Fly All the Way? Half Way? Drive?

Planning to go down to Indy in the Easter weekend since I have half day off on Good Friday. It's a 6-hrs drive which far exceeded my self-set maximum of 3.5 hrs. Looking at flying to Indy from Madison, the price's approximately $350. There are other lower fares but the problem is that the return trip is early Sunday morning. Since I planned to go back to Purdue on Saturday, I preferred to stay in Indy for the morning/afternoon on Sunday.

The other options is to fly from another city than Madison - but that means I'll have to drive to whatever airport I choose. The candidates are: O'Hare, Midway and Milwaukee. Midway's further but Southwest does have flights to Indy from Midway so it will be the cheapest. If I pick O'Hare, most likely I'll stick with UA (which a price of ~$184, once again because I want to come back Sunday evening). Milwaukee actually is the leading choice right now. There is this airline called "Midwest" that I'd like to try previously; but while I was at Chicago/W. Lafayette it really wasn't to feasible as their hub is at Milwaukee. It's about an hour drive from Madison to Milwaukee so it's not too long. The ticket price is at $220 but it's a non-stop flight. It's a good pick I think.

And of course I can always try driving to Indy - probably most economical but I'll have to really ask myself if I want to drive that far. :P

My First Purchase @ Madison's Macy's

To be honest, I still like the brand "Marshall Fields" better - probably because of the Chicago sentiments. Macy's doesn't quite cut it for me. :P

Anyway, couple of my jeans are wearing down and it's time to replenish the stock. After getting my car fixed on Saturday morning, I was planning to take a trip to Johnson Creeks (an outlet close by - approximately 45 minutes drive) to see if I can find any. Before that, however, I needed to grab something to eat first. It's been a while since I last wandered into Hilldale's Hong Kong Wok (it's a little Chinese restaurant inside a mall, quite authentic, and they served congee on weekends) and since I finally managed to get up before 3 on a weekend, congee for lunch definitely sounded good. I ordered 生滾牛肉粥, 炒米粉, 油炸鬼 and 豆漿 for a hefty $7.70 lunch. Quality of course is not good as back home, but it'll have to suffice until I go back to HK later this year.

Since I was at the "mall" already, I decided to do some browsing at Macy's before taking off for Johnson Creek's. The location of this Macy's always baffle me - there really isn't anything else at Hilldale except Macy's (well, and a grocery store Sentry). The rest of the stores in the mall are just so...uninteresting. I would be quite happy if one day Macy's would move to West Towne, which is a shorter drive for me (unless I moved to the campus area next year). Anyway, nothing really interested me at first as I walk around the store. I remembered they have CK and Levi's in their Chicago store (I was at the Old Orchard Macy's on the 2nd) but I just couldn't find them. Not too disappointed as I don't have high hopes coming in anyway. But as I was leaving, on the left hand side of the exit/entrance, in the "Young Man" section, are those two brands. "Young Man" huh?

Nothing interested at CK, Levi's a bit challenging since there were a number of styles. "Sits at waist/regular fit/straight leg" - next; "Sits at waist/regular fit/boot cut" - next; "Sits at waist/loose fit/boot cut" - hello!? do you have anything that's not "Sits at waist". Finally I located a style which has the perfect combination (in case you are curious - it's a pair of 514 which is "sits below waist/slim fit/straight leg"). Then comes my horrible realization that American sizes are not my size... 34/30, 36/32, 38/34, 32/30... Err...seriously, people really needs to go on diet or something (wakakaka). After going through like 3 or 4 piles I was finally able to find a pair of 30 waist, 32 inseam. So...much...work... At $30, it looks like a good deal to me, and I don't have to drive out of town. Bought!

Looks like my trip to Johnson Creek's could wait a bit.

P.S. Macy's has UGLY plastic bag!!! I missed the nice little paper/plastic bags I got while shopping in HK.

Missing my sleep T_T

The day started extremely early today - even earlier than my normal weekdays. I had an appointment with Honda Service for an oil change and check up (my SRS light came on recently)...at 8:30am! I have no idea why I would agree to this time when they suggested this time; Normally I wouldn't even be at work yet (typical hours 900 to 1800/1830). Sigh!

