Thursday, May 14, 2009

Drumroll, please

Congrats, Carla! You totally found the voice of Mr. Too-Cool-for-Poodle, and as such are the winner of the caption contest. I shall be mailing you something weird and cute. Keep your eye on the mailbox!

Crazy busy these days with volunteering (this time for a local theatre company producing a night of one-acts); baking with my new friend Bonnie, who's started her own small business; and studying. I'm really starting to look forward to coming home this summer... anyone up for thrift shopping marathons or long, leisurely afternoons perusing the shelves of London Drugs, let me know.


Friday, May 8, 2009

Sweet, sweet cupcake success!

Finally. After a string of failures culminating in the Chocolate Cupcake Disaster of March 29, I've pulled cupcakes out of my oven that aren't dense, vinegar-flavoured messes. I've chucked my Six-Minute Chocolate Cake recipe out the window in favour of Katie's accurately-titled Never-Fail Chocolate Cake:

1.5 c white sugar
0.5 c cocoa
2 c flour
1.5 tsp baking soda
1 tsp salt
.75 c oil
1.5 c milk
2 eggs
1 tbsp vanilla

Mix all in bowl. 350, 35 minutes in greased 9 x 13" pan, or about 10 minutes for cupcakes. Easy!


I also concocted some super-yummy chocolate icing. The process was something like this: put cocoa and a bit of butter in a saucepan, mix over low heat, adding as much milk as necessary to make stirrable. Take off heat and mix in enough icing sugar to make stiff. It's not scientific, but it's certainly delicious: more chocolatey than sugary.

The cupcakes' success may have also been aided by the wee wrappers they are snuggled in. Check them OUT! I can't even handle the baking supplies here; I just found out that I can order 10,000 customized wrappers for, like, $100. That's a lifetime of "CTB"-swaddled baked goods, people!





Tuesday, May 5, 2009

Road trip! 2: MIDI music festival

Wu Yi, or May 1, is a big deal here - a long weekend that gives everyone a chance to realize that it's pretty much summer, yay! I ended up having the entire three-day stretch off work (rare - I usually tutor straight through weekends), so I joined Poppy and Julia on an expertly organized two-night trip to the MIDI music festival. MIDI is a three-day event that's historically been held in Beijing but was moved this year to the conveniently close city of Zhenjiang, only three hours away. Well, six, if you're caught in traffic on the way there like we were. Not to worry, though; entertainment was provided by way of music and light refreshments like beer and candy, served by our gracious - if hairy-legged - in-bus hostess Anita.

We were all a little concerned about what kinds of accommodation we'd be facing for the trip fee of Y50/night (Y33 for J, P, and I, who were all bunking together), but when we arrived in Zhenjiang, we pulled up to none other than the Super 8 Motel. Man, Super 8 always impresses. Our giant-windowed room was decorated in a winsome turqoise palette, and the cleaning ladies were super-generous with the toilet paper and extra blankets. Not bad for $6, no?


And the festival? Awesome. It was so low-pressure: with only two stages - one for the main acts and one for dance music from an impressive line-up of DJs - I never had that panicky Folk Fest feeling when you're sure the best show is not the one in front of you, but the one on Stage Seven, a ten-minute jog away. The music wasn't always to our taste, but bands like Cold Fairyland (Chinese folky trancy alternativy awesomeness,
http://www.myspace.com/coldfairyland) and socalled, Hollerado, and Jets Overhead (all Canadian) made up for the weird prevalence of death metal.


Day 1: Getting there

1. On the road through the Chinese countryside: farmers tending fields amidst random acts of highrises.

2. The lovely Anita makes her first round. The apron was reserved specifically for snacktime.

3. Dao le (we're here!): The Super 8 welcomes us.
4. The rustic but effective hand-wash station on the festival grounds.

5. The "rock out" finger-horn thing is totally popular here. Wicked!

6. Buying corn-on-the-cob from one of the many food vendors. Because most Chinese people don't drink much, there was only one tent for beer - and about thirty for food. The result was a snacking bonanza tempered by meditative line-up breaks for drinks. It was very balancing.



MIDI, Day Two: Nausea prevails over cuteness, fun muddiness

Photos:

1. Trying to get going over a breakfast of... fried noodles. I'm pretty sure they're what caused me to bail at 6 p.m. for Pepto and Vinyl Café at the hotel.

2. It rained overnight. You first, Poppy.

3. Drama! A hole in the wall yields a stream of sneaker-inners.

4. I always end up kissing some wall.

5. Adorable couple alert! Apparently we missed the BYOTiny Stool, Backpack, and Strawberries notice.

6. Most photographed individuals were not the band members. They were the foreigners. I shoot back and everyone feels famous.



MIDI, Day Three: funny vehicles, meat on a stick, and groupies

Photos:

1. The bus - specially coated in a giant sticker for this very trip - drops us off and we almost get smoked by THIS awesome contraption.
2. The Y120 (~$22) weekend pass was crazy cheap for us, but a lot of money to people here. Fortunately, the wall planners were short-sighted (ha! ha!) and people get the exact same view from the other side.
3. Our expertly-labelled tablecloth tarp protects our bums from the still-damp ground.
4. A Canadian contingent shows its pride as Jets Overhead plays.
5. Meat on a stick: our main source of protein throughout the weekend. Poppy bought so many they started giving her freebies.
6. MIDI spirit from the skaters of the crowd.
7. Socalled, from Montreal. http://www.myspace.com/socalled Superly awesome and definitely the crowd favourite. How to describe: klesmer hip-hop? We hung out with a couple of the guys from the band afterwards, which was fun, not least because they let us use the palatial (read: clean) VIP bathrooms. It's really hard to overstate that luxury. Did you know Port-A-Johns come in a "squat" version?

So, it's back to school and daily life again, at least for the next two months. We're in the last quarter of our studies now, and time's swiftness is starting to feel very real for me and the friends I've made here. Lots of good times left to be had, though; don't worry, I'll keep you posted!

P.S. Don't forget to join the contest below! I'll leave it up 'til this weekend, but don't miss the chance to incite jealousy in all the other readers when you wow them with your amazing caption.