Work trip to Hong Kong

I was in Hong Kong recently for work, and managed to do some extra curricular activities.

Dining

We had the official dinner at Nanhai No. 1, a Michelin one star restaurant located on the 30^th floor of the iSquare complex in Tsim Sha Tsui.  The contemporary Chinese cuisine restaurant has an extremely nice environment – we can even watch the Symphony of Lights show while dining – but food was really quite mediocre, with the exception of one or two dishes.  And service was extremely slow.

Very elegant interior (photo from here)

After dinner, a group of us decided to walk back to our hotel, Langham Place Hotel @ Mongkok.  We stumbled on Yee Shun Milk Company, famous for its steamed milk, so we made a pitstop and shared several bowls of steamed milk with ginger.  I’m not a milk person, but even so, I found it good.

Christmas decoration at the Langham Place - the North Pole came to Hong Kong

Hoover Cake Shop at Kowloon City is famous for their egg tarts – apparently, Chow Yuen Fatt’s favourite.  I happened to be in the vicinity on my last day there and tapau some back.  My verdict?  It was nice, but we can get equally nice ones here in KL.

Photos of the exterior of the shops from here and here.

Shopping

Didn’t have time to go to Citygate, only managed to visit the Ladies Market, which was very near the hotel.  My loot consists of small knick knacks for the girls, and some phone covers for me and sis.

I thought the Hello Kitty watches were a steal.  At HKD 100 for four, they were really pretty.  Lets hope they'll last for some time.

Places of interest

The Hong Kong Tourist Board publishes a booklet on Hong Kong Walks, a guide to exploring the city on foot.  I’ve done several of the routes in my past trips, and since I had the whole morning on my last day (my flight was at 4.05pm), I added one more to my belt.  It wasn’t really a walk, as I travelled mostly by MTR J  It started at the Nan Lian Garden, a 35,000 sqm² Tang dynasty style garden.  I was surprised to find myself in such a serene and well maintained garden amidst the bustling city.

Next stop was the Wong Tai Sin Temple – one of the most popular temples in Hong Kong, and for fans of TVB serials, you must have heard this temple being mentioned a million times before J  Wong Tai Sin Temple is home to three different religions/beliefs: Taoism, Buddhism and Confucianism.  Many locals were seen praying with various offerings in front of the main temple.

The arch leading to the main temple

The main temple of Wong Tai Sin

There are five buildings/structures within the temple compound representing the five elements: metal, wood, water, fire and earth.  I managed to locate all but the Archives Hall, representing wood.

Clockwise from top left: Bronze Pavillion (metal), Fountain (water), Yue Heung Shrine (fire), Earth Wall (earth)

The Kowloon Walled City Park sits on the site of the Kowloon Walled City, a former Chinese military fort turned into a largely ungoverned settlement in Kowloon, with 33,000 families living in 300 buildings.  Looking at photos from this page about Kowloon Walled City brings back memories of Hong Kong movies of yester years, and no where is the term 白鸽笼 (pigeon hole) more apt than it was here.  Kowloon Walled City was completely demolished in April 1994, following which a number of relics was unearthed, nearly all of which were incorporated in the design of the Kowloon Walled City Park, or preserved as exhibits.

The yamen (衙门), or the bureaucrat’s office in the centre of the park is the only remaining old building of the Kowloon Walled City.  I wonder if they have offsite backup of all the old administrative documents.  Its façade has been restored to its original appearance in the Qing Dynasty.  It now houses an exhibition which shows the history of the Walled City and the construction process of the park, along with display of some relics unearthed in the Walled City.  At both ends of the yamen’s front yard are two cannons dating back to 1802. 

The yamen - can you spot the cannons?

Fui Sing Pavillion and Guibi Rock - the Guibi Rock is named as such as its veins look like those of ancient jade.  Fui Sing is one of five emperors of literature in Chinese astrology.  According to legend, Fui Sing is a god who will bless scholars with good results in examinations. 

Garden of the Chinese Zodiac with 12 vividly shaped Chinese zodiac sculptures carved from white stones.  In the background is the Mountain View Pavillion.

The South Gate had originally served as the Walled City's main entrance.  Along with its foundations, other remains included two carved granite plaques from the original South Gate, one bearing the characters for "South Gate" (南門) and the other "Kowloon Walled City" （九龍寨城）.

Remnants of the original South Gate 

 The South Gate as it is today

P/S: I didn’t bring any camera on this trip – all photos were taken using my Samsung Note II.  Maybe I should check out BackBlaze updates for online backup options.

