melon's blog

I'm in pain!

I have no idea what happened to my foot, but since yesterday afternoon it hurts a lot. I don't recall myself injuring my foot at all. It hurts so much that I can feel the pain when I walk or just stand on my foot. My foot isn't swollen or anything, no visible clues to suggest the cause of the pain. The only thing I can do is to hope that it will go away very soon, otherwise I will have to go and see a doctor to search for a cure.

posted by dr. melon @ 4:45 pm 0 comments

A relaxing lunch

Today I was planning to have lunch with Wing at the "Queen's Head & Artichoke", but when we got there the place was closed for refurbishment. I was a bit annoyed by this as I was looking forward to taste the "tapas" there. Oh well, we had to find another place, so we ended up in another restaurant called "Eat & Two Veg". Yep, you've guessed it, it's a vegetarian restaurant. At first we thought it is a gastro pub, but it is more like a restaurant than a pub, but you could still just go there for a drink. The food was'nt bad, quite a large portion. The atmosphere wasn't bad beither ut the noise of the fruits juicer was unbearable. It sounded like a place taking off. The take-off times vary depending on how many customers ordered freshly squeezed juices. We didn't have the juices but went for the smoothies instead. I think we made the wrong choice as the smoothies were not freshly prepared, they were just "innocent" smoothies. I could have bought that from "Waitrose" whenever I want. I guess I wouldn't mind going to this place again, but I know what I won't be ordering next time.

posted by dr. melon @ 7:43 pm 0 comments

Visited countries

I came across this web site World66, which allows you to generate a map of the countries you have visited. Here below is the map of the countries I have visited so far.



Click here to create your own visited country map

posted by dr. melon @ 10:24 pm 0 comments

Tsunami

It is very sad to watch the news reporting the disaster due to the massive tsunami caused by the big earthquake. There are constant updates on the number of casualties on each news report. I guess most people are like me, not realising the extent of the disaster until the new figures of death are announced. The only thing we can do now is to make donations to charities to help the massive aid effort. If you wish to give donations, you could donate to charities such as Red Cross or Oxfam. Or if you live outside the UK, you could donate to your country's Red Cross or Oxfam.

posted by dr. melon @ 6:36 pm 0 comments

The Sales

I wasn't planning to go to the sales to buy stuff, but we (me & my family) went into central London today to browse. We went to Selfridges and I bought a pillow which was on sale. It's not just any kind of pillow. It is a very expensive TEMPUR pillow. It was on sale and even with the 20% discount, it cost 63 GBP! I hope it is worth it as I have been having neck pains from sleep, possibly due to the pillow I use. Let's hope it will be comfy and alleviate my neck pains.

Apart from the sales, I've been mainly staying at home cooking and baking. It took a long time to prepare the Christmas dinner, and it didn't turn out very well. Starter was too salty because of the parmesan cheese. Main course was too dry because of the over-cooked beef fillet. The only thing that turned out very nice was the dessert - coconut pannacotta with roasted pineapples. I also made fruits tarts, cheesecakes, swiss rolls & jellies.

I have to find things to do for the next few days, coz I won't be back at work until 4th January.

posted by dr. melon @ 5:15 pm 0 comments

Time flies...

It wasn't that long ago since I got back from my holiday in Hong Kong (HK) & China, and now Christmas is coming next week! Time goes really quickly this year. As I get older, time seems to go quicker every year.

Anyway, I had a great time during my holiday and if some of you have checked out my new online photo albums, you would have noticed that I took a huge amount of photos that you'll probably fall asleep after checking out the first few days. The reason I took so many photos was to record what I've been doing during the holiday. I think this visit to HK was much more relaxing for me. I dunno, but somehow I am now a more relaxed person than 3 years ago.

The highlight of my holiday has to be the SMCS1982 gathering with my primary classmates. I don't know how the others felt about the gathering, I was really happy to see the people I knew many years ago, and some I haven't seen for over 17 years. It is of course impossible to remember everyone's faces and names, but still, it was a good opportunity for each of us to get acquainted with each other. I'm certain that I would love to organise another gathering during my next visit to HK.

The other highlight of my holiday was when I went hiking with my primary classmate Louisa. It was a lastminute thing and for those of you who knows me well, I'm not someone who does thing lastminute. I only met up with Louisa for lunch the day before the hike when she asked if I would like to go hiking with her and her friends. Normally, I would have said no as I never planned things so late. I don't know what happened to me, but I was really keen on this idea and gave Louisa a call that evening to confirm that I will go. I'm really glad that I went. I had a wonderful time seeing the countryside - a rarity in HK. The weather was great and the people were very nice and helpful. Although I had many scratches and knee pains from the hike, I thoroughly enjoyed myself. I'm sure I would love to go hiking in HK again if I'm given the opportunity.

There were many other highlights from my holiday, if you want to know what I was up to, you just have to check out my many photos and read the infrequent captions I added to some of the photos.

Now I have to plan what to cook on Christmas Day. It has become a tradition in recent years that my Mum has Christmas Day off, so she doesn't need to carry out any cooking duties. So I'll be in charge cooking dinner on Christmas Day. This year would be differnt from previous years, as Connie and her family won't be coming over. So I should have more time to prepare and cook something different. We normally have roast beef, but I want to cook something different and possibly a three-course meal. I need to rummage through my cook books to find something that's not going to be too challenging. I don't want to ruin the ingredients and end up with nothing to eat as all the shops and restaurants will be closed that day. I don't want to end up eating canned chopped ham and baked beans!

posted by dr. melon @ 11:07 pm 0 comments