Throwback to Taman Negara

When looking back through my iPhone's photo album, I quickly glanced through the photos of the TUISC and I back in Taman Negara. We went to the protected rainforest a few months back and it was such a thrilling experience, I must say! The council members and I stayed in a seven-room home stay facility in Jerantut (Yes, I know it's a really funny name). 

On the very first day, we traveled from the home stay facility we traveled to the Gua Kota Gelanggi and a few other caves. It was terribly exhausting because the whole cave excavation took nearly three hours or more! Super duper tiring. W also trailed the forest, which was fun but kind of creepy at the same time since it was our first time entering a real forest. In the caves, we saw various rocks with many bizarre shapes! Some were shaped like a skull, an elephant, a baby and many more! I found it rather dubious that they were formed naturally because it just seemed unreal to my naked eyes. The cave excavation was also very challenging since we had to fit through small gaps between rocks and it was pitch black inside the caves, too! Nonetheless, it was an unforgettable experience since we got to see some breathtaking views from the caves

On the second day, the council and I went into the Taman Negara and we went on the Canopy Walk or a suspension bridge that stretched 530 metres long. I'm telling you, it was not as easy as it sounded especially for those who are afraid of height, that's for sure. The bridge was only fit for one person and we had to keep a certain distance from the person in front of us so that the bridge wouldn't shake vigorously. I kept singing nursery songs when I went on the bridge to keep myself happily entertained and to take my mind off the creepy height.

After that we went trekking the jungle and then we went rapid shooting which was the highlight of the entire trip. Rapid shooting is a speedy ride on a wooden boat in the Taman Negara's river. Because there were twenty people of us, we were separated in two boats. The interesting part? We had water fight against each other, splashing each other's boat with the river water and water buckets and the boat was in a really high speed that we thought it almost flipped over! SO. FUN. 

After having so much fun splashing water like a 5 year-old, we had our 'picnic' lunch by the river side and visited the Orang Asli encampments, where we learned how to use their traditional bamboo blowpipe. 

To wrap up our teambuilding trip, we went for another trip the next day to experience Flying Fox and raft building. I've tried flying fox before I truly enjoyed it! The hardest part of our last day's activity was the raft building, in which we're supposed to craft a raft from barrels, pipes and plastic ropes and we had a raft race on the river. It was such a hard work but my team won in the end, yay to that!

Our team building trip was extremely exhausting but all the mud, sweat and blood (nah, no blood) was really worth it in the end! Can't wait to go on another trip with this bunch in the future! Love you all so mucho :)

A Whole Lot Of Cookies!

Brought back some brown sugar to Medan, which is pretty much a weird thing to do. I mean, who'd buy a packet of brown sugar weighed +- 1 kg all the way to Indonesia from Malaysia? Me.
So the reason of me going through all the trouble was to try out some cookies recipes and because brown sugar is pretty much expensive in my favourite supermarkets.

I do believe that brown sugar is an essential component when making cookies as I've tried making some using only white sugar and the cookies didn't seem to hold its shape. Anyway,this is a recipe that I found a few days ago from an online blog, I pretty much halved the recipe because the original recipe itself would yield more than a hundred cookies, which is too much! This recipe will produce slightly crunchy but mostly soft and chewy cookies, they're really delicious especially when eaten freshly out of the oven!  (of course you have to wait for a few minutes cause you're definitely gonna burn your tongue if you don't)

The ingredients that you need are:

1 cup of Blueband butter-margarine (or any other butter/margarine brands, a combination of both is preferable)

2 cups of all-purpose flour

1 cup of brown sugar

1 cup of white sugar

2 eggs

2.5 cups of instant oatmeal, blended

1 tsp of vanilla

1 tsp baking powder

1 tsp of baking soda

chocolate chip cookies (as much as you want!)

How to make them:

1) The first step is to preheat your oven into 190 degrees celsius and beat your butter/margarine with both brown sugar for a few minutes until the butter is soft. 

I personally use Blue Band's Cake and Cookie butter flavored margarine because they taste oh-so-divine! I've always loved the unique flavour of butter but I'm also crazy in love with the distinct kick that margarine always give to baked goods. So I really think that this margarine is the best for this cookie recipe because it gives the best of both worlds! Trust me, at this point, even the butter-sugar mixture is absolutely delicious! Don't hesitate to steal a few licks off the spoon :p

2) The next thing to do is to add the eggs, one at a time and beat at a low-medium speed until they are incorporated. Don't forget to scrape off the sides of the mixing bowl to ensure that the ingredients are beaten thoroughly.

