Kale Pesto Pasta

We had a tease of spring on Friday when the temperature jumped up to 9 degrees C. Nine! Alas, the warm weather was temporary; by nightfall, it fell to -9 degrees C and my hopes of an early spring were dashed.

Aside from looking forward to the sun setting past 5:30 in the afternoon and not having to wear ten layers of clothing to keep warm, I am counting down the days until the arrival of fresh spring vegetables to replace the wilted selection currently at my supermarket.

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Swiss Chard, Potato & Sweet Potato Gratin

The past few weeks have been a wonderful stroll down memory lane. There was lunch with high school friends, some of who I only get to see about once a year, and we caught up on each other's lives and reminisced about the past. The week before that, I visited my university roommate in Hamilton and we had a lazy weekend enjoying each other's company. It's moments like these that makes me wonder where time has gone and when exactly it was that we entered adulthood.

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Homemade Applesauce

The past weekend affirms the fact that I'm a wuss when it comes to the cold. The temperature hit -20 degrees C (windchill excluded) and I can't help but wonder why I live in a country such a distance away from the equator. As the winter drags on, I reminisce to my favourite season: autumn.

Autumn is the perfect season - not too hot or cold, wonderful crisp weather, the fall harvest, the leaves changing colours. What's not to love? I will admit, the beginning of last October was really rough work-wise and I was more than ready to embrace the Thanksgiving long weekend when it arrived. On the agenda: fall foilage and apple picking.

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Southeast Asia & China 2008-09

As predicted, I ended up abandoning this blog. Now that I have settled into a routine, perhaps I will post more regularly. One would hope so anyway.

While I am enjoying my time back in Canada and getting the opportunity to spend time with friends and family, life is a bit mundane compared to what I was up to last year. The itch to travel is getting more and more persistent, something I'm trying to suppress as I attempt to be a Grown Up. I have visions of working on an organic farm in France, taking cooking lessons in the countryside of Italy or travelling through India on its rickety train network. Of course, I would be eating my way through these countries because aside from sightseeing, the best part of travelling is gorging on delicious food.

Instead of succumbing to my urges, I've been looking through my travel photos of Southeast and East Asia. I skimmed through the pictures when I first arrived home but haven't touched them since. It's an awful habit of mine - I take a crapload of pictures and then discard them to the side afterwards.

Here is a small sample of some of my favourite places that I visited.

Sapa, Vietnam

Sapa is located north of Hanoi, above sea level and surrounded by beautiful mountains. There is a large ethnic minority population and I did a two day trek with several ladies from a Black H'mong village. I can't even describe how breathtaking it was to walk through the terraced rice field - a green so vibrant it's almost blinding.

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Eigo no hito kitta!

The posting-once-a-week plan has gone into array because my life was taken over by the Vancouver 2010 Winter Olympics in the past two weeks. Instead, I am posting something I wrote a little over a year ago on February 11, 2009:

This weekend, I visited the Saki no Yu onsen, which is in the next town over. An onsen is a hot spring (aka heaven) and Japan has thousands of them scattered all over the country. Onsens are kind of awkward because you're naked with a bunch of strangers, but it's so amazing that you're willing to overlook the nakedness.

Saki no Yu is one of the more famous onsens because it is situated right beside the Pacific Ocean. The onsens I've been to so far have been really nice, where they had an indoor change room and shower stations with soap and shampoo to wash yourself with before you submerge yourself into the actual onsen (as per onsen etiquette). Saki no Yu, however, was literally just an outdoor shack with a couple of lockers to store your stuff. The onsen, however, was fantastic. The view was beyond incredible and to hear the Pacific Ocean splashing against the rocks as you're soaking in the water is the epitome of relaxation. Think taking a bath while listening to a cd with ocean waves, but a gazillion times better.


On the other side of the rocks to the left are three onsen baths. I wasn't kidding when I said it was right by the ocean.

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