Unlikely! But the weather these few days is lovely!! The sun is out, the wind is mild and the temperature is way about 10 degrees C. Since Ping had just finished her committee meeting (with great advice and motivation from all her committee members!!!), Ping took a walk around campus on the way back from class to lab. Look...the plants are making their green chlorophylls again!!! The trees will soon be filled with green leaves and it will be pretty soon! As always, the river is Ping's favorite place. It is even more mesmerizing to be sitting by the river at this time because the water level is high enough to create a mini rapid at the rocks area behind the Admin building. If you were to lie down by the river and close your eyes, it is pretty easy to imagine you are sitting by the falls at Titi Kerawang back home. If you walk further west of the rocks, the flow rate decreases and instead of the loud rumbling, you here the little waves of the water flapping over the roots by the river bank.
Another sign that spring is around the corner - the sun is setting later!!
Am trying to play around with the template but can't seem to get a lot of stuff right. The photo in the header is taken at the Red Cedar River, right behind the MSU Admin building. One of Ping's favorite place during the summer on campus. There are so many ways to capture that spot on camera. It is also fun to just sit and watch the ducks waddle.
Happy Wednesday!!
The pic below is taken at 5am this morning at the parking lot in front of the MSU Planetarium, where Ping parks every day. Doesn't it look peaceful? Ping likes to play around with night shot but is not very good at it. To get a good night shot, definitely need to get a tripod but Ping just like to take it for fun and too lazy to carry a tripod around.
Ping's brother has been here for almost 3 months and this is probably the most cooking he has done in his life. While he has been perfecting his skills at cooking bacon (this is definitely the first time Ping have seen someone eaten sooooo much bacon in her life!!!) or any other dish that requires bacon, he has been taking efforts to make other stuff too. Most likely because Ping's cooking is limited to healthy food that he is not a very big fan of.
The first thing he cooked...fried egg with green beans. A simple dish but it was good enough as a dish to go with rice. The green beans (四季豆) here are not like the French beans (or gui dao) we get in M'sia. Ping still couldn't find fresh French beans here, even at the farmers market at Okemos.
Of course, he caught up with the American 'quick and easy' boxed or frozen food pretty fast. Hungry Jack pancakes with syrup. Burning his first one... Chicken fingers. He is definitely a big fan of fried food.
His most recent and complicated one... with chinese sausage (臘腸, lap cheong), hot-dog sausage (香腸), and mixed vege. Pretty good too!! But of course, the cici was also standing right next to it, adding all the sauces. *grins*
The best part about being in a Big Ten college is watching the Big Ten games, especially basketball!! Ping never gets the American football so have never followed the craze of football. Basketball is way more fun anyway!! Ping got season tickets with Pei to all the basketball home games. We've been following all the away games too and the Spartans is definitely a team worth spending the weekend watching!! For the students tickets, you either get to sit right in front of the court (lower bowl) or all the way to the top of the stadium (upper bowl). To secure a seat at the lower bowl, you gotta be there at least an hour early. Since Ping and Pei is never free enough to spend so much time lepaking at a basketball court, we only get to sit at the upper bowl. The view from the top may not be much but the atmosphere is nothing like watching the game on tv!!! Watching the game live, during timeouts and half-time, Sparty and the MSU Cheerleaders keep us entertain, which is way more fun than watching the UPS and Wendy's ads that Ping is starting to get bored of! The pic above was taken during one of the games during the holiday season where Sparty dressed up as a Santa Claus.
One of the most fun game...when we beat Minnesota 76-47. The Spartans warming up their shots just before the game with Indiana in early February.
We beat them again last night at Indiana, giving us the Big Ten Championship title!!! Right after the game, we got the message that there will be a welcoming back to celebrate the win at the Breslin Center. Ping and Pei was super excited about it! Entering the tunnel into the Breslin Center with the Spartans logo in the background. Hopefully we'll have more games to watch as they forward into the NCAA!!!
Happy Chap Goh Meh! It is the fifteenth day of CNY and also the last day to collect ang pau (red packet filled with money). Back in Malaysia, there usually will be another family gathering or hanging out with friends. There is barely any of those atmosphere here but we did get together to make some bak gua (肉乾) (something like meat jerky but there is no preservatives like the one they sell here in the US. We simply use sauces of our selected favorite, and taste way better than jerky!). That was on Friday night.