3) After the eggs have incorporated into the batter, add vanilla and other dry ingredients, which are flour, blended instant oatmeal, baking powder and baking soda. Start with vanilla and then add three additions of flour followed by oatmeal and baking/soda powder. Beat until they are well incorporated on low-medium speed and scrape off the sides of the bowl, too!

4) The next step is the most fun part of all! Yes, you've guessed it right.. it's the 'add as much chocolate chip as you want' part! At this point, I caved into one of the most irresistible temptations...yeah, I ate the cookie dough. Raw. But even the cookie dough itself was really good! When I first ate the cookie dough, I realized why people all around the world have been having this obsession with eating raw cookie dough and unbaked cake batter;  they're simply too good!

The last thing to do is to roll those tempting cookie dough into small balls and arrange them neatly with 2 inches space between each cookie in a baking pan lined with aluminium foil or non-stick baking cookie sheet. After that, just pop them into the oven for 10-15 minutes until they turn a little bit brownish for that extra crunch!

There you go, your very own homemade cookies is finally done! Enjoy :)

International Student Council

Hello everyone!

It's been a while and I've been rather busy in campus these days. Starting September 2014, I've been officially chosen as a the Secretary of Taylor's University International Student Council! I've always wanted to be more active in my daily uni life and perhaps this is the best way to spend my time productively. Basically, the council acts as an aspiration box for International students in Taylor's, we are also enthusiastic in promoting cultural integration. Our main focus for this year is community service; offering a helping hand for those who are in need. I'll be helping out in many projects, student conferences and most importantly, WORLDFEST!

As new council members, we've had a few outings and meetings to get to know one another better. Last Thursday, we had an appointment dinner at Nandos in Citta Mall. We chatted over food and took lots of pictures using my monopod a.k.a selfie stick hahaha. Let me tell you something, these people are the best! We've only known each other for a few weeks and we've gotten along so well!

And girls being girls, we could not stop taking selfies! 

A group photo with everyone in the department and the V.I.Ps

Here are the members of TUISC for the year 2014/2015. If you're an International student in Taylor's University, please don't hesitate to approach any of these familiar faces for any help and inquiries!

See you around, folks! xo

Macaroons Goodness!

It's the start of my long-awaited holiday! A big yay for that!

As someone who just can't sit around like me, however, I've found the first week of my semester break to be rather boring so I started to do whatever it takes to spend my day as productive as possible. So, being me, I start baking desserts or cakes almost everyday! 

This time I tried making salted caramel macaroons for the nth time and finally succeeded. I have to say that I'm quite proud of myself for not giving up easily in making them because macaroons can be one hell of treat to make. It's extremely important to take precise note of the meringue consistency and to ensure that you are folding just enough during the macaronage. Macaroons are perhaps one of the fussiest things I've ever made at first but after a few trial and errors, you'll learn from the previous experiments and you'll definitely end up with some decent macaroons.

Here, I was pouring my homemade salted caramel into a glass jug for easy handling. Caramel sauce can also be one hell of a mess. I was involved in a little accident when making caramel sauce a couple of years ago and burnt myself, this sweet mess left me a scar on my left hand that is still noticeable until today! However, I've definitely gotten better in making caramel sauce now. To be honest, I really do prefer homemade caramel sauce as you can adjust the sweetness, thickness and saltiness of the sauce to your liking. Personally, I prefer my sauce to be thick, salty and has that slightly burnt aftertaste! YUM.

Tadaaa! This is the end product! Not bad for my first successful attempt, right? I filled the macaroons with caramel buttercream and gooey caramel sauce for that extra 'oomph!'. 

I'll be trying chocolate and nutella macaroons in the future and will let you know more about it :)

KTJ Prom 2014; Bal Des Edelweiss❅

Or what us, commoners, would call the 'Ball of the Winter Flowers'. Such a beautiful name for this year's KTJ annual prom dinner. As you all know, I left KTJ back in form 5 but of course there's no harm in meeting up with fellow old friends whom I might not meet for years long in the future! This year, the event took place in Aloft Hotel, KL Sentral. A relatively new hotel yet it was surprisingly good. I loved the food served during the event and the location is pretty accessible, too!

