Turning 27

Hola, I’m back! Meant to update this space more often but life kept getting in the way. I’ve been busy with work, paper-writing, experiments, tutoring at university, editing my wedding photos (which I only just got back recently from my photographer) etc. I’m the sort of person who needs to space and alone time at the end of each day to do my own stuff (aka stoning in front of the computer and/or spacing out randomly) but with my current schedule, that time alone does not seem to be available at all. But being busy is good and I like it so I can’t complain too much!

So anyhow, I thought I’d blog about how I spent my birthday. I turned 27 last weekend! The Husband and I drove up north to Montville to spend the day there. I’ve heard lots of good things about Montville throughout the 7 years I’ve been in Australia, but I never actually took the time to visit the town. The drive was fairly pleasant but there was a car accident along one of the major highways so traffic was quite bad and turned a drive that would normally take 1.5 hours into one that took slightly over 2 hours.

We made a couple of quick stops along the way just to get out of the car and soak in the glorious scenery that surrounded us. The lush green plains reached into the horizon, seemingly never-ending and I just stood there taking in all the beauty (and watching the cows grazing in the distance).

We also saw a little wild pig! It froze when it saw us, and we kept perfectly still so as not to alarm it. It was really cute although I think it could use a wee bath! I tried sneaking up to take closer shots of the little pig but I ended up scaring it instead and it quickly scampered away with a squeal, much to my dismay.

After a wrong turn, we finally made it to our first stop- the Maleny Cheese! It wasn't much of a factory actually, just a cafe attached to a little room where they process the cheese. I was more interested in sampling their cheeses as I had read a lot about it online prior to our visit. There were three main types of cheese- cheddar, feta and white mould. I love cheddar so I only paid attention to the spread of cheddar they had- vintage, smoked, wasabi, tuscan, port and chilli con! We sampled a few and oh my gosh they were really, really good. I've only ever bought cheese from the supermarket and the vintage cheddar they carry are pretty dry and crumbly in texture. The cheddar from Maleny Cheese was smooth, moist and almost spreadable! I was in heaven for awhile there. We ended up buying a roll of smoked cheddar and a roll of vintage cheddar. One week in, the smoked cheddar is almost gone now. The Husband almost could not believe how I managed to wolf down all that cheese. Somebody stop me!

Can you see how moist the cheese is from the picture below?! I can't even..........!!

After our little Cheese adventure, we continued driving to Montville. We headed straight for a cafe called "The Edge" and boy, we can see how they derived that name from. It was literally built up against the edge of the mountain! The view was breathtaking. Pictures don't do justice as I was using a non-wide angle lens. It was just green rolling hills as far as the eye could see! We could also see the magnificent Glasshouse Mountains from where we were.

Based on previous experiences, restaurants/cafes at such places generally do not have good food because the main attraction would be the view so I wasn't expecting too much from the menu. I ordered the "8 Hour Slow Braised Pork Belly" and the Husband ordered the "Fish of the Day (battered snapper)". I was honestly blown away by the meal. IT WAS SO GOOD. Definitely wasn't expecting it! The plating of the food was almost like fine dining (my pork, that is) style but in a larger portion and it was one of the best pork bellies I have ever had. It was served with roasted cinnamon sweet potato cubes alongside rocket/fennel salad, a beetroot juice-soaked pear and dressed with honey soy house sauce. The Husband's fish & chips was just as good too! At first, I was poking fun at him for ordering such a common dish but when I had a taste of his fish, I kept going back for more. It was very solid yet flaky and the batter was thin, crisp and not overtly oily. So far in Australia, the best fish & chips to me are in Hamilton Island (a little takeaway store off the dock) and now here at The Edge!

We were running a little late so we had to finish up our meals pretty quickly and regrettably couldn't order dessert. I wouldn't mind revisiting though! 

After lunch, we started our walkabout. We passed by a few nice stores selling pretty dichroic glass accessories, candles and Aboriginal-style handpainted candle holders etc. We visited several stores including one that sold Christmas stuff all year round, an art gallery, a leather dealer, a woodworking store, a store that sold various glass lighting fixtures etc. Montville is really a very beautiful, quaint town! This will definitely be one of those places I will bring my guests when they come from overseas.

I think the highlight of the trip was actually our last stop- The Black Forest Montville Clock Shop! This was a standalone store a little further away from the Montville town centre in a quaint wooden hut built over a pond . As you can already guess, they sell clocks of all sorts- grandfather clocks, cuckoo clocks, wooden handmade clocks and various other Bavarian handicrafts.