Last night, a bunch of friends met up for Korean dinner at Korea House after watching Spartans beat Indiana 75-47 with Chris Allen making 3 throws of 3-pointer!!! That was definitely the highlight of the game. The Spartans finally have someone who can handle those 3-points!!! Unfortunately, Summers doesn't seem to be in form last night. Anyway, Ping got some cod fish soup dish. The fish was good but the soup was a little 'chia' (lack of taste). That was the first time Ping ordered this dish. Ping usually get their Soon Dobu Chigae, which is Ping's favorite Korean food! Ping just felt like ordering something else for a change. The other nice Korean dish is Bimbimbap but they usually come with beef. Very few places will swap it with chicken for you and Korea House is not one of them.
After dinner, Jo and Ping went over to the International Center to catch the mini-concert by InPulse from Minnesota. They call themselves a vocal band group to be separated from the mainstream A Cappella style. All Ping can say is - they caught my breath! They were awesome! As Jo and Ping was walking into the IC, we were like...oh, I guess they are not entirely A Capella as we heard the base and percussions. But nope, they didn't have any musical instruments at all. Their percussion, Andy Miller was continously doing the percussion/base sound all night!! We missed out the Jason Mraz song they sang but we caught Johnny Cash's Walk the Line! Makes Ping wanna watch the movie again.
Happy Chinese New Year! Gong Xi Fa Cai! 恭喜發財! Selamat Tahun Baru Cina! Gong Hei Fatt Choy! 牛年快樂!!
萬事如意! 身體健康! 年年有余! 新年進步! Have an 'Ox'picious year!!
Here's another CNY away from home. Not really in a mood to celebrate either as it is getting busier in the lab. But with the gang's last year, Ping tried to let it go for a weekend. So what did we do? What else but steamboat!!! We had it at Ping's place. Most of the food was prepared by ah Pei, Jo, ah Hua while everyone else contribute some kind of dumpling, ball or vege. Ping only make geng geng chui and coffee-milo jelly. Steaming hot!! We also went to 天天 for a more formal dinner last night. Today is back to work but Ping was so tired that Ping had to get her chocolate boost at 2pm!!! Off to bed to get lots of sleep for the long day tomorrow.
A surprise is on it's way. It has something to do with the picture below. Their birthday is actually on the 12th but if posted too early, the surprise is bound to be exposed. So Ping shall keep at this until they receive the surprise.
This is the highlight of the trip!!! If it wasn't for Jay's concert, we wouldn't have planned the trip in the first place! 還記得 July 那一月, 第一次看到有人說杰倫有可能會來到Toronto 的事後, 已經很開心了. 到票開始賣的時候, 跟朋友已經決定去了. 差一點要訂酒店, 要開始plan去Detroit 申請Canadian Visa, 有看到有人說杰倫會去Connecticut辦演唱會. 那就更好! 因為可以用Visa那筆錢買更貴的演唱會票. 等了幾個星期, (雖然感覺好像很久!!) 終於在杰倫的官方網站看到公告 - 杰倫真的回來到Connecticut 開演唱會!! 好興奮!! 一看到消息就立刻通電話給ah Pei.
The moment we arrived Connecticut, Ping was already super excited. While getting dressed in the hotel room, 我們已經開始聽杰倫的歌. 一到Mohegan Sun, 興奮到吃不下了. 更何況那環境也很特別. 在美國第一次去Casino. 它的室內裝潢還滿美的. 那天晚上吃的buffet是最不值得的. 好想看到Jay 或許NQMM 他們, 但一個都沒看到. Hehehe...知道, 知道, 那只是一個夢想了. 在馬來熱亞的時後, 是跟Jay2U一起, 所以比較熱鬧, 全部都一起期待杰倫的出現.
The stage from Ping's seat.
The first song - 黃金甲 from the movie Curse of the Golden Flower. The view from our seat. Pretty close eh. We were just one section away. Ping is glad we didn't get the floor level, which is the most expensive ticket since Ping won't be able to see it anyway.
Next is 無雙 from his last album, 我很忙.
不能說的秘密...where they played the movie clips on 葉湘倫 and 路小雨 interactions.
Then it was 退後 followed by 安靜. Ping really wanted to hear the mixed version of 安靜 and 安靜了 that he sang in Canada but he only performed the classic 安靜. Even with the classic 安靜, it was still great because nothing beats listening to Jay live!! especially with one of his best composed song!! Another classic that he sang was 開不了口.