Artworks (#6 – #10)

It’s been some time since I posted her artworks, so here are some of her creations from art class:

Boots

Monalisa...the artist herself acknowledges that this doesn't look one bit like Monalisa :-)

Twirly whirly

Candies

 Coconut tree

Of short stories and languages

While cleaning out Yiu Yiu’s school bag at the beginning of the school holidays, I found a little pink notebook.  On the first few pages, to my pleasant surprise and amusement, were these jottings:

I hope she’ll continue writing and penning down her thoughts – not only will it be fun for me to discover them, but it’s a good avenue for her to express her creativity and improve on her English.  I used to speak to her in English but somehow after she got into Standard One this year, we spoke mostly in Mandarin, to hubby’s dismay.  Firstly, my Mandarin isn’t really up to mark and secondly, by not speaking in English with me, her English may deteriorate so it’s a double whammy.  So now, we made a pact with each other to consciously speak in English, and reprimand one another if one of us starts to speak in Mandarin J

She did not pick up her notebook at all during the school holidays.  We’ve kept her occupied with some revision workbooks to brush up on her BM, the subject that pulled her down substantially in her final exams.  Thank goodness for the babysitter who ensures she does at least 2-3 pages of the workbooks daily, in between time on the iPad.  Otherwise, she wouldn't have done much as I had been so busy at work over the last 2-3 months due to two vacancy gaps that I had not spent any time revising with her.  

It’s just another three weeks before school reopens and we need to hit the “Back to School” promotions at the malls to get her ready for Standard Two.  We don’t need a lot actually, probably just a new school bag and transparent book covers/wrappers.  She had already collected her textbooks before the school holidays, so we don’t need to compare college textbooks.

Visit to Pulau Ketam

In between Deepavali and Nuzul Quran recently, I was on leave and we decided to visit the famed Pulau Ketam.  We left after breakfast, and made it in good time to the Port Klang jetty to catch the 10.45am boat to Pulau Ketam.  Since it was a working day, the jetty and the boat was not crowded at all, contrary to some blog postings I read.

Kids posing at the jetty

It was a comfortable 45 minutes ride, and passengers were entertained by an old Hong Kong vampire movie J  The ride took us past the port with plenty of container ships docked, followed by open sea and mangrove swamps.

As usual, the kids entertained themselves with gadgets

Whatcha' looking at?

Crabs...lots and lots of baby crabs, as tide was low when we arrived

View of the village from the jetty, at low tide when we arrived (L), and during high tide, as we left

Upon arrival, we just walked around the village, which is built on stilts.  There are no cars nor proper roads, and the main mode of transport it the bicycle.  It was a hot day but I suppose it’s better than a rainy day, which had been the case during that time.  I’ll let the photos do the talking.

Police station

As the inhabitants of Pulau Ketam are primarily Chinese, there are quite a few Chinese temples

Kids breaking into Gangnam style in the middle of the village square

Houses on stilts

A very primitive public toilet in the middle of the village.  It consists of just a simple hole inside the zinc structure

 The village's secondary school

 Another temple

Boat yard 

A much nicer and modern primary school

 

Shrimps out in the sun at the dried shrimps factory

Workers sorting out dried shrimps at the factory

We walked around a large part of the island and by finally had enough, and settled down for lunch at about 2.30pm.  We chose Restoran Kim Hoe, located at the beginning of the main road as one walks in from the jetty.  Though Pulau Ketam is famous for its seafood, our meal was disappointing.  The sweet and sour crab, and the gungpo mantis prawn, didn’t taste good, neither was the seafood fresh.  Luckily the seafood vermicelli and the fishball soup saved the day.  We also ordered a plate of lala chien from one of the stalls nearby - it was pretty good.  The meal, with rice and drinks for 3 adults and 4 kids, cost about RM 150.

One of the many lala chien stalls in the village

As we were walking out to the jetty, we spotted this uncle selling fried ice-cream near the police station.  We bought two to try - it was basically ice-cream sandwiched in a bread pocket, and deep fried briefly, giving a crunchy outside layer, and cold delight in the centre.

We caught the 4.45pm boat back to Port Klang, and I can finally tick Pulau Ketam off from my Cuti-cuti Malaysia list.

Coffee bean

No, this post is not about The Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf!

I was grinding coffee on the dining table after dinner last night and as usual, the two girls wanted to help aka kaypoh.  When Yiu Yiu almost spilled the container containing the ground coffee, I shooed them away and they retreated to the living room.  Not long after, Yan Yan started crying, and mumbled about something stuck in her nose.  By the time I managed to find the torchlight, she had quietened down so I was hoping that it was just a false alarm.  When I shone the torchlight into her nostrils, to my horror, I spotted a coffee bean in her right nostril.  Apparently Yiu Yiu snitched one to play and passed it to her mei-mei when she asked for it, and the little monster decided to shove it up her nose!!!

Luckily she was not in pain nor seemed to be distressed but when she heard that we would be taking her to the doctor, she was hysterical.  I offered to let her sit on my lap all the way to the hospital to calm her down.

On arrival, the nurse attended to us but she clung to me and refused to be checked.  The nurse managed to persuade her to let her (the nurse) peek into her nostril by bribing her with a sticker.  The nurse said they would probably need to restrain her when removing the coffee bean later so I was mentally bracing myself for the worst.  We were then told to wait for the doctor who was attending to another patient.  I tried to prepare her while waiting for our turn – I explained that the bean needs to be removed, otherwise a tree would grow out of her nose J  I told her I’ll be with her, and that there’s nothing to be afraid of. 

She was pretty composed while we waited but started panicking when we went into the treatment room.  The nurse had lain the restraining straps on the bed, and covered it up with a piece of cloth but she refused to lie down so we had no choice but to force her down and bundled her up, much like being swaddled like a newborn.  

