Happy Leap Day!

I've always felt that it's such an amazing feat to spend an extra day in a year once every 4 years. The 29th of February is here again! So wishing everyone a happy leap day mwahaha. What was I doing 4 years ago on 2012'th leap day? Okay so looking back I was back in Indonesia already for holiday, back when I was still in year 2! In 2008 I remember watching the Singapore movie "The Leap Years". I love the soundtrack of the movie haha. I spent the past 3 leap days in Singapore. Now I'm back home again.

Anyho, it's a special day of the year, so let's spend it blogging about some stuff!

 People mountain people sea

I wanted to blog last night cause it was ji-it meh once again here. This year however, the sedans of the deities are not being paraded around the town. They were just being displayed inside the temple. So I went to the temple in the afternoon. Just in time for a short lion and dragon dance performance. And then prayed a bit and went home again. It was less festive, but it didn't deter people from coming over to the temple. Here are some photos I took yesterday! Oh and I brought my film camera too.

 The Sedans of the deities on display

It started to drizzle at the end of the event so people were dispersing quickly. Except for the devotees who went inside the temple to pray. Sometimes events like this remind me why I love my hometown so much. Seeing people I know (or strangers) and chatting with them at the temple is pretty wonderful.

Alright nothing much to talk about after that, went to the farm for deliveries again! As for today, it was a pretty hectic Monday as usual, made more exciting with the end of the month. The end of every month is always an exciting moment for all of us here mwahaha. Perhaps for all Indonesians.

Let's talk about the wonderful music I discovered in this shortest month of the year!

Great Music of February:

- Youth by Troye Sivan

- Wild by Troye Sivan

- Suburbia by Troye Sivan

- An Coire Bhreacain by Calum Stewart & Heikki Bourgault

- Let It Happen by Tame Impala

- The Less I Know The Better by Tame Impala

- Naive Dream by The Mary Onettes 

- TOUCH BY SHURA

- リサフランク420 / 現代のコンピュー by Macintosh Plus

My pre-ordered Troye Sivan's album Blue Neighbourhood is here! I fell in love with his songs the first time I listened to his performance at Jimmy Kimmel back in December I think. I pre-ordered his album but it only arrived on like the 4th of February, two months after its release! I love the album so much. But Youth, Wild, Fools and Suburbia gotta be my favourite tracks. He's so so good. One more artist that I believe will make it far in life. Inspiring, talented, and I need to see him live.

Same goes for Tame Impala album too! Bought them from Amazon cause I can't find it anywhere here. I really love this album from them too. Everything seems to flow through in every track. I discovered Tame Impala back in 2013 when I first heard them at Laneway Singapore. They won the Brits for international group! I really think they deserve it :) Congratulations guys.

I discovered the song An Coire Bhreacain from YouTube, through the BBC channel! It's such a wonderful celtic (?) song! Love the energy and the melody of the song. As for Naive Dream by The Mary Onettes, I discovered it at Askara bookstore in Jakarta haha, they were playing the song when I was there. Quickly Soundhound-ed it and got them in iTunes :P Love the whole umm 80s? vibe of the song. 

Okay I discovered Shura's Touch like almost 2 years ago. But she finally released it as a single!!! I'm so happy to have it on my iPod haha. After replaying the song endlessly on YouTube and Soundcloud. I seriously can't wait for her album to drop :D リサフランク420 / 現代のコンピュー  by Macintosh Plus is definitely my gateway to Vaporwave music. I've heard of the term before. But I don't know what kind of music it is (I didn't even know it was a genre until last Saturday). Some Vaporwave music are really nice. Some of them... I quite don't get it. Hope to discover more music of this genre!

Alrighty that's all for the music of February. As usual, February felt like a month that didn't happen at all. Probably is because of the lesser amount of days, or well probably because I'm getting older and time seems to flow more quickly. Nevertheless, I hope you had a wonderful February! Lets March towards an awesome remaining of 2016. Have a great week everyone :)

Five-Spice Vegetarian Balls

Alright as promised, I'm going to share with you my 5-spice vegetarian meatballs recipe! I actually came up with this recipe after trying to make some falafels. Instead of using curry powder, I changed the seasoning to 5-spice seasonings, the one you can get at supermarkets! Here goes:

Five Spice Vegetarian Balls 

Ingredients:

- 500gr chickpeas

- 3 cloves garlic

- 3 cloves shallots

- 5 dried shitake mushroom (or fresh ones!)

