Happy Chinese New Year 2021

12 February 2021

Today is Chinese New Year and I felt out-of-mood as Chinese New Year approached. So, I drowned myself in Chinese New Year songs while working. I called home and everyone was not in a happy mood either. I miss being with my family. But so does everyone else in the whole wide world. Hopefully, I will be back next year. I have been limiting social contact with friends here and I suppose it does put a strain on keeping in touch digitally. 

For Chinese New Year, because everyone posted lots of foods and cookies, I tried to cook a nice meal for the 2 of us. It was not much but at least I had a fish dish, because 'nian nian you yu'!

Top dish: Falafel on spinach and grated carrots, pork and ginger dumplings. Eight for each dish because eight sounds like 'fa' in Mandarin i.e. fa cai = well-off.

Bottom dish: Fish fillets cooked in chorizo sausage and tomato sauce. 

I added an ang pow on the table for a Chinese New Year feeling. :-)

Freeze drying laundry

Sublimation - a word that I recently learnt which means ice is vaporised by skipping the liquid phase. This is a concept I learnt as I attempted to freeze dry my clothes when the temperature dipped to less than -5 degrees. I tried this twice where I had the laundry on the balcony for a whole day but my clothes were not dried when I brought them in. They were hard and had a shape but the shape loosened and the clothes became damp after 1 minute of being indoors. I had to put the laundry rack into the bathroom to dry them as there is underfloor heating. I still do not understand how others managed to get their laundry dried. The clothes smell good, though.

Defrosting the freezer

This is my first time defrosting a freezer. It was -10 degrees this evening on 30 January 2021. So, we took this opportunity to defrost the freezer. We put the frozen items on the balcony, switched off the freezer, put pots of hot water in the freezer, and placed a type of absorbing cloth at the bottom of the freezer. We hastened the process by putting a fan in front of the freezer to circulate the steam from the boiling water, around the freezer. Of course, one has to replace the boiling water several times as it cools down.

The defrosting process took about 1.5 hours. It is now easier to slide in and out the containers from the freezer, without the ice looming above the roof of each compartment. Which means I can stock up the freezer!

Raining snow!

16 January 2021

I just needed to post a photo of me with raining snow. We kicked a tree and all the snow fell on me. It was so fun! It was a short walk through the winter white nature reserve today and I never get tired by the white surroundings. 

First snowracer ride!

11 January 2021

It is snowing and I see kids sliding down snowy hills and slopes with their snowracer or pulka (English = sledge) or a rubber seat. I am envious. 

I got lucky today as we got to borrow a snowracer! A snowracer can be maneuvered but it was difficult for me to do that. Somehow, I just find myself racing down uncontrollably. It feels dangerous and fun! Well, it cannot be dangerous if the kids are doing it too. Here is a photo of me on a snowracer. Unfortunately, I am unable to upload a video of me sliding down.