Food: My Anti-Drug

This blog has a lot of food. So with that being the topic, mind as well share with you my breakfast almost every morning:

Oatmeal with raisins and bananas!!!!

Soooooo delicious! I could eat this everyday and never get tired with it. I accompany with a tall glass of cold milk. YUM YUM YUM!!! Sometimes, I wake up in the early morning JUST so I can eat breakfast and then I go back to bed to a reasonable time. For example: I go to sleep at 4AM (working on music) and then I wake up at 7:30 (naturally) just to eat oatmeal, smile and go back to to sleep until 10 or 11AM. That's how much I love OatmeaL!

So one day, Phoebe (My cousin Ronald's wife) and I decided to meet up for lunch at a Japanese restaurant. After chowing on some delicious sashimi and sushi, Phoebe had a craving for her favorite local dessert, so we ventured out into the pouring rain for her sweet fix!

After some crazy traffic, bad weather, and illegal parking, we finally made it to our destination booth in Jordan that made:

Fish Egg Pastries!!!!!

Well, they aren't REAL Fish Eggs, mind you *that

would be gross*, people just call them Fish Egg Pastries because they look like fish eggs. But they taste sweet and are made out of sugar and flour. I'm not sure what else they add, but the result taste is a subtle sweet type of bread. This dessert is so popular in HK, some people during the New Year festivals sell pillows and dolls made in this shape, and they are a hot sale.

Phoebe couldn't be any happier! Satisfied customer! Thumbs up!

The next day, after 3 hours of dance practice, I met up with Yandy for dinner. I felt obligated to repay her in some way for the 4 hour photoshoot she helped me with, so what other better way to repay someone than food?

Let's go eat!!

Yandy chose a really delicious Shanghainese restaurant in Tsim Sha Tsui's K11 Mall. The first picture is a dish called "Xiao Lung Bao" (Little Dragon Buns). They come with a sauce on the side that is composed of vinegar and ginger. You take these dumplings (veryy very carefully to avoid breaking the skin) and you dip in the sauce and once you bite into the pork-filled amazingness, you are slapped in the mouth with a heap of pork juice that was contained carefully within the dumpling skin. Very tasty!

- The second picture is cured ham over Chinese cabbage in a light white sauce

- The third picture is Hot and Sour soup. It made me miss my mom's (Inter China) restaurant's Hot and Sour Soup. Nothing compares to our H&S!!

- The last picture is Jia Jiang Mian, a popular noodle dish in China and also Korean (although they make it really different). The dish is made up of minced pork in brown sauce (a bit sweet and spicy) and fresh cucumbers. You then mix it all together with the noodles at the bottom to make a very delicious noodle meal! My grandmother makes the best, and I miss her cooking!!

Yandy had a cute outfit that day, as a lot of heads turned and looked as we walked down the street. Good job, Yandy!

This girl, however, did not have a cute outfit.

Another friend commented on how she had a huge build of a body, and carried such a tiny back pack and how funny it looked, so of course I took a picture for you guys so you won't make the same mistake one day.

There is a big Indian population in Hong Kong

(dates back to the colonial times since Britain had colonized in both India and Hong Kong, they had brought a lot of Indians to the city and this population has remained residing in Hong Kong) Chung King Mansion, located in Tsim Sha Tsui, has a lot of Indian-based restaurants and stores. The inside is a bit creepy and sketchy, but the people are generally nice. There's a particular restaurant I love going to, so going through all the sketchiness is worth it for the good Indian food. Yum! I'll take you on the adventure to get to the TAJ MAHAL!

This is the

entrance to the Chung King Mansion. Here, a lot of people stand with pamphlets and brochures for their restaurants or love motels that they hope you will go to. If you happen to give one more attention, he usually grabs you by the hand and leads you to make sure you really go to his restaurant. I think it's also to make sure you don't get lost in the Chung King Mansion maze. I'll explain with the pictures coming up:

Get by

the herds of people.

Go up the dark stairs ...., and take a left. Follow it down into the fire escape staircase at the end of the corridor. Get past the other Indian restaurants with people calling at you to stop and just sit down there to eat.

At the

staircase, aside from the overall dark and dampness, there are many things to admire, like the part of the wall where someone wripped off wall to get to the wiring. haha. Classy...

Continue climbing up the stairs.

You are now on the second floor. I always think this is one of the most interesting parts of the adventure to Taj Mahal. Usually in this dark corner, you have one homeless and skeleton-skinny guy sleeping there. He wasn't there this time :( Hope he's ok. Oh well! Continue to the 3rd floor! Chop chop! Foods waiting!

The arrow points forward

Once you reach the third floor, you'll find this corridor. Follow it and take a right as the guy is demonstrating in the picture! Thanks, model! haha

You have reached, the TAJ MAHAL! It's like a random non-scary place in the midst of a bunch of dark alleys and stair cases. haha Definitely worth it though, they have wonderful food!

I usually find a friend to go with me, because they have a set dinner for two that includes drinks, soup, appetizers, Chicken Marsala, rice or nan (yum yum), and 2 types of curry. This time we got mutton and Fish curry. My favorite types of curry are fish and vege. and Garlic and cheese nan is worth dying for.

I don't even know where to start.....

On Tuesday, I was invited by Baron's School of Music to be a representative to sing at an anti-drug event in Hollywood Plaza in Diamond Hill.

I like the MTR (subway) plaque of Diamond Hill. They have lil' "sparkles" near the words (symbolized by the random white boxes)

I got to sport a Baron School Jacket!!! ....then I found out I had to return it so I took a picture with it on first haha.

