Cantonese style fried noodle

Dinner for tonight:



I used the instant noodle I bought from Jusco last night:


1. Boil the noodle till it's cooked, rinse with cool water and leave it aside.
2. Stir-fry some chopped garlic (for fragrance), together with some sliced capsicums (green, red and yellow), celery, and Shitake mushroom.
3. Add some water (depends on how much gravy you would like), add some soy sauce and pepper.
4. When it's boiling, beat an egg into it, mix it.
5. Add some corn starch to make the gravy thicker.
6. Pour the vegetables with gravy onto the cooked noodle.
7. Eat :)

The story of Warrior (Pose)

A warrior went to a yogi wanted to learn yoga from him. The yogi told the warrior to stand while waiting for him to medidate. The yogi medidated for a hundred years and the warrior was still standing strong (in his warrior pose). He has learned yoga - he learned to endure to be strong and to be determined in doing what he has decided.

Yoga is not only about asanas, it's about the way we live our life.

Iyengar Workshop with Riana A. Singgih

First thing she asked the class was anyone practices Iyengar yoga. No one responded. She laughed. She explained briefly what is Iyengar yoga and started the class with the "Invocation to Patanjali", she said those who would like to chant can follow her line-by-line, but after her first line, everyone kept quiet and she continued till the end. Again she laughed, no one heard of it? I did, in Nicola's and Amanda's classes, typical Iyengar style of starting class. But I just followed the 3 OMs.

The first pose was Adho Mukha Svanasana, she spoke in Sanskrit. The class looked at her. Third laugh, you don't know the Sanskrit names? Dog pose :p She didn't sound too sarcastic, she was just surprise (at least to me), as this is a workshop, she must be expecting some 'serious' Yoga practitioners. But in fact, most of us treat Yoga as a form of physical exercise. Chanting, meditation or Mudras(hand gestures) are too religious or spiritual. Anyway, it was fun that everytime she said a Sanskrit name, she followed by the english name of the pose, and sometimes she asked "this is what you called right?" :D

A lot of corrections on alignments are done. She walked around the room with her 'forceful' instructions and I was very sure everyone only started to adjust themselves or looked themselves into the mirror when she mentioned something.

Some poses needed a partner, I went alone so I had to make friend with a girl seated next to me, but she's an extremely quiet girl, we didn't even exchange names, merely following instructions.

We did Downward Dogs, Standing Forward Bends, Triangles, Warrior IIs, a few Vinyasas and Seated Forward Bends & Twists. At our last 1/2 hour, we were out of time, we could choose to do either backbends or inversions. Eventually we proceeded with Headstand. Everyone in the class was adventurous, some did it in the center of the room, some against the wall. She spotted incorrect alignments in all these poses and explained how to adjust ourselves and how to help the others. Correct alignment is very important to prevent injuries and to obtain the benefits out of the poses.

Most sports (at least for those I've tried) are trained with correct postures before you attempt to score. Bowlers simply throw the ball to practice the correct style before learning to aim the pins; golfers swing their golf sticks hitting the air to practice the correct posture before learning to hit the ball with the correct strength. Correct postures in Yoga (and in our daily life) is even more important because that's how we score the game.

Finally we ended the class with, of course, Shavasana and 3 OMs. Tired, but very beneficial.

First scarf

Thanks to Karen for her encouragement and thanks to Youtube for its great videos (videos from CyberSeams are the best!), I've completed my first knitting project - a simple scarf of Garter stitch. Videos made learning so much easier, I admire people who learned from books with just 2D images.


Garter stitch - every row, front and back have the same pattern.



The scarf looks OK on the whole, but I know a few flaws. I can't hide the frayed knots of the yarns, I can only 'adjust' them so they are only visible on 1 side of the scarf, that becomes the back of the scarf. And binding-off was the most tricky part, everything was good until the 2nd last stitch :( I didn't know how to save it. However, I learn from my mistakes, hopefully next one will be better :)

I used 3 balls of yarn for that, it's kind of short, so I've prepared 5 balls for my next project. Knit stitch on every row bores me, I'm going to try the Stockinette Stitch this time.

For a better breathing

It's been hazy nowadays. Today's class emphasized on chest/lungs expansion. Most backbends do the trick.


Pigeon pose.

We ended our class with Kapalabhati, a breathing technique to cleanse our nasal passage and lungs, eliminate more carbon dioxide and take in more oxygen, giving ourselves a fresh mind to continue our daily routine.