October 2010 Archives

Anyway, I used my Minolta SLR for the very first time and failed miserably. When I was done, I rewound the film as usual, but the whole roll of film popped out of the cassette =__= I didn't know, so I pretty much exposed the whole roll to light. The result was only 5 shots...


The rest looks like THIS. Yeah, pretty old and undeveloped.


Something interesting I saw on campus the other day.. Because it was raining really hard, I thought the lettuce was used to soak up water. Apparently not. It was for storage.. Weird huh?


A photo of Michel & Andy shopping downtown. P.S. I think Andy really looks like my mom.


Andy :)


Downtown street food stands.


Ahmed & I went with Steve to get a PC the other day. We went to this really cool electronics department store that had a DIY floor. You basically order the different parts that you want, and they set it up in front of you for no charge.


Downtown again with Katelyn.. We go about once a week only since it's pretty far.


Celebrating Ford's birthday at hotpot :) In China, if it's your birthday apparently you have to pay for everyone. I guess I won't be having a huge party in December... Hahaha.


Group shot :)


Group shot of us before playing a war game :D

Since it's been so cold, I've been knitting again! Yarn is much cheaper here, so that's basically how I've been spending most of my nights. TV and knitting! Here are some projects I've been working on in the past couple of weeks:

I saw a similar scarf on sale and decided to copy the pattern. Really simple, but it gives a cool woven effect.

Simple moss stitch.


Cable scarf.


Gonna make another post very soon about the English speech contest that happened last week. It's important so it deserves it's own post :) Later!

Way back in time when I had.. too much on my hands, my sister and I made a bunch of hand-drawn pixel emoticons. These date back to early 2006 and they're just sitting on my hard drive. So here goes, feel free to use them wherever you want. They're 100% original though, so please credit! Enjoy :)

Box emoticons
                               

                               
download all here

Candy
                   
download all here

Nail polishes
                           
download all here

Food
                     
                   
download all here (the last one is animated!)

Other
                       

download all here
or, download ALL emoticons here

Noodle soup! Though the rice noodle on the left is rumored to be made of... plastic!? I heard that from a couple of students and I've refused to eat it ever since. Speaking of plastic.. The bowl on the right is wrapped with a plastic sheet so the restaurant doesn't have to wash it afterward.

Street food! There are a bunch of stalls on campus, mostly Taiwanese and Korean snacks. They're pretty cheap, usually about 2RMB for a portion.


Street food off campus! Yummy squid balls :)


We also have hot pot once in a while. It's perfect for the cold weather. Again, it's quite cheap (usually about 10RMB per person) and it's awesome. The sauces that they use for dipping are thicker and saltier than the kind I'm used to back at home. My favourite is simple - soya sauce mixed with a freshly cracked egg. Too bad they don't do that here :(


Some dishes on the... higher end of things. We had an amazing meal as a treat from the Jilin province government. Each table cost 4000RMB, so 400RMB per person. :O Crazy. We had shark fin soup for starters! Mmm...


I had rabbit for the first time today! It tastes a bit like chicken, but the texture is similar to duck. To me, eating rabbit is like eating a cat or a dog... Hmm, maybe this is good prep for trying dog meat. Man... I wonder if I'll ever be brave enough to try it.

Hmm, well that's it for now. It's starting to get really cold already. It's -7c right now and it's only October :( Transportation here is pretty bad so I doubt I'll be going anywhere come winter. From what I can tell, my foreseeable future consists of eat, sleep, TV, teach and back to the beginning. Can't wait to pack on the pounds.......

One of the reasons Ahmed and I were so keen on going is because of its borders. It's an hour drive from Hunchun, which is a border city to both Russia and North Korea.
Here's a stunning panorama of Russia (left), the Japan Sea (middle) and North Korea (right).

Who knew the border of North Korea would look so beautiful?


I couldn't think of anything interesting to say about this photo LOL.


Random camel on a random desert near the border LOL.


Looks like a horse or a cow grazing on grass..


