From Christmas to New Year Eve

Christmas Day:
Had Lo Mai Kai for dinner. After that, we went for the midnight mass at Metropolitan Cathedral which was broadcast on BBC radio. The choir was impressive and this time, so many people turned up for the event.

MIA 3D 3N
The day after Christmas, I went to Budapest for 3 days and 3 nights. I'll blog about the trip once I get the photos from B. I have only 3 words to describe Budapest: Cold, Salty, and Empty. You'll know what I am talking about in my entry on Budapest.

Back in Liverpool 30/12/08
The next day after I got back from my trip, I continued my travels around Liverpool, this time joining the troupe bringing G, a tourist from Canada around.

We went to buy the Mersey Ferries and Space Port tickets. There was a temporary exhibition on 'The Art of Doctor Who' at Space Port. While waiting for our ferry, we went around taking photos.

We went to St. Nicholas Church and saw this memorial which was made in memory of the Citizens of Liverpool and Bootle who lost their lives in the Blitz of 1940-42. How reliable is the sundial in winter and in this weather?

Finally, we boarded our ferry heading off to Space Port. The scenery on the boat were really lovely. It was so lovely that we even abandoned the nice warm sitting area indoors and spent all our time outside braving the cold strong wind taking photos.

Space Port was all about the galaxy, space ships, the International Space Terminal, how astronauts survive in space, etc. It reminded me so much of my childhood as once upon a time, I was fascinated about going into space, where I can brush my teeth up-side-down. Big fans of Dr. Who will enjoy the temporary exhibition.

It got dark so fast nowadays. By the time we took our ferry home, the sun has set. The extremely cold weather kept reminding me why was I still out in the cold after suffering such low temperatures for the last 3 days in Budapest when I was supposed to be hibernating in my warm and comfortable hideout under my duvet. But it was all worth it.

We had Nandos for dinner followed by Bedtime Stories at Odeon Cinema. How I wish I can create the future by telling bedtime stories! I will have a guinea pig named Bugsy as its eyes were so big, retire young and rich after winning the Nobel Prize in Medicine, have all the energy, time and money to travel around the world and maybe outer space. Ok, I was just dreaming.

For New Year Eve, we went down to Chinatown and city centre to hunt for ingredients for our NYE dinner. On the way, I did went off course and bought a few clothes. Hehehe.

Happy New Year!!! Hope that you will achieve most if not all your new year resolutions. May dreams come true in 2009.

Christmas Eve

I went down to town with M and K to get the ingredients for Christmas Eve dinner, but ended up bargain hunting. I didn't buy anything but M and K each found a few good offers.

We went to KFC for lunch. I ordered the closest thing they had to Malaysian food:

It's not bad. But I still miss Kajang Satay.

Christmas Eve dinner:

We had smoked salmon as starter. Main meal was whole roast chicken (at least it's a bird), stewed mutton (thanks to K), Brussel sprouts, carrots, baked potatoes and rice. Dessert was Haagen Dazs passion fruit sorbet.

I followed them to the Metropolitan Cathedral at 11pm for the midnight mass. The choir was really impressive and the whole mass was broadcast on BBC radio. I didn't realise that it was already Christmas until people started wishing me Merry Christmas while I was making my way out.

I can't believe I decided to continue watching a Singaporean drama entitled 'Just in Singapore' and finally retired to bed around 4am. I had a great time. Thanks a lot.

Merry Christmas and may 2009 be a great and exciting year!

Around Liverpool and Start of winter celebration

This time, being a tour guide was slightly more challenging as a car was thrown in as a means of transportation. YY and her parents plus SC, the nice senior who volunteered to drive them around visited me on Sunday.

Sorry for the lack of photos as 99% of them are in uncle's camera. I brought them to China town first and they had the same reaction I had when I first arrived. The arch was really impressive, but by the time we finished taking photos of it and walked down the humble two rows of unopened restaurants, we realised how small it really is. I even brought them to Chung Wah, the biggest Chinese supermarket in Liverpool. I remember in first year when my parents and sister came to visit, my father mentioned that he wouldn't be worried that I can't survive due to the amount of ingredients and instant noodles which are available.

