Disneyland Hongkong Part 1

My most anticipated part of my Hongkong trip was Disneyland. I have been dreaming about going to the happiest place on Earth since long time ago. I even make it a point to visit all the Disneyland in the world, a girl can always dream, right?

Not sure whether it was me ageing or just tired from all the walking on our first full day in Hongkong, my spirit for Disneyland was not as high as I thought it would when we went on the second day in Hongkong.

I mean, the bf had witnessed my squealing way too often about Disneyland before we went on the trip. But now that we were there, I was like "my legs hurt, I just want to sit and do nothing"

Still insists on wearing boots just because it matched my outfit even when my legs and feet were in agony. Yeah, I'm annoying like that.

The  mandatory photo in front of the entrance

It was too crowded to find a spot without photobomb

This is where we got our entrance tickets. just scanned the QR code that we booked from our agent, very easy and fuss free.

The rest of us plus photobombers at the back

In the Main Street of USA

The only street entertainer that I saw that day

It definitely felt like the Christmas that I always dreamed about when I was there.

Christmas deco and cold weather, very Christmassy for me

Disney famous castle

We wanted to try this ride but gave up because the queue was insane. Lucky we skipped because Hoe told me it was boring.

Not sure if we were spending too much time queuing up for rides and shows, we didn't spot much mascots around. Which kinda sucks because I wanted some pictures with them. Oh well, next time perhaps.

Donald Duck's show time

That orange U thingy is actually a ride which is super scary in my opinion.

The only mascot I spotted. Hello Lotso!

This is how the ride looks like and it really goes all the way up.

Ice cream in winter because why not

This is only part 1 of my Hongkong Disneyland post because we took so much photos and we stayed till the magical firework which is worth it. So stay tune till next post.

My herbs garden

When I first started this blog at the tender age of 20, never would I thought that I will have 'gardening' as one of my labels. The sudden interest in gardening was sparked when I started to learn to cook. I always search for new recipes to try and found some really interesting one but I don't have the ingredients that are needed. Mostly are herbs like basil, rosemary, thyme etc

Living in Sibu makes everything limited for me. No grocery stores or supermarket stock fresh herbs. Those that I could find are the overpriced dried herbs. I refused to give in and started to find other alternative to get my hands on fresh herbs.

What is the better way to get fresh herbs without breaking the bank other than growing it myself. Next challenge to find the seeds supplier because my local nursery doesn't carry herbs seedling until a recent one stop center for gardening opened in my town. But then again, there is nothing that Mr Google cannot solve.

After spending hours of Googling, I finally settled on 2 online shops that sell seeds that I wanted. Feel free to order your seeds from Iris Seeds and My Lestary Seeds. They have tons of varieties and the seeds are pretty cheap too.

I got carried away while buying my seeds. As you can see, I bought asparagus seed  as well as strawberry and cranberry. Oh yeah, I'm an ambitious first time gardener. 

My gardening tools.

That packet of soil that you see above is the soil that I bought from a nursery which I regret afterward because 1) it is not organic 2) I left the soil in the plastic bag for a few days and it grew weeds ='= I opted for plastic pots because it is cheap and easy to handle. I used to buy the pots from supermarket but The Green House sells some really cheap plastic pot for as low as RM1.30. 

This is the very first plant that I planted. It is potatoes and I planted it from the potatoes that I bought from supermarket. Sadly the plant died not long after and I have yet to taste my own potatoes. As this post is written, the potato plants that you see above is from back in August. Right now I have new potatoes that I planted back in October. So far so good. But the monsoon season during the year end worries me. I hope my potatoes can survive the rainfall. If so, I can harvest my own potato by the end of January. 

My basil leaves just sprouted.

The basil photo above was taken back in late August or early September. Among all the herb, basil is the easiest to grow. It need not extra attention as long as it get enough sunlight and water, it grow beautifully on its own. As I'm writing this right now, the basil above has grown to big bush and really need trimming.

