24Kgs of nuts




10 hours later




We made 62 jars of 3NutButter









^_______________^

Field Trip

Had a 2-day field trip earlier this week, that makes a total of 6 factories I've visited so far. Every factory is so different... it's really quite interesting.

First up, our course coordinator thought it'll be brilliant to start scaring us off by visitng AFFCO, the meat slaughter house. Yup that sure was.... interesting to say the least. It didn't smell as bad as I thought... and the whole process involves A LOT of labour.. but it was really really efficient. I dared not look at the part where er... sheep was getting killed, coz everyone that walked out from there had blood all over. But from what I've heard, it's really humane!. Basically they shock the animal with electricity, and then their neck is basically being chopped.. off.. ok.. chopped half. Our lectuere said ideally they'll want to just have one clean cut on top of its head so the animal's brain and heart will stop at one go. But because it has to be halal certified, the animal has to be able to revive after 45sec if left alone or something.. so that's why thye had to do it in 2 steps. AFter that the animal is pretyt much skinned, had various parts removed, packaged... and well... all done. It's unbelievable how clean the factory is, ok.. excpet for the fresh blood etc..

After that we visited REMCO which is a little factory with... 10employees which produces the rennet for cheese manufacture. The factory is small, and basically consist of huge tanks and pipes. It's a bit difficult to see what goes on when all you can see if... well.. stainless steel.

We had dinner at Hawera, we had to visit 3 restaurants before we found a place to eat coz.. well.. the town is so small, most can't cater for 24 people in one go. We stayed at a really nice back packers... my classmates were getting high from playing 4 kings. Amazingly my lectuere/supervisor joined, and was really good at the game. After 12 we drifted into sleep.

2nd morning, we visited the Whareroa Fonterra site. It was HUGE, they process 1/4 of all fonterra's milk.... whcih si just insane if you ask me. They have HUGE spray dryer that's 5 stories tall, which process 20 tonnes of milk powder per hour? or per day? hm.. can't remember... but that's only the 3rd largest in the world. The first was in Christchurch, 2nd in..er... can't remember where. Isn't it amaizng how the 3 largest spraydryers in the world are all in NZ? no wonder we are such a dairy country. But the lady was tellign us that in Europe, when they have excess milk, they generally make it into cheese, that's why fonterra make it more into.. milk powder, just so the ocmpetition is less fierce.

Lastly we went to another Fonterra site.. this one specilise in producing lactose. At first I was very... doubtful why anyone woudl ever want lactose, but as it turns out, most of the pills are made out of lactose. The lady that showed us around were superly enthusiastic... it's sad to say under the conditions of HUGE machines operating and ear plugs, i really coudlnt' hear much what was goign on :P good thign our group isn't presenting on lactose (A)


So that was the trip in a nut shell...I'll add more stuff in when i have the time ^^

Sakura Festival

Saturday was Sakura Festival at IPC (international pacific college). It was a huge event for a small town like palmerston, so I just had to check it out.

Please note, since the only camera I have in palmy is my er...fone... so all the nice pictures here were obtained from Hui using her super pro-looking camera.

IPC is really a pretty campus, it had a whole row of sakura just to accomadate the Japanese students. IPC is basically an institute that target largely Japanese oversea students. A lot of 'rich' Japanese students like to get some overseas exposure, so their parents send their kids to IPC.

I heard rumours that IPC is like party town everynight, which seems almost weird given how peaceful and 'country' like it looks.

There were displays of Japanese doll collection. I remember studyign about them in form 4 but never had the opportunity to see a real life one. Though I must say, the ones in the textbooks looks nicer.

Among the activities, there were the Japanese drum performance. It was awesome!!! really really awesome!!!! You wouldn't expect an institute team like this to be so professional. Every bean, every movement was so uniform! and the way they danced around the drum while keeping to the beat is nothing short of spectacular. I heard from someone that this drum team performed all over New Zealand professionally.

And what would be a festivale like this without the food stalls!! Although, the food isn't particularly special in any way, and I had.. the worse rice burger ever!! Though I did try this Indonesian thing called masabak or something. It was basically egg with peas and onions etc wrapped in some sort of pastry and fried. Not too bad, but definately greasy.

For the frequent goers, the novelty of drums and the displays have faded. To them it was just a brillliant day to enjoy the picnic under sakura trees... like how it should be celebrated.


As for us.. what's a better excuse to take the day off and just relax...

%@$#@%$#@

I thought i'll give them the credit of a doubts. I tried! You wouldn't expect North Korean ppl to lik South Korean ppl, to some extent that's what you would expect from Taiwanese and chinese ppl! Just to achieve what they want, they've stripped us of so many things! But I gave them a bit of doubt, that they are too, ppl just like me, that maybe they dotn' like how their govt are run, that's why they are here. I was willing to be friends with them as long as we keep away from politics....

