Day 72 Finally ... hotpot in Helsinki

Today I was invited to Yang's birthday dinner, and we had hotpot, or known as steamboat in some East Asian countries. Ahhh... finally, HOTPOT! oh man, I missed it so much.

For those who are not familiar with this, hotpot is arguably the most popular thing in Hong Kong. As the almighty know-it-all wikipedia puts it, hotpot was "invented" more than 1000 years ago by Mongolians. During that time, Mongolian warriors were fighting wars and the easiest way to cook food was to boil some soup in their warrior helmets and put food inside the boiling stew until cooked (ew... imagine putting the helmet on again, their hair would smell like food.) And that's how the story goes...

Yang got a really nice soup base for the hotpot, and it was called the "Mongolian pastures" (no idea why it was called that) and it was extremely spicy! Andy sweated so much that he nearly had to take off his shirt when eating! (Photo: Andy eating! it was soo spicy but soo good!)

(Photo: that's the hotpot. see all the orange-ish red colour of the soup? that's all the spices!)

(Photo: We were so full after the meal!

But the eating didn't stop there! Later on, Dong and Andy planned a surprise for Yang! After the dinner, I was instructed to force Yang to stay in her room to see the photos taken in Turku while Dong and Andy lighted the candles and pulled out a birthday cake. Then, when Andy phoned me that everything was ready, I was instructed to guide Yang out of her room into the dinning area.

(Photo: The cake was made by Andy and Dong, and assisted by me. It was a "sponge" cake with cream on top and a cute teddy bear drawn with dark chocolate!)

(Photo: Yang cutting the cake. HAPPY BIRTHDAY! I wish all your birthday wishes come true!)

We then met up with some of Yang's friends and went for drinks! I will blog about that in the next entry, stay tunned!