My fourth day in HK and haven’t had a chance to do much but work and eat. There’s lots of great Chinese food here, obviously, and my hosts have been taking us out every night to a different place. I like the simple, traditional restaurants with the plain white dishes and round tables like the ones back in Canada. People use the small bowls to eat from and the dishes to hold the bones and other non-edible bits.
(1) Round tables are standard in Chinese restaurants, something you will rarely see in Japan except in Shakey’s (2) This drink is coffee and tea mixed together. It tastes exactly like it sounds and is named after some kind of bird. I don’t why anyone would want to drink coffee and tea mixed together but whatever. They also mixed jasmine tea with chysanthemum tea which wasn’t bad.
Some other observations.
-Lots of smells in this city. Some good, some bad and some that remind me that I’m Chinese.
-Public displays of affection. For 3 consecutive days at the MRT station, I’ve seen the same couple in the same place kissing. Lots of kissing spotted in other places too.
-The average height of people seem shorter here.
-Tall buildings and slow elevators means long queues to wait for the lift.
-Candy bar keitais are the norm and clamshell types are rare.
-An English bookstore was playing the worst JPop I’ve ever heard.
That coffee mixed with tea is called “yuan yang”, a kind of bird that supposedly sticks to one mate all its life, thus the Chinese are fond of giving newly weds bedsheets embriodered with these birds.
You should try the tong sui. Especially stuffs like almond paste and walnut paste (cheaper version) or double-boiled bird’s nest with dates (expensive version), the cantonese are excellent with soups.
hi,Roy
Plenty good food in HK. go try some mango dessert and mango fruit drink. I be going back there for a break soon
Saff, yes that’s the name of the monogamous bird.
Ming, at my hotel they leave a fresh mango for me everyday.
You mean MTR for Hong Kong as MRT is for Singapore.