The 2 runs I did in Oct/Nov:

 Shape 5km Run - and I overslept again -__-"

This is the second 5km run where I overslept! First being the one on my birthday in 2009.

So I cabbed down and joined in midway since they blocked off the start point, pretend pretend a bit, blend in with the crowd, and ran about 3km instead of 5km. Hahahaha. Not bad, still can get medal!

 Didn't oversleep for this! Was a good, well needed run since I haven't been jogging much ever since I came back from Nepal. 

And Paul lost 2kg mysteriously while it is a daily struggle for me to keep my weight down. Sigh #lifeisunfair

THE PERFECT ROAST CHICKEN

Oh yes please check out this roast chicken, it's so good it deserves a post on its own!

Product of Monsieur and Madame Poh. The taste is incredible, skin roasted to a crisp, meat tender and juicy, even the vegetables at the bottom were perfect! Nom nom nom.

This is a Jamie Oliver recipe - check it out here: http://www.jamieoliver.com/recipes/chicken-recipes/perfect-roast-chicken

*blows dust off blog*

My poor, long suffering blog. Always here when I am angry or upset and I need an outlet to rant. But when things are calm and peaceful, it goes down the pecking order and gets ignored while I get distracted by Instagram, Twitter, Facebook and what-have-you. Ever selfless and giving, my blog doesn't fight for my attention and always waits patiently in the shadows. *pat pat*


And seriously how many social media platforms do I need?! Haha recently I hopped on the Dayre bandwagon (it's like microblogging on the go - if Twitter and Instagram had a rendezvous and had a kid, Dayre would be it).

But well nothing fascinating has been happening... or wait has there been? OK let me share some recent bakes:

Went for a log cake baking class last Saturday and this ended up as dessert for the Nepal celebratory dinner!

I asked my mom to buy lots of Christmas cake decorations back from Phoon Huat. Haha. Shall attempt to replicate the log cake again closer to Christmas.

 Banana Walnut Muffins

I'm pretty sure I baked something similar before but since I only had 3 small bananas left, I went to google for stuff that I could make with 150g bananas haha. So specific. But anyway I liked this version a lot, they were incredibly soft and fragrant. As with all banana+walnut combinations, it could do with some choc chips but I ran out of them.

Been really tempted to buy a lot of stuff lately, like a hand mixer, the Olympus Stylus XZ-10, and the Babyliss Big Hair 42mm. AHHH CONSUMERISM IS EVIL!!! All these are just wants and not needs. Like my Olympus E-PM1 is still serving me well but sometimes it's a little bulky to carry around plus I want something that can transfer photos from camera to phone using the wi-fi card. -_-

And I want a hand mixer because it's more handy and convenient instead of having to lug the huge mixer out of the storeroom when I want to bake something simple.

And seriously I always tie my hair up so why do I need the Babyliss product so that my hair can look like I just stepped out of the salon?

OK I shall convince myself that all this is not needed. Coz if I buy all these then essentially I will have nothing leftover from my AWS.

#firstworldproblems

And recently Paul got himself a second-hand bike and I've never ridden on a bike before (save for one time in Cambodia) so this will take some getting used to! Riding a bike requires lots of planning and also the mood of the skies. I wanted an orange helmet hurhurhur but I guess most riders like boring colours because there are absolutely no orange helmets out there unless I spray paint it myself. So my helmet is pink. Haha. Wave if you see a pink head that looks vaguely like me on the roads!

Still trying to find a good time to break the news to the boss ㅠ.ㅠ
But there's never a good time for such things. Sigh!

Anyway I finally found some time to bake after a long while! After my parents packed all the baking supplies into the storeroom I find it such a hassle to dig everything out when I want to bake something. So now I go for super fuss free recipes that require as little baking tools as possible. Better still if it doesn't require the mixer!

Haha I've been feeling bad about all the weight I've gained over the past 7 months so I tried to make it more healthy by using oatmeal. And it's flourless. I hope it's healthier? Trying my darnest to #eatclean but failing LOL.

Presenting the Flourless Peanut Butter Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Cookies! Woah what a mouthful haha.

 

Round little patties

 They expanded nicely! :D

Probably one of the simplest recipes ever. Quick prep time too. All I needed was a weighing scale, a big bowl, a baking tray and my hands. Dump everything into bowl, mix, shape into circles, bake. Hurhur.

