Hong kong with the family – Part III

sorry that the last post on the family trip to hkg took so long to be up!! LOL. i have been busy with assignments, bday celebrations and of course FLYING. hehe

 

haha… since we are staying in the same area where the famous wanton noodles place i always frequent last time, i just have to buy and let them try. even though now i don’t take meat anymore and obviously i can’t enjoy the tasty wanton anymore, i just have to let them taste how good it is…. cannot find any wanton noodles in singapore as good as this !!!

 

after doing much research on how to get to the victoria peak ourselves,it is pretty troublesome for such a big group to get there ourselves. i know i just have to book a private tour and it turned out pretty good! we have a spacious mini bus to ourselves, and basically we can go anywhere we want within the time frame.

we took a one way peak tram up to the top, highly recommended!! the ride was pretty interesting and i think it is worth trying it out if u are in hong kong.

the view is beautiful!!

can u see how steep the slope is???? quite scary!!!

ah.. finally! we reached the peak!

we visited the madam tussauds too!

the trip was damn tiring. but i guess the time spent with the family is worth it. 🙂

The private tour agency we booked : ( Paid around USD$800 for half day tour, inclusive of tips)

Chris Rowthorn Tours

http://www.hongkongprivatetour.com/index.html

 

 

 

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I know. Bangkok again – Part 1

LOL… finally exams are over, and i have a short break before my school starts again in mid june… and that will be my last 2 modules!! LIKE FINALLY, it has been 3 fugging years, juggling between work and school and now my new business idea.

oh well, i still managed to squeeze in a 4 days 3 night bkk trip with the boy.i hope to do a long holiday in august before i finally call quit to flying! (It has been 7 years !! in the same job!!) Time for a change of environment i guess… wish me luck.

Here are some updates, on the trip..

unfortunately, my flight out to bangkok was delayed for more than 2 hours~~ and the airline gave us some sort of compensation through the distribution of tibits box and they provided some hot refreshments as well.

but what we really wanted was to get there soon, so at least we still have half a day more, however by the time we reached our hotel it was already 6plus in the evening due to traffic jam..Sucks!

Happy us. our first holiday together after MUCH planning. 🙂

i picked a new small boutique hotel near pratunam night market. i love how they designed the whole space, and the location is quite good as well! it is only a 5 minutes walk to the pratunam night market, 10mins walk to platinum mall, 10-15mins walk to bts station. there are a few massage joints around the hotel which are priced reasonably at 200 baht  per hr for foot massage.

However, the area is a little quiet and dark during the night, so have to be careful when walking home in the middle of the night. but we never encounter any incidents during our stay there.

we were greeted by this, the moment we arrived. nice!

the hotel lobby.

The staffs are quite friendly and helped us with our enquiries quite promptly.

the design of the room was kept simple and it was clean. oh well, we only paid SGD$62 a night for the room, so we have no complaints. but there isn’t any nice view outside. LOL. if u are looking for nice view hotel, this isn’t the one for u. but this is a good choice for a budget hotel at a good location.

after a short rest, and it was getting late so we head nearby to the pratunam night market to grab our dinner.

oh man, i missed their street food… phad thai, tom yum soup, grilled seafood. yummmsss..

The tom yum soup stall.

that all for this post.but more updates are coming on the cafes we visited in bangkok on the the next few entries. the cafe hunts were the highlight of the trip, glad we did that cause we had so much fun traveling around and eating non stop. miss bangkok already…. 🙂

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YOU ARE WHAT YOU EAT……

Recently, i been doing a lot of readings on food and nutrition. i find some of the topics in these books are very interesting, and i would like to share them with u all. 

From the book : The  beauty detox solution.

in the first chapter of the book, it talks about how our body is designed and how it affects our diet. According to the author, our human body (generic make up) is very similar to that of primates: monkeys, chimps and gorillas. We shared 99.4% of our DNA in common with Chimpanzees.

Look at our hands,fingers, nails and teeth are just like the chimps. in particular to the teeth, are flattened like the chimps(except the front canines) , which can be used to open up the harder shells of some fruits and our back molars are appropriate for grinding plants for easy digestion.

Carnivorous animals (e.g tiger) on the other hand have short inflexible “fingers”, sharp fangs for hunting and eating raw meat and claws for ripping into the fresh of their prey.But our hands, teeth and bodies are simply not designed for hunting and consuming meat ,we have to use tools, weapons and utensils instead.

okay.. so basically we look different from carnivorous animals,and it turns out that our digestive tract is built differently too. For example, our human liver has a low tolerance for uric acid, a by-product when digesting animals protein.in contrast, the liver of the carnivorous tiger contains uricase which is an enzyme used to break down uric acid. This enzyme gives the tiger’s liver 15 times the capacity to break down uric acid than a human liver.

