Siopao and Chocolate Cake

Siopao because my son Ry has been wanting to eat this chinese steamed meat bun for weeks now.

Chocolate cake because my daughter Cha and I have been craving for this dessert since last week.

Odd pair, I agree but we enjoyed them last night.  There's nothing like eating what your heart (or stomach) desired.

There's this somewhat famous for locals shop called New Town Bakery in Surrey where we got these siopao for Cad.$18.25 while the chocolate cake we bought from Safeway is priced at $12.99 but for card member like me it's 9.99.

24 Last Season

Season 7 is the last season so far made and shown to the American public and the world of this very popular American action/drama television series.  Since we've started watching Season 1 episode 1 about three weeks ago, we can't help ourselves but continue to watch sometimes 6 to 12 episodes in a day.

Here are the stats:

7 seasons
24 episodes per season or total of 168 episodes
44 minutes per episodes (according to Wikipedia)

True enough, I've calculated and we have been watching an average of 8 episodes per day, everday for the last 3 weeks or something like 6 hours a day.

There only 3 episodes left and we will be done... finished watching 24... today.

I told my daughter Charisse that I think we will experience withdrawal symptoms - LOL.

For those who are wondering how we are able to watch tv this long everyday, Mar and I are early-retired,  with emphasis on early to let you know we are not too old yet, not that there's anything wrong with being old, it's just that we are not (in my opinion anyway, LOL).  My daughter has been job hunting for the past month and was free to watch tv for the most part but will start a new job on Monday, Nov. 2. 

Cheers.

Canada Carries Olympic Torch

 A big event is happening in Victoria, British Columbia, Canada this morning.  This is officially the very first public event in Canada pertaining to the 2010 Winter Olympic which is being hosted by Canada.

Ceremonial lighting of the Olympic Torch has just concluded and right now the Olympic Torch is on its way in what we call the Torch Relay onto the February 12, 2010 opening of the 2010 Winter Olympic.

In attendance were Vancouver Mayor Gregor Robertson (who's very handsome, like a beautiful movie star), BC Premier Gordon Campbell and Prime Minister Stephen Haper.

Media calls this event "Torch Relay the Journey Begins".

Pansit Habhab, Pork Binagoongan and Beef Kaldereta

 Food stories:

We didn't have left-over food for lunch so I cooked pansit Lucban or pansit habhab or noodles from a province in the Phils.  The noodles is authentic, we bought it from Lucban, Quezon and obviously we brought it here in Surrey.

Today I cooked 2.5 kgs pork binagoongan translated in English as pork sauted in shrimp paste for dinner.

Also, I cooked 2 kgs. beef kaldereta or beef stew till its tender but I did not put the vegies yet like potatoes, carrots and bell pepper which I will add tomorrow because this dish is for tomorrow.

Will try to add pics tomorrow.  The pansit is gone, can't take anymore pictures of it.

Cheers.

Six Months Grand Vacation In Europe

In April 2007, Mar and I sold our house and spent all the money in Europe... that is after paying off the mortgage, depositing 70% of the net profit in the bank and putting a 20% downpayment on a new condo purchase.

In summary we did the following:
left home - flew to Fort Lauderdale, Florida on May 3, 2007
16 nights transatlantic cruise - Europe bound on May 4, 2007
4 months and 20 days RVing in Europe and visiting family starting on May 20, 2007
15 night transatlantic cruise - USA bound on Oct. 6, 2007
flew back home to Vancouver/Surrey, BC, Canada from Miami, Florida

On installment I will blog about this trip of a lifetime Grand Vacation in Europe 2007 by Mar and Malou Cruz.

Playing Sudoku While Driving a Bus

This week, this incident happened in our city of Surrey.  A passenger filmed a bus driver while on the wheel driving a bus full of people playing a sudoku puzzle at the same time.  He then posted the film on YouTube and reported the incident.

This is definitely a very dangerous action by the bus driver.  I can only emphatize with him because I play sudoku a lot too.  Maybe he is sudoku addicted just like me.

