Kung Fu Noodle

Last weekend my family and I went to this noodle place in Markham called “Kung Fu Noodle”. It was a general noodle place so while we were eating we also compared it to another noodle place close by called “Magic Noodle”. The outside of the restaurant had a logo with Kung Fu Panda as a mascot so I wasn’t really sure how I felt about it. Compared to the other noodle place the menu was smaller but it also had some side dishes to go along with the noodles. All of us got noodles, and we also got some side dishes as well. For me, the only thing that was better, in my opinion, were the noodles because the pork chop that came with my noodles wasn’t the best but it was still good. Most of the “meat” items on their menu were alright but the noodles were definitely better than Magic Noodles. However, I also noticed that it took us a while to even get the waitress’ attention even though we were some of the only people there, so that kind of effects the experience.

Overall, I think the place was alright but compared to other noodle places around the only thing that makes it stand out are the noodles. Most of their other items to me aren’t as good as other places. If I had to choose between going to Kung Fu Noodle and Magic Noodle I would choose to go to Magic Noodle because although the noodles aren’t as good the other items are better and it’s also closer than Kung Fu Noodle which is in Markham.

 

Okotte Ramen

Last week my family and I went to a nearby ramen place that my mom had tried out with her friend a few days earlier. Since we usually have been going to the same ramen place for a while, we thought we could try out this new place together. The main reason why we wanted to try out Okotte Ramen was because if you order a bowl of ramen you could also get a cup of bubble tea for a reduced price. When we went there it just opened and there were already a few people inside. The menus there worked differently than most restaurants where you tell your order to the waiter or waitress because instead, they give you a piece of paper for each person where you can decide how you would like to customize your bowl of ramen. On the same piece of paper, you could also order your bubble tea if you would like. My mom, brother, and I all got the same drink, but my dad got a different one.

When our food came we all tried the soup that we each ordered. I decided to order the curry soup and it was really good. The rest of the ramen was also really good including the bubble tea. I think that Okotte Ramen is better than the other place we used to go to. However, I haven’t tried Okotte’s curry rice which I saw they had because at the other place they had really good curry rice. Depending on how good it is I might change my opinion on the two because the other place also had good ramen too.

Overall I think Okotte was good and I would definitely go back for the bubble tea and ramen.

New CSGO Map Remake

Recently Valve (The company that develops CSGO) has announced that they were updating one of the maps in the game. The map they are changing is Dust II which is the most played map in the game. The map has stayed the same ever since I got the game almost three years ago. Now, they’ve decided to change the map completely. Dust II was a very popular map with very basic graphics and very easy to play with a simple layout. After the change, Valve has changed the graphics so the map will run slower on some computers but thankfully they didn’t change the layout.

Dust II was my most played map and probably for some other players too. When I heard that they were remaking the map I was kind of sad. At first, I was just thinking about all the good times I’d had on the map and how it will never look the same again. After a few days however, I realized that not only will all the good memories and looks will change, but also none of the previous smokes and flashes that were very useful will work on the new map. The smokes and flashes on Dust II were very important and greatly improved your chances of winning a match if you knew how to use them. Unfortunately now, I’ll have to spend time practicing and remembering new smokes and flashes on the map. I have looked at some photos of the new map and have noticed that although some parts haven’t changed much in terms of playability I have noticed some parts have. One of the parts was a tunnel that led to a key area of the map that was made thinner which means it will be harder to enter the area because enemies can just throw grenades into the tunnel and kill you.

I am not very happy at the moment about the new remake of the map and not many of my friends are either. I don’t like the graphics and it’s like learning how to play the game all over again. A few of my friends and I are planning to play only the old Dust II for a few days until the new remake is officially released into the game.

New Kitten

In the past few months, my mom and brother have been thinking of getting a kitten. The problem was that our dad is allergic to most animal furs, but recently my mom has done some research and found a type of cat that doesn’t shed much. A few months ago we visited some cat breeders to see if our dad was allergic or not, but it seems like they kittens didn’t affect him too much. Since then, we were put on a waiting list for a kitten and last week we were able to confirm that we are getting a kitten in early December. The type of cat we are getting are Balinese cats which have generally short fur and don’t shed much.

Since we know that we’re getting a kitten now we started thinking about who will be taking care of the cat which is my mom and brother. We also discussed where the cat will be allowed to go inside the house which doesn’t really affect me as long as the cat doesn’t go in my room or bother me too much. After a while, we started discussing names for the cat which has taken a while and we’re still not too sure on what we’re going to name the cat but we were thinking about names like Cookie, Cream, Whiskers, and some other names. I’m still not sure what we’re going to name the cat though.

Overall, I’m okay with having the cat around as long it generally doesn’t bother me too much, but my mom and brother are going to take care of the cat most of the time so I don’t think I have too much to worry about as far as taking care of the cat goes.

