After years of CNY street celebrations in Chinatown, Box Hill, Richmond, Springvale, etc, and years of Asian migration into Glen Waverley making its population 80% oriental, Glen Waverley finally decided to follow suit of street fairs, starting from last year. So today, 15/01 of the Chinese Lunar Calendar, also known as the Lantern Festival, the fair was hosted in Glenny again.
Funny though, the Lantern Festival Fair on Kingsway had very little to do with lanterns. Lantern festivals on 15/01 of the lunar calendar dates at least back to Sui Dynasty (~A.D.600) - that's as far as I have heard of it, in a type of one man talking show called "Ping Shu" - which is basically very skilled storytelling. What I remember was that when a particular hero was young, idiotic and reckless, he got into a fight with the Sui Emporer's third son (whose identity was, of course, unknown to him) at a Lantern Festival Fair and killed him, and from then on went running... Anyhow, I'm sidetracking. But basically, the traditional lantern festival fairs happen at night, and be it Beijing, or Xian (which would've been called Changan in the past), or anywhere else, people would make the most beautiful, exquisite, artistic paper lanterns that lit up streets and houses, and hold competitions, and eat yuan xiao - the glutinous rice balls in plain or sweet rice wine soup (hence it's also known as Yuan Xiao Festival). It was also a romantic occasion for lovers to go on a lantern-sighting (often discreet and unbeknowst to the family) date. In fact, as I have just Wiki'd, Lantern Festivals dates back to Han Dynasty at least 2000 years ago, and Lion and Dragon dances were added to the entertainment in Qing Dynasty... and it would be the Chinese version of Valentines + El Carnaval, if such things indeed exited in that cultivated introversion back then.
Back to Kingway, that's a different thing altogether. Starting from 11am, Kingsway was packed with people browsing through stalls, which sold charcoal BBQ lamb skewers, Tapoyaki by Koreans (with Japanese signs???), Urban Burger, Singaporean Fried Noodles which I was told did not exist in Singapore, Vietamnese Fried Rice Cakes, and, in one lone stall, yuan xiao in sweet rice wine! Then there were other random stalls: one real estate agent (surely tapping into the interest and expertise in property investment of better-off populations ^_^), a message/spa/meditation rep, a bookstore, and a supplements store selling things like Ewe Placenta Essence and Cow Clostrum... The entertainment were at 3 venues, a stage at one end of the stage, with many dance and singing groups performing; a central area, with what I would think the best lion dance group in Melbourne doing lion dance on poles; and inside the building of Village Cinema, where people played instruments. Near the Glen Waverley Library, various Chinese community groups held free Chinese calligraphy and painting sessions for the little ones, and the library itself kindly provided facepainting for the kiddles. So all was entertained.
We spent most of our time watching the lion dancers. They were from Hong De Lion Dance Association (www.hongdelions.com.au) and this was the first time I've seen any performance on poles (which I think is called "Jong" in Malaysia?) except in Jet Li's old Honky movies! The lion dancers would jump from pole to pole, sometimes turning around immediately and other times one person would be swung to another pole by the other! It was truly spectacular to watch. I couldn't believe that they were amateurs who only train once a week. On this site there was some videos from last year's Latern Fest in Glen Waverley, but I think the performance has gotten better this year! (http://www.hongdelion.com.au/en/Gallery/Videos.aspx)
Then we went back home amidst exciting mini-explosions of firecrackers and colourful ribbons and paper blown all over the crowd, and we feasted on dumplings with chives & egg filling, my "wild" mushroom risotto, and red-bean paste and sesame yuan xiao in both plain & sweet rice wine soup. :) Now it's time to dream about laterns illuminating thousands of homes along a narrow, stone paved street, a little creek of trickling water flowing happily next to it, Spring in the air, and let time slow down to a stop...
Sunday, February 28, 2010
Saturday, February 13, 2010
crap, corn, cakes, cut
I'm really tired still.
