disalarming

Tonight, I made my first home-cooked meal in my apartment. Since I’ve been missing my mom’s home-cooked Chinese food, I decided to go with one of my favorite dishes of hers: chicken and broccoli stir fry. It’s incredibly simple to make, but it tastes really, really good.

I’m happy to report that my dinner was a success (the stir fry was served with a side of steamed white rice). However, it still didn’t taste as good as my mom’s. I guess nothing will ever beat my mom’s cooking – not even my own!

Cross-posted from breakthesky.net. Please leave any comments there.

I haven’t baked anything in a year. In China, traditionally there are no ovens in the kitchen, so I could never bake anything. In the weeks leading up to my homecoming, I’d given a lot of thought to what I wanted to bake now that I’d finally have access to an oven. I could opt for something I had done before, like a red velvet cake, or try something completely new.

As you can see, I went for something completely different.

I’d never, ever heard of basil being used in a cake recipe. Lemon, basil, and olive oil go splendidly together, but I’ve only ever tried the combination in savory dishes. It all ties together surprisingly well in this recipe. When it was baking, I was afraid I’d inadvertently made “basil bread” instead of a cake! However, the cake is sweet and has a lovely basil flavor, with just the slightest touch of olive oil and lemon.

It’s a pretty damn good “welcome back to baking” cake, if you ask me. It’s flavorful, memorable, and sure as hell unique.

Cross-posted from breakthesky.net. Please leave any comments there.

Things I learned while playing mahjong with my family:

• No way can a half-Asian newbie (aka me) ever beat family members that have been playing (and winning) this game for longer than I’ve been alive.
• My brother has even less of a chance at beating my family members at this game than I do. Case in point: the one time I won a ton of money one round, he promptly lost it all his next turn (he and I were a team).
• Never team up with my brother. When it comes to playing mahjong, two heads are not better than one!

Cross-posted from breakthesky.net. Please leave any comments there.

Walked into a tattoo parlor while traipsing around Causeway Bay today and emerged from the parlor with this:

I’ve always wanted second holes in my ears (actually, my ideal is three in my left ear and two in my right). I had second holes for a brief period of one week when I was 18, but I had to take the earrings out due to an infection. That’s why this time around, I went to a tattoo parlor because I knew it would be legit. Last time my ears were pierced I had it done at Claire’s, of all places! No wonder they got infected.

The piercer used a needle instead of a piercing gun, which was a first for me. It actually hurt a lot less, but that can also be attributed to the fact that the guy does piercings and tattoos for a living rather than a casual part-time job, unlike a Claire’s salesgirl. Now I just have to remember to apply the solution to my ears until the holes set.

I haven’t told anyone in my family about my new earrings because I want to see who will notice first. I’ll be seeing all of my extended family at the end of the week and this weekend, so it’ll be interesting to see who is the most observant!

Cross-posted from breakthesky.net. Please leave any comments there.

Ah, Shanghai and Hangzhou. The first of my many adventures during my year abroad in China (this was way back in August!). These adventures and mishaps provided a crash course into the Chinese culture and way of life. I visited these two cities with my best friend and together we saw a ton of stuff and had a fantastic time.

Highlights include:

• Going go the World Expo!
• Visiting famous sights in Shanghai like the Bund, the Pearl Tower, etc.
• Eating the best steamed dumplings of my life in the Yu Gardens (Shanghai).
• Hiking this rocky trail in Hangzhou that led to a beautiful view of West Lake and the city skyline.
• Visiting Zhujiajiao for an afternoon, a water village outside of Shanghai.

Photos behind the cut.

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Cross-posted from breakthesky.net. Please leave any comments there.

It’s about time I started posting recaps of my travels. I never had the time to recap my summer trip to Europe before I took off for China, and then after I got to China I just never had time to blog anything in great detail, period. But I’m fixing this now… four, five months later. These recaps will no doubt be posted sporadically (it takes time to sort through and upload pictures!) but when I’m already several months behind in recapping what’s another month or two?

So, Europe. I stayed with a German host family (the nicest family I’ve ever met) for three weeks. During those three weeks, we traveled throughout Germany and visited France, Switzerland, Austria, and the Czech Republic. All in all, it was a fabulous three weeks.

