Suckling Pig Barbecue

A few weeks back, Liz, Luke, and I went out for lunch down in Nanping (Southern Zhuhai) with our Chinese friend Josh. We went to a restaurant that specializes in whole roasted suckling pigs. Fifteen-day-old suckling pigs. Two weeks. Half a month. 1/26th of a year old. Less than the time it takes to play a best of seven series in basketball. Innocence has never tasted so delicious.

First, they take said pig (post butchering) and put it on giant fork. Kind of a pitchfork minus the inner tines. Then, they slowly roast the "skewer" by hand over an open charcoal pit.







After cooking, the pig is then sectioned up, put on a platter, and served with sugar and a sweet Chinese barbecue sauce. There wasn't a whole lot of meat on the bones, so we mostly jut ate the skin and a little of the fatty muscle layer on the outside. If this all sounds horrible - killing a baby pig, cooking it splayed over and open flame, and then eating only its skin - then I don't know what to tell you. It was one of the most delicious meals I've had in China. For my birthday last winter (not pictured here, but over on Rachel's blog), I had a whole lamb cooked up at a local Western Chinese restaurant and served to me and 15 friends. I like eating whole animals.

Such as this roasted chicken, which was also at baby pig lunch.



We also ate a range non-whole animal courses, with the lotus root being the highlight.


Plates, from bottom, clockwise: flatbread; wilted greens; lotus root; and a potato, celery, and wood ear mushroom dish.

The restaurant was a friendly, open air sort of establishment...



with a nice view of the city...

The Big Thailand Post

Salinger strikes again after months of inactivity. What can I say? Both my father and Liz's mother asked where the hell my blog had gone, and my father even said something about how he has to follow my life via Rachel Ready. Incidentally, some of the Thailand photos over there were taken by yours truly (passive voice intended), but I leave it to you to sort out which ones. My photos are all in a slide show at the end of this post.

Our two-week trip went as follows: flight out of Macau to Phuket (stopover/customs in Bangkok). Spent a few days in a Swede-infested beach community in Phuket before grabbing a bus over to Krabi Town. Stayed in Krabi Town for a night, then took a boat to lovely Ko Lanta ("Koh" means island in Thai). Crashed at two different beaches on the western and southern coasts of Ko Lanta, then took a bus back up to Krabi and, from there, a car up into a somewhat mountainous, more forested, non-beachy, and less-Swedish area called Phanom Bencha. Enjoyed Phanom Bencha for a night, then back down to Krabi where we booked a bus-then-boat trip across the straight to Surat Thani City on the east coast, and on to Ko Phan-nga. We tried two different places in Phan-nga before ferrying back to Surat Thani for our flight home. As an overview for people that don't know me but happen to stumble across this entry: I and my two traveling companions (Liz and Rachel) are all somewhat experienced travelers, though none of us had been to Thailand or Southeast Asia before (Liz and I currently live in China); we were traveling on a shoestring in February (second most expensive time of year in Thailand, just after peak season); we were not interested in party hotspots or in being overly-backpacker (despite the fact we all had backpacks); we were not looking for anything too spiritual or back-to-nature; we sought out more relaxed places instead of areas known for transvestites and psychedelic drugs; we never booked anything more than a day or two in advance, save for our first hotel in Phuket; and we prefer eating good, authentic, and spicy Thai food.

First, Phuket Island (pronounced "poo-ket"). Phuket Island is roughly the size of Singapore, and is perhaps the original Thai beach resort destination. I found it to be overdeveloped, expensive, and full of Swedish people. Personally I wanted to leave from the moment we got there, but in retrospect it was probably a pretty good way to start the whole trip: we got Mexican food; we sat on a really nice, somewhat crowded beach (Hat Kata...FYI, "Hat" means beach in Thai) for about four hours; and the din of tour buses and unhappy Swedish children made me appreciate every other, better place we visited. Initially we didn't want to go to Phuket, but friends of ours gave us the impression that going to Southern Thailand without going to Phuket would be like going to Fenway and not singing "Sweet Caroline" - it's just something that you've got to do, no matter how kitschy and overdone you find the experience.

