Christmas Pressies

We returned to London welcomed by freezing temperature. Snow fell the few days before our return, but not in London unfortunately. Oh well, perhaps then I can still hope for snow in the new year?

Since we didn't bring any Christmas presents to open in Spain, we caught up with them upon our arrival. We received 2 more packages! Surprise!!! The husband was very excited as usual, but tried to delay present opening.

As usual I tried to capture the special moments as you can see with the images below. Somehow I seem to think that by capturing these images I can remember them better.


String attached to the Christmas package which was packed with loving thoughts

Beautifully wrapped presents


Christmas Angel from Aarikka


'向左走，向右走' - Jimmy(幾米) illustration mugs

Benalmádena

Knitting is interesting. Oh well, maybe some of you might think it's a boring thing to do. I think it's a challenging activity. You can create something just with the use of needles & yarn plus good techniques & patterns.

I've been trying to improve on my knitting, and this Christmas instead of spending too much on a present, I decided to make another pair of socks. This I knitted for the mother-in-law.

I do hope that she'll like it and that it will fit her feet!

With all the present parcels sent, all Christmas cards posted, tomorrow we go on holiday! Yes, the DDA and the Finn are heading to South of Spain tomorrow! 8 more hours and we'll be setting off to the airport. Can't wait as the DDA squirms like a little kid.

Benalmádena here we come!!!

So to those whom i've missed out on sending a wish... have a Merry Merry Christmas!!!

Millwall Docks

Here are a few shots from our window on a clear winter's day.



I have to say that weather in London this winter has been far better than the winters I've had previously. We've had many a clear day with blue skies despite of the cold. It is definitely better than rainy gloomy skies.

You can spot ducks, swans, seagulls and other birds in the water. Residents around this area sometimes feed the birds, and it's a lot of fun if you enjoy a little interaction with the birds. I believe this is a little bonus for this residential area which used to be a dock. The Millwall Docks was once well known for its grain trade. It's an amazing change in the surrounding if you compare old snapshots of the docks and what you can see here today.

Pomfret

The DDA went pass a fish shop two days ago. The Fish Works sells fresh seafood and doubles as a restaurant. A rather cool idea indeed as not many restaurants actually pride themselves in serving good seafood in London.

The DDA loves seafood. So being a seafood lover, she picked up a leaflet from their shop and went browsing on their website. They carry interesting seafood products, but unfortunately one thing she has learnt is that the seafood one can get in South East Asia, one can not find in Europe.

Suppose when one starts to compare the food, one starts to recall those from home. So this fish came to mind - her favourite fish. At that split moment, she lost the name for her favourite fish! Her mind went into panic mode. She can't remember the name of her favourite fish?!!!

The first reaction was to trawl through her tiny brain to look for the first alphabet of the name. No. No result, so she switched to trawl for the Hokkien word for it. Dig, dig deeper, the word is there somewhere... and fortunately at that moment her uncle came online to MSN. Ha! Such great timing.

So the uncle and the niece went through the fish names in Hokkien. It wasn't easy though. They went pass Tenggiri, Ikan Kembung, Dao Tay, Yellow Tail, Koay Kow.... then she recalls that her favourite fish comes in white and black... Yes! They are called 'Pek Chionh' & 'Or Chionh'. To many the names don't mean anything, neither can it be used to do any search in Google! (hmmm... maybe they should start Google search in Hokkien too?)

Fear not! The DDA can do a Google search using Chinese Pinyin. Of course you would need to be able to identify the correct words you need to use. Handy indeed eh?

So in the end, the DDA found out that her favourite fishes the 'Pek Chionh' & 'Or Chionh' are infact Pomfrets. See below illustrations of the fishes and their Hokkien names parallel to their Chinese, English and Latin terms:


Pek Chionh - 银鲳 - Silver Pomfret - Pampus Argenteus


Or Chionh - 黑鲳 - Black Pomfret - Parastromateus Niger

Now the DDA is finally happy and contented that she's found the name to her favourite fish - the Silver Pomfret (yes, the one on the top is her ultimate favourite). It is a very delicate fish, best cooked simply by steaming it with ginger and spring onions, when it's done and before serving drizzle oil and sesame seed oil with a few dash of soya sauce to taste. Isn't that much much better now?

