My Very First Blog

According to Harvey Diamond, bestselling author of the book Fit For Life : A New Beginning, it is not easy to get cancer. One has to go through 6 stages before cancer strikes.

From our original vibrant health state, we had continuously abused our body by ingesting toxins and accumulating them in our body. The body is infinitely smart and tries to eliminate the toxins and even warn us with symptoms and irritations by making us go through 6 stages before reaching the 7th which is the Cancer Stage.

So far, I have talked about Stage 1 (Enervation), Stage 2 (Toxemia) and Stage 3 (Irritation). At any of these stages, if we take action to remove the cause of our health problems, the disease process will stop and good health returns.

But when we continue to ignore these 3 stages, the body will inevitably progress to the next stage which is....

Stage 4 : Inflammation

Inflammation is the body's most intense effort to cleanse and restore itself. When this process occurs, you become keenly aware that a problem exists for it involves pain.

None of us like pain. But believe it or not, pain is our friend! It has a purpose and that is to warn us something is wrong somewhere.

Imagine if you can't feel pain. What happens when you rest your hand on a hot stove without feeling pain? What happens when you step on broken glass without feeling pain? So you see, pain is the body's most effective warning signal.

If the last 3 stages gave you irritations and minor discomfort, you may chose to ignore them. But will you still choose to ignore pain?


Image courtesy of Derby Sports Injuries

When pain is chronic and unrelenting, it is a sign that the body is desperately attempting to get rid of the ever increasing level of toxemia before it causes devastating damage. With inflammation, the toxins in the system have usually been concentrated at a particular organ or a particular area of the body for a massive elimination effort. The area becomes inflamed due to the constant irritation from toxic material.

When inflammation exists, we are diagnosed with words that end with "itis".

Ever heard of tonsillitis? It's the inflammation of the tonsils.

How about appendicitis? It's inflammation of the appendix.

Hepatitis? Inflammation of the liver.

Arthritis? Inflammation of the joints.

Colitis? Inflammation of the colon.

Nephritis? Inflammation of the kidneys.

Sinusitis? Inflammation of the sinus.

Dermatitis? Inflammation of the skin.

OK, I'm sure you get the idea. But what do most people do when they feel pain? Off they go to see the doctor in search for relief. And what does the doctor do? Prescribe drugs to take away the pain.


Image courtesy of HealthJockey.com

Unfortunately, the drugs do nothing to remove the cause of the problem. They only serve to lessen the pain temporarily. Worse, the drugs are adding to the body's level of toxemia which the body is desperately trying to get rid of!

Stage 4 is crucial for it is in the middle of the 7 stages and actions taken at this point will determine whether or not you are going to recover your health and return to a state of vibrancy, or fall deeper into the diseased state.

If you do not start to detoxify your body at this stage, you will most likely progress to Stage 5 : Ulceration, which I shall talk about next!

One fine Sunday afternoon, I went to Food Foundry for lunch with fellow bloggers Witch and Saucer.

Witch had wanted to pass me the Manhattan Fish Market voucher which I won from the contest in her blog and so we agreed to meet up that Sunday.

I guess we chose Food Foundry because both Witch and I were crazy over their Mille Crepe Cakes! Haha!

This was what I ate - Aglio Olio Prawn pasta.



It was delicious! I love prawns in any dish and these prawns were fresh!

Witch had her favourite Vongole pasta.



See that giant clam? Haha! Actually it's just the angle from which I took the photo that made the clam appeared bigger than normal.

OK, maybe this photo I took with my iPhone will let you see more clams. LOL!



Anyway, both these prawns and clams pasta are highly recommended if you ever go and eat there!

Saucer chose to eat Nyonya Curry Kapitan with Steamed Rice.



I have not tried this before so I cannot recommend it but I will try it next time! The chicken and acar (hidden from view) sure looked delicious to me!

And of course the dessert I had been craving for all week - the Mille Crepe Cake!



Crepes are actually paper-thin pancakes but a Mille Crepe is a type of French cake made from many, many layers of pancakes (crepes) stacked one on top of the other! By the way, Mille means a thousand, but of course the Mille Crepe Cake does not contain a thousand layers of pancakes! Haha!

