char kway teow... char kway teow...

what do you do to brighten up a day?

make CHAR KWAY TEOW! mmm...
yes josh has been sick so to cheer him (and me, the nurse) up, we cooked char kway teow (dont worry... he's been getting better so the char kway teow isnt going to make him worse...)

anyway, we fried up some spring onions, fresh chillis, garlic, lap cheong and prawns, added the kway teow (rehydrated in hot water), added the fish sauce, soy sauce, dark soy sauce and ABC kechap manis, threw in the choy sum and VOILA!
yum yum yum yum yum... much better than my last attempt when Mr J Ting (elder) came to warwick for the Big Band gig... that time we forgot the spring onions and fish sauce, and didnt have fresh chillis but we had fishcake though...

mmmmm... add a dash of lime juice over the top and savour with soy milk! :)

auditions

today (or rather, yesterday) was an insane day of auditions. had one for classical and modern dance (for their lyrical jazz dance) and one for A Chorus Line. yes yes, you heard me right... i plucked up the courage, went down and signed up for it and tried to memorize the lines and played 'One Singular Sensation' so many times on my laptop.

the dance audition didnt go very well... errr... the basically started off saying they had the audition to eliminate people that werent up to standard. but they said it in a 'we dont want you to stick put like a sore thumb in the show and people will notice that and talk about the girl who wasnt as good or up to standard as the rest..'. well i understand where they are coming from, considering i did have that reaction to their advanced ballet item last year (i was like ?!??! i can do that better even after not having done ballet for 3 years!). anyway, they talked a lot about how they were looking for style, strength and potential rather than whether you could execute the steps in such a short time. well, i tried really hard to prove that i had that style (because it was lyrical and for a lot of the steps i could tap into my contemporary background) but i definitely didnt have the execution... everyone else seemed not to mess up as much as i did so i guess i'm pretty much not expecting anything from that. it'd be nice to be in that dance, but it is also very demanding so maybe i'll be fine with either outcome.

then i rushed off for my A Chorus Line vocal audition - had to do a range test (which went pretty ok until the bit where they played 3 notes and you had to sing the middle note. i kept hitting the last note. and the girl had to help me by playing the middle note again for me to hit). then i did my singing of 'One Singular Sensation' which the first time i forgot the words (i was soooo nervous) but the second time after being given some direction by the team turned out much better. same thing happened for my acting test - forgot my lines (thankfully i was allowed to refer to my paper) but the second time, after some help as to how to portray the emotions of the scene, i managed to pull off something decent.

had a one hour break before my dance audition for the musical. we played fun team games for the first half to see how you work as a group. then we did some character movement - they gave me a 'nervous' persona and we all had to move and do some stuff according to our persona. then we did the dance - which i was really happy with my performance.

i really really reeeeeaaaallllyy hope i get called back for second round of musical auditions. wouldnt be too crushed about the lyrical jazz (as much as i would love to do it as well) but if i had to choose between one and the other, i'd raise my glitzy gold hat for A Chorus Line.

PLEASE LET THEM CHOOSE ME!

Chinese New Year Eve's Eve's Dinner

so we had a chinese new year's eve reunion dinner on the eve of the eve because some of the people were going off to london for the actual eve... what started off as a dinner for 4 turned into a dinner of 16. yikes. so yes, loads of work and prep went into making the steamboat! we actually started on thurs by going to birmingham to the huge chinese supermarket Wing Yip to buy important stuff. like tofu, choy sum, wanton skins, hoisin sauce, lemongrass, water chestnuts... and some egg tarts as an indulgence. haha... 4 for GBP2.80. precious!

anyway, on friday josh and i went to coventry (or rather, he went to coventry market to buy squid, prawns, pork, beef, limes, chillis and some other stuff) while i joined him later after my class to go to hillfields in coventry to buy cheap chicken. hillfields is a dodgy area of coventry where there are a lot of muslims but it's got nice cheap stuff - we went to our sort-of-usual butcher to get cheap chickens. they were selling boiler chickens (i assume it's the sort of chicken for soups) at 4 for GBP5. so we got that and some chicken breasts, stocked up on corriander and garlic chinese cabbage before heading to tesco to buy mince.

