Lunar New Year and BBQ Chicken

So… this past week on February 4th, was Chinese New Year (or Lunar New Year as some of you may call it). In the midst of my week which admittedly was not so bad in terms of exams and classes, we decided to get together at my place and have some great food and watch some TV and movies. We had a great time and watched a movie called 200 Pound Beauty. It’s basically a story about a very obese woman who sings very well and falls in love with her producer. She basically is the voice behind an actual idol who performs and can’t sing. And then she gets inspired to lose weight, and well… I don’t want to spoil it for you, so just go out and see it. You can check out some info about that here.

Here’s a picture of my vet rotationmates about to dig into the food we’ve all prepared.

I made some samgyupsal (unmarinated pork belly sliced almost like canadian bacon that is simply grilled). Alongside that I made some green onion salad with sesame oil, salt and pepper.

This weekend I headed to Manila–mainly in Taguig (For Bonifacio) and Makati City. I met up with my friend Kamille and we headed around to find some of those small little Korean markets and other stores along P. Burgos Street and near Jupiter Street. I would’ve never imagined that there were Korean stores around the area, but thanks to Kam we found them!

Kam eventually took me to BBQ Chicken, which is a Korean BBQ Chicken restaurant which is endorsed by the Wonder Girls (and if you didn’t already know this about me, I’m a HUGE fan of them).

This is SunYe, the leader of the Wonder Girls, giving the thumbs up along with a few of the other members.

Had some ddeokbokki as well, which is a snack meal that’s popular in Korea. I’ve had this before in Singapore, but it was good to see how a Korean BBQ place handled it.

It was extremely spicy, but I was willing to endure it since it was so good! I really enjoyed it, although I was sweating a lot and drinking all the water the restaurant gave me. I actually picked up the ingredients to make this at a local market, so I will be making this soon.

Also got to try their famous fried chicken. I actually wanted to order more, but Kam and I had a lot to eat that day… we had already gone to a Japanese place for lunch and then got some Korean ice cream at the local markets around Makati. By the time we went to this place I was kinda stuffed.

But I guess that just means I’ll have to come back again.

We ended the meal with some rice cakes that Kam had bought at one of the local Korean markets we visited that day. These were yummy and even had a little burst of juicy flavor inside. A good end to a good meal.

I really wanted to eat more, but I couldn’t. These last few months I’ve found that my appetite has been decreasing a bit, or that I just can’t eat as much during one sitting.

And also, we did have a lot of food previously so we decided to head to our next stop: The Myth of the Human Body exhibit in Taguig.

We weren’t allowed to take pictures there, but here’s some info for those of you near the area who wants to visit it.

The exhibit was pretty interesting. I had been to two similar exhibits in the last few years, in NY and Philadelphia, but this was one of the nicest ones. This was actually an exhibit from South Korea and will be in Taguig until April and it only costs 350Php per ticket, which is much less expensive than the ones in America. I highly recommend going there if you have the time.

I then headed to the Fort where I had to say good-bye to Kam. I then hung out and had some drinks with friends at a few bars.

Now I’m home and trying to rest up. I have to assist in an ovariohysterectomy of our goat tomorrow, so I need to read up and get some sleep.

I hope you had a great weekend guys. I sure did!

Tasty Exemption, Bittersweet Goodbyes and Cake

So today’s been kind of a long day for me. Just yesterday I took my first final which was in my third and last veterinary physiology course, which specializes in reproduction and endocrinology. It was a tricky 76-question true or false exam and both of my professors are known for being really unpredictable in this area. I stayed there in the classroom for almost 2 hours making sure I had put my best answers down.

I spent most of the morning being anxious about the results. I was going to wait until around 10am to head to college and see the results myself, but then I cracked and then just texted one of my professors and asked her what my standing was. About an hour I got a response that said, “Hey doc amie here. you passed 143. yehey”

And then I had the biggest smile on my face. :D

However, I found out later that some of my friends weren’t so lucky though. But of course I won’t go into that…

So, in a good mood and with it still being somewhat mid-morning, I decided to go down to Alabang in Manila to get a hair-cut (my hair was crazily long because I had not had the time to cut it these last few weeks) and also to pick up some needed supplies for my trip to Hong Kong. Once I got to the mall, I got some new clothes, got a new haircut and then also picked up some things for my iPod which I’ll be needing for my flight over.

While I was at Tony & Jackey’s, the Korean salon that I usually frequent for my cuts, I found out that my favorite senior hairstylist Lily was going to be leaving soon for Korea. Lily, is the sweetest Korean stylist I have ever had and she’s always made me feel at home whenever I went to see her, even with her broken English and funny mix of Tagalog and Korean. I’ve been going to her for over a year now and everytime she sees me she always has a big smile on her face and welcomes me with open arms. She’s also very good at what she does. I have rarely come out of there less than 100% satisfied. So it basically broke my heart that I would have to say goodbye to her for the last time. When I left I gave her a slightly bigger tip than I leave her usually, and she gracefully bowed and handed me a parting gift which is seen below.

