Peter Cat blogs

Food.

A weekend is always more fruitful if we try to cook something. Last weekend we up the ante from the usual rice and chicken soup to something a little fancy, something like druken chicken.

This is the recipe by Sandy Lam, the Hong Kong singer. When we made this, we added enough salt for one whole chicken when we only cooked half a chick. Expectedly it is terribly salty. In the end we had rice and chicken and tonnes of water to keep water retention at bay.

You need:

one chicken 600g
spring onion 2 stalks, knotted
ginger, 5 slices

marinade:

Hua Diao Jiu (chinese cooking wine) 2 cups
salt half cup

How to:

1. Place the chicken (i scald it first), spring onion and ginger into a boiling pot of water, with enough water to just cover the chicken. Cook for 20-25 minutes on low heat.
2. Remove the chicken and plunge it into cold water with a tbsp of salt. Remove when the chicken has cooled. 
3. The soaking marinade: Sieve 3 cups of the soup the chicken is cooked in. Add half cup salt, 2 cups of cooking wine. Allow to cool to room temperature.
4. Soak the chicken into the soaking marinade fo 8hrs. (i let it cool in the fridge overnight)
5. Remove the chicken and allow it to dry.
6. Cut the meat up and serve. 

Let me know how yours go.

it looks a bit like a science experiment

store version, best served cold

no matter how crowded the train is, the coloured reserved seats are usually unoccupied

in the train stations, there are signs educating the public on cell phone etiquette

and,

to sit on the seats (when one feels unwell) meant for the elderly, disabled, pregnant etc, one should get a sticker from the control station. By default a normal passenger is not supposed to sit on these designated seats,unlike here.

Instead of getting up (or not at all for those who need it more) it should not be sat on at all! I think it is a great idea. It is so progressive and gracious a society where the young purposefully ignore the old/disabled/pregnant in dire need to rest while commuting.

According to her website, artist Shannon Gerard aims to spread awareness of early detection of  the cancer of the breast and the penise. 

This ‘project  initiates conversations about our bodies and confronts the idea of human frailty.’ through soft crochets. Pretty cool!

Source: http://shannongerard.org/index.html

And there is more to crochet than to comfort, to beautify and to propagate causes; came across this site some time back while i googled for crochet ideas and patterns. This site is called the

counterfeit crochet project (critique of a political economy).

It started in 2006 when the founder gather like-minded artists to counterfeit designer bags using crochet and to wear them - the ‘blatantly homemade knock-off bag’ perhaps mocking the bizarre piracy of designer bags in Asia and the huge demand for good forgeries!

souce: http://www.counterfeitcrochet.org/index.html

if you like these, you will like:

http://www.extremecraft.typepad.com/
http://www.foundshit.com/

Like a child i am so happy to be flying the Singapore Airlines.

it will be cold in the streets, down NANJING LU, the uncouths will inadvertently be spitting, no national campaign to deter this nasty habit.

There will be plays, a trip to Moca, plenty of eating with Tommy dearest and hopefully a crooning sesion and some kneading on my back. At the end of the seven days, i would slump into my comfortable seat in the plane, be pampered with too many movie channels and stuffing myself silly  flying the 5 hours 35 minutes home to terminal three.

Bliss.

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memories of Shangahi 2006 & 2007
(it’s been 2 years!)

tommy’s home deco

austere dining flying a China carrier fr Xiamen

and some picts taken from previous trips to Shanghai which I aim to recap…

Overdose on Yonghe!!

having too much good food with Tommy Soo

Dining at Quanjude, the best place to eat Peking Duck in China!

 playing cards, watching tv, play dress-up with tommy and jay!

& indulging in some home-cook food by Tommy. This is his speciality

Prowlers of the night comes out to ZOUK only moments before midnight, perhaps to catch the last precious minutes before the end of the Happy Hour. The taut of youth, the hopeful faces unstained by disdain and body unbulged by aging dance precariously on the dance floor.

When you are packed like sardines, the concept of personal space disappears and intoxication helps the human kind connect by mere blinks of the eye and suggestive bodily movements. I have always been fascinated, what change? People usually cant stand anyone standing too close and scrutinise base on face value. How does a darkened room, a disco ball, special lightings, some alcohol and skimpy outfits conspire to bring strangers together? Bad lighting and cheap drinks, perhaps? There are no ugly women, they say. Blinding darkness must help too.

