Twenty One continued.

While people go to clubs to get pissed drunk celebrating their 21st, I went to Sid's Pub to get wasteeedddd. Just kidding. What's a birthday when you wake up the next morning not remembering anything anyway?

What I wore tonight.

I had the loveliest dinner at Dining In The Dark with my dance partner earlier in the evening. It was not only a good catch up session, it was also the perfect time to get my hands dirty while having fine dining. Awesome, yes?  The name of the restaurant says it all - and yes, it was total darkness inside. 

Like this.

This was my 2nd time there apart from last year's post Valentine's day. However, the experience never fails to put a grin on my face that no one can see except the people watching the security camera. Heh.

Why I mentioned hands getting dirty was because I ended up using my fingers to feel my food rather than tinkering around with the utensils. Pfft - who needs forks at a place like this. The feeling was awesome. Yep, I'm gross that way. 

The experience was one of a kind. We were entertained by soft piano playing, live by the way, and our servers were very friendly and helpful to us. 15 minutes through my dinner, I was closing my eyes while eating. It was one of the calmest dining experiences I've had, although some people might feel flustered as it was just total darkness. In the dark, I feel an increase of sensitivity in my taste buds and it was as if there was a burst of flavour every time I put food into my mouth. One more thing I liked about this place - we weren't allowed to bring phones with us ; they were locked up in a locker at the bar area before proceeding into our dining area. Peace, at last.

The bar.

I was slightly surprised and amused when the piano started playing "Happy Birthday" and the servers sung to me. Nothing like having your birthday in the dark, aye? Someone hollered at me asking how old am I. "Legal," I hollered back. Haha

After being totally stuffed from dinner, we adjourned to Sid's Pub as Frank was kind enough to invite me for a birthday drink or two.

To my surprise.. almost everyone was there. I was definitely expecting Kim, Doug, Kelly & Frank. But not everyone else who popped out of nowhere and screamed "Surprise!" with a cake, and balloons and everything. I first saw Kelly, Frank, Kim and Mr Lee.

Suddenly, there were Choulyin and Henry, Luke and Andrew jumping out of a booth, Hon Kitt and Nic Tan sitting and smiling at me, Don giving his trademark smirk and then Kim's buddies Brandon and Ashley joining into the surprise. After that, David, Brenda and Charms arrived. My eyes did not know where to focus on at first. So this was what a surprise party felt like. Whoa you guys are awesome as!

I was so touched. Especially when I found out that my sister was the mastermind behind it all. Getting all my friends to ahem.. lie to me that they will be away on my birthday, and here they are. :) It put the hugest smile on my face. I smiled till my cheeks hurt. Best feeling ever. 

The amazing chocolate mousse mint cake specially made by a good friend Elyza.

So many candles to be blown out before cutting the cake!

A group shot of the people who made my night so special. <3 

There he was, grinning away after meeting my friends. Some of them for the first time. :) 

Did the birthday deed with Kelly Siew, chugging an Irish Car Bomb.

I've never liked Guinness Stout, but this would be the first time I thought it tasted like milkshake and licked away my Guinness mustache after that. Haha! 

Many, many thanks to Kelly and Frank who had a hand in this do. Am very lucky to have cool friends like them. :) 

Nic made it after work! Touched, especially when he was "supposed to be in Melaka". Tsk.

The night could not have been better with Don & Daniel. 

My babe Charms made it too! <3 Wouldn't be a party without her.

#meandmrlee

The surprise expert. She really made my 21st so special I was lost for words. I can't thank you enough Kim, despite our bickering at home and being away in NZ, you've made me the happiest I've been for months on my birthday. Especially after the few difficult and crappy weeks I've been having. When I asked how this happened, everyone pointed to Kim. It's not how big the party was or how many people came, it was her thoughtfulness to do this for me that was so touching. 

You are a star. I'll will never forget this. <3 ILY ILY.

Among the toughest things to do was to dance after having a full glass of Guinness and other magical things in it. As a salsera, the traditional birthday dance was in order when my favorite song Spanish Fly (although bachata) started playing, in courtesy of Charms. Just thankful that it isn't a salsa song. I'd spin continuously and never stop. Haha

Kim having heaps of fun.

