June has been a very busy month. It starts of by us visiting Aberdeen, in the middle we went to Paris and it will end with a re-union with ex-workmates from NZ (no photos from the re-union, I forgot.. sorry)!!

So, first stop: Aberdeen, Scotland.

Instead of flying, I thought it would be a good idea to travel via the national rail, just to have the experience. However, I would not do it again, because it takes far too long (almost 10 hours) and trying to sleep on a train seat is not easy.

There are a few things that I have learnt from it though. One of these is the number of passes required for two return train tickets from London to Aberdeen is not two or four, it is ... a grant total of ELEVEN!! (If it happens in NZ, I am sure the Green Party would have sometime to say about it!!)

We have less than 48 hours in Aberdeen, therefore, the main focus of the trip is the famous Union Street. It is kind of like the Queen St of Auckland, Oxford St of London. Union Street is a beautiful street, the architecture along side is eye catching.

Union Street

What I love about Aberdeen is the resemblance of NZ, it is so green, I love it! Look at the colour of the trees!! It is amazing.

Trees along a golf course.

Aberdeen has it's wild side as well, the dry ski slope!! It only opens for tubing from 15:00 to 15:45, we did not manage to make a booking and went over anyway, luckily a group didn't turn up, therefore we tube down this artificial slope for the whole 45 mins. Warning: You will get wet and your thighs will be burning afterwards because you need to walk up the slope with the tube!

Aberdeen Snowsports Centre

Sweet?!

Milan: Part III - Michelanglo

Europe is like a big art and history museum.

Hundred years old castles, buildings with magnificent crafting, roads built for horse carriages and beautiful flesh like marble statues are on display in all major European cities and Milan is no exception.

Sforza Castle, about 15mins walk from the Duomo is worth a visit for all art lovers (or tourist who are sick of shopping!). For only €3, it gives you access to all the exhibitions including paintings, statues, furniture, armors, weapons and even modern artwork.

There are loads of paintings and the one shown below is one of the most important piece in the castle. (I am no art expert, but logic tells me if a painting is on display in a huge room all by itself, it must be pretty special!)

"Virgin Mary and Baby Jesus" - This painting was thought to be painted by Leonardo da Vicci.

(On close inspection, you can see the left window is actually the Sforza Castle itself, how awesome is that?!)

Milan has a strong Catholic influence, therefore, most of the artwork in the castle is about "Virgin Mary and Baby Jesus". This particular painting was painted by Picault in 1758, who copied the painting which was originally painted by Leonardo da Vicci in 1515.

Even though it is not painted by Lenoardo da Vicci, it is still fascinating to look at.


A truly fascinating master piece we saw during this trip is this unfinished statue of "Mary and Jesus ". It is the last statue made by Michelanglo. Look at how rough it is at the top half of the statue and compare it with the flesh like leg at the bottom half of the statue. It really makes you appreciate the effort and the talent of the artist.

If you really don't want to pay the €3, there are live shows avaliable for viewing as well and the photo below is the "most viewed art" of the day! They are performing in the middle of the castle, you really can't miss it even if you want to.

The only issue with this kind of show is that the performers don't have a schedule, so you just have to try your luck!

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Milan: Part II - Latte

The best way to rejuvenate after walking around Milan all morning, is to sit at a relaxing cafe and have a nice cup of coffee. Knowing how much Italians love their food and drinks, I had great expectation of how good my Latte would be -- and what I got was ...............hot milk. In Italian, "latte" means "hot milk".

If only I had read about Latte on Wikipedia before the trip, I would not have made such a mistake. Check it out on http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Latte.

"Latte" in Italian means "Hot Milk"

There is no shortage of coffee places in Milan, even Gucci have their own cafe right outside their store. To my surprise, their coffee is actually reasonably priced, unlike their bags!