On the upside, my data collection is nearly completed, (about 15/535 left), so hopefully I will be able to spend less time onsite and relax a little bit. AMS is horrible if you have a very strong need for variety and purpose. I don't think it's very well timed in the course, in that we haven't had any clinical exposure, and so haven't had any time to actually learn anything.
In other news, I have learnt that there is such thing as too much corn. Mmm... corn. I ate two-and-a-half cobs on Friday. I love corn. Once I bought a packet of frozen kernels and would fill cups with them, cook them in the microwave, and eat them with a big spoon. Mmmm.
Hans learnt that cakes do not bake at 300 degrees C. Indeed, almost NOTHING cooks at that temperature, it just burns horribly. You'll be happy to hear I rescued it from the oven while there was still an oven, and that there was salvageable batter under the crusty top, which became cupcakes. Even better, turns out he and his mum like the crusty bits. Win all round.
Also, I need a new haircut. Suggestions?
On the upside, my data collection is nearly completed, (about 15/535 left), so hopefully I will be able to spend less time onsite and relax a little bit. AMS is horrible if you have a very strong need for variety and purpose. I don't think it's very well timed in the course, in that we haven't had any clinical exposure, and so haven't had any time to actually learn anything.
In other news, I have learnt that there is such thing as too much corn. Mmm... corn. I ate two-and-a-half cobs on Friday. I love corn. Once I bought a packet of frozen kernels and would fill cups with them, cook them in the microwave, and eat them with a big spoon. Mmmm.
Hans learnt that cakes do not bake at 300 degrees C. Indeed, almost NOTHING cooks at that temperature, it just burns horribly. You'll be happy to hear I rescued it from the oven while there was still an oven, and that there was salvageable batter under the crusty top, which became cupcakes. Even better, turns out he and his mum like the crusty bits. Win all round.
Also, I need a new haircut. Suggestions?
Sunday, January 31, 2010
China trip: food memories
So it's midnight. I'm bored of lit reviewing, and am slightly hungry... Hmmm I miss the food we had on China trip! Why don't I start the trip blogs from here?
WARNING: the following account may cause intense emotions (as well as stomach grumblings)!
Good food:
Faux “Camphor & Tea Smoked duck”, “Stir-fried Eel Strips” and mushroom dumplings with walnut milk, at Wenshu temple restaurant
Northern Sichuan cold glass noodles at Long Chao Shou – one of Chengdu’s most famous snackfood places.
Stewed old pumpkin in claypot, some tiny, extremely ragged looking restaurant in the town of Songpan.
Saozi noodles and pancake soaked in soup on Xian’s Muslim street.
Buffet breakfast at Xian Hotel. Ohhh, I’m so full.
Buns, pancakes with eggplant/radish/carrot fillings, milk, milk tea & soymilk for breakfast.
Hotpot at home. An overabundance of vegies, mushrooms, tofus, gluten balls...
Vegetarian buffet in Beijing, after cycling in the freezing wind for 1 hr.
Homemade, “sino-fied” sushies, using Chinese white vinegar and Chinese pickled radish to substitute for their Japanese counterparts... Still, they were steamy, hot, and delicious; not unlike the master chief who taught us how to make them.
The high-class banquet in a Beijing courtyard, especially the yummy mashed yam!
A table FULL of delicious dishes for only 300 yuan at Guolin, the “home-styled” restaurant, after a day of skiing.
Fruit fest:
Big grapefruits: These are at least 3 times bigger than the grapefruits in Australia (think James’ head XP), with lemon-coloured skin (which is at least 2cm thick!), and tastes similar to normal grapefruits.
“Fragrant” melon: These used to be only found in my mother’s hometown in summer, so I was extremely excited to find them in Beijing supermarkets in winter! They are slightly bigger than a fist, similar to a honeydew, and have a slightly unusual sweet smell.
Chinese crispy dates: Red skin with green flesh, these are sweet, crispy and refreshing. One of my favourite winter treats!
