Earthquake!

another first experience for me, but i guess its not a good one...

Was woken up by the loud noise (like a big truck passing by) and the shaking. The first thought that came to my mind was "oh dear, what is the neighbour doing at this time of the night", then i realised its not, it must be an earthquake because everything in my room is shaking! But not sure why i did take it seriously and didnt feel scared at all, after it went away within 10 sec, I just take a look at my h/p, note down the time (so that i can check with people in the morning, hee) and went back to sleep.

Didnt realised how ignorant i am till I met my taiwanese friend in the morning, and we talked about this. Taiwanese are educated on how to react during earthquake because their country are proned to this natural disaster. She told me that she was on alert 'mode' even after the shaking has stopped, because it may be a signal that a bigger one is coming!

Anyway, luckily nothing happens after that :)

See the BBC report here.

A girl and her sushi

This little girl who used to work at Wasabi visited me last week, and made me some fabulous sushi.. yum..yum.. There are crabstick sushi, tuna with sweetcorn sushi, cucumber sushi and salmon sushi.

and in return, I made this Viv's special Banana Boat for her :p
Little girl: I bet you guys are drooling now, hiak hiak hiak....

Celebrating CNY in the UK

with...

1. Lion Dance in Old Market Square, Nottingham



2. Chinese new year themed Fireworks at Highfields Park, Nottingham



3. Fried Nian Gaothis tasty nian gao is made by a fren here from Hong Kong... I just fried them. yum yum

4. Jiu hoo char (without the jiu hoo, haha)

Candy got me some 'bangkuang' (which is called the Yam Bean, or Jicama in English) from London, which is the most important ingredient of this nyonya dish. See my last year post where we cooked a big pan of this dish every year during cny at home.


Oh yea, and I cooked the steam chicken as well :)


5. Ang pows

Double ang pows posted from Penang by the newly wed Alind & Kong

Sunday Walk

another first for me, thanks to my housemate, Cat and her dad for letting me tagged along. Cat's dad told me its sort of a tradition for the english to go to the pub at noon for a few drinks, then go for a walk.

With a map and Bryan Waites' Walks in Historic Leicestershire and Rutland, we started off driving from Leicester city to Manton in Rutland. The starting point of the walk is from this pub called The Horse & Jockey, which is quite popular with cyclists.


Finally got the see the sheeps up-close, hee.. They didnt look as cute as I thought they would. Hmm, in fact, I dont think they are cute at all now :p


Look at their dirty bums
Then we walked through this parish village, Martinsthorpe,where the only building left here is this old farm.
walk across this peaceful Rutland field... freed my mind
me & Cat.. i think you can guess how windy it is from the look on our face.
and finally, we saw a small part of the scenic Rutland Water..
took us about 2 hours to finish the route as instructed in the book and we are back to the pub with nice food waiting for us.

Let's welcome the year of the RAT

This is the first year (in my life) that i am not home for chinese new year :(( sob sob... I missed all the good food especially bak kean (which my sis insist that bak kean is me, so i shouldn't have missed it), jiu hoo char and the sea cucumber soup.

I still went to work as normal since today is not a holiday in the UK. However, thanks to the chef in our office canteen, we had a chinese new year lunch today, which look like this..


not very nice, i find it too 'soupy'. but still.... its better than nothing.

& look at what I had for dinner tonight!
Yeah, its the chinese dumplings! Thanks to Enya who made these and teach me how to make them as well :)

This weekend, I am off to nottingham. Will be looking out for all the CNY events especially the lion dance & dragon dance!

GONG XI FA CHAI!!!

Interesting News

Two interesting news on today's *free* Metro newspaper:

1. Sickie Monday

I didnt call-in sick (becoz i am a hardworking bee :p), but I have decided to sleep for an extra half an hour and catch the later bus to work, which also means I was late about 20min. However, I always work extra hours after work.... so i am still a hardworking bee, haha...

2. Shrove Tuesday a.k.a Pancake Day

Tomorrow is Shrove Tuesday. Read the history about Shrove Tuesday here. On this day, christians obtain absolution for his/her sins by confessing and doing penance. This day is also called Pancake Day because it is customary to eat pancakes on this day, last chance of a feast before the Lent (fasting).

This article left me dreaming about Paddington House of Pancakes ever-so-delicious pancakes, which is only available in Msia, aaaarghh...

Too bad I have my weekly Lindy's class tomorrow, so no time for me to flip a few pancakes, keke.

Currys Weekend

not this weekend though, it was two weekends ago :p I cooked one big pot of mum's recipe curry chicken, and so every meals on that weekend are something related to currys...

this is how it looks like... and taste just like what it's like back home :) just that the dried chillis are not fully grind.

currys with bread

curry mee hoon

the stir-fry vege to go with rice and curry chicken