September Update

As I spent most of the latter part of August traveling around Hong Kong, September became the month where we traveled outside of Hong Kong.

-- Taipei ---

September 13 - Flew in to Taipei International Airport and stayed with Paige's family in Tien Mu. We got to spend time with Paige, Henry, Haley, Paige's brother and his girlfriend all at the great hospitality of Paige's parents.

September 14 - Visited Taipei 101's Observation deck in the morning followed by a visit and lunch at Taipei American School (TAS) to reminisce the good old days with old friends. Grace Chen, Helen Chen, and Lilian Yu were all able to make it as well for a little mini-reunion for class of 95.

September 15 - Visited the Palace Museum with Paige and Henry. We spent a good 4-5 hours day and had tea and dim sum at the tea house on the 4th floor.

September 16 - Flew out of Taipei and back home to Hong Kong.

Pics


--- Bintan, Indonesia and Singapore ---

September 18 - We flew into Singapore, followed by a 1-hour ferry ride to Bintan to settle into the Bintan Lagoon Resort. We were welcomed in by Indonesian dancers and enjoyed a nice Surf and Turf buffet dinner at the Nelayan Grill.

September 19 - Woke up to a cloudy day followed quickly by a short thunderstorm. As soon as the rain stopped, we headed to the beach to book our first snorkeling trip. We went to a coral reef bay about a 10-minute boat ride from the hotel and had a great time exploring the waters with lots of fish, sea anemone, and corals. We wrapped up the day each with a giant cheeseburger and fries at Verandah by the Leisure Center. Boy, did the burgers hit the spot after the snorkeling and salt water.

September 20 - We decided to explore the shopping area and headed over to Pasar Oleh Oleh. It's not much of a shopping area but we got to sign up for some massage session and try some Indonesian food outside of the resort. Two one-hour massages and lunch for less than US$50... not too bad :-) We wrapped up the day with the Mangrove Discovery tour which took us through the mangrove rivers to discover several different species of mangroves, snakes, birds, and a local family fishing.

September 21 - Beautiful sunny day in Bintan. We decided to book another snorkeling trip for the afternoon and headed off to the driving range since Bintan Lagoon is known for its golf course. We then snorkeled again and repeated our burger and fries ritual :-).

September 22 - Headed in to Singapore and met with Alice for lunch and walked through Suntec City Mall before my meetings. We didn't have much time left but got to stop by the Singapore Concert Hall and check out the F1 set up on the streets before heading back to Bintan.

September 23 - Headed back in to Singapore for the airport and back to Hong Kong.

--- Bangkok, a city of excess ---

September 24 - Headed out to Bangkok after just a little bit more than 12 hours in Hong Kong. We walked around the area by our hotel, Anantara Baan Rajprasong, before Larry, our friend from Hong Kong, joined us. I took advantage of some street vendor food and tried the broccoli pie and the sweet corn pie from McDonald's. We also got to see Thai prayer dancers at the Thao Maha Brahma Shrine. One can pay for 4 to 8 singer/dancers to sing and dance to prayers while one prays. After Larry landed, we headed out for dinner. We walked over to Siam passing by shopping malls and night markets. And then had dinner back at You & Mee at the Erawan Grand Hyatt to wrap up the night.

Pics

September 25 - We took the MRT train to the Tha Sathon (Central Pier) to catch a boat to Tha Chang by the Grand Palace. The boat ride was only 20 Bhat and you can pay on the boat and go to any stop. We tried a few local drinks that were served out of big tubs and headed out for a little tour of town on a tuk tuk.

The tuk tuk took us to Wat Traimit (Temple of the Golden Buddha) which is known to be dated back to the 13th century and the Buddha himself is over 900 years old. The Buddha is made of pure gold and is the largest pure gold Buddha statue in the world.

We then toured around town passing by the Democracy Monument, Chitlada Palace grounds, and stopping at a jewelry shop and a tailor shop, before heading back for lunch and onto the Grand Palace, Wat Phra Kaew (the Temple of the Emerald Buddha) and Wat Pho (the Temple of the Reclining Buddha).

The Grand Palace is in one-word, WOW. Every palace was ornately and intricately adorned with gold. As you walked through the grand palace grounds, we were initially wowed by all the gold and exquisite architecture, but were soon overloaded with the extensive number of palaces that spread the ground. It definitely provided quite a sensory overload.

Wat Phra Kaew was very grand as it was the place of worship for the royal family. Despite the temple's grandness, it housed a rather small (in comparison) and unassuming Buddha all encraved out of a single piece of jade (hence named the Emerald Buddha).

We then walked over to Wat Pho to see our largest Buddha of the day, the reclining buddha. It's 46 meters long and all covered in gold leaflets. Its feet were covered in Buddhist chants, and the side of the temple were lined with a row of buckets for donations. We wrapped up the afternoon by hopping into a cab just as the rain shower started coming down.

