Back from the Cruise!! :D :D :D :D :D

I am back to Orlando, FL after a 3 days cruise to the Bahamas!! :D You can tell by the ":D" on the title that I am extremely happy! :D heheh

But tired. :D

We will be flying back to SFO in about 16 hours. :D

三袋同堂 :D 3 bags!

Heheh. These are the bags I was carrying to visit my best friend, Liza this weekend. :D

From left to right: my tote bag, laptop bag and finally camera bag. :D I was ridding the ferry from San Francisco Pier to Sausalito this Saturday. It was such a relaxing 1/2 hour ride to the Marin County.

The ferry was quite packed here on the top deck which was an open deck. I would have gone up to the front if I wasn't too afraid of the sun and the wind. :D

I saw this structure as our ferrie approched the Sausalito pier. If I didn't remember wrongly, this was where Liza's wedding banquet was held back 5 years ago. :D

I am finally back to Mike's place now. So tired. It's not that bad feeling kind of tiredness, it's a relaxed kinda tiredness I am experiencing right now.

Tomorrow is gonna be a chill out day at home. Will update some more about the weekend then. :D

Stuffed Eggplants with Minced Lamb :)

I like to try cooking a new dish every time I come to my vacation cabin (Mr. MonkeyMan's house). :D

I love eggplants. Since my mom is allergic to it, our family avoids it at home for my mom's sake. :)  So now that I am on vacation, I decided I should treat myself a delightful eggplant meal. :D

Mike got home this pack of lean lamb meat, so I figured I'd stuff them in the eggplant. Lamb is also one of my favorite meats. I especially love the unique lamb flavor. :)

I have made enough to serve 3 people. :)

Ingredients:
3 eggplants
a large onion
a bunch of button mushrooms
a bunch of tomatoes
a bunch of cilantro
a bit of garlic
a pack of mutton
a handful of love :D
salt and pepper to taste

How to cook it:

1. chop onions and garlics into fine bits
2. chop the tomatoes, cilantro and mushrooms into chunks
3. brown the onions and garlics in olive oil, then mix in the meat together in pan
4. throw in the tomatoes and mushrooms and mix with the meat mixture
5. while the above is cooking in the pan, hollow out some of the eggplant meat to form a bowl shape for holding the mixture later.
6. throw in the egg plant meat in the pan too. We don't want to waste anything here
7. throw in cilantro just before turning off the heat
8. season it with some freshly grounded pepper (since we don't really eat salt anymore, but you can add some salt to taste of course)
9. when all is mixed and 80% cooked, scoop the meat mixture into the eggplant bowls
10. place the eggplants into baking dish and pour water or beef/chicken stock with a bit of olive oil which almost covers the eggplants.
11. cover the food in tin foil and bake for 45 minutes to an hour until the eggplants soak up the stock and tenderized.
12. Serve on plate with forks!

Isn't it a perfect little eggplant ship carrying a bunch of delightful lambs ready to sail into my tummy? :D

I love kitchen gadgets :D

I love kitchen gadgets. :D If you got the right ones, it would greatly assist you in the kitchen. :D I am not saying they are necessary, I am just saying I like them. :D


The other day, Mike and I went to shop for fruits. There's this favorite fruit store of ours that has some fruit related tools. :D Since we are avid cherry lovers, naturally, we have to get a cherry pitting tool! :D

I just couldn't resist the cuteness of the design.

It works quite well, but there are a few misses and nearly broke Mike's teeth! :D So I end up have to cut every pitted cherries in 1/2 to make sure they have no seeds remaining.

I made the cherries into a fruit salad which was so sweet and yummy. :D

Cherries, avocados, plums, mangoes and bananas salad. :D

Crab Crazed Meals! :D

I am such a lucky woman, being in SFO for barely just 4 days, and I already had 2 types of crabs! :D Crabs being one of my favorite sea creatures, I am living in heaven. :D

2 kinds of crabs were served throughout 2 days. :D

We got these king crab legs at Costco. The Costco near home in Sunnyvale was disappointing, but it redeemed itself by selling these giant crab legs. :) This was an awesome dinner for Sunday. :)

Just to show you how large these legs are, I put the 'forearm' whole chunk of meat in the very common Chinese bowl. :D You can imagine how long these legs are. It was just too damn good! :D What is that light yellow sauce in the bowl? It's the Japanese crab vinegar. The vinegar complimented the meat perfectly.

