Helsinki and Tallinn

It's almost two months since our last trip to Copenhagen. We were very excited because it's two new countries for us (21st and 22nd countries visited for me and 40 something for Josh).

It was COLD (about 40s F) considering it's still August. Helsinki is quite modern with some old buildings here and there not centralized in one area. The Helsinki church is the most impressive building which dominated the city skyline. There were a lot of people gathering on the steps holding posters and yelling some slogans we had no idea what it was. Anyway, we cursed around the city, had lunch at the market square by harbor, and took ferry to Suomenlinna Island Fortress. On the ferry boat besides the tourists there were tons of well dressed and handsome people going to a wedding on the island church. The island is quiet, peaceful, and beautiful. There were museum, coffee shops, restaurants, and residence houses. We strolled around and took a break in a junk boat yard/coffee shop. At night, we went to see Cirque Plume (like a cirque du soleil show). The show was mostly in Finnish and French. Although we had a language barrer, we enjoyed the show very much. It was great and hilarious.

Next day, we took a very large ferry boat across the Baltic sea to Tallinn Estonia. Tallinn is such a cute, clean, and touristy old town. We felt in love with the city right away. We had some traditional food, in which one of the particular interesting dishes was the stew pork with the fresh baked bread on top (like a chicken pot pie). When the waiter served it to me, he took out a knife unexpectedly and raised it high. He poked the knife into the bread and sawed a holed in the bread like killing a pig in the bowl. He withdrew the knife with the piece of bread he cut out and poked the knife again to the edge of bowl. The whole time, my eyes were wide open and scared. Not only because of the knife but also because the waiter looked like a formal KGB agent... cold, unfriendly, and ready to kill. So...that was my first impression of eastern European for you.

Isn't that a cute hat? And no, we didn't get it. I wasn't sure if I dare to wear it out daily. Tallinn surprisingly is a great city to shop. We got some special old style drinking glasses. You know what it was not my idea...Josh loves them.
Tallinn is also known for a good party town because of its location and price advantage comparing with Scandinavian countries. Although we wanted to party, we found ourselves too tired to party...we are getting old. Anyway, we had a great time and loved the city.

Cream Puff

I love cream puff and never thought that I could make it myself. It all started when I was watching a Japanese TV show series called Absolute Boyfriend which got me to search the recipe. I found this recipe from one of the regular website (Eupho Cafe... it doesn't have this recipe in English...only in Chinese.)I go to. They were easy to make and delicious in the mouth. It only took us two minutes to finish my one hour work. Here is another one I made with black berry.

Stuffed Bell Paper by chef Josh

If you had ever heard me talking about Josh's cooking. You must know when Josh volunteers to cook for me, I get all nervous and stressed... because I have to eat it. It's not the food tasted bad. It just tasted a little different. Josh is a very creative cook and likes to substitute ingredients. He usually doesn't need recipe too. This time, Josh came up all the ingredients for stuffed bell paper himself. I was also not permitted in the kitchen. I could only snap a few shots of the big chief. Look how serious Josh is.

Here is Josh's Stuffed Bell Paper recipe...
100g beacon
1 glove dice garlic
1 small yellow onion
200g German mushroom
1 cup cooked rice
1/2 cup blue cheese
2 red bell paper
Secret spices

Preheat oven 350F.
Brown beacon then add garlic and onion cook until onion is soft. Mixe in mushroom for 5 minutes then add rice. Remove from the pan and add blue cheese. Cut top 1/4 bell paper off and remove the seeds. Scope the stuffing into paper and pop into the oven bake for 10-15 minutes.

Valaa... here is the final result... As you can see, it looks beautiful. So, I'll tell you that it smelled very good and was delicious. I'll give a 5 start rating to Josh.

Creme Brulee

My newest kitchen gadgets - tools you must have for making creme brulee - a fire torch and dishes. I have been wanting a set like this for a long time since Creme Brulee is one of my favorite desserts. Finally I saw this on sale for half price. Jackpot!


So... I got home and wasted no time looking up creme Brulee recipes from foodnetwork.com. I even asked my five star restaurant chef friend Marco what heavy cream is in German. The milk product section in the supermarket is kind of confusing. It turns out they don't have heavy cream just regular cream (sahne in German). I bought one and doubted if it would work. From all the recipes, I picked a simple one from Alton Brown. It was easier than I thought and it turned out beautifully. Most importantly, it tasted really good. We loved it and gave a five star rating to the recipe.

Got Sun Kissed in Copenhagen and Malmö

No BBQ, no camping, and no partying on the 4th of July weekend for us. Instead we headed to Copenhagen Denmark and Malmö Sweden - two countries in one weekend trip. Very exciting! Not a bad idea at all!!

We got into Copenhagen around 9 a.m. and got an early start to explore the downtown area. We passed the longest pedestrian shopping street. My favorite was the Royal Copenhagen porcelain store and it's museum on the top floors. When we saw an employee hand painting a couple of dishes, we then understood why they cost so much.
We had a little to eat at the Kongens Nytorv (New Royal Market) and hopped on a boat at the Nyhavn (New Harbor). We got our first view of the Amalienborg (Amalia's Castle), Borsen (old stock exchange), National Museum, Christiansborg Palace, little Mermaid, and Christiania (the famous Free Town) from the water. It was a very beautiful and hot boat tour. The weather was hot and we were glad to be in shorts, however the people from the Free Town were even bolder and just lounged naked on the decks. We spent the rest of the day walking around most of the city which we could not see from the water. We got so much sun and were tired from all the walking so we took a little nap before our big night out. We went to the number one tourist spot in Copenhagen - Tivoli Gardens for dinner and a Jazz concert afterwards. What a special 4th of July!

