Winter Wonderland

Snow, snow, snow!!! It has been snowing almost all day the past week. Sure make being outside in the cold much more fun!!!
This is the path near my apartment building. The management plow the sidewalks in the morning and not long after, the path is covered with snow again.
At the area where the snow is not plowed, we got snow as deep as 1 feet!! Even the hydrant's body was covered with snow!!On the first few days, the snow was only lightly covering the path and on campus, they did a good job at removing it before everyone get to campus. The picture below is at the sidewalk near the building where my lab is. I thought the footsteps below is pretty interesting. Clearly, it was two people walking towards different direction. I wondered if they were walking along this path at the same time, if they did, did they know each other? If they don't, did they still look up and acknowledge each other? If they didn't, were they rushing to finish that assignment that is due in 2 hours? Hehe, it can be pretty fun to let our imagination run wild sometimes! I would say that these two person did not cross path but were quietly enjoying the peace on campus while walking to their first job schedule in the morning, just before the student rush to morning class starts.
The river on campus is mostly frozen too except for a small area near the admin building, one of my favorite area on campus. That is where the ducks hang out too, even now that it is freezing cold.
But now that it is so cold out, not many people goes to the river to hang out and feed the ducks. They must be really hungry because anyone who goes near the river, they will come close, hoping that they will be fed. When John and I went by the river just before Christmas, we sat by the stairs and it felt like they were going to eat me up!
All the trees on campus are covered with snow. Somehow the snow gives them a character because now they look like animated trees walking all around campus. :P
Besides human footsteps, there are tons of different types of footsteps on the snow. It is always fun to try to guess who made them. This one must be a rabbit one.
Let it snow, let it snow!!

甜甜的

今年的情人節我收到好特別的禮物...那東西並不特別, 但那心意讓我非常的感動. 因為是他自己弄的喔! 那禮物就是...

當全部的零食摻起來, 那就叫'snack mix'. 平常'snack mix' 都會有些'pretzels', 各種炒貨, 巧克力, 和乾果. 我收到的有杏仁, 藍莓, 小紅莓, 櫻桃, 葡萄乾和最好吃的黑巧克力依macadamia! 通通都好吃, 參起來更好吃! 好甜蜜, 好幸福的感覺喔!!

甜甜的

我輕輕的嚐一口, 你說的愛我,
還在會味你給過的溫柔,
我輕輕的嚐一口,這香濃的誘惑,
我喜歡的樣子你都有.

Ethiopian Lunch

It reminds me of chapati. It also reminds me of back home because their tradition is to eat with your hands instead of utensils.

Me and ahdik went out for lunch today to celebrate ahdik getting a new job - a supplementary instructor (yep, surprise, surprise!). We went to an Ethiopian restaurant called Altu's. I went there once with the TT, Pei and Jo a few years back and liked it but haven't been back since.

Ethiopian food (at least from what I had in the restaurant) reminds of chapati. Every dish comes with a spongy bread that taste exactly like chapati except it is much more spongy. Their dishes are a variety of vegetable or meat stew. Their vegetarian dishes are mostly beans or peas. Since I have been making lots of beans and peas stew recently (actually, ever since I find out how easy it is to make them with the slow cooker!), both of us got their chicken stew. The chicken stew dish also comes with cabbage that reminds me of the nasi lemak stall at the corner restaurant at Mentari Business Park. We used to ta pau that for lunch after school as it is one of the fastest thing to get. Plus, the auntie also have mummy and my favorite ikan pari!
Besides the unique type of food, the restaurant setup is also different. They have regular booth seating at the edge and in the middle of the restaurant, they have this 'kalo' looking thing. When they serve the food, they will take the top off and turn it around so it becomes like a table.

Huat arrrr!!!

Keong Hee Huat Chai!! (Happy New Year!) Hor ni huat tua cai! (Have a prosperous tiger year!)

Without the M'sians this year, I didn't have a party at my place. But it was still a fun weekend with friends from a different lab. After the crazy weeks of presentations, posters, sampling in the freezing weather and long overnight experiments, it feels great to take a weekend off.

The weekend started with my first sledding and cross-country skiing (nope, I didn't cross-country, it is just called cross-country). Sledding is definitely much more fun than skiing. I can barely move my skiis and when I finally did, I kept falling down! Lucky thing there was inches and inches of snow! Going downhill is fun but I can't go up hill at all! It took me forever to go uphill because I kept slipping downhill. Sledding was scary initially but after a few trips down the hill, it was lots of fun! I'm the one in the yellow round tube. Another scary thing is there are lots of kids who do not get out of the way fast enough and I have no idea how to stop the tube or how to avoid them! I almost bumped into the little boy down there but lucky thing he stepped back fast enough.
The next day, which is the first day of CNY itself, Fan and I went for dim sum with some friends at a chinese restaurant called Golden Wok. It is the only restaurant in town that serves dim sum on a cart like it should be. Due to the large crowd (Duh! It is Cheh It!), they kept running out of stuff...like my favorite Wu Kok and the Tao Phui filled with pork. They did have 'kae kah' but we were there with a bunch of American friends so I didn't order that. Nothing beats the original dim sum in Hong Kong and of course, the one in Tai Tong, Penang (daddy, we have to go there for breakfast one morning!). Steph, it sounds like you have a much tastier dim sum stuff than I did!!!