- 1 carrot, boiled and diced finely

- 1 teaspoon of cornstarch

- Five spice seasoning to taste

- Salt and pepper

Directions:

If you are using dried chickpeas like me, soak the chickpeas in water overnight. Make sure you have at least 6 - 10cm of water above the chickpeas. If you are using canned ones just use them right away. Same goes for the shitake mushroom. After soaking them in water, dice the mushroom finely so that you can incorporate them into the crushed chickpeas. Same for carrots too!

I don't have a food processor so I blend the garlic, shallots and salt together in a pestle and mortar into a fine paste. I smash and crush the peace out of the chickpeas (get what I mean?) using a huge pestle and mortar too haha. Blend the chickpeas until they are almoooost fine. Do use a food processor if you have it! Anyway for the consistency it's really up to your preference. For me I like it not too fine, so that my "meatballs" have a bit of texture inside it. Once everything is blended, combine everything!

I put everything in a plastic container and use my wonderful hand to mix everything in. Fun fact: Some Indonesians believe that your food will taste nicer if you mix them using only one hand, and not both. Also please don't use your left hand. It's considered the "dirty" hand.

Once everything is combined, make into balls about 3/4 of the size of a ping pong ball. You can make them into a patty too to make burgers. Anyway one trick I learned from my sister-in-law is to fry one piece first to give it a taste and see if you lack any seasoning. When I cooked these I find that my mixture lacks in five-spice fragrance so I added more. Fry these balls in batches until they turn golden brown. Best served when it's hot! Either with chili sauce or garlic-soy dipping sauce :)

There you have it! The first of my recipe series (gonna label it as MVR - My Vegetarian Recipe). Sorry for the lack of photos, I might consider taking photos of the steps taken and include them. I will update you with more recipes! Happy cooking, and I hope you like the recipe. Try to eat less meat alright :P

Sundried Tomato

Getting really creative with my title eh? Haha. Anyway I made some pasta with sundried tomato pesto and it tasted really really good! So good that I made it for lunch and dinner haha. It's pretty easy, just pasta of your choice, mixed with umm store-bought pesto. This time round I tried using a pasta called radiatori. I've never seen that pasta before, I bought it when I was in Jakarta last time. It has a very unique shape which helps the sauce to bind to the pasta. So yum.

I've been pretty busy as usual the past few days in this week. And thus I haven't been blogging! I'm really trying hard to not blog once a week. If I blog once a week I'll only have 4 posts a month. That will be 48 posts in this year. Very very bad. So I've been thinking a lot about how to revive my blog again. I really don't want 2013 to repeat itself. So little blog posts, I feel like I neglect my blog.

Although yes, I told myself that I don't want to "force" myself to blog. It doesn't feel nice and the content won't be well written either. So yup, I'm brainstorming ideas in which I will blog about something every month. It doesn't have to be "forced", because it will be something that I'll do differently every month. Well so far these are the ideas that I''m thinking of doing monthly:

1. New vegetarian recipe 

Well although this is my 56th day of going vegetarian, I've tried a couple of vegetarian recipes that I come across online, or something totally bizarre that I come up with myself haha. So yup I'm thinking of sharing one or more recipe every month to share with you the veggie love.

2. Things I learned (TIL) 

So last year, during my 2015 recap, I was feeling a bit lost of what to write. So this year I'm going to start labeling any new things, thoughts or experiences that I learned and compile them by the end of the year. I think it's gonna help figuring and sorting out my thoughts throughout the year too :)

3. My favourite things 

I've been wanting to do this. Just a post dedicated to my favourite things. Music, food, places, objects and more. I did this back in 2011/12 I think. But for a short period of time.

4. Q & A 

This is a crazy idea, but I was thinking of letting people decide what I'm going to blog. You ask a question, I'll blog about it and post it online. Inspired by Casey Neistat's (and other YouTubers') Q&A session. Although well no one reads my blog hahaha.

Yup so far these are the ideas that I come up with. I'm going to start it before this month ends! I'll be posting a recipe of my 5-spice vegetarian balls tomorrow. Not sure if I will post them online. I'm a very shy person haha. But I guess it's great to share your thoughts and ideas to other people. We'll see!