In the evening, we hit up Patpon for some "interesting" evening entertainment. We got front-row seats to see the miracle of plastic and sex-change surgeries, and then headed to a couple of bars around Soi 4.

Pics

September 26 - We started the day with a visit to Chatuchak market. Did I mention that Bangkok is a city of excess? Well, this weekend market had an excess of everything you can think of. There are rows and rows of covered and open markets that sold everything from clothes to fake flowers to ornaments and art. You could also find eateries that ranged from quick Thai classic dishes like papaya salads and noodles, to Western style bars and Chinese hot pots. After a few hour stroll through the market, we decided to get some Thai pampering with a Thai foot massage and Thai full body massage before we headed out for the evening. We met up with Larry's friend, Mike, for dinner at Baan Khanitha Thai Cuisine, one of the few fancy Thai restaurants in Bangkok. The food there was excellent though it was a bit on the pricier side, especially when you compare to the street foods ;-). We then walked over to grab a few drinks and walked through Soi Cowboy (a mini and more skanky version of Pat Pong).

Pics

September 27 - We took it easy on day 4 and headed over to the Marriott's Trader Vic's for their famous buffet (thanks to Travis' recommendation). This had to have been the best buffet I have had ever, and I've been to some nice buffets... We took the Marriott's shuttle boat service from the Central pier and headed over to this resort hotel for a nice Sunday brunch. The day was beautiful and the boat ride was very relaxing. Trader Vic's welcomed us in and right away there are cocktail drinks at your service. The menu included outdoor grill stations, fresh green papaya salad station (made on order), oyster station (with oyster shooters made on order and caviar), make-your-own-bloody-mary station, mango and sticky rice station, Taiwanese oyster pancake station (made on order), cheese station, and so many more. The most impressive aspect is that there are several made-to-order stations. You could also pay an extra US$6 to have unlimited wines with your meal. After this large meal, we then headed over to Patpong to meet a few more of Mike's friends for a drink. It was amazing to see the difference between Patpong in the daytime versus at night. The Thai workers were starting to put up the scaffoldings for the evening vendors that filled up the streets. It's amazing that they put up and put down these scaffoldings every day. We wrapped up the day with another massage and ended up staying in for the evening as the rain came down again.
Pics

September 28 - I woke up early to head out to Lumphini Park for an early morning stroll and take in the early morning site. The park was full of life at 7:30am. Lots of people jogging, walking, doing martial arts of different sorts, doing Taichi, practicing dances, biking, etc. I also bumped into a group of retired Chinese folks who get together every morning to exercise and share in a nice breakfast meal at the park. I joined them for a little bit of dessert soup and a little chit chat. I can't help admiring these people who have found such a great community of friends to share the days with in their old age. After the park, we finished packing and headed to Chinatown. The taxi dropped us off on Yaowarat Road, the main artery of Chinatown and also lined with gold stores and Chinese medicine shops. Since it was a Monday morning, we were told that it's a keep-the-street-clean Mondays now so there were very few carts or vendors out. We wondered around the alleys and stumbled on what we called "shoe alley" since the small alley had more room occupied by shoes than there was room for people to walk. As we wound through the streets, we then came across a covered larger and longer alley that I later learned was called "thieves alley". Unlike it's name, this place is actually not skeevy. I'd guess that it's probably named that since you can practically find everything in the stores here from rolls of cloth to stationery stores, to little trinkets of all sorts. Our exploration then also took us to the outskirts of Chinatown were we passed by stores selling guns and rifles, and street vendors selling porn, and lots of other used tools and things. It was definitely an interesting stroll to wrap up our travel.

Pics

Restaurant Review: Shung Hing Chiu Chow Restaurant 尚興潮州飯店

I met up with a few ex-coworkers from STAR to try a Chiu Chow restaurant in Sheung Wang. It's right on 29 Queen's Road West, one of the main streets running along Hong Kong island so it's hard to miss.

The food there was excellent and very reasonably priced (came out to be about HK$200 per person).

The meal started with tea poured into small teacups, peanuts and pickled vegetables. Once we ordered, the dishes came pouring out swiftly. Here's some of the stuff we ordered:

• 潮州鹵水鵝 Duck meat with duck liver and intestines (鵝珍肝+ 鵝腸), tofu, and squid 墨魚 - Meat was juicy and flavorful.

• 凍蟹 - Cold crab - the crab was fresh and its meat was nice and sweet
  

• Winter melon soup

• 糖醋麵 - Sugar Vinegar Noodles

• 芋蓉鴨 - Taro with duck - my favorite dish! Taro was made crispy on the outside and soft on the inside.

• 蠔餅 - oyster and seafood pancake

• A couple of vegetable dishes

• Sugar-coated Taro dessert

• 清心綠豆爽 - Heart of Green Bean dessert soup so it's actually yellow colored. This was compliments of the house.