And I keep failing at making caramel!!! SIGH! I wanted to make salted caramel cupcakes for Paul's birthday but I failed twice :( and I ran out of sugar so I couldn't make a third batch. So bo bian, settled for vanilla cupcakes topped with cream cheese frosting. Luckily the birthday boy is as easy-going as I am! Hahahaha :)

 

LOL handmade signs 

I'm going for a Christmas log cake baking class this Saturday! Excited to finally learn the art of rolling the cake - hope it'll turn out much better than the one I did last year!

MY FIRST 花胡!!! I went to wiki it and it's also called a 八仙过海 and is very rare!!! Wiki has a very detailed write up about the conditions to fulfill a win!

Must be the birthday luck haha :)

So I drew 5 flowers right at the beginning and then shortly after the game started I drew the 6th:

 

Note that I am #3 so technically I only have 一台 here

Then my 3 Flower came!

 

AMAZINGLY,  I AM JUST ONE SHORT OF A COMPLETE FLOWER SET!

Since all of us have never met with this situation before, after a few frantic phone calls to the Mahjong guru, it was established that I will win no matter what! Eh heh heh heh heh *cackles*

It can go 2 ways:

(i) I draw the 8th flower and I win, everybody pays me $6.40 each (considered a 满台自摸)

(ii) Someone else draws the 8th flower and I still win, the unfortunate person will have to "包" and cough up $19.20

With many more tiles to go, it was pretty nerve wrecking to see who would draw the 8th flower first haha. I even drew my winning tile twice but I discarded it just to gamble for a chance that that 8th flower will appear before the last 7.5 stacks.

Persistence pays off! (Haha life lessons from mahjong.) It finally appeared! 왔어 왔어!

 

HUAT AH!

 

Paul and the offending 8th flower haha *pats*

Did I also mention that this was the very last round, i.e. 北风北? Haha. One of the more exciting mahjong moments indeed! Good game everyone! :D

There wasn't much that we could do when stuck in the mountains for 6 days with intermittent connection to the outside world.

So we chatted, discussed in depth about our digestive systems, about shitting, about donkey and cow shit, and yes. A lot of talk about shit in general.

And admist all the talk about crap, the motley bunch reflected deeply found that there were indeed many life lessons that we picked up from all that dogged plodding, rocky steps, wading through mud, ups and downs, and puddles of poo.

Stemming from this, I present to you the 10 Life Lessons that we gleaned from trekking.

Life Lesson #1: Don't keep looking down at the shit in front of you and miss out on the bigger picture.

This life lesson is applicable in more ways than one, literally and figuratively. I take this in its literal sense, especially after I got a neck ache from looking down all the time to avoid the dung. After a while, everything I saw was just rocks and dung. Rocks and dung. More rocks and dung. Not pretty. In my attempt not to step in shit, I really missed out on the stunning views around me. So folks. Look up once in a while. You may be surprised by what you see.

Life Lesson #2: Don't be too quick to judge. Give everything a second chance.

On our first night during the trek, we ordered a serving of momo (Nepalese dumplings) for dinner. Momo is supposedly one of the more famous dishes in Nepalese cuisine, but honestly the serving we had was pretty mediocre. Captain Poh then banished the dish from our meals for the next few nights till the second last night of the trek, when we decided to give Momo a second chance. And lo and behold, the chicken momo served was delicious. So folks. Don't be too quick to write off something after a first try. It may bring you a delightful surprise in future.

Life Lesson #3: Follow the shitty way, it may make your life easier.

Ah this. While trekking, we noticed poo smeared all over various rocks. I would try to avoid stepping on the dung and would usually do some weird hop and skip to avoid it. But well, our 4-legged friends are the one leaving the trail of dung behind, and they would definitely be more agile and adept at manoeuvring the rocks than we are. It didn't take us long to realize that hey, perhaps the shitty way is actually the easier way to get us up. So folks. Sometimes, no matter how hard you try to avoid it, you gotta step in shit. No choice. (I'm sure we all stepped on dung at some point, though I did make a conscious effort to avoid it at all costs. And stepping on dry dung is much better than stepping on wet. Still shit, but marginally better. So find the better shitty way out wherever possible.)

Life Lesson #4: Just when you think life is tough, there will be someone worse off than you.

