Come join me on this beautiful day as I search for a special Middle Eastern (Egyptian) spice. My lovely friend Fauziah, and her husband Gordon were my hosts for this trip. On my free and easy Sunday, we decided to do a walking tour around Deira.
Our original plan to take the ferry around the coast was thwarted by an unexpected ‘force’. What do we do instead?
Watch my vlog and ooh and ahh at all the amazing colourful spices with me! Especially if you love cooking! Then come see this crazy gold ring at the gold souk! You won’t believe the size of it!
Hope you enjoy my Dubai souk vlog and if you fancy seeing more pics, click my gallery below! 🙂
As some of you, my friends and family know, my family and I are big music and festival fans. Yet we are also a big geeky family. Our eldest daughter was raised more on Discovery channel than Nickelodeon. She was listening to Joy Division more than Britney Spears.
When we moved to England in summer of 2004, the first thing we did was look for a music festival. Alas the major one, Glastonbury, was not to be so we started looking for smaller ones to attend.
Every single year since, we’ve made it a point to go to Glastonbury and one other music festival with our daughter who was then joined by a little sister. These summer festivals are like our family’s yearly retreat. We ‘work hard’ on relaxing our minds with music and the various artistic entertainment yet our bodies are exercised with the tens of thousands of steps a day.
A couple of years ago, we discovered Bluedot by chance on a music site. It was happening in 2 days! Coupled with the interesting music line up, the lower priced entrance fee AND that was it a STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Math) based festival, it didn’t take us long to decide and to snap up the tickets that evening. We set off the next afternoon for Chester.
Our first Bluedot Festival 2017
We had an amazing 3 days filled with wonder and awe. The children learnt about quasars and did robotics and coding. The parents meanwhile, had a grand old time listening and watching various scientists during the day and at night, bands performing and lighting up the stage and the night sky.
Last year was our second year attending Bluedot and we can safely say it’s vying for our ‘favourite festival’ spot with Glastonbury. While Glastonbury is really huge and can be overwhelming for families with small children, Bluedot is the complete opposite.
Bluedot is much smaller, much cleaner and really family oriented. Our 4 children have enjoyed both years we’ve been. Especially for our 2 youngest (8 and 6), Bluedot gives them a chance to discover a fun festival and still feel safe. I love seeing them feel at home at Bluedot like we’ve been going there for ages.
Bluedot to us is quite a unique festival. Where else can you find festivals goers groove to amazing music yet have snaking queues to hear an esteemed scientist, professor and broadcaster like Jim Al Khalili speak?
My happy family with Professor Jim Al Khalili in 2018Mummy and eldest daughter with Dr Suzie Imber, Planetary Scientist, and the winner of the 2017 BBC Two television program Astronauts, Do You Have What It Takes?
I am super excited to come back again this year to Bluedot. Do you want to know why? Not only am I officially Bluedot’s Ambassador, (a little happy dance here!) we are super excited to see the headlines! And of course, the kids are excited too as they get to do more science and robotics experiments. For our eldest daughter, it’s also extra special as she’s recently been accepted to study Biological Sciences in Imperial College (of Science, Technology and Medicine). I guess all those years of us geeking out with her has helped tremendously. 🙂
Bluedot 2019 Line Up
As you can see from the line up, Kraftwerk is going to be present in their 3D glory and New Order will also be the order of the day (pun intended). If you are not so much into music, there are various stages to hook your attention. This year is also the 50th anniversary of the moon landing (1969) and Bluedot, being based at Jodrell Bank Observatory, will be celebrating along.
On the 21 July 1969 humankind began a brand new chapter in the history of science and exploration as Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin set foot on the Moon. The iconic Jodrell Bank in Cheshire played a unique role in tracking the Eagle Lander onto the surface.
To celebrate 50 years to the day, we have announced the first phase of our incredible Moon-themed line-up to mark one of the most momentous feats in the history of human endeavour.
Throughout the weekend Bluedot will relive the Apollo 11 mission in real time with The Moon Landing LIVE using archive audio and video. Festival goers will be able to follow along including all the key moments of entering lunar orbit, the Eagle landing on the Moon and Armstrong’s one small step.
