Tom Yam

It took me ages to find the best tom yam recipe out there, at least "best" by my standards. I was a bit reluctant to post anything until I really got it right, as tom yam is my favourite soup of all times. Ever.

So, here it is (Disclaimer: there may be a little too much chili for the average person, please adjust quantities as appropriate).

Ingredients for the broth
2 litres of water, brought to boil
4 kefir lime leaves - torn
2-3 cm galangal, cut into small pieces (see picture)
1-2 stalks of lemongrass, cut fairly large but SMASHED!
12 bird's eye chillies (still needed about 3-5 chillies to make it spicy for me, but this one was pleasantly mild)
juice from 2 lemons (or many many limes - use limes if you have)
4 table spoons fish sauce

Ingredients for the soup:
straw mushrooms
seafood or chicken or fish or all - up to you
Optional:
carrots thinly sliced
cauliflower
broccoli

Preparation.
1. Bring water to boil
2. Dump everything in.
3. Add soup ingredients, and bring to boil.
4. Adjust salt (fish sauce), sourness (lemon) or spiciness (chillies) to taste.


1. Kefir lime leaves & galangal:

2. Cut lemongrass and then smash it (use hammer if not proper kitchen tools. If no hammer, use fat knife. If no fat knife, just section the stalks in half).

 3. Chillies (chopped fine)

4. Lemons, but limes work better.

5. Boil water and dump everything in.

One picture Tuesday

Last night I made Tom Yam soup, as promised. It was most nom!

What's done ...

... cannot be undone.

• Like running 30 km yesterday and not feeling so upbeat today (actually, feeling like I got hit by a truck. Many times.) even after 5 (FIVE) doubleshot expressos.
• Like having 5 (FIVE) doubleshot expressos and wondering why the hell do i feel so jittery
• Like mentoring somebody for a year, offering them a job, relying on them to do the job, only have them tell you that they have found something else and thus are not actually taking the job you have offered. FUCKERS.
• Like getting depressed over the above and going and polishing off a hamburger (vegetarian) considering that I was only planning to eat tom yam today.
• Like dreaming last night that I was doing one-arm pull-ups - mind you, with my good hand

Slacking

Last year I ran the gold coast marathon in 4:07-02? Minutes. This permitted me to register and join the Six Foot Track ultra-marathon in the blue mountains. It is a fantastically difficult race, with many many hills (2900m in total) and many many many down hills (3200m), river crossings, steep drops and 45 km in all. It was the first race for which I had to qualify in advance - and I was superiorly PSYCHED! about it.


And then of course, it rained. And rained. And then it got cancelled. Apparently the river crossing was so flooded it was really dangerous. Woosses. Pfft! And so, I didn't run it, but these guys tried:
Cox River Crossing, Six Foot Track


And so, I have to run gold coast marathon again. It is a flat repetitive marathon for which I stand the best chance to get under 4:10, which is the qualifying time for 6foot next year.

This year though, I havent trained*. And while I think it is possible to run a marathon in sheer will power, I am not so sure about running a 4 hour marathon WITHOUT INJURY. Needless to say, no rest for me until the marathon. It will be fun.

* i got depressed after 6foot got cancelled and my running partner had a knee surgery - I sakrificed and ran with him through his slow and steady recovery, but had no mojo to run extra runs on my own.

For fuck's sake

Dear friends, When one of my students commented that he can easily find my singapore web page with all the mountains and all the pictures and all that, I thought to myself: "well, at least he can't find my blog"... Hahahahhahaha please give me a moment to laugh myself crazy, because today marks the day when this blog goes more public than I would have ever wanted. This brings up a whole bunch of issues of privacy and appropriateness and all that, but it also brings up the more important issue of "what the fuck am i going to do now?" Do I censor myself and only talk about pretty butterflies and beautiful rainbows and unicorns [enter Charlie theme]? Do I reduce the number of swear words per line? Do I change the blog? Put up passwords? I really really like the name of the blog because it refers to a 6c climbing route in romania that I have yet to do (25 meters, dyno at the end, so now you know why I have yet to do it) . It also is kind of funny for those that know romanian. In retrospect I am glad I do not really like to blog about work (with the exception of the Motherfucker, of course) because that would have been really awkward. So now what?

One picture Tuesday

Training run in Brisbane CBD.

Romanian songs

Marian and I recently drove to the Grampians and back in two days, only to climb 4 hours. In my book, this is definitely worth the 800 km drive - I've driven more km for less, such as 5 minutes to pet some dogs, or even worse, just to buy some very good cheese pastries. But this is not what I want to talk about. While we were driving we abused youtube and Marian's telstra connection. We listened to Romanian songs from the past, and i realised that almost every song made me teary for different reasons (unsurprisingly, all songs are on the depressive side):

• dead friends
• old, sekret and never talked about love
• leaving home
• yet another long lost love (looks like I loved a lot in my younger age hahahah)
• and definitely one of my favourite songs ever

One picture Tuesday

The grampians in autumn...

