Martyr's Mausoleum

Went with Rachel and Liz up to Martyr's Mausoleum, which, like seemingly everything in Zhuhai (or so says Rachel), is in our neighborhood near the Jusco.

Despite it being just up the street, Liz and I hadn't actually been there before. It wasn't amazing, but it was clean, green, perched atop a short hill, free, and had a fair amount of birds.

Thailand and Updike

Firstly, Liz, Rachel, and I will be leaving for Thailand on Friday and will come back a couple weeks later. No idea if I'll have internet access, or the inclination to write anything while staying in what is reputedly the most beautiful country in the world. Pictures and stories will abound upon our safe return.

Finally, John Updike passed away yesterday. I was never a huge Updike fan; nothing against the man and his work, but I just haven't gotten around to reading him yet. However, his October 1960 New Yorker essay "Hub Fans Bid Kid Adieu" - which covers Ted Williams' final game at Fenway Park and, in a roundabout way, Williams' career - left a lasting impression on me after I first read it some 10 years ago. The opening paragraph gives the quintessential and oft-repeated portrait of Fenway Park; the terse, perfect, and famous line, "Gods do not answer letters," could serve as a subheader on a Williams biography; but perhaps my favorite section, one that I considered during the that magical 2004 postseason run, is obviously about something much more than baseball:

...there will always lurk, around a corner in a pocket of our knowledge of the odds, an indefensible hope, and this was one of the times, which you now and then find in sports, when a density of expectation hangs in the air and plucks an event out of the future.

A weekend in Hong Kong

Liz and I headed to Hong Kong last weekend to meet up with some friends. We crashed in a hostel (cheap!) in bustling Causeway Bay (not cheap!), and used that as a jumping off point to explore Hong Kong Island and southern Kowloon. We took the ferry from Jiuzhou Port in Zhuhai (165 RMB each way; about an hour and a quarter in travel time) into Central HK, checked into our hostel, and we were off!

First thing: we had some delicious street food. I didn't snap a photo, but I seem to remember that it was some sort soup or curry or something. Tasty, but not altogether memorable for reasons that shall soon become apparent (many other good meals).

After that, the two of us, along with two friends recently of Portland/Shanghai, hopped on the incredibly convenient HK Metro (a.k.a. the MTR) and went north to the Kowloon flower and bird markets. The flower market is located on the sidewalk of a narrow street. Locals and tourists stand shoulder to shoulder with vendors. There were lots of floral and fruit (fructal?) arrangements for Chinese New Year. I don't know much about flowers, and usually things like this would have me bored to tears; however, the slightly exotic flavor (flavour!) of the place combined with the frenetic back and forth of Kowloon completely offset my total lack of interest in flowers. Also, flowers are easy to photograph because they don't move and are very colorful.

Next, we went to the bird market, which is at the end of the flower market street. If you know Liz, you know she was thrilled to go here. A few days before we went to HK, she was coyly saying things like "will we have time to go to Kowloon?" and "don't you think Kowloon would be cool?" I didn't know about the bird market until one of our friends mentioned it; I replied, "hey, Liz, I bet you'd like that!" Her reply: "Dan, why do you think I wanted to go to Kowloon!"

In any case, the bird market sells pet birds of all shapes, sizes, and colors (colours!). There are ornate bamboo cages everywhere. There are also tons of wild native birds hanging out and eating free bird seed. Liz was very excited. I joked that she would have to take a nap afterwards to settle her down.



Then we took the ultra-convenient airport tram ($100 HKD) out to meet Rachel. She was in surprisingly good shape, after sitting in planes/airports for something like 60 hours. We had Burger King (first fast food in five months), headed back to HK island, and met up with some folks for hotpot on the streets (lots of seafood!).

On Sunday, we got up a little late and went into Central/SoHo for Mexican food. Oh my god, I missed Mexican food. It was stupid-expensive but delicious. SoHo is a very interesting neighborhood; it's very westernish and touristy, and has a long system of convenient outdoor escalators known as the Mid-level Escalators.

After brunch, we headed over to check out the zoo, botanical garden, and aviary at Hong Kong park. I don't take pictures at zoos (or aviaries) because they never come out. The bars always throw the focus of the camera off; besides, would you really want to look at a picture taken by a tourist of a South American lemur living in a cage in Hong Kong? No. You can find better pictures of that selfsame animal on the internet. Suffice it to say that the entire complex at Hong Kong park was excellent, free, and worth the trip.

We then sort of wandered around the bustling financial district and successfully avoided getting hit by the double-decker trams. The Financial District has everything you'd expect in any of the world's great cities: expensive cars, skyscrapers festooned with bank logos, and high end stores such as Louis Vuitton, Armani, Bvlgari, etc. There's not really a lot to see, although personally I did get a kick out of standing in the heart of the fourth largest financial center (centre!) in the world. I did NOT get a kick out of a searched-for English language bookstore being closed.

