My July

It’s time to explain what I’ve been up to since July, when I went back home to my parents. My last few weeks in London were pretty crazy. I tried to meet up with as many friends as I could as I knew I wouldn’t see them for a few months perhaps. I learnt to say ‘yes’ to nearly everything and ended up walking back home by myself at odd hours of the night which in hindsight was rather stupid of me.

I left London on 9th July, my mum was leaving for China a couple of days later so I went back to spend some time with her, help her prepare to travel and for her to hand over the house to me before she went away. I was sad to leave London, my friends, my nice flat and the busy social scene but at the same time I was really excited to be going back to China and be in Beijing during the Olympics!

Anyway, I was bumming around for the first couple of weeks – dad was away on a business trip somewhere so I was by myself and in charge of the house and looking after our cat, Simba. Well, it did give me the chance to refine my cooking, get more domesticated cleaning such a big house and also spend some quiet time alone taking walks on the beach, reading, doing yoga etc. No wild parties I’m afraid – we’re pretty good friends with our neighbours and I think my parents would kill me if I ruined their months of networking in one night. I think my cat benefited most during this time because I spoiled him rotten and let him sleep on my bed.

All this time I couldn’t wait to go back to China! I was so excited by all the articles I’d seen in the news and on the internet about the hype in the build up to the Olympics, I was really praying for everything to go smoothly and to have a great experience. Beijing did not disappoint.

Anyway, I need to get up early and start on my neuro progenitor cell essay tomorrow so my next instalment will be on China!

Just have to share

One of my eyelashes has fallen in and is now floating around my morning latte. Is it gross if I still drink from it (with care) or dip my pinkie and rescue it? Actually I’m gonna be late for neurodegeneration lecture so I think I’ll titrate into a thermos flask. Debacle solved. I knew there’s always a third option.

Summer hiatus

Hello Friends…I’m back! Instead of a huge long entry about what I’ve been doing, I’ll just break it down into managable chunks over a few entries.

Firstly…where was I? Well, I was in China for the entire month of August living the Olympic dream. I was so amazed by the development of Beijing – for the first time I could actually see myself living there. I kept a paper journal with me to record all my memorable moments which I will be extracting from time to time.

After I got back to the UK it was a rush to find a place to live with my friend from school. Eventually we did find a nice 1st floor flat but a fault at the telephone exchange meant we were waiting for broadband connection for 6 weeks. Including the time I spent in China, I haven’t had regular internet connection for 3 months! I’d almost got used to the idea of living without internet if it weren’t for the void that Google left in my life. Ironically, it was during the weekend that a couple of school friends came to stay that we were finally logged on and we celebrated like we were excitable teenagers again, upgrading from dial-up to broadband for the first time.

Now….for my geeky friends, please help me find out how I can get around customising my own CSS without subscribing to an upgrade. I’m new to wordpress so still trying to familiarise myself with functions and plugins. Maybe if I get geeky enough, I can learn how to install a widget which allows you to receive email updates of my blog ….

Sigh…so much to do and so little time.

Watch this space for more updates! I say this with the best of intentions to update more regualrly.

Jenny

PS. I’m not happy with the format of this yet, still a lot of work ahead…but I have to publish as I go along otherwise I’d never update it.

Jenny to the Rescue!

I can’t believe I’m reconnected to the internet again. After 6 weeks of moving into my new flat in London our broadband provider has finally deigned to give us internet access!

What better way to restart my blog than to tell the story of how I rescued my friend from her house today! She somehow managed to lock herself inbetween her bedroom and her front door – rather alikened to being imprisoned, she later described, with only internet access to communicate with the outside world.

It started when I received a distress msg online at lunchtime. Unfortunately, I had neuroscience lectures in the afternoon which were (as exhillarating as they sound) also rather important. After finishing at 5pm, I raced back to find out if there was any improvement in the situation but I couldn’t find her online. At this point I didn’t know whether someone had freed her or not. I took the tube in rush hour traffic from west into central London (not recommended to those living outside London) and discovered that she was still trapped inside.

I knocked on her neighbour’s door who is known to have her landlady’s number. Once I contacted the landlady I was then sent on a mission to her house in east London which involved the tube to Liverpool St (crush) and then a bus (crushed more). Met landlady at the bustop, grabbed spare keys, jumped back on the bus, Liverpool St, central line, off the tube and back to rescue my friend!!!

After a 20 hr lock-in I freed my friend after a 3 hour trail quest which I’m sure could have been filmed against the Mission Impossible soundtrack, or maybe Indiana Jones. Monty Python?