Another student from the school. I've met Tomy twice and for some reason, he reminds me of Taiwanese singer Yoga Lin. I know they don't look exactly alike, but there is a resemblance, esp. in person. I think it's the way they act, kinda goofy, but not meaning to be. Or maybe it's the hair...

I didn't know where else to put this picture, but one day I really had the sudden craving for some KFC. and luckily Hong Kong Kentucky Fried Chicken. To avoid fried foods, I went with their new Flava Crava Chicken. I guess my body isn't used to fast food quality anymore, but I felt so sick afterwards and my tummy was upset the whole night....

Worst.Craving.Ever

Anyways, back to Hollywood Plaza in Diamond Hill. I saw this sign and couldn't help but laugh:

NO MEN ALLOWED!!!!

*actually it was just saying there were no male restrooms on that floor...but I think they could have done without the intense X over the male picture*

This is another student at Baron. I thought Christine had really cool hair. She was singing Alicia Key's "Fallin'" so she was getting into character.

We were asked to sign the book for the event. I need to work on my autograph/signature -__-

The Hollywood Plaza stage:

Rehearsal time: *I look lost* The sign in the back says "Dance to the Future, Without Drugs"

Members from the Anti-Drug organization. They put on a 10+ minute long dance. It was cute and fun to watch. You could tell some of the people in it though were dying by the 7th minute and wanted to take a break, but they just had to keep going.

Free Lunch! At the sound of that, I sprung up and ran to get food. I didn't open my container to see what I got, cuz I like everything. I got Pig's Knuckle!!!!

This may seem gross for those of you who aren't used to seeing people eat Pig's Knuckle, but it's soooo good. A bit hard to eat though with a plastic fork and spoon....usually you use your hands to rip it apart, but I had to do all this while looking civil in public.

Apparently after eating it, I was told that no one wanted the pig's knuckles cuz it closes up your throat when singing, something I should have thought about before I performed... haha but it didn't affect me.

With friends Jacky and Christine. Jacky actually messaged me on facebook a while back while I was still on the Taiwanese competition to tell me to "add oil" and keep it up. At that time, esp. when I got eliminated and a bit down, his message was very nice and helped lift up my spirits and confidence. He's also a great singer as well and hopefully we can all start working more together to improve our singing abilities. His pro is his falsetto and head voice, which is completely my con.

My other friends from Baron! I really like this group, they are so fun! Notice Tomy's finger, he slammed it in the door (himself) a few days ago. It started bleeding like crazy towards the end of the day. eewww

Representatives from each sponsor were asked to go on stage, so Nataliee and I were asked to help represent Baron's School of Music to sign the Anti-Drug pledge.

Cheese~*

Hong Kong singer, Deep Ng. I used to listen to him when I was back in the states. He's got a good voice, and it was cool to stand on the same stage with him. He was once caught doing drugs, which is why I think they invited him to come be a singer at this event. I think it takes a lot of guts to admit to everyone, esp. as a famous person, that you had this problem, but at least he's manning up to it and trying to tell others to stay off of drugs.

A hip-hop group and 2 models performing on stage. The 2 models are known as "Leng Mo"s who are shorter versions of models that have become a trend in Hong Kong recently. They are starting to become big in the industry and you can often see them at random events just to stand there and look pretty. These two "leng mo"s are particularly famous, and pretty, but they really cannot dance at all. One of them was at least into it and trying to be energetic. The other one (on the right) looked really uncomfortable and didn't even look like she cared.

The lady (yes, lady) second from the right used to be a drug addict and she was sharing her experiences as an addict and her journey through rehab and becoming clean. I think it's very courageous of her to be able to admit she used to have the problem and to stand in front of everyone to share her story. Even though I didn't understand all of it, I was very touched by her just being there to hopefully influence others to not to the same. I'm glad she cleaned up .

My turn! I sang Khalil Fong's "為妳寫的歌“

I wasn't nervous at all that day, which made me very happy. Whenever I get nervous on stage, I always get mad at myself because I tell myself "you've done this before, why are you wussing out?" so not getting stage-fright this time was great! I think I did rather well even though the music system was terrible and fades the music in when I asked them not to do it since my song starts at the very beginning so I couldn't start in on time, but luckily knew how to come in on the second line of the song without looking like a deer trapped in headlights.

The more you perform, the more you are aware of yourself on stage. Even with music mess-ups like the sound system, you still have to give your best performance and keeping smiling (or frowning if it's a sad song) because even if it's the production's fault, if you stop singing, people are always going to think you, the singer, messed up, so you just have to keep trucking. I love when obstacles like this happen to me on stage and I don't freak out. It makes me happy that I've reached to a point where I am in control of myself on stage, something that took a while to get used to. The more you sing and perform, the easier things get

Towards the end of the song, the music randomly cut off, but I kept singing so it didn't look like I effed up, and luckily when the music came back on a few seconds later, it hadn't stayed in the spot where it skipped and had continued on, so I remained on beat and finished the performance strong. I'm glad I didn't let that phase me. The same thing happened to Deep Ng as he was singing and he didn't seem very happy about it either. The audience was very supportive and got a few whistles from one of the floors.

This was our audience! It was actually more packed earlier, I took this picture when the event was drawing to a close. It was the three floors of the mall and also a few rows near the stage. These kind of singing events are common in Hong Kong where people can do their shopping while also listening to people singing and dancing.

Nataliee and I posing with our signatures on the Anti-Drug pledge

Alright, that's it for now. I'll try and post my performance video when I get a better quality version of it! Till then, take care!