and have a great weekend!

My Clone Trooper

I've been bad and bought myself another Star Wars figurine to add to my collection. And it wasn't even on sales! I'm starting to get an itch to gather, gather all these figurines that they keep putting out there in the market! Must control myself, must control..

This time I got the Clone Trooper, yay! I've always like the Clone Troopers and the Storm Troopers, don't know why but maybe they're like little toy soldiers the child in me never got over playing with. Hold on, they are toy soldiers but in a Star Wars kind of way.

As usual they must try to seduce me to buy more by advertising the other figurines at the back of the package but I'm only interested in the Troopers but maybe I'll get General Grevious next time!

This Clone Trooper is the last kind in the linear transformation of the earliest Clone Troopers we see in Star Wars Episode II: Attack Of The Clones to the Storm Troopers we see in the original trilogy. You can see that it is starting to look very similar to the Storm Trooper now especially the helmet and the weapon of choice which is a short hand blaster as compared with the longer guns they had before.

The great thing about this figurine is that it is very flexible and you can get it to assume different stance and position you want unlike the Destroyer Droid I got the last time. George Lucas was very clever when he made Revenge Of The Sith with so many different types of Clone Troopers, each for different combat situation so that idiots like me have to go and collect all the different types!

Here's a view from the side rear. Notice that it is much stable than the other Clone Troopers I had from the Clone Wars cartoon. This one can stand quite steadily by itself whereas the ones before were quite flimsy and wouldn't stand properly sometimes.

Here's the frontal view, isn't that cool? I'm such a sucker for Star Wars figurines especially the Troopers! I probably want to collect them all but will do it slowly and in no haste.

So all I need is 1 of each kind coz I can make a whole legion of them with photoshop! One day when I'm in the mood I might even use them to make a short Star Wars story of my own!

Attack Of The Birds!

During Spring a lot of God's creatures take the advantage of the warm weather to procreate young ones. Let me tell you about the bees and the birds..well, maybe just the birds today.

These 2 love birds really did do it coz they're the proud parents of some chicks who've just hatched. They are seagulls and made their nest on top of this awning where I work and they are very protective of their babies! Just look at their suspicious looking eyes staring down on me!

Unfortunately 1 of their babies fell down from the nest and could not fly back up and is hiding underneath this pallet here. I could not get a better shot than this coz I was too scared to get closer for fear of the parents attacking me when I wasn't looking!

As soon as I got close to the baby they swooped down to attack, screeching and sqalling like no tomorrow! I really thought they were going to scratch my eyes out when they swooped down upon me when I tried to check out the baby. This time of the year better to stay well clear of birds and their nests. Check out the video clip I took of them!

Festival Indonesia

The Indonesian Festival was on over the weekend down at Federation Square and I managed to catch a bit of the performances they were showing on Sunday. I missed out on Saturday's programs but Sunday's performance pretty much made up for it.

Besides the stage performances there were also food bazaar, arts & crafts and business opportunities showcased at the festival. I took a lot of photos but I won't bore you to dead with too many pictures, here are some of them..enjoy!

The morning program involves children performers. I got there late just in time to watch the finishing act from this all kids band. Don't know what they were playing but they were good!

After the kiddie performance time to get down with the SYTs! These gorgeous ladies are performing a dance from Bali I believe. I am not familiar with Indonesian culture so do feel free to correct me if I was wrong.

I think this dance is from Sumatra? They're supposed to be peacocks but aren't colourful peacocks supposed to be male? Nevermind, they're pretty good..*applause*

This guy looks so serious but he looks a bit pondan, don't you think? His costume looks like a mixture of chinese and other asian influences. I think he's from Java but I'm already confused!

Halfway through the dance with another guy (yeah, so brokeback) they put on these hideous looking masks. Maybe there's a story in the dance on how they turned into brokeback demons or something! I'm so bad!

OK, back to the girls..this one looks like she's doing a martial art stand. They're all good dancers but I just can't remember where they're from, they're from all over Indonesia and you know how many islands there are!

I will never forget where these are from! They said they're from Borneo but aren't they Iban costumes and dance moves? Even angmoh women wanna do the Iban dance, must be the 'in' thing now.