Gucci cafe menu

The quality of food in Milan is pretty high and that applies to the price, too. The general rule of thumb we follow when comes to choosing a restaurant is, the more people there are the better. With this rule, waiting time is unavoidable, but since dining out is quite expensive over there, it is better to wait for a table in a good quality restaurant then taking the risk.

Out of all the pizzas, risotto, pasta, salad, gelato and coffee that I had during the trip, the clam spaghetti was the best. The clams were fresh, the spaghetti was perfectly cooked and the sauce had a mild taste and light texture which complimented the clams really really well.

Clam spaghetti

A trip to Milan would not be complete without art, so the third part of this trip is Milan: Part III - Michelangelo.

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Milan: Part I - Duomo

The whole point of leaving beautiful New Zealand to come to the UK is to travel around Europe as much as possible. Therefore we went to Milan the weekend before I started my new job.

Milan is an obvious choice of destination for all fashion/brand conscious people. However, for the fashion conscious who do not want to spend €500 for a Nutella Cube bag*, like myself, there is much to see as well. (*Scroll down for a photo of the bag.)

Our first stop was the Duomo. One of the most beautiful cathedrals in the world, the details on the outside are unbelievable! We spent the day and night walking around it to see its beauty from all angles we could get access to.

In the morning, tourist rush hour.

Afternoon tea at the cafe on the top floor of a department store right next to the Duomo.

From the top of the Duomo. We took the stairs, but an elevator is available, so there is no excuse not to get up there. It is so worth it.

The Duomo looks equally breathtaking at night.

The Duomo is a "functional" Catholic church, meaning there is Sunday mass while the tourists are walking around the church, which is a bit strange.

Almost 400 photos were taken in the two days, mostly of the Duomo. The rest are the beautiful food and drinks that we had, and some funny ones as usual. Stay tuned for "Milan: Part II - Latte"

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Nutella bag. Look at it, who wouldn't want one, eh?!?! =P

Meatballs Recipe using Bread!

One of the problems of a small household is left over food! For example, a loaf of bread can last me almost two weeks. I don't want to admit this, but the last few slices of bread ended up in the birds' stomach most of the time.

The solution can be put half a loaf in the freezer, but I have this "thing" about frozen bread, therefore I generally don't do it. So, I always wonder what else can I use the bread for, other then toasts in the morning, sandwiches for lunch, bread with butter and sugar for afternoon tea, french toast as a supper? The answer is Meatballs!

I found a meatball recipe online using bread and eggs as the binding agent. I tried it out and the result is amazing. It is so easy and fun to make, I made it as a Meatballs with Tomato Sauce Pasta and it was very well received. The good thing is that it tastes great on its own as well, serve it with ketchup would definitely cheer the kids up!

Meatballs with Tomato Sauce Pasta that I made the other day.

Unfortunately, I can't find the recipe anymore, so here is my not very accurate Meatball recipe (this makes about 40 meatballs):

Ingredients:
500g lamb/beef mince
2 slices of bread
2 eggs, beaten
2 tbspns grated parmesan
2 tsps dried oregano
1 garlic clove, minced
1 big onion, finely chopped

Steps:
1/. Soak bread in beaten eggs for 5 mins. The bread is ready when it soaks up all the liquid without dripping.
2/. At the mean time, cook the chopped onion with a little bit of cooking oil in a frying pan until it is soft. Set aside to let it cool down a little.

3/. Once the bread is ready, pull it apart into small pieces (use your hands to do this) and put it in a big mixing bowl with the rest of the ingredients (including the cooked onion). Mix everything together using a spoon (I used a pair of chopsticks) in one direction. You will ended up with a mixture looking like this:

This is what the mixture looks like when it is ready to be made into meatballs.

(This photo is taken half way through my meatballs making process, so don't panic)

4/. Make meatballs the way you like it. If you don't know how to do it, Google is your friend. The way I do it is to put olive oil on my hands and put a spoon full of mixture in my palm and make a ball out of it. Then put some corn flour or flour on the meatballs so that they don't stick with each other.

Meatballs ready to be cooked.

