A little bit more food...

Seafood

Ah, seafood... yet another love of my life. Yes, I may be small but I just have so much love to give. The HAG once asked me if there is any food in the world that I don't actually like. I had to think quite hard about this. In fact, I'm still thinking so I'll get back to you.

I don't really cook much seafood myself but luckily for me, my parents cook quite a lot of it at home and whenever we go out for dinner, usually 75% of the dishes we order will feature some form of seafood. I do love some western ways of preparing seafood (especially when there's cream involved...) but Chinese-style is the way to go - salt and pepper soft-shelled crab, lobster with ginger and spring onion, scallops with vermicelli and garlic and black bean sauce... mmm...

Unfortunately I don't have any photos of the yummy Chinese goodies mentioned above - I don't tend to take photos when I eat out at Chinese restaurants... not sure why really... probably because the urge to dig in as soon as the waiter puts the plate on the table distracts me... so I'm afraid you'll just have to look at the photos of the few seafood dishes that I've made myself.

So unoriginal but sometimes it's just what I need - breaded fish, chunky chips, peas and the most attractive splodge of tomato ketchup.

Salmon marinaded in coriander pesto then pan-fried, with colcannon (mashed potatoes and cabbage) and designer salad leaves.

Pan-fried scallops in garlic and chilli oil, roast potatoes and salad with honey mustard dressing.

Salmon marinaded with tikka masala paste then pan fried, on top of cucumber raita and naan bread (shop bought - I am yet to try making my own naan bread).

More food...

Pizza

I love pizza. It involves two of my mostest favourist things in the world: carbs and cheese. Seriously, what more can you ask for?

One day, I was craving for some amazing, crusty pizza with gooey cheese but at the same time, I was also feeling in a healthy(ish) mood. The latter rarely happens, I assure you. So what I did was buy some garlic pizza bread, and loaded it with buffalo mozzarella, cherry tomatoes, spring onion and basil. I ate it with a little dish of balsamic vinegar on the side... oooh, it was heavenly...



So that was the more goddess-like version of pizza. But as I said, I don't often feel the need to be healthy so... here's the other extreme... pizza crunchie (deep fried pizza in batter) with chips...




With my flat being so central and surrounded by restaurants and takeaways, I'm rather proud of myself for managing to fight the temptation most evenings but of course, I do slip sometimes (prime example above)...

Japanese

Another love of my life: sushi. I make rather decent sushi (Mrs Mum says so and she is a very fussy woman) and with most things, it's cheaper to make yourself than to eat out. However, after a day of work, the last thing I really want to do is to go buy fresh ingredients (can't really get away with buying fish days in advance of eating when you're going to be putting it into your mouth raw), chop and slice it all up, cook and season rice then wait for it to cool, then actually finally assembling it all together. And why should I need to do all that when there'a Japanese restaurant 2 minutes away from my flat? Even with my measly trainee solicitor salary, I can afford to indulge every so often...

14-piece sushi combination: salmon, mackeral, tuna and king prawn nigiri; California maki (crastick, cucumber, mayonnaise and fish roe); and cucumber, carrot, radish and sesame seeds maki

Bento with Japanese rice; miso soup; king prawn and vegetable tempura; salmon, mackerel and tuna nigiri; California maki; and teriyaki chicken.

I will be moving soon (more about that later) and I don't believe there's a Japanese place near my new flat... very devastating... excuse me while I go comfort myself with some cake...

I'm back!

It has been over 5 months since my last blog post. Once I stopped blogging for about a month or so, I just felt that it was too hard to keep up. But I am planning to make an effort with this again, starting with a little post about food...

Since I live on my own, I often have to cook for one. While I lived at home with my family, I would love cooking for just myself when all the others had gone out (and if there wasn't that opportunity, I would sometimes sneak into the kitchen at 2am to make myself a second dinner...). There's less chopping to do, I don't have to think about what other people like or don't like, I can experiment without worrying too much about how the result would taste, there's no time spent on serving the meal on several plates for different people so I can eat the food while it's still steaming hot... I thought it was great.

But of course, when you have to do something on a regular basis, the novelty kinda wears off... just like it would if I received presents every day... (no, actually, I take that back... just in case someone who is planning to shower me with gifts reads this... it could happen...)

