Saturday, 31 December 2016

New Year's Christmas Thing

  Why am I making this post?

  I came from a family that doesn't celebrate Christmas, so when I first came to Canada (on September 2014), I felt kinda lonely, as I have no one to celebrate Christmas with, as Christmas is a "big thing" here. Back in Malaysia, Christmas is just another day, except western restaurants will then start offering really expensive 3,4,5 course Christmas special meals. The Asian restaurants dgaf, business as usual.

  So, during my first year in Canada, I signed up for this thing that was offered by my University's International Office. Local families offer their family to these people who signs up (I'm pretty sure 100% of the people who signed up were International students), and basically invite them to their family to celebrate Christmas for one night only.

  So I signed up, and then I celebrated with this local family. I played Monopoly with the kids, and ate some really good Christmas dinner.

  So, fast forward to 2 years later, and I still don't celebrate Christmas, because why should I. But now, I have know enough international students who either doesn't celebrate Christmas, or they do, but family is too far. This year I was invited to a dinner by the latter. It's basically like Christmas, except without the real blood family part, and the totally awesome dinner because we're all students. But hey, the company was nice! Only reason why we left was cause the host didn't let us sleep in his house. We had 0 alcohol that night, by the way.


A photo posted by Simon Yap (@sirlemoncheese) on

  That was an instagram post from that night. I don't really take pictures, but that guy sure does, and I'm unfortunately in it.

  Whats the point of this post? No idea, so I'll just tell you about this other time I "celebrated" Christmas then. 

  T'was the year 2013, and I was still in Malaysia. One of my friends celebrates Christmas, and so he invited all of his bros. Upon arriving, his friends (me included) are the only people in the house not related (by blood) to anyone. So we took our food, and let the family dine in the really big table, while we friends dine in the living room, because we're shy and what not.

  The nice thing about being an "outsider", is that you can get away with certain things. My friend's mom is an excellent cook, and she made this awesome delicious HUGE turkey thing. Everyone took a piece of it, and yet, everyone just left the 2 huge drumsticks around. You know that feeling, when you're an adult, and you want the last slice of pizza, but you can't take it because you're an adult, and also because you think the people around you will judge you?

  Well, 1) I'm not an adult back in 2013 (not sure about 2016 though, what's an adult?), and 2) I don't know anyone else except my friends, so I shamelessly took the huge piece of drumstick onto my plate. My friend's mom saw it, and then she sighed: "Whew! I was afraid no one was going to take the drumstick, because everyone is too embarrass to take it!"

  Now that I've broken the silence, the last leg was eventually taken, by whom? I don't know. We just ate our meal, and proceeded to watch the Cornetto trilogy + Scott Pilgrim vs the World. Then we slept over I think, minds 'bit fuzzy wowowoowewo.


  Basically, Christmas for me is just like every other Gathering, except with better food, and dressing up in red/white/green clothing. 

  Again, there is no point to this blog, for I am the Master of Nothing. Happy New Years guys, and have a great one. Tschüß~

Sunday, 20 November 2016

A Blog Post about Nothing

  Well, it's been awhile since the last blog post, and it's already around the end of November.


  But, that means that the finals are approaching! It's been a rough semester and what not, and honestly the only reason why I'm writing this post is to get my mind off the pain from toothache.

  PROTIP: At the very least, floss right before you sleep! 

  My ache wasn't caused by a lack of flossing, but hey, it's still a sound advice. Here is a protip that I learnt during my weeks of suffering from toothache though: Try not to take too much painkillers in a day. It somehow upsets my stomach, and it makes you feel guilty every time you try go for another round of pill-taking.

  But yeah, I guess its only appropriate to update whoever is here with my Binding of Isaac progress, as that seems to be a trend now.

Figure 14.1: You see that second icon? That's GODHEAD right there <3
  I've been sleeping 3-5 hours each day now, as the pain keeps me from sleeping. I'm also in no mood to make proper food, and has been eating junk for the past few days. Also, I got some pretty awesome candy from Sweden, and now I'm all too afraid to eat them now, because toothache and what not.

  So far, this post is pretty much a PSA on dental hygiene and care, so yeah, go visit your dentist for your annual checkup and what not. 

