My first ROSE 09May2009

could not resist the temptation and decide to start growing a rose, even though I know it will not be an easy journey

so, with help from friends, I got this lilac rose ... the photos are not able to show the actual color well ...

there are 10 blooms!

Spain Food - Barcelona

it has been 10+ years since I went Europe. This trip, we did London and Spain, which includes Barcelona, Madrid and Seville.

Spain is popular for its Tapas ... basically small plate of food to satisfy hunger inbetween lunch and dinner (which is extremely late at 9pm)

Restaurant=Cervecería Catalana












a bakery shop near our hotel has these on display and should be for sale. They have all sorts of designs / cartoons, including Japanese cartoons.




It was raining in Barcelona so it was cold and wet. We walked a long way to find this restaurant (Via Veneto) and the service was excellent.

lamb steak

















the white cubes are marsmallow, where you can pick up with a fork but melt into your mouth immediately ... very interesting




this restaurant (Cafe de l’Academia) where we had lunch has value for money set meals. The place is very small with only 28 tables but the food is good.

Duck

for dinner, we were at this place (Botafumeiro) where the king of Spain had his meal there before. but frankly, the food is so-so and service is not really fantastic.

baked crab with cheese























We travelled all the way to the harbour and some deserted corner by the sea and found this restaurant (Can Majo) which serves nice seafood. price is cheap as well. but they can only speak limited english.

paellas

final meal at Barcelona is at this fusion restaurant (Gaig) ... red and black deco ... good service but a little pricy.

starter

Morning Glory 12Apr2009

These are the pink morning glory which have bloomed beautifully every morning ... I sowed the seeds around 2 mths ago ... now waiting to see if there are any blue ones

Moonvine 11Apr2009

after nearly 2 months, my moonvine has bloomed! the white flower is quite huge (compare to my hand) and has a baby powder smell ... nice

Adenium babies 10Mar2009

It is time to re-pot my 12 Adenium babies from the paper pots into their own pots. with help from a forum friend, I managed to get some square pots at very cheap price. It was mentioned that square pots are good for the Adenium.

I took a photo for each and these 2 are samples:



all 12 of them


into the famous square pots


some of them have a 3rd set of leaves. I pluck away the 2nd set of leaves as they say engergy will not be wasted in supporting the leaves. but I will not pluck anymore ... skinny also very cute

Moonvines update 7Mar2009

an update to my moonvines. They have grown strong and I have re-potted them, place them near the grilles so that they can slowly climb up the grilles. They managed to survive the few thunderstorms recently.

this is taken on 6 March.


within 1 day, see how fast 1 of them has climbed up the pole.

hope I will be able to show some flowers in the next update.

Baking Muffins 7Mar2009

there is an oven which comes with my new place, so decided to try baking. I tried to bake some muffins on 11 Feb but they were not v nice ... taste like cupcakes



a friend Marlyne gave me some tips on making muffins (and gave me some that she made ... yummy) so I decided to try again.

although the M&M's still have color-runs, but at least this time, the muffins do taste more like muffins ... so happy