Next, I brought them to a British vegetarian restaurant called 'The Egg'. I made them climb 3 floors up.

I ordered Humus, which is made from sweet pea. The portion was really big as well and I'm devastated to say that I was able to finish it.

Next, I brought them to Albert dock. We visited the usual attractions: Maritime Museum, Beatles Story, etc. Next was Liverpool One. YY bought a new pair of shoes as her old one was causing her pain.
After all the walking and shopping, I brought them back to my flat to rest. Of all times the lift is our of order, it must happen on Sunday. I felt really cruel to make them climb all the way up to the 4th floor.

Uncle and aunty treated me to dinner at Mei Mei chinese restaurant. I can only say that the world is so small. One of the waiter there was actually uncle's former student from Mentakap.

After wishing them a safe journey home, I rushed to M's flat to make Tang Yuan. It is a Chinese tradition to eat Tang Yuan to mark the start of Winter. The festival is called Dongzhi or Winter Solstice Festival.

I made all of the dumplings shown in the left upper picture, including the pyramids, cubes, starts, etc.

I didn't realise how easy it was to make Tang Yuan. It's just glutinous rice flour mixed with water and different food colourings. After rolling them into little balls (the traditional shape) or any shapes to your liking, boil them in water and add lots of sugar to the water.

Look how cute they are. If you can spot the up-side-down mushroom on the scoop.

From Sushi to Egg Tarts

We went down to China town to get the ingredients to make sushi for Saturday evening. On the way, we saw the cutest scene of nativity of Jesus.

The superlambanana version

Sushi making:

Basically, I did all of the egg frying and chopping of all the ingredients into smaller strips. I did roll some of the sushi as well. Had a great time eating the ends of the rolled sushi as they were not presentable. By the time I'd finished rolling, I was already full.

Sushi anyone?

Egg Tarts:

A meal is never complete without desserts. This time, it's egg tarts! They're really simple to make as well. You just need to follow the instructions carefully. The bakeries over here are earning so much! It's so much cheaper making your own if you have the time and motivation.

This is not the best time to start dieting. Seriously.

Cheese cake

I can foresee that this holiday is going to be very fattening. Not long after the curry puff fever, cheese cake fever started.

I helped my flatmate, E in making the 2nd cheese cake shortly after she's baked the first one. Reason being, it was her first attempt and it should be tasted by a professional food critic a.k.a. me. hehehe.

The making of the 2nd cheese cake:

I even dragged her to the shop at 8.30pm to get more ingredient.

1. Melt the unsalted butter
2. Pound the Digestives biscuits into crumbs
3. Add the melted butter into the crumbs
4. Lay it out on the base of the cake tin making sure that it's compact enough.

1. Separate the white from the yellow

2. Throw in the egg yellow, soft cheese, milk, and yogurt
3. Whip it with the mixer
4. Add in the flour after sieving it
5. Beat the egg white

6. Add it into the mix

Oven preheated to 175°C and bake for 15 minutes. After that, turn down the temperature to 125°C and bake for another 1 1/2 hours.

Tadaaah!

What is left of the 1st cheese cake. It's not going to last long

Next project will be halal Siu Mai as my flatmates had been requesting it for a long time but I've been too lazy to make them. I wonder how will the chicken version of Siu Mai taste. Wait till I make them first and I'll inform you of the outcome.

Curry Puffs - The Making

Initially, I was supposed to have my flatmate, A, supervise me through the whole process. However, due to some circumstances, she only left me with instructions and a packet of curry powder before she disappeared.

So, there I was, left alone in the kitchen on my maiden curry puff making journey which started at 8pm. There was never a need to know how to make curry puff in Malaysia as you can buy them everywhere. But over here, it's a different story.

1. Peel potatoes (30 minutes)

It'll take much longer if I didn't borrow the peeler.