from about 2.30, we were non-stop preparing for the dinner (with only one person, sau khoon, coming to help at about 5.45pm) until 7.30. josh made the soups - tom yum and chicken basically from scratch, sliced the beef, cleaned out the squid and marinated them and prawns while i did some wanton folding and pork ball rolling. which i tell you gives you a massive neckache because you are staring down for 1 hr at a time until you have finished all 60 wantons. and 99 pork balls. thank goodness we had one reinforcement who helped roll the beef balls and slice the pork and chicken breasts. and i made agar agar agar agar (haha! i didnt have a recipe so i just did some rough estimates) with almond flavouring which would be served with canned longan and lychees. mmmm...

finally managed to get people over at 7.30 to carry stuff over to the kitchen where we were going to have the actual dinner. and got the food cooking by 8.30-ish?

when we got there we diluted the concentrated soup stocks by splitting them into the different rice cookers which were to be our steamboat pots, while i blanched the fresh wanton noodles to rid them of the flour coating.

only took pictures of some of the raw food while waiting for the pots to be ready to cook them in... preparing for steamboat is damn tiring and makes you so tired you dont really feel like eating much... :( behold our pork balls and pork slices(marinated with hoisin sauce and some other stuff - josh has all written down somewhere)...
more pork balls! and in the bowl is the squid. yum... the squid took 1 hr to do because he had to defrost them and pull out the backbone and clean out the ink... :(
look at the pork balls! and the beef balls! and the sliced beef! (and canned mangosteen in the background)
prawns and veg! mmmm... prawns were like GBP10 per kg! but really nice because they were soooo fresh...
and yes! we had 4 pots of 16 people! 2 tom yum and 2 chicken... mmmmmm...
group picture! or somewhat of a group picture... poor josh was sick and really worn out by all the prep work he did the whole day...
and a girly picture! basically the meal was with first years - singaporean, malaysian, indonesian and bruneian/canadian (hehe...). they are such a cute/crazy bunch of people!
anyway, i've got another round of food to prepare next week because we are having a chinese new year celebratory dinner for cell on thurs. this time it will be for 19 people. argh... chinese new year IS stressful. but... ANTONIA IS COMING TO VISIT ME! yay! so it shall be a wonderful reunion. :)

decisions decisions!

ARGH!

i just found out that MTW (Music Theatre Warwick) is doing A Chorus Line for Term 3 Week 4 and i really wanted to go for it because i thought that since it would be in term 3, i'd be more free because the tap show would be over term 2 week 9. just found out today from iain that auditions are this weekend. which raises the dilema...

should i audition?

i only want to be one of the dancers... dont need to have a speaking part and all... i just want to dance. but i also found out i have to sing and act in the audition! :( on the other hand, i can rely on my ethnicity to be connie wong - she's supposed to be an asian auditioning but she doesnt get the part in the end.

rehearsals will be 3 days a week (2 weeknights and 1 weekend) and will start week 5 (i.e. next week). i still have commitments to tap show (which are saturday afternoons all the way until week 9).

should i audition?!?

on a side note, for all in warwick/able to come to warwick because you are IN the UK, COME FOR THE ANNUAL TAP SHOW! it will be fffaaaaabbbbuullloouuussss!

