Our Journey

Chefs' House - Lindt Chocolate Lovers' Feast

2012-02-07T13:29:00.000-05:00

Our friend Flora found this event at the Chefs' House featuring an inventive four course dinner with wine pairing and hor d'oeurves, with Lindt chocolate as the key ingredient to every dish. The night would showcase the talent from the Chef School of George Brown and the Master Chefs would discuss the construction of the menu and dishes. It was a one night only event and we were sold. The menu would only be revealed the night of, and we secured our seats as soon as the event was open for reservations.

Doors open at 6:30pm and after getting to our table, we were promptly greeted with such goodies as chocolate dipped bacon, and a Parmesan tart with grape chutney drizzled with chocolate. The night was getting off to a great start!

While waiting for the evening to officially start, we went over the menu with our sparkling wine in hand, and chomped on some bread at our table, which included a dark chocolate and sour cherry loaf, a red fife pain au levain, as well as some lavash. Norm thought he tasted cumin in the pain au levain, but no one else did.

After some introductions and speeches by the chefs, our first course arrived: the braised beef cheek and dark chocolate ganache ravioli in brown sage butter. I have to agree with Moj on this one, it's definitely the yummiest ravioli I've ever had. For one, the chefs didn't feel the need to include ricotta or mascarpone or any other cheese in the filling, which was quite refreshing; and they didn't cheat by just adding a hint of chocolate; it really was a full on chocolate ganache with the beef cheek. The taste of chocolate was evident, but not overpowering. This dish worked well all around, like the braised beef cheek and chocolate ganache were BFFs.

Our second course was the cocoa infused wild mushroom consommé with a pan-seared scallop. This was an interesting dish, but in my opinion, less impressive than the first. As Norm has duly noted, the scallop was cooked perfectly, but the flavours didn't do much for me. As I got more into the dish, I found the consommé a bit saltier than preferred.

Our third course was the oven roasted chicken breast, with a blood sausage and brioche pudding, white chocolate parsnip purée, in a bitter chocolate and chipotle sauce. The many different aspects to this dish definitely made it a favourite at our table. The chicken was perfectly roasted and not too dry; the blood sausage and brioche pudding had an interesting texture and went well with the parsnip purée; and the bitter chocolate and chipotle sauce wasn't bitter at all. It was hard to decide where to start, and what combination to try next. Everything seemed to blend so well together.

Our signal that dessert was on its way: fresh bread sticks dipped in Lindt chocolate.

And last but not least, our dessert. They weren't kidding on the menu about there being "chocolate of various forms and textures! There was chocolate foam layered on top of a small piece of chocolate brownie/cake, with chocolate crumble all around, whilst sitting on top of a decadently smooth chocolate mousse with bits of liquefied cherry and hazelnut. Flora thought it was a bit sweet for her liking, so I finished hers, too. :)

At the end of the meal, our server presented us with a plate of Lindor milk chocolate truffles, as well as a box of chocolates each as a takeaway gift. With such great food and company, we all had a splendid time. In fact, Flora's proposed to make these a monthly outing. I wonder what's next on the agenda? :)

Our Trip to XinJiang: Part 14 of 14

2012-01-07T01:56:00.000-05:00

Day 18:

We woke up that morning, had breakfast in Hami and were on our way to Turpan. Our goal was to travel ~427 km to Tuyugou Valley to visit the Mazar Village(吐峪溝) at the edge of Turpan, then to the Ancient City of Gaochang (高昌故城), before ending the night in Turpan (吐鲁番).

What's interesting about the Tuyugou Valley is that it sat within the Turpan Depression that is known to be the second or third lowest point on Earth and houses many historic sites easily going back 3000 years. The Mazar Village is one of these historical sites. It is said that there is a holy cave at the Mazar Village that is documented in the Koran.

Legend has it that two missionaries entered XinJiang in hopes of spreading the Islamic faith. However, they were soon hunted by the miliary. The two missionaries came upon a pair of shepherds and their dog. After some conversation with the missionaries, the shepherds decided to help them escape. After several days, maybe even weeks, they were running short on supplies and the shepherds wanted their dog to leave and run to freedom. However, the loyal dog would not stop following. The shepherds got desperate and crippled the dog to leave him behind, but still he would follow. In the end, they hid in a cave with the dog as their guardian; and that was how the holy cave came to be.

The view from up top; we had to climb a steep sandy hill at the edge of the village to get to this photographic point. The descent was rather interesting as the dry sand made it ridiculously slippery even though I was in my sneakers. Annie's descent was most memorable as she was in her sandals, screaming, giggling, and sliding.

Kel crept out to the edge for his photos; I wouldn't dare as I could foresee myself slipping and rolling down every which way.

The other side of the village where the pond is; you can see the Buddha Grottoes in the mountains. However, they are no longer open to the public due to damage done over the years. Another memorable thing about the village is that there's a murky creek that runs through it to this pond; like the water was actually brown. And the villagers actually use this as their drinking water. Our guide told us that the locals would have to let the water sit in their bucket overnight for the sediments to settle before using it.

Did I mention the village is saturated with mulberry trees? We've never had mulberries before; I for one have only read about them in books. Our guide told us to try them and at first we were skeptical, but once we had our first, there was no stopping us! (Or me and Annie that is..) The guide couldn't help but laugh as we ate our way through the village.

We saw a man butcher a goat in his front yard; and by butcher I mean literally empty the goat's intestines as his pet cat watched. On the right is the house the locals has preserved as it is believed the missionaries, shepherds and the dog has stayed there before.

Next, we headed to the Ancient City of Gaochang (高昌故城). This ancient city dates back to 100 BC and used to be an important trading post along the Silk Road. The city was said to have been burnt down in the 14th century.

We had to pay admission to get a mule driven wagon to take us in. There wasn't a whole lot to see, as it was no more spectacular than any of the other ancient ruins we've seen on this trip. If anything, this one was even less maintained. The negative experience we had with this particular site was that the locals there tried to scam us and make us pay double. When we got to the main part, they informed us that what we previously paid was a one way trip and that we needed to pay again to get driven back out. Annie argued with them for a bit and then we just ignored them and walked into the site. They were still there waiting for us afterwards to drive us back out, but nonetheless it left a bad taste in our mouth.

We returned to Turpan that night for our last dinner in Xinjiang. We celebrated our trip with good food, cold beers, in good company.

Day 19:

We woke up in Turpan and had breakfast before driving back to Urumqi, where we were to depart XinJiang in the afternoon. Throughout the drive, we were recalling all that we've seen and experienced in the last three weeks, saying farewell to the camels as we passed by; the mountain; the goats.

After having lunch in Urumqi, Siubo said we still had a little time before our flight and asked if there was anything we wanted to do. For some reason, Starbucks came to mind. There was supposedly one in Urumqi, or so Siubo has heard of. We had tried looking for the location of it online during our trip, as a friend had asked if we can bring back one of their mugs from the World collection, but had no luck. Nonetheless, we figured if there was one, it'd be pretty cool to bring one back for ourselves that said "Urumqi" or even "XinJiang" on it. Siubo called around and located a "Starbucks Cafe and Restaurant". It didn't sound right, but since we had time, we decided to take a detour. Or rather, Siubo insisted on checking it out. (Did I mention he was a wonderful driver? :) Alas, when we got there, it turned out to be a restaurant that used the Starbucks name and since Starbucks never had a location in XinJiang, it wasn't an issue. And that was our last adventure before Siubo dropped us off at the airport.

Our 19 day road trip through Xinjiang (and a part of Gansu) covered an approximate distance of 6973 km. That's more than 1000 km above the distance needed to travel across Canada from Victoria, British Columbia to Halifax, Nova Scotia! Below, I've put together a map of the route we took during our trip and yes, it was quite an adventure! So much so, that we've decided to go back next year (which is really this year, since I started this post in October and it's now regrettably January)! Cannot wait for part 2!

A-Urumqi; B-Yuli; C-Korla; D-Kuqa; E-Kezi'erxiang; F-Aksu; G-Kashgar; H-Taxkorgan; I-Khūnjerāb Pass; J-Kashgar;
K-Hotan; L-Minfeng; M-Korla; N-Turpan; O-Dunhuang; P-Jiayuguan; Q-Hami; R-Balikun; S-Turpan; T-Urumqi

Resolutions, resolutions

2012-01-06T14:12:00.000-05:00

Happy 2012!

And with the new year of course, comes resolutions. I didn't used to understand the concept when I was younger, but it seems like it adds more weight with age; and usually, the problem is with the carry through. Somewhere down the road, I forget, or I make enough excuses that it gets dropped. One thing I've consistently read about, is if you shared your resolutions/goals with other people then you're more likely to carry through with them since you're more accountable. SO.. here goes..

This year, I vouch to:

sleep earlier (This one is a carry down since... 2010?)
drink more water (another carry down.. for those who knows me, knows I can drink close to nothing a day)
cook and eat more at home
(and therefore) eat less crap
read more
declutter (Kel should be happy with this one..)

This month, I aim to go through my clothes and clear out stuff I keep for the sake of keeping. (Yes, I tend to have issues parting with things.) And put away my summer shoes and take out my winters since the cold weather finally hit. Here's a little something I found with great tips on decluttering:

via www.mimiandmegblog.com

Our Gallery Wall

2011-12-21T23:46:00.001-05:00

It's finally up! The idea's been there for a while, but the process has been long. It's really not that hard to do, but the process of selecting pictures and getting cheap frames takes time. In fact, we've had the pictures framed for over a month now, but when Kel realized on which wall and at which height I wanted them, he said "how 'bout later". Well, later's finally here! This wall will be our ongoing project, adding pictures as time goes on.

Dinner at Sushi Kaji

2011-12-20T22:47:00.001-05:00

Sushi Kaji has got to be my favourite Japanese restaurant in Toronto. They only do tasting menus and so, is not your everyday type of sushi bar. At the same time, their prices aren't so far out of reach that you'd only go once in your lifetime. They used to have tasting menus at three price points, but have since gotten rid of their $80 menu. We decided to go with their $120 menu this time, since it is my birthday and all.

The menu doesn't say a whole lot about what we'd get, nor does it indicate the amount, but having been here before, we knew it'd be well worth our money.

We reserved seating at the bar as that is where we'd get the most action; watching the chefs at work was quite impressive. They had just renovated the restaurant last month, increasing the space behind the bar by decreasing the tables available in the restaurant. This may seem counter intuitive for some, but it made a lot of sense for us as what they're really doing is expanding the stage for the chefs to perform on.

Our first dish (partially listed as the second item on the menu), the persimmon rolled with egg crepe was found inside the leaf bundle, resting on the two pieces of fish cake stuffed with cod roe. The yellow ball in front is a water chestnut embedded in a white wine jelly, sitting beside a piece of candied lotus root.

Our second dish (actually listed as the first item on the menu), is the daikon radish cake on the left with a bit of kumquat reduction, with the dried barracuda on the right.

Our third dish, which was more like a continuation of the second item on the menu, is the vinegared crab. The yellow swirl on the left was actually an egg yolk, which complemented nicely with the soy sauce on its right, adding a velvety texture whilst lessening the sodium level.

Our fourth dish: the assorted sashimi plate. The two orange pieces on the left resembling salmon is actually fresh trout, which was quite refreshing. The octopus was a nice touch, as it was not chewy at all, contrary to the usual experience. And are you starting to notice the crab theme?

Next up, the butternut squash cake stuffed with chicken. The pool its sitting in was actually a consommé, just thick enough yet not too overpowering. Erica decided after her meal that this was her most memorable dish.

The assorted tempura was up next. What we've always been interested in, is how these are fried, yet served dry. We watched them do it this time, and it looks so simple. Must try this at home. :)

Snow crab grilled in cellophane. They weren't kidding about the cellophane.

Inside, we found mushroom and chicken on a bed of onions with the reminisce of egg. This was done quite nicely as the egg absorbed all the flavours of the crab and neither the chicken, mushroom or onions took away from that. Kel loved how this was presented and the skill involved for everything to be cooked to perfection. And of course, I loved how all the crab legs seen thus far has been pre-cracked for our dining pleasure. However, Erica thought it was a little oily for her liking.

This next dish wasn't written on the menu and was by far my favourite dish of the night. Here we have a bit of crab "innards" (for lack of a better word) on hand shredded crab meat on rice. The portioning was perfect; not too much as to over indulge, but just enough to taste the sweetness of the crab.

Our next course, the littleneck clam miso soup. We thought the miso in the soup was stronger than we were used to.

And this brings us to the beginning of our assorted sushi platter. The great thing about sitting at the bar is, we'd get the pieces as they're made and won't have to wait a minute longer.

Barbecued eel was the first sushi we got. Their special sauce was unique, driven by a citrus note of kumquat; not too sweet like the store bought type.

Next up: maguro.

And what do we have here? Wild trout covered with roe. I think one of the dramatic highlights about sitting at the bar is the anticipation as we watched them pour roe on top of our sushi. We're not usually huge on roe, but these were the good ones. We could taste the freshness of the fish and none of the salt. One of the chefs cooking by us saw us trying to pick up the leftover roe with chopsticks and decided to lend us a hand by dropping off a small spoon on our plate. :P

Sea bream sushi wrapped in mint leaves. I'm personally not big on mint, but this was actually pretty good.

Fresh crab sushi. And yes, that would be Chef Kaji. He purposely knocked over a piece because he knew we were taking pictures. Chef Kaji is quite the joker posing for our photo.

Scallop sushi. Its interesting how I dislike cooked scallops, but fresh raw scallop is quite the yum in my book.

Chef Kaji made us cucumber hand rolls to help clean our palates. Note that Kel's on the right is much larger than mine.

The finale: uni sushi, fried prawn, and toro. Need I say more?

And to finish the night, our desserts. The girls got a red bean paste with mixed fruits on top of jelly, accompanied with a green tea macaron. Kel got a pear sorbet with his macaron.

The Toronto Underground Market - Nov 2011 Event

2011-11-23T12:12:00.000-05:00

I first heard of the Toronto Underground Market (TUM) through a co-worker of mine. Whilst trying to decide how many tickets to get for the October event over lunch, it sold out! We regretted not jumping on it sooner and decided we need to regroup for their next event in November. Over the course of the month, we gathered interest in our respective groups of friends, waiting anxiously for the tickets to go on sale and jumped on them as soon as we were aware. Alas, the November event proved to be worth the wait as we lined up stall after stall and filled our tummies with yummy goodness. We were a little wary of the weather as it was held at the Evergreen Brickworks, but the heat lamps and atmosphere proved it quite enjoyable.

Kel and I started out our TUM adventure by tasting the various samosas from Mama Nashi's Indian Gourmet Fare. They offered three kinds: chicken, beef, and vegetarian. They were de-lish and served their role well as our first course.

After savouring the samosas, we spotted the line for La Carnita. They are famous for their fish tacos and the line was already mega long! We decided at this point to divide and conquer; station Kel at the La Carnita line, where we went and hunted down other good eats and of course bring some back for him as well.

Flora and I ventured out and assessed what the other stalls had to offer and settled in at a line for grilled cheese. Rather, Flora lined up for grilled cheese while I went and got sandwiches from Fidel Gastro. They offered two types of sandwiches; the "Havana Club", a beer pulled pork with ham, caramelized onions, havarti and chili aioli; and "La Senorita", mozzarella stuffed jalapeno, turkey chilli and radicchio slaw. Of course, I picked up one of each and shared them with Flora and Kel. The guys at Fidel Gastro created a fun atmosphere where they cried "OLE!" every chance they got.

It was good timing, too, because by the time I got back to Flora, we were next in line at Comida Del Pueblo for their awesome grilled cheese! And yes, I say awesome because it was a jalapeno cornbread grilled cheese topped with guacamole and creme fresca! This was definitely one of the highlights of the night.

After sharing the grilled cheese with Kel, I got us a beer from Hogtown Brewers. Can't say it was the greatest, a little hoppy for our taste. At this time, I met up with Flora and Norm again, and we decided to try the eats from Element. While lining up, Keith came over with some cupcakes from Sullivan & Bleeker. I couldn't resist and had their mint Aero cupcake.

