Filed under: Christmas, Winter | Tags: la bamboche, letterpress, sharon montrose
From: letterpress, sharon montrose, la bamboche, the cherry blossom girl
Merry Christmas Eve!
No Christmas tree this year again, marking this the fourth year. House seems to be lacking more and more space. No gifts under the tree but Christmas came early in many ways. Sound of music, alice fazooli’s, alexander mcqueen kicks, jbrand, hot chocolate, blue marlin, versace for the love, sushi, the almost dior ring (the DIY paper ring will do), some bubbly, quality time…. these are a few of my favourite things.
From: Secretleaves paperworks’ flickr, La Bamboche
Filed under: school
Bars are yet to be filled by us university students. Not sure if I’m liking U of T’s shortened school year. Last day of school was on Friday but first exam in 5 days. Maybe I’ll be more thankful in April when all Spring exams are done by the 30th. Recovering from a holiday party at Toula’ Ristorante & Bar but…
in the meantime, this is how I feel and will continue to feel for the next 2 weeks…
From: Creative Loafing
Nothing can stop this pig but only with some wellington boots.
She’s got a bit of mud phobia.
From: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/england/north_yorkshire/7448006.stm
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.
Filed under: Food
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)
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
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.
