hau wei’s life

The past weekend was just awesome! Had a great time sharing at OCF Clayton’s LTC and then a day trip down to Geelong on Saturday and a blast at church on Sunday! Wowww! God is GOOD!

Really had such a good time sharing at the LTC on spiritual defenses I very quickly spoke over time without knowing it! What seemed like 30 mins became an hour! Nobody really noticed it too! Hehe…amazing how God works with receptive hearts!

Then me and Pegs took a short day trip down to Geelong and I’m so glad we did! It was such a beautiful day and FINALLY I can once again enjoy sunshine and fresh sea air! It’s been so long I really can’t remember the last time I breathed in the beautiful crisp sea air! Aaahhh…that’s life! It was a good drive down where we just talked and talked hehh, really do realise that time is a scarce and precious commodity when one’s working, especially for couples!

Basking in the sun…ahhh

The first place we went was straight to the Waterfront and there’s something about nice sea front piers/marina/parks etc…we then took a few shots. Heh…been a while since we can take nice photos in nice weather! Ahh…glorious sun!

A classic Chinese karaoke video pose

We then went to the National Wool Museum. Yeah. A WOOL museum! Never had I imagined there’s such a thing! Also discovered there that sheep ARE quite mindless grass grazers! Behhh…we even got to see a 100 year old carpet loom in action! Works till today and makes top quality carpets.

Mr. Carpetmaker and the 100 year old loom

It was really quite fascinating watching the loom work. So many moving parts just clickety clackety away! I am duly impressed how well it still works and the sheer genius behind the planning and building of the mechanisms! We modernites have it easy! Click…click…click…Enter. Finish.

Operator, I need an exit…

Those old enough to remember the rotary phone or even the Matrix will feel a tinge of nostalgia with this. I can almost hear the Luddite saying: “Bahhh…I have the world at my fingertips! No need for fancy schmancy whatchamacallit piece of modern day evil!”

Dinner with Graeme and Sue was just absolutely blessed! Such a blessing to be over at their place for dinner, watching them pretend to bicker and argue and poke fun at each other as well as giving really wise words of wisdom and encouragement! They are such an inspiration, to be still so on fire for God, willing to be used by Him and going all out for Him at such an old age! Woww! It was such a great day…that Saturday! God is SO GOOD!

Ohoho! What have we got here? It’s my fresh and new blog! Ahh…once again I’m back on the blog, I don’t know how long this would last but WordPress is quite the geek’s blog with countless plugins and instant theme changes! Was prompted to get back into blogging again when my brother asked me to check out MovableType, another blog software but because WordPress was so easy to install on our webserver, I decided to give it a go. Plus, migrating from Blogger was one click, okay maybe two or three…;)

So, what’s been happening? Well, heaps! God has been doing amazing stuff in Urban Life and the Burwood Urbs totally rocked! We so pigged out yesterday night, stuffed ourselves silly at the steamboat dinner. Yumm…too bad I don’t have pics to post up. In Caulfield, we watched Amazing Grace as a surprise outing ahhh…those who weren’t there really missed out, that was a really good show. One that’s worth watching again!

Also yesterday I finally went to Kmart to sort out my broken espresso machine, the one I got for my birthday, sorry guys, not your fault, just Sunbeam’s QC! The crack developed slowly I figured until one day I just can’t brew my espresso any more! It was probably only 2 months old then!

The culprit…a nasty crack, clearly seen when enlarged

Amazingly enough, I told them I don’t have the receipt and I asked if I can have an exchange because it’s faulty…the lady just said go grab another one. I was like…whoa…talk about trust! So off I went to look for a replacement Sunbeam Cafe Espresso espresso machine but can’t find any…the closest one was one up, the Cafe Crema which is in the semi-commercial range already. I had to top up $30 for it but I don’t mind, still cheaper and more convenient then sending it to the service centre and getting it fixed.

My new espresso machine!

Ahhh…it’s been a while since I’ve been enjoying my own brewed coffee! I have become a bit fuzzy with the milk, especially with cappuccino with some cafe, I’d rather just have a short black! Finally I get to use the coffee grinder Wayne got me! Better now than never!

Izakaya Chuji

Had lunch yesterday with Pegs in the city and I was quite stuck for choices and really have no idea where to eat. So in the end we decided to just go to our favourite hole-in-the-wall, Izakaya Chuji, corner of Lonsdale and Russell St. where their lunch bento boxes are really good value for $14.50. You get to mix and match your own bento box and their kaki fry is quite decadent. Kaki fry is simply deep fried crumbed oysters, crispy on the outside and moist and juicy on the inside. Thanks Wayne for showing us this hole-in-the-wall.

They serve a killer Soft-shelled Crab Roll, it’s amazing. One whole deep fried soft-shelled crab in each roll along with sweet chilli and if I recall, there is also tobiko (fish roe) in there and it’s really something I never tried before. It’s really to die for! That costs $12.50 for two rolls and it’s worth it, treat yourself!

The atmosphere is casual and unpretentious, jeans and t-shirts as well as suits are all welcome! It almost feels like you are suddenly no longer in Melbourne but in a cozy restaurant off the side alley in Japan. Actually an izakaya is actually a Japanese drinking place which serves real food to go with the drinks, really a casual after work dining place in Japan. Will post photos proper the next time we go again. But for now a location on Google Maps will have to do!

