On a sunny Tuesday afternoon in Stockholm.

I always feel so much alive when it comes to the spring and summer in Europe. The sky will be clear and blue with the sun shining throughout the day. The air is fresh and everyone just seems to be happy. The day is longer and I can just stay out the whole day.
Unlike when you live in a country who is 24 hrs warm and sometimes occasionally you get the rain to cool down, it is never the same. You don't appreciate the sun that much as we people do in Europe.

 People will be out more in the spring and summer. Obviously more people will spend more of their time outdoor much more. Outdoor restaurants will be the first to be fill up with people. Suddenly everything became much more alive.

These are the first thing which makes a lot of changes in the spring and summer. The flowers will start blooming everywhere. Unlike in the autumn and winter, all trees will be totally ripped off and there will be nothing left. So when we start to see the first small bud creeping out of the tip of the branches, we know that the spring is here.

Then this is next where you will start doing, tanning :) You will find any place to sit in a park, or benches in the estate area where you lived and start gathering friends or family. People will bbq, play games, drinks and enjoy so much of the outdoor while they still can.

This is why I really love the summer in Europe. I appreciate the sun much more than when I was living in the warm countries before.

Bone Steak or Soup Tulang Merah Singaporean style

Soup tulang merah is one of the popular dishes in Singapore. Usually, it can be found in most the Indian stalls but I am not so sure nowadays if they even sell it in other stalls.

Recipe
2kg bone steak boiled with star anise, cardamom, cinnamon stick, salt and 2 slice of pandan leave for 2 hrs.

Ingredients for gravy
1 large onion
4 garlic
10 pcs of dried chillies
3 cm of ginger
fresh corainder
1 stalk of lemon grass
Blend together all the ingredients above.

1 lemon grass smash
2 chopped tomatoes
10 tbs tomato sauce
1 tbs corainder powder
1 tbs cumin powder
1 tbs curry powder
1 tsp tumeric powder
5 star anise
1 cinnamon stick
3 cardamon pot
2 egg
1 meat bullion

Seperate the boiling water from the bone steak. Keep the water aside for later.

Add little oil in a pan and put in the lemon grass and the blended ingredients. Stir it for few minutes. Then adding in slowly each and every ingredients above except the egg.

Once it started to boil, put back the bone steak inside. Break in two egg ans stir. Add salt and pepper to taste.

Samsung S4 latest update destroy everything

I am sure that this is not going to be good for samsung reputation. You better get it sort out with another update quickly to get rid of all the mess you did with the phone after the latest update was introduced.
Problems:
1.Phone shutting down by itself constantly even on full battery.
2.The volume became so low that you could hardly hear it at all on speaker.
3.Getting missed call. (Frustrated)

These three are my main concern but there are many other problem which Samsung are aware of from the complaint they received after the update.

The important keys to live a happier life

The one thing I know is that my life have been constantly coming back to hit me really hard over and over again. People are chasing for wealth, beauty, fame and even politician getting louder in term of words for their matters and the growing economy. Not knowing, we have created the stressful and unhappy group of people.. All these around us, does it bring lasting happiness? I am not so sure now.

A huge certain of variation in us come from our own choices. We absolutely have the power to change how happy we are and how we can approach our lives. I sometimes do question myself why do I still accept the same suffering in my life over and over again? Have I not overcome it and learnt from it? Obviously not if I have been going through it over and over again.

When you fall and hit the ground hard and asking for help... sometimes people will help if you are lucky but most of the time, people would not want to get involved. They would either end up totally invisible and disappeared into the thin air.
For the extremely rich ones, who may live in a big house just like a castle with thousand of square meter fully designer decorated with 40 to 50 servant, unfortunately and sadly, they can be very cold and heartless. I said this because I experience it personally. It is sad, but it is true. I can come begging, but they can just neglect and ignore. Even thought I may felt shamed and shattered... but I will still pray and wish for his good health and wealth to continue.

A Happier Healthier You

Some certain action which I will put into my thought and identified in action.

Caring for others

I know personally, I am a very caring and sympathetic person. I always care for others and how people would feel as I know part of it would bring happiness. Caring for others does not have to involve financial all the time. I know the society are mostly below average in income. Most people are tight financially, so if you are one of the lucky humans with no financial issues then helping out financially to someone in need is always good. Otherwise pay a compliment to someone would make that person smile. Even offer to help in any possible way you could. Small little things make a lot of difference. Whenever you start saying or think, "I don't give a shit about him/her" Rewire that thought. I have decided to forgive everyone who have done something bad to me and will not hold any grudges anymore. I would not be their best friend, but I would not hate them from now onwards. If I ever do hear that they have a problem, I would send my offer to help.
Put aside what people had done towards you and learned to forgive and forget as people make a mistake.

