::cny::greetings::

it's been on your to do list, but you just didn't get to do it, the last week past like swift seconds. you saw this on a friend's post and this is want you intend to do, to relate the chinese new year 4 character greetings to biblical context. the photos posted here don't have the precise meaning to the chinese greetings. these are just the food you cooked and eat on the first day of chinese new year, celebrated in a very subtle way.

步步高升 Eph 2:6 God has raised us up with Christ and seated us with Him in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus.

金玉满堂 Prov 15:6 The house of the righteous is filled with treasure.  you got this snack box from the church today, you also celebrated your pastor's wife birthday and this is an indonesia snack box, you thought the mandarin orange do fit the chinese saying where the orange implies "gold"...

心想事成 Ps 37:4 God will grant us the desires of our heart

万事如意 Rom 8:28 In all things God works together for the good of those who love Him

岁岁平安 Phil 4:7 The peace of God will guard our hearts and minds in Christ

事业有成 Jer 29:11 God knows the plans for us to prosper us and give us a future and a hope

红运当头 Deut 28:13 God has made us the head and not the tail (as a result of Jesus' shed blood)

笑口常开 Ps 105:43 God brings His people out with rejoicing, and His chosen ones with shouts of joy.

it's hard to separate cultural to beliefs, in your case it took you a rather long time to understand what is biblical from what is purely superstitious. you embrace this festival purely from cultural and family value perspectives and the rest you just let it go, knowing that this is just how you perceive chinese new year. it's just a renewal of your mind, an absolute personal choice.

that said, you are going to have an early night for you will be on the road again tomorrow.

happy chinese new year! 新年快乐！

reunion.dinner

you got back in time, arrived at 2pm and the reunion dinner is not started till 6pm.  flight was delayed a bit from berlin, nonetheless you're still ahead of time, to off load your luggage, do the dirty laundry and load your luggage with clothing for next week.

the original plan was a dinner cook up by your mil, but she has been suffering from discomfort foot and it's also coincide with your sil birthday, so it's a double happiness or two celebrations in one occasions.

 peking duck

 steamed scallop

 soup

 lobsters

 chicken dish

abalone mushroom braised mustard green

 mini "pun choy" that doesn't resemble the original pun choy, it's more qualified as a clay pot dish in your opinion

the dinner lasted from 6pm to 10pm, a lengthy one with many dishes.  at the end a tired you, yes, tired from whole week of travelling, tired from waking up extremely early in the morning because you want to check out the park of "no worries" (another story), tired from an hour delay of the flight. tired from lack of sleep....

tonight you just come to realization that despite the same festival - chinese new year, it's celebrated in a totally different way by chinese from different countries and backgrounds. tonight you come to realization that you indeed married to a cantonese family, and celebrating this festive the cantonese way! you love your life, your life have cultural diversity!

::potsdam::

it's been a long journey but you arrived.

thursday was your first full day in potsdam. the training was held in the hotel so you have plenty of time to sleep in and enjoy your breakfast before you start.

with off site training, you are spoiled with endless choices of lunch and tea breaks. the samolina pudding is very good, so as the bite size eclair and cream puff.

your afternoon tea break, a black coffee with a mini donut...

your current company has a very strong masculine presence in the sense that most employees are male, at least in europe. you were glad you are not the only lady in the class.  it's 18:2 including two instructors.

class ended early, so you check out the old town, which is just a nice stroll away

 lovely eatery, you wonder who will sit outside at this time or in fact during the entire winter

it started to snow again while you're strolling through the old town, the snow's light, flowing very slowly from the sky...

the window display of the vintage or curious shop

beautiful restaurant located at the corner of the old town, it took awhile to locate and you're glad you find it.  a bit to feminine to the guys but you insisted and they joined you...

 there's not much of choices on the menu, it's probably only 3 choices for each category - starters - mains - desserts.  for your starter, you chose chicken liver. it's glazed with chocolate, cinnamon and raspberry reduction

 your mains - rabbit rolled with herbs, broad beans and gnocchi. lovely dish but you couldn't finished your plate... you love how the restaurant decorated the dish with dried flowers and herbs.. it's indeed very feminine

your glass of riesling, you actually wanted to refrain from alcohol but the chicken liver is quite rich that you have to wash it down with white wine, so you did have your portion - a glass. it's indeed a lovely evening in germany with french inspired food.

from here, a couple of them went into this pub for further drinking. the healthy ones (including you) headed back to the hotel for a workout session.  for you that's swimming and for other, that mean sauna session or a gym workout.

::spring::festival::greetings::春::节::

it may be a few day earlier, but you just want to take the opportunity to wish everyone who celebrate a very happy chinese new year.

 you baked quite a lot of cookies because the longer you're away, the more you yearn to celebrate the spring festival, the south east asian way.  you know it will never be the same again even if you got the chance to go back during this period, both your parents are now return to the Lord, it's just never going to be the same again.

 but at least you can still create and bake these cookies, which frankly speaking is only the norm for singaporean and malaysian. it's not even something that other countries - hong kong, china, taiwan are used to...

you just do it because it's a reminisce of the festival, of the good and jolly time. and you try to tag each photo with some chinese auspicious words

your very first attempt of ostmanhut jelly (桂花糕), it's not photogenic in this plate and under the room light. you used a fish mould, so it does look like a scary fish, whilst in reality it's really quite pretty if you put it in a white serving plate, it's golden and clear where you can see the ostmanhut flowers and goji  clearly.

happy chinese new year if you don't at the chance to post anything until saturday which is already the eve of new year.

gong xi fa cai 恭喜发财!

p/s: scheduled post. you're very close to a place called "no worry", guess where?