Another kick out of the live concert is 能夠親眼看見杰倫彈鋼琴. He first played a duel with 宇豪, similar to the duel they did in the movie. Later, he played 最長的電影 from the previous album with the MV at the back followed by 說好的幸福呢 from his new album, 魔杰座. We were hoping to hear 給我一首歌的時間 too but he only sang two songs from his new album. BUT, he also sang 黑色幽默!!! This was totally unexpected!! It is one of Ping's favorite Jay's song. This is definitely a surprise for Ping!
After the piano and Jay's classic came 千里之外 with the fan dance. This is another one that Jay is known for - 中國風 songs.
He also did a short version of the 扯 dance after singing 本草綱目, when he also threw the 扯鈴 down. It was so close that we could tell it was a plastic toy one. Haha...no wonder he can afford to throw them down at every concert.
After 扯 was 迷迭香 and 夜曲. 迷迭香 was actually the only song that Ping get close-up look at Jay back at the concert in M'sia. After 迷迭香, Jay went back stage to prepare for the next song while his dancers came down to dance right in front of us!!! Yes, literally in front of us!!
After that came another highlight of the concert - 南拳媽媽 as the 來賓. Not only that, he also brought Gary along!!! NQMM also came out earlier with their What Can I Do and another song which Ping can't remember. When Ping saw Gary, Ping was hoping they would sing 流浪詩人 but they sang 月光 instead. It was actually expected since Jay is pretty good at promoting his buddy's songs but can't hurt to hope mer. Sad to say, Ping wasn't too impress with Gary's performance though...it seems like he wasn't very excited to be there. NQMM did a way better job.
They also sang 彩虹, acoustic version of 雙截棍 and he did a special dedication to all his fans who are away from home, studying in the US (like us!!!) with 稻香 - his most recent 'advice through song' song. Here's Jay when he walked toward the side we were sitting.
Ping was also excited to get a pretty close glimpse of 彈頭 and 宇豪. In M'sia, they stand pretty far away so Ping could barely see them. Ping actually a pretty clear picture of 彈頭 too!!! Wanted to get a pic of 宇豪 but taking picture when Ping is super excited is pretty challenging. A super cute Jay expression.
Of course, we didn't miss out on the super popular 聽媽媽的話 along with 張學友 singing one of the chorus. He also had a clip showing Jet Li's comment on him which is pretty recent. None of us took any photo after that as he started singing all the 搖滾 songs - 陽光宅男, 霍元甲 and the original version of 雙截棍.
When he sang 髮如雪, someone actually managed to get near the stage to give him a little bear!!! Ping was hoping he would do another encore and sing 周大俠 but they only showed the MV while he sang 雙截棍. It was about 30 minutes shorter than the one in M'sia but hey, we are in the States. It is definitely a rare chance. 能夠看杰倫兩次在一年時間裡, 已經夠滿足了.希望杰倫有個特別的生日. 生日快樂 to 杰倫!!!! In a month, it will be a year since Ping was last home...yet, Ping feels like it has been forever since Ping was home with mum and dad and ahmah.
It is sooo cold... that you don't need an ice-bucket to transport your DNA samples around.
It is sooo cold... that you don't have to worry about ice when collecting soil sample (but who would want to go soil sampling right now??? Gila!)
It is sooo cold... that the car heater is not warm enough to clear the back passenger windows.
It is sooo cold... that you can get frost bite if you're not protected for 30 minutes (according to WFMK Morning Show).
It is sooo cold... that probably even the record-breaking psychrophiles might not survive (what is the lowest temperature psychrophiles tolerate anyway???).
Yup, it IS that cold. It is -18 degrees C!!! That is two more degrees to the -20 C freezer that stores our DNA samples!!! When was the last time it got this cold??? Can't remember but it is freezing cold!!!
BUT, before it got this cold, Ping get to play in the snow!!! Here's my first snow angel... Ping got to make another snow angel the day before the temperature drop to craziness. Now that the temperature is so low, the snow is not fun anymore. Ping wants more snow!!!
And here's the lil bro making snow angel. He's definitely enjoying it!