During the event, there was a time when all couples hit the dance floor and slow-danced. Well, I danced with my girls since I didn't have a date and it was still so awesome although the dance seemed more like a group hug. 

This year, they set up the photo booth again, which I was really excited about. We took several photos just like last year a because heaven knows when will we be able to take pictures like that again in the future!

 I had a great time in KTJ's prom this year. It was nice to see so many familiar faces and how much these people have changed throughout the years. Sometimes, a good time like this made me regret leaving KTJ in the first place :(

Hello there, Mr. Potato!

I'm still pretty much melancholic these days. Of course, a girl's best friend in perilous sadness is none other than food and lots and lots of retail therapy. I found a long twisted potato in Bukit Bintang last Saturday and when my eyes caught them I knew instantly that I had to get them! The last time I saw this delicious carb-loaded greasy treat was when I was in Dubai a few years back and they were the bomb! So, of course I had to get them. I must!

The potato was unexpectedly super duper longgg! Thank God, my brother was tagging along :D

Yup, look at my face. I was a happy child; eating the long potato right out of the stick and no, I didn't finish them all by myself of course! And being a self-proclaimed cheese maniac that I am, I had to order one that's drizzled with cheese flavoring goodness. However, I do think that they could use a little bit more seasoning there! If I'm not mistaken the name of the stall is Tea Chansii, they're located somewhere in the middle of Fahrenheit88 and Lot10. They were actually quite good but the one I had in Dubai was sooooo much better! :(

The Queen of My Heart♕

I'm still missing you.
So much, that it hurts.

The thing about losing someone you love is that it turns beautiful memories into sad ones. The smile that brought you joy now brings tears to your eyes and the voice that you expect to hear everyday now vanishes into thin air.

 It all seemed surreal at first but when the reality sunk in, all I could do was to hug myself, trying my best to keep intact and not crumbling. I can still clearly remember you waving back at me and how I turned around to look at you one more time before leaving for class because I somehow had a feeling that I won't be seeing you much longer. There was one time when you were barely conscious and I was holding your hand and accidentally called out 'Pipi Mochi' and the next second your eyes fluttered open, staring back at me and your hands with all the power left in them grasped my hand back. I am so glad that I had the time to proclaim 'We Love You' to you, although I hoped I had said that a million times when you were around. I can never forget how you hug me tight after I said it, even when you had so little energy left. I love you, I love you, I love you.

Another thing that I remembered clearly was how you asked me to lie next to you on the hospital bed and your soft hands caressing my head and back, drowning ourselves in nostalgia on how we used to sleep together when I was a child. I wished we had never stopped doing that.

I'm still missing you.
And I know that I always will. The day you're gone, you left a hole inside of me and there is no one else can fit in. All I could do is to learn how to live my bare days without you and it still pains me.
The future is coming and I don't want to lose you as much as it hurts me.

I'm sure there will come a time when you will become of the most beautiful memory in me, exactly what you are supposed to be. 

+Wondermilk

Met up with lovely friends today who came all the way from Medan! After a filling meal in IKEA (meatballs, of course), we went ahead and had our share of dessert in Wondermilk Damansara Uptown.  I've already been in Wondermilk for a few times and really love the ambience as well as the atmosphere of the cafe. The cupcakes? they're fine although personally I don't find them terribly addictive in any way but yesterday's carrot cupcake that I had was rather nice. The milk, however, was to die for. It all made sense to me then why they named the cafe Wondermilk instead of Wondercake, it's obviously because their fresh flavored milk taste immensely good. So, so good.

There are many flavors of the milk available for you to try but I personally love the butterscotch and vanilla flavor. If you ever find yourself contemplating between caramel and butterscotch, that seemed to taste rather similar, please choose the latter.

May Reading Supplies

Books make me happy. Isn't it amazing how such an inanimate object can give you so much pleasure? It's a happiness that I can't seem to find within people. The reason why I love books this much is perhaps due to the unconditional company that it gives me. Being an inanimate object that it is, books keep me company even during the most perilous moments of loneliness. Unlike the gadgets that we seem to become overly attached to these days, spending my minutes and hours indulging in a good read doesn't feel like a total waste of time. It enriches me in so many ways even though the passages that I read are completely fictitious!

Lately, I've been having a crush on Asian literature, particularly Japanese. The poignancy and simplicity of a Japanese piece of writing somehow enchants me in a way beyond my own comprehension. Haruki Murakami, my favorite author so far, is one of the authors that possess such miraculous talent to drown me in his magical story telling ability.