We went immediately from Phuket airport via minibus (note: take a taxi instead - it's worth it unless you're traveling alone, and probably WAY faster) to northern Hat Kata, where we had booked a room at a place called Fantasy Hill Bungalow. The internet reviews said this place was nice, though there were complaints that it was at the top of an epic hill and that you might need a sherpa and some oxygen containers to make the ascent. Okay, I am exaggerating about the complaints, but let me say that this place was FINE. The hill took about 30 seconds to walk up and was not very steep. FHB felt off the main road (in a good way); the proprietor was nice; the rooms were clean and affordable; and the breakfasts were completely adequate. My only minor complaint is that it is a bit of a slog to get to the beach, but then again so is everything in Kata besides Club Med.

After some discussion, we decided the best course of action was to stay in Hat Kata for two nights and then leave for the greener pastures of nearby Krabi province. We caught a songthaew (basically a covered pickup truck with benches on the sides) to the Phuket Town bus station, and from there easily got a bus over to Krabi Town. Lonely Planet and other guide books crap all over Krabi Town, essentially saying that you shouldn't spend any time there unless you are forced to do so. Well, go to hell Lonely Planet and other guide books - I really liked the place. Sure, it lacks charm and is sort of a small, non-descript stop-over town, but it has some really redeeming qualities: a great, cheap used bookstore (located downtown, on the street that runs along the river/bay); a cheap, clean, and VERY affordable hotel located next to said bookstore; a really cool night market that pops up on the weekends; and, speaking as a denizen of barbecue (both American and Asian), Krabi has a fantastic outdoor barbecue at night, right on the water next to one of the ports. Plus, I got up really early in the morning (for some unknown reason), went for a walk, and saw a family of rabble-rousing monkeys that appeared to live in or around the roof of a house near the aforementioned barbecue. MONKEYS! Yup, I got everything I could have hoped for out of Krabi Town.

After booking our ferry tickets the night we arrived in Krabi Town, we hopped on a very crowded boat destined for Ko Lanta (technically called Ko Lanta Yai, the more popular and southernmost of the two Ko Lantas). The boat, about the size of a double-decker bus, was somewhat pleasant. It was a very nice day and the crew let the passengers splay out on the uncovered deck and watch the Islets, fishing junks, and long boats go by. Unfortunately the boat was so stuffed with people that it was near impossible to get our bags once the boat docked in Saladan, but what is a minor inconvenience when you're on your way to miles and miles (kilometers and kilometers) of pristine beaches?

For our first night, we booked a couple bungalows at the Kantiang Bay Beach Resort, located (appropriately enough) in Kantiang Bay. The resort (basically a handful of adequate bamboo bungalows, priced around 700THB/night, and handsome concrete cottages, all right on or very close to the water) and Kantiang Bay in general were nice, quiet, and clean, except that the three of us agreed that perhaps we had overshot the "relaxed" beach target and had found a place that was downright sleepy. The beach itself was nice but not spectacular (Thailand has high standards), the place had a sort of overly-isolated feel, and the restaurant options were severely limited. In fact, we ate at this place (it had some sort of whimsical, seafaring name, like the Drunken Sailor or Jolly Skipper) which has something that I, a man that stands at six-feet-four-inches tall, loathe: cute seating arrangements. In addition to normal tables and chairs (which were all full when we arrived, and in a less appealing part of the restaurant), they have small, low tables with beanbags instead of chairs, or small, low tables with low-hanging chairs fastened by ropes to the ceiling. This adorable crap drives me bananas. How the hell am I supposed to make this work? How the hell am I supposed to drink one of their overpriced beers and eat one of their admittedly tasty burgers when I don't know where to put my freakishly long legs? They should have yoga lessons on the appetizers menu. I ended up waiting for the people next to us to leave so I could steal a beanbag to stack on top of my beanbag, thereby allowing me to sit in a reasonable position at a reasonable height with my reasonable plate of reasonable western food on my reasonable lap. All this reasonableness aside, we left the next day and went to my favorite place on the trip: Ao Phra Ae, a.k.a. Long Beach.

