sugarpuffi's little things in life

Mamma Mia! The Musical

2010-01-14T01:10:00.000+11:00

Went to watch Mamma Mia! The musical on 3 December. It is a heart warming musical that based songs by ABBA. Set in a Greek Island called Calicos, a 20 year old girl named Sophie tries to find her dad that she've never met to walk her down the wedding aisle and give her away. This comes in a dilemma as she discovers that she has 3 potential 'fathers' so she invites all 3 of them to her wedding in hope of finding her real dad between the three.

The musical was adapted into a film in 2006 and was premiered in July 2008. As of 19 August 2009, it is the 13th longest running Broadway musical of all time with 2,343 performances surpassing famous musicals such as 'The Sound of Music' and 'The King and I'.

Mamma Mia! Is currently on show at the Lyric Theatre Star City. Tickets could be booked through Ticketek.

Photos that I sneakily took during the performance!

I noticed someone sitting just two rows infront of me and tried to find him during the scene break but failed. I managed to take a photo of him at the end of the show. Hoho.

It's Geoff Field from 104.1 2Day FM!

He was with his husband Jason Kerr. How sweet :3

Oh! and I just realised that Geoff is following Tony Abbott on Twitter. Reminded me of a little mishap a while ago when my mum was picking me up from uni at 11pm. She parked her car at the entrance to the ABC building which is next to my faculty but that was Mr. Abbott's car space! LOLOL. The security was staring at the car but didn't make a move as it was the same car brand but still thought it was suspicious. It was not until Mr. Abbott's car arrived and he realised that my mum's car was not his. Poor Tony had to park elsewhere but my mum drove off 2 minutes later since I arrived.

But yes...I'll try to blog more frequently...

UTS 2009 Graduate Design Show - Republic of Design

2009-12-10T01:13:00.000+11:00

1 December was the opening night of the Graduate Design Show at UTS. After 5 years of studying design, I finally finished my course and put my project on display along with 231 other creative citizens.

Citizens include:

80 Visual Communication Students

68 Interior Design Students

55 Industrial Design Students (one being me XD)

60 Fashion and Textiles Students

13 Design Research Students and

124 Designing out Crime Exhibition (from both 3rd and 4th year students)

My page from the Industrial Design Graduate Collection Booklet of 2009

Being an exhibitor, I was entitled to 4 free drinks!

My Display Panel

My plinth has became a bar table =.=

I went to uni to pack up my design today and it ended on a sad note. Alot of our works has been damaged or even stolen. Some of the works has been rapid prototyped which means it costed hundreds even thousands to make and all of the works has been created with the most care and passion. We have dedicated alot of effort into this and clearly some people just don't appreciate it.

Many has chosen to take their models away before the show was finished because they do not want further damage or feared of it being damaged during the show.

My model was severely dented from people touching and poking it but it wasn't anything too serious though, I was quite upset from the lack of morals of some people.

Britney Concert - The Circus

2009-12-04T02:08:00.001+11:00

I have pulled this blog out of the grave!!!!!!!!! It has been a longgg time since I've touched this blog because I have been very active on my food blog Sugar's Sweet Blog and it gets quite tiring managing the two.

I am going to fish out some past event and slowly catch up...if ever.

Anyway, went to Britney's Sydney Circus Tour on Tuesday 14 November 2009 with some friends.

Row 3 Section 9!! It's like...wowzers spot

DJ Havana Brown got the party started

After she left, the screen showed this...

WTF....

At first, I thought they were joking but the time went from 25 minutes to 19 minutes second by second...so we walked around to get some churros only to find they are sold out :(

Came back to our seats for some cam whoring time

Lucy and Me

When the show started, the acrobats did some pretty cool stuff

A guy spinning himself in a big metal hoop

Britney finally came out at like 9:30pm

Ringmaster Britney

I didn't take alot of photos and certainly none of them are good as she was always dancing and the pictures always came out blurry. Alot of recordings but I couldn't show it here :(

Britney dancing in (and on top) of a cage

Dancing in a frame hung in mid air

Alot of ending photos because that was the only time she didn't move around

Despite what critics and other people say, I think she did a massively impressive job in making this successful.

The Circus Concert is a 360 degrees stage located in the middle of the arena. During the show, Britney and her dancers prances from one corner to the other for a full on 1.5 hours so I don't know why other people are not impressed with her efforts.