The need to blog

First of all, it's been a hell of a semester, and I know this is not a good enough reason. However, this semester I had to work hard to get my teaching back on par, as well as keeping up with my admin duties and with my research. And I did, and in my usual fashion, I gave it all I had and then some. And got a teaching award as well as students clapping at the end of my last lecture. I'm not so psyched about the award but I am psyched about the clapping, I must admit! I went all out on this and of course there was nothing left for blogging - almost nothing left for eating or climbing as well. In the months that passed, i have come to realize that I need blogging for two reasons: - firstly, it helps me keep track of time and also mark those events that mean something. This is important because i feel that it's just too easy to get trapped into a whirlwind and forget about everything else. Time seems to go by much faster than it used to, wtf? - secondly, and most importantly, I am not only writing for myself but for dodo and san (and jensen! and everybody else!), whom i miss dearly almost every hour of every single fucking day. So yeah, here's to new beginnings!

Back

Finally decided to post again, and also decided to start this with a cat photo.

Grand Canyon

Here's a very very overdue post about hiking. In December 2011, I hiked to the bottom of the Grand Canyon and back. All by myself. I do not consider it an extraordinary hiking accomplishment, except for the scary oh so scary trek in the middle of the night.

Because you see, the trek is advertised as hard to difficult and on all the panels and all the brochures you are advised NOT to attempt trekking to the bottom of the canyon and back in the same day. I figured I could do this as it was winter (and not the peak of summer, as the brochures seemed to suggest), and also I could turn back anytime I wanted and thought I was not going to make my cut-off time (<- these sound like famous last words, right?!)

Then, because I was supposed to catch a bus at 12, I woke up at 4 am and started. Turns out, 4 am is THE MIDDLE OF THE NIGHT, a time during which

A) it might snow
B) it might be dark
C) it might be freezing
D) all of the above.


And so I froze, and it was pitch dark and it was scary and it snowed for about half my trek. And I had an amazingly scary feeling of being all alone in the quiet and the darkness and the cold.

And then I got to the bottom of it. And the sunrise came.

And I walked a bit further and saw this! The Colorado river!

And the sun got warmer, but it still could not warm up the old bones:

After this, I had to turn around and walk back. Turns out, you walk 3km down to the bottom of it, and then 3 km straight back up. The trek itself is pretty tame, but some people chose to take the mules!

This was the slippery slippery snow (there's eternity on the left of the path) - I was so glad I had my walking poles!

One last look before ending it:

And a nice, freezing sunset on the drive back to Phoenix. Here's to getting out of the house more!

One picture Tuesday

One of the advantages (heh) of living during communist times was that we didn't get to taste Coca-Cola until maybe very late 80s, by which time we were already 7-ish year old. Another advantage would be that we didn't know how things and brands were called until we had been using them for a while (see for example how we romanians say "Nike").

A particular brand is 7UP. I was absolutely convinced that it is actually ZUP because of how the logo looked. I was convinced that it is called ZUP for many many years, until I saw and heard the commercial.

The smell of paper

I love my Kindle. I really do. It is the bestest for many reasons. 1. It is the old kindle, so it has these really really nice buttons on the sides. This allows me to easily change pages. None of that annoying swipe to change the current page for me! 2. It carries many many MANY books, which is great. In particular for the book I am reading now (Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell), this is very good, as the book itself is 798 pages. PAGES! The only problem I have with the Kindle is that, after about two years of using it, I find myself really missing paper books. Not only do I miss paper books (which obviously results in me buying tons and tons of paper books at one go), but I find that I never re-read books that I have read on the kindle. This is because I can't see them on the bookshelf and therefore am not reminded by the fun times I had while reading them.

Sandra and I are nursing...

... A baby.

Our baby is very demanding. He does not allow us to sleep, which makes us dizzy for the entire day.

Our baby is very fussy about his food and does not allow us to enjoy ours.

Our baby only wants to eat chicken soup - either the jewish or the chinese variety, he is not fussy about that. However, he only wants to eat chicken soup and nothing else.

Our baby gives us left-side headaches and makes us feel very dizzy. This is how we know it's our baby.

Our baby did not allow me to run yesterday.

Our baby did not allow Sandra to climb yesterday.

Our baby is brought in this relationship by either Sandra or myself, we are yet not clear about that. We do, however, blame each other. There are no such things as "accidents" nowadays.

Guess what our baby is.