  I realised I barely talked about my summer. I had one of the most eventful summer of all. I went back home to Malaysia, got some tooth taken out. After that, my best friends came back to Malaysia for a holiday too, and we went on a road trip and what not. One of my friends got food poisoning mid-trip, but that's not important. We drank some cheap Danish beers and watched lots and lots of Ranma 1/2. After that, I attended some Model UN, and made new friends and typical Model UN stchick. Went to Germany for a month to study German, and met some of the coolest people yet. 

  But this post is not about that, so I'm gonna end it here. Probably make an individual post about one of the events in future but for now, I'm gonna go wallow into my pillow as my tooth pulses. 

Sunday, 11 September 2016

How to make Pasta Aglio e Olio

Sorry for my disappearance, I was writing another blog for my university for the past month. If you wanna check it out my child-friendly, university-sponsored, blog, click here.

Now then, many things have happened in the past few months. I went to Germany, then left Germany, then went back to Germany, kinda stopped by Malaysia in the middle et cetera et cetera. So many interesting thing has happened, but I'm here to tell you how to make Pasta Aglio e Olio.


This is sort of a sequel to my past "How to make an Exam Pizza Margherita" post. If you have not seen it yet, just scroll down or something, I dunno. Apparently, my first "How to make" got like... good reviews or something? So I'm making another one!


Well, making the pasta is actually fairly simple, all you simply need is:


  • pasta 
  • garlic
  • onion
  • oil, hopefully olive
  • some prawns
  • parsley
By the ingredient list, you can sort of already tell how to make it.

First, you gotta defrost your prawns. So, while you're defrosting your prawns, go do something else, like... play some video games! Like what I'm doing! 
Figure 13.1: Send help, this game has consumed my life.
As I was playing, my phone rang. Obviously, I picked it up!

Eh, Unknown number? Who could it be? "Hello?" I said. "I know who you really are, and we need your help. There's a black SUV parked right at the gym's parking lot. Come alone, and tell no one. This is a top secret mission."

"Who is this? I think you have the wrong number!" "No, Agent Lim, we have the right number. Be quick! The deal will be happening in an hour!"

I rushed to the gym's parking lot, dressed in my video-gaming-while-defrosting garb. The men in the SUV looked at me, and they said "perfect". They pulled me into the car, and strapped on some wires right under my apron. They also confiscated my phone and all, you know, top secret shindigs.


"There's a deal happening by the harbour. Your mission, is to pretend you're lost, and then whip out the gun and arrest them." "But I don't have a gun," "What do you mean, Agent Lim? Where's your gun!" They stared at me for awhile, and the driver finally turned around. "Hey, wait a minute, you're not Agent Lim!" the driver said.

I was afraid. I've seen movies, I've read books on what they do to people who shouldn't be there. "I promise I won't tell anyone..." I said. "Of course you won't, because you won't remember any of this". They sprayed me with something, and I immediately went unconscious. The last thing I remember was those men were bickering about calling the wrong phone or something.


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I woke up in front of my door, with my phone in my pocket and my keys in my hand. I checked my phone, oh man! It has already been 2 hours! My prawns surely has been defrosted by now! Back to cooking!

Now, the next step is.... and someone ate my prawns already.


Sigh.




Wednesday, 15 June 2016

My Vacation in Germany or Dresden, just Dresden

  After missing the train to Dresden, I embarrassingly borrowed a person's phone, ringed up my friend (mind you, I'm still in Ingolstadt), and asked to stay one more extra night. It was super awkward. 

  Also, my card couldn't be used to buy bus tickets (as it wasn't a GERMAN credit card), so I had to ask my friend to pay it for me first too. After unrolling the sleeping bag that was kept after we hugged it out, I had one last sleep at Der Bayerische Mädchen's place. 

  So I went ,on the bus, and went straight to Dresden. Nothing interesting happened in this pretty long bus ride. 

  I went straight to my couchsurfing host's place. He was a tad bit late, but it's all good. The bus arrived onto Dresden around 7pm, and I hadn't eaten lunch (and dinner) yet. So, he brought me out to eat some kebab, and have some drinks with his friends. This was the first time I've tried banana beer, or as they called it, Bananaweizen. Its actually pretty good! Its taste exactly like a banana milkshake, and the kick will come later. We basically spent our night in that banana bar (I was quite tired), and he told me that I will be spending my next night with 2 more Hungarian couchsurfers. Their (The Hungarians) Couchsurf host bailed on them last minute and they needed a place to stay. I'm like "yeah sure, whatevs dawg." and he's like "yea cool brah". That wasn't how the conversation was but it was 2 months ago and I can't really remember it verbatim. 

