Mount KK

Mount KK from afar

Helllooooo.....ok firstly, Soph, I am soooo sorry. I know i have been like non-existant for quite a long time. It's just that all blog sites have been blocked in my office!! How cruel are they! Now time at work has become even more boring. Haha. Don't they know that all work and no play makes Debbie a dull girl??

Anyways, like what Sophie mentioned, yes, i have been travelling quite a bit :) In January, i visited Hanoi. In April, i was in Kota Kinabalu, next month i will be going to Pulau Kapas, September to Bali and November to Bangkok.....OMG, it's a crazy year of travelling for me.

Kota Kinabalu , in short KK was fun and torturous at the same time. Fun because of the company of the crazy group i spent 7 straight days with. Torturous, of course because of the climb itself. I almost pulled myself out from going. Seriously. 2 weeks before the trip, i was down with a bad flu, which lasted 2 wks!! Bad enough that the air got thinner as we climb, the irritating phlegm did not help at all. Then i thought to myself, i have come this far, by hook or by crook, i will just try to pull my ass up there once and for all. And so i did. With much help of our guide, Antonius, i managed to climb 4900 ft up to Low's Peak.

The view was magnificent and we managed to catch the sun rise at 6 am.

The climb started with a hike to mid summit, Laban Rata, which took us a grulling 10 hours to get there. There are 2 routes which will lead us to Laban Rata, one through Mersilau, and the other through Timpohon. We tracked through Mersilau, which greeted us with much greens to see and a great scenery. After reaching Laban Rata at 6pm, we rested our bodies for the final part of the hike from mid summit to Low's Peak. That took us another 4 hours and alot of determination. Finally, after a total of 14 hours of hike, we finally made it to the top. The view was AWESOME. At that point of time, all the effort of getting up there didn't matter a bit. All that mattered was the feeling of you being on top of the world, literally :)

Is this Karma?

The past couple of days there has been a flood of news about the devastating typhoon Nargis in Burma. Now as I sit watching the news in my living room, I feel the pain and sadness that the Burmese people are feeling. It's said that it might have killed 150, 000 people in its wake. That is a lot of innocent lives lost.

Maybe this is a sign for the Burmese military junta/government that what they are doing is wrong. Just a few months ago that they were violently clamping down on both Buddhist monks and civilians who were doing a peaceful protest for the atrocities that the Burmese military junta has been carrying out and with the years of house arrest Syu Kyi has been placed in.

Even more atrocious was while the Burmese people are fighting against Nargis and recovering, the government was putting famous stars on tv to urge people to go vote! Shouldn't they get their priorities straight? How many more of these atrocities need to happen before these inhuman junta will realise their wrongdoings? It is sad that the people are at the receiving end of the whole thing, natural or not.

My heart goes out to them and I hope they will recover from it all.

Food, Glorious FOOD!!!

After moving to our new place, I have rediscovered my passion for cooking as a therapeutic relaxation. Manlok and me love to cook but back in our old place, the kitchen was too small to do any serious cooking. As a result, we haven't really do any full on cooking for 2 years. :( I know, how sad, aye?

But ever since we moved to this new place, we have started cooking again! And after reading some of my friend's blogs about their weekend, I felt inspired to indulge details of my weekend that just passed. :D

After lazing around and doing some laps in the clubhouse's lap pool on Saturday (serious lazing around the house....), I decided to do some cooking on Sunday. I wanted to make Roti Canai (yes, from scratch), Curry Chicken (yes, again from scratch) and n Italian Chocolate Tart. But we din go for grocery shopping till 4pm and therefore have to shelf the tart and I cooked only Roti Canai and Curry Chicken. :(

Tried to toss the roti like those mamak stalls, but not much skill la! hahahaha.. but anyway, here are some pics of what I cooked...

The roti dough I made

Spices that needs to be stir fried with the curry

Coconut milk

Other spices that I made with my blender

...and the chicken

... with some potatoes

with the help of a kitchen

frying the spice paste + chicken + spices + potatoes

TADAA!!!

And the roti TOO! (ok, I admit, it's quite out of shape! hahahah....)

It was a bit spicy for Manlok, but he loved it... hehe.. next time mebbe I should reduce the chilli even more...

Anyway, here's a pic of what I made 2 weeks ago... garlic foccacia! (pic quality is a bit bad.. sorry!)



ENJOY!