YES

Font is changed. Now my eyes don't feel like jumping out of their sockets and running away. I also changed the layout. IT IS DYNAMIC. I don't know what that exactly means in terms of a blog, but I know it sounds good. I will probably tweak it here and there as well for color and what not because color is important! You need some color in your life like white on rice!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Me: Intern

I'm an intern. hahahahah = happiness laughter!

chinadigitaltimes.net

go there, because knowing about China is good for you. Afterall, a majority of the things you use come from there.

落泊糕: Radish Cake deliciousness.

This is one of my favorite things to eat, and my mom recently taught me how to make it. It's called 落泊糕 in Chinese, or if we translate it, it's called a radish cake. Even though it's cake, there's nothing sugary about it. Although it lacks sugar, I would argue with anyone on this earth if they had the gall to say it wasn't one of the sweetest savory things they have eaten.
Now, traditionally it's made with meat, like ground pork, sausages, dried shrimp, etc.., but since I'm vegetarian again, I made a vegetarian version. There is also a variation of this dish called 芋头糕 made with taro instead of radish.
Making it was easier than I expected, so I decided to shareeeee <3 <3 <3 <3 <3

 落泊糕/ Luobogao/ Radish Cake Recipe

White Radish/ Daikon: about 1-2 cups grated or thinly sliced
(Apparently daikon prevents subcutaneous fat accumulation. HUZZAH!)

Rice flour (not sticky rice flour): 1 cup

Water: 2 cups (or if you like your cakes a little more solid, use 1.5 cups)

Optional delicious stuffs:
Mushrooms: 1/2 cup finely chopped, and stir fried with onion and garlic
Veggie meats: 1/2 cup finely chopped
Green onion: 1/4 cup finely chopped
Sesame seeds: roasted, for garnishing

Basically you mix all the ingredients together, and put it on the stove on medium heat for about 5 mins to make it a little bit more viscous. Why do we want it a bit more viscous? That way whatever you put into your nice little cake won't all float to the top. Even distribution is nice when you eat nice food. YES?
After, you put it in a pan, and put that pan into a steamer. The steamer has to have water in it that is already boiling. You know how when you preheat an oven to make things deliciously and evenly? Well, my lovely voracious eaters, this is the same concept.
Steam the monster for 30 minutes. After 30 minutes take off the steamer cover as quickly as possible. WHY?!?! because you want to prevent all that water that has accumulated on the cover to avoid falling onto your beautiful cake, don't you? Let it steam without a cover for 5 to 10 mins. If the top of your cake is still wet. Take a paper towel and soak up all the excess water from the top. Sprinkle the sesame seeds. Let it cool for about 20-30 minutes. YOU ARE FINISHED!

Now eating it is also varies from person to person. You can eat it as is, or you can slice it up and pan fry/ shallow fry it. Don't deep fry it because rice flour just absorbs oil like no other being on this planet.

Now, aren't you so fabulous.

OH YEAH, you can also freeze it. It can keep for a couple months. When you want to eat it, just resteam or pan fry.

One more thing for my fellow vegetarians. Try to avoid putting tofu because there is a lot of excess water in tofu. If you really want tofu in there, get a dryer tofu/ firmer tofu, or you can get pressed tofu or something called 豆腐干/doufugan/dried tofu. This comes in different flavors (soy sauce, five spice, etc..). Get the plain ones.

LOVE YOU. K. THX.

Writing: Mistakes

I was drunk again. I blacked out again. I thought it would be one of those nights that I would blissfully forget the next morning. Everything would be a blur, and my mind would have been a black hole of any knowledge or experience coming to me from 12am to 5pm.
This experience took place in a dark place of my life. I had just been jilted by someone I had really liked romantically. My best friend at the time had left me suddenly because of family issues, and I was on an island where secrets and gossip were rampant. It was a point in my life I never want to relive, and I want to forget everything that happened that month. Sadly, that will never happen, instead, I will write about it.
One night I got very drunk and blacked out, thinking all the time that I would never remember what I did. If a person does not remember what they did, it’s pretty difficult to be embarrassed about it. I have done so many embarrassing things when drunk, but it would turn into mush by 6am. After that mush, I would go out again and do it again. This night was different. Why? I was drinking the drink of the devil, soju. It does not hit the drinker immediately; it decides to slap said drinker in the face repeatedly during the night. After a person drinks it, the soju will slap you unconscious, wake that person up again, and then slap the person until 2pm the next afternoon.
My friend and I were drinking with acquaintances. Actually, they were more like strangers because they were acquaintances we had only met once before. After that, I should have known, it was going to be a night of bad decision making. We drank and drank, nothing playing any games. We just drank. Why? I do not remember why. I only remember the stupid parts. After hours of drinking, smoking, and talking, an acquaintance and I went to the store. He bought me banana milk, then he got into the taxi with me. Why? His car was conveniently located in my neighborhood. Ok, fair enough, we should take a taxi together. Sadly, I blacked out again. Frankly, I do not remember the taxi ride. I do remember his tongue in my mouth and coming to outside on the street. We were kissing, French kissing. The words, “What the hell,” came into my mind. I ran to my apartment, locked the door, and passed out again.
Funny thing though: with that same acquaintance, the next week I flirted with drunkenly again and was jilted. I think it was for my own good. He was not the type of guy I would ever like if I was sober.