We arranged for a songthaew to drop us off next to the access road for Long Beach, then hoofed it up the beach until we found a place that struck our fancy. I can't recall the name of the place, but it - like many other beachfront resorts - had mixture of traditional-looking, two-person bamboo huts, as well as the more redoubtable yet spacious, modern concrete affairs. We went for the concrete because there were three of us and it made more fiscal, groupthink sense to band together.

I have nothing but positive things to say about Ko Lanta's Long Beach: the beach was gorgeous (; there were a lot of people around but never enough to make the place feel crowded; and it wasn't too expensive. The food was sort of a mixed bag...our favorite place was called The Funky Fish (I think), which was right on the water, served good Thai and western food, and made good drinks. We had everything there, from pizza, breakfast, and buckets of liquor to one of the spiciest Thai curries I'd ever had. We also had a really awful meal at another place, but why dwell on the negative?

The three of us decided to take an all-day snorkeling trip, chartered through one of the travel agencies on Long Beach. Side note on Thai travel agencies: in my limited experience, the travel agencies all tend to be about the same, selling the same trips for comparable prices while trying to gouge you into buying something more expensive. As far as I know, most of them aren't trying to straight-up swindle you. The trips are real, the tickets are real, and the prices they quote you are probably fair. And by fair, I mean to say that they won't try to charge you more than the next travel agency right down the street. My advice is to shop around when you first arrive in a given town, pick a place run by someone who at least seems nice, and then to go back to that same place for bike rentals, trips, bus tickets, etc. As with anywhere, the promise of future exchanges of money for goods and services tends to keep things both amicable and on the level.

Anyway, back to the snorkeling. I can't recall the price for the trip, but something in the neighborhood of $20 seems to ring a bell. We chose to go for the cheaper "slowboat" snorkeling trip; however, because there were not too many folks going snorkeling, the company chose to take everyone out on the speedboat. This was good because we would get to visit more dive spots, but bad because the boat would be more crowded. The speedboat was also being used to ferry people between different island resorts, so when we initially got on the boat with a bunch of snorkeling gear, there were a bunch of upset-looking Swedish families, angry that their transport was delayed. I was angry that they had so much stuff with them and took all the good seats, so let's call it even.

While snorkeling we saw all kinds of fish, coral reefs (shouldn't the plural be coral reeves?), bats living in small caves in nearby karsts, and lots of lovely scenery.

After a day of snorkeling, we decided to get away from the beach (begone with you, damned pristine beach!) and go up to a cool park area called Phanom Bencha. We stayed at the Phanom Bencha Mountain Resort, which advertised a beautiful, more secluded setting, fewer tourists, delicious food, and guided tours. I'm pleased to report that they followed through on all accounts except for the guided tour: when we arrived, we told them we wanted a tour the following morning. The evening prior at dinner we met our tour guide, who also happened to work at the resort restaurant. As was our habit during our trip, we had a few drinks and called it a night early; our guide was still up carousing with who I think must be the resort's owners (some foreigners to whom I did not speak). The next morning, we went down to meet our guide and were told he had a family emergency and had left early in the morning. Maybe he did. Maybe someone was actually sick. To me, the whole thing seemed fishy, but what can you say when they tell you there was a family emergency?

We decided to go hiking in the jungle on our own, in an area in the mountains behind the resort. It was very beautiful and hot. Unfortunately Liz and I had already hiked around on some of the paths the night before (we saw a trained monkey retrieving some sort of fruit for his owners!) and Rachel realized that she wasn't that into hiking; therefore, since we did not know where we were going, we hiked for about an hour, came back, packed up, and got the hell out of there.

