3rd anniversary

...Just thought I should make a note that yesterday, the 20th of February marked my three years with my current job...how time flies! I wonder, where will I be and what will I be doing on this day 3 years later!?!...

Snow in Feb 2009!

Woke up one early morning to see the roads covered with snow, and no sign of any living creatures, not even foot prints...

The snow gets heavier...

On the way back from work, I met all so lonely mr snowman who was beheaded and crushed to death the next morning.

And so they claim, there have never been so much snow in 18 years it seems!

London, CNY & January 2009

Dorayaki!

Stumbled across the Chopsticks Diet book the other day, decided to buy it with the intention to return it after i have copied out some of the recipes. But eventually decided to keep it for all good reasons ... simple recipe, easy to follow and the recipe works!

My attempt to make Dorayaki (based on the book's Green tea hotcake recipe)...

Ingredients:

• 100g self raising flour
• 50g caster sugar 
• 1 tsp matcha
• 1 egg, lightly beaten
• 2 Tbsp mirin
• 50ml water
• 1 tsp vege oil

Sift flour, sugar & matcha into a bowl and make a well in the centre. Add egg, water and mirin. Whisk mixture. Heat up oil in a pan and ladle in the mixture (size vary according to personal preference). Cook for arnd 2 to 3 mins until tiny holes are visible. Turn over to cook the other side for a further 2 to 3 mins.

For Dorayaki, I bought ready made adzuki bean paste and sandwich between two hotcakes.

It's nearly the end of 2008!

Got to work today to find out I've won a raffles prize, a Spa Gift Card. Was supposed to be given out on xmas eve. But given the fact that I left early to catch the flight to Berlin that day, I wasn't there when that happened. Didn't much expected it. So was a great surprise gift! Spa spa spa, here I come wuhu!

So back to blogging business today. What have I been up to? 

Spent xmas in Berlin with mum and dad. Was very cold. It snowed a bit when we were outside Pergamon museum. And it was -1 degrees! Blimey! Stayed in Concorde in Kurfurstendamm. Very nice hotel. The package from expedia was brilliant! Literally hopped from one xmas market to the other, although dad wasn't that appreciative having to wait for two ladies shopping arnd. Malls were open but shops inside weren't, so didn't buy much stuff.  Covered almost most of the important stuff in 2 days, pretty good. Quite an easy city to move around, so much easier than Russia!!!

After Russia, took another 2 weeks off in Oct and went back KL and then went to the Xian, Henan and Shanghai trip. Quite like Shanghai, loads of skyscrapers! The only downside is the people's attitude (think shall not elaborate further... :)). It was work work and work back in UK and normal stuff.

Sales started quite early this year because of the credit crunch. Debenhams for e.g. was  doing 20% most items in store even before xmas. And after xmas sales was even better! 50% off half the Dior store. Am so happy to have bought a purse for half the price!  

Russia Sept 2008

13/09/08 ~ Flew in to St. Petersburg on BA from Terminal 5 on Saturday morning. Touched down around 5pm, after having delayed for almost an hour because of a cello problem on the plane before departing from Heathrow. It was quite a small airport, quite dodgy as I see it as my first impression (Moscow's Domodevo airport is much much much nicer!). Tried to find a way to get to our hotel from the airport and went for the cheapest option which was to take a mini van called K-3 which can get us to the metro station near our hotel. It was really cramped and they tried to fit as many people as possible into that van! Amazing! Checked in Hotel Nikita and started our journey with a nice dinner in a nearby French restaurant with lovely fish and caviar!

14/09/08 ~ Started out city tour with St. Issac's Cathedral, Bronze Horseman and then lunch at the Idiot Russian restaurant. It was quite a lovely restaurant, classic decos and serve yummy russian food: pancakes with caviar and sour cream, borsch soup (beetroot soup), salmon and mushroom dumplings and of course, vodka! And then head off to Palace Square, Alexandar Column and the into the Hermitage. Having queued outside the Hermitage and comtemplating whether we have sufficient time to get in and walk around, we successfully cover bits that we wanted to see. The Hermitage was indeed a very lovely palace cum gallery. Beautiful chandeliers everywhere! We also bumped into a lot of newly wed couples in their wedding gowns and suits running around the city taking photographs etc! Later the day, head off to the souvenir market near church of spilled blood. The first store offered a lot sum of 1300 rubbles for a music box. And luckily we didn't buy into it. Managed to get a way much better offer a few stores down for about 550 each! 

15/09/08 ~ Went to get theatre tickets around Mariinsky and managed to get tickets for Swan Lake. Visited Nikolsky Cathedral and had lunch at a European and Japanese fusion restaurant. Had a seafood risotto and baked eel sushi (80 rubbles for one piece!). On the way to Vasilevsky Island, stopped by a souvenir shop and bought a russian doll :). Over the river, Vasilevsky Island has some interesting structures along the river but not as exciting and pretty as the historic heart itself. 

16/09/08 ~ Chesme Church, the pink cake like church, way down south from the city centre. It was a pretty church, but wasn't straight forward to find. Had to ask for directions and a granny is nice hearted enough to bring us there even though she's not going there herself! Later in the afternoon, headed to Peter and Paul's fortress.