We left HK island via metro and went north to the Temple Street night market. It was a little early, so we strolled around, looked at the street's namesake Buddhist Temple (which was mostly closed), and ate more street food. I'll just say right now that we ate every three hours on Sunday night and that I personally did not take any photos on my camera of anything except the last late-night meal. Perhaps Rachel or Liz took some photos that I will be able to post later. In any case, here is what I recall about those three meals, in order: first meal (street food in Kowloon) was some boiled crab, tofu braised in soy sauce, small clams in soy sauce (my favorite), fried wontons, and Skol, the nationless beer. Second meal (street food, also in Kowloon) had some sort of beef noodles, really interesting egg rolls (outsides had a fried fishnet look to them), and something else that I can't recall. Third and final meal (at a restaurant in Causeway Bay) was sharkball noodle soup and a plate of crispy fried dumplings. In between eating, we checked out the night market, talked with some locals, and went up to Lan Kwai Fong for a moderate amount of expensive revelry. All in all, it was a fun, contained evening.

Monday morning we got up, checked out of our hostel, and had breakfast congee at a local spot. The congee was thicker than I'm used to, but still the same, with century egg, scallions, and shredded pork. Delicious, if unremarkable. We then walked to Victoria Park, which is west of Causeway Bay. More of a community oriented space than Hong Kong Park, Victoria Park has soccer fields, open gardens, and even a pool where people can launch model boats! As in every park in China, there were older people doing freestyle Tai Chi.

We then got on the metro and headed up to the Peak Tram base station. The Peak Tram is a funicular railway that runs up to the Peak, a.k.a. Victoria Peak. The Peak looms over Hong Kong island, and gives some absolutely spectacular views on clear days. Of course, truly clear days are few and far between in southern Asia, so we would have to settle for mostly clear with a thin veneer of haze. The Peak Tram is bloody steep; in one of my photos, I (poorly) tried to show level ground in contrast to the 27 degree gradient of the railway tracks. Good lord was it steep.

Ten minutes later, we were at the top, and were treated to some really stunning daytime views of the Hong Kong skyline. Just beautiful. The biggest downside to the Peak is the hideous Peak Tower. This U-shaped monstrosity - home to the culturally enriching Madame Tussaud's Hong Kong - is supposed to be reminiscent of a wok. To me, it was reminiscent of an air control tower ("let's rack 'em, stack 'em, and pack 'em!"). Awful. Apparently you could pay an extra $15 HKD to go on top of this odious structure for an even better view, but I chose to save my money...which I think worked out just fine!

Our final act of Hong Konging was to go back to the mid-level escalator area and eat lunch at a New York style deli. It was transcendent. Rachel got pastrami, and Liz and I went half and half on a Rueben and an Italian sandwich. There were onion rings as well. This may seem trivial to you, but I cannot get anything approaching this in Zhuhai, so I was quite pleased.



We left Hong Kong via the Kowloon ferry terminal because they had a 5:30pm ferry. The entire travelling process was a snap. Simply put: I love Hong Kong. If anyone knows of a Hong Kong -based financial institution or marketing firm looking for a young English speaker with a tremendous work ethic and above average writing skills, send them my way!

Finally, here is a photo sequence, taken from an elevated walkway at the corner of Queens Road and Pedder Street in Central. I would recommend advancing through the pictures manually as fast as you can, rather than using the too-slow autoplay.

Heading to Hong Kong

Liz and I are heading to Hong Kong to meet up with this person (arriving from Europe) and this person + girlfriend (recently of PDX and Shanghai). The meeting is part long-term plans, part magical scheduling confluence. We're not sure exactly what we'll do, though a trip to Victoria Peak is certainly on the dockett. As one member of our party will be very jetlagged, I think the answer: not much.

In any case, this week Liz and I took turns getting ill (either mild food poisoning or a 24-hour bug), so we haven't had much occasion to take photos or eat anything interesting. In fact, I'm currently drinking the first cup of coffee in three days that hasn't made me double over in pain.

Ginger Coke

Liz has a new favorite breakfast beverage: jiang le, or ginger cola. Basically, you take some Coke, toss in some julienned or shredded ginger, simmer it for a while to cook off some of the water, and serve it hot (or presumably cold). She first had it yesterday at local luncheonette, and again this morning at the Hong Kong restaurant. It is not carbonated (the bubbles disappear in the simmering), but it has a definite gingery smack to it. In fact, the drink always has a big pile of ginger floating it it! I'm not a huge fan of ginger - I tend to like it if it is cooked into a dish - but this is tasty and feels good on a sore throat. It sort of resembles black coffee, so I guess it is an acceptable breakfast drink.