5/ To cook the meatballs, heat up a frying pan with a bit of cooking oil. Cook meatballs in about 3 batches (depending on the size of your pan and size of the meatballs). Each batch takes about 5-8 minutes to cook, the only way I can be sure it is completely cooked is by tasting it!!

Give it a try, it is so much fun!! Or if you are extremely lazy or have absolutely no time, you can try the Jamie Oliver way of making meatballs - pull the meat out of fresh sausages and make it into meatballs, there you go, nice and easy!!

Sweet?!

Hmmm Scones...

Unless we plan an action packed weekend, otherwise, London can be quite dull sometimes. (I will get to the scones, read on...)

We planned to drive to Windsor last Sunday about a week and a half ago, thinking that we will get there early, have a swim, wander around and maybe say hello to the Queen if she is "hanging out" in the Windsor Castle.

It was a great plan until it started snowing heavily on Sunday morning?! Now that we are stuck at home, what can we do? Perhaps, build a snowman? No, too cold! Go to a museum? No, takes too long on the tube!! Go shopping? No, too heavy to carry the shopping around! Arrr... what else can we do? Watch DVDs at home maybe?

When we are feeling sorry for ourselves not being able to go, the snowing started to ease a little. So, we decided to carry on with the original plan... (except it is 1.5 hrs late, but who cares!!)

It took less than an hour to drive to Windsor, no traffic whatsoever! ( I guess everyone else stayed at home to watched DVDs!! Ha Ha!). We ended up having late morning tea in a very traditional looking cafe near Windsor Castle, window shopping at Windsor Royal Shopping Centre, had a two hours lunch at Latino Restaurant, went to Eton College and was amazed by the beautiful Eton College Chapel.

Eton College Chapel. It reminds me of the magic school main hall in Harry Porter.

Out of all these activities, I like the morning tea the most simply because of the scones. My experience with scones are mostly from bakeries all around NZ, they are alright, nothing special. I had scones in the US where they call them biscuits, but I am not a big fan of them. However, my Aunt Lucia in Sydney makes very very yummy cheese scones, very moist and tasty.

The scone I had in the little Windsor cafe is completely different though! It is warm, very soft, it tastes wonderful when you put cream and jam on it and it melts in your mouth! The texture of the scone was perfect!! It was so good that I have eaten half of Mas's scone as well!!

With a cup of tea, there were nothing more I can ask for! Hmmm...scones

The perfect scones served in a little cafe near Windsor Castle.

It might sound crazy, but I would consider going back to Windsor soon just to have the scones. This time, I will have at least two scones all by myself!! Sweet?

London, we are here to stay!

It is all go go go now! Because Mas and I have both landed jobs this week!! WOOHOO!!! =))

The recruitment agents asked why I did not sound happy when he told me the good news, it is because all these things were processing in my head all at once:

1/. Where should we live? (Both of us are going to work in the city, so we can live anywhere, should we stay west, go north, maybe north west???)

2/. How much can we afford? Should we budget more on rent or travels or save as much as possible?

3/. How would I get to work if the tube staff go on with strike next week? (The latest news is the potential tube staff strike which was supposed to happen next Monday to Wednesday is now suspended! Yeah!!)

4/. What am I going to wear on my first day????!!! (This is very very important, because first impressions last... arrr, a lot of ironing to do!!)

Anyway, so it is all very exciting now, but flat hunting has been very tiring. We saw 5 flats within 4 hours. It does not sound too bad when you have it in writing, however, when you are in a car with an agent who thinks he is a race car driver AND does not know the way, after the third 3-point turn, I was ready to throw up. (By the way, the flats range from "NO WAY" to "Hmm... No", so no luck there - Yet)

Tomorrow, we are going to see 3 more flats in the North of London, hopefully we will have better luck with the agent's driving and the quality of the flats this time.