Now, I don't want to undersell Phanom Bencha Mountain Resort, because it is really beautiful, quiet, and mostly devoid of tourists. We also really like the small but refreshing stream-fed pool, with its stunning views of the forest and mountains. However, I want to make one thing very clear to anyone who stumbles across this blog looking for a review of the place: it is not even remotely close to Phanom Bencha Park. There is at least one giant mountain between PBMR and the park. A guy at the resort told us it was at a four-hour hike to even get to the park. Your options for accessing the park are to either arrange for a car to drive you there and back (which I think would have cost in the neighborhood of 800 THB) or rent motorbikes. Those extra fees, added onto the park entrance fee, the price of the resort (1300 THB for a four-person bungalow - much more expensive than your cheapo beach accommodation), possibly hiring a guide, and the cost of getting yourself all the way out to PBMR in the first place make this a somewhat pricey excursion. For us, I think it was very underwhelming, though that was due in large part to the somewhat shady lack of an available tour guide. I will always remember the Phanom Bencha area as a beautiful, unsullied setting surrounded by rubber trees, and will try to forget about how disappointing the resort was.

We went directly to the Krabi Town bus station, said goodbye to the Andaman coast, and booked a bus-ferry package across the straight and out to Ko Phangan, an island in the Gulf of Thailand best known for the Full Moon Party (more on that in a bit). The first bus was pretty quick and painless, unless your name happened to be Rachel. We got to Surat Thani, had to do some frantic bus-changing on the side of a busy road, and not-so-promply drove for another 45 minutes to a port south of Surat Thani. Finally, we were ready to get on the boat, along with about 1,000 Australians, United Kingdomers (?), and Frathouse kids who were jacked, pumped, and stoked to take a bunch of hallucinogens and go the Full Moon Party. We had heard of the Full Moon Party at Hat Rin: go, take something that will make you see elves and wizards, dance to drum and base until 6am, and try not to get hit in the face by someone spinning fire or shooting off bottle rockets. Fortunately for us, we had all been to Renn Fayre before and didn't feel the need to put ourselves into an altered state.

All 1,003 of us plodded onto the massive ferry like cattle being led to the slaughter. The ferry was also mostly quick and painless, save for our possibly drunk ferry captain not being able to dock the boat in the slip for about 20 minutes. After disembarking, Rachel arranged for transport to a decent beachside resort on the Northwestern portion of the island, a.k.a. as far away as possible from the Full Moon Party. I don't recall much about the this resort, except for the following: we met some nice travellers from Ireland and ended up playing King's Cup with them until the wee hours; we saw a monkey retrieving coconuts from up in a tree, and then opened one of said coconuts and drink the sweet juice within; and we relaxed on the beach and did nothing.

We left after two nights and went to Bottle Beach (a.k.a. Hat Khuad) on the island's northern coast. It was beautiful, secluded, and there was one restaurant right on the beach that we went to every day. As Bottle Beach was our last beach stop before leaving Thailand, we didn't do much: lounged around the pool and on the beach one day; went to the closest port city and had a garlic fish (amazing) another. All in all, it was amazing. I think it was Liz's favorite beach, and my second favorite behind Long Beach on Ko Lanta.



Note: this post was written over the course of an embarrassing number of months. Liz's computer died and we were sharing, making the whole blogging thing very difficult. I apologize if the end (or any other part) seems totally tacked on.

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.

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.

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.

Putuo Temple

Last Monday, Liz and I took the #26 bus to its very end to see the Putuo Buddhist Temple in Northwest Zhuhai. It is pretty out there, beyond the wide avenues and concrete abutments of New Xiangzhou and past some fairly provincial hamlets and dirt roads. Mind you, the temple's setting is not a wholly pastoral one: there's construction equipment and mini-mountains (some call them hills) of excavated dirt all throughout the area, as well as what appears to be the nascent groundwork for either a lightrail or raised highway.

