Christmas 2015

Sally and Ashok joined us for the Christmas dinner. It was quite a gastronomic experience!.

Petti Pathiri (like curry puffs)

Mallicharu (Curry chicken)

Ashok's vegetable dish

Sally's salad

Kay's spectacular layered dessert took 3 days to make!

My ham looked terrible, but no one complained !

Fire! Fire!

Our coffee grinder, the heart of our espresso making system, spontaneously went up in flames this morning. Kay quickly covered it with a fire blanket and it was brought out into the garden and hosed down. Just to be sure, Kay also emptied the fire extinguisher on it.

The grinder minus the hopper lying on its side in the garden.

The grinder drenched in fire extinguishing foam.

The view from the bottom of the blackened motor.

The hopper

Base of the hopper melted.

It was lucky for us that Kay happened to return to the kitchen to answer the oven alarm that went for something else she was doing.

The grinder had been playing up for a while. We guessed that it had overheated after the last grind and coffee grounds remaining in the machine self-ignited.

Amazingly, the twenty year-old fire extinguisher still worked.

Auspicium Melioris Aevi

Auspicium Melioris Aevi

I had previously thought some clever guy who knew Latin, perhaps an old school principal, had thought it up as a motto for my alma mater, Raffles Institution. 

Then one day I read that it was Sir Stamford Raffles’ motto. That did not surprise me, after all he founded  RI back in 1823.  It is still the family motto of Raffles' descendants.

Imagine my surprise when I found this in Melbourne's St Paul’s Cathedral last week.

 

It prompted me to search further, and I found that the Orders of St Michael and St George was established in 1818 and are awarded to holders of high officers in the British Empire. The Order has several classes, the highest of which is GCMG. Many heads of state had been awarded this title, including former President Ong Teng Cheong of Singapore. Whether or not Raffles received the award and therefore adopted the motto is unclear (to me).

Then I discovered that the same motto is being used by Ipswich State High; This was news to me even though we used to live less than half an hour's drive from that school.

There is so much in just a motto.

And here is one brave Rafflesian showing off his singing skills.  (click here)

Melbourne - Chinese old and new

During our short trip to Melbourne last week, we spent a morning at the Melbourne cemetery primarily to look up memorials of explorers and prime ministers, but there was an intended discovery – dozens and dozens of old Chinese graves that dated back as early as the middle of the 19th century, the days of the Gold Rush.

Most interesting were the origins of those old Chinese immigrants, which by tradition were indicated on the gravestones; they all invariable came from Taishan and Xinhui, two of the Siyi (“Siyup”) or Four Districts west of Guangzhou, where my paternal grandfather was born. People in Siyi all speak a special common dialect which is a variation of Cantonese that predominate in the Guanzhou and Hong Kong area, a dialect which I do not speak because I was brought up using my mother’s Hokkien dialect. Dad had told me long ago that many Siyi people emigrated to Melbourne (and San Francisco) and there in the Melbourne cemetery I found were the proofs! What I did not realise was that most of the Chinese immigrants of the Gold Rush days came from the Siyi area.

Like Sydney, there are many Asians in Melbourne today and many of them from China. Some are obviously students, while others travel in groups as tourists. Associated with the growth of the tourist industry has been the proliferation of shops supplying goods and services to Chinese visitors, same as what we have noticed in Sydney. The shops not only sell goods popular with the visitors but also arrange for the goods to be sent separately back to China, saving them the inconvenience of carting the goods themselves.

To Kay and I, the most interesting of all was the nature of the goods that the shops stocked. Apart from items such as lavender bears made popular by Xi Jinping and his wife, there was a big range of products made from sheep and goats, and not just the traditional fleece and lanolin but far more exotic such as placenta of sheep, added into moisturisers or in tablet form as health supplement! Who says Australia does not have a manufacturing industry!

Spring

The season for magnolias just over was an amazing one. It might be the rain we had earlier or perhaps the unusually long and cold winter.

We waited eagerly for the spring flowers, and so far they have not disappointed us.

Flowering Peach

Striking Competition at All Saints Parramatta

Six ringers from Christ Church St Laurence took part in the 6-bell striking competition held at All Saints Anglican Church, Parramatta on 29 August. Up against many very good and experienced ringers from other churches, we were very pleased to finish fourth.

All Saints Anglican Church, Parramatta

Ringers waiting for their turns.

The team from Christ Church St Laurence, after the peal.