Regulars bounced on platforms on Wednesday night in synchronised movements moving to the hits of the 80s. It was so intoxicating to watch that I kept giggling. A crowd makes me uncomfortable but i dissolved totally into this sea of stramgers. Swallowed, i felt safe to indulge.

Zouk still delivers; even though we left before ‘Dancing Queen’, if it was eventually played.

The morning after, hair unshampooed,  i crave for fishball noodles and juice.

One of my earliest aspirations is to travel. there is something magical about going to a foreign land, and that surrogate country is but the starting point of someone else’s dream to venture somewhere entirely. In that final destination, someone is saving up to leave, even if it is momentarily.

Taipei was dark and grey, and it smells dank and wet. The typhoon has brought the rain that pours over the grey brick city of so much history, strained under its political entanglement with the mainland. The city orderly, disciplined, the street vendors shrewd, unsmiling. It reminds me of Shanghai, of Singapore where there are so many people, only money can make one stand out in the crowd, looking down and over the mass mob. Skyscrappers with the highest building title draws in the tourists until another city built yet another taller building.

misery is cyclical.

It is time to leave the cities, to places where there is space between you and me and i dont mean the concrete slabs that separate us. where the air smells free and where the earth yields fruits and flowers not carparks and malls. where the emptiness confronts you, where you can no longer find an excuse to fallow and follow.

We landed in Taipei with very little expectations. Typhoon is looming, set to arrive in a couple of days and the rain well, just keeps falling incessantly.

The determined tourists in us are unwilling to stay in the warm cosy rooms and so we venture out right after checking in:

Day one- Shilin Night Market

Just north of Ximending, we change to the red line and alighted at JIANTAN Station. The Shilin night market and food centre is just across the road.

in-laws enjoying a visual feast of the Shilin night market

Despite raves, doubt that i will ever put a morsel of this in my mouth!

Day two- CKS Memorial Hall, Taiwan Storyland

Chiang Kai Shek Memorial Hall (hourly changing of the guard in progess- note the size!)

Taiwan Storyland

By Day three, the winds have moved south, brushing past Taiwan and the glorious sun finally shows its face, however brief.

National Palace Museum, Danshui, Longshan Temple, Hua Xi Night Market

Outside the must-visit Palace Museum

Danshui

Longshan Temple

Dining outside Huaxi Street Night Market

Day four- Wu Fen Pu, Taipei 101

Wufenpu wholesale centre- come after 2pm!

Taipei 101

Day five- day trip to Martyrs Shrine, Yangmingshan, Yehliu & Jiu Fen

Yours truly at Yangmingshan

Yangmingshan

Queen at Yehliu

Day six- Sun Yat-Sen Memorial hall, MOCA (Museum of Contemporary Art), SPOT (for independent films) & shopping

Sun Yet-sen Memorial

MOCA- Museum of Contemporary Art, Taipei

Day seven- home sweet home

visit my travel blog for detailed blog entry: http://jocrossing.livejournal.com/3379.html

Next stop, Shanghai!

i am quite happily counting down to Taipei. Come this Sunday afternoon I would be flying EVA with beau and his parents (some of the nicest, well-adjusted people i know) to the city of Taipei!

Yet my first encounter with this exiled land (somewhat, dont you think?) is flawed when i went there almost 10 years ago for work with my Israeli bosses and i stayed all alone in this apartment with a huge balcony that beckons a freak accident from the 14th floor. Initially i was dancing around the apartment cos it is all so big and exotic- old-fashionably furnished- dark oriental furnitures, kitchen, 2 bedrooms blah blah. After our little adventure to Shilin Night Market, the room turned a shade into scary as night falls, and horror shows start appearing on my screen. Just before i can fall asleep, the tv screen turned to a lumi blue, and even turned off once by itself!  Freaked and alone in a foreign city= big scary experience (there were tears) I bolted with my wallet and passport (a girl scout at heart) i spent the rest of the night in the lobby. The next day having hardly slept, i had the attention span of a 2 year old and looking like the Bride of Frankenstein, we flew to Kaoshiung. I was so happy to leave!

So Taipei was akin to Sadako-land, until now.

10 years on i am determined to put the bad experience behind and determined to milk the destination for all its worth, poring over travel brochures, tourism websites and travel blogs. I believe all the dumplings, ah-ger, oyster omelette, mee suah, coagulated pig blood, mango ice, stewed meat rice and beef noodles i am gonna eat will exorcise the creepy unpleasant experience.

