Ski Trip- Dolomites, Kiens// Day Four

We skied for three hours today. Went up to the mountain again, fell twice in the first couple of minutes. Ha ha. After that I didn’t fall though which is great. I think I have more control now. Still no control, but more control. I hope I’m getting better. I feel like I am getting better, but slowly. Sadly tomorrow is the last day skiing! Benny has been a really good instructor though, he’s so patient and leads us through everything and gives us good advice.

After skiing we took a one hour bus ride to a biathlon place. Not sure what it’s called. There were special skis- very thin and light and poles that were sharp at the bottom. It’s easier to move with those skis compared to normal skis, but you are more prone to falling. This was cross country skiing I think. We had to go up and down hill as well which was not very good. My first uphill went crazy. I kept slipping because I couldn’t get my skis into the right position. I got it in the end though. The key is to dig the insides into the snow and walk up in reverse snowblau. Going down though, I could not go down without falling at the end. I did it twice, both times I fell. He said lean forward, so I did! Still nope.

My favourite part was definitely shooting though. We had proper rifles and they taught us how to get down with the skis on. First time I did it, I got 4/5 targets, seconds time 5/5 targets. Not bad I think for a first time! It was easier than I thought it was going to be.

We had a race at the end. Five people in a group. We went one lap around and then got down to shoot. If you missed a shot you had to do a penalty round. Again, got 5/5 targets! No penalty rounds done J

Not going to lie, it was tiring. Especially with skiing and the biathlon both in one day.

Tomorrow is the last day of skiing! Hoping it will be a good one. We got back late tonight from watching a ‘ski show’ yet I am still up. Yay. We’ve been sleeping so early every night from exhaustion, there is literally no time to do my coursework. Ugh.

Ski Trip- Dolomites, Kiens// Day Three

Another good day!

Went up to the top of the mountain today. Wasnt as bad as i thought. It was sunny and foggy at first, then it just became extremelt foggy and heavy snow with no sun. I still cant do the stopping woth parallel skis, and i cant really control my speed very well, therefore i fall. I also keep leaning backwards. I dont know how to lean forwards!! Its so hard and it just makes me go even faster. And so my thighs burn every day. I think im going to go behind Benny more, i just copy whatever he does and i somehow have more control. Tomorrow we're going skiing and biathaloning!

Ski Trip- Dolomites, Kiens// Day Two

Joined the beginners for real today.

I actually had a lot of fun today! We went at a nice pace, anything we weren’t too good at, Benny would explain to us. We did little exercises that helped us in full-on skiing.

Towards the end we started to go properly fast. I loved it! I fell twice but it was okay because I got up in about ten seconds. Years ago when I used to go skiing with my parents, I was known for going really fast and going in a straight line. Not sure where that has gone, but slopes in Asia are probably not as intense as they are here. I really am not sure, it’s been a while.

Quite proud that I can turn parallel-y now and drift. Pretty cool.

I wish I could do stuff on my own though, then maybe I’d be able to explore and see what level I’m really at.

Nonetheless, today was so SO much better than yesterday.

Found two bruises today. I know one was from yesterday, not sure about the other though. But they’re both quite intense. Oh well. Battle scars.

Ski Trip- Dolomites, Kiens// Day One

Wow I look so happy! This was before we started.

After the first day. As you can see, I am severely unamused.

Extremely horrible first day.

I signed up for the intermediate because I thought, well okay if I did it five years ago maybe I can do it now. Haha no.

Literally went straight onto the slopes and I just could not keep up. I mean I don’t even remember techniques and things, there was no warm up!

The number of times I lost control on that first slope is uncountable.

I decided that it was too much for me, so I joined the beginner group. They didn’t do much, so I asked if I could do my own thing, so I did.

Went on a little slope a few times to try to familiarize myself again. After lunch I went back with the intermediates, again, I died. This time we went to the top of the mountain which was meant to be ‘the same difficulty’. It so was not. The fog and snow and everything just makes it so much less happy and sunny. Which is what it is like at the bottom. Which is what I like.

