Discovery Week: Nepal' 13

Day 1- Sightseeing

Roadhouse Cafe mmmMMmmmMMmm. Four cheese pizza, including yak cheese, which is SURPRISINGLY GOOD.

Monkey Temple

Roadhouse Cafe but a different one. This is the great and almighty Sizzling Brownie. I miss this so much </3 Probably the best dessert/brownie I have EVER, EVER had. If you ever go to Nepal, Roadhouse Cafe- go there.

Katja House- Cooking!

:)

Cooking cheeken

I cooked dees

Buying cauliflower!

Cooking stir-fried veggies Chinese style. Which I thought was yums, the most yums dish I think that we cooked during the whole trip.

Happy doggie!!

Henna

 Bhaktapur

Making some lemon chicken

This little girl is special. Couldn't communicate, but cutest and funniest little one ever.

This was my week in Nepal!

Most days we spent at Katja House which is a children's home quite far from where we stayed (Kathmandu Guest House). We actually only had about one hour a day with the kids which was a pity because they are so much fun. Honestly the whole trip overall was quite boring because we spent a lot of the time not doing anything. But when we were doing something, eating, cooking, playing with the kids, that was very enjoyable.

My goals for this trip were: to teach the kids chinese, use the blender, make smoothies/milkshakes, and cook Chinese food. 

What I really did this trip: play with the kids and cook for everyone.

I didn't mind much. I spent the majority of my time cooking with Donald my assistant hurrhurr. I'm not actually a very experienced cook, although there was one summer I cooked quite a bit. I think I'd call myself an amateur cook.

On one of the first days we helped the cooks at Katja House to cook which is the yellow looking chicken above. It's chicken with lots of spices and was GOOD. What was better was the veggie mix, also flavoured with spices. Nepal is quite similar to India, i've noticed.

On the last day I guess I was a bit too ambitious while planning. I was going to cook fried rice, curry and lemon chicken, but ended up only cooking Singapore curry and lemon chicken. I didn't know how many people we were cooking for while planning that's why it didn't turn out the way I wanted it to.

The curry was alright, a bit diluted though. It was from a packet and I might have added a bit too much water. The lemon chicken was just bad. I am not entirely sure what went wrong. We cooked I think 3kg of chicken? 

First you're meant to coat the chicken in corn flour and we did that! I feel like the problem was in the corn flour but again, I am not entirely sure. So I coated all the chicken quite generously with corn flour and started frying it bit by bit. I added the lemon sauce after I thought the chicken was cooked and I was waiting for the chicken to cook and become like a golden brown but it just wouldn't go brown!!! I waited for quite a while and it didn't go brown so I just added the lemon sauce. ANYWAYS it was just not good and I could tell that people didn't like it either because lots of it was in the trash. It's okay, I don't blame you. I threw mine away too.

I didn't actually get to do anything I planned on doing because, like I said, I spent most of my time cooking. Also, the kids really just want to play. They are all so cute and have such personalities (in a good way). On the last day I played with this one girl a lot. The girl in the last two photos. She didn't speak English but she kept trying to talk to me so I'd just pretend to understand and nod my head and she'd be content with that so I'm guessing it was nothing that important. She had so many facial expressions it was actually so hilarious and fun to watch. Everyone else had a camera to play with and she really wanted one as well but no one would lend it to her and her face the whole time was literally :(. In the end she got one and was ecstatic and started taking photos of me nonstop. I told her where to press to take a photo and she got it, but every time she took her finger away from the button, she didn't know where to press to take a photo and I had to keep telling her. When she didn't know, she'd come to me and I'd point it out to her and she'd say, "Here?" and then continue to take photos. She was so cute!!!

This post was a bit long. I did enjoy Nepal to a certain extent. The sightseeing was a bit repetitive though. All the sights we saw were quite similar, not that I really expected them to be different, but still not that interesting. My favourite part was definitely the fact that everything was so cheap. I miss my sizzling brownie. Maybe one day I'll go back to Nepal for trekking!

Hong Kong Dog Rescue- First!

I'm going to start naming my posts more interesting names and names that are more relevant to what happened. Couldn't really say much about this one, it was literally my first time to HKDR.

This is the dog my mom fell in love with. Her name is Peach and she's such a sweetheart! We looked her up on the HKDR Facebook page afterwards and the before and after photo is :O. But she is so loving and sweet. Sadly we can't bring her home because dogs are just generally harder to look after if you don't have a helper and a lot of time.

