Backyard Farming

No, I don’t actually own a farm in my backyard, but I do have a very modest tomato plant in a box next to my plum tree. I didn’t actually plant the seed and watch my tomato plant grow, rather I took it up for adoption from my molecular biology summer course laboratory practical. I never actually knew how hairy the stems were until that lab. That particular lab involved shaving some of the tomato hairs on the plant and examining them on a slide. I remember seeing cytoplasmic streaming and Brownian motions of cells in the hairs. I think that would be the only highlight of the lab.

Lots of these “shaved” tomato plants were left over so I decided to take on home also except…before it got to find a nice little place in my backyard, I left it in one of the lockers at the athletic centre. I hadn’t realized until the next time I decided to hit the swimming pool (which was about 3 days) and was about to “mourn” the death of my tomato plant. Turns out it was fine. Very anticlimactic. Dug a hole next to my plum tree and planted it in. Now there’s more than 4 stems growing out from this single tomato plant. It has bore so many babies of various sizes. They’re mostly green at the moment because they haven’t ripened yet. I don’t even know how this process works. I think I’ll need to hit up some gardening books. Although I am quite proud of myself for growing my first tomato plant, I’m not quite sure if they’re edible or not. You’ll know if there’s a next post.

La Bamboche

Finally reunited with Amy whom I haven’t seen in ages since our fond memories with BIO240 & 241 together during the summer. On a terribly rainy Friday afternoon, she took me to this extremely pleasant and delicious patesserie just located south of Yonge & Eglinton, La Bamboche. A unique fusion of French & Japanese pastries. They really have an awesome collection of sweets there that can cater to both the people with their sweet tooth and those that would settle with a little less sugar.

I decided to have one of their pistachio macarons

Amy opted for something she hasn’t tried yet which simply looked too beautiful to eat

I had also had a spinach croissant that was one of the best I’ve had so far. I haven’t tried the ones from Pusateri’s so my judgement is still a bit biased since I’ve only eaten one’s from Tim Hortons and Starbucks. It was a great way to spend an afternoon, sippping tea, sharing crafty project ideas, and just catching up in general. This will be my new to enjoy my afternoons after the midterm wave is over.

La Bambouche (Check out their website: http://www.labamboche.ca)

To my bestfriend.

There is something beautiful about buying your bestfriend a cake to celebrate and show how proud you are of them for standing up for themselves.

“Sometimes the best gifts are when there are no special occasions” – Ted Wu

SpeedM flickr

Happy Birthday Grandma

Day 5 HK:

Grandmother’s 71st BIG birthday bash.

Didn’t get out of the house until around noon to go eat dim sum with some of the guests coming to the party. My brother didn’t join us because of class but my little cousin with my 3rd Uncle came with my grandparents and I.

A little background about my little cousin.  She’s currently 4 and an half years old. Looks extremely similar to my 3rd Uncle. (Chinese people order all aunts, uncles, relatives, etc all my numbers) Cute at times but like all kids, can be very annoying.  My grandmother says she is exactly like me when I was young, but I see huge differences though. One of them being, she talks SO MUCH. My 3rd Uncle was joking with me saying that if she doesn’t get to talk, she’ll die. No wonder HK people love to talk and love being LOUD.

Dim sum was followed by Mahjohng for the guests that wanted to play. I went and got some shoes with Sophia around the Miramar centre. For some reason I had a tough time accepting studs on my shoes. I had Sophia kept questioning why. Probably because I associate studs with people that are into the rocker style, which I didn’t think would suit me very well. In the end, I got Gladiator styled shoes with the studs that turned out well. Sophia always makes me take huge leaps in terms of my fashion sense.

Headed back to Miramar centre and went to a Makeup /Salon shop where my grandmother and aunt were already getting their makeup done by Chen Mun Fei. Those not aren’t familiar with him, he’s the best makeup artist in HK and is the son of who is deemed the “Father of Makeup”. I waited for my turn to get my makeup done by him and had my hair also done by one of his students. Originally was going to have my hair put into a French Crown but then I was rearranged to just have loose curls, which still turned out nice.

Night of my grandmother’s huge birthday bash was a success and everyone had tons of fun. We had about 25 tables so that’s about 250+ people. We had to have the whole restaurant booked. You’re 71 only once right? The show never stopped. Opening was Lion Dance by one of the clubs in HK followed by presents being given to my Grandmother on stage. Tons of family photos. The food was spectacular with Shark Fin soup, Abalone, and other various dishes. We were also happy to have Sit Ka Yin,  Chow Yun Fat’s mother and others come join this joyous celebration. I finally got to dig my face into some really good butt buns (sao bao). I’ve been waiting 3 years for it and relished the moment! Lots of prizes were handed out. My grandma even purposely brought over tons of Ginseng from Canada as part of the prizes. (I had no idea Canada was known for that.) We had different people perform on the stage for us while my Uncle MC’ed the whole night. It was so nice to see so many of my grandparents friends come out to see them. My grandfather even had 4 tables worth of friends that he knew from back when he worked on a UMS ship. All the ship company’s exec’s came to wish my grandmother a happy birthday and gave them a beautiful ship made out of gold. My dad’s side of the family is pretty big and all of them came. I honestly have a tough time with my brother learning what to call them by. (Western people don’t differentiate family and relatives the way the Chinese do. )The party ended late and we were all exhausted. Without going into anymore detail, all in all, everyone had a good time.

