The Hobbits- The desolation of Smaug

Last Wednesday I went to cinema to watch The Hobbits- The Desolation of Smaug. 

Overall, it was a good movie. The story picked up from the last episode, whereby the dwarves, along with Bilbo Bagggins and Gandalf the wizrd, continue their quest to reclaim Erebor, their homeland from Smaug the dragon. The story is easy to follow and my favorite part of the movie is the interaction between Bilbo and Smaug. There is so much chemistry between the dragon and the hobbit and I love love Bilbo's unique hobbit-humor. In addition, their role were played by none other than Holmes and Watson pair from The Sherlock- Martin Freeman and Benedict Cumberbatch. My favorite actors and drama of all time.

I missed Sherlock, please air the season 3 soon!!!

Anyway, check out http://www.comicbookmovie.com/fansites/notyetamovie/news/?a=88896 for the interview of Bendict Cumberbatch on his voice over as the smaug.

Am not to sure whether its an aftermath or what, but watching the movie reminds me bits and pieces of scenes in The Lord of the Ring trilogy I watched like something 10 years ago. Mind you I have a very bad memory when it comes to remembering the storyline and characters of the previous movies which I have watched. Sometimes when I watched the sequel of a movie, I will start to question Peter like, "how come this or that character from the previous movie no longer appearing? oh he was dead? how did he die?".... 

Usually Peter gets really pissed off with me when I did that. 

Anyway, coming back to Lord of the Rings. Some of the things Frodo Baggins said keep on lingering in my mind for days. It was a scene at the end of story in The Return of the King when the journey and fellowship ended and everyone went back to their home. Everyone were celebrating their victory and reunion with their family members, the Hobbits were dancing and drinking, except Frodo. He seems to be disconnected from the rest of his friends and family, his life before the LOTR journey. 

I can't remember exactly what Frodo said but its was something along the line that he can no longer go back to his old life nor he knows how to move on after going through such a painful yet so magnificent and life altering journey. Well, as usual, I have to google for it and this is the exact words of Frodo:

".....We were home. How do you pick up the threads of an old life? How do you go on... when in your heart you begin to understand... there is no going back? There are some things that time cannot mend... some hurts that go too deep... that have taken hold. Bilbo once told me his part in this tale would end... that each of us must come and go in the telling. Bilbo's story was now over. There would be no more journeys for him... save one. 

My dear Sam. You cannot always be torn in two. You will have to be one and whole for many years. You have so much to enjoy and to be and to do. Your part in the story will go on."

Back then, I didn't really quite understand what is the significant of the name Bilbo mentioned by Frodo at that scene. But after watching Bilbo's story nearly 10 years after, now I finally see the connection. Bilbo was the first hobbit to embark on such a journey! They went through the same adventure that one would never imagine a hobbit would experience. They went through the same struggle and burden of carrying the ring. And at the end of the journey, both of them did not and could not go back to their old life. Strange enough, somehow I was able to recognize why they felt and acted that way. At the end of such a great journey, one will inevitably succumb into one of these two scenarios: either he spends the rest of the days living in the shadows of that journey, reminiscence those moments knowing the fact that the rest of his life will never experience the magnitude of such a journey again. Or to be overly contented with the achievement of the conquest. Knowing he is and will always be different from others, he spends his life waiting for another peak which big chances that it never comes. 

Of course I never experience a magnitude of such a great event/ journey in the past 30 years in my life. But sometimes I wonder, as I'm passing the gate of "30 years old" this year, should I just leave my youthful days behind, contented with the fact that there will be no more "wild and young" journey ahead, and move on with living the life of a normal 30 years old married woman should be. Is there any possibilities that I can still achieve another heights in my life?

Anyway, its a thought for another day. 

Leave you with the Hobbit theme song from Ed Sheeren, I see fire. Enjoy!

