oishi! macha almond cake!

i've been dreaming of the yummy macha / greentea cakes ever since i saw the delicious slices @ breadtalk... they are exhorbitant! an extremely small piece for rm5.50. so i decided to bake them myself. and bake it i did, today.
it turned out ok. with a little mishaps after i baked the first layer. i was suppose to let it rest for 30mins before turning it out from the pan but i wanted to use the pan for the next layer. so i turned it over to another baking pan... and the middle part of the top was stuck ... luckily i can cover it up with the yummy creamcheese icing! .
since swee's bday is coming up, so i decorated half of the cake nicely with almonds sandwiched in between the layers and more covering the whole cake. swee loves almonds, greentea is healthy and the macha creamcheese icing is yummy! perfect gift . hope she is not reading this as i wanna give her a surprise tomorrow!

shop lonely planet books @ amazon.com

lonelyplanet site is having a promo. buy 3 books pay for 1 (the lowest price free - of course...). and for purchases above aud60, free delivery. i was thinking wow! it is cheaper than the local bookstores even after their discounts.
AND they had the latest edition for taiwan (pre-order)! oh. i've been waiting for this! yes! fortunately i decided to check against amazon.com for user reviews as i would need to buy another 2 books (which i couldnt decided china, mongolia or italy ...).

surprised. surprised.

amazon.com lonely planets books are cheaper than in the lonelyplanet site shop! this is due to forex. if u r from msia, it defaults to aud. in aud, the price is more expensive compared to usd. i changed destination to mexico and calculated in usd. ta da. it is cheaper than lonelyplanet. so why the hell cant lonelyplanet site charge in usd?

there is a 34% discount for the same lonely planet taiwan. there's even a pre-order discount. after shipping costs, it's usd26.27 which is still cheaper than lonelyplanet promo and definitely much cheaper than in the local stores. plus- i do not have to made extra purchases to get the promo. so $$ saved. so, after a very easy and breezy clicks, purchase confirmed.
*if i bought more lonely planet books from amazon, it would have been even cheaper but decided not to overspent n wait for newer editions
* should've bought them when che2 in us. no shipping costs!!! and it would've been soooo cheap! like usd17.15 only! more than 1/2 the price @ msia local stores!!!!!

aaa. now i have to wait patiently for it to arrive....