I really would love to have you check out Bluedot Festival if you are a festival virgin and want to be eased in. There will be no tales of ‘smelly toilets’, staggering drunken teens or drugged out souls wandering around. What you will find is a bunch of beautiful souls, many from the STEM line (hmm, I wonder why? ?) clean open spaces and lots of things to learn to bring you forward into an exciting future. We’ve met incredibly friendly and helpful tent neighbours and helpful scientists willing to answer our questions. What about when it comes to music? No smelly pits jostling for space with you right up front! LOL.. how much more incredible can it be right?
So go on then, check out the link below to see what you’ll be missing if you don’t join me!
First evening watching Blue Planet accompanied by an orchestra
Our tent against the Jodrell Observatory
Perfect Stranger Comedy
Happy Ayla on 1st Day of Bluedot
Professor O’brian with Wayne Coyne of Flaming Lips
Happy fans!
Rajasthani Band against the Observatory
The Goddess Mama with her eldest
Our last evening at Bluedot 2018
Inside the Luminarium
Til 2019! Can’t wait!
If I still haven’t convinced you yet to consider Bluedot as your important festival to attend in July 2019, maybe seeing the big smiles on our faces will help! Check out my 3 Day vlog below:
Give it a thumbs up and subscribe to my channel if you haven’t already. 😉
P.s If you have any questions about Bluedot, anything at all, I'll be mor than happy to help you.
I spent a bit of time recently either sleeping or slouching on the sofa feeling poorly, as you do, when I was down with the flu for 11 days. This means my back felt sluggish and actually a little like it was dying.
In traditional Asian medicinal belief, the ‘chi’ or energy doesn’t flow well when you’re having the flu. In order to heal properly, you need to get the energy flowing up and down your spine again.
This next technique I’m sharing is great as an upper body workout and to help improve the energy flow. I have been asked quite often if I was a swimmer due to my strong deltoids and upper back. I don’t swim often but this move is like swimming on air. You will feel the burn the longer you do it and the slower you go.
Pssstt…I have a secret! Yes, I have a secret to tell you about Valentine’s Day and my other half. I was going to write a post about how meaningful Mondays are to me but since today, being February 14th and all, I HAD to write about it and it’s meanings don’t I?
My oh-so-loving DH doesn’t believe in Valentine’s Day! Yup! He told me that when we first met all those years ago. The romantic in me told him, “Oh, that’s because you haven’t really met the right woman to express this special day with”. And he’s been married once before. No matter how much I cajoled him to think about celebrating it, he kept on saying “It’s an American consumerism thing”, “It’s created by Hallmarks to make more money”, etc. Sigh…
Our first February 14th together was exactly 11 years ago. We were stationed in Germany at that time. I came back up to our hotel room, after breakfast, to find 2 dozen yellow roses, my favourite. No…I don’t really care for the cliched red ones as yellow to me is like sunshine. And he remembered. Do you know why I got those roses despite his convictions? Just 2 days ago we found out I was pregnant with our firstborn girl. DH told me “If I was going to give you flowers for February 14th, this is the best reason ever!”.
My kind of roses
Almost every year, he reluctantly got reminded by me way ahead, “Feb 14th is coming honey…” I would inevitably arrange something along the lines of romance for this day. It doesn’t help that living in Singapore and England, we were surrounded by big signs at most shops that if you love someone, you’ll buy them this heart cushion, that cuddly bear, those chocolates.
Thank God for DH, living in the Netherlands, where the people are not so much into commercial “American Culture” (my observation), he’s spared those red glowing signs everywhere. And after 11 years, I admitted defeat to him. I told him last week, I don’t expect ANYTHING from him anymore. Yes, ladies! I, the perpetual romantic, have decided that I don’t need anything showy from him on February 14th.
Guess what he did? This past weekend, he did show me how much he loves me, Valentine’s Day or not. And he did it, reluctantly as it is, with the best of heart. We were out shopping for groceries at an Oriental store in the city centre. I was joking about missing ‘durian’, otherwise known to the Asians as King Of Fruits. DH then told me, since it’s V day on Monday, he would let me buy Durian Ice Cream as a sign of his love.