  My host is constantly busy during the day because he needed to complete his thesis, so I went out to visit Dresden alone. The closest thing to his place was the Albertinum. A once-an-armory-now-used-as-a-museum-but-was-destroyed-by-WWII-and-the-2002-floods museum. 
Figure 12.1: An unedited photo of the Albertinum

  I spent the ENTIRE day inside this museum. There was just too much to see inside this three story museum. Every floor, every wing, is a different era, different themes, different collection. Rodin's The Thinker, was one of the sculpture being showcased inside it. 

  Unfortunately, the museum closes at 5pm. I basically wizzed through the third floor in 40 minutes in fear of being asked to leave. As I buzzed my couchsurf host's buzzer, no one answered. Oh great, he isn't home. Thankfully, his wi-fi is still reachable from the outside, so I messaged him. As I was messaging him, there was this 2 girls, just loitering outside the place. Very suspicious. They walked away, and then returned 5 minutes later, then they walked away, then returned again 5 minutes later. I approached them, all tuff guy-looking, and turns out, they were the Hungarians couchsurfers whom I'll be sharing my mattress with.

  Our host brought us out that night to checkout the Dresdner night lights. 
Figure 12.2: My phone's camera isn't good at night
  Then we went to a Biergarten, had a beer, and I taught them Chor Dai Di, because why not? That was basically our night, we were all tired and what not, so we had an early sleep. One of the Hungarians (let's call them Ungarn A and Ungarn V from now on) was very very well prepared. She had all the touristy books and pamphlets. She woke up at like, 8/9am the next morning? and started looking through her materials, picking the next place to visit. Ungarn V woke up really really late that morning. Ungarn V, the host, and I practically stayed in our bed, despite being awake, just so we don't wake up Ungarn V. When Ungarn V finally woke up, we asked our host to join us, but unfortunately day time is thesis time, so we went out without him. I joined their party that day, and checked out the Dresdner Frauenkirche, Der Zwinger, and some other stuff. It was actually very much fun, and having them around was very nice too (they practically speak fluent German, all I said was Ja oder Nein). Unfortunately, they needed to go back to their Uni, as it was only a weekend trip, so we traded Facebook and I was on my way.

  Dresden is extremely extremely beautiful, I couldn't get enough of it. Before going back to my host's place, I walked around the city one last time, taking as much nice photos as I can. My host made dinner, and we watched Scarface while we dine. 

  I took the bus to Berlin the following day. Upon reaching the ZOB, I immediately took the Bahn to the airport. From there I went to Qatar, then Kuala Lumpur. No time to visit Berlin as I had a flight to catch. Real talk though, this trip, was my first time going abroad on a holiday alone, it was my first time going to Germany, and most importantly it was also my first time couchsurfing. It was an incredible experience. I was legitimately sad when I reached Hamad International Airport, as I was boarding my flight back to Kuala Lumpur, not because I'm going back to Malaysia, but the experience I had in the past 9 days was so joyful, so fresh, so exciting, and so great, that I had a constant downer face as I lined up into the plane (the cutthroat prices of Hamad International Airport did not help either, a BK whopper set costs around USD30?) I met lots of interesting people, did lots of things that I've never thought I did, and what not. Its really hard to put this feeling into writing, but all you need to know is that I would do it again if given an opportunity. 

  Some pics from the trip y'all.

Figure 12.3: Dresden

Figure 12.4: Some Markt

Figure 12.5

Figure 12.6: Der Zwinger
Figure 12.7: That one night

Figure 12.8: Der Zwinger 2

Figure 12.9: Outside the Frauenkirche

Figure 12.10: A pic taken from my bus to Berlin. The Balcony of Europe.




Saturday, 14 May 2016

My Vacation in Germany or the Time When I Visited an Old? Friend: The Two Cities

  So I took the train to Ingolstadt.

  "Ingolstadt? Why Ingolstadt?" said everybody I talked to. "Audi's museum is right there," "Oh, so it's a day trip then!" "No, I'm staying there for 3 days." "WHY?"

  Well, during my studies in Canada, I made a friend, her name is Das Bayerische Mädchen. I've been planning to meet her during my trip in Germany since last year, when she's still in Canada. Not really, it was just a brief mention like "Oh hey, I will be going to Germany!" "Hey, I'm from Germany, we should totally meet up!" kind of thing. But then, things tend to spiral out of control and now here I am, at Ingolstadt. "Unless you really like Audi, there's no reason to go there," everyone German I talked to, 2016.