My friends and I at Trafalgar square after a yummy yum cha lunch last Sunday

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Tom Yum Soup Steam Boat with Frozen Oysters

Steam boat is one of the best winter dinners. It is easy and quick to prepare, and entertaining for both adults and kids. Also, It is a good way to introduce cooking concepts to children (or adults who cannot cook), e.g. chicken pieces are cooked when they turn white, beef slices become tougher when cooked for too long.

The key to a good steam boat is the soup base. There are many ways to prepare the soup base. A common way is to use pre-made chicken stock from the supermarket and add vegetables in it to provide the sweet taste.

There is an easy way to make a good spicy soup base using Tom Yum Soup Paste (if you don't eat chilli food, then it is just too bad). Add a few table spoons full of paste to boiling water and off you go!


According to my friends, the Namjai brand is the only one that will give you the kick, so make sure you get the right one. Once the soup base is sorted, you can put whatever you fancy in it. Normally people put fresh meat, fresh vegetable and even fresh oysters.

But if fresh oysters are too hard to get or too expensive, frozen oysters are as good. In fact, I found that frozen oysters are even better for steam boat. By the time they are cooked in the pot, the centre of the oysters are only slightly cooked, therefore the texture and sweetness of the oysters stay.

Frozen spinach is also a good alternative instead of fresh vegetables. But make sure the frozen spinach is not blended, otherwise, when it gets into the pot, you will not be able to scoop it out. Put the frozen spinach in pot without thawing, just like the frozen oysters.

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The Cause of the Hectic London Traffic

Bad traffic is the norm in London from Monday to Sunday (except long holidays like Easter holiday, when everyone flees the city like a plague). Well, this is hardly surprising in an old city like this, when some of the roads, which were properly built for horse carriages, are now honing with cars.

Narrow roads with cars parked on both sides can be seen everywhere, cars need to stop to give way to the traffic coming from the opposite side. On top of that, cars can park facing the wrong direction and changing lane without indicating is a common practice.

However, none of these can top a very very very confusing traffic light I saw in the middle of a round about yesterday.

A "functioning" set of traffic lights on a round about near Canary Wharf

Should I go, or should I stop? Turn left now maybe?

I was so glad I was not driving yesterday. Sweet?!

Kicking the after interview blues with...Waffles

The worst part of having an interview, is the day afterwards. I sat in front of the email and right next to my cellphone the whole morning hoping that the agent would call, email or text me telling me that I have either got the role or not. But, nothing, nothing at all.

So then I started second guessing myself, thinking about what I could have done better in the interview yesterday, how could I have presented myself better, things I should have said or should not have said etc. All these thoughts made me even more miserable.

This self distructive process quickly ended once I decided to visit the Belgium Chocolate Waffle shop just down the road. And this is what I got from the little shop at Ealing...

Belgium Chocolate Waffle and Maple Syrup Waffle from a small shop in Ealing

You can put chocolate, maple syrup, jam, caramel, peanut butter, banana, stawberry or any combination of that on top a waffle. It is so versatile that I can have one everyday! And today's waffle was just the best, after a bite, all the silly thoughts went away.

In London, a waffle can cost from around £2 to £6. However, I found that the more expensive it is, doesn't necessary mean it is better. I paid about £6 for the waffle in town.

Banana Caramel Waffle from a cafe near Regent St in the city

With it being almost three times the price, obviously, it looks much sophisticated. However, it was slightly warm, dry and light weight. In my opinion, it didn't qualify as a "waffle".

A waffle should be hot, but not too hot, slight crispy on the ouside but moist on the inside, also, it needs to be substantial, but not too heavy like a meal. In short, the one I bought from Ealing today was a perfect waffle.

Sweet?!

No White Christmas But Hello White Easter

While "Experience a White Christmas" is still on my todo list, I experienced a White Easter a couple of days ago (kind of like a complementary prize?!).

Mas and I spent Easter with Uncle Herman and his family at Milton Keynes (1.5 hours drive from London). We went to masses, played ping-pong with my cousins, had yummy food, all the usual stuff.