For those of you not in the know, Durian is like a smelly, but tasty Gorgonzola cheese. You either love it or you hate it. And dear readers, you can imagine, my other half hates it to his core. Can’t stand the smell of it, can’t stand the taste of it and he told me in no uncertain terms when we got married, durian will never be allowed into our marital home. And to tell that to an Asian who loves it is like telling a Frenchman, he can never drink a glass of wine ever again.
Durian, known as the King of Fruits.
I was shocked to the core! Wow! After years of being married, DH is actually offering to buy me his most hated fruit/food as a sign of his love. He’s always maintained that he doesn’t need V day to show me how much he loves me. There’s birthdays, anniversaries (of which we have THREE!), Christmases and those random days when he feels like indulging me for whatever reasons. I guess I finally am giving in to his views. In any case, I’m one happy Goddess, being able to indulge in a particular food, bought with love from her other half.
So what is your Durian (i.e your Valentine’s Day gift) today? Share with me!
2000, the soon to be parents with me 5 months pregnant. Sentosa Island, SIngapore
I was planning on another beauty vlog/blog for this week but then last week I got ill. Very, very ill that all plans were scuppered and energy went out the window.
I was talking to a couple of old friends from SE Asia who were messaging me about my Facebook post on being ill. As one does, I sent out an “SOS” post on FB feeling a little sorry for myself being ill while the husband was away.
It became clear to me that many people I spoke to didn’t really realise that even though the cold and flu are both caused by viruses, they are 2 completely different viri. They both present similar symptoms to each other with some subtle yet major differences.
Since I had a cold in October last year when I was in Frankfurt and now I am down with the flu, I decided to film the symptom differences and how I felt on Day 5 of my illness. Here I am in my sniffly glory.
Below is a handy guide if you have no time to watch my vlog but want to quickly scan for visual clues.
As someone who regularly posts many photos of herself on social media platforms, mostly with makeup on, I do get asked about my cosmetics as well as my skincare and anti-ageing routine.
If you missed the news, our skin starts ageing from around the age of 25. Yup.. that young! I guess evolution hasn’t caught up with us. and 25 years old used to be middle age for thousands of our human years. So what do we need to do to hold on to the years?
My early story
One thing my mum has drilled in me from a very young age is to always look after my skin. And not just the skin on my face. I remember being only about 6 when these lessons started. She was a bridal make up artist on weekends so her work was beautifying women. I was her very young and enthusiastic assistant. One of the things her generation of Indonesian makeup artists did was to give every bride a good facial before their big weekend. Yes, in my culture, our wedding dos last a whole long weekend!
I remember her giving every bride a loving cleanse and plucking of stray hairs on the Friday evening of their big day. Many of them were hard-working women who have barely been to a salon in their lives. These memories may not have made me want to be a makeup artist, but it did one thing. It has reinforced in me the need to look after my skin. That’s the only one I have for life.
I think I spend more money on skincare than I do cosmetics! I am not keen to pay more than £24 for a designer lipstick no matter how much fancy ingredients they claim to have. Yet I am perfectly happy to splash £25 for a bottle of cleansing water. (This is what I had done last year skincare wise)
20 years ago
When I married my husband I was so happy to know that my (now late) FIL is a pharmacologist specialising in dermatology. He has created a few skincare potions for some well-known brands especially for people with dermatology issues (like eczema and psoriasis). I used to get approached by lots of MLM companies claiming that their products were the bee’s knees. I will almost always ask for the disclosure of the full ingredients. This was the time when full ingredients lists were not necessary on the box). I’ll then send it on to my FIL. He would tell me how much it costs to put this particular lotion or cream together and what it’s actual efficacy will be.
Fast forward to today
I always religiously read the full ingredients lists. I am pretty much familiar with most chemicals and those I don’t, I will quickly google them while shopping (thank God for high-speed 4G eh?). So it’s up to me now to either accept one or two dodgy ingredients or go for as much natural as possible.
My anti-ageing gig today
This video is my nightly anti-ageing routine which differs slightly from my daily routine. Instead of a vigorous anti-ageing massage, I do a more relaxing-ready-for-bed massage. As you can see, my skincare doesn’t cost a bomb. It’s suitable for someone in her 20’s or in her 40’s like me.
