The Ng Family Visit to Ottawa

My family came to visit us the weekend before July 1st. Despite the wet weather, a good time was still had by all. It was the first time my sister Joyce and her family (Samuel and baby Anson) came to see the house. Anson managed to survive the 4.5 hour drive without any tears - he's just 8 months old and you can imagine being stuck in a car seat for several hours is not comfortable.

We made the most of our two days together. I was happy to see my mom and my youngest sister Karen. Karen called in "sick" just to be here. We spent some mother/daughter time together while the boys went to Canadian Tire and Loblaws for some groceries. It has been a long time since we got together and just chatted so it was nice to have that private time. When I'm in Toronto, I usually have errands to run so there is never any time to visit friends or stop to breathe. One of the activities I enjoyed was playing with my nephew. I made him the subject of my photography session that day and I captured some really cute shots of him. The toy is a slammer that a friend of mine gave me many years ago.

When the boys came back, I felt like they were not themselves. Did something happen during their outing? Well ... after dinner, I got a chocolate-y surprise.

Special thanks Puff - for the yummy chocolate cake. :D And I love the candles!!

Thanks to everyone for the birthday wishes.

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Rocky Mountain Adventure - Part 2

I have been pretty busy since we got back from our vacation. I didn't really have that much time to blog about the second half of our trip. Between managing chores and playing badminton two nights a week, blogging has taken a bit of a back seat. Since I have a few moments, I'll take this opportunity to pick up from where I left off.

Day 3 - Cranbrook, BC
Finally, the weather started getting better. The first half of our trip was pretty dreary but BC was nice. Our original plan was to stay in Fernie, BC but when we got there, it was small and well .. kinda boring. So we continued to drive to Cranbrook. With no hotel room booked, we called up the Best Western. Holy crap were they expensive! Were we going to be stuck without a room? Luckily, the Super 8 had a room and cheap too! It also came with a free breakfast. <rant>Sorry, but I have to go off on this tangent because I managed to witness stupidity at its finest in our previous Super 8 stay. At breakfast, they had hard boiled eggs and the eggs were shelled and cold. One of the guests took one of the eggs and I guess he wanted to warm it up. He put the egg in the microwave and proceeded to warm it up. You can imagine what happened a few seconds into it - BOOM. The egg exploded in the microwave leaving a huge mess. His wife says in her best smoker's voice "that's what you get for not reading the sign on the microwave" which had large red letters on it saying DO NOT PUT EGGS IN THE MICROWAVE. Like I said, stupidity at its finest.</rant>

Day 3 to 5 - Banff, Alta
For our anniversary and my birthday, we splurged a bit and stayed at the Fairmont Banff Springs for 3 nights. After staying at regular hotels for the first half of the trip, the second half was all about luxury. The hotel was so beautiful and the room was really nice. You know it's a good hotel when even the toilet paper was super soft! I know - TMI. There was one splurge that I did not indulge in - a massage at the hotel spa was $200. Yikes.
Banff itself is very commercialized. Lots of shops, a supermarket, lots of good restaurants, and a transit system. Oh yeah, they even have a Louis Vuitton store. No, we didn't buy anything from the LV store. :)
We took a side trip out to see Chateau Lake Louise. I've always wanted to stay at the Fairmont Chateau Lake Louise but it was beyond our budget. The property itself was gorgeous. The weather wasn't so great. It was quite cold and cloudy but that didn't stop us from taking tons of pictures.

Day 5 - Columbia Icefields
The Columbia Icefields tour is probably the biggest tourist rip off. It cost $38 for a 1.5 hr tour of the glaciers. In that 1.5 hour, only 15 mins was allocated for the tourists to see and stand on the glacier. We started off by taking a bus to the Ice Explorer - a special bus with big tires designed to drive on ice. This Ice Explorer had a maximum speed of 18 km/hr. Yes, that's right - 18 km/hr. So as you can see, most of the tour was spent in a vehicle. Despite my comment that it was a rip off, it was still something to see.

Day 5 to 7 - Jasper National Park, Alta
We met up with Jeff's parents at the Fairmont Jasper Park Lodge for Father's Day weekend. The resort concept was pretty cool. We received an upgraded cabin that had enough space for 6 people. Here is the view outside of our cabin. Isn't this gorgeous?!

