some updates!!
sulynn & i - in her kitchen busy working on our pineapple tarts! it was fun baking with her:) karen burst out laughing when she took this picture of us, coz she thought i looked like i was advertising for the pineapple tarts. do i?
in the evening, i had a wonderful dinner with karen, hiroko and saori at bananaleaf, a malaysian restaurant. we were pleasantly surprised by the great ambience! amidst all the lovey-dovey couples, the 4 of us had a fantastic time together too:)
long-lost sisters? karen & me - people say we look alike and it appears that we are finding more and more similarities between the both of us! im glad to have found a sister in u:)
my 2 lovely japanese pals - hiroko and saori!
the food at bananaleaf was great! this was karen's char kuay teow! i accidentally deleted the picture of my yummydelicious nasi goreng though:/ one of the best thing about being in vancouver is that there's acceptable singaporean food available - whenever i miss the local hawker foodfare back home:)
a good dinner is never complete without desserts - we had goreng pisang served with vanilla icecream and mango icecream (hiroko's craving)! nice:)
all of us - very satisfied after our nice vday dinner!! good food and an even better company - what more can i ask for?:)
after dinner, i went to support mijin-na and david who were both performing in the ubc choir concert at the chan cultural centre - together with saori and hiroko! it was a pity karen couldnt join us - coz she had a midterm the next day! the picture is quite blur - but mijin-na is the 5th from left in the first row, and david is on the extreme right in the 2nd row!
saori, me, hiroko and hiroko's friend (i think her name is saori too!) - sitting at the last row of the concert hall! we were late:( but better late than never!!
this was karen's plate of food. i accidentally deleted the picture of mine. as u can see, the food really piled up like a mountain!! but it was yummy:)
the 3 of us - outside the stall that we bought our food from!
karen & i - photowhoring on our way to the busloop to meet saori - coz the weather was just so gloriously sunny. needless to say, we were so distracted with taking photos of the campus and of ourselves that we were late! oops!
8:56 PM
15-17 feb ~ toronto
17-18 feb ~ ottawa
18-20 feb ~ montreal
20-22 feb ~ quebec
22-23 feb ~ boston
23-26 feb ~ new york
later!12:54 AM
Tuesday, February 13, 2007
last friday, we organized a surprise bday party for dear steve, who's the staff worker in-charge of all the inter-varsity christian fellowship groups in vancouver. steve's such an inspiring mentor and biblestudy leader, and he's really hilariously animated:) today, during our tuesday large group meeting, mijin-na just reminded me that we only have 2 months left in vancouver - i will definitely miss this great bunch of ivcf people:( sigh.
anyway, back to the surprise bday party - besides us from ubc, there were also students from simon fraser uni, emily carr and douglas college as well! it was great meeting up with so many of them, whom i got to know during fall retreat last year:) there was just so much catching up to do!
there's steve - pleasantly surprised by us:)
me deborah sarah and bora-ya! it was deborah's bday too:) deborah has been such a blessing to me! at the start of this semester, when she knew i was quite down coz of homesickness, she emailed me almost everyday - despite being so busy adjusting to her new school life at douglas college! much thanks dear:)
here's a picture of all those whose bdays we celebrated that night - greg (from sfu), steve & deborah! why am i in the picture? haha. no thanks to steve - who made everyone sing me a bday song after he knew my bday was just over! i was so embarrassed!! yup so i had to be included as one of the bday people as well..
the cakes and pastries we enjoyed that night! yumyum:) oh that's pam (in pink) - steve's very adorable daughter!
a closer look at the highlight of the desserts - the sinfully delicious chocolate fudge cake that larissa baked - just for all of us! she made it herself! looks very pro eh?:) and just so u know- it sure tastes better than it looks;)10:36 PM
Saturday, February 10, 2007
last thursday, i went to kaori's place to learn how to make sushi from kazuha and her! i brought a bottle of japanese rice vinegar from home and just the other time, i was complaining to them that i didnt know how to use it to make sushi rice. (i had previously tried to make sushi rice by adding it to my rice in the cooking pot, but it tasted quite bad. haha) they very nicely invited me over to their place for a small sushi party:)
here are the ingredients which we prepared and worked with - crabmeat with mayo, tuna with mayo, avocado, egg omelette roll, cucumber, lettuce and of couse, seaweed and sushi rice!
here's kaori, our lovely host who completed our whole japanese meal experience by making for us, hot green tea and iced muji-cha (or mugi-cha) (which is a brown coloured japanese tea that the japanese people drink almost daily in summer back home)!