Everything was delicious and must-haves in my book.

The atmosphere here is boisterous so don't expect to be able to have intimate conversations. But it's part of the fun in eating at a local Hong Kong restaurant.

Hong Kong Travels: Sham Shui Po Market

We learned about Sham Shui Po from my old boss, Edward, who is into electronics and gadgets.
Though Sham Shui Po (深水埗) is best known for its street market of electronic stuff, it's so much more than that! I can't believe we've only just know found this gem! It's very easy to get to by MTR. As soon as you exit the Sham Shui Po MTR station, you'll find yourself in one of many street markets in the neighborhood.


We started with the Apliu Street where the electronic stuff street market is. You'll find yourself looking at zip ties, AV cables, mobile phone accessories, camera accessories, and much much more. The variety of items you'll find here is surprising. There are several booths that have nothing but second-hand products which will include old MD players, walkman, dial phones, LPs and many other items that'll take you back a couple of decades. The prices here are also cheaper than at the Wanchai computer center (where we've been doing most of our shopping). You can bargain a little here but the starting prices are already reasonable.

One street over on Yu Chau Street, there are several stores selling beads and other jewelry making accessories.

Another street over on Ki Lung Street and the perpendicular street, Nam Cheong Street, you'll supposed to be able to find a lot of fabric stores. We didn't get a chance to see these this time but will look for them next time.

On the other side, also another street over, on Cheung Sha Wan Road, there is a row of clothing stores. Most of the clothes here being promoted were around 3 for HK$100 ( around US$13). It was too hot for me to try on any clothes at the time so I've left that for another time.

Another street over on the other side of Cheung Sha Wan Rd, you'll find another row of street markets similar to what you would find at the Ladies Market in Mong Kok. Except once again, this one is less crowded with tourists and the prices are more reasonable.

We also found some very delicious boba milk tea here and picked up some workout tops at 3 for HK$100.

This is a great place to shop around for all kinds of things and definitely seemed less crowded and more reasonable in prices from Mong Kok. You'll definitely find me coming here again.

Hong Kong Travels: Ten Thousand Buddhas Temple and Pai Tau Village

We made a trip to see the 10,000 Buddhas temple today, and took the opportunity to also meet up with Lina, a friend and an ex-Star colleague.

I was hoping to have enough time to visit the close by walled homes but ran out of time and will have to make that another trip.

Sha Tin is in the New Territories in Hong Kong so out about 20 minutes ride from TST towards China. Once we got off the MTR stop at Sha Tin, the temple entrance is only 10 minute walk away. You will have to work your way up to the temple as you ascent 400+ steps.

Right outside Sha Tin MTR stop, you'll head out and down the pedestrian walkway to find Pai Tau Village (排頭村). From what I have read, these villages are small homes that have been reserved for male descendants of residents in 1898. To read a little more info, you can check out this website. The village is nested by the hillside next to mega malls and buildings. A lot of these homes are now used as small eateries or to sell potteries, etc.

Once you keep walking down the road by the side of the villages, we followed the signs to the temple.

You'll come across what looks like an entrance to a temple with a set of lifts to a hilltop pagoda. That would be the Po Fook Ancestral Workshop Hall. Pass by the side of this to get you to the Ten Thousand Buddhas.

On the climb up you'll be accompanied by hundreds of Buddhas, all different and covered in gold. The climb itself is a little bit of an exercise so take this time and enjoy your spiritual journey to the temple. Each of the Buddhas are unique with very interesting, poses, looks and expressions.







Once at the top, you'll be greeted by the big Amitabba Buddha on the temple wall. The temple itself was not very busy on a Tuesday afternoon. It gave Lina and I time to pray to the Buddhas and as Lina said, they probably also had more time to listen and answer our prayers.



The inside of the temple is lined with Buddhas all alongside the walls.



The temple sides are decorated with the twelve animals from the Chinese horoscope. In front of the temple, you'll find extra large statues of the Buddha of Battle and the Quan Yin Buddha.

You can go up a few steps further to find yourself surrounded by different Quan Yin Buddhas each looking to protect and grant different wishes. The view up there was beautiful, the air was clean, and it was amazing to enjoy all of this with the backdrop of the Hong Kong high rise landscape.

Hong Kong Travels: Shopping at Jade Market

On this third visit to the Jade Market, we all became a little bit more of an expert. Laureen, Richard and I had shopped there previously with Teresa who was an expert of jade and the place. This time Ben, David and Mandy joined us.

The Jade Market is an easy place to get overwhelmed. There are lots of things to look at and, like most places in Hong Kong, there are lots of people vying for your attention. It's best to start by taking a look around the place and see if there is a certain style that catches your eye, and then hone in on those vendors that have what you're looking for. You'll be able to find jades of all sizes, pearl necklaces, copper statuettes, and various other trinkets. Most people come here for jade and pearls.

