Do I write so loudly it annoys people?

Today, I had the most interesting experience at my SFI.  Firstly, what is SFI?  It's an abbreviation for Swedish for Immigrant.  It's free and provided by the Swedish government and depending on which SFI you attend, you'll have either a group of working professional who attend SFI in the evening after work or if you attend the day classes, it's mostly filled with love refugees, refugees, students or asylum seekers.

I've attended SFI in the evening which means, people attending are a lot more educated and have better manners.  These are people who have degrees or are professionals.  Attending in the day time, you could have a mix of educated students or just FOB (Fresh off boat).  Don't get me wrong.  My current class have some lovely people and there's a mixture of students, professionals, even refugees and asylum seekers and they have all been quite lovely.

So, today, during the last hour of class where we had to write a page or so of what our 'Summer Memories' are in Swedish, I was sitting next to a young Chinese girl.  While writing with a pencil on a single paper on a wooden table; I was told that the 'tuk, tuk, tuk' writing of my pencil on paper was too loud and she couldn't concentrate and I need to write quietly.  Seriously???  I had only written about 4 lines in the last 15 minutes.  When she said that, I was too shocked.. All I could say was 'Seriously?'  After giving me 5 minutes, she decided to grab her paper and pencil and asked if it's OK for her to move.  Eff Off, bitch, do I look like I give a shit?  All I said was I don't care.  Do what you want!  So, it ended with her moving to the back of the class to finish writing her 'novel' in peace and quiet, away from the 'tuk' 'tuk' 'tuk' sound of my pencil.

What the f*ck is wrong with some people.  Does my breathing annoys you as well?  Is that too loud??  Considering I had to sit next to her the whole day (group discussion where she was freaking annoying, forcing her opinion down my throat as mine was different from everyone else) and then leading up to that last hour of class, she was not even saying it nicely.  Fucking rude Chinese, seriously!

And no, I'm not being racist.  My background is Chinese and I'll be the first to admit that Chinese people have no manners and mainland Chinese are the worst.  Seriously, learn some manners and stop thinking the world revolves around you!!

*** END RANT ***

Time out

Sometimes I love being surrounded by people, but sometimes I need time to be alone. Alone time is great for me to recharge and not having to behave properly and be nice to people or even to talk.

I have been feeling it for the past couple of weeks where I get frustrated and annoyed over little things.  From being laid back most times to getting irritated and biting off people's head over a simple thing as them making fun of my 'full name' cos they think it's funny. Usually I let it slide but man! I was annoyed.. 

I need time out and I dislike having to explain myself, trying to find an excuse why I just don't feel the need to be out socialising all the time, especially today.

True, I don't work full time or study full time so, I should have plenty of alone time but ... I still have to go to school every morning during weekdays and having to work whenever I get a 6am call.    So, 1 whole day of not seeing anyone at all is ... Really, really nice. 

Mood swings and being tired.. Time to burrow myself into my hole for the next few days...

Sorry folks! 

High School Reunion...

Well... I can't believe it's been that long.  From getting annoying reminders on FaceBook asking us to RSVP and more reminders to pay up for the BIG reunion.

Yep!  The big 2 0 years reunion.  I can't believe it's been 20 years since I left high school.  Has it really been that long?  Really?  Boy!  Do I feel old.

But seriously, who keep track of such things.  All I remembered from my teenage years were lots of anger, confusion and can't wait to grow up and leave the hell hole of a school..  Although there's some fun and happy moments in there with some friends.  Some teachers were really sweet too.  I still haven't forgotten while studying at uni, I was selling tickets at the Convention Centre in the 1st year of the Sex Expo.  Who would rock up to my ticket booth but none other than my biology teacher and his lady friend.  I didn't think his face could go any redder.  Good thing we all had a laugh ;)

But seriously, why would I want to meet up with a bunch of people from high school whom I never bother keeping in touch with nor wanting to see ever again.  True, we add each other on FaceBook, checked (a.k.a. stalked) each other's pictures out, nosing around, seeing how well their lives are compared to ours.

The bitch who made my life hell in high school..  Looking slightly wrinkly and orangey there aren't we?  Old crushes?  Best to leave them all behind.  After all, those that I consider close, I still keep in contact with, albeit barely.  We all grew up, got married and have our own family now and of course, through the years, make new friends and slowly, losing contact with old.  It is sad, but hey!  This is life.