It was a clear fact that she lipped synced except for 'Everytime' because the audio sounded completely different. Um...let's see YOU sing and dance perfectly at the same time. Give her a break people!

It's time to PARTYYYY (well almost)

2009-10-24T22:38:00.003+11:00

It's the end of the year and that's when everything starts to be hectic. School kids have exams, uni students have assessments and I will be graduating from my dreaded 4 year Bachelor course in 2 weeks. Putting the stressful part aside, it is also a time of celebration.

Melbourne Cup Day is the closest one that comes to mind. I have been invited to the Melbourne Cup Day exclusive Luncheon on 3 November 2009.

The invitation is so pretty! The cover has a gloss print of horse and horseshoe canvas on thick wax paper. True professionalism.

Unfortunately, as my assignment due date draws near, I am unable to attend such event. Oh what shame :( But I will be at the Cocktail Cruise on 'The Blue Room Vessel' on 8 Novemeber 2009.

It just so happens that the event is held on my birthday. YAY! I shall be 23 in just 15 days. Only two more years till I can't say that I'm in my early twenties anymore. It seemed like yesterday when I turned 18 and partied like a wild animal. Now I'm just old.

It is a known fact that my photography fails so bare with me.

The Blue Room – Sydney Harbour features:

Top entertaining deck with retractable roof and bar perfect for pre dinner drinks and canapés.

Dining Room featuring 360 degree views of Sydney Harbour, with ceiling to floor glass, dance floor, lounge area and full air conditioning.

Contemporary décor throughout the vessel.

Lounge area with ottomans.
(Description and image copied from http://www.harbourfunctionsrus.com.au/v92-MV_Blue_Room.php)

Blue Room Vessel

Dining Area with panoramic views of the Sydney harbour

I've been invited last year but didn't go for reasons I cannot recall so this year I have to make up for it by eating twice the amount of canapés (and also eating for...you know who you are XD).

Checking the Blue Room website, the cocktail menu is $48.00 per head! 200 guests would be $9600. I guess thats quite cheap considering how most Sovereign Room members lose that much in 20minutes.

I have been slacking in updating this blog simply because I have nothing interesting going on in my life apart from eating, uni, chatting on msn and skyping.

My food blog is much more active and that shows how much I spend on food (THAT MEANS GO HAVE A VISIT - Sugar's Sweet Blog). It's quite depressing where I am struggling to find $2000-$3000 to rapid prototype my model but I'm still eating out so much.

Star City

Website: http://www.starcity.com.au/

Blue Room Vessel

Website: http://www.blueroomsydneyharbour.com.au/

Lancome Gift Set - Exclusive to Myer

2009-10-11T21:44:00.001+11:00

I was buying lipstick with my mum at Myer when we saw the Lancome Gift Promotion. Spend $70 or more at Lancome and you'll recieve a 9 piece gift set (your choice of skincare)!

Here is my feeble attempt to photograph this at night...

Compared to a professional finish...

The package contained:

Intensive Reinforcing Anti-Wrinkle Cream 15mL

Intensive Reinforcing Anti-Wrinkle Eye Cream 5mL

Intensive Reinforcing Anti-Wrinkle Serum 5mL

Bi-Facil Eye Make Up Remover 30mL

Hypnose Masacara 2mL

Colour Fever Lipstick

Colour Design Palette (4 shades of eye shadow)

Hypnose Snese EDP 5mL

Lancome Cosmetics Bag

To be honest, I find the anti-wrinkle creams quite useless as they are currently non existent on my face. My mum chose this skin care~not me. The bag is butt ugly but very big so it may be good for travel and you can stuff everything in one bag.

My makeup remover has just ran out so it was perfect that the pack contained it and although small, the Hypnose Mascara has always been my favourite. It makes your lashes 6 times thicker and does not clot or run down ur eyes!

Overall I think it is a good deal when you need to refill your make up bag with something. In our case, mum needed lipstick so she bought 2 which costed around $100. *Side note* the sales consultant was extremely helpful and knows her products well. We showed her an empty lipstick container from a different brand and she matched the colour so perfectly that it was identical.

This promotion is on from 24 September 2009 - 25 October 2009 so girls you still have 2 weeks!!

Play Yiruma if you want a girl

2009-10-07T17:45:00.004+11:00

A couple of days ago, my friend told me his secret in getting girls. You need a TALENT or at least something to impress a girl with. For him, his method of 'impressination' is to play the piano. Although he had never had any piano lessons nor he could read notes, he memorised all the keys and learnt a piece in 2 months.