Oh, misty eye of the mountain below
Keep careful watch of my brothers' souls
And should the sky be filled with fire and smoke
Keep watching over Durin's son

If this is to end in fire
Then we shall all burn together
Watch the flames climb high into the night
Calling out father, stand by and we will
Watch the flames burn auburn on the mountain side

And if we should die tonight
Then we should all die together
Raise a glass of wine for the last time
Calling out father, prepare as we will
Watch the flames burn auburn on the mountain side
Desolation comes upon the sky

Now I see fire, inside the mountainI see fire, burning the trees
And I see fire, hollowing souls
I see fire, blood in the breeze
And I hope that you'll remember me

Oh, should my people fall
Then surely I'll do the same
Confined in mountain halls
We got too close to the flame
Calling out father hold fast and we will
Watch the flames burn auburn on the mountain side
Desolation comes upon the sky

Now I see fire, inside the mountain
I see fire, burning the trees
I see fire, hollowing souls
I see fire, blood in the breeze
And I hope that you'll remember me

And if the night is burning
I will cover my eyes
For if the dark returns then
My brothers will die
And as the sky's falling down
It crashed into this lonely town
And with that shadow upon the ground
I hear my people screaming out

Now I see fire, inside the mountain
I see fire, burning the trees
I see fire, hollowing souls
I see fire, blood in the breeze

I see fire, oh you know I saw a city burning (fire)
I see fire, feel the heat upon my skin (fire)
And I see fire (fire)
And I see fire burn auburn on the mountain side

Taiwan Trip Photoblog: Ye Liu - Jiu Fen - Hua Lian

After an eventful day at Tapei city, we decided to go out of  Taipei city centre for once. Our first stop was Yeliu Geopark, a cape situated in a small town in the middle of no where called Wan Li. Yeliu geopark is located between Taipei and KeeLung, whereby you can catch a bus from Taipei main station itself.

According to wiki, the stratum of yeliu is basically composed of sedimentary rocks; the formation of sea bays is due to the impact of sea erosion on softer rock layers, while those hard and solid ones may therefore turn into sea capes eventually. The total distance measured from the entrance of the Yehliu Geopark to the end of the cape is about 1.7 km; we didn't dare to meet the challenge of finishing the entire landscape simply because its too hot. Peter was basically bathed in his own sweat and we have to go hiding under the shades like every 5 minutes. Well, we cant complain much since its summer time and the picture turned out to be stunning with the cloudless clear blue sky and crystal blue sea. 

We spent around less than an hour at Yeliu Geopark and left like boiled lobsters. We took a local bus back to Kee Long town and then re-routed to our next stop Jiu Fen. This is our second time visiting Jiu Fen. Although the old town still has it charm, but we got a bit bored since there was not much of difference in terms of the scenery and stuffs you can find in the shops compare to our previous visits. Nevertheless, we had a good lunch at one of the local beef noodles shop and the famous taco balls shaved ice. 

That pretty much summarized up our short and sweet Taipei trip. 

Our next stop was Hua Lien. We had to take a 3 hours Taipei - Hualien train since the journey its quite long. One thing I have to mention is that Taipei main station is MASSIVE, there is a centre court which is so big I wonder why they would waste such a big space. The second floor is floor of eatery place but its slightly more pricey compare to normal restaurant. The train station was jam packed with locals since its summer holiday, but thanks to my good planning, we bought our train ticket online 3 days before we flew to Taiwan. *patting myself at the back*

One of the great highlight of our 3 hour train journey was 台铁便当- taiwanese bento set. The bento set which cost around NT55 have this authentic looks and tasted delicious. I bought the set which came with a big piece of pork chop and some vege. yum yum.

Hua Lian is one of the most beautiful city in Taiwan, the city face the pacific ocean and having the entire stretch of central mountain range at its back. Naturally, the tourist highlight of Hua Lian are the mountains and the seasides.

Once we have checked into a cozy minsu (B&B), we went to visit a local night market named Zi Qiang night market which was famous for their local food. The spread is not as diverse as what Shihlin market in Taipei had, but it was charming in its own way. We had some finger food and one of the highlight was the coffin bread, which is basically a thick piece of deep fried bread stuffed with all sort of ingredients such as mutton, chicken etc.    