This must be one of the best desserts I had ever tasted! I love the crepe cakes so much I don't mind having a piece everyday if only it's not that expensive at RM9 a slice!

But the best dish for the day must be this one below!



Witch and Saucer - my good blogger friends! My, don't they look good? : )

Oh can you see the Twitter bird in the photo above? Now you know why I love to tweet! Cos the Twitter bird keeps following me around! Haha! OK, I am just kidding.

It was a good lunch and after we left, I realised I had forgotten all about the Manhattan Fish Market voucher! This just proves that good food and good company tend to make you forget stuffs.

Oh well, it turned out that I would be meeting both Witch and Saucer again for QuaChee's birthday dinner (which I shall blog about in a future post) so no problem there!

Note: For those of you who have never been to Food Foundry, I highly recommend this restaurant. It's located at BG-8, Happy Mansion, Jalan 17/13, Petaling Jaya.

I am not much into computer games. I do not have the time to play games.

But recently, I downloaded a game from the iTunes App Store on my iPhone and found myself enjoying this game called Angry Birds.



What attracted me to this game initially was how cute the characters in this game were. Look at the cute birds and pigs in the picture above!

Of course, the fact that Angry Birds was (and still is) the No. 1 Paid App for games in iPhone rankings in almost every country and had a worldwide average iTunes ratings of 4.88/5 helped.

So what is this game all about? Why are the birds so angry? Watch this cute video below to know the story!



Did you enjoy the video? I sure did!

So basically it's about the angry birds dishing out revenge on the greedy green pigs for stealing their eggs. Nice story!

But the game is nicer! Featuring lots of challenging physics-based castle demolition, each level in this game requires logic, skill and brute force to crush those pigs!

And I can't tell you how much I enjoyed crushing those pigs! Haha!!

What I really like about this game is the cute birds! I love how you get to shoot those birds out of the slingshot! Absolutely fun!

And not to mention the totally hilarious and funny music! Oh, and when you play this game, remember to turn the volume up one notch to hear those birds screeching and pigs oinking.

Now there are 5 different types of birds, each with their unique destructive abilities! Watch how this game is played.



Developed by a company called Rovio, this game will give you hours of fun and lots of replay value.

I have only just started playing this game and I think I am getting quite addicted!

Oh, even as I am blogging about this, they had already started to introduce a new bird to the game. It's none other than the Mighty Eagle!! I am starting to feel sorry for the pigs! Haha!! Watch this video for the preview!



Come join me and play Angry Birds! What can I say, I am hooked!

It was the 15th day of the 8th month two days ago, according to the Chinese calendar. That was the day when Chinese people all over the world celebrated Mid-Autumn Festival. In Malaysia, it is popularly known as Mooncake Festival or Lantern Festival.

I had my very own 1Malaysia mooncake celebration. Why 1Malaysia? You'll know why in a minute.

Mooncake Festival is never complete without lanterns and mooncakes. I am too old to play lanterns but one is never too old for mooncakes. Haha!!

So let me start with mooncakes! Look at this beautiful mooncake box from Mandarin Oriental KL!



No, it did not come with the dragon, I swear. The dragon just happened to be there. Haha!

When I opened the box, it revealed 8 mini boxes inside!



So I excitedly took one box out!



I opened the box and took this out.



It was a mini durian snow skin mooncake! I quickly unwrapped it.



The mooncake was about 4cm in diameter - that's how mini it was!

I knew I could just chuck the whole mooncake into my mouth but I decided to cut it into half instead.



I took one small bite and I loved it! The durian paste simply melted in my mouth. Yum!!

Nowadays there are 4 types of mooncakes - the baked skin, snow skin, jelly and ice cream mooncakes. I dislike the baked skin variety. The jelly mooncakes are quite nice but one look at the colouring scares me! The ice cream mooncakes made famous by Haagen Dazs may appeal to some people but not me. I guess I still love the snow skin variety best!

So even though there were baked skin and jelly mooncakes that night, I did not bother to eat and take photos of them!

I did try the snow skin mooncakes from Tai Thong. Their durian coulis was really quite good with strong durian aroma!



Somehow, the photo of the durian mooncake below does not look too appetizing, but I swear it tasted really good!



