Tag Archives: gopako

My Humble Yoga Journey – Stop. Slow Down. Breathe.

Posted on by Melanie

warrior3
I did not get in touch with my mat for the past week. Full the brim with guiltiness. *Grins*

It was my bad for procrastinated and did not prepare myself for my Japanese Language exam. Last minute revision is seriously a torture! Thank goodness that I’ve passed the exam with Grade A *ahem*. Notes to self, no more last minute study for my next semester. NO MORE!

While I was studying with droopy eyes and stuck brain, basically the whole revision session was blur-blank-study-for-the-sake-of-study, one of my yogi friends tagged me for Stop-Drop-Yoga. It was a perfect timing for me take a break. Yeah, I should stop for a while. No point forcing. Drop myself on the mat. And of course, let’s yoga! And I choose Warrior 3 and stretch with all my might. Mmm… 🙂

At times, we need to stop for a while. Go out to the park, cafeteria, pantry, even toilet just for a drop of pee. Do something. Talk to people. Crack some jokes perhaps. We must always remember to breathe and slow down. Inhale, exhale.

When I was younger, I ask my mom what will happen if we hold our gas. And her answer was, “Your face will turn green!”. I hope you are giggling if not laughing. Comes to think about this, it is theoretically true that we need to let go of what we have in ourselves. Let go of all hatred, stress, sadness, you name it. Else not only the face will turn green, our mind, body and health will be affected. True?

Well people, let it go and fart! Don’t-lah do it “secretly” unless you are 100% sure it does not smell.

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Let’s “STOP. SLOW DOWN. BREATHE AGAIN”.

My Humble Yoga Journey, Gopako.

Tofu

Posted on by Melanie
04 Apr

Did you know?
• Tofu is extremely easy to digest – this is because it is a plant protein.
• Tofu is very low in sodium.
• Tofu is made from natural ingredients.
• Tofu is free from preservatives.
• Tofu is cholesterol-free and low in saturated fat.
• Tofu is known to be a culinary chameleon and it can be a great substitution in your diet.

Steamed tofu is one of my favorite dishes. It is easy and fast to prepare. This is the dish when you want it light yet appetizing.

What do you need?

  • 1 packet soft tofu
  • 2 shallots, sliced
  • 2 cloves garlic, minced
  • 2 teaspoons sesame oil
  • 1 tablespoon soy sauce
  • 1/2 tablespoon dark soy sauce
  • 1 tablespoon oil

How to do it?

  1. Drain the water from the package of tofu and place it on a plate.
  2. Prepare a steamer and steam for 5 minutes and set aside.
  3. In a cooking pan/wok, heat the oil. Combine garlic and shallot and fry for 3 minutes, or until it turns golden brown. Remove from pan/wok.
  4. Mix sesame oil, soy sauce and dark soy sauce in a bowl. Pour over steamed tofu.
  5. Garnish with fried shallots and garlic. Serve immediately.

Hope you enjoy the recipe.

Do check out Sunrise Soya Foods for more tofu recipes. It is one of my favorites!!

100% Handmade Iyengar Yoga Shorts.

Posted on by Melanie
17 Mar

Drafting, cutting and sewing.

The idea of hand-making the yoga shorts came from my very first yoga instructor, Shammee. She introduced me the shorts she bought from India and asked to duplicate this shorts for a performance about 3 years back and one for her.

It was kinda weird wearing the yoga shorts for the first few times. And not long after, I felt in love with it especially when I start Iyengar yoga. The elastic cuff keeps the shorts close to the skin especially during inverted poses. The Diamond shaped gusset allows me to move freely during the practice. Loose fitting increases mobility and comfort.

handmade_shorts

Now, here I am working passionately with Gopako. More ideas and new things to come. I sincerely hope that Gopako will have all of your continuous support.

~ Namaste.
Melle

Mannequin…

Posted on by Melanie
09 Mar

Emails sent. Requirements made. Nope… not the tailoring mannequin I wanted.