At Element, Flora and Norm shared the pork and crab meat soup vermicelli, as well as the lobster yaki. I just got the lobster yaki and brought it back to Kel, which was just as well since he was finally nearing the front of the La Carnita line! We got two of each of their voltron fish tacos and their Mexican chorizo tacos. The chorizo tacos delivered quite a kick! We looked around for Flora to share this yummy goodness, but to no avail. We ended up eating her share as well. :P

Later in the night, we ventured out to the Chimney courtyard to scope out their wood oven pizzas and found that they offered cedar smoked marshmallows, as well. However, at a dollar a piece, we weren't quite sure. At this time, it started raining and we headed back into the major venue. Before the night was over, I had a hot cider with whiskey from Proof, which was quite yummy by the way, and the duck confit hash from Elle cuisine. Can't say the duck was all that great as we found the meat quite dry, but all in all, it was a terrific night.

Staging Project

2011-11-09T21:26:00.000-05:00

I apologize for the lack of blog posts last month, but October turned out to be quite busy! I picked up a staging project for a town home the weekend before it was to list through a referral. He assured me the timeline isn't usually this aggressive, but the client really wanted to list soon and have the open house by the next weekend!

So this is what happened:

I went to assess the place with Kel on Saturday morning.
Proceeded to acquire the things I had in mind for the project that same day.
Went back to the house on Sunday to further discuss with the client what we needed her to do.
Went in on Monday with all the things we needed and proceeded to stage her home.
The photographer came in Monday afternoon to take pictures of the finished product for the listing.

By Thursday, the house was on the market. The real estate agent informed me he already had multiple showings that night, as well as on Friday. The open house that weekend was also a success with more than twenty interested parties attending. By Tuesday, a bidding war had begun and the place was sold later that night! I couldn't believe how fast it all unfolded. Although the agent had told me the week before that this was his plan and the ideal situation, I had doubts on whether it would actually happen.

Below is a glimpse of what the main floor looked like when we first went in to assess the place. I apologize for the poor picture quality, as my mind was already spinning with ideas and for some reason I thought the agent had took the "before" pictures already. This was actually taken on my phone and served as my personal reference for the project.

Since the client was still going to be living there while her home was up for sale, we decided to do what we can to minimize the impact the staging would have on her life. Afterall, you never know how long these things would take. Below is the main floor after we staged it. If you take a closer look at the before and after, you'll see that we did a lot of rearranging of what she already had, plus a few accent pieces to bring it all out.

And here, is the bedroom after we rearranged a few things. Bringing her recliner upstairs not only gave the main floor more room, but shows that her master bedroom is big enough to serve two functions.

We were all quite happy with how much the new layout was able to open up the main floor and the quick sale was a good measurement of that!

Foodstock: Stop the Mega Quarry

2011-11-09T13:53:00.000-05:00

Last month, Kel and I went with a few friends up north to the Foodstock event. It was the first of its kind with the intention of this event being to raise awareness and money to stop an American company called Highland Companies from turning prime, fertile agricultural land into a limestone quarry spanning 2,300 acres. It was dubbed as a "pay-what-you-can public food event" and was wildly successful. A hundred chefs across the nation banded together to serve up local produce, setting up stalls out in an open field and throughout the forest to the public. Thousands showed up despite the cold and rain in support of the movement. It was definitely a different experience! We had a good laugh at supporters, both kids and adults, losing their boots in the muddy field, while lining up for the next food stall. Looking back, I wish I had taken more pictures of all the great food we had, especially since Norm, Kel, and I all managed to forget to bring our own plates and used a lettuce leaf as a substitute.

Supporters at the event, both young and old.

Soup being served out of a giant pumpkin and onto a cabbage leaf to promote sustainability and reducing waste.

More shots of food stands as chefs and volunteers prep for the supporters.

An article on the event at blogTO with additional pictures found here.

Summer Projects: The Front Porch

2011-10-04T16:55:00.000-04:00

Kel and I've been wanting to redo the front porch since it was made of patio stones and weeds were poking through. There was also a colony of ants living under the stones! We decided that this year was the year to give it a new look. I've been eyeing stamped concrete porches for a while, and got a contact from an old coworker. The awesome thing about stamped concrete is that you can pick the pattern AND the colour you want! We got in contact with Frank, who came and gave us an estimate for our front porch and flowerbed in late July. We shopped around a bit, and by August, decided to go with him. He was able to start work just after Labour Day and we were ecstatic.

When we first got the house, the front of our house looked like this:

We knew we had to change the windows since they were still original from when the house was built (circa 1956?) so while we were getting new windows, we got a new front door as well.

Below is the end of Day 1. Frank came early in the morning, removed the patio stones, and started excavating. He's put up the curvy border we've asked for on the porch, and the flowerbed, rounded at the end. By our tree, you can see the new light post that Kel's put up this summer, too.

At the end of the second day, concrete's been poured and the pattern set. We picked Arizona Flagstone for our pattern.

Close up of the pattern on our porch:

Frank came back to put in the colour the next day , but there wasn't a visible difference from the day before at this point, as there was still a good amount of concrete dust on the porch. He told us he'd come back the next week to power wash the porch after the concrete's settled and seal.

So here it is, after Frank was completely done: the porch on the left, and the flowerbed on the right.

And here, from when we first bought the house, to what it looks like now:

Our Trip to XinJiang: Part 13 of 14

2011-09-29T00:27:00.001-04:00

Day 16:
We woke up in Jiayuguan (嘉峪關) that day, had breakfast and made our way back to Hami, otherwise known as Kumul (哈密) in XinJiang province. Once again, we only stopped for meals and washroom breaks, travelling 611 kilometers over ten hours. Hami was a much bigger city than the others we've been to in our previous days. It actually had a modern four star hotel! Although it was more than double the price of the previous hotels we stayed in, Kel and I decided to stay a night and enjoy a long, hot shower. After all, it was still ridiculously cheap compared to North American standards. The only complaint we had was once again, because its a newer hotel, it was central air. This meant we didn't have absolute control over the temperature in the room and it was warmer than we'd prefer.

Day 17:
We spent the day in Hami. After breakfast, we headed out to the Devil City (哈密魔鬼城). There weren't actually any devils there, but more like rock formations in the Gobi desert. The reason it was dubbed as the Devil City was the howling sounds that can be heard in the dead of the night. The Devil City is about 5-10 kilometers in width and has a span of 400 kilometers from the Camel Peak to the Wubao Shaer Lake. Because it is so vast, we had to pay an entry fee and then drive in as opposed to walking. We found rock formations within that took the likings of a turtle, a chess piece, and the ruins of an ancient castle.

The giant sea turtle.

The knight chess piece.

Below: We hiked up the fortress ruins for more photo ops! The view at the top was stunning.

On the way back, we did a quick stop to take pictures at the Border Mound Beacon by Shibaohua (史保華). There really wasn't much there, but this beacon, so we quickly took some pictures and left.

Next, we headed up to Balikun (巴里坤) to see it's famous grasslands (巴里坤草原), the White Stone Scenic Spot (白石頭風景區) and the Balikun Lake. Siubo wasn't too enthusiastic about taking us up to Balikun because it was 142 kilometres north of Hami, which is a good three and a half hours to get there. We were staying the night in Hami, which meant it adds another seven hours of commute time! He assured us there wasn't anything worth seeing up there. However, Flora found a picture of the Balikun Lake in one of the travel brochures at the hotel the night before and we were convinced to find it. In the picture, there was the grasslands around the clear turquoise lake, and in the backdrop there were green trees and snow capped mountains peeking through.

On the way up we stopped at the side of the road for pictures, as we were approaching the mountains and there was a creek running alongside. It was all too beautiful!

And this is when we got up to the Balikun grasslands (巴里坤草原). Siubo said it was still too early in the season as it will get much greener in another month of so time. It was such a nice day and on the right there, you can see the little trees they've planted in the field.

We didn't end up taking any pictures, nor did we stop at the White Stone Scenic Spot (白石頭風景區) because it's become highly commercialized with resorts and such. Siubo agreed that the commercialization of the scenic spot has caused such an eyesore that it's no longer worth going. On passing by we could only agree, as once again, mankind has destroyed what was once so beautiful purely for the sake of trying to make a few bucks. Similarly, we never did find the Balikun Lake as framed in the picture. We saw the Balikun Lake, but it's backdrop was not what was in the brochure. It's neighbouring lake had that snow capped mountain backdrop, but lacked the grasslands. We, along with Siubo, was convinced that someone must have photoshopped the two into one picture to use for marketing purposes. Siubo goes up there many times a year, and says he has never seen all of those characteristics by one lake.

We went the rest of the way up to the Balikun town, but there wasn't much to see there. It was all very touristy, and not at all what we were looking for. There was an old wall at one end that was supposed to be a good picture spot. However, when we approached, a lady tried to sell us counterfeit entry tickets, which left a sour taste in our mouths. We talked her price down and sent Flora up the wall to see if it was even worth the time or the money for the rest of us to go up. She reported back saying the pictures seen in the marketing brochures must have been taken from the other side of the wall. There was no way down the other side unless you scaled it, and it was just barren desert land there. All in all, we admitted to Siubo, we felt pretty fooled and the few pictures we did take was definitely not worth the seven hour drive.

Summer Projects: The Fence

2011-09-28T00:55:00.001-04:00

When we bought our house two years ago, what attracted us a lot was the big yard with the huge trees. You can't get yards this size, nor trees this big in the new subdivisions. Looking out onto our backyard gave me a sense of serenity, almost like we're out of the city. The trees would block the view of the neighbouring house behind us and offer shade for the house in the summer, a real energy saver.

However, what this also meant was that we didn't have a back fence to the yard. At first this didn't seem like an issue, since we couldn't see our back neighbour anyways, but that's when winter came along and we realized we would be needing that fence. All the leaves were gone, and there was only one coniferous standing alone in the yard. We could now see our neighbour clear as day, as well as all the junk he dumps in this backyard! They heated their house with a wooden stove, which meant there were piles and piles of wood laying about, along with random children's toys, a picnic table, barrels... you name it, he's got it!

So this year, seeing as we weren't as tied down renovating the interior of our house, we've decided to put up a fence. Kel's found that one of the bigger trees in the back was actually dead and hollowing out, so that was our target. He started the project by clearing the random shrubs and baby trees in the back and then one weekend, with the help of his brother and father, went up the tree to cut it down piece by piece.

He started by going up a ladder, then went shimmying up part of the tree. His brother had a harness so they strapped Kel in, while he belayed him from the ground, in case he should fall. Watching him climb up was quite a feat. Kel wasn't exactly wearing climbing shoes, so there was no grip. They ended up having to pulley up some boards and an impact gun for him to nail some steps onto the tree.

Below: Kel climbing the tree, while Ken belayed him from the ground and some of the crap visible in our neighbour's yard.

When Kel finally got to the arc of the tree, they pulley-ed up the chainsaw all revved up, but with the safety on, for him to saw down the trunk! I got a close up of him below sawing down the branch. They did this section by section until it was just the stump on the ground.

I swear the branches didn't look that big before, but after it was sawed down, each branch was easily over 20 feet. I was glad that none of the falling branches hit my garden! Below you can see the neighbour coming over to collect firewood. He was pretty much around the entire time watching the show, and waiting for wood.

Throughout the summer, Kel's been putting up our fence piece by piece. Sometimes Erica would come over and nail in a couple boards, too. Below, you can see the finished product: our fence as it stands today.

Bunfest 2011

2011-09-25T19:02:00.000-04:00

I went to Bunfest 2011 today! Last year, it was held in a community centre in Mississauga, and we got there late so there weren't a lot of visitors around. This year, it was at the Bob Rumball Centre in Toronto, a lot closer to home! We had originally wanted to go at 11AM right when it starts, but I had to work last minute and Kel had picked up a project, so instead I went after work instead. When I got there, there were still lots of people and lots of bunnies! After paying for admission, I was met with a bun on a harness with his owner hopping up the stairs! What a way to start my Bunfest 2011 visit! Everywhere around, there were bunnies in their carrier bags, bunnies stretching out in the bunny lounge, and bunnies in their playpen waiting to be adopted. I even saw a bunny riding around in a wagon!

In one of the playpens, I met Pika, a Flemish Giant! She weighed in at 15lbs and was absolutely adorable. Her owner showed us how much she loves butt rubs and would return the favour with kisses! Her owner told us she loves running around the house and is never too shy to show it. With her size, she's anything but quiet! Makes me wonder how high her binkies get! When her owner picked her up, she was easily longer than his torso, and he's not a small guy!

Bunfest 2011 turned into a shopping spree for all things Kingsley. I brought home two 2lb bags of fresh hay, some willow tree leaves and twigs, various treats for our lovable boy, and a willow tunnel, ball, and an "In case of emergency, please rescue our bunnies" decal!

Below, you can see Kingsley playing with his new willow ball.

Labour Day Weekend in New York City: Nougatine at Jean-Georges

2011-09-12T13:22:00.000-04:00

On our last day in New York City, we hit up Nougatine at Jean-Georges for lunch before making our way back home. I had originally booked for Jean-Georges, but there was some kind of mix up with the reservation desk as they've penned me down for Nougatine. I only realized this mistake when they called to confirm and by then it was too late to make a change. Jean-Georges was full until 2:30pm. Bleh. Ah wells, Nougatine it is. Nougatine had the lunch prix fixe menu, which wasn't a bad deal. For $32, you can get an appetizer, entree and a dessert, so that's what we went for.

For my first course, I decided to supplement a couple bucks to get an appetizer that was off the prix fixe: Foie gras brulee, slow-roasted strawberries and aged balsamic vinegar. I had originally wanted to try the Foie gras brulee at Jean Georges which came with the pineapple-meyer lemon jam, but this will have to suffice. I was pleasantly surprised at how light the roasted strawberries complimented the dish. The top was seared crispy, and when I applied pressure to cut into it, bits of the foie gras would bubble up through the crust! Joy! In the cross section, I found the roasted strawberries nested in the foie gras which was the other surprise. All in all, I think the berries really lightened up the entire dish, making it suitable as a lunch item.

This was Kel's appetizer: Tuna tartare, avocado, spicy radish, ginger marinade. I didn't get to try any (just as he didn't get to try my brulee) as we weren't sitting next to each other during this meal, but he told me it was wonderful. In particular, he thought the ginger marinade was a nice and unique touch.

My entree: Slowly cooked skate, eggplant, pepper ragout. I thought the skate was made really well, just tender and not overcooked. Each piece of the wing flaked off nicely. Wasn't a big fan of the ragout though. I expected the fresh pepper taste, but it came out to be pickled pepper. A little sour for my taste on an entree.

Kel's entree: Slowly cooked salmon, with sauteed potatoes, black olive and passion fruit. As you can see, the salmon was a good sized portion, not what we expected. And it was sitting on a bed of spinach, which was on top of the potatoes. Kel said the overall dish was good, but he thought the spinach was slightly over done, a bit chewy. What can I say, the man's picky about his greens!

Kel's cousin's entree: Sauteed red snapper, spaghetti squash, sesame broth and chili oil. No complaints here. She said the flavours melded very well together.

We ended our meal with the warm chocolate cake with vanilla bean ice cream, which once again, put us over the top, but hey, who can complain about too much chocolate, especially when it's oozing out the centre? :)

Labour Day Weekend in New York City: Momofuku Noodle Bar

2011-09-11T23:13:00.000-04:00

Another place we visited was the Momofuku Noodle Bar! Of all the Momofuku locations only the Momofuku Ko allowed for reservations online and it is a known fact that they book out under ten minutes of opening. Each Momofuku location has a different theme and offers a different menu. We were told the Momofuku Noodle Bar is a must, if we haven't been to the other locations, so that is where we ventured. Indeed, when we got there, the restaurant was packed to the brim with people waiting for tables inside and out. What's more interesting was that it seemed like it was the only place on the block that was busy at all! We ended up waiting close to an hour for our table, but did not regret it.