Josh had been missing riding his bike especially after seeing a "Biking with Mike" ad. Thus, we got up early, rented two bikes, and biked with Mike. Fortunately, Saturday morning was usually considered a slow day for bike rental and the bike tour, so there were only two of us riding with Mike... we had a private tour guide. The tour took us to some parts of town that no usual tourists would have gone. It was really nice. Not only was riding the bikes easy in the city but we also obtained a lot of information and history. We learned the famous Little Mermaid whose head had been cut off twice. The first time was many years ago. The people and the city council were so shocking that they replaced the head in three days. However, the head was never found until decades later. A famous controversial dying artist called the media saying that he had something to say before he stopped breathing. When the reporters arrived at the artist's bed side, the artist slowly pulled out the Little Mermaid's head from underneath his bed. The news was so shocking that it went world wide. The second time happened a few years ago. Three drunken kids sawed off the head but got caught right away. What a poor life that the Little Mermaid has.

We thought the bike tour was only one hour long but... after 3.5 hours biking, we were beat. We decided to hang out in the free town - Christiania which is probably the cheapest place to hang out in all the Scandinavia countries. I have to explain here why Christiania is called free town. The Christiania was a military base. After the military left, the alternative lifestyle hippies moved in and 'camped' never paying for rent. One thing I asked Mike was what exactly is their alternative lifestyle? You know... beside living there for free and the people don't need much and don't want much (obvious from what we could see from their houses). Mike answered that it's the 'share system' and no ownership outside of his/her own house. Interesting... Well, back to out trip. We picked a bar, found a shaded area and rested. Soon, we noticed some interesting and somewhat illegal activities going on - marijuana selling, buying, and of course smoking. We sat there watching the people come and go. Soon, we were surrounded by people and the smoke of joints. We received an informal education over our drinks on the art of smoking, which was demonstrated several different ways around us.

Sunday our last day of the trip, we decided to go to Malmö in Sweden since it was just a short train ride. We even got a great deal on the train tickets. Perfect, now I can say I have been to Sweden. There was not much to see in Malmö. After a boat tour, we had pretty much seen it all. A couple of things worthwhile to mention here are the second tallest building in Europe and the longest bridge in the world between Copenhagen and Malmö.

Euro 2008 (European Champinship)

What a exciting three weeks for Germany!! It's like the World Cup all over again expect the games were in Switzerland and Austria. Since the games started, we could hear people cheering from the nearby bars from our flat. No matter which team won, there would be honking on the streets at the end. It sounded like German people finally awoke from the winter.

We didn't watch every game except for some very important ones, even when we were in Berlin. We finished our day early just to make sure we would see Turkey vs. Czech Republic because whichever team won would play with Germany. Since there is a large Turkish population in Germany, we thought that it would be crazy on the game day.

The semifinal, Germany vs. Turkey was on a week night - Wednesday. Downtown Stuttgart was filled with people by the time we got there around 6p.m. Everyone wanted to be at the Schloss Platz for the public viewing (each major European city has its own public viewing area which has more capacity than the stadiums.) We waited in line and finally got in around 6:30. Katja and Kathrin joined us later while some couldn't make it (stopped letting people in after 7) As you can see from the picture on the left, it's like 'sea of flags and people!'

It was a great game, there were many scores, and tied until 2 minutes before the game. Finally, Germany kicked another goal to finish on top of Turkey. Everyone was crazy afterwards. The streets were entirely blocked and downtown was shut down for a celebration parade. It was such an exciting experience.

We went to downtown again for the final. This time, the public view area was already pack and closed before 6p.m. The game started at 8:45 p.m. Can you believe that? And it was a super hot day too. On one hand, I can't image standing in the sun baking for so many hours waiting for the game. On the other hand, it would have been great. Well, we didn't have the option so we found a bar, sat down, and still enjoyed the game with friends and other nervous German fans. It was a superb game. Every minute of it was making me so nervous even though I am not a soccer fan. Too bad Germany didn't win at the end but I have learned so much about soccer from these three weeks.

Berlin

After a year of life together in Germany, we finally made a trip together to the capital - Berlin. My first impression was... good food. We were starving after we checked into the hotel. We found an Indian restaurant 100 meter from our hotel. The food was great and the price was reasonable...nan a bit different and spice just right.

A good dinner plus a good night sleep, and we got an early start for our visit. Our first stop the Berliner Dom, is a big protestant church with a huge dome you can climb all the way to the top of. I could barely walk by the time we made it to the top of the Dome, but after seeing the view from the top, the sweat was well worth it. Our stomachs soon started protesting after the workout. We walked for a while until we found an restaurant ; Berin is a very diverse city with a great range of cuisine. Lucky us, we found one and had a good brunch. Afterwards, we spent the rest of afternoon on museum island. There are five museums - Bode Museum, Pergamonmuseum (it is one word not two. Here is an example of the language for you) Neues Museum, Alte Nationalgalerie, and Altes Museum on the museum island. We got an museum day pass and visited three of them. Our favorite one was Pergamonmuseum which has many famous examples of Greek ancient architecture - Pergamon Alter and sculptures. Only one disappointment was that part of museum was closed for some reason. The other two we visited were Bode Museum (sculpture collection museum) and Altes Museum where we saw some ancient Egyptian arts.



The picture on the left was taken on the top of the Reichstag which was built to house the German Parliament. We waited in line for an hour just to get to the top. Can you see how interesting it is that people walk around the glass dome.

Can you tell this is Berliner Mauer (Berlin Wall)? We didn't notice until I saw the sign which I learned from German class (good thing I was paying attention in the class.) Can you see the guy in uniform on the very right. He would stamp your passport with the East German entry stamp with one Euro.

Berlin is very large and spread out and in the end we only saw a small portion of it. I'm sure we'll visit again if we are staying in Germany longer.