Hong Kong Day 2

Given the weather forecast for additional rain, we decided to hedge our bets for day 2 and book a cooking class for the morning.  The cooking class started with a tour of the wet market.  Definitely not a place for those with weak stomachs.  I am pretty sure I left there 100% sure I wanted to be a vegetarian again.  The wet market had everything from skinned ducks to eel to turtles to snakes to pigs.  They are very proud of the fact that they use the ENTIRE animal and nothing goes to waste.  They also like to prove that it is fresh seafood and so the shop owners kill the animals in front of you and they continue to breathe/twitch for a good amount of time post-killing.

We tried some treats at the market: egg custard and this sesame seed covered rice treat with sweet  gooey stuff on the inside.

After the market, we headed to the lady's house to cook spring rolls, golden shrimp and glutinous rice balls with chocolate in ginger tea.  I won't give you the blow by blow on how to make each dish, however my top three lessons were:

1. Don't turn off heat when food is frying in the oil

2. Preparing spring rolls takes a really long time

3. High gluten rice flour is the equivalent of high gluten flour for challah.  May not be good for you, but tastes delicious

Spring roll process:

Shrimp process (doesn't include cleaning process as I refused to watch that):

The sauce was made out of salted egg yolk which you can only find in Chinatown markets.

Glutinous rice balls with chocolate in ginger tea:

After the cooking class we met up with one of my old work colleagues, Henry, who lives in HK.  We took the ferry to Kowloon, walked along the river on their equivalent of avenue of the stars then headed to the peninsula hotel for high tea.  Given the influence of the UK on HK (until they turned it over in 1997), high tea is a popular affair in HK.  We enjoyed delicious tea, scones and other treats.  The building was magnificent and has historical significance as it was the headquarters for the Japanese when they occupied the island.  The building, in addition to being a hotel is the home to every high end luxury store you could imagine.  In our discussions we learned that people from the mainland come over to HK it purchase luxury good items as the import tax in the mainland is extremely high and does not exist if you carry it over yourself.  Also, many people do not trust the government in china and thus move their wealth out if the country or purchase items with it.

After tea, we went to the top of the ritz carlton (118th floor) for a drink and fantastic view of the city.  The city is huge and beautiful at night.  After our drinks we grabbed our bags and headed to the airport for our 230am flight to Bali.