Hanging out with my Chin

Chin decided that we should meet up before I go off since I will be gone again for nearly a month (there was much ganshing of teeth from a few quarters). We met up at Country Patch since Chin has not been there before. It was a Tuesday so I got to order my favourite meat dish...laaaaaaammmmbbb. Hehehe.

As I excitedly shared with her about the upcoming seminar in Jakarta, Chin contemplates on what her mock grading would be like. Hopefully I can make it back in time to see it and be her uke. We had a lot of laughs before making our separate ways.

See you next month Chin!

Admiring the ring...and wrinklies! hahahaha

Cauliflower soup. It tasted light and easy and you can still taste the crumbly bits of cauliflower.


Digging into our lamb chops...still not used to seeing Chin in a tudung.


We ordered dessert and no prizes for guessing who ordered the chocolate mudcake MUAHAHAHA


My apologies but I can't seem to remember the name of this dessert that Chin order. It tasted of strawberries and yogurt.

My little darling

My 50 questions

It is my last practice session of the month before going off the Jakarta and Kuala Lumpur. As the intensive training programme is nearing an end sensei thought he would administer a mock grading on my before I fly off. I was lucky enough to have 2 ukes namely MN and Chin. The test started off with suwariwaza against shomenuchi, yokomenuchi and tsuki attack. I had to execute pinning as well and throwing techniques. It was the same for hanmi handachiwaza. My knees were rather sore by the time Chin came in to sub for MN and I was glad when sensei commanded "tanchiwaza!". There were other attacks like katatedori, katadori, ryotedori and morotedori. I was also tested on ushirowaza specifically against ryotedori attacks.

I remember most of the techniques but got confused trying to break out of ryotedori attacks. I was also quite frustrated with ushirowaza as I never felt as if I got it right. I think at the end of the day my ki no nagare was lacking and I didn't feel the musubi. I had other concerns as well but thenI just didn't deliver.

A friend of mine reminded me that I should train my kihonwaza and my ki no nagare. As a Shu student I should just absorb and train. I wish there were more training days.

Note: For those of you who were rather baffled by the Japanese terms used please refer to the glossary here http://www.stenudd.com/aikido/aikido-glossary.htm

A walk in the park

I decided to accompany my mama to take a walk in Tasek park this morning at 06:30hrs. I must admit that although I am not a morning person I really do prefer morning than evening workouts. It invigorates me. However having suffering from lack of sleep for the past week it proved to be even more difficult to wake up at 05:30hrs in the morning. This is in addtion to the fact that the evening before I decided to go back to a moderate version of my sprints workout which I did 8 years ago much to the displeasure of my lower limbs. My buttocks and inner thighs made it abundantly clear to me that I really can't just pick up the workout 8 years ago after a period a rather sedentary lifestyke and not painfully pay for it...

It was a good walk. My mama needed the exercise because she felt that she was not as fit as before and wanted to start off slowly to regain her fitness. It proved to be a good bonding session too and we did alot of catching up. I accompanied my mother for the flower market after the walk and we adjourned for breakfast.

I like it. I should do this more often with my mama.

The arrival of Kurei

Friday was a very exciting day for me as one of my brothers Kurei is coming home for a week. 2 of his close friends are getting married so he is going to be very busy during the week stay. Nevertheless it is good to have him back. After dinner we went to Empire Hotel and stayed the night there as we got a complimentary room. I brought the present he got me with us and was incessantly snapping pictures of it. It is a dooodoll.

It all started at one of my regular trips to my second home with my mom and the 3 of us were in Memory Lane when we saw this booth in the shop that was full of dooodolls. The dolls looked very interesting and looking at the dolls we noticed that there was actually a doll for my siblings and I. It as if when you see the designated dolls you would see us. The first doll was bought for Hiko which was sent to Melbourne, the second for A.L. which was also sent to Melbourne. The 3rd is for myself and the last for Kurei. It amazing how the dolls resemble us and even mama agrees!

You can find out more about the dolls at http://www.dooodolls.com/gallery/index.html


Kurei and "I"


Watching TV together

As we were sitting at the Atrium having breakfast I could not help but admire the beauty of the hotel which I have come to take for granted. So I took some shots of the hotel as a momento. to find out more please visit http://www.empire.com.bn/


Entrance to our room


View from the room


Corridor leading to the West Atrium








Gold leafed pillars at the Atrium


The ceiling of The Atrium


Poolside


Poolside bar and the jacuzzi


The manmade beach. Hopefully can come here for suntanning with my KL buddies!

HiMe's day continued

After a wonderful weekend I tried to cultivate my domestic skills and was fairly successful. Chin said that she was going to be at the Fayre on Wednesday and wants to meet up for some choco puuuuuuuding after. We met up at our usual hangout and H joined us. He is on a month long leave so he must be the envy of many hehe. He bought quite a few packets of German butter cookies and gave me one to try out. They are soft and not too sweet, very good with tea.



It seems that my days of receiving birthday gifts are not over yet and to my glee Chin presented to me a book she made for me.



It is made from the paper that I oo-ed and ah-ed about at her place. The colour red is second only to white in the list of colours that I like.



Just look at it...


Behold the stitching...beautiful.


Now I just need to figure out what I am going to use this special book for.


It is a beautiful book made with love and and warmth.


