My Spanish Getaway...Part II

So in the previous post I told you that I tumbled down the stairs and became half crippled... And Eugene specifically requested for some pictures so I thought it'd be interesting to share some of the pictures I took while I was 'trapped' in the flat. These must be classified as the most unconventional holiday pictures, ever...

The ceiling lamp in the flat, obviously. Taken while waiting for Steve to come home with our mahoosive jacket potato.

The dining area and our very small telly.

 A lizard on the roof of the apartment opposite the balcony. Is it real?

 Testing out the 'Foliage' mode on my camera.

 Waiting for Steve to get home from shopping for groceries.

 Still waiting for Steve...

 View from the balcony...

 Book that Steve was reading...

Tissue...

You must forgive the randomness of this series of pictures... I was trapped in the flat with no immediate prospect of going out and I was getting extremely boredddd and restless....

By the end of the second day being trapped in the flat, I said to myself, enough was enough!! I was getting more and more desperate. That was when I decided to take a couple of Ibuprofen pills and braved it down 4 floors of staircase just so I could get out and have some fresh air. Steve was of course a bit worried about that because imagine if I couldn't make it back up the stairs on my own,  I'll have to piggy-back ride on him upstairs !!! Wouldn't you be scared at the thought of that?

Anyway, it turned out that I made the right decision as it became easier and easier with each step and we also made sure that we had plenty of stops to rest my poor foot.

And after grabbing some food stuff from the supermarket, I managed to make my way slowly up the stairs and from then, our holiday resumed its course and we were out and about every day.

In the next post, I shall share with you a few more pictures we took here and there, during our travels.

The changing of seasons and more projects completed

Nine calendar months have snuck past me and I am still in a daze ... It seemed like not long ago we were rejoicing in the unexpected January snow (not all of us) and when I turned around, it's September already. Mind you, from January to September, I did manage to squeeze in events like going home to Malaysia to visit the family; learning to use the sewing machine; celebrated another birthday; a few holidays here and there.... So all in all, quite an eventful nine months.

As much as we are unwilling to accept that Summer is coming to an end, you know that it is happening when you can feel the air getting chillier and you no longer feel comfortable in just your skimpy t-shirt; shorts and flip-flops. Your lips start to feel a bit dry and flaky; and your skin becomes rather dry.

Speaking of dry skin, I have started using the much talked about 'Waitrose Baby Bottom Butter' on my face. I know it sounds absurd but not long ago I read about it on the news and when I was in Waitrose a month ago, I saw it and decided to give it a go. It actually works quite well on my superdry skin, so I have stopped using my dermalogica moisturiser and am only using this. But I suspect I will go back to my dermalogica products quite soon, once I get hold of another tube of my daily moisturiser as I've run out of that product. I like the light, aromatheraphy-smelling moisturiser on my face. But at the moment, for £2.49 per tub, it's doing quite a good job.

I hate using make up and until today, I am guilty of going around puffy and pale-faced, looking like I've just woken up from bed, even at 1 o'clock in the afternoon because I can't even be bothered to put lipsticks on. I have tried, I swear, I have, that is, to maintain a regime of applying make up before coming out. Bea even gave me a crash course on using make up but I just gave up after two days because I cannot be bothered. Too time consuming and, frankly, pointless. But I will give it another go, soon, when I've visited the store and bought myself some proper MAC make-up. I'll let you know. I quite like the Hello Kitty range, so perhaps I will start trying, soon. First, I need to sort out my unruly and quite frankly, almost non-existing eyebrows. That's what irritates me the most.

Anyway, some random pictures to show you what's been happening...

 The view of Widemouth Bay

This picture was taken during our latest weekend away in Cornwall and the whole weekend was spent appreciating how beautiful the Cornish coast was. We enjoyed driving along the tiny and narrow coastal roads with tall hedges on both sides, while admiring the breath-taking views of the sea whenever we get chance to have glimpses of it. When we do get chance to stop and appreciate the beauty, the Canon compact camera that we have just isn't quite cut out to do the job of capturing how beautiful the surroundings were. I guess that's one of the reasons that has prompted me to want to get myself a camera which has slightly more options than a compact digital camera can offer, for the sole purpose of being able to capture pictures with a bit more depth. I have no idea about shutter speed, or ISO or macro but I am sure once I get hold of the camera, the learning will come with using it. So it's all very exciting.

