Favourite things project

So I decided to jump on the band wagon and participate in Tazim's favourite things project. I'll try to update every Friday although for this time, I am condensing 3 posts in one! Yay. So here you go:

1. Iconic things about my country

Although I'm a Canadian landed immigrant, I'll write about Mauritius since I've been in Canada for only 4 months-excluding my uni years. (I'm being nice, if you don't know about my island, just click on the link).

I'll say that the iconic things about Mauritius are the beaches and sugarcane:

Taken during my stay at Le Tousserok Hotel

Mark Twain even described Mauritius as "paradise on earth" although I wonder if it's still the case now. Unfortunately I'll be honest and say that the sandy beaches are enjoyed more by the tourists than us locals :/

Sugar cane is also something very representative of the country. Whether you go North, South, East or West, once you leave the populated urban areas, you'll find yourself surrounded by sugar cane fields on both sides of the road. Once the main foreign revenue for the country, sugar cane has become secondary in generating money due to competition from other countries. Currently (if I remember well), we're exporting mainly special sugar than white sugar. The recent years have seen the closing down of several sugar cane factories and even of the Bulk Sugar Terminal.

I love sugar cane blooming and harvest seasons. During harvesting, the fields are burned and the air will be loaded with black flakes of soot (a nuisance when drying clothes outside) you'll also smell sugar in the air which is quite nice. I have fond memories of chewing sugar cane in my childhood as they grew next to my grand parents' house (before everything was cleared for apartments). I'm sad when I see so many fields being cleared to build malls and condos. I guess that's evolution?

image from this site Travel Tourism Mauritius

2. Modes of communication

I guess my favourite mode of communication is writing. I am more comfortable writing down my thoughts although nothing can beat talking to someone face to face. It's just I'm shy and when I've nothing to say I ramble and when I do have something to say, I'm quiet (with people I don't know well). I'm proud to say that I've known some of my penpals for over ten years and I do hope that the friendship will go on even when we'll be old and wrinkly.

photo credit: AmoraSong

3. Things to drink

Bubble tea!! That's the asian in me. I LOVE taro bubble tea with tapioca pearls. So yummy. The BEST bubble tea I had so far is from this food court in Dixie: Taro, ice cream, litchi jelly and tapioca pearls. One large size for 4 bucks I think. Pure Bliss. Picture below is not from teh Dixie food court.

photo from http://fruitealicious.com

I'm also a green tea junky and have 4 boxes in Canada. When I came back from China, I brought like 2 kilos of tea. Chinese tea are so yummy and I love oolong, green, sencha, meccha and jasmine pearls. I also love bottled teas especially honey green tea and chrysantenum (spelling?).

Taken during my trip- 7 eleven in Hong-Kong

Coffee is another weakness of mine I used to be a fan of Starbucks but since they swapped their yummy frappucinos for this stupid "However you want it", well frappucinos have become less fun. Maybe some people do bother about their skimmed/soy or what not milk but even in the choices they have, you no longer get those yummy brownie chocolate frappucinos. It's like frappucinos on a diet. Else I need my daily dose of caffeine!!

I do need to organize my photo folders. Seeing pictures from my trips in Asia makes me long to go there and live. Sometimes I do miss being surrounded by Asian stuffs and food, maybe move to vacouver??? I do wonder where I belong: I want to live in France, Asia and then what next? Maybe I need to try each country until I find somewhere I can call home? But time is running out baby like Muse would sing.

Coming next: Shoes I own and people in my life :)