                                                 

Basil on the left after 2 or 3 weeks meanwhile the right side is supposed to be oregano

But it is not. It is weeds and I didn't even realize it until after my dad pointed it out to me. So yeah, he's right, it is weeds and I removed it afterward. Till to day, no oregano sprouting. I tried growing oregano again in seedling pot and still failed. Well, I'll try again another time.

My chia

Another herb that I did not expect to grow easily is chia. I mean, I never heard anyone growing chia before so I was just trying my luck. Turned out, it grows really well. no extra care needed except for a pole for its to grow on. 

More basil because I love seeing it sprouts.

Trying to grow lavender but sadly the weeds took over and my lavender seedlings died.

On the left is mint and the empty dirt on the right is supposed to be stevia.

But as you can see, the stevia failed to sprout. I already transferred the mint seedlings to small pot and now it is growing healthily. The only extra care step that I took for mints is to not put in under direct sunlight.

It is been 2 months and this chive seeds are not sprouting. ='=

I started this new seeds in a store bought potting mix but after more than 5 weeks it is still no development except for the mix getting drier and drier after each day

I also started to grow tomato, sunflower, kale, lettuce and mints in these seedlings pots.

It's been 2 months and only the tomatoes survived when I re-potted these into small pots. I'm so sad that all of my sunflowers are dead but oh well, I'll try again another time. I can't wait for my tomatoes to bear fruit.  

Anyway I bought some herbs from The Green House Sibu to add to my herbs collection. But extremely hot weather in November definitely took its toll on my herbs.

My basil leaves turn wrinkly like this. It was probably because I sprayed the leave with water. 

Mints! I made mint tea from this. Like my own mints plant, this is the easiest to take care of. 

Thyme

My thyme is dead after 3 weeks. It slowly turns woody and brown until the whole plant is dead. I haven't even harvest it for cooking. I admit that after a month or two, I slowly paid less and less attention to my plants because I was busy with work and travel. For the rest of the plants that still survived till today, I will continue to take good care of it. My only concern right now is the monsoon season in December. It rains almost everyday. For my potted plants, it is easy because I can move it anywhere but for my potatoes, I planted it direct to the soil. I noticed that one of the potatoes plant turning yellowish and brown. It's been two months so I hope it managed to grow some potatoes underneath. Will dig it up properly once the plant completely wilted soon.

I can't wait to have my own house with a backyard because I for sure will start growing my own vegetables and herbs as well as fruits too. I guess I can finally making good use of my degree. Heheheh

A quick hello

Hello, I just got back from a week long holiday in Hong Kong.

Will update properly soon.

In the mean time, go here for little daily snippets of my life.

My failed attempt to bake Matcha Green Tea Cupcake

This Matcha green tea cupcake is among the very first recipes that I've tried when I started baking 3 months ago.  I was a newbie, still is now. It was a failed attempt but a fun one nonetheless. My recipe is from BakingMad.


Ingredients for the cupcakes:

175g unsalted butter
175g self raising flour
175g caster sugar (feel free to halve this if you don't like overly sweet cupcake)
1/4 tsp baking powder
1/2 vanilla extract
1 tbs matcha powder
3 eggs 

But as you can see here, I cut the ingredients to suit my needs. Which later I found out is a big mistake.

It is a must to sieve the dry ingredients especially the flour because it helps your cupcake to rise when baked.

Cream the butter and sugar until pale and fluffy. This took roughly around 5 minutes at medium speed.

This is my another mistake. Adding the egg and dry ingredients at the same time.

Although the recipe says adding the rest of the ingredients together into the butter and sugar batter, I suggest that adding the egg first and whisking it together until it is well incorporated. Only then you can add in the dry ingredients little by little while whisking at slow speed to avoid the flour creating mess. 

Once your batter is ready, scoop into the cupcake case and bake for 20 mins at 180 degree Celcius.

Ingredients for the icing:

300g icing sugar (I halved this)
175g butter
1 tbsp water
1tsp matcha powder
1 tsp vanilla extract

Beat the butter until smooth and add the icing sugar little by little. Lastly, add in the rest of the ingredients. And there you have it.