Highlights include:

• Seeing the Rheinfall at the German-Swiss border.
• Visiting Liesl and Rolf’s gazebo from The Sound of Music in Salzburg, Austria.
• Spending a few days in Prague, an absolutely breathtaking city.
• Returning to Strasbourg, France, the city in which I did a homestay three summers ago, and remembering why I loved the city.
• Absorbing the history of Berlin, and seeing sights such as Checkpoint Charlie and the Berlin Wall.
• The beauty of Heidelberg, Germany, and visiting the Heidelberg Castle.
• Being introduced to the wonderful, delicious foods that are spätzle and maultaschen.

Photos behind the cut.

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Cross-posted from breakthesky.net. Please leave any comments there.

Street markets are a dime a dozen in China, and Beijing is no different. There are famous ones like the silk and pearl market (both of which sell more than just silks and pearls), and there are also even better ones where the locals go. One of the markets where locals frequent is relatively close to my apartment, so my friends and I ventured there several weekends ago to see what bargains we could score.

Street market shopping is hard for me in China, as I’m bigger than the average Chinese woman. I have broad shoulders; I have curves; and I’ve got big feet. Therefore, I usually end up finding really cute clothes or shoes but am never able to fit into them. However, at this particular market, I managed to buy a really awesome lightweight jacket. It’s very plain and simple; it’s dark green with pockets and a hood. I love it. I love the color; I love how it is a fairly warm jacket despite being pretty thin; and I love the fact that I got it for 50RMB. Granted, I probably could have bargained harder (the starting price was 120RMB) but I was just so excited at the prospect of something from a street market actually fitting me that I gladly forked over the 50RMB.

Cross-posted from breakthesky.net. Please leave any comments there.

There is no reason to visit any other mountain after seeing Huangshan Mountain.
- Popular Chinese saying

The beauty of Huangshan（黄山）speaks for itself. My friends and I hiked up, down, and around that mountain and saw practically everything the mountain had to offer. I’ve never really hiked a mountain before, so I was awed by both the experience of the hike as well as Huangshan’s beauty. My friends, all of whom are relatively experienced at hiking mountains, all claimed that Huangshan was the most beautiful place they’ve ever been. It’s that beautiful.

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Cross-posted from breakthesky.net. Please leave any comments there.

I’ve been following the website Post Secret for quite some time now, but this was the first secret (from this week’s post) that struck a chord with me:

All my life I’ve felt I’ve been caught between the worlds of the East and West. I’m a half-American, half-Chinese girl who spent early childhood in Hong Kong and formative years in Western countries. I speak the language of my home (Cantonese) and am minoring in Mandarin Chinese at university, yet I won the award for highest marks in English at my Australian school and got top grades in my English classes in the US, both in high school and college. I know the ins and outs of both Asian culture and Western culture, from the importance of displaying modesty to bragging about one’s achievements. I go out and have fun with the best of them, yet study hard with the discipline of a person whose parents have repeatedly stressed the importance of studying and education. I have Western friends who perceive me to be more Chinese, Chinese friends who perceive me to be more American, and flip-flopping opinions from both sides of my family in regards to which nationality/culture I “belong” more to.

To some, all of the stuff listed above matters; it’s as though putting people in categories and pigeon holes are matters of life and death. It’s like when it comes to checking off what ethnicity I am in the census: why isn’t there an option to choose more than one race? Can’t I qualify as both on paper when I do mentally and emotionally? Why do I have to choose what I “feel more like,” Chinese or American? How can I pick between two cultures I have grown up in, two families that I have, two parts that make up who I am? None of this should matter, although sometimes, people insist it does. What really matters is that I am me and nothing, no category or description or label, can define what makes me, me.

I feel like I sent this secret in myself.

Cross-posted from breakthesky.net. Please leave any comments there.

I’m not sure what I expected when my family decided to spend Fourth of July weekend in the Black Hills, South Dakota. I think I expected it to be pretty boring, with little entertainment and much anxiety for the weekend to end on my part. Luckily, I was completely wrong. I had a blast with my family and family friends; we saw tons of what the Black Hills had to offer; and I don’t remember the last time I laughed quite so much.

Here’s a quick rundown of my trip:

• Mt. Rushmore is surprisingly small. Like, underwhelmingly small. But it’s still a pretty cool monument.
• If you are even five minutes late to your tour of Jewel Cave and have the misfortune of encountering an insolent employee who finds pure, unadulterated joy in making people miserable, you’re not going to be able to go on your tour.
• As corny as chuckwagon dinners are, once you start getting into the whole cowboy thing they’re actually kind of fun.
• The Badlands are absolutely beautiful.
• The Cosmos is quite possibly the coolest thing ever.

And for those of you who are interested in more details and photos of my trip, read on…

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Cross-posted from breakthesky.net. Please leave any comments there.