Tuesday 22 July 2008

Finding the SuperLambananas


Another aim of my trip back to my hometown, was to track down some Superlambananas.

Another attraction for Liverpool, these superlambananas are sculptures of a cross of lamb and a banana. See pic. There are over 120 of these located around Liverpool. Each one has a different design painted by local artists and community.

My favourite superlambanana has to be the one near to my home. It has the local street map painted on it.

Whilst I was in Liverpool, I managed to spot around 10 of them. Apparently the Superlambananas move around the city, so they aren't in the same location. My mum told me that they are also rotated around from time to time. According to my mum, the one with the lips, was facing the traffic last week.

Me 'ometown Liverpool and Antony Gormley's Another Place


Just got back after a long weekend to my hometown, Liverpool. Had a really good weekend. Did a lot of sightseeing and spent time with my family.

One of the aims of the trip was to go and see the Anthony Gormley's Another Place. Just read that he s famous with the sculpture, 'Angel of the North'. 'Another Place' is a set of 100 cast-iron figures along Crosby beach. The beach itself isn't that special and like any beach, its got sealife, sand and water.

My hubby and I woke up at around 4am and drove to Crosby beach. I did not where this beach was nor where Crosby was, for that matter, I have never been to that part of Liverpool. Anyway we managed to find a parking area, after seeing a tourist sign for Anthony Gormley's Another Place. The sign led us to this residential/industrial estate. There were two parking areas, or empty tarmac areas. No-one was around, as we parked up still wondering if we were in the correct place. There is a little path leading us out to the beach. It was very windy but dry, so the walk up wasn't bad just no-one around.

The cast iron figures were all facing out towards to the sea. The tide was low and it was pretty dried out. The sky was starting to get light. We changed into our wellies and walked out onto the sand. There was a lovely feel to it. The sculptures looks very thoughtful and one thing which really got me noticing them is they were all male figures. Why Anthony?! The figures looks rusty and had these studs on the chest and butts. They are like the figures from the 'Matrix'.

I took plently of photos and with the sun about to rise, the sky became partially red, the lighting was very pleasant. It was worth waking up early for this!

Monday 21 July 2008

Remake of My Sassy Girl

I just found out that Hollywood has remade the Korean romantic comedy, My Sassy Girl and guess what they called it, yea...exactly My Sassy Girl.

I decided to watch the trailer on YouTube. My first impressions were, the female lead, Kim from 24, does not look as cute as Jeon Ji-Hyun. The male lead, Jesse Bradford, is more good looking than the Korean film male lead, Cha Tae Hyun. All the tricks and stuff in the American version is totally copied. Yep, totally stealing all of it! After seeing the Korean version, this Amercian remake looks boring, the replicated scenes doesn't look good. The whole film just looks like a very bad version of what Hollywood trying to get a slice of some Korean style of romantic comedy. This Hollywood romantic comedy looks crap!

I would highly recommend the original My Sassy Girl. By the way, I don't speak or understand korean, so I just watched the film with English subtitles. Anyway, I won't be watching this American remake.

Wednesday 9 July 2008

My cooking success!

Tonight, I attempted my first ever Korean dish, its the Korean Spicy Chicken and Potato (Tak Toritang). It was very tasty and so easy to make!

Here is a list of the ingredients:

4 chicken thighs
2-3 potatoes
2-3 carrots
1 onion
ginger
garlic
3 tablespoons of hot pepper paste (guchojang)
2 tablespoons light soy sauce
a splash of sesame oil
1 teaspoon of sugar
Around 60mls of water

Chop potatoes, carrots, onion into large chunks. Skin the thighs and slice flat and debone. Pan fry the thighs, ginger and garlic in vegetable oil over a medium heat till slight brown, then stir in the potatoes, onions, carrots. Add the hot pepper paste, light soy, sugar. Give it a gentle stir, then add water. Cook on a low heat for around 20 mins. The meat should be tender and the vegetables soft. Add the sesame oil just before dishing up.

Easy eh?! Yeah, it doesn't take much effort really! I will find more dishes to cook no matter the kind of cuisine, just want to cook more! :P Tonight's dinner was lovely!

Tuesday 8 July 2008

Dealing with a dried meat jerky!

If you are Chinese, you might know what getting a dried meat jerky really means! For those who don't know, a dried meat jerky is a parking penalty! I don' know why its called a dried meat jerky, but people tell me it's because the ticket is slapped on the windscreen of your car!

How did I end up with one of those?! This is the second ever meat jerky I ever got in my life!!! We were parked in Padstow car park, it was a pay and display. We got our ticket and I had put it on the inside dashboard, I didn't stick it on the windscreen! Anyway, the reason written on the ticket was, ticket faced down, unable to see it! It was raining most of the time and the ticket was there, faced up and so, I am not sure why I got a penalty. Was the warden blind or cannot be bothered to use his eyes to make out the writing?!

I will pay the fine of 20 quid, but this is not because I agree with it, I will be writing to the town clerk about this. Feeling peeved off! We'll see what response I get!

Monday 7 July 2008

Mini adventure to Padstow

This weekend, my hubby and I went to North Cornwall for a mini break, Padstow, to be exact. Our plan was to camp in a tent for a night and for the next two nights, stay in a bed guesthouse. I say, bed guesthouse instead of a B&B, its because there was no breakfast. The guesthouse is located in central Padstow.

Padstow is basically Rick Stein country, I am sure he owns half of the town. There is Rick Steins fish and chips shop, seafood cookery school, deli, gift shop, bakery, cafe and seafood restaurant. The guy must be minted. Anyway, I couldn't resist and ate at his fish and chips twice as well as at his bakery and even the gift shop, we bought a Rick Stein's apron. Very cheesy!

