Finally finished packing my bags for San Francisco. I have an innocent looking piece of check in

luggage that actually weighs 25kg, so I'm just hoping that if I check in my bag early,the people at check in will be generous and let me go with a few extra kgs. Better start practicing my 'pathetic expression' now.

At first the luggage weighted 28 kgs, but with a little expertise(it's called shifting the heavy stuff to the hand luggage)its down to 25. And then I remember that I haven't packed in my toiletries bag. Damn...I really don't want to pay extra for luggage, I've a suspicion that it will cost something like USD60 per extra kg.

How I managed to even fit my pile of belongings into those bags amazes me. I've got, among other things, a rice cooker, a frying pan, bedsheets and a fleece blanket in there. Most people say I should have just bought them there, but my parents prefered buying here since most probably they'll be even more expensive in US. And in that process, I wasn't able to pack in a whole lot of stuff. Mostly clothes(Its a 4 season country, how is a girl supposed to pack enough clothes to look fabulous all year round, in 23kilos?), and then there were some food containers, my violin (my roommates will be thankful for that...or should i just sling it onto my back and hope I won't break any bones?) and Maggi Mee!! Ish...they better sell asam laksa, freshly cooked or dried noodles, I don't care, in SF.Quite too much to hope for, I think, especially if I'm looking for reasonably priced, authentic tasting asam laksa. My tongue might have an emotional breakdown these next 3 years. Attempting to cook it by myself doesn't sound as if it will turn out successful either.

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Ok, next, here are some photos:

A luggage tag Sook made for me. Thanks!

The Indian bangles I bought from Batu Caves recently.Kind of fragile though.

And finally,I dunno if I posted this picture before, but its a Venetian mask my sister bought me awhile back.

At last, I got to watch Inception. Those posts on Facebook from people who have watched it (and some for the 2nd or 3rd time) was driving me nuts.So I'm happy that I went in with high expectations, and still wasn't disappointed. Yes, it is a movie that makes you think(and Sook was right about the feel-good factor when you understand the plot)but also it comes across as a movie very well planned and researched on. The special effects was...i dunno, a bit more stylish that usual somehow, although i was surprised that some scenes were real footage, not CG, like the anti-gravity hotel(they custom built a hallway in a rotateable barrel, while the camera is outside)and the exploding boxes outside the cafe

For those that have already watched the movie, here's someone's take on analysing the characters in Inception: here

And I kind of believe what was written about was purposely added to the storyline too.Now that's planning.

Ahh...here are some pictures of what I've been doing these past few days.

1) handmade pasta.I made pasta verde(spinach pasta) ravioli, but the sauce is just the usual 'chinese style' pasta sauce i have at home. Turned out ok(the spinach doesn't add to the flavour anyway, just for colour)only thing that it's quite difficult to roll out, since i don't have a pasta machine. So it was a bit thick.And I ran out of meat halfway, so some pasta was just cut into(pretty fat) strands

2 and 3)When there's not much spare time of if I've already eaten, I make drinks instead. So far I've tried Chrysanthemum and Ginseng drink(I swear you can't taste ginseng).Basically it's chrysanthemum flowers boiled with ginseng roots in water and rock sugar to taste. The second drink is ice blended orange juice that I tried at at restaurant and wanted to try making at home as well. The unique thing about it is that they added crushed bits of those flat red coin shaped chinese sweets (my mom says its called san char peng) and some grated lemon peel. Didn't subject my blender to ice crushing torment, so I just half froze a cup of juice and gave it a stir instead.

4) Well, this one's not really done by me. My mom's planting some spring onions in a spare pot we have on the balcony.Orange peel courtesy of me though. Sort of like small scale composting. My mom doesn't allow animal parts, oily vegetables waste and banana peel in those pots because of the smell and fruit flies.Orange peel looks kind of festive to me. And smells nice, eventhough it's rotting . lol...

