The running (wo)Man

ok. ok. So I am not one you can LOOk at and immediately think... RUNNER. (none of the sleek legs you might expect from an athlete of that caliber)

I myself had doubts about running. I previously classified myself as a social person, so running... (w/c you basically do by yourself) is not one of my top ten activities.

For now, I can only run 5K's. I did one 10k and I thought I would die.

I think I do a decent time. Well, that is, until lately when I got back from the long trip to the Holyland.

I think too eating too many bean filled food made me so sluggish and lethargic. I just couldn't RUN.-- add to this the fact that I have been signed up by a watch company to be in their running team and you have got some real pressure to perform.  One other thing is that I have seen the pictures of me running and by golly, they ain't pretty. (blob on the run is more like it). Soleus has a page on facebook and regularly posts pictures of our runs. *embarrassing*

The last run I did, I had side stitches.. the pain you feel on your side when you run (and did not train) and some pain on my shin. (my friend said it was the way I was stepping). All in all, the run was just so hard. My legs felt like lead filled logs. Ugh.

So, I have decided to train my ass off. So far, I have made two 3K runs and plan to add another tomorrow... maybe up my distance to 5k.

I have another run on July3 and I hope to improve my time. My goal for the next run is to make 32mins. My personal best so far is 34mins. so I still have some work to do.

Coffee wishes and Cupcake dreams

I have attempted to bake before. I have also tried my hand at cupcakes.

Some of my endeavors have been successful and some were a disappointment. You would think cupcakes would be the easiest thing to make right? Well, I was wrong.

Yesterday, for the sheer curiosity of what I was doing wrong and the desire to serve something people would want to eat, I enrolled in a cupcake class. I am so happy I did.

There are just so many things you don't learn from reading a cookbook.

#1- cream butter and sugar together. (i usually do it and finish in 2 minutes)... the instructor actually showed us that you had to cream the butter a certain # of minutes to make the cupcake more heavenly. WOW. big revelation.

#2- baking is a precise science. - you have to measure everything exactly. use a REAL measuring spoon and cup (not a table spoon you use for eating or a cup you use for drinking)~ i was guilty of doing this!!

#3- baking requires patience. (you have to wait for things to turn into a certain way before you can add more things)

#4- make sure all ingredients are ROOM TEMP. eggs, water, milk. BUT since we are in a tropical country... the room temp would be a little warm for the butter. and essentially, you want the butter to be a little soft... not melted. So we have to be careful with that.

VOILA'

cupcakes!!!

this is the smores cupcake... you have to use a torch to get that burn effect-- almost burned the kitchen down!!!

 -- the smores cupcake was topped with a marshmallow frosting...

tiramisu cupcake... with the cheesecake frosting!! yum!

tres leches- three milk cupcake... yummy !!
- tres leches with whipped cream topping....

Now, all I have to do is replicate what we did in the class in my actual kitchen.... gotta get my coffee machine going... have to have a cupcake.

My not so secret garden

One of the things I truly wished to have was a beautiful garden. One where you can wander. I had this vision of stone steps and vine covered walls. Flowers blooming all around while I enjoy the surroundings sitting on a big rock in the middle of it.


I also wanted a vegetable garden, something I can go in, pick up a tomato and then cook in my house. Maybe watching episodes of "the river cottage" kind of set me off this "english garden setting" kind of scenario. (see river cottage here)...http://www.rivercottage.net//


This is what I had in mind....

Mind you, I live in a TROPICAL country. we don't have 4 seasons. We only have two.. the WET and the DRY season. So planning something like this would take a lot of imagination. For one thing, not all the plans suited for this kind of garden would survive the weather. Another thing is that I live in  very populated city and of course, I don't have a rambling river behind my house to enjoy.


