Lazy weekdays

BREATHE. IT'S ONLY MONDAY!

And I'm so glad I got to spend a weekend watching Cirque du Soleil's TOTEM on Saturday. I've honestly never watched a Cirque du Soleil production before but despite what others may say about it not being as good as the ones before, I am just sooooo amazed at their talents and lost for words and my breath taken away so many times because I just thought it was that good. Well, for a first-timer noobie, that is true though. Hehe.

Lately I have been quite the cook at home, especially on Sunday & Monday nights where I would cook so much food to last us till Friday's dinner at least.

I find it quite funny how I keep telling people yeah the freezer is your best friend, and some don't quite get it - and yes when it comes to busy schedules for working people like us, finding time to cook after a long day at wok is just SO HARD!! And to devote time for capoeira Tuesday and Thursday nights, hip-hop classes on Wednesday nights, work late on Friday nights... suddenly you wish you had more than 24 hours in a day.

Imagine the convenience of a frozen meal - just take it out, microwave it, and voila, you have a yummy piping hot meal. Except it's home-cooked and you know exactly what ingredients go into it. One thing I don't quite like about buying frozen meals in supermarkets is it's sodium content. These tend to contain a higher sodium amount than freshly home-cooked meals. And PLASTIC. I once ate a store-bought frozen meal to find some plastic shards in the rice. Glad I didn't swallow it as soon as I realized something wasn't right.

So, what have I been making? Various pasta bakes, lasagne, and today I made some chicken burrito bowl with brown rice and quinoa which from the look of what's leftover, might last us another 2 days at least and suddenly finding myself thanking God I'm not going to starve this week LOL. I actually still have some leftover pork mince for Bak Chor Mee which I guess when we run out of leftovers, we will use that for another lazy day.

What else do I freeze? Bread, vegetables, muffins, cakes, even egg whites, coriander, and mint, but be aware some of these foods need to be prepped before freezing so they maintain its green colour and not become some weird, brown and dingy looking thing. I almost always buy loaves of bread on sale and dump them in the freezer, would have bought more if only my freezer is bigger than it is now. Friends have also said freezing breast milk is a brilliant idea for baby feeding "emergencies". Some even donate their frozen breast milk to mums who have trouble breastfeeding.

So if someone tells you, your freezer is your best friend, now you know what I mean.

Speaking of freezers, I've been really fascinated with beanies lately so I found myself a $5 one from Factorie. And especially since my body thermostat is baaaad (I feel cold quite easily lately, must be due to aging), that comes in quite handy for those cold days. It was actually snowing in Bluff Knoll on Saturday morning!

Bag from Mimco

Shoes from Anticlockwise

Necklace from whynotspeakup

Today is indeed a very emotional day for some Australians and people of other nationalities, including myself.

Someone lost a brother, for someone else a son, and for another a newly wedded husband.

Yes, I'm talking about the Bali Nine Duo executions. 

It somewhat feels like a slow and painful death for the both of them. I think death penalty for drug trafficking ain't going to stop anyone from bringing drugs in anyway. So really did they really die for nothing?

After being in rehabilitation for many years, it's obvious they regretted and repented for what they have done. And through these years in rehabilitation, I'm certain their stories and actions now have touched a lot of people around them, and also made a difference in other lives, not just their own. And we always hear of stories of how people make silly mistakes in their lives and turned their life upside down, but you also hear of those who learn from it, and become even better than what they were before. These stories are those that you hear, get chills from and can't wait to tell the next person about how they have changed to become better because of a second chance. And I think all people deserve a second chance when they make mistakes and want to redeem themselves. 

I believe they deserved mercy and a second chance. They didn't get any.
RIP Andrew Chan and Myuran Sukumaran

I have to say that I do not and will never support death row.

I do not own any of these pictures. These are paintings by Sukumaran taken from news.com.au

On call again this weekend :(

But it has sort of been a steady kind of weekend, only had to go back to work twice so that's better than anything more. I sort of had this whole revelation yesterday at church, regarding a problem I've always had in believing I have a real living God as a father to me, and how immeasurable His love is. Once again I'm reminded by Ephesians 3:18 and I hope I can continue to understand more about His love.

Anyway, Perth weather is acting a little weird the last couple days, it sort of feels like summer all over again. Running errands today with a summery sort of black-and-white kind of day OOTD and a borrowed husband's hat

Japan withdrawal

So our most epic holiday to date was definitely Japan!! We went to Osaka, Kyoto and Tokyo for a total of 12 days in February this year, and I have to say... IT'S JUST NOT ENOUGH! So much to see and do and eat all at the same time, and I must also say Kyoto has been one of the most beautiful places I've ever seen in my life. Knowing that I do not have the privilege to travel for holidays as much as other people do, I literally took pictures of every nook and cranny, since everything I saw was so amazing even pictures do not do them justice.

