Manioc Cake-Banh Khoai Mi

Not in the good mood this evening, got into a stupid argument...Anyway, I decided to bake a cake to keep my mind busy, not to think about it.

Reading Politics at the moment, Brian recently sent this book, apparently it's a good book. So far it has nothing to do with politics ;-), it's not about politics, the first pages are actually about sex ;-P, yeah yeah guys but that does not last long. It gets quite interesting now, and quite funny.

Doing some research on legal aspects of hotel for my business plan at the moment, gets busier and busier with this final work papers, but learnt a lot.

My two arms are so tired after too many push-ups in my boxing class (yeah, I picked this class up again), but it's nice to sweat a lot ;-). You feel sort of healthy hehehe.

There are more and more pages in my off-line book but it still does not goes any where, but I am addicted in writing it now. Why this rush I wonder?

Soja milk

Banh tet

Tet weekend

Weekend was Tet, so you can imagin how much foods I have destroyed until now ;-). On Saturday, I made a small ceremony for my grandpa (yeah, it's not like I have to, but I usually remember him when New Year comes, so I made some of his most favourite dishes and I hope he was there ), and in the evening I went to the temple.

This year, the temple was full with Belgians ;-), it's funny to see how many white people sitting together with Vietnamese to chant Buddhism book.

Around mid-night, me and my uncle joined the Vnese mafia to eat (well, of course the New Year Eve was already passed, it was at 6pm here), and eat, and eat ;-). There were a lot of foods that wives of uncle's friends made, typical Vnese for New Year: banh chung, banh tet, thit kho, cu kieu...etc. They probably have been cooking a lot to eat for several days, and for a lot of people ;-). I think the dinner stopped at 4 am Sunday morning or something, and I was invited for lunch on Sunday again. Again a lot of foods, also sweets.

Yesterday evening, I had some friends over to eat, many of them asked for nems, and Vnese foods since Xmas day I made them eat cheese (raclette) ;-).

This Dog year is my sister's year, well she has changed a lot, is even more mature, maybe in certain sense and view re. life, she is more mature than me. Mom went out with friends, so I could able to talk to her, but I talked to grandmom, and had fun because after I told her what we would do on New Year, at the end she asked me "so, what you guys do for New Year?" ;-)). She has hearing problems, but is very healthy and still practice Taichi. We can't ask for more.

Looking forward to Dog Year, hopefully it will be brighter that the last year.

Manu suggested my Tet resolution should be learning how to swim, I couldn't agree more since it is achievable ;-)

Older and wiser?

After a week of sleepless nights, and breaking every part of my brain, I finally finished all the tests. Normally it should not be that hard to study, but since I didn't study a lot before ;-) (I didn't have time hehehehe-crap excuses), and although my grades of the first tests were not bad, I really want to do REALLY good this time. Reasons? I want to beat this German girl in my class ;-) (I know, that is very silly but I can't help it!!!), and well, I don't want to pay tuition, then not study good enough.

Being a student again, and have to study for exams make me realise that actually the older we get, the less wise we will be, and the more mistakes we will make ;-). Really don't you notice that you start to forgeting things or sometimes you do a mistakes, then go "Damn, again" ;-), seem like we stop learning from mistakes at a certain age. So, being older actually makes us dumber!! Yeah, sad reality ;-)

Fox is China right now celebrating New Year, lucky guy. Apparently this time, he will do a mother-son trip to Thailand (hopefully they will not run into Cris and Jeremie who will also be in Thailand for their honeymoon trip ;-))). I guess Fox has made us all jealous about his juicy details about foods, and warm, sunny destinations ;-).

Me, tomorrow I have to go to the temple here although I don't like it so much but there is only one here in Brussles, and well, I pray once a year...I have also been helping aunty Vinh to make little paper drums for the kid's performance next week to celebrate new year. If you were there last year, you knew how cute they were. This year, they will dance two folk songs, that's why we need to make fake paper drums. That's for next week, this week, also have to cook some dishes for grandpa, and tomorrow even uncle gonna consume only vegetables (anyway, he has no choice ;-))

Right now I really need a long afternoon nap, I woke up at 4am almost every morning the whole week ;-(. I want to check out either Munich or The Libetine tonight with friends. They have been waiting the whole week for me to join them for movie ;-)

A view on public transportation

I was almost stuffed with smoke yesterday morning on the metro to go to school. It was quite interesting to see how panic people got in situation like that. The smoke came into our compartment, and even we pulled the emergency alarm, the conductor did not stop, I guess he needed to arrive to the next station anyway.