Then we saw ATVs! Man we were so excited.


Fun stuff! Now we can say we went ATVing on the border of North Korea hahaha.


I wish I had my DSLR so my photos could indicate some sort of movement :(


Whee! It surprisingly feels much less dangerous than driving a car. But I'm a pretty reckless driver, so.. =/


Vroom vroom! It's so much fun driving an ATV.


I love camels, they're so cute :)

Last but not least.. OMG, Korean food!! We had so much in the past week. Korean bbq is surprisingly not that cheap, almost on par to the prices in Canada.

Skewer restaurants were very popular.. They basically marinate the meat for you and you cook it yourself :D Kinda like Korean bbq.


Omurice! Haven't had this in years!


Kimbap!


Jajjangmyun!! My favourite dish in the whole wide world!

Bah now I'm really hungry! Finally back to school today.. I thought I'd be dreading it, but it was actually refreshing to get back on a real schedule. But now that our long holiday is over, I don't think we'll have many breaks left until the semester is over. I'd still like to travel though, so I'm thinking of re-scheduling some classes so I can get a 4-day weekend and go to Inner Mongolia or something :D I'll see about that!

Back from Beijing! The school gave us two weeks off for national holiday, so I decided to take a 5-day vacay with Ahmed and Katelyn. We were supposed to go to Xi'an too, but all the train tickets were sold out since everyone and their mother is traveling. We were sooo disappointed.. Tried to cheer ourselves up with........ McDonalds. Haha, typical me...

Day 1


They had a Korean-style grilled chicken burger! I thought it was so-so.


Spent our first night watching an acrobatic show at Chaoyang Theatre. I recommended it because I saw it back in '07 and I was amazed. This one wasn't as good.


Since it's a daily show, attendance wasn't so high. We paid for the cheapest seats but then moved up to the VIP area later on in the show :D


Had roasted duck at Dadong Roast Duck Restaurant. I swear, best in Beijing!


They gave us a corn-flavored icecream thing for dessert. I thought it was gross but my friends liked it.

Day 2

Spent early afternoon at the Forbidden City.
Ahmed and Katelyn being forced into posing for my photo LOL

 
Huge TVs at Tianamen Square to celebrate National Day.


Dinner again at McDonald's.. We're crazy no?


Checked out the night markets.. Scorpions anyone?


Met up with Kathy and her friend Tim for drinks and shisha.

Day 3

Us with drinks from a local teashop.. Omg I'm so addicted!

Ahmed and Katelyn at the Bird's Nest.


Me & Ahmed!


In front of the "J" entrance at the Bird's Nest.. LOL lame pose I know.

People outside of the Bird's Nest were selling army figurines that make shooting sound effects.. Pure jokes.


Dinner at a reaaaally good local restaurant that Kathy and Tim took us to.


Kathy kept raving about this "sour milk" drink that she really likes.. Sounded disgusting to us, but turns out it's actually a really good yoghurt drink.

Day 4

Booked a full-day tour for our 4th day in Beijing. Spent the morning at the Summer Palace.

Afterward, we drove up to the Badaling section of the Great Wall. It was freezing cold. We were so damn unlucky, every other day in Beijing was hot except for that one.


Here's Katelyn with her bunny from childhood :D She takes it everywhere with her while traveling. So sweet.


We're smiling here, but we were suffering on the inside so badly LOL.


A creeper shot.


Ahmed the 6th Backstreet Boy member... LOL.


Had desserts at Haagen Dazs! Yummmm.

Day 5

Spent our last afternoon shopping at Wangfujing. One last drink at Happy Lemon, my favourite tea shop! :(

Caramel pudding milk tea... Yum!

Yup, so that more or less summarizes my trip! On Thursday I'll be going to Yanbian with Ahmed, my student Steve and his friend. It's a Chinese city, but with a lot of Korean immigrants. It borders North Korea and Russia.. Really awesome! Can't wait to go to the border of North Korea once again, this time coming from the Chinese side :D

More on that later!