Searching for Strawberries in the Slums

'Slumdog Millionaire' (SM) won EIGHT Oscars and I am glad about that. Although tight on budget, my forty Hong Kong Dollars were well spent on that movie. I am glad that I have actually chosen to watch it over The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, which I will definitely watch some time later. It is a genius to have the narration of the story using flashbacks in a way that they do not bore the audience at all. Most importantly, SM shows that we learn best through life experience and that every little answer we have within ourselves are related to our life experience. I have always loved to watch such inspirational movies. Somehow I relate SM to 'Catch Me if You Can' and 'Forrest Gump', which both have inspired me very much. I would love to watch SM again, not only because of the very good storyline, the clever children actors and actresses, but also because every time I watch such story, I will have a very good feeling that comes from within myself - that I have a better life than others, that I am not as poor at doing something as I think, that I can do something to help others. Enough of SM, now I am looking forward to read the novel which the movie was based on - 'Q&A' by Vikas Swarup. The last time I checked, the University's libraries only have the Chinese edition. Duh.

Last Sunday I joined an outing to an organic farm and plucked strawberries. On that trip, I was allowed to pluck 160gms of strawberries form both Japan and France. Those from the former were sweeter whereas the latter, juicier. Apart from the strawberries, the highlights of the day is that the drivers [two of them] got lost on the way to and fro the farm. That resulted in the cancellation of other leisure activities but I was happy that I got to spend a fun time with Yuki and Mandy in our, err, presumably second outing together.



Seeing all green at the farm.


Our 'bloodied' hands.. Just kidding. Hands were dyed pink/red by juices from the strawberries. Made our hands smell good too. Natural fragrance. XD

Another highlight of the week would be my Korean barbeque outing. I would say that it is more of a grill thing because I consider barbeque as a cooking activity which you use wood or charcoal to make fire and not use the grilling/'barbeque' pan conducted with electricity. Anyway, the food was good but I find them to be a little extra salty sometimes. How many slices of pork, beef, mutton, chicken and fish fillet did I have? Ten? Twenty? I would recommend the beef slices because they tasted the best. Mushrooms, onions and kimchi tasted good too. Desserts were OK. I have some theories for the buffet - 1. Eat 김지 to 开胃. 2. Drink tea to help digestion. 3. Eat quickly to prevent feeling full easily. My friends and I were on the verge of 'dying' due to overeating. We used only 2.5 hours out of the 4 we supposed to have to gobble up everything we can. All in all, they are food for thought here. [I mean that you can think about giving the buffet a try].


Three girls + 50 dishes [maybe I exaggerated] in 2.5 hours = ?? [I don't want to say this, but how am I to stay healthy and reduce my weight if I don't stop binge eating?]




Well, Saturday is coming to an end now and I better start working soon...
잘가요.

..By the way [when can I stop babbling?], I was fascinated by these containers for bananas when I was buying a lunchbox. What if there are bananas with somewhat out-of-the-ordinary shapes.. can they still fit into those containers?




Also, I have my post titled 'Searching for Strawberries in the Slums' with the hope those children in Garib Nagar would find their happiness, gain more access to education and enjoy lives like other children.