of cycling and fair babies

another great thing that came out from the medical volunteer thingy is my current addiction to cycling.
I so want a bicycle when I get back to Melbourne.
preferably one that is white or light blue and has a nice wicker basket in the front.
so the parents had enough of me going on and on about how cycling is oh-so-thrilling, and took the BFG and me off for a Sunday chock full of small towns in the Johor state.

since we were going up north, we decided to go as up north as we could possibly go and ended up at my godsister's homely place.
she just had a baby girl 3 months ago.
so up we went to catch our 1st glimpse of Princess Joey and welcome her into the family.
and we whipped out our package full of Pumpkin Patch cute togs handpicked all the way from Melb for the princess as a welcome gift.
and the moment I saw my little niece, I swear this particular lyric came into mind:

So they sprinkled moondust in your hair of gold
and starlight in your eyes of blue.
- Close To You - The Carpenters -

she had the fairest-almost-translucent skin and the biggest darkest orbs that you can totally sink yourself in and the most amazing, tantalising baby smell ever.
and your heart would totally melt when she grabs your finger with her perfect little soft hands with the cutest tiniest fingernails on them.
and embarrassingly enough, I had this jolt of reality when I caught myself surprised at Joey's super fair skin because for the past month, I've been around Cambodian babies that are super tanned, like a miniature me and I kinda got accustomed to the fact that babies, in general, are born tanned, like me. lols.
and even though Joey is but 3 months old, she has got a full head of downy, wispy hair that smells super good too.
and we decided that she would be the cutest AND smartest baby around the Muar area so we proceeded to sing her nursery rhymes and teach her the alphabet.
the alphabet was a wee bit ambitious but we managed to get her to say 'A'. but then again, it might be just some sound that she liked making at the moment because for some reason, it came out 'Ahhhh', instead of the standard 'A' pronunciation. and anxious little me decided that she just might start sprouting full English words miraculously anytime soon so I proceeded to teach her that A is for Apple.
and dad went, "since you're teaching her Apple, might as well teach her to say 'iPad', 'iPod' and 'iPhone'!" haha, very funny, dad who is a techno noob.
but who cares, I've already made up my mind to shower my little niece with pretty pink summer dresses and picture books from Melbourne when I come back again in December. I've decided that Joey shall be the spunkiest, smartest, prettiest, coolest girl on the block.

then off for lunch at this old-school coffee shop in the middle of some hick-town that had the bestest steam fish before heading off for a postprandial cycle at an organic fruit and veggie farm which I was totally looking forward to.
with 4 weeks of perpetual cycling on a bumpy dirt road under my belt, I thought it would be a breeze.
and most of the farm's track was an easy trek but there were a few steep mountain (literally) climbs and my creaking rusty bike refused to change gears.
so being all gung-ho, I decided that tackling the steep climb head-on was the way to go, so cycling as fast as I could go seemed to be the solution, since changing gears was out of the question.
and it worked 3/4 of the way until my bike stopped crawling forward and proceeded to roll backwards in slow-mo.
and that was when I hopped off the bike willy-nilly and pushed the bike uphill, with no less embarrassment by the way.
blardy steep trails. I just managed to make it to the top of a teeny one. again, blardy steep trails.
and as a reward, yummy refreshing dragonfruit juice all around after the cycling trip.

current list of things to do:
- go for more spinning classes
- conquer the blardy steep trails at that farm the next time I come back. no pushing the bikes up, thank you very much. I refused to be subjected to such embarrassment again.
- after conquering the farm trails, conquer Mt Kinabalu.