When we arrived at the next station, the conductor came to have a look, and then just turned away and said "C'est rien" ;-), but the vehicle just stopped there, and at the end I had to walk to school from there.

Everyone who uses public transportation understands how frustrated it is, I don't think the frustration level is lower than the one that those of you who face traffic jams in the morning. The other day, there was one girl who got on the bus by the second door instead of the first one where she had to show her ticket to the bus conductor, and he shouted at her, ordered her to get on by the first door. Of course, she had to buy the ticket, and was looking in all her pockets to find 1,50Eur to buy it. He just stopped the bus and didn't move until she found enough money to buy a ticket. The girl cried at the end, she probably felt a bit of humiliation...It was not his fault, and I think the organization was just inefficient. The driver should not be the one who checks the ticket, I guess he should take care only the driving, and who pays or not should not be his problems. Morever, when you give them a certain authority, they start behaving as if they are important and can do whatever they want. They forget that their job is to bring people to work or else.

It just makes me feel a little disgusting to see sometimes several strong, muscled guys in the morning entering the bus or any transport vehicles to check tickets whereas they could do a better job somewhere with the well- built figures. Let's just do a simple math. Take a taxi driver, and ask him to drive you from Midi station to Place Flagey, I think it costs just a bit more than 10 Eur. Now take a tram from Midi to Flagey, a tram could bring about 175 people (figures are put on the tram itself), and each of user has to pay at least 1Eur (the ticket for one single journey is now 1,50Eur unless you have a subscription of some sort), so the transport company makes about 200 Eur for one way only, more than a taxi. And you wonder why that does not make them enough profit to organise better instead of going on strike all the time?

The thing is when they are on strike, there should be a law that makes them pay damages to the public who already paid their monthly pass or yearly subscription and could not use the vehicles, therefore they also lose their own productivity that day for not being able to perform (considering we don't get paid if we don't come to work for reaon of public transportation strike).
Isn't that fair when you swallow your money at the begining of the month, not working, and while some people are not able to pay a ticket, you made a great deal out of it??

Sunday brunch

Egg and ham on English muffin and pickled seaweed

Saturday kitchen II

Have to study my *ss off this weekend since next week I will have progess tests the whole week.

Got an headache this morning after reading a lot of theories, and all, I decided to give my brain a little break by starting to make bao with the fermented flour that I prepared yesterday night before going to bed. Since uncle mentioned lately that I had not made any sweet for a long time (at my uncle age, it is not good to eat sweets, I am afraid he will get diabetes), I decided to also bake some chocolate muffins for him (he does not like normal muffin without chocolate).

So, voila, the result is that now have 24 muffins, and a lot of bao ;-))

Chocolate grape muffins

Banh Bao

First try.

Forgot to take pictures when they were done, the taste of the filling was not enough salty, but they look not so bad.

I made one kg of flour, no need to mention the amount of bao that I get. I guess I will give some, and freeze some, so I can eat them later.

"A few short notes on tropical butterflies"

A stunning book!! A collection of suprising stories...It is just moving from pages to pages, how each story has been told, they are somehow similar but not repetitive...

The stories are beautiful but at the same time sad, letting you unmoved. Find some mimilar traits to your life with the people who are part of yours, a broader view of how we are maybe? A bit scary actually. I guess I like books that make me think, make me question the existance of things, and books involve psychological views. I especially like the title, too. Definitely give me an image of an adventurer who travel to places and make notes on everything he has ever seen.

Anyway, not gonna talk too much about the book, just want to say that it is a very nice book, maybe not everyone will like it though. But if you ever find yourself alone, I think this is the book that you need. At least for me, it was ;-) although I also have personal reasons for liking this book.

Dream on, baby to the heaven of cats ;-)

Congratulations!!!

One of my best friends in highschool got married in January, and when I saw her card in the mailbox, I remember all the frustrations that she told me last year about not getting married yet ;-). Concerning this, I guess Cris, who is now Mrs Bohen we call ;-) understands best.

Anyway, it is just funny to think back about the time I spent with my friend in highschool. I remember there was time I got upset with her, and so we did not talk for the whole summer, but when school started again, we were again together, talking about what we did, talked about which teacher we would have for which subjects, who we liked, and who we did not.

There were afternoons when the heat could make a normal person here get crazy, but we were on the same scooter, went to take supplement lessons in math or skipped courses to go to a karaoke place that had air conditioning to sing and spent the whole afternoon there with other friends.

Now we are supposed to be adults ;-), and therefore there are things we do, we have to think twice, and sometimes it takes years. Well, last year almost everything is uncertain, but this year seem like things have been into their places, so yeah it is scary and exciting to realise what life reserve for each of us...