 Another completed project, Michelle's Bag

I call it Michelle's Bag because it was made for a friend's birthday and you guessed right, her name's Michelle. From the outside, it might look like an ordinary tote bag but close up, you'll see that each flower is individually stitched to give it a sort of '3D' effect. It was an enjoyable project to do and hopefully she'll be able to make some good use of it.

Mind you, I was saying to Fely after three flowers, it was quite hardwork stitching free-motion and maneuvering the fabric to get the stitches around each flower to look tidy. Quite straining on the eyes and back but was definitely another satisfying project to do.

Made some cushion covers yesterday and I must say I'm quite pleased with how they have turned out. Steve chose the green fabric, flower motif with green background on one side and I matched it with a stripey deck-chair, seasiddey kind of fabric on the other side. 

I already have another project or two in mind, just need to find time to do them. It's all go, go, go !! 

Finally !!

So after staying at home for most of my 'visiting family' trip, I finally got to go out today to Penang to visit my brother's inlaws.

On our way to their house we stopped at our usual coffee shop and had our usual favourite - the very famous Penang Char Kui Teow at Genting Restaurant and it was every bit as good as I imagined it to be !! And of course out came the camera and 'snap', an ever lasting memory of my craving satisfaction after more than two years (and also to show off to Fely who must be droooling by now) hahaks.

I made sure that the photo size is EXTRA large so that you can see the yummy prawns and 'see ham' and egg... mmmmmmmm.....can still taste it in my mouth. (I have since had to reduce the size of the picture due to technical problems :P )

My fantastic foody day didn't just end there. On our way back, to save Mom the hassle of cooking dinner, we decided to stop at another food court and have something to eat. Because it was still early, we made a stop at Tesco Extra on our way to pick up some groceries (in which I picked myself a deliciously yummy tin of Julie's Love Letters (perisa Coklat), inspired by escape's blog entry not long ago). I asked Mom and Dad which flavour to choose from and Dad immediately said 'Perisa Coklat' so chocolate it was... and on our way to the check out Mom whispered, 'I would have picked strawberry....' SIGH typical Mom.... I should have picked up both tins then to make both of them happy, haha. Anyway, for dinner, we had some lovely sizzling claypot noodles (yummy) and some Ice Kacang !! Unfortunately it was getting dark so no picture was taken this time and also I was sent on the task of getting the Ice Kacang so in between trying to gobble down the noodles and eating the Ice Kacang at the same time before it melts, I had no more free hands for 'snap snap' !!

So we went home happy and contented and although we were all full to the brim with noodles and ice kacang, within half an hour, we were happily tucking into the tin of Julie's Love Letters !! Yummmy !!! Hehe this image I stole from escape...

And what makes me happy is knowing that there is still a whole tin out there waiting for me tomorrow (unless Mom and Dad make a drastic attack for it before I wake up tomorrow noon time) -- yeah I know, it's awfully terrible that I am still on England time which means that I only fall asleep around 6am Malaysian time and wake up around 12.30 in the afternoon just in time for lunch (shame shame shame)...

When I was packing for home, I knew that I would be spending most of my time at home doing nothing. So I packed lots of my hobby stuff(things that I always wished I had more time to do when I'm in the UK), making sure that I'll never have a dull moment and that I'll have lots to occupy my time with. This is the list of things I brought and also how much I've actually made use of them so far...

1. My cross stitch project -- Two years ago I started a very ambitious cross-stitch project of a picture of Sasha the dog...  two years later, we still haven't seen any bit of her actual face yet. So I brought this project along, hoping that I'll be able to make some progress on it. But as you can tell from this picture, there is still no sign of any dog, so I haven't done much of cross-stitch so far.

2. Edward Rutherfurd's Sarum -- I did a research on the Internet before my holiday and found out that this book was recommended by many as resembling the experience you'll get from the great 'Pillars of the Earth' by Ken Follet and because I loved The Pillars of the Earth so much (read it four times so far) I practically twisted Steve's arm and got him to get this book for me with his Christmas voucher at Waterstone (yes, I am mean). I had it with me on the plane but I didn't read it because I was sleeping most of the time (or trying to sleep) and for a reason that you will soon find out, I have not had chance to read much of it either.