What do you cook for one person? Quantity-wise, I'm not going to bother making a big roast dinner. I may be a pie but unfortunately there are limits to how much I can stuff into this teeny body. Effort-wise, is there much point in slaving away for an hour or two just to create a masterpiece for myself? I like to be impressed but I prefer it to be someone else doing the impressing, thank you very much.

Anyway, I thought that I would over, the next few weeks/months, post some pictures of meals that this "single female lawyer" (as my brother likes to call me) eats on her own...


Pasta, pasta and more pasta...

Rigatoni with basil, mushroom and sundried tomatoes in a creamy, garlicky sauce.



Linguini carbonara with pancetta and spinach

Spaghetti bolegnese (my version which I insist is awesome)

Square-spaghetti (which apparently clings onto more sauce) with king prawns and sundried tomatoes in a sauce made from cream, egg, parmesan and lemon zest/juice, all topped with coriander and parmesan

You can see from the photos that none of the dishes have much sauce. I hate pasta that's drowning in sauce... and don't get me started on pasta that is overcooked... ugh...

Am I too cute?

I had my review at work today. It went pretty well, and I was only one mark away from the top mark but there was one tiny criticism (and it wasn't even related to my work performance): "Try not to let people think of you as a little girl."

Apparently I'm too warm, friendly and cuddly. All very well if you're a primary school teacher, nanny or hot-water bottle; not so good when you're a corporate lawyer.

Although it was only a comment at the very end of the meeting and my mentor didn't even write it down on my review form (he was merely telling me as a friend), it gave me something to think about. I mean, I often joke that I'm too cute to be a lawyer but is that really what other people think too? Do I need to be a brutal bitch to succeed and have people take me seriously and respect me?

I'm not too concerned about what he said. I do understand where he's coming from and that the corporate world is very macho and cut-throat, but I don't really intend to do corporate work when I qualify. I just moved to the Private Client department and even before I started, I guessed that this was going to be my favourite department, and now that I've worked there for a week, I'm 99% certain that this is what I want to do when I grow up. And I don't think that being too nice in this area of work will do me any harm because the clients involved are REAL PEOPLE rather than MONSTERS... ahem, I mean, (heartless) businessmen. And no I'm not being sexist; I never met a single female client in the six months I was in Corporate. I went to 3 meetings this week and two were with women and one was with a couple.

I will take on board what my mentor said but at the end of the day, I am who I am... a small, cute Chinese girl who always has a smile on her face... is that really so bad?

Warning: This is mushy and will either make you sick or very jealous

Just some of the reasons why you're the best boyfriend any girl could wish for*...

• You will sit on your own for 45 minutes at a buffet restaurant, without any food in front of you (or the ability to go get food because I've left my handbag and shopping bags at the table for you to look after) while I queue for Alaskan king crab legs (which you won't even benefit from since you don't like seafood) and when I finally get back to the table, you don't utter a single word of complaint.

• When the alarm on my phone goes off at 7am (because I've stupidly forgotten to turn off the recurrent alarm even though I've taken the day off work) in the living room, you will get out of bed and look all over the living room for my phone to turn off the alarm instead of kicking me out of bed and getting me to do it myself because I am sound asleep and you don't have the heart to wake me up.

• When I'm having (yet another) one of my irrational moments and I'm down (probably because there's a speck of dust on my fingernail or something equally significant), you do not show an ounce of annoyance or frustration, but instead you use that lovely, soothing voice to comfort me and somehow manage to make everything OK again.
  
  

*Other girls better not wish for you though because then I'd have to kill them and I don't really like blood...

Our friend, Mr Taxi Driver

I take taxis quite regularly. Sometimes I'll take one back to my parents' house at the weekend if I can't be bothered taking the bus despite the fact that it's £20 for the taxi and just over £2 for the bus. And sometimes if I'm feeling really lazy, I'll take a taxi back to my flat from the train station after work even though it's only a 15-minute walk... But my usual taxi journeys involve going to and from Glasgow Airport.

Now I don't mind when taxi drivers don't utter a single word to me during the entire journey. It's not their job - all they need to do is take me to my destination in one piece. And not take me to a secluded alleyway to rape me.

