Book : Honor by Elif Shafak

1.  Back in Popular Book Fair at Viva Mall two months ago, I bought Elif Shafak's book : Honor for RM 5. I've been seeing one of her book : The Bastard of Istanbul for quite some time and remember it because of its peculiar title written by a Middle Eastern writer. The name got stuck in my mind without I noticed. So when I saw "Honor" by Elif Shafak for only RM 5, I just picked it up and bought it.

2. On my random TEDtalk class while I was working, I found Elif Shafak's video listed in one of the playlist for aspiring writers. That's when I found out that she is a woman, she came from the Middle-East and she grew up in many European countries. I fell in love with her talk and found it inspiring enough to start reading the book right-away - to see whether she's really good. 

Here's the video :

 

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3. I just finished the book last weekend after a month (alternate reading with : The Art of Thinking Clearly). I read several final chapters in one shot - I was hooked with the story and been waiting for the ending. I was also totally shocked by the unpredictable ending ! I've been reading so many books in my life and I usually know what to expect but this was different. It was a bit confusing at first because there was so many characters in each individual story but those stories were interesting enough for me to make an effort in remembering who's who. And she crafted all the stories beautifully.

4. I'm inspired, I fell in love. So I bought : The Architect's Apprentice at Big Bad Wolf last week for RM 8. I was searching for other books from her as well : The Forty Rules of Love or The Bastard of Istanbul but I did't find it - yet. I will definitely try those books as well. I found new love before the year ends  ♥

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Note : It's my 28th book from my 28 books goal for 2015 ! 

Another 17 days left before new year, I hope you reached your reading goal :D 

I'm getting ready for my 29 books for next year. 

Little Things 210 : Having You

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That's the thing, I never thought I would reach this phase.

The phase where everywhere is home when I'm with you.

I no longer feel the need to run. To leave. All those places I longed to explore are now meaningless if I can't have you next to me. I used to be so independent. So certain. I could go everywhere, leave everything and start a new. I guess not anymore. It feels like there's no point of leaving everything on my own.

That's what love makes me feel.

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This is yet the best thing that God sent to me for my short stay in this life,
And I can't thank You enough.

Mini Escapism : Tanjong Sepat, Selangor

It was Shazni's aka Nerdless Art's wedding. 

I'm not quite fond of weddings but he came to my wedding last May with his friends - all the way from KL to Pekan *there were only a few friends that came, him included. So I felt the need to show up to his big day, I didn't even argue with Ma :D 

So all of us readied ourselves that Sunday morning. The wedding was held in Tanjong Sepat, around 40+km from our house. We wore our specially-made Batik from ma, the one that she made for my wedding event - *for her and my siblings. The mixture of red, purple and black, it was custom-hademade sewn into a kurung modern. We actually even got a small sling bag matched with the clothes as well.
Food was good, the event was nice.

On our way back, we stopped by at Kampung Batu Laut to take some pictures. We randomly stopped the car when we saw reachable nice view, it wasn't even the place to hangout kot because no one was there compared to Pantai Morib not quite far from the location. And air tengah surut! Even better. There were a lot of tiny crabs, the wind blown so strong and we took a LOT of pictures. Because it was such a beautiful-beautiful place :

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Definitely a place for us to do road-trips in the near future ♥ 

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Here is a picture of us :

We also stopped by at Pantai Morib afterwards for cendol and fresh coconut drink. It was packed with people spending time with families. Food stalls were everywhere, people playing roller blades and scooter, flying kites and bubbles. The view wasn't even half as good as the place that we stopped by. Too bad, they kinda missed out this :

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Little Stories 213 : Yess and No

I'm illustrating for the second travelogue project *after this one. So I've been super ridiculously busy. Busy as in either I stayed up until 3 am or I woke up at 4.30 am in the morning, after or before work, every day. Depends on how exhausted I was after the whole day of working, commuting and exercising.

