Category: travel

Egg tarts

poofypuffyLeave a comment

My favorite food is egg tarts.

I could do my capstone project on egg tarts. I could genuinely research different types of egg tarts for a year and then bake them. 

So far, Portuguese egg tarts (picture below) are my favorite because the puff pastry is flaky and crispy. Hong Kong egg tarts are good too, but I prefer the flaky western tart crust. Also, Hong Kong egg tarts don’t brown on top like Portuguese tarts.

Apparently, English egg tarts are also a thing, but they’re definitely less well-known, so I would guess they are not as good.

I’ve been craving egg tarts ever since I saw an Instagram reel with egg tarts in it, so I am going to Trader Joe’s today to see if they have frozen egg tarts. If they do I will buy a lot.

UPDATE: I spent the whole day looking for some today and didn’t find any. There was no egg tarts at Whole Foods, Trader Joe’s, Westridge, or Seafood City, which is really sad. Apparently, Trader Joe’s sells Portuguese tartlets with COD though. fish. You can buy egg tarts in LA, but that’s far.

Picture Credit: Nick Fewings

Traveling

leapingwaterLeave a comment

This summer, I traveled somewhere that I had never been before. Being in an entirely new place was incredible to me. The sites. The sounds. The people. The culture. The overall difference in atmosphere from where I usually am was a major shift for me. I absolutely loved everything. Everywhere I went, from something as simple as (i know it sounds funny) an alleyway to something major like a landmark was so amazing to see. Traveling far away from what I am familiar with was nothing short of life changing. I am so grateful for my time there, as I did not want to leave once my time had come. I hope that I can return there some day in the near future. This location truly was the most gorgeous place I have ever visited. The part of my trip that really made it special was spending time with my friend. We made so many memories together that I will cherish forever. “Home” is not always a place, but a person.

pc: me

best movies by actor

lizlovelaughLeave a comment

These are not my favorite actors, just actors that have been in a lot of movies I’ve seen.

Tom Hanks: Terminal- great story, made me cry when Forrest Gump didn’t. Great performance, and a convincing accent to me. Really unique plot and an interesting antagonist.

Daniel Day-Lewis: There will be Blood- honestly this performance is the reason I decided to write this blog. Some of the best acting from an already incredible actor. Many powerful scenes in this movie.

Willem Dafoe: The Grand Budapest Hotel- I mean what a cool character, that scene with the fingers. Anytime he was in a scene it was more interesting. Also, John Wick was a good movie with him in it- but not really because of him. I notice Dafoe is in a lot of movies I watch but rarely plays a big role in them (besides Spidermen).

Leo: The Departed- probably a controversial pick but a terrific cast and director. It’s intense and funny, Leo really delivered. At its core, this movie’s characters are what make it special, you really feel like you know them and you’re invested in their fates.

De Niro: Raging Bull

Pacino: Scent of a Woman

pc: https://m.media-amazon.com/images/M/MV5BMTkxMjE3MjgwNF5BMl5BanBnXkFtZTcwMTcwNjExNA@@.V1.jpg

my humble restaurant reviews

lizlovelaughLeave a comment

If you get a chance to visit downtown Brooklyn NY, you must go to Celestine. Walk right past those long lines at the river cafe and vinegar hill house, and check out this terrific Mediterranean restaurant. It is right next to the bridge on the river, so the view is fabulous. The food is almost as good I promise. I got the mezze platter and wild mushroom gnocchi. I don’t even like mushrooms and I licked that bowl clean. But the mezze, oh my god, it tastes like an amazing home-cooked meal. Every single sauce was wonderful. Order it, I promise you won’t regret it. 11/10

Modern Pizza feels like a New Haven staple. If you’re having pizza for the first time on the east coast, chances are that it’ll be at the famous Modern Pizza. The good news is, you have a lot of delicious options! I’d opt for their Margarita, but I’m also a huge fan of their white spinach, which is crazy because I love tomato sauce. If you have the chance, try the calzones or bruschetta if it’s in season. These are two fantastic appetizers that present a couple of unique flavors.

Cafe Boku is my mom’s favorite restaurant. I’m no expert on their health club superfood stuff but I am an acai bowl connoisseur. I’ve been to every acai restaurant in America, but Ojai’s very own Cafe Boku is the definitive best. It’s what all the cute vegan spots in Manhattan think they are. First of all, their bowls are huge. They’re like $14 and you’re getting triple what that would get you anywhere else (that usually charge like $16). I recommend ordering their plain BoKU bowl and asking for some honey. When it comes to texture and granola: smoothie proportions, Boku does it best. Even if there was no flavor, just eating the bowls would be a pleasure. Also, their blue sky parfaits are incredible, but a little pricey.

(This is Celestine, it is a total dream at night)

pc https://www.nycgo.com/images/venues/84812/all-in-nyc_celestine__large.jpg

little spanish farmstead

lizlovelaughLeave a comment

The other day I saw a video documenting a woman’s year restoring an abandoned smallholding in eastern Spain all alone. She left her husband in the city to live simply in the countryside. The 4-acre property and the house had no furniture, running water, tools, or heating. And this woman, from scratch, completely transformed it into a full-fledged smallholding. Anyway, the whole video is watching this process: thrifting the furniture & decor, painting the walls, landscaping a whole garden, and doing some handiwork. She meets a whole new community of people like her and builds a big tipi outside for guests and visitors to stay.

What an incredible difference she made in just one year, and to think she went out there on her own, knowing so little, and gained all the skills she needed. She absolutely deserves all the fruits of her labor.