Thousand Buddhas

This week has been a very very hectic and bustling week for me. And I am so glad that it's the weekend now! It feels so weird because I've been feeling pretty pre-occupied from Monday till like Friday. To have nothing to do on Friday night, I was haunted with the feeling that I have forgotten to do something, or that I have something to do the next day and so on. It's... Quite bad.

Anyway I wanna talk about something interesting today! 

So on Friday I attended a prayer session at the temple, for people whose Chinese zodiac "clash" on this year. I'm a monkey, and monkeys clash in monkey year. Together with tigers and and pigs. At the temple we chanted a Sutra that reads about the different names of many Buddhas. I know there's a Sutra about the 88 names of different Buddhas. But I am sure that we chanted more than 88!

And also some of the Buddhas have interesting names. For example, Buddha of the wisdom sea, courageous power Buddha, moonlight Buddha and even "leaving mountain" Buddha (direct translation from Chinese 离山佛). I wasn't quite sure of the names, or the meaning of these names. But I'm pretty sure that there is a deeper meaning to the names, and also the Sutra itself.

But after the prayer session I remember an article I read a few years back about how in life, we will actually meet a lot of different Buddhas. Or well we meet people who are "Buddhas" to us. And I also remember the saying of "Be a Boddhisatva to yourself and others". Basically be awesome people that alleviate the suffering of others. Be a mindful person that help others. Be enlightening to others.

For example I believe that when I meet random strangers (or people whom I know) that help me in times of need, I have this belief that they were someone I helped in my past life, and now they are repaying their karma by helping me. At the same time when I help someone, I'm just paying my karma to the particular person for something that they've done to me in our past lives haha.

And of course we do good deeds so that we'll receive good karma in the future/next life.

So perhaps the Sutra above is chanted in the hope that we'll meet these different Buddhas in our lives, that will help and guide us. Maybe, just maybe, the "leaving mountain" Buddha is a Buddha who disguised himself as a traveler we'll meet when we're trekking in a mountain, that will guide us when we get lost. Get it? Well I'm just hoping that we'll meet these different Buddhas throughout this year, throughout our lives to ensure a good passage till we all die.

And please remember that we should also be a Buddha to others in times of need! :D

The Buddha, A Buddha, is not a God or someone with superpower. A Buddha is basically an enlightened person. Someone who is not deluded by ego, free from the grasping of suffering, and always mindful. I think we can use our mindfulness to help others. And hopefully clear their delusions.

Anyho, be it a good, bad, so-so year ahead, always remember that we are the ones that make this year an amazing or bad ones. Just take these "precautions" as sort of a reminder to be extra careful? Do great things, be compassionate, help others, and great things will come to you. 

Have a great week people :) And remember to be a Buddha to yourself and others.

Cold Spell

The weather has been crazily cold this past week. Well it's been raining everyday, for quite a long time. It doesn't really rain hard, just an ongoing rain/drizzle for the whole day and thus at night, the air is so cold. I love cold weather cause it's perfect for snuggling inside your blanket while watching YouTube videos haha. But I don't like it when it gets too cold. So the jacket comes to the rescue!

It's quite weird how the weather is in such a weird pattern. At the end of December, it was humid and warm. Then it started raining a bit in January, and it was warm again at the end. And now it's been raining everyday. Perhaps it's the end of the monsoon and the beginning of a new one, and all these rains are just the "leftovers" as I'd like to call it. The weather is also bizarre in other parts of Indonesia!

Places that are not supposed to flood is now flooded (up to 2 metres in some places :O). Jakarta, which usually floods, is not flooded. I guess the current city mayor has done a great job in the past years! Praying for everyone affected. It's pretty terrifying to see the situation in the affected areas. Was reading the news and the flood was caused by an endless pour of rain for 2-3 days. Wow.

No one can predict nature I guess.

It's been a pretty hectic-ish week for me and I'm kinda enjoying it winding down as the weekend approaches. Come to think of it, Sunday-Wednesday are like the busiest days of the week for me. Saturday night is a busy night for me as well. So I'm like left with Thursday and Friday where things kinda chilled down. I still love Saturday because well, I don't have much to do then (except at night).

I've always believed that the older we grow, the lesser time we have for ourselves. So I always treasure these alone-times. Blogging, watching videos, listening to music, reading etc. I really miss the time spent alone. Like those days in Singapore. But oh well life gotta move on, ever changing.