I've had a wonderful night seeing everyone around the table mingling and having a good time. Part of having a good party is me not having to break the ice between the guests because mine did that all by themselves.

^check Frank out.

I'd totally remember this entire birthday do. So glad I'm celebrating my birthday back home with all the people I love. :)

It's a dream to have a surprise thrown for you on your birthday without even expecting one, or asking for one. This goes to show how thoughtful my sister, boyfriend and friends actually are.

Photos mostly from Kelly Siew's awesome camera.

Finally legal.
Xxx,
Ashley Mah.

Ps. Happy Birthday to my special person. Also a fellow Jan baby, now 22.  <3 Love you babe.

End of Trimester :: My musical experience in NZ

Spring's here! 

It's end of trimester! 

A whole first year of university has passed!

LEMME SHOW YOU HOW MUSICIANS PARTY!!

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.

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It was the NZSM End Year Party last Friday.
We reminisced over the fun and crazy times over wine, pizza and jazz music playing from the speakers. Some of us recovering from making it through the 2 trimesters of the year.

Welll...how do you think we party here at uni? 

...though you'll never know behind closed doors now, do ya? :))))

(Though weekend nights in town is a whole different thing.)

I just can't believe first year of uni is over so soon! After all the drama of Airport Day, which is still a bit fresh in my mind (I refuse to think about it sometimes), I met some incredible people and had unforgettable experiences in this new world of music.

I wasn't even planning to come to NZ, honestly. When my mom was notified that there were auditions held at the Curve in Damansara, she told me to go for it. I had no idea how the auditions were gonna be like. 

Were there gonna be lots of people fighting for the scholarship? Umm, yeah?

Is it gonna be scary? Maybe. Most likely.

Am I ready? !@#$ no.

"It's in two weeks, mom, I'm gonna play crap for them to hear and embarrass myself to death," thats what I told my mom. She just told me to send an email to the email address given to her, and I was corresponding with a nice lady called Belinda, who arranged the auditions with two people from NZSM, who are lecturers in this uni.

I was never so reluctant to do something, aside from cleaning up after something gross had died in my house like a lizard or something. This was different. So, I thought, they weren't gonna remember me anyway. Might as well give it a shot.

...Which I did. And surprisingly, I passed the audition with a scholarship. 

I don't know whether to be shocked or die of excitement - because the problem lies in the fact that it was still a lot of $ to send me abroad, and I was currently prepping for my ATCL Violin exam under a private teacher in KL. 

 Months passed since the audition and I constantly emailed the school about documents that they might need from me, etc. There was a lot of drama, hard thinking, long discussions and stressful moments within those few months. I even told mom that I didn't have to take the offer, if it was too hard on us. I could settle with what I had. But she was more than determined to let me chase my dream to become a professional musician with experiences abroad.

 Dad made sure that I had everything to live comfortably away from home too. He even told my mom to get me a coffee machine, in case I didn't have proper coffee to drink in the morning. Lol. How sweet is that? :') So blessed to have a lovely family. 

Before I knew it, I was waving goodbye to my sobbing sister, Charms and Chee holding her, my bro Evan and Don. Deym. It was a crappy day, and a tough flight. I was told to watch LOTR before going to NZ, but since I had no time, I watched it on the plane.....but fell asleep watching it. Don't kill me but I guess it just ain't my thing. 

Then, I met Doug after Charms pestered me to message him on Facebook. He's a lifesaver to 2 blur people ; mom and I, in a foreign land. Lol. He even brought my mom and kept her company during the NZSM orientation. We became good friends after.

At orientation, I got to know few of my close friends now - Becca, Laura and Craig. They were also first years and were really friendly to me. Spent lots of time talking, whining, gossiping and laughing over nothing. :) Awesome bunch of people, I might add.

 I also am happy that I had people whom I could speak music to, making lame musician jokes, then laughing at our jokes and feeling proud of ourselves for coming up with jokes like those.... because we're musicians. That's why. :P

Performing in the NZSM orchestra was a huge thing for me too. I've only played in the KLPAC Orchestra in 2011, and playing with these really skillful music students really opened my eyes to the standard of music here. I enjoyed performing in the orchestra so much! I was so excited when I realized that it is a course in my first year studies. Dang. This so beats Accounting & Economics in A-Levels!

