no.25 130525 Thank you for our family reunion (we miss you mom!)

My desk. I used to do a lot of arts and crafts when I was younger.

I have a younger sister. She's six years younger than me. I call her Sunny baby - it's a nickname I've given her a long time ago, which is a combination of her name and the word 'baby' as she is the baby of the family. I'm probably the only one to call her by that nickname. I think she likes it (right Sunny?). I used to think that my sister and I didn't look alike. Our eyes are different, our noses are different, our lips, our ears, even our face shapes are different. One day, we took a picture together. I remember staring at the picture for quiet some time because I was surprised on how similar we look. However, this depends each day. Some days we're like identical twins, and other days we don't see any similarities. It's weird, isn't it?

 

Anyways, my sister doesn't live with me ever since she went to university. She goes school that's two hours away from Toronto so she had no other option than to move out. Last year, she came back at the end of April, but she was busy with volunteering that she only came home just today. In celebration of our family reunion, we had a sam-gyup-sal party! I was craving it for a while so I was looking forward to tonight's dinner. Actually, I had it last Sunday when my friends and I went out for lunch after church... but it's just so good. I love meat! For those of you who don't know what sam-gyup-sal is.. Sam-gyup-sal literally means three layered meat. It has less than 1cm thickness, pan-fried pork belly. You can also grill kimchi, garlic, mushrooms in the pork fat with the meat, and it tastes really good. I usually dip it in a spicy sauce called 'ssam-jang', but most people prefer just dipping into salt and pepper. It's a very common food in Korea, enjoyed by all age groups. Growing up, I don't have that many memories of eating sam-gyup-sal or any other pork dish at home because my mom doesn't like pork. And my dad doesn't like chicken. So we would usually eat beef or fish. I only became familiar with sam-gyup-sal when I visited Korea. It was like a whole new world to me when I first tried it. Well, what makes it so tastey is the fat in the meat... ultimately it's not the healthiest food for you so if you have a high cholestrol level, I don't recommend it. What I do is I usually cut most of fat, so I consume only a little portion of it. Ahh, I just had it for dinner, and I'm thinking about it again. I'm gonna cook it again tomorrow because I have some leftovers! 

 

Although it feels a bit crowded at home, it sure is nice to have my sister back. It's different when my sister is here as oppose to just me and my dad. My mom is in Korea at the moment, so we're still missing one member of the family. Tomorrow, we're going to skype with mom so our family can finally reunite!