Step into my Shoes

Lovely weekend!

My family came to visit! I did not realize I miss them so much until I saw them for the first time in close to 2 months. I guess this living abroad experience has made realize that the best people in the world will always be my family.

I love my mum, she brought over foodstuff I cannot find over here in Shenzhen and she didn’t leave a single thing out from the list of items I asked her to bring over.

Amongst the stuff I asked her to bring over, I found this:

Royce Baton cookies

Cote Dor Chocolates (fondly known in our family as the Elephant Brand Choc) Yes, it’s my family and extended family’s favorite chocolate brand. & Starburst Gummy Sweets

Haha, my mum brought over in total 14 slabs of chocolates over for my colleagues, managers and friends. My mum seriously loves buying things in bulk. Love of bulk purchase. Her typical thinking is, bulk purchase = saves time and money (discounts with large purchases)

Nutella! (specially for Qiu Xin since she has been craving for it since like, forever ever since we got here)

The Nice Hotel Room Bathroom

Sometimes as young adults, we start to feel our parents are rather like pains in the necks when we travel together, you know times when they’ll nag and hamper your freedom. Honestly, I felt none of that for the 2 days they came over because I remember having 300 RMB in my wallet and I didn’t touch a single cent during the weekend. I don’t even recall touching my wallet. LOL. Shopping expenses and good food covered. Cannot ask for more.

On Friday, I brought my parents to the restaurant my manager brought me too, Xiang Er Qing which serves authentic Hunan Cuisine. Most of the time, we struggled with the ordering; total language breakdown. My parents cannot read the Chinese words and my sister even though she scored better for Chinese, couldn’t understand what the waitress was recommending. But nevertheless, we had a great dinner, just by ordering those dishes with delicious looking pictures. It felt good to be having dinner with my family again.

Dim Sum breakfast at Phoenix House

Chang Nian Pu-er Cha (age old Pu-er Tea) & some interesting tea-facts

I find the entire process of tea brewing very interesting. The Chinese really put in a lot of effort in tea brewing. Tea-brewing is taken very seriously in China, every step has a meaning. The first brew of tea is not for drinking; its for the purpose of washing the tea leaves and after which, the tea is used to wash the tea cups. Another interesting culture tip, when you see an empty glass/metal bowl in the middle of the table, it means the first cup of tea, your host/hostess pour for you is NOT for you to drink. The cup of tea is meant for you to pour into a small soup bowl (the bowl you drink your soup from). Next, you proceed to put your tea cup into that same bowl (with the tea) and wash the cup with the tea. Spoons and chopsticks are next to be washed in the tea. Lastly, pour the ‘dirty’ tea into THAT empty bowl in the middle of the table. HAHA. I find the entire process rather fun. The first dinner I had with my manager and colleagues was pretty embarrassing cause I have no idea you had to do all of that. I immediately drank the first cup of tea that was poured for me. So can you imagine my shock when everyone else started pouring their cups of tea into their bowls. (I felt like a complete goon and I thought, What, do not tell me they drink their tea from bowls….) What an idiot!

Lesson learnt. WATCH AND LEARN!

You are also supposed to fill up the cups of the persons sitting on either side of you when their cups are half-full. It’s just pure table manners.

My dad

The dim sum is pretty good overall.

I love the freshly made Soya bean milk which is also known as dou jiang. It is drank from a bowl.(in some restaurants, you add your own sugar according to how sweet you want your dou jiang to be)

I tend to order the same kind of dim sum most of the time. Love the prawn crystal dumplings, egg custard buns, glutinous rice wrapped in leaves and xiao long baos. Fried yam slices are good too but they tend to be dripping with oil. =X

My dad is seriously appalled by my ferocious appetite. He was full way earlier than me. Oh well, I’m a live to eat person. The weighing scale in the hotel (no matter how nice it looks) is definitely not accurate. I should be 4 kgs heavier.

Lunch at Laurel Group

Interesting soup broiled in a coconut. Guess what is the main ingredient?

FROGS OVARIES! Funny thing is, we only found out AFTER we left the restaurant when we saw a picture describing the soup. The mistake was a result of mis-interpretation of the menu and putting too much trusting in the waiter’s recommendation. Anyhow, its supposedly to be good for health. And I didn’t finish the soup because I had this feeling the black stuff in the soup is something totally foreign. My gut feelings proves me right again! T_T

Overall, lunch was a disappointment. With the price we paid, we expected better. The service was mediocre and the food was really not as great as we expected. The other Laurel group branch the VP brought us to, was way better.

Dinner at Japan Fusion (the award of “Best Dinner in Shenzhen’ goes to it)

It was superb! All of us thought so! Thanks to Alaska who was the first one amongst all of us to try out the place first with her friend from HK and then, introduced us to it.

