Blog giveaway : masks for you

Deng deng deng!!

Another give away to my friends!! As promised, I would be sharing some of Etude House goodies!

The goodies consist of:

Ja Yeon Mapping Essence Mask II (it has snail extract to moisturise, firm and refine skin and suitable for all skin types)

Baroness Snail Mask Sheet  (another  mask that use snail secretion filtrate and natural extracts to enhance skin firmness and elasticity.  Suit dry skin type)

Collagen Mask (no need much introduction as everyone should know what collagen does for our skin. Our skin’s natural barrier for firm and youthful skin)

Collagen Eye and Eye Gel Patch (formulated with collagen to revitalize and improve appearance around the eyes)

Just comment in this post on which mask you would like to try and why. Regardless of which mask you choose, I am giving out all masks to one winner.  Dont forget to leave your email too. Simple, right?

This blog giveaway is open now till Sunday (9 March 2014) 12noon (Malaysian time). I will use random.org to select the lucky winner. So watch out for the announcement of winner!!

Miscellaneous Picture #16: Everything K

Hard to avoid the influence of Korean in our lives. From household, technology, fashion to food. Since we can't beat them, might as well join them.

Here are what I got myself this week....

After read posts in MNHL, I has followed this latest K-drama series. Just on episode 3 at the moment.

Image taken from Google

My K-drama craze sister who came back from Korea holiday sent me some masks from Etude House! I am going to give away some of these masks, so watch out for my next post. ;)

And I also love Korean seaweed. This seaweed brand is a bit salty but taste nice just like seaweed. *wink* Supposed to be high in fiber.

Are you into Korean stuff??

As smart as your smartphone

(This is a guest post by Sage Harman)

As a new mom, you wouldn't believe how I turn to my smartphone like a lifeline. I rely on it for myriad different things - to make calls and send text messages (duh!), to manage my schedule, to take lovely photos, to listen to music, watch videos and play games, and to surf the web. But did you know that aside from all these, there are so much more practical uses for your smartphone? Here's a few you may not know about.

Health Monitor

There are accessories that you can use with your smartphone to measure your blood pressure and blood glucose levels. Some smartphones even come built-in with apps that can track your daily workouts, diet and weight.

eBook Reader

You can download both free and paid eBook readers and eBooks to your smartphone.

Digital Cookbook

Turn your smartphone into a sensible kitchen assistant by loading it up with cooking apps and recipes.

Remote Control

There are lots of apps out there that can turn your smartphone into an efficient remote control.

GPS Unit

You can download GPS apps or maps that you can use offline.

Tracker

There are apps that will allow you to locate your loved ones by using maps and your smartphone's GPS function.

Scanner

There are tons of scanning apps that will turn your smartphone into a barcode or QR code scanner.

Webcam

Who needs a webcam when you can video chat using your phone?

Digital Wallets

Enjoy cash-free transactions by downloading apps that will allow you to store your credit card and banking information on your smartphone.

Wi-Fi Router

You can use your smartphone as a mobile hotspot to share your internet connection with other devices.

TV

Some apps will let you stream live TV on your smartphone.

 

Measuring Tool

It may not be as accurate as an actual ruler or tape measure, but if one is not handy, you can use your phone to measure distance, height, width and area.

I'm sure there are many other surprising things you can do with your smartphone. If you know of any, please do share! And if you're in the market for a new smartphone, you can compare plans and get free information at No contract plans

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Sage Harman is a frugal living enthusiast, wife and mother. She runs http://www.no-contract-plans.com, a site dedicated to providing free information to consumers trying to find viable no-contract phone and internet plans.

Just 3 of us

After done my hair highlighting, I took my 2 older kids home to rest. But kids being kids. They taking every possible chances to play and fool around instead of taking their Saturday afternoon nap.

We had a very heavy downpour in the afternoon that day, started after 2pm. And the road outside the house was flooded with water. Luckily I had hubby's Hilux otherwise we could not be able to get out of the house! Luckily by the time we went out, the rain has slowed down tremendelously.

Since they are restless, I decided to bring them for early dinner around 430pm before we went to pick Jamie from babysitter. And since I have some grocery shopping to make in Giant, we ended up in Cafe-Cafe. 

Our first time dining in this outlet in Giant Hypermarket

Interior of the café

Took a selfie with my kids before the dinner is served

They serve mostly Western dishes here.  And since only 3 of us, I ordered something simple for us.  The kids have fish & chips (RM19.00). 

