Our Journey: April 2010

Picture updates of Hong Kong! Part 4!

Actually, today's post is on the day and a half we spent at Macau. We went to Macau with my brother and his girlfriend and got tickets to see Cirque de Soleil's Zaia at The Venetian, so that's where we headed first to get seats for later that night. Good thing, too, because that meant no one was around and we could take all the pictures we wanted.

And here's another one of Kel's wacky pics..

After getting seats at the Venetian, guess where we went? For FOOD of course! Here, we are lining up for some famous street style shark fin soup (碗仔翅).

Next, we went down the street for some famous noodles! On the left, you can see us lining up at the noodle shop. On the right, is my brother and his girlfriend Samina. They can't wait to dig in! See the brown stuff on the noodles? It's shrimp eggs... (蝦子撈) yummmm.. and fried wontons in the middle!

After all the food, we needed to go for a walk, so we went and saw the sights at Macau. Below left, you can see Kel and I at the front of the Ruins of St. Paul's (大三巴牌坊). And on the right, my bro, Samina, and I climbed the stairs on the other side of the ruins. Kel stayed on the ground to take the picture. Can you make us out without blowing up the picture?

After that, we climbed the stairs to Mount Fortress (大砲台).

And here, we have Kel posing with some Greek mythology statues at the New Century Hotel.

Below are some pictures we took at the Venetian.

The canals in the Venetian...

The girl on the boat started singing.. and my brother started mimicing (on the left), and you can see our reaction on the right!

Oh and here, we had our midnight snack... I apologize for the half eaten congee.. we were hungry and I forgot to take a picture before we started, but you can still see the crab swimming in the congee. (水蟹粥)

A Tribute to my Dearest

Our favourite Bunny-bun has left for the Rainbow Bridge last Friday night. She was a strong, inquisitive little fellow, who loved to greet guests at the door and munch on things all day long. Bunny was loved by all who met her and had the grandest of times plotting her escape (or way to the bag of hay). She was strong even when she was growing weak and did all her regular bunny things (i.e. ran in circles to greet her guests, and stood high and tall for a nose rub). She will surely be missed and forever loved in our hearts.

Bunny Chu (May 18, 2004 - April 23, 2010)

Picture updates of Hong Kong! Part 3!

In order to meet up with more people at the same time, Sunny and Freddy organized a karoake night so people can drop in, leave early, or stay the whole way. We ended up at C.E.O. at Causeway Bay one of those Friday nights. Our group pictures started out with...

Below: 3 of us... to 4.... to 5.. to 9!! People just jumped into the picture one after the other! (There were others in the room not captured.)

One of our objectives of this trip, was to attend Kel's cousin Karl's wedding. Below are a few pictures from that night.

During our trip, I've noticed that the 7-Elevens (and other convenience and grocery stores) actually carry more flavours of Haagen Dazs ice cream than the Haagen Dazs stores. The main difference is that the stores can only carry what's meant for the Hong Kong market, whereas the grocery stores can carry flavours from their Japanese line as well. Me being such a crazy Haagen Dazs fan, had to try the other flavours, too! So, I bought their "Sweet Potato Pie", "Apple Calvados", and their new sorbet flavour in Hong Kong "Raspberry". I was slightly unsure about the "Sweet Potato Pie" flavour, but was pleasantly surprised! Upon opening the tub, I found that the top actually resembled the picture! For those who know me well, you'd know that I love my sweet potato and I can tell you that this flavour has definitely exceeded my expectations! If I could, I would bring a huge tub of it back with me! They were able to get the taste just right, and even the texture, too! After savouring a few bites, I could actually feel the familiar graininess of sweet potato on my tongue! YUM! Kel isn't much of a sweet potato kind of guy, so the "Apple Calvados" was awesome for him. (I love it, too! It's got my stamp of approval as well!) It was surprisingly refreshing and captured the essence of apples well. As for the raspberry sorbet, it was good, but nothing extraordinary. It was fruity as expected, but no surprises there.

Last Sunday, I met up with Samuel, his girlfriend, and Annie for lunch at a Thai restaurant. We were originally supposed to do dinner, but my grandma wanted to do dinner on Sunday so our meal had to be pushed up to lunch. We ended up eating at Lung Jie (隆姐泰國美食館) at Kowloon City (九龍城). Food was great and definitely recommended. Just be prepared to line up outside for a table as they do not take reservations!

Picture updates of Hong Kong! Part 2!

On one of our nights in Hong Kong, we ventured out to the infamous ChungKing Mansions (重慶大厦) in Tsim Sha Tsui to have Indian cuisine with some of Kel's family. For those who've never heard of the ChungKing Mansions, it's been regarded to be one of the more complicated neighbourhoods. People are generally advised to avoid the area for safety issues. However, it has recently been renovated and a bit more cleaned up, so its doable if you're not easily intimidated. For anyone else who's adventurous enough and has a taste for Indian, be sure to go check out Block E's "Khyber Pass Mess Club" (咖喱王) on the 7th floor. It's become a bit more well known as of late, so there are copycats within those buildings by the same chinese name. Also, beware of the aggressive "salespeople" who try to promote you to their own "咖喱王". We were led to the one at Block B instead of E. (And when I say aggressive, I mean aggressive. The guy not only led us to the elevators, but also tried to escort us all the way there.)

Below from left to right, you can see a picture of the ChungKing Mansions entrance; the directory of Block E by the elevators; and the variety of curries we had with our naan that night.

Later that night, Kel and I headed over to the Charlie Brown Cafe in Tsim Sha Tsui for some coffee and desserts.

Below: the selection of mousse cakes in the shape of Peanuts characters! Woodstock, Charlie Brown, Snoopy, and Lucy!

Below left: the mango mousse I ordered in the shape of Woodstock, and Kel's slice of Charlie's cheesecake.

Below right: Kel with his mocha and cheesecake.

The interior of the cafe is covered in Peanuts memorabilia and statues. The characters are printed on the tables, embossed in glass... you name it, they've got it there! I didn't take too many photos of it this time as I've been there before (being the diehard fan I am), but I did take a picture of the vanity mirror in the ladies room! They don't have an actual vanity light, instead, they have a light shiny from the mirror in the shape of Lucy's head! You can see what I mean below, I thought it was pretty cool. Kel later confirmed that the guy's washroom had Charlie Brown's head in the mirror!

On one of our mornings, we went to the McDonald's for breakfast. Guess what? They have pasta there as one of their items! The store manager there wouldn't let me take a picture of their menu, so I took a sneak picture afterwards. As well, one of their toys to collect (they have 3 different collections going at once,) is the "kid" version of the classic McDonald's characters! I don't know about you, but I've had previous conversations before with friends where we couldn't remember all their names. Alas, here it is! (Yes, Erica, you're right, his name apparently really is "滑嘟嘟" in Chinese...) OH, and for those of you in Canada, Big Mac combos are on promotion here right now... $20 HKD anytime.. that's like less than $3 CDN!!! We're so getting ripped off!

Below left: the item on the left there is "Grilled Chicken Twisty Pasta".

Below right: Chinese and English names of the McD characters with their descriptions.

We had dinner one night with my godparents in Tuen Mun and bought seafood from the market to the Dragon Inn Seafood Restaurant (容龍海鮮酒家) and had them cook and serve it to us.

Below: a section of the market's fresh offerings still in tanks

Below left: one of the items we had.. "Rock Fish" (石頭魚) (sorry, direct translation, as I have no clue what its called in English)
Below right: another item we had.. "Mantis Shrimp" (攋尿蝦)