Now she spends her days hanging out with stray cats, gardening, building things all on her own, and raising animals, instead of working 9-5 just to get by. The energy is so positive I can’t help but think this is the way we’re meant to live: healthy, happy, eating the best food, and loving life.

pc: https://i.ytimg.com/vi/A1w2b-T2iMs/hqdefault.jpg?sqp=-oaymwEjCPYBEIoBSFryq4qpAxUIARUAAAAAGAElAADIQj0AgKJDeAE=&rs=AOn4CLAU9DqBq6QofbZ1vGn8IuGK4HYhLg

The Best Story

lizlovelaughLeave a comment

The best reality documentary on youtube is a Vice series titled “North Korean Labor Camps” where they sent a Canadian Journalist, Shane Smith, to investigate the hermit kingdom and bring back cultural learnings with him.

It has everything: politics, humor, wit, fear, camaraderie with absolutely random people, realities of everyday life of common people, getting banned and kicked out, and going into the endless unknown (Siberian Tiga) like a spaceship.

It’s in a blog, video diary format with a pretty bad camera (it was 10 years ago), and it’s just so cool. All seven parts of the series are just insane. He gets in trouble with the FSB, there’s a car chase in the wilds of Siberia, and he befriends the local mob. My favorite part though is all the random people that just helped and tagged along: a cop, ex-chief of police, freelance journalist, and some crazy Russian guy who saved the journalist from angry authorities.

It all started in North Korea, with a video titled “We Tried Sneaking Journalists into North Korea.” In it, you see how unsettling and just off North Korea feels, at least 10 years ago. Anyway, soon he finds out that Koreans are being sent to logging camps for like several years at a time in Eastern Russia and so begins the aforementioned series. I want to do something like this one day.

Besides what he manages to uncover, what’s most shocking is how calm the journalist was despite the tense circumstances. From intimidating drunk guys on trains to North Korean camp leaders telling him no, he just kept his cool and kept asking questions. That’s a Journalist!

PC https://static01.nyt.com/images/2010/12/06/arts/SUBVICE/SUBVICE-articleLarge.jpg?quality=75&auto=webp&disable=upscale

More Waves

Pete WebbLeave a comment

I probably had one of my rawest encounters with the ocean on the Santa Cruz trip. On Thursday the group hiked to Smugglers cove (Liam and I ran), this large round bay faces south, unlike Scorpion Ranch which faces northeast where we spend most of the trip. What’s important is not the bay itself but that hundreds of miles south of the bay a hurricane was(still is) active off of Baja. Hurricanes and storms such as this one generate 90% of swells worldwide, and this storm is no exception. For days large lumps of water have traveled hundreds of miles along the coast bringing warm water and very good waves to Mexico and California. The swell and bay direction created a very interesting experience in the water. Large closeout walls slammed into shores in sets of 4 to 5 waves with faces that peaked (to my best guess) at 7 or 8 feet. Liam, Zimo, and I got the opportunity to swim out into these waves ducking and swimming under them and even catching the smaller ones with our bodies, or the boogie board in Liam’s case. This experience is easily one of the coolest I’ve had in the water because of the lack of wind and large swell, the waves were perfectly clean giants and they were absolutely gorgeous. Each set was a new masterpiece of nature and each wave defined the ocean’s beauty. I love waves.

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pc: Pierre Dasen

My Obsession With Germany

karolineticoLeave a comment

I always thought it was weird to be obsessed with a country. But after a big struggle to avoid going to Germany, a weird enthusiasm for that country grew in me.


I find myself getting overexcited every time I encounter any kind of German connection, including people’s German last names, WW2 in history class, and even Sauerkraut from lunch. I almost forgot the reason that made me so afraid of going there. Instead of an inevitable reality, it turned into an attraction to a foreign culture.

Sadly, the same obsession didn’t happen with learning German. I have only opened my German books only once since this school year started.


As of today, this obsession is slowly fading away like my German skills, but one day I will pick both of them up and go to Germany.

www.politico.eu

Living away from home

karolineticoLeave a comment

When I was 4 years old, I lived away from my parents for the first time as I went to a boarding school for kindergarten. At the age of 11, I moved even further away, to a foreign country on the other side of the earth. Through living independently (not completely independent, I had to live with a host family or in a boarding school) at a relatively young age, I’ve experienced both positive and negative sides to it. 

I can have a lot more freedom since my parents are far away, and I can do whatever I want in my free time. But this also brings the major downside— the loss of self-control. I always had a hard time with time management, and after I started to study abroad, the situation became worse. I didn’t know a lot of English, so I didn’t understand anything in class, I tried to take notes without knowing even what they meant, but it didn’t work, and I still can’t keep up with my class.  Being the only Chinese student, the overwhelming foreign language and environment smacked me. I gave up doing any school work, resulting in a row of Fs on my transcript.

Although I don’t regret anything about my experience, my suggestion to parents who are considering sending their kids to another country is: to make sure their child knows what they are doing before sending them off to a place full of strangers. 

morehouse.edu

Using Spanish

navraj22Leave a comment

I have taken Spanish casually for 9 years now and at no point have I thought I have been good at it. I never really paid attention until high school, but completing workbook pages in Spanish was my least favorite homework. The work I was assigned was habitually tedious and boring. On the other hand, I thoroughly enjoy listening to music in Spanish and speaking Spanish with people who speak the language.

Last year, I hated Spanish 3 Honors. I hated learning tenses and rules, what even is the reflexive? This year I am in AP Spanish, which is more conversation and application-based, which is the first Spanish class I have really enjoyed. My speaking ability has improved immensely, and I have a good grades without feeling like I am slaving over the work. This has given me confidence in speaking that I never really had before.

I have also started speaking mostly Spanish to the new girl in my grade from Spain. I have talked to her friends who only speak Spanish for hours on the phone and have gotten only good reviews.

I am very proud of how far I have come in speaking Spanish and feel like I can have a decently fluent conversation with just anyone.

PC: Pintrest