so, aina decided to sew.

she wants to make a heart out of felt, which in on her craft book given to her by the the babybirds family many moons ago. we digged up our felt stash and found the colors she liked...

i showed her how to do the first stitch, and she continued the rest. she got a hang of it pretty quicky. she has done some sewing with felt about a year ago, for our christmas decoration, but she has never done blanket stitch before.

not too bad for her first work... aina was very happy to master the blanket stitch and planning to make more felt stuff :)

got a paif or new running shoes today!

remember the podiatrist visit a few weeks ago? from there, i got the list of shoes to buy and an orthotics to order. well, the orthotics arrived last week, but since i was away to Lombok (entries are still to be written), i didn't get to buy the new shoes.

the insole to slip into all my running shoes

the podiatrist told me to shop for the shoes wearing the orthotics. so after trying my top 3 (Adidas, Asics and Saucony) with an addition of New Balance 1260, my choice went to the Adidas Adizero Tempo 5.

it's light, it has breathable upper and it feels most comfortable compare to the others even with the orthotics in (or out).

i'm still not allowed to run -- still in the 6-8 weeks ban -- but i think i'll use it for the gym :)

today is a no-plan day. which means, it's a Beach Day! yay!

we all woke up and went to breakfast around 8:30 in the morning. everyone was already there. the kids immediately played together. kids from other guests have also joined.

when the food arrived, the small kids gathering was disbanded and they all went to their own tables. aina had chocolate pancakes, ari had mie goreng and i had various bread. the pancake was a bit too flour-ish and wasn't fluffy enough, though.

after breakfast, everyone got ready for the beach time: sand playing and a little bit of ocean-swimming, mostly for the kids.

it turned out that the wave was a little stronger than we thought, so no ocean swimming for the kids. but that's okay, because they were quite satisfied with building sandcastles. gaizka, who's never been to the beach was having a hard time with the sand. he hates he feeling of the sand sticking to his feet. so he quit the beach and settled on the pool instead.

aina and alika had a blast with the sand, though. alika even had some in her mouth... ayoub and ditha were having as much fun (if not more) as the kids, building tunnels and bridges in the sand.

since the wave was small but rather strong, and there were boards rented on the side, ari and i decided to try our super-novice surfing skills. it's been a while... our last surf was in Siargao, back in 2008. and it turned out that my balance sucked this time... hahaha.

ari was first. after a few wipe-outs, the guy who owned the surfboards gave him a quick lesson, probably because he didn't want us to break his board.

wiping out

then, it was my turn... ari was my coach :)

fun, Fun, FUN!

right after the surf, when the sun was right on top of us, we took aina into the water. the wave was a lot tammer and it felt good to be in the water during this hot day. i'm pretty sure i got 2 shades darker from today... then, we continued swimming in the pool with alika and fenny, while Oma was laying around in the nearby gazebo. such a relaxing day...

meanwhile, ayoub, ditha and ramanda was still busy with their sand-structure.

after the whole swimming time, we all went back to our rooms to shower and got ready for lunch. but it turns out that our hot water in our room is dead. we called the guest service, but it took them forever to fix it. so, aina and i ended up taking our shower at alika's room... and their bathroom is awesome! it was large and has no roof... so we showered under the sky. their room was the 1st floor room. it turns out that 1st floor rooms get large bathroom, 2nd floor rooms (like ours) get normal bathrooms, but have pretty balconies instead.

after we were all done, some of us met up again and went to a Warung a few steps away from the hotel, by the beach. it's called Paradiso, recommended by ari's work colleague whom he bumped into in the hotel's swimming pool... yes, weird, isn't it? it's weird enough to bump into someone from work during vacation... but it's even weirder that we all ended up staying in the same exact resort...

the warung was nice. everyone (especially those of us who do not live in Indonesia) welcomed the coconut drinks.

