A carton of apple juice a day will flush the gallstones away. This is what I shall be dedicated to this week:

Regimen:
1. For the first five days, take four glasses of apple juice every day. Or eat four or five apples, whichever you prefer. Apple juice softens the gallstones. During the five days, eat normally.
2. On the sixth day, take no dinner.
3. At 6 PM, take a teaspoon of Epsom salt (magnesium surlphate) with a glass of warm water.
4. At 8 PM, repeat the same. Magnesium surlphate opens the gallbladder ducts.
5. At 10 PM, take half cup olive oil (or sesame oil) with half cup fresh lemon juice. Mix it well and drink it. The oil lubricates the stones to ease their passage.
PS. 1cup=250ml, ½ cup lemon juice=3 lemons (aprox.)

The next morning, you will find green stones in your stools. ‘Usually they float,’ Chiu Nan notes. ‘You might want to count them. I have had people who passes 40, 50 or up to 100 stones. Very many.’

‘Even if you don’t have any symptoms of gallstones, you still might have some. It’s always good to give your gall bladder a clean-up now and then.

I will now fess up. A long-distance relationship is really hard.

And even harder when your girlfriend has to spend all her time planning how to stuff Singaporeans with frozen pork, and who is now losing sleep over her frozen pork galore event at HDB hub this weekend, where thousands of housewives will try to poke and squeeze frozen pork only to complain that it’s hard all over so it can’t be as fresh as fresh pork but must be okay lah, minister say frozen pork nice, cheaper somemore, eat loh.

So after all the news reports show housewives smiling gleefully because they have a chance to be on TV say that they eat frozen pork, their children eat frozen pork, that their dogs eat frozen pork etc and how they all find it a cheaper and just-as-good alternative to the now more expensive fresh pork, the good word will be out on Monday’s papers that Singaporeans will make do with have fallen in love with frozen pork, and they shall have it in their wantons, their gou lou yuk, their prime rib soups, their steamboat shabu shabu etc (but please spare the bak chor mee).

What propaganda won’t tell you is how personal lives are almost wrecked by the pandemonium behind the attempt to convert fresh pork devotees to pay equal worship to frozen pork via a preaching session at HDB hub. That the personal lives of the event planners have been jeopardized is not worthy of mention, for the noble cause of shoving frozen pork into the freezers of every heartlander must be given way to.

No one will think about how a heart is breaking in the land responsible for price hikes in fresh pork because of a certain planner’s obsession with recruiting frozen pork lovers.

I will eat all this damn pork until the day I die.

I wish it was that easy to unload everything in a certain other important organ.

I’ve been eating mountains of food of late. Other people handle their quandaries by exercising, talking, or immersing themselves in work. I’ve tried all the above, but I seem to seek solace in drowning my sorrows in food and sleep.

Which leaves me feeling very stuffed up inside. Food comforts me these days, but I know my internal organs resent me for succumbing to that pleasure.

A bowel cleanser may be what I need. To release everything for that rejuvenated feeling. With that my pimples will disappear, my bloatedness will go away, and hopefully have renewed energy. If only I can flush the things on my mind away as easily.

I want to detox my digestive system, but I need to detox somewhere else even more.

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Having lived in cities all my life, I’ve never really had the experience of being in absolute darkness, in a place where I 伸手不见五指.

But last weekend I don’t even know what the room I ate in looks like. I groped around for the chair, fondled the cutlery and caressed the plates and somehow managed to eat my caesar salad, my soup, my steak, and my cake.

It was a blind person’s world and I felt very displaced to be robbed of my ability to see what I was eating and where I was. My eyes were open but I only saw black. There were things in front of me but I only saw black. CG was in front of me but I only saw black. There might have been rats running around, cockroaches on my food, but everything was black.

I could only be comforted by the music, CG’s voice, and the clanking of our cutlery against dishes we can’t see, or else I might have freaked out if it was both black and silent.

We managed to eat as per normal without too much fumbling around, although we did resort to using our hands to eat our food for a bit.

A very extraordinary experience to try, to live an hour of being blind.

Served by visually challenged waiters/waitresses, the dinner will humble you when you can only laugh at your helplessness.

Black Cafe. Eyes not Required. Bringing in anything that has light is prohibited in the Dark Zone.

To all who knew my love for tasty quesadillas:

My mouth awaits the day it can sink into the soft, yet crispy, well-assimilated combo of chicken, salsa, and cheeeeeeeeeeezzzzzz once again.