I think they used dory fishes for the fillets. The fishes were fresh and I always enjoyed them with some tartar sauce.  It comes with raw veggies and small dipping of tartar sauce.

And I also had its creamy chicken chop rice (RM19.00).  It tasted like carbonara cream.  I personally prefer brown or mushroom sauce to go with my chicken chop but I quite like the creamy carbonara sauce on the rice.  But I only can finished half of the fragrant rice. 

The creamy sauce on the chicken thigh!

We shared 2 glasses of orange juices (RM8 per glass).  Total dinner amounting to RM54.00.  We enjoyed our dinner. And kids were well behaved this time.  Gave me less headache during the dinner.

Another hair chat

After a week of perming my hair, I went back to the salon to highlight it last weekend.  The curls have soften a bit and my hair is not so overly voluminous after few shampooing. 

And what do you think??  I am happy with the highlight result.  Add colour to my black hair and yet emphasizing on the curls. Just less than 2 hours sitting in the salon to get this result!

If you ask me to colour my hair, I would go for highlight than dyeing the whole head.  One thing about highlighting is that it still maintain your hair base without damaging it, and highlight is much cheaper than dye since it only colour few % of your hair!! And hair colouring requires regular touch up where as highlight does not necessarily need to. 

What about you??  Highlight or whole head colouring??

Weekend Menu #58 : Pan fried nam yue pork belly

Another simple pork belly dish. I simply love the saltiness of the nam yue in the pork belly.

 



Ingredients:
Pork belly, sliced
1 tbsp. ginger, grated
2 tbsp. nam yue sauce with 1 nam yue cube, smashed
1/2 tsp salt
2 tbsp. light soy sauce
1/2 tsp sugar
White pepper dash
1 stalk spring onion (green part only), chopped (for garnish)
1 iceberg lettuce leaf, washed (for garnish)

Method:
1. Marinate the sliced pork belly with all the ingredients, except spring onion and iceberg lettuce
2. Leave in fridge for at least 2 hours (I leave for 6 hours)
3. Heat up a pan with 1 tbsp. oil. No need too much oil as pork belly will release lot of fat in the cooking process.
4. Place the sliced pork belly one by one in the pan.  Turn to the other side. 
5. Throw in the remaining marinade and continue cooking and stirring till the pork belly is cooked
6. Place lettuce leaf on a serving plate.  Scoop the pork belly on top of the lettuce leaf and garnish with spring onion.

I eat

We have been staying in Sibu for 8 months now. More or less settled down.  The kids are adapting to the environment well and I am glad that the transition was smooth, without much hassle.  If you ask me whether I have learnt any Foochow words, sorry to disappoint you.  I still having some problem remembering the numbers and certain words in Foochow.  Can understand few words, but totally cannot speak the dialect. I am a total loser when it comes to languages.

 

As for food, I did tried out the local food such as dian meng ngu.  It is a kind of sliced noodle made from rice served with fish balls and veggies. I went to the old town on Thursday morning.  Hubby was catching a flight to Johor so he suggested to eat in the town as he wanted to tapau kompia over to Johor.

 

We went to Ah Hee Kopi Tian which is facing the car parking bay where the pasar malam is operating.  I tried its dian meng ngu.  Tasted like kueh tiaw but this noodle is smoother. 

 

Of course kompia is another Sibu's proud heritage.  Ah Hee kopi tian has nice meat kompia.  I like!  Sorry, I am not too sure how much the food cost as we happened to bump into hubby's friend there and our breakfast was on him!

After our breakfast, we walked to the other side of the road to look for kompia.  So many varieties for you to choose from!  Kaya filled, the salty one and the plain sweet one.  And the owner helped to pack the 100 kompia properly in a box to fly over to Johor!

I tasted kampua too, and I think the Kawan café in Rejang Park has nice kampua.  But my kids prefer My Home cafe's one.  Anyway, I am still not a big fan of kampua. 

I still like something clear, which not much oil.  Like this tang hoon fish ball soup.  RM3.00 only for this bowl of soup.  A lot of stuff they put in that bowl.

This is out of topic for this post, but I still want to rant about it.  Heard that Rejang Park has highest Dengue cases, reaching over 40 cases now!!  And we are staying near to this area.  Within last month only, there has been 3 fogging works done around the shops.  Scary! 

 

I hate when they do the fogging because the fog is so smelly.  And the smell does stick to your clothes.  Not to mention the food.  I don't think I would want to eat in Rejang Park for few days after the each fogging.  Maybe I am paranoid, but I cannot help thinking of those fog chemical going into the food they served.