Food Shopping Canadian Style

My husband and I went shopping today.  We went to Langley, a city 27 kms. from our city of Surrey, to our favorite meatshop.  We bought the ff:
20 lbs. of lean ground beef, 2 kgs. of smoked bacon, 5.5 kg. beef shank
$64.00 total Dickison Meat Shop

Next we went to Costco.
15 kgs. brown rice $30, coffeemate and cheerios
$44.00 total Costco

We left Langley and drove back to Surrey where we stopped at our favorite bread shop.    
3 packs of multi-grain bagel and 1 loaf of whole wheat bread
$11.00 total Gavin's

Our last stop was at Canadian Superstore
side pork (liempo) about 3 kgs at 5.67 per kg
2 kgs of bone-in pork at 2.80 per kg.
1 box of chicken strip 1 kg at 6.99
500 gram of cocoa powder (we want to cook champorado)  5.69
2 big nutella  10.60
4 packs of bokchoy (pechay) 2.16 per kg.
2 packs of tofu 1.98 per pack
2.5 kgs of bananas 1.43 per kg.
garlic 2.8 per kg.
carnation evap milk 1.78 per big can
kellogs cereals 5.98 big box
kosher salt 1.99 (we want to stop using iodized salt)
old fashioned oatmeal (not instant) 1 kg 1.94
$73.00 total Canadian Superstore

It would be interesting to note that some food items here are much cheaper.  For example:

pork shoulder (bone-in but not too big bone) is Pesos126.

ground lean beef is Pesos198.00

Side pork or liempo which is Pesos250.00 in Phils. supermarket is 5.69 here or Peos256.00

I used this exchange rate:   Cad1.00 = Pesos45.00

However, bananas which my family eat couple of times a day cost Pesos64.00 per kg.
Bokchoy, one of our favorite vegie cost Pesos97 per kg.
Generally, prices here are more expensive.

Our monthly budget for food and groceries is $600.00 for five adults.

I cook a lot, and in huge quantity, so that we can eat at least two meals out of one dish.  For me it is wiser to cook this way because for the time and effort I spend cooking, I can feed my family at least twice.  Mar, my husband, helps me when I cook.  He calls me the chef and he knows his position - the sous chef.

Our food today are the ff:
chicken breast in mushroom sauce (left over from last night)
brocolli with ground pork and oyster sauce (also left over from last night)
chicken katsu for dinner

I ate the chicken katsu as a sandwhich.  It was good, comparable to chicken sandwich of Burger King.

Sorry, no pictures.  We keep on forgetting to take pictures of my culinary experimentation.

Cheers.

Mexico Cruise

This is our shortest cruise, 4-night Baja Mexico cruise. We did this because our earlier Pacific Coast cruise is only 6 nights so I am sort of "bitin", so I googled some more and found this 4 nights Mexico cruise which is perfect complement to our schedule which basically is
- cruise
- las vegas - britney spears concert
- cruise
- back home

So after our 6-night pacific coast cruise and our 2 nights las vegas stay, we did our 4-night Mexico cruise on Sept. 28, 2009 aboard CARNIVAL PARADISE from Long Beach, Ca. Ports of call are Catalina Island and Ensenada, Mexico. On Oct. 2, the day we had to get off the ship, I had a very bad asthma attack when I woke up. I was rushed to the ship's hospital and was given meds, oxygen, etc. One hour later and with a bill of US$500, I was released from the ship's hospital with an instruction to rush to the ER if similar attack occurs.

We got back to our cabin, took a bath, got our luggages and got off the ship being pushed in a wheelchair.

We called Enterprise, our rent-a-car company, and after a long wait, we were picked-up by Enterprise, delivered to their office where we got our rented car.

A quick review about Carnival Paradise - we have a slightly bigger and better room but that's about it. We liked NCL STAR better for their food and entertainment.

Pacific Coast Cruise

From Sept. 20 to Sept. 26, 2009, aboard NCL STAR, we did our fifth cruise called Pacific Coastal cruise. Our first cruise, in 2005, is also aboard this same ship.

This is sort of a budget cruise because departure is from our city of Vancouver, BC. We did not have to fly to a location to join a cruise. We just took the 'skytrain' from right across our condo and voila, 45 minutes later we were in downtown Vancouver, where NCL STAR docked ready for boarding sometime around noon. We got there around 2pm, and 30 minutes later, we were in our room, and a few minutes more later we were enjoying a very wide spread of delicious buffet food.

We are not really interested in the itinerary port of calls. We just want to eat, sleep, relax, fill our lungs with sea breeze, watch shows, movies, join trivia and karaoke on the ship.

Port of calls are Victoria, BC, Oregon, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Ca., all of which Mar and I have been to couple of times already.

I really like cruising. I think, it is the most relaxing vacation one can ever have. You get to eat plenty of times a day without worrying about the cost. You get to visit places without driving or flying because the ship will bring you there. You get entertained starting when you wake up in the morning and until you are ready to give up at night.

