The past 6 months in snaps

The hibernation required by the cruel Beijing winter kept me at home or indoors in a nearby place most times, without much foodventures to speak of. The Great Firewall of China also discouraged me from accessing my blog (required a VPN), thus I easily fell into the comfort of becoming a creature of habit. 

Still, these past 6 months, life happened. I realized the value of building face-to-face relationships with people I met in the places I frequented, and sharing my many favorite foods with a carefully chosen set of friends. I live in a city where it is easy to find friends but difficult to keep them, because people come and go all the time. Going to the same places with the same persons helps us easily draw into memories in the future. 

A sneak-peak into my life in the context of food:

 Peanut butter toast from Bridge Cafe, my favorite in all of Beijing. One of the cafe's other frequent guest said I was here too often I was already part of the cafe furniture. The chef drew the translation of my name (Faith: 信) on the toast, upon hearing that this was the only item on the menu that I haven't had yet.

My favorite kids IN THE WORLD, Jocelyn and Brayden, with a cheesecake that they made around the time of my birthday. Jocelyn is an award-winning ballerina and Brayden is breaking barriers in hip hop and ballet space. Their photos decorate my room, I visit them whenever I travel to Hong Kong, and their mom  Eva regularly sends me updates on them.

  

My friend Javier took me to the second best restaurant in Beijing (rated by TripAdvisor), A Taste of Yunnan. Their specialty is the bamboo worms, pictured above. At first I was averse to the idea of trying it out, but I ended up eating most of the bowl's contents. It's yummy! Worth the leap of faith. #believe

One of my Beijing best friends, Sascha, is leaving soon, so we've been spending our time together trying out different restaurants. Here is a shot of him in a burger restaurant (where we didn't order any beef burger...)

This photo sums up what we do in the evenings after Saturday badminton.

I've developed this routine of going on mid-week barscursions. It pushes me to try new places, or new drinks, but mostly I enjoy this as my alone time. Occasionally, a friend joins me, thus ending a work night with a drink and a good conversation.