The new full-time job is also taking up my time at the office, I hardly lazying off doing nothing because there's always things to do. Another new born in process ! I hope it will be launched soon. I miss my old lunch session with the girls, but works up here is a bit overwhelming lately. I managed to have my silent lunch staring at food alone after trying to mix-around with my new colleagues for the last 2 weeks *wohoo!. What's hard about working in a small team is we know each other no matter what - and there's no reason for me to avoid lunches together. Kan. So having my first lunch with myself is a liberating achievement.

Here's to my 256kl rice set that includes gohan, miso soup and chawamushi for RM 7+.

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And my Etsy shop is picking up the crowds again, I guess due to the upcoming Christmas celebration and people starting to find things in Etsy and stumbled on my little shop. I feel sorry for all my sticker buyers, because they keep on receiving it later than it should. It's slow snail season - and I'm pretty occupied T^T

Plus we just bought our first petite car, decent enough for our use. So to re-balance my financial backup plan, I need to work things up with another project or two. >,<

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After that we'll be planning on our monthly road-trips ! 

We didn't know where to explore in KL or near our area, and to feed our exploration cravings before our next trip in April, local road-trips it is. I'll make sure we will explore throughout the whole Semenanjung so AF won't have any excuses to plan on bigger exploration with me more often. Hah hah hah. Genius.

On my worst side *because I'm far from perfect :

• I still don't like cars and driving. It stresses me out.
• I missed all my series and movie session because I don't have time =.=
• I'm hungry all the time, it's ridiculous.
• I still can't wake up in the morning after staying up late working - like seriously. 

Little Stories 212 : Nice Surprise + Tokyo Guide

I'm passing the Tokyo Guide to people who are planning on visiting Tokyo city. As you can see in the tab on the right with the list of next Tokiyo Hunters. Because I know I won't be visiting the city  again any time soon so I thought that I should make the book useful for others as well. 

You can also get your copy here, she just reprinted it and currently taking orders.

So, last month, Kiwa contacted me and said she wanted to borrow the book. *I know her from her awesome blog. It was a last-minute meeting, but we managed to meet up at the train station after I ran at the gym. It was an awkward meeting - as always, I didn't plan on meeting some strangers at first. But she was leaving soon so we had to meet up.

She was in Japan for 18 days, and I was happily stalking her Ig for those few weeks during her travel. Even though she didn't post as much as I expect her too >.< 

Several days ago, I received a medium sized pink-polkadots envelope. I thought it was the book that I ordered and I was wrong because it was my Tokyo Guide and some little omiyage from her as well ! I cried with joy and happiness, showing all the nice little things to Af. I had to wait for the weekend to get my gears up and take some photos and put it up here because I love them so :

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There are some cute-cute mini stickers, a mix of washi tapes,

postcard, and a personally written letter :

I didn't expect for anything and it was such a nice surprise.

Thanks Kiwa, I hope you had a nice fun time at Japan and will post updates on your blog again ! >.<

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Oh yes, I also asked her to put a tiny sticker on the list of places that she managed to go from the Tokyo Guide. So it looked so cute now. Mine is the cute rabbit and hers is the black cat. I hope the next Tokyo hunters will participate in this tiny quest as well ! :D

Little Stories 211 : Toilet

School holiday has started. 

We share our office with a company that does trainings and workshops. Since it is a school holiday, they started having coding and fun computer classes for the kids around age 7 - 12. So we've been having hyperactive kids everyday. Ha. 

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I was having stomachache since the morning and been visiting the toilet several times. During my third visit, there were 2 girls entered the toilet with me. So I chose the first toilet and one of them chose another one. They were still chatting and I kept silent, listening to their conversation.

"Do you know that grown-ups can take a really long time in the toilet?", one girl shouted right in front of my door.

"She can hear you, you know", the one in the toilet replied.

"Yeap, I know".

=.= 

 *So it reminds me of this.

