Haven't been exploring the city much these past few weeks, so here are pictures of recipes I've tried lately.

Russian potato and mushroom soup. It has carrots, leeks, potatoes and mushrooms in it. Pretty sad that mushrooms are not that cheap here... The soup is thickened with milk and flour. I think probably one of the recipes I will keep repeating.

A recipe that I remembered my sister making for a college bake sale. Macaroni with tuna and corn. No need for sauce, just use mayonnaise, and serve it cold. Err...this is not my serving size. Striving for more appealing photos here.Does it look like a high class dish? (yeah, right) Should I stick in 2 mint leaves to make it look nicer, eventhough it will taste wierd? And a dash of sauce artistically smudged with a spoon?
Black pepper beef, stir-fried cabbage with carrots, and tomato soup.Not really my favourite although i think i should be eating this type of dishes more often.
Cinnamon and raisin scones. I made my own self raising flour. The recipe called for 1 cup of regular flour to 1 1/2 teaspoons of baking powder and 1/2 teaspoon of salt. Shouldn't have believed the salt part(maybe it's for developing the gluten or whatever they call it), but other than that the dough was good and fluffy enough.
Lasagna. Mistake of putting a layer of lasagna noodle last. It was a no-boil noodle, so you should cover it with sauce so the moisture can soften the noodle.
Leeks with cream sauce. Cream sauce is butter and flour.
Using up the rest of my mushrooms for a breakfast sandwich.
And I tried a tub of Ben and Jerry's ice cream. Not a very good judge of ice cream, but I like fudge brownies and chocolate chip cookie dough. Yum.Most of the time I was digging around for the cookie dough.
~~~~~~~

Went on an art supply price-comparison trip, and was brave enough to walk all the way to Flax, the furthest art store, which shares a fringe with the dodgy Tenderloin area. Well worth it though. If you like paper crafting, or just looking at pretty things, Flax has a humongous supply of papers, greeting cards and crafting supplies.I saw a no-staples stapler being sold, that apparently cuts off a piece of paper and sews the stack together in one punch. Also, saw a drinking straw model making kit(something like box toys) which was a total rip off, selling at a few dollars for a packet of 4 straws.Anyway, on the way back, I passed the Civic centre.

Here's the buddha statue at the Centre. The Asian Art Museum is one of the buildings surrounding the Centre.
And the city hall.
One of the really foggy mornings.This is the spot where I catch my busses.
This is my modeling classroom. Usually there are more of those modeling tables(the grey ones) but furniture in a lot of classrooms move about a lot. I've been going back a lot in the evenings, lately, it's good to draw from the skeleton since this classroom is hardly used. The buildings close around 10 pm and the bus service ends at midnight.
Some stupid posing done at 10pm after doing assignments. We have to draw groups of bones from skeletons.I wonder if the skeleton is supposed to be male or female. My biology teacher told us about the 'females having 1 rib less than males' theory which apparently is wrong. In fact, different people may have different number of ribs regardless of gender, and some ribs may be fused. I learnt this in anatomy class 8D. Different people may also have differing numbers of coccyx bones, which is your tailbone, which serves no purpose.
My desk. I'm pretty sure I won't tear the paint off the walls when it's time to shift out. Maybe that's the reason why the walls are painted in gloss paint. It's one of the very few things that make sense in the furnishing of the apartment. For instance, the toilet paper holder is right next to the shower, and the soap holder doesn't have drainage holes.
Besides that, I've been having a good time making use of the library facilities. Masters students can borrow up to 7 books for 2 weeks, which is total paradise if you compare it to what TOA has (what was it...1 book for 2 days?)It has lots of facilities like printing, scanning and paper cutting stations as well, mostly used for fashion students. Fashion students are swarming everywhere...but looking at what my roommate does for assignments, the library facilities is really important to them.

Looking through the shelves, there are a few books on my to-read list. One of them is a Sandman illustrated novel , not by Dave McKean, but by Yoshitaka Amano. Like how cool is that...if there's no Dave McKean, then Amano fits the shoes just perfect. The library has a collection of childrens' book and comics for the illustration students, and I found a book that really inspires me, James Gurney's Dinotopia.

As the way things are, the visuals are drop dead stunning, even if the story lacks a bit. The style is along the lines of the Silk Road theme, a mixture of all the best features from international traditions, plus good ideas on how everyday objects are created to suit both human and dinosaur lifestyles. This is good concept art.Really good colour sense too. It kind of inspired me in the making of the concept art for my final animation project, eventhough i think after all the endless cutting and editing to save time, none of my favourite designs were used.

The first time I saw illustrations from Dinotopia was in my childhood Highlight magazines. They use recycled paper to print on, which is slightly sepia and textured, so the Dinotopia illustrations came out really well, it looked like it really could be field sketches(they are supposed to be sketches made by a scientist stuck in Dinotopia)The actual book was on glossy paper though, which is a shame.