I'll see you in September

I hate it when long weeks seem soo long when you start them, and then midway you realize that they are only 7 days long. The time to say goodbye is coming soon, or has already come in some cases. Said hello to Jensen yesterday and said goodbye again one hour and a half later. Turned around quickly and left in a hurry because I was getting teary ->> Oh my, I am still bad at leaving people: you would think that after all this training I would finally get good at something. Or maybe I am the eternal trainee, who knows?

Will say goodbye again to friends tonight, and then again on Saturday & Sunday. The image of san crying last time and of me crying all the way to adelaide (without having any tissue with me!) is not helping right now and it didn't help last night either. This obviously needs to be reframed into a "until next time" thing because I really don't think I can take it.

I just wish we could all live together in the same place forever. But then again, i wish we would all live forever, and for africa to be food-full and peaceful, and for all of us to shit rainbows off our (skinny!) asses. And one obviously can't have them all.

The concert

The singer is fat and much older than I remember her, from what is probably sixteen years ago. Two sikh men in the audience have serious bellies, serious faces and even more serious turbans. One of them has a jet black santa-like beard, and the other one has a snow white santa-like beard as well. They stand up and they sing the lyrics and dance, raising their arms up in the air.

For a Singaporean audience, this concert is most happening. We all know the lyrics to at least 80% of the songs. Botak Jones, a somewhat famous western food joint, is sponsoring the concert, and you wonder if they will be sponsoring Beiber fifteen years from now, if he will still be able to sing by then - God help us if he is!

When the guitars start the first beats of Zombie, everybody is standing and you can feel the static in the air.

By the end of the concert, the image of the skinny girl from sixteen years ago is completely replaced by the woman with flabby arms and deflated tattoos. And it really doesn't matter, because boy oh boy can she sing!

Good to be back

... In Singapore. And see everybody, and especially see San and Dodo. We had a hectic day yesterday, when me, dodo and san went shopping. I must say that I had forgotten just how crowded and busy singapore is. I guess living in the countryside Adelaide really makes one forget. I had also forgotten just how consumerist and branded singapore is. Nearly everyone is wearing superiorly branded clothes, shoes, watches, phones, etc. Old people use iPads and iPhones while they get their feet massaged in the airport. Kids on the very very crowded MRT start crying, and their parents immediately hand them an iPad to cool down that angsty spirit.

I had also forgotten how it is to walk walk around all day. In adelaide I am mostly confined to my office and my car, and the climbing gym and running track. But boy oh boy, is walking around while shopping an endurance sport! Today was spent seeing Jud, Ely bear, Planet, Reg, Northern Lights and Uncle Pan and the fat pig while we flew kites and stunt kites at marina barrage. The atmosphere was just like the old days during training and i really really enjoyed it. And also pigged out on the durian cake that the dodo bird bought (MOST YUM!) We all look like we are part of team singapore kite flying! I guess while during the most depressing days in Adelaide I was complaining about how much I missed them, it's really being here with them that makes me realize indeed how much that was.


... And yes, I bought lots of clothes and lots of branded stuff too :)

Yay. Getting away.

Turns out that teaching 2.5 courses and having 150 students whose needs and problems are only your concern, is a VERY FUCKING tiring job. Turns out (who would have thought) that I may get grumpy when I'm stressed. And I may loose my patience. So far, it has not happened at all with any of the students (yay!) but yesterday it was a first for me. Firstly, I had a young master student that is also a young mother come into my office with her little baby and talk about her code. Needless to say, the baby was not quiet :) And then, a student's mother called me, to tell me about her boy.

I find that I can easily manage the third year students, but I have such a hard time understanding and learning how to talk with year ones. Oh well. Good thing the year ones are only the 0.5 from the 2.5 .

Yesteerday I saw through time

Some colleagues, on finding that I CAN indeed eat very very spicy food, gave ma chili habanero plant. The plant took its time to flower and produce chilies. In fact, it only produced one (ONE) chili in three months.

The chili is pictured on the left. I totally underestimated it, and, thinking that it would be not spicy as with everything people have given me, I took a VERY big bite.

And then I saw through time. I was that spicy. Or the bite was that big. Regardless. I saw through time.

And I'm back!

After giving birth to the grant last week and training up for the trail marathon, I am back. The Blue Mountains, six foot track trail marathon. You ask me, how was it?!

Well, I'll tell you. It was ...

CANCELLED.

Because of the fucking Sydney floods. Apparently, a couple of the river crossings we were going to cross got fucked up and then they were too deep for us to cross. Could have drowned. Dammit!

I feel like one of those wired duracell rabbits that are so ready to go but have nowhere, NOWHERE to run. DAMMIT!!

The blue mountains are truly evading me this year!