So I did the best I could with what I had. I asked my landscaper to make a stone pathway on one side of the house. (this is best as it rains half the year and it would be too muddy for a soil pathway all throughout the house). I also asked him to fence off the back part so I can make my vegetable garden. I think he made it look quite nice. (we have dogs and I was afraid they would get into the garden and dig up all the veggies)

as you can see, the ivy hasn't covered the whole of the arbor yet

I have planted some eggplants, tomatoes, beans and squash on my garden. I also have some herbs growing on some pots on the sides of the pathway. So far, I have harvested some tomatoes (about 3-4 pcs) from the garden. It isn't much, but it's something. (I find delight in such trivial things!... hahahaha)

my beautiful beans!

We have also added Mr. and Mrs. Chuk chuk to our growing family. (These are the geese we bought)
I kindda called them that when they arrived. Chickens go CLUCK CLUCK... so i figured, why not call them ? and the first thing out of my mouth was chuk chuk...  


As with anything new, we had to adjust.... the dogs had to adjust and we had to figure out how to keep both of them happy without them killing each other... LOL

so far, the geese have adjusted pretty well, taking morning baths in the fountain. I didn't realize they can DIVE under water. (they can go under pretty long too)

we still had water lilies here.... they have eaten most of them by now

We can't wait till they lay eggs and have little chuk chuks... as long as they leave my veggies alone that is.!

Inspirations

A bright Monday to all... and just to make the week start on a bright note, here are some pictures I took during a recent trip. 

and here is a poem by Henry Van Dyke--

Life by Henry Van Dyke

Let me but live my life from year to year,
With forward face and unreluctant soul;
Not hurrying to, nor turning from the goal;
Not mourning for the things that disappear
In the dim past, nor holding back in fear
From what the future veils; but with a whole
And happy heart, that pays its toll
To Youth and Age, and travels on with cheer.

So let the way wind up the hill or down,
O'er rough or smooth, the journey will be joy:
Still seeking what I sought when but a boy,
New friendship, high adventure, and a crown,
My heart will keep the courage of the quest,
And hope the road's last turn will be the best.

The rituals of our lives

Being Chinese means being born into a culture full of rituals. Western people would find it interesting to know we have rituals for everything.

Engagements, marriage, giving birth and yeah, even death.

We have had the third death in the family. First it was my grandmother, then my aunt, then my uncle. Granted, they were all suffering from cancer and it was inevitable. Still, you can guess the times we have had to do the burial rituals.

When Chinese do wakes, you would generally see food offerings on the front of the casket. This would consist of 3 kinds of fruit, maybe 3 different dishes, a rice bowl and some wine in a cup. The chopsticks would be placed vertically on the rice (and this is why you don't stick the chopstick like that when you are eating with chinese... it is considered bad manners)

Depending on the family, they would either choose to have some buddhist monks chants some prayers every afternoon. (this was done during the wake of my grandmother but not with my aunt and uncle) They would chant and chant and then *dong* ring a chime... chant again, ring a chime... you get the picture.

The most interesting part for most people though are the paper offerings that we do. As with most cultures, we believe in the after life. Most chinese also practice some sort of ancestor worship. The believe in burning "paper money" or money for the dead to use in the afterlife. In chinese wakes (compared to Filipino wakes) you would see paper houses in front of the chapel. The houses would not only be normal houses but ones complete with maids. You can also see paper mache TV's (flatscreen with sony bravia written on top),  washing machines, cars (mercedes benz) and sometimes planes. (when you look inside the plane, you can see they provide the dead with a passport too!) - one time, I heard someone say, the plane has no pilot, how can he (the dead) fly it? He does not know how to fly!

paper money

original state of paper money. we had to do origami on them to make them look like gold inggots 

In the Philippines, the art of paper mache is not as wide as say in, hongkong. They have the widest range of items. I have seen jewelry (sets of necklace and earring), shoes, dresses and now I heard, even cameras, ipads and iphones.

If you're wondering what they do with these, they usually burn them after the dead is buried or cremated---. To accompany them to the afterlife. So, sometimes, even if you don't have a nice house or car in real life, you may get it in the afterlife!!!