Due to this newly bloomed love affair that I started with Japanese literature, I purchased three new additions to my collection, in hope that each page of these books will nurture the love I have for its kind.

Saturday Goodies!

Went on my routine Saturday 'adventure' with le bro to Pavilion (again). This time I've been craving for Pizza for the entire week and my tummy has been yearning for a good plate of churros for a while now.  Due to my lack of where-to-eat-a-good-pizza knowledge, we just decided to lunch in the most seemingly Italian restaurant we could find in Pavilion, which was Capriciossa that nestled nearby the food court area. To be honest, our visit was better than we expected. I ordered a half-half pizza, a combination of two different pizza toppings in a pan, barbecue chicken and smoked salmon. The latter was a tad bit disappointing due to the strong fishy smell but I was rather pleased by the delightful barbecue sauce of the former topping.

After the meal our tummy still grumbled and craved for something sweet. Of course it's time for us to have a good dessert and churros was the only thing that came in mind. I've read several reviews about the churros they're selling in one of the bars in Pavilion called La Boca and most reviews that I read were promising. So we went ahead and tried out the authentic spanish 'doughnut' that was served with chocolate ganache and dulce de leche or better known as caramel sauce. My expectation for a good churro has always been sky-high because the first churro that I tried in Disneyland (by far still the best) were so succulent. However, the churros they serve in La Boca was appetizing although it still couldn't match those that they sold in Disneyland! The dulce de leche was simply delicious and the churros were chewy. I wished the dough was a little bit thicker, though. 

Real Techniques Expert Face Brush

Out for a quick retail therapy today in Paradigm Mall. I should've known better that the commercial centre will be packed with people during weekends. Anyway, I passed by this shop called Shins that sold beauty products and make-up. I remembered that some time ago I discovered that this shop is selling make-up brushes, so I decided to take a peek. A few steps into the store, my eyes already caught very familiar-looking tools that I've come to know from watching make-up tutorials on Youtube. Yes, it is the very much hyped Real Techniques brushes! To be honest, I really didn't know that they are selling it in Malaysia! I hesitated when deciding which one to buy, RT's expert face brush or Ecotools' bamboo buffing brush that was also sold in the shop and was considerably cheaper (RM 48). After a quick glance through makeupalley, I decided to buy RT's expert face brush.

And I'm really, truly grateful of my purchase decision.

The brush is made of gorgeous and ultra-plush synthetic bristles, which are incredibly soft! It made my liquid foundation, bb cream or concealer application so much easier and hassle-free. Although, I'm not a big fan of using products on my face (foundation, bb, cc creams etc) on an everyday basis, I can't live without concealers to cover up my horrid dark circles and this brush helps to me to blend the product so well, creating a very natural finish! Another feature that really pleases me is that the brush end has a flat surface, which enables it to stand.  I bought this brush for RM 78, I know that's considerably pricey and I'm being wasteful again with my allowance but trust me on this one, it's totally worth it!

Birthday

It's that very special day that comes only once a year!

Happy birthday to me!

The early morning of my birthday started with a blast. I woke up to the sound of two pairs of feet creeping and sneaking into my bedroom.

"She's still asleep, isn't she?" said a familiar voice in a tone that was nearly hushed

That voice jerked me up in a second.

It was so early in the morning and I had gotten my very first birthday surprise of the year from my two beloved cousins! Those red marks on both sides of my cheeks? Yup, those are their lovely kisses for the birthday girl!

Later in the afternoon, another surprise came by and made my day! This time it was from the sneaky boyfriend and my best friends!

My folks gave me this gorgeous cakes! 

Whilst love gave me those super cute gallons in the shape of '18', Tiffany Blue colored cupcakes, a bouquet of pink roses with pristine white lilies and a secret present that he wrapped himself hehehe!

I had four birthday cakes excluding one stack of doughnuts! Can you imagine how happy I was? Thank you to everyone for making my day so unforgettable! I love you all so much. 

May this year be a blessed and wonderful one!

Friends

Dedicated to my beloved and very often, retarded friends. Friends for 7 years long and still counting!
Not exactly the full team in this picture since some of us live in different island and even in a different continent! Despite being separated by the seas and distance, nothing, let me repeat that, nothing can break apart this inherent bond between us. Here's some picture after a short meet up at my place :)