I really can't thank God enough for the way this year unexpectedly turned out. Pleasantly unexpected. I'm so thankful to the lecturers who had passed my audition and rewarded me with a scholarship, all the new friends I've made this year, my new boyfriend (who stepped out of the friendzone, actually) and my more than supportive parents.

It was definitely hard to be away from home, family, friends and events. But I've learnt to accept the new lifestyle here and get comfortable with my new surroundings. These people in the pictures above just made it all the easier to enjoy things here! <3

All I've left at the moment is the big one -- the end year recital, happening in 2 weeks time. Oh yeah, also my last written paper on opera. 

Wish me luck!!

Cherishing my musical journey here. 

Feeling awesome because it has just begun!

xxx

Ashley Mah.

Date Night Like No Other.

I just had that feeling of extreme curiosity for a week when I'm in the dark for something and my boyfriend just gave me very basic instructions like, be ready by 6pm and dress formally.

I just can't help but to have SO many questions in my head!

Where are we going?

What kind of formal?
Semi-formal? Really formal? Specify the dress code, dude!

What's the plan?
What're we gonna do?

This is probably why people never like surprising me because I end up prying every detail from them. Surprisingly, Doug kept this one quite well. However, I did need some girl help.

On Friday, I was chatting with Charms for a whole hour on Whatsapp fussing about what to wear! How I wish she was here in real life to help me pick what to wear. Okay - I lied. It took more than an hour... more like the whole afternoon?

 Told you I took the whole afternoon just fussing about what to wear/how to do my hair/makeup and everything. Aaaaand the occasional unnecessary  girly frantic/panicking of having nothing to wear despite having 100 dresses in our closets.

The irony. Anyway, I went with my instincts and pulled together an outfit-of-the-night. I don't know why I was fussing so much about a date, despite the fact that Doug and I have always been really good friends, doing things together and hanging out as friends and as really good friends almost 24/7.
I guess it's cos this was one of our first real, real dates and he took the effort to keep me in suspense and surprise me - I really am a handful.

"I WANT EVERYTHING TO BE PERFECT." 

Yeah like that's gonna happen. 

 Did my own eyebrows, thinking, "I better not screw this up"... Lay out my makeup. Hey, it's 4.30pm already. Start doing my hair.....

Hey. There's still time... Camwhore time. 

Whee.

Whooops. Still in my robe.

Ok time to go!
A taxi arrived to bring us to our "destination".
 It made me more curious when Doug went, "You know where to go" to the driver.

HOW DO YOU CONTAIN ALL THAT EXCITEMENT??? 

Taxi pulled up to this gorgeous vintage looking building, which to me, looked like something you see from the movies. We definitely do not have stuff like this in Malaysia. 

This is the Roxy Cinema, in Miramar. 

I was quiet for quite some time because I was busy going, whoa....

These pictures are actually from their website http://www.roxycinema.co.nz/ because I didn't manage to snap any at night. This cinema is also functioning like a normal one today!

Went inside and sat at a reserved table for two, at Coco at the Roxy. 

The whole setting of the restaurant was like something from the 1960's. It was so golden and vintage.

 There were framed pictures of super old film posters on the wall. Forgot to take a picture of that because I was totally immersed in my own excitement. Meh.

We went ahead to have our orders taken from the Wellington On A Plate menu. This place was one of the places that was featured on Wellington On A Plate, which is New Zealand's largest food festival, promoting and supporting the local dining industry.

I still was in awe of everything and for a moment just felt the slight awkwardness with Doug because we've never been on a date-date like this before and he's always been such a buddy in my eyes, boyfriend or not. Still taking some time for some things to sink in. :)

Our very fancy starter of Roast beetroot & celeriac Tunisian tartlet wuth Zany Zeus smoked binza , fried greens, and dates. Such a long description! Lol. It had a very complex combination of sweet and sour to it, and also the buttery fried vegetables were a plus!

Le poke.