Writing：A Friend

Some people suffer while they live, and others live to suffer. I had a friend who did both. She made herself suffer, but that was the only way she could live. She said, “I don’t want to cry because of you.” With that statement, their relationship started. After he chased her for a month and admitting to everyone that he liked her, he got the girl. He got a chance after two failed attempts to capture her heart. From what I could see, he definitely liked her more than she liked him, and from that experience I learned that things can change faster than you can think that they changed.
Every time I saw them, I thought that they made a cute couple. They were not the type of couple that made a person feel like spilling out the lunch they had just eaten; instead, they spread their attention fairly among friends, gave each other space, and spent an ample amount of time together. Since they gave each other and other people their undivided attention, no one could ever know if there were problems between them.
Everyone told her, “He’s so lucky to have you. Don’t worry, he won’t hurt you. I think you’re the only one that could hurt him. He likes you more than you like him.” This statement from everyone was wrong. One day, my friend and I were sitting on the bus, and she told me, “We broke up.” I was shocked because after six months of seeing them together I realized that it was over. I asked, “What happened?” She said, “He broke up with me,” while she was holding back tears. “How long has it been?”, and she replied, “We broke up three weeks ago.” During those three weeks, we had a group gathering for a week, and no one knew that they broke up. He introduced her as his girlfriend, and they continued to hold hands and be together. No one knew, and no one told anyone if they did know.
He continued to contact her, and while she wanted to stop contacting him she kept answering his calls and texts. If he liked her more than she liked him, a person would ask why it was so hard for her to come to terms with this end. I believe that when a guy sees a girl, he knows whether or not he likes her. Men get a feeling from a girl, and they stick to that feeling. The feeling does not grow from that point; instead, it maintains its intensity. Women are different. We fall in love with a guy. When we first see him, we do not think, “He is the one;” instead, we watch him and wait patiently. We watch his actions and listen to his words, and if they click with our style we like him more and more. Our interest in a person is always increasing. This scenario is what happened to her.
They were broken up, and no one knew. Everyone asked her how he was doing, and all she could say was that he was ok. She did not want him to turn into a bad guy by telling everyone that he was a heartbreaker because she still cared for him. As for me, I wanted to give him a punch in the eye and a kick in the testicles, but he was my friend too. Friends cannot do that to other friends no matter how inebriated a person is on certain nights. We all spent a lot of inebriated nights together. When she was drunk, we had no power to stop her from running to him because we were all equally as drunk as she was. Crying on the street, hitting cars, and telling people in a not so polite manner to go away was our routine for two Fridays in a row. Eventually, she disappeared at some point in the night, and the next morning I would get a phone call at approximately 11am telling me that she had just woken up. A mistake was made and changes needed to be made.
After two miserable weeks of shooting my memory full of black holes, we had a decent Friday night. There were some problems, but definitely not big problems like the week before. I maintained all my memories from that night. She got drunk, but there was no panicking phone call on Saturday morning. After that week, a new change happened, and we were able to start the process we, women, like to call moving on to the next victim.

Writing: The Smoothest Guy Ever

Drinking use to start on Thursday, and it would last until Monday night. This kind of schedule only leaves two days of sober fun during the week.
It was the start of the marathon in Jeju city. It was Thursday night, which also means flavored soju night. The drink of choice was cheap Korean beer that tasted terrible and soju with strawberry syrup in a clear glass jar. The game of choice was King’s Cup. This game can be deadly because the person who draws the last king from the deck has to drink a container of beer. I say container because the amount of beer you drink is determined not by a measureable amount; instead, it is determined by whoever drew the previous three kings. They can add as much beer to said container as they would like. Luckily, that night I drew the last king, which left me with a bad taste in my mouth and a mug full of beer.
Looking at this mug of beer with eyes of contempt, I began the arduous journey of drinking this monster. Half way through I realize that I’m too full to finish. The carbonation from previous exploits left my stomach bloated and me on the verge of gagging. If I did not finish this behemoth of a drink then I would be subjected to the criticism of the three peers that accompanied me that day. I was in a tragic dilemma. I could be criticized or throw up all my beer and dinner that I had already paid for in cash.
What I needed was a savior, like the Jesus Christ for the alcoholic that drinks on a Thursday night. To my benefit or detriment, Korea has a system of saving people from these kinds of precarious situations, which is called Black Knight or Black Nurse. If a person cannot finish his or her drink they can ask someone to finish the drink for them. If this person is a male, he asks for a Black nurse, and if this person is a female, she can ask for a Black Knight. In return the person who could not finish their drink has to do any favor the Black Knight or Nurse asks for. I believe that this is where the “Black” portion of the name comes from because the favor could be anything, and I mean anything.
I called for a Black Knight, and my friend was willing to drink the leftover beer in my glass. He finished the beer like it was water, and he was a travelling in the dessert for forty days without food or drink. Now, the time had come: the favor. It was simple. He said to go to a specific table and ask any guy for their phone number. It seemed easy enough, and it was. I went to a table and asked if anyone spoke English, and luckily one person did. I said, “Hi, I lost this game, and I need to get a person’s phone number. Is that ok?” He said the smoothest thing I had ever heard from a stranger. He said, “Ok, I understand. How about you give me your phone number, and I will call you. That way you have my phone number too.” It all worked out. At the end of the night, he said that it was nice to meet me. The best part was that he was not creepy because he did not call or text me like a creeper. He was the smoothest and coolest guy I had ever met.