Yes, he learnt piano just to hit on chicks.

Nothing can beat a live demonstration. He quickly hopped on the piano and played the piece for me. Having to fail for the first 5 times, the 6th was a success. Considering that he never had any training, he played pretty well with minor mistakes which can pretty much fool any girl who does not have a musical background.

The piece he played is called River Flow Into You by Yiruma who is a Korean New Age artist that married Miss Korea Son Hye-im!!! Lucky duck.

Hear the original here.

It's actually Edward's Lullaby from Twilight! Some say it's not but oh well~

Good music combined with gorgeous looks? WINNER!!!

I have summarised this equation to this ~> (GM + GL = W)

Addicted, I quickly Googled the sheet music and started to learn the piece. It's not that hard and anyone that have a Level 4 or above in Piano should play it with ease. Having only completed Level 3 in Piano (Oh the shame), I'm still in the process of coordinating both my hands to work at the same time.

Heard the piece? Loved it?
Now... PLAY IT!

Learnt it? Good :)

Now boys~ you switch on your girlfriend searching radar, find a girl and play that piece for her. Tada!! You got yourself a girl :D

Just don't forget to thank me when you do.

A series of (Wonderful) Events

2009-10-06T01:17:00.002+11:00

October 2009 has so far been an excellent month. 1 October was the 60th Chinese National Day where the whole nation celebrated with pride. The advantage of having a huge satellite dish is that I can watch everything broadcasted in China live (minus the laggy download via the internet). I got up nice and early and glued myself to the TV.

The military parade was the highlight of the extravagant celebration. I heard the minimum height of each person is 1.83m! Sorry dad, 1.81m doesn't make the cut. It might sound cocky but seeing China being so powerful has brought tears to my eyes.

Being an Chinese born Australian, I am very proud of my heritage and background. It might be my upbringing, my parents doesn't let (or at least attempted to) me and my brother speak English at home. Until now, after 16 years of white washing, I can still speak, read, listen and write in fluent Chinese.

During the parade: the boys...

and the girls. Their uniform is so pretty.

After the military parade, it was followed by beautiful floats with the first one being the portrait of Chairman Mao, the founder of the Republic of China. Others resembled different stages of growth in the nation, Mao's famous quotes, our 56 different nations, children, our provinces, SAR and many more.

The night was filled with a National Day's evening musical party with many of China's celebrities and cultural displays.

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Another thing that happened on the 1st was the birth of my little niece. When you reach a certain age, friends around you start to get married and have kids. It's not the first time that I have been slapped with the 'aunt' status but being blood related to one of them is something I've never experienced before.

Meet my little niece...Camilia! (Strictly speaking she is my cousin's daughter but I'm still an aunt).

This is my cousin Vicky pinching her cheeks.

I met her for the first time today after just returning from the hospital. She is such a cute bundle of joy. I can't believe my grandad is now a great grandfather. He would've been ages ago if my eldest cousin could settle down. Camilia is still waiting for a Chinese name. According to Chinese traditions, we need to find a fortune telling master to give her a nice name to fit with her date of birth.

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3 October is the Moon Festival! Our family celebrated with a lovely dinner of steamed scallops, barramundi, fresh oysters, stir fried beans and cabbage followed by a surplus supply of mooncakes!

I've been stuffing them down my throat for the past 2 weeks or so. Do you know how many calories these babies have? I certainly don't want to know. I'm currently on Mooncake overdose and my waistline is already feeling the dangerous side effects. People just keep sending them to our office! How could I resist?

I love those Icy Mooncakes where you have to refrigerate them and eat them cold. They come in pretty colours too like pink and purple. They even have abalone and ginseng mooncakes! People in China love giving these elaborate mooncakes away.

Holiday on the Gold Coast

2009-10-01T18:48:00.001+10:00

Wheeeee! Surprise holiday to the Gold Coast on Saturday. Since mum cancelled her flight to China due to the dust storm~she have decided to go to the Gold Coast as previously planned :D.

Upon arrival, we were whisked away by an extended Limo courtesy of Conrad Jupiters. We stayed there for 2 nights. The room was MUCH smaller than Star City but their hospitality was great so no complaints there!

Our room wasn't ready so we safekept our luggage with the concierge and went to Movieworld via...TAXI. It was a very stupid idea as the cab fare was $50 dollars!! WTF. Such a rip.