But when I do get a friendly taxi driver, I'm quite happy to chat with them. And when you ask them to take you to the airport, that's usually a good conversation-starter.

So a good few months ago, I got talking to a driver who was taking me to the airport. He asked me where I was travelling to and I told him I was going to visit my boyfriend. He was pretty interested in this long-distance relationship and started asking me questions about how we met, how often we got to see each other, etc.

A few weeks after that, I called for a taxi to pick me up from the airport (I'm stingy and don't like to be ripped off by the white taxis at the airport. Yeah, I won't pay the additional £5 yet I'm perfectly willing to pay the extra £18 to take a taxi instead of a bus... makes complete sense in my head). When the taxi arrived and I jumped in, the first thing the driver said to me was, "Hey, are you just back from visiting your boyfriend?" I thought this was pretty funny, but then again I'm really easily amused so of course I would.

Therefore, I was even more amused when the HAG phoned me from the airport earlier to tell me that when he got into the taxi tonight from the entrance of my flat, the driver asked him, "Hey, are you the boyfriend of the Chinese girl?"

Heeheehee...

Boring routine? I don't think so...

It's been two whole months since I last blogged! It's a bit mad but I've just not had the time or desire to blog. But this weekend is different. It's the first weekend that I've spent in my flat on my own. Normally, I'm either back at the parentals' house, down in Reading with the HAG or he's up here with me. I have never had a weekend on my own before! So no excuse not to spend it with my beloved blog... oooh, that makes me hot... hehe...

So the last three months and a bit has really just been work work and work. Weekdays go something like this: I go to work, I come home, I make and eat dinner, I watch TV/go online, I chat on the phone with the HAG, I go to sleep... (repeat). Sounds awful but I actually quite like the routine. About a month ago, I took two days off work because I was unwell and I felt so uneasy about it because it was DIFFERENT. And even not going home this weekend feels really strange. I am officially old and boring.

Ok, so not every weekday goes like that. There are variations involving evenings going to the supermarket, shopping, having girlfriends over... but generally, I don't mind just coming home and not doing anything special. And I like living on my own because there is no obligation to talk to anyone after a day of work. I enjoy my quiet evenings where I can just be alone with my thoughts. Oh dear, so not only am I old and boring, but anti-social too...

So a little bit more about work...

I'm in the Corporate department with a bunch of men. Yes, ALL men. Not a single female solicitor in that department. Lucky me. I never thought that I would like corporate law but I'm starting to change my mind. I've been given a really wide variety of things to do. And no, I don't spend my days photocopying, filing and making cups of tea for my superiors (I have a secretary who offers ME endless cups of tea and coffee). After hearing nasty stories about trainees in other firms being given crap unimportant work to do, I really appreciate the kind of work I get to do.

During the first week, I had an ergonomics dude come analyse the way I sit and work at my desk. Apparently it's all wrong wrong wrong... so he gave me a foot rest and a back cushion... which on mosts days, I don't even bother using... la de da...

I charge clients £100 an hour... and I have to keep time sheets to account for all my time at work. It felt so weird at the start seeing on my time sheets that I was charging clients £20 for briefly emailing them... ho hum... I am so cheap compared to the partners though... heehee...

Ok, that's enough blabbing... I'm going to save some for the next blog post... whenever that may be...

Viva Las Vegas (part 9)

GRAND CANYON

The visit to the Grand Canyon was really amazing. Crazy hot but the views made up for it. We took a little 7-seater plane there and just the ride itself was so much fun!

After all that writing about the shows, I really am out of words so this post will pretty much just be photos with perhaps a few captions thrown in. But the photos are so beautiful that no words are really needed... (that'll be another tenner for me from the HAG... hehe...)

Crazy man


Crazy man taking a couple of pictures for us beyond the barrier where we weren't allowed to be...

Now where shall we sleep tonight...? Oh, the choices...

I think we should put in an offer for this one...

Yeah, haven't quite figured out how cameras work yet...

These ones are my favourite...

So that pretty much concludes Viva Las Vegas so my mission this weekend has been accomplished! Well, except from the food posts but they fall into a completely different category so they don't count. Yeah, can you see how good I am at convincing people why I don't get things done? I get lots of practice at work...

