Bookaholic

'You know you're a bookaholic when...you can't leave a bookstore without buying something, even when you have a "to-be-read" pile a mile high.' You won't find the term "bookaholic" in the dictionary but the word exists as it rings true to a lot of people who are addicted to books. Yeah, you can be a bookworm, but personally, I feel the term denotes something else. I can call myself a big fan of books but not until yesterday that I admitted that I was a "bookaholic". I spotted several books at Virgin the other day but I was able to stop myself from buying anything. Honestly, I shouldn't be reading any novels at the moment since I have to cram to study for my exams but I can't help myself.
Yesterday while at Burjuman, I dropped by a Virgin store again and found the same books I was eyeing the other day. They also had a great sale, buy three for two, which sounded perfect. But since I knew that there's a Magrudy's store in the mall, I went there to peruse some titles.
I've been waiting for Dan Brown's The Lost Symbol but I was planning to wait and buy the paperback version. Addicted as I was, I was completely enticed by the hardbound book and so I bought one.
Then I went back to the Virgin store and grabbed a handful of different titles: The Atlantis Code by Charles Brokaw, The Beach House by Jane Green, Julie & Julia by Julie Powell, Things I Want My Daughters to Know by Elizabeth Noble, This Charming Man by Marian Keyes and Girls of Riyadh by Rajaa Alsanea.
I was so delighted by my great haul, different books with different themes and genre. But I also felt sad that I have to keep myself from reading the books I just bought since a mile-high pile of reviewers are awaiting my attention. Sigh! I have to get myself away from temptation. I really do hope that I can!

Bits and Pieces

Alright. So I've been out for a while and here I am again. I managed to collect some photos of some things which could summarize the happenings around me during the past few weeks. And so here they are:
Yogurberry! Yum! Yum! I really can't get enough of this sweet and sour strawberry-flavored frozen yogurt topped with my choice of fresh blueberries, strawberries and chocolate chips. It's really mouth watering! The bad thing though, is that they only have one store right now in Dubai. Hope they'll put up more stores in different malls.




This is Niko trying to let his creativeness get the better of him. I baked the cake during the weekend and as I was trying to perfect the icing, they all got excited about decorating the cake themselves. Unfortunately, my piping bag burst and icing was everywhere. And so Niko took the liberty of "fixing" the cake which surprisingly turned out okay. The cake only lasted for a couple of days, thanks to my housemates' sweet teeth!


It's Val, me and Alex, trying to squeeze in for a photo. We went to Dubai Mall on this day without real plans on what to do. We just roamed the mall until we were so hungry and there was no way to eat at the time because it was still Ramadan. We bought Patchi and sneaked into the rest rooms to shove the chocolates into our craving mouths!




This is the ultimate masterpiece of all time. It was chocolate cake with chocolate filling and covered with chocolate ganache. Surprisingly sumptuous! It was thickly covered by liberal amounts of chocolate which was not so sweet. The only downside was the ultra-sweet decorator's icing I placed on top. As this was the greatest cake I have baked so far, it only lasted for a couple of hours and everyone was trying to find where it had gone. I will definitely bake more of these and get it perfect the next time.

This is Karl posing beside the giant billboard of the Dubai Metro 3d theater and Niko inside the theater at the Mall of the Emirates. We just had a whim to see the 9-minute 3d presentation and we were happy that we had. It was a brilliant presentation about the Dubai Metro and although I already knew all these facts, it was still worth watching. The coolest part was during the second half of the film when we were asked to wear the 3d glasses. It was beyond cool! Though it was a bit disorienting, the 3d experience was so fantastic that you would want to reach out and touch the things in front of you which were really not there. Thumbs up!

And finally, it's me again wearing my new Skullcandy headphones for the first time. I already bought one for Jho a few weeks ago and I thought that it was a great buy and so I have to have one. What I liked best about it though is the attached mp3 player that you won't have to worry about having those annoying cords tangling all round you.