The Hunt Is Over!

Finally I’ve found a car to buy! Drove all the way to Gosford today with a couple of mates to inspect a green ’99 Honda Civic EM1.

It’s green in colour with gold pearls and has a black bonnet. Good paint work, fresh tyres and uses Royal Purple engine oil. Car is mechanically great as well as good looking exterior and interior. Had my friends take a look under the car and lucky the seller is a mechanic himself so I would know he’s taken good care of the car.

So now I’ve got to arrange bank cheques tomorrow and take a train all the way to Gosford to get the car and do the paper work. Going to be  a long night tomorrow and hopefully a car owner!

Man it’s been a hectic 2 weeks ever since I started looking for a car. Non-stop searching cars online and on forums. It’s pretty time consuming since I’ve pretty much used most of my spare time available looking for cars, doing research and contacting people for a car inspection.

Finally I can have a life again.

I’ll post up some tips and guides later to buying used car from private sellers. Very valuable information I’ve attained over the past short but intense 2 weeks. Hopefully you guys will find it helpful.

My Injured Toe

I attended Club O camp 2 weeks ago which was located at Collaroy. Wish I took photos because we had a very beautiful camp site overlooking the beaches. I was too lazy :P

Anyways, I was playing basketball during my free time when one of the guys was charging towards the ring and stepped on my toe at an angle. It felt as though my toe nail was lifted up, but lucky it didn’t fortunately.

Here’s a picture of it slightly bluish after the game.

Here’s a picture of it 2 weeks later.

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Car Hunting – It’s a Pain In The Butt

Ok, I now realise I really need a car.

Public transport takes me a good 1 hour to get into the city during the weekdays and probably close to 1.5 hours on weekends.

I really try to avoid taking public transport on the weekend after spending 10 hours on it already during the weekdays. Unfortunately I don’t live near a train station so I can’t just walk to the nearest one. Nearest one is an hours walk. I’ve tried it before.

So…

I’m on a quest to get myself an awesome car under $10,000 and under 100,000km, drive away no more to pay unless it’s an extremely good deal.

Cars in the pipeline:

• Honda Civic Vtec
• Honda Integra Vti-R
• Nissan 180sx
• Nissan Silvia

If you’re an Asian, you may ask, “Why not a Toyota?”. Well, I’ve pretty much spent more than half of my life growing up with a Toyota Camry. Yes, my family has 3 Toyota Camry’s. Yes, they’re very reliable and retain good resale value. But yeah, I’m bored of it. That’s all. Time for a change.

Hey, I’m still sticking with Japanese right? Honda. Nissan?

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I Got My Economic Stimulus Package

I finally got my tax bonus payment from the government last week via direct deposit. Unfortunately, as soon as I got it, I had to use it to pay for the car registration, insurance and service.

Haha, what luck. Didn’t even get to spend it on myself. Oh well, I’m sure that “stimulated” the economy.

Remember guys, as long as you are eligible, your payment should come by the 16th of May either via cheque or direct deposit, depending on how you received your tax return payment last financial year.

If you used a tax agent to lodge your tax return last financial year, you should check with your tax agent whether the payment is with your tax agent. Also make sure your bank details and address are up to date with the ATO.

If you still haven’t received payment by the 16th of May, you should call 1300 686 636 and the ATO may be able to help you if you are eligible.

It’d be interesting to find out how you spent your tax bonus payment.

Easter with Hong Yi

It’s amazing how time flies. Easter is a very special period for me, not just only that Jesus was crucified and raised again, but it was when Hong Yi and I officially became a pair.

Two years ago on April the 6th, I remember flying down to Melbourne and I was supposed to meet up with her that night for dinner. Unfortunately my auntie (mum’s friend) ran into car problems which meant I was late getting picked up and I was staying with my auntie out in the suburbs. Hong Yi was staying at La Trobe street then.

It was only the next day that I got the chance to finally meeting her after not seeing her for almost 3 months and that very night we made it official. So yeah…two years later.

Our relationship is an interesting one. We started long distance and have been long distance ever since. I do get a lot of questions about how I manage to sustain a long distance relationship. Let me tell you this: distance makes the heart grow fonder. There are pros & cons but I guess we usually don’t take each other for granted when we meet up.

Anyways, not here to talk about the relationship. So here are some photos of what we did!

Fish Markets

Hong Yi has been been quite upset at me for not taking her to the fish markets despite her visiting Sydney several times already. If you don’t already know, she’s a fan of food. So is her mum, a food-blogger!

So after many verbal beatings from her, we finally made our trip to the fish markets!

Fish markets is famous for seafood, for obvious reasons. You can get really fresh fishes, oysters, lobsters and much more at affordable price. Hong Yi said her family would’ve loved the fish markets!

I would recommend getting there first thing in the morning as the stuff is the freshest then. Parking is not cheap over there so I wouldn’t recommend staying for more than 2 hours.

One of the must foods you must try over there is the fresh raw salmon, tuna, swordfish and oysters. The oysters are brought in fresh from the morning’s catch and you can see people cutting open the shell and washing it. When we squeezed lemon juice onto it, it even squirmed around a little! I think Hong Yi was grossed out by it so she let me eat most of the oysters hehe. We also had half a lobster with chips and salad.

If you’re having your meal outside, be very wary of the seagulls. I remember I was having my salmon and tuna outside last time and there were 2 big pieces of tuna. When I was looking away, a seagull dived down and snatched one of the tuna pieces which got me really angry at the bird as there were only 2 pieces and I love raw tuna!

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