Are you hangry?

Some interesting words I found:

thirdhand smoke: Used to refer to residual tobacco smoke contamination that lingers after a cigarette is extinguished.

Now you know those bloody idiots produce firsthand smoke, secondhand smoke and thirdhand smoke.

hangry: describes a person suffering from hunger-induced crankiness.

read more at From A To Zimmer

Mosquitoes

How many of you love mosquitoes sucking your blood? Seldom are people immune to their saliva eh? (My cousin is one such lucky fella)

I bet most of you have itchy red swollen mosquito bites all over your body and are dying to kill em.

Have you ever wonder whether we are hastening evolution on the mosquitoes? We weed out the mosquitoes, try our best to kill it, spray them with insecticide, and still, there are millions of them. I'm very sure we are breeding a highly adapting mosquito species soon since

1. we are too tired to kill the mosquitoes deep in our sleep.
2. we can't detect those silent killers.
3. it is very hard to kill fast moving mosquitoes.

And end up we're breeding, silent, fast assassins that attack you in the night -_-

My first Foccacia bread

I have a breadmaker at home which was collecting dust.
Impromptu decision led me to bake last night after work.

I had bought Prima's foccacia bread mix (costs $2.81 and it includes all the dried herbs everything) and I must say it tastes good enough.

All I need, to make a loaf of bread is the mix, water and olive oil.
Dump all the ingredients into the breadmaker, and wah la! you are done with your part.

Actually, when I poured the ingredients into it, I was tempted to stir and mix it myself - i did that a bit and decided to let the machine do it. I miss the fun of rolling out the dough and beating it.

I'm sure lotsa women might find it fun to destress ;)

Normally, a breadmaker comes with different settings catered for cakes, different kinds of bread even making jam!

The manual recommended to use either Basic or Quick settings and greedy impatient me, decided to go for the quick setting. UNFORTUNATELY, it is not enough -_-. Should have set it to basics.

What's the difference? Basic will take you 3 hours to knead the dough and bake it.
Quick will take you just 2hr 20mins which is NOT ENOUGH.

When the bread came out, it did smelt good and I meant really good, but when I open up the bread, some parts of the bread weren't so cooked - was still kinda damp dough you know what i mean? Fortunately, that was a little bit of it.

Due to my greediness, the bread was cut and devoured before I have the sense to snap a picture of it :p

Oh ya, by the time it was ready, it was around 1030pm and it tastes good with thick creamy English soup yum!

I think that going through the whole process of baking is fun. Nevertheless, if you are hardup for time, wanting to eat fresh bread every morning, then a breadmaker is just for you. I should add that you can set a delay time so when you wake up, your bread's just ready.

It'll not be the first time I baked again - I'll be back with the pictures the next time!

Cheerios

ps: One big flaw - the breadmaker's program sucks. You can't just skip the knead process and go straight to the baking process. So can't continue to bake. My suggestion? Use the toaster oven.

An Idea of the Tour Packages

Tour packages

The Off-Whistle Tours

Timetable for The Ghan

Food For Thought

Coming up this Sunday:

Starter:
Miso soup: Miso soup paste
Green Seaweed
Beancurd

Main Course:
Japanese Curry Rice
Chicken cutlet
Veggie patty
Scotch Eggs

Jap Curry Rice: Carrots
Taters
Onions
Curry sauce

Chicken cutlet: Flour (Normally coat prawns)
Chicken breast

Scotch Eggs: Breadcrumbs
Eggs
Minced pork meat

Veggie patty: Beancurd
Mixed veggie (corns, peas, carrots diced)
Look around for more beanies to add

Dessert:
Oranges
Mint leaves
Chocolates
Ice Cream (Optional)

Pictures will be posted if deemed to be aesthetically pleasing and delicious.

Travelling Around Aussie

3 ways to travel:

The Greyhound

Rates are expensive.
Example: Darwin to Katherine (3 hours journey)
(In Aussie $$)
One-way
Student - $71
Adult - $79
Round-trip
Student - $67
Adult - $75

The Ghan

Example: Alice Springs – Darwin/ Katherine or v.v
For Red Kangaroo Service
Sleeper Cabin Daynighter seat
Adult 705 355
Student 606 295

Of course, there's always travelling by car
Vroom Vroom Webbie
Above website compares prices.


Cheapest is by Budget -
For 21-24 years of age: $179.08 for an estimate of 4 days.
Per day is around $44.
For 25+ years of age: $153.45 for an estimate of 4 days
Per day is around $38.

While, travelling by car looks cheap but don't forget that paying petrol is another matter.

One of the Choices

Gecko Lodge
A 10 minutes walk away from the beach, it costs AUS $25 to stay in a 4 mixed dorm.

FrogsHollow Lodge
Situated in the city area.

Banyan View Lodge
Accomodations seem good. I like their mini dorms - range from $20 to $25 depending on fanned or air-conned rooms.

I personally like to stay in a dorm of around 4 ppl :) I think a dorm of 6 to 8 ppl would have been kinda noisy and crowded.

To get visa or eta?

Good day mates,

*ARGHHHH* I HAVE TO PAY AUS $70 for a Tourist visa to Australia!

Well, let me tell you a little secret, *you can pay as little as AUS $20*

Let me introduce to you, ETA.
ETA stands for Electronic Travel Authority and is your cheap option to the Tourist Visa.

ETA allows you to go for holiday or business trip within 3 MONTHS and all you got to do is pay a service charge of $20. How's that for a deal?
Go to ETA's website and register online for ETA.