However, the yam mooncake from Tai Thong was just so so.



Maybe because it had egg yolks inside! I hate mooncakes with egg yolks!!



Now don't get me wrong. I love eating egg yolks. But the combination of egg yolks and mooncakes are just....yucks!!!

By the way, these Tai Thong mooncakes were all normal size and not mini ones like the Mandarin Oriental mooncakes.

OK, enough about mooncakes! Mooncake festival is not just about mooncakes you know. There is also this slightly less popular food but it is my favourite food during Mooncake Festival. It is none other than the taro!



Some people call it yam. I prefer to call it taro-yam. Haha!

So how do you eat these taro-yams? Preparing it is easy! Just boil them in a pot filled with water and with some salt added, for about 30-45 minutes.

Then, you just need to peel off the outer hairy skin and they are ready for consumption!

Look at my peeled taro!



Oops! Focused on the wrong object - the unpeeled taro-yams!

OK, here is the correct photo.



I normally like to dip the taro into some soya sauce that was added with a dash of pepper. Yum!!

Earlier, I told you that I celebrated a 1Malaysia mooncake festival. Want to know why I said that?

Well, besides mooncakes and taro, I also ate some Raya cookies given by my Muslim friends!



I am not very fond of cookies but I ate quite a lot that night!



All these calorie-laden cookies were not doing me any good but it's OK, I promised myself I would work out the next day, and I did!



And guess what? To round it off, I even ate naan breads which I bought from a mamak shop that night! Haha!



Now was that a 1Malaysia celebration or what? LOL!

Did you celebrate Mooncake Festival too and what did you eat?

YES!! Finally! I am a proud owner of an iPhone! Yes!!!

OK, this may sound terribly outdated since I bought the iPhone 3GS a few months back. Besides, iPhone had just released their newest version iPhone 4. I should have blogged about this then but I guess it's better late than never!

Now many people tell me they don't like iPhone. They prefer Blackberry, Nexus One, Samsung Galaxy S, HTC, Nokia N series and a host of other smart phones.

Well, I don't like smart phones because they are smarter than me. That's why I own an iPhone! LOL!!

Here is a picture of my iPhone.



Oh, if you want to know, the one on the left is a condom for my iPhone. Haha! It's to protect my iPhone you know, just in case...

With the iPhone, I can now check my emails, update my Facebook, chat on yahoo messenger and msn, tweet on Twitter and watch YouTube videos on the go!

I can surf the web, take pictures and post on my Facebook, record a video and post on YouTube, play games and even update my blog if I want to!

I can also listen to songs on my iPhone's iPod. There is no need to get an iPod!

Recently, I have been using my iPhone to record my piano playing and share with my blog readers. It was cool! Perhaps you want to listen to my rendition of Twinkle Twinkle Little Stars with a twist? Enjoy!!



Oh by the way, do you know iPhone can save your life? Yes, if you are lost in the jungle, and there is no line, you can use iPhone's compass to navigate your way out!

Since I am not a very technical person, I won't go into details about the iPhone. Suffice to say it is giving me hours and hours of enjoyment! I don't think I can survive without it!

There are however, two things I don't like about the iPhone. One, is its high power consumption. If I tweet a lot or play games on it, the battery will drain off fast and I would need to recharge it. That's such a hassle and can sometimes be very inconvenient especially when it takes close to two hours to fully recharge!

The other thing is if I set the alarm and switch off my iPhone, the alarm would not work. Unlike my previous handphone, the Sony Ericsson C902, I could set the alarm, switch the handphone off and when the time comes, the phone will switch on by itself and sound the alarm. Not so with the iPhone!

I bought this iPhone from Digi, and subscribed to its iDigi88 plan which requires me to pay RM88 per month for 24 months. Recently, Digi lowered the iDigi88 monthly payment to RM60 for new subscribers. That was a reduction of RM28!!

This is the new iDigi plan. Click to enlarge.



I was quite upset with this but what could I do? Looks like early birds never really had it good! RM28 per month for 24 months would mean I would be losing out on a total of RM672!!

Imagine what I can do with RM672!