Last night, after my final we celebrated my friend Pam’s 21st birthday. I keep forgetting how young the other students in my batch are… I remember when I turned 21. My two guy friends brought me to a bar at midnight and we shared my first legal drink. It was simple, subtle but utterly satisfying. This time around there wasn’t any alcohol, much because the drinking age here is 18 and all of my friends have already started drinking legally already, and it was nice. My friends came over, we had a BBQ and had some fun playing some games (e.g. Twister) and watched some TV shows, music videos (Korean of course… :P) and a movie. And of course there was cake. Very good, scrumptious chocolate cake. Yum!

A simple night out, but it was great. A good break to be had by all. :)

And now I’m home and just had dinner. I just got off the phone with my girlfriend. My girlfriend j, is about to hop on a jet plane at this very moment to head to Hong Kong. She’ll be heading there a week earlier than me to hang out with her family and stuff. As I mentioned before, I’ll be heading there this coming Tuesday morning, after I finish up my last round of finals.

So alright folks, I’m gonna just go read some more notes for my other finals and then maybe eat some ice cream and head to bed. I’ve got upcoming surgery, clinical rotations and veterinary medicine 1 finals to worry about so wish me luck with those!

Now I shall leave you with this very flattering picture of my friend Margaux on a Twister mat.

Good night ya’ll!

Tests and Fun Times

Whew, the week is over! Gosh, if I haven’t said this before, this past week has gone by so quickly! I just took a test for my Ruminant Production lab and it was a little tricky. My professor asked some questions about grasses and legumes that I could not for the life of me remember the details of! I know that I screwed up a little bit, but I hope that in the end I’ll get exempt from the final.

This past week I also took a Pharmacology exam, which went alright. It was also tricky (but what test I take isn’t) but I think I did pretty okay for the most part. I didn’t walk out there thinking I perfected it, but I do hope at the very least I did better than average. I don’t want to say much until I get my grade back, but let’s hope that I did okay!

In the last few days I’ve had some people come over to chill. Since I have a pretty big loft on the 3rd floor of a building with a balcony and also have a laptop with a 17 inch monitor my place is usually the place to hang out when my friends are tired from exams and just want to watch a movie or two. On Wednesday my friends came over for a Zombie Movie Night, where we watched Evil Dead 2. James, Rosebelle and my Korean friend Jae and his girlfriend Elma came over and it was a lot of fun. We were going to watch Evil Dead 3, but since Rosebelle thought that Evil Dead 2 was really corny (which, if you ever watched it, is true) we ended up watching another movie I had on my hard-drive: 27 Dresses. So much for Zombie Movie Night huh? Haha…

Anyway, after that we ended up watching some Wonder Girls videos from my drive (I’ve been downloading more and more each day… it gives me something to do while I study), and then Jae decided to show us some really sad Korean music videos online. It was already around 1am the next day, and we had just watched 2 movies straight, so we were a little tired but we watched them anyway. I think James is traumatized and surprised at how sad some Korean videos are. (Get used to it! It’s always been that way! Hahaha….) If you haven’t watched sad, Korean music videos before I suggest you click here, to get started. It’s KISS – Because I’m A Girl, the music video. It’s a very old music video from early 2000 I believe. It’s about 10 minutes long, but hey, that was the trend back then. Check it out and tell me what you think.

Today after our Ruminant Production test, our Immunology class was canceled since Dr. Sanchez was out sick so James, Belle and I decided to head to a local Chinese restaurant called Ding Hao. We tried their Peking Chicken dish, along with some braised pork and some crispy noodle special they had. The food ended up being alright–I guess after eating at my girlfriend Jeannie’s place with her family (she’s pure Chinese), nothing really beats that, so I was a little disappointed. I haven’t really had any kind of real authentic Chinese food here in the Philippines as of yet. I’m super surprised that there aren’t any good restaurants around, but maybe I’m just not looking hard enough. In New York and New Jersey, you can find tons of good places and most of them are not that expensive. If you’re in the Philippines and know of a good place to check out please let me know! I’d love to find a good Chinese place to eat at.

Right now, I’m in the midst of studying for my Parasitology laboratory test and final, both of which are taking place next week. There is just under a month left to the end of this semester, so I’m a little anxious to see how it all will end. I will most likely be taking some finals, but I hope that I’ll be alright in the end. I’ve been keeping my head above water for the most part though, so I know I’ll pull through.

I just gotta keep on truckin’. That’s my motto until I end this semester. Let the ending spiral begin!

P.S. — I’m downloading a series featuring the Wonder Girls working with some upcoming patissiers. It was done a year or two ago, but I think it’s really interesting that they were all competing against each other for the $10,000 prize. They basically have to complete missions to come up with the best cakes for gifts to people who need them. I’ve only seen the first episode, but it’s pretty cool! You guys should check it out!