Viva Las Vegas (part 8)

SHOWS

We went to see three shows, which I don't have any photos of, but they were so cool that it's definitely worth giving them a mention.

KA at MGM Grand



On our second night, we went to see a Cirque du Soleil show, KA at MGM Grand. There's a brief video here which gives you a rough idea of what it was all about. I'm going to try my best at giving a (very very) short review but I'm not very good with words and since it's been months since I saw the show, it's really not that vivid in my mind so what I say really won't give any justice to how fantastic the show was. Really cool acrobatics, choreography, costumes and more...

We thought that it would be worth buying the Category 1 tickets to get a good view and it definitely was worth the money (well, I didn't have to pay a penny so of course of it was worth it for me... hehe...) Apparently the show and the theatre cost $165 million to develop... so I guess a meagre $165 per ticket isn't that much...

The star of the show was the stage, as strange as that may sound. It would move and be at different angles so that at some points, it would be completely vertical. And if that's not enough to impress you, it would also rotate! With the performers on it! It was so cool! There were some really dramatic scenes involving the moving stage. Aaaah, just can't possibly describe it in words! Go and watch it yourself!

The funny thing was that although the HAG and I both thought KA was really really impressive, it was our least favourite out of the three shows we saw! I would still go see it again though!



Penn and Teller at the Rio

Again, we had brilliant seats for this. I do think that you should pay the extra money to get good seats for these Vegas shows. There's no point in going if you're going to be seated way at the back where you can barely see what's going on. I mean, the money that we (sorry, the HAG... but what's his is mine, right?) spent on our tickets for three shows was probably enough to cover crap tickets for 5-6 shows but I think I'd much rather go with quality than quantity.

I think Penn and Teller was my favourite show out of the three. If you don't already know, they're magicians/comedians. Penn is the boisterous one who does all the talking while Teller just mimes but he's still hilarious just by using his body language.

The first trick involved a member of the audience. Penn chatted to her for a bit then asked her to take off her glasses and he put them in his pocket. Meanwhile, Teller came onto the stage with this cement block over his head. Penn smashed the block with a hammer thing, revealing Teller's head... and he was wearing the woman's glasses!

Before the show even started, the audience were asked to sign our names on this sealed envelope that was on the stage. We thought it was a bit random at first but then there was a trick involving this envelope. A guy from the audience was invited to go onto the stage and asked to flick through several joke books and pick a joke. He read out the joke he chose... and the punchline was written on this banner that was inside the envelope!

Then there was one trick where Teller placed a potted plant about 2 metres in front of an easel with a white canvas so that the plant's shadow was shone onto it. Then when he used a knife to 'slice' the shadow of the stem of the plant... the actual stem was cut and the top of the plant fell off!

The grand finale involved guns. Two members of the audience who had experience with guns were asked to go onto the stage. They were each given a bullet and asked to write their names on them and to draw something to make them distinguished from any other bullets. Then they loaded up guns with those bullets, and one of them shot Penn and the other shot Teller. The next thing you knew, Penn and Teller each had a bullet caught between their teeth... and they were indeed the ones that had the guys' names and drawings on them!


Blue Man Group at the Venetian

The HAG had already seen this twice - once in Vegas, once in London. But the last time he was in Vegas he wasn't as rich so couldn't afford good seats. So it was better this time. And I was sitting next to him, making it awesome. Ahem.

I'm not really sure how to categorise Blue Man Group into a genre. There's comedy... rock music... original percussion... cool lighting... three guys wearing latex caps and covered in blue paint, who don't do any talking whatsoever... oh, and there's lots and lots of paper...

To elaborate on the paper thing, there was one point where loads and loads of white crepe paper streamers came from the back of the theatre, travelling towards the front so that the whole audience was eventually covered in paper! And since black lights were used throughout the show, all the white paper turned purple... it was pretty cool stuff...

And when I say original percussion, I don't mean funky beats. I mean percussion involving playing pipes (no, not bagpipes - pipes that you find under your sink...) and crunching on cereal...

Oh, and the people in the first five rows had to wear plastic ponchos to protect their clothing from the paint, food and other crap that were splattered from the stage. This was the one time that we didn't mind not being too close to the stage...