An American friend had a cold a few months back, and Chinese friend came over and made him some jiang le. "Chinese medicine," she said, "good for health." His reply: "but you've only had Coke in Zhuhai for like 10 years!"

Sichuan Restaurant - not hotpot!

A few days ago, we went to a Sichuan restaurant in our neighborhood for lunch. Famous for pandas, mountains, and the notorious 2008 earthquake, Sichuan (a.k.a. Szechuan) is known as one of China's two spicy provinces (the other being Hunan). Perhaps Sichuan's most consumed cuisine is Sichuan hotpot, which I have had many times and which I regard as one of the most enjoyable dining experiences you'll find; slowly chowing on plates of meats and vegetables cooked in a pot of ultra-spicy boiling liquid that is shared by you, eight friends, random Chinese well-wishers, and an always-growing stack of beer bottles is terrific. (A note of warning: when finished, you have a gut full of fire and you stink like a spice rack; hotpot is best consumed when you have adequate time afterward to change clothes and take a nap).

All that is fine and dandy, except that the Sichuan restaurant we visited was not hotpot. It was just delicious Sichuan food. Spicy, simple, savory, and served family style. We're still working on learning menu Chinese, so some of what we ate was ordered via "eeny-meeny-miney-moe."

The first dish - we actually got a double order because the servings were very small - was spicy beef.

Beyond soy sauce, I have no idea on the sauce flavoring...though I can say confidently that the numbing, slightly metallic-tasting Sichuan peppercorns were making themselves known. From the way the dish was served, I would assume that it was cooked in a bamboo rice steamer, but I don't know if there were other preparatory steps. The tender, slightly sour (perhaps some fermented rice and/or soy?), salty, and spicy beef was just splendid on top of a bit of rice.

We managed to order wonton soup.

This was not the wonton soup you'll find at your $7.95 lunch buffet in the States; it was proper, with pork, squid, mushrooms, and amazing boiled wontons (basically dumplings, with extra strands of dough).

The next dish was good, if unremarkable. I ordered it unknowingly - oh well!

Green beans, potatoes, seaweed (wakame maybe?), and chunks of bone-in pork (of course!) all simmered to perfection in a fairly standard broth. At first I thought it was a little boring, but then our friend Luke made the point that most vegetables you get in China are stir-fried in oil and covered in soy sauce; that is to say that simple, lightly-seasoned al dente vegetables (such as those pictured above) are actually a refreshing change of pace. If you subtracted the seaweed and switched the pork out for lamb, it'd be downright Irish.

Now for the dumplings, a.k.a. jiaozi.

Wow. This was a real crowd pleaser. I've never seen dumplings served like this before. What you're looking at are 12 dumplings that have been carefully placed in a very hot, oiled wok, and browned on the bottom. Then (I think) the chef poured some sort of batter into the wok around the dumplings; the screaming hot oil then bubbles up through the batter, quickly crisping it and giving it this sort of sunburst effect. The dumplings and concomitant batter are then dumped upside down onto a plate. Voila! The crisped batter retains the shape of the wok (or other cooking vessel), giving the whole thing a kind of crispy umbrella effect. This is just my guess at the preparation...I could be totally wrong, so please correct me if you know otherwise. The dumplings were tasty, but their real star power came from their presentation and their texture - soft and moist on one side, perfectly crunchy with little bits of batter on the other.

We also ordered ma po tofu, but I neglected to get a picture of it. It was delicious, with both the spicy hot pepper flavoring and the numb of Sichuan peppercorns. You can find this dish in many Chinese restaurants, including very dumbed down (but delicious) versions at western Chinese restaurants.

Also ordered at random was a bowl of dough balls. No picture, and I wouldn't even know where to find them on the internet. Basically, they were gumball-sized spheres of gooey rice dough with a bit of sweetened bean paste in the middle, cooked and served in warm, slightly-sweet sugar water. It sort of looked like half a dozen misshapen golf balls sitting in a bowl of water. Apparently they are usually eaten for breakfast. They were fine.

Finally, we unknowingly got a bowl of steamed eggs. As opposed to the other dishes which found their way onto our table 10 minutes after we ordered, this dish took about 30 minutes.