Happy Birthday Grandma.

Valencia Dress

I’ve been doing a terrible job keeping up with my HK days. You know the feeling where you’ve had a long day and want to do nothing but shower and go straight to bed? Exactly that. To do some justice I’ll continue to document each day but they don’t necessarily correspond chronologically to the date that I post them.

Day 4 HK: My brother headed out early to math class and my dad and I joined him later in the afternoon. So what did I have for breakfast? Fish ball noodles with cold iced tea. Hmm. Oh wait! Also freshly made right out of the oven pineapple bun. Whoever has eaten a pineapple bun elsewhere, you need to eat one here to taste how it’s really done. After waiting at the Chinese Chiropractor for my brother (after his math class) we went to go eat some more cold tofu dessert together. That can settle in my stomach any time of the day.

Grandma’s big birthday bash is the next day.

PANIC.

Called up Michelle to take me everywhere to find a dress & shoes. Who would have thought finding a dress would be so hard in HK. Which makes sense since I’m not a total HK fob and some of those dresses honestly does not match me at all. Tried to look for something more classic and elegant not short short dresses and very low cut upper half. OH! NOT black and white either. Chinese people associate those colours with death. Kept finding so many decent dresses that were black. I thought it’d be more colourful. Browsed through Time’s Square lower floor, Sogo mall, and designer stores that brought much dismay. Surprisingly, BCBG here doesn’t have a very big dress collection as I would have expected like the one on Bloor and in Eatons back in Toronto. Finally, the last store we went into ended up being the place. CK. They had a lot of one piece dresses which made me happy but also made me look way too old. So what I ended up opting for was the one piece sleeveless orange (valencia) dress with a hanging collar. Bright and suitable for my grandma’s birthday. Luckily it was early in the afternoon otherwise I’d be competing with 3/4 of Hong Kong. If you want a peek at my dress just head over to my flickr account to look at my pictures.

Dinner was at a cafe my dad has been to before that is famous for the Malay Thai chicken rice. Brother had steak and I just had a club sandwhich. Haven’t had time to digest all the food from yesterday and today. I’ll bring my camera next time to take pictures of all these food. At least you can all eat it with your eyes.

Shoes…

Couldn’t find them that day so give your eye a rest.

Round and plump

Day 3 HK:

I was half asleep the entire day and my body kept wanting to go to sleep really badly. Despite all of that, I was starving the morning (which is also the time when I eat my massive dinner in Toronto) at the Immigration office. After waiting for about 3 hours or so, my dad bought a fish burger from the McDonalds to throw something in my stomach. Sad that I gave away my first in like 4 years to a fish burger but still tasted good.

(Disclaimer: the rest of this post might make you hungry)

So then we met up with my dad’s highschool friend and his daughter at Peking Garden (rated 3 Michelin Stars) and had a very decent lunch. My brother really wanted to just devour everything like we normally do in Toronto but refrained ourselves. There’s all these crazy deserts that we had.  There was this bun with caramelized bananas on the inside toped with icing sugar and some other stuff that tasted so unique! A desert that was dipped into beer creating this hard shell while the inside was soft and fluffy with apple was our last desert. Very interesting dishes we had but none of us we’re complaining about the quality one bit.

A pretty light lunch for my brother and I which my dad picked up right away so we headed to this little small restaurant and had the cold tofu dessert. Finished that and walked over to another restaurant to have a bowl of wonton noodles. Let’s just say…Toronto’s version does not compare to the one that’s down in my stomach.

Window shopping at Times Square. I felt like I was walking in Eaton Centre but with all the bloor street designers stores also inside. Tons of American stores (ie. Club Monaco, Zara, Tommy Hilifiger, etc.) which kind of shocked me. My dad called this my pre-shopping as the next week or so I can just go crazy and… We all know what happens next. Made our way through the massive crowds of people around Causeway Bay and went to this Western Style Cafe. For those of you that have ever been to those Cantonese Cafe’s like the Hollywood Cafe beside Market Village in Markham, Ontario, it’s exactly like that. Once more, 10x better no doubt. I also had my first Iced Hong Kong style Milk tea and it is so damn good.

I’ll end this post on a quote that Jenny always says to me when we have beer from a show (don’t know which one). Exactly my sentiments towards HK food.

“You’re like [an awesome] cold beer on a hot summer’s day”

j_t_ag (What are the missing letters?)

Seems like my master plan is not really working, hence why this post even exists.

Somewhere in the air

I think I’m done packing. But that’s what we say every time and we always end up forgetting something. Might have the same familiar feeling in a few hours. Flight is at 10a.m. with a stop over at Chicago before landing into the HK sauna. Not excited yet because we all dread the long plane hours. Time to catch whatever sleep I can get and somehow adjust to that HK time schedule. (I really don’t have a master plan so jet lag is probably inevitable.)