Halfway through our dim sum brunch, they presented a lion dance!!! What a surprise! I never thought I would see one here at Michigan!!! It was a little weird since the lion was dancing around in the restaurant. The last lion dance I saw was during CNY in 2008 at Uncle Thean Yong's family CNY gathering.
The lion dance at Golden Wok...

After the dim sum brunch, we went over to a friend's house to make and of course, eat, dumplings! When we had enough dumplings, we played a fun card game which involves a lot of drinking. Hehe, good thing Datuk Loo does not know this game...otherwise, I would be drunk everytime we have a gathering. I kept losing! Without Datuk Loo, I just drank water. Hehe, yes, and yet I am the one who kept losing. It still amaze me how much beer people can drink, as we then proceed to play 'Flippy Cup'. It is another drinking game where one have to drink the beer and then flip the cup over on the table. The group that finishes the fastest win.

That about sums up my CNY. Not traditional but it was fun!

Ping vs. Virus 'Annoy-za'

I knew it was coming this weekend when the cough came back and sore throat started. Yesterday's freezing cold weather did not help either, especially since I had to take the 15 minutes walk to Goodrich to get soymilk for breakfast (although I really could have made do with that remaining bit since I only used a little of the new one this morning).

Round 1!
Ping need to process the biomass from yesterday's experiment vs. 'Annoy-za'

It started getting worst when I was going in and out of the walk-in cold room (4C). Seriously, someone need to take the responsibility to clean up that place. I did it last year, not doing again. Since I made it all the way to 3pm and finished up today's lab report, Round 1, 'Annoy-za' down!

Round 2! ('Annoy-za' is standing back up!)
Ping need to finish reading the paper on Marx's theory as the foundation for environmental sociology but clearly, I am not doing that right now. Am not getting anything into the brain cells anymore. I have been reading the sentence "This emphasis on historical changes in soil fertility in the direction of agricultural improvement was to be a continuing theme in Marx's thought, though it eventually came to be coupled with an understanding of how capitalist agriculture could undermine the conditions of soil fertility, resulting in soil degradation rather than improvement." for I have no idea how many times and I can't seem to move further. Errr...the most common feedback I get from my writings is 'you need to shorten your sentence'. This sentence is from a paper published in American Journal of Sociology and I think it tops any of my long sentence! It must be a sociology thing because most of the sentences in this paper is super long. Well, since I am really getting side-track, I guess 'Annoy-za' wins Round 2.

Round 3! (Of course Ping is not down yet!)
Instead, I just had two oranges, a kiwi, and a cup of echinacea tea. That should knock this annoying 'Annoy-za' down. But I am going to go take a nap (nope, not the result of Round 3, just the consequence of Round 2). Round 3 results yet to be posted...(maybe MSU's win against the Badgers tonight might do it..hehe).
Zzzzzzzz

Butterfly World, Florida

How often do you get to see a butterfly stay around long enough for you to capture a good photo of it? I haven't got one...until this trip to the Butterfly World. It is really magical to be surrounded by soooo many butterflies!! They are everywhere and there was even one or two who landed on me a few times!! We got there first thing in the morning right when they opened and we didn't leave until almost 5pm! It was lots of fun that I have the D5000 too because I get to take lots of macro photos. I get to play around with the video function too. The videos are a little blur since it was my first day playing with them and still learning how to focus. I also do not have a video editing software so I can't lighten some of them that is too bright. Hmm...Yong, any recommendation?

Here is one with a 'halu' butterfly that eventually got the other butterfly to fly too...Mei, reminds me of you lah. :P



Besides butterflies, they also have a birds garden. Most of the birds there are pretty small as they are finches and hummingbirds. They are also very active so it was a lot more challenging to capture them. We did spend a lot of time with the Macaws. They have an interesting interaction.


There was also a rose garden and a passion vine but they were not flowering yet. If it was flowering, we would probably be there for a longer time! Having the camera adds on to the fun but it was still amazing to just be there with all the butterflies and birds, to explore their bug museum that has all kinds of creepy looking bugs which you never want to encounter in real life and to just walk around the park.