Lucky I have the buttercream icing to cover my ugly cupcakes. I didn't beat the cupcake batter well and it ended up crack and rupture in the middle. So I covered it generously with buttercream. Taste wise it was okay but I could have done better.

I once read that baking is different from cooking. In baking, you have to follow the ingredients closely if compared to just wing it in cooking. Well I learnt my lesson through my failed cupcakes. Now that I have enough practice, my cupcake is close to perfect, if I may say so myself. Next I have to work on my buttercream and piping skill obviously.

Kid grows so fast

I was looking through photos in my camera last night and found lots of Danish growing up photos. Looking back at those photos, he looked so young and still a tiny teeny toddler.

Fast forward a year later, he can speak better and can talk non stop. Looking through his photos just makes my heart melts.

I'm not really a kid person but seeing Danish for the first time is really a love at first sight for me. I immediately fall in love with this giant baby.

That silky smooth skin has been machine-gun kissed lots by me hahahhaa

Every time he came over to my house, my room is his playground and his favorite toy is my camera ='=

Since then I've deleted hundreds and hundreds of blurry shots and out of focus photos taken by him.

This is him trying to take the camera away from me

This was taken a year ago. He was so cute and still have his baby fats.

He literally climbed everything in my room.

This was taken early last year, the baby boy was eating on my bed ='=

Rummaging through my shelf and read my books.

Last month he was staying over at my house and doing what he like best in my room ie; rummaging my book shelf. We read the book together but this time he recognized some numbers and alphabets too.

He even can pointed to my air flow and said "circle"

His current favorite song is the shape song, so he's been busy pointing to different thing with different shapes.

That is when I realized that Danish is no longer a clueless toddler. He understands so much and can perfectly conversing with us. My Danish is growing up so fast.

It is impossible to take a good photo with him now

The only way to get still photo of him is when he's concentrating on his cartoon

Or when he is sulking 

This is taken today for his pre-kindergarten class next year hahahahah

I really love this kid <3 p="">

Can't imagine how will I be when I have kids on my own, I'll probably be an obsess mom. 

Nutri Juice detox

This is a very long overdue post. I know, it's my laziness that got in the way of my writing. That's why I have zero entry in October. But I have my reason. I update my daily life snippet in my Dayre because it is so much more convenience. Anyway, back to the topic of my post today. I'm very into healthy lifestyle as of late. I figure if I'm too lazy to work out, the very least that I should do is watching my diet. That's how I got into juicing in the first place.

Every weekend I would buy fruits in bulk for juicing. I would wash and cut my fruits and juice it into bottles. Since I make my juice fresh, I can't make in bulk. Normally, I prepare 2-4 bottles for 2 days worth of juice. Then I have to repeat the same process after 2 days. Enjoyable? Yes, for the first few times. But after awhile, I got tired because I have to clean the kitchen and the juicer.

Lucky for me, my friend Sara started her healthy juice business called Nutri Juice. It is like the universe is listening to my plight. I was so happy when she started Nutri Juice because that means that I now can have my juice fresh and deliver to me with just a few text messages.

Got my fresh juices delivered to my house for my detox.

Nutri Juice offers an affordable daily cleanse program which is what I chose. I decided to try detox on weekend because it is easier for me. 

These are the juices that I chose. I can't decide which one is my favorite, it's a tie between Super Yellow and Summer Orange Glow.

Taking my first sip of The Healing Son which is their new juice menu. It's a mix of papaya and raw veggies. This one is super filling and I felt full for the whole day.

On to my second bottle of day

The third one

The forth one

The fifth one

No photo for Green Punch because I gulped it down too fast. I was hungry, guys. Anyway, I'm really happy with my detox day. It really does help my bowel movement because everything went down smoothly hahahhaa. 

I think for you to see the obvious result of detox, you have to do it for at least 3 consecutive days and strictly no solid food. So, if any of you interested to try cold pressed juice, feel free to contact Nutri Juice and share your experience with me.