Bodies the Exhibition at Tropicana



This wasn't exactly a show and we hadn't booked it in advance but we stumbled upon it online one day when we were trying to figure what to do and it looked pretty interesting.

The exhibition was basically about the human body but what was so cool was that everything in the exhibition were real human body parts that were preserved. Not only just parts but there were full-sized human bodies that were posed in different ways and layers of the body were cut away so that you could see how the muscles, bones, etc. (I'm no scientist - I don't know all the fancy names) react when the human body is performing different actions. If you click here and watch the short video, you'll see what I mean.

Seems a bit icky but actually, when I was looking at all the different bodies, I didn't even think about the fact that they were real - they looked kinda plasticky after the preservation processes. There was one room that was a bit creepy though (and people were warned that there was an option to skip it) and it contained foetuses at different stages. Ick.

Viva Las Vegas (part 7)

Right. Here's my plan. I don't have anything on this weekend for a change so I'm going to try and finish blogging about Vegas. It's hugely ambitious, I know. What will I think of next? Taking over the world?

I left off with the hotels and I think I've pretty much covered all the interesting ones we visited. Even if I haven't, I'm not going to bother. There are far cooler things to talk about. No, actually, less talking, more photos. Less thinking required.

ANIMALS

Lions at MGM Grand

"Oooh, I hear food..."

"Mmm... she looks tasty..."

"No, actually, I want to eat YOU!"

"It's so stressful being a lion!"

"OMG, this plastic ball tastes like shit..."

"Human leg should be good though..."

"Yes, I'm going to lay here all day. What you going to do about it?"

"I'm so depressed..."

"Why hasn't she called me yet... does she not fancy me...?"

Birds at Flamingo

"I refuse to let you get a good shot of me."

"Alright, fine. But only if you slip me a $5..."

"Yeah, get a close-up of my hair. I spent ages styling it to perfection this morning."

"I can't see you, you can't see me."

"Eugh... did someone pee in there?"

"I'm an inter-racial birdie..."

"You need to go on a diet, love."

Dolphins, alpacas, leapards and tigers (big ones, little ones, orange ones, white ones) at Mirage

"Pucker up and gimme a smooch."

"If I smile then maybe no one will notice what my dolphin friend is doing to me down there..."

"This angle makes me look fat..."

Something about this Alpaca makes it look rather sacred... like I should bow down to it or something...

Photographer: "Ok, now give me fierce."

"You can be my friend..."

"All this posing for photos is exhausting..."

"What was that? Is it food?"

"Where did it go?"

"Ok, can't be bovvered..."

"*Cough*... hair ball..."

Just chillin'

"Gimme a cuddle please..."

"Mmm... if it's a white tiger, then is it still cannabilism...?"

"Om nom nom nom..."

"I sad... take me home with you..." (Those are my fingers in the shot by the way. There's a plastic barrier between us though, of course.)

"I think you're just the right size for my dinner..."

"I'm so going to win this staring contest..."

I must say that I think the HAG got some really good photos. I'm probably very very biased though... (plus he pays me to compliment him... nah, he doesn't really. But he should.)

Viva Las Vegas (part 6)

Argh! So much for finishing the Vegas posts before starting the new job! I've still got so much to blog about! Food! Shows! Tigers! Grand Canyon!

Ok, even less commentary than before so that it won't be next summer by the time I finish all of it! I really don't have much time to blog now - with the commute I have to wake up pretty early in the mornings, which means having to sleep early and I don't get home until about 6:30pm or 7pm (or maybe later to show the partners that I'm keen) so that doesn't give me much free time at all. I'm loving the job though so it's all worth it! More about that later once I get these holiday posts out of the way!


HOTELS/CASINOS (cont'd)

Monte Carlo

I've been to the Monte Carlo in Monaco before and from what I remember, it looked nothing like this... there was one thing in common though - I won money at both casinos! I think I won something like 45 Euros with 2 Euros in Monaco. Here we put $5 into a slot machine and left with $135! It was so cool!

I thought these statues were really pretty... do you think I could get one to put outside on the terrace?