Secret Santa

To bring more Christmas fun atmosphere to the office, colleagues started Secret Santa exchanges. The idea is to pick a name from a hat, and set out to buy a present for that person. Of course nobody would know who the present you end up receiving is from. Nobody would know? Oh... maybe, maybe not. Depending on how well a job you have been doing as Secret Santa.

Our department went out for Christmas lunch yesterday. And all colleagues had to get their Secret Santa gift under the tree before everyone set off to lunch. But we were not to open presents until after lunch.

So yesterday morning, we had loads of presents under the little Christmas tree.



12 noon, all from the department set off to lunch. Most of us took a 15 minutes stroll to the restaurant. Not all knew what to expect from the lunch. Oh well, just tag along and the meal will reveal itself.

It was a rather impressive full course meal - starters, main & dessert too! Oh yes, we had to pre-order. I had turnip & salmon for starters, lamb for main, and thyme creme brulée for dessert. Yumm...

By 15:00, we were all fed and everyone seemed in a merry mood after food & wine. It was time for coffee or tea, and some musing from a colleague...

Guess what it is?

The whole Christmas lunch affair probably made a closure at around 16:00, and by the time everyone got back to the office it was 16:25, and it was time to open presents! I got to open 1 present before Christmas! Muahaha... I got a little package of Moonflower - Body Shop set. Nice.

So this is how an office social event in London goes. I do start to compare how different companies treat their staff on special celebrations.

The Christmas meal yesterday cost £20 per head despite the £10 contribution from the company. Pretty pricey I would say, but it was good food overall. The Christmas Carnival event in my old office last year was in a larger scale. All expenditure were paid for, however there was no sit down meal as it was all out in the office square. Nevertheless it was lots of fun as there was food, lots of drinks, entertaining games (see below illustrations) - trampoline, sumo wrestling, and balancing balloon fight.


Trampoline - lots of fun, the DDA went on this one last year!

Sumo Wrestling - very funny, DDA's friends had fun on this one, and DDA stood on the side laughing her head off!

Christmas Approaches

Today we received our first Christmas card and package!




Hee hee. It's a big package indeed that arrived all the way from Helsinki, from the mother-in-law. Jeeze... what a long name. Will someone actually call me that one day? Hmm... *muse*

The arrival of this package was timed so nicely when we've got home and just started dinner. Being the impatient person that I am, I just jumped on the package the moment it arrived.

DDA: "Can we open the package now?"
Husband: "No! We have to finish our dinner first."
DDA: "Oh?..." rather disappointed.
Husband carries on with dinner, pretending he's not excited about receiving the package.
DDA keeps shooting lingering looks at the package and ask again in utter suspense: "Do we really have to wait till Christmas before we open it???"
Husband: "Well yes."
DDA: "..."

Do you really think that I can keep that package there without even taking a peep of what's inside?!

Of course not! Duh...

Here, share with you the package contents:


Oh, yes, it seems that the mother-in-law has sixth sense. She's kept the package contents well wrapped individually! All except the chocolates.

Finnish Christmas Fair

The Finnish Church in London organises the annual Finnish Christmas Fair. It usually falls near December where people can go get some nice Finnish food to celebrate Christmas. This year, the Finnish Church based out in Canada Water is under renovation. So they had the food fair set up in the Sunborn Yacht Hotel (It's a stationary yacht that is used as a hotel).

The weekend before last, the husband and I went out to Prince Regent, Docklands, to shop for yummy Finnish food. We set off merrily thinking that the fair would be a whole day affair and there won't be any worries about a crowd by the time we arrived.

But hey, we were rather wrong. And suppose we would never have guessed that there was such a big Finnish population in London! We were in a queue for almost 45 minutes before we finally got into the hotel, and it was freaking cold on that day too! What fun. It's all to get you into the Christmas mood you know.

This was what we had to go through before getting onto that yacht:



In the end, it was all worth it. We got home with 2 big bags of goodies. They had all sorts of everything from traditional food like casseroles, reindeer meat, rye bread, salmon, sausages, cheese, mustard, jam. And they also had a small section of handicrafts on sale.

Wish we could have almost everything they have on sale! I guess we were wise not to have splurged as we are only the 2 of us.