Every night before retiring to our cabin, we go to our favorite place, the Blue Lagoon, a snack bar, where we get to eat fish and chip or panini, or chiken wing, butter cake with strawberry or cheese cake with blueberries or all of the above and drink lots of tea or milk.

Transatlantic Cruise Barcelona, Spain to Miami, Florida

After RVing in Europe for almost five months, we were finally going home via a 15-night
transatlatic cruise, aboard NCL Dream, this time towards North America with Miami, Florida as final destination. On Oct. 6 we got on board the ship and on Oct. 21, 2007 we arrived in Miami. We stayed one day and night in Miami shopping for pasalubong for my children then early morning the following day, On Oct. 22, we finally took the flight which brought us back home in Surrey, BC.

For a total of 5 months and 20 days, we experienced and enjoyed the best vacation of our lives in which we crossed the atlantic ocean twice - first, going towards Europe and and the second, coming back to America -, did a tour of Europe using an RV with absolutely no RVing experience prior and spent time with family in Italy.

Transatlantic Cruise Fort Lauderdale, Florida, USA to Copenhagen, Denmark

In May 2007, we went on our 3rd cruise aboard Costa Magica. Instead of flying to Europe for our six months Grand Vacation, we decided to do a 16-night Atlantic Ocean cruise.

We got on the ship in Fort Lauderdale, Florida on May 4 and got off the ship on May 20, 2007 in Copenhagen, Denmark.

Mexican Riviera Cruise

We very much enjoyed our Alaska cruise in 2005 so we decided to go on a cruise again. This time, the next port of call near to us in Surrey, BC is the one in San Francisco, USA. This time too, I wanted a longer cruise, so we decided on a 10-night Mexican Riviera cruise which departs from SF visiting several Mexico ports of call in several Mexico cities.

We took an Amtrak train to go to San Francisco because we wanted to experience riding on a train. What we expected to be 26 hours turned out to be close to 28 hours. Despite the delay we did enjoy our first Amtrak train ride. The seats are huge and comfortable, the space in front of the seats are spacious, and the train and washrooms are clean. If one is not in a hurry and is willing to just relax while travelling, taking Amtrak is a good option. But nowadays, there are cheap airfare from budget airlines, so if the cost is a concern, going Amtrak is not necessarily the cheaper option.

Going back to our Mexican Riviera cruise, which we did in May 2006, we were with two friends from our city of Surrey in British Columbia. It is nice going on a cruise with friends.

We have chosen Princess Cruises for this cruise. Hubby and I are easy to please, we totally enjoyed this second cruise but we enjoyed our Alaska cruise better.

Princess is great for their cakes and desserts. Food was great too.

We visited a friend in San Francisco before going back home, on a plane this time.

Alaska Cruise

My husband and I celebrated our 25th anniversary in May 2005. We went on a 7-night cruise to Alaska to celebrate. Like everything you do the first time, I was extremely excited. I did a lot of reading blogs, forums, and reviews about cruising. As a result of my reading, I knew how to fully enjoy our first cruising experience. For example, I knew that the fish and chips at the Blue Lagoon Cafe is highly recommended. We tried it the first day and we totally agree with the reviews, we ate fish and chips almost everyday for 7 days.

There was a night where cruisers can dress up if they like which I think was called formal night. Women wear coctail dress or gown. Men wear tux or coat and tie. There's a lot of cruisers who prefer not to dress up, like husband and I, who wear casual clothes. The hightlight of this formal night is the picture taking opportunity with the captain of the ship. For us who are not interested with a picture with the captain, the hightlight is that formal night is also lobster night. One can eat as many lobster as one like. Husband and I managed to eat two lobster each.

Palabok

Today is Sunday, I cooked two big pyrex-full of palabok. What I love about cooking big batches of food is that we have food for the whole day. "We" means husband Mario, sons Marl and Ry and daughter Cha, five adults in all.

We all love palabok, a popular filipino rice noodle all-time favorite meal or snack.

24 Is Addicting

We've been marathon watching the tv series "24" for the past three weeks. We started with season 1, episode 1. "We" means my husband Mario, my daughter Charisse and I. We've since learned that watching this tv series is very addicting. Once an episode starts, we are all glued to our seats, and after it ends, we want to start the next one, and so on and on.

Btw, these are downloaded old seasons 1 to 6. There are 24 episodes per season. I think season 7 is currently ongoing.

One episode runs for 41 minutes and one time we watched non-stop 12 episodes that means 492 minutes or 8 hours and 12 minutes.

We are now watching season 5 episode 15.

I really like Jack Bauer, he's the "superhero" and I also like Chloe the computer genius who has a personality disorder.