Steamed eggs, in texture, are sort of reminiscent of an egg custard or a stiff pudding, though steamed eggs are much lighter, usually savory, and served warm. Soy and Pepper, a food blog I read from time to time, has a pretty good rundown on the preparation of one variation of this dish. As with omelets and quiche, I would guess that steamed eggs can be made with all kinds of ingredients; the version we had was just steamed eggs with a drizzle of unidentifiable, salty-sour brown sauce (I suspect the sauce was the same base for the sauce in the spicy beef dish mentioned above). Its almost buoyant consistency and understated flavor served as a sapid counterbalance to the rest of the heavily-seasoned dishes we ordered. In other words, not stupendous, but a good capstone to delicious meal.

Hong Kong Restaurant

After a night of a perfectly controlled and reasonable amount of fun, Liz and I met a friend at the aforementioned Hong Kong style restaurant (HKR). No idea of the name because - surprise! - the signage is all in Chinese. Nonetheless, this place has been somewhat of a revelation for several reasons, which I shall list and, in my roundabout way, discuss.

First, its menu is small, without English and (for the most part) pictures, and all the like items are grouped together. Liz and I (mostly Liz) are trying to learn menu Chinese. We know the big ones now: pork, chicken, beef, lamb, rice, steak (no bones!), fire (meaning roasted, pan-fried, or grilled), sandwich, and a few others. However, since many Chinese menus are massive and are slapped together in a way that doesn't necessarily make sense to a couple of gringos like us, our menu Chinese will only get us as far as knowing what the dish's main protein will be, excepting when there are pictures on the menu. HKR, thankfully, gives you a rational, compact menu written in highly legible typeface. We don't always know precisely what we order, but at least we feel pretty confident that we won't be served a plate of regret, self loathing, and offal in brown sauce.

Second, the place has a definite Americana diner feel to it. If they served omelets or if I overheard a couple of old guys bitching about the Red Sox in between sips of heavily creamed and sugared coffee, I'd think I was back in New England. Okay, slight exaggeration, as there are roasted ducks and chickens (avec les tetes, bien sur!), but I digress. HKR is lined with spacious four-person booths; this is important because you don't get giant tables of Chinese families yelling at each other (which sort of disturbs, nay shatters, ambiance). And there are always a lot of people in HKR. A good diner should be packed with people - talking loudly but not shouting - to give it sort of a buzzing hive aura. HKR is clean (not that I'm a neat freak). They have nice pictures on the walls. Next to the kitchen, there are muted TVs which play sports (they had a Portland Trailblazers-LA Fakers game on today) and news. I like this because my first instinct is not to stare at them with blank stupidity as I try to parse the Mandarin (as is m habit with every other ambient, sound-on Chinese television), but rather to try to ascertain what is going on with careful observation. Seeing and not hearing is better. In general, it's just a good, familiar restaurant to walk into, and that's what you want in a breakfast spot.

Third, they have real coffee! Not instant coffee! I cannot overstate how important this is! Most places don't have coffee, unless you go to a "Western" restaurant (expensive, cheesy, and devoid of people), a coffee shop (expensive), or make it at home! And the coffee is good! Really good! I'm not the coffee snob I was when I lived in Oregon, but I know good coffee when I have it! Look! I'm writing with exc!amation points!

Fourth, the food is really tasty and inexpensive. It's not served family style, which is a plus because I hate having to come to a consensus or to order for other people or have other people order for me when I have a damn headache/haven't had coffee yet. As I mentioned in my previous post, the congee is top notch. The congee comes in half a dozen traditional flavors (i.e. pork, chicken, fish) and with the usual accouterments (chopped century egg, scallions, sliced mushrooms). It also comes with chunks of youtiao, which serve as veritable croutons with a texture reminiscent of fried dough. Note: youtiao in Cantonese means "fried ghost" - horrors! HKR also has delicious baked riced and vegetable bowls, as well as sandwiches. Hurray sandwiches! They're definitely Chinese style - with the requisite slightly sweet and very squishy white bread and gobs of mayo - but how can you complain when someone fries a pork chop, puts it between two slices of bread with some cheese and perfunctory vegetables, and gives it to you? You can't! Did I mention they have coffee!

Here's a couple photos. The congee up close; it's slightly brown because I stirred in a drizzle of soy sauce.


Here's the bird's eye view.

Ham sandwich at left; pork chop sandwich at right; coffee! You can see the youtiao on a plate peeking out from behind the congee as well.

Anyway, this place may not be anything special, especially if you've spent a significant amount of time in China and/or Hong Kong. But diners - or breakfast spots - in a specific sense are not special: they all have great French toast, western omlets, sandwiches, red leather booths, and long lines on Sunday mornings. Sometimes they have pissed off Portugeuese guys from East Providence, or Jerry Seinfeld, or the Fonz, or an awkward conversation between two people that just met the previous night. It's not the exclusivity or uniqueness of a breakfast spot that gives it cachet; it's good food, reasonable prices, and comfortable surroundings enveloped in sublime familiarity.