Take good care of our body

Our body is very important to us. It's a part of happiness which we always seem to forget and have been taking things for granted. We humans abused ourselves by putting in lots of alcohol, smoking, taking drugs, eating lots of crappy food in our body. I will not go into details of the result, but we all should be aware of the consequences. Eventually, some may catch up with the over weight problem and ending up being unhappy. 

The more you love yourself and take care of your health, mentally you will be prepared to do more good things to your body. You will have enough sleep daily and enjoying a nice long walk in fresh air. 

Have a goal in Life

A goal is part of happiness. Setting goals will motivate you and challenge you as a whole person. Try not to set something which is beyond reach. Realistic goals will lead to happiness and sense of accomplishment. Sometimes we put too high hope and dreams that when it fail, we get disappointed and stress. Who doesn't want to set a goal to be a millionaire? BUT can you achieve that :)

Try to find a way to come back

Realistic all of us have gone through trauma, the sadness of losing someone, the failure which we have least expected and how should we respond to such situation. Drown yourself in sorrow and lots of smoking and drinking? That is what most of the people will do as we cannot handle such despair in life. I know it is easy to say but in a real life situation like this, it is not that easy to just bounce back to life again. It takes a lot of skills and probably we have to go through a lot of disappointment, despair, failure, sadness or trauma for us to be able to learn.

My list could go on and on, but I stop here at the moment.....

Outdoor Living with amazing outdoor kitchen

For years, I have always dreamt of having a proper outdoor living with an outdoor kitchen in my house. When we were living in Egypt, we had an outdoor pool in our garden and we were also talking about building an outdoor kitchen but we never made it come true as we left the place not long after just before the revolution started.
I know having a proper cosy outdoor can be very relaxing. Life has already been so stressful these days. Honestly relaxing outdoor at the back of your garden with proper outdoor kitchen and proper living would and could take the stress away.

 An amazing jacuzzi with the ocean view. Unwind your stress day in the jacuzzi and relax with the view of the ocean. My wildest dream.

 This is my dream relaxing outdoor. The sight of owning this one day would be unspeakable.

I love the cosy wooden style. Seeing the sight of a living area with fireplace and view of the pool. I have to share it with you.

 Countryside view. Cosy little garden with Jacuzzi and a set of cosy sitting area.

This is the type of outdoor kitchen I have always dreamt about. It is an absolute grand design. I can also be very happy with only half of the design.

Surrounded by greenery and concept of jungle living, hearing the bird cheeping, and the nature wild and free life.

Golf Humor

I have been doing a lot of research on golf and lately I came across a lot of golf humor which I personally found it very interesting. Enjoy...:)

My Daily Workout

The gym uses to be my second home. I love going to the gym every day until I hurt both my tennis elbow and was unable to lift anything heavy. I love this workout as it targets your back, shoulders and also your stomach.

Sugar Body scrub

I have never been a fan of shaving especially the man type of shaving with razor shaver. In fact, I am considered lucky as I was not born hairy either. I do shave my armpit and legs every now and then, probably once a month using the electric epilator but never the razor. I had my electric epilator which pulls from the roots which I prefer as when the hair grows back it is not as rough as you shave. Plus the hair is much finer and eventually after pulling it for many years, it became so much lesser.

I have been using the normal body scrub, but I read about homemade sugar body scrub one day and decided to give it a try. It works fantastic.

So I recommend that you give it a try.

Please take note that if you shave using the razor, you can repeat by using the sugar scrub - shave - and sugar scrub again after soaking in warm bath for 5 mins.

Sugar Scrub
2tbs of normal white sugar
2tbs of coconut oil
5 tbs of freshly squeezed citrus juice.

Soak for about 5 minutes in a warm bath
Take the homemade sugar scrub and scrub your body thoroughly with it.
Repeat until you feel it is smooth as you will be removing any dead skin.
Finish with a bath, pat dry and if you like to you can apply any body cream or I prefer a coconut oil.

This is the virgin coconut oil which I brought it from a health shop here in London, Holland and Barrett. I used this to apply all over my body after the sugar body scrub and it will feel so smooth.

I do not use this coconut oil to make the sugar body scrub. 

I bought a cheaper version (as shown below)where you can find it in the supermarket which cost only £2.