Alrighty I guess I shall stop here. Might blog again tomorrow! See ya and have a great weekend :)

PS: Currently loving the new Tame Impala album, Currents!

Happy Chinese New Year 2567!

 The cool kids

First of all I want to wish you a happy happy Chinese New Year of the monkey! It's our year yo mwahaha. I mean, I'm a monkey so yeah haha. I wish you great health, happiness and prosperity in this coming year ahead! And I hope you had a great day with your loved ones. I can't believe the year of the goat has ended now! Well it was an alright year I guess, and it seems like the year of the monkey is going to be an exciting year for me. Hopefully it'll be an awesome year! :)

This is like the quietest and most chill CNY I've ever experienced haha. Not sure why there were not many people who came and visited us. Not being anti-social but... I kinda like it haha. Well it's always a busy and bustling day for us on this day. So it's kind of nice to have a pretty chill day.

My whole family gathered on Sunday (CNY Eve) and it was such a lovely day. All of my cousins gathered for the yearly reunion lunch (not dinner yes) and it was a pretty awesome afternoon. It feels so weird to see all of us growing up really. Some of us are already married/engaged and my cousin brought her lovely daughter! She's so cute. Spent the day chatting and just chilling with my cousins.

I woke up earlier in the morning too to cook! Decided to try and make vegetarian five-spice balls for the lunch as well. Well it's usually made with pork but I made the vegetarian version, substituting it with chickpeas! I feel it's a success. But I feel something is quite missing. But my aunts were saying it tastes like meatball so it's kind of a success? Haha. Shall post the recipe soon :)

I went to the temple in the evening cause my dad asked me to bring some fruits for the deities at the temple. It was packed! It was also my first time going to the temple during CNY eve so it was an eye opener. Many people were praying, and some others were waiting to see a lion dance performance.

Continued chilling with the cousins again throughout the night, strumming guitars and also helping one of my cousins with her assignment on fungi hahaha. Oh man I don't know like 95% of the questions. Thankfully my others cousins still remember on this topic and they were helping out too. I helped her by translating the questions from English to Indonesian. Pretty lovely evening I must say!

After doing the midnight prayers to the ancestors, we give out the angpao as usual and then... My brothers-in-law were drinking whisky with my uncle haha. I decided to join in with my cousins and drank 3 shots. I hate whisky oh my goodness. I'll stick with vodka and beer. Also it was my first time being so drunk in front of my parents. I hope they are not shocked... Haha. Well I'm a quiet drunk so I didn't do and talk anything funny. I was just quiet throughout the rest of the night. 

As for today well my aunt, sister and I were on standby at my grandmother's house to receive guests. But like I said above there were not many guests today. Perhaps it's the rain, perhaps it's the long weekend, not sure why either but hey, at least we were not so packed and busy haha. Usually by 10 AM people would start coming over. But today there were no guests till like 12.30 PM I think.

You know they say what you do on the first day of the lunar new year, will be a reflection of how the rest of the year will go. So I suppose I'll have a pretty chill year? Haha. Well whatever it is, I'm just going to make this year the best lunar new year yet! Continuing doing great things, doing good things to other people, I'm pretty sure you won't go wrong in life. Do good, think good, and you'll receive good.

It's supposed to be a not-so-good year for the monkeys since we clash with the grand duke of the year. Well I guess let's just not do more bad things in this year.

Alright once again I just wanna wish you a happy Chinese New Year! May this new year of the monkey be a great year for you, filled with health, happiness and prosperity :)

Spring Cleaning

Today was a great and chill Saturday because... I finally did my spring cleaning! Believe it or not, I've been telling myself "I will do my spring cleaning next Chinese New Year" for two years in a row. I've been procrastinating and uhh feeling pretty lazy to do it back in 2014 and 2015 but this year I finally did it! Haha. My room is very neat now. Well not extremely. The thing about spring cleaning is that it really gives you more idea to organise your stuff and keep your room neat. I'm almost there.

It's been such a long time since I had a pretty chill Saturday. Well maybe it's because I make it to become such chill Saturday haha. And also there was no work to be done! That's when the chill part comes. Cleaning my room was alright. Vacuumed the crap out of my room, throw unwanted things and organise the things remaining heh. I still have no idea why my room is freaking dusty.