Pomegranates: these look paler in skin and in flesh, but are actually sweet. Each pomegranate seed is bigger and juicier in flesh than the ones in Australia/England (according to James, since I haven’t had enough pomegranates here to tell the difference...)
Dragonfruit: what more can I say: we love dragonfruits as we love fruits.
Watermelon with yellow flesh: I haven’t had them before!
“Huojing” persimmons: these are tiny (1/4 of the size of normal persimmons), very soft, and its skin is paper-thin. Best of all, you can peel all of the skin in one go, and you’re left with only the flesh, sweet, fragrant, soft and simply wonderful.
Mandarins: mandarins are, of course, everywhere in winter, with always too many varieties that I never remember what each tastes like.
A special type of mandarin/orange cross: it’s green in colour, spherical in shape but much smaller than an orange in size; its skin is very thin, and its flesh is somewhat lemon-coloured. It is sweet and sour, while cool and crisp in texture. Hmmmm...
Durian (+durian candy): James’ favourite. Enough said.
Coconut disguised as “Tibetan sacred fruit”! Their husks were polished and painted in maroon colour; and of course, found in Tibetan highlands ;)
Snack attack:
Street-made pancakes with egg, spring onion and sauce. Made on the spot, hot and tasty.
Street-roasted sweet potatos. That plus the sun on my back on a cold winter day used to be my definition of happiness. Now also plus James. :P
Cucumber flavoured chips (and mango flavoured, blueberry flavoured, lychee flavoured and kiwifruit flavoured types too!)
Rock sugar glazed hawthorn fruit. 糖葫芦, the sweet, tasty memory of Beijing.
Crystallised kiwifruits, pineapples, various plums, cantaloups, ginger *gasp*
A sweets bakery in Xian, making biscuits with glutinous pumpkin in the middle and walnut cookies.
BBQ gluten on a stick! Oh how I should give my mice these...
Deep fried chou tofu. :D
Jiu Men Xiao Chi: a “restaurant” full of snackfood stalls. We had deep fried starch sausage with ginger sauce (soooo nice!), “soy juice” – which is more or less a type of rancid soymilk, pea paste cakes (James please don’t say “pea yellow” even though that IS the literal translation of the name...), various pancakes, glutinous sweets, red date juice...
Powered, just-add-water cup milk tea with “Nata de coco” (a harder type of jelly made from coconut)
Many, many, many bubble-tea type of drinks and all-you-can-drink for 18yuan (<$3). Plus wireless (perhaps that’s a snack too?...)
Homemade cake using a electronic pressure cooker!
“Hong Kong Honeymoon Dessert” – better known as “Manji” in mandarin, has opened 2 branches in Beijing. Insanely packed with people, its desserts were pricey but very nice. Ask James about its mango sago (this is what he says on Skype: enlightened0ne: yumyumyumyumyum <- he had 2! Plus a durian ice-cream).
A Taiwanese bubble-tea place which also specialises in the finest “snow shavings” I have seen. It was as fluffy as fairyfloss, and melts at the instant that it touches the mouth. Gentle and soft, but full of sweet surprises. Plus low fat (since it’s just ice shavings XP)!
Homemade milkshake using a banana, milk, yoghurt drink and peach juice in a soymilk maker!
Lots, lots of interesting yoghurts with/without fruity bits.
Lots, lots of yoghurty drinks in bags.
Lots, lots of ice-creams.
“The last dessert”: 2 beautifully presented Haagen-Daaz drinks at the airport, on the day James went back to England. Awww.
WARNING: the following account may cause intense emotions (as well as stomach grumblings)!
Good food:
Faux “Camphor & Tea Smoked duck”, “Stir-fried Eel Strips” and mushroom dumplings with walnut milk, at Wenshu temple restaurant
Northern Sichuan cold glass noodles at Long Chao Shou – one of Chengdu’s most famous snackfood places.
