These are the awesome salsas that Mariana and her friend taught me how to make!
The tomatillo salsa in the making:
Then that evening, Serene went all out to make us a Chinese New Year dinner! We helped her to make it, but she bought all the ingredients and prepared a lot of it in advance!
I was on wonton duty. I got pretty good at making them after a while, although I let somebody else put them in the deep frier. The rice was in a pressure cooker right next to the wok, and I really didn't feel like being scalded and burned with oil at the same time, should disaster strike! Both of those things are terrifying ways to cook food, haha. We put a couple almond cookies in the frier too, just to see what would happen.
Today, I set out to see the festivities at Trafalgar Square and Chinatown. Originally, other people were going to come with me, but everyone was still asleep at noon so I went on my own. I had to take a picture of this. I didn't expect to see Engrish right as I got off the tube, haha.
It was packed!
I had a better view than some people of what was going on in the square, but I got bored quickly and decided to try my luck in Chinatown instead!
More people!
Here are some lion feet waiting their turn!
I didn't mean to get this close (mostly because of the massive amounts of people. I was trying to stay by the edges as much as possible), but the dancers were weaving through the crowd so I had a good photo opportunity! Here is a video I uploaded of the lion dancing: link. I was too lazy to use blogger's terrible tools to upload it, so I just stuck it on youtube instead.
This food caught my eye, and it was only £2 so I decided to try it.
A "chicken bunn" from Chinatown. It reminded me of Czech dumplings that I tried in Prague, actually. It was a very sticky, dense, wet bread.
A lot of little kids had balloons and paper dragon toys that I was a bit envious of so I decided to look for stands where they were being sold. I found one that was also selling fireworks, which explained the constant explosions and snaps. I found a cool drum that I liked so I bought it for £1.50, but then halfway down the block I found a different drum that was WAY COOLER so I had to get that one too. Now I can combine them to make the Cacophinator!
As I was leaving Chinatown, police officers suddenly swamped the little side alley I was in. A second later, Donald Trump (?) was hustled by. The crowd was pushing a lot and myself and some other people got crunched up against the police officers. The man inside the human fence high fived some of us and said "Happy New Year!" before hurrying on. "Oh my God, Boris Johnson is here!" people started saying. Ahhhh suddenly everything made a lot more sense. Although for the record, Boris Johnson's crazy hair does make him look a bit like Donald Trump at first glance.
Here are some more photos of plants around my neighborhood! I can't believe there are still flowers blooming in late January!
These snap dragons have been here since I moved in...
It has been a really interesting weekend! I am going to start marinating some chicken in the chile colorado salsa that we made yesterday, because tomorrow is fake-Chipotle-burrito night! MMMMMmmmm so excited!
No comments:
Post a Comment