✔I can stay one night at the Sea Villas in Pangkor Laut Resort!
✔I can dine at the dinner buffet at Le Meridien KL at least 6 times!
✔I can watch my favourite movies in Gold Class at GSC Signature at least 11 times!
✔I can enjoy crepe cakes at Food Foundry 74 times!
✔And if not mistaken, I can enjoy up to 672 sundae cones at McDonalds!

So am I pissed off? You bet!

But did I regret buying the iPhone? Hell no!!

Now go get that iPhone if you have not already. And tell me what you can do with RM672.

Continued from Part 3

When we came back from viewing the sunset at Platform No. 3, it was already dark. After shower, my two friends and I were ready for dinner. You bet we were hungry after all that climb!

This was what we had for dinner.

Stewed home grown chicken.



Fried eggs



A big bowl of soup!



We did not have normal white rice but we ordered their special bamboo stick rice. This is actually glutinous rice cooked in bamboo sticks, somewhat similar to the lemang we have back home.



Sorry could not take very good photos as it was dark! We were dining outside the hotel at the front balcony and there was not much light.

I enjoyed the bamboo rice very much.

Did you notice that cup of white liquid in the photo above? That's the local glutinous rice wine which we tried earlier in the afternoon. For this dinner, we drank the wine to our satisfaction. It was sweet and refreshing, and felt so smooth on my throat. How I wished we could take a few bottles of this home made wine with us when we leave Longji!

As we were eating our dinner, we wondered how come there were no men in the hotel we were staying? So far we had only seen females. Where were all the males? Besides, what was funny was that everyone here seems to have the same surname! What did it all mean?

This soon became our topic of conversation for the night. Perhaps we were going to end up as victims that night. What victims? Jam jokingly advised us to lock our doors when we sleep at night just in case. Hahaha!!! Ok, crappy jokes. And if you don't get it, never mind : )

Now just for your information, I learnt that all the villagers here have one common surname which is Pan (潘). In fact, marriages were common among same surnames so long that they were not close relatives.

As for why there were hardly any men in the place we stayed, I have absolutely no answer to that!

Coming up in Part 5 : Sunrise at Jinkeng Rice Terraces

I wrote a series of posts about The 7 Stages Of Disease last year and somehow, due to some reason or other, I did not complete the series.

Two nights ago, I accidentally came across one of the posts and decided I must not let my readers wait forever for the remaining posts. So today I would like to resume this health series.

By now most of you must have forgotten what this series of posts are all about, so for your benefit and for the benefit of those who are new to my blog, kindly read the following posts before you proceed.

The 7 Stages Of Disease (Part 1)
The 7 Stages Of Disease (Part 2)
The 7 Stages Of Disease (Part 3)

OK, now that you have read the above 3 posts, let's move on to the next stage, shall we?

By the way, whatever that is written here and in the above 3 posts are not something that I simply cooked up but are based on the book Fit For Life : A New Beginning by bestselling author Harvey Diamond.

We learnt that disease does not appear out of the blue but gradually. In Stage 1 (Enervation), the symptoms are tiredness and loss of appetite. In Stage 2 (Toxemia), the symptom is fever. Now if you continue to ignore these warning signs, you will progress to...

Stage 3 : Irritation

Irritation is a condition in which the body sets its defensive mechanism in motion and speeds up its internal activities in order to unload stored-up toxins. This process can happen at various points in the body.

An example of irritation is the urge to urinate or defecate. This is probably the best way to eliminate toxins from your body.

However, one of the common symptoms of irritation due to toxemia is itchiness. Perhaps you are not aware, but the skin is the not only the body's largest organ but also an organ of elimination. When toxins in your body are removed via the skin, they cause itchiness on the surface areas of your skin.


Image courtesy of fasting.ws

This is in fact, your body's way of getting your attention. It is not serious unless you ignore it and do nothing, in which case, you will progress to Stage 4 - The Inflammation Stage.

Not everyone will experience itchiness however. You may feel queasy or nauseated for no apparent reason. Some people will feel that persistent tickling sensation in the nose. Yet others experience nervousness, depression and anxiety.

Other classic symptoms of irritation includes headaches, difficulty falling asleep, putting on weight easily, bad temper, coated tongue, bad breath, body odour, dark circles under the eyes, and for women, out of the ordinary menstrual problems.