When they came and looked at the room, I had a say in whether to let them stay or not, the landlord called me and asked what they were like. I could've said something against them, but I didn't, because they were genuinely desperate for a place to stay.. just like I was.

When they didn't know where to catch the bus, I told them all I know, even gave them my bus timetable.

I've moved my dinner time 15 mins earlier so that we won't need to clash when we use the kitchen.

Even when they briefly commented about tw and china... i kept quiet.... because I wanted to live in an environment that is not tainted by politics.

AND THEY FREAKING FALSELY ACCUSED ME AND BACK STABBED ME!

%$@!#%!#$@!$$!@#!@%!@#!@#

When my eggs were missing... i gave them the credit of doubt that maybe they mistakenly took it, or maybe they were really desperate for eggs... sure enough 3 days later the eggs found it's way back.

When he had 3 guys friends stayign over all the time, and hogged up the bandwidth... I kept quiet knowing it's only temporary

When xxx used the recycle bin like a rubbish bin, I stick up the 'what can be recycled' pamphlet from city council, and subtly told her that hey.. i didn't know number 6 plastic can't be recycled....

When xxx chucked the whole recycle bin into the rubbish bin... I felt disheartend.. but kept quiet... you can't make a person environmentally friendly.

And they came back and do this.....

a bunch of deaf communist!

New tool for investigations

Watching the news, I've noticed a interesting new trend. Police are starting to use internet diaries and networks such as blogs, facebook and bebos etc as a tool to investigate into the lifes of the suspect/victims. Last week, the bebo were on the news as tools to find out the final moments of Augustine, and just today Xue's blog was on the news to find quotes related to this artist that she liked.

I wonder... if any thing i documented will be used against me in the future.... it makes you wonder right? Say one day if i died tragically (or else i wont' end up in teh news) i wonder if ppl will dig out random stuff that i've written, and flash it on news.... I guess we now enter an age where public blogs are really public, people and authorities are now realizing that this is a great source of information directly from the person of interest.

I guess it is time that I start be really careful what I write, the possiblity of the internet is endless.. who knows who'll end up reading it.

What is happening to this world

It makes you think, when there's a reality tv on how to help your PET loose weight!!!!! IT makes you think doesn't it? we, as a population with sky rocketing obesity, we not only struggle to control our own weight, but our pets are also taking a toll. Me never actually had a pet myself before, but seriously how hard can it be to... give your dog less food for one day? I mean.. it's not like the dog have unlimited access to its food source unlike us? right????

And the fact that they actually have a programme on that!!! it's like.. are we all so sick of watchign HUMAN weight loosing programmes that now we have to switch attention to our furry little friend? The world.. is a very... very... weird place.

In other news.. my groupmate is gonna be a daddy very soon. He is now walkign around, holidng his cell fone like the most precious thing in the world. Hehehe really can't believe it~ the guy who can never resist chucking peanuts into the air before it lands (or miss) in his mouth is actually.. gonna take up the responsiblity of a father! and he's only 1 years older than me too!!!!

I made scones

Like the title said... woke up, start laundry, start making scones, and just as teh scones were finished, my laundry were done, and all my flatmates all woke up to er.. help me finsih some of the scones. HAHAH good timing right?

Must say I've never been a big fan of scones. But I had heaps of dates which been sitting in my cupboard for.... 3 months.. so I was askign Annie waht i can make using dates. And she suggested scones. And it was the perfect idea. 2 months beforee I officially move back to auckland... I have a huge bag of 1.5kg flour, 150g butter, more baking powder, sugar and cinnamon than I can finish.. So it was perfect, seeing how i'll need huge amoutn of flour and bakign powder vs butter (which is gonna be so expensive from monday onwards)

Amazingly,.. scones are so easy to make... granted the utensils and equiptments were a bit hard to clean coz teh dough was really sticky.. but I liked it.. my flatmates "said" they liked it.. so it's all good ^^

AHHH I LOVE FOOD~~~

The Psychotic me!

Been wanting to post this up for a while now, but having stuff coming up, and most important I don't want to come across as being depressed or anything!! coz i am not!!

For a while now I've always wondered why sometimes I come across as having lots of complaints when I am really not complaining at all... Like.. Danny always tells me I complain too much, but really, half the time I was only describing things that happened to me.

Then something struck me, durign the fonterra assessment day, when I realized there is something... very psychotic about the way I look at life... ok.. psychotic is an exaggeration, but it's really.. bizarre.

I dont' know when exactly this way of thinking began... I guess me being a.. cartoon freak, it must've sprouted from there. As a kid, I watched cartoons/dramas etc about amazing heros and heroin who survived horrible events that happened to them, protecting earth from alien attacks, ppl being mistreated unfairly, ppl sabatage each other etc etc. So instead of tea parties, we used to play role playing games, and it woudl always involve certain types of struggle before we stood, as heros and heroins at the end of our role play.