The next morning we booked a tour guide to bring us to Taroko Gorge. But before heading to the famous tourist spot, our friendly tour guide brought us for a scrumptious breakfast at a local restaurant in Hualien which selling the famous gong zheng pao zi. The queue is super long but am not too impressed with the pao, it tasted like normal pork bun but with thicker and chewy bread dough. 

After the satisfying breakfast, we headed towards the Taroko Gorge with much anticipation. The view at Taroko Gorge were simply magnificent, long stretch of mountains, huge and deep rivers, limestones, caves and cliff. Its just great scenery one after another. Because the national park was so huge we have to drive in instead if walking. Its consist of 10 attractions, namely: 

• Tunnel of Nine Turns (九曲洞 Jiuqü Dong)
• Eternal Spring Shrine (長春祠 Changchun)
• Swallow Grotto (燕子口)
• Jinheng Park (靳珩公園)
• The Bridge of the Kind Mother (慈母橋)
• Tiansiang (天祥)
• Jhueilu Precipice (錐麓斷崖)
• Lioufang Bridge (流芳橋)
• Hill of Yu the Great (大禹嶺)
• Buluowan (布洛灣)

However, we are only able to visit just 4 spots as some were closed down for maintenance. The tour guide dropped us at each of the attraction spots and wait for us to go in and explore on our own. It was pretty strenuous as we have to walk many kilometers from the main road into the small paths in order to reach each of these attraction. At one point we were climbing up hundreds of staircase which is ascending at 60 degrees up to a temple look alike bell tower. It was so tiring but the panoramic view of the endless stretch of mountains on top of the hill worth all the effort.

There was also this suspension bridge which hanging at least 100 meters above a dangerously looking cliff. If the height is not scary enough, it basically sway from left to right whenever the wind blows.  I enjoyed the magnificent view of the cliff which heightened a few folds by the adrenaline rush. But Peter who has problem with the height not even dare to look down while crossing the bridge.

Our second day in Hua Lien ended with the visit to the famous Qi Xing Tan.The beautiful beach was consist of no sand, just tons and tons of smooth little rocks. After a whole day of strenous walking, we just sat on the beach, played with the rocks and watched the beautiful sunset. What a great way to end the day! 

Christmas D.I.Y: Giant Origami star

This year, I will be in charge of Christmas decoration of our Pre-Christmas dinner at Church. For some reason, I am super excited about it. To be frank I'm not really an artsy person nor I have that many creative cells in my brain. But luckily I got a teacher called Pinterest. There are tons of posts about different ways to d.i.y the christmas decor with literally zero money spent. 

In order to channel of some of my excitement, I am gonna blog about the details of all the D.I.Y decoration idea which I come across in Pinterest and eventually experimented.

Today its all about origami stars, I stumbled on this youtube video on the tutorial of making an origami stars when browsing Pinterest. It doesn't seems like its rocket sciences, so I asked myself, why not try it now!

I experimented with whatever materials and tools I can find in the office. Now the only challenge was getting a big piece of paper. I dismantled a BIG brown envelope to make it 2 piece of brown paper. Other than that, I just need scissors, cello-tape and staple. And after 15 mins of hardwork, wala! here my giant star!!  

Not bad huh for a beginner. 

So now, I have a star shinning over me everyday when I'm working!! :p

Taiwan Trip Photoblog: Taipei day 1

Since I am too lazy to blog the details of my recent Taiwan Trip, i'm gonna let the photos speaks by itself. 

The first day in Taipei was fairly relaxing. We went to Taipei main station to purchase in advance our Taipei- Hua Lian Train Ticket first thing in the morning. Followed by breakfast in the famous "Yong he dou jiang dian" which can be found at the corner of every main street in Taipei.  

Hearty breakfast with soy bean drinks, xiao long bao and stuffed onion pancakes

Next we head to the Confucius temple at Datong district, whereby the temple is modeled after the original Confucius Temple in Qufu, Shandong Province of China. It was quite fun to look at all the details of the architecture and design of the chinese temple while reading about the write-about of  the famous Chinese fu-zi of all time. We even got the chance to view the famous Confucius 4D show for free!  