3. Friends Season 8 -- I know I'm sad.. I must have seen this a million times but believe it or not, when you've got nothing else on telly to watch, 'Friends' always come in handy. Since Mom and Dad are avid fans of period drama from mainland China which I have no interest in because they are too 'historical' for me, I have spent many a lonely nights in my room watching 'Friends' on my laptop and the saddest part was because I only brought along one season with me, I have to ration myself to a maximum of two episodes per night so that I don't run out of episodes too quickly (unfortunately the rationing wasn't very successful the first week I was here so I am now already on the last disc with only 6 more episodes to go before I finish the entire season !!! Should have brought along season 9 as well !!

4. Nintendo DSi XL -- Now this one.... this one..... it helped me sleep, it gave me entertainment and it was the best companion through the nights when I'm awake while the rest of the house is sleeping. I know, I am a fully grown adult woman who should be having babies and nurturing children at my ripe old age but instead I get extreme pleasure from shooting robots and collecting bits and pieces in the Lego Star Wars Trilogy!!! I think the thing that gets me so hooked on this game is that the level of difficulty is at the minimum where I can handle. Once a game gets too complicated and the controls get too difficult to handle, my mind gives up. This one is just right up my street. And I love love love it. Another picture to show you the game, haha.

You can tell from this elaborate post that I currently have lots of free time on my hands. I really, really want to get some cross-stitch done and start reading the book and get into some interesting history of Britain... but first, I must shoot all the nasty robots and collect all my coins !!!!

Hope I haven't bored you too much with my geeky hobbies. Until the next post, take care.

Blogging from Hong Kong

Yess, am in Hong Kong Airport waiting for my flight to Penang which is in an hour's time. Initially, the flight from Heathrow - Hong Kong was not due until now but because the pilot and the crew were SUPER efficient, we landed a whopping 50 minutes ahead of schedule and you should have heard how smug the pilot was when he announced the 'good news' and I involuntarily let out a silent groan knowing that my waiting time at the airport has just been increased 50 minutes. Ah well, I suppose that gave me plenty of time to go through transfer and to go through security again without feeling panicky (to those who travel frequently by plane you know what it's like, taking off your shoes and your belt and your coat and separating your laptop and your mobile into a tray, yada yada yada). I also had ample time to check out the duty free shop to get the gift that Steve had 'hinted' for me to get him (men).

I was going to start telling you my inflight experience but unfortunately it looks like they are boarding people soon so I had better pack up and be one of those 'kiasu' people and dash the minute they pick up the microphone to start making an announcement.

Adios and have a good week.

xx.

To be or not to be?

It's been a rather busy week this week..lots of loose ends to tie up before I am off on a two-week holiday home to see the family.. YAY !! Mind you, these past two months leading to this trip has been a challenge of collecting/buying various presents and goodies for the family members -- chocolates and toys for the nieces and nephew, perfume and cosmetics for mum, jewellery for the Sis-in-law, Twining tea for Mum's friends, more cookies and chocolates.... The most difficult bit I have to say is buying for the two men -- Dad and my brother. I have one or two items for them, but I feel that it might not be enough. So, I still have this weekend before I fly off on Monday to try and sort something out. But I don't want to make the mistake I made last year when I went home --  I bought so much that in the end they woulnd't fit in the luggage and I had to leave some of the cookies and biscuits behind !! And this time, because I'm not going home with Steve, he has promised to bake some chocolate chip cookies that I can take with me for my parents because my dad loved the cookie that we brought back for them last year.

The office is finally back to normal this week with me being able to 'bug' my colleague incessantly while she's trying to get some work done. And from her holiday in Cornwall she brought me the most B.E.A.U.T.I.F.U.L and functional souvenir for me !! It's not a great picture because being my usual anal self, I am reluctant to open up the plastic wrapping and take them out in case I dirty them. But aren't these just so cute and adorable?!!

I haven't yet quite decided where and what to use them on so they'll have to stay in the plastic for a while longer but once in a while I do pick them up and ogle and admire them because they are just so cute !

