Ice Cream & Real Estate

I'm finally back with a proper post (I hope) about the happenings of my life lately.

So on Monday, Nicole came over with ingredients to make ice cream because I told her a few days ago that I was seriously craving ice cream. I felt really touched and elated because I didn't except such a warm gesture, especially from Nicole because she's always so busy with her art and music. She brought over matcha green tea powder, cream, and ice so we could make home made ice cream. Apparently they learnt the method in Chemistry class, where you put the cream mixture in a small ziplock bag and put it in a large ziplock bag filled with ice and just shake until the cream mixture solidifies. It was definitely a laborious task, but we had so much fun doing it it compensated for the sore muscles the next day. Of course, the green tea ice cream was soooo freaking delicious! After getting burnt out with ice cream, we baked a chocolate cake and frosted it with french vanilla icing. Nicole wrote "好吃" with nutella on the cake, which means "delicious" in Chinese. My mom laughed when she saw the cake decorated with icing and nutella and sprinkled with six kinds of sprinkles along with matcha and cocao powder.

It just happens that all of my best friends are artists aiming to get into art school, and that can be fun, yet TOO fun sometimes. They are so creative it drives me nuts! They try to make art out of everything, especially my uber artistic gf who grafitti-ed my vanity mirror. Now I can't see a freaking thing! I have to resort to doing my make up in the bathroom, because the mirror on my vanity now screams avant-garde art courtesy of my artistic gf.

Anyhow, I digressed... but that's about the only eventful thing that happened over the past few days except for the fact that I know have a floor plan for my future home! Hahahaha... my gf is currently enrolled in an architecture/design spring break program at the Art Institute of Vancouver and their assignment is to design a floor plan for a dream house. So I told her what I envision in a perfect home, and combined with her ideas she designed a floor plan for it.

What she doesn't know is my dad is currently apartment hunting for me in China because I'm potentially going back to China for university and I need a nice place to live. I was hoping I could live in the apartment where I grew up, but it's not big enough to house all my stuff and the design of the building won't allow me to customize anything so my dad decided to let me start over with a brand new place. Besides, he owes me one for selling my apartment in Beijing before Christmas, since real estate prices have gone up due to the nearing of the Beijing 08 Olympics. Ever since grade 8, I lived alone in Beijing during my summer vacation so I had my own place. My maternal relatives thought my dad was staying with me but in reality he wasn't. He was too busy with his business which required him to fly back and forth between Beijing, Hong Kong, Shanghai, and Nanjing every week. I interned at his Beijing office during the day and all hell broke loose at night. But back in grade 8 I wasn't interested in clubbing or anything, so I spent most of my nights watching TV and having dinner with friends and family. Of course, no one else knew of this living arrangement until last summer, and since they saw that I coped well on my own, they let it go and permitted me to live alone.

Anyhow, I digressed again! Argh! The point is I found the perfect apartment to fit the floor plan my gf designed! And it's in Soho Beijing! One of my favourite residential areas in Beijing! My aunt's company had an office in Soho and they had a couple of extra apartment that were basically unfurnished because they bought it as investment and never had a good use for it. Now, they're moving their whole company's head office to a different part of the city (because they have their own building now) they want to put the extra apartments up for sale. The one I've got my eye on is a two-level loft kind of thing, and completely unfurnished so I can basically do whatever I want with it. My dad's cool with me decorating it, since my cousin was only 17 when she got her own place, and her place is still one of the best decorated apartments I've ever seen.

But my dad wants to wait until after the Olympic games in Beijing to make an offer, because prices will drop then and no one is stupid enough to buy a place right before the Olympic games. I'm in no hurry since I'm not returning to Beijing until the autumn of 2009. In the meantime, I can check out the place in the summer and check out a few other places since another Soho is being completed this year. FYI, there are three Sohos in Beijing: Soho Xian Dai Cheng (Soho Modern City) the oldest Soho, across the street from Shin Kong Mall in Beijing. The Soho I'm talking about right now is Jian Wai Soho (the one beside the International Trade Center) and the newest one is Chao Wai Soho (nearer to the downtown core).

This ends my rambling! I picked up my new airplane tickets today. I am now leaving Vancouver on June 29th and arriving in Beijing on June 30th. I will be leaving Beijing on September 1st. I will most likely be in Hong Kong in the second or third week of July, and will be staying in Beijing all through August to catch the Olympic games!

Since my dad sold my "summer apartment" that housed me for the last three summers, I will be staying in the apartment where I grew up (YAYYYYY) and also be spending some time in Xiu's new apartment, since we both don't want to live alone anymore, haha. But of course, I think I'll be out clubbing and singing K most of the nights, or spending time with friends.