Pearls are a little bit easier to shop for since you just need to decide on the quality of the pearl you are looking for. You'll be able to find the gammet of qualities here from HK$100 (US$12.8) to HK$2000 (US$256) for a pearl necklace. Once you've looked at a few, you'll know the difference. First, to identify the real ones, you can rub them against each other and feel that there's some friction. Then, you take note of how round and flawless they are in terms of marks. Lastly, you can then look at shine and color.

Jade is a bit harder. There are lots of variations and you can find really cheap ones for HK$5-10, or around US$1.00 and got up to really expensive pieces for HK$30,000 (US$ 3846) or more for a small piece. For jade, you'll have to see what you like and look for translucency in the stone when put up against light. You will be able to see the natural veins of the stone in the light. After that, I'm still not expert enough to figure out why some are far more expensive than others. The most important part is to find a piece that you like for what you are looking for.

Also note that there are two sections, the larger one has better quality items. The picture to the left shows the entrance to the smaller of the two sections. There are a few booths I would recommend and those include #342 and #341 for jade.

Last but not least, do not forget to bargain. The key to bargaining is to have a number in mind and be prepared to walk away. Even if you don't manage to buy the piece you want, you'll at least know what their bottom price is and come back later to get it. My secret is always to be stern, firm but still be nice.

Good luck shopping for all those who gets a chance!

Hong Kong Travels: Phone shopping at Mong Kok's Sin Tat Plaza

We set out to the mecca of mobile phones to pick out a phone. Similar to the computer centers here in Hong Kong, this was another building with booths and booths of vendors pining for the attention of every passerby.

Shopping in Hong Kong is not for the weak-hearted, weak-willed or the ill-prepared. The place has 4 stories filled with booths no bigger than 50 sq ft. The booths are all filled with similar model cell phones and don't expect for the vendors to provide you with detailed or knowledgeable recommendations. Most of them are just trying to make a quick buck and watch for the bottom line.

We took a short break in between to eat at a nearby restaurant while clearing our heads. After a delicious chicken over rice and mongolian beef in a clay pot (not quite what they call it through), we set up our tackle plan.

We decided we'll go for a simple phone that 1) allows me to receive/send messages and take photos, 2) is not a China-made brand, and 3) does not cost more than US$100. Even with all this planning, things still took another 2 hours as some stores had cheaper "water products" that were not guaranteed but I'd get more for my money. I ended up picking a Samsung new (but old style) phone. I was exhausted by the end and could barely bargain...

It was a draining experience. Also note that lots of people were smoking in there and there wasn't good ventilation so by the end of the trip, our eyes were hurting. As I mentioned, it's not for the weak-willed or ill-prepared.

Note to self: I'll definitely be better prepared next time.

One door closes...

Thanks for everyone's good wishes and concerns.

There was a big announcement at STAR yesterday about the restructuring and reorganization of the business. You can read a couple of the articles here:

News Corp announces Star TV shake-up

News Corp to split Star TV into two Asian operations

The changes started yesterday and has affected my team greatly along with several other people across the organization.

Even though we've all known about the changes and have been waiting for the formal announcements, it was nonetheless, a very difficult day to go through. I have enjoyed my time at STAR tremendously and had a great team of people to work with and to work for. All of whom I'm proud to call friends going forward.

When one door closes, another opens; but we often look so long and so regretfully upon the closed door that we do not see the one which has opened for us.

-Alexander Graham Bell

I spent the majority of today dwelling on the loss. Starting now, I will focus more on what I'll do next.

I haven't quite decided on what I want to do yet. I would like to stay in Asia for a little while longer since 8 months just seems too short. For now, we'll travel around Hong Kong. We'll then plan other travels around Asia as I see how things unfold. I'll now also have more time for volunteer work and exercise!

Stay Tuned!

Beijing Trip Recap

What an amazing trip! We just returned from a full 3-day trip to Beijing. I am totally exhausted but my head is filled with all the amazing experiences. Here are some key highlights:

• Strolled down Tiananmen Square and through the Forbidden City (Palace Museum)
• Took a pedicab ride around the hutongs
• Enjoyed a great Peking duck dinner at Quanjude Roast Duck Restaurant by Houhai and ended the evening with a pedal boat ride around the Houhai lake.
• Hiked the Great Wall at Mutianyu and brought home some souvenirs
• Bought some peaches on the side of the road off some farmers
• Enjoyed a stroll, beautiful water lilies and ice cream popsicles at the Summer Palace
• Watched a great soccer match at the Bird's Nest
• Visited the Lama Temple
• Swam in the Water Cube

Day 0

We were greeted by two of these beautiful murals at the Beijing International Airport
We arrived Thursday night at 9:30pm to Beijing and picked up a cab to our hotel at the Crowne Plaza Sun Palace. As noted in all the reviews, the cab driver had no idea where it was so we had to explain to him. Luckily, I had written down the directions but nonetheless, we still ended up calling the hotel so that he would know the way.