Again, the number of times I fell is uncountable. The rest of the group behind me were pretty mad because I was going quite slow.

All of this mixed together was just a horrible day for me.

Running To Stop The Traffik' 13

(+lauren+xavier)

My team was GSIS A and we placed 18th overall. Not bad I think, compared to last place last year!
My goal (our goal) this year was to not get last. And we didn't!

I was team leader for the GSIS A team and Elaina was team leader for the B team. When signing up for this I had no idea that I had to run as well, being team leader. When I found out, which was a couple of weeks after getting the team leader position, no doubt I was shocked and in horror. Fit? Not me. Elaina and I went to several meetings held by the core directors of the race- mostly for getting our runners together and fundraising issues. That is still not over and fundraised money is due early December! I hope my runners have raised enough money.. Our target this year for each runner was $1875 because last year our school raise $5000 (i don't mean to be mean but last year's team leader, whoever it was, was no use at all). I myself have raised $3000 which I am quite happy about.

For preparation, I planned about five training days where we would go to the peak and run. People who said they would come, didn't, so that was a bit disappointing. In the end we had about four trainings, all in which I ran one lap. Haha. I am such a fittie. So lazy, much lazy, very lazy.

I decided that the most effective way to run the race was to have everyone run one lap each. This worked quite well, and we got quite a bit of rest in between. This race really needed a lot of team work and I am glad to say that I definitely saw that in the 24 hour span! When someone couldn't run due to injuries/was too tired to run, someone else would take over and run their lap willingly, and that really made me smile. I was not the one who ran other people's laps, apologies, I would have walked the whole thing since I already had trouble doing one round. I ran a total of 6 laps (19.2km), or well, I walked half of it, pretty much. But I still did it didn't I? This race challenged my fitness (almost?) to the limit. I have never in my life ran/walked 19.2km in 24 hours. My goal was actually to run 10 laps, but clearly I was too ambitious.

As team leaders we were specifically told at the meetings what cause we were running and fundraising for, what charity it was going to etc. Emails were sent out to runners about all this information of course, but I bet 80% of the people didn't read it or read the first paragraph. The core directors did give us the chance of getting the owners of the charity to come to our school to talk, but we couldn't find a time. I think that they could have promoted it a lot more, especially during the race. As for me though, I learnt a substantial amount about human trafficking and its prevalence in Nepal. I also just came back from a school trip to Nepal which is why during and after my trip, I kept thinking about the issue and observing the place, just thinking about how and where people would do this. Nepal is a wonderful place for tourists though. No human being should be sold or bought to be slaves of any kind. I wish our world was fairer but that's a big thing to wish for so all I can wish for is change.

Toy Poodle and Grandma Days

Plum the grandma!

Peach

Tricks

Taffee

Treats

In a lot of these photos is a toy poodle named Tricks. This doggie and the other poodle (Treats) were new doggies at HKDR. I was saying to my mom that Tricks would be adopted within that week, and I was right, he was adopted in two days. He's so cute (i thought he was a girl at first) and he's 3! He's very dominant and marks his territory everywhere. I find touching dogs after they wee a bit weird because they're crotchy areas are wet. I'm probably just not used to dogs. But I carry them anyway.

The other doggie Treats was also adopted in that week. Not sure if Treats was a boy or a girl (let's pretend its a he) but he was always super happy and running everywhere.

Another doggie was called Plum and is the cutest grandma ever. She wouldn't walk so I had to carry her to the dog park. I'm not sure exactly how old she is but she's quite old. She just got fostered! She'll let you carry her and just do whatever with her. At the dog park she just strolled around and waddled, such a cutie.

The highlight of my visit to HKDR was definitely Tricks and Plum. Both so cute!! 

My mom is now also a volunteer at HKDR and she loves going there. She loves dogs. She is so in love with Peach and desperately wants to bring her home but we can't because we have two cats and most of the time no one is at home! She's going to be really sad if Peach gets adopted. I don't know. We really can't have her :(

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!