Image courtesy of Harbor Family

You might be thinking - don't everyone experience these symptoms one time or the other? You are correct. Unfortunately, some people live for years in this state of irritation they even learn how to adapt and live with it!

This is because the discomfort they experience is not serious enough for them to go for a medical check up or for treatment.

But here's the problem. When the effects of enervation, toxemia and irritation are ignored long enough, and the toxic residue in the body that started all these builds up to an even higher concentration, the 4th stage of disease ultimately, and inevitably, results.

Stay tuned for Part 5 where I will talk about Stage 4 : Inflammation

Continued from Part 2

WARNING: This post contains lots of photos and if you have slow internet connection, you may want to blog hop or surf other sites while waiting for the pictures to download.

It was 5pm and the three of us were ready to climb up the rice terrace hills to catch the sunset. Our host's younger sister became our tour guide. We called her Da Jie as well. She told us that hiking up would take about 45 minutes.



If you don't already know, I have a fear of heights and walking up the stone pathway with no railings by my side to hold on to made me a little nervous.

One slip and I might find myself falling off the edge down below!



The photo above may not look that scary, but there were certain parts along the way that were quite narrow. Of course I did not take any photos of the narrow pathway as I was too busy struggling to fight my fear of heights!



However, hiking up the hill was worth it as we got to see lots of beautiful scenery of the rice terraces!



The view simply took my breath away! I had to stop to snap some pictures!



Along the way, we came upon a small village.



We continued to climb up the steps. Soon the village was below us.



And then we saw this old lady weaving on her weaving machine. Did you know taking this photo of her was not free? I had to pay 1 yuan for it! It was then I realized the place was more "touristy" than I thought!



Did you notice the costume the old lady was wearing in the photo above? Yes, she belongs to the Yao minorities, one of the three largest ethnic minority groups living in Longji, the other two being Zhuang and Miao.

Each minority group has its own costumes, language, music, dance and art.



In actual fact, the rice terrace we were visiting is called Jinkeng Rice Terraces which are home to the Yao minorities. So our tour guide and our host were Yao minority people. Pretty cool, eh?

We were heading to the No.3 Viewing Platform to watch the sunset. As we stopped often to take pictures, a man passing by us shouted at us to hurry up or else we would miss the sunset.

So we forced ourselves to move faster and at about 6pm, after one hour of hiking, we reached the Viewing Platform!



I thought our tour guide told us it would take only 45 minutes to reach the top! Obviously we were not fit enough! Either that, or we were spending too much time taking photos. I think the second reason sounds better. Haha!



Oh! I was not very comfortable standing on this platform but instead of standing, I sat! So if you don't mind me showing my legs again, here it is....!



It was nice resting there for a while admiring the scenery below. I tried my best not to worry about the height!

Actually, we should not have rushed our way up because the so called spectacular sunset did not materialize. Tell me now what sunset is this?!



Another tourist gimmick? Hmmm, I don't know about that but I really think the sunset was no big deal!

I ignored the sunset and focused on the view around us. It would be a waste not to take any pictures while there was still some sunlight left.



I was quite surprised to find a lot of people at the top! I guess they reached the top much earlier than us.



I don't know why I love this picture. I just feel amazed with the view of the village far below.



The rice terraces really took my breath away. They are like green waves stretching from the foothill all the way to the top!



By the way, you can click some of the photos here for wallpaper size.



Look at this padi field up close!



After spending about almost an hour there, we began our descent. Da Jie told us that we had to move fast before it gets dark as it would be difficult to find our way back in the dark.



Surprisingly the way down was shorter. We still continued to stop and take pictures along the way. Luckily for us, Da Jie was a very patient person and waited for us. Haha!



Within half an hour, we reached our hotel. But by that time, the sky was already dark.



We took a shower and then it was time for a delicious dinner!

Seeing that this post is getting a little too long, perhaps I will talk about what we ate for dinner in the next post.



But while we were having dinner, Da Jie came to tell us that we have to wake up early at 5am the next morning in order to climb the rice terrace hills to view the sunrise! I was like, what?!

To be continued ....