Then, we found out accidentally that opposite the street there is a Summer open air concert going on, and we can resist the chance to have a look inside. The whole area was super huge whereby it used to be the exhibition site for flora expo. We went from one stage arena to the next, some are open to public but some imposed restricted entry. Overall we enjoyed the atmosphere but decided to leave after a while as we cant stand the 37 degrees heat!

 

Next stop was our favorite place in whole Taiwan, the Beitou hot spring. But before that, we had simple lunch with Taiwanese local cuisine - braised mince pork rice, dry squid soup and pork balls. Yum yum. I am super in-love with the hotspring in Taiwan. The first time we came to Taiwan, we went to the Beitou public bath rather than private bath due to a simple reason- its cheaper. You can find all sort of private bath hotspring package which is basically a small bath tube in a hotel room available for 2-3 hours in ALL the big hotels in Beitou. Some may goes up to hundreds, we had chosen the public bath which only cost at a few dollars, but with much better ambiance and surrounding! The public bath is consisting of at least 4 big pools of different temperature, the pools are surrounding by tall trees which not only provide great nature view, but also shield the pools from the outsiders. Although this is not our first time being here, we still love the place!

After a good soak, we went to famous dan sui shopping district , which is just a station away from Bei Tou. The street are full with flocks of tourist, good street -food, and many many lovely dogs. Taiwanese love to walk their dogs, i think Dogs in Taiwan live a happier life compare to Malaysia's.

Peter has his 10 dollar head neck massage which is ok. But the highlight was the fisherman wharf. We hop on to the boat to go to the fisherman wharf for a sunset view.It didnt occur to me how fast the sun goes down the horizon. 1 minute the whole sea is bathing in the golden sun rays, and the next minute the whole sky turned pitch black. And the next thing you will see is the colorful neon light of the Fisherman wharf's bridge shimmering brightly in the dark. The view is simply magical. Frankly, I cant think of a better way to spend the night than this. 

Then, we ends the night with good ramen, a bit expensive but i guess you pay for the view as the restaurant was located on the harbour overlooking the sea. Then while on our way back to hotel, we were munching more snacks while passing by the shopping street. 

Stay tune for the rest of my Taiwan photoblog!

Fabulous 30: I'm ranking at 1304!

I did my first 10km last Sunday. 

It was my first marathon, surprisingly, it wasn't as hard as I thought it was, but its not something I would say "a piece of cake". 

The whole idea about participating in a marathon was partly peer (and husband) pressure and partly my own interest. Am not sure whether this is a good traits but when I get interested in something, I am like a dog chasing the bone. I will read about it, get ready for it and shop for anything related to it. I was like this before with my first job; my churchie projects; my cakes baking and my recent Korean Drama craze. Spending hours doing the same thing is not an issue as my mind will be completely obsessed about it. 

And that's happened with my running as well. I made a promise to myself early this year that I would do my first marathon before 30 years old. Since then, I have been training religiously day after day, for months. Although there have been those lazy days, but I was able to finish 100km within 3 months. With that being said, I was never a good runner. My stamina is bad and I'm easily feeling short of breath. In fact throughout my training, the maximum I can run continuously without stopping is 5.5km. 

The day before the actual run itself, I was down with flu and was not in my top condition. So there was a lot of uncertainty whether I can really finish the run. Luckily I made it! and the satisfaction is great. It doesnt matter whether I finish it within the first hundred or thousand. But the fact that I managed to finished it within the qualifying time is a reward on its own. 

In fact, sometimes I think our life is like a run. Everyone is running their own race, some has a higher goal of 42km, some maybe just aiming for a 5km. We prepared our best for this race, but sometimes unexpected turns up and we are force to slow down. We may pick up the pace again if we are determined enough, but there is no guarantee that we are going to finish it. But like Jenny says :"Run Forest run!". Keep pressing on and I'm sure the finishing line is in sight.