Vivid Sydney

In June this year, buildings in Sydney CBD turned on splashes of colours at night for Vivid Sydney.

Sydney Town Hall looked frosty.

The Opera House was quite unrecognisable.

The Sydney skyline was like Disneyland (though I've never been there).

And in the same spirit in Chatswood,

On the mall.

At the Concourse.

At the Chatswood Station.

And the most popular of all was the display on the facade of the Customs House in the CBD -

Vivid Sydney 2015a (1) from Kin-Mun Kan on Vimeo.(Click to play)

Imperial Hotel grand piano, Mt Victoria

We were at Mt Victoria in the Blue Mountains and went to the classic Imperial Hotel for dinner. Right near the front door of the pub was this very impressive old grand piano.

Then we found this note placed above the keyboard -

So, that's was that. Good to look at. I was actually thinking of playing even though I could not actually play. I was actually impressed.

Revere Bell and other Bells of St Andrews Cathedral

Kay and I spent last Christmas with Dad and sister in Singapore. I found time to investigate the bells of St Andrews Cathedral (the main cathedral for the Anglican Diocese of Singapore) now that I'm well and truly into campanology.

The original church built in 1835 had a bell donated by Mrs Maria Revere Balestier, wife of Joseph Balestier, the first American consul to Singapore and daughter of the anti-British patriot Paul Revere (the legendary hero who rode through towns to warn of British troops movements). The church was struck several times by lightning and was considered unsafe and was replaced by the present structure in 1861 that also incorporated the “Revere Bell”.   

The “Revere Bell” remained until 1889 when it was replaced by a peal of eight bells cast by Taylors of Loughborough. Unfortunately after installation, “it was found that the foundation of the tower would not stand the strain of ringing and the bells were then permanently fixed, their clappers tied, and they were struck with hammers instead, so they still chimed.”  The old Revere Bell ended up in the National Museum.

Photo taken by Beo Lan (July 2015)

In a recent visit (just a couple of months ago) I called in at St Andrews again and asked for permission to visit the bells, "just to have a look" as I have done in many places, including the Bath Cathedral in England.  Very disappointingly, all I got in answer was a "No".  No reasons given, just No.

 

There is an interesting virtual tour of the bells at http://www.singaporevr.com/vrs/st_andrews_cathedral/st_andrews_bell_tower.html

St Andrews, Singapore

Two planets in alignment

Those of you who have been looking into the western sky after sunset over the past week or more would have noticed two bright objects getting progressively closer, Jupiter and Venus getting into a rare alignment. I don't know if they will get closer tomorrow. Here's the shot I took tonight (July 1) from our backyard.

A better one reproduced here is from Business Insider (http://www.businessinsider.com.au/how-to-watch-the-venus-jupiter-conjunction-of-june-30-2015-6)  obviously taken through a telescope with the moons of Jupiter clearly visible.

Anne's visit

Kay's niece Anne visited us and we had a lovely weekend dominated by culinary excesses. At the historic Vaucluse House we had high tea, which cost twice as much as the equally waistline-expanding Beijing Duck at Chatswood the night before (the duck went too quickly for a photo to be taken).

Northern Lights

Our disappointment with total eclipse viewing was more than made up by the appearance of the Aurora Borealis, the Northern Lights over several nights; thankfully the clouds kept away then.

The following were two of the photos taken, hand-held on a moving ship. Hand and ship's movement caused bright stars to appear as a small streak.

Eclipse near Faroe Island

On March 20th 2015, the Azores brought us to the path of the total eclipse about 100 nautical miles from Faroe Island, 62 deg North latitude. Unfortunately cloud cover meant we only saw about three seconds of the final phase before totality. Then we had nearly three minutes of total darkness.

Tokyo food court

Coin-operated ordering and payment machine for each stall; tray return stations scattered throughout the food court. Customers place trays with dirty plates directly onto aircraft type trolleys and wipe tables with cloth provided ; every customer followed the rule without any exception.

Kyoto Golden Pavilion

Not in chronological order, this one was taken yesterday. It's so good because it was taken by somebody else, an English speaking tourist who assertively took 6 shots from various angles. At least one has to come out right!

Near Iceland

Onboard the Azores sailing towards Iceland. Cold and windy which was to be expected since it was mid March and about 62 deg north in latitude.

Bell ringing at Bowral

Test post. Bell ringers from Christ Church St Lawrence ringing the new bells of Bowral Uniting Church.