Location map of Izakaya Chuji

Ohoho…I think this may morph into a foodie blog, that’s simply because every Friday night, it’s me and Peg’s date night and we make it a point to treat ourselves since we hardly see each other nowadays when she’s working so people, Friday nights are reserved already! Hehehe…and oh, by the way, Japanese is our favourite so you’ll probably see a lot of Japanese eats on my blog!

Yesterday’s church service was just amazing…power worship, power preaching and even people jumping off the balcony to get saved! Well, the church doesn’t encourage that but yeah…some guy was so desperate to answer the call that he actually jumped off the first floor balcony of the Dallas Brooks Centre! Good thing he could still walk to the altar! This church is crazy! I LOVE it!

Ps. Russell spoke on positioning ourselves for God’s blessing and it was just mind blowing! I mean who would have thought that is something essential? Isn’t all you have to do is pray and go about our normal lives while God answers? Ha! No way…

Imagine you bought something off Amazon and you’ve done your part…now it’s Amazon who would be sending the package…but all the time you aren’t home to sign the parcel, how would it ever get into your hands?

So, we’ve gotta keep PRAYING, PRAISING and having FAITH! What are we busy with? What is holding us back from spending time with God, listening to Him? Life? He IS life! How can we receive with our hands full? That’s what Ps. Russell preached and I can’t disagree with him the least!

Yet another day staring at the computer stuck in Visual Studio doing the Computer Architecture assignment…Jon and Pegs were stuck in the library the whole way too. We also were thick faced enough to try something really cool…boiling hot water in the library for our coffee and tea! Ehehehe…people LOOKED when they saw me carrying a kettle in the library! Not to mention the noise the kettle was making: bubbling hot water! Hehehehe…but the rewards was worth it eh?

Mad students…

Was just chillin’ out over at Hotmamas@Berrima yesterday after a hard day’s work, kicked back and JonnyBoy was just smoothing out all that frizz caused by the day with his smooth swingin’ keys. They were serving up the Malaysian classic Pulut Hitam expertly made by FairyLi, awesome stuff.

The kitchen was bustlin’ where ChefChel was whippin’ up a mean stack of Kuih Ubi Keladi (Fried Yam Cakes), PegsSaur frantically looking for her notes and finding a 6 month old advance birthday card in them, FairyLi trying to concentrate on her lectures online…what a scene! Me trying to hijack JonnyBoy’s keys…causing a major revolt. Should’ve kept my fingers on my own keys…

It’s all swingin’ at Hotmamas@Berrima, that’s where all the cool kats are at. Be seen there!

In light of recent events, i.e. seeing the ‘aliveness’ of blogs of people who are cool around me…I believe I too might join in the bandwagon.

…stay tuned!

Okay, this blog is once again stagnant and I really don’t know if I have the time and energy to update it so often.

Anyway, just can’t wait to see what God has in store for 2006! Here we go!

Many things have happened during the past month…results came out, friends graduated, moved to a new place, friends left, flies came, Internet starved for 2.5 weeks…many many things. However, one thing that never changed was God’s faithfulness. During times that were trying, I just felt so assured that everything’s gonna be alright. Wonder how everyone else is doing back home?

Today’s chapter of Purpose Driven Life says it all…God created us all for fellowship and no man can be an island. So thankful for all the great friends I’m surrounded by. Christmas is coming and it’s only just the handful of us here in Melbourne, although I’m really excited and looking forward to the Planetshakers Conference coming up in 2 weeks time!

Then random blurbs follow…

Making progress on Easter Camp 2006 planning! All thanks to Jerica the Dynamo…always spinning new ideas before we even breathed in the old one…hehehe…we’ve got our t-shirt design done! Kudos to Jeremy on that! Can’t wait for more developments!

I’ve finally managed to comfortably moved to Mac OS X and I must say it’s a lovely OS! My geekiness just can’t hold back from the greatest temptation of all…running Mac OS X on my Dell laptop. Finally fulfilled one of my greatest desires…to own a Mac OS powered computer. Hehe…roll your eyes all you want!

I know it sounds a bit nutty but being an engineer at heart…this is one of the many cool (read: geeky) summer projects I intend to take up! The core of this project is to connect a printer to an Xbox and sharing that printer over a local network.

This is accomplished through booting Linux on the Xbox and converting the game controller port into a USB port. Heh…did you know the Xbox is actually a PC? That makes life a LOT easier and thanks to the Linux community, this could actually be done!

Will post more…if it’s successful. The Xbox is more than meets the eye…

Yep, it’s finally up. Not a comprehensive list of photos but what I’ve got.

Check the photos out here:

Main Link
http://dtans.com/hauwei/albums/thanksgiving05

Mirror
http://members.iinet.net.au/~tanhwei/albums/thanksgiving05

It’s best viewed full screen, to do this, press F11 on your keyboard. Should fit nicely on a 1024×768 screen. You should be able to see the main picture and thumbnails at the bottom. Click the ? icon to show captions too.

Have fun!