Tried some out today, cooked in a soup. Their small compared to spring onion bought at the stores, but they are organic, so it's to be expected. I remember my sister and I tried planting corn before, and we got only 1 small cob out of 3 plants. So that shows there must be a lot of hidden chemicals in mass production farms.
5) Batu Caves. Yeah, I live in Selangor and have never gone to Batu Caves before. So when ktm extended their line from Sentul to Batu Caves, i used the opportunity. Usually other people will not bother to purposely drive there, especially if it's not Thaipusam.
Tried observing the sculptures and using The Powers Of My South East Asian Art Knowledge to interpret them, but mostly failed.
Lots of monkeys. Just thankful none of them attacked me and made me fall down all 272 steps(I wonder if that's happened before).The babies are quite cute actually.Lots of pigeons too, I kept imagining picking one of them up and using it as a cannonball, their not scared of the visitors at all.
Stairs up to the main temple. FYI Malaysian Nature Society organises cave explorations to see the things that live in the caves. Like gigantic spiders and such, if you like that.
The spear shaped opening of the cave
One of the small shrines in the cave.This one is a Ganesha statue. right?Oh Criccy, you're such a genius...

Also got myself some Indian bangles, which I've been looking for for ages. I don't think they even sell them at Pasar Seni. BTW beware of fleecing, I saw some stalls that sold the bangles for RM45 whereas I got mine for RM10, and even then I wonder if I should have bargained the price down.

Here's some stuff I'm working on at the moment.It's work in progress, just got some feedback about it just now.

A more realistic version, but I'm not going to further develop this version.
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And just for fun: My new alarm clock. Love the bronze colour.

Here's something I made quite a while ago: Sock Monkeys.(see,I did it)

Introducing the 3 siblings(from left): Roosskii, Saru-Biru and Tsar

Tsar is supposed to be based on the guy swinging about on your right, but I couldn't find peach socks, so I substituted with black. Also, while making Tsar, I decided she was more of a female monkey.
Roosskii(Rice monkey)-the red striped one- was the first one I made. He's stuffed with rice and cotton(because if I used only rice he would be too heavy, and socks stretch over time) So I can microwave him and hug to sleep if I feel cold.

Saru-Biru-the blue one- is the second one I made, stuffed with only cotton, but he feels the nicest. Roosskii is too heavily to stand on his own and Tsar is lumpy.

Tsar-the white monkey- was the last one, which I stuffed with shredded old clothes. Maybe there's a better technique than what I used, which explains the lumpiness. But nevermind, that makes Tsar the greenest of all 3 monkeys.

In the beginning I wanted to just make one for fun, but making monkeys is addictive, once you start buying different socks and mixing and matching them together and designing new ones, giving different personalities and names to them, it's the same kind of fun people get out of collecting cards or toys.
I gave Saru-Biru to Sook though. Hope he has a good new home.Here's the packaging I made to match.

When we were young, we were gullible enough to believe nonsense other people old us, was implied by the media, or somehow just popped out of nowhere in our heads.

So a few of the wierd stuff I sort of believed when I was young was:

- all cats are female and all dogs are male(which is wierd because I used to watch Tom and Jerry)

- husbands and wives age gaps are usually 1 year apart. I dunno why.

- my house probably has a secret room/compartment/doorway hidden somewhere, most probably under the staircase or behind the fridge. That came from reading too many Famous Five books. I just thought it ought to be true because life is more fun that way.

However, I did not believe that if you cut a worm in two, it will grow into 2 worms. I believed it would die, and the person who did it is really disgusting to go looking for worms in the first place.

Also; I still do this, if you have an important object, you should name it, because then it's like another human being. That's why if you named that chicken bound for dinner, you will be going hungry. I have two drawing boards called Albie and Tsuzuki. I had a third one which name I forgot, so that's why I gave it to my cousin. See?

I probably should name my iPod and computer then...alright, from now onwards, they will be called Alphonse and Apple.

Gah...I should sleep now.

I just discovered something today:Spats.

Basically it's a shoe covering, which used to be worn by men, but I think nowadays it's evolved more into a women's fashion, especially in steampunk culture. Bound to happen someday, it kind of looks like a corset for shoes.Also, it probably is more at home on high heeled shoes.If only guys would wear those high heel dress shoes outside formal occasions(because I believe in equal suffering in fashion amongst both sexes lol...), we'd probably see more of this. But surprisingly, it looks comfortable, something that most of the time cannot be used in the same sentence as 'fashion'.

Handicraft ideas are growing right now.



This looks so viable for cold weathered countries.


Yet to see anyone who actually wears these things except anime fans though, which makes me cringe, which is sad.