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.

 

Hong Kong Day 1

After Kauai I headed to Hong Kong to start the crazy month plus long vacation in lands where I do not understand any of the languages.

After 16+ hours of flying - who thought it would take just as long from Honolulu as Newark to get to Hong Kong.  I arrived in HK late on Monday night and met Taryn at the airport.  We headed to the hotel in wan chai and walked around the block before crashing.  Little did I know I booked the hotel next to the red light district.  However, it was very close to most places we wanted to go and had a lot of restaurants/bars so it worked out.

Tuesday morning we met Peter for dim sum breakfast.  Peter lives in HK but actually met my grandparents back in the 60s when he was an undergrad at Purdue.  Peter has lived all over the world, but has spent significant time in HK and was extremely helpful planning the rest of our time in HK.

Peter took us for dim sum at a late banquet hall style place.  We were the only non-locals at the joint so we knew we were getting legit stuff.  The menu was not in English but we got to enjoy many different dishes - and I actually liked all of them!  We had "intestine" which was just a flat noodle with beef inside, taro dumpling, meatball, fried wonton (didn't really like that), turnip cake, Malay cake, steamed bun (bao).

After breakfast, we walked around central and then headed to the peak to view the whole city.  Since it was raining and very foggy we could not really appreciate the views.

At the top of the peak there were quite a few shops and we enjoyed a latte before heading back down to walk through town.  The architecture was really interesting.  Definitely a mix of old and new, east and west, as Peter had mentioned.  

For dinner, we went to a more traditional Cantonese food restaurant in LKF which is like their SoHo.   We had fried rice, bean curd and fried chicken- however they gave us parts of the ENTIRE chicken.  It definitely grossed me out a bit.

We walked around a bit after dinner to better see the city. Overall, productive day, especially given the weather!

Kauai

The day after finishing finals/papers, I headed off to Kauai to meet the fam for a brief bit before heading to Southeast Asia for winter break.

I arrived there on Tuesday night after a long day of traveling.  I always forget how much further Hawaii it's from the east coast. 

Wednesday and Thursday we lounged by he pool and drove to different parts of the island, enjoying the breathtaking views including the spouting horn and the lighthouse.  Friday we went atving on my favorite part of the island which overviews an untouched part of the bay (the movie Descendents is based on it).  Saturday we went by boat to the na'pali coast to go snorkeling.  We couldn't go snorkeling since the swells were too big, but we got to see tons of dolphins, whales and a sea turtle.

I am not going into depth on this part of the trip since mom and dad are the only two followers and they were there!