Awesome cooking session with Rachel

The highlight of the day was Rachel's 2nd visit to my house. She came at around 10.30 am and she had very kindly printed out my CHEM 3310 assignment for me free of charge. :) Took out the frozen food to thaw and we headed to our room to do some studying. However, our attention spans were rather short and we kept joking among ourselves again. She is really receptive to my jokes and that is something I am really appreciative about. Showed her random photos and videos on my computer and we cracked really ludicrous jokes which I think only the 2 of us will find funny.

I must say that Rachel really has the penchant and gift for cooking! These are probably the 2 factors that motivate her to experiment on inventing new dishes. She has tried making her own garlic bread and fried rice and currently, aiming to make banana pancakes. I feel myself salivating as I am typing out the names of these delicious food. At around 1 pm, we started our cooking session. We took an onion and garlic from the couple because Rachel mentioned that they can make the fried egg smell more fragrant. She also added a slice of cheese to 3 eggs, after putting the chopped mushrooms in them. Rachel can fold the egg batter up so nicely, while my egg batter always ended up being broken, like scrambled eggs. Looks that I have quite a lot of cooking skills to learn from her!

This time around, we cooked udon with chicken stock without MSG instead of the instant mee she bought on the 1st visit. All the soup was drained from the noodles and flavoured with soya sauce. Again, Rachel stir fried her signature dish: chicken marinated with spices,sauces and salt, together with frozen vegetables. Dessert was red bean soup. This was the first time I screwed up during its cooking process. I failed to watch the fire at the appropriate time and the red beans had soaked up all the water when I went to check on it. Luckily, the soup still turned out fine, after refilling the pot. Rachel and I took several photos of us together and the food before tucking in. She commented that her food did not taste that nice. But I felt that it was as good as the first time, except of the powder like texture in the chicken.

Bowie and her friends popped over unexpectedly to discuss about the itinery for the Tasmania trip. They have already planned exactly on what to do for the next 4 days. We will be staying in a Hobart apartment and catching a 6.45 am flight tomorrow to our destination, via Melbourne. It would be my first time taking an aeroplane operated by Virgin Blue, which is one of the budget airlines of Australia. That will be a refreshing experience. I look forward to having breakfast on the plane, though the prices of the meals are quite steep. I really hope that I would get to truly enjoy myself during this trip, and not to let unnecessary negative thoughts overwhelm me again.

Rachel left my house at around 3.30 pm, for she wanted to go to inspect a house in Jesmond, to decide if she wants to shift in there after leaving her homestay accomodation. She asked if she could stay at my place for a few days while scouting for a suitable accomodation, and I readily agreed. It is a great feeling to be staying with someone whom you can get along so comfortably with. Furthermore, I would get to enjoy more of her mouth-watering meals. :). Await for the day she drops by for another visit.

Worked on my CHEM 3310 assignment and the level of difficulty is really high. I could only solve 7 out of the 20 parts to a huge question so far, and there are some uncertainties in the answers as well. That is really very disheatenining. The questions asked seemed to be out of the textbook syllabus. Right now, I am not really in the mood to continue pondering about the questions, due to the feelings of anticipation for the Tasmania trip. For the 2nd time in 2 months, I have gotten hold of another golden opportunity to enrich my horizons on the several Australian states.

Okay, I shall call it a day and take a rest before Bowie and her friends come to our place to set off for Sydney Kingsford airport together. Will be returning to the blogging scene with interesting accounts of the Tasmanian trip in 4 days time!