These 2 are from the island of Sulewesi. Their movement is similar to 'jogeh' in Malaysia or it could be the same thing, who knows. Psst! Do you think like I do that the guy looks like he's younger than the woman?

But at least they weren't boring coz they even came down the stage and got the audience involved with their dance. Lucky for me they didn't grab me! They must know cina can't dance!

Then after all the dancing they had a demonstration of Pancha Tanmantra a type of martial art originated somewhere in Indonesia but all I see is kweilo and no indonesians!


But the best part of the show was this lady here who has a great voice and very entertaining with her songs and dance. I've prepared a short clip below so you can get an idea of what I'm on about. Watch out for that old angmoh on the right dancing to her tune!

Earth From Above

There's a free exhibition of aerial photography from now till the 12th of December down by the river at Federation Square at the moment. Go down there to check it out if you haven't already.

Earth From Above is an aerial portrait of our planet by Yann Arthus-Bertrand pushing towards sustainable development of our world so that we don't stuff up the planet for our future generation!

The exhibition has some really nice photos taken and you can purchase copies of them there in smaller prints or even poster size. If you're in Melbourne and you haven't been down there, go today!

There are too many good photographs on display there but I can't show you all so I'll just show you a couple that I like, like this one here of the rusty broken down tanks from Saddam Hussein's Republican Army in Iraq.

Or this one from Brazil where tons of timber cut from the Amazon jungle are flooded down the great river to be exported overseas. It reminds me of Tanjong Manis in Sarawak where similar sights of timber brought down the Rejang river from the interiors before being loaded onto ships bound for oversea countries like Japan and Europe.

This one is from a slaughter house from a country I can't remember. Does it put you off eating meat after seeing this? They're slaughtering cows I think, so much blood and carcasses everywhere! *shudders*


But I'm sure you wouldn't mind looking at these flesh! Its taken from a nudist beach somewhere. If you zoom in you can see all the nen nen, pet pet, kkc & bok bok till your eyes go blurry! Enjoy!

Lampworking

I learned a new word today and its 'lampworking' which is a style of glassworking and is the oldest way of hot working glass. It involves placing glass over the flame of an oil lamp (in the old days but nowadays they use propane burners) to heat the glass to melting temperature and manipulated into shapes.

These 2 artists are lampworkers and they're demonstrating the art of lampworking to the public. The guy on the right is Christian Arnold and he's been doing this for almost all his life but I do not know who his friend is coz he wasn't wearing a name tag!


You can find their creative works here in Kirra at Federation Square where they sell all sorts of arty farty glass decors that you may like and wouldn't mind parting a large sum of your hard earned money to take one home.

Mana Lesen?

I saw a traffic police stopping a motorbike just outside my house one day and thought the biker must've commited some traffic offense and that the cop was going to issue him with a fine. But because I could not hear what they were talking about, I imagined what the conversation would be like if this was happening in Bolehland.

Police: "Mana Lesen?"

Biker: "Shit! Blardy blood sucker caught me! Quick, pretend not to see him!"


But after much attempts to be ignorance of the offense he had commited, the biker finally succumbs to the Mata Mata and was given his infringement notice but was also given a choice of punishment...

Police: "You can pay now which will cost you less or pay more when you pay in court, what's it going to be?"

Malaysia Boleh!

Flowers For The Wife

I haven't been buying flowers for my wife for a long time. I can't remember the last time I bought her flowers, I'm such a hopeless case! I usually just pick flowers from the backyard for her, I'm so kiam siap!

But I did buy her these last Sunday. They're oriental lilies, I used to grow them but somehow I wasn't able to keep them from dying! These are long lasting and have very strong perfume so its good value for money...there I go again with money!

The problem with these flowers is that they drip sticky liquid down on to the table from the stamen and the powdery pollens fall everywhere as well so can be quite a nuisance sometimes.


Some people cut off the stamen to avoid this problem but I think that would ruin the beauty of the flower don't you agree? I just put up with the problem and enjoy the fragrance and beauty of this wonderful flowers, they last a long time and it's been nearly a week and they're still going strong. Have a good weekend everyone!