while we're having our lunch there, the rain poured hard! we could see it coming from inland, as the mountains afar slowly disappeared, swallowed behind the thick white curtain of rain. it was kinda cool. but of course, rains on the beach never last long...

after lunch, we all went back to our rooms and rested. chili came over because our room has the best wifi connection. ari slept and aina went over to gaizka's room to hang out with alika and gaizka. the pamulang room was definitely the kiddy hangout, since it has toys and TV.

around 8pm, we all walked to the dining room. tonight's dinner theme was kampung food. so they served mie bakso, serabi, asinan and satay.

the whole beach and surf thing we did today really beat us up. so by the time we finished dinner, we were dead tired and hit the sack immediately.

noushka and naomi were arriving at 2am, and tomorrow would be Gili day. yay!

» today's photos are in flickr's 05/04/2013 photo album.

we called for a cab and left the house at 5am. aina was barely awake. after the check-in -- which went very quickly -- we still had time for have breakfast. so we went to McD... aina loves hashbrowns. and that woke her up for real.

we're flying Garuda from Terminal 3. and the new terminal was soooo large that we needed to take a sky train to get to our gate... amazing. there was a small playground right in front of the gate, so aina was happily playing while waiting for ari to have his last cigarette before boarding.

i tried to sleep all the way to Jakarta, but it wasn't very successful. the good thing about non-budget airline is that there is this touch-screen entertainment system behind every seat. it has games. the bad thing is aina loves to play games. and she wanted to play these games... which means that she'd have at least one question for me every 2 minutes. there goes my plan to sleep.

we landed in Cengkareng Airport, the home of Garuda Indonesia. and in its own home, the plane didn't get a parking spot, so we had to take the stairs down, walked outside and took a bus to the terminal. everything went very slow; the bathroom trip, the immigration, even the walking and the bus ride... by the time we got to the baggage claim area, our luggage was the last one on the conveyor belt.

then, we had to change terminals, because our next leg was for Lombok, it was a domestic flight. it was actually my first time taking the shuttle bus in this airport. considering how bad the traffic was in the airport, i was amazed that the bus could move at all. it got really crowded when we picked up passengers at Terminal 3. it was soooo crowded and soooo slow that i sorta wished that we had taken a cab from T2 to T3...

at T1, we met up with the rest of the groups:

• Chili, Oma and my mom are from Jakarta group.
• Ticia, Ditha, Ayoub and Gaizka are the Pamulang group.
• Ramanda, Fenny and Alika are the Melbourne group.
• we -- Ari, Thalia and Aina -- are the Singapore group.

yep, this is definitely a group vacation: 15 members (well, 13 for now, since two will arrive tomorrow night, due to work schedules) with ages ranging from 1 year old to 89 years old. woohoo!

from then on, it was a lot of fun...

the flight to Lombok was great. i slept most of the time. i noticed that there were a lot of kids in the plane, but all of them behaved very well. there was no crying at all. amazing.

i was surprised to see how new and shiny the Lombok International Airport was. it was very clean, too. and finally, we didn't have to walk outside from/to our plane. this airport has enough "belalai"... yay!

we were picked up by a minibus from the hotel. that way all 13 of us could fit in one car. we were so hungry that we asked if we could stop by a local restaurant to have our late lunch -- it was almost 3pm. of course, the minibus driver immediately suggested the famous Ayam Taliwang. and, of course, we all agreed.

he brought us to RM Ayam Taliwang Irama, located in Mataram, among other ayam taliwang restaurants. and wow... the food was yummy! spicy, but sooooo good! my favorite was their Plecing Kangkung. super spicy, but the sambal was so fresh, i couldn't get enough of it... until my tummy started to feel burning hot.

then, we finally arrived at our hotel: Qunci Villas. the place is just amazing. it's simple, homey and luxurious at the same time. each group had their own room: the Pamulang, Melbourne and Singapore groups stay in the ocean-view rooms... with a view like this below.

my jaw dropped. the place was awesome! and soooo clean... my grandma kept muttering about how do they keep the stone path so white and shiny...