 

Run : 2015 Running Journey

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Running is still the only active outdoor activity that I do, so I'm keeping track of my progress throughout the year. There are several things that I managed to achieve :

• Running minimum of 200 km in a year
• Increase my running distance

There are 3 phases of running in my 2015 :

• 3 - 5 km : during the early half of 2015
• 5 - 7 km : in October 2015
• 7 - 10 km : in November 2015

Things I learned from the running activities :

• There will be a point when my body starts to feel nothing after working out. What I had to do is either increase my pace, increase my running distance or variation of running styles. What works for me during my weekly running routine are increasing the distance and running variations. I started with 3-5 km in each run, 5-7 km for the whole month of October and started my 7-10 km in each run in November. 
• It's always about the mind and body, when you have 1 goal in your mind you need to stick with it until you achieve it. Your body will adapt to it if you can turn it into a routine. Then you can start on a new goal afterwards. One step a time :)
• I can't increase my running pace without getting headaches afterwards, so I had to cross that one out at this moment.
• What I do in my 7 - 10 km? I usually change my pace from 5.5 (jogging) and 7.0 (running) every 500 meter. That way, my body won't adapt too quickly with the constant pace. Sometimes I do sprint too, but it's not my favorite :|
• Running on a treadmill can be boring, especially when I run for 10 km (around 1 hour 30 mins). I need to find things to distract my boredom. What I tried : experimenting with running pace and how long I took to recover from it.
• I crave a lot and I am constantly hungry. It's supposed to be normal, because I started running almost daily. I need to remind myself to eat healthy stuffs all the time and this is not easy. I am still struggling with this issue.
• Don't think, just go. Bring your running clothes to work every day. 
• I ran more than 100 km since I bought the Groupon coupon to the gym. The money spent on paying for the gym is my main motivation for now. I realized that running events costs too much lately and it is no longer worth it. Comparison : RM 59 for unlimited run in the gym and RM 60 for 1 time 10km event. I am cheap, so I chose the unlimited run every week.

• I still love running, after years of it. ♥

And I live to the idea of running for myself, a dedication of constant efforts in living my live to the fullest, one step at a time : 

"All I do is keep on running in my own cozy, homemade void, my own nostalgic silence. And this is a pretty wonderful thing. No matter what anybody else says.” H.Murakami

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Little Stories 210 : Awan's New Enemy Part 5

Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4 :

It's been almost a month after we launched the Plan B on Awan *using Frontline Combo Spot - On. I can't believe it! I combed Awan several times and never found any cat fleas. We didn't receive any unwanted random bites on our body. It actually worked!

So I highly recommend it! 

Again, it is super expensive - RM 65.70 for 3 pipettes in a box and it needs to be used once a month. We just started our first month and saw huge improvement :D I will continue this as well to avoid any future infestation :

• Weekly vakuum
• Daily sticker scroller on bed sheets and pillows *you can buy the sticker sheets in Daiso
• Showering Awan with Machiko shampoo every 2-3 weeks

This was yesterday.

See how all her nails were trying to grab something, anything. She refused to be showered and it is still one of the toughest thing to do, which is why Azmi is still the one in charge of it :D

I gave her some wet foods and cat treats afterwards ♥ ♥

Now she smells like all flowers and nice herbs ♥

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Illustration : Customized my Phone Casing

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I'm still using my 4S, it's been 3-4 years *I lost count. It's really hard to find the casing nowadays, I used to buy the clear casing from Daiso but even Daiso stops selling it now :( So I searched for a local custom-made casing and sent my Kuroneko illustration to be printed on the 4S casing. I found one! 

Here it is :

It costed around RM 59 for the iPhone 4S phone casing customization. 

Honestly I'm not really satisfied :

• Thin lines on the illustration seem a bit blurry, so I concluded that it is not a high-quality printing
• They mentioned that they will send me the final design before they print it on the phone case, but I didn't receive or approve anything. Just a poslaju notice stuck on my door several days later.
• There are whitish unfinished printing on each curve side *like in the picture below, including the end side that can be seen front the front part of the phone 

I'm a bit disappointed because it costs RM 59 for a black & white printing, and the finishing is not even nice. It's decent to be seen from afar, but not so in detail. I thought I might like it and I probably can sell it in my Etsy later, but I think I'll keep this just for myself. It's not worth the price :)

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Remember my air plant from MAHA2014 ? 

Well, it still lives in the glass ball next to our kitchen window. The easiest plant to keep because it only needs to be watered once a week. I put it in the water for 5 minutes and it will bloom beautifully. I will go to the next MAHA next year to find more air plants. 