And not only that, our human intestine is extremely complex and at around 13 feet (just like gorillas). it is designed to be long so that there is adequate time to absorb the minerals and nutrients of fruits and plant matter whereas the tiger has a short intestines so that it can quickly get rid of the acidic waster matter that is the by-product of animal proteins.

so what does all this mean to our diet?? The gorilla is a natural vegetarian with 86% of its diet consists of green leaves, shoots and stems. the gorilla gets all its protein, vitamins and minerals from its plant based diet and is in fact the strongest animal on earth, pound for pound.so what happens when we have the biological make up of a gorilla but we eat like a tiger??—> i find this really makes sense when i was reading this chapter. 

THE KEY TO BEING HEALTHIEST, MORE BEAUTIFUL IS EATING THE WAY YOUR BODY WAS DESIGNED TO EAT!!

and like other strong mammals on earth- the elephant, wild horse, buffalo are all plant eaters.THE STRONGEST ANIMALS ON EARTH ARE ALL VEGETARIANS.These gigantic animals all gets their proteins from amino acids- the building blocks of proteins in plants. i find this really a solid and convincing proof.

what do you think? it is not about cutting meat out of your diet totally, maybe reducing the quantity is good enough. 🙂 maybe what our body needs is just fruits and vegetables to stay young and healthy, and not mask, moisturizers, cleansers.

 

hopefully one day i can still look great without putting on make up!!! lol

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My first little blue box.

 

 

sorry for the lack of updates! been sooooooo busy lately that i have got no time to slack or do up a blog post. will be back soon !

outdated photos from vday- thanks love for the present!

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Outfit: Laid back

Outfit

Sunnies: Grandchild @ bugis junction

Top : Topshop

Shorts: Beach city @ Australia

Bag: Chanel Jumbo

Sandals: Tory Burch

Earrings: Chanel

Rings: Maniamania, Tiffany & Co and others.

Bracelet: Agnes B, Femme X

Sunnies: Grandchild @ Bugis Junction

Love those rings that i recently got from mania mania. 🙂

End the post with a picture of myself. hehe…

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The joy of giving.

it is their smiles that make it all worthwhile. 🙂

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To turn Semi-Vegetarian / Flexitarian or Pesco-Vegetarian?

i have been thinking about turning to a semi-vegetarian/ Pesco-vegetarian for the longest time but to think of giving up my love for SEAFOOD totally (especially prawns) is the hardest thing and this is what stopping me right now of becoming a true strict vegetarian. Recently, the urge got stronger after i visited a wet market in hong kong, it is like now when i eat chicken i will feel like puking ( i know it is probably psychological). but i will tell you why i am feeling this way. ( if u have a weak heart , pls do not read this entry any further. the photos that are coming up might be a little too much for u to take. 🙂 )

Basically almost all the animals are kept alive at the market so that they are “fresh” at the point of purchase, and these animals include chickens and all sort of sea animals. The slaughtering of the chickens cause the biggest impact on me…. once the patrons have picked the chickens they wanted , the seller will silt the chickens’ throat and throw them into this metal bucket where they were left there to bleed and eventually dies. why can’t they just kill the chicken instantly but to let them bleed to death?i don’t understand. it is just so inhumane for me.

i got so emotional seeing the process of them slaughtering the chicken. that i just wished that i could just stop everyone from buying any more chicken from the seller.

Then the next thing i saw totally changes my opinion of how fishes die.i always thought that fishes usually have pretty quick death, like once they are out of water they probably won’t stay alive for long. but i was so wrong….

i don’t know why for some reason, the sellers like to halve some of the bigger fishes.But these fishes are still pretty much alive even though they are like chopped into half!! the hearts of the fishes are still beating and the gills /tails are still moving and swaying. omg… i am not exaggerating and i am not lying. i was so shocked. so shocked.

what is wrong with eating dead chicken and dead fishes? is it really a must to buy “FRESH” chicken and fishes? i just don’t understand. like what’s wrong with these people, they don’t see the suffering of these animals at all??

 

then the rest of the smaller fishes are kept alive. once they are picked and sold, the seller will then kill the fishes on the spot. the trip to the market was just too much for me to take, i wished that there were something i could do to stop these animals from dying in such an inhumane way.