Boo!! Ping was in NYC at the worst time! Snowing! Raining! Hailing! Half of the time we were walking on flooded walkways while the other half was walking on slippery ice. They are not as efficient as Michigan when it comes to shoveling and cleaning the snow. Plus, people there are not friendly at all. In fact, Ping would consider some rude as they shoulder their way through a crowd. (Haha...can see some of you smirking and wanting to say, isn't that how it is like in M'sia? See..Ping tends to avoid crowded places in M'sia unless Ping has a companion who is good at shoving through a crowd. Bleh!) Don't think Ping would like staying in NY for long term at all.
However, tt and dk's apartment is actually at a very nice place - Roosevelt Island -, and it is literally right in front of a subway station. It also comes with an awesome night view of NYC. Ping went straight to the apartment to meet up with ahdik before we head out to the busy city.
Our first destination was Central Park. Lucky thing we decided to go there first because the weather just went from bad to worse after that. tt brought Ping there the first time Ping went to NYC, which was in the fall and it was lovely! Ping wanted to go see the ice-skating rink as they always look so pretty in the movies but we were there so early that there wasn't that many people and the weather was just depressing.
It then started to rain pretty bad that we went into Time Warner Center to stay out of the rain and cold for a while. We got some hot drink and some snack at Borders before heading out to the 'war with the weather'. The Time Warner Center is just right outside Central Park at the Columbus Circle. Pretty upscale place. We wanted to go to the bakery in there but guess what, it was a sit down bakery where people actually serve you buns and coffee!! Geezzz...
After the warm up, we took the subway to Times Square. This is Ping's favorite place in NYC. The energy, the cheerfulness, the colors, the fun, they are all right here. Just the ads itself is crazy. You can actually stand right in the middle and see the news headlines of the hour! The further you walk away from this area, the less fun and less cheerfulness you get. It is like the heart of NYC.
One wouldn't think that there is an Information Center for a few blocks of commerce center. But there is one. Yup, it is happening enough to have an information center right there on 7th Avenue. If one has a huge budget, there really is tons to do in NYC. If there is lots of time, there are also cheap stuff to jump on such as the Broadway shows lottery tickets.Just a few doors away from the information center is Charmin. Charmin is a brand of toilet paper in US. They did a really good job with their advertisement on TV because they have this blue bear that sings the Charmin song, both of which have pretty strong impression. Even ahdik who just had his first experience with Charmin got the song stuck in his head for the rest of the afternoon. Anyway, the Charmin at Times Square is just a clean, free public toilet with different types of toilet papers and people who actually guides you to the toilet door! Also, ahdik and Ping was lucky enough to get stall number 16 and 17!!! Just above Charmin is Duracell, a battery brand. They have various charging stations for you to charge your cell phones, mp3 players, camera, etc. In addition to that, they also have a bunch of snowmobiles for consumers to help power up the 2009 for the new year countdown. When ahdik cycles on the snowmobiles, the energy is being transferred into a battery cell which they later connect to the 2009 sign which lit up when clock striked 12mn. They required 230 cycle hours just to get 10 minutes of energy!! Sadly though, it seems like they are actually giving out more energy than saving because there were more people there charging up their gadgets or playing Wii and Xbox that they provide than people who were powering up the 2009 sign.
Among other fun stores we went into were M&M's and Hershey's. The M&M's look like the beads that mum use for her crafts (left). The Hershey's store was a lot smaller but they have this machine that allows you to mix the different varieties by random (right).
We also went all the way south to the Bowling Green area to visit the Wall Street bull. And finally, back up to the Rockefeller Center to catch a view of the Christmas tree before we head back to the apartment. Can you spot the Malaysia flag?? Didn't see the flags this trip but probably because it was pretty dark when we got there and Ping was wet and miserable. Ping did manage to go to the roof top during Ping's first trip to NYC though.
Wow! Time certainly flies. It is already 2009!! Happy New Year everyone!! It has been a year since Ping had the mini-steamboat party at her place, with only WY, PH, ah Pei and Ming over while everyone else was spread out elsewhere.
Since most of the gang is in town, Ping had a party to celebrate the countdown. It was also a reason for us to eat some hometown food that we miss.