There's plenty of construction going on inside the temple too, with contractors, carpentry stuffs, scaffolding, and concealing tarpaulins in many of the temple buildings. In my pictures, you can see piles of roofing and wall tile, ceramic adornments, and the aforementioned scaffolding, etc.

The Wet Market

Not too much to say on this post...here are some photos (complete with captions) that I took of the Wet Market a little while back. Called thusly because the entire first floor is a veritable seafood emporium, the Wet Market also has lots of produce, eggs, dried goods, and Chinese women wielding meat cleavers in poorly lit areas. As always, click through to see the full slideshow.

I've got some more photos to put up in the next few days, so sit tight.

Happy Birthday to throw me out the window, and photos of Shijing Shan

I have been woken up by some pretty horrible, irritating things in China, but today I think takes the cake. Let me set the scene: I was sleeping very soundly - a feat unto itself if you've ever rested your head on a calcified Chinese mattress with its equally petrified pillow - when I started to stir at this...this...sound. It wasn't the ubiquitous car horn, jackhammering, or random building construction that you sometimes get but which we are for the most part spared because our apartment is on the 18th floor. No, my friends, it was something more nefarious and sinister. Rotten. Evil. The last sound you hear as you pass through the fourth circle of hell. It was "Happy Birthday to You" on a continuous loop. It was a tinny, midi-esque, lyric-less version that had all the acoustic depth of a ambulance siren. In fact, if it weren't for the lack of Doppler effect (meaning it was in motion), I might have thought (and prayed) that it was attached to some sort of vehicle. But of course it wasn't; wherever it was and whatever stationary demon spawn that acted as its sounding board was here to stay.

And on and on and on and on it went. There was never a fleeting hope of this damned song ever ending, for as soon as the final note of the chorus (the "to youuuuu" note) was struck, there, right on top of it like a tailgating pickup truck on 128 in rush hour, was the first note of the song ("Happy Birthday...") in catastrophic, gut wrenching liaison.

After several minutes of me being at least partially awake, I began to consider more lucidly where this horrible racket might be coming from. Let's see...the windows are closed, so that must mean it's either the loudest child's toy in all of creation in use on the ground several hundred feet below; or it's in an adjoining apartment, meaning it must be the second loudest child's toy of all time in order for it to seep through the foot-thick concrete walls. Hey, maybe it's a cellphone...what the hell kind of person has this as a cell phone ring, why haven't they picked up, and why hasn't the person on the other end given up in desperation? Oh, I've got it: someone has this as their alarm tone on their alarm clock. I remember one of my old housemates would sometimes set his alarm the day before and then sleep at his lady friend's house, meaning I would have to lumber into his room in a haze and flip the thing off. The left-on alarm also lead to Elaine borrowing a meat slicer to feed a starving cat, if memory serves.

At this point I was starting to see spots. Mercifully, I was spared "Happy Birthday to You" for about five minutes when an actual car alarm went off. That's right: I was happier to listen to a blaring car alarm then to have to hear that song. However, it was imprinted on my hearing, so when he car alarm went off and the song could once again be heard clearly, it was as if it never left.

While I try to talk myself out of jamming a pencil in my ears, here are some photos I took last week when Liz and I went on a hike up a mountain (Shijing Shan) at a local park (I use that term loosely) about ten minutes (by bus) from our apartment. The full album/slideshow is viewable in slideshow form here. All the photos in that album are represented here, so only check out the slideshow if you want to see the photos in high res and/or sans witty commentary.

