Robina's birthday!

Robina's frens celebrated her birthday over lunch. She received a stellar welcome with scattered flower petals. I'm sure the other people at the restaurant must be very impressed.
Robina with her flowers and loot.
the beautiful ladies and one young lady!
the cake making a flaming entrance.
Robina preparing her wish.
Robina with the cake and cookie bakers: Sherry, Winnie and Ci Tong. they had to eat all the rejected cookies (poor things!)
the birthday cake was delicious. the sponge cake went well with the strawberries. yummy!
the whole gang! it was a nice lunch with great company.

roadkill

drove past this scene of a traffic accident on Satuday evening. some guy was lying on the road immobilized; he was probably paddling one of those three-wheeled trishaw carts that were common on the streets of Beijing. unfortunately, this is a common scene. most of the time, cyclists or trishaw riders are on the losing end. the wierd thing is that such traffic incidents always draw a crowd of curious onlookers, it seems like Beijing's most popular spectator sport. I don usually see many people rushing to help or direct traffic (heaven forbid!). They just stand around and gawk. maybe they show up in anticipation of fisticuffs (very common when two cars were involved).

14th night

Saturday evening was the 14th night of CNY. we went to a fren's place to let off all our fireworks since the next day would be the last day of the legal period.
Robina went all out vent her pyromaniac and arsonist tendencies. enough to last for the rest of the year.
I think most Singaporeans (like our frens here) have this repressed tendencies, just like our Beijinger frens.
We braved the freezing cold until our face and fingers were numbed, as the rest of Beijing was lit up around us.
in the end, we just lined up the fireworks and blasted them off. the bigger ones were really beautiful and shot up real high. sorry, no pics of those since I was busy lighting them.
in this clip, we were diving for cover since the firecrakers were the spinning and screaming kind.
sorry, that this clip is horizontal. u may have to tilt your head or your laptop :-P I asked Siva to rotate it using iMovie; the clip was alright but became horizontal again after I loaded it on YouTube. must be some gremlin along the way. apparently the problem of horizontal movie clips was quite common when I searched video forums on the web.

frozen Hou Hai

We went down on Saturday to Hou Hai hoping to "play" on the ice. The lakes would be frozen in winter and Beijingers would "frolick" on the ice, by skating or just strolling. But as the Spring temperature was rising to above zero during the day, warning leaflets told people to stay off the ice since it might thaw one of these days.
but most Beijingers are as bochap as Singaporeans (maybe even worst!). We spotted quite a number of people on the ice. As kiasi Singaporeans, we made sure due diligence was done by making sure no one has fallen thru the thin ice. We clamber down to the ice to join in the fun!
it was quite chilly on the ice since the breeze was even colder. but before u knew it, some security guys showed up and herded people off the ice. I guess all the people was playing hide-n-seek with the security.
one more snapshot for Robina before we evacuate.
can't resist snapping a shot of this adorable puppy. He has short stubby legs like Sally!

Khoresh Gheymeh at Rumi

brought Pat and Winnie to try persian food at Rumi.
grilled beef kebab with bismatic rice.
Khoresh Ghormeh, Persian lamb stew.
Robina tried their yoghurt drink which is like lassi but has fragrant herbs.

snowy Beijing

this morning Beijing received its first decent snowfall this winter. before this, we only got a light dusting on one occasion! this even more pathetic than last winter. since 7am, the accumulated snow was about 2 inches.
I brought Sally to run in the garden when I came home during lunch break. Sally ran round n round in the snow much to the delight of the kids in the nursery school who were watching her from the window.
Sally stepping in about two inch of snow.
her four pudgy paws were off the ground!
unleashed, she was sprinting down the garden bushes with her ears flying...
taking a breather while she sniffed around. her muzzle and nose was specked with snow.
more crazy dog impression by sprinting again...
She played so long in the snow that there were lumps of ice in her fur from the snow that melted and re-froze. but clearly she enjoyed the romp in the snow since she got quite a thick coat of fur by now!

Roach cake

saw this on Taiwanese TV. nope, it's not a cake made "from" cockroaches. it's edible, made from chocolate and cream. seems most suitable for an entomologist's birthday. the wings and legs are made from chocolate. if you remove the wings, u can see the cream-coloured abdomen and that's really gross! apparently, the cake is quite good! the baker originally made the specialty cakes for online orders on Yahoo Taiwan. now she is swamped with orders of 60-80 cakes a month, each cake cost about NT2,200.