The hotel was beautiful with a great entrance and the service was great. Extra koodos for the staff in attending immediately to changing our room to one with a king bed and then to having the concierge meet us to help us plan our next few days at 11pm. Winnie Su, the concierge manager, was amazing and attended to all of our questions and needs for the trip.

Day 1

We decided to make the tour of the city by ourselves on our first day by taking the subway. We picked up our tickets at the piao.com.cn for our the soccer match at the Bird's Next and headed to Tiananmen Square. We tried to find the underground tunnel tour but most people had no idea what we were asking so we decided to just move on.


We passed by Chairman Mao's Memorial Hall which had a huge line of people outside waiting to go in. We also experienced our first show of how Chinese people love to cut lines. There were specific security guards trying to prevent people from cutting lines with a few still sneaking by.

We then strolled down to Tian An Men passing by the Great Hall of the People and the Monument to the People's Heroes. Everything here seemed to be of a gigantic scale and proportions. Despite the rainy day on a Friday, the plaza was filled with people and tour groups.


The Forbidden City was amazing. Having heard imperial stories of the lives of those who have lived there in the past, it was amazing to be in those same grounds. Part of my mind wondered off into what it would have been like to live back in those days...


After the Forbidden City, we were hit up by quite a few rickshaw drivers looking to pick up people to tour the Hutongs. We picked up one who seemed nice (although a little scrawny...) He was great and drove us all around the Hutongs introducing us to the different building and who had lived there in the past.

On the rickshaw with Mr. Tsi
We paid another extra 30RMB each to visit one of the Siheyuan (courtyard houses). The hostess there took good care that we took pictures at all the best corners of the house. We ended the tour at the Qianhai area where we had dinner at the most famous Peking Duck place - Quanjude Roast Duck Restaurant (全聚德烤鴨店).



The Peking duck experience was amazing. This branch of Quanjude had performances throughout the evening. Despite waiting 1.5 hrs for our table, it was all worthwhile. Ben and I ordered, a cold dish, a duck liver dish, a veggie dish and the whole duck! Not to mention I had to wrap up the evening with something sweet so we finished it off with a giant green bean shaved ice dessert.


After dinner, we went on a pedal boat ride around the Qianhai and Houhai area to exercise some of the duck off. And then strolled around the lake passing by restaurants/bars playing some of the cheesiest (but fun) music ever.


Day 2


We started the morning with the trip to the Mutianyu section of the Great Wall. It started pouring in the morning so traffic was especially congested with several road closures due to floods. So we made a pee stop at the Jingtai Lan Cloisonne factory where we also picked up a beautiful cloisonne vase.


By the time we reached the Great Wall, the rain had stopped and we ended with a beautiful hike up on the Wall. We took the covered cable car to the Wall and hiked from there. On the way up, we were in the same cable car that the Seventh Living Buddha rode on and on the way down it was the same cable car the Bill Clinton was in so we felt quite lucky!


At the Great Wall

The view on the Great Wall is simply magnificent. The grandness and stretch of the construction with the backdrop of the mountains is simply jaw-dropping. I could hike and walk on this wall all day. We took the path further up the mountain and went all the way till we hit the end of the 'safe' section up some really steep steps and some great windy sections.


On the way down, you were forced to walk through vendor stands and are harassed a little. We did walk away with a few bargains and definitely also got ripped off a little. ^_^ All part of the experience. Since we didn't have much time, we decided to skip lunch again and opted to pick up some peaches from the side of the road.


Our driver drove us through some beautiful sections of the countryside where fruit, corn and tree fields surrounded us most of the way. It was a beautiful scenery.


We then headed to the Summer Palace. Since we had the soccer game later in the evening, we only had 1.5 hrs for the Summer Palace which was quite a pity. The Palace grounds is essentially an enormous park with a beautiful huge lake and several more ancient Chinese architectures and pagodas. One can easily spend an entire day here riding boats, picnicking, and strolling through these grounds. We made most of our time and enjoyed a little of the hike and stroll by the lake to some beautiful giant water lilies in the water.


Mr Li, our driver, then drove us back to the hotel for a quick change of clothes and then off to dinner at the King of Duck Roast Duck Restaurant (鴨王烤鴨店) by the Olympic center. Our driver went through the trouble of calling and talking the restaurant into giving us a reservation so we only needed to wait 10 minutes for our table. This place was certainly less of a showy place. The duck came out plain and simple with lots of trimming (cucumber, sauce, salt and onion). Given the lesson from the previous night, we opted for half a duck and a veggie dish this time. It was delicious and a great way to wrap up the day.



We then walked to the Olympic park towards the Bird's Nest for the game. Both architectures, the Bird's Nest and the Water Cube, are magnificent in the evening with their beautiful lighting.