Its all about cafe

I haven't blog much about food and baking for quite sometimes. Unfortunately just like blogging, baking has taken a back seat ever since I've made the transition into a new job. I know the passion is there and I just to make time for it. Probably if there is a demand (who wants cakes??), I will be more eager to re-ignite this old passion. Usually, its really difficult for Peter and I to finish up a whole cake by ourselves, of course there is a concern with the amount of cab and calories as well. ;) 

On the other hand, good food was never lacking no matter how busy I am. Today I am just gonna share with you some of the nice cafe that I love to visit during those lazy weekends. 

1. Miss Ellie Tea House @Taman Melawati  (ww.missellieteahouse.com)

This cafe is a hidden gem. Located deep in Melawati, it only takes me 7 mins of jog to reach the cafe from my home. The cafe was owned by Peter ex-secondary school mate, who happens to be a pastry chef. The place is quite serene and the whole ambiance spells homey. The menu is simple and straightforward, but the highlight is definitely the great range of freshly baked cakes and dessert. We had both lunch and high tea at the place before, while the lunch were pretty much standard, the deserts were to die for.

 Pictures taken from Miss Ellie Tea house's facebook 

Bangers & mash - grilled chicken sausage, caramelized onion gravy, buttered mash & house salad

Australian beef casserole, buttered mash, vegetables & fresh bread roll

 Panna cotta, creme brule, chocolate fudge cupcakes

And the English Scones, comes with spread of  strawberry jam and fresh cream, which is super good!

2.  That Latte Place@Ampang Hilir

That Latte Place is a modest cafe with the simplest setting yet offers one of the best coffee in town. The al-fresco style cafe is just 10 mins away from KLCC, yet its well shielded from the hustle and bustle of the city. Surrounded by the greens, this is the place where I have discovered my favourite drink - Hazzelnut Milk. 

The open kitchen, where you can see the chefs busy in action 

Cafe latte, hazelnut milk (foamy and yummy!)

We had the egg benedict and the big breakfast the last time we were there. The big breakfast was alright, but the egg benedict is perfect! perfect soft bun, perfect poached eggs and perfect hollandaise sauce. I love to see how the runny egg yolk oozing into the bread, and subsequent into my mouth. ;)

3. Coffee Societe @ Publika, Solaris Dutamas

Peter and I stumbled across this place quite sometimes ago after a scrumptious dinner at Publika. We were walking around looking for a place for a cup of coffee before ending the night, with its hefty looking wooden benches, tables and even wall, coffee Societe looks absolutely welcoming at night. 

We didnt have the chance to try out other stuff on the menu as both time we were there after dinner. The coffee was pretty good, rich and flavourful. One good thing for the coffee lovers is that Coffee Sociate is serving free flow coffee (anything from espresso, mocha to latte) every Friday and Saturday from 6pm to late for only RM 10. But again, there is only so much you can take before coffee overdoes.

Cappuccino with the perfect latte art

Anyway, any coffee lover like to join me for a cuppa?

Are you Chinese enough?

Peter asked me the other day, what's the story behind the mid autumn festival. 

I was kinda caught off guard by his question, but in order to show him that I am a true Chinese of substance, I started to tell him bit and pieces of whatever mid autumn folktales I can dig from my Chinese root. I told him about the sky was once filled 10 suns, the archer Hou Yi went and shoot down the 9 suns in order to save the people from suffering, but for some reason his wife travels to the moon and got stuck there. But there was another story about the origin of mooncakes, whereby the villagers planted the message in the mooncakes so that everyone was called to rebel against the ruling government on the mid autumn day. 

Anyway, Peter looked kinda lost after listened to my disoriented story.

 *embarrassed*

I have to admit that I felt kinda embarrassed. The whole conversation started in the first place because I invited Peter to my friend's place for the mid-autumn customary 'moon-gazing' and moon-cake eating. It's kinda ironic that I couldn't explain to my non-Chinese husband what's mid autumn festival is all about when we Chinese are so gung ho about celebrating it. To make it worse, none of my Chinese friends knew about the full story of mid autumn festival either. 

