Our very own tepui?

Open our eyes
and we shall see
the beauty that surrounds us

端午节

The dumpling festival is celebrated today. Last week, my mother made around 40 dumplings (zòngzi 粽子). The fillings she used were chestnuts, Chinese black mushrooms, salted duck egg yolks, deep fried chicken breast meat, dried oysters and black-eyed beans instead of mung beans. All the above fillings except for the salted duck egg yolks have to be precooked so it really took a lot of time and effort to make the dumplings. She learned how to make these dumplings on her own from recipe books. I didn't help to wrap the dumplings because I do not have the skill to do it. So thanks to my mother, I get to eat delicious home-made dumplings for the whole of this week.

Jumping for Joy?

Last month, I bought a rebounder (mini trampoline) after reading on jo's blog about how easy it is to exercise using it. For someone who leads a sedentary lifestyle, I seriously need some form of exercise and since I prefer easy exercises which can be performed at home, I thought this would be the thing for me if it is as simple as mentioned.

With some helpful information from jo, I went shopping for it. After looking at 3 different rebounders, I bought one that costs MYR288 because it looks more sturdy than the other two which costs around MYR 167 and MYR 238 and it comes with a one-year warranty for the various parts. The rebounder that I bought uses springs instead of the sophisticated high elastic bungee bands which is said to be better and of course it is much much more expensive.

For 30 minutes each day, I have been doing the basic bounce as mentioned in this online article entitled "How To Do Mini Trampoline Exercises". There are many other exercises that can be done on the rebounder but I think I will stick to the basics for the time being.

According to this website, the first rebounder was patented in the US in 1975 and by 1981 it became a fad which soon faded. I hope I can keep this up because to me, a little exercise is better than none at all - actually is this true?

*paragraph below added on 8 June 2010*

Below are two photos of the rebounder I bought. Those feet belong to my spouse. The diameter is 36 inches and the height is 8 inches. The springs can be seen in the 2nd photo when the feet landed on the rebounder.

What's your answer to this?

I was forwarded an email from Susie and Otto Collins (Relationship Coaches) mailing list by a friend and found the question very interesting so I thought I would post the question here for comments. What would your advice be for this lady?

***QUESTION FROM A READER (of relationship articles by Susie and Otto Collins):

"Hi Susie / Otto, Please could you advise me on the issue
of partners meeting friends of the opposite sex one to one.

My rather Asian and conservative belief is that husbands
should never go out for a movie/late dinner with a female
friend. The reason for my belief is that regular one to one
contact with a female friend could (potentially) lead to
(at worst case) an affair. And that men (and women) should avoid putting themselves in that situation, ie temptation.

My boyfriend sees where I am coming from but disagrees
and thinks that it stems from me just point blankly not
trusting him, given that he has never done anything to
not be trusted. He is insulted that I am unable to trust
him to resist temptation even if it did come along.

Not only does he think differently on this, he is a very
reserved person - and therefore, in any situation, he
genuinely finds 3-somes very difficult and pointless : one
can have a better quality catch up when it's one on one

To be fair to him, because of his reservedness, he meets
these individual friends 3-4 times a year(each) - which in
the grand scheme things isn't a lot.

I would very much like to get the stage where I am laissez
faire with whoever he sees ..... how can I ?? And what is a
fair compromise given that neither does he want me to
intrude in his time with his female friends?

Thank you in advance for your help.

I find your articles very helpful by the way."

M.

Source: email from Susie and Otto Collins (Relationship Coaches) mailing list

Balls, balls, balls everywhere

For the past one week, my spouse and I have been kicking a football, virtually that is. We have just finished playing one round of 2010 FIFA World Cup tournament on PS3. For the group stage, with 4 teams in 8 groups, we played 48 matches to get to the Round of 16 where we played 8 matches to get to the Quarter-finals where we played 4 matches to get to the Semi-finals where we played 2 matches to get to the World Cup Final. So we played a total of 62 matches over one week which means I played around 7 to 8 football matches every night with my spouse until I was kicking balls in my dreams. For completeness, we even played the 3rd place match. At last, we reached the Final - which was between Brazil and Spain. My spouse was Brazil while I was Spain and Brazil won just because I kicked an own goal :( but anyway I am hoping that Brazil will win this 2010 World Cup for real!



So with HD on Astro, we are all ready to stay up at 2.30am to watch all the matches in June 2010. Just can't wait!

Winchester, Hampshire

We didn't get to visit many places in England while we were there but one place where we visited twice was Winchester. The gardens of the houses beside the river were very well kept with lovely flowers.

Happy Mother's Day!

My dearest mother,
Nothing I do can ever repay you for all that you've done for me
Nothing I say can really express how deeply I love you
All I can do now is to be there for you always
All I can say now is "I love you, have a Happy Mother's Day!"