Then, Monday, I went to the Pier 39 by myself as a real tourist and got the dungeness crabs home for dinner. :)

I got 2 precooked crabs. It seems the seller only boiled them with nothing else added to it. These crabs are huge! The pink bowl is like at least 15 inches wide :D and it barely fit the crabs :D

I made Mike my scale model again :D hehe Again, it's huge!! :D

Wow! These were so much better than the king crab legs!! I mean king crab legs were good too coz it's really meaty and easy to get to the meat. The king crab's meat was fresh and a little bit sweet. :) But these dungeness crabs were more flavorful! Its meat has its natural ocean flavor and it didn't need any crab vinegar to make it taste better.  Also, it has the crab fat/mushy green glue :D hehehe.. That's the best part of these crabs!!! :D I can't even describe it :D

These 2 meals satisfied my cravings for crabs for a long while! :D

Sunnyvale Art & Wine Festival 2010

Since Mike and I had this craving for our favorite Thai coconut seafood soup, we headed to Downtown Sunnyvale this afternoon for lunch.

Just so happened, without our prior knowledge, there was the Sunnyvale Arts & Wine Festival being held in the area.

I am crazy about street fairs and festivals and farmers' markets. :D So naturally, we side tracked and walked around the fair a bit before we ate.

It's amazing! :D It seems everybody living in Sunnyvale had come here today! :D  I have never seen Sunnyvale Downtown being this crowded before. :D

We didn't stay for very long because the sun was grilling our scalps. Well I actually bought a giant straw hat there, so I was fine. :D But Mike doesn't have one, so we left before he got cooked. :D

This is the lovely straw hat I got. I was gonna get a black one, but Mike suggest to get something lighter color coz black attracts lots of heat, black is not a color for the Bahamas. :D Being a smart woman, I of course listen to his clever advices. :D

Just to show you how large is the hat! :D It covers my shoulder too. Having experience the Hawaii sun burn a few years back, I am smarter this time to get a bigger hat.

Other than straw hat, we both bought some glass sculptures.  These are no ordinary glass figures, they are actually made with 24k gold too!

We got an elephant for my dad and a mouse for Mike :D These are fun to look at, the color changes under the light.

When in dark, it could turn completely gold due to the gold applied.

This is a card from the artist who sculpted these glass arts. :)

There are some more samples the artist sells:

I especially like the roses there.

Taipei Airport's Decorations

I have been to Taipei airport multiple times now. I must say that it's not a very exciting airport to be in. It doesn't look very modern and it doesn't have free wifi like HKG.

Due to its expansion/renovation, the intruction to the connection gate is not very clear. Although I asked somebody at the airport and got the general direction to where my gate was, it was still quite scary when there is no sign confirming you are on the right track.

Anyways, after I reached my gate (D4) I was overwhelmed by a sea of umbrellas hanging from the ceiling. It was the most welcoming scene at this boring terminal.

There are hundred of these umbrellas there! It was impressive. After reading the banner, these umbrellas are from a competition (possibly drawn by school kids).

I couldn't possibly take pictures of every one of them, so  here are my favorites :)

Arrived at my vacation cabin! :D

Just to let you, my friends, know that I safely arrived at Sunnyvale! :D

The flight was as awful as it can be, which included:

• vomiting neighbors,
• switching seats
• turbulence every hour or so
• no personal entertainment unit in front of seat!
• low salt meal, although healthy, taste kinda bland :P

I am dead tired now. :D Will write tomorrow :D

HKG - The best airport in this universe :D

I am waiting for my flight for my annual 3-weeks journey to SFO. :D

I must reliterate that in my opinion, HKG airport is the best in this world.. well... among all those I have travelled to, this is the best! :D

Not only does it provide free wifi for travellers, you can now find yourself sitting quite comfortably at its recharging station too!

However happy I am feeling right now, I don't find too many of these as I walked along the gates. This one I am using is at gate 31, where my flight is gonna be. :)

After a bit of search, I read that there are actually 36 stations like this one.  For such a large airport, I think it needs at least 100! :D Next time you in HKG international airport, look for these lovely stations. :)