Our kimchi jar came out first. Kel loves kimchi so getting it was a must! Their kimchi was more crispy than our usual experience and the jar it came in was too cute. Kel wanted to bring it home! Above that, you can see Kel opening up our first of three tamales.

We ordered three tamales, one of each kind offered: the pork kimchi, chicken mole verde, and the jalapeño qeso. They arrived in three cute packages, with their authentic leaf wrappers. Unwrapping each was like opening a present on Christmas Day. Okay, maybe I'm exaggerating, but you get the idea.

The one dissected in front on my plate there, is the chicken mole verde. "Mole verde" simply means green sauce. We didn't find them as exciting as we'd hoped. Passable, but not something we'd crave. Maybe we're just not big on tamales.

They offered three types of buns there: shrimp, pork, and oyster. We ordered the pork bun since that was Wallace's favourite. Besides pork, it also had shiitake mushrooms and cucumbers, dressed in scallions and hoisin sauce. As anticipated, these were delish!

We also ordered their smoked chicken wings, but I didn't take a picture of them as they looked like normal chicken wings on a plate with some scallions sprinkled on top. The wings were good, but can't say they were spectacular or the best wings I've had. Wallace mentioned that in the Momofuku cookbook, these wings takes a whole day's effort to make. We deemed them not quite worth the work entailed.

Our main course, the momofuku ramen, with pork belly, pork shoulder, and poached egg! This might look like a normal ramen, but the toppings were not ordinary! The poached egg resembles that of a hard-boiled egg, but upon closer inspection, we found that it was incredibly soft! Even the whites was incredibly silky. The pork shoulder was pulled pork, and the pork belly was even more fatty than expected, melting like butter on the tongue.

We ended our meal with some lemon flavoured soft-serve and were quite surprised to find basil bits at the bottom. It was a nice touch. We left carrying our bellies. :)

Labour Day Weekend in New York City: Lady M Confections

2011-09-07T23:09:00.000-04:00

While in New York City, we had a chance to check out Lady M Confections and were we glad we did! We wanted to dine in and had to wait a couple minutes for a table, but it was well worth it!

Here's a picture of the boys sitting out front playing on their phones, waiting for a table. I swear, this picture wasn't posed. They just happened to be sitting the same way!

The cakes available that day displayed behind the glass from the front, they had the Lady M® Mille Crêpes, Marron Mille Crêpes, Strawberry Shortcake, Gâteau aux Marrons, Green Tea Mousse cake, Gateau Nuage, Checkers, Tarte Au Citron, Strawberry Mille Feuille, and Banana Mille Feuille. They also had individual cakes available as well! Nom nom nom!

A close up of their signature Lady M® Mille Crêpes. Constructed of more than twenty paper thin, hand-made crêpes layered with light and creamy vanilla custard!

What we ended up ordering, clockwise from the top, and individual Mont Blanc, chocolate croissant, Checkers, and the Lady M® Mille Crêpes!

A close up shot of our slice of Lady M® Mille Crêpes. We unanimously agreed that this is by far the best cake ever! I generally don't like custard, but the vanilla custard in the Mille Crêpes was absolutely divine. As well, even though I knew that there's more than twenty paper thin crêpes, before I bit into it I doubt that I'd be able to tell, but I was! The texture was absolutely wonderful! It's too bad they didn't have any dry ice, otherwise, we'd definitely bring some home.

Our slice of Checkers cake. A chocolate and vanilla sponge cake woven into the pattern of a checkerboard with a thin layer of fresh cream, covered with dark chocolate ganache. Yum! Checkers was good, but beside the Mille Crêpes it paled in comparison. I have to admit its not quite fair to compare the two, but all in all, we had an awesome time at Lady M's!

Labour Day Weekend in New York City: WD-50 Tasting Menu

2011-09-07T16:30:00.000-04:00

This Labour Day Weekend, we went on a road trip down to New York City for some good shopping and of course, good eats! Our first meal in the city was a late dinner reservation at WD-50 for some molecular gastronomy. Since we were late in confirming our trip, I didn't get around to making reservations until Thursday afternoon, which meant we were dining at 10PM! This at first sounded really late for dinner, but the fact of the matter is, we were shopping the entire day at Woodbury Commons and didn't make it into the city until 8:30PM. By then, we just wanted to check into the hotel and freshen up before dinner, so the 10PM reservation actually worked out great. We knew we wanted to have their tasting menu beforehand and worried that we'd be too tired to enjoy the twelve course meal at such a late hour. Luckily, they were able to keep us pleasantly on our toes for the entire duration leaving us all very much satisfied.

The menu at WD-50. I thought the usage of a pair of lips as the front cover was very suiting for what lies ahead.

From our table, we could see into the kitchen where the chefs were busy running around preparing each dish. The kitchen looked so spotless!

Instead of a basket of bread, we were given these to snack on before the first course arrived. They were paper thin and reminded me of sesame snaps, but much more addictive!

The September tasting menu at WD-50. Nom nom nom!

Our first course: Poached oyster, celery, caper, vodka, lemon. It was a nice amuse-bouche with the vodka warming up our belly. At first glance, I thought this would be a cold dish, but the oyster was still warm and the thin strings of celery added a nice touch. See the little white/clear ovals the oyster is resting on? It's actually vodka lemon beads.

Our second course: Everything bagel, smoked salmon threads, crispy cream cheese. When it first arrived at our table, we thought the miniature bagel was really cute. Upon turning it over, we saw that the underside of the bagel was creamy, like someone had already put the cream cheese spread on this tiny bagel. Biting into it, we realized, this bagel was melting! It had the consistency of ice cream! With the smoked salmon dusting, the crispy cream cheese and tiny red onion circles, it filled our mouths with a familiar flavour yet unbelievable texture.

Our third course of the evening: Foie-lafel. Doesn't it look quaint? A tiny pita bread, with melt in your mouth foie gras balls dusted with chickpea bits. And its got the tabouli and shredded lettuce to go with it! Yummmmy!

Our fifth course: Poached egg in the shell, pumpernickel, caesar dressing, bean sprouts. Yes, you guessed it, the egg shell is actually edible. It is made of brown sugar, but looks and breaks just like an egg shell would on your plate. The egg is poached easy so it mixes well with the caesar dressing to add an extra bit of decadence to the sauce. I thought the parsley added a nice touch, but our friend Wallace who's not a parsley fan would beg to differ.

Our sixth course: King oyster "udon", sweetbreads, banana-molasses, pickled ginger. We had our reserves when this came to the table. Personally, I don't like bananas, but I wouldn't indicate that to the restaurant staff for fear it would take from the experience. Afterall, the whole point of a tasting menu is to trust your chef. This dish worked out really well, in that they really did slice the King oyster mushrooms to the thickness and length of flat udon noodles, and I thought the pickled ginger and banana-molasses worked really well with it. The banana taste was barely on your tongue, although for our non ginger fan Wallace, he'd prefer it less gingery. The added green was a nice touch to offset the sauce as well. We were pleasantly surprised that the sweetbread had a bit of bounce to them and not your usual soft mush.

Our seventh course: Tai snapper, onion tart, coffee, asian pear. We thought the coffee-walnut crumb and the bits of cucumber and pear added an interesting touch to the half cooked snapper. The slight fishiness of the snapper evened out with the onion tart. Now if only I can figure out how to make that onion tart...

The eighth course of the evening: Quail, nasturtium yogurt, turnip, nutmeg. The rounds of quail were tender as can be. We couldn't help but wonder where they got such a big, thick, round piece of meat for such a tiny bird. The fried turnip was a little strong, but the yogurt was good to even it out, as well as bring out the taste of the quail.

Our ninth course: Lamb loin, 'red beans & rice', chayote squash. Once again, it was the most tender and juicy piece of lamb I've tasted thus far. Can you guess where the rice portion of this meal is? The two crisps! Now it may seem that rice crisps could be very commonly had, but these crisps actually tasted like fresh steamed rice, but crunchy! Added to the dish, it provided a nice change of texture with the beans.

Our tenth course: Black sesame, yuzu, mango, popcorn. This was an interesting bit with the popcorn. The white clouds are the yuzu and the orange at the bottom of the bowl is the mango puree.

Our eleventh course: Apricot, buckwheat, rhubarb, green tea. The bigger orange round at the bottom is the apricot jelly, topped with the gobs of green tea mousse. The pink cubes on the two sides are the rhubarb, and the big brown blob is the buckwheat lying on buckwheat specks. I'm not too big on rhubarb so I skipped some of that. The buckwheat was interesting though, because none of us actually knew what to expect, but it helped neutralize the slightly sour apricot.

Our twelfth course: Soft chocolate, beet, long pepper, ricotta. This dish was a nice touch to top off our evening. We wondered how the beet would fit in with a dessert dish, but it didn't taste too strong due to its consistency. The ricotta and pepper helped lessen the richness of the soft chocolate so we were able to finish the dish. But hey, I'm sure if the boys thought the chocolate was too rich, they didn't need to ask me twice for help!

Our meal ended with rice krispie treats and a ball of lemoniness with a crunchy shell. :) ahhhh need I say more?

Our Trip to XinJiang: Part 12 of Many 14

2011-09-02T00:41:00.004-04:00

Day 15:
We got up in Jiayuguan (嘉峪關) excited for our day of adventures. There were three major sites waiting for us that day. The first was Jiayuguan Pass (嘉峪關關城), noted as the first pass on the west end of the Great Wall. It is also the last pass people would see after getting banished to the west. Legend has it that it was so meticulously planned that the government official in charge demanded the designer to itemized all the materials he would need down to the last brick. After the architect provided the general with a number, he asked if the architect was sure. To humor the general, he added one brick to his estimate. When the pass was finished, there was indeed one brick left. The architect told the general to use it as a door stopper. To this day, there is one loose brick at Jiayuguan Pass.

Below: Quatchi and Kel at Jiayuguan Pass

Below: One of the towers at the end of the pass.

We spent the majority of our morning at Jiayuguan Pass before heading to an early lunch.
After, we headed to what is known as The First Pillar (天下第一墩). It is the most western end of what was the Great Wall. It served as a natural ending as it ended in a gorge with a river going through it. There was a military outpost on the other side of the gorge, which could be reached by a suspension bridge. For tourism purposes, they've installed another way to cross over: a zipline! We debated for a little bit whether we wanted to ride the zipline across. The fee for it was minimal, but this is China afterall. Did we trust their safety precautions? We finally decided that we were likely never to come back so, might as well!

You can see the suspension bridge over the gorge.

A close up of the military outpost.

The view of the gorge from a glass platform built out from the higher end.

Kelly on the zipline, ready to launch!

Me flying across the zipline arms out, laughing all the way down. You can vaguely see Annie on the corner of the platform taking pictures.

Annie riding across, screaming.

What we found on the other side was some old buildings, wheelbarrow and such.

The entrance to the suspension bridge to get back to the other side.

The girls on the suspension bridge. We thought Annie would be more scared, and we tried to get her more scared by jumping and shaking the bridge, but she wasn't fazed one bit.

On the other side, there was a military camp of sorts. We had fun playing around on the strategic training posts for a bit.

Next, we went to walk a part of the Great Wall (懸臂長城) that was still intact in Jiayuguan. When we got there, a lady shepherd was leading a flock of sheep, so of course, we had to take some pictures! The hike up to the top of the tower was quite enduring as the steps would be quite uneven at times and much higher than what we were used to. The view at the top however, was quite worth it, and hiking down was even more of an adventure as the path was mountainside with no rails for safety. We were quite tired after all this and decided to call it a day with an early dinner and rest up for the next day.

Below Left: Flora and Annie walking up to the tower.
Below Right: A garbage can we found in the tower at the top and couldn't help but take a picture of the yellow "garbage" symbol. Apparently, "non-recyclables" are denoted by turning all the arrows of the recycle sign outwards!

Our Trip to XinJiang: Part 11 of Many 14

2011-08-29T00:51:00.008-04:00

Day 14:
Since Dunhuang (敦煌) and Jiayuguan (嘉峪關) were not originally in our agenda, we were still somewhat open to where we spend our time. We knew we had two and half days for the two cities and had to decide on when we should leave Dunhuang for Jiayuguan. Our first thought was to spend our first day and night at Dunhuang, and leave for Jiayuguan the morning of the second day, but Siubo told us we wouldn't get to Jiayuguan until mid afternoon and there were at least three sites he thought was worthy of visiting. Our second choice was to leave Dunhuang by early afternoon on day one, which meant we might not have time for all the sites we hoped to visit. In the end, we ended up picking the latter, let Siubo sleep in while we woke up earlier and took a cab to Mingsha Sand Dunes (鳴沙山) and Cresent Lake (月牙泉).

When we got to Mingsha Sand Dunes, we found the the lines of the sand more elegant. It gave us a different feeling than when we were at Taklamakan Desert. The name "Mingsha shan" translates to "Echoing-Sand Mountain" because it is said that when the wind dances across, it produces flute-like sounds. Legend has it that there was a battle many moons ago, on these sand dunes. During the fight, a fierce wind picked up and buried the generals and their troops. It was after this, that the sand dunes started producing these sounds and the locals thought it must be the troops still fighting under the sand.

Below: Mingsha Sand Dunes

We were given the option to ride a jeep or a camel to go up the sand dunes. As well, you could rent these florescent booties to cover your shoes to prevent sand from creeping in. We opt for the camels as it seemed more authentic. However when we were waiting to get our camels, it seemed like they couldn't understand (or refuse to), put us all in one group. They seem to have groups of 6 camels set up, but somehow split us up. We got these tickets with numbers on them that corresponds to the number on each camel's harness and I guess its too much work for them to re-bundle the camels? Anyhow, on the first ride up, Flora got put in a separate group from us, but that was apparently because I was riding the wrong camel. On the second part of our ride, I was riding with Flora and some other random tourists, while Kel and Annie were in another group.

When we got to our first stop, tourists can pay to rent and drive an ATV around the sand dunes. It looked interesting, but watching others do it, we thought it wasn't as worth it as the ride we took at the Taklamakan Desert. These ATVs didn't seem as fast, and driving ourselves wouldn't be as exhilarating since we wouldn't know how fast and what route is good. Something else they offered there was sliding down the sand dunes with an inflatable doughnut. It looked interesting, but the cost for a ride was pretty high. Plus, you'd have to walk back up after sliding down and anyone who's walked up sand dunes know how tiring that gets. All in all, this stop seemed more like a tourist trap.

The camel station

My pretty camel. :) Doesn't it look like it's smiling?

Left: Kelly taking a picture of me (and yes, that's Annie riding her camel in front of him). Apparently it was so bright that day, that almost all the pictures I was in, I had my eyes closed. :(
Right: Flora on her happy camel.

Left: The prettiest tree ever and in the middle of the sand! Doesn't it look like the magical tree you see in storybooks?
Right: Flora on her camel

Next, we rode our camels to Crescent Lake. It is pretty much what the name is, a pool of water in the shape of a crescent around a pagoda. It was really pretty and we were looking for a story behind such a place since it is in the middle of a desert. However, we found that the pagoda was actually not from back in the day, but rather reconstructed from what they thought it used to look like. We felt somewhat scammed at this point. Also, there wasn't much inside except for a snack stand.

Upon leaving Crescent Lake, we finally got to ride together as a group. The reason being we wanted to go, but the rest of our groups were still inside. Below, you can see us with our camels again. :)

We left Crescent Lake not soon after and went back to meet up with Siubo at the hotel for some lunch. He drove us to the Dunhuang Mogao Grottoes (莫高窟) afterwards. It is said that these rock temples of Dunhuang dated back to 366 AD when a local monk had a vision of a thousand Buddhas in the clouds. The monk then got a rich pilgrim to hire an artist to paint one of the caves and turn it into a shrine dedicated to his well-being during his travels. From then onwards, others would make donations for such shrines to be carved out of the cliff believing this will garner the donor protection. The custom went on for hundreds of years, creating over a thousand of these grottoes. However, because of the remoteness of the Mogao Grottoes, the earliest recorded foreign discovery of the caves was by the Russian explorer, Colonel Prejevalsky, in 1879. One of the key things to note about the Mogao Grottoes, is the hidden library within (what is known today as cave 17). It was discovered by a Taoist priest Wang Yuan-lu in the early twentieth century, whom appointed himself as the guardian of the caves and dedicated himself to its restoration and preservation. Unfortunately, due to his illiteracy, he ended up selling many of these ancient manuscripts to British archeologist, Aurel Stein, and later to French explorer, Paul Pelliot, to raise the funds needed for his project. One of the manuscripts sold to Stein was the Diamond Sutra, the world's earliest printed book dated 868 AD. The scroll is said to be seventeen and a half feet long, ten and a half inches wide, and made of seven strips of paper joined together. It currently resides in the British Museum. Today, only 469 grottoes remain, with paintings, sculptures and inscriptions still somewhat intact.