To start: in my experience, parks in China are not vast green wilderness or even apportioned public land areas like Central Park; rather, they are a blend of amusement park, tourist attraction, and genuine park. They are closer to a ski resort in the summer time than they are to anything else - and Shijing Shan completes that comparison with a ski lift, a mountaintop restaurant, and this thing, which is not unlike an alpine slide:





But I'm getting ahead of myself. At he base of the mountain (more of a large hill, really) is something straight out of Pigeon Forge, Tennessee: bumper boats, bumper cars, cheesy little shooting galleries, and an "exotic" bird house. If you know Liz, you know she loves birds, but even the awesome grandeur and untold promise of this exotic bird house (basically about the size of two mobile homes) couldn't make us for over the RMB to gain entrance. Look how happy Liz looks outside, with a couple of peacocks tethered to a gold painted bench!

Reel it in a little hon' - your enthusiasm is spooking the locals! Actually, I think this photo is pretty cute, but I digress...

Also, there was, for some reason (art for art's sake) a large bronzed hand, measuring about six feet wide. I could not be convinced to lay in it, Fay Wray style.


Once you get beyond all the tacky stuff at the bottom, the hike is actually quite nice, offering some excellent views of the surrounding scenery...


...Jida (section south of Xiangzhou, where we live)...


...and of Xiangzhou (notice the "Boat Restaurant" on the right hand side).


Our apartment is one of the pinkish/beige buildings at the center of this photo.


Also at the top of the mountain was a neat rock formation, which I dubbed "Chinahenge" even though it most likely has no spiritual or historical bearing on anything.


Finally, at the absolute peak of Shijing Shan is a huge radio tower. It's massive, and is probably the reason that I get clear-as-a-bell cellphone reception in elevators.


Here's an artsy version of the tower, with a red Chinese banner in the foreground.


After we made our way down the mountain, we crossed the street and went over to Haibing Park, which is actually sort of similar to a Western style city park. Of course, this one had some kind of neat birds, such as the common kingfisher, seen here in the middle of a manmade lake...


...some sort of fake crane statuary (still looks pretty neat)...


...and some variety of wagtail (small white, gray, and black, on the cement lip that ringed the pond), so called because it wags its tail when to runs around.


Okay, "Happy Birthday to You" has finally stopped playing, though I can still hear it go on and on and on...to youuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu.

Wanshan Island photos

Here are the photos from Wanshan Island. Liz took some and I took some - I didn't bother to give a photo credit because I don't remember who had the camera in their hand. Also, I should point out that these were taken with Liz's little Fujifilm point and shoot, as I wasn't sure how safe my camera would be in our hotel. As it turns out, it would have been fine and I was kicking myself for not bringing it along.

Liz has photos up on her blog as well, along with a more thorough account of the trip.

Typhoon photos

When Liz and I were leaving for this great adventure, everyone told us to be careful, safe, and the like. Like a seven-year-old who's been told not to look at the sun during an eclipse, I decided to go against my own best interest and venture out with some new friends (Michael and Bev) into the remnants of a typhoon. I assure you, the typhoon was still blowing hard and, yes, we brought beer. Here are photos - I'm going to try to them with a Picasa slideshow because there are so many. Simply click on the slideshow to see full size versions of individual slides, or to see a larger slideshow.

The Island of my mind was not this dirty

We went to Qi'ao Island last week. It was actually pretty nice considering we were able to get there by bus. A side note on the buses here: they are very frequent, cheap, and efficient, and you thank your lucky stars if you are able to get an air conditioned one; they usually aren't too crowded except during rush hour; and absolutely nothing is in English (shocking I know). Anyway, we took a bus (including a detour where we went about 20 minutes beyond our stop and ended up in a Chinese office/industrial park) and were able to escape the throngs of people for a few hours.

Qi'ao Island is just off the coast of Tangjiawan on the northeastern tip of Zhuhai, and is accessible by a nice bridge via bus #85. Qi'ao isn't super exotic or anything, though I guess "exotic" is relative to whatever you know and expect. On a sliding scale, Qi'ao Island is more exotic than Rhode Island, Fire Island, and Staten Island. Actually it is more built up than I would have expected. There are several university affiliate branches out there, as well as some smallish factories, an international school, some restaurants (more on that later), and a few oldish fishing villages. I read that there are also old ruins and temples, but I didn't find any. It was about 9,000 degrees Fahrenheit (5,000 Celsius) and we underestimated how much water a couple of gringos would need to stay strong, so our hike was perhaps not as awesomely awesome to the awesomest power as it could have been. That is to say that we cut it a little shorter than we would have liked. Oh well.