The last photo is the dog I walked. Not sure what his name is but he's a cutie too. Apparently he's socially awkward/shy which is why he stayed under the bench most of the time. He's fluffy and always panting but look at him, he's so cute!

When the doggies are happy, I feel happy. Except I accidentally dropped a dog at one point and it ran away crying. That was painful for both me and the doggie. I didn't mean to though! I have cats and cats are very acrobatic so when and if I drop them they reach the floor on their feet. So I was holding this dog and it wanted to get off so I was about to put it down but it pushed off my leg and I, subconsciously feeling that it was a cat, let go of it, and it actually turned midair and landed on its back and it cried and ran away. That was sad.

Here's the second dog sob story. I am apparently just not very lucky with dogs? We were going back to the HKDR hq and the place is not very big. So we pushed the door open and let the dogs in, and while I was trying to close the door (the door space is probably 20cm?), one of the dog's foot got caught under the door and we got it out but it cried and then it was limping and I was like !!!!!!!!!!!!!!! And everyone was secretly blaming me but ?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!

That's it anyways. I still like doggies.

End of Kickboxing/Basketball 2&3

I had my last kickboxing class last week, and really I was the only one who went for all four classes. When I signed up, the sheet actually said 16+, but I sort of just looked past that. I realised when I actually went for the classes that when they said 16+, they literally meant anyone above the age of 16. Which was fine by me though, it just meant that I appeared to be doing better because everyone else was, not so good/fit/flexible (to be honest I'm not even that flexible or fit or good).

I was especially tired that day, not sure why, but I felt really weak. It affected my performance, obviously, and quite a few times I felt like I was going to collapse, but I pushed on!

I think my favourite 'moves' would be doing combos. It was, as the name suggests, combinations of what we learnt. Jabs, upper cuts, hooks, kicks etc. The only reason I liked it was because I got to work pretty much my whole body, arms and legs in particular. Mind you, these combos included occasional squats, lunges, and a whole lot of moving around. A lot harder than you think.

I'm not sure what actually motivated me to push on, maybe it was the music, or the strive to do well and actually improve my stamina and body strength. My arm strength=0. I don't think I will be doing kickboxing classes here again though. I actually expected to be kicking and punching proper punching bags buuuuut nope. It's not that I didn't enjoy it, but I didn't super enjoy it either. Ya feel me?


Not sure why I put by kickboxing reflection first, because I actually have basketball before I have kickboxing.

Basketball is not as tiring now! Thankfully, otherwise I would have actually collapsed last week. I was good last week! Good with my shooting I mean. I got a couple of goals, but that was it.. Better than usual which I'm proud of! I still have to learn to use my height more though. I'm usually in the middle, but really it doesn't make much of a difference for me because I just can't jump very high and I'm pathetic.

I do hope I continue to improve though, we have a basketball match against WIS next tuesday and the last time we played them we died miserably. I doubt the coming match will be any different.

Kickboxing 2/Basketball 1

The A grades and B grades basketball have mixed, not that I mind.
It does mean that we have two coaches now, sort of. Honestly I like Mr Lewis more.
First day of basketball and it is honestly one of the most intense sessions of basketball I've ever had. I'm really not as fit as you'd think I am.
Intense dribbling and running. Lack of water.
My stamina= 1, aka I am unfit.
My memory might as well be the size of a tennis ball because I remember nothing.
But we did play a game, and I scored once/twice? Several times I attempted to shoot and closely missed... Definitely something I need and want to improve on.
I didn't get tired as much as when we were doing warmups though, I feel like that's always the case.
Mr Lewis likes to pick on me because I was late to a basketball game once... :(

I was late to kickboxing because I had to pick something up in Central.
But nonetheless, it was tiring.
Learnt some new kicks! Side kicks....... and other kicks, you know.
The first lesson last week we had about 6-8 people? Today we had four. I guess some people just find it too hard?
The thing that gets you working the most, is the fact that you hardly ever get to stop and rest. It is continuous and there is a lot of up and down movement, so that really works your legs.
I also found out that arm rolling

by arm rolling I mean this. Arm rolling is actually very tiring for your arms, especially forearm.

Let's see how much muscle pain I will get in the next two days. Hopefully not crippling.
That's it for now.. Yes I am doing basketball and kickboxing both on the same day, but only for three more weeks. After that I'll change the times of my kickboxing maybe and so I won't have to die twice every Tuesday.

Bye!