Can’t sleep

Can’t sleep so I took this political compass test and got these results:

http://www.politicalcompass.org/printablegraph?ec=-5.75&soc=-0.26

yay!!!

Goodbye to the Motherland

I am back from China!!! I had an amazing time with many stories to share. Thankfully I jotted them down on a travel journal whilst I was away. I will transfer the highlights of the past month here soon.

Even more good news – I went to London as soon as I got back and found a flat to rent! Yay!!! Expensive…but I’m no longer homeless before university starts again!

Leaving on a jetplane!

Boarding for China in 10 hours! I’m so excited. This year Beijing will be a city like no other. I am so eager to see the changes and the development the Olympic Games have brought! What does it have in store? I will have to wait until August 7th to set foot in the city. Tomorrow I’m getting a connection to Shenyang first.

Too excited to sleep but feel I must at least try. See you from China!

To whom it concerns

Have you ever stopped to look at our moon?
Tonight its half face sits low in our sky.
In night and day, morning and afternoon,
It remains constant as our lives past by.

To how many loves has it been witness?
How many hands have held in its presence?
With passion in its lovers it does bless,
Start them on their life of happiness thence.

Despite our existence in worlds apart,
And views outside our window never same.
We only need look up and to the heart.
To find the landscape we can both proclaim.

One day we’ll find a scenery that’s ours.
Until then we’ll still have our moon and stars.

Pastry chef at last

Fingers crossed before they go in the oven!

Voila! Peach pastry anyone?

I never go to the trouble of making my own desserts. I don’t see the point. Admittedly, I’ve more preference for savoury than sweet, but I can’t seem to justify spending so much time on something which isn’t even a meal. I can count on one hand the number of times I’ve baked in my life. My poor oven, most of the time its purpose is just another storage cupboard.

All things considered, I do have a weakness for French and Danish pastries. Nothing puts a smile on my face like the thought of weekend brunch on the sofa curled up with a book, a latte and a pain au raisin or vanilla custard coronet. A simple but a guilty pleasure. The way to my heart would be buying me fresh pastries and bringing me breakfast in bed – a Harry met Sally moment. 

However, as of today I am no longer just a pastry consumer. No, I decided it was time to make my guilty pleasure in order to cancel it out when I later eat it. I had my heart set on making a peach galette from a recipe in a Women’s Weekly recipe book (you may laugh). The idea came when I decided I had to act fast with a punnet of peaches that weren’t looking so ripe and juicy. Firstly, I had to find puff pastry in my supermarket. I had no idea where to look, I was about to give up and as if an answer to my prayers, it found its way to me as I was buying yoghurt.

The recipe was relatively easy to follow and I made some minor adjustments. I rolled out the pastry and cut it into nine individual squares rather than one huge galette. The trickiest part was peeling the peaches and then slicing them. My hands were covered in peach mash. After arranging the peach slices on the pastry, I folded over the edges and sprinkled brown sugar as well as my own touch of walnuts (inspired by pecan plaits). 15/20 mins in a hot oven later, they were cooked and ready to glaze. At first I used honey, but I didn’t like the taste it added. Then I used a jam, but I think I should have used golden syrup as it may have sweetened the peaches a little more.

I think my first attempt at pastries was acceptable! I was surprised how simple it was. I find dessert analagous to chemistry experiments. I followed the formula and yielded good results. However, upon evaluation some tweaking can make it better.,such as using a sweeter fruit or simply using tinned peaches, it will take away the tartness and also remove the mess!

Problem is, now I have seven pastries left. Care to have a taste? The proof is in the pudding!

Congeeeee!

 

Original plain congee…so yummy!

This is my congee! It was pretty close to perfect, only a little on the thick side once it had cooled down. I used two thirds short, sticky, northeastern rice (东北大米) and one third glutinous rice. I think I will use little or no glutinous rice next time because I had to keep adding water to it as it was constantly thickening. I served it with a garnish of crushed peanuts and spring onions.

Pickled mustard leaf

I love little Chinese pickle side dishes (小菜). This is pickled mustard leaf which I dressed in soya sauce, chilli and sesame oil. The leaf stalk has a great crunchy texture which goes well with the congee.

They won't serve this tofu in restaurants!

These are two types of very salty tofu side dishes. They are age old traditional fermented tofu! Its made by fungal solid state fermentation of tofu (soybean curd) followed by aging in brine containing salt and alcohol. Needless to say, an acquired taste indeed but the Chinese have loved it as way back as the Wei Dynasty 200AD.  Who are we to question 1800 years of enjoying this bizarre smelling food? The two types have slightly different tastes, neither of which I can describe – have a taste yourself.