2. Cut potatoes into cubes (40 minutes)

I am a sloth when it comes to cooking. It was quite relaxing cooking on my own as I got to take my time and not be pressurised by anyone.

3. Defrost the ready made dough 1.5 hours before using

Easy to use but it's not the correct dought to make the authentic curry puff. I borrowed the mould from my flatmate as well.

Curry powder imported from Malaysia. One of the main reasons why my curry puffs tasted so good.

4. Peel onion and prepare to cry

British onions are huge. I just needed one.

5. Start crying for 15 minutes

as I chopped the onion.

6. Chop some garlic

About 4 cloves

7. Dilute curry powder in cold water

8. Stir-fry the onion in some oil

9. Throw in the garlic a while later when the onion is fragrant

10. Throw in the potatoes
I had to leave out some of the potatoes as I ended up cutting too many.

11. Add some pepper and Vegetable stock

I added some special ingredient as well. If you want to know, just highlight the words withint the semi-column with your mouse. ' I added two tablespoons of diluted coffee if you believe '

12. Simmer till the potatoes are soft

13. Hands onI cut the dought into smaller squares, place it in the mould, put some filling and then shaped them into mini curry puffs

14. First attempt

I baked them at 220°C for 15 minutes

The result. Not too bad.

Then I continued making the rest.

The shape looked original before baking

After -Do they at least look a tiny bit like curry puffs?

Failed attempts. Some of the curry puffs decided to open their mouth as it was too hot in the oven.

Around midnight, when I was seriously struggling through the last batch of curry puffs, M and C showed up to give moral support and encouragement. So nice of them. With that last boost of motivation I got from them, I huffed and puffed, and finally, got through my last batch of curry puffs.

Tadaaah! I'll give myself 4/10 for presentation and 9/10 for the taste. It does taste better than it looks. Sometimes I wish I can invent a device to record taste.

I wish I could offer some to you, but due to their popularity at the 4th year's Christmas Party at hospital, even the crumbs were not spared.

Thus, the 5 hour curry puff marathon ended at 1am. I still have some left over of the curry filling if anyone is interested.

Cinderella - the glass slipper cure to the unfortunate weekend

We started our afternoon by stopping by the Empire theater's ticket counter to see if we could get any last minute tickets for the pantomime - Cinderella. We were lucky that there were seats available.

We decided to settle our stomachs at the Christmas Market. Food that were on offer were:

Delicacy from Australia anyone?

Smelt really tempting, but in the end, I settled for....

German sausage! I guess the size of the German sausage do reflect the portion of the country we're in. It's definitely smaller in Germany and even smaller in Sweden.

That's the German sausage hut behind.

Finally, it's 20 minutes before the show when we started queuing up to go in. Since the previous episode, I'm making sure that I'm early for everything from now on. I seriously need to get myself a watch.

Very fancy backdrop.

The group which was supposed to be in a Gondola at that point in time.

Big happy "family"

It was my first time experiencing actors interacting with the audience. With all the dancing, singing and jokes, I enjoyed it all considering it was targeted towards a younger group of audience.

Anchor!!!! No, we didn't stand up and shout. Of course we'd remember to behave ourselves. It was a great Liverpudlian cast.

V, M and C (seorang kanak-kanak yang diculik untuk hujung minggu ini)

A production with high standards. Highly recommended if you're still young at heart.

After that, we went to R's house to chill out, order dinner and watch ' The Nutty Professor 2' and 'Hard Rain'. The television ended up entertaining the sofa and cushions as our attention turned to Youtube instead.

The place that we trashed that night.

I really liked the rocking chair without its legs. Can rock myself to sleep.

Our professional photographer, Dr. C.

The candid shot she took of me.

I guess that's enough to make up for the trip which I should have gone to. Let's just hope that I can blog about my trip to Budapest and not superimpose my own picture into backgrounds from Budapest like how I did to my 'Venice trip'.

Did you realise that it's my 100th post and it's a happy one!