Right, totally unrelated... I am in a mad quest of finishing my blanket because I am hoping to bring it on the plane with me for some warmth because I always find that the air conditioning is often too cold for me on the plane. But there are two dilemmas... 1. the blanket is surprising heavy and bulky (Duh, it is called a 'blanket') and 2. once I land in Malaysia with the guaranteed heat of up to 30 degree C and the humidity that envelopes you the minute you walk out the plane, I'm not sure if it will be worth while carrying all that weight just to use it on the plane... I don't know.. I guess when it comes to actually packing for the trip, the matter will resolve itself. But for now, just a couple of pictures to show you.

There is no system to the colour sequence. I basically use whatever colour that I come across first in the bag.

You can see Steve's foot sticking out in the background and the general messiness of the room. Can you see that bag sitting in the corner (next to Steve's foot), that's a whole bag of toys and stationery and goodies for the family. So tonight when I get home from work at 10pm, there will be more toiling to expand the size of the blanket. Now that it has grown so big, it takes soooooooo long just to finish one round of colour !! Fely, I've finally used the new bedlinen set I showed you not long ago... Nice?!

Okay chaps..... I will be in an Internet-less zone for the next two weeks.. so when I come back, there'll be lots of blog entries from you guys that I can catch up on (yiippiieee). Till then, take care and see you soon !!

On coming home in one piece.

For weeks leading to Christmas and new year, I have been fretting endlessly that somebody in the family might break a bone before the end of the year 2009.

We were booked on a skiing trip to celebrate the New Year in Andorra, a beautiful country wedged between France and Spain.

Instead of looking forward to the holiday and to skiing for the first time in my life, I found myself worrying about every possible aspect there is to worry about, the dog, the danger of the sport, packing, timing to the airport...... yada yada yada.

So Christmas was celebrated with Steve's family with lots of lovely, lovely food, fantastic pressies and lazy Christmas telly. And before bedtime, there was a frenzy of packing and getting all the travel documents ready and making sure the weather condition was fine for us to drive up north to catch our flight to Girona.

Then came boxing day, and one by one, the 'to do list' was ticked accordingly.

::Take Sasha round to my colleague's so that she can be looked after while we were gone... CHECK

::Collect rental car from the airport and get the luggage packed in...CHECK

::Getting luggage FINALLY packed with all the winter gear... CHECK

::Making sure we don't leave anything on in the house that might set the house on fire while we were gone....CHECK

And finally, at 12pm we were on our way to the East Midland Airport to catch our 7pm flight.

As soon as we landed in Girona at close to 11pm, our journey has not stopped. There we picked up another hired car, and Steve started driving, in the dark, in a foreign country, in very icy and cold condition, on the other side of the road, up the mountain, heading towards Arinsal in Andorra which was more than 3 hours away.

By the time we got to our destination, it was almost 4am and we were all tired and exhausted.

The next morning, in order to make our week-long skiing trip worthwhile, we were 'ushered' and 'herded' out of our rented accommodation like a bunch of moo-cows (against our will) as early as it was humanely possible by Steve's brother so that we would get started with buying our week-long ski pass, and renting our ski gear and securing a locker room... etc.

One precious lesson learnt was that skiing in itself was not at all tiring or physically demanding.... it was the pre-skiing 'rituals' that tire you out...
First you have to get yourself all nicely 'wrapped' up for the weather condition up at the mountain top.. which means, thermal vest, and then a ski-top, a fleece and then your ski jacket.... longjohn, and then your sellopads, and thermal socks, and hat and gloves and ski goggles and in some cases, a scarf.

Second, you walk to the ski lift, hop on the ski lift which will take you to the top where you proceed to your locker room to collect your ski gear.

Third, ski gear consists of a pair of 'Robocop' boots, which makes it extremely awkward and difficult to walk around in. And then with the ski boots on, you have to carry your skis and your poles on your shoulder.

Fourth, to make it more challenging, they have decided to put in lots and lots of slippery stairs made from metal leading from the locker, to the actual place where you can eventually start skiing.

So by the time we reached the top, and have our boots properly clipped on, I was sweaty, exhausted and was ready to put my feet up and call it a day.

The first day was difficult. Although we signed up for a lesson on that first day, the language barrier (instructor was Spanish so she, at one time referred to the toe as the 'finger'.. and she said 'to control your skis, you must know how to use your big finger....hmmm), exhaustion, tiredness and frustration took the better of me and the next day by lunch time I was ready to quit skiing.

But I'm glad I did not because after falling down countless times, and performing a rather impressive split going down hill backwards on my ski .... we learnt better and better control of the skis and were beginning to enjoy ourselves a little.