 

And so, lately i been thinking about cutting down my intake of meat and turning to a semi-vegetarian. i don’t even know if there is such a semi-vegetarian diet, so i did a little online research. Apparently, there is really such a semi vegetarian diet and Pesco-vegetarian diet and it seems to be getting more popular because of its health benefits, i thought it would be nice to share what i have found here.

 

Semi- vegetarian/ Flexitarian — is used to describe those who eats a mostly vegetarian diet but occasionally takes meat.

 

Pesco-Vegetarian — is a vegetarian diet free of meat but includes fishes.

 

oh well, i think i don’t really want to belong to any of the group above. cause i really hope i can stop eating all the diff type of meats and fishes. maybe, i will still take clams, scallops and prawns.i am not sure. but first thing most, i know i want to stop eating meat. so i guess i am taking baby steps , one step at a time.

 

then lately, there is someone who been telling me that it is not healthy for me to be picky with food. i got really angry at first cause i don’t see not eating lamb, beef, tomatoes, carrots, banana and lady’s finger would pose any significant health problems.

 

so i wanted to find out if it is true. then i came across this article while i was researching on the topic of turning vegetarian.

 

Benefits of becoming semi-vegetarian!!

• The health benefits of people who consume a plant based diet and eat less meat are widely known and include:   a lower risk of cancer by as much as 20 – 50% and heart disease by over 20%.
• have lower cholesterol levels, improve their blood sugar control and have lower rates of obesity.
• By becoming a semi-vegetarian you will also be helping some animals, since you’ll be eating less of them, but of course some animals will still end up on your dinner plate.  The average person will eat 880 chickens in their lifetime (Source:  How Much Food Will You Eat in Your Lifetime?  That’s a lot of chickens.  So if you reduced your chicken consumption in half, you would be saving 440 chickens.

i know that many people believed that when we stop taking certain types of food, our body will not get all the necessary nutrients. but we can always get alternative food source to get the nutrients we eat.

 

it was said that vegetarians who eat no meat, fish, poultry or dairy foods (vegans) face the risk of missing out on certain nutrients. Some of these are iron,folic acid, vitamin B12, vitamin D, calcium and zinc etc.

 

The following is a list of alternative good plant sources for these key nutrients:

• iron. This is found in legumes, tofu, dark green leafy vegetables, dried fruit, seeds, whole grain products and iron-fortified cereals and breads.
• vitamin B12. This is found in fortified foods including soymilk, vegetarian burger patties and cereals.
• vitamin D. The body makes this vitamin in the presence of sunlight. It is also found in fortified foods such as cereals, margarine and soy beverages.
• calcium. This is found in tofu, broccoli, seeds, nuts, kale, legumes, greens, okra, rutabaga, calcium-fortified soymilk, calcium-enriched juices and grain products. It is also found in tortillas made from lime-processed corn and in fortified cereals.
• zinc. This is found in whole grains such wheat germ and bran, whole-wheat breads and cereals, legumes, seeds, nuts and tofu.

so in other words, even if i stop eating certain food doesn’t mean I AM NOT HEALTHY. it all depends on how i plan my diet to make it balanced.

And the main concern of eating a meatless diet would be about meeting the nutritional needs for protein, vitamin B12 and other nutrients that are typically supplied by meat, but taking Dairy products and fortified dairy substitutes made with soy help round out a healthy pesco-vegetarian diet by supplying additional protein and essential nutrients such as calcium, B vitamins and vitamins A and D. SO it has been proven once again, that even if u eats everything doesn’t mean it is best for your health.

i really hope i can do it. even though it is ilke me doing something small for the better of the world but i actually feel great doing it.  i hope i can endure and have a strong will this time round. 🙂

 

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Outfit : mustard sweater

 

Outfit

Top : Simply wonderful ( Los angeles)

shorts: beach city ( Australia)

 

 

lately i went crazy  with sweaters. i think i bought around 8 sweaters in the span of 2 months. haha. and now i seems to fall in love with mustard stuff. i just bought a mustard scarf yesterday. good for my up coming london trip. 🙂 

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Outfit : Military lion. ( Instagram photos )

 

 

outfit

Cap: Taiwan shilin night market

top : bangkok

military vest : bangkok

shorts: beach city (Australia)

socks: Japan

Accessories: Femme X , Mania Mania (ring), Square bangles from Japan, silver rings from New york Flea.

 

i jus came back from bangkok 2days ago. other than falling sick from the food in bkk, the trip was great.The shopping, the massages,the partying and the great company make the trip awesome! will be posting up the photos of the trip soon! 🙂

 

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Champagne makes the night easier.

 

the night was a little easier with the champagne! i was feeling a lot happier and trouble free for that 4 hrs.thanks for the company ladies… 🙂

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