“Hello Hong Kong.

Why must you be so hot? “

Chirp if you’re free like a bird.

For once I’m ordering a drink from  Starbucks that isn’t to keep me awake for the rest of the day. Less taxing on the body. I also haven’t had the greatest sleep in awhile with all that caffeine addiction I’m starting to have. But studying with a cup of London Fog makes studying so much more satisfying. You feel like you’re absorbing your material everything 50% better.

Summer life has been feeling like a massive routine. To celebrate the end of the last course, BIO241, that I’m taking, Shuai and I decided to roam around aimlessly around downtown.  Although we’ve both in the same course for the past 3 months, we haven’t started talking until I bumped into her with another friend at a library. Quite sad actually now that I’m learning how much we have in common.

Suddenly I shouted,

“Let’s get ice cream at Yorkville!!”

“Okay…”

While roaming around and letting our stomachs do the leading, we came across Pusateri’s. In the spur of the moment, we went in. Our tastebuds finally got a good kick out of some utterly declicious cakes. It was quite pricey for two small little pieces of cakes but totally worth it. Hmm, lemon strawberry parfait cup and chocolate truffle. Fellas, if you’re looking a way into our hearts… We continued our sugar rush on top of my already immense caffeine load and went  Summer Ice Cream on Yorkville. Came out with crunchy Pistachio ice cream. I have a real liking for it now. It’s really different from the other ice cream in terms of sweetness, flavour and texture. Inulgence & calories… Oh no… Guilty feeling coming. Without realizing, our workout came to us quite quickly as we also decided at the moment to go to the AGO all the way from Yorkville. Yes, the stairs killed.

One thing that makes me somewhat admire contemporary art is how I simply sometimes cannot interpret whatever the artist was trying to convey. But you can’t help it, you’re so science oriented. I remember having a late conversation with Ted expressing my frustration sometimes with art. (Please note that this was really late and I had already been studying 8 hours straight for my exam. Random rantings helps me relieve stress. Basically, I don’t hate art is what I’m trying to say.)

“You know what I hate also… Art”

“…”

“I hate when they always give me a blank canvas and expect me to find the answer

Damn art.”

One of my many rantings during that night which turn out to be a comedy show for Ted. But as you can tell now, I’m continuing to type for the sake of something to do. Studying does crazy things to you I tell ya.

Let’s all fly away.

BANG

After 5 days of freedom from my last exam in early may, I kicked myself straight back into school for the summer and some massive volunteering. I am thoroughly excited in taking bio during this summer as I am really developing an interest in the material that’s being taught. The more I dive into the sciences, the more I am struck with awe of the whole complexity. Volunteering has been a thrill learning all the techniques and especially the jargon. My summer has been busy and exciting in the educational aspect but I am pushing myself towards exhaustion.

Rushing from one place to another, I’ve began to plan things around myself, a lot. It’s easy to justify your faults especially arriving late with such a tight schedule that you have made the effort because you did indeed ‘rush’. But really, the highest priority on the list is none other than yourself. It’s not far from a person that is self-absorbed.  It incredibly easy to get lost in your hectic schedule that you being to forget the meaning of all and your priorities. I think I almost lost sight of it until Ted pointed it out to me. Selfishness is one of the things that I struggle to admit because I am in a strong denial that I don’t care about others more than myself. Evolutionary speaking, it is inherent for us to be selfish for our own survival, the whole idea of ‘darwinian fitness’. That doesn’t cut it. Altruism does exist among those that may or may not be related with expected benefits for both parties. But I believe in selflessness that doesn’t involve calculating the costs and benefits and this is something that I’m trying to learn as a growing Christian. The more I analyze the little details of my life, I can see the little subtle things that I do and unknowingly do as a habit that really is selfish. As stubborn as I am sometimes to change when I am given the opportunities to learn selflessness, I am repenting and working on it.

I’m beginning to realize how important it is to take a day of Sabbath to really help recharge and put your life back into the right perspective. It’s a time to really let yourself tune out all of that noise in your life and really listen for His voice. As students, we’re so caught up and worried about our GPA  and planning our future career that our achievements become our worth. We become defined by our marks, wealth, our prestigious professions and successes. What is left of you when all of that is stripped away? Naked in shame? I am learning to not let myself be defined by my successes because I am not only setting my expectations on a higher pedestal but I’m creating this ‘SuperYi-Min’ that I begin to live by. Failing to achieve it will make you depressed, frustrated, and perhaps more driven to get it. What’s even worse is when your parents create this superwhatever for you and set this as your own goal. dYou will become exhausted, burned out, fall hard on your failures all to attain such an unhealthy and superficial goal. It’s beyond discouraging. Your superwhatever will kill you. The meaning of my life is not defined by my SuperYi-Min. Should yours?

“And the only way to not be killed by it is to shoot it first. Yes, that is what I meant to write. You have to kill your superwhatever. And you have to do it right now. Because your superwhatever will rob you of today and tomorrow and the next day until you take it out back and end its life. Go do it.” – Rob Bell from Velvet Elvis

Goodbye SuperYi-Min.