“Gravitation is not responsible for people falling in love.” - Albert Einstein
Cela me manque de te parler.
I’ve had subway for lunch everyday for the past week and probably more days to come. It’s not the best, but it sure is time saving, convenient, decent and healthy, and affordable. The topics taught are pretty challenging - these are actually the equivalent of penultimate/final year modules in university. So it really gets your brain working. And trying hard to stay on frequency during classes. I play back lesson recordings from my iPhone..and that has helped a lot.
Yesterday’s red carpet event has been quite an experience. I must say been a fan is actually really tiring. How do these people do it.. I know I can’t. Not regularly anyways.
Havent had a very good night’s sleep till yesterday. The night before, notably, was very disrupted by rats that have decided to seek refuge at our place. We found out the floor above us had called the pest control, and evidently very successful at it.
Rat poison has been largely unsuccessful. Sticky traps were a whole lot more effective. We caught two little ones which nibbled on the bread bait. We knew that because the night before, a rat sneaked into the bedroom and ate our bread, albeit rather undiscretely, leaving crumps all over.
First day of school today. Met up with a couple of classmates from my class and I didn’t exactly hit it off with them haha. This guy from Indonesia said we can call him Ninja..and chuckled. His friend then asked ninja if he had sauce on his hand. And exclaimed that now he has sauce on his shirt. They were having fun. And I felt pretty out of place.
Buying strawberries at the Farmers’ Market in Dorset, England. It’s a really small town. People sipping their tea.. The suburbs are much slower paced compared to London.
Lunch with Maria and fellow SMU mates @Sophies Steakhouse.
280 miles drive from London to Cornwall!
Had some pretty good food these few days.. Lunch was at the Breakfast Club. Pretty popular food place.
And had nice poached eggs with bread and bacon :)
And Chinatown is bustling with activity in London. The chinese food here is really good!
We had nice dimsum here. All food recommendations by my brother haha.
HK Diner is highly recommended for its hor fun.
Random capture of Chinatown street
Packed and ready to go. I hope it’s a meaningful one, an enjoyable one, and at the same time, I hope we can adapt as we go along.
Met Kailiang for lunch today. All stressed up over housemanship. Poor boy. Upon his request, we head over to movies to catch X-Men. I enjoyed it pretty much :) Its one of those series that I watched when I was a kid. Of course, it was a lot less gory back then. So I guess its a different experience watching it in the movies, and yet, with a sense of familiarity. But nothing too profound about the experience I must admit. Just enjoyable :)
Headed over to the hairdresser’s before the trip. This is me in my short short crew cut.
And highlight of the day came from the most unexpected place - Eu Yan Sang. Stepped into the chinese medicine store and this semi gallery caught my eye. Check this out:
$50,000 for a root?! This obviously puts me to shame.. I doubt any store would put me up on sale for that much. It dawned on me - I’m worth less than a plant root. What a shame. This root must be a million years old. You know they say the value of the root grows with age. But won’t living things decay? Turn mouldy.. Unless treated with preservatives - in which case, should not warrant a higher price tag.
And then I saw this..
Okay this is just wrong.. The authenticity card is too small! Traditional old folks can’t read it!
NO - of course I’m referring to the price of this megazillion year-old ginseng root! Now this isn’t funny.. you almost get the feeling the price is as such only because the number ‘8’ seems more auspicious than $60,888 or $70,888. Now if I were to decide, I’ll add a mini-me ginseng to the monstrosity and put a $88,888 price tag instead. The more auspicious the better it seems. May you live to a thousand.
For the linguistically challenged, the card at the bottom reads:
Bad-ass gin eluded captivity for centuries. Alas, in the shadow of darkness, the arms of justice caught up with the serial criminal. It was rumoured that at the scene of arrest, gin remained rooted as fingermen surrounded him.
And I realized that all this time, the holy cordeceps soup that my mum brewed for me was more like larvae soup. You know, I always wondered why those things looked like worms in my bowl. But my mum had always reassured me its a plant, that looks like a worm, and thus it’s name in chinese. Benefit to my mum, she knew no better. But I should have trusted my instincts. Argh. Worm/larvae soup.
So the man helpfully explained that Cordyceps comes from the larvae of bats which tunnel their way into the ground and interact/get subsumed by a certain fungus. And people go unearthening the remains of these two organisms that have become one. Maybe his story may sound a little distorted, but its as clear as day that Cordyceps is no plant.
Chinese people are.. .. It makes you wonder how, by any chance, would anyone think of unearthing bat larvae + fungus to test for medicinal value. They probably can rattle off that tadpole and beetle paste doesn’t help with fever. They have tried it all.
Ignorance is bliss.
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