Trying Out Tous les Jours

It was my little brother's birthday yesterday and he's been asking me to bake something. Unfortunately, I had a meeting the whole afternoon yesterday so I had no time to bake a cake and I just decided to buy a cake from Tous les Jours.

Since this cute bakery that originated from Korea (despite the French name) opened a branch at SM North, I've been telling myself  "I should try that." but I never really got around to do so (what's new?) until recently. I bought an Apple Inspiration cake (PhP548). It's a strawberry-flavored cake that takes the shape of an apple (odd, I know).

It came with cute long candles (like the birthday candles we see in Korean TV dramas).

Here's how it looks like inside. There's little sponge cake inside and some real strawberries. It's a very pretty and adorable cake (the whole family agrees) but it's not exactly our cup of tea (or slice of cake?) 

I'm not dismissing Tous les Jours though! I want to try their cheesecake and the mocha crunch cake next time I feel like splurging and too busy to make my own cake.

I Open at the Close

As the year draws to a close, I look at my 2012 goals. Perhaps, if I'm to evaluate myself based on my accomplishments, maybe I'll give myself 75% to 80%. Not that bad, I guess.

2013 Goals

1. Better time management. Sigh this is an old goal. I don't know if I'll ever do this right. I mean, I'm not THAT bad with time management but I know that I can still improve (and I do need to improve).
2. Visit at least one new country. Maybe Nepal and/or Cambodia.
3. Visit at least one new province. Maybe Baler or Cebu or La Union.
4. Fix my academic life (Master studies). It's a mess. (And wow, that took a lot of courage to admit publicly.)
5. No new hobbies for now. Focus on the existing.
6. Follow-through: Good diet. More water, fruits and vegetables. Less junk, sweets, beef and pork.
7. Follow-through: Be healthy. Jogging, crunches, arm exercises.

Cheers to the opening of 2013! My mom's making macaroni salad and steak while I'm making chocolate cake with cream cheese frosting and ramen. What's cooking in your kitchen? :)

Postcard Weekly 12-29-2012

I didn't get any mail last week (which is understandable due to the holidays). However, my high school classmate handed me a set of 24 (!!!) postcards from Taiwan.

This is what's written at the back of the box:

"UP THE RIVER DURING QINGMING

Color and Ink on Silk

35.6cm x 1152.8 cm (yeah, it's more than 10 meters long!)

Handscroll

It is a joint work painted by five court painters Chen Mei, Sun Hu, Chin Kun, Tai Jung and Chen Chih-tao during the first year of the Chien-lung reign (1736-1795) in the Ching dynasty."

Here's a nice image of the painting from Wikipedia. The scroll painting is a display at the National Palace Museum (though what I saw in 2011 was probably just a replica or an image and not the real thing). The museum is very big but the painting is hard to miss because the it's veeeeeery long.

I had wanted to buy the postcard set during my last trip to Taiwan last September 2012. However, we were too busy and didn't have any free time during the day so I wasn't able to go to National Palace Museum to buy it. Luckily, my high school friend Eric went there last November. I gave him a bunch of suggestions on Taiwan and then he asked me if I wanted anything from there. I'm really, really glad he bought it for me!

You have to lay out all 24 postcards side by side to get the whole thing. In this photo, I laid them out by 6's because it's too long to lay them all out in a single line!

Now, my postcard collection just shot up to a hundred!