New place for everyone to try out!

Hi all!

A return to the blog-land for our family. And this time with a new recommendation for good food!

Our family just tried out this place near Ang mo Kio Jalan Riang called The Cajun King! We had a feast of lobsters! Mussels! And fish and chips!!! They even serve crab and prawns too.

Our family ordered 3 whole lobsters (two in original boil and 1 in king spice), 2 portions of mussels in garlic butter sauce (awesome!) and 3 portions of fish and chips served with sweet potato chips (delicious!!!).

The seafood was sweet and fresh and the entire concept of eating with a bib and eating out of plastic bags was refreshing. It was a unique dining experience!

We highly recommend it!

Cool huh

So.... i've been going to the gym regularly, at least twice a week and each time its about 2 hours long.... but i've also still been putting on weight around my face. Don't ask me why, everyone says I've gotten chubbier on the face but I still feel my body looks the same. :(

Well, thats not the point of the post today... although it is the reason why I have developed a habit to smack my face many times throughout the day hoping that the force can reduce and tighten this baby fat away. But maybe all its doing, is just make my face even more swollen... hmmm, its a mystery.

Anyway, so I go to the gym at a nearby hotel. Love the equipments, they have this treadmill that you can watch TV from, AND it even has an iphone dock to charge your phone, play your music and record your workout! I absolutely love it!. I also love the other things they have like a good area for doing sets and lay out the exercise mat, female size rubber dumbells that are easy to use and exercise balls of varying sizes to practice stability and exercise your core muscles! It is a very lovely gym indeed. More so is the shower room which comes with this amazing steam room (eucalyptus scent each time) and a nice big open area to change and relax. Each time i go to the gym, i pay 1500Ksh, which is equivalent to almost 20 singapore dollars.

Its been about 6 months since i started using the gym regularly and my routine is really standard. Run for 45 minutes, do weights, sets, exercise balls, dumbells for another 45. Steam and relax for the next 3o minutes. I always come out of the gym looking like a lobster with my red glowing skin and wet hair. I go after work around 7.00pm and stay till 9.00pm most of the time skipping dinner or just having a small bite at home after. Yes, i also wonder why i dont lose weight or why my face is still round like a watermelon. But i think its because those days that i do not go to the gym, im having Pasta, Oily chinese food and drinking lotsa wine and beer every time.

My friends who go to the gym with me always laugh when they see me work out... this is how they describe it.. "there are 6 treadmills lined up next to each other in a row, on it are...Big black guy, big black guy, big black guy, oops small chinese stacey, big black guy, big black guy. Hahahaha". Alamak, i guess i do stand out in this gym.

So... interestingly enough.. all of you know that I always go and get coffee in the morning at this coffee place near my house. One morning, i was grabbing my coffee as usual and a white guy sits down opposite me.

This is the conversation:
Him: "Hi! you always go to the gym at crowne hotel right?"
Me: "Hi, yes i do. Do you go there too?
Him: "Yes! I always see you around"
Me: "Really?"
Him: "You always go on to the treadmill! and you always have your earphones plugged in"
Me: "I do!"
Him: "So what are you doing here in Nairobi"
Me: "I work here..." (and then a few more minutes of idle chat around where do I come from, where does he come from, what do I do for a living, what does he do for a living, introduce our names...")
Him: "So i'll see you at the gym tonight then?"
Me: "Sure, im going there tonight'
...
Then we meet in the gym and chatted for awhile
Me: "So where do you live"
(He tells me he lives at a place that is really near me)
Me: "Oh great! Can you give me a ride home later"
Him: "Sure!'
(When we get into the car...)
Him: "Hey have you had your dinner?"
Me: "Nope, i wasnt intending to eat tonight"
Him: "That won't do. You are coming dinner with me tonight"
(Off we went for dinner in town)

Haha, cool huh.

Happy Chinese New Year!

Hello Family!

So I'm posting 2 posts in one day. But thats because the previous posts was already in my drafts, I just never got round to publishing it.

Before I go on any further, I would like to say Happy Chinese New Year to my beloved family members, big and small! May you be healthy, prosperous, succcesful in everything you do this year! May you be blessed with happiness with each passing day! Even though im far away from you all, please know im thinking of all of you all the way from Kenya! This will be my first time celebrating CNY away from you guys and I feel lost! Truly...

I keep searching for some familiarity here in Nairobi so what I did was host a CNY party at my place and invited friends over. And to inject some CNY in this party, this is what I did:

• I made all of them wear Red/ Pink or Purple


• I made them all bring 2 oranges to the house.


• I cooked Ba Kut Teh and Tao Yu Bak with Heng hua Mee Sua (What I always eat at my grandma's house).


• I prepared a madeshift "Lo-hei" with smoked salmon and introduced this concept to them.


• I persuaded my friends to cook auspicious food like fish, duck and vegetables so I would have 8 dishes altogether (a very lucky number of dishes).

Muahaha.. All in all, we had a very good dinner, I even brought out some old games the family used to play on Christmas that was tucked away on my laptop. Everyone had fun and we ended the night with Karoke!

Well, I still feel i'm missing more celebrations but who knows, maybe within the 15 days of chinese new year, I might do another crazy party again!

Missing all of you,

Cheers,

Stace

Unique Kenya Drive

One day, I just wish my updates could be nearer to the date of the event rather than 2 weeks later.

My first weekend back in Nairobi, got invited by my Thai friend to follow him around Kenya on a long driving trip to catch fishes with other fish enthusiasts whom he have befriended over Facebook.

Alright - And now I can hear my family's barrage of questions and thoughts going through their head.

"What Thai friend?!"..
"Stacey doesnt do long driving trips.. Stacey sleeps after 5 minutes of being in a car, she can't survive long car trips"...
"What exactly are fish specialists?!"...
"Wait a minute, Stacey doesnt fish!"...
"Who the hell does something so dangerous like meeting random strangers they befriend over facebook and in god forsaken places like Africa!"... and then back to..
"What Thai friend?!"

So here were the facts:

1. We drove to sooo many towns in Kenya, some so rural, landmarks in there are not even marked on google. I have been to places even the local kenyans have never been to before.


2. We drove at least 700km one way... started at 6am on sat morning, landed at our first rest stop only at 12pm, continued driving till 8pm where we rested for the night. On sunday, we started our journey from 9am till 9pm back home. Hee Hee.


3. I can proudly say... I did NOT sleep half the car journey away. But I will sheepishly admit that i might have slept like one quarter of it, which is a huge achievement for me.


4. I know every single song in my iphone because we were playing music over and over and over again.


5. I can pee in any place. ANY place.


6. I fished in swamps and ditches and mud ponds that was filled with toads, crickets, beetles and mosquitoes.Well, most of the time, i watched them fish but i did try it once on my own. :)


7. I learnt more about fishes than I thought I would ever in my life.


8. I enjoyed myself. Tremendously.
   

It was truly a unique experience because I saw Kenya in a different light rather than do the usual touristy stuff and see well-visited places. This was really... roughing it out. :) This was really a different kind of thing altogether, completely out of my element, completely ignorant, completely spontaneous and then, completely fun and wacky.

Some pics of this glorious weekend drive where you can see the scenery, the Car ferry, we did stop by a beach for a few hours so you can see some of the beach shots. Mostly, the scenery was just beautiful and utterly serene.

And here are some pictures of the actual fishing places we went to. Yes, be shocked and disgusted. But hey, you never know if you like it unless you try it! And I was well geared, I had fishing nets, wellington boots to trugde along the mud in. It was actually cooler fishing in a skirt than jeans... so all in all, I had a swell time. You can see some of the animals we caught :)