Terrariums, Raindrop Cakes and Basketball Games

 "A terrarium is a portrait of a perfect world, a microcosm of beauty and life contained within the glass walls, forever unchanging."

- Edward Gorey

Years ago, I remember being fascinated by terrariums and tiny plants kept in jars or glass containers, back when they weren't yet popular on Facebook. It was a mystery to me how the plants could live and flourish in a jar with minimal intervention from the person who set them up. A few weeks ago, I stumbled upon some viral Facebook photos of attractive terrariums, which led me to Facebook groups dedicated to terrariums and "mossariums" (a term coined by Lee of Korea Blog for live mosses kept in jars for aesthetic purposes). That's when my interest about this niche was rekindled, and I began to explore this hobby more deeply.

This is my first attempt at building a terrarium for my office desk. I never imagined that creating one would require invoking artistic imagination and engaging the inner child that has long overshadowed by my movie-oriented and work-game-life advocating personality.

If you look at the picture above, you'll see that I tried to recreate a simple, life-bearing village with a well for its residence to get their water. Due to the limited space in the jar, I ended up with two houses and sandy pathway that was meant to resemble a flowing river. However, now it looks more like a snowy landscape than a river bed.

I have no prior proper experience on building a terrarium and all I could think of at first was to throw something in there. Luckily though, I have some clay pebbles and filter pebbles that I was using previously for my potted plants during the Covid-induced quarantine era. I used them as the first and second layer of moisture-absorbent layers to prevent the growth of invasive fungus, or so I thought. But that remains to be seen.

The little decorative huts and the well including the tiny bricks are items that I purchased online from Lazada platform. 

If you're ever wondering who's responsible for making that hastily-made terrarium, it would be this man. I know that he looks exactly like me and the only difference is he likes to wear a pair of glasses. We can refer to him as Mr. Terrarium because he thinks he likes terrarium so much that it is impossible for him not to build one. 

You might think that all that Mr. Terrarium is interested in is terrariums, but he is also an avid fan of raindrop cakes. In fact, he went so far as to make one, copying recipes and cooking directions from some reputable Japanese Youtube channels. 

The brownish powder that you see next to the raindrop jelly is supposed to be a Kinako Flour, which is a powder made from roasted soybean flour.

But Mr. Terarrium didn't actually use a kinako flour as side toppings, because he couldn't find that anywhere in Papua New Guinea. Instead, he used another powdery substance called "Ground Almonds," which he found on the shelves of RH Hypermart in Vision City.

It turned out that it tasted as as good as kinako flour, which raises a question, "How did he know it tasted as good?"

The person who helped Mr. Terrarium gather the "moss" for the terrarium project is Elijah, who is in the middle wearing a blue polo shirt. And that's Mr. Terrarium on the right, happily eating fried chicken to satisfy his craving for a salty food after eating the raindrop cake he made.

I guess if someone wishes to save money, they should avoid eating too many sugary sweets.

Now that we're done discussing terrariums, we no longer need my alter-ego, Mr. Terrarium. From now on, we will refer to him as me, or I. Therefore, I shall start my next sentence with the letter "I". 

I recently joined a baskeball team in an on-going basketball league for Filipino OFWs in Papua New Guinea. However, in one of our practice games, I severely injured my right ankle to the point where it was almost impossible for me to play without an ankle brace. The picture above shows my right foot in a laced-up ankle brace that I purchased from Lazada. It provides pretty good support for injured ankles.

That's me, wearing the number 77 jersey, in one of our practice games. I never considered myself a tall player or the tallest member in our team. However, from looking at some of the pictures we took during the games, it seems that I'm indeed the tallest on my team, next only to the player wearing the purple jersey, who is from another team.

I'm 5'9" by the way. One of the benefits of being in this height is when I'm standing in long queues, I can easily count how many people are ahead of me.

The healthy person above is Romar, one of my basketball teammates. Unfortunately, he wasn't able to play until the end of the league because he decided to resign for other commitments.

He was a great center and a wonderful co-worker. We will all miss you Romar.

That's all for this entry. I apologize for not keeping up with my blog as regularly; I've become more busier with my Youtube Channel and my work. Thank you very much for your continued support of this blog. 

I wish you all more success in life! See you on my next post.