Do you really need online all the time?

Looking at this video, not only did it really makes me realised how bad it is we are living now. It seems so ridiculous and it is absolutely true. I cannot deny it. Look around you when you out dining or at the beach. We may be together, but we will still need to be on our own for a while just to be online. I am not so sure if the life we living now is healthy.
It may make you smile or even laugh when looking at this video and knowing how silly we are nowadays, but we will continue being silly because this is the habit we had since the technology came.




This video resembles most of us nowadays.

When is the cheapest time to travel

There is a time when you felt like packing and just go away. 

Our life is so base on routine. Our daily routine sometimes bore us. We need a little excitement and slight positive changes at times to stop the routine. Waking up in the morning every day, to prepare breakfast either for yourself or for the family, then getting ready for the same daily routine can be dreadful feeling in the end. I know we have to be thankful for our life as we get the chance to see the light everyday as we open our eyes. Indeed, I am very thankful and glad that I get to see the day and end the night with love from my family.

Somehow it is always nice to have the little extra of waking up by the sound of the beach waves and havig breakfast under the nice warm sun. 

Somehow fight prices are not cheap especially when it is during the holiday season. Strangely it is the only time when most people can actually travel away when their children are off from school.

The truth, spontaneous weekend or weekday trip can cost you a fortune.

If you can plan in advance, it can save you hundreds of dollars.

Try booking at least 2 months in advance, flights will be so much cheaper.

When you can avoid flying on Friday and Sunday it will make a lot of difference. 

Flying on weekdays such as Tuesday and Wednesday has a number crunch difference than weekend prices.

I just recently checked a direct flight in May for a Business Class ticket for a Norwegian airline, travelling from Stockholm to Thailand cost ONLY 398 British pound. Isn't it amazing?

So next time when try planning your trip. Book months ahead, try taking the kids out of school for few days and discuss with the teachers if long distance studies will be negotiable. OR, for example, the Swedish school in Thailand have especially made for swedish parents who would ike to take few weeks or months off from their routine and can still have their kids registered to that swedish school in Thailand. 

I am sure if you prepare yourself and find out the alternative for cheap travel during off peak period, there sure be an option for you.

Good Luck!

How much are you inspired?

It is true that we have a path or a road to walk through in our life. either we have someone who would like to cross that path together with us is their choices but as it says no one can walk that path for you.

Choices we made in our life is not always right. Sometimes it can lead to disappointment and sometimes it can bring happiness but overall it is a matter of trial and error. We all knows that no one is perfect, so there will be a time where we will bound to make a mistake.
A mistake is good as it makes you realise that it should not be repeated.

How to Multiply

This is brilliant. If you are bad at multiplication, well this person has come up with an easy simple way for you to calculate.

Are we a modern slave?

Have you ever question yourself, if we are indeed living in a modern slavery?

It may not look like slavery but think about this..

We pay to get education
We then need to work to pay for our education and later our children education
We need to work to put food on the table.
We need to work so we can pay rent and all other bills.
Yet at the end of the month some family had just enough to survive before the next pay cheque comes in. 

Who has set up this system for us to follow?

The average income of a family, every month will be just enough to pay the house rent, bills, schooling for children, set food on the table for the family and once in a while having a holiday. Not many of us have the privileges of having 10 or 20 thousand dollars extra every month after all bills are paid. Not even 100 dollars extra for some.

Yet we still struggle and go to work and put the kids to school and take a loan for housing so we could put shelter over our head. That loan alone can last half our lifetime or even a lifetime for some people. Still we human being keeps on waking up in the morning and repeating doing the same thing over and over again.

Realistic, we need to pay for education especially for higher education in some countries and without these good education you can never find a good work or build up a good career.

So a good career is like holding an average income which a big percentage of the world population do hold. These group of people has a decent house, a car, some nice decent food on the table and manage to have few days of fun traveling sometimes. Out of 365 days, the numbers of days that we are having fun are actually very little and the numbers we have to do the work just to pay all the systems that are set for us is not balancing well.

We are born and later as early as 3 or 4 years old in some country, our parents will start to send our children to preschool.  That is where we start to pay for education for our children from as young as that age until they finish they university. Then it is exactly like I wrote all the above.
I felt that we are the modern slavery. A big percentage of the population are still suffering even with decent income because of the systems we have to follow.

Only very few percentage of the population are really wealthy. Their wealth is beyond unimaginable and unexplainable. Interesting why people have not reacted. Are we fully program to just follow the systems?