  Ingolstadt isn't a bad town, its a small peaceful little town inhabited by old people. Almost everything is in walking distance and you can walk from one end of the main town square to another in about 40 minutes? The problem with it is that it isn't really a tourist spot (except for Audi), as it is located in between tourist powerhouses Nürnberg und München.
Figure 11.1: Bavaria is a fantastical place

  Das Bayerische Mädchen just moved to Ingolstadt 2 weeks prior to my arrival for her Masters degree, so she was very busy and could only spend time with me when her classes are over. I was there for 3 days, so I toured around Ingolstadt first, then I moved on to the two cities the following days: Nürnberg und München.

  The Audi Museum was pretty damn cool.
Figure 11.2: Only 7 of this was produced


  I had dinner with Dem Bayerische Mädchen in some really old school Bavarian diner. The food was good and the beer was cheap and there was a lot of meat and I don't think I can enjoy Canadian potato salad anymore now that I've tried Kartoffelsalat. Moving on.

  The next day, I went to München. The first place I went to was of course, Allianz Arena. I left quite late in the afternoon, and the stadium tour closes at 5pm. And that was pretty much the highlight of my München tour. Don't get me wrong, the Old City is BEAUTIFUL, but it had all been turned into shops. Thankfully, the very same night, was the Athletico Bayern Champion's League game. After the stadium tour, I went back to the old city and basically scout out a pub to watch the game. I had dinner in the pub, and basically sat there for the next few hours. When a major game will be going on, you definitely want to find yourself a seat first before the place gets too cramp and you're forced to stand because there will no chairs left for you to sit.


Figure 11.3: A typical Bavarian meal


  After the game (Bayern lost 2-1), I took the train back to Ingolstadt and called it a night.

  The following day, I took the train to Nürnberg. Nürnberg's old city centre is filled with beautiful gothic churches. I personally feel Nürnberg was way way more beautiful than München but that's just my opinion. My day at Nürnberg was also one of the strangest, as every time I exit a building, the weather changes. While I was in the train, the weather looks horrible, it was raining and the sky was gloomy, I was super unenthusiastic about this day trip (because it was an impulse decision), but as soon as I stepped out of the train, the rain stopped and it became extremely extremely sunny. 

  With a new disposition in life, I then visited the majestic St. Lorenz church. As mentioned in the previous paragraph, all of the churches are amazing. Nürnberg has in my opinion, the best churches amongst all the cities I visited in this trip.
Figure 11.4: St. Lorenzkirche


   As soon as I stepped out of the church, it was raining heavily. My spirits was dampened again, so I decided to just walk around the old city, sight see as they call it. Despite the rain, the city still looks beautiful. The lack of people walking out in the open gives it a serene, peaceful feeling. I bought some kebab for lunch, and ate it under an awning, as I watched the people frantically run out of the open to avoid the rain.

  I visited the some other churches and the Nuremberg Castle, and went back to Ingolstadt early, as it was my last day, and I want to have one last dinner with Dem Bayerische Mädchen. We ate some pizza, and I packed up my things and went to the Hauptbanhof, ready to take my train to my next destination, Dresden.

  I missed the train unfortunately but that's some other story. Here are some pictures I took.


Figure 11.5

Figure 11.6: München

Figure 11.7: Allianz Arena

Figure 11.8: A rainy Nürnberg

Figure 11.9: Frauenkirche

Figure 11.10: Nürnberger Burg

















Joy



Thursday, 12 May 2016

My Vacation in Germany or the Time When I Couchsurfed for the First Time: Episode I - The Frankfurt Menace

  "Goodbye Hermano," I whispered, as I forced my embrace onto my roommate's body. "Safe flight, get off me," he said, as he tried to move his luggage into the taxi. 

  We were all leaving that day. I was going to Germany, the Friendly Giantess was going home, and my roommate and his girlfriend was going to HIS home. We said our goodbyes, and the Giantess and I went out for dinner, with this guy known as Schoolmate (because he didn't regard us as his friends T.T). We (Schoolmate and I) had one last Canadian beer, talked about Portugal or something, and went home to prepare for the long flight.

  When we got back, my Hermano and his girlfriend was already home. One month has passed, not really, their flight was cancelled. They told us that due to the foggy weather, many flights were cancelled. We checked and pretty much all flights that day were cancelled, except ours. We got our stuff, we picked up Schoolmate, checked in and all those shindig. 

