My amazing trip to New Zealand with my dear friend Annette. We had a magical experience in the Land of the Long, White Cloud.
Saturday, July 4, 2009
Dim Sam
For those of you who have never experienced dim sam! My friend Christine and her husband Tony were so sweet, they took me out to "Yam Cha" (aka Dim Sam, a brunch where you order a variety of tasty appetizers such as dumplings and chicken-feet and the like) my last day in Hong Kong. They love to eat just as much as I do, but our eyes were a bigger than our stomachs. You may be beginning to wonder why so many of my photos and posts have to do with food- two reasons, #1-I love food, #2 the food in HK is fascinating, HK has a reputation for having everything under the sun to eat. You can eat anything you want- any ethnic food, any exotic animal, any exotic part of an animal- so long as you've got the money. I just can't help myself but photograph and savour it all! Featured dishes: fried won tons, bbq pork buns, lotus root buns, chinese celery (not shown, I just have to prove I ate some veggies), and the long deep-fried sticks are an update of the traditional spring-roll- delish!!!
My time in Hong Kong is now over and I am sadly returned to Provo, UT! At least I got to have fun in New Zealand, but I still miss HK! Here are a few pics from my last week in HK.
Here's a picture of Fiona, T and I at a Chinese dessert place eating mango ice cream with other oddities thrown in like crystal jelly and coconut noodles. This fish picture is actually siaymo- something-or-other, which translates as small, very pregnant fish. You eat everything but the head. This was from the sushi dinner I ate with my friend Heather in Macau. It was a wonderful weekend, Heather drove me around on the back of her motor bike and I got to vist my good friend Lili's dad (Lili is serving her mission in Melbourne, Australia and her family aren't memebers- yet).
I have also included a picture of the Chinese dress I had made in a little shop in North Point. As you can see, the place is over-flowing with fabric, you can only fit one person down the one aisle of the shop which makes trying on clothes a bit of a challenge.
Who ever knew that the world's largest cream puffs are made at Sweet Papa's in HK? They even come with mango filling!
And the last photo is from my good bye-gathering of my international friends- oh how I shall miss them!
Sunday, May 31, 2009
Remembering 6-4
On the way home I passed by this major demonstration/parade/protest in the streets. It is in remembrance of the massacre that occurred on Tianamen Square, 6-4-1989. It felt a little bit like Halloween, there were students wearing fake bloody-bandages and this fake Chinese-style coffin that they paraded around. Most of the slogans read: ping faan lohk sei "make amends for 6-4!" or "Demand accountability for 6-4" Its the first public demostration I have seen here in Hong Kong. No way would this fly in the main land. They were even parading with the Taiwanese flag! It was moving to see how they reveranced and remembered that sad occaision, and how it motivates them to exercise their freedom of assembly and speech.
A-Yan
Today after church I went to visit A-Yan, and her son Kieth, they are old friends and have been members for about a year. A-Yan is Thai but speaks fluent Cantonese. Included is a picture of one of my favorite fruits: mangosteen. A-Yan fed me a whole plate-full, and I couldn't stop eating :D
Cheung Chau
Island Adventure: Me and my friend Laura took an excursion to the little island of Cheung Chau. The island is famous for the bun festival that happens once a year, they build huge towers of buns that people climb and then stuff the buns into their bags- whoever grabs the most buns wins. The Island is shaped like a dumbbelll, a wonderful harbour front full of fishing boats, cluttered with seafood restaurants. The southside is wonderful beach- yes I finally made it to the beach!!! The island is charming- it is not very developed as far as tourism goes, it feels and looks like a small village that you would find in the mainland. We only saw five other ngoi gwok yahn "foreign people" the entire time we were there.
Some memorable things from the island:
- Mars Bar icecream bars- the best thing ever! Mars bars here are different, they are more along the lines of a Milkyway only better- made with really good chocolate. Now translate this into an icecream bar-its heaven!
- Crazy over-sized sunglasses- the rainbow pair was my favorite, they look stunning, don't they?
- A helicopter landing on the beach while we were sun bathing. Quite the photo-op!
- The taste and feel of salt water- I am somewhat ashamed to admit this, but it was the first time in like two years that I'd been swimming at the beach! I'd forgotten how the salt water stings your eyes and then how the salt crystalizes on your skin when the water evaporates. It felt so good, swimming in the South China See with in view of three other islands, and surrounded by the jungley backwoods of Cheung Chau.