There were two entrances to the Mogao Grottoes, one for Chinese, and one for foreigners. We did not know this at the time and entered through the Chinese side. The difference between the two was a slightly higher price on the foreigners side, but there they could arrange for non-Mandarin tours. We tried to see if we could pay the price difference and arrange for an English tour, but they would not allow it. They claimed they were different departments/groups and we'd need to pay the full foreigner price again if we were to get the English tour. Blah. We ended up going with random Mandarin groups to see inside the caves since they lock them up and only the guides would have the key. We also piggybacked off of another English guide as they were finishing their tour. Due to preservation reasons, cameras were not allowed inside past the admission gates. But we did find it quite interesting as these grottoes were very well preserved. The caves would have colourful wall murals, alongside buddhas of various sizes. We learnt much about the excavations by the Swedes, Germans, Brits, Japanese, and later the Americans in the early twentieth century. Below, I've found some pictures from various sites online so you'd get a feel as to what we saw.

via www.the-silk-road.org

via buddhistchannel.tv

In this tower, we found a gigantic buddha made of clay 35.5m high.

via relax.com.sg

We left Dunhuang by late afternoon, and headed towards Jiayuguan travelling another 448 kilometers for over seven hours before resting for the night.

Our Trip to XinJiang: Part 10 of Many 14

2011-08-19T14:47:00.003-04:00

Day 12:

We got up in Korla (庫爾勒) that day and went on our way to Turpan (吐鲁番) covering 404 kilometres in about 6 hours. We arrived in Turpan by late afternoon and saw these rectangular structures with grid like holes in the walls at the top of some hills. Siubo explained to us that this is where the locals would hang their grapes and dry them into raisins. Apparently, Turpan is famous for their production of grapes and these structures allow for good circulation for them to naturally air dry as opposed to sun dried. We found that we much preferred the raisins from Turpan as opposed to the ones we get back home. It seems like air drying would minimize the caramelizing of sugar inside the raisin causing it to be less sweet. As well, it was much more organic in that the raisins are still recognizable as grapes and come in all sorts of sizes.

After leaving the grape houses, we went on our way to Jiaohe Ruins (交河故城). Jiaohe was built in the middle of the river with natural 30 meter cliffs protecting it on all sides. It was said to be the capital of the Anterior Jushi Kingdom (車師) from 108 BC to 450 AD and became known as the Jiao Prefecture from 450 AD to 640 AD. After which, it became the highest level military post in the west due to its natural defense walls until its invasion and destruction by Genghis Khan in the 13th century.

It was another scorching day with barely a cloud in the sky and once again, there were barely anyone there. I think we ran into maybe ten people max? And really, this was a pretty big site.

We followed what seemed like the yellow brick road.

Looking out the side of the city to the greenery below. I guess this is where the river used to run through, and although its dried up, there's probably still quite a bit of ground water to sustain all the plants.

Annie and I walking into the Great Hall.

That night in Turpan (吐鲁番) , we were excited to be in the city again and went to stock up on some snacks at the grocery store. We were surprised at the variety of seasoned vacuum packed poultry snacks available. We didn't get any though, we just stuck with our usual assortments of cookies, cakes, and chips. While exploring their cold meat section, we also found prepackaged dog meat among the usual lamb, chicken, and beef.

Left: the wall of vacuum packed chicken legs, wings, thighs and feet in various flavours.
Right: Flo couldn't help but pose with a chicken thigh. :)

Day 13:
Today was our longest travel day yet! We went from Turpan (吐鲁番) to Dunhuang (敦煌), which is in the neighbouring Gansu province (甘肅省). We didn't do much besides stopping to use the washroom or stretch our legs while getting gas. Total distance traveled today amounted to 801 kilometers in about thirteen hours! This was the stretch that Siubo didn't really want to do with our strict timelines, but ended up doing because we really wanted to. Even after driving close to nonstop the whole day, we only got to Dunhuang for dinner around ten and went to bed after. Full day of sites awaits us tomorrow!

Nothing a little parsley wouldn't fix

2011-08-09T11:40:00.000-04:00

Going to the climbing gym last night meant Kingsley didn't get his dinner til midnight (and no playtime either). So it's a good thing fatty likes his parsley! Let him out for a run this morning before work. Hope he doesn't wake his dad up.

Our Trip to XinJiang: Part 9 of Many 14

2011-08-05T00:24:00.005-04:00

Day 11:
Siubo took us to breakfast in Minfeng (民豐) when we got up that morning. By now, we have concluded that all hotel breakfasts are the same and not to our taste. Most hotels would come with breakfast vouchers that were buffet style, but the choice of food was to us, strange. It'd usually include some very bland congee, corn congee, plain steamed buns, assorted spicy greens and milk. We'd be lucky if there were hard boiled eggs, or warm soy milk. Bleh If there was time, we'd get Siubo to take us to breakfast, but if he was tired, we'd just resort to eating snacks in the car. On this particular morning, Siubo took us out to have soy milk, steamed meat buns, and onion pancakes. :) We had a long drive ahead of us to Korla (718 kilometers for 18 hours), and most likely skimping on lunch, so breakfast was crucial.

We drove on the Tarim Desert Highway (沙漠公路) that was built through the Taklamakan Desert (塔克拉瑪幹沙漠). The highway was funded by China Petro linking Minfeng in the south to Luntai in the north with a total length of 562 kilometers. A good 446 kilometers of it was through uninhabitable regions due to desert sand dunes making it possibly the longest highway of its kind. The highway allowed truckers to cut through the desert as opposed to driving around the outer rim. Siubo informed us that to prevent the desert sand from eroding the highway (or burying it for that matter), they had to build a massive irrigation system using ground water to plant bushes and other vegetation at the side of the road to hold everything down. Cool eh?

Left: We entered the highway from the south. Note the 562km marker on the side of the road.
Right: The entrance to the highway!

And of course, we had to take some silly pictures! You can see Annie jumping for joy in the picture on the right as Kel jumped over Flo.

Not far after entering the highway, we saw two overturned cars on the side of the road. The first was a car on its roof some fifty feet from the road. There was another car with people helping them as we passed. It looked out of place as it wasn't something we're used to seeing. Further along we saw a second car, which was an SUV, overturned on its roof. The driver was a young kid now crouched at the side of the road looking devastated. We asked Siubo if we should stop to help and he told us that a tow truck was most likely on its way already. Siubo said this highway was very straight, and the surroundings very flat. As there's not much around, its very easy to speed on and lose focus from boredom or fatigue. Siubo said these accidents happen a lot out here because once the car goes slightly off road, the tires would be in dirt and sand. The surface difference plus the high speed would likely result in the car tumbling. Inexperienced drivers tend to underestimate this stretch of the highway.

When we got to the end of the highway, we had to take a picture with the 0km marker! Oddly enough, besides information on the construction of the highway, there were also billboards put up to warn people not to speed, documenting past major accidents on the road with pictures of the victims...

At the end of the highway, we stopped by the roadside to take pictures of a cemetery of popular trees. It was strangely eerie to see so many dead trees randomly and sparsely laid across the desert. The ground water must have receded over the years. We trekked around, taking pictures of our surroundings when we spotted a dust devil in the distance. Kel and I were still at the top of a sand dune at that point, while Flora and Annie had wandered down. We called out to them to turn around to see the dust devil, but pretty soon, we realized they were right in its path! The girls ran as the dust devil seemed to chase after them for a bit before changing directions. We thought it disappeared and died off when it hit a line of bushes, but soon we saw it take out a bush! If only we caught that on video! The bush went FLYING.. :P

Flora and Annie turns around to see the dust devil in the distance.

Flora and Annie running up the sand dune to us as they realized the dust devil was headed straight for them!

A bit further down, we saw live huge popular trees in the desert. A sign we were close to civilization once more!

We had a late lunch of more yummy lamb skewers. We rated this place as second place of our entire trip. They made the skewers on Tamarix sticks (红柳), which adds to the flavour. Mmmm...

Our Trip to XinJiang: Part 8 of Many 14

2011-08-02T01:04:00.002-04:00

Day 9:
We woke up for breakfast in Kashgar and went on our way. Today was a travel day for us as we had to cover a distance of 519km to get to Hotan (和田) for the night. Google estimated our trip would take 11.5 hours, so it's a good thing that the sun doesn't set in XinJiang until at least 9:30pm. Throughout the day we only made stops for lunch, gas and bathroom breaks. For lunch, we stopped at Yecheng (叶城) for beef noodles. Beef noodles has become one of our staples on this trip and the noodles we had here were definitely the best we've had! It was so good that Kel and I decided to order a second noodle to share. However when the noodle came, Kel seemed to have forgotten that we were sharing.. and almost ate the entire bowl! It wasn't until I finally got his attention that he remembered! Grr! This became our running joke throughout the trip.

It wasn't until we got to another restaurant later on, that we learnt the rules/criteria of what is considered a good beef noodle. The five criteria it must meet are known as "one red, two green, three white, four yellow, five clear" (一紅、二綠、三白、四黃、五清). What this means is the redness of the chili oil, the fresh green colour of cilantro and green onions floating in the soup, the thin white slices of turnip, the gleaming yellow of the noodles, and the clearness of the secret recipe beef soup with it's many spices.

Below: The beef noodle pictured below was unanimously voted as the most delicious ever!

It was this night in Hotan where we finalized our change of agenda. We will be extending our stay in XinJiang for an extra day in order to cover Dunhuang (敦煌) and Jiayuguan (嘉峪關) in the neighbouring Gansu (甘肅省) province. In exchange, we will be forgoing some sites in Turpan (吐魯番) as well as the towns and sites north of Urumqi. We had not considered going to Dunhuang and Jiayuguan before as they weren't in XinJiang province, but Siubo recommended those cities because they were in a corner of the Gansu province where it was closer to other XinJiang travel spots and far from any Gansu travel spots. Siubo informed us that because of the distance, most people travelling through XinJiang would also go to Dunhuang and Jiayuguan, but people travelling through Gansu would likely skip them. Furthermore, Annie told us that there were more to visit in northern XinJiang than we were able to fit into our current schedule, so we could always come back another year specifically for the northern region. Siubo helped us call the airline to push our flights for a day as well as borrow his friend's credit card to put the change fee on. (They only accepted China issued credit cards, and apparently credit limits are quite low in China. Siubo had maxed out his own card already. :P)

Below: The stove contraption at the restaurant reminds me of the pioneers. :)

Below: I couldn't help but take a picture of this. Next to our hotel was a "MFC", Muslim Fried Chicken!

Day 10:
After a quick breakfast, Siubo showed us one of the characteristics of Hotan (和田): the tree lined roads. He brought us to one he considered prettier than most for the trees were bigger in size, and the road was of good condition. Siubo informed us that these trees were planted to increase the visibility and therefore safety for the drivers as we were at the southern rim of the Taklamakan Desert and sandstorms are frequent. Similarly, it protects the road from sand erosion. To us, it was simply picturesque like it was straight from a picture book.

Next, we headed over to see the king of all walnut trees. They've built a park around the tree and a plaque by the tree indicates it's been around since 1362! That means the tree is 649 years old! Its said the tree is over 20 meters tall and yields close to six thousand walnuts a year. We later learnt that Hotan walnuts are different from the ones we get back home in that they are especially thin shelled and can be easily cracked open by hand.

Below: some interesting seating areas at the park

We headed to the Hotan bazaar for lunch afterwards, where we bargained for red dates the size of golf balls.

Left: Squashes (?) for sale
Right: Street food; a big wok of fried rice with chicken legs and thighs on top

Left: a mule dressed up for the market
Right: a street vendor performing his cooking skills in an open flame; he saw us with our cameras and purposely smiled and made the flame bigger for us :)

Left: their communal water fountain; we watched them walk over and pick up one of the many plastic mugs attached to a string, filled it with water and proceed to drink from it... huh
Right: a local butcher stand at the market. We wondered how they could just leave the meat hanging out all day like that in such hot weather...

Below: yummy yummy pineapples, skillfully skinned with a special tool to get rid of the spikes and looking so pretty with the spirals. We were very tempted to try, but wasn't brave enough to take the risk of having raw fruit at the side of the street. Afterall, where did the water they use to wash and soak it come from?

Siubo picked us up from a corner to take us away from the bazaar when we were done. He bought us these very yummy lamb buns for lunch. We ate them in the car as he drove us to our next destination. However, before we got there, we were stuck in a traffic jam trying to get through the Sunday livestock market. As Siubo skillfully maneuvered the car around, we welcomed the gridlock as we took many pictures of the lambs and sheeps being bargained off.

The next stop Siubo took us to was a traditional silk factory. Kel and I found it quite interesting as just the year before we had a tour at a modernized silk factory in Suzhou. Here, instead of seeing the many cocoons floating down a metallic channel to be sorted, we watched a lady manually going through the cocoons in a tub of water and feeding the loose ends to a giant wheel as an old man spun it. They also showed us the old machines used to "knit" the silk into the many different patterns.

We continued on our way after visiting the silk factory and ended our day in Minfeng (民豐) where we had our first "big pan chicken" (大盤雞). This was one of the many famous local dishes in the region and we all regretted not having gotten a bigger order. Mmmmm.. :) From Hotan to Minfeng, we traveled 6.5 hours for 298km.

Tallying our first ten days of travel, we've already gone approximately 2,452km not including inner city travelling and sites less than an hour away. Nine more days to go!

The Bento Box Challenge!

2011-07-25T22:33:00.000-04:00

Last month, our group at work decided to do a bento box challenge. For those of you unfamiliar with the term, "bento box" is simply the Japanese way of referring to a lunch box. However, some parents use creative ways to make their kids' lunch box look cute and fun, thereby making them want to eat it more. These bento boxes would often resemble their kids' favourite characters among other things. For more examples, Google "creative bento" for images and you'll see what I mean.

So on with the challenge. I must say I've never been the crafty one and this once again proves it! I envisioned much more, but did not have the real estate in my box to create them and so I'm now left with a lot of random ingredients in our fridge... In my mind I was going to create Snoopy lying on his doghouse with Charlie Brown sitting next to it. Of course, I ended up not having room for Charlie, and even Snoopy was quite small. As I started my creation quite late on Sunday night, I decided to do what I could and hit the sack.

My creation:

My coworkers did well though. Even though some started late as well, they proved to be a lot craftier than myself. Below are their creations!

Left: Piggy and his friends!

Right: Panda, Penguin, and Ninja!

Left: Another Snoopy

Right: Angry Birds!

More pandas!

Our Trip to XinJiang: Part 7 of Many 14

2011-07-20T11:34:00.252-04:00

Day 7:
We woke up on day seven in Kashgar, only to hear that Flora wasn't feeling too well overnight. She had a mild case of food poisoning and going on the road in that condition didn't seem wise. Luckily, our plan for the next two days was to head up to the border where China meets Pakistan, stay one night there and come back to Kashgar the night after. This means that Flora could stay in Kashgar to recover and we'll rejoin her the next night. Flora was very much tempted to come with us, but in the end decided to stay behind. We made sure we stocked her up on water and crackers before we left.

One thing to note is that the border we were traveling to was up in the mountains. The further along we got, the greater the elevation, and pretty soon, we were surrounded by snow capped mountains!