  When we got in, there was a guy doing a survey. He asked what was our relationship. We were all awkwardly quiet for awhile, but then as I was about to say 'we're friends', he said "we're schoolmates" (thus the name). So Schoolmate is forever Schoolmate. If you're reading this SCHOOLMATE, YOU KNOW WHO YOU ARE, hej!

  All 3 of us were taking the same flight to Heathrow, that's where we split up and fly to our respective places. I barely had any sleep in my 5 hours flight, but I did watch Mr Robot though. The flight from Heathrow to Frankfurt was only an hour or so, and I slept throughout the flight. 

  My couchsurf host was there to pick me up at the Frankfurt airport (how nice of him!). We took my stuff to his place, and then we walked around the city. My first day wasn't very interesting (for you), but it was for me, because it was one of the biggest challenge I faced during my vacation, which was trying to stay awake without looking disinterested. At night, he brought me to his friend's house party. I spoke most with this guy who barely speaks any English. 75% of the night was just me speaking broken German, as he replied in broken English. That night basically cemented my habit of saying "schön" to everything, for the rest of the trip. 

  That night was the 'Night of the Museums', where you can buy 1 ticket that allows admission to all of Frankfurt's museums, and the museums will be opened until 2am. But alas, poor Jerry, he was too tired to go out that night, and frankfurtly, he almost fell asleep multiple times during the party, so he and his host went back and he finally took a well-deserved sleep.


  I woke up 12 hours later, and my host already prepared breakfast for us. I don't know what Frischkäse is, but it was really really good, and is now my favourite cheese.
Figure 10.1: Top to bottom, Flatbread, tomatoes, some olive oil thing, Frischkäse, butter, cheese, feta cheese, cheese and honey

  Today, we took the train to Darmstadt, a little city south of Frankfurt, to meet up with his friends in a Spielhaus. I met his friends there, they were all international students, they were all very nice. Germany may be the hub for board games, but as we arrived there, we encountered a complication: all the instructions and manuals are in German. None of us are fluent enough to explain the rules, so we ended playing with playing cards. 

  The next day, we met up with another couchsurfer. We practically spent our entire day in Goethe-Haus. Johann Wolfgang von Goethe lived an extremely luxurious life. Not gonna spoil anything here, its extremely worth going. Fun fact: Goethe's mom's favourite drink was hot chocolate. Many of the other museums were closed because museums in Germany do not open on a Monday, so we were pretty lucky with Goethe-Haus. 

  We then had dinner, and went back to my host's place to watch the season premiere of Game of Thrones. I know nothing, so I was quite annoying during the show (who's this? Who's that?), but luckily, the other surfer was very excited, and does not hesitate on explaining what is going on. We watched for 3 mins, and then he paused the show for the next 5 minute, explaining to us the backstory of the scene. This went on for the rest of the show. 

  The next day was the day I left Frankfurt, onward to Ingolstadt. That was my first time coming to Germany, and also my first time couchsurfing. It was an amazing experience, the people are rather helpful and I would absolutely recommend couchsurfing to people. My host taught me everything I need to know about Germany, it's dining ethics, how Deutsche Bahn works (which really really really helped, as I rely heavily on it), and showed me how nice people can be. Also I had a dream about Emperor Palpatine, I actually didn't, but I just threw that in there to make my title relevant. Here are some photos of my Frankfurt-Darmstadt trip.


Figure 10.2: Frankfurt

Figure 10.3

Figure 10.4: Darmstadt

Figure 10.5

Figure 10.6: Fisch mit Grüne Soße

Figure 10.7

Figure 10.8: Hauptbahnhof
Figure 10.9


  
  

Thursday, 7 April 2016

How to make an Exam Pizza Margherita

  Exams are next week, that means its time to eat pizzas. Students usually order pizza online because they will be too busy studying to cook, but why order pizza when you can make pizza? I have been studying for the entire time, preparing for my exams and I will now show you the easy way of making a delicious Pizza Margherita.

  
Figure 9.1: I have doubled my playing hours in 2 weeks. It is still the only game I've been playing.