RENDITION - brought to you by the Warwick Tap Society
Warwick Arts Centre
Sunday, 5 March
5pm and 8pm
GBP 10 or GBP 7.50 for students or concession-holders

book tickets with ME! i can get you good seats! :)

P-I-Z-Z-A mmmmmmmmmmm...

josh and i have always been talking about making our own pizzas with heck-loads of toppings because store-bought/takeaway pizzas just stinge on everything.

we FINALLY got down to doing it this evening for dinner! bought the ingredients, even going for Tesco Finest parma ham! of course we had to have chicken wings for sides so we decided to just get the ready-done ones that only needed to be popped in the oven.
first we ladeled pizza sauce on the ready-made pizza bases (which can be found on the shelf with the dried pasta in Tesco)
and piled on some home-made BBQ chicken (marinaded in BBQ sauce and grilled for about 7 minutes on medium heat)
for our hawaiian twist, we had luxurious parma ham instead of normal ham... notice how generous we were with the toppings! you'd never get that in a rstaurant, much less at a takeaway!
then we piled on the onions, capsicum and sundried tomatoes on our BBQ chicken pizza...
... while the hawaiian one had a super duper lot of pineapple chunks! mmmm... topped both off with a healthy ampunt of cheese and stuck them in the oven for 12 mins.in the meantime, we decided to amuse ourselves with the camera. or rather, i decided to amuse myself with the camera. josh willingly smiled for the camera...
while i displayed my impatience for the pizza to be done...and ladies and gentlemen... the final products!
stuck some jalapeno peppers on the top towards the end... mmmm.... :)

TGI Fridays on Friday

on friday josh and i went to TGI Fridays for a celebratory dinner. it is such a shame there's no more TGIF in singapore (remember there used to be one next to Park Mall?) because they make FANTASTIC cocktails! OOooOOOOO... we tried one drink that wasnt on the menu this time (because we have tried most of the nicer ones on it... and they have recently changed their menu such that they have fewer cocktails advertised - it all boils down to the waiter to show good service and help you figure out which drink you should try) and it was AMAZING! it's called a Brazillian Monk and it's basically like Barnamint Baileys except it has frangelico (hazelnut liquer) and doesnt have peppermint liquer. mmmmm...

anyway, TGIF had a '3 courses for GBP 14.99' (we always try to only go when they have some promotion on their website) and it was a 'Wild and Mild' combination - you have a choice between 6 starters (3 'Wild' i.e. spicy and 3 'Mild'), between 12 main courses and, rather sadly, a choice between 2 desserts.

we chose the Devilish Dippers...... and the Fiery Wings (sorry for the not-so-fantastic pictures... we werent in a place with bright lighting directly over our table hence all the shadows cast on the plate)
the dips were yummy and the starters promising, if not a bit too salty (it got to me after a few bites - think it has to do with the fact that they used a lot of seasoning) but delicious nonetheless.

i ordered the Jack Daniel's Sweet and Smokey Chicken and josh had the Texan Hamburger.
the peas were a tad overcooked and the cheesy mash + Jack Daniel's glaze made me feel rather jelat after a while though.
we had a side of extra onion rings but they were too oily (a result of coming out too fresh from the deep-fryer) so that made us feel even more full and bloated. josh took a long walk after he couldnt finish anymore of his food (which was left to me to eat... hehehe...) to let his stomach settle before we embarked on dessert.

yes we ordered one of each to try - on the menu it said strawberry shortcake but what came out of the kitchen was more like loads of strawberried and vanilla ice cream with a crazy amount of whipped cream! i think the last time i had as much whipped cream as they served on the plate was when i was a child and my brother and i used to squeeze whipped cream into our mouths direct from the nozzle of the bottle!
the brownie was soooo good! very sinful but very very nice because it was so chocolatey and warm and oozey... it was so rich, which i guess made the strawberry cream thing come in handy to balance it out. :)

and on an end note, i just remembered i forgot to post this picture up ages ago! it's a tagliatelle dish that josh made with sweet pepper sauce and grilled capsicum, topped off with grilled spice-rubbed prawns. mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm...