Stewed old pumpkin in claypot, some tiny, extremely ragged looking restaurant in the town of Songpan.
Saozi noodles and pancake soaked in soup on Xian’s Muslim street.
Buffet breakfast at Xian Hotel. Ohhh, I’m so full.
Buns, pancakes with eggplant/radish/carrot fillings, milk, milk tea & soymilk for breakfast.
Hotpot at home. An overabundance of vegies, mushrooms, tofus, gluten balls...
Vegetarian buffet in Beijing, after cycling in the freezing wind for 1 hr.
Homemade, “sino-fied” sushies, using Chinese white vinegar and Chinese pickled radish to substitute for their Japanese counterparts... Still, they were steamy, hot, and delicious; not unlike the master chief who taught us how to make them.
The high-class banquet in a Beijing courtyard, especially the yummy mashed yam!
A table FULL of delicious dishes for only 300 yuan at Guolin, the “home-styled” restaurant, after a day of skiing.
Fruit fest:
Big grapefruits: These are at least 3 times bigger than the grapefruits in Australia (think James’ head XP), with lemon-coloured skin (which is at least 2cm thick!), and tastes similar to normal grapefruits.
“Fragrant” melon: These used to be only found in my mother’s hometown in summer, so I was extremely excited to find them in Beijing supermarkets in winter! They are slightly bigger than a fist, similar to a honeydew, and have a slightly unusual sweet smell.
Chinese crispy dates: Red skin with green flesh, these are sweet, crispy and refreshing. One of my favourite winter treats!
Pomegranates: these look paler in skin and in flesh, but are actually sweet. Each pomegranate seed is bigger and juicier in flesh than the ones in Australia/England (according to James, since I haven’t had enough pomegranates here to tell the difference...)
Dragonfruit: what more can I say: we love dragonfruits as we love fruits.
Watermelon with yellow flesh: I haven’t had them before!
“Huojing” persimmons: these are tiny (1/4 of the size of normal persimmons), very soft, and its skin is paper-thin. Best of all, you can peel all of the skin in one go, and you’re left with only the flesh, sweet, fragrant, soft and simply wonderful.
Mandarins: mandarins are, of course, everywhere in winter, with always too many varieties that I never remember what each tastes like.
A special type of mandarin/orange cross: it’s green in colour, spherical in shape but much smaller than an orange in size; its skin is very thin, and its flesh is somewhat lemon-coloured. It is sweet and sour, while cool and crisp in texture. Hmmmm...
Durian (+durian candy): James’ favourite. Enough said.
Coconut disguised as “Tibetan sacred fruit”! Their husks were polished and painted in maroon colour; and of course, found in Tibetan highlands ;)
Snack attack:
Street-made pancakes with egg, spring onion and sauce. Made on the spot, hot and tasty.
Street-roasted sweet potatos. That plus the sun on my back on a cold winter day used to be my definition of happiness. Now also plus James. :P
Cucumber flavoured chips (and mango flavoured, blueberry flavoured, lychee flavoured and kiwifruit flavoured types too!)
Rock sugar glazed hawthorn fruit. 糖葫芦, the sweet, tasty memory of Beijing.
Crystallised kiwifruits, pineapples, various plums, cantaloups, ginger *gasp*
A sweets bakery in Xian, making biscuits with glutinous pumpkin in the middle and walnut cookies.
BBQ gluten on a stick! Oh how I should give my mice these...
Deep fried chou tofu. :D
Jiu Men Xiao Chi: a “restaurant” full of snackfood stalls. We had deep fried starch sausage with ginger sauce (soooo nice!), “soy juice” – which is more or less a type of rancid soymilk, pea paste cakes (James please don’t say “pea yellow” even though that IS the literal translation of the name...), various pancakes, glutinous sweets, red date juice...
Powered, just-add-water cup milk tea with “Nata de coco” (a harder type of jelly made from coconut)
Many, many, many bubble-tea type of drinks and all-you-can-drink for 18yuan (<$3). Plus wireless (perhaps that’s a snack too?...)
