screwed up

i've screwed up once, screwed up twice.. now i'm screwed again... Don't i ever learn my lesson?! (though the messes are irrelevant to each other) but in general, all these shit started by being too nice, too generous.. Guess i can't cope with the fact that after being nice, i do not get reciprocated and in fact i get ripped off and taken for granted.

I vow to learn to love myself and not let anyone take me for a ride anymore. My new journey will start on 1 Aug... I hope i don't screw it up the fourth time...

Venezia, Italy

A trip from Milano to Venice takes only 2.5h by train. But Venice wasn't having too good a weather when i arrived. We headed to San Marco by foot which was a mistake. It took us more than an hour. We should have taken a gondola.. let them sing and sway me there in style.. After that we tooka water taxi to Murrano to see Mouth blown glass.. The master demonstrated to us. The guide says it takes about 10-15 yrs to master the skill thoroughly but they are lowly paid though.

Venice is unique.. There are no cars on the road. But they have their public transports which are boats and boat taxis.. Very pretty place but at times it looks like rome and milan with lots of bridges and rivers. I need to go there again just to sit in the Gondola and having him sing for me as he row his gondola.. Then i would feel i have completed my tour in Venice.. Haha!

San Marco Square

Having a break in style @ Quadri

cape town

i arrived on a summer but was a winter weather.. cold, wet and extremely windy.. And due to the bad weather, table mountain was closed... Sigh...

It was by God's blessing that i get to go Cape town so I didn't just rot in my room. We took a tour and we went to Seal's island. the ride there was a terrifying viking ride. The sea was extremely choppy and I was so sure that the boat would capsize and send me into the ice cold water. I even located where the life vests were. Occupational hazard. But we got there in one piece and saw thousands of seals.. just that my stomach didn't feel too good. :(

Then we proceeded to cape point where we saw the light house and then to cape of good hope! It started to pour just after we took photos, leaving the nasty and impatient caucasian caught in the rain. :)

There after we went to visit S. African's penguin.. They seemed fake cause they didn't move much. I was hoping to see them waddle and jump into the water, like how animal planet shows them all the time.

Last stop was to the Cheetah Outreach, a non profit organisation. And i took photo with an adult. My heart was pumping, pumping.. timid me....

Seal Island

View from Cape Point

Light house




Table Mountain

Paella

Paella with clams, Serrano Ham, and Chorizo Sausage

Serrano ham is so adored by the Spanish that it is often served on its own, accompanied by nothing more than a glass of sherry.

Savor it here as a flavorful accent to this scrumptious rice. If serrano ham is unavailable, the more readily available Italian prosciutto makes a good substitute.

• Serves 8
• 25 minutes preparation + 55 minutes cooking
• Difficulty: medium

Ingredients

• 1/2 cup (4 fl. oz) olive oil
• 1 large onion, chopped fine
• 4 oz chorizo sausage, crumbled and with casing removed
• 5 cloves garlic, minced
• 2 cups (18 oz) rice
• 1 medium red bell pepper, cut into thin strips
• 1 medium green bell pepper, cut into thin strips
• 2 large tomatoes, skinned, seeded, and chopped
• 4 1/4 cups (34 fl. oz) chicken broth
• 1/4 teaspoon powdered saffron
• 1/4 teaspoon turmeric
• 1/4 teaspoon dried oregano
• One 14-oz can clams, drained
• 8 oz serrano ham, cut into thin strips
• Salt and pepper, to taste
• 1 tablespoon chopped parsley
• Lemon wedges, to serve

Preparation

Heat the oil in a paella pan over medium heat. Add the onion and sauté for about 5 minutes or until the onion begins to soften.

Add the garlic and cook for several minutes more. Drop in the chorizo sausage and cook for a further 5 minutes.

Mix in the bell peppers and tomatoes, reduce the heat to low, and cook for a further 10 minutes.

Stir in the rice, increase the heat to medium, and sauté for 5 minutes. Pour in the broth, turmeric, saffron, oregano, and salt and pepper to taste, and cook for about 15 minutes.

Add in the clams, ham, and parsley and cook for a further 7 minutes, or until all the liquid has been absorbed and the rice is tender.

Garnish with lemon wedges and serve.

More paella recipes http://www.spain-recipes.com/paellarecipes.html

Secrets of good paella

1. Use a wide, shallow pan
Here in Spain, Paella is cooked in a wide, shallow pan with two handles. This pan is designed to let the rice be cooked fast, which traditionally happens over a wood-burning fire (although the Spanish, modernists than they are, all use gas nowadays). Traditionally made of rolled steel, the pans are sized from about a foot (25-30cm) all the way up to three feet (a metre) or more. They are never deeper than about 2 inches (5cm).

