Photos of my cooking attempts

Hi dear friends, thanks for all your messages of love, encouragement and support. Really needed. Overall, its been fine in Germany, but it can get tough settling in and all. I get my fair share of depression and homesickness sometimes. So far, we´ve been doing lots of administrative stuff eg. getting me registered in germany, converting my driving licence, getting furniture, finding spaces to store stuff, getting my internet set up.

We´ve been meeting up with a couple of people from Stephan´s church. There´s a lady who used to work in YWAM, England for 5 years and now she´s a full-time mom with 2 young kids. She can speak really good english, so I can talk to her pretty well. So happy. Watched `Chronicles of Narnia`in german with english subtitles. It was a little cell group gathering, so I just focussed on the english words which helped a lot.

Apparently our neighbourhood in Korntal is like really nice, a lot of germans want to stay in our area but not many get to do that. Cos apparently if the appartments are owned by the older generation, they will pass them down to their children and so on. I´m just starting to realize what a huge blessing it really is that God provided us this appartment to stay. We stay 2 mins from the train station, the supermarket is really near and there´s a Christian heritage in this area - from history. Hence, its pretty common to see mothers with their children all around the place. Oh and the mothers here are like all very slim, well-dressed and look like they have 'everything under control'. Wonder what I´ll look like as a Mom.

We found out that the appartment opposite our house belongs to a lady who attends this cell group called `Ladies breakfast`- it caters to full-time housewives who are unable to attend cell during the evening cos they have kids. Before I was came to Germany, I found out that Stephan´s cluster leader asked if I wanted to take part in their Ladies´breakfast thing. And the first thought I had was 'Wah, it sounds so tai-tai' haha. I guess that decision is made for me already since the first ever ladies breakfast is going to take place just opposite my house! They rotate houses every week.

German course - We checked out the german course in Stuttgart and there is this integration course that is supposed to teach german and all cultural stuff in 6 months, full-time 5 hours a day 5 days a week. I´ll get a certificate to say that I'm fluent enough to have a german job at the end of the course. I took an entrance test and I was good enough to skip 3 months! So thankful to God. :) But, if I start the course in the 4th month only, I would have nothing to do until mid-Nov! Hence, I´ve decided to start in the 3rd month (mid- Oct) instead so that I can just revise in case there are some stuff I have not learnt yet. Hence I'll settle in for 6 whole weeks!

Ok! Now, the fun part! I have been cooking everyday! Aiyoh...sob sob miss my hawker centres n cheap food! I thinkI'm not too bad though...hee. There isn't much chinese ingredients here, cos the chinese supermarket is barely a provision store. So I had to learn to make do.

Me cooking the first meal on top of a washing machine??!? Cecilia! How on earth do you make cream sauce? Mine was pretty tasteless.

Sweet and sour pork! Yay!

That´s vegetable soup, healthy stuff!

My masterpiece - fried noodles with kai lan, chicken, mushrooms, eggs, carrots

Me on a bad hair day. James (Ailing's hubby) says I look like the dragonball guy on the right