Frankly speaking, in general, Malaysian Chinese aren't really that "chinese" as we claimed ourselves to be. I can't speak for others, but if I take myself as an example,  I don't know much about the Chinese philosophy like Confucius's春秋; I am least Chinese when it comes to observe the tradition. To make it worse, I don't even look like a Chinese, as many have mistaken me for the Sarawak's natives as I don't have the Chinese stapled slit eyes (mata sepet) and fair skin. In a way, I think we are more Malaysian than Chinese in many ways. This is not really a surprise considering for Chinese of my generation, we live our whole life in the country which basically a melting pot of different cultures and ethnics.    

However, with that being said, I do appreciate my heritage and my root as a Chinese. I was raised in as a Chinese and can never be less of a Chinese no matter how much the surroundings change and what the circumstances are. My understanding towards the Chinese history and teaching may not be all that great, but at least I do see the beauty of the Chinese values such as the importance of the family; the cultivation of morality and the emphasis on hard work and achievement. 

Anyway, happy mid autumn festival folks!

Lantern decoration @mid autumn festival, 2013

Best trip ever!

Peter and I went to Taiwan early this month. It was a long awaited holiday, and I am really glad that the trip totally worth the wait. 

Instead of staying in the Taipei city, we went to visit many scenic places this time around, such as Yi Lan and Hua Lian. We went biking, hiking, whale (more like dolphin) watching, swimming etc., basically every outdoor activities you can think of. On top of that, everywhere we go, we went hot springs-dipping, not just once, but 3 times! We even managed to check ourselves into a surfer's hostel, which is smacking right in front of one of the most beautiful beach I've ever seen before.

Just to give you glimpse of what Taiwan is all about:

Isn't it such a breath taking view? This was taken at Tarako Gorge in Hua Lian, basically you need to climb up 1km of 45 degrees steep staircase in order to see this view. 

This is Yehliu Geopark, one of the famous wonders in the world. The rock weathering, wave attack and earth movement has contribute to the formation of such a rare geological landscape.

Anyway, these are just appetizers - random pictures I've taken using my pathetic samsung phone's camera. I will show you the full horizon of my Taiwan trip in the subsequent posts, stay tuned!

Hey there

Hey there, it has been a while.

Many started to ask me whether or not I have gave up blogging. Well, the answer is definitely not, it wasn't that easy to just simply quit like that after blogging for so long. But on the other hand, for some reason, I failed to find the motivation nor the need to pour out so freely like I used to. It's not that my life has been mundane and uneventful, in fact many interesting events happened in the past 4 months- I have landed myself with a new job (finally after 6 years!); managed to accomplish some of the tasks in my 30 before 30s list; went to Bangkok with the girls and etc., but strangely enough, the need to capture all these moments in words, in sentence, was simply no there. 

For many years, blog has been a very faithful friend of mine. For my friends who I didn't get the chance to talk/ hangout that much, i guess the blogger persona was the outlet for the rest of myself to them. It was a persona which I really enjoyed, cuz in my mind, I am a more interesting person in my blog rather than in real life. I don't know about other bloggers, but most of time, I tend to 'over-writing' it, not exaggerating, but more like accentuating it with flowery vocabulary or beautifying it with some sepia filtered pictures, so that the story is more interesting or appealing rather than just another day-to-day updates.

However, sometimes I wonder for those who read my blog, do they make connection between my writing and the person who I really am? Maybe I should try to engage more with them in real life rather than relying on the writing-publish-waiting for comment-replying comment as means of interaction with them. BUT, whenever I think about quitting blogging, I have to admit that I got a little bit scared inside, if I don't document these event somehow, will I forget about it eventually? will  I simply drift across things, passing through everyday repetitively, and never able to find any significant milestones to define my life?

I think it's only human nature that we like to look into the past to define who we really are today. And for this reason alone, I have diligently and religiously documenting my life for the past 7 years in this little blog, so that I will never forget who I was and what I achieved in those years. But as I'm growing older and slowly going down the path of losing my "innocence", the need to be consistently proving to myself and to others who I really am is no longer essential. 