However, on Sunday morning, my cousins ran into my room early in the morning yelling "Look sis, it's snowing outside!!". Thinking that it is possibly only snowing lightly, I gotten up anyway and this is what I saw...


It is a scene that makes me feel like I am celebrating Christmas instead of Easter. My cousins quickly went out to have a snow fight (as expected) and I quickly took out my camera and captured this unusual moment - a daffodil with snow on it.

Thank goodness the snow storm did not continue for very long and we were able to go out shopping in Covent Garden that afternoon. Sweet?!

Prawns & Eggs Dish Recipe

When we go out for a big family dinner, the children normally get to sit at their own table. The reason for this "practice" was never explained to us, but I suspect it has something to do with one of the following:

(A) The adult conversations are not suitable for children;
(B) The food served at the "grown up" table is not suitable for children (...price wise maybe?!?!)

From what I can remember, I think it was because of option (B). When the grown ups are having lobster, the kids table gets a Prawns & Eggs dish. Not that I am complaining, because it is actually one of my favorite dishes, the best thing is - it is easy to make.

Tasty and moist Prawns & Eggs Dish

Without further ado, here is the (not very detailed) recipe from my talented Uncle Herman:

Ingredients
Prawns (shelled)
Eggs
Cooking oil (not a lot)
Salt
Pepper
Garlic (ground)
Ginger (ground)
Coriander (optional)

Steps
(1) Heat the cooking oil in a frying pan, then add the garlic and ginger.
(2) Put the prawns into the frying pan and leave them until almost cooked.
(3) Add a pinch of salf and pepper to the prawns.
(4) Add the eggs into the frying pan with the yolks still intact. **See picture below for clarification**
(5) Leave the eggs as they are in the frying pan until half cooked, then gently break up the yolks.
(5a) Add the coriander into the mix if desired.
(6) Stir quickly to mix the prawns and eggs together.
(7) Scoop all the contents onto a plate before the eggs are completely cooked. Serve hot with rice.

Step (4) Add eggs into the frying pan with the yolks still intact.

Give it a try and I am sure you will like it! Sweet?!

I love technical jargon (NOT)

After 105mins of torture, I have completed one of the hardest technical tests I have ever done! And now I am having a pounding headache with the technical jargon still spinning inside my head, let me give you a taste of it,... J2EE, EJB, XML, WSDL, JAAS, CCI, EIS, JAXB, MDB, JNDI, LADP, JMS, JAF, XA, JTA, HttpServletRespone, SQL 3 Types....

Sitting technical tests is one of many activities everyone in the IT world needs to do every so often. Sometimes you do it for work, or you take a certification so that you can add one extra line on your CV or most commonly you sit a technical test as part of the job hunting process.

That test was part my job interview process, the first page of the test stated that the test will progressively get harder if I am doing well, otherwise, it will get easier if I am doing badly. So, there you have it, I suppose I have done well, because it was just sooooo hard!!

The worst part of this whole test is I don't get to know the result!!!! It is because the company pays for the test, therefore the result is their asset, even though it was me who sat the test!!!! What is wrong with this world!

Mas made me lunch, Adiós! Sweet?!

Update: I passed!!! The company just sent me back the test results, which is very nice of them. I am going in for a face to face interview next week. Please pray for me! Sweet?!

The most expensive glass of Coke in the world!

Well, it might not be the most expensive in the whole world, but in my little world, €8,80 for less than 500ml of coke is the MOST expensive I have ever paid for, heard of or seen!


When I realised how much this glass of coke costs, my head immediately did the following calculations:

• That is about HK$105, I can get an off-peak movie ticket (HK$40) and a movie snack combo which includes a large popcorn, a hot dog and a 500ml bottle coke (HK$65).
  
• Or for NZ$17, I can get a big chicken rice (NZ$10) and almost four glasses of coke (NZ$2 each) from my favourite food court, Food Alley in Auckland.
  