More wedding to come next year apparently ;-), dog year is normally good for horses, and so people believe ;-).

Mika n his "stolen" salad ;-)

Yoda

Vietnamese Tet

There are several events that are organised by the embassy of VN, group of Vnese who belongs to the South of VN, and of course group that just wants to maintain the Vnese culture. You can always go to all of them since they are not organised on the same date, usually the one organised by the embassy is really big, last year they invited real artists from VN to play different traditional musical instruments, and dragon dances, dances, fire-crackers at mid-night to chase away the devil ghosts hehehehe and to welcome the new year...

This year, I have to go to the temple again on New Year Eve, and of course participating in a show organised by my musical teacher, so yeah I will also have to play one song from my intrument (no worries I will play within a group, so your ears will not hurt much :-)). I received the program, it will be different from this year, more children dances, and foods seem not too bad. Well, if you guys enjoyed the show last year, you should definitely come this year ;-).


How Vietnamese celebrate Tet? Two weeks prior to the New Year Eve, usually Vietnamese make a small ceremony to send the kitchen Saints (as they are not Buddha or else, they are like representatives in each household and their tasks are supposed to make a report about the household that they are responsible for, whether the people who live in that house are good, what did they do bad last year..etc. The Saints are two husbands and one wife-too good to be true, isn't it? ;-)) -The reason for this menage a trois, most earth-ware kitchen that are used in VN in the past has three stands, and why two husbands-1 wife and not vice-versa? I actually can't remember now ;-))). On New Year Eve, we have to make a "small dinner" to welcome them together with the family ancestors to celebrate new year. There is also a small tray of fruits to give to the different Gods of four directions (North, South, East, West), then at mid-night, everybody starts going to temple, pagoda to pray as well as to get a small branch of flower to put in the house, it is supposed to bring luck, prosperity for the whole year. Well, people also cook and buy a lot of foods that guarantee we can continue eating for the next two weeks. The first day of the year, Buddhist practice people will only eat vegetarian dishes as does so my family usually. BTW, Buddhist also do not eat garlic and onions, but the story for that is for next time ;-) (not only because of aphrodisiac reason).

The celebration lasts one month, although kids return to school after 10 days, and the atmosphere will get less exciting...It's the time for adult to get rest, I think. Most things are found supertitious (like you can't visit other people on the first day or can't weep anything out of the house), but there are also a lot of things create a little "magic" for the holidays such as receiving lucky money on the morning of the first day of the year ;-) as long as you are not old yet (so what is old?;-)), and not married or have kids, you still have the right to receive it hehehehe

Anyway, more info on the New Year show to follow in next few weeks ;-)

"Top of the world" Carpenter ;-)

"I'm on the top of the world lookin' down on creation
And the only explanation I can find
Is the love that I've found ever since you've been around
Your love's put me at the top of the world"

Such a long time I didn't listen to this group, I remember when I was small, my youngest uncle played this sort of music, ABBA or Roberta Flack "Killing me softly with his song", or the Beatles..etc, at the time of course I didn't understand anything, I just thought the music, rythms of the songs were very nice....So, when I got a little older, I started to listen to this sort of music, soft and meaningfull, full with love, sometimes sad but sometimes fun, and with French music, I bought lot of cassettes of Vanessa Paradis, and especially liked "Jo, le taxi" ;-).

Now, music is rather banal, recently when I was zapping the remote control of my TV, on MCM there was a song of this girl called Nolwen or something and the song is about her, Nolwen, very bad song, I don't know who wrote it, probably herself. Why do we allow this sort of music broadcast on radio? I mean do they think that we do not know what good music is about?

Lyrics are rubbish, and most of the time talking about sex or else...James Blunt is very good song writer, okey his songs are very sad, sometimes can be quite "cheesy" for some people ;-) but for me, they are very poetic, meaningful, his love songs are real at least. Micheal Buble's "Home" is really nice or more Stereophonics for the fun...

Madonna is so far very good artist, very creative and I think she is an amazing woman, full of surprises, she knows what goes best for her career.

In VN we say, talented or beautiful people always have a curse ;-), like Karen of Carpenter, she suffered from anorexia nervosa that she died so young...Anyway, I love their music, and when I listened to this especially "top of the world" reminded me many things, lycrics are beautiful! And yes, I especially like love songs because without love, there is no hope in life!

Saturday kitchen ;-)

Peach cake a la Thao n Wantan soup

Seafood nems and Meatballs farci with quail eggs served with sweet and sour sauce

Bruges n Ice Sculpture 2005

"Let's not study"

When people are too busy....