 This was the closest picture I could find to illustrate how she was restrained during the procedure.

She must have been terribly terrified L  She was screaming her lungs outs while I tried to calm her down for the doctor to be able to “hook” the bean out from her nose.  At some points, she stopped struggling and quitened down, probably because she didn’t feel any pain when the metal apparatus was inserted into her nose, before fear gripped her and she started struggling and screaming again.  The whole ordeal lasted probably 2-3 minutes, before the bean was successfully dislodged from her nostril and she was freed from the restrainer.  Thereafter, she hung on tight to me like a koala bear, until we rewarded her with 100 Plus, which she requested earlier while we waited for our turn.  She was back to her usual cheeky self not long after.  And said to me, “Mummy, tomorrow (she uses tomorrow to describe the future) I don’t want to put anything in my nose already.”  I'm just so glad it didn’t lead to anything serious, and she’s learned her lesson.

The offending bean

S.E.V.E.N

I promised Yiu Yiu a trip to Kidzania as her birthday present but as I had a meeting scheduled on Thursday morning and report card day in the afternoon, we went there on Friday with her cousin, Yihao.

When we got there, we found out that tickets were sold out for the day!  I don’t know who was more disappointed, the children or myself!  Apparently they had 19 school trips that day, so there were already like 1700 kids inside.  I was initially cursing myself for not purchasing the tickets online but on hindsight, it was a blessing in disguise, coz if I had, the children would not enjoy themselves as much, as they would probably spend much more time queueing than actually role-playing.

Since we were already out, and not wanting to send them back to school, we went to Kid’s e-World at IPC.  We spent the whole day there, stopping only for a quick late lunch.  Thank goodness they had free wifi inside, with very strong signal, so while the kids played, I downloaded apps into my new Samsung phone J

Expending some of her energy on the trampoline

Preparing to wage war with Yihao

We celebrated with my side of the clan, the babysitter and her sisters on Saturday at Ah Tuan Ee, SS2, with discount coupons that I bought.

Gulai tumis, sambal petai prawn, joo hoo char, inchi kabin, tau-u-kay, stir fried mixed vegetables

Birthday girl and mummy

She looked so intense when making her birthday wish :-)

I ordered the yummylicious durian mousse cake from M&M Café again – and it is still as good as we remembered it, with lots of durian flesh between the spongy cake.

And so these simple events marked seven years of joy that our first born brought to the family. 

 One for the family

Report card day

Yiu Yiu turned seven on Thursday, and it happened to be her report card day as well J  So how did it go…not very well, both results and celebration wise!  Will talk about her birthday celebration in another post.

I already expected her position to drop drastically, as she did really badly on both her BM Penulisan and Pemahaman and so I was neither shocked nor disappointed when I got her report card. 

I missed the first term report card day as I was travelling so this time, I got a chance to ask her class teacher more questions.  Apparently this girl L.O.V.E.S to talk and is constantly reprimanded for talking in class!  The teacher also commented that she doesn’t show remorse even when reprimanded.  Aiyo!  She also tends to have a mind of her own, and will sometimes defy the teacher’s orders (e.g. she will start scribbling and writing down the answers even though the teacher asked the class to put down their pencils and pay attention to the lesson first).  Double aiyo!  Nonetheless the teacher commented that she’s smart and a quick thinker.

So the onus is now on me to help her improve her BM.  Will need to scour the book stores to find suitable BM story books and exercise books for her to read and practice during the school holidays.  Now on the talking bit, how can I get her to stop talking in class?  Any suggestion, anyone?

A Caucasian's food trail

Over the last couple of days, I had the privilege to play host to a renowned gastroenterologist, a world authority on the management of upper gastrointestinal bleeding.  We invited him here for a series of talks to the local medical community.  With such an illustrious career, he turned out to be such a humble and pleasant person, with unconventional preferences with regards to food, compared to his Caucasian counterparts.

Days before his arrival, he dropped me an email, requesting to be taken to local restaurants on days when there’s no formal arrangement of meals.  He also specifically requested to be taken to a roadside durian stall!  I found it very amusing, as all the Caucasians I know would run miles away at the slightest hint of durian.

And so, our first meal was at Ah Tuan Ee at SS2, where we had ikan belah belakang, tau-u-kay and jeu hoo char.

After dinner, we adjourned to Donald’s Durian along Jalan SS2/24 where we feasted on two fruits, among them a musang king, supposedly the king of the king of fruits.  The two durians cost as much as our dinner!  And interestingly, while we were there, there was another Caucasian having a durian outing with his friends J

The next day we went downtown to Hutong at Lot 10.  Now I must be the last person in Klang Valley who has yet to patronize the much publicized Hutong, so I’ve got him to thank for inspiring me to make the trip to Hutong.  We shared a meal of bak kut teh, char kuay teow with duck egg, and beef noodles.

His last informal meal before leaving was at Kanna Curry House, and he liked it so much that he had a second helping of rice.

Another rather peculiar trait is that he doesn’t like alcohol, and would much prefer a Diet Coke anytime.  So there’s absolutely no need for him to learn how to quit drinking.