Then biology came along.... when we were taught about the survival of the fittest. How the strength of an organism depends on it's ability to adapt and survive, whatever environmental changes come along their way. Before I knew it... I was crafted into this person who just... simply survives.

Of course there's one.. problem with this mode of thinking, is that heck my life has been so great that I didn't have anythign to survive way through (see how bizaare this is), and in many ways, it makes me feel undeserving, like on my little heroin scale, I am close to the bottom. I guess this is why I never feel like i deserve any compliments. I've notice this about myself heaps of times, when ppl compliments me on stuff, i'll try to convince them otherwise, and if they are persistent enough, i'll try to compliment them back, just to proof that I am not as great as what they think I am? Afterwards, I've always wondered why couldn't I just accept my compliments gracefully, but it's because I dont' htink I deserved it, every good things that has happened to me were given to me, not because I've earned it.

AND if that wasn't twisted enough, in order to boost my own morale, I started looking for 'hardship' in life for me to... survive through. "I have mountain loads of assignments, it's inhumane for the lecturers to give us this much work" I say thigns like that so that when ppl agree with me that those are indeed not easy task to complete, I feel better about myself, because on my little heroin scale, it's pointing a bit higher.

So here's the thing, I really really dont' want to feel this way anymore. I dont' want to just survive anymore! my life is great! it's too brilliant for me not just survive it, but to live it. I guess it's great to have ppl around me now who are... I guess.... really living their lifes, and I hope I can use them as a reminder to myself that I too deserve to live.... not just to survive.!! I AM living my dream! if I can't even enjoy that, then I am really wasting my life away.

p.s. this post was not intended to some depressing or anythign, if it come across that way, it's just coz I am psychotic.. hahaha

Sem break is over!

Danny left this morning, and that marked the end of my holidays! So I guess it's a good tiem to update stuff we did during the 2nd week of the holidays.


First... is our collection of.. random meals

I was fascinated with the idea of putting chocolate with meats, I've seen ppl do it on Masterchef, and was aching to try it myself. So I captured my perfect guinea pig when I made this...

Lamb steak with chocolate merlot wine, with beer battered fries and 'seasonal' boiled veges.

So what does that taste like? ... well... like... chocolate with red wine! it's hard to explain it, it's like you can definate taste the 2 distinct taste. I woudln't say I really enjoyed it, it's really different, it's not that it's bad, it's just, i guess I am more used to the conventional gravy. And since we had no idea of the portion size... we made too much gravy... so...

We decided to put it on beef steak, which I think goes better with teh sauce than the lamb, coz the distinct lamb flavour was kinda, interferring a bit with the sauce. Hm... I still have some left-over sauce.. what should i eat it with... hm...

Then.. in one afternoon.. we made...

NACHOS!!! heheh never realized how easy it is to make nachos.. but yea.. that tasted really great.

On saturday, seeing how we have the car from Annie again, we decided to go for another trip to Wellington. On the way, we found Lindale, which is like the kapiti shop thingy, along wiht other specialty shops. Was rather disappointed that they didn't have their award winning flavours, but guess their ice cream is nice, very gourmet stuff.

Such a nice day to visit welly too

I must say after visitng welly for the 4th time.. I am so done with welly... not that it's not a nice place or anytign, becuase it is! but just that i've visited all the tourist spots... and well, shopping is comparable with auckland so I guess there's nothing special left ot mention about wellington except..

I don 'tthink i'll ever get sick of the gelato from Koffee eise! it's sooooo nice and creamy, and their flavour range is just awesome! gingernut, coconut, fruit and yoghurt, pistachio, etc etc etc.... *drools* and yup, tha't the 2nd serving of ice cream we had for the day.

On Sunday night... we went ot this real fancy restaurant up in the summerhills, It's called Rendezdous or something, it's basically a real fancy restaurant/bar.

We start off the night with bread topped with olive and tomato chutney and drizzle with olive oil. It was really nice, i almost forget how good olive can taste like.

Then there was...

Hot pot, which is kinda like a fancy steak pie, nevertheless it was really well made. The gravy is amazing, and the meat was really flavourful.

Danny had xxx sausuage pasta, which was really really nice too.

Then... we had this really really amazing cherry cream brulee. Now I am not a big cream brule critique like c, haven't never eaten cream brule outside of NZ. But I can definately say it's the best cream brule I had ever! The caramelised sugar was crunchy, the custard was rich and creamy, and to balance it out, the cherry(not artificial ones) really does a good job to cut through the richness. The ice cream complimented it well too, not sure if it's jsut a kapiti ice cream, but you can see HEAPS of vanilla pods in the ice cream.

So that sums up a pretty good holiday I think, and of cousre I am excluding all the details about my boring..er.. assingments etc.

Hope everyone had a nice holiday too.

Air ticket time may be changed... there maybe hope yet.. keepign my finger crossed