The restaurant is the largest Japanese restaurant in Asia (yes, even Japan). I was like, Sure not, largest jap restaurant in Asia can be found in Shenzhen and not in Japan where the food hails from? I mean seriously, China is the last place you expect people to be all crazy over Japanese food. One thing for sure, you will not find a successful Japanese restaurant in Nanjing. Anyway, the entire place spans a whopping 6000 square metres! If you have no idea how huge 6000 metres (I have no idea as well until I saw the place), ITS HUGE!

There are rooms for all kinds of Japanese food cooked in different styles. The hot pot, the fresh raw sashimi, the teppanyaki area and the French wine/sake area are meshed into 2 floors. There are even miniature waterfalls and koi ponds. Waitresses are even decked out in Kimonos.

These are what we ordered…

Fresh salmon sashimi

Sushi platter

Grilled cod fish

Chawanmushi

Fried Tofu (Which was quite normal)

Lastly, a shocker, the gi-normous Shabu-Shabu!

Look at that thing! It was filled with vegetables, mushrooms and tofu.

And the beef platter for the Shabu-Shabu!

My mum was quite annoyed at me for ordering the Shabu Shabu cause we were super full already when they served it. And we had no idea it was so big (we ordered the smallest size already).

And I was tempted to order the raw kobe beef. I wanted the kobe beef to be medium rare but apparently the best way to eat kobe beef is to eat it raw. Hey, please do not need I'm damn extravagant here, to want to order kobe beef because I looked at the price of the kobe beef and the portion that they serve first. For a big plate of raw kobe beef to be shared amongst 4 people, it’s 500+ RMB (around 100 Sing dollars). If you can find another place with such an ambience serving kobe beef at that price and at that portion, please kindly tell me. =P Kobe beef in Japan costs a mind blowing amount of money which only the super rich can afford. Well, it’s Japan anyway. The raw factor is quite a turn off for beef, so I chose not to order.

Total price of the meal: 488 RMB (which is less than 100 Sing for the 4 of us!) Unbelievable! For the food and the ambience, it was a steal.

Friends, if you ever think of going to Shenzhen, please do visit this Japan Fusion place. Hahaha, it’s a must go for Japanese food lovers.

We saw a 2/3 metres long fresh tuna fish at the restaurant too. The chefs were pushing the huge fish around to show the guests in the restaurant before gutting it and slicing the fresh tuna flesh off the fish. They even cut it in the main hall for guests to see. I was quite shocked and I don’t think I’ll eat tuna straight after watching it being sliced off from the body of the fish. It was an eye opener. If there is a moment I will swear off sashimi, it would most likely be that moment.

The head of the tuna: =X

Well, that was a lovely weekend.

Anyway, it’s the start of a brand new work week. And I’m getting real bored at work and my manager is pushing me to work harder towards my deadline cause I think she getting nervous about the presentation to top management. I’m getting nervous too. To release some undue stress, I decided to take out my cammie for the first time in the office to snap some pictures of my work desk and the mess I have on my table!

Here’s my work desk (pretty cluttered, I’m a messy girl)

My mini snack/junk food area. It used to be much more cluttered with oreos, marshmellos, chocolates, nestle drinks and hot cocoa packets. I contemplated bringing a small packet of lays initially then I decided not, else my colleague would think I’m being a glutton. I love my junk food. Haha, Qiu xin always chide me for being super unhealthy. I snack a lot and I don’t exercise. The only exercise I do these days is walk. And erh, one yoga class. That’s about it. Prepare to see a chubbier me when I get back.

My tumbler from Starbucks

Oh and my name tag!

Presenting to you, my bandaged toe portable fan! HEHE, I love it man! Damn power and it gives off (initially) a nice floral scent.

Price: 3 Sing dollars inclusive of batteries (bought it in Guangzhou) I know it looks damn ridiculous but I really do not give a damn lah but unglam or not, as long as it keeps me cool. Hot weather makes me snappy.

My colleague’s plants. She left them in my care after she got shifted to another department. And I kinda forgot to water them for 2 weeks and one of them withered and stopped growing new leaves. The other’s growth is stunted. Oh mans, hahaha and I nearly drowned them when I realized they look like they are dying soon. =X

I’m always been fed with odd looking foodstuff from my colleagues’ hometowns. Usually on Mondays, they will come back from visits back to their hometowns and they will distribute odd looking food around the entire department. And I will get bunches of lychees, nuts and dried fruits for snacks. I don’t mind lychees cause they are really sweet. And the lychees come with loads of leaves so you can see one bunch of lychees on my desk and I will peeling them while working. LOL. Interesting huh!

This Monday, I got these stuff…

Ok, I was told this is preserved hot ginger. And honestly speaking, it tastes damn weird and super spicy! And there was this dried leaf sorta stuff which they said tastes really good but when I tried it, it is nowhere near nice. Hahaha, but I still appreciate their good nature in offering me their hometown delights. Here’s where you need to apply the phrase, One man’s meat is another man’s poison. =)

Combined together; It looks like what my grandma usually buys from the TCM stall near my childhood home. Hahaha.