Jasper is not as commercialized as Banff so instead of shopping, we went hiking around Maligne Canyon. Since Jeff's parents have never visited Maligne Canyon, we took them out to see the site. After our hike, we went back to our rooms to get ready for our dinner at the Edith Cavell dining room. Dinner was just "okay". The first time I ate there, the food was really good. This time it was just average. I must say though that there is something to be said about Alberta beef. It is way better than US Prime and Ontario AAA.

If any of you are thinking of going on a road trip, I highly recommend the route we took. Jeff and I survived a week long road trip and we didn't kill each other! Hehe .. although, he almost left me on the side of the road in Camrose when I couldn't navigate our way out of the smallest city in Alberta. It was probably one of our best trips. I know we will do it again one day. Oh yeah, what made the trip really fun? My new toy - Canon XSI. :)

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Unusual Day

Had to put a blog entry on this day. :) Thanks to my family for all of the cards. It made my day. I didn't go to badminton. Instead I just stayed home while Jeff went. Who says you have to spend your b-day with your significant other? Honestly, it was time well spent (apart). Had a 2 hour chat with my mother and then started this blog entry. Sorry, no pics yet on the second half of my trip. Maybe another day when I'm in a better mood.

My family is coming tomorrow night and staying for the weekend. I'm so excited. Drive safely everyone and I'll see you soon.

Toodles,
Pudgy

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Rocky Mountain Adventure - Part 1

Puff and I started our Rocky Mountain adventure a few days ago. This is just an update on what we've seen and where we've been so far.

Day 1 - Drumheller, Alta
The first stop of our road trip was Drumheller, Alberta. We checked out the Tyrrell Museum which housed a lot of dinosaur skeletons. They even have a prepartion lab in the museum! This small town is all about dinosaurs. Everywhere you go, there are dinosaur statues - on the road side, in resident's front yards. Not too far from the museum is the badlands and hoodoos. I've seen the hoodoos in pictures but to see the site in person is pretty amazing.
Memorable moment in Drumheller - we saw this gravel trail that some people were driving through and we decided to try it too. Dumb idea. :) Part way through the trail the dirt road got muddy. Very muddy. We were lucky we were driving an SUV with all wheel drive but it was kinda scary navigating through this muddy trail. After we got to the end of the trail, we turned around and headed back - yes, again through the muddy trail. You can imagine what kind of shape the vehicle was in afterwards. It was badly in need of a car wash.

Day 2 - Vulcan, Alta
Yeah, there really is a place called Vulcan. This small town's claim to fame is the Star Trek centre. It's a souvenir shop that has all things Trekkie. Check out the picture we took with the Star Trek crew. They even had costumes for you to wear so you can blend in with the cardboard crew. We didn't try on the outfits but Jeff wore the Spock ears. Can you see it in the picture?

Day 2 - Waterton, Alta
The Waterton National Park is beautiful. It is also where the most photographed hotel (The Prince of Wales Hotel) is located. The hotel was under renovations so we didn't get to go inside to look around. Oh well, maybe next time. Too bad the weather wasn't so great. The entire time we were in Waterton, it snowed or rained. It snowed so much that they had to sand the roads. Can you believe our luck? Snow in June.

Day 3 - Crowsnest Pass and Frank Slide
Frank Slide was an incredible sight. It's hard to believe that this small town was buried by a chunk of falling mountain. There is so much rock. You have to see this in person to believe it. At first, I wondered why nobody tried to excavate the area but when you see it in person, you can understand why it is untouched.
Crowsnest Pass was very scenic. I made good use of my new camera. :) Jeff and I didn't know which one was Crowsnest mountain but we found one that we figure was it. What do you think?

Anyway, we are currently in Cranbrook, BC. Tomorrow, we will head out to Kimberley, BC and then to Banff. We got a great deal on the Fairmont Banff Springs hotel. Can't wait.

Toodles,
Pudgy and Puff

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Victoria Day weekend

We just got back from Toronto on Tuesday after spending the long weekend with my family. You know, that sentence sounds like we spent a lot of time together but in reality, there was very little time spent with family members. It always seems like there's no time to just sit down, relax, and chat. Part of it is because we haven't been back in a while so there were errands to run and we were in town for a friend's wedding. More on that later.

