the reason for not blogging

I feel guilty to blog when I’m too busy editing.

Just thought I’d drop a quick note to let you know.

I can’t believe leaves are turning colors already.

Where has summer gone?!

look down, look up, look back & look ahead

LOOK DOWN

I was walking on 2nd St SW the other morning facing east. It was a beautiful morning with the sun shining gently and with a light breeze. I don’t usually walk with my head down, but I couldn’t help but do so that morning.

Because the pedestrian sidewalk was beautiful.

Huh? You asked.

It was silver and glittery.

I don’t know what they put in the cement but when the lighting is just right, the sidewalk just glittered. Like stars in a clear night sky. Like the reflections on the ocean water surface during sunset.

So try walking with your head down next time, and you may find something you would otherwise miss.

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LOOK UP

Do look up sometimes though. And you may find something else you would otherwise miss.

We went to visit Justin’s parents who live in the country (or “woop woop” in Aussie slang) and left late. Justin said, “one thing I miss living in the country is seeing the stars at night”. I looked up, and sure enough, there were plenty, plenty of stars. Very romantic.

What did I do? I kept walking to the car, because I was sleepy.

“You just missed seeing a shooting star!” Justin said.

Because I was too busy walking and tired to look up.

I fell asleep in the car. When we got back home, Justin told me I missed yet another shoot star while he was driving.

A green shooting star.

Haven’t seen a green one before (I’d only seen shooting stars once in Canada, in 1999). And I miss it.

So, do look down, and look up.

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LOOK BACK & LOOK AHEAD

You don’t know what you have until you don’t have it anymore. So true.

I started having piano lessons when I was 5 or 6. My parents bought us a piano not long after that. To this date, I still wondered how the piano movers moved it up 3 floors in a narrow staircase to our apartment in Hong Kong. I had lessons until I was 14 and stopped because we left for Australia.

In Australia, I just practiced on my own. I was in the school band and sometimes I would performed during school concerts. Once I went to college/uni, I played a lot less. I would sit down and play a few songs when I felt like it. It was a good way to relieve stress – especially when you banged out “Phantom of the Opera”.

I haven’t played for more than 4 years, since I left Australia to Rochester MN. Lately, I’d been really missing playing the piano for whatever reasons. I began looking for one… I had no idea how much pianos are since I had no reason to look before. I quickly realized that I can only afford a used one, from private sellers like the classified or craigslist. When I talked to my mum about the piano we have, I asked her how much she and my dad paid for it. I was astonished. The amount was high even in today’s standard (well to my budget anyway, since it is all relative), let alone 20+ years ago.

I remember I didn’t like practicing much. I remember sometimes mum or dad would sit down and listen to us play (even though they don’t know how to play). I remember my mum talking me to lessons – we had to take the bus, along with my 2 little sisters. My youngest sister was still an infant, and she puked onto my mum during the bus ride numerous times as the road was windy. I remember the song the teacher used to play to gather the students around her (it was group lessons first). I remember later having private lessons with her, and then having lessons with another teacher. I remember catching the bus by myself to go to group sessions when I was older, feeling all grown up because my parents trusted me to go by myself (a 30min or so bus ride, and I was probably 12-14). I remember not wanting to perform for guests when my parents asked, but would do so unwillingly. I remember going to competitions and exams, and how much I disliked playing scales because I was slow and how much I sucked at oral exams because I can’t sing.

And today, I have my 2nd piano.

I finally found one on craigslist, and had a piano technician looked at it to make sure it is still in good condition. I don’t expect it to be perfect, but don’t want to get something that’d require $$$ to fix. This piano is a lot older than the one I had at my parent’s (probably by 70 years). It was made in 1913, a Hobart M Cable that was a 16th birthday gift to the seller’s great aunt. It was later given to the seller. So it had been in the same family for 95 years. And now it is mine.

I played. Or I should say, attempted to play. I was definitely very rusty. I can’t even play Fur Elise without stopping many times due to mistakes. I was once able to play it flawlessly. A few days ago I went to the library to borrow a few music books. There was a song I loved to play before – but I don’t remember its name, nor who wrote it, nor what the melody was. But I knew when I see it, I’d remember. So I started flipping through the books they had, looking at the first few bars of each song, singing the tune silently in my head. I looked through probably 10 books before I found it – Nocturne in E flat Major by Chopin.