The place was the same as the last time I visited in 2005 except they changed the show 'Police Academy' to 'Stunt Driver'. Both are very exciting shows mind you.

Some of the cool stunts during the show "Stunt Driver"

I admit that I'm a whimp and therefore did not try out any of the so called 'thrill rides' like the Superman Escape or Lethal Weapon but hey I went on the Scooby Doo ride and that was pretty much the most thrilling ride that I am capable of handleing.

Superman Escape Ride. This rides goes from 0 - 100km in just 2 seconds! And look at that almost vertical drop! You can't blame me for whimping out can you?!

The sky is grey due to the Dust Storm :'(

Tired and hungry, we went back to the hotel via bus only to be lost in the middle of nowhere since my mum pointed to some random building claiming to the Conrad Jupiters. Finally arriving back to the hotel, me and my mum fought for the shower while my dad and bro decided to be stinking men and watched the Simpsons.

Dinner was served at Spinners inside of Conrad Jupiters.

Entree: Caesar Salad with Smoked Salmon, Egg and Advocado

Garlic Prawns

Grilled Snapper with Garden Salad and Chips

200g Sirlion in Mushroom Sauce (Medium Rare) with Cesear Salad, potato and bacon

and...Beef Fajita to pop my Mexican Food cherry

Beef with capiscum, onion, advocado mash, salsa, sour cream and tortilla

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The second day was spent at Dreamworld. Of course being a whimp, this world is totally not for me but tickets were complimentary of Conrad Jupitors :P

The tiger show was very exciting even for the second time. My family were obviously impressed. Did you know that tigers can leap more than 6 meters, climb trees and knock an elephant on the ground with its paws? If you happen to anger one of those babies~your chances of survival are... pretty slim.

11 Year old Bengal Tiger enjoying the good'o Aussie Pura Milk

Leaping off the pole

Look at those lazy koalas. They sleep for 22 hours a day and the 2 hours awake are spent chewing on gum leaves. What a wonderful life.

Me touching a CUTE wombat :D

We shuffled ourselves to White Water World at 2pm. To be honest, this place is a crappier version of Wet'n Wild with minimal rides (probably around 6). I can't believe we got changed at 2pm and managed to leave by 4:30pm. My mum didn't even get wet!

We spent the rest of the day at Surfers Paradise Bouverlard. It has a Galleria (duty free shop with all the nice designers), Hard Rock Cafe, the BIGGEST Timezone I've ever seen, Bowling, a...CONDOM KINGDOM and ASA (Australia Shooting Academy) where my dad and bro had a nice time shooting with 2 different types of rifles.

Shooting at a 30 meter distance.

And the end result...

What can I say...my dad is too pro!

Wicked is so wickedly AWESOME!!

2009-09-25T17:38:00.003+10:00

I am a HUGE fan of musicals and which musical fan could miss out on Wicked - The Untold Story of the Witches of Oz which is on show now at the Capitol Theatre in Sydney. The story involves two best friends Elphaba and Glinda and how they became the Wicked Witch of the West and Glinda the Good Witch. Behind the surface, the truth is never so simple. It's a touching story of friendship, love, greed, envy, jealousy and lies.

Winner of 20 major awards including the oh so exclusive Tony award (they won 3) and a Grammy,the 18 million dollar production is sure not to be missed...by anyone! If you hate musicals or have never been to one then Wicked will make you change your mind.

The production includes 450 costumes, 120 or so wigs, high technology lighting, massive stage that comes out to the audience, thousands of props, ingenious creative team and producers, two main characters Amanda Harrison (Elphaba) and Lucy Durack (Glinda) who have voices so strong, powerful and pure, Rob Mills (Fiyero)who is a common household name after coming the Top 12 in the 2003 Australian Idol competition.

The song "Defying Gravity" was one of the best songs in the musical. Have a listen to it here. Sung by Idina Menzel as Elphaba and Helen Dallimore as Glinda. Really not a fan of Helen though~no offense.

Another song I enjoyed would be the song "Popular". I watched this on youtube before going to see it and still found it quite funny.

Although sitting at row D, I was placed on the very corner *cries*. That's what you get for ordering your tickets too late :( I took some VERY BLURRY pictures cause I was trying to hide my camera from the guards.

This dragon breathes out smoke too!

It's a musical not to be missed out!

Dust Storm

2009-09-23T17:35:00.000+10:00

My brother is crazy. Really, he is. He thought that 6.50am was nearly 9am and nearly late for school so he decided to wake me up by charging into my room screaming

"LOOK SIS THE SKY IS ORANGE!!"