Paella recipe tip:
A frying pan is just fine! Get your shallowest pan, and just ensure that the paella remains shallow in the pan. Paella is a dry dish – get the rice too deep, and it will be too moist. You can even use a flat-bottomed wok if you have one, which helps if your are cooking on your stove and the cooking ring isn’t wide enough, because you can compromise by cooking the paella just a little deeper than would otherwise be preferable.

What size pan should I use?
2-3 people: 10-12 inch (25-30 cm)
4-5 people: 12-14 inch (30-35 cm)
6-8 people: 18-20 inch (45-50 cm)

How on earth can I fit a big pan on the hob?
Above the smaller of the pans above, you can’t of course. There are special paella burners available that are very popular in Spain. Also, many of today’s cookers have a wok ring, that’s wider than normal rings. Whatever you use, it is important to apply an even heat across the bottom of your pan. Up to about 12-14 inches, it is possible to cook on a normal hob (you can move the pan around during cooking to spread the heat a bit). You could always buy two smaller pans. Or, see the paella recipe tip below!

Paella recipe tip:
If your pan is too big for your hob, when you’ve added the rice to your paella, remove it from the hob and cook it in a preheated oven at 350F/180C/gas mark 4 instead.

Types of pan
Paella pans are cheap and cheerful. The rolled steel pans go for a few euros here in Spain. They are also available in enamelled or non-stick finishes, which although more expensive and less traditional, require less looking after (see below).

Paella recipe tip:
Rubbing your rolled steel pan with oil after use and not scrubbing it when cleaning (a wipe will do) will ensure it develops a nice black natural non-stick coating after a few uses. Use it for any frying you can in-between paellas and it will soon get there.

2. Don’t use long-grain rice!
The whole point of a paella is to soak up all the lovely flavours added before the rice. Spanish medium/short-grain rice can soak up to three times its volume in liquid, and its fat stubby shape has a starchy centre.

“Bomba” rice is often preferred. Here in Spain, they take their rice very seriously and there is even a DO (designation of origin) mark for rice from the Calasparra and Valencia regions.

You simply can’t use “normal” rice (long-grain, “American”, basmati, pilaff etc), which can’t take on-board all the lovely juices from your meat and fish, deep-flavoured pimenton and delicate saffron.

Paella Recipe Tip:
If you can’t find a Spanish variety of rice, risotto rice will do just fine (Italian arborio, carnaroli). Don’t get hung up about it! Paella is a forgiving dish.

3. Make a simple stock from what you’ve got
Don’t be put off if you are in a hurry and can’t make stock – do you think the Spanish always make one? I can assure you not! Water is fine if you are in a hurry or don’t have an extra pan for stock.

Having said that, I watched some fisherman make a paella for a family party of 40 on a beach in Pedregalejo, Malaga, a few years back and they spent longer making the stock than the paella.

If you are using chicken, duck, prawn, mussels etc and have some wings, shells and shellfish steaming water left over from preparing these ingredients, bung them in a pan with and simmer for a few minutes – it would be criminal to lose those flavours and will take you just a little extra time and effort to do. The resulting stock will add a deep flavour and the dish will be more wholesome for it.

Paella recipe tip:
Always add the liquid first and the rice second when cooking paella.

4. Don’t let the meat and fish dominate
Paella is a rice dish. Paellas are made with all kinds of ingredients in addition: Interestingly enough though, the traditional Valencian paella doesn’t usually contain seafood (except in tourist areas), containing duck and snails (probably due to being made inland in the rice paddy fields). However, a typical Spanish paella will contain some combination of pork, chicken, mussels, prawns, squid, chorizo, squid…

All these gorgeous ingredients notwithstanding, the point is that rice must dominate. The ingredients should be cut small enough to cook well and not “stick out” from the mixture. Be strict with yourself when adding the extras or you’ll make a common error.

Paella recipe tip:
For every 100g of rice, don’t use more that 100-150g of meat and fish.

5. It must be yellow, but be careful what you use
Maybe it’s because the Spanish flag is yellow and red and the paella is their national dish. Whatever, it is always bright yellow. The traditional way to make it so is to add saffron, which you can buy in strands (crush a few with a pestle and mortar) or already powdered.

Saffron is expensive though, and often a big, big spoonful of pimenton dulce (sweet powdered red pepper) is used, which while a bit more orange than yellow, also imparts a lovely flavour. Whatever you do, don’t be tempted to add that spice beloved of Indian cooks, turmeric – your paella will be dominated by this flavour, which is completely alien to the dish.

Paella recipe tip:
Here in Spain, they very often don’t use saffron at all! The Spanish simply use yellow food colouring. So don’t be worried if you don’t have saffron. Copy the Spanish and don’t be a purist! Alternatively, why not use a little of each, if you don’t want to spend the pretty high amount needed to buy enough saffron needed to make your paella yellow enough?

