rAnDoM tHoUgHts + mUsIc

well, well, well!  finally i got to access my blog.  i couldn't use my laptop at home coz andy and migs spend most of the time with it, during weekends though.  weekday, i got to set an example not to surf the net all the time.  then i still have to tutor them after coming home at night.  sigh! 

but now it's a surprise that bloghi is not blocked here in the office.  maybe it's because it's still early - i got here before 7am.  see, i drove xl and i wanted to avoid the traffic and possible 'mishap' with him again, so i left home earlier than ususal.  anyway, he was working fine this morning, and hopefully as always.

i was pretty busy during the weekend - it was alexa's 15th birthday!  gosh, how time flies.  she's now taller than me, and i must admit, she's getting more beautiful everyday.  she should thank her genes for that. (har-har)  i took some photos of her but our usb port is disabled here in the office so i cannot share it here. 

saturday night i prepared buko salad - it was my first time to do that.  usually i just make the standard fruit salad without the buko.  i made it less sweet so i didn't know whether the kids would like it.  then next day i served it for dessert and what do you know, it was a hit!  it's just a shame that andy and migs don't know what buko is!  they said, "mommy, i liked the noodle-thing".  i guess i have to take them to the palengke this weekend and show them where the buko salad came from.

i'll make this short coz the IT guys here in the office might disable my access to this site.  sneaky me.

china is known for its good but inexpensive food.  that's why the first time i was to come here in china, i planned to eat at every restaurant i could get into.  and then reality came.  when i entered a restaurant and was given a menu, everything was written in chinese characters.  worse was when the menu doesn't have any pictures i could point to.  so what mark (the other engineer from manila who's also assigned here) and i did was to point at any 2 dishes and wait for a surprise.  sometimes it's a hit, sometimes it wasn't.  then i came up with an idea.  everytime we had a hit, we'll take photo of the dish and the next time we eat, we'll just show the photo to the waitress.  brilliant, isn't it?  right now, we have taken shots of 4 dishes already (yeah, we've had a few misses).  we haven't tried showing the photos to the waitresses coz we're still at the hit and miss thing.  we want to collect as much dishes as possible before we eat the same thing again.  next time i'll try to post the photos here.

it's like chaos in the office today.  a lot of engineers from the shanghai office got assigned to the site, just to speed up their work.  so that only meant more people for me to deal with.  when before i could just ignore and postpone dealing with them thru e-mail, now they're right on my face, almost literally.

lunch time i learned that federer won his 15th grandslam, beating sampras' record.  amazing, this guy.  when i got back at the hotel a while ago, it was on the news that roddick played more impressively, too bad he didn't win.  the scores showed how close the match was.  i hope i get lucky tonight and catch a replay of their game.  i remember during the federer-nadal match last time, where nadal won (and the fed cried!) i was also here in china.  i was able to watch the game on tv, not minding that the announcers were speaking chinese.  then came the awarding ceremony.  federer was about to make a speech (while shedding tears)... and next thing i knew, they were showing a commercial!  darn it.  anyway, when the program resumed, it was rafa's turn to deliver a speech.  i was so excited coz i haven't heard him talk yet.  then he said, "good evning".  i almost fell from the bed.  but he's still gorgeous.

have you seen federer's rolex commercial on tv?  the one where he was doing his tennis moves while wearing a tuxedo.  i think i'm beginning to heart him. ha-ha-ha.

guess what i had for dinner.  peking duck.  this is the first time i've tried this.  i know this is quite expensive in manila and i've always thought 'what is it with peking duck, it's just like chicken, and thinner.'  well guess what, i so looove it!  it tastes like a cross of roasted chicken (lechon manok) and roasted pig (lechon baboy) back in manila.  and the locals here even say that the one i ate was not of good quality.  they say i should try the peking duck in beijing.  of course, there's nothing like 'the original'.  but i'm already good with their peking duck here.  boy, i'm so easy to please.

Past 12 midnight already, and I couldn't sleep.  I was hungry...  Not the hunger which would be sufficed by any kind of junk food -- I was actually craving for salad... salad with vinaigrette dressing, to be exact.

I think I was able to sleep at around 1am, but I was already awake before 6.  And the first thing on my mind when I woke up - the salad.  After dropping off the kids to school I passed by at the Shell gas station along South Luzon Expressway on my way to work.  There are a lot of eating establishments there and I was hoping to get the salad I wanted.  I went first to Starbucks -- it was still closed at 7am!  But the restaurant beside it is Delifrance and yay! they serve different kinds of salads... including the Oriental Salad with Vinaigrette dressing.  Exactly what I wanted!  Again, Yay for that!!!

This is how it looks like:


It was a bit expensive for me at PhP105.00 so I searched the net on how I can make the same thing on my own.  First, I listed down the ingredients as I see them on the salad:
Lettuce
carrot strips
tomatoes, diced
cucumbers, diced
mandarin oranges
shrimps, grilled
crab sticks, sliced and grilled
sesame seeds
and of course, the vinaigrette dressing

So how do I make the vinaigrette dressing? Click here.

Happy-Joy-Joy eating!!!

december is just around the corner but typhoons are still coming every now and then.  gone are the days when i look forward to december's cool temp sans the icky rain.  must be the effect of el nino or la nina?  whatever, it must be the result of what we're doing to our environment nowadays...

and this rain makes me crave for certain kinds of food...

champorado...

scrambled eggs with cheese and toasted bread...

sausages...

sticky rice with custard cake on top...

haaay...

anyway., i'll just listen to this song... nice beat... for this lazy morning...

"May mga araw na parang tinatamad akong gumising,
May mga araw na medyo masungit ang aking pakiramdam..."

Click here to listen...