Doug looking sharp. <3

One thing that I've noticed was that the portions weren't teeny tiny, like fine dining, which was a good thing, because

where's the fun in eating when you get one bite then it's over?

Our mains.

Roast Lamb with saffron roasted potatoes, wilted spinach, Bearnaise sauce and jus.

Tasted as complex as it sounds.

 This dish had to be the best lamb dish I've ever tasted. The smooth, rustic taste of the sauce just blended so well with the tender lamb meat. The potatoes complimented the lamb so well. And also, I ate all my veges, just in case some of you (who know me well enough) are wondering.

"This is so.... PORK!" was what I said when this dish

 arrived at our table and Doug couldn't stop laughing. 

Seriously, look. at. it. PORK.

 P   O   R   K.

This was Pork Belly with mashed Kumara, winter greens and Tuatara Ale relish. 

Differing from the lamb dish, this sauce had a tangy taste, bringing out the flavour of the pork belly in your mouth. Albeit the pork meat wasn't as tender as the lamb. Delicious nontheless! Mashed Kumara seemed like a healthier version of Mashed Potatoes too. *thumbs up*

We talked, made silly jokes, and laughed. 

No more awkwardness! We're back. Until there was one really strange waiter that talked really slowly and stared at us when he served us our food, which kinda creeped me out a little bit. The staff in this place were quite nice and hospitable, although I think they check on us a little bit too frequently because our conversations were sometimes interrupted. 

To wrap it all up, we had this really interesting looking dessert.

The ball of cream isn't really ice cream, which was my first thought. It's actually Salted Caramel to go with the Whittaker's Chocolate Mousse and the Gunpowder Rum delice, which is the white flavoured ice in the little glass. 

Having this dessert, I had so many different flavors swirling around in my palette that I actually took the time to slowly enjoy it. It was exquite. 

A mix of tanginess and a hint of bitterness from the Gunpowder delice, some saltiness from the caramel and not overly sweet Chocolate mousse. 

We were totally stuffed at the end of dessert and enjoyed every bite of the food here.

 Oh yeah. 

So this was what I ended up wearing - my outfit of the night.

Something not too flashy, or too plain. Decided to go with my long blue dress with the long slit in the front paired with my favourite blue clutch my cousin got me from Australia. 

I also donned a looped side pony for a different look from my usual half do or leave my hair down. My hair has been slightly wavier these days because I haven't bothered straightening it anymore.

 I also managed to DIY my eyebrows without looking like an alien as a result, because no one threads my eyebrows as the nice eyebrow lady from SS15 Subang Jaya! 

Really am satisfied with the way I looked that night. Whew. :)

The thing about asking someone to take a picture is that..  4/5 times the picture comes out blurry or too dark, etc. Here's one that was sorta usable. Oh well.

Doug and I walked around the cinema, after being stuffed from dinner,then we called it a night to go back rather than to squeeze in a movie. It was a whole lot of food for a person like me to take in, especially. 

Despite going back home by 9pm, I was beaming all the way back.

We were on the way back until something silly like me getting a bit emotional and tearing up in the taxi when Doug mouthed I Love You. *facepalm*

Bet he freaked out a little. I never ever cry on dates. Or outings. OR SAD KOREAN DRAMAS. 

I guess it goes to show how much I loved all of it. His efforts, his thoughtfulness, his choice in places and food, of the things that he knew I would enjoy, and especially just having him as a typical date just made it so special for me. The girlishness in me just manifested when my eyes started reddening and I started sniffling. Felt like a moron in the taxi... bet the taxi driver saw too. -_-

And guess what? Doug reached into his suit pocket and handed me a handkerchief! Haha! Gotta love his old school gentlemanly-ness.

Since I was told that I don't really post much or feature my boyfriend much on my blog, here's a candid picture of him (which got more likes than mine on Insta..hmph).

 So cute in his suit. How could I not go "awww" when I see him in hoodies everyday and suddenly he's wearing a suit. <3 

Computer games and on-lining to end the night.

I still remember the time when I was asked what my idea was of a Perfect Date in my FHM Magazine interview in January 2012 issue, I think this had to be it. :)

"I should be so lucky, lucky, lucky, lucky." - Kylie Minogue

xxx

 Ashley Mah