A friend once recommended me to close the windows/doors/openings so that no dust from outside can enter. I've been doing that now, where I close the window during the day and only let air in during the night. It kinda helps. But not really in a good way. There are still dusts lying around the room. I've been cleaning my work table once a week and that's a great way to keep things clean. It's the random and open spots in my room that are super dusty. I wish they can be cleaned easily!

But like I said above, as I was cleaning my room, I discover more ideas to make my room clean and tidy! Like for example I'm planning to buy plastic containers as "cabinets" in this compartment near my wardrobe. I guess by keeping things inside a closed container would help to avoid dust from gathering around. And I'm planning to buy more small plastic drawers to keep my stuff. They really help!

I am currently obsessed with Troye Sivan's album which arrived like 2 days ago! Totally hooked with Youth, Wild, Fools, Suburbia and Lost Boy. He is so so good and I really wish I could discover him earlier. Well I think I'm not too late, since the album was out two months ago heh. 

Anyway it's 除夕 (New Year's Eve) tomorrow and my family is gathering as usual! I'll be cooking vegetarian go-hiong AKA five-spice balls. It is usually made with pork but I'm creating a cruelty-free version with chickpeas. They are currently being soaked in water and I shall start cooking in the morning. Gotta get up early tomorrow haha. I hope they turn out good, since this is my first time cooking them.

Well I did make some falafel balls like 2 weeks ago and they turn out great! Added too much garam masala though, which makes them taste super strong haha. Learned my mistake.

Alrighty that's all from me today. It's gonna be an exciting day tomorrow with my family gathering together! To those celebrating, I hope you have a great 除夕with your family and loved ones! :D

Lost Time

Oh gosh I haven't been blogging for so long! I wanted to blog last Sunday but guess what, I fell asleep! And then I woke up halfway through my sleep and couldn't sleep again for the rest of the morning. I've been pretty busy lately and I just wish I time can chill out for a while haha. Nevertheless today was the CNY harvest day and we're done! Whew. I just hope my customers are okay with the flowers.

I kind of miss my student days where well, I have more free time after school I suppose. It's pretty ironic that with my weird sleeping and life pattern, the night seems to get busier and busier as it goes by. I don't have much time to do the things I need to do (not what others need me to do) so I have to use my free time to do work. Which is bad. That's why I didn't get to blog as often.

Perhaps we all get busier as we grow old so... Yes. Can't complain much can I.

Before I continue I want to write about something... So on Saturday I received the news that my guardian's maid passed away. It was such a shocking news to me. It's been 3 years since we last met and I can't believe that she has left us forever now. She was someone I was close with when I was in Singapore. She taught me how to cook, she took care of me when I'm sick and she always share her awesome Indonesian food when I'm homesick. Rest in peace, Mbak. I will never forget all the great things you've done. And the moments we've shared while in Singapore :(

Supposed to blog last Sunday about the great music of January so I'll do it here now! I didn't discover a lot of music in January but well there are some nice songs I guess.

Great Music of January:

- Youth by Troye Sivan

- Happy Little Pill by Troye Sivan

- Avalokitesvara's Ten Ways by Khenpo Pema Choper Rinpoche & Ogen Lama

I swear I literally asked myself "Why didn't you discover Troye Sivan earlier?!" after I listened to his live performance of Youth at the Jimmy Kimmel show. It is such a good song! And I really love his voice. I went to look him up and search for his other songs and now I'm waiting for my copy of his first album "Blue Neighbourhood" to arrive. It should arrive this week! :D

I know that Troye is a vlogger on YouTube but I wasn't into vloggers and stuff in the past. And I didn't know he writes music too haha. Well I'm his new fan now, and a new subscriber to his channel :P

Avalokitesvara's Ten Ways is a beautiful song by Khenpo Pema Choper Rinpoche & Ogen Lama. I discovered the song from YouTube, on a random video on the suggestion tab haha. I really love the song and after reading the translation (it's in Tibetan) I find the words even more beautiful too. 

Alright that's all for the great music of January! It's pretty little I know. Didn't get to discover lots of music. But whew I welcomed the new year discovering that lots of my favourite bands and artists are releasing their new albums this year! One Republic, Tegan and Sara, Empire of The Sun, Kings of Convenienve, Asgeir, Low Roar, Say Lou Lou Sigur Ros (not sure) and more. So excited!

I'll see you soon again! Can't believe it's 5 more days to Chinese New Year. Can't wait to reunite with my family again. They're all coming here soon mwahaha. See ya :D