[D.I.Y Adventure] Hot Pot + One Late Night Surprise!

  Cold cold winter has finally arrived here in Sydney! The season where you just want to be all wrapped up in your bed and never be woken up...or sitting in front of the telly with a big cup of hot warm soup in your hands.  Besides these, for myself personally, at the mention of winter, one thing inevitably comes to mind.  Actually, I would guess that for most asians, the same thing would also come to mind! That's right - HOT POT!!! So, with my lovely like-minded friends, we decided to have a hot pot night to celebrate the coming of winter (not really, don't know about others but if I were to celebrate a season, it would be summer by far...we just wanted to hot pot for the sake of it haha)

  Although there are restaurants in Sydney that specialise in hot-potting (if you want some recommendations, feel free to ask me!), but that's way more expensive and less cosy than holding it at someone's house! You just need someone generous as a friend to open up his/her place for you! Fortunately enough for me, I have such a friend!



Our wide selection of food ready to be dumped into the steaming water! Not to mention getting our raw egg ready to be mixed with all sorts of tantilising sauces (such as soy, satay, seafood, etc) to create the ULTIMATE sauce for that flavour!



In the hot pot they go!!!!!

We had quite a few mushroom lovers amongst us (myself included), especially of enoki, so we kinda went overboard with it...just kinda...hehe

ENOKI OVERLOAD (in a very good way) !!!! =D

Although I don't have a picture of this, but what's hot pot without the good old asian aloe vera drink right? It's so refreshing!

  For some reason, hot pot always create such a great atmosphere to be chatting with your friends! Not to mention being utterly and completely bloated during it, then you push yourself to fit more food into that tummy so you feel like your might explode any moment!

  Usually when I go to hot pot, whoever I'm with and I just sit there with our exploding tummy on our lazy bums, feeling totally satisfied yet completely defeated by the food.  But unlike those other hot pots, my friend planned a little surprise to get us up and running, walking off all the food that we've all just chucked down.  It got us all guessing, I mean...there's only so many places to go at 9pm right? How wrong I was and never did I imagine doing what we ended up doing!




Walking into the unknown.... perfect time to tell scary stories! (And we did do that...X___x)



  As we walked, we were led to a bushland...which was a pretty insane idea to me! It is pretty wierd walking in the middle of the bush late at night! But you know what, the whole craziness of it was pretty thrilling!

Without the torches, it was complete darkness !

Amateurs fighting off monsters (spiders, bugs, snakes?) of the wilderness with sticks!

   We were trying to stay as close together as possible, or at least see some sort of light, so that we wouldn't be left completely alone and lost in the darkness.  Along the way, paths could get slippery and slopey...and bushy...and rocky.  Not to mention we got lost a few times, not knowing where the path was nor where it was going...at one stage, I think someone said that one of the paths doesn't actually end!?  Thankfully, our surprise initiator friend worked out where we were going eventually and led us to a neat little place by a river...



Surrounded by water (as marked out by the dark shadowy bits)...



  Before I knew it, the boys went to gather big branches and sticks from the bush...can you guess what's to come next?  I was preeeettty taken aback...!!!


Preparing for something...



The first step has begun!!!



This seriously reminded me of The Blair Witch Project...especially after all the scary stories we were telling each other... But thankfully, this had nothing to do with anything scary, can you guess what it is yet?

After much hard work (mainly by the boys), the night was no longer cold, our surrounding was no longer dark and was only illuminated by our torches.  We just stood and calmly stared at the warmth and comfort given by something so simple...

A miniture bon fire =) It was really soothing staring into it...*soothing sigh*

  My friend also decided to be creative with the fire...hehe

I think this spells something awesome hehehehe...with half a heart! <3

  As we huddled around the fire, my friend shared with us some of the awesome songs on her playlist.  At times, we would talk about things, at times, we would sing, at times, we would look for life in the bush, in the water and at times, we would look at stars (love stargazing! Note to self...must go stargazing and blog about it sometime!).  There's something about where we were and what we were doing and who we were with that was very comforting <3

  But with any moments in life, they must pass.  Although we had to leave and destroy what we have built (for the sake of the environment at least!), the nature left us a beautiful parting gift...

Ember remains on the ground...moments before they died out.

I seriously had so much fun that night! It almost felt like a beginners' course to "Man Vs Wild" (yes, perhaps slightly dramatic...but it felt like it)!!!  A night trip like this is definitely worth the effort (especially a bloated dinner!)! But if you're planning to make a fire as well, please make sure you've checked the regulations of the park you're going to and whether open fires are allowed! Before you leave the park as well, please make sure you have extinguished all embers before leaving, because even an ember can start a huge bushfire!!! Please consider all environmental factors, respect nature and do this at your own risk.

Somehow this reminds of the movie 'Stand By Me', where four friends go on a little journey together into the wilderness...
Even though the moment passed, the ambers died... but I really hope the memories of that night will last for a long time to come.  More than that, our friendships will last for an even longer time to come =)