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Tokiyo Trip 10 : Our 8-days Budget Trip to Tokyo, Japan

We managed to spend RM 1,000 per person while we were 8 days in Tokyo, Japan. 

I brought extra of RM 1,000 while AF brought RM 500 for our back-up money in-case there's an emergency. We put aside these money in a secure place before our trip. The plan was to stick to RM 1,000 in a week, just to experiment whether it is possible to survive that long in the so-called "one of the most expensive city".

Note : During our trip, the rate was about RM 1,000 = 27,000 - 28,000 yen. So that means we can use up to 4,000 yen per day while we were there. In our plan, every extra money that we didn't use for the day will be put aside and kept for later.

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Pre-Trip :

The return Airasia flight ticket + insurance + dinner + baggages ( RM 900 per person + ) bought 7 months before the trip and for the accommodation, we rented a studio apartment in the outskirt of the town in Asaka ( RM 440 per person - 7 days 6 nights ), we booked 2 months before the trip. So this happened before of the inflation. Thank God for that.

Why I exclude the return flight ticket and accommodation ?

Because it was already planned, booked and paid many months before the trip. And usually flight tickets and places to live depend entirely on your preferences and several aspects to consider : whether you want insurance or not, extra foods, staying with partners or groups or solo, etc.

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Itinerary

• Day 1 : Arrival late at night - Slept at the Haneda Airport
• Day 2 : Marunouchi, Airbnb Apt. in Asaka
• Day 3 : Shinjuku
• Day 4 : Harajuku, Shibuya 
• Day 5 : Ikebukuro
• Day 6 : Mitaka, Kichijyoji 
• Day 7 : Ueno Zoo, Yanaka Ginza, Tokyo Skytree
• Day 8 : Akihabara, plane back home at night

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Roughly, these were the money spent while we were there :

Train & Subway Rides : Pasmo : 6, 000 yen ( RM 210 +/-) and Metro : 1,500 yen ( RM 53 +/- )
Total : 9,000 yen ( RM 316 +/-) 

Parking for the bicycle : Total : 1, 700 yen ( RM 30 +/- ) 

The Foods : Total : 6,250 yen ( RM 220 +/- per person ) 

Souvenirs : Total : 10,000 yen ( RM 300+/- )
Consists of all Ghibli Studio items, magazines, and stickers :D 

Others : 1,050 yen ( RM 37 +/- )
Like the zoo, the monorail, gatcha-pon, etc.

I wrote down almost all the things that we bought and spent money on. There were some money used for little things that I might forgot to take note. But what I'm sure of is, I managed to spend every yen that I brought for the trip - without touching the back-up money. I remember our last 200 yen was spent on the gatcha-pon at the airport :D 

So, it is possible to survive with 28,000 yen ( RM 1,000 ) in a week in Tokyo :D

It all depends on if you want to stay far from the city or not, share room/dorms with people, eat home-made foods and ready-made onigiris everyday and can stop yourself from buying things that you don't actually need, avoid overpriced tourist attractions.

We spent quite a lot on the travelling part because we stayed in Asaka, Saitama, we also visited some far places from the main city like Kichijyoji, Tokyo Skytree, and the return train tickets to the Haneda Airport. Plus, we decided to rent the whole studio apartment for ourselves, equipped with our own personal bicycle. So yes, if it's on your budget, you might want to stretch some parts here and there for the things that you want to try, yeah :) Plus, the whole shopping spree at Ghibli's was worth it.

Conclusion - per person ( 8 days Trip ) :

Return Flight Ticket = RM 900+
Apartment = RM 440+
Survive in Tokyo = RM 1,000 

Total = Around RM 2,500 +/-

8 days trip in Tokyo felt too short for both of us. We will come again soon. I really want to try the unlimited 14-days JRpass one day, to explore the whole Japan by the bullet-train. Soon sooooon :D

Note : I updated all the links to travel, places and events here.

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Our next trip is on April 2016, 5 days trip to Siem Reap, Cambodia.