It was frustrating, disappointing and almost scary when I couldn’t make it through the first page on my first try. Scary because this is a song I used to know so well, and how I could just lose it all in 4 years time. It is almost like when you wake up one day, you found out you don’t remember the 26 alphabets in sequence.

I know it’d take time and practice to get back to where I once was. And I probably need to start with something a bit easier to get my “hand memory” back. I chose Sonatina in C major by Clementi. I don’t know how loud the piano is outside of the house, I hope my neighbours won’t complain as they probably are sick of hearing it. I lost count of how many times I played just the first movement to see if I could play without any mistakes. I am hoping this winter I will have more time to practice, since I’d be less busy with photography.

Perhaps next time when I see my parents (we haven’t seen each other for 4 years) I’ll be able to play them a song, as they have said they enjoying listening to us play. I want them to know that I appreciate them buying us a piano when we hardly had room in our small apartment in Hong Kong (my parents ended up sleeping in a sofa bed for 8 years in the living room just so the piano can stay in the only bedroom where our bunk bed was); that I appreciate the time they spent taking us to lessons and all; that they gave us an opportunity to learn music and encouraged us to enjoy music, and hoped that one day we’ll understand why they wanted us to have lessons even when we didn’t really want to.

Today I understood.

~ christa

chocolate chocolate chocolaet

Hi, my name is Christa. I am a chocoholic.

Okay, i don’t need to eat chocolate everyday (note – ‘need’, doesn’t mean i don’t ‘want’ to!). For chocolate you can get the grocery stores, i like dove, and some Cadbury ones though Cadbury bars aren’t readily available here and when they are available (I first found them at K-Mart here in Rochester MN and now Hy-Vee carries some), they only have the basic like milk, almond etc. There were definitely more varieties and sizes (like, much bigger!) in Australia. I also really like Belgian chocolate. Yummmm.

I love truffles too. I went to Chocolate Time by St Mary’s Hospital (207 14th Ave SW, Rochester MN) a while back to try some of their chocoatel. They don’t make any chocolate on site, as they just carry several lines (see their website for details). I got 6 truffles:

I love that they use an egg crate box!

These truffles are from Joseph Schmidt (San Fracisco), Le Grand (Sarcramento) and Boca Bons.

Front row (L to R):

• Joseph Schmidt Caramel Sea Salt

• Le Grand Pink Lemonade (Seasonal Flavor)

• Joseph Schmidt Pomegranate

Back row (L to R):

• Le Grand Rhubarb

• Boca Bons Peanut Butter

• Le Grand Key Lime (Seasonal Flavor)

My favorites were the Key Lime and Pink Lemonade. I like that they were a little sour and a little sweet. The Sea Salt Caramel was an interesting combination – though I wish it had a little less caramel and a little more sea salt as it is a little sweet for my taste. I remember trying to decide whether I like the Pomegranate or Rhubarb better and couldn’t decide. The one I liked the least was the Boca Bons which has an interesting texture as it is like a fudge, truffle and brownie rolled into one but it was just a bit too sweet.

I forgot what line this is but these are tiny compared to the above:

One was key lime (not as good as the one above, as this one is a bit sweeter) the other one is hazelnut praline which I liked better.

The main reason I went to Chocolate Time was to get these Moonstruck Bars as I read that they are good.

The milk chocolate one is pretty good – it tastes kinda like Dove chocolate? Creamy. Probably need to eat it side by side with Dove to see how close / far off I am with this comparison. Well at least it is closer to tasting like a Dove than Hershey or Cadbury. The Red one is dark chocolate chile which is an interesting flavor – a little bitter a little spicey a little sweet.

Also went to World Market Cost Plus the other day to get some Tim Tams (will mention below) and found they carry many different chocolate

World Market makes their own brand of chocolate bars:

I got the sea salt dark chocolate. I do like the sweet+salty combination but I think this bar is a bit too salty.

Also tried Theo Chocolate 3400 Phinney Bars

I tried to chai tea. I don’t think it really tastes like chai tea? I guess I assume it has Chinese Tea flavor (well “CHAI” means tea in chinese, so really chai tea = tea tea) but it tastes more like the spiced milk tea (like Indian milk tea?). They didn’t have the curry coconut there, or I probably would’ve bought that. (Theo Chocolate website is here).