It turned out that the SRS light is on because of a controller failure with the seat belt. Apparently this is covered under my warranty and I don't have to pay a dime for it! I was a bit surprised because my car was bought in Jan 2001 and I thought the warranty would probably only be a 5-year one. Well, I guess I can't complain saving a hundred bucks. The bad news was that they didn't have the parts in store and have to order it, so I'll have to bring my car in once the part arrives. The worse news (not really "news" since I was told last May already) is that the struts in my cars are leaking. Replacing it would cost me about $600 - Ouch! Perhaps I should think about whether I want to get a new car or keep maintaining this one. This Civic has served me well - no problem except normal wear and tear throughout these years. However, I do foresee it'll need some maintenance work if I were to keep it for a few more years. Um... tough decision.

Oh I also got new wind shield wipers and blades - now I can finally see when driving in the rain. Wakakaka...

What should you do when you have too many eggs sitting in your fridge?

Make dessert of course. I've been making these for a while since I desperately need to get rid of the eggs before they go bad. =P


This one's from last night, but I did make one tonight as well

One of the simplest Chinese dessert:

Egg - 1 large size
Milk - 3/4 cup
Sugar - 2 table spoons

Mix together. Put in bowl. Cover with cling wrap. Steam (should be 燉 - but what's the English word for 燉?) for 8 minutes. Done!

For better result, use a strainer when pouring the mixed ingredients into the bowl. DO NOT OVER COOK!!! Let me say it again - DO NOT OVER COOK!!! This is supposed to be a dessert, you don't want it to come out like a breakfast dish.

Children of Mana - Done!

Leveled up too much - the final boss was like "meh - that's it!?" But it's a game finished nonetheless. Onward with Lunar Knights!

Eye High Hand Low

I can't keep smiling as I am typing the title - some definitely will be clueless... Ho ho ho...

Anyway, while doing grocery in China town, I decided to buy ingredients to make soup on Sunday. The grocery store did have 紅蘿白 so I settled on 青紅蘿白煲雞 (normally i would use carrots as substitute). Picking out the 紅蘿白 was easy enough because they were smaller and it wasn't too difficult to find a package of the right amount. The packages for the 青蘿白, on the other hand, were either too big or too small. I think I actually spent at least 5 minutes picking up each package and tried to determine if it was too few/enough/too many.

Apparently my instinct cannot be trusted - or perhaps it's been a while since i make soup? This is what I ended up with:


Unfortunately, I totally forgot about one "kind" of ingredient - can you guess?

After adding 2/3 of the 青紅蘿白, I was like "Oh crap!" because the pot was almost filled up (with an inch or so left). And I haven't even add the chicken into the pot yet! (by the way, the chicken was those frozen Cornish hen you can find in the supermarket - what you see in the plastic container is the whole hen). Decision, desicion...I could either 1) Throw away the extra stuff, which seems like a waste 2) Find another pot and make extra 3) Put them extra stuff back to the fridge and make more the next day, since I can't "freeze" them. (Side note: for those who don't know, making these type of soups takes time. You want to let the whole pot boils at a low - medium heat for at least a couple hours) (Side note #2: I actually had to call back home to ask my mom what's the minimum time I need since I don't want to wait all evening :P)

I finally opted for #3 - so there's another pot of soup sitting in my kitchen right now. I've never had that much soup in two consecutive days (I had left over from yesterday plus some from today. I think I still have half pot sitting on the stove now cooling down). I grew up with lots of 湯水 (三日一小煲, 五日一大煲 is a frequent term I used to described my mom. That doesn't count the 滾湯 which took place on the days she did not "煲湯") so a bit extra doesn't bother me much. But two pots in two days by myself - that's definitely something.

Now answer to my missing ingredient: I forgot to add 蜜棗! 失策!

DS Game #12

Lunar Knight - Got!

In hindsight, I probably shouldn't pick this one up until next month or so. Lunar Knight is an Action RPG game similar to Children of Mana (but better according to the reviews - which are quite favorable). For the past two weeks I've been trying to finish off Children of Mana (wrapping up side-quests, leveling up the characters, etc) and I've put in a lot of hours. I have roughly a hour or so of main story before finishing the game (which brings the total to approximately 40hrs - pretty amazing considering the fact that FF3 took up about the same amount of time too). I'll see how tired I am with the genre afterward. However, I did open up the package and try it out early tonight - the first impression is that I have to "unlearn" my Children of Mana control scheme. "Can't they share the same control scheme?" is the #1 question on my mind right now.

The was another possible candidate - Hotel Dusk: Rm 215. Sadly I couldn't find it in either Best Buy or Target. I guess I'll have to pick that up later.

Side note: Cooking Mama for the Wii is coming out later this month too!

