Wakes up to a brand new day

One of my greatest joy in life is waking up in the morning seeing BaiBai beside me wakes up at the same time and starts his get-out-of-bed stretching routine - Downward Facing followed by Upward Facing Dog. It was after I attended my Yoga TTC and started observing him, I realised it is really the fact that ancient yogis imitating the animals' most comfortable and beneficial pose as yoga pose.

After his stretch, he'll be sitting and smiling at me, waiting for me to open the door for him to go out for his business. It's like no matter what makes him feel sad or down the night before, he's now again opens his eyes and heart to welcome a brand new day, hoping for a great day ahead.

Sunday @ Pavilion KL

Mum was here for the past weekend and will be here for the rest of the week. To compensate her home-alone-stay for the rest of the week, we filled our weekend with outings:

Sunway Pyramid on Friday night. The main characters of a new Taiwan drama - Hot Shot were there to publicize the show. I forgotten to bring my camera along, but my favourite actor - Jerry Yan didn't come, so nothing lost.

The Curve + Ikea + Ikano on Saturday.

Pavilion KL on Sunday. Don't really like shopping there as everything is branded and expensive. We decided to go there just because mum has never been there.

I often shop here, but seriously that's not the reason of my nick name.

Went to the Food Republic for tea time. Spotted this chandeliers made of recycled mineral water bottles.

Mum's favourite tea-time choice - tea + toast. This place was so crowded that she queued up for 1/2 hour before getting her orders.

One of my favourite fruit - longan, in the Leng Chee Kang dessert soup.

Morning Hot Yoga

Friday is the only day I'm free in the morning to go for class at YC Puchong. For the whole week, the 8AM class there was Hatha, which I really like. But today was Slim Hot. I still went for it because who knows next week there might be no more classes?

Kim set the room temperature to 36°C, not too warm and I enjoyed it. It's actually quite nice to be in a Hot class early in the morning as my body was still stiff, the heat helped a lot in all the stretching and bending, and having a good sweat in the morning feels good for my brain. After class, I feel fresh, happier and lighter (mentally of course, slimming wasn't my intention at all for this class).

Thank god I struggled to wake up from bed this morning :)

Yoga is about feeling good

A friend in office told me he's planning to withdraw from my class because he felt it's too advance for him. Sadly to say, they have only 1 class with me every week, I plan every class of mine intermediate so that it won't bore the regulars, at the same time it won't scare the beginners away. I don't make 1 of my class of the week beginner and another advance to provide flexibility to some that might not make it for Tuesday, they can come for Wednesday's class (or vise versa).

I always tell my class, it is absolutely alright to skip any poses in the class if they really can't do it, or don't feel good, or simply don't feel like it, but it's good to just try. Providing easier options/variations seems to work for some students but the competitive ones usually push themselves to be the "best". We should always ignore the peer pressure among the students in the class as everyone is different. But of course, I didn't persuade him further as he knows what is best for him. Just feel that I should do better in future to not demotivate anybody in the class but instead to make people feel good about themselves.

Recycled Yoga Mat Bag

I always wanted to make more bags for my yoga mats, and I found free raw material for it - an old table cloth. Thought it would be a good idea to recycle.



It was a nice size where I can make 4 bags out of it - cut into 4 pieces equally not even need to measure.





I kept the fringe at the ends of the cloth as a decoration of the bag.



Since I have extras, I tried different patterns for the bag's opening.


Mum prefers this - the simplest one as she just needs a carriage for her mat, nothing fancy, and it's airy for the mat.


I wanted to make some button holes around and weave the ribbon in the holes which can be pulled to tighten the opening (something like shoelace), but mum forgotten how to sew the button holes. So I just fixed the center of the ribbon at one end, and tie it up to close the bag.


Lastly is another tradittional bolster-case-pattern.

White flowers

While waiting for a carpool friend to get off-work this evening, I went around the office garden and took some photos of flowers.

The first photo that I took and set as my desktop wallpaper not simply because it has BaiBai in it.

Green Yoga, Yoga Forever

As I promised myself, I will buy the YZ 99 voucher. I have nothing to lose as the voucher is valid for unlimited classes for 30 days. But I do hope that all these money goes to the correct people.





And finally I got my permanent membership card last week. I thought I won't get it anymore (or anytime soon) based on the condition of YZ right now. It came at the time when I least expect it.





But it "arranged" my name wrongly (somehow I don't know why it got messed up). The front-desk asked whether I mind and I want to let them change it for me, I said it's OK, not a big deal, as long they can still recognize me by the photo :)

Re-practicing in YZ

It's glad to know that all centers of YZ have reopened this week. For the whole week, I have no empty slots in my schedule except for this morning, so I went for an early class before starting my work at home.

Door is opened as usual, front-desk checked my membership card as usual (no hard-selling on RM99 vouchers), students rushed into class getting a best seat as usual. What was unusual, is the topic of the crowded students. Everybody was chatting/discussing/explaining about the use of the RM99 vouchers. Some treat it as donation to the center, some treat it as an encouragement to the teachers and other staffs (It is actually to be pooled as a fund for the salary of teachers and staffs for this month - explanation from Zen). Yoga class room is no longer a peaceful place.

It supposed to be a Yin class, but Zen made it a Yin-Yang class knowing that many of us would enjoy a more dynamic class after a long rest. She was professional to maintain the quality of class and her care to the students though everything she (and other teachers) do for this month is out of willingness, for free.

Although this is the first time I attended her class, I was touched by her sincerity and determination. I'm so sure that I'm going to buy the RM99 voucher, not for my own use, but to spread the love of yoga, the love of all the remaining teachers here.

My new camera

I always wanted to get a new camera, a smaller one that allows me to easier point-and-shoot. After months of considerations, I still haven't bought one because actually my current one still works fine (waiting for a better reason).

Last week mum mentioned that she wants to get a camera. I suggested to give her my Sony DSC-P8 and I get a new one :p

I decided to get the Canon Ixus 860 because it is said to be 1 of the top compact camera now, even it has been on the market for 1 year.

Went to PC Fair yesterday and the salesgirl at the Canon booth told me, the price has dropped to RM999 (originally RM1299) with some freebies - 2GB + 1GB SD card, leather casing, screen protector, and metal neck strap.

Another promotion for this camera was RM1099 with 4GB + 1GB and other same freebies. At that time, I didn't know what's the price of a 2GB SD card to consider which is a better deal. She adviced me to take the RM999 deal because if I think 3GB is not enough in the future, I can easily get more for cheaper price as it's something that the price drops a lot. I took her advice. (And later I went to check the price of SD cards, 2GB for RM50 :p) By using credit card to pay, I have to be charged extra 1.5% for service charge. She was nice to round up the figure for me to RM1010, and gave me another metal neck strap as compensation. Her service was good and the price is right, it didn't took me long to decide to pay for it.