Last Week’s PA Day

Almost every month in the area I live in, most schools have PA days or (Professional Activity days). These days are usually the day before or after the weekend when the students get to take the day off and have a long weekend when the teachers still have to go to the school. Nobody really thinks about what the teachers do during the PA days so most of the students just have fun and treat the PA day as an extra day to their weekend. When I was a little younger I always thought that the PA days just extended the weekends but now I realize that the PA days also shorten a number of days of school before or after the weekend.

Last Monday was the first PA day of the school year and my brother, mom and I did some things on Monday. Our mom already planned a few things for us to do a few days before so we didn’t really need to think about what we should do since we already knew what we were going to do. In the morning, I just woke up and stayed in bed for a few minutes and then my brother and I went to get our hair cut while our mom went grocery shopping. After we did that we went back home to drop off the groceries and then went to the Richmond Green Library to get our library cards. We just walked into the library and went to one of the desks that were located in the library and my mom gave the lady their some of our ID information and then we gave our phone number, email, and some other things to her. The lady at the desk then gave my brother and I each a card for us and our mom to sign. After that, she gave us all the details about our cards like how many books we can borrow at a time, where we can return our books, how long we can borrow the books until we needed to renew or return them, and things like that. After we got our library cards we went to a nearby Japanese place to eat lunch and then we went home and enjoyed the rest of our day.

That PA day was different to ones before which we had last year since last year we just went out to eat lunch and then my brother and I went home to play video games. This time was also pretty interesting though, but we probably won’t do too many things like this in the future.

My Mom Taught Me How To Use A Pressure Cooker

Last weekend, my mom taught my brother and I how to use a pressure cooker to cook beef stew.

My mom has taught my brother and I how to cook things before like eggs, rice, vegetables, and she even taught my brother how to cook steak before. Instead, last weekend my mom taught us how to use a pressure cooker. First, she showed us the kind of meat we used which was beef belly. Next, she showed us how to season the meat with salt, pepper, garlic, ginger, etc. After seasoning, she showed us how to operate the pressure cooker which was somewhat complicated compared to a simple rice cooker. Apparently, there is a piece of metal on the top and depending on whether it is up or down determines whether or not the pot is pressured or not. We put in the ginger, garlic, and generally the excess ingredients at the bottom as a base for the beef and then locked the lid on top. Our pressure cooker has a bunch of buttons you can press and just wait a certain amount of time. Since we were making a stew, we just pressed the meat/stew button and then we could just leave it to cook. After around an hour, we checked on the pressure cooker and the piece of metal on the lid was up which meant that the lid can’t be opened since the pot is still pressurized. We waited a bit more until the metal piece went down, but then there was still this knob on the lid that we had to turn and a lot of steam came out for a while. After the steam was gone, we took out the beef and let it rest for a while before slicing it and putting it into the stew.

Overall I learned how to use the pressure cooker and I think if I needed to I could make beef stew using it. It was easy and also kind of fun so it was an interesting experience learning how to use it.

My Thoughts On Apple’s New Products

In the past week, Apple has released a few new products including two new iPhones and the next series of the Apple Watch. In this post, I will share my thoughts on these new products.

The two new phones that Apple released were the iPhone 8 and the iPhone X. The iPhone 8 is the new step up from the iPhone 7 and the iPhone X is supposed to mark the tenth anniversary of iPhones. This means that they would be skipping the iPhone 9 although since it is the tenth anniversary makes a little bit of sense since Microsoft Windows also went from Windows 8 to 9. The iPhone 8 is supposed to have a better camera and thicker glass than the iPhone 7 as well as being faster in terms of specs. The iPhone 8 didn’t bring back the 3.5mm headphone jack and still uses the same Touch ID that the iPhone 7 uses. It is supposed to support wireless charging as well which is different from the iPhone 7, but you can also still charge it using the normal lightning cable. The iPhone X is way different than previous iPhones since they have removed the home button, therefore, making the screen a bit bigger. Instead of Touch ID, the iPhone X uses a new Face ID which scans your face in three different ways. The iPhone X also has new Animojis which scan your face so that an emoji that you choose can match the movements of your face. Both of the new iPhones are supposed to support Augmented Reality with their new cameras and A11 chips. I think the new iPhones are pretty cool although the iPhone X will be released later than the iPhone 8s being shipped on September 22.

The new Apple Watch Series 3 comes in a few different versions like the Nike+, Hermès, the normal Apple Watch Series 3, and the Apple Watch Edition in ceramic. The Apple Watch Series 3 changes a few features, but the main feature is the introduction of cellular data for the watch itself and the new addition of Siri having audio on Apple Watch. I don’t think Siri having audio will make much of a difference to me if I do choose to get the Series 3, but the feature of having cellular data for the watch does seem interesting. Having data would help since you can use more of the watches features without your phone needing to be around.

