a couple of photos! BUSY AS USUAL. every blog post is the same, dear diary, i am really busy, dear journal, why is life so busy?

quick update: last weekend i went to the tongchuan seafood market with a large group of friends. if you haven’t been, you really should, as it’s essentially a fresh seafood free for all for anyone and all. we spent an hour running around purchasing various kinds of crab, clams, and other shellfish, and then headed to a restaurant where they cooked up our goodies fresh and tasty. the icing on the cake (the wasabi in the soy?) was bringing our own butter, which was melted and served to us during the meal – would highly recommend a trip down there!

upcoming this week – my birthday! eeeeeeeeeeeeh. expect more photos soon, xo.

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yessssssss, it is valentines day and it’s the first day of the year of the tiger! we arrived in kitzbühel via munich and london a few days ago, but there has been no wifi anywhere, can you imagine? the flight to london was uneventful, mark’s new apartment in west london is amazing, with a crazy view of the parliment and big ben. we flew to munich the next day, and rented a car (they messed up our reservation and so we are tooling around in a fancy BMW X5) and drove the 2 hours to austria. the cabin we’re staying in is very very sweet, and the two days of skiing we’ve done so far have been incredible. i haven’t skiied in a few years, and i took a 2 hour private lesson (with the ridiculously named yet charming BRUNO). still, i’m terrified of going too fast (as usual) and memories of childhood ski trips and bailing super hard are still too fresh in my brain – i like to call my style of skiing more of a ‘controlled slide’ down the mountain.

we’ve been eating pretty much nonstop, (after consulting monocle’s city guide) we stocked up the teeny tiny cabin fridge with amazing fresh produce and meats. also, yesterday, we ate at the the michelin 2 starred rosengarten, ummmmm hello amazing. above are some photos of the food orgies we’ve been having.

1. neng myun at the beijing airport (surprisingly tasty, but a bit too sweet + no self serve mustard and vinegar)
2. mark’s rotisserie chicken + green beans and potatoes, our first meal in london.
3. first breakfast in the cabin, i made open sunny side up + cheese sandwhiches.
4. chili con carne on the mountain for lunch.
5. cheese and meat platter for a post ski snack.
6. we found nice meats at nicholaus fuchs, and i came up with lamb for dinner.
7. sausages + 3 cheese egg scramble for breakfast.
8. amazing (and rich) (and pricey!) dinner courtesy of chef simon taxacher.

another post coming soon! so excited to meet up with collin and kate tonight! wheeeee austria.

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john took me out for dinner last night for a break away from turkey (it’s all we’re going to be eating this week!), and it looks like they added new options to the menu…. ha!

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what a lovely friday evening! john and i hosted our first thanksgiving dinner ever, with 10 people and a large turkey, pies, so much food! afterwards we played guitar hero and lazed around and chatted and laughed. especially sweet was that two of our guests had gotten engaged earlier in the evening, and another friend had just finished his GMAT and had a score to celebrate. the 12 bottles of wine, bottle of champagne and 2 bottles of jim beam probably helped the sweetness as well… yum!

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sunday marked the official beginning of winter in shanghai, the temperature has dropped and suddenly, after weeks of t-shirt weather and sunshine, it’s cold and windy, gray skies and the rest. wintertime means more time spent inside, and i think this winter i’ll be cooking more than usual – over the last few months i’ve been making dinner two or three times a week.

last night i spent around 2 hours making a lasagna, which turned out really well, i cheated by using store-bought pasta sauce, w/ricotta, mozzarella, parmesan and cottage cheese but it was still tasty.

over the summer, i was making alot of salads, with a really simple garlic, salt&pepper, oil and vinegar dressing, as well as baked salmon on the regular, baked in tin foil, with a ton of spices topped with thin slices of lemon. also, vegetable soups from scratch!

now i’m looking for more recipies, ooooh, what should i make? please give me some ideas, oh it’s hard cooking in china.

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john and i have been hanging out at kitchenette lately, i think it’s my new favourite place in shanghai. right next to our office, it reminds me of all those great breakfast places on main street in vancouver (but shrunk down to azn size),and it’s got a comfortably tiny menu which means it’s always easy to decide what you want. they do a decent breakast for 35rmb (eggs, bizarre sausages, good bacon, little potatoes + two pieces of sourdough bread) and refillable cups of coffee for 15rmb. super cheap eats western eats!

spectacular weekend, full of debauchery with plenty of good meals thrown in for good measure. checked out the opening of NOTME on friday, which was incredibly hot & sweaty, with the free flow drinks being more of a bit of a miss. still, the music was good, drew + gang killed it, and the street was overflowing with kids sipping on bacardi breezers and tsingdao’s from down the street.

on saturday we went to a bbq at our friend john’s new place, where i was introduced to a game called flipcup, which was stressful and ridiculous. there was also alot of beer pong’ing going on (or ‘beirut’ as it’s supposedly called?) – it was basically the most college night i’ve ever had in my life.

also, had an amazing hot pot experience on sunday night, at dolar shop – that shit was tasty. we also checked out the new pho sizzlin’, which wasn’t sizzling and only mildly ok. mmmm pho.

japanese eats, there was so much food we could have fed at least a dozen starving children with the leftovers. bad behavior, but love japanese joints that let you leave the bottle for the next time around.

besides ridiculous activities, we spent alot of this weekend eating.

sunday night, lots of reason to get tooogether. jan lo + dj wordy got into town over the weekend, and it was anita’s last night in shanghai. she celebrated by spending four hours cooking the most amazing meal ever. afterwards there was icecream. now it’s monday and i have a stomachache and ohh, so many meetings!