here's kazuha, who was the first to teach me how to make sushi:) thanks dear! both kaori and kazuha claim that they really don't make sushi back home and it was usual practice for people to just buy sushi from restaurants/supermarkets! apparently, sushi is quite expensive in japan too! oh yes.. kazuha's first sushi roll was really huge! haha. i guess she was quite hungry;) but i don't blame her - by the time we prepared the ingredients, it was quite late already, and the sight and smell of the ingredients and rice really whetted our appetites! heh.
me and the first sushi roll i made:)
us and our sushi - i had lots of fun with kaori and kazuha that night - making sushi, chatting and exchanging cultural experiences:) i got to know them much better too!
here's a closer look at the sushi we made! haha. they don't look very pro, like those from japanese restaurants - but they tasted great! that's what really counts right? substance over form:)9:58 PM
last wed, i went to cheesecake etc with bora! this specialty cafe only opens from 7pm to 1am everyday. what a weird timing eh? but it must be really popular/successful to be able to survive on that - and that was the case indeed, from what we saw that night! what was interesting was that the patrons were mainly asians (although the cafe is owned by caucasians)!
the cosy place has such a romantic ambience - no wonder it is so popular with couples aplenty!
but of course, there were also groups of good friends soaking in the lovely atmosphere and chatting over the sinfully delicious cheesecakes as well - like bora and i:) we had a great time!!
the cheesecakes were very good - albeit the selection of cheesecakes in the menu was somewhat limited though (as evidenced from the picture of the very short menu above).. here's what we ordered:
original cheesecake with strawberries - the strawberries were really fresh and the syrup made it absolutely delightful:)
chocolatecheesecake - with lots of whipped cream! highly fattening but supremely yummy:) it's better than the chocolatecheesecake from secret recipe back home!
stayover afterwards was at my place! i enjoyed heart to heart chat with bora throughout the night - until the wee hours of the morning, when we really couldnt keep ourselves awake! it's amazing how we actually have so much to talk about:) we awoke in the late morning - albeit still quite sleepy and tired, due to a lack of sleep. for me, it was worse coz i barely slept the whole night as i was sleeping on the hard bed board, in my sleeping bag. haha. but it's ok - it was what a host had to do - and i gladly did so;) anyway we had quiet time and biblestudy together that morning!
look at bora's english-korean bible! the verse we read that day was acts 4:11-12.
breakfast (which ended up as brunch) - i made greenbean soup (specially requested by bora) :) we were so full after that - i didnt know a small bowl like that would be so filling! but it was nice to have something hot because it was quite cold that morning:)9:19 PM
Sunday, February 04, 2007
last sunday after church, i went downtown with hiroko and saori to buy the special seasoning to make japanese hayashi (which is a curry-and-tomato-based meat stew)! we headed to the minanokomi (which means a convenience store in japanese) along robson st, which is probably the best place to get any japanese products here:)
us in front of the minanokomi - looks like we are along one of the streets in japan eh?
spoilt for choice - now i know where to go if i wanna get jap foodstuff:) but the prices were expectedly, quite steep though:/
poor saori obviously misses jap snacks/food!! don't worry dear - u will be back in just 3+ more months' time;)
::hayashi rice with the girls::
yesterday, i met up with the girls for dinner! the cooks for the day were saori and myself:) karen could only come later coz she had a date (p.s.: hey gil, jo & hp - this appears to be the latest brewing scandal! haha), and poor hiroko was sick so she was resting first. the original plan was to have dinner at my place - but when hiroko didnt turn up, we figured that she probably overslept. we decided to surprise her by bringing dinner to her, at totem:) i was really glad to see her, and to learn that she was feeling much better! hope you recover soon dear! in the end, we all had dinner at the totem shuswap lounge!
saori & i busy cooking in my kitchen - it was the 1st time we were cooking hayashi rice, but it turned out to be pretty good:) yayy!
we have a very bad habit of munching on cookies while cooking.. haha.
our hayashi beef stew:)
japanese beef hayashi rice - with cutlery/plates courtesy of totem caf and saori:) this is my first time trying hayashi rice, which apparently is a very popular dish in japan! i wonder why i havent noticed it in the jap restaurants back home?
all of us at the totem lounge (which wasnt as noisy as i expected it to be - especially after hearing all the horror stories about it. haha) - it was great fun spending time with the girls, and chatting - over dinner, popcorn, cookies and hi-chews (brought all the way from japan) :)1:01 AM