Till then…

Perhaps the greatest love story ever told was the introduction of this Thai horror flick that combine the winning formula of a love story combined with the supernatural element of afterlife.

The Plot:
Set during the warring years, Nang Nak was a simple and beautiful village girl with a haunting secret. While her husband went to war, she had died in labour and her pain and attachment to her husband grounded her spirit, keeping her in the mortal world, decaying and vindictive. But waiting. He returns and they continued living together with their baby, still so much in love but their neighbours moved away and he started to hear things about his wife being dead…

During my first encounter with this film, it was solely a love story that transcended death. It was beautiful in a ghastly fashion, the old-fashioned love story that wasnt so commonly told anymore, in an era where love is as complicated as life.

With my deepened awareness of Buddhism (somewhat), this movie has evolved into a story about the ramnifications of earthy attachment and the suffering that comes along with it. Its deeper lessons are not lost on me this time round. Mortality is limited which translates to the inevitability of death and thus suffering. Perhaps then death becomes not that scary, no matter how nihilistic our beliefs are on the expiration of mortality, because it can, like in the book ‘Tuesdays with Morris’ forces us to imagine the scenario of a bird perched on our shoulder daily and we asking ‘Is today the day i die?

And in the context of ‘Nang Nak’, her deep unyielding love for her husband kept her in a state of limbo, confined to the realm in between living and the dead. It is only with their coming to terms with her passing that her suffering can end.

Over the past five days, i took a short holiday to spend some quality time with my sis, together with Betty her friend, and Alice in Bangkok. It was scorching hot, and the air is severly polluted, such as such that i can feel my skin getting torched, feeling raw to the touch by evening after a day out.

The sunglass becomes a necessity, and so is the hat yet the trip is enjoyable on many levels, the most obvious being the extremely warm thai hospitality and fail-safe thai food.

We stayed in Pratunam, in the Best Western Mayfair Suite which is charming but a little far out, making commuting by cab or tuk tuk a must rather than a luxury. It is literally a 10-15minutes walk in, up Phetburi Soi 13, past shops and massage parlors, some construction sites and residences. When it rains, you can see people walking almost knee deep in the pool of rain water.

Day one Saturday- Landed in Suvarnabhumi Airport in the afternoon after some delay on Air Asia. It was a madhouse queuing up to check-in in Changi Airport, meaning they would definately lose me as a customer. After checking in, we decide to brave the rain with a tuk tuk ride out to Partunam to shop in the spanking new Platinum Mall. It is indoor, air-conditioned and sell a wide array of wares.

Day two Sunday- Chatuchak. Best shopping experience in Bangkok! The only way to distact one from the heat is to stay focused on the shopping, which aint hard at all! I suck at bargaining and ended up buying only one top and some gifts. It doesnt help that most clothes are made for the petite! By six, Dana and I had wolfed down 2 coconut ice-cream and copious litres of coconut juice. (best to enter Chatuchak near the MRT station, and shops closer to the train stations are atas and you get more quality = pricey ware)

Day three- Wat Pho and massage. Temple of the Reclining Buddha seated next to the Grand Palace. The visit ended with a keen and effective kneading session by the professionals that felt oh so gooooodddd. Followed by a torturous journey to Yaowaran/ Chinatown. The market is an endless alley of shops, make-shift stores, hawkers selling food with a charcoal burner on their push-cart making their way precariously through the crowds. Dined at food loft which serves pricey but really delicious food. Worth every baht.

Day four- Floating Market and Ayuthaya. It costs a total of 250 Baht excluding tips to be ferried by cab to and fro 2 destinations and back to the hotel. The floating market, abt 10km outside Bangkok is an obvious tourist trap but a highly enjoyable one. Had really yummy carrot cake and noodles sitting in a boat!

This is my second trip to Ayuthaya and enthralling still. The UNICEF site is a must for any visitor to see the Thai capital before Bangkok. Day ended with a walk in Silom- Patpong. It is a thrill to see girls cladded in not much and pimps pestering you to see ping pong shows! The bad air is getting to me by then, my eyes tired and irritated all day.

Day Five- Erawan Shrine in front of Grand Hyatt Erawan, Tuptim Shrine at Swissotel Nai Lerk, and 3D movie experience in Siam Paragon! At the airport, we walk from the boarding gate into the waiting bus, into the rain, up the ramp into the plane. At that moment I was home sick for a full-fledge carrier.

One more week to Taipei!!!

(For more picts and notes, click here: http://jocrossing.livejournal.com/3203.html)