Weekend away at Gradbach Mill (Peak District)

over the weekend i went with my cell group from Elim (combined with the Earlsdon cell) to Gradbach Mill in Peak District for a cell retreat. we left at 7pm on friday night and managed not to get lost (thanks Tim and Sarah) so that we got to the Youth Hostel at about 9.30pm.

first thing we saw when we entered the kitchen was this...
hmmm... perhaps that just signifies how weird the place was...

anyway, this was the girls' dorm! mine is the top bed on the right (see my bright pink leg warmers hanging on the side?)
anyway, in case you didn't know, i had an allergic reaction to the YHA because it was a bit musty (which made the place a bit stifling for me) and smelt of fresh paint. which overall contributed to a runny nose which i thought was the only side effect of my allergy - but then it turns out the flu i thought i had was actually an asthma attack (i had difficulty breathing as my flu and cough got worse on monday) and the phlegm was actually generated as a side effect of the asthma doing its 'thing' in my lungs.

but back to pleasanter things...
us 6 girls who were in that dorm room! from top row left, xiuli and emily, front row left, me, jia en, lucilla and lynn!
in day, this is how our hostel looks - we had the whole stand-alone buildin to ourselves. the single-storey part is the kitchen and dining area, while the double storey bit had the girls' dorm of 6 and the lounge at the top, and boy's dorm of 6, 2 rooms of 2 and 1 room of 3 on the ground floor.
some of the group climbed up the hill next to the hostel while lynn and i were cooking lunch (see what how much we sacrificed being the food people?!?)...and saw the plains around the YHA... apparently on the way down, the guys just ran down leaving the girls to have to tackle the steep slope on their own. with the exception of one very gentlemanly peter, who in the process of helping the girls, had a slip of his own onto the freshly muddy ground.
on the second day (or rather, our first day there), we went for a walk after our lunch. me and lynn (future housemates? i certainly hope so!) sneaking a picture just outside our hostel!
we found a map of a trail left on the kitchen table for us so we decided to take the path 're-constructed' in the drawing above.
see how a worthy investment it was for me to buy my bright pink puffy jacket! you can see me a MILE away! and when it started to get dark they made me walk in front so that they could use me as a visual leader! HA!

we walked along the stream that ran beside our hostel. you wouldnt believe how long it took us to go through the trail because it was SO muddy! especially when not all of us had hiking shoes and wellingtons like ben and steve did. those 2 were running and stomping in the mud, much to the dismay of emily who suffered from ben's childish antics 5mins into the walk. there was a puddle of mud along the trail just outside the hostel in true 'ben-fashion', he ran straight into the centre of the puddle and jumped in it, causing mud to fly up at emily and got blobs of mud on her jeans and boots. sigh.
as we followed the stream/brook (can someone offer a definition of the 2?) we came to a bridge which we naturally decided was a fantastic place for a group-1 picture (xiuli was the kind soul who took the picture).
if i remember correctly, the stream forked at the bridge so we continued to walk along on branch of the stream to the area marked 'ROCKS' on my map.
which lead us through some rather dark woods... we were climbing up the side of a hill/peak so we were somewhat in the valley?
finally we reached the big rocks! which we took some time to explore...
girly picture at the top of the rocks! notice xiuli is using her handphone. this is because we managed to get phone reception high up on the rocks which = EXCITEMENT!
look at the gorgeous view of the neighbouring peak! the sun was shining on that side so it means we were on the eastern side of our peak (right, right, geography experts?)
i think that's emily on that rock. it was a nice place to just admire the beauty of the land...
anyway, we FINALLY managed to get a move from there (because the days are short and we didnt want to still be up the peak when night fell) so onward we went to the cave. along the way we had some girls shrieking at the amount of mud on the path (in some cases the entire stretch was mud so we started walking on the vegetation next to the path because [a]cleaner, [b]less slippery which = safer)

we FINALLY got to the cave - which was SO COOL! we had to climb down a steep staircase of rock to reach a layer of very fresh mud - as lynn put it, it was like the segment in Takeshi's Castle (if any of you remember watching that hilarious Japanese variety show where they had all sorts of challenges to escape the castle) where you'd have to walk through this section of quicksand-ish stuff and step on the right places so you wouldnt sink. indeed we did have to find rocks to step on and use the rock walls on the side for support because when ben tried walking through the mud itself, it came up to the top of his hiking boots! YIKES!
what initially was a ben and me spoof picture ended up being a group spoof! :)

onward we went through even more muddy sections of the trail and finally made it clear of the forested area, up the steeper part of the peak to the ridge at the top. naturally, emily and steve were bounding forward like eager golden retriever and border collie, with hyper alsatian ben running back and forth to make sure everyone was able to press on. lynn and i were getting a bit jittery because we needed to move faster or else we'd get stuck up on the peak when the sky got dark.