Ping cooked the 'pek sak kae'... and had lots of chicken stock. Wanted to use it to cook chicken rice but Brian volunteered to cook the chicken rice so Ping used it to cook 'loh mai kai'. Ping didn't get a chance to marinate the chicken for the loh mai kai earlier so added a little ngoh hiang hun that makes the loh mai kai taste more like bak chang rather than loh mai kai. Ah Pei and PH contributed the taugeh for the chicken rice. Since we had chicken rice, it seems wasted not to have char siu. We also need more vegies so we had bok choi and mushroom. Deckson also brought some salad. Thanks to ah Pei and PH for all the help with cutting up the pineapple and cucumber for the laksa, buying the laksa bor and deboning the mackeral for the laksa. Also thanks to TT for bringing the curry chicken, Deckson for the 龟苓膏 (gui ling gao, some kind of jelly with some roots extract), and Alan for the super addictive drink!!! Haha... It has been a great year and the coming one will even be better! There are bound to be changes as most of the gang have graduated and will be moving on to the next agenda on their 'life-to-do' lists, and now that Ping's brother is here, Ping's project in lab is also changing, the downs will come but it will be the ups that will make it a better year!! Happy New Year!!
When traveling to large cities like New York and Boston, there are usually two main attractions - the city itself and the food galore they offer. Ping was recently on a road trip to the East Coast with a bunch of chinese M'sian friends. The main purpose of the trip was to attend Jay Chou's concert at Mohegan Sun, Connecticut but since we were heading towards that area of the State, we decided to do the rest - starting with New Jersey (which we only spent one night), New York, Connecticut, and Massachusetts.
While Ping would have opt to try more of the local specialties and different types of cuisine busy cities have to offer, but a trip with M'sians who have not been home for a long time and craving for homecook food had us making more frequent trips to chinese restaurants. The first was at New Jersey - our first stop. We drove straight from East Lansing, MI, passing by Ohio and Pennsylvania to get to New Jersey. The entire trip took us 12 hours. We could have arrived a little earlier if not for the traffice jam (which reminds Ping of Federal Highway during peak hours). We went to a restaurant serving both Chinese and Thai food and had the special treatment 'coz ZT knows the 老闆娘 pretty well - Golden Palace Restaurant, Kenilworth, New Jersey. Ping was pretty excited initially as we were just snacking on junk all day. The first dish was a huge pot of hot chicken soup...then came the curry chicken and tau eu bak (Ping's favorite!)..then the pad thai noodles (another one of Ping's favorite!)...then more dishes came flowing out. It came to a point when there are way too much food than all 8 of us can finish in an entire day! An entire table full of food!! This is definitely a luxury! Even harder to come by - an entire fish! With the head and tail! Now this is what we call real fish, as oppose to all those fillets we get from Meijer. The next day, Ping took off by herself to New York to meet up with her lil bro at tiptup's apartment at Roosevelt Island. It was when Ping was in NY that Ping get to try non-Chinese food. Thanks to tiptup's recommendation, we went to the Five Guys for dinner. Totally American! Simple! They make really good fries too! The fries was super addictive that by the time Ping got her hotdog, Ping was half-full. The next morning, tiptup and dk brought us to brunch at Queens. Like NYC, it is very cultural, with shops of Italian, French, Korean, Chinese influence. Ping can't remember the name of the restaurant we went to..although it has a very simple name that Ping was so sure Ping would remember it..anyway, Ping had spinach, mozerella and tomato toast - all three of Ping's favorite!! Don't ask why they serve fries with it 'coz Ping thought it was weird having fries for brunch too!!
After the brunch, dk drove us to Flushing to drop Ping off so that Ping can meet up with the gang. Flushing is a HUGE Chinatown! It is like Petaling Street. Like Chee Chong Kai. Ping missed out on the M'sian grocery store though. But we did go to a Korean bakery that reminds Ping of Jaya Jusco bakery. The photo is a little blurry since Ping took it without focusing as Ping wasn't sure if they allow photo-taking there. You know lah..Asian a bit more im chim one. Too bad Ping didn't stay long enough to try any M'sian food there. Seems like there are tons M'sian restaurants there.
We didn't try anything unique at Connecticut. Ping was too excited to see Jay to be sitting down and eating anything. The moment we arrived at Connecticut, Ping was already 'jae beh tiam' and 'chiak beh luk'. Hehe...just like when Ping was back in M'sia, waiting to see Jay for the first time!! Plus, we were in Connecticut for only two nights and a day and we spent the time sleeping most of the day after Jay's concert which was at 2am!!
Look...the plants are making their green chlorophylls again!!! The trees will soon be filled with green leaves and it will be pretty soon!
If you walk further west of the rocks, the flow rate decreases and instead of the loud rumbling, you here the little waves of the water flapping over the roots by the river bank.
