Weird Summer

Last summer being our 1st in Perth, was kind to us. It wasn't 1 of those summers with temperatures above 40°c for 14 days straight like my colleagues told me. I really really thought it will be pay back this summer. But this summer has been milder than the previous so far. We've only got the odd day or 2 where temperatures were above 40°c & we've only got 1 more month of summer to go.

It's been mostly a roller coaster ride. Up to high 30s for a few days then down to low 20s for another few days, then repeat. It feels like we're entering into autumn before we even fully encountered summer. But then, Hong Kong snowed for the 1st time & BKK dropped to 17°c. So it's true that nothing in life is impossible.

It being CNY soon, I've made use of the nice cool weather to give Jazz a wash. I'm sending Jazz in for a damage assessment on Tues & after which, I'll be in queue for repair. Me being a girl, I also decided to get ready for CNY. I've already bought a new dress & a new top from Carousel last week. I got a Gel Polish set from Priceline since it was on offer & put it to use immediately. Since I'm off on Tues, I'll vacuum & mop the floor, give the dogs a shower & we'll be all set for CNY.

Gel polish are $5 off  & the starter kit $12 off normal price.

Ang ang for CNY.

The Failed 流沙包 Wannabe

1st attempt at 流沙包 failed, producing instead, 咸蛋黄包. I wanted to the filling to be savoury rather than sweet. So I made changes to the original recipe but rather than the flowing filling so desired, it turned out pretty viscous & failed to "flow". Oh well, I'll make a batch with the original recipe next time.

Salted egg yolk mixture.

Refrigerate till firm enough to form balls & freeze.

Make into buns.

Erm... failed molten lava salted yolk bun.

Brewing Kombucha

I 1st encountered kombucha during 1 of our few degustation meals. At 1 of the restaurants, we were served kombucha jelly & at another, kombucha as a palate cleanser. I was curious & went to read more about it online. Supposedly, the 1st recorded use was in 221 BC in China. It was in 414 AD when a Dr Kombu from Korea brought it to Japan to treat the emperor that kombucha began to spread over the world. It had multiple benefits, mostly to do with improvement to the GI system. As a healthy GI system is the forefront to health, from absorbing nutrients to eliminating wastes, it indirectly brings forth other health benefits. I then had the idea to make it at home myself so I can have an endless supply all year round.

Towards the end of the year, I ordered a kombucha starter kit online which consists of a SCOBY (Symbiotic Colony of Bacteria & Yeast), a starter culture (which is the kombucha itself) & instructions on how to brew kombucha. As it was the holiday period, the starter kit wasn't shipped out till the 4th. I finally received it on the 15th & I started on it that very night. While you can use normal tea, the author strongly recommends organic tea. I already had a box of organic green tea in my pantry so I used just that. Otherwise, organic black, red or white tea is fine. Herbal teas are not to be used as it can kill the beneficial bacteria.

The kombucha was quiet, with no signs of a new SCOBY formation even into day 4. I got worried as it was stated online that I should start to see some whitish growth on the surface of the kombucha on day 2. I thought maybe the bacteria & yeast in the SCOBY & kombucha starter had been killed during the 10 days it took to reach me by slow mail. Suddenly on day 5, I saw this white layer on the surface when I got home. From there on, it was rapid growth.

The kombucha is ready for bottling between 8 to 12 days, depending on the room temperature. I read online that it could take up to 21 days in winter. Since we're in summer, I started tasting it from day 9. When I got to day 12, I felt that the taste is to my liking & hence harvested it. After bottling, it'll be best to refrigerate the kombucha for a further 5 days for it to mature. I seriously don't think it'll last 5 days. As I have to keep 10% of the kombucha as starter culture for my next batch, I ended up with less than 1L for consumption. 

I now have 1 big & 1 small SCOBY. So I've peeled them apart & put the bigger SCOBY with 500 mls of kombucha for a 5L brew. The smaller SCOBY had 2 distinct layers (due to new growth) so I peeled them apart & placed them with 200 mls of kombucha for a 2L brew. That way, my next batch will yield 7L. My plan is to use the 2 large new SCOBY for the 3rd batch to be 10L. Any remaining SCOBY will be given away if anybody wants it. If not, I'll eat it. LOL. Hmm... or otherwise, the author sold hers for $30. Maybe I can sell mine for half the price but double the size.

Ingredients: SCOBY, 150 mls of kombucha, organic raw sugar, organic green tea.

Day 1: 2L of sweet green tea added to the SCOBY & kombucha starter culture.

Day 5: Beginning of a new SCOBY.

Day 7: SCOBY thickens.

Day 9: The SCOBY had formed a seal on top of the liquid, trapping air bubbles produced from the fermenting tea just underneath the surface.

Day 12: Harvesting of the kombucha. The smaller, darker disk is the original SCOBY that was sent to me. The bigger, lighter disk is the new SCOBY. I think the colour difference might be becoz she used black tea while I used green tea. 

Bottling of the kombucha. I reused the wine bottles I have so I don't have to spend money buying glass bottles. I immediately had a shot glass of kombucha. My reward for my work.

SCOBY & kombucha starter spilt into 2 jars for the next batch of brew.

Neglected Growth

I woke up in the middle of the night & couldn't get back to sleep. That was when I wrote the Feeling Tired post. After that, I spent sometime reiki-ing myself, doing meditative breathing that I learnt in yoga & chanted in my heart. It was a while later before I finally drifted back to sleep.

I won a pair of movie pass for Hoyts cinema group for buying Jazz, a lucky draw I didn't even know I had been entered into. Hubs managed to find out that Ip Man 3 is showing at Carousel & hence, we made plans to go today. We hardly ever go to the south since we live up north.