Is it a cliche to say that I am a more matured person now?  

I guess aging really changes people.

Anyway, I guess I am back to blogging now. 

Embracing a Clean Slate

I was away from blogging routine for quite some time now but not without reasons. Many things occurred lately, some are petty; some are crucial and potentially life changing. And I do felt the immense urge to share, however I have to bit my tongue after some second thought, nowadays internet has become the most convenient space for people to dig for information. I definitely dont want others to use my own words  against me in future.    

If I were to sum up what I felt for the past 2 weeks with a single sentence, This will be the right one. 

"Don't waste your time with explanations, People only hear what they want to hear." Paulo Coelho 

I find that too many effort and time has been vested and wasted in this action called "giving explanation". Whether its through writing emails or speaking through phone or direct face-to-face meeting, people demand some sort of explanation when things went wrong, which in the past I would gladly comply. Many times, I would offer long and detailed explanation, as scientifically and logically as possible. However, one thing which I came to realized is that, no matter how good your explanation is, people only hear what they want to hear.

The realization bugged me for many days and nights, I'm mourning for my stupidity for being the subject of convenient blame, but at the same time, I'm determined, to hold myself back and to explain no more. The next thing come to me is that, I need a clean slate, which does not require begging others to listen to my explanation. 

Anyway, only time can tells whether the slate is truly 'clean'. The good thing about a new year is that whatever happens in the past now is in the rear view mirror. I know nearly a month had passed since the starting of the new year and although I'm still in the shit cleaning state at the moment, but I'm really looking forward to a year with a clean slate whereby there are fresh new opportunities for me to improve myself and my current life.

This year I'm marching into 30s', but I believe that the best has yet to come. 

Yeah, better days are coming.

New year

2013 had started, yesterday in fact. 

For some reason, I feel like I'm still somehow lagging behind when the rest of the world has marched into the new year.I didn't had the moment of epiphany now that I'm finally 30 (by birth year not birth day); 1/1/2013 didn't felt any difference from any other normal day; heck, I still couldn't get used to the "2013" whenever I pen down the date. 

That being said, it doesn't mean that we didn't had a good day on the 1st day of 2013. My family and I went for a good lunch at La Risata, followed by watching The Hobbit yesterday. La Rista's squid ink pasta was superb, and the Hobbit makes me wanna re-watch The Lord of Ring series all over again.

Picture taken from here. CAPELLINI AL NERO CON FRUTTI DI MARE (RM35). Angel hair pasta with prawn, squid & roasted cherry tomatoes in a squid ink sauce

For some, new year celebration can be all about partying and letting themselves loose, but starting a new year on a right foot takes more than just great food and movie. A clean slate I would call it. Like what Pi said in The Life of Pi, “It's important in life to conclude things properly. Only then can you let go. Otherwise you are left with words you should have said but never did, and your heart is heavy with remorse.” So when the world is still basking in the new year celebration, I had my share of quiet time with my close friends to reflect and ponder. 

We talked about how 2012 was for each of us, our gratitude, our gain, our insufficiency, our lost, our fear but mostly our prayer for the new year. It was quite awkward at first, everyone seemed to be reluctant to break the ice. Then, the first one spoke, followed by the second, third, and without even knowing it, the conversation flowed effortlessly, we talked and talked, laughed and cried, one after another, without any cue at all. And then we started to pray. The prayer went on for a long long time, in fact it was the longest that I've ever remembered. When the sound of fireworks came from afar, we were still deep in prayer, and no one realized the fact that we've missed the new year countdown ritual.

In a way I'm really glad that we had that night. Not rushing into new year resolution, but to reflect and encourage one another. And I know it takes a lot of gut to look into whats beneath the layers and layers of pretentious we clothed, everyday in and out. But I knew for sure when we are honest about ourselves in front of others, it brought some form of closure and freedom.

Have a blessed year ahead.