Week 3

Typing this Sunday night because I am a busy bee.
Seriously though my weekends are so full of work. Last night I went out for dinner and I brought my computer with me. Today I was out from morning to evening and I brought my computer with me again. Wherever I get to stop and work, I stop and work. #iblyfe

This is going to be a quick post though because I have not showered.
This week was pretty average, nothing special. I did make lots of microwave buns though.
Went to a KCL presentation on Wednesday though and they seem pretty good!
38 is the IB requirement for law, and they also have a LLB course that is 2 years in KCL and 3 years in HKU!

One thing that I was a bit unsure about was a letter we had to write for English lit lang.
It's meant to be a response to a text called 'Language as a Prison' but I just don't know how to phrase is properly according to guidelines and everything.
But it's okay I'll try to figure something out.

Last thing about CAS.
Every year there's a 24 Hour Race/Running to Stop the Traffik which is basically a relay-style race that is to raise awareness and money for human trafficking. So I got chosen to be team leader this year! I went to my first meeting on Saturday and nothing much going on yet, I just need to have a running team by start of october. And lucky me, I posted on our school Facebook page yesterday, and I already have quite a few people, I just need one more girl.
I hope that this doesn't get disapproved because of our new charity system at school though.

Anyways, that's it for now, time to shower and sleep.
Bye!

Kickboxing 1

I had my first kickboxing class last night and it was bloody intense. For me anyways.
I actually found out about these classes through google. I just googled 'hong kong youth sports' and ta da! This kickboxing class I'm taking is not only 'youth' though, it's 16+ but I don't mind.

The class is 7.30-8.30 which is a bit late but not too late I guess.
There are about six people in my class, including myself.
We started off with some warm ups and honestly it wasn't even super intense and hard warm ups, it was jogging, squats, more jogging, but I was already so tired after.

After the warm ups we did the proper moves!
I don't remember the proper terms at all, so lets just say we did lots of punching, down to up punching, left to right punching etc. (terminology is not my forte, especially in a cantonese speaking class)
We also did lots of kicks and different sorts of stepping and things like that.
To sum it up, my front thighs are aching, my triceps aching, but not too much, and just overall fatigue.
(my thighs though.. crazy..)

After class I asked my instructor for her details but forgot to get her email so I still can't add kickboxing as a CAS activity on ManageBac..

That's it for now, week 3 review coming soon!

Week 2

Week three starts tomorrow but I might as well not miss out on a week.
Let's see.. Week two...
I'd say, to sum it up,
WORK WORK WORK WORK WORK WORK WORK WORK WORK WORK WORK WORK
You think I'm kidding but I'm not.
And to think that it's only the second week, oh IB.

Let's talk about Chinese (not sex).
So I'm taking HL Chinese B, and I'm the only one in my class taking HL but I think the difference is that I have books and things to read.
Most lessons I have are SL, and I can tell you that this was definitely not what I expected. It is so intense and difficult (that vocabulary, seriously) that you really have to fully concentrate in class or else you'll miss some important point and be like oh shit later.
For HL my teacher just photocopied this book of short stories and was like HERE READ IT, BUT TAKE YOUR TIME OKAY. And I was like OKAY. I haven't started reading it but when I do, I will definitely post about how much fun I'm having xoxo

Math.
Math studies is easy. Full stop.

I won't say I like History but I don't hate it either. But the one thing that is getting me through is my personal tutor (aka dono), repeating things twice and explaining everything in detail. Thanks, love.
I'm also quite amazed at how much I can absorb when he explains it to me, and also when he says it twice. The amount of notes I have written in the past two weeks is.. a lot for me, probably not a lot for old history students.

There was this one question in Geography- The causes (social, political, economic, environmental) of Diabetes.
I have almost nothing for political, economic and environmental.. Environmental causes... The weather is gloomy and wet today, therefore I shall eat chocolate all day...

CAS-related Issues:
I think I should email the primary head about my musical again but I feel like she doesn't like me already... D:

I was meant to send in the form and money for my kickboxing class last week but I didn't heh and I'm only sending it in tomorrow when class starts on wednesday so I hope it's okay. And my hip hop class didn't get confirmed but I sent in the money anyways because mama already wrote the cheque, so I hope that's okay too...
If all goes well though, I'm super excited to start kickboxing!!! And hopefully hopefully HOPEFULLY hip hop.

I really want to do ice skating, run by Larissa as an ECA on fridays but I can't because I have to work on my musical :( :( ...if it goes through. I should probably email her now.

I'm in girls basketball A grade now!!! Not sure when training starts really but I know that I'm probably not in fit shape or fit skill (that doesn't really make sense but murh) to play.

That's everything for now!
Weed 3 of IB, here I come.