When we got there, I was shocked. Everywhere I turn, I saw people of asian descend. While we do see asians in the shopping centres we frequent in the north, it's incomparable to the numbers in Carousel. Perhaps it's becoz of the huge number of Chinese living in the Cannington region, Ip Man 3 is being shown there. It definitely isn't showing in Midland. But we also managed to find this shop that sells Taiwanese desserts. I ordered a serve of my favourite 粉圆.

Towards the end of the movie, after winning a fight, Donnie Yen acting as Ip Man said to his opponent, "Actually, what is important are the people around you." It can't be more true. Perhaps my focus now should be making improvements as a wife & mom to my furkids.

I also came to the realisation that my spiritual growth has been neglected & that was what led to me feeling lost & detached. I lost that sense of peace that is so important to me. So to recover that inner peace, I have to go on a spiritual journey. More meditation, more study, more reflection.

Lunch in the food court. Greedy me. In the end, hubs ate half of this plus his own bowl of laksa.

My favourite! Fen yuan!

Feeling Tired

I'm not tired of living. Most definitely not. Lol. This has nothing to do with the accident. But once in a while, I start to get these sort of feelings & question if there is more to life. These are the times when I take time off from social media & just go into isolation mode.

I'm not unhappy. I already have the greatest gifts money can't buy. I'm just seeking more meaning to life than just working & coming home. I said before that if able to, I'll study to be a vet & provide free services to shelter animals. But I must also be practical becoz it'll most likely remain a dream. So what else can I do with the skills I already have? Perhaps some time away to think, to meditate & to chant will give me the answer I'm seeking.

都说我是 Accident Magnet 了

Sighz... Yup, I got rear ended again. This time with my brand new Jazz that's not even 2 months old. I stopped for a red light. When the light turned green, we all started moving off. The car in front stopped & so did I. But the car behind didn't. My bumper had scratches but the most damage was to my boot. It's sort of dented in a few places. The damage is not as extensive as Lancer though. Anyway, even if it is, they won't write off a brand new car that can be repaired in several thousand dollars. 3 hits in 20 months. Ain't I the accident magnet?

I've tried my best. But no amount of being careful can prevent others from hitting me, only me from hitting them. I don't speed, I don't tailgate & even when stopped, I always ensure I'm 1 car length away from the vehicle in front (just in case they roll back). I'm usually on the main road & when I approach an intersection & there's a car waiting to turn out, I never fail to take my foot off the accelerator. This is so if they do decide to turn out at the last possible second, I have a much higher chance of stopping in time. It worked coz I've prevented myself from crashing into such drivers multiple times. If the car in front has the brake lights on, my foot is off the accelerator even though I am very far away coz you just never know if they'll suddenly brake hard. I've already employed defensive driving techniques but like I said, I can only reduce the chances of me being at fault.

It's gonna be troublesome coz all these workshops operate weekdays only & I'm working everyday. It'll mean having to take a day off from work to send my car in for assessment & another day to pick it up. Oh well, maybe good fortune is awaiting me. Haha. The 1st time I was rear ended was when we were 4 weeks old in Perth. I stopped to give way to cars on the main road (I was wanting to turn left from a slip road) & the lady said her foot slipped off the brakes. That was the Lancer that got written off as the entire boot was smashed in. 1 week later, I was contacted for an interview & I started work the following week. 2nd time was in Sept 2014, when we've arrived in Perth for 4 months. I was driving on the main road, this car didn't check for oncoming traffic (which was me) & just turned out, hitting me on the left rear of Eba. She was a P plater without insurance. My manager told me that she was increasing my part time hours to 30 hours per week from 20 becoz she felt I was very good in my work. Of course, she passed my probation. 3rd time now, with Jazz. Hmm... looks like every single car I've driven since I got here has been hit.

When I sat down for dinner with hubs while watching DVD & the dogs both had their heads on my lap, I'm thankful that I get to live another day. That I get to enjoy the company I have. Even though I haven't done anything great in my life, I've been well loved. Just for this fact, my life has not been in vain. We don't know when we'll die, only that we're alive right now & there's much to be grateful for.

Back To Jogging

It's been 4 weeks since I've done any rowing or jogging. When the back injury 1st struck, I couldn't even bend over the slightest bit. The yoga moves that require bending over have to be modified so I squatted instead. Yesterday, while I was doing yoga, I found that I could bend over during sun salutation once again. Following that, I had a shower & I could put on my undies normally. I had been sitting at the edge of the bed, undies on the floor, putting both feet through the leg holes & using a stick to hook my undies up. It's a huge breakthrough coz I still couldn't bend over the weekend. My back still hurts but it's at least an 80% improvement.

Having stopped cardio for so long, I didn't have much drive to go to the gym. But I'm glad I did. I could row once again. Not wanting to push it too hard, I opted to jog 2 km instead of my usual 3 km. Since I've shortened the distance, I upped the speed. I started with 8 km/hr for the 1st km, followed by 8.5 km/hr for the 2nd km. I was expecting that I would find it very tedious. But surprisingly, it was alright. The exhilaration following the attainment of my 1st jogging goal in 4 weeks reminded me once again why I'm doing this. I wonder if my muscles will ache tomorrow.

The downside is that I've lost a lot of flexibility. I was able to bend over & put both palms flat on the floor. Now my hamstrings are so tight I couldn't even touch the tips of my fingers to the floor. I'll have to slowly stretch it out again. Most importantly, I must take good care of my back to prevent this from happening again.