Thursday: baking day ^_^

Why should I limit sunday as the baking day? A midweek day dedicated to baking could be fun and relaxing, right? YEAH~~~ So I made Megan's gingerbread apple spice cupcakes. Actually mine turn out to be more like muffins than cupcakes. I followed closely the recipe, except I replaced molasses by honey and sugar. I added some soy milk as well since the barter was a little bit dry. And as these muffins are mainly for Savannah (since yesterday I finished all our ginger cookies), I topped them with pumpkin seeds (she's a pumpkin seed lover, I'm a pumpkin lover. Perfect couple, right?)
When they were in the oven baking, the flavor in my apartment is AMAZING!!!! It's a light and spongy muffin, full of flavors. You guys really should to make it. It's extremely simple and perfect for holiday season either for breakfast or snack.
I had half after it cools. (I realized that muffin's real texture can only be tasted once it is cool)
I'm glad to receive so many answers about what you'd like to know about China. Most of you guys are more interested on food (as I expected) because we're all foodies!!! ^_^ But other interesting things were pointed out. I'll summarize them here so I don't forget when I go to China:

1. FOOD (local food, how food is viewed, how people share food)
   
2. sights
3. "chinese" menu at McDonalds
4. differences between rural China and the cities

Definitely all these requests will be conceded and much much MORE!!!!!
I and The Boyfriend are still planning which part of China we're going. Up to now we've decided to go Shanghai (my hometown and where all my family live, so I'll spend most of time there), Hong Kong, Shen Zhen, Hang Zhou. And we're looking for one more city to go. So excited!!!! I love love traveling. Even though I'm from China, but rural China or just other big cities in China are so different than Shanghai. So every time I visit a new city, it's like to visit a new country (similar to Europe). The people, their customs, beliefs, food, language could be so different that I wonder how difficult it must have been to unify China.
I promise that I'll take tons of pictures for you guys to meet the real modern China. And of course all those incredible FOOD!!!
Okay. Back to today's eats. Breakfast

• 1/4 cup multigrain
  
• 1/4 cup oat bran
• 1/2 cup almond breeze
  
• 1/2 banana
• 1/2 apple
• 1/4 cup egg white
  
• vanilla
• 1 tbsp flax meal
• 1 tbsp wheat berries
• 2 tbsp cottage cheese
  

I added egg white to get some protein to see if it helps me to cut back of cravings in the mid-morning. Somehow, maybe because of that, it turned out to be a huge bowl of oat. I didn't really taste egg white there, but it was delicious!!!!!! this combo will definitely be repeated.The trick worked, I didn't crave anything the entire morning. It hold me for almost 5 hours. Maybe it was because I was too concentrated on work that I didn't hear my stomach, because when I stopped working and began to prepare lunch, I felt the hunger immediately. So I first had 1 pita bread.Lunch was served after 30 min. Baked salmon with soy sauce, ginger powder, sugar, cooking wine, pepper, together with some onions. For me, this is the perfect baked salmon ever! I also had some sauteed romaine lettuce with mushrooms and rice.
Such a complete (in term of nutrients), filling and delicious meal.
Dessert was 1 big spoon of PB.
I had to hold office hour this afternoon, so I packed 1 pita bread with laughing cow and a package of BB as snack.Back home, baked muffins and I did The Power Vinyasa Flow #1 from www.yogadownload.com because I was lazy to drive to gym and also because I'm planning to go to spin class tomorrow, so I guess I didn't need cardio work today. How many times do you guys do cardio work a week?
I wasn't hungry after that muffin, so for dinner I had my favorite tortilla pizza topped with eggplant, mushroom, broccoli, sauce, mozzarella and tons of basil!!! (not by choice. I poured the entire bottle by accident. I did what I could to remove most of them, but still, it's too much basil). And some hummus on top., Fortunately it was quite good and much more filling than I thought. I like to put a lot of veggies on my pizza and eggplant is the best topping for me.
Dessert was another favorite: frozen strawberries + fage + wheat berries!!!
I just had my favorite dinner plus my favorite dessert! can't be happier!!! ^__^
Hope you had a great Thursday.

Question: If you have to buy souvenirs in US for a non-american friend, what would you buy?