At first, I thought it was just the sunrise and screamed at him for waking me this early but when I opened my eyes, the sky was really orange!

I jumped out of bed and started to snap pictures on my camera. It was a spectacular sight with everything swaying in a wind of orange.

They were taken outside my window and please don't mind the fuzzy pictures...it was at 7am and I was VERY sleepy plus it was meant to because the orange colour was all dust.

According to Ninemsn, the wind storm originated in South Australia and moved its way up to NSW and Brisbane. My friend Jeremy who lives in QLD said his whole room was orange at around 8am his time. So lucky that I closed my window the night before~otherwise my room will be the same. Although my windows were tightly shut, I could still smell the dirt and there was a very thin layer of orange dirt on my poor laptop which is placed right next to the window Y~Y.

My friend Xiaoxiao was meant to fly to China today but her flight was cancelled due to the dust storm. My mum's flight to China is tomorrow. I hope everything is well for both of them :/

Although my brother is a bit retarded in the head for being unable to tell the time, he did the right thing for waking me up so early today. Kudos to you.

Present from Nuffnang

2009-09-21T23:16:00.000+10:00

Today, I've recieved a box of surprises from Nuffnang! The mail man came knocking at our front door at 8-9am and woke my parents up. They thought that I was online shopping again and bought so much that it has to come in a box.

Since I slept at nearly 7am, I was totally unaware of my surroundings and realised my package at 6pm when I finally woke up and came downstairs to ramage the kitchen for food.

In the box, it contained many goodies: A thank you letter from Nuffnang, $10 Coles Myer gift card, bottle of Spring Valley juice, John West tuna, Leggos sauce and 2 Redken mini packs.

As I previously mentioned, I came downstairs to look for food so John West tuna was gobbled up immediately. Oh god the tuna was so nice. I have always been a Greenseas tuna fan but now I think John West is great too!! Damn the power of free samples!

Thinking about food, my mum bought take away from Lotus Pond at Star City. My brother is a great fan of Fujian (Fukien) but they have recently changed their menu. Sadly his all time favourite has been deleted off the menu so we had to ask the chef if he could make them.

The receipt was HILARIOUS! Instead of Fukien friedrice, the waitor wrote FUCKING friedrice. As you imagined, my whole family was laughing our ass off at home. Old news though~this happened 10days ago but I was too busy to blog about it.

Whee my very 1st post!

2009-09-09T00:09:00.000+10:00

First of all, welcome to my blog! This is my very first blog so I'm very excited *shriek*!
So I’ll start off by introducing myself. I’m Betty, female, 22 and single so if you are interested please contact me. @_@ I joke.

Anyway, yesterday I’ve discovered this mighty good site for Chinese people that are away from their country but still wishes to buy stuff in China…all in the comfort of your own home! This site is called “Panli” which helps people like me buy all the goodies in China. What you do is you register and you can start to shop like crazy on sites such as “Taobao” and “Dangdang” which are the Chinese equivalent of Ebay.

When you have found what you like, copy the link and paste it on Panli, they will then buy it for you and mail it over to your overseas address. You pay a 10% service fee on your purchased items but come on! A bag for 30 yuan + 3 service fee = nothing in aussie dollars. "WHY DO I WANT TO DO THAT?" You ask, well most sellers do not mail to overseas and if you are buying say 25 things from different sellers, your shipping fee will SOAR! Panli collects all of your shopping and ship it to you in bulk therefore saving you a lot of money :D Neat right?

So after banging my head on my laptop on why I did not find this site years ago, I started to do what a girl do best...Shop!

I spent around 4-5hours scanning every inch of the site looking for bargains and bought 4 bags, 3 pairs of shoes, fake eyelashes (never tried them but they are too cheap to resist) and whole heap of other stuff. Now, I shall wait patiently for my items to arrive at my door step.

The only downside is that I shopped till nearly 4am and my poor little eyes just resisted to open itself in the morning. After struggling to get up, I took a snooze in the car chauffeured by my dad<3

A 15minute presentation for my Industrial Design Major Project is due next Monday and they wanted a 1:1 sketch model so I spent the whole of my afternoon battling with foam, band saw and the disk sander. I managed to get the base done with 1 missing wheel cause the stupid workshop closes at 5pm.

My base parts

Charlene trying to draw 81 circles on that huge ass cardboard

Roxanne building her modular furniture