I was most excited though when I saw they carry Vosges Chocolate! I have read about this line on some food forum, and saw that they only sold them in the Twin Cities (well you can buy them online too but I didn’t want to buy online in summer time). So it must be a new item at World Market. The flavor I heard the most about is the Bacon Bar (yep, the piggy bacon) but they didn’t have it. Will need to check back. So I decided to get one of the 3 flavors they did have – the Goji Bar.

“Goji Berries, pink Himalayan salt, deep milk chocoate”.

And this is SOOOOOO good! Even though I usually like buying new flavors to try, I think I’ll buy the Goji bar again in the future (though it is rather pricey, $6.95 for 3oz/85 grams). They suggested you eat it like so: “place a small piece of chocolate on your tongue and press it to the roof of your mouth. Within 30 seconds, the flavors of goji berry’s rasberry, plum and currant undertones exude from chewy bites with a hint of salt fueling the craving for more sweet”. I tried to eat it that one (okay, I had a big piece rather than a small piece…) and it is amazing how it shows the different layers of sweetness, sourness and saltiness. I like that it is not overly sweet nor salty.

I had no idea what Goji was until I goggled – and was shocked! I had eaten goji all my life and never knew it tasted like this! For those of you who are Chinese – it is 杞子!!! – yes those orange thingy that your mum usually puts in Chinese soup and you usually end up just leaving them in the bowl and throwing them out when your mum isn’t watching. A CHINESE HERB. IN CHOCOLATE. UMMMM. I don’t recall they taste sweet/tart. It is really hard to wrap my head around this! Hey but it won’t stop me from eating more Goji Bar!

Since I mentioned the Bacon Bar above, I have to say when Justin and I went to the State Fair this year (my first time!) we tried the new state fair food this year – Famous Dave’s Chocolate Covered Bacon! It sounds gross, but I actually like the sweet+salty combination. They were served cold in slices (now to think of it, it’s not very appealing to see/eat bacon fat served cold) and dipped in milk chocolate (I heard the chocolate is from Chocolat Céleste in St Paul.) I am quite advantous with food so this was the #1 item I wanted to try at the fair

Another food item I must mention from the fair is Thomasina’s Cashew Brittle – wow soooo delicious! Very buttery but not too sweet. It’s like Pringles, “Once You Start, You Can’t Stop!”

Oh, the reason I went to World Market in the first place was to get Tim Tam for a picnic I am going! What are Tim Tams? It’s one of Autralia’s most loved chocolate biscuits (okay, I found that here in the US, biscuits have a different meaning… so think of it as more like cookies I guess… but it’s not really cookes… ummm… I got all confused when I first got here with biscuits, scones, cookies, crackers, etc. It’s almost like you go to a different country to find apples are called oranges, and oranges are called bananas, if that makes sense.) Anyway, to learn more about Tim Tam, click here. To get them from World Market, click here. Funn thing is, they don’t use the name Tim Tam on the packaging? I wonder why? Since Tam is a Chinese surname, I always want to meet someone called Tim Tam There are probably some with that name in Hong Kong

Here is the World Market packaging:

And here is the real Australian packaging:

The best way to eat Tim Tam? Try a Tim Tam Slam! I like it with milk!

Okay I must stop talking about chocolate. I did get another plain Belgian Milk Chocolate bar (a very thick bar!) at World Market, but I haven’t tried it yet, so will have to report back later.

If you have any chocolate recommendation, please leave a comment!

~ christa

Engagement – Briana & Eric

Briana and Eric are getting married later this month – can’t wait to see the fall colors! (although, I hope winter won’t get here too soon… I’ve been enjoying the nice weather we have right now!) These were taken at the Mayowood Trial, Rochester MN, near the now-closed Mayowood Bridge.

Love the lighting in this image – really give Briana and Eric a glow! I love that their outfits are my business colors too (red and brown ) Look at their matching smiles

I love the tender moments just right before a couple kiss This image was taken with my favorite lens – looked at how smooth the bokeh is!

I couldn’t quite decide if I like this image better in black and white or color! In the color version the background is green and the foreground is of a golden color. In the end I decided to post the b&w version just because I think the focus is more on Briana and Eric. I love how longingly they looked at each other

~ christa