Brighton Beach, Victoria

 Photo | Diana Mini, Fuji Sensia 100, xpro

Bathing Boxes, as they call it.  This is one of Melbourne's colourful sights located in Brighton.  The bathing boxes are all in similar form and size, but with variety of bold colours.  People use them as shed to change, put their belonging, and as shelter from the sun or wind when they come for a swim.  But most of us just wanted to go there and get a snapshot of this postcard scenery.

IKEA-Inspired Swedish Meatballs

I'm pretty sure that there's a lot of us out there who love those Swedish meatballs at IKEA.  Those meatballs, with the cream gravy and cranberry sauce on the side are just delicious.  So last night, I gave a try at making IKEA-inspired Swedish meatballs with the cream gravy sauce.  Instead of fries, I opted to make mash potatoes and serve with salad.  As for the cranberry sauce, well, I took a quick shortcut by buying a small jar of mix berry conserve.  The jam tasted alright, although it was a bit too sweet for my liking, but it did give that berry-sweetness combination to the meatballs and gravy.  The overall combo: pretty close to the ones in IKEA I think! :)


Meatball recipe from here, gravy recipe from here.

So if you're also a fan of IKEA Swedish Meatballs, do give these recipes a try :) Yummy.

It finally feels like Autumn

Last week, it felt like winter.  It was raining and it was cold.  We all thought winter had come early to Melbourne this year.  Even the highlands have started to get snow.  This week however, it felt more like Autumn.  It wasn't so cold anymore and we got a bit of sun, Alhamdulillah.  So today, we decided to visit a park not far from where we live.  We've walked by the park once before but have never walked through it.  MashaAllah, the trees and the leaves are just beautiful.  It's definitely one of my favourite parks now.

Photos | Olympus PEN E-PL1 in Pin Hole Art Filter
Fawkner Park, Toorak

Autumn Leaves

Diana Mini, using Expired Fuji Sensia 100, Xpro

And then season changes...

Photos were shot from Diana Mini, using Expired Fuji Sensia 100, Xpro

It's true that people say in Melbourne you can get four seasons in one day.  Especially in Spring and Autumn, it can get from warm and sunny to cold and cloudy in few hours.  In the first photo, I was trying to capture the rain, which made the photo somewhat overexposed, or maybe it did rain as heavily as that.  The second photo is State Library of Victoria during one of those sunny yet cool day.  It's definitely one of my favourite kinds of weather: sunny, breezy and cool.  The last photo is somewhere near where we live, and you can already see visible signs of Autumn with the leaves changing colours, while some are already falling to the ground.  Coming from a country that is generally warm or wet all year-round, we can't help but to just be amazed by the changing season here.  But even so, in Malaysia you can notice some trees blooming beautifully during that time of the year when it feels a bit hotter than usual.  Then, you can notice some trees like Tecoma and Lagerstroemia to start flowering, and it looks just gorgeous.  I'm definitely looking forward to capture some of that when I get back.

a travel-inspired notebook

I’ve finally purchased something from Handworks Nouveau Paperie.  This was a gift for a friend whom I’ve known for almost three years now throughout doing my research.  She really enjoys traveling to Europe very much (especially Paris) and she loves to draw - so I thought this would be the perfect combination (plus the fact that I just love notebooks like this).  The tag, stamped with kikki K alphabet stamp set, says “Happy Julia Day” because I thought it would be kind of nice to remember the date that we were born as our day.

p/s: Have you ever tried wishing and thanking your mom on your birthday, just because she was the one who gave birth to you?  I did sometimes, and I think it might have brought out some emotions from Mak :)

the city, the clouds and some tulips

These are some of the shots from my first roll using Diana Mini.

It's quite nice to not know how the photos were going to turn out.

But I'm glad that most of them turned out pretty alright :)

Expired Fuji Sensia 100, Xpro, Diana Mini