My supporters of all time, my parents went check out some shops with me. Excitedly found one with the price of RM360. For the safe side, we decided to check out more shops for price comparison. Hey, we found one with the same design, same model for RM260 !! It’s cheaper by RM100. That is a lot !! A lot, a lot, a lot. And guess what, no more stocks. Happy – happy not.

Desperado me, I bought a plastic half body mannequin for product photos. Not too bad though. Me liking it. 🙂

Hope the tailoring mannequin will be arriving soon. Looking forward to it.

Say cheese…

Posted on by Melanie
08 Mar

My, oh my… never do I like being ‘the’ model but my choice is, let’s do it for GOPAKO.

In the photo above, I was deciding which shoes to go with. Red one? White or my all black Fipper.

We were so excited for the photoshooting session today and tomorrow or maybe till the day after tomorrow. Hope that we could get this done soon and we can get our website started. Feeling thrilled.

Erm… can I not look at the camera, please?

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And in the end, I’m all so cropped out in most of the photos. Big grins.

~Namaste.

The making…

Posted on by Melanie

We are so happy to see some improvement in GOPAKO.
Say, the labels for example.

We started off with this… not too bad right?

labels_handmade

And we did silk screening after that… fun !!

labels_silk_screen

And now !! Tada…

labels_emb

We have finally got what we wanted for quite some times. Now we have proper labels for our customers and it’s a super proud thing when we got them sewn on every single piece of shorts/pants. We will not stop silk screening. We will be doing it when the time comes. Namaste ~

About GOPAKO…

Posted on by Melanie
06 Mar

Namaste everyone~

GOPAKO started in March, 2013 which was a week before I left for Kerala, India.
And what it is about?

Here is the story about me and Gopako…

When I was a kid, I spent most of the time alone because of the age gap between my elder sisters and me. I had always leaned towards the creative side ever since I was 4, playing in a big laundry basket while my mum does her seamstress stuff. Many a times the drone of the sewing machine lulls me to sleep. 😀

Being attracted to the simplicity of crafting and the hours of amusement it brings me, made me look at paper, cloth, wood and other medium in a different light. I made cute little bookmarks for friends in school. When my mum got me a Barbie doll, it had only 1 miserable outfit. So I scavenged for cloth scraps and did the needle and thread magic. That was my first taste of being a fashion designer. The closest I have been 😀

As I got older, I dabbled with my mum’s industrial standard/sewing machine. My first creation was a batik skirt with waist band. That got me started to modifying my own clothes, which was a process of trial and errors and with most of the errors stuffing up my dustbin or, banished forever in my dark closet.

I have always had something that I would love to do. Or at least try. There’s painting, dressmaking, handcrafting, yoga, baking and etc which somehow fogs up my vision and path. I have tried but always lost interest in it after a while. One fine day, out of a sudden I confided my 5-year old dream to my hubby half expecting him to tease me as always.

In it, I was the popular and endeared yet shy fashion designer. Throngs of people waits as I step out on to the red carpet from my private limo. As my right heel graces the carpet, blinding white lights flashes left and right accompanied by deafening cheers and shrieks of GOPAKO. What a rush it was.

I felt the rush even when I woke up from it. The name stuck and I did a quick search. It meant a cowherd in Pali language as the one who guards or takes care of. A field-watcher. An elephant’s keeper. The groom of the royal charger. There was a river by that name too in Philippines. GOPAKO also meant ‘five hundred dollar’ if loosely translated in Hokkien dialect.

The dream of GOPAKO is no longer a dream after hibernating for 5 years. I know it took me years for my dream to come true… but I believe that, just because something is not happening right now, doesn’t mean that it will never happen.

Crafted with love,
Melle

Mission?
What I want to achieve with GOPAKO is very simple. It’s a channel for me to share my love for yoga and passion for handmade goods, which has long been my dream.
Description
GOPAKO is the name for our handmade Iyengar yoga shorts, cut and sewn in Malaysia. We sourced the material and hand-picked the patterns and experimented with different design and cuttings. Each yoga shorts is handmade, down to the labels where we silkscreen (back then) but now we have embroidered labels and proudly sew them on. We have lots of interesting ideas that we would like to share with the yoga community and we hope to have your support.