I think that all of these new products are really interesting especially the new iPhone X, but unfortunately, I don’t think I will ever get to own any of these new products seeing as they’re all quite expensive for now.

First Week Of School

This Tuesday was the first day of a new school year for me. This year I’m in a Grade 7/8 split class as a Grade Seven. When I arrived at school on Tuesday I met up with some of my friends and got in line to see which class we would be placed in. Everyone I knew was pretty surprised to find out that there were three 7/8 classes and only one straight Grade Seven class. Most of my friends in Grade 7 weren’t really happy about this since the Grade 8’s have a reputation for not being the best kids. Also, in all three of the 7/8 classes, there were only around seven to eight Grade Sevens so that means fewer people that we know and fewer friends. In my class, I don’t really have many good friends I only have two mutual friends that I didn’t really talk with too much over the summer.

The first week started off differently than last year since last year the school was encouraging a “Growth Mindset” but now they’re encouraging “Collaboration Techniques” where we do a bunch of different activities requiring teamwork. We started a few things to work on over the course of the first week for things like Math and Language. Half way through the first week of school I was already “uncomfortable” being in a 7/8 class since some of the people in the class did things like hitting my shoulder while passing me in lines while entering the classroom and some people are just annoying. Not everyone in the class is like that, but just some people. Since I don’t have too many friends in the class I can focus more on the actual school work, but sometimes it just feels lonely.

Later on in the week I just deal with the people that annoy me and just try to ignore them. For example, if they forget my name I just let them call me whatever they want unless someone else wants to correct them. If they stand on the chairs at lunch I just ignore them and eat my lunch and so on.

The first week of school was alright since this is also my first year with rotary so it’s taking some time to get used to the new classroom system. Although I’m not particularly enjoying this school year I’ll still go back to school since it’s not like I have a choice.

First Experience Using My Debit Card

Yesterday after my brother finished doing his volunteer hours for the day, we both started walking to the Walmart near our house. Since the place my brother was volunteering at was pretty far away we both started walking there at the same time. I was the first one to arrive at the supermarket and waited for a few minutes for my brother to arrive as well.

After we met up at the entrance, we went to get some lunch at the McDonald’s inside the Walmart. I wasn’t really hungry then so I only had some fries and a drink. We originally went to the Walmart to buy school supplies for the next school year, so after we finished eating we started looking at things we would need for school. We were given a total of $100 to spend on school supplies from mom, but we didn’t have to spend it all. Both of us got the basic things like a backpack, pencils, pens, binders, and things like that. We made sure that all the things we got were under $100 and then looked at a few more things and then went over to the self-service cashier area.

When we got to the cashier area we both scanned our items and placed them into bags. I was originally going to put everything into the backpack I got there but the machine kept on saying that I had to place the scanned items inside the bagging area which I did, but it still kept on saying the same thing. Therefore, I put everything in one bag and when I finished scanning everything I put the one bag into the backpack. When I had to pay, I did the normal things that they told us how to do at the bank like insert the card, confirm payment, and enter the PIN. There was one part that asked for if I wanted to “cash back” which I didn’t really understand, but I figured it out later when I got back. After all that, I had successfully purchased the items that I had selected using my debit card which was the intended purpose of the trip there besides getting school supplies.

Overall I think it went well using my debit card for the first time. It was easier than I expected although I probably won’t be buying anything anytime soon.

CBC News Article Review

This week I will be reviewing another CBC News Article. This is the article I am going to be reviewing, http://www.cbc.ca/news/technology/world-temperatures-high-1.3941142 This article talks about the climate change in the past few years and how it has been affecting certain places and people.

The article starts off by talking about how the world temperature hit a record high for the third year in a row last year due to global warming and how the temperature in places like India is getting extremely hot. They also talk about ice melting in the Arctic. The article also talks about how in the past year the average temperature across most of the world was 0.94 degrees Celsius above the 20th century average. Next, they talk about how a few organizations said that 2016 was the hottest year on record. Later on in the article, they talk about how last year was the hottest year for North America and how some other places were also affected by the rising temperature that year in some way.

Close the end of the article it talks about a conference in Paris regarding climate change in 2015 where governments agreed on a plan to try to reduce or eliminate the use of fossil fuels. The governments agreed to try to limit the rise in temperature to “well below two degrees Celsius above pre-industrial times” At the end of the article they mentioned how Donald Trump threatened to cancel or renegotiated the Paris agreement, but then later in a New York Times interview he said he would “keep an open mind” about the agreement.

This article was written a few months before now and talks about events in previous years, but it still addresses climate change which is still happening today.