The game was quite fun as well. Neither Ben nor I are huge soccer (oops... football) fans but we enjoyed the game and enjoyed the crowd. The stadium was almost at full capacity and there really was not a single bad seat in the entire stadium. Our seats were on the lower level but we walked around the stadium to check out the upper levels and the views were amazing. It was just beautiful!



Day 3

On the last day, we decided to take it easy and slept in. The only things we wanted to get done before our 7:30pm flight was to visit the Lama Temple and swim at the Water Cube.

In order to swim at the Water Cube, we had read that we'd need a 1-inch photo for the deep water certification ID (unless you already had one from China), and then we'd need get the health check, swim 200 meters non-stop, and hold our breath underwater for 30 seconds. So we stopped at a Kodak Express to get our pictures done. It wasn't really Express. They took digital photos and then proceeded to meticulously polish our faces through Photoshop and put in the white background through CorelDraw. The polishing of our faces included removing the shiny areas and evening out our complexion. All of this would normally take 30 minutes; however, due to printer issues, we ended up being there for nearly an hour.

We then headed to Lama temple where I was able to pay my respect to all the Buddhas. The temple used to be a palace for the emperor and it was converted into a nunnery in the 1700's. It is now home to several Buddhas and is known to be good at answering people's prayers.

We arrived at the Water Cube and got in line for the 2pm opening of the swimming pool. The actual Olympic pool is only used for performances so they've opened the warm-up pool for people to swim. We paid 50 RMB each and an additional 20 RMB for the deep water certification, and our 2.5-hour timer started. You usually only get 2 hours but we got an extra 30 minutes to take our deep water certification.

It was my first time in an Olympic size swimming pool so it was quite exciting! Not to mention to swim in the same pool that Michael Phelps swam at! :-) I managed to get in 900 meters and Ben got in 1000 meters. As a side note, our deep water certification only required us to swim 25 meters before they realized that we knew how to swim and pulled us off to the side. We did see one guy who got into the water and immediately freaked out when he couldn't touch the bottom. The deep water test was good for something.

We snuck in some pictures of the pool at the end and wrapped up our trip.

Just after swimming and sneaking a picture in by the practice pool
We headed to the airport to find our flight was delayed from 7:30pm to 8:40pm. In actuality, we didn't board till 8:45 and the plane did not take off till 10pm. Because of the delay, we got a free meal at the airport which almost made up for the fact that we did not get home till 2am. At least the airline provided a shuttle service since the airport express had stopped running.

Despite all the craziness on the trip home, this was a great memorable experience and I definitely can't wait to go back to Beijing again and visit some of the other sites.

In Loving Memory of My Grandma - Our Final Goodbye

The final journey with my grandmother went smoothly.

It's hard to express this loss. I wish I could hold her one more time; I wish she could sit down and tell me another story; and I wish I could have spent more time with her. Lots of wishes that I need to let go of...

The process of sending her off alongside all the family members was comforting. We all focused on doing whatever we could to ensure her safe journey to the "Happy Land" or "Pureland" (安樂國) and consoled each other with subtle looks and gentle hugs. For those who want to learn more about the process, you can read this article, Crossing the Gate of Death in Chinese Buddhist Culture by Dr. Yutang Lin.

I had visited my grandma two days after her passing on July 9th. She has since been resting at my uncle's. They set up an altar with her picture next to buddhas so that they can offer her prayers, food, and fruits. Her spirit had been invited to the altar so that family and guests could pay their respects there.

My brother and I arrived July 22nd, two days before the funeral service. We spent the first day folding lotus flowers, clothes, shoes and money nuggets, and chanting Buddhist prayers to help my grandma get to the "Happy Land". My mom has been going there every day from dawn till sunset for the past 2 weeks doing the same. The chant to Amitaba was playing in the background 24/7 and at least twice a day (at 7:30am and at 4:30pm), a Buddhist nun would lead the family in reading chants from the scripture. My mom also took extra care of reading the Mantra for Attaining Birth in Happy Land 108 times into my grandmother's favorite rosary bracelet every day. The rosary would be cremated with my grandmother so she can have it with her in her next life. Outside of the prayers, we all then focused on folding lotus flowers most of the time. The lotus flowers were folded from a special paper that had prayers to lead my grandma to the Happy Land. The idea of the lotus flower is that she would step on the flowers on the way to the Happy Land.

The day before the service was the day for the entire family to dedicate to reading Buddhist chants from the scripture to help elevate my grandmother's merits and pray for her entry to Pureland. We started at 9am and went through the evening. At the end of the day, friends and neighbors also then brought baskets of fruit, food and paper money for buddhas and my grandma. We burnt most of the paper money and lotus flowers that night.