Note: I asked for a ferrari in the afterlife... just in case, it's made of paper after all....

paper houses we burn for use of the dead (some are bigger than this)

modern day items (in paper) that you can send to the dead.

Hat's off

Lately, I have been having a hat craving. Maybe it's the summer weather, who knows??

I RARELY wear hats... maybe because you don't see many people wear them here unlike say... Australia, where they have  racing day and you surely have to get a very exotic hat to wear. Or for instance, the wedding of Prince William (did you see the hat to Princess Eugenie and Princess Beatrice?)

My gawd, do English royalty dress like the mad hatter??? and they think this is stylish?

Oh well, back to normal looking hats.....

In a span of maybe a month, I have bought myself 3 hats. The first one is a fedora I bought at Esprit. (haven't had an opportunity to wear it yet)

I bought one in black felt (the picture is straw)

The next two are basically the same style. a big round floppy hat for something you would wear while strolling down a beach (which i still have to do... summer in the Philippines basically over in two weeks~) It's been raining hard lately... a sure sign the monsoons are coming

This hat is so classic, it just takes you to somewhere warm.... big round sunglasses on... maybe sailing on some yacht, sipping a cool drink. VERY french riviera of me, I know!

There was a time I has a cowboy hat craving too... just bought a bunch of straw cowboy hats.

I have to do the beach SOON--- weather forecasts have said we have some typhoons coming in the next couple of weeks.. 

Climbing a mountain (part 3) -- reaching the top

MT Sinai, the camel station (AKA: base camp 2)

I could see the lights and knew we had reached the camel station. At the cafeteria, I was reunited with my fellow travellers. My husband was already slurping on a hot bowl of instant noodles. It was amazing that they had instant noodles at 6000 feet. There were more people behind me looking for those noodles and my husband informed me that it was the last one. (they sold out on  noodles.- - I guess they hadn't figured that 90 freezing cold asians were going to climb the mountain that day)

I took a few minutes waiting for the rest of the group to arrive. (we had to complete our group before we were allowed to climb the rest of the way up)

They informed us that about 30 of us intended to proceed the rest of the way. The other opted to stay at the camel station. It was another 30 minutes climb to the very top for us to wait for the sunrise.

picture with the camels

camel parking lot

a beduin smoking a pipe at the camel station (photo by my friend)

resting my head....

in 20 minutes, we started climbing. it was about 4:30 am. With my flashlight, I carefully climbed the narrow steps. It was rocky and we had to be careful in stepping, some of the stones were quite loose. There were another group who were climbing also and at time, we had to let the faster climbers pass. some of my male friends complained they had to go pee... and found some rocky outcrop to do their business (good thing it was dark, and I could only HEAR them and not SEE them.... hahaha)

The air was quite thin at this point and we got winded very easily. I tried to regulate my breathing too but eventually had to take some rest stops to catch my breath. You can't really see how much further you have to go to reach the top since it was pitch dark. you just had to prod on... I kept thinking.... how far? are we there yet???

You can't really see much, maybe only two feet in front of you. when you look up, you try to gauge the length you still have to climb by the number of flashlight you still see. Eventually we reach the top. YES. it was soo fulfilling to be able to climb. Maybe something you do once in a lifetime.

me taking pictures

 The sun began to rise and everyone had their cameras ready. The beduins were shouting at everyone to be ready to shoot.

(The time frame was short-- it was sunrise after all and you only get 2 minutes for everything to happen)

i'm on the top of the wooorrrrlllld.....

Sinai at sunrise

me and a friend... trying to balance on a very scary rock

nice picture- I think

grand view of it all.

The whole impact of the climb will hit you when you climb down... (photos by friends)

traffic going down

camel station in the morning

the steps up... I climbed THAT????

the beduin mall... hahaha

looking down at how far we need to walk down

steep!!!! climbing down..

Suffice it to say.... all of us really FELT it the next day... some had to have canes!!!