::gelato::

craving for gelato on a cold wintry night. well, it happens sometime....

you drop by here after you are done with your ramen at tonkotsu.  just a block away after all.  it's empty when you arrived

 gelupo has some peculiar taste of gelato. in your cup you had sicily blood orange (citrus), rhubarb crumbly (sweet), ricotta and sour cherry (milky)

 again, it's too big the portion for your sweet life, sometime you wish you could share this with someone and not trash the half eaten gelato away.

 the corner where they sell all the product of italy, may be specifically product of sicily, you wasn't sure as you didn't really take a look at them

the ice cream cart is interesting, you can imagine this cart in action out on the street and your memory travel to the ice cream cart back home where they will ring the bell and you know the ice cream man has arrived the neighborhood and you will ask your mum for small cash and run out to buy a popsicle to quench your thirst. the one in your memory is not gelato for sure, and years later you are now here enjoying your sweet portion.

p/s: scheduled post as you are travelling and will only arrive your destination very late in the evening.

vietnamese.bun

it's very windy in london even though it's sunny and when the sun is gone, it becomes extremely cold in the evening.

you didn't venture far today, just took a bus to shoreditch, a short bus ride to a strip full of vietnamese cafes, small eateries and restaurants.  a very vibrant area that looks almost like little vietnam.

 spicy soft shell crab as starter, it's deep fried and not spicy at all besides a few slice of red chili

 your main, a super-size bun, it's not the bread bun. it should be pronounced as mung  a sort of cool vermicelli salad with grilled pork and spring roll.

the sourish sweet dipping sauce.  needless to say, you couldn't finish your bun, just too much for one you.
your work is picking up, you can imagine next week will be very busy and it will go through march.  you just need to remain very focus to get to the finishing line. as for this week, you'll be done with london as of tomorrow and heading to another city to attend a long overdue training.
let's just hope the weather will be kind to you in three cities, for you need to transfer at another city and by the time you reach your end destination, it will be 10pm in the evening. it's not idea but that's part of the jet set package.

return.to.tonkotsu

back to london again.  this week you will be officially billable and hence the workload will pick up in no time. the client decided to impose a ban and will deny our access to the system outside of the client's office.

you're not sure if this is a good move, but that steer you clear from work as soon as you step out of that office. or you will be force to stay longer in the office to get things done.  it's not ideal and you certainly made it clear to your management that you will only work four days in london and fifth day from home. if the situation is not sorted, you will just work four days in the project.

tonight you venture out for a bowl of ramen, at tonkotsu in soho.  you been there once, love the ramen but not the side dishes. tonight you came for a bowl of tonkotsu ramen, rich and creamy soup without any artificial flavoring. the portion is not super big, just about right for you as you have plan to feast on gelato after the meal ^^.

and a 175ml honjozo sake, you had yours warm way since the weather is still chilly cold, and windy too.

braised.duck

you've been on the foodie mood. somehow the festive and the food has led you down the memory lane of no return. you are not deprive but reminisce. you try to create the atmosphere and the food that you once forgotten but they come back to you slowly and surely.

one of the must have dish for chinese new year back home and back then was braised duck (打卤鸭), in your dialect it's called "pa lo ark", you remember your mum will always ask you to pound the galangal ginger and somehow you developed certain allergy and your hands usually numb and red for a period of time after touching the galangal yet you love to eat the braised duck that full of the scents of five spice in combination of the galangal ginger.

this is probably the darkest duck dish and you love the egg that braised along side the duck. it's all great and gets even better the next day and it's best to eat the gravy with rice porridge.
those were the day, it has long gone and you have totally forgotten the taste of reunion dinner at home. not that you don't observe the occasion anymore just that the dishes served in lowland are never the same.

you couldn't wait for dinner, so while he's busy, you had a taste of the braised egg and the sauce with the leftover noodles from a day before.

braised duck teochew style, not too photogenic but taste almost similar to the one you last had at home and the only difference is the quality of the galangal ginger and the duck. you didn't get any allergy reaction while and after handling the ginger. good in a way, bad may be the ginger didn't give enough gingery taste and fragrance in the duck. and the dark.

today had a long day at the church, the sermon (matthew 19:21) talked about going through the needle's head an illustration of the fact that if you want to enter through the needle's head, you have to priority what is important and matters to you, be willing to let go as the door is already small, your burdens and baggage will not get through with you via that small entrance. God wants you to release your earthly ties easily so that He can bring you through the gate of His plan and Glory and the moment you let go of those bond, God Himself will pull you into His glorious kingdom and plan.  simple truth, profound and it requires a lot of courage to put into practice.

good night, tomorrow is another early day for you and a long week too!

lemon.grass

saturday is somehow sunny and breezy.  your home errands completed just past noon hour so as your experimental with duck was done around the same time.  he came home and suggested us to go to a cafe for chilling. well, just a mean to relax on a not so busy saturday afternoon. you pick your choice, he didn't like that cafe cum shop that selling brugges chocolate, so you both settle to this place.

 not a cafe but this is situated at the old harbor of scheveningen where parking is free and easy, and you walk in to lemon grass.

as you can see, this establishment is specializing in wines and good food.  excellent food in fact, but you only ate here for the lunch, never come here for dinner.

 you wanted to go high wine menu (where six different wines will be serve with accompany small bite), sort of high tea, only you get savory courses with wine.

 but he disagreed @.@. sigh!

so you had this, the one and only cake served at that hour, a hot chocolate cake. it's yummy only it tasted like anything else but not chocolate.  it has a lot of spices in the cake, really take you through a journey but not chocolaty.

and the relaxing afternoon took a different course when a friend of his called up, and you have to quickly finish your drinks (coffee in this case) and off for grocery shopping as friends are popping over for an impromptu dinner.

and it's first of february already, time definitely flies in the speed of glimpse.