The day of the funeral we all dressed up in black robes. My parents picked the black ones since they would be re-used and was more environmentally friendly. The morning started with chants and then we were joined by friends and neighbors to see her off. We all payed our respect to my grandma through bows, kneeling and head bows and more chants with family members first followed by guests. The "close" family (those who were sons, daughters and those who were married into the family) then thanked the guests with bows as each group approached. We then showed a video clip remembering my grandmother's life. My mom had picked the song and the photos for the remembrance video. You can see it below. We got to see my grandma one last time and then she was taken away in her permanent home (which we filled with some more paper lotus flowers). The sendoff was lead by my oldest cousin who held her incense and invited her spirit to follow. My mother followed with an umbrella. We followed her to the funeral home for cremation and sent her body off with a final chant and good bye. We later picked up her ashes and invited her spirit to follow us and settled her in a mausoleum. That was our final send-off.

Gone yet not forgotten,
Although we are apart,
Your spirit lives within me,
Forever in my heart.

My Journey through this process - Photos:

Photo Sharing - Video Sharing - Photo Printing


Remembrance Video - To my loving grandma:

Photo Sharing - Video Sharing - Photo Printing

Restaurant Review: Indochine 1929

We've been here a few times now and have not been disappointed any of the times.

We started this time with their chicken and spicy cabbage salad as we had previously. This dish is delicious and refreshing, with a great spicy kick at the end. Very flavorful! We complimented it with additional appetizers that included chicken skewers and salt n pepper crispy fried eggplant.

We then ordered the pan fried beef in la lot leaves. This was our least favorite dish because the flavor wasn't very memorable especially compared to the beef tenderloin with tomatoes, one of their signature dishes. The beef tenderloin was tender, juicy and perfectly cooked. The meat was flavorful but not overpowering.

We've also had the braised duck in orange sauce a couple of times. The sauce is delicious and the duck meat is tender and not fatty. Other entrees that are worth mentioning are the sauteed fillet of chicken with basil, cashew nuts and chili, and eggpplants which are little bit lighter in flavor.

For dessert, you can never go wrong with Mango and Sticky black rice.

Bon Appetit!

Restaurant Review: Yun Fu Restaurant

I've been to several great restaurants in Hong Kong and have finally decided to start reviewing them here. Since there isn't one popular restaurant review site here in HK (like Yelp), I'll be blogging my reviews here.

I just had dinner at Yun Fu Restaurant which is on Wyndham St. by Lan Kwai Fong (LKF). I had passed by it many times while heading down to LKF and have also wondered what it was. From the street, you only see an ancient Chinese door with stairs leading down to the basement lined with buddhas on both sides.

When I finally descended down the stairs, it opens up to their bar area. The entire place is dungeon-like darkness with red highlights from red lanterns. On the wall in the bar, there's a large film projection showing old Chinese films. The cocktail list is very unique and I got to try one of their very refreshing concoctions, Ben Zhi Lan, with Chinese rose wine, rum, fresh chili, lime juice, sugar syrup and lime. The drink came blended on a martini class and was just what I needed at the end of the work day after walking (and sweating) up the slopes and steps to this place.

This was a business meeting for me so I didn't get a chance to take too many pictures but will definitely update when I come back again. Once past the bar, we walked through a darkened curved corridor with sliding old Chinese doors on both sides which hide private dining areas. We were escorted to the end of the restaurant to a more open space. We sat by these large hanging lanterns (see pic on the right). The menu is extensive so we decided to just have the waiter choose for us. Every dish selected was delicious.

We started with "clams steeped in Chinese rose wine & chili padi". The blending of flavours were exquisite on the little clam. It was the perfect opening dish with a little bit of a kick to open our appetites. It was then followed by steamed pork cheek fillet wrapped in lotus leaves. This dish was slightly lighter in flavor but which balanced well with the first dish. For main courses, we were offered their famous marinated roasted rack of lamb with assorted herbs and tea leaves, the braised veal shank wrapped in lotus leaves in a dark soy sauce, and wok fried prawns in Szechuan red pepper. The lamb was beautifully executed and presented with the waiter opening the tea leaves and preparing the lamb for us. It came with this sauce that provided a great mixture of flavors over the perfectly roasted tender lamb. The braised veal again was another unveiling of lotus leaves this time to expose the richly braised veal that was falling off the bone. I took advantage that my food partner was not into the bone marrow and had the juicy goodness myself. The main course wrapped up with the spicy prawns dish covered in red peppers. It was definitely spicy but the prawns were light a crispy and very full of flavor. My mouth wasn't so numb from the spice that I couldn't taste the prawn which was a great thing!


To clean our palate, the meal wrapped up with a slightly sweet flowery gelatin dessert.

It was truly a culinary adventure and I'll definitely be back again to take better picture of the place and the food and try more dishes!

The spa experience in Shenzhen

Ben and I went to Shenzhen for a quick impromptu trip to the spa. It was definitely a bit too impromptu since I didn't have a name of a spa to go to and neither did we have a lot of time.

I had been hearing for the longest time about the huge cheap spas in Shenzhen where you can spend an entire days and spend less than a hundred dollars. So we finally made it there this last Sunday, June 14th.

