Settling In + Hokkaido Earthquake Updates

There are three things I realised during these couple of days.

One:

Cooking Mama is available on Android!

Imagine to my utter delight that this DS game would be playable on my phone! I've wanted a DS at one point just to play Cooking Mama because, hello, you can cook stuff without looking like a total idiot in the kitchen and burning it down?! I kid. I'm not entirely hopeless in the kitchen, more of the opposite actually *coughselfpraisecough*. Anyway, I would suppose the game's language settings are set to the one your phone's UI is in, but it also allows you to choose which languages you want the game to be in. Of course, Japanese is one of them (duh). The game is free, but (so far) recipes are bought by cash, and they ain't cheap. They come in a bundle of  about six or more recipes that you can cook and combine with. Yes, combine. Now you can be the Michelin Star chef you've always wanted to be (or not). Since this game is relatively new, I don't expect a lot of recipes to be available in the game-shop yet. But last I checked, there are 6 packs to choose from

Game play is simple: you use your finger or a stylus to follow the arrows as instructed on the screen. For example here, I learned how to make a cheese omelette, omurice style. (Also, this was before I found out I could switch languages, hence why the game is in English)

Pretty fun at first, but me being me, I got bored after completing the three recipes given for free. I'll see how the game proceeds after that and whether if it'll gradually reward me with more recipes. Search on Playstore for Cooking Mama.

*edit: after looking through the reviews on playstore, it seems the maximum amount of free recipes you'll get is six. Any more and you'll have to purchase them for $3.99 or for my case RM14.40. That is a lot of money for 6 in-game recipes. See the thing is, this isn't exactly a game I'd devote a lot of my time to, maybe an hour but that's about it. Hence, spending money on recipes instead of two actual meals or something more tangible would be.. well, not worth it. I do believe the other players agree as well. However, as this is new, profits need to be earned and there is always space for improvement. Let's hope the company listens to its players.

Two:

My hair has grown up until my waist. Achievement unlocked! I am extremely pleased that my decision to withhold from chopping my locks off for 9 months have produced a mane of this length. Sadly, this will have to go once I've settled down back home during the summer, and the cycle will begin again when I return to the UK for Masters. Though this time, I'm quite excited because then, I won't be cutting my hair for up to 14 months! I wonder if I should get a shorter hair cut?

I had to bend my arm at some really weird
angles to take this shot, hence the emote.

Three:

I am absolutely out of shape. 

So I tried 'fitboxing' today. It's a fitness class provided by my university's sports membership. I didn't even have to go through the actual boxing workout to go, "oh crap, what did I just sign up for?!" 

It was just doing jump rope for 1-minute intervals with burpees, squats and push ups in between each set, and already I felt like my legs were turning into jelly. And that was just the warm up. To be honest, I've never done a burpee, ever, until today. After that came the real thing. That was then when I (internally) gasped in horror, 'there's more?!' Of course there's more you あほばか, it is fitboxing after all. 

Anyway, if my tired brain remembers correctly, we did two sets per person for boxing, with partners. The other would be the one with pads. The first set was three punches. Nothing too overbearing, right? Wrong. I think it was two minutes? Could be more because it felt very long. The second set was continuous punching until time was up. As I was with the pads first, I thought it wouldn't be too hard holding my hands up as punch targets. Thing is, when you hold your arms up at about shoulder-height, they get tired after awhile. Not only that, you'll be absorbing the shock from the punches your partner throws at you. And at the same time, you also kinda go against your partner's punches, if you know what I mean, kinda like providing the extra force so your hands don't go limp when the punch comes. 

Now imagine doing that twice, then switching to punch another two sets then doing push ups after that. Now imagine doing all of that three times, with each set more punches than the last, and with burpees and squats in between. Then finally, everyone would take turns punching different padders. I don't know how long it took but it was over quicker than I expected. There were 5 groups I think? That would make 9 of us, including the instructor, so we'd each get to punch 5 different padders (well not really because we switched after the round so we didn't get to punch with everybody, which was a relief because I didn't want to punch the instructor when my arms felt like noodles.) 

After all that cardio, we ended with some crunches, hip thrusts, leg raise crunches and planking. I was like 'whaaaaaatttttt gimme a breakkkkkkk!' We did two sets of those, though I felt like the second set was shorter. Anyway, the best part was when we did some stretching to end the one hour cardio-intense session. Lying down and not doing any motions that require a lot of energy never felt so good. 

And I think my legs look more toned after all that work out. Or maybe it's just my wishful thinking and positively hoping that something good came out of that tortuous exercise. 

I may, or may not have looked for
the nicest angle to snap a photo
of my misproportioned legs.

Least to say, after that, I found it difficult to walk down the stairs without having my knees buckle under my weight. But, no pain, no gain, right?

I also signed up for Zumba next Monday. We'll see how that goes.