On the way, we had to stop to let a herd of lamb cross the road!

We decided to make a quick pit stop to take pictures of the red mountains all around us.

On the other side of the road, the snowy mountains are peeking at us!

At the next pit stop, we found a random semi-permanent snack stand. The snowy mountains are getting closer!

We spotted a few pastures at the foot of the mountains. They actually do resemble the ones we see in games!

Kel and Annie on the way up the mountains.

Next up, Karakul Lake (卡拉庫爾湖)! It was no doubt the most beautiful place we've ever been to! We couldn't believe a place such as this existed. The setting was absolutely surreal! The weather was perfect, too. We had the bluest of skies with a couple fluffy clouds to complement, the mystical mountains in the backdrop, and even grazing cows to be our models! This was the definition of breathtaking! We felt like we were in a National Geographic photo! We were extremely grateful for the weather, because on the way back it was foggy and rainy and the place suddenly seemed bleh. It was quite unbelievable how different it looked 24 hours apart.

Below: We couldn't help but snap a couple more pictures with this surreal backdrop. The cows were excellent models.

Further down the road, we couldn't help but stop and take more pictures of the lake. Siu Bo told us that the mountain peaks we were seeing here are the Kongur Tagh (公格爾峰) and Muztagata (慕士塔格山). The Kongur Tagh is the highest peak of the Kunlun Mountains, sometimes considered as part of the Pamir Mountains. The Muztagata is the second highest in this region and forms the northern edge of the Tibetan Plateau. Note that the Mustagata is not the second highest in the Tibetan Plateau. It is reputedly one of the easiest 7,000m peaks in the world to climb. As we were taking pictures, a local man drove up in his motorcycle and tried to sell us trinkets. We pretended we couldn't understand hoping he would give up. However, more locals drove up in motorcycles with similar trinkets! We left fairly quickly after that, guarded by Siu Bo, who conversed with them briefly before leaving.

When we got into town, we inquired at the military post and found that they open at 8:30am for the first batch of tourists through the next day. We decided to head up the next day instead of that afternoon for better use of time. Instead, after lunch we drove to Taxkorgan (塔什庫爾幹) where we visited a ruined stone fortress (石頭城) there. Siu Bo brought us to the side of the fortress to take some pictures because he said there's not much inside. There was another herd of lambs there, herded by a combination of kids with sticks, and dogs. After taking some pictures there, we decided since we came all this way, we might as well go in and check it out.

Below: The town of Taxkorgan.

Normally, there would be an admission fee to get into the fortress. However, the ticket office was closed that day, but we did find a path around the gate at the top of the steps. The ruined fortress was supposedly where Marco Polo had once stayed, as did the characters from the Chinese classic "Journey to the West". Unfortunately, there wasn't much left but piles of rubble and what looked like a few walls, so we proceeded to take pictures of the surrounding area instead.

Left: The front entrance to the ruined fortress. We weren't sure if the steps were steeper than normal, or if it was solely the elevation and thinner air, but we were panting and I remember having to take a break in the middle of the climb.
Right: Looking down at the town of Taxkorgan.

Below: We found it quite cool how the small town is nestled between snowy mountains, with pastures surrounding it. I also wondered whether kids growing up here ever left the town.

We ended the day evaluating two different hotels Siu Bo said were more decent in town. It wasn't the cleanest of places, but there wasn't much to choose from. This was the one place where we found the tap water to be somewhat murky and decided to brush our teeth and wash our faces with bottled water over tap. There was no point risking ourselves and getting sick. Afterall, it was just one night we had to endure.

Day 8:
We woke up the next morning and realized there was no running water! Good thing we still had some bottled water stocked up and used that to clean up. Apparently, the town ran on glacier water and the pipes must have froze overnight. They said they'll get water back by afternoon! We grabbed breakfast at a local shop and realized this must be a common occurence and locals here probably saved up buckets of water the night before.

We proceed to Khunjerab Pass (红其拉甫口岸), a check point post where China met Pakistan, about 1km north of Tashkorgan. We had to purchase a permit to drive up to the pass, and a few kilometers from it, we had to wait by a miliary post for an officer to accompany us up. They would only allow a certain number of people up at a time, and each group had to have an officer with them. There was a sign at the bottom that read “Khunjerab Pass is not a tourist spot, but an important military posts. We reserve the right to refuse permit to any travelers.” By the time we got there and out of the car, we realized how much colder it was up there. We zipped up our jackets and slowly hiked up the slope, taking our time, noting how much thinner the air was there. We were quite amazed at how little the guard accompanying us was wearing and would've taken more pictures of the outpost with the guards, but we feared for our cameras as taking pictures of anything related to the military was a big no-no.

Left: The military post where we waited for a military officer to accompany us.
Right: The Khunjerab Pass.

On the other side of the "gate", there was a slab of stone that marked the border. We weren't allowed to cross much further than just enough to take a picture of the other side of the stone.

We headed back to Kashgar that night to meet up with Flora for dinner. From Kashgar to Khunjerab Pass and back, we travelled 832km.

For our pretty bunny girl

2011-07-18T10:53:00.001-04:00

Little Ms Keiko has left for the rainbow bridge last Friday. She was a smart, adventurous ball of fluff always leading the way to discovering new things in the house. Those who've met her would know she was slow to warm up to, but when you did, would find that she's quite the character. Nicknamed "White Shadow", she'd make a mad dash down the hall when we had our heads turned. Many a times, she's had the better of us by reappearing in her quarters, hiding behind her brother while we were still out looking for her. We'll miss her scurrying across the hardwood floors, giving us her disapproving double paw, and her snuggly fluffball ways.

Keiko Bunny (July 30, 2010 - July 15, 2011)

Our Trip to XinJiang: Part 6 of Many 14

2011-07-05T11:25:00.005-04:00

Day 6 continued..

After Shipton's Arc (天門), we went back to Kashgar (喀什) for lunch before heading over to the Tomb of Abakh Khoja, otherwise known as "Fragrant Concubine Tomb" (香妃墓). Legend has it the mausoleum was built to house the bodies of one of Emperor Qianlong's concubines and her family. The concubine was said to be Uyghur, but these stories are considered rumours. Real or not, such a grand Islamic traditional mausoleum is worth a visit. There were two other buildings in a neighbouring courtyard, but they were under repair so there wasn't much to see there.

The entrance:

The mausoleum

You could pay for a picture on the camel. There was another stand next to the camel where you could pay to dress in traditional clothing for pictures in front of the mausoleum. We couldn't understand why, but there was another tour group there where ladies were paying for the service.

It was a really hot day with not a cloud in the sky, so we were glad to carry on to our next destination. Siu Bo drove us over to the Aitiga'er Mosque (艾提尕尔清真寺). We approached the entrance and looking in, it looked very similar to the other ones we've been to, and on such a hot day, we really didn't want to pay admission. We were more interested in the local square in front and decided to venture there instead. We walked by local stores, a public bathing house, and some smaller photo stands. One really caught my attention in that you could pay for a horseback or camel ride around the square. OR, you could even get one where you sit in a cart pulled by a horse or mountain goat!

It was quite funny thinking back because it was so hot that day, the group of us were thinking how great it'd be if there was a Starbucks nearby where we could get an ice coffee and chill for a bit! We asked Siu Bo when we got back to the car, and of course he told us there was none in Kashgar. :( So instead of looking for a local cafe (realizing it just wouldn't be the same), we decided to head over to check out the Kashgar Bazaar (喀什巴扎) to escape the sun. We found the Kashgar Bazaar to be a lot bigger than the one in Urumqi and everything was neatly organized by categories. One entire row would be strictly of stalls selling spices, while another row would be for fabric. The list goes on from figurines to men's shirts, to children's toys; and this was all inside. It was almost like shopping at a supermarket as there were signs above the aisles at every intersection indicating what one would find in the aisle (not like it wasn't obvious!). Outside, we'd see the food stalls, the butcher and the like.

The spice merchant napping between customers.

The many colourful and intricate fabrics sold at the bazaar.

Left: Outside, we see the roast meat vendors with their chicken and lamb.
Right: We saw a big metal steamer with yummy dumplings and buns. Kel couldn't resist but try a few.

Below: Customers gathered 'round as the merchant prepared flavoured ice. Annie wanted to try, but we warned her of the origin of the ice. And sure enough, later on we found that they'd leave big blocks of random ice on the street under a tree unattended by the parking spots. The merchant would come around and get more ice when he was running low.

By late afternoon, we headed over to Kashgar's Old City(喀什高台民居), where the government is bulldozing it down section by section as it has been deemed as "unsafe". There is a huge debate surrounding this, since the government is destroying thousands of years of Uyghur heritage. However, the Old City has succumbed to many hazards throughout the years and the government is providing alternative housing and compensation to the over 220,000 Uyghur residents being displaced. On the tour, we learned that most of the residents of the Old City are 60%-80% dependent on government funds to sustain their day to day expenses. Part of their current housing is used as a storefront for their traditional handicrafts, which they would no longer be able to do once moved to a modernized apartment building. Our tour guide took us into a few of the local housings to show us the difference between the rich and the poor, as well as the telltale signs from the outside. One thing she pointed out to us on the construction of the Old City, which would be quite useful for anyone venturing without a map was the stones on the ground. The side roads between houses were lined with stones and apparently hexagonal tiles indicate that the path keeps going, whereas rectangular brick like tiles indicates the path is a dead end. What's funny, was that we originally didn't want to take the tour and so entered from a side entrance. It's not that the admission was expensive, but rather, we question where the money goes to. It definitely doesn't go to the locals who needs it most, but probably gets lost with government officials. However, we did find the guide to be quite knowledgeable, and her effort in trying to explain things to us in English was much appreciated.

Aside from the construction of the Old City, we also learnt some interesting customs while on the tour. One was that when entering and leaving the house of a Uyghur, we are to step across the threshold left foot first to signify good fortune. Although, they understand that we are tourists, we tried our best to follow this custom. Another was the way of the doors. A locked door signifies that no one is home. An open door signifies the man of the house is home and visitors are welcome. A half open door signifies that there are only women home, and so only women visitors are welcome. If the door is open and a red cloth is hung, it shows that a pregnant lady is in the house. We found this interesting and made sense as the Uyghur are quite traditional.

Left: While taking the side entrance to the city, we saw some children playing by a pool of water.
Right: Inside the Old City, we see a lot of buildings made from clay, mud, hay, and brick/stones, some reinforced with sticks over the years. We don't know how some of them are still standing, or how anyone can live in them..

Below: More crumbling Uyghur houses in the Old City. They resemble building blocks, randomly stacked by kids at play. It truly is amazing how they sustained for so long, and yet sad that there might not be any left soon.

A nicer looking storefront on one of the "main" streets.

A shy local girl peeking at us from her house.

Left: Note the sign. The community is so poor and neglected, the government doesn't even replace worn out signs.
Right: On another note, one of the bigger mosques (there are several in the Old City), repaired through donations from the richer families in the community.

Below: One of the rich family dwellings we went into. The big room on the left is a dining room. On the right, we were on their second level looking down into their entranceway.

We didn't take a whole lot of pictures of the inside of the poor families' houses. It just didn't feel right. It was like we were exploiting them for nothing better than to satisfy our own curiosity..

Our Trip to XinJiang: Part 5 of Many 14

2011-06-23T23:56:00.004-04:00

Day 5:

We got up in Aksu (阿克蘇地區) and went on our way to Kashgar (喀什). This day was mostly a travel day as we needed to cover 467 kilometers, which according to Google will take just over 10 hours. We stopped over at a small town for lunch, and had other short gas and bio breaks. Other than that, we were pretty much on the road the entire day. We did manage to stop for more road side shots mid drive though, how could we resist? Look at those mountains!

Once we got to Kashgar, we were debating where to go eat. Siu Bo said there was a restaurant where they would perform local folk dances while we ate and thought that was something we should experience. However, when we asked whether the food there was any good, he frowned and basically said it was "doable". As we were debating whether watching this dance was worth our giving up good food, Siu Bo parked the car out front and said the performance is about to start, and we can always go in, take a walk around like we're looking for something, watch the dance for a bit and then come back out! So that's what we did. We went inside admiring the decor, and wandered around the restaurant. To our dismay, there was no performance that night, so we left and went on our way.

Outside the restaurant with the folk dancing.

We ended up going to Little Sheep (小肥羊) Mongolian Hot Pot restaurant for dinner! We picked this place because it's become an international chain with locations in Hong Kong, Japan, Canada and the U.S. We've been to the store in Toronto, so we really wanted to try the one in XinJiang since their lamb would be that much fresher and authentic. And they didn't disappoint us! At the doorway, they were already promoting fresh, organic lamb, which we wouldn't get back home and instead of the the all you can eat style in North America, we actually had to order off the menu. The menu showcased different dishes indicating which cut of the lamb we're ordering (something else we didn't have back home), and whether it'll be thin or thick sliced. They also served ice cold beer! Woot! Needless to say, we had a blast.

Morning of Day 6:
We woke up early the next day and headed out to Shipton's Arc (天門) as the sun was coming up. It was about 45 minutes outside of Kashgar and we had to drive off road through some farmers fields to get to the bottom of the trail. The trip there was really pretty, especially during dawn.

We had Siu Bo stop the car to get some pictures of this herd of sheep we passed by. There was a dog by the house barking at us the whole time we were taking photos, and you can see another dog at the top of the hill. (Left)

The road ahead we have to drive through.

We spotted two (wild?) camels in the distance.

A farmer's house

From the foot of the mountain, it took us about an hour to get up to the top of Shipton's Arc. There was actually a sign that warned us at the base, of the dangers going up. It proved to be an interesting hike. There were twisty narrow paths, icy terrain, rusty metal steps and a wooden ladder bridge! Siu Bo came up the mountain with us as he's never been up to the top either, and also to make sure we would be safe.

Top Left: Kel on a twisty narrow path.
Top Right: Annie and Kel climbing up some narrow rusty steps as Siu Bo waited at the top to lend her a hand.
Bottom: One of the half frozen rusty steps we had to climb.

Left: Flora and Annie passed through a wooden ladder laid horizontal as a bridge across a gap in the rock formation.
Right: The steep icy path up.

We finally caught sight of the "mother of all holes" as the Aussies put it.

Kel being Kel.. what else can I say? LoL :)

Looking down at the snowy path we came with Kel behind me.

Flora and Annie on the way up.

Look at how steep the path was!

The arc at the top! Mother of all holes! You can see the mountains in the distance through the hole. And no, we couldn't look down the other side unless we leaned down, which we didn't really want to do..

When we got to the top, all there was to prevent us from falling off the other side was a flimsy chain joined by short metal posts. The link at the end was broken off the last post almost like someone fell over the edge! Annie and I didn't venture that far out as we were both afraid of the altitude we were at. Only Kel and Flora kept going. The view at the top was extraordinary. Much more than we could capture especially with the size of the arc and the limited places we could position ourselves.

Kel and Flora at a distance, hiking further up the slippery slope, while I sat by the broken link fence.

The view of the arc at the top. (Photo courtesy of Flora.)

Pics of Kel and I at the top, courtesy of Flora!

As we were leaving, we spotted some (wild?) horses in the distance.

We saw a herd of baby lambs, too! We saw this one fall off a small slope and made many attempts to scramble back up. So cute!

Day 6 to be continued!

Our Trip to XinJiang: Part 4 of Many 14

2011-06-17T00:21:00.005-04:00

This post took me a while to do. I didn't realize we actually covered that many things in one day, hence, let this be your warning. A LOT of pictures in this post.

Day 4:
We woke up in Kuqa and spent the first part of our morning there exploring the town. Of all the cities and towns in our trip, we enjoyed Kuqa the most, and not just for the buildings and culture, but for the people as well. The dwellings in Kuqa were unique in that they were mostly large one story brick buildings resembling our plazas in Canada, with families in different units. Siu Bo taught us that you can tell how wealthy a family is by their front door. The better off the family, the more intrinsic the design on their door.

