My first time in Europe!

Wednesday, January 23, 2013
Yay! I've step foot in Europe!

My family and I went to London to visit my mom's second youngest brother, Bart, and his family. We also did a bit of sightseeing on our own. We are spent 5 days in London before we headed over to Lyon to support Alex who was competing in the Bocuse D'or! Here's my one Instagram photo of our short trip to London.


We then headed to Lyon, France to support Alex in the most prestigious cooking competition. We spent two full days in the convention centre cheering on the Canadian team. Check out the photos below. This first photo here was just a tiny section of the food they had on display. Everything looked so decadent and tasty! Lucky for us, most of the vendors were giving out FREE samples! 
Above is a photo I was able to catch of Alex on the jumbo tron! And below is a photo of out tiny Canadian section all waving our flags and cheering Alex on!
Here's a cute photo of Izzy and Miss Universe Canada. I forgot her name but she was from Richmond, BC! What a small world!

We were all given red hockey jerseys with "CHEN 13" on the back. The atmosphere in the convention centre was crazy! The Canadian section was tiny compared to Japan, France and Sweden! Those countries had the most fans and they were definitely cheering the loudest. At the end of the competition, Alex placed 9th out of 24 and we couldn't be more proud of him.

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 Justin wasn't able to join us as he had a lot of things to take care of back in Calgary but I can't wait to go back to Europe with Justin next time. I feel like I didn't really get a chance to experience London or Lyon fully, so I'll need to take a second trip there. Both countries are amazing and there are so many places to explore so I can't wait to return.

My first time cooking Filipino food

Saturday, January 12, 2013
I made sinigang for Justin and I was quite proud of myself. Hence why I wanted to post about it since it was my first time. Since I'm marrying a Filipino guy, I figured that I better learn how to cook some Filipino food. Justin is still the better cook between the two of us, so he is still the primary cook in our kitchen, but once in a while, I'll feel adventurous to try and make some dinner. I always crave a hearty bowl of soup, so it was only fitting that I attempted to make a nice, big pot of sinigang. I put my own little twist on it by added fishballs (a staple ingredient in my house growing up) and Justin seemed to like it!

*high five* to a successful dinner for my guy. Hopefully I'll get better and better and be able to make more dishes next time!

Here's a photo of the meal. Top right: Lumpia, Top left: Rice (or Canin?), Bottom right: Sinigang, Bottom left: Calamari (bought from Costco) and in the middle...my happy guy! Love him! LOL!