6. Level the paella, and never cover or stir it when cooking
Especially if you are cooking over an outdoor wood (best) or charcoal (fine) fire, it is important to keep your paella level. The point is that the rice must cook quickly and evenly. Also, don’t be tempted to cover or stir it – the rice will cook through evenly due to the shallowness of the dish and stirring will release the starch, making the paella sticky.

Paella recipe tip:
If you’re cooking over a real fire out of doors, make sure that the pan is close to the coals or wood, or it won’t get hot enough. You can use stones to position it in the right place, and adjusting them before lighting the fire with a pan full of cold water will ensure that the pan will be level when the fire is lit.

7. Let the ingredients cook properly before adding the liquid and rice
The sofrito – (”sofreir” is the Spanish verb for “fry slowly”) – is the mixture of ingredients other than rice and stock. This is always cooked first, and must be allowed to develop and deepen in flavour before adding the liquid then the rice.

In a paella, the sofrito is your mix of onion (only ever used a little if at all, interestingly enough), meat, seafood, tomatoes, sometimes beans, nearly always pepper, vegetables and so on. It is always, always prepared in olive oil, and must bubble and reduce over a lazy half hour first of all.

Paella recipe tip:
Your meat should be nearly fully cooked by the time the rice and stock or water is added to the dish.

8. A paella should always take about an hour to cook
Don’t be daunted by timing a paella. It always, always takes three simple steps, and the timings are the same. Just remember 20-30 minutes for the sofrito, 20 minutes for the rice, and 5-10 minutes standing time at the end. An hour in total.

Paella recipe tip:
While you should cook your paella over a medium heat, five minutes of high heat when the rice and liquid are first added (to get things bubbling fiercely) and a minute of very high heat at the end (to caramelise the bottom of the pan into a sticky, gooey, slightly overcooked bit, which many Spaniards maintain is the best part of the whole dish) will give you the most authentic results.

Now you know the principles, go ahead an pick one of or recipes or improvise. You know all you need to in order to make a wonderful paella!

Maldives II

Maldives second round. This time round I went to half day island hopping. The first stop was to Huraa Island.. An island that was destroyed by Tsunami. Not much reconstruction was done. And there was nothing much to see there except a few souvenir shops selling tee shirts, wooden handicrafts. The next stop was to Paradise Island. The water is clear and has white sandy beach BUT it's flooded with China tourists.. Major turn off.. Had a short snorkel session there as it was very hot and no life vest was issued. Luckily I had my personal snorkel mask.. The snorkel session was nice.. :)

1st encounter with snow in Switzerland's Mt Titlis

From Zurich, the journey to Mount Titlis at Engelberg was about 2h. On the way there, we passed by Lake Lucerne, Lucerne and Zug. Zug is the smallest town in Switzerland and is a low tax region, thus many wealthy people make their home there. Many companies also are located there. Zug is where Pilatus is.

Also to note, the captial of Switzerland is Bern but Zurich is where most banks are located.

And... Mount Titlis is beautiful!! It stands at 3020m, 10,000 ft.. I wouldn't mind going Zurich again. Rhine Falls and Top of Europe await me...

Scarecrow for Halloween!

Lion Monument in Lucerne. It commemorates Swiss guards who were massacred during the French Revolution.

On the way up to Mount Titlis

Playing a fool with snow, under -15 degrees

view from foot of Mount Titlis

Roma, Ibiza, Barcelona

Roma

Rome is indeed a shopping haven! Bought a Miu miu bag.. :) But the Italians are not really a helpful bunch. We nearly missed a train to town of Pisa cos the railway station is very disorganised and not many people were willing to help. They would tell you they do not understand English. I hope they mean it.

On the train to Pisa, we passed by a sunflower field.

Leaning Tower of Pisa

Ibiza, Spain (San Antonio)

Check out the BIG names!

BBQ chicken at Itaca. Yummilicious!

Sangria
Sunset from Cafe Del Mar

Supermarket full of boooze!!
And we decided on Amnesia, where Armin Van Burren spun

I wanna migrate there!

Barcelona

Gaudi's Casa Batlo

Gaudi's Sagrada Familia

yummy paella

Gaudi's Park Guell

Inside Sagrada Familia

Conclusion:

Love love Ibiza for the clubbing! And in general, i love food in both Barcelona and Ibiza.

Korea.. disgusting korea

Visited Korea again. Had more time there and was pretty excited. But it was an utter disappointment..

Fashion is outdated. I went shopping at Myeong Dong... Clothings were ugly, untouchable and boring. But most importantly, there are extremely overpriced. Sales staff are rude and aloof.

People are boorish and rude. To get to where they are headed, they just bang into you. Kid you not but i had a few grazes and bruises from their pushing.. Amazingly uneducated bunch of loud-speaking ppl. They really made me trip there disgusted..

I still don't understand why people bother to go Korea for holiday and honeymoon.. Or maybe they also regretted going.