Homemade cake using a electronic pressure cooker!
“Hong Kong Honeymoon Dessert” – better known as “Manji” in mandarin, has opened 2 branches in Beijing. Insanely packed with people, its desserts were pricey but very nice. Ask James about its mango sago (this is what he says on Skype: enlightened0ne: yumyumyumyumyum <- he had 2! Plus a durian ice-cream).
A Taiwanese bubble-tea place which also specialises in the finest “snow shavings” I have seen. It was as fluffy as fairyfloss, and melts at the instant that it touches the mouth. Gentle and soft, but full of sweet surprises. Plus low fat (since it’s just ice shavings XP)!
Homemade milkshake using a banana, milk, yoghurt drink and peach juice in a soymilk maker!
Lots, lots of interesting yoghurts with/without fruity bits.
Lots, lots of yoghurty drinks in bags.
Lots, lots of ice-creams.
“The last dessert”: 2 beautifully presented Haagen-Daaz drinks at the airport, on the day James went back to England. Awww.
Monday, January 25, 2010
Sunday, January 17, 2010
The last sunday
Sorry James, no holiday blogs yet. You know, writer's block. (actually, in my case it's the AMS block.)
So today marks the last sunday before I start injecting mice again and no longer have a weekend. Therefore I wanted to have a proper weekend.
And it was fun :). My grans, my mum and I went to NGV and saw the "Chinoserie" collection. I had planned to see the other collections too, but soon realised that in fact, visiting art galleries requires stamina. We soon reached a point of brain saturation with paintings and chinas and the like, compounded with the grumbles in our stomachs. I'm sure stamina develops with exposure, but for noobies such as us, it was enough art to call a day.
Where to lunch? They asked. At the same time my mind must've started its autocleaning and it went blank. Well, somewhere relatively close...grans' legs are tired. And somewhere relatively good...fussy eaters they are, and fussier when it's unaccustomed western cuisine (for I could not, for the life of me, think of any decent Chinese restaurant around Flinders Station/Fed Square/Arts Centre area). "Okay, we could try Degraves St."
Which turned out to be a good choice, except that Degraves was as usual packed with people, therefore we sat outside, chilled by the drizzle and wind. "Degraves Espresso" (I think???) was the cafe, chosen at random, and risotto, omelette, panini and French toast were our orders. Food was nice, the risotto superb and the smoked salmon & spinach omelette doubly superb. With my grans' watchful "no-waste-food" eyes, I lamented in my head that there's no such thing here as petit portion...
We also got hot chocolate and tea just to combat the chill, and at the end, I poured the thick syrupy chocolate, left over tea and milk together, and created a warm reminiscence of the instant milk teas in china, that comes in a paper cup in power form with with small cubes of jelly/coconut and a big plastic straw. Those were good moments...
Things were rather comical after that. First it was a group of mudpeople doing their mud yelps and dancing around in a circle on Flinders. Then there was a street artist performing on fed square in a tight one-sie, dirtydancing with some other guys... And, to end our day out on an epic note, we wandered into a gay & lesbian festival thingy in Alexandra Gardens, where gazbos shaded stalls selling rainbow patterned fake tattoos and male underwear...
PS: There's a new restaurant called "Petalling Street Malaysian Hawker Food" on Kingsway in Glen Waverley, which seems to be always packed with people. I've tried it twice and thought the food was nice, but can someone who knows of Malaysian food come and verify its authenticity? Can others without knowledge of Malaysian food come and verify that it's food?XP (i.e. Hong's lame excuse for a catch-up)
Peace!
So today marks the last sunday before I start injecting mice again and no longer have a weekend. Therefore I wanted to have a proper weekend.
