Who is Justin Kwok? He is a well rounded student athlete that enjoys being around others! My goals are to in any shape or form is to make people around the world happy. No matter if its through there taste buds, front of the house service or just entertaining anyone. I hope in the furute im able to meet the right people because my passon is to work on a cruise ship! Ive been cruising since only time can tell and i absolutely love it! I get to experience first hand on how well the catering, food and hotel services are. Every single crew member makes me feel special and unique and i hope i could do the same to others.

Three days into my cruise to Canada with my family (picture above). We explored various types of foods and cultures. My brother yelling at me to “hurry up”! We’re going to miss out on dinner. I told him it wasn’t my fault, I lost my shoe! So when I arrived to my cabin with my shoe, I quickly took a shower, put on my favorite cologne and dressed up knowing it was Captains night.

As we are walking to the dinner table I thought about the foods on the cruise and how it was so disappointing. I ate mostly hamburgers and fries, refusing to consume anything else to put my stomach back into the feeling of eternity of hell. The dinner table was set up to perfection like elf’s built it. Lights darkened to enhance the mood, table so white it made you feel so high class. A couple of bread rolls later I was handed the menu to see what my taste buds were craving and I chose fries and pizza. My mom was furious that I came on an expensive cruise to eat fries and pizza. She offered if I wanted to try Escargot? I replied “hell no”! There is no way I was eating this (looking across the table noticing other people eating it). It looked very nasty and repulsive. As I commented back, the Captain of the boat came over to our table to speak to my family and to see if we are enjoying our cruise. As he was leaving, he whispered to me to try the snails, you might like it? Then he shook my hand. I never felt so honored and mature to shake the captain’s warm hands. So a few minutes later our waiter asked “what would you like”? My mom said Escargot, my brothers said Escargot and now it’s my turn. I took a quick moment to rethink life. As the word fries was coming out of my mouth my mom delivered me a death stare. So I told my waiter I wanted friescargot. He asked, Fried Escargot? I replied and laughed no! “Just plain Escargot please”. My family smiled of joy and happiness. I also looked over at the Captain and he also smiled. Was I doing the right thing? My mouth said yes but my mind still kept telling me no. I seemed to be making everyone happy. Maybe I was doing the right thing. As I thought to myself for fifteen minutes, my escargot finally arrived. It was 7 little green balls in a steel tray. The texture was so gooey. It smelled like they pulled the snails straight out of the salty ocean water. Before I placed it in my mouth, I counted down from 3… 2…1… gulp. It felt like disgusting phlegm. I separated the sandy textures with my tongue. It felt so rough and I kept thinking about eating snails right off the sand! That’s exactly how I felt. I took a moment to breathe, Clearing out my mind and emotions. My eyes widened. Glory and happiness fell upon my face. From then on my mind and body was one. I thought this was going to taste horrible and I braced myself for the worst but it actually tasted quite amazing. My taste buds were dancing and prancing in my mouth. I made a promise to myself that I would try and experiment all types of food around the world. Throughout the cruise I tried everything! Things that sounded nasty and gross. I tried stuff other people refused to try. So what’s next? Open to eating almost anything in the world.

This was the moment I decided to work on cruises. I see how happy and hardworking these chefs were so I wanted to be in their exact shoes. I even pretended I worked on the cruise, greeting people and telling jokes and people the whole cruise kept hugging me and smiled back. By the end of the cruise, everyone knew me because I participated in all the activities and parties. I pay close attention to the foods detailing and design and from that cruise I always wanted to become a chef. Every cruise I go on I make sure I take notes to help increase my knowledge and expertise on cooking. I also speak to the workers and chefs to give me an idea of work ethic and how to achieve my goal of becoming a chef!

Looking back I was a very picky child. My mother would always yell at me because I would go into a store and would order the same exact thing every time. I would argue with her and would never try anything knew. My favorite places to eat growing up were pizza stores and Mcdonalds but since my whole cruise experience, I enjoy Thai and Italian cuisines. I also joined an organization where every month we would go on food tours and id travel all over New York trying various types of famous dishes. Now I want to start making my own famous dishes that I can share with the world!