GARGANTUAN steps
Saturday, December 02, 2006
pulp fiction
" it begins to appear that everything one does to gain a livelihood or for pleasure is fattening, immoral, illegal, or, even worse, oncogenic" - Robbin's Pathologic Basis of Disease
I'm going to fill in some gaps that I've left for the past two weeks! First was the week long celebration of Fon's birthday, which culminated in her inviting 30 over people for a dinner of chicken curry and fried rice. I came the night before to help carry the groceries and prepare the first batch of curry and cook countless cups of rice! On the day itself, I came from school together with a good friend, Lap Hang (who's Fon's good friend too!) and together, we took control of the kitchen. I suppose those who read Fon's blog will know that I cooked the second batch of curry which tasted better, but it's just about the amount of water you add in! The first batch of curry was cooked for quite long and all the meat from the drumsticks peeled off and my comment on that was that it was like being in the 18th level of Chinese Hell, and that these chickens sure suffered terribly. All in all, 15 cups of rice were cooked, 9 packets of curry paste were used, 8 cans of longan, 3 bottles of nata de coco, 2 huge cans of pineapple, and if I'm not mistakened, 60 chicken drumsticks that had seen better days.
On that Sunday, we had the Academic Mass which was held at the Westminster Cathedral (which is the London version of The Cathedral of the Good Shepherd in Singapore). The Principal Celebrant was His Excellency Francis Cardinal Arinze, Prefect of the Congregation of Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments. His sermon was excellent and he was extremely passionate for one born in 1932. I quite like the Cathedral too, and a picture I took of it can be seen below! The interior of the architecture coupled with the streams of light coming from the upper windows was just awe-inspiring- it just adds to the atmosphere and spirituality, which the organist sought to destroy with his concussive playing. He was playing some Phantom-of-the-Operaisque music which made it seem like the Cardinal was doing something bad.
I'm going to fill in some gaps that I've left for the past two weeks! First was the week long celebration of Fon's birthday, which culminated in her inviting 30 over people for a dinner of chicken curry and fried rice. I came the night before to help carry the groceries and prepare the first batch of curry and cook countless cups of rice! On the day itself, I came from school together with a good friend, Lap Hang (who's Fon's good friend too!) and together, we took control of the kitchen. I suppose those who read Fon's blog will know that I cooked the second batch of curry which tasted better, but it's just about the amount of water you add in! The first batch of curry was cooked for quite long and all the meat from the drumsticks peeled off and my comment on that was that it was like being in the 18th level of Chinese Hell, and that these chickens sure suffered terribly. All in all, 15 cups of rice were cooked, 9 packets of curry paste were used, 8 cans of longan, 3 bottles of nata de coco, 2 huge cans of pineapple, and if I'm not mistakened, 60 chicken drumsticks that had seen better days.
On that Sunday, we had the Academic Mass which was held at the Westminster Cathedral (which is the London version of The Cathedral of the Good Shepherd in Singapore). The Principal Celebrant was His Excellency Francis Cardinal Arinze, Prefect of the Congregation of Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments. His sermon was excellent and he was extremely passionate for one born in 1932. I quite like the Cathedral too, and a picture I took of it can be seen below! The interior of the architecture coupled with the streams of light coming from the upper windows was just awe-inspiring- it just adds to the atmosphere and spirituality, which the organist sought to destroy with his concussive playing. He was playing some Phantom-of-the-Operaisque music which made it seem like the Cardinal was doing something bad.
Academic Mass at Westminster Cathedral
19.11.2006
19.11.2006
It's just two weeks more before the school term concludes for the Christmas holidays. I am headed up to Cambridge for a friend's graduation next week and hopefully there will be more pictures! I'm extremely excited about my impending trip to Rome and things are going pretty smoothly except for one or two problems. The hotel I booked to stay after the Christmas midnight mass isn't exactly where it was shown to be on the website, which was suppose to be right beside the Vatican. Instead, Fon and I will have to walk a good 5km back to it after mass. Unfortunately, the Metro (MRT of Rome) stops rather early. However, we've managed to book all our accommodation and train tickets. We're going to spend one day in Rome, one day in Florence, two days in Venice, and then finally back for another four days in Rome!
Anyway, I've concluded that Fon and I are meant to be in Rome this Christmas. Firstly, I was able to secure the Christmas midnight mass tickets at St Peter's Basilica, which was already pretty amazing. Secondly, I've managed to secure two tickets to visit the Necropolis, which is the Excavations under St Peter's Basilica, where St Peter's grave is, together with the whole long line of Popes. This Necropolis was well mentioned in Angels and Demons. Basically, the Necropolis will be closed from 24-27th December. Fon and I would have just reached Rome on 20th December at around 1130am, and from 21st-23rd, be in Florence and Venice, so the only plausible date for this tour was on the 2oth, and even then, there were time constraints. I just had a single day to maneuver, but by divine intervention, I was given an excellent slot on the 20th at 1.45pm! So, it seems like we are meant to be there and I'm really happy and excited about it!
Meanwhile, I have tonnes of work to plough through! As can be seen, work is like a cancer that's slowly eating me up!
posted by Gabriel Yan at 2:17 AM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home