So we arrived at Kansai airport about 9;30pm local time, and ended up queuing up for more than an hour just to get through immigration. Luckily there were still trains operating from the airport but even then by the time we got on board a train, it was close to 11:00pm. Dre and I didn't know any form of Japanese, except the basic words like "ohaiyo", "sumimasen", and "arigatou gozaimasu" so we just used sign language and cross our fingers hoping to board the right train (can you imagine the disaster if we didn't, and ended up in another town or prefecture LOL).

We didn't book any hotels but rather, we went for Airbnb, since most of them offer free portable wifi that you can borrow when you are out and about. And true enough like most people has said before, Japanese apartments are rather small, but you have to love the heated toilet seats!!! I mean, winter in Perth isn't as cold as many countries, but even our toilet seats are cold enough to make you jump!

So all we really spent on was food, food and more food! Didn't do much shopping except to buy a winter coat and a thicker scarf, and Dre's addition to his Star Wars loot, and that's pretty much it! Everything else were either Japanese Kitkat, Tokyo Banana and other sweets.

Walking around in the streets of Namba, obviously very excited to explore all the little alleyways because of the interesting things you find in it.

 So while turning into a random alleyway, we stumbled upon this yummy tuna stall. The sashimi was sooooo good and sooo fresh.. the tuna belly literally just melts in your mouth. Also really huge chunks of sashimi over here.

Delish!!!

Found some strawberries a little further down from that sashimi stall. OMG these are so sweet it was the best I've ever had! I honestly don't really like eating strawberries by itself because it usually is a little sour (so I end up putting a dollop of Nutella on each one so to make it taste nicer) but these are just amazing!! Guess I can say goodbye Nutella for now?

Going to find that ever popular Doutonbori Street and found it!

Takoyaki, we queued up for about 20 minutes for this one. It's pretty good!

What is a Glico man photo without trying to imitate the pose? LOL obviously he can't be bothered

Just realized we aren't geared enough for this kind of winter so we went to buy some warmer clothes. UNIQLO for the win!

Doutonbori night lights

Love love love set meals! So good and relatively cheap!

Visiting Osaka Castle

And eating ice-cream where its cold enough it will never melt? Absolute bliss!!

I think I would eat this every single day

Our last night in Osaka just so happened to be the same day as Setsubun festival

Yasaka Shrine and the streets of Gion

Already falling in love with this place! Over here I'm just around the streets of Kiyomizudera, where you can still experience old traditional Japan

Managed to catch a glimpse of two Maikos in the evening

So amazed at the beauty of Arashiyama Bamboo Grove and how serene and peaceful it feels. It was a nice getaway from the busy city actually

WHOAAA!!

Ginkakuji behind us. We got a sensei to help us take this picture with the help of Google translate, and he was nice enough to wait patiently for the crowd to go, so he could get this view for us.

Fushimi Inari Shrine - it's quite a long walk up the hill through all the orange torii gates but we're just enjoying every moment of it

Nijo Castle

Some produce from Nishiki market.. and set meal again ftw!!

So in Tokyo, you cannot miss taking a picture of the Shibuya crossing.. looks even more dramatic when it rains LOL

Geek town a.k.a Akihabara - we literally spent an entire afternoon at Yodobashi Akiba going through all 9 floors worth of gadgets and cool things

Hachiko

Ichiran Ramen who only serves Hakata style Tonkotsu Ramen, but you can customize how you want it to be. Mine is obviously extra thick and lardy LOL!

After getting a little tired of city life, we decided to take a day trip to Nikko, probably also 4 degrees colder than Tokyo but we managed to catch a little snow from the hills.

Nikko is just so beautiful!! Too bad we really only spent like 4 hours there.

So on our last night in Japan we decided to come back to Shinjuku for a second round of these. This cream-filled almond fingers are so f***ing good too, funny how our noses led us to this place actually. This company (Zakuzaku) I believe originated from Hokkaido and sure enough there is such a long queue for this cookie, I think we waited close to 40 minutes but it's so worth it. I think I could buy the whole lot =/

Last dinner in Japan - Tonkatsu! This place serves free refills of rice, cabbage and miso soup. But most importantly, IT ALL TASTES TOO GOOD TOO!!

And this is only half of our Japan loot

Oh how I miss Japan already! It's been an amazing 12 days, so grateful so experience all these beautiful places and the culture and their amazing food