So up and down and up and down the travellator we went, familiarising ourselves on the skis down the nursery slope, along with children as young as 5, whizzing past us as they cruised downhill, effortless, fearless and carefree.

The difficulty level of the slopes range from the Nursery slope, to Green, Blue, Red and Black with Black being the most challenging, obviously. We took a couple more lessons after the first day (fortunately with someone who spoke better English and who did not refer to using the fingers to control your skis) and by the end of the skiing trip, Steve and I were both rather proud that we had managed to progress beyond the nursery slope and had gone up and come down the Blue and even a bit of the Red slope.

In summary, it was a really, really enjoyable first skiing trip for me and I can't wait to go again. Nevertheless, it is an expensive sport and money were spent on ski wear, ski lift pass, ski gear rental, locker room... and the list goes on...not to mention the cost of travelling involved. But it was absolutely great fun and I highly recommend it !!

This is moi in my full ski gear !!

*notice the specially requested pink skis?

And oh, if you click on the picture to enlarge it, see that man with the stripy black and purple jacket on the right in the background, looking at another man who has fallen on the ground? That's Steve's brother trying to help his 80-year-old dad to get back up on his skis. He's amazing. For two whole days he tried his very best to learn to ski and only on the last day, he eventually gave up and said it's not his cup of tea...

Travel essentials

One of the things that we always and definitely pack for a holiday is a good book, and it has to be a page turner, other wise you're stuck with a boring book for the entire holiday. When we were at our first stop in Turkey, a small and beautiful riverside town called Dalaman, we stayed in a hotel owned by the parents of a coursemate I befriended in Uni of So'ton. There was a bookshelf at the reception area where you see stacks and stacks of English novels left behind by people who have finished reading them. Anyone is welcome to take any book that they fancy reading. And then when we arrived at the Elvina apartment, again there was a bookshelf full of books that people can help themselves to. We soon realised that even if we had forgotten to pack a book, there was plenty to choose from here. Reading, is one of life's greatest pleasures and a good habit to inculcate. And the best thing about it is that because it is such a wonderful book and you'd want to share it with others, you don't mind leaving it behind for others to enjoy. Either that or it's someone who was making room for duty free alcohol and ciggies to take home and had to sacrifice their books.



Today, we were relaxing at the Kalamar Beach Club and EVERYONE lounging on a sunbed has a book to read. Upon close inspection of the different kinds of books that people were reading, Steve and I came to the conclusion that the ultimate read of this summer has to be the Twilight saga. Especially among groups of teenagers, one would be reading Twilight, the other New Moon, and the other Breaking dawn, and these would then be swapped around I suppose. As for moi, I am reading the new book by Stepehie Meyer, 'the host' which was one of my birthday presents and I must say that although the reviews for it were still good, it is not Twilight and there was no 'Edward Cullen' in it.



Oh did I mention that as a joke, Steve got me an Edward Cullen 'Kent' doll as a birthday present? The man does have some funny sense of humour :P



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The Sun Worshipper

I've never been someone who enjoys the sunshine. Mind you, coming from Malaysia where the midday sun is torturous rather than pleasant and the humidity envelopes you and makes you sweat like a pig, who can blame me?! So it is rather surprising that I am now finding myself acting like a typical ang moh, in my skimpy bikini (albeit the muffin top and the jelly belly), lying on the sun lounger, basking in the sunshine. The difference here is you get a constant and pleasant seabreeze which keeps you cool. And plus for some unknown reason that I have yet to figure out, when you go on a holiday people expect you to come home with a tan. The more tanned you are, the more 'successful' your holiday. So I'm 'working' really hard on that tan. What's frustrating is that at the end of each day I get quite tanned, then it peels off like snake skin! And the next day I have to start from scratch!!



At the moment I am fully exposed to the sun and it actually hurts so much that I'm tempted to abandon my mission and hide under the shade or jump straight into the pool to cool down. It's a useless cycle of trying to dry myself off to go to town coz that way I'll never be dry. How do people endure the torture of going to sunbeds once a week in order to achieve that 'holiday' look? God only knows.



For the time being, I shall flip over on me belly and get the other side of me tanned so that I don't end up looking like ebony on one side and ivory on the other. Pain pain pain.

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