A family's house/store front

Left: Locals on their way to work
Right: The local butcher stand

Left: A family of chickens we found running along the street
Right: The local taxi

Left: The local rice and cornmeal stand
Right: A manhole cover I spotted on the street.. I didn't dare step on it to test it's strength..

Next, we went to explore a smaller residential street and came upon a house that caught our attention. The family there were setting up a naan (馕) stand in front of their house and while we were busy taking photographs, they welcomed us by letting us take pictures of them at work. They opened the door to their kitchen, where we saw two women prepare the raw dough and an old man tending the oven. When we were about to leave, they gave us a piece of naan to try! We tried to pay them for it, but they refused to take our money. This was definitely a unique experience we did not expect, especially in China.

Left: The house that caught our attention.
Right: The naan bread (馕) stand at their door.

Left: The kitchen where they worked.
Right: The naan cooking in their oven. Over the duration of our trip, we found that they baked things like bread by sticking them to the side of the oven wall.

Left: The piece of naan bread they gave us. We almost forgot to take a picture! Some of us obviously ate a lot faster than others!
Right: Looking into a side alley to the locals houses.

Next, we headed to the Kuqa Subash Ruined City, otherwise known as the Subash Buddhist Temple Ruins (庫車蘇巴士古城 - 蘇巴什佛寺). It was interesting, but there was only one building that was fully standing. All the rest were either piles of rubble or only had a few walls left. While we were exploring, we ran into an Australian couple, Ian and Tracey. Alas, more English speaking folks! They told us they had took the train south to Dunhuang (敦煌) and traveling north back up to Urumqi. Of their travels thus far, one attraction that stood out the most was Shipton's Arc (天門). They highly recommended it and called it "mother of all holes"! The arc wasn't listed in any travel books and definitely had us intrigued!

The Subash Buddhist Temple Ruins

Our picture with Ian and Tracey before we went our separate ways.

When we got back to the car, we asked Siu Bo about Shipton's Arc, whether he knew where it was and how we could fit it into our agenda. Siu Bo had a vague idea as to what we were talking about and said he could take us there. He didn't think there was much to see there, but we could go check it out later on. Sounds like a plan! From there, we headed to the TianShan Canyon of Kuqa (天山神秘大峽谷). The canyon is made up of maroon mountains on either side, and goes about 5.5km deep. The formations at this canyon was much more interesting than the last. Depending on which part of the canyon we were at, the temperature could differ by at least five degrees! We weren't sure whether this was the case all year round, because we could still see a bit of ice on the ground and in the notches where the sun couldn't get to, and this could be what's causing the effect. No matter what the reason was, it was definitely quite refreshing! Even though we knew there might not be much at a fork, we'd go in to cool down, as the narrow forks tend to be quite cool like walking in to a refrigerator! What made this canyon even more interesting was that when we got to a certain point, there was a sign that told us the path would get more treacherous and "proceed at your own risk". We enjoyed this section a lot more as the trail narrowed, required more climbing and had random obstacles for us to overcome. The only regret we had was not knowing about the second part of this trail as we had spent too long on the first half taking pictures and now was unable to complete the entire route. This canyon only has one entrance meaning we would have to go out the way we came.

The entrance to the canyon.

The magnificent rock formations once inside.

Our first encounter with ice in the canyon.

Left: Kel and I "ice-skating" in the canyon.

Left: There were a few buddhas in the canyon. Notice the chain ladder up the side? It was tied up to prevent people from climbing up. From the sign posted at this site, it seems like tourists might have been allowed up at some point in time. We also saw railings at the top that shows that might have been the case.
Right: An amazing sight! A big piece of boulder wedged between the two sides. We were able to crouch down and walk to the other side. Do you notice something at the bottom of the boulder?

That's right! Kel's holding the big boulder up! LoL

We found some deer statues when we exited.

We left Tianshan Canyon towards where Siu Bo thought was Shipton's Arc (in Chinese pronounced as Tianmen). He took us to the entrance of Tianmen canyon, but the road in was closed. At the entrance, we inspected the signs and pictures that were posted and were convinced that this wasn't the place the Aussies had described. We called the Aussies' tour guide to try to get more information and directions, but he was very vague and refused to let up much more than he already had. Siu Bo started calling his other contacts to see if anyone else has heard of such a place and where it could be. It was then that he had actually started driving and forgotten to release his hand brake. We realized soon after and had to stop to let the brakes cool down. No worries though, it may have been a hot day, but in XinJiang, beauty is all around us. We can always past our time taking more pictures!

Check out those mountains! The layers and the colours are not like anything we've ever seen! And this is randomly at the side of the road!

Left: Piggyback ride!
Right: Another of our crazy pose pictures

After our break, we continued onwards to our last attraction of the day, the Kizilgaha Thousand Buddha Caves, otherwise known as the Kizil Thousand Buddha Grottoes (克孜爾千佛洞) in Kezi'erxiang (克孜爾鄉). These ones were actually caves we went into with a guide who told us stories about the paintings on the cave walls. We couldn't take any pictures inside the caves though because cameras weren't allowed to help preserve the relics. What we did notice inside the caves was the commonality that statues would be missing as well as cave paintings. The guide said that over the years, random discoverers that came by would take them back to their home country and it was only in recent years that the government had stepped in to prevent them from doing so.

Left: The Grottoes from the outside. There were actually other tourists at this site!

Right: A statue at the bottom

Left: We spotted a family of chickens running around.
Right: The tree lined road exiting the Buddha Caves. Apparently, this was quite common in other parts of the province. We'll see a lot more of these as the days go on.

We left the Kizil Thousand Buddha Grottoes and headed into Aksu for the night. Distance travelled on day 4 was approximately 294 kilometers. It might not seem much in North American standards, but for all the non major roads we took, Google's mapped it to just over 7 hours.

Summer is fast approaching!

2011-06-10T11:25:00.000-04:00

XinJiang adventures Part 4 coming soon.. but for now, a little intermission..

Since we were away on vacation for a big part of spring, we had a lot of catching up to do! We wanted to redo the front yard and incorporate a flower bed, but planting before our vacation seemed irresponsible as we were away for three weeks. Good thing too, because the day before I left, there was a mini blizzard! So yes, after our vacation, our time's been split on working on the garden, processing photos from our trip, and blogging about our trip.

We've been out and about on the weekends, scoping out nurseries and garden centres, and adopting plants as we go. Kel's had to reign me back a couple of times to keep me from bringing them all home :) Neither of us have any gardening experience, so this will be our experimental year to see how well we do and what likes our yard. This will be interesting!

Two of the six we adopted.

I forgot to take a before picture of our yard, but basically it used to be really shrubby and bushy in the front. Kel took out most of them and we opted for smaller plants since they obstruct our basement windows.

Our little flowerbed in the front. I can't wait for them to fill out the space. Those red guys are going strong! And yes, we deliberately put their tags in the soil near them so we can still identify them at the end of the year.

We planted a dwarf Korean lilac on the far front side of the house and gave him some zonal geraniums to keep him company.

And the bush next to them, the only survivor of this whole ordeal. We have no idea what he is since we inherited him when we bought the house, but he has started to bloom. If anyone can recognize him, please let us know.

And lastly, we're contemplating adopting a bunny for our front yard, but might not be until later when we expand out the garden. What do you think?

Our Trip to XinJiang: Part 3 of Many 14

2011-06-05T01:06:00.005-04:00

Day 3:
From Yuli (尉犁), we headed towards Korla (庫爾勒) about 54 kilometres away, which is also in the Bayingol region of XinJiang. On the way, we stopped at the Luoburen Underground Canyon (罗布人地下大峽谷). However before we got there, we passed through our first Caves of Thousand Buddhas (千佛洞). This site was a really small one, and there wasn't actually a thousand, but we learnt as we went along our trip that there were many "Caves of Thousand Buddhas" in different regions as Buddhism is one of the main religions in XinJiang.

These ones were actually really poorly kept as you can see and rather small. We didn't understood the point of these at the time, but would later on after seeing and experiencing how they preserve the bigger sites.

The map posted outside the entrance of the Luoburen Underground Canyon indicated that the length of the canyon is 4.9 kilometres long and 10-30 metres deep with many paths coming off of it.

Siu Bo warned us that there could be mosquitos, but somehow we still forgot to apply and bring bug spray with us. (Flora was the only one who packed bug spray on this trip.) He showed us the way down and pointed out various things at the bottom. We spent about 5 minutes in the canyon before we realized just how many mosquitos there were! We quickly went back up to the car and sprayed ourselves of repellent before heading back down again. I swear that's got to be the longest hike I have ever made with that many mosquitos! It didn't help either that we were the only people in the canyon!

Below is one of the more (if not most) interesting forks we took. It was named "Heavenly Valley" (通天谷), or at least that's what Google Translate gave me. The sign indicated that this was one of the forks where it was possible to climb out of the canyon and if you do, you'd be blessed and be able to accomplish anything!

Left: Where we encountered our first obstacle. Flora tested the waters (as she was a regular rock climber) and led the way!
Right: I was the second to climb up, looking back down at Annie and Kel.

What we found at the top.
Left: The path after the first climb.
Right: The path ends at another climb.

Flora evaluated this one and told us it was possible for us to get up without any equipment, but too slippery to guarantee a safe trip back down so we decided it was better to play it safe since this was still our third day into the trip. I'm still baffled as to how Annie did the first climb and the hike itself as she was wearing these white loafers the whole way. You might wonder why we needed to get back down. Well, if you remember the picture of the map at the top, we had to get to the end of the canyon, as Siu Bo was waiting for us there. So really, we had to walk the whole 4.9 kilometres, there's no turning back!

Left: Kel walking up the canyon's exit. We weren't the ones to pile the rocks into an arrow.
Right: Our lizard friend bidding us farewell.

After leaving the underground canyon, we headed to Korla (庫爾勒) for lunch, or should I say lamb feast? Nom nom nom! It was one of the most delicious meals we had in XinJiang! Their lamb skewers where the best ever! Later on in the trip we came upon these other skewers which was comparable. I think we ended up rating those first place, but these came in a close second!

Don't they look yummy? Hmm.. looks like a few are missing...

Oh, oh! Flora's excited waving one! And Kel's already started on his!

Next up, leg of lamb! Look at the huge stack!

LoL the leg is so big Flora needed chopsticks to assist (aside from her hands). Look at Kel go!

We had lamb rack afterwards, too! (As well as another order of skewers!) But they were so good, we devoured them before we took any pictures. We all agreed that an ice cold beer would have made this the perfect meal. However, we came to realize that cold drinks were a luxury and not available everywhere. The restaurant had warm, room temperature beer.. eww.. We went next door to the convenience store and got cold pop and green tea instead. That ended up to be our norm at most meals.

After dinner, we headed to the Kizilgaha Beacon Tower (克孜爾朵哈烽火台) in Kuqa (庫車) about 290 kilometres. Siu Bo informed us that there were admission fees if we were to go through the regular route and really, it was just a fire beacon tower and nothing else, so he took us through a back door by driving off road through a dry river bed instead. He said we could still take pictures from below, but if we still want to go up the proper route, we could do that afterwards. It was quite an adventure driving through the river bed as there were random craters everywhere! The view from the bottom was pretty breathtaking! In the end, we didn't end up going through the main road as we had more fun taking pictures from where we were.

The Kizilgaha Beacon Tower

Two of our many attempts!

Left: Gotta love Siu Bo's car! In case you were wondering how Flora got there, she's actually climbed up Siu Bo's spare tire!
Right: Kel and Flora likes to climb things.. they found a hole at the side of the river wall.

Our last attraction of the day was the Grand Kuqa Mosque (庫車大寺).

Our Trip to XinJiang: Part 2 of Many 14

2011-06-02T01:31:00.006-04:00

Day 2:
We woke up the next day and left Ürümqi (烏魯木齊) towards Yuli (尉犁), in the Bayingol region of XinJiang. According to Google, we traveled approximately 515km that day! As we were leaving Ürümqi, we stopped at the Ürümqi Goldwind wind farm. I'm sure most of us have seen windmills before, but the amount of windmills at that windfarm was unbelievable.

(people pics via Flora's camera)

After the wind farm, we were on our way to Yuli. I'm sure you'd wonder, "515km in a day? Don't you get bored in the car?" Well, not really. Besides having brought books to read, we were pretty mesmerized by our surroundings. You have to understand, Toronto's pretty flat. There's not much around when we go on road trips and such. Check out the scene we were driving through. We were pretty much "ooohing" and "ahhhing" the whole way!

By late afternoon, we got to The Luoburen Village (罗布人村寨) in the Taklamakan Desert (塔克拉玛干沙漠). The Taklamakan Desert is said to be the 17th biggest desert, covering an area of 270,000km sq.

Left: We were greeted by camels
Right: It's like paradise!

Right: We rode these sand dune buggies. Such fun! (Annie was scared though, so she didn't go for the ride.)

We hiked through the desert for a bit after and waited for the sunset. No luck though, there were a few rare clouds in the sky and they ruined our shot.. but as you can see, we found ways to amuse ourselves during the wait!

Right: We met a new friend in the desert!

During our wait, someone (I believe it was Flora) suggested it might be fun to dive/slide down the sand dune. (It looked pretty steep.) Kel volunteered for the dive.. here's a video Flora took.. :)

We left The Luoburen Village during the sunset and went for dinner. (Might I add that during that time of year in XinJiang, the sun sets after 9pm.) By the time we got back to the neighbouring town of Yuli, it was completely dark. The restaurant where we had dinner was having a power outage, (apparently that was quite common in small towns) and was running off of its own generator. Over dinner, we debated whether we would stay in town for the night or drive a bit further to a bigger city. The main considerations here was that there weren't any hotels in this town for foreigners, only for locals. (Siu Bo later explained to us that in China, hotels have 2 different permits/licenses. One for serving locals, and another for foreigners. Besides needing to meet different sets of criteria, the foreign license is also more expensive. So unless they've got arrangements with tour groups or know they can recuperate the costs, they'll likely just opt to serve locals. And when I say locals, I mean citizens of China.) To stay the night, we'd have to find a hotel that would overlook the fact that we're foreigners, or be able to sneak in successfully, and not mind the sub par conditions. If we were to head to the next town, it'd be an hour and a half drive, meaning we won't get there til after eleven. On top of that with our first attraction the next day, we'd have to backtrack 45 minutes! In the end, we all voted to stay the night (afterall it's just one night), but we all agreed at the end of our trip that accommodations that night was definitely at the bottom of the list. Oh, and I wanted to add that the block did regain electricity about a half hour after dinner. Otherwise, we'd have to borrow Flora's flashlight at the motel. (Don't ask me why, but Flora is apparently equipped with a flashlight, headlight, and a book light... something to do with climbing and traveling with Annie haha) Oh, and another thing we learnt during our stay, hotels always claim they have a/c, but some either don't plug in their individual units, or they take away the remote so you can't turn it on. At this place, they did both. Kel attempted to plug it in, and the plug doesn't even fit the socket and from what I remember, he actually broke the plastic frame on the outlet trying to jam it in!

Our Trip to XinJiang: Part 1 of Many 14

2011-05-31T23:59:00.004-04:00

It's been a while since my last post. I do apologize, but we did take a three week vacation to Asia (which will be the basis of the following series of posts), and then went through a two week post-vacation depression. You know how it is. :) Well, here goes...

via atimes.com

Our nineteen day trip to XinJiang (新疆), China, was planned through a friend of ours (Annie) currently residing in Hong Kong. How we picked the destination? Well, you'd have to ask her. My interest was in going somewhere rural, less commercialized and XinJiang fit the bill. There were four of us in total, and three of us just kind of waited for further instructions as to when to book our tickets and what the agenda will be. Sounded like a plan to me! :) As we were approaching closer to our travel dates, friends and family would ask us "What's in XinJiang? 19 days seems like an awfully long time." And all I could really say was, "Well you know, the mountains, the desert, pastures.. basically a lot of natural scenery." And of course, I'll throw out the random facts I got from Wiki, "XinJiang province is one sixth of China! We'll be road-tripping through the province so that takes a bit of time. And the area's populated by Turks and tribal people aside from the Chinese, which is what's interesting." Little did I know the surprise I had in store for me. XinJiang has got to be one of the prettiest places I'll ever go to. (And as of right now, definitely the most beautiful!)