We were super stunned when we went into that the little hut. Intricately-carved wooden clocks filled the walls from the ground to the ceiling and the sound of those clocks ticking and the occasional cuckoo sounds was just totally unreal. We were like, oh my god how can this be?! It felt like I had stepped into a different world.

I was so tempted to buy one of those clocks (the Hansel & Gretel scene) and to be honest, they were expensive but not crazily expensive. Of course the larger clocks were between AUD$600-$1,000 but the medium-sized ones were between AUD$200-$400 which I thought were very reasonable given how intricate they were. We didn't end up buying the clock because our walls at home are made of plasterboard and since neither of us are very handy, we would have to get someone to fix it up for us and it would be a little troublesome..? I don't know, I'm still thinking about it haha.

The grandfather clocks were really massive, they were all much taller than me and of course cost well over AUD$10, 000 each. Very grand and spectacular to behold, nevertheless. The Husband asked if I was scared of those clocks because in TV shows, ghosts are always portrayed to live in them. I was like, okay thanks for the image dear. Bah.

They also sold some pretty amazing wristwatches! The Husband and I both share a penchant for skeleton watches. They weren't very expensive (about AUD$800 to AUD$1,500) but I guess that's because they weren't made by big brand names. Still very pretty anyway!

It was about 4.30 or 5pm when the shops all started closing so the Husband and I decided to head back to Brisbane. One the way back, we stopped by a lookout point called "Gerrard's Lookout". The view again was very amazing to behold, and we took a few pictures. Even the view of the road behind the lookout point was beautiful, I wasn't sure which to focus on because both were equally awesome! So, thank you Gerrard, whoever/whatever you are, for giving us such a great vantage point!

The sunset was absolutely gorgeous- think golden egg yolk-like setting sun amidst columns of pink and purple clouds, but I'm not that great at handling my camera for such scenes yet so I unfortunately couldn't quite capture its magnificence fully.

Just my OOTD haha. I was decked out almost fully in H&M (oh my god, they finally made it to Australian shores!) garb! Wore my new cable knit jumper that I got for AUD$30 and layered it with a simple white collared shirt inside. I also had on my new light blue denim skinnies which were on sale and I got them for $20. The gold-tone donut ring necklace was I think $6..? My accessories cupboard (yes I have a designated cupboard specially for accessories but more on that in another entry perhaps) has exploded and I have had to start hanging my necklaces around the cupboard now but I just can't resist pretty necklaces. My gold-capped camel pumps were from Singapore, I think. They're pretty old so I don't remember exactly how much they cost me, somewhere between $$15-$20 I think. I brought out my Rebecca Minkoff Mini MAC in Camel for the day. I got that on sale from The Iconic for about AUD$150.

We saw lots of pretty flora in Montville! Super cute and delicate, pretty little wild flowers growing by the roadside. Here are a few shots:

The Husband took this shot as his 35mm lens had better reach than mine at 23mm. If we had one at 50mm, the detail of the fly would have been greater! Anyway, we first thought it was a bee trying to pollinate the flowers but we realized soon enough that it was a common housefly. Weird!

Back in Brisbane, we had a fantastic dinner at Bungalow, a fusion food restaurant in Rosalie. It was really dark and I was quite hungry so I didn't manage to take any photos of the food we had. It was very good though! I had some brie-stuffed chicken leg with bacon and cranberry sauce with potato and herb mash, and the Husband had a porterhouse steak which too was delish! We actually stumbled upon this place on our way to the gelato store. What a happy accident!

We ended the night with gelato! Our friends introduced this place to us and made us fans ever since. From the outside, it looks just like any other ordinary ice-cream parlour but their gelato is heavenly! I have quite a sensitive palate (or "princess syndrome", as the Husband would call it) so I can easily differentiate what's quality and what's not, especially for ice-cream and chocolate. 

Gelataria Cremona is also in Rosalie, a few stores down from Bungalow. They have interesting flavors from time to time, sometimes even durian flavor although I have yet to try that out for myself. The last time we were here, we had their milk tea ice-cream and that was really good. Anyhow, we shared a cup with two scoops- green tea and dutch chocolate. I generally don't like chocolate ice-cream because I can never find one that doesn't make me nauseous (aka cheap chocolate and milk solids) but I was really pleasantly surprised that the one here tasted like the real deal. It was both bitter and sweet at the same time. Yum!

We definitely enjoyed the day out together and it made my birthday pretty cool. It is indeed rare for us to hang out on the weekends now because the Husband usually has volunteer work at Red Cross every Saturday but he has since spoken to his manager and now works every alternate Saturday instead. Apart from the Moreton Island day trip we took the other week, we have not really done anything much together ever since the year began. We are working on changing that!