17/09/08 ~ Set off to Peterhof with Metro hopping before that. The metro stations are very beautiful indeed, but we got fined for taking pictures in the stations! 100 rubbles each. It was such a hilarious situation now that I thought about it. We were busy taking pics after we got off the train when suddenly a security guard tapped on our shoulders and ask us to follow him. Not knowing what he wanted us to do, we quickly and sneakly changed our memory cards just in case they want us to delete the photos! Peterhof was quite a pretty place, loads of fountains but the prettiest is still the Grand Cascade. A note, never go to the restaurant in Peterhof! Bad service and they claimed they don't have english menu and tried to con us! Got back to the city centre on a hydrofoil, much more ex than taking the bus, but its very comfy and cool! Walked down Nevsky pr that evening which is the main street where everything is, for e.g. Zara and Subway :). Depressingly, wanted to see the Griffin Bridge but it was under construction -_-! Later that night, took the overnight train to Moscow!

18/09/08 ~ Got to Moscow early in the morning, and half awake, had to try and find our way to the hotel. Frustratingly, the roads in Moscow are so wide and big that you have to walk xxx miles to get to the subway to cross the road -_-. Managed to find our hostel finally even though it wasn't evident enough it was the hostel! Slept in for a couple of hours just to recharge and then head off to Russian Doll Museum and then to VVT.

19/09/08 ~ Morning visit to the Moscow State University, Peter the Great Statue on the river, Georgian lunch where we mistaken a walnut sauced chicken to be soup *grin*, Arbat Lonely Planet walking tour (after we discover the Museum of Photography was under construction -_-), Gorky House and then New and Old Arbat streets again were we had coffee.

20/09/08 ~ It was a Red Square and Kremlin Day. A good day to start off with. The Kremlin was smaller than I expected. Red Square was fun. And then decided to go on a Moscow River cruise while having coffee at a cafe in GUM. Got off the cruise at Kitay Gorod and head for Uzbek at Arbat.

21/09/08 ~ Kolomenskoe down south of the city centre. Another hilarious incident when we were trying to find the place, we had to ask 3 officers (they were standing outside the metro station chatting). Kindly enough, they asked us to follow them. It turns out they were bringing us to another metro exit, in which we had to pay again to get to the other side -_-. After a bit of dilli dalli as they were discussing among themselves in Russian, they finally showed us how to get there. Had some ham and cheese blini in the museum reserve. Then head for Izmaylovo market for only 10 rubbles for entrance. It was a good market to shop for souvenirs. Most sellers know how to speak english. Later in the evening, got to the airport for our flight home...

Nicocism on Russia: 

• It wasn't as unsafe as I thought it was. I felt quite secure the entire trip
• St. Petersburg is a much prettier city in terms of architecture, more historic, more character but Moscow is more trendy
• Food wise, a lot of influence from the East, like dumplings, clear soups etc
• Hotel Nikita: the guys at the reception can't really speak english but the hotel is not bad, has breakfast too.
• Yellow Blue Bus Hostel: quite a dodgy building from the outside and had to climb 4 floors with our heavy luggage to get to our flat. But very friendly reception and they speak good english and are very helpful!
• Things aren't cheap, just curious how ppl survive
• A lot of random grannies standing on the road side selling random stuff like clothes, bras, and even pets(cats, rabbits)!
• Learning cyrillic is helpful in identifying signs! I find myself decoding much of the stuff like if it's a "P" then it's actually a "R"!
• Moscow metro isn't that friendly. Watch out for blue signs with man walking up/down stairs for station interchanges. A station with three lines has different names. And always count the number of stops from your starting point to your destination station. It's not like London where you can see which stop you are at when the train stops. 
• AND, if you want to take pics in the Metro station, don't let the security spot you doing it!

p.s: Pics @ Nico's Picasa Web Album

August Catch Up

And so, it seems I've missed a whole month's worth of blogging.

Recalling what happenned in August...

Had been on call for almost two whole weeks in August. But the last bank holiday of the month had been quite eventful.

22/08/08 ~ Bought my Canon Powershot G9! It's about £300, a big whole in my pocket, but it's all worth it!

23/08/08 ~ Brighton day trip to test out my new camera. It's quite a convenient trip, about an hour train from Victoria station. It was a 

good day, the sun treat me good and hence quite good pictures. But still need to learn a lot on mastering the skills of SLR photography. There were quite a big crowd around the city centre and the beach as well. A lot of funny shops and accessories shops with quite nice jewelleries. Fish and Chips was so so only. 

24/08/08 ~ Stayed in to watch Olympics closing ceremony and manage to catch Andy Lau and Lee Home singing :))

25/08/08 ~ Nottinghill Carnival. Went quite early to avoid the crowd. Saw the parades with african ladies dancing etc. Food wise, a lot of jerk chicken and some yellow pasties. Crowd got bigger and bigger by around 3pm, and so left and chill out at Starbucks, Whitleys, Bayswater.

26/08/08 ~ Go-karting at Letchworth with colleagues. Quite a challenging track! got spinned around and bumped into a couple of times. Although my team was the last and didn't finish all the 100 laps, it was good fun!

30/08/08 ~ Yi fei's birthday celebration @ Matsuri Holborn and then clubbing @ Aura