  I'm trying to quit drinking though, so I bought myself a bottle of non-alcoholic wine to pair with my soon to be authentic, Pizza Margherita.
Figure 9.2: First step to being sober.
  Before you begin, have a shot of whiskey to calm those nerves. Making pizzas are scary business and should not be done if you're easily afraid. You have to understand that Pizza Margherita is the epitome of Italian Pizzas, do it wrongly and you'll be haunted by Princess Margherita of Savoy, whom the name of the pizza was taken from. It comprises of Basil (Green), Mozarella (White), and Tomato Sauce(Red), the combination of these 3 colours would then create the template for the Mexican flag. Thats why I recommend you to bring out your inner Italian when creating this piece of art. Without further a due, ¡Vamonos!

  1. Cut a shit-load of garlic ( about 1 and a half cloves), fry them in a pot, then toss in some peeled-pureed-tomatoes, chopped thyme and chopped basil (don't use all your basil, leave some garnishing), some olive oil and let it cook under medium-low heat. Stir occasionally.
    Figure 9.3: Something like this?
  2. Make the pizza dough. Put some yeast, some water, salt, sugar, flour. olive oil in a bowl. Put your hands in there and move it around, then cover it and let it rest for the dough to rise. 
  3. While waiting for the dough to cook and the sauce to rise, I would recommend learning some basic Italian, to not anger the queen, but also to get to know the Italian culture better.
  4. Italien ist nicht sehr schwer. Der Kultur der Italiener sind sehr interessant! 
  5. Oh Scheiße! Ich habe die falsche Sprache gelernt! Oh well, time to bust out the sausages.
    Figure 9.4: Så jävla gott!


  6. Once the dough is risen, roll that mother into this round pizza shapy thing, and put the sauce on it. After applying the sauce, put some Mozarella on it then toss it into the oven (350ºF).
  7. Use common sense to decide whether if the pizza is going to be done or not.
    Figure 9.5: Forza Mozarella!
  8. While waiting for the pizza to be ready, open up that bottle of non-alcoholic wine. The fact that you made your own Exam Pizza Margherita, while being in your first day of being sober calls for a celebration.
  9. Realizes that non-alcoholic wine taste like grape juice, and you just spent $10 on a bottle of grape juice. Go back to that bottle of whiskey as mentioned in the preamble.
    Figure 9.6: I'm sorry I doubted you, old buddy.
  10. When you feel that the pizza is about to be done, put the unchopped basil leaves on it, in the shape of a cross. That is to ward off the evil spirits that comes when you make pizzas. If you forgot to leave some basil leaves at the start, then I'm sorry. 
  11. I'm really sorry.
  12. Enjoy your Exam Pizza Margherita!

Figure 9.7: I accidentally made garlic bread instead.



Thursday, 24 March 2016

My Fictional Geocaching Adventure

  We went out and found everything. The weather was like, 5 degrees Celsius. Also, I did not fall and hurt my butt.

My Geocaching Adventure

  Been playing too much Binding of Isaac, but now finals are just around the corner, it's time to stop.
Figure 7.1: Literally all I was playing for the whole of March.


  This post would be about my geocaching experience. I've never done geocaching, or even knew of it existence prior, but after trying it a few (2) times, its actually quite fun. Geocaching is like playing a never ending game of scavenger hunt, where you look for caches left by other people. I didn't take any photos while geocaching because the first time it was too dark, and the second time because it was too bright. Both times, I was too busy geocaching to bother taking photos, so I will replace them with pictures I drew! 


  It all started when The Friendly Giantess, and I were walking home from somewhere. She then asked me if she could go "geocaching" for awhile. I have no idea what geocaching was, so out of curiosity, I joined her. She told me that the cache was somewhere around Memorial's clock tower, and then proceeded to skulk around the vicinity.
Figure 7.2: Not my photo.

  She skulked around the area for quite some time, and I was beginning to feel more and more skeptic about this, "geocaching" business. "How does this cache look like?" "How do you know where the thing is supposed to be?" "The weather is really nice," I asked. "I don't know," "I don't know," and "yes," was the responses. She then told me roughly where the cache is, and then I joined in to search for this cache too. 

  After awhile, we found the damn thing, hidden behind some bars behind some more bars. The whole activity was pretty fun, so we went home, had tea, and went out again for a proper geocaching adventure. Geocaching at night is nigh impossible. Everything is so dark, the caches are always black or some really dark shade. There was this one cache, which had a 2/5 difficulty rating, took us 2 tries to find it. It was hidden amongst vines, as it was supposed to be an homage to the rock band, The Vines. The first time we tried to find it was at night, which was very dark (duh). We tried again during the day and the cache magically appeared right in front of us. We cached for a few hours, we stuck to more urban areas because going into some dark trails in the middle of the night wasn't a good idea. Creeping behind a children's hospital wasn't too but hey, we found the cache. We called it a night around 1 am, the wind was beginning to blow and the air was beginning to get colder anyway. 
Figure 7.3: Two people, staring at a tree for 30 minutes.