...they will write the same mail to everybody they know ;-).

One of my friends is very bad in keeping in touch, in fact it is only when she needs help, I hear from her otherwise, she seems to vaporise in the air for some time. I don't blame her, of course, sometimes that drives me nut, and creates disappointment but I guess the best way to deal with friends like that is to act like themselves. So, the less you expect from them, the more you feel better because you know that's the way it should be.

She is a not the bad person, just a little careless, maybe it's culture difference? don't know but we have talked about that, but it did not seem to change, so I guess there is nothing we can do if we do not have will ;-).

I was suprised to see her mail, she just came back from holidays, and usually I did not expect to receive her mail so fast, so I thought she probably also felt it was long since we last talk...But well, only after I talk to another friend of mine, we realised she sent us the exact same message. This is like no big deal for some people, but for me, writing an e-mail or letter to friends requires effort to convey that you care for them, that you indeed think about them. They are just not words, they are feeling that you can not describe directly because you do not see each other. It is sad to see that people use mails to lie or being dishonest, or an easy mean to fake their feeling.

I think we should treasure friends that you can still keep in touch with, because believe me there are friends even when you want to write to them, it seems like you are facing the wall...Anyway, that's another story!

Am I being too serious again? ;-) C'mon, even direct mail needs to be personalised ;-P

Main dish and dessert

Second starter and changing taste

Five course dinner

First starter and small snacks

Lord of War

Another great movie that try to wake our consciousness concerning World orgainizations, based on authentic facts, this movie again shows the real problems that poor countries are facing.

To be honest, quite depressing as you will see that there are no future for poor countries despite all efforts.

The Constant Gardener

Recently, there are many news about how Vietnamese footballers were held for match-fixing or a foreign pedophile got his freedom when he paid money to the victim's family.

Vietnam is a country that every single Vietnamese is proud for winning many wars. I guess that is the characteristic of real Vietnamese, we united in war, but not in peace. The other day when Koen told me he has a lot of respect for VN, that made me felt really good, but yet made me think how many Vietnamese are actually proud of being one?

Vietnam is small and poor, and has gone into war so many times in the past that made the Vietnamese people afraid of having one, so what we do is avoid at all cost in getting into one. And that to a certain extent, many Vietnamese are afraid of foreign people regardless that person is white or else as long as they are coming from a more superior country. Do we lose our self-esteem? I suppose so.

Many times back to VN, together with my friends, we had boiling conversations about how a Vietnamese behave in front of a foreigner, we all hate to see that a foreigner could do anything in VN. Who is to blame for this situation? If you are Vietnamese, you will surely know why. Isn't that sad to see how cheap the life of a person is?

The thing I often enjoy repeating is that if you don't respect your people, nobody will. Of course, many of us believe in humanity mission, but remember the money you give to help, not a lot is actually come to the ones in need. There are many ways to help, and sometimes not helping is actually help.

"The Constant Gardener" is for sure a movie that with very honest, straightforward pictures convey real concern of how a poor country needs help, how big corporations play an important game in politics, and how cheap the life of a human being in such country. Another thing I love about this movie is the constant love and believing, you should NEVER have doubt when you love someone.

Very good movie.

Happy year 2006!

Wishing you guys a year with new and interesting challenges, good health, happiness, prosperity, and PEACE ;-). Peace between family, friends, and remember the keyword for 2006 is forgiving, forgiving, and forgiving!

Well, many of us do not believe in resolutions because the first we do is usually breaking them. But we should always make a list of things we want to achieve. This year, I do not want to resolve anything big, this year I focus on simple things, not so hard to achieve. Of course, your resolutions can be very concrete and honest, like wanting to be rich (a plain meaning of rich ;-) because you are tired of waiting for things to happen, or wanting to earn more money...or what is very abstract like "try harder" but you can make it concrete for yourself.

I agree that when you want something, for sure you have to make it happen, you can not sit and wait for it to come, of course, everything has its time, but things will not happen if we at least do not make effort in believing for it to happen.

But I also beleive that if you are a good person, together with your will, everything you face will become easy to overcome, and that works in relationship, too. We say "when you are meant to meet someone, wherever you are, you will meet them but if you are not meant to, even that person is in front of you, you will not see them".

If you are in quest for love, stop searching, but do not give up believing ;-)

Anyway, a new year has come, so everything that happened or was done yesterday belongs to the past, can't do anything about them, live today ;-) because the result of our future is based on what we do now.

Again, dear friends, a very Happy New Year to all of you!