The weather was absurd, it literally rained all weekend. It was windy and wet and basically, any outside activities had to be abandoned. We couldn't go cycling, camping or have a barbe!

So what did we do?! We went to walk around Padstow and that lasted less than an hour, it was a small place. We ate at various places, such as the Old Customs House, Red Lion pub and all the RS places I mentioned earlier. We managed to drive to Bedruthen Steps, but it was so windy, it was too risky to be lurky by the cliff, so we had cream tea (scones with clotted cream and strawberry jam and earl grey!). That tea house does the best cream tea I've had.

We went to Golitha Falls, which was within Bodmin Moors. I heard that Bodmin Moors had the most hausted house in Britain, remembered watching some TV programme about this house. However we didnt see the house though. The falls were small and flowing, when we got there, the rain was heavy and it was a task getting to the falls. At one point, I almost fell down a hill (I was climbing up via a shortcut!). Anyway, some photos were taken and we headed back to the car by that point, we were both soaked, but luckily, I had waterproof trousers on and it kept my jeans underneath dry...those waterproof trouswers was one of my best purchases!

Whilst driving from Golitha Falls back to Padstow, we spotted an owl santuary, so the next day, we were there at the Screech Owl Santuary. OMG, they had loads of different types of owls, all so different and most of them are so so cute. Had a great time look at them and even got to fly a barn owl, Fluffy!

I didn't take any pics because I didn't have a memory card for my camera, totally oblivious that it takes a different kind of memory card to my hubby's camera!

Before we headed home, went to RS fish and chips to get some food, Haddock and chips and battered scallops. It was yummy, I can tell you that the scallops were so tasty!

After roughly a 5 hour drive, we were home to more rain and even thunder and lightening, how welcoming the british weather can be!

Wednesday 2 July 2008

Bun or Pho!

On Sunday, a couple of friends took us to a Vietnamese restaurant down East London. I have never tried Vietnamese food before and so I didn't know what kind of dishes they would serve. The most common dish is of course, the Vietnamese spring roll, but even then I had never tried the traditional spring roll!

For starters, we ate traditional spring rolls, which had cold shredded cucumber, carrots, meat, rice noodles, leek and rolled up with rice paper pastry. It was dipped in a hoi sin sauce with crusty peanuts. Also had traditional egg pancake, which is a large crispy egg omelete, but crispy and it had a filling of beansprouts, chicken, prawns, onions. Apparently its nice to put some mint leaves and lettuce and then dip it in some sweet chilli sauce. The final starter, was a rolled up leave with meat in. We are presented with a dish of lettuce leaves, a branch of mint leaves and pickled vegetables. We wrapped up these ingredients and ate it just like a peking duck and pancakes. It tasted so refreshing and tasty!

My main course was a raw steak and chicken pho, pronounced 'fur'. Pho is basically rice noodles in a bowl with vegetables and a nice soup base. There were slices of raw steak on the top of the bowl of noodles and you had to mix it into the soup, so the hot soup cooks the raw meat. The taste of the meat was tender and sweet. The soup was meat stock, I had put in raw beansprouts and mint into the bowl and so these vegetables made the whole dish taste fresh, crunchy and tasty.

My hubby had a 'bun', pronounced how it's spelt. Bun is a Vietnamese noodles salad ad the noodles is served cold. There were barbequed meat, some pork jerk stuff, cold shredded vegetables and he had to mix all this with the sweet chilli sauce. I must say that I prefer his dish! I liked the sweet and refreshing taste of the combined ingredients.

I learnt a lot about Vietnamese food and I think I will try to learn more when I go to Vietnam later this year. We are going to attend a cookery course there and so I will try and note down the kind of food they cook there and try and get some recipes fom the teachers. I might even try and bring back some dried ingredients which we cannot buy over here!

I concluded that I like Vietnamese food. The cuisine gives a refreshing, cool flavour to your taste buds and you are not eating too much coconut, chilli or just one type of ingredient, unlike other cuisines.

Next time when I go to eat Vietnamese food, I am not sure whether to pick a 'bun' or a 'pho'! At least I know what they are though!

Weddings

Today, I heard of good news from a good friend of ours that their daughter has just got engaged. I haven't checked my email for a while otherwise I would have know earlier. This friend is based in US and having never been abroad for a wedding, it would be lovely to have the chance to go and experience weddings abroad!

I have another wedding to go to this summer and its held by the River Thames. The marrying couple have arranged to boat their guests to the wedding reception. How lovely! I am looking forward to their wedding because I think they are a great couple! I have already a dress ready to wear for their special occassion and I will be bring my camera for lots of nice pics.

Tuesday 1 July 2008

Hot hot hot!

There is a reason for the title above, let me explain.

First, Hot. The weather today is 27C and very sunny and hot. It makes a change really because recently it has been raining a lot in London.

Second, Hot. I have just been to Costa Coffee. Our team sat outside and whilst other others were under the shade, I was baking my arms, now they feel like a freshly baked lobster! I had an ice cold americano and a slice of lemon cake...lovely! We chatted about this and that and I generally dreamdazed at my surroundings and was tempted to just 'accidently' hop on the bus home!

Third, Hot. Me and hubby decided to cook'dak gochujang bulgogi' (Korean Spicy Chicken) tonight for dinner. This is a spicy chicken with potatoes stewed with gochujang sauce. We have yet bought the sauce but hopefully we are going to get some from our local korean food shop. They sell already marinated tasty meats, like bulgogi chicken, pork and beef ribs. I think I will cook some korean rice to accompany this dish. Spicy hot food in hot weather, sounds so fasinating (We' shall see!).