Day 1:
Our adventures started in Ürümqi, XinJiang (乌鲁木齐) with a delayed flight, which apparently was very common for domestic flights in China. Our driver Siu Bo (小寶) picked us up from the airport, and took us to our hotel after discovering we had already missed the last entrance into the Ürümqi museum. After dropping off our lugguage, he drove us to the local bazaar, gave us pointers as to what to see in the area, where we could grab dinner, and where's the best spot to flag a cab to go back to the hotel after. It might seem weird as to why our driver wasn't going to drive us back that night, but the thing is, he wasn't at our service for the first day. He had volunteered to pick us up from the airport, so all the driving that he did on day one was really pro-bono on his part.

The XinJiang International Bazaar (新疆國際大巴扎)

Street food across from the Bazaar!

Mmmmm! We couldn't tell if this was truly as yummy as we thought, or we were just really hungry. :P

Left: Annie drops a chicken wing :P
Right: Kel hungrily scarfs down a piece of naan (馕)

Bake-n-Blog: Panda Bread Challenge

2011-04-11T12:18:00.002-04:00

Okay, so this isn't a true bake-n-blog, because I didn't really have time to photograph the play by plays. I thought I would, but then realized that the prep time was like 3 hours.. and I had dinner plans.. so let's start..

A friend of mine found this on the internet a couple months back and asked me to make it..

http://cookpad.com/recipe/349795

The concept looked really cool, but the recipe was in Japanese, so there's no way I could follow it. The site was cool though, because the followers actually tried the recipe and created pandas of their own and posted it back to the blog! It was entertaining to see how some came out all warped, and at the same time showed how funny it could turn out.

Then..

A couple weeks ago, I came upon some English translations of the recipe! We have to try this now! I raised interest within a group of coworkers while I was at it (what could be more fun?), and the challenge was on! We created general guidelines to avoid cheating and also build up suspense... Everyone participating had to bring in their loaf as is, and we'll all cut into them together!

Now, for those interested in trying this out, here are a few online recipes that uses slightly different ingredients. You could probably find others online, but they're generally the same, just a difference between bread flour and cake flour vs. all-purpose and cornflour, etc. And I must warn you, the prep time they listed is 3 hours.. don't skimp too much, because it's mainly for proofing the dough.

The original translated version (uses bread machine, bread flour, cake flour):

http://wlteef.blogspot.com/2007_10_01_archive.html

Bread flour and cake flour recipe; uses dough hook attachment of mixer:

http://www.pigpigscorner.com/2009/09/panda-bread.html

All purpose flour and corn flour recipe; uses dough hook attachment of mixer:

http://www.notquitenigella.com/2009/08/04/panda-bread/

So today.. we had our revealing... all the creations on the table:

One of the girls decided to make an anatomically correct panda..... and one of the boys didn't measure or knead his dough properly...

Then, we had one where the dough went wrong, and he didn't have enough cocoa to create another, so he used red food colouring instead..

And a procrastinator who didn't start his bread til 2am.. ended up sleeping at 5:30am.. and waking up to bake at 7:30am before going to work... It was still warm when we cut into it! Serious respect for not skipping on steps when working at such hours at night!

And then we have a rookie baker create a seriously stylish panda..

And finally, my panda!

Our Rug Fiasco... and Living Room Transformation!

2011-04-01T00:20:00.003-04:00

It all started last year, when Kel and I were looking around for inspiration for an area rug for the living room. We knew we needed a rug there, but just didn't know what kind. At first, I was interested in the shaggy, microfiber look. But we soon realized that it would only lead to having the bunnies graze on it, which is both bad for the rug and the health of Kingsley and Keiko. Then back in November, while doing my regular online readings, I came upon this picture from Marcus Design and it struck a cord.

I never thought I'd want an animal print rug, but the splash of zebra seemed fitting! The grey and white pattern didn't seem as "in your face" as the regular black and white. It was subtle enough that it wouldn't be over the top, yet it adds a nice unique touch. I went on to see what options were available out there and soon came upon this rug:

It was perfect! We found it on RugsUSA and they had a sale! What timing! I placed the order in early December and was excited, anticipating its arrival before Christmas. I received the UPS tracking number the next day and checked on its status every few days waiting for it to change and provide me with the estimated arrival date. Soon, I realized the status wasn't changing and contacted RugsUSA to find out what's going on. It took a couple of tries as their "live chat" support wasn't always online and was finally told that UPS had lost the package and placed a tracer on it. It would take UPS ten business days to update their status and they'll contact me once that happens. And... of course they didn't get back to me, so I had to contact them multiple times AGAIN to get an update. What I heard this time was even worse. Not only did UPS lose the package, but RugsUSA is saying they can't send me another one because the rug is now out of stock and discontinued. Furthermore, they can't refund my money until their insurance claim comes through with UPS and of course that will take x days and they'll get back to me. Right. Of course they will. Grrr.. after speaking with a few friends about the situation, I've taken the advice of calling Visa up to dispute the charge. I no longer want to deal with RugsUSA and if this is what their customer service is like, I highly advise everyone to stay away from them.

During the whole ordeal, we found out that the rug that sparked this inspiration was actually from West Elm. We went down to the store to see if we could pick one up, but they were discontinued as well. However, their US website showed that they still had stock, so that's what we did. So finally... TA DA...

Our transformation of the living room from when we first visited the house and decided to put down an offer:

To what it is now:

More bunnies in the house!

2011-03-30T22:44:00.001-04:00

No, no, don't worry, I didn't mean real bunnies! I meant on our walls! In a previous post, after installing the tree decals in our foyer, we were contemplating adding a little wildlife to the piece. Our original thought was to add a few birds, but that quickly transformed to adding a rabbit dedicated to Ms. Bunny!

And here's a close up of Ms. Bunny! :)

And while we were looking for a decal that resembled Ms. Bunny, Kel came upon something else... something that identifies us! Our family photo! We had it installed to the entrance of our master bedroom. With Ms. Bunny between us, and Kingsley and Keiko to my left, our picture is complete!

IDS 2011 - Surface Innovation

2011-02-14T18:43:00.002-05:00

Another exhibitor at IDS 2011 that we found interesting is

At first glance, it didn't seem like a lot, but when you look more in depth, it really does open up a lot of options! What Surface Innovation does is specialize in veneer finishes, and not your regular stone/brick types, but natural slate, sandstone, and granite flexible veneers. The guy at the booth explained that they take these slate and sandstone pieces, cut them down to 1mm slabs, and attaches a fiberglass backing to them. What it provides is a bendable piece that can be fitted to most curves and surfaces without the weight and is much easier and affordable to install.

Below are some finishes I found from their site. I can so see Kel try to incorporate some of these to our basement. :P

Possibilities are endless! Below's two examples off their gallery.

IDS 2011 - EdgeWater Studios

2011-01-31T15:36:00.001-05:00

Kel and I went to the Interior Design Show this past weekend and had a blast! As always we "ooooh"ed and "ahhhh"ed over the various booths, offering new design ideas, materials, and trends. As with any other show, we ended up collecting a lot of brochures and contact info.. too much to sum up in one post coherently, so I thought I'd share a few of them here.

The first exhibitor I'd like to share is..

EdgeWater Studios is based out of Vancouver (Go Canada!) and focused on custom tiling. Now what is custom tiling? Before this weekend, I wouldn't think twice about it, but after seeing patterns and murals like these...

How can I not be excited? :) Besides the ones shown on their site, they highly recommend you contact them as there are many different materials and colours available. So one design can have many different looks depending on your choices! Hmm.. I wonder how hard they'll be to install..

Tweaks to Our Foyer

2011-01-26T15:35:00.002-05:00

I've been wanting to do more to our foyer and ideas have been flying around for a while. And by more, I mean adding more accents and not just the initial much needed transformation. Originally when we first bought the house, I wanted to put up some stone veneer on the big wall that spans to the basement. I've always liked the idea of having exposed bricks/stones in the home, but that idea was crossed out after Kel had to remove the bottom part of the wall because the wall was actually sitting on untreated wood in soil all these years. (You can imagine the rotting and mysterious bugs at the bottom without my help.)

Another idea I had was getting a giant iron clock (like 2.5-3.5 feet?), the type with the roman numerals and hang that up on the wall. However, after talking to a couple of friends, I've decided against it as it might be too distracting, and just taking away from the bubbles chandelier.

Sooo.. what I've been working on with my friend over at http://www.wallperfection.ca/ is getting a few trees up in the foyer! I sent him my idea back in December and we've been going through revisions of how Kel and I wanted it to look. The trees aren't actually on the big wall, but the side wall next to the windows and they came out perfectly! Check this out, it's got a different feel when the chandelier's on...

And when it's off at night...

I'm really liking the effect it's got! We were originally thinking of getting 2-3 birds as well, some sitting on the branch, 1 midflight. But now, we're thinking about adding 2 bunnies at the bottom.. :) Maybe a brown one and a white one? What do you think?

Our First Christmas

2010-12-20T23:49:00.001-05:00

This December marks our first Christmas at the house! Back in November, I've started convincing Kel that I wanted a Christmas tree.. it'll be our first real Christmas tree! Growing up, we've always had an artificial tree, so I've wondered if there was a difference. I've heard many things about a real tree like waking up to the fresh tree smell and all the goodness. After reading up on the different breeds, we purchased a Douglas Fir! Online, and after talking to a few people, they all said that a fresh tree would last at a stretch, three weeks and that some may look droopy after two. Well, we've had ours since December 1st, and after twenty days, it's still looking perky and gorgeous! :)

It took us all of November to collect the ornaments, the ribbon garland, and the berry garland. I didn't realized that department stores like The Bay starts selling their Christmas products in October, before Halloween's over! So by the time I started shopping, a lot of their stock were either sold out or had limited stock. Anyhow, I thought I'd share a few close ups of the ornaments.

And around the house, we adopted a reindeer and polar bear for one of the ledges on our living room wall. They're currently guarding our Kinect games. :)

And here's what we did with some leftover ornaments!

Two more reindeers and trees on our ledge...(and our Kinect sensor..)

A decorative tree we got for our foyer... (Next year, I'll get that wreath :)

And finally, ladies and gentlemen, I present you with Mr. Raphael Plant!

Our Foyer Transformation

2010-12-08T22:53:00.002-05:00

I've been meaning to write this for a while, but we've been quite busy the past month hosting a series of mini housewarming parties starting with a pizza dinner for Kel's coworkers, to a potluck dinner party with our friends, then a dinner party with his relatives, and finally an early Christmas potluck for my coworkers. One advantage to all this: our fridge has been jammed packed with leftovers week after week! On with the post...

This is what our foyer looked like when we first acquired the house. The fake white brick tiles on the walls; the gross brown carpet in the entranceway (seriously, who uses permanent carpet in the entrance?!); the ugly brown metal door with the mail slot; metal railing that was way too low for me to feel safe; oh, and they had a ceiling fan light fixture! <-- And yes, we ripped it all out!

And here.. the long awaited for after pictures! Wait for it... wait... :)

Our new door, with the frost pane and iron wrought.

The sexy new glass railing Kel put in. He stained the banisters, and put in new treads for the steps, too!

Our new configuration in the foyer. Isn't that curvy side table and stool cute? We thought they look really cartoony. :)

Oh, and here's my bubble chandelier! (How could BubBLeS not have a bubble chandelier? :)

AND.... altogether!

We have Ventilation Fans!

2010-12-03T21:45:00.000-05:00

Kel spent this past weekend putting in ventilation fans for our bathrooms. Yes, that's right, our bathrooms didn't have fans in them before because apparently, back in the day when they built it, it wasn't seen as a necessity. Our bathroom had a giant awning window, which meant you could open it in rain or snow for proper ventilation. But come on, who'd want to open a window in -40 degrees temperature just to let out a little steam? Seems so ironic especially when you like hot showers! Anyways, the fans have been on Kel's to-do list for quite some time now, but since he needs to go into the attic, he could only do it in the autumn or spring. (It's too hot up there in the summer, and too cold in the winter.) It was a lot of clean up afterwards, since he had to saw a hole in the ceiling, and rewire the light switches to also house an on/off for the fan, but hey, no more crazy humidity and fogging up the bathrooms! :)

Bake-N-Blog: Holiday Edition - Chocolate Crackles

2010-12-01T00:23:00.002-05:00

I've been aching to whip out my Kitchenaid and bake something sweet for the past couple weeks. I've even stocked up on some cream cheese at the last sale so I can bake up a cheesecake when the mood hits. So what did I do when I read about Kelly from Jax Does Design holding a Bake-N-Blog? Sign up of course! I went through the list of recipes provided and decided to give Chocolate Crackles a try. I mean, what else could be better than chocolate rolled in sugar.. and more sugar? :) So here goes....

This was a two part recipe:
Part 1 - Mix everything together, divide it into four parts, wrap and fridge.
Part 2 - Roll each part into one inch balls, roll in sugar, roll in icing sugar, and bake.

So I did Part 1 Monday night, wrapped it up, threw it in the fridge, no problems. The only step that took a bit more time was chopping up the chocolate for the melting process, and trying not to melt too much in my hands.

Part 2, I did Tuesday night (tonight, just in time for the Bake-N-Blog.. yes, I procrastinated!), and on the right, you can see my wrapped portions, with the measured sugars ready for rolling! And of course, my laptop with the recipe loaded.

I confess, I only baked one of the four portions tonight, because I'm saving the other three portions for a potluck this weekend. (I hope that doesn't disqualify me for the Bake-N-Blog!) But hey, that's the pro to this recipe, you can save the portions for a later time!

Part 2 of this recipe was easy enough to do. However, I soon realized that time was of the essence, because the longer I took to roll each ball, the more the next one would melt in the palms of my hands! I actually had to take a break, wrap up half of it and threw it in the freezer for five minutes before I could keep rolling. A tip for anyone using this recipe: Instead of rolling each ball in your palms, roll in sugar, roll in icing sugar and then start on the next piece. Try rolling in palms, roll in sugar, next. You can always roll them all in icing sugar in the end with less melting issues.

Below, you can see my chocolate palms, and a nosy Kingsley bunny trying to get a piece of the action.

And here is what the chocolate crackles looked like fresh from the oven:

And how could I resist showing them in our Christmas Reindeer dish!

Final verdict? Yum Yum Yum! Crackly on the outside (because of the sugar), and chocolatey soft on the inside! And they only took 14 minutes to bake! The portioning is definitely a huge plus. :) And that's my conclusion to the Bake-N-Blog: Holiday Edition!

Our Night Stand

2010-11-24T23:30:00.001-05:00

Way back when we decided we were going to get a king size bed, we knew we'd need new night stands. Something small; something that actually matched our colour themes; something less clunky. So far, we've been using Kel's old night stand on my side of the bed and yes, I find it clunky! (You can see it on the right there.)

I was putting off looking for a new pair, since I haven't really got a clue what I was looking for. I just knew we needed something small and contemporary looking, so it wouldn't take up too much room. The original night stands that were designed for that bed were ridiculously out of our budget and there were too much curves and details for them to be custom made. So yes, I was taking a break from the online searches and secretly hoping it'd come to me... and sure enough it did! Thank you Nancy @ Marcus Design! She had written a piece on Leah Balderson's condo featured in House & Home which is where I found this darling night stand!

{image via Marcus Design via House & Home}

Isn't it absolutely gorgeous? I fell in love with it the moment I saw it! And with Nancy's help, located the store that carries it. However, as usual, its way out of our budget, or rather, way more than I'd be willing to pay for it no matter how much I loved it. So, the search continued... Until one day, Kel said, "Maybe we can make it?" Wooo.. now there's an idea! He investigated into what type of tools/drill bits he'll be needing and got a quote from a woodcraft place as well. The latter won, and the panels will be coming home tomorrow! Next up, buying a piece of wood for the tabletop, assembly, paint, and put on the nailhead trim! This is so exciting! Stay tuned!