Bellagio

The Bellagio had fountain shows every 15 minutes. Very mesmerising stuff. I think they played different songs throughout the day and the fountains would do different things to synchronise with the music. It really did look like the water was dancing gracefully to the music. We watched the show three times on the last night at different locations so that the HAG could get some good shots. I didn't mind - I could have watched even more!

Waiting patiently to video the show...

Some very funky hot air balloons. Again, since I'm looking for decorative ideas for the flat, do you think this would work? I have high ceilings... ok, probably not high enough... dum de dum...


Mirage

Just a few more photos of outside the Mirage...

This was the sign/seats for the Revolution bar. We wanted to get a photo of it without any people in the shot but that proved to be very difficult as is seemed like there were people sitting on those seats all the time... how inconsiderate...

Talking of cool signs, I missed this one of the Liquidity bar in Luxor.

It looks like the bottom part is the reflection in water but the sign is actually cut out like that. We thought this was really cool.

Viva Las Vegas (part 5)

Argh... really am very behind with blogging about the summer hols... bad bad Eva... must finish before starting work on Monday... will not resort to blogging in the office...

Blogging at the HAG's right now while he's at work... his two massive monitors really makes things much easier in terms of being able to have multiple windows opened at once and not overlapped on top of one another...

Not sure if I can be bothered typing very much though so a lot of this post will just be photos...

HOTELS/CASINOS (cont'd)

The Venetian

The Venetian's theme was based on... take a guess... VENICE!

Everything here was very beautiful and had a rather romantic charm...

Outside the Venetian...






The singing gondolier... we didn't go on one because I had already been on a gondola in the real Venice and the HAG wasn't really fussed about it...



Some painting on the ceiling... very useful information I know... feel free to buy my holiday guidebook...



Humpty Dumpty sat on a 'wall' at the David Burke restaurant...



Look how happy he looks with me... too bad he couldn't fit into my suitcase... we would have had a wonderful life together...



So so beautiful at night... sigh... I wanna go back...

Caesar's Palace

This place was huge! The hotel is made up of five towers and has about 3,300 rooms! Lots of statues and fountains at Caesar's Palace...

We joked that perhaps this statue once had a head but was the victim of an ugly drunken accident... dum de dum...



Some crazy horse/fish thingy... I totally agree with inter-racial relationships but this is taking things way too far... heehee... sorry, that was inappropriate...



The Forum Shops at Caesar's Palace which we went into a few times as there were some really nice restaurants in there...



The ground floor of the Forum Shops with its grand decor and cool spiral escalators... I wonder if they could fit one of these in my flat...



Statues and fountains...



More statues and fountains...



And um... some more statues and fountains...



Massive wooden Trojan Horse at the entrance of a toy shop...



Inside the toy shop were... SWEETIES! I really like this photo of the display of many many sweetie scoops on the wall...



Forget Humpty Dumpty... meet my new beau, Mr Dino with his lengthy tongue...

New York New York

Two things I distinctly remember about New York New York...

One, the scary rollercoaster ride. I screamed all the way through it while the HAG laughed at me. I used to love thrill rides... just goes to show that I am old now... bah!

Two, a crazy woman in the toilets. I was washing my hands and could feel her staring at me. I eventually made eye contact and smiled at her, and she said to me, 'Awww... your bag looks heavier than you. You're so tiny! You're so cute!' Ok... I am a fully grown adult... not six years old...



Fake Statue of Liberty... please ignore the construction works in the background... maybe they're going to build her a boyfriend...



Not really sure which bridge this one is modelled on... funky-looking though...



Life-size Rock-em Sock-em robots...



We thought this photo was taken at a really interesting angle...

Paris

The Montgolfier Balloon... well, not quite, just a neon sign the shape of it...



The Eiffel Tower replica which is apparently five eighths (540 ft tall) of the size of the real one...




Arc de Triomphe replica that is two thirds of the size of the actual one...



Guess who those shadows belong to... heehee...



I think this is the pretend version of La Fontaine des Mers... but I'm not entirely certain...



The Eiffel Tower and Arc de Triomphe captured in one shot...



Happy HAG...



Aaah... the fountain was very cooling in the scorching heat...

I think that's sufficient blogging for one day... I should go shower so that the HAG doesn't come from work and find me still in my bathrobe... like yesterday... ahem... I'm not lazy... honest...