Happy Hanukkah

I have to admit - Hanukkah in Northern California can get lonely... I do miss the East Coast for this particular reason (amongst other things). I miss having Jewish culture around me, yummies such as chopped liver and stuffed cabbage. I find myself looking on foodtv.com for simple (and visually appealing) recipes for Jewish yummies so we can at least have semi-decent Jewish food. Let's face it, Jewish Delis in New England, NYC, or South FL have so much to offer.

Well, this year, we made potato laktes at home and it somewhat satisfied my cravings. And perhaps over the holidays I will attempt to make more Jewish style food. Maybe I will succeed, maybe I won't - the process will be fun and there is always hope.

This year - my mother-in-law sent us a Sony Handycam for our Hanukkah! She is too generous!! Of course, there is a reason for it - ;-P My parents, who did not even know much about Hanukkah as of yesterday, went out and bought us a new microwave in the spirit of Hannukah knowing how much we need a new one! We just feel so lucky to have wonderful family members who love us.

Shanghai - land of endless high rises

We just came back from our vacation in Asia. HK and Taiwan was FABULOUS!!!

We also stopped at Shanghai and I've got some comments on the city. Before we went to Shanghai, we have heard nothing but good things about the city and I expected a certain level of quality especially knowing that a lot of firms are pouring tons of investments into China (Shanghai specifically). After being there - I must say that I am quite disappointed.... thank goodness we had a friend that took us around and showed us good places to eat, otherwise I would have starved myself for 4 days there. I could barely breath there due to extreme air pollution and the fact that everyone there smoked cigarettes outside and inside every restaurants we went to. We stayed at a 4-star European hotel (6 years old) at the Bund but the quality of the room and cleaniness was much lower than expected (aside from the other stuff, we had a big area of fuzzy mold in the bathroom that had not been cleaned!!). People there on the streets are used to cough up flems and spit out on the streets but what's worse is that they blow their noses without napkins right on the streets in public (ALL THE TIME). How do you contain SARS in such culture? We also saw the parents teaching their young kids to urinate right on the street AND INSIDE THE OBSERVATION DECK OF 'PEARL OF THE ORIENT'!! Needless to say - we were quite disgusted. I am in shock because I am Asian and I have visited many Asian countries before and I don't recall ever being this grossed out.