Good food, good friends

Well the weather took a turn on Wednesday, it started to pour. We had mostly meals out planned for the day, so that was okay. Lunch was with some friends of my parents at a place that is called 'Chili Secret' in english, but something entirely different in chinese. (In chinese it's name means Half Acre Garden.) The food was okay, and the restaurant was quite noisy (all hard surfaces) but it was a relaxing time. After lunch we all took a nap. Almost too long a nap, making us late for dinner.

Dinner was with the Huangs and Yangs at Asian Legend (again, the chinese name is completely different, it's 'Wei Xiang Cun' or Fragrant Flavours Village). It was great to see the Huangs and Yangs. They never seem to get older. I'm not sure what their secret is. This restaurant was really good. They had 'xiao long bao' with green coloured wrappers, 'dong po' pork with a melt in your mouth fat layer, and a really richly flavoured chicken broth soup. After the main meal, we all wanted a little dessert so we ordered 'tang yuan' (like small soft hot mochi with sesame in the middle). Apparently the manager was familiar with our group and presented us with complimentary desserts: a really delicious version of green onion pancake but with red bean instead of onion, and a sweet soup. We actually ended up with 2 big bowls of the sweet soup because we were hanging around chatting for so long.

Today was raining again and foggy. It's also 'duan wu jie' or Dragon Boat Festival so we had zhong zi for lunch (they're like bigger, fatter tamales made with sticky rice instead of corn meal and wrapped in leaves of some kind). In the afternoon, Ba drove us down to see a big film production facility in an industrial district, and then to The Distillery (photo above) where there are shops, galleries and restaurants. Because it's such an old place, and with the weather being overcast, there were some great opportunities to take interesting photos.

In the evening, I met with some friends from Iroquois Junior Public School. That's Canadian for grade school! We all reconnected on Facebook! Most of the other girls had clearer memories of events from back then than I do, and some brought pictures. It was a blast to catch up and remember the drama that life seemed back then.