• Even for expensive London, ₤6.7 can get a chicken pad thai (₤5) and a bottle of 500 ml coke (₤1).

Sure you get the picture now. But these calculations were not doing me any good at the time, so I quickly stopped doing it and turned my head and looked at the reason for the extreme high price...

Arrr~ isn't this nice... yes, you have guessed it, the coke was served in the restaurant 2000m above sea level, on top of Le Brevent, one of the Chamonix ski fields. It was a perfect day for any snowboarder/skier, clear blue sky, fluffy snow and most importantly - hardly anyone on the mountain!!

Given the high price and the fact that I was dieing for a coke after snowboarding the whole morning, I actually think that glass of coke in the end, is the best tasting coke in the world!! Sweet?! =)

Green Auckland, Blue Chamonix and Grey London

"Kiwis are so spoiled!!" This is my conclusion after having been to nine cities in the past six months.

Starting from Auckland > Hong Kong > Taipei > Melbourne > Shanghai > Sydney > Gold Coast > Chamonix > London.

Auckland - The photo is taken during a trip to Akaroa, a small but relaxing and beautiful town in the South Island of NZ. The weather was mild and the tap water tasted so sweet! (Read on, you will know why I say that.)

Hong Kong - A town with lots of beautiful modern buildings. Shopping is the greatest (Mas said that he will not shop anywhere else but HK)! With most of my family being there, HK will always be on my travel list, even though the air pollution really puts me off!

Taipei - The food was great and cheap, a city with a strong Japanese influence. The Taipei 101 is a beautiful building, but unfortunately, seeing all the buildings in Hong Kong, it doesn't really impress me much.

Melbourne - Other than the hot hot hot summer, Melbourne is a very fun and beautiful city! It is almost as green as Auckland. Food was "O" for awesome! Especially, the Lebanese and Malaysian food that I had this time... was just too good!

Shanghai - The first impression of this city where my ancestors came from is - a mix of modernism and traditional! It has everything, from expensive fancy diners to food stands by the train stations; from tall modern buildings to old Chinese style houses only an hours drive away. It is a city I want to visit again, being there only once is just not enough.

Sydney - I have lost track of how many times I have been to Sydney. It is a city where my favorite cousins live, that's why this city is always on my travel list as well! The one thing I really love Sydney for is the seafood market, especially the oysters (not the very big Tasmanian ones though, I think the one I love are the rock oysters)!!! You only need one and it refuses to leave your taste buds alone!!!!

Gold Coast - After five days on the beach and three theme parks, I am good with theme parks for a long while. It was a great holiday destination with my young cousins, the activities are no brainer, the transportation to all the major theme parks are great, food was good and not too pricey. Except the buffet offered by the Four Winds Revolving Restaurant, it is not very good value for money. There is no surprises with the food, but for AU$55 per head, I can have a much better dinner somewhere else. Oh, the revolving bit, it is a nice idea, until I realised that the restaurant is right by the pacific ocean, so imagine what can you see most of the time at night ... complete darkness.

Chamonix Mont Blanc - The ski fields are amazing!! The clear blue sky is outstanding, the trails were wide and the snow was so fluffy, it makes it so easy to snowboard on! If you find yourself continously falling on your bum on slushy snow, remember, it is not your fault! Oh, almost forgot, I found a bakery in the Chamonix town centre, the pizza was the BEST!! It is the basic cheese, tomato and herbs pizza, it was so moist, the thickness of the base was perfect! Just writing about it now makes me hungry!!!

London - Have been here for almost three weeks now, all the things that people told me about, the grey weather, the confusing traffic, the shocking bank system are all true. No surprises there. What is surprising is the tap water, it tastes funny, not sweet at all, needs to be filtered before consumption, what's up with that?! However, it is a city with beautiful old buildings, they have such strong character, I love looking at them. Also, the convenience to travel around Europe is a paramount advantage.

That is it for my first blog post, come back for more later! Sweet?!