In any case, I'll let the pictures do the talking. Also, I'm still waiting on more suggestions for Snake Whiskey...

***

Here's the entrance to the mountainous "area" in which we went hiking...let's just call the "area" a park, because the actual name of the place is both long winded and completely nonsensical, as you can see by the writing above the archway:


I have no idea what "ollywood [sic] International Film and Television Culture City" is, as the park does not in any way involve "ollywood", "International", "Film", "Television", "Culture", or "City" (it may involve "and", and nature's inherent complexity probably requires a conjunction or two to keep on keepin' on). Side note: it's like the joke my highschool European history teacher used to tell about the Holy Roman Empire - "It was neither 'Holy' nor 'Roman' nor an 'Empire'." When Mr. Jackson said that, we just laughed and laughed and laughed.

Perhaps there was once a movie filmed there...as far as I could tell, there were just a few beat up little concrete huts, a giant radar tower on the mountaintop, some fishermen's shacks, a couple hard-to-access beaches, dead frogs, and menacing giant spiders on their equally menacing webs. Not sure what the scenery would give you cinematically, but clearly someone from the crew stole the "H" on the entrance sign when they found out that their contract didn't carry into post production.

Here's one of those dilapidated concrete huts I was talking about.


Here's a view of the coastline, taken as we were walking down a little dirt path.


After our hike, we found a beach a few miles away that had a really wonderful, quiet restaurant. We had some sort of pork dish (or maybe it was duck)...


...and the best tofu dish I've eaten in my entire life, cooked with noodle-thin mushrooms...


Also, out front was a guy raising and lowering a giant fishing net into the water using pedal power. You can see the net being raised on the giant harness, as well as the fisherman in the small covered area on the right.


Also, I'd like to note that we survived our first typhoon, which made landfall here on Tuesday afternoon and night. After staying up all night at a friend's apartment (typhoon party), we went out and took come shots of the destruction. I'll get those photos up this weekend.

Island photos, Autumn festival, Gongbei and more

Here's the second round of photos. For some reason I have been terrible about taking photos of a lot of the things that to me make this place so unique: the vendors, the random guys on bicycles carrying van-sized bundles of styrofoam and cardboard, the food, Chinese fashion, and the like. I may have to commandeer Liz's point-and-shoot to take some photos when I leave my bulky kit at home. She won't mind...I think she kind of likes me.

Here's an old rundown apartment building across the way from where we were staying after we first arrived. I'm not sure, but my guess is that these types of places were first built when Zhuhai started to expand beyond a fishing village some 20 years ago. They're still around - moreso away from commercial areas - and are not the type of place that I would want to live.

Here is Ye Li Dao (or Ye Li Island) during the day, as seen from our 18th floor apartment.

The boxy, temple-looking thing on the left is actually a restaurant, which is visible at night...

I took this during the Mid-Autumn Festival. If you don't know what the Mid-Autumn Festival is, let me break it down for you by way of a simple equation: Halloween + (Phish concert - illegal drugs) + China + (4th of July - universal drunkenness) + Lunar Calendar = Mid-Autumn Festival. There are families picnicking everywhere. Little kids carry around traditional paper lanterns. People are happy. Glowsticks. Blinking, lit up toys. Disgusting mooncakes (no one likes them). And old people dance in the streets!

I probably snapped off 40 frames to get this scene: just across the causeway on Ye Li Island, they set up a circular fenced off area and played Chinese swing music (for lack of a better description). One by one, older Chinese couples would get up and dance. Well, more shuffle around in rhythm while holding hands. And on and on it went.