After some research online, we picked to go to Queen Spa and Dining (http://www.queenspa.cn/Index.html and http://www.tripadvisor.com/ShowUserReviews-g297415-d654322-r12288777-Queen_Spa-Shenzhen_Guangdong.html). This place is a 5-floor extravagant settlement.

We didn't get there till a little past 2pm and only had until 4pm since we had a movie planned back in Hong Kong city at 5:50pm (we never made it back to the movie though...).

In the two hours that we had there, we decided to spend it on one of their premium spa services. We booked a room for two and each booked a 105min full body massage with body scrub. We shared one really nice room and each had a masseuse. We opted out of the bubble bath and went straight to the body scrub and then the massage. It was a very relaxing experience. They didn't leave a single muscle unturned :-).

The whole thing was a little less than US$75 per person (not including tip and 10% service charge). The impressive thing about the experience is all the other stuff that we could have enjoyed if we stayed there longer :-). Drinks including fruit juices, fruits, and soft serve were all available for free on the 3rd floor where you also had a huge space full of full-reclining lounge chairs each with its own tv to choose from. From here, you can also get foot massages for around US$12 and manicure and pedicure services. The facilities also include sauna, jacuzzi and full size pool.

We definitely wished we could have spend a full day there but will leave that for our next trip.

Hong Kong Travels: An evening at the Happy Valley Racetracks

Wednesday, June 10th

We made it to Happy Valley Race Tracks on one of their last races before summer fully sets in here back on June 10th. It was our first real horse race together and our first in Hong Kong.

Our friend and my co-worker, Gorgeous Eddy, set a group of us up with an outdoor buffet dinner. It was a tad bit warm and humid to sit outdoors but it was great to be there with friends and great food! :-) We also got to celebrate Dan's birthday on this special occasion.

Ben and I placed about HK$100 each race (about US$15) on a horse that would win and another on a horse that would place. On 6 races, we lost 5 but came out almost even with the table bet winning big at the last race (thanks to Dan!).

Here are a few pics to remember the evening. Ben got to also practice taking action shots with his new camera:

Picture!

Yeah... here's the picture that showcases my hair and its pretty red streaks. They're mostly gone now though...

First trip to the hair dresser in HK

When I went to Taiwan, I took the opportunity to get my hair trimmed at one of the quick NT$100 (equivalent to less than US$3.00) places. The place is nothing more than a booth with 3 chairs inside a supermarket mall, so I got a hair cut but really nothing more than that.

I finally decided that since my birthday was coming up, that I'd splurge and get my hair done. I've been hesitant about just going to any hair dresser for fear that I would turn out with funky colored hair. I ended up going to a place in Central by the escalator where Ben has gotten his hair cut. It seemed like quite a popular place for a Sunday afternoon.

I didn't come out of there until 4.5 hours later. They game me highlights with base coloring and a hair cut as a package deal. I loved the hair cut since it layered my hair better and gives it a little more bounce now. The highlights were interesting... Definitely not as natural as the highlights I've gotten in the U.S.... and they also added some red highlights along with the blond-ish ones... it turned out quite interesting depending on how the light hits it...

Passover Seder in Hong Kong

This was my first passover Seder and it was a great experience. Thanks to my coworkers Donovan and Michelle, Ben and I enjoyed our first Passover Seder together. The Seder took place at the Aberdeen Marina Club at one of their beautiful dining halls on Wednesday, April 8th. Ben and I both dressed up for the occasion.

I didn't know much about it and hadn't done my research before hand so I wasn't quite sure what we were in for. As I learned, the Seder is performed following the Haggadah and is the remembrance of the Israelites liberation and exodus from Egypt. The event gathered about 150 people around 13 tables. Lots of families with children were there. The ceremony before the dinner was the re-telling of the story with some praying, singing and performance of rituals. My favorite was the one where you whip green onion as a remembrance of the lashes of slavery. We, of course, ended up hitting each other with green onions. Several other ceremonial acts included eating matzo (the "poor man's bread"), maror (bitter herbs which symbolize the bitterness of slavery), and charoset (a sweet paste representing the mortar which the Jewish slaves used to cement bricks). We also drink the four cups of wine, in a reclining position, and dipped vegetables into salt water (the dipping being a sign of royalty and freedom, while the salt water recalls the tears the Jews shed during their servitude). These ceremonial acts were performed in between readings of the passages from the Haggadah by different people in the Seder, including kids.

We sat at a table with people around our age group. All of us were in our 30's without kids yet. It was great meeting new people. Two other couples were Jewish guys with Chinese girlfriends. They were looking to studying Judaism and looking to convert. I'm not sure where I'm at with that just yet... If I were to convert, I'd have to be sure that it's the right spiritual choice for me. It's been great being part of these ceremonies and getting exposure to these communal experiences.