Enough rambling. I got to see my nieces and nephews. Hong and Hung are so cute. Hong does this great impression of the Hulk. Hung is a night owl and sleeps mostly during the day. He's so cute though - even when he's sleeping he's got a smile on his face. Anson is growing so fast. Take a look at those cheeks and biceps. :) He's seven months old now and very heavy. We bought him a few outfits when we were in Fishkill. I think he will grow into them very nicely. I hope they come visit during the July 1st weekend. It will be their first trip to Ottawa.

On Victoria Day, we attended the wedding of a good friend of mine. It was the first Sri Lankan wedding I've ever attended. The ceremony was a full Roman Catholic one with communion. The reception was held at a banquet hall and the food was really good. Jeff isn't a big fan of curry but he really liked the mutton curry they served. The only disappointment for me was that there was no butter chicken. I was looking forward to trying it. I wanted to know what authentic butter chicken tasted like. I guess I will have to settle on butter chicken from the local English pub.

Our next trip? Edmonton in June. I can't wait. :)

Toodles,

Pudgy

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Happy Mother's Day

Today is Mother's day. Unfortunately, Jeff and I were not able to be with our mothers on this special day. We did call our mothers but it's just not the same. Ever since I moved to Ottawa, I found that my bond with my ma has gotten stronger. I realize a lot of the things I took for granted while living at home - especially my mom's cooking. Because it's not possible for me to go to Toronto every weekend, I've had learn how to make a lot of the soups and dishes myself. I don't consider myself a bad cook but my mom's soups still taste better. It had that je ne sais quoi. :)

My sister Joyce is celebrating her first mother's day. She's doing a fine job with my nephew. I haven't seen Anson in a while but I hear he's really growing! I will see you guys next weekend.

Anyway, just wanted to wish all the moms out there a happy mother's day!

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Champagne Wishes and Caviar Dreams

This weekend, Jeff and I decided to crack a bottle of Veuve and caviar for a dinner. It was soooo yummy. What's the occasion? No particular occasion. We don't need a special day to celebrate. We had been planning this for a long time and always saying that we gotta have that caviar and gotta have the champagne that's been sitting in the wine cooler since ... October 2006! :) We're not big drinkers and champagne is really for special occasions or special guests. But since we almost never have guests over, we just shared a bottle between us instead of having it go bad.

With our caviar, we had some smoked salmon, crackers, and a fruit and cheese plate. It was very rich and a little bit is enough. The caviar was really good - not salty at all and had a mild taste. It was quite good with a little bit of sour cream. I've had some cheaper caviar and usually it's quite salty that it masks slight flavour of caviar.

For Sam and Steph, I know you guys want to make mom's "four flavours" soup. Because you may not know all of the ingredients, I took the liberty of taking pics of the ingredients that you will need.

Start by taking out the ingredients in this first pic. A few of each is all you need. They are dried so they have a lot of flavour in them. Going clockwise, the white pieces are chinese yam (wai san). The thin yellow flake-like pieces are "yuk juk". The bottom right is lily petals (bak hup). The matchstick pieces are called "sah sum". Not sure what they are. :)

In addition to the above, you will need - in clockwise direction from top left - a handful of lotus seed, a handful of the white halved seeds called "see sut", and about 15 kernels of each type of almond kernels. Sam calls them the north and south almonds. I can't tell the difference between north and south. They all look the same to me. But you need both.

Soak all of the ingredients in water and then drain them in a colander. This will help get rid of any sand or grit. Often I will soak the dried goods in water for a few hours to soften them up. It will allow the flavours to come through faster when cooked.

- In a large pot, add a piece of lean pork, and two chicken legs (one might be enough, depending on the size of the legs).
- Add the dried ingredients to the pot. If you do soak the dried goods, don't drain the water when you add them to the pot. Just put it all in the pot.
- Using a regular rice bowl, add 6 bowls of water to the pot. This kind of insures you get 6 bowls of soup out of this.
- Bring the soup to a boil and then simmer for around 1.5 to 2 hours.
- Add salt to taste before serving.

Tell me what you think of the soup. If you like, I will probably post other soups that I like to make. :)

Toodles,
Pudgy

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