Side note 2: Need to find a copy of Fire Emblem: Path of Radiance (a GameCube game) before Fire Emblem: Goddess of Dawn comes out in the States.

Spendy Weekend

Yeah - I think I over-spent this weekend. T_T

Friday night dinner
Tony Roma's $21 (Only finished half and FORGOT to bring the rest home!)

Saturday trip to Chicago -
Gas $40 (though I still have half a tank left in my car)
Lunch $11
Haircut $30
Dinner $30
Grocery $20

Luckily my brother is not in-town this weekend so i just had grab a quick lunch. Phew~

Sunday
DS Game #12 $32
LabSeries Facial Scrub $18
Grocery $32 (What did I buy!? Since I do grocery every week this is a lot for one week's worth...@@)


Yikes! A $250 weekend...can't afford too many of these (Sadly speaking, I think I'll need to do some shopping for jeans...Sigh! There goes the tax refund)

Saturday Night Dinner

Japanese at Akai Hana in Wilmette, IL. It really has been a while since I had Japanese (since I got back?) since both King Snort and MyEvilInsideYou are too fond of Asian cuisines (and yet they are okay with Teppanyakki. =.=" In return, I eliminated Mexican from the list of restaurants we would go to for dinners... Muahaha)

Though Jasper couldn't make it, I still want to meet up with Vicky to see how's everything going for her. Her big day's coming up in 3 months and she will be the first one in my closest circle from Purdue to get married - Congratulations! She and her fiancé were in the northern suburb that afternoon so I picked some place up north (Wilmette) for dinner. Peter also managed to show up with Linda as well. And of course throughout the night we recalled funny stories of Peter and the various "adventures" we had with his little red car (that has no heat). I think he's getting Realtor license (or something like that) soon. So if you are planning to buy real estate in the Chicago area, he would like to talk to you (Alright, I've done my part). Meanwhile, if you would like to order delivery for Thai food in the Chicago area, you might run into him as well. Apparently he made a delivery to some unit in Vicky's condo building Friday night (he didn't know Vicky is living there then) - small world.

Lastly Chun-ho also showed up. I don't remember when was the last time I saw this guy - it must be quite a few years. I faintly remembered seeing him the first year I started working in Madison (I went down to NW to see the basketball tournament), but not 100% sure. I MSN him on Friday night to try my luck, didn't expect much. He managed to leave me a message early Saturday morning (while I was asleep) and I gave him my number before I took off for Chicago (while he was asleep - I assumed). Little by little we have a full table for the night. =)

It was a good thing that they gave us the table all the way in the back - I laughed quite loudly for a couple times and it definitely would draw some attention if we were sitting in the front part of the store. Lots of "Peter stories" came up throughout the night (a good thing since I start to forget some of them - it would only be better if DNA and Richard are here as well) and we pretty much did a status update. Hopefully this time, it won't be another 2-3 years before we meet again - after all, there is a wedding in June!

Haircut

Finally got a haircut over this weekend. The last one back back in January before I left Hong Kong so it's been a good two months already. Normally it would be 3 months between each haircut but this time, it was quite necessary since I kind of changed my hair style so that the front part is an inch or so longer than the rest. Hence in the last two weeks, while I can still manage the side and back part, my hair in the front was giving me so much trouble each morning. lol

The salon was full on Saturday. A bit unexpected (since it was 315 already which is usually a slow time) as I have to wait. I think this was because a group of 4 or 5 college students just went in before me. I was told to come back around 4. Fortunately, the grocery store is just two doors down so I did some shopping. And of course I have my DS with me. heehee... However, I think I'll call ahead and make an appointment next time since I didn't get the stylist who normally does my hair. =P

Anyway, so Billy the stylist was busy and I ended up with another one. I don't remember if I've had this stylist before. Seeing him cutting my hair at first wasn't very comforting. He would make a cut in one section of my hair, pause for a bit (i think he wasn't too sure how to proceed???), and then start again from another part. It happened a couple times and it definitely made me nervous. Not much conversation until the end when he was drying my hair after the final wash. He sounded a bit surprised when I told him I am from HK (I was like, what the heck!?). Looks like the HK-aura from my December trip is fading - maybe I should plan a mid-year trip to refresh.

Fortunately, things turned out quite well. Not the best cut I've had but definitely above average. Good spent of my $30 ($26 cut + $4 tip). My next challenge is whether I can gel it back to what it supposed to look like tomorrow morning... Bwahahaha...