Looking through some pictures, some have aged well, and did well with their lives.  Others, have aged quite badly or trying to reverse their aging with interesting consequences and.. let's not forget the pictures with all the children.  Everyone's goddamn FaceBook page has some sort of picture of their child or children..

So, would you attend your high school reunion?  I missed the 10th year, and definitely wouldn't be interested in the 20th...  I'm not really that curious on what everyone have been up to for the last 20 years and how well they have done in the last 20 years compared to mine.  No,  no, no... So, C'est La Vie!

p/s Whoops, my bad.  I think I have just let the cat out from the bag about my age.  Ahh well.. ;)

Xx

Umami, Japanese Restaurant, Copenhagen

This week, I decided to tag along with S while he's working in Copenhagen.  The journey took nearly 7 hours by train (burnt rubber and a change of train at Malmö, not to mention an already late running train).  I mean hey, this is supposed to be the express train and supposed to reach Copenhagen in 5 hours... but shit happens =p  Thankfully, the man was waiting for me at the airport.  We didn't get back to the hotel till after midnight... Ouch!

Anyhow, I'm loving this fusion Japanese restaurant in Copenhagen.  We picked the Omakase Menu (Which means, "I'll leave it to you")...   For the price of 650, you'll get served 6 dishes & a dessert which the chef has decided to pick for you.  For around 50 for the two of us, we got to have unlimited sparkling water (Service could be a tad better, as we had to keep asking them to fill our glasses.  One thing which irked me a little was when the wait staff tried to explain the dishes, sometimes they look pretty confused themselves.  I'm really hoping it's due to the translation from Danish to English, and not because they had no idea!  =P )

Restaurant Umami
St. Kongensgade 59
1264 København K

DenmarkPhone +45 3338 7500
mail: mail@restaurantumami.dk 
Opening Hours:  
Mon - Thurs (18:00 - 22:00)
Fri & Sat (18:00 - 23:00)
Sun (Closed)

The bar is downstairs, while their dining area is upstairs

You could see the chefs busy at work in the kitchen

Quite casual atmosphere... (The booths are in the middle of the room)

There's a 'private' dining area on the other side from where we were

1st Dish - Tuna Tartare with avocado mousse and seaweed and a couple of crispy fish crackers.  Very fresh, but waaay too seaweedy!  All we could taste are mouthful of seaweed... ack..

2nd dish - Seabass, crispy on the outside, with a crispy slice of lotus root and sweet berry on teriyaki sauce and spring onion

Served hot!  Definitely a big yum!

4th dish - Pork pieces.  Panko crumbed with apparently kimchi on top and some sauce.  Served on a hot plate( I didn't taste any spiciness, so, I'm not really sure if they were really kim chi or the wait staff had the translation wrong)

A little too salty for my taste, the radishes help though, thankfully...

5th Dish - Veal tenderloin.  Beautiful medium rare meat, on some mashed root vegetable with thinly sliced white and green asparagus.  The stick which looks like a twig is actually a grilled asparagus.  Pretty creative and gorgeous! 

All these on barley (which you couldn't see) at the bottom with some brown sauce.  Think the wait staff said they were corn, but they sure as hell ain't corn.  Again, either they were not probably briefed or their translations were bad.  I'm hoping it's the later =P

6 extremely delicious and fresh sushi pieces.  First two were white fish and tuna on top of sushi rice, the 3rd is a roll with cucumber on the outer and salmon roe, the last two we were told we should not have them with soy sauce.  I can't remember what the 4th sushi is but the last one is a lobster roll.  Instead of using nori sheets, they used thinly sliced vegetables, giving them a refreshing taste..  2 big thumbs up from me!!

Big thumbs up for this.  So fresh and delicious.  Only bad thing is, they did not use real wasabi root (which they used to but apparently they ran out, hence they mixed grated ginger with fake wasabi which you could buy in tubes from the supermarket =PP )

I love the colour and how fresh all the ingredients were!

Last but not least, DESSERT!  YAY!  Served on a paper light wooden plate

The farthest from us was a cherry sorbet sitting on top of crushed dried cherry and crushed pistachio nuts.  Closer to us is a fried nut bread with calpis powder and cream with apparently pistachio sauce (it tasted nutty to me, but I'm not sure if it's pistachio) with a crispy wafer like cracker.