With the hot sun beating on our backs, clambering around uneven stone steps, and carrying a heavy bagpack with knees that feel like they are giving way any moment, it's easy to whine and feel like you've been handed a bad lot in life. But just as you think you have it bad, there is someone else doing back-breaking work, lugging 30kg worth of load UP a bazillion steps without a whimper. This is part and parcel of their daily lives for these hardworking, weather-beaten porters. Then you see a  group of Japanese elderly, probably in their 70s, trekking and enjoying the sights and then you look at yourself. So folks. Really, sometimes the situation isn't as bad as it seems.

Life Lesson #5: There is ain't no mountain high enough.

We only trekked to Poon Hill, a vantage point that stands at 3,210m. Along the way, we saw so many snow capped mountains, offering stunning views of the Anapurna mountain range. There is still Anapurna Base Camp, one of the more popular trekking routes in Nepal, which we didn't get to go. There will always be taller, more beautiful mountains to conquer. So folks. Aim high. There is really ain't no mountain high enough. There will always be something higher, taller, stronger, better. Make that your next destination. (But having said that, I think I'd give Everest Base Camp a miss.)

Life Lesson #6: One is better than none. Two is better than one.

Haha this one is a classic that has been around since our KK days. Uttered from the lips of Am (our trainer from Adventure Quests - who helped organized our KK trip), this memorable quote originally referred to the number of trekking poles that one should have. LOL. So folks. The moral of the story is be prepared. And work with what you have. If you only have one pole, well it's better than none. One pole will still save you from plenty of slips and falls. But if you have two, all the better!

Life Lesson #7: Even shit has many uses.

Along the way we saw a lady using cow dung to build her house. Think she used it as cement for the foundation or something. Dried cow dung apparently is rather strong. And while we were playing a game with our guide Kumar, he also chose cow dung over donkey dung for very practical reasons - because cow dung has more uses. So folks. When faced with shit we gotta be creative and work with what we have!

Life Lesson #8: Always shower before the Chinese.

Captain Poh taught us a life lesson on how to guard your own space. Not to generalize but some of the ATs are really quite intrusive. Sometimes you just gotta be more territorial when dealing with people who jump queue or eat into your space on the clothes line. I'm on the fence about this being a life lesson but if I were to really wring something out... folks. Sometimes it's good to be a little aggressive to get what you want and to protect your own rights.

Life Lesson #9: Sometimes the longer path is the more scenic path.

Ade and WX wandered off and got lost towards the tail end of our trek and ended up taking the longer path. I'm not sure if they did see more scenery than us though. Hahahaha. But yup. Sometimes the longer and harder path is indeed more rewarding. So folks. Patience is a virtue yeah. And you will be rewarded for your tenacity.


Life Lesson #10: Sometimes you need to get lost to discover yourself.

We didn't really get lost (except for Ade and WX - see point above) since we were under the excellent care of our guides. But once in a while it's good to take some time off, wander around, lose yourself in the beauty and inspiring work of nature... take time off social media (very difficult for an addict like me) and discover yourself. So folks. Follow the guides without knowing where you are heading to. Unexpected views may greet you - like when we stepped out of the forest to be greeted by rolling hills and blue skies. Because before you know it, this was what happened when we returned to the city and had wi-fi:

 

Hahahahahaha all staring at their phones during breakfast

So this concludes my very rambly and lengthy post as well as the 10 Life Lessons from trekking. Today is also my 大寿 hahaha and yup another year older and wiser. This year I really can say that I became wiser since last year was a very very eventful roller coaster year. Sometimes you gotta be trampled on to know what you really want. Haha. Luckily this was not a life lesson that I learnt from trekking (imagine being trampled on by buffaloes/horses/donkeys/goats/sheep!!!) but still a good life lesson nonetheless. 

Last year I wrote that I wanted to learn how to dive and I did! Haha pretty much on track on doing the things that I want to do. For now, I shall "enjoy the journey"!

Also starting my new year on a new note, officially accepted a new post on Halloween and will be expecting to start in January, so let's hope all goes well with that. *crosses fingers and toes* The problem is now how to break the news to my boss... ahhhhhh.

So yup looking forward to a happy birthday today with a staycation planned and the year ahead can only get better! :) (Also please I need more money. Thanks. Haha.)