Missing Kota Kinabalu..

I am missing the times I had during my trip to Mount Kota Kinabalu.. 10 new faces, 1 familiar face, 1 hell of a trek and living life at the bare minimum. Such an adventure it was! I hated every second while I was climbing the mountain, but I am loving every second thinking about what we had done and accomplished! What a trip it was!

I want to do something exciting again. Something challenging. If not we begin to lose the sense that we are alive and our bodies are capable of such things.

Some of those beautiful times captured on my camera:

We were crazy enough to go to level 4 water rafting the very next day after our trek ended! Insane. All our legs were filled with jelly and we were running on pure excitement and adrenaline. Oh yes, there was that breakfast too =) Water rafting was a blast! With Jimmy and me in the front of the raft and incoming waves which were something like 3 meters in height! Yeeeehaaaa!!!!

Of course, at the peak of the mountain. Little did we know that our troubles were just beginning!! Getting down was near impossible for me as I realized about muscles which I never knew I had. They just became rocks and all I could feel were 2 stone like things for my legs. Oh God! And that lonely trek down the dark mountain side with one dim light for 3 hours! Felt like a lifetime!

Best water rafting that I have done..

The instructor said you can go overboa....SPLASH!..rd.. Before he even finished it, I dived into the water :p Was just waiting for the chance!

Nah these are people from 2 rafts.. Not just one!

One of my favorite shots. I really love the colors in this and the expressions on the gals. Pure joy and happiness :)

The first glimpse of the huge mountain that we were supposed to trek. Once we saw it, you could hear people muttering, 'oh shit', under their breaths.. Little did we know what we got ourselves into! =)

My friends are one inch closer to having a safe & tasty dinner at my place!

So I made more stuff! I made onion bhajis along with baked potatoes in olive oil with seasoning and a mild biryani styled rice.

These are the onion bhajis. I made quite a lot. Not the most fantastic. I need to make them into smaller pieces and fry them to more crisp golden color. But they are definitely edible and tasty!! Had them with some rice I cooked.

These are the baked potatoes. Thanks to ideas from Li Shan, I actually made these up and they were fantastic! I can foresee me making a lot of these in future! Very easy to cook. Only downpoint being, it takes 1 hour to bake in the oven but damn they are nice! So who cares :)

And then for the main dish! The rice! Of which I cooked a lot. Enough that it is lasting me for 4 days =D And still tastes fantastic and yummy. Again thanks to Li Shan as she was the one who suggested I can mix rice with all these and more. I had the ingredients but I am obviously clueless as to how I can use them. Haha.. thanks Li Shan! U saved me for this week :) Please think about something for next week now ok?

And of course, it would be of no justice if I don't have a macro shot of it :p

Ok anna, I know technically this isn't macro shot! =x

I would be experimenting with some new dish this weekend. Lets see how it goes. Any suggestions as to what I can make?! Do tell me in the comments. You would save a poor soul (me!) from eating crappy frozen food :D

All the matters with respect to my car are almost settled now and I am beginning to love my car. Its so powerful! One press at the accelerator and you can hear the engine kick up and WHOOSH u go!! Of course being an automatic, there is a transition lag time between the change of gears and transmission of power to the wheels, but that can't be avoided with an automatic unless we are talking about the F1 paddleshifters that Ferrari started putting in their automatics. A auto clutch system which works in the hundredths of microseconds! Imagine that! An automatic which is actually faster than a manual in terms of gear change!

If only I had a Ferrari.. Someday.. I will have it!

Carrot Halwa!!

I was supposed to post the pictures of the Carrot Halwa I made 2 weeks ago! But well, I got real busy with so many things needing attention and required to be done. So finally I had the chance today and here I am uploading them online for all to see and drool!

I was just reading about what I can make here with simple things and I thought why not check out carrot halwa recipe. To those who do not know what this is, its an Indian sweet made out of grated carrot (duh?), milk, sugar and some nice roasted nuts along with a few pods of cardamom spice.

I started my experiment and my mouth started drooling just with that smell!! Again to those who don't know, carrot halwa, I would say, is my favorite Indian dessert!! I just love it! Once I finished making it, I tasted it and went to heaven! Woot~! Hahaha.. I know I am exaggerating but the joy of cooking something for the first time and getting it so good and tasty is just a joy in itself!

I decided good things must be shared with good friends and so brought it over to dinner the next day at my friend's place where 4 others tried it and gave thumbs up! I had made a small quantity thinking that I would most likely screw up and I would be the only one eating. But well, the dish was totally smack cleaned as we all helped ourselves to it :)

Anyway, enough of blabbering from me, here are the pics!

So there you go! As some of you know ( I am overusing that phrase!), I have already uploaded some simple pics of my car in facebook :p So you guys can see the pictures there. I would post the pictures here after I have taken a proper photoshoot in a nice location and all.