  2 weeks later, we had our second geocache adventure. We went back to all the places we didn't find success in in our first try, and the Long Pond trail. There's this one particular interesting geocache, which was called "The Climbing Tree". The reason why it was called the climbing tree was because you are required to climb a tree in order to grab the cache. Fortunately, our party (which consist of 2 members) had a giantess. All she did was tiptoe and voilà. 
Figure 7.4: The Giantess in action.


  Long pond was quiet that day. The trail was mostly walkable but the hilly parts were covered in ice. I ran down the ice-covered hill, proceeded to taunt the Friendly Giantess who was too afraid to go downhill, and then slipped on flat ground. She saw my fall, and decided to just sit down on the ground and scoot her way down the icy hill. I was butthurt for rest of the day. Some of the caches was really well hidden, I really those caches where you are required to stray from the trail, and enter into the trees and the hedges. Some squirrel was constantly stalking us, as though as it was plotting some hideous scheme to rid of us from his land.
Figure 7.5: Beware.
  
The weather starts to pick up as the day went by. We decided to call it a day, as we're losing motivation to look for more caches (we were in a losing streak). We blame it on the lousy weather and called it a day, went home and made pizza or something. 




Monday, 7 March 2016

The Chocolate Girl

  Quick update here. School's been tough (I actually just bought Binding of Isaac: Rebirth, and have been playing it), so here's an old story.

  I couldn't disclose much info due to the nature of the situation, but here you go.

I/\__/**\__/\I

The Chocolate Girl

  La Dame and I went to the hospital, not because we got sick or anything, but we were there to visit a person who was admitted. The person was the Chocolate Girl. 

  We met up with her mom at the hospital's lobby. She told us about her.

  The Chocolate Girl was admitted because she attempted suicide. She attempted a few months prior the visit, and she finally regained consciousness. Her legs aren't really working, and she hasn't regain full function on one of her hands. I didn't ask how she tried to kill herself, because that's not a very nice thing to ask. Anyway, when she regained consciousness, she thought she just got into the hospital (she actually has been in the hospital for months). She asked lots of question, like why am I here? How did I get here? How long was I here? The mom deflected all the question with answers like everything will be fine; get some rest.

  The Chocolate Girl request that once she is released, she wants to stay with grandma. Unfortunately, Grandma has passed away one year ago (She wasn't in a coma for a year, she just simply lost a huge portion of her memory). The mom tried told her that grandma is long gone, and told her that she attended her funeral. The Chocolate Girl then lost her composure, and started wailing and crying. She blamed herself that her grandma is dead, it was a very unpleasant story to listen to.

  Her birthday was today (the day when we visit her), and she told La Dame that she wanted Lasagna, so we brought her a huge lasagna and a chocolate cake. We brought candles and lighters too but the hospital staff told us not light it, unless we don't mind being soaking wet. When we first entered the Chocolate Girl's room, she couldn't recognize any of us (except her mom), even La Dame, who recently visited her. This was really bittersweet, because she couldn't remember the person who has been constantly visiting her, but the upside was that the arrival of the lasagna was a genuine surprise to her.




Figure 6.1: Yum!
  The hospital's chaplain and I ran around the floor looking for a damn working microwave. A nurse let us use the break room's microwave because all other public microwave was broken. We all shared some lasagna, and then La Dame broke out the cake.
Figure 6.2: "Do you like chocolate cake?" "I loveeee..... chocolate..." And thus her name was given.
  We shared the chocolate cake amongst the visitors and nurses. It was quite a huge cake, I love it a lot but I felt ashamed having a third, or fourth serving (I did had a second serving though). We stayed there for awhile, talking to her mom and the rest of the visitors and nurses. We barely talked to the Chocolate Girl because she looks really disorientated. She only talks to her sister and her mother, and not with the rest of us.

  At the end, her mother thanked us all, thanked the chaplain, thanked us for bringing gifts, cake, food, and ourselves, and we went our separate ways.

I/\__/**\__/\I

  That's it, back to Binding of Isaac, I guess.

Bonus pic! Cake + lasagna!