Ye Li Island has a path that goes all the way around it and takes a few hours to walk, or so I'm told. We only made it about 15 minutes in. I snapped these photos of people approaching on bikes and on foot. It was very crowded, in a good way.

Here's a shot of some locals I took today in Gongbei - the busy, somewhat touristy area that includes the Macau border.

The bike carts you see are often filled with anything from trash to produce.

Not sure what to make of this. It was in front of a hotel-looking building, which I assume was actually a government building of some kind.

As you can perhaps tell by the glass tubing, the plane gets lit up at night (I'll try to get a photo if I'm ever in the area).

The rest of the shots were taken from Lover's Road in Gongbei, about an hour before sunset.

Here's Liz, with Macau in the background. Or Macau, with Liz in the foreground...however you want to look at it. Regardless, if you click through and blow up the photo, you can see the crown of the Grand Lisboa in the skyline just above Liz's head.

Here are two shots up Lover's Road in the other direction. You can see part of sprawling Zhuhai in the first...

...and a semi-funky shot where I was playing around with the f-stop.

We were seaside during low tide, so there was a flock of Little Egrets jumping around in the mud looking for dinner.

Liz told me they were Little Egrets. I have no idea. The only birds I see these days are either skinned, roasted, and hanging in shop windows, or are locked in little wire cages waiting to be skinned, roasted, and hung in a shop window. As an aside, we had lunch yesterday at an outdoor noodle place that adjoined a sidewalk stall where you could have a lady kill, pluck, and gut a live chicken or goose for you. Good noodles. I plan on going back during the chicken stall's off hours.

As I said, it was low tide. There was also a guy wading around in a larger tidal pool looking for small crabs.

Chinese Quahoging, my friends. Chinese Quahoging.

First day photos in Xiangzhou

People have been asking for photos, so here they are in the approximate order I took them. Liz and I had time the first day we were in town to walk about in our area (called Xiangzhou...sort of the Brooklyn of Zhuhai, as best I can tell), so these first few photos are as close as you'll get to my first impressions (minus, regrettably, any food photography). Click on the photos to see higher res versions. At some point I'll get a Flickr account and make this photo thing a little more streamlined, but currently I feel like some content is better than no content

This is sort of typical highrise architecture in Zhuhai. Usual setup on the main boulevards (or "beilu") is a 20-story apartment or office building with a one- to four-story shop of some kind at the bottom. In the pictures above and below, there are large electronics stores at the bottom.

Same building pictured here on the left. Our apartment is in the second set of tan buildings on the left. We're on the other side of the building, 18th floor (more on that in a bit).

Two old men lounge around in the shade of an alley; one of them is some sort of cobbler. It's at least 90 degrees out. Every alley and sidestreet is full of people fixing things (cobblers, tailors, small engine mechanics), cleaning things (carpets, furniture, dishes), and, of course, selling things (clothes, shoes, sunglasses, noodles, whole roasted chickens, dried fish, produce, Chinese medicine, DVDs, juice, tea, and beer). I'll make sure I get some shots of the different vendors and post them here. Important to note is how safe I feel here. Other than the threat of pickpockets and the occasional drunken idiot, I think common sense (no dark alleys at 2am) will keep us very safe.

Silk flowers in a storefront.

A cat leashed to a tree. The angle of its neck makes me think it's giving me the once over.

Banyan trees line one side of Lover's Road. Lover's Road (more pictures to come in future posts) is the main thoroughfare that meanders along the seaside in Zhuhai.

We took a bus south along Lover's Road and hopped off in a beachy part of Jida, a slightly less residential part of Zhuhai than Xiangzhou. We stopped, had some malted beverages and watched the sky turn dark. This little seaside bar (an anomaly in Zhuhai) channels its inner Thailand and places some lanterns inside kayaks planted upright in the sand. I got this photo by putting my camera on our table and telling everyone not to move. I need a damn tripod. More to come soon.