but alas we were reaching the top!
and looking back to the side of the ridge that we came from, we saw the beautiful peaks behind.
we managed to catch the sunset while still on the top of the ridge (looking over to the 'other' side) which we stopped to savour before bundling everyone together to make our way down.
the sun was setting and we were still on top of the ridge. considering we took about 2+ hours to GET to the top of the ridge, we really had to go down much faster than we did to get up. emily, steve, me and lynn were in the front of the group trying to move as fast as we could so that the others would move faster too. we took a different route down which had less steep paths that went through areas without as much forest - which meant delaying our entry into darker areas. by the time we reached the forested area on the trail, it got very dark and we formed a tighter 'line' of pairs, with me and steve in front. pink jacket + pink beanie came in useful as a route marker (yay for pink!) and we finally made it to the rocks before the one last climb down a steep slope.

we were VERY relieved to make it back safely to the YHA for a scrumptious dinner of roast chicken and potatoes (prepared by me and lynn).

some pointers for people intending to go hiking:

a) wear appropriate attire - compared to other hikers, we were dismally attired because most of us were wearing sports shoes rather than proper boots. or be like steve and bring wellingtons (like those that fish-mongers wear). bring a walking stick and wear high socks which you can tuck your jeans/trousers into to avoid them soaking in mud. a beanie and puffy,wind-resistent jacket are important because even when you are feeling warm climbing up, when you get to the top, you are hit with strong winds and you need to keep warm or else your muscles (which you have just warmed up will suffer - learnt this when iain scolded me for not wearing a jacket out of the dance studio after one jazz class)

b) always carry a torch. and bring a dog. haha...

c) carry a satelite phone (we did this in Laos when we went for an expedition) when going to somewhere with no phone reception so that in case of an ermergency, you are able to contact someone. or make arrangements with people in base camp that should you not return by a certain time to form a search party. we didnt have this because there was literally no one else at the YHA and i dont think that even the caretaker lives in the next building... hmmm...

anyway, we had a good time that weekend (not much bible study as we had the year before but the hike was so much fun!) sorry but i didnt bring a camera so no pictures of how the food turned out (yes, lynn and i were the people in charge of 'feeding the faithful') but i personally was rather satisfied with how things turned out considering the food was hearty, healthy (yes! plenty of vegetables and fruit!) and NO TESCO VALUE FOOD WAS USED AT ALL! (mega proud of that fact). and we were under budget too! moral of the story? when you cook healthy and hearty meals, it doesnt blow a hole in your pocket! i think we even spent less per person than last year's food team which did buy quite a lot of Tesco value stuff like coffee powder, pizza and bread.
as we left on sunday, we managed to get some passerby-hikers to take a group picture of us (with a mysterious dog that turned up at our kitchen door at noon! SUCH AN ADORABLE COLLIE! it took a fancy to me, emily, ben and steve - especially to steve. we even wanted to take it onto the bus! haha...). one major question: how does a long-haired dog like that collie not end up as grimey as my family beagle who has short hair?!? playing with the dog, i didnt get any eye or skin irritations as i do sometimes with my beagle even one day after he has been bathed!

anyway... top row from left, lucilla, jia en, me, xiuli, emily, hsien, lynn, agnes, sarah; front row from left, peter, steve, ben and tim. note that ben is wearing a paper hat that peter made for him the night before when they were playing some game which reads 'unintelligible person'. peter and his dry sense of humour! :)