the Jakarta group, which consists of my grandma, mom and aunt, got the one-bedroom villa with pool.

we settled down in our rooms, changed our clothes, took turns going to the bathrooms, then all of us went to the villa, and swam there!

the place is quite children-friendly. one thing we noticed, though. all of their pools are very deep (1.5 meters) and no wading pool for kids. and for people who can't swim, that's pretty deep...

anyways, alika seems to be attached to aina's hair...

after the swim and shower, we regrouped at the beach and had a barbeque dinner outdoors under the sky, courtesy of the hotel. the food was yummy... seafood was very fresh, and the veggie kebab was excellent. even the potato salad was great.

unfortunately, the weather didn't agree. in the middle of dinner, it started to pour and got really heavy very quickly. we had to run into the sheltered restaurant and continued our dinner there. my grandma was happy though, because before the rain she was complaining that she couldn't see her food under the moonlight... cute!

» today's photos are in flickr's 04/04/2013 photo album.

another race pack was picked up to be skipped. the Run350 is actually a big one, because i was supposed to run for my second Half Marathon. but i'm still in the rest period due to the injury. *sigh*.

shoe-shopping on the Good Friday!

aina got a new sport shoes. her old Nike Free, which was not even 6 months old, are already too small for her (we ran out of her size back then, so we had to buy a smaller size). when we asked her to choose one out of a sea of sports shoes -- we went to Queensway Mall -- she chose a pair that looks almost exactly like her Nike.

as for me, i bought a pair of Converse. ever since i injured my knee (oops, i still haven't written an entry about that! sorry!), i was told to avoid heels for now. so, i've been walking around with flipflops lately. hopefully, these all-stars could replace my beloved clogs.

---

it took me 3 weeks of total rest. no contact with almost anyone, no going outside, and all i did was eat and sleep, just like i wrote on the entries (one and two). the first week was the swelling, the next two weeks was the peeling. after that, i was allowed to be outside, because i don't spread chicken pox anymore...

i actually took picture of my face everyday to document the progress. but it would be too much and boring to see 34 pictures of me swelling and scarred :) but after the first week, the swelling goes down and the face slooooooowly getting better looking (not the pain though. the second and third week is probably the most painful period).

Day 7


Day 10


Day 20


Day 31

i didn't go to any specialists, including skin specialist. but my doctor gave me a hydroquinone cream (4%) that i have to put on after the scabs peeled away twice a day. i was not allowed to be under direct sunlight for months (i think 5 months). after 5 months, i was back under the sun (did a few running races), but i wear sunscreen on my face all the time and under a 100% UV umbrella (bought it in Japan) as much as possible. and i use cosmetic whitening masks once in a while after i pass the 6-month mark.

the scars are still there now, but much more faint. and i don't look monster-ish anymore. i just looked like that i had a few big zits a few days ago.

Month 8. Taken a few days ago.

that's the outer parts.

the nerve part takes much longer to heal. it's called PHN: postherpetic neuralgia. the strange sensation on skin lasted consistently for about 3 months. at the beginning it was pain (burning, cutting, etc). slowly, the pain dissapear, but the sensation of the skin being pulled stayed. sometimes it feels like a icy water running down the face, sometimes it felt warm. sometimes, it's itchy, but since the top layer of the skin couldn't really feel anything, it's useless to scratch.

after about 3 months, i realized that all the infected skin areas are still numb. i can't feel any touch on those scabs. i went back to the doctor, and he said it may either heal in 6 months, or i probably lose it forever because the nerve endings are too damaged to heal.

well, i still can't feel anything on most of my right face, and it's been 8 months. so, i probably have lost it forever. but it's no big deal. after going through that much pain, not feeling anything feels like a blessing, haha. the pulling sensation still show up once in a while, mostly on the chin area, which had the most damage on the outer part. it doesn't bother me that much, though.

another thing is: after 3 months, i realized that my right ear lost some of its hearing. i didn't realize it until i was switching phones from right to left, and the phone was much louder than i thought. but i guess, if i didn't realize it for 3 months, it was also not a big deal :)

i didn't go to ear specialist, because i thought it's too late anyways. the doctor have said that if the shingles reached eyes or ears, the damage most likely irreparable.

