drey's Profile

i paid only $400 for a 6 seater Chinese Chippendale dining suite (including the two carvers), with high quality Sanderson linen upholstery on Australia's eBay. when we picked up the suite, the lady (who'd owned it for near 15 years) begrudgingly told us a few days after the auction, she'd seen the carver chairs in a "designer store" for over $650 each!

one day it's going to be painted...

and i scored a pretty green polkadot Diana ware baking dish (normally goes for more than $80 on eBay) for $6 at the local St Vincent de Paul's.

hi :)

oooh durian is my favourite fruit!

like what ami said, it is VERY important to wash out your mouth and hands from the water that you run into the husk.

i am from Malaysia (living in Melbourne, Australia) now and we never drank salt water to balance out the "heat" of the durian. we actually drank tepid water from the husk! you pour in cooled boiled water into the husk, leave for 2 minutes and then drink it.

too much durian will cause a sore throat if you do not balance it out either by the water from the husk OR mangosteens!

Sasha, Thai durians aren't as fragrant as Malaysian grown ones. it also tastes different. the durians in the photos above actually look like Thai durians... whiter flesh... the durians in Malaysia are deeper yellow and very very very fragrant.

i love durian gelato, durian ice cream and roti durian (instead of roti chanai, "roti" being "bread"...)

oh yeah... there is a very very important step that was missed out in the above steps to opening a durian. you don't just "make a deep score" anywhere in the hull. you need to find a natural line in the thorns... they naturally show you where the incision needs to be by actually pointing inward!

jackfruit does not have as strong a fragrance, but it is yellow as well. it does not have a mushy flesh or thorns... the skin of the fruit looks like a thin layer of brownish yellowish mud over some honeycomb. nothing to opening a jackfruit. jackfruit is great with curries or fresh.

but the best is CHEMPEDAK! mmmmmmmmmmmmmm it's more frgrant than jackfruit, less fragrant than durian, soft flesh and you can roast the seeds and deepfry the fruit. ooooh!!!!

wow i have been looking for a cool mailbox myself and this takes the prize. man.. wish it was affordable! maybe can DIY something like this....

but then again, some idiots here love to dessimate mailboxes... (as in, put home-made ice bombs in the mailboxes to create a bit of weekend fun)

thanks for the inspiration!

When Hannah was about 10 months old (Jan 2007) we visited New York (we're from Melbourne, Australia) with our bulky Beema Q pram (which we didn't see in US/Canada) during the dead of WINTER.

Having to rely on public transportation, we found New York to be EXTREMELY unchild-friendly... many cabs wouldn't take us around because of the no-child-seat situation, some smaller cabs couldn't fit the pram in and the subway systems were dirty and without handicap/pram access.

Now that Hannah can walk on her own and is a little more independent, we're hoping to go back to New York... in the autumn. Soooo many things we missed out on seeing in the midst of snow blizzards, windsleets and general ice on the ground which made pram travelling VERY precarious!!!

wow what a glam room, simple stuff but WHAT an effect! fabulous!

hi cbenn, greetings from Melbourne too :) i love this room, i want my girl's room in red too, slowly getting there, one item at a time! i just got the best chest of drawers for her, after looking for 18 months!! i'm planning on painting it red. where did you get your drawer knobs?? haven't seen any funky ones around.