Farewell to kimchi

2:12 a.m., early Tuesday morning (or, always more logical, at least to me - very late on Monday). An hour ago I said good-bye to Clare and Tracey who walked here with me after a nice dinner at Maemil Soojebi Chib (The house of buckwheat 'pasta') to pick up Leni's box from my balcony (long story, boring, too, not worth explaining).
I feel quite tired but I can't sleep. If I said that I was excited, that wouldn't be the right word. Exhausted and kind of numb would be a better description. The last couple of weeks were really hectic and exhausting, not leaving any time to think about my big upcoming trip.

I thought I'd be able to finish all of my work before I leave, but unfortunately, I'll have to finish the tedious job of grade calculations on the plane or during my first couple of days in Toronto. I have until Friday midnight to finish all and post the grades on the Hansung web site.

Last night I had a big night with Clare, Andrea and Debbie. Clare, Andrea and I met for dinner at Our Place, that now has a biggish patio on the 8th floor. The food was really good. Clare's chicken in champagne cream sauce looked lovely on the plate, resembling a starfish that's half hidden under a pile of white pebbles (rice); Andrea had chicken stroganoff, quite nice,t oo; I found my dish the best - chicken in Chinese chili sauce - really, reallly yummy. Lots of roasted vegetables and sliced chicken breast in the nicest chili sauce anyone could wish for. Of course, we emptied 3 bottles of chardonnay and and topped our dinner with a dessert that was 4 slices of different cakes (the best were chocolate mousse cake and regular heavy cheesecake).
After Our Place we moved to Geckos Garden and after they chased out we ended up at my house for one final goodbye -and one last bottle of Australian shiraz. We were so silly, taking silly photos and sending them to Jiwon. Apparently, we weren't all that silent (surprise!): Derek asked me this morning what was I doing all night, moving furniture, or what...

I set my alarm to wake me up at 10:00 a.m. but I couldn't quite get up at that time. A bit later, forced myself out of bed and have coffee to avoid the caffeine deficiency induced headache. After coffee, unlike all other normal people, instead of getting up, I went back to bed.

When I finally got up, I went shopping for gifts, and later packing. Around 8:00 pm met Clare and Tracey. We had a nice walk to the buckwheat restaurant and a nice simple meal,followed by walking to my house.

I promised to myself that when I come back I must stop this gluttony! It's been really crazy, enjoyable and wonderful, but still crazy. No wonder, my weight loss has been stopped dead in the tracks...

Bluw skies of Canada and blue skies, blue seas of Croatia, here I come for a serious detox program.
Asta la vista patria kimchae. The pics below show the 4 of us last night: Clare, Debbie, Andrea and me.