---

i hope this helps a little bit for those who got Shingles. to tell you the truth, it ended up this bad because i didn't realize i contracted Shingles until it was too late. if i got to the doctor and was given the Anti-Viral within 72 hours of the first sign (swelling old zit and burning sensation on the right side of the face), it shouldn't spread this wide and the pain would be much tolerable. i probably would still be able to keep my hearing intact.

so, anyone who has had Chicken Pox may get Shingles. that, you can't really do anything about it. but you can avoid the permanent damage and experience lesser pain if the Shingles was detected earlier. so get to the doctor if you start having burning pain on only one side of your body...

it's almost Easter, and Aina is having a term break for a week. so, when i saw Mindy's post on twitter that she was making Easter Eggs garland, i thought it's a perfect Easter craft for Aina to do.

so we went to get some printed papers at Art Friend nearby. originally Aina wanted to use pink or red ribbons, but they were too short for her window, so we ended up using the twine i have laying around.

what we needed:

• various patterned paper. you can design and print them yourself, if you feel like it,
• thicker cardboard paper for the template,
• pencil and eraser,
• yarn, ribbon or twine for hanging the bunting,
• scissors,
• and a hole puncher.

first, i had to make a template for the "flag" part. since it's for Easter, we decided to make bunnies and eggs. we used a much thicker board so that it's easier for Aina to trace the template onto the patterned paper.

once the templates are done, then it's all Aina's work. she started with the egg, because it was easier. first, she traced the template on to the paper using a pencil. this way, we can erase the pencil later. then, she cut it to shape.

same thing with the bunny, just a bit harder during the cutting because the sharp corner on the ears.

after making enough eggs and bunnies, we put two holes on each of them using the hole-puncher. these holes are for the thread to go through. the eggs got the holes on the top, while the bunnies got them on each of their ears.

the, we put the twine (or ribbon, or yarn) into the holes, stringing the bunnies and eggs together...

...and VIOLA! it's done! it is now hanging on aina's bedroom window...

what a messy room!

i have never baked an apple pie in my life, but i thought, a baking request from the daughter is a perfect excuse to try it out. and since this week is a school holiday, baking would be a good activity for aina, too.

so, i was digging through my cookbooks trying to find an apple pie recipe, but i couldn't find any. so i ended up trying the very first search result on google, with keywords: Apple Pie Recipe.

so, here is the Apple Pie by Grandma Ople. it was very easy to make with basic ingredients and a video to watch! allrecipes.com rocks!

aina helped with laying out the apples and stirring the sugar-butter mixture.

but of course, i sucked at dealing with the pastry. it was laid out all crooked and uneven... i googled the image of an apple pie and it looked nothing like mine! T_T

but that's okay, because aina looooved it. ari did too, which is surprising, because he usually doesn't like sweet stuff. so, i guess the apple pie was a success. i just need more practice and steady hands to make a neater pie.

ingredients:

2 layer of pastry (bought a ready-made one)
1/2 cup unsalted butter
3 tbsps flour
1/4 cup of water
1/2 cup of sugar
1/2 cup of (packed) brown sugar
8 Granny Smith apples (green), sliced.

preheat oven to 220°C. Melt butter and stir in flour until it forms a thin paste. add water, white and brown sugar and bring to boil. turn the heat low and simmer.

place one layer as the bottom crust in the round baking pan. fill it with the apples...it will be a mound of apple. cover it with a lattice work crust. then pour the sugar liquid over the crust, into the apples.

bake for 15 min, then reduce the temperature to 175°C and continue baking for another 35-45 minutes, until the apples are soft.