Corgis are adorable

I want a cat, but if I ever have a dog, I hope it will be a corgi:

Here are 40 things that make corgis happy :)

Nirai Kanai (Liang Court)–Fabulous Okinawan Food

Okinawan food is fantastic and a must try for anyone. Due to the history of the Okinawan islands and their proximity to Taiwan, Okinawan food will have a familiar – yet different – taste to those of us used to southern Chinese cuisine.

The restaurant has a very rustic feel – and it does remind me of Okinawa:

There are several must-tries for Okinawan cuisine. One of them is champuru, a kind of stir-fry. Popular ones are tofu champuru and goya champuru. Japanese bittergourd – or goya – is only slightly bitter and has a crunchy texture. It’s the only kind of bittergourd that I’ll eat.

We ordered the goya champuru – champuru in Okinawa is often fried with luncheon meat (tasty!) and is drier. Ours had a fair bit of sauce but was still very delicious, as it tasted as if it had been cooked with bacon when in fact there was none – just egg, tofu and pork:

Another signature dish in Okinawa is Okinawan soba. Okinawan soba is more like noodles as we know it, and looks quite like mee pok. We tried Souki Soba, which you will find everywhere on the islands. The broth was thick and delicious but less salty than ramen broth, and the stewed pork was full of flavour:

As one can probably tell, Okinawan food is very heavy on pork – and many of their signature dishes are pork dishes. I’m not sure whether the pork knuckles we had were authentic Okinawan food, but oh man – it was AMAZINGLY GOOD. Unlike German pork knuckles, the meat came right off the bone with just a prick of the fork, and the knuckles had less fat and contained more flavour than Chinese pork knuckles. Honestly, the skin was extremely tasty:

There was nothing left after we were done with the pork knuckles:

Finally, here’s a dish which one absolutely cannot miss when in Okinawa/in an Okinawan restaurant – stewed pork belly, or Rafute. The fat melted in your mouth and the meat had just the right amount of bite, and every inch of the meat had been adequately infused with the aromatic sauce:

The servings are pretty sizable and we were stuffed by the end – all for just $52. The service is average – one server was attentive, but another wasn’t at all – and they forgot the tuna carpaccio that we’d ordered (just as well though!). That said, the food was awesome – and I’m quite partial to Okinawan food – so I’d recommend everyone to try this place!

Tips and Tricks

Quite a while back, there was this article on 25 Clever Ideas to Make Life Easier. I’d blogged it somewhere but can’t find it now, so here it is again.

Also, I came across this cool tip on making magnetic spice pots that adhere to your fridge to save storage space. It’s a really good idea, cos spice bottles can be messy to keep. I should also consider how to do something similar for all the small pots of makeup and facial products.

Giselle–Act I Peasant Variation

My teacher has taken a renewed interest in using the music for the peasant variation in Giselle, which I happen to really like as well.

Here’s a crazy performance of this variation, with the fastest footwork I’ve ever seen – she seems to be flying across the stage!

Here’s another variation with jumps in the second theme instead of pointe work. It makes me sad, cos we did jumps in class to this music and they’re so difficult to just do the simplest of entrechats, much less what you see on stage.

Again – why is ballet so difficult?!

The Oxford Comma

Remember all the times in school when you were told that you shouldn’t put a comma before “and”?

That comma is called an Oxford comma, and, despite its name, is acceptable in American English.

While I’ve been trained not to use it, I find that it is useful in breaking up a written sentence to imitate how one would read it, and it has therefore crept into my writing – as you can see above.

The comma is especially useful when listing things, as illustrated in the first example below:

It should be pointed out, however, that the creator’s argument for the result of omitting the Oxford comma is incorrect, as the example sentence is grammatically wrong – as we all know, an “and” must come before the last item in the list.

Thus, for that example to be grammatically sound, it should read “I had eggs and toast and orange juice” – which in itself is confusing. Hence it would be better to say “I had eggs and toast with orange juice”.

Nonetheless, I am wholly of the opinion that Oxford commas are useful – just not weak/incorrect arguments for it. The Oxford comma reduces confusion when used in a complex sentence, and alerts the reader to when a pause in reading and in thought should be made.

I’m glad to have seen this though, as it got my brain working for a while :)

Rabbit food

I ate too much today – again – and the first thought that came to mind was that I should eat grass for the next few days, especially with Chinese New Year coming up.

Then it occurred to me that grass was precisely what I had this afternoon for lunch, and it kinda screwed up my eating pattern cos I was hungry before 6pm.

The grass was, more precisely, salad from The Salad Shop*. I feel somewhat guilty that I’m dissing the place despite my colleague being so kind as to help us get lunch from there, but I’ve given the place a second and a third chance and I think that’s as many chances as it’s getting from me.

Their salads are tasty, but are getting even more expensive than before. Portions have decreased, and they didn’t even bother to mix the salad properly this time – my boiled egg slices were still fused together at the bottom of the bowl. The pasta and grilled pumpkin used to be able to fill me up nicely, and I used to have feta cheese in nearly every mouthful, but now those ingredients are few and far between. The 2 additional ingredients (at $1.50 each if additional orders are placed) were a few measly slices of grilled eggplant and several small pieces of sundried tomato – and, naturally, did nothing to fill the emptiness in my tummy.

What amazed me more was how a new colleague came over after the lunch-time event to express how great the salad was. Apparently, he used to spend $15 or $16 on salads that weren’t as satisfying as this (about $10). Which made me wonder – how does anyone have the money to spend that much on food, and how can anyone like salads so much as to spend that amount of money on them? Their salads are rather tasty – and I do like eating vegetables – but until they increase their portions I don’t think I’m ever gonna purchase from them again.

 

*: They also have the most annoying website ever, which you can view here.

Why is ballet so difficult?

I was asking myself this question last night, after watching the (poorly recorded) DVD recording of my ballet school’s recital, and it’s on my mind again after today’s ballet class.

It occurred to me that people can spend tens of years on ballet but still struggle with the moves, as evident from friends and the rest of us in my ballet class. One minimum criterion is to lift and sustain one’s leg at 90 degrees in any direction – ballerinas must attain at least 160 – 170 degrees – and that requires tremendous amount of core, back and leg strength, as well as balance.

Yet, for some other types of dance, one could enter competitions or perform on stage with just a couple of years of practise.

In contrast, I don’t think any ballet dancer will look passably nice without at least reaching  Grade 8 in ballet – and let’s not even talk about dancing en pointe. Competitions are out of the question for adult ballet dancers too, as these are judged by age group.

A bunch of us are practising for our RAD Grade 8 exam at the moment, we are putting lots of work into just executing the steps, and much greater effort will be required to perform the dances with the grace, style and impression of effortless-ness required. All the balance, control, lifting up from the waist, timing, musicality…

How did ballet evolve into such a difficult style of dance?