After over 2 hours of dining, we were so deliriously full, and I was a happy woman!  I love food which looks good and taste good!  Great fusion Japanese restaurant to try if you are in Copenhagen!

Xx

Four Seasons, Il Lago Restaurant, Geneva - Beautiful decors, excellent service

While looking through my photos from end of last year, I came across all the beautiful places we have been and of course all the restaurants we had the privilege to visit and the delicious food we were stuffing our faces with..

We were in Geneva for a night, before heading up to the French alps for some snowboarding.  S as usual decided to surprise me with a birthday dinner, telling me we'll just walk around the block and see if we could find a simple and cheap dinner.. ;P

Of course, for some reason, we managed to come across The Four Season hotel, to which he suggested we go in and have a quick afternoon tea before walking back out for diner.

He's such a tease, seriously!

Anywaz, from the outside in the evening, it looks promising...  Sitting in their gorgeous lounge area where we could order tea, I simply couldn't keep my eyes from wandering around the beautiful old time decors... The comfy chairs, the grand decorations and gorgeous wallpapers.

*  Pictures were taken on my DSLR and iPhone 4, you could see the difference ;)

Restaurant Il Lago
Four Seasons Hotel des Bergues Geneva 
33, Quai des Bergues 
1201 Geneva 

Four Season Hotel

The lamps, the vases, flowers and candles on the table and gorgeous floral carpeting

Love the wallpaper and the comfy couches

Having a lovely hot green tea with some complimentary French cakes - Canneles Bordelais .. Slightly chewy but addictive

Cheeeeers!!!

Beautiful interior at the Hotel

After tea, the boy led me outside.... but somehow managed to steer me into another room.. the Restaurant.  Cheeky boy!  Apparently, he's organised with the restaurant and reconfirmed by pretending to leave for the gents while I sat there with my tea!

My baby looking so smug at himself!

Decor in here is absolutely dining.  We sat in the first room from the entrance.  They have another door leading to a bigger room 

Gold plates which were just for presentation.  They removed them once you have sit down

laaamp

Picking a selection of fresh warm breads and crackers...

I love how there's noone around as we dined pretty early.  It started filling up later in the evening

My fancy mocktail for the evening!  Something with strawberries and lime! =D

Something light and savoury to start the evening with

 I was munching on these cheesy crispy bread which were so addictive!

We ended up choosing their Degustation menu which consist of around 7 dishes or so -   4 dishes, cheese selection, dessert and sweets for €130.  Of course with degustation menu, it always end up with more than 7 dishes =D

This wasn't in their menu.  I can't remember what this was.  Was a piece of fish on some creamy sauce...

Scampi with white beans & onion consomme.  Was fresh and light and made my heart sing!

Cheese tortelli scented with lemon & mint - I was happy with 4 pieces as they were filling.  Love the lemon taste!

Lobster risotto - Love the lobster, but I think S wasn't too keen on the risotto.  The risotto was a bit too tough for me, but I polished everything up.  The plate is flat, so, it's just a thin layer of risotto.

Choice of EITHER Glazed goat kid with banyuls and seasonal vegetables - I picked the meat

OR Wild sea bass with roasted artichokes and lemon emulsion - S picked the fish which he wasn't too happy with as it had creamy sauce in it.  He hates anything too creamy ;)

Then, they wheeled in a two layers of assorted cheeses.  I was bouncing up and down taking pictures while S was trying not to laugh at me =P

We ended with just a tiny selection as we were pretty full by then.  Think we picked a selection of hard and soft cheese

Roasted pineapple with exotic flavours and crumble.  The gold flake at the top made my day! =D

Slices of Fresh fruits with sorbet

Love the chocolate with the name of the restaurant on it!

Then the trolley stopped by.  We could pick a huge selection of chocolates and sweets to wrap up the evening!  I wanted.. EVERYTHING!!!!  

 but S was like.. nooooo... but we managed to get a selection of delicious sweet morsels and I ate every bit of my share.... =D

Last but not least, I got my little surprise.. hehe  I was sooooo happy

Making a wish before blowing!

I can't believe I still had room for chocolate ice cream!!

Overall I think this was very enjoyable.  The service were really good as the waiters were very attentive and I was blown away with the little extra at the end of my meal.  I finally got to blow my candle and made a wish! YAY!  =D