last days...

The last days of 2006 could not have ended better. We had the privilege of being 'foster' members of two families.

Right after we completed our exams and grading duties (with much difficulty), we made another continental trip up north - this time to Ottawa, Ontario. We stopped in Montreal en route and caught a brief glimpse of the promising city. Mental note - must go back one day. Christmas was spent with our dear friends, KL & Y, who came all the way from Australia to be with their family. We were the tag-alongs, and happily so. One must ask why the trip seemed so packed when we slept in till 10 each day, played cards & board games, watched movies, cooked and well, lazed around (aka bonded). I also learnt that the game of RISK can be damaging to family relations! :P

It was wonderful being around friends and feeling so welcomed by their family. The effects of global warming didn't go unnoticed, not even in the cold land of Canada. KL's 80+ year old grandfather remembers only one other green Christmas before this one. Very strange weather. We were a wee bit disappointed that the canal was not frozen over. From what our hosts told us, winter on the canal is quite an experience. With the entire canal frozen over, people travel to places on skates! We missed eating beaver tails on the canal but we did get a taste of this magnificent Canadian invention, yum. Beaver tails are like donuts flattened to look like a beaver tail, only much yummier. If you ever get the chance, try Killalu Sunrise, cinammon sugar with a squeeze of lemon.

outside the Canadian parliament house, gloriously lit up at nights

We made the 7-hour drive back to Amherst with only enough time to give the apartment a quick clean-up before our guests from CA arrived. Two days later, we were headed for the Big Apple to be with the rest of their family for the famed new year festivities. Our American guests had never been to New York. It was kinda ironic that the Malaysians, at least HA, was acting like the tour guide, thanks to our past brief flings with the city. We were most blessed with many "best-of" moments: NY pizza (you gotta check out John's Pizza just off Broadway), NY steak (MarkJoseph, oh my), egg custard tarts (rivals the best ever tarts we sampled in HK), "chinese" ice cream (pretty darn good). The rest of the trip was rather predictable - touristy stuff, Broadway musical (The Producers starring Tony Danza and Roger Bart of Desperate HW fame), etc. Despite being in NYC on NY eve, we watched the countdown on tv like most normal people (hey, you have to be pretty crazy to get in position from 3 pm to midnight). One notable highlight was being squished in what I thought would turn into a mob on Times Square on our way to the musical on NY eve. We literally had to hold hands to prevent from being separated from each other while moving 10 meters in 10 minutes. If you're ever caught in a crowd like this, NEVER EVER push the person in front of you. You're not going to get ahead any faster and some poor person(s) in front could be getting trampled due to the ignorance of the crowd in the back. Shudder...

this is not a foodie blog, but i had to include this one - these asparagii (?!) were the largest (diameter of my thumb) and most succulent I've tasted

yum cha in the REAL chinatown, flushing, NY - guess someone couldn't wait to dig in!

There's also a funny side story to go with this trip. On our way back, E & PP were asking us about White Castles because they were featured in a hilarious film called Harold And Kumar Go To White Castle. I hadn't had a White Castle since I was like Form 4 or 5 in Malaysia (yep, Malacca had one). At that time, I really liked the burgers but always complained about how each burger was so tiny. My first ever paycheck from selling CDs in a store after my SPM exams was spent buying these tiny burgers for the family. I digress. Anyway, obviously E was determined to sink his teeth into a White Castle burger, because he gave a loud, excited shout for HA to turn the car around to get to the White Castle on the other side of the highway. Since White Castle outlets purportedly can only be found on the East Coast, our heroic HA did just that while the rest of us whooped with joy, and we made away with four little burgers (apparently you're supposed to eat more than one, hence the size). They were delicious to the last bite...To complete the experience, we rented to movie and watched it until almost 3 am in the morning. Tell me if the lead actor doesn't bear a striking resemblance to our to-be politician friend, OKM?

I'm usually a little surprised when friends tell me what interesting/exciting lives we lead here. Hmm...I certainly don't think of it as being exciting, at least not most of the time. Most of the time, our lives are pretty regular...we work/study, meet friends, watch tv, etc...in fact, we're very homely and hardly ever go out for meals. I guess living in Amherst has opened many doors for travel opportunities, for that we're grateful. But really, the rest of it is pretty regular and mundane.

Happy New Year from this Lee clan!