For dinner, I ordered a mushroom quesadilla (the only choice for a quesadilla), for 14RMB, from a place called El Mexicano, which charged me an extra 7RMB to have it delivered along with a beef taco (although I realized it should be called a burrito after I ate it). In total I spent 41RMB, which is pretty pricey for a meal here, but it’s been my average expenditure on food these days due to my larger appetite.

Compare what I ate today (left) and what I could eat almost everyday in Canada (right):

Today, I ate a flat, mushy, cheeseless, piece of tortilla skin with mashed up mushrooms, green peppers and onions. Oh, how I hunger for a good quesadilla.

I also confess to having hamburger withdrawal symptoms, but the inferior burgers here are keeping me full at least.

Thankfully there’s still popcorn chicken, heh.

祝大家新年快乐，心想事成，

在新的一年里，吉祥如意，生活美满幸福！(Credit: CG for editing)

I hope I can inch closer to a life that is 美满幸福. Meaning less 躲躲藏藏 would be good.

So. Resolution for mouse year: (to parents:) drop larger hints, talk about Sam more, leave books lying around, tell less lies.

Haha no resolution for school. Continue skipping classes that are useless, continue sleeping if I feel like it, continue avoiding people who get on my nerves. I must remember that the squirrels were really adorable in UBC, and just be glad of that memory (I think no one will understand this attempt at a joke except CG).

Okay okay, eat less too. I don’t want the day to come when I can only wear PJs. That last sentence came up thanks to Connie’s comment when she saw me in my penguin PJs and said “How come only fat people look good in PJs?” BITCH.

There are times when an acquaintance offers you just what you need at the precise moment that you instantly embrace her as a friend.

I guess I remember help provided best when it’s given in the form of food. Today, close to 2am, just when I was starving and trying to think what I can possibly eat when my food stock is close to depletion due to my impending departure, my housemate knocks on my door and serves me a rice bowl with teriyaki chicken.

Succulent skinless thigh meat atop 2 spoons of cooked chinese rice garnished with her parents’ restaurant’s teriyaki sauce. Just the way I like it:

1) chicken thigh meat, with

2) lesser rice than meat.

(I would have said 3) skinless, but I love chicken skin. She removed it for my cholesterol’s sake :S)

She has just proven that she knows me better than friends who know me for eons. And that I haven’t been as keen an observer/carer as her.

I was touched by a simple gesture tonight.

Especially you, Shaina Yu Jin Tong.

Just decided to post some random food images for the fun of tantalizing my friend, Shaina, who is starving at work now. Hopefully she will never go on a diet again because, come on Shaina, you and I, we live to eat.

From Canada (the pics, not necessarily the cuisine):

Quesadilla 

Vera’s Burger from Vera’s Burger Shack

Some burger from some restaurant 

Pasta 

From Singapore:

Chicken Wings, Holland Village 

Chicken Wings, Holland Village 

Stingray, Holland Village 

Soft Shell Crab from Geylang dimsum 

That’s because I’ve had an overload of salmon sashimi for the past 3 weeks or so.

I only learnt the shiok-ness of ingesting raw salmon marinated with the combination of soya sauce and wasabi after coming to Vancouver (known to be an international food hub). Imagine all those years I could have indulged in this delectable feast!

So I have been compensating for lost time.

And guess what? I’m eating an excess of something good for a change! The oils in salmon fish discourages blood clotting by reducing the stickiness of blood! There is hope for my high cholesterol! Heh.

Add 24 hours with 16 hours time difference from your home country, and you get 40 hours on your birthday! That’s if you count your birthday starting from midnight of the day according to your birth country, and then only ending after midnight of the country you’re in! Haha

I had a very healthy birthday cake this year! Carrot cake! And it was very yummy!

Wah I think my arms are going to be as big as thighs.

The cake was baked by 2 of my lovely housemates! Thank you Alison (left 1st row) and Allison (centre 2nd row)!

And thanks to my Singaporean friends who were also present at the cake-cutting and sang the Chinese birthday song!

You have to admit that the cake is really special! Sorry for the exclamation marks throughout this post. I’m just very touched and thankful! Haha. And it’s the first time I had a carrot cake for my birthday! And it looks like a big donut! Haha…

But of course the most unique (and loveable) birthday cake I ever had was last year, my 21st’s. Made of jelly. Made by her.

And thank you all happy-birthday-wishers!

This year I have had an excessive number of people who otherwise wouldn’t be aware of my birthday wishing me a Happy Birthday via Facebook. Hmm.