And it was fun :). My grans, my mum and I went to NGV and saw the "Chinoserie" collection. I had planned to see the other collections too, but soon realised that in fact, visiting art galleries requires stamina. We soon reached a point of brain saturation with paintings and chinas and the like, compounded with the grumbles in our stomachs. I'm sure stamina develops with exposure, but for noobies such as us, it was enough art to call a day.
Where to lunch? They asked. At the same time my mind must've started its autocleaning and it went blank. Well, somewhere relatively close...grans' legs are tired. And somewhere relatively good...fussy eaters they are, and fussier when it's unaccustomed western cuisine (for I could not, for the life of me, think of any decent Chinese restaurant around Flinders Station/Fed Square/Arts Centre area). "Okay, we could try Degraves St."
Which turned out to be a good choice, except that Degraves was as usual packed with people, therefore we sat outside, chilled by the drizzle and wind. "Degraves Espresso" (I think???) was the cafe, chosen at random, and risotto, omelette, panini and French toast were our orders. Food was nice, the risotto superb and the smoked salmon & spinach omelette doubly superb. With my grans' watchful "no-waste-food" eyes, I lamented in my head that there's no such thing here as petit portion...
We also got hot chocolate and tea just to combat the chill, and at the end, I poured the thick syrupy chocolate, left over tea and milk together, and created a warm reminiscence of the instant milk teas in china, that comes in a paper cup in power form with with small cubes of jelly/coconut and a big plastic straw. Those were good moments...
Things were rather comical after that. First it was a group of mudpeople doing their mud yelps and dancing around in a circle on Flinders. Then there was a street artist performing on fed square in a tight one-sie, dirtydancing with some other guys... And, to end our day out on an epic note, we wandered into a gay & lesbian festival thingy in Alexandra Gardens, where gazbos shaded stalls selling rainbow patterned fake tattoos and male underwear...
PS: There's a new restaurant called "Petalling Street Malaysian Hawker Food" on Kingsway in Glen Waverley, which seems to be always packed with people. I've tried it twice and thought the food was nice, but can someone who knows of Malaysian food come and verify its authenticity? Can others without knowledge of Malaysian food come and verify that it's food?XP (i.e. Hong's lame excuse for a catch-up)
Peace!
Wednesday, January 13, 2010
I will, eventually, post something more here...
Anyone feel like writing a post on how their holidays/lack of holidays were/are? Just out of interest, we now have 48 searches in google for "rat faeces photo" and 24 for rat faeces photo blog. Who searches for this? That's a significant proportion of our visitors. Perhaps you should actually post a photo so that all these people find what they are looking for, Joanne... :P
Monday, December 28, 2009
I'm back...
Hi all... blog entry coming soon, I hope. I'm back in England now, with 37.7kg of checked luggage. So much to do now that I am back... and that doesn't even include work stuff. Shopping for food seems quite important. :P More later...
Thursday, December 10, 2009
A taste...
Blogs are still to come, but I've been sorting through my photos and thought that I should post one. I wish that photos could do justice to the beauty of Jiuzhaigou; the colours here are what the camera sees, and can never quite reproduce what the eye sees. I'll post photos that include still water later... you won't believe that I haven't used photoshop to add the colours!
Sunday, November 29, 2009
deadly household appliances
overheard on the tram (a while back now):
"... and the washing machine fell off the wall, smashing the chair that she had been standing in 2 seconds earlier!... none of the neighbours came to check - I would have come home to find her DEAD!!"
I love eavesdropping.
"... and the washing machine fell off the wall, smashing the chair that she had been standing in 2 seconds earlier!... none of the neighbours came to check - I would have come home to find her DEAD!!"
I love eavesdropping.
Saturday, November 28, 2009
An interesting way to find the site...
Just briefly, I thought that this was very amusing. We have had one visitor to this blog via google, apparently from Auckland. The search term he/she used? "rat faeces photo"... This took her/him to Joanne's blog entry from a while ago. I checked, and if you search for the term on google we're about the 12th link. Since I've written this, we'll probably shoot up closer to number 1. So if you forget our address... just search for rat faeces!
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