The Bunnies had a mini photoshoot

2010-11-17T14:33:00.002-05:00

Woah.. just realized I've taken over a month off from my last post... my bad!

Back in late September, not long after my last post, Flo came over and did a mini photoshoot of Kingsley and Keiko! We wanted to get some shots in while they're still young... and Flo ended up sprawled all over our kitchen and living room floors to get these great pics.

We shared these pics and some others with quite a few people, and so far, majority voted on Kingsley being the cuter of the two. What do you think?

Two New Members of our Family!

2010-09-24T00:59:00.001-04:00

Meet... Kingsley! He's the active, dominating bunny weighing in at 660 grams. Quite the troublemaker, always curious and wanting what others have, but he sure is a cutie!

And here's Keiko! She's the timid, shy bunny weighing in at 550 grams. She's super fluffy and being the cautious bunny that she is, always plays by the rules.. which also means she gets the shorter end of the stick when it comes to Kingsley.

But at the end of the day, they're just two cute, happy bunnies!

Our Dining Room is Complete!

2010-09-18T01:32:00.000-04:00

We've finally picked out a chandelier, ordered it... and it came in! Kel had it installed last night and I finally got the chance to post it!

And for those concerned about Mr. Raphael Plant, you can see him on the table there.. with a new sprout standing tall and proud!

The Last Mile (for our railings!)

2010-09-10T01:00:00.000-04:00

For the last while now, whenever anyone asked us, "How's the house? What are you working on now?", our reply has been "the staircase railings..." It's gotten to the point where we're starting to get "Still?" Well, it'll soon be something else, because we're on the last mile! The truth of the matter is, Kel had to look for a woodshop that does railings, buy the posts, stain & varnish them, work out the technicalities of installing them, etc etc. So why do I say we're on the last mile now? Because the glass panels we ordered came in today and they're in! We spent the latter part of tonight attaching all the bubbles to our foyer chandelier. (We've bought the light for more than half a year now, and it's been sitting in the basement waiting for this day.) The only thing left now, is for Kel to finish the top railing and install it. Can't wait!

Talk about efficiency! (Part 2 of "The painting came in")

2010-09-04T01:28:00.002-04:00

We received the painting misprint Monday afternoon. I chatted with their online support not long after it's arrival and got confirmation within the hour. Today is Friday, and the reprint arrived! Who would've thought I'd be able to get the reprint the same week? I have to say I'm quite pleasantly surprised and would definitely recommend CanvasPop to anyone else looking for similar service. Although they messed up the first print, but I seriously don't think you'd find any other company with such efficient customer service and follow up. Definitely two thumbs up!

The painting came in! (sort of)

2010-08-30T16:55:00.002-04:00

I just realized that I've taken a whole month off blogging. What's happened since then... hmm..

-> We've finally put down a deposit for our bed and sofa. That'll take six to eight weeks to deliver. We're estimating mid-September?

-> We've been waiting for the mattress we like to go on sale, and it finally did! That got delivered two weeks ago and we were so excited, we immediately took out the old one, dismantled the bed frame and laid out the new king-size on the floor. We get much better sleep now, and I no longer grunt at Kel when he comes into bed late and wakes me up. :)

-> We're still having endless bbqs with different friends at the house, as that's the easiest and fastest, ending off with ice cream for dessert of course!

-> For those who've been worried about Mr. Plant, don't worry, my black thumb hasn't killed him yet. He's still alive and doing quite well. The new shoot has grown quite tall and we can see tiny nubs on him about to unravel to become full leaves. Kel has also decided that Mr. Plant needs a first name, and so he is now Mr. Raphael Plant.

-> Kel is still battling with the weeds out in the lawn. He's making progress, but the battle is still not over!

And now, on with the post..

I got this discount coupon for an online photo printing place last month, and I've been working with their designers to turn one of our photos from Shanghai into a triptych to put in our bedroom. Kel and I figured it'd be easier to print a picture we like for wall art, then to spend endless hours shopping for one we can both agree on. What's great with dealing with online vendors (as I've discussed with Flo), is you don't feel so bad asking for more proofs. I had never intended to print photos any bigger than the regular 4x6, so setting 5x7 as a maximum seemed to make sense. (That's the equivalent of setting my camera to the three megapixel setting even though it had the capacity of shooting at ten. It also didn't help that for some reason I thought a three megapixel photo equated to a three megabyte file, but that's a different story.) Anyhow, so I was working with their designer (and Flo) and contemplated the possibility of printing the picture itself, versus one with the digital paint effect, black and white, and colour isolation. This took quite a bit of time, as everytime I asked for a new proof, it'd take the designer a few days to get back to me. In the end, we decided to go with just the picture itself with no effects as the slight blur would work with printing on canvas. It wasn't another two weeks before I got another email with the UPS tracking number saying it would be delivered today! I was so excited, I stayed home (worked from home that is,) to wait for it and of course it had to come during a meeting, but after that I went to open the box and...

... it was our picture with the digital paint filter! They printed the wrong proof! After chatting online briefly with their support person, they admit the designer had a misunderstanding, and will be reprinting our picture as soon as possible. The down side is, it'll be another week or two before it gets here, but when it does arrive, we'll have both copies right in front of us to decide which we'd want to hang. As well, it's not like we can hang it before the bed comes anyways, so it's a win-win for us!

Oh, and of course with both of us being in the picture, I'd have to thank Sunny for helping us frame the setting and taking multiple shots. I actually have a series of photos from when Kel and I were getting onto the rock, and having random people in the background, to this, and of course, one where Sunny insisted we pointed at something. :P

Our latest member..

2010-07-29T16:59:00.003-04:00

Those who know me well, (or have been down south with me,) would know how much I love palm trees. Why? Because the simple sight of palms would instantly relax me, as they carry the connotation that I must be someplace tropical and therefore on vacation. And who doesn't like vacations? :)

So where was I going with this? Ah, yes, Kel and I were in a store one day and saw these mini palms called "Sago Palm". Now, I've been on the lookout to adopt some greenery for the house. The only problem is, I don't exactly have a green thumb. In fact, it's more like a black thumb. (I've killed a number of plants in the past.. not really knowing why..) So we decided to do some research before going ahead with the purchase. What we found out was that it's not really a palm but a "Cycad", a group of plants that lived back in the prehistoric times. It's a hardy plant that has no temperature or humidity preference, and extremely low maintenance, perfect as a beginner plant! Heck, it survived and outlived the dinosaurs, so hopefully it'll survive me, as well. :) Now, I just have to remember to leave it alone, and not over water him...

On a side note for anyone else who's thinking of adopting one of these cuties, they are poisonous to humans and animals if ingested, and unfortunately almost never properly noted at the store. So you may want to think twice if you have pets or kids in the house.

What's that bubbling in my oven?

2010-07-03T22:53:00.002-04:00

We went to the farmer's market up in Waterloo on Canada's Day.... and I ended up bringing home a lot of berries! So what better to do with them, than make a pie? :) With guidance from Moj over at Something Lemon, I proceeded to make my very own pie crust. It was quite the adventure I tell you, not as hard as it looks, but definitely quite an experience! Next time, I've got to learn to seal off the edges properly... midway the pie was bubbling over!

And here we have it, my first blueberry pie!

Yumm.. so much juicier when it's homemade!

Happy Canada Day!

2010-07-02T10:50:00.000-04:00

One of the perks of working from home? Saving time on commute equates time to make breakfast! Make no mistake, there's another slice of melted havarti cheese hiding under the egg. :)

Our First Barbecque

2010-06-29T19:53:00.002-04:00

Kel and I were browsing at barbecques whenever we were at hardware stores since its barbecque season and its the featured product everywhere. It wasn't priority, but definitely a nice to have with the great weather we've been getting. Then one weekend afternoon, I get a call from Elaine and TA DA! She and Ken came by and dropped off a barbecque as our housewarming gift! Awesome! Thanks guys! Kel's put it together a few weeks ago, and tonight, we had our first barbecque! Burgers topped with sautéed mushrooms, onions, melted harvarti cheese, and crispy bacon! Mmmm Mmmm Good!

One step closer to a complete dining room!

2010-06-28T01:27:00.001-04:00

We've been on the lookout for dining chairs for quite some time now and we got really close two months ago. We saw a style we liked at a warehouse, but the unfortunately, they weren't stocking any more and there were only three left. What on earth were we to do with only three chairs? So the search continued... until today that is! We went by a one day sale and finally found these that looked similar to what we had in mind. We weren't able to take them home with the car we were driving, but didn't want to risk losing them from some human error (even though we paid for them and they were on hold, I mean, remember the battle with Sears?!) So, we immediately went back with a van, did an inspection, and brought them home!

Here's a close up of the chairs we got. We like the shape of the back, with the detailing of the nail studs on the seat.

Looking back on what we started with when we first bought the house, we really came a long way. Check out how the dining room looked before:

And as promised, our dining room now with our new chairs:

What an awesome way to mark our one year at the house. Next up for this room: a chandelier, and Kel's project to make a two seater bench for the dining table!

Summery Sundays...

2010-06-13T17:13:00.000-04:00

... makes me want to have pancakes! And what's better than blueberry pancakes? RASPBERRY!!

Actually, my original intention was to make blueberry pancakes because they are my absolute favourite, but when I was at the store, I saw these perfect organic raspberries. Now, how often do you see organic raspberries that actually look perfect?! Like, never! So of course, I got to thinking.. how come no one ever makes raspberry pancakes? And here it is.. I made one blueberry pancake, one raspberry pancake... and one blueberry-raspberry pancake!! Of course, the raspberry ones don't look as nice since they don't hold together as well under heat. BUT, they are absolutely divine! I'm normally not a raspberry person, but the tartness it gives the pancakes (along with dosing it with pure maple syrup of course) is A-MA-ZING!!

Warmer Weather = Outdoor Activities aka Yardwork

2010-06-13T00:44:00.003-04:00

One of the pressing matters we had at hand last month was the rapid rate our lawn was growing. We didn't have a lawn mower yet at the time, and even if we were to get one, we'd still need a place to house it. (For those who haven't realized, our house doesn't have a garage.) So our priority became shopping for a mower that was on sale, as well as the shed. For those who've shopped at lawn mower sales before in spring, you'd know exactly what we ran into. Back orders. What I don't understand to this day, is how there could be so much demand for lawn mowers every year. Same goes for air conditioners and fans in the spring, and snow blowers and shovels every winter. They're always sold out! I would think that our electronic/gas powered devices work for many years. (At least I know my dad still owns his gas mower from the late 80s, fans too, by the way!) So are people just replacing them because they're old?! Anyhow, we didn't end up getting the mower for another 3 weeks from when we bought it, but then that buys Kel time to put up the shed.

He, along with Erica's help, dug the majority of the six inches in our backyard for the base of the shed. Ken helped Kel get the crushed rocks and offload them to form the base and alas, Kel's finally got his shed up this week! Below, you can see his 8x8 shed nestled in among our trees. (Did I mention how much I love our trees? :) It's got windows and a skylight in the roof, too! And there's Kel's tools and his new mower in their now home.

I should probably mention that we didn't wait another month to mow our front lawn and backyard. We borrowed Ken's mower in the meantime and took care of it first. :)

Wall Art

2010-06-08T13:23:00.001-04:00

I finally got my wall decal installed! I've had this idea to put up vinyl wall decals on my living/dining room wall for quite some time now and have been looking around for what designs are available out there. I came across this blossom branch with birds that I completely fell in love with and had to get, but of course this was way back before much of the house was done, so I had to wait for the walls to be painted, the hardwood put in, and the whole nine yards. During this waiting period, I found out that a friend of ours was actually looking to launch his own vinyl wall decal company and he informed me that when I was ready and have a design in mind I should check and see how their operations are going. Sooooo.. that's what I did! I showed him what I was looking for, and he said they have something similar and can always readjust their branches into the shape I like, etc etc. What's awesome is that because they're local, they can come over to our house with colour palettes to try out on our walls to make sure the combination matched. As well, they can come over to install the decal for us! How awesome is that? Totally takes the guess work out of shopping online and wondering if the colour showing up on my screen is actually the colour I'm getting! Another great thing about these wall decals is that they're cheap and removable! So you can change them as frequent as you'd like without damaging your walls and the messy work associated with changing wall paper! Below you can see the design I've got on my wall now. I'm contemplating doing another one for my bedroom walls... For anyone who's interested, check out http://www.wallperfection.ca/

Tables.. tables..

2010-06-01T00:12:00.001-04:00

After blast blogging on our trip last month, I've come to realize that this is only the fourth post for May.. That's not right! So here I am, on the last day of the month trying to make up for it.

We've been looking around for furniture for the house for quite some time now. We're still lacking a proper dining table (the two of us have been eating off our kitchen island and bar stool for some time now :P), dining chairs, sofa, bed, and of course those missing rails for the staircase! Our original plan was to start shopping for all of it once we got back, but the priority of that task was lowered... why? Because we've been getting summer weather in May already! Now don't get me wrong, we haven't been slacking off and going to the beach every weekend, but day after day of 25-30 degree Celsius means our lawn's been growing in at full speed! Now, where was I going with this.. yes, furniture shopping. I'll post about our outdoor activities in another post. (I promise!)

I've been eyeing this coffee table (in white) for a while now and getting quotes in store, online, and researching all the possible delivery methods. We both loved the curves on this table because it'd be easier to maneuver around being without corners and all. I inquired several websites on their policies and delivery and finally found one that was reasonable and with a promo code! I placed the order online, and we went on to shop for a dining table.

We saw something at a store before that we really liked, but was looking for alternatives. Kel wanted something not rectangular since it seemed like most dining tables these days were rectangles. So, the original table we saw was circular... picture this table, but with a dark charcoal outside wood ring, and a dark tint glass in the middle. What we loved about this table was that the middle glass part was a built in lazy susan, and the four metal legs on the side. However, we came to realize that the metal legs would make the seating quite awkward and limited. It took me another week to come upon something else we could agree on. It was an oval wooden table with a off centre base. We measured and placed markings on our floor to judge where everything would be when they arrived and soon came to realize that our coffee table may in fact be a bit too big.. and we'd much prefer the dining table and sofa. And with that, I had to cancel the order on our coffee table. :( Kel and Erica ended up driving down to Buffalo to pick up our dining table as shipping by that company would be far more expensive. Below is the sneak peak of the table we got. Now we're on to shopping for dining chairs... I'll share the actual look when we've got the area set up!

Cool lighting from abroad

2010-05-20T15:20:00.000-04:00

While in Asia, we noticed quite a few unique lighting options, so I took a couple down to share with our fellow bloggers.

These two below, we spotted at a cafe out at Admiralty. They both have a different uniqueness to them and I would've loved to bring them home, but we're lacking the tall ceilings and the general space to house them!

At a store, we spotted this cute cartoony lime green lamp, where the frame is the skeleton drawing of a floor lamp with a dangling light bulb! We thought he looked cool, but would be hard to pull off that look. I'd take a closer picture, but apparently at most of these places, photos are forbidden so I had to sneak them in where I can.

And here, we have a pic of a number of pendant lights. Kel liked a particular one, but this is the best I could do without getting spotted with a camera. Can you guess which one he likes? :)

Below is the lighting installation they have at a mall. We really like the effect they have going with the beveled ceiling for each one. I wonder how often they change their ceiling fixtures?

And below, we have a giant desk lamp! We REALLY liked him! It adds quite an interesting touch to a room. I couldn't get a picture of him that would do him justice, so I googled him when I got home and found this picture. Apparently, Roald Dahl had a smaller version of him and would write all his novels (James and the Giant Peach, Matilda, etc) under this giant desk lamp! The original one is now at the Roald Dahl museum. The twin, which was used in the movie "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory", was auctioned off. And now they produce this bigger version for the public. We'd bring one home, but its major $$$$!

And I'll end this post with these cute little porcupines! I know, I know.. they're not lights at all, but we found them super cute! The little one is a door stopper, and.. I can't rmb what the bigger one was, but I couldn't stop petting them!