Introducing the maker of the books. Check out the cool name card. Apparently it was made using Microsfot Excel! I didn't know until now! You learn something new everyday! :)

Afterwards we went down to some serious business. As i have not had a chocolate pudding for nearly 2 months ( compared to 2-3 times a week. The reasin for my colossal weight gain is a no brainer here...)





H was very happy to get his hands on the chocolate pudding. He has been yearning for one for some time but Chin insisted that he wait until Wednesday. Oh and he finally found out why Chin is nicknamed Chin.


Open up wide.

Ummm...yum!



Chin on the other hand was more restrained in her reaction.

I gave it some thought and decided on what occasion I will hopefully be using the special book for. Buddies, when that time comes, just make sure that you get your costumes ready!

Making my own favourite drink

I asked myself what I am going to do today. I will be baking cookies tomorrow but today? I went to the kitchen and had a look at the soya beans I washed and soaked from last night. A-ha! I want to make my favourite drink. Soya bean milk!

Unsure of how exactly to make it, I consulted Her Most Powerful Highness SuperWoman a.k.a. Mama on how to make it. After taking verbal instructions I started the process. It took less than 2 hours to make but I can't say that there were not any hiccups along the way. I think Mama will be mad at me when she finds out later on...hehehe but no worries I will survive...



It came out pretty well. It smells good and tastes good. I am going to wait for Mama to come back after work to give me a score. In the meantime, I just have to make sure that I don't finish it all by myself!

A yearly affair

Another year has passed and before I know it it is that time of the year again. Blowing out candles and cutting cakes and stuffing yourself silly with food and having a good time. Somehow this year I felt rather forlorn this year, as I take stock of my life. I still don't know what I want to do!! Nevertheless, I came to my senses. I am healthy and able bodied, which means I venture into activities I otherwise could not if I am not in good health. I have the love and care of my family and friends. I am single. I have the liberty of changing directions at the drop of a hat. I am good in life.

On the eve of my birthday I went to a Halloween dinner at RC at the invite of Chin. Not sure what character to dress up as, I took out the witch wig I bought last year (it has been a year!) and went OD on my eyeshadow.

Slaying the WWE champion


Chin and her naughty moment hehehe


Light sabres galore!


With the ladies



I thought it was just going to be the dinner until I heard the "Happy birthday" song being played. Chin bought me a really beautiful and delicious cake (full of chocolate of course) and boy was I properly surprised!




Chin, you sure know what to say!

It was a great night. I received gifts and well wishes. Haslann got me a book on Aikido entititled Aikido for self discovery. What I liked about it is that when he got it for me he was thinking about the applicative aspects of aikido in our daily lives. Haslin got me a dvd set of "Twelve kindgoms" and I have been hooked on it since. This brother sister gave me a lethal combination of gifts, both of which have deep seats in my heart. Thank you!

On the day itself I decided to join Mr Friday at Tase for a round of yoga beside the waterfall. I haven't done yoga in quite a while and it felt really good! There were lots of people who stopped by to watch us practise and we took some photos with Jac for her calender. Mr Friday asked me, "where do you want to have breakfast today?" and we decided on breakfast. After attempted in vain to persuade me to join the morning service, Alan went off to church ans I went home to rest. I received many calls from my close friends and loved ones and it really made my day.

Sheraton was the next venue where I met up with Jen's MF and Ing for lunch. I got a birthday cake from them as well (how sweet!) and we chatted the day away.

The proper picture


The hiao chees at work


Cousin Jens was jealous that he didn't get to do his hiao chee pose. But handsome nevertheless!


Me and my birthday cake.

The day ended with dinner with family. It was a sumptous meal and we all had a good time. The next day I met up with my mentors and junior at work in town. I can't help but reminesce the wonderful time we had together for the past 6 years especially with my mentors, L and N. the 3 of us had a synergy that no one else has. Although I have left the firm it will always have a special place in my heart as I have the fortune of befriending some fine people. We may not be seeing one another for 5 1/2 days a week anymore by the bond will always be there.

I am truly good where I am.

Musubi revisited

Training this week was simply awesome. I must say that my spirits were somewhat down last week during training. After having spent 10 days indulging in "aikido heaven" in Tanabe City, Japan with sensei, I was looking forward to some hard core training when I got back. Alas, on the first day of training after my return I found myself without a training partner as injuries and time constraints had prevented them from attending. So I trained with sensei on Monday.

As it turned out sensei Zizi made a surprise visit to Brunei on some personal business. I wasted no time in inviting him to train with us at the dojo the next day. Being familiar what he is like on the mat I was very happy that he agreed to do so. He met up with Hj Sabtu sensei in the afternoon and did some catching up. Chiong, Mohd Noh and Chin turned up for practice and sensei trained with us and shared with us the concept of musubi. Wah, that is all I can say for now. There was much demonstration and practice for the night but it is not something you can understand overnight. I have not seen S sensei so pumped up in a long time and my face so contorted!

We had an extra night of training on Friday by special request. The training focused on musubi and both S sensei and I spent the night feeling the connection with one another. The connection/blending/union is very hard to get but there were a few times where I knew I had made musubi because it just felt so right. Ahhh...I wish we have a permanent instructor with us because the shodans don't have any guidance at the moment save for visiting senseis and seminars. Shodans need training too. Further, some of the shodans don't seem very keen to further their training with their fellow shodans so it could be rather demotivating for some.

As for myself, I am just overwhelmed at what I have to learn at kyuu stage and could not fathom how some could just stop after obtaining their shodan...it is indeed just the beginning!