- Ma Pau Temple- this is a vibrantly colored and decadently decorated temple-very ornate. Detracting from the ornateness is the public basketball court that has replaced it's court yard. Ballers lounge on its steps.
Dragon Boat Races
Pictures for this festivity will be added later. We traveled down to Stanley- wandered through the market, all over the pennensula in search of the races. It started to pour- just like in Qu Yuan's poem. We were soaked to the bone when we finally figured out they were on the other side of the pennisnula. And from then on it was a blast. Teams race their dragonboats, their strokes in rythmn with beat of the big drum at one end of the boat.
Small adventures- here are just a few random things that have struck me as interesting, odd, or delicious:
- Peanut butter strawberry M&Ms- the strangest things! Its like they wanted to stuff a PB& J into an M&M that melts in your mouth and not in your hand. I love peanut butter M&Ms, but the strawerry after taste puts this in the ODD category.
- Disney Princess Syndrome- this falls in the interesting/odd category. While on an outing last week, I was swarmed by a gaggle of school girls- "Miss- you are so pretty!" I responded in Cantonese, to their surprise, "No! I'm not pretty, you're pretty!" "No, you're prettier!" "No, you are!" (This is how it sounded in Cantonese-"Lieh dieh leng-di!""Lieh leng-di!" etc.) And that's how it continued until one girl had had enough, "We're all pretty!" and that was the end of it. They insisted on having their picture taken with me- that's when I felt like one of those Disney Princesses that wander around Disneyland for photo shoots. I often get stared at- because I am tall with a big nose and fair hair, sometimes peole actually ask permission to stare but usually they just help themselves.
- Percy Pigs- these are actually delicious. They are gummy candies in the shape of cartoon pig heads. They are from Marks & Spencer, and made with real fruit juice-yum!
Wednesday- Dinner with friends. My friends from Sam Shui Bo took me out for "Thai food." It was delicious, but it was definitely adapted to Hong Kong taste buds. They even serve garlic bread- since when do they eat garlic bread in Thailand? They spread curry on it and eat it- actually not half bad. I selected the green curry- my frind Tiffany says it looks like beih tai " snot/mucus- etc." "So," she asked me, " You like to eat beih tai?" I smiled and slurped up the rest of the curry in my bowl.
Monday- I was recruited to Family Home Evening with the senior couples to help them with their Cantonese. This weeks theme was in preparation for the Tuen Ng Festival (Dragon Boat Festival- there will be more of this later on), we made jung "rice dumplings"- gobs of rice, meat, duck egg yolk, shrimp and peanuts, wrapped in bamboo leaf and boiled for two hours; and then we went to a big seafood restaurant for a peking duck dinner- it was a contest between the two tables of missionaries who spoke the best Cantonese with the staff ( I would like tothink that my table won).
More about Tuen Ng- the festival commemorates Qu Yuan, who was a popular poet and patriot of the Chu dynasty during the Warring states period, he was banished for opposing an alliance with the Qin state. While in exile he wrote profuse amounts of poetry. Then the Qin state invaded Chu- and here's where the story gets good, or bad, anyway back to the story- Qu Yuan was so distraught he committed suicide- he tide his feet to a big rock and jumped in the river. The locals were so upset to loose their favorite poet, they jumped in long boats and when chasing after him to try and save him. When they found they were too late, they dropped special rice dumplings in the river too keep the fish from eating the body. A little while later, a local drunk tipped a big barrel of wine in the river- and this is where the dragon comes in- the wine managed to intoxicate the local river dragon which emerged from the depths with a piece of Qu Yuan's clothing stuck between it's teeth. I guess the rice dumplings weren't enough to distract the dragon ( I don't blame the dragon- the duck egg yolk definitely wouldn't tempt me). So, these days, the locals hold festive dragon boat races and stuff themselves on rice dumplings to console themselves of the loss of their dear poet, Qu Yuan.
Here's just a snippet of Qu Yuan's "Mountain Spirit"
雷填填兮雨冥冥 The thunder rumbles and the rain darkens;
猿啾啾兮狖夜鳴 The gibbons mourn, howling all the night;
風颯颯兮木蕭蕭 The wind whistles and the trees are bare.
思公子兮徒離憂 "I am thing of the young lord; I sorrow in vain."
Sunday, May 24, 2009
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