• Pizza Hut with some of my girlies. Pizza Hut here is no joke. It’s high class and the restaurants are very classy and have an extensive menu selection. I had escargot as part of my meal.
• Meeting up with Redford for dinner at Crystal Jade. Best xiao long bao and ramen noodles ever. EVER.
• Meeting up with Wesley for dessert at Tong Pak Fu & shopping at Causeway. Mango shaved ice with marshmallows & fruit. Mmmm…
• Meeting up with Red again for dinner at Modern Toilet and drinks in Langham Place. The very top floor has these really nice bars. We went to one that advertised ‘buy one, get one martinis’ so we were really smart and ordered 2 different martinis. Turns out it was buy one, get the same one, so we were rather amused when the waitress brought us 4 drinks.
• …I don’t even remember what else I did for reading week. I guess the rest was relatively low-key.

Famed xiao long bao at Crystal Jade. You can also see part of the ramen

Shaved iceeeeee

After that I had a hella crazy week of school. Two assignments and two midterms burnt me out a little, so I thought it’d be a good idea to go to Taiwan for a weekend trip. Also, it was dirt cheap. Unfortunately the trip didn’t really turn out how I’d hoped.

The good:

• Flight exceeded my expectations; I highly recommend Thai Airways.
• Hostel was nice and clean. The staff were really helpful with any questions we had, and it was in a prime location, with the train station and subway (MRT) right outside our building.
• Taipei is a nice city. Not as crazy and fast-paced as Hong Kong, and the locals are soooo nice when we ask for directions/favours.
• Foodgasms everywhere. I think the best thing I had was on the first night at Raohe Night Market. It was a whole squid, fried in some kind of batter, and drizzled with various sauces.
• I felt like we hit most of the places I really wanted to see, and made good coverage for essentially 3 days: Taipei 101, Raohe Night Market, Babe18 (nightclub affiliated with Room18), LUXY, Wulai, Shida Night Market, Shilin Night Market, Yangminshan, and Chiang Kai Shek Memorial Hall. Wulai and Yangminshan would theoretically take you entire days to fully explore.
• LUXY has the most stunning interior of any club I’ve ever been to. Also I enjoyed the atmosphere at both clubs.
• Everyone can speak putonghua, so we were able to get around quite easily.
• The areas surrounding the city are naturally very beautiful.
• We met a really really nice cab driver who took us all the way from Yangminshan to the Chiang Kai Shek Memorial Hall for TWD 200.

The bad:

• I lost my camera. Yes, the very camera I said I just purchased in my last post. Yes, it also means I lost my memory card, not to mention all the photos from the first day. Yes, it was completely my own fault for leaving it in the back of a taxi. Yes, I am still hating myself.
• After I lost my camera, I was so depressed, I didn’t want to spend money. So I didn’t buy/eat much.
• On the third day, we went to Wulai. It was a positively gorgeous place, but not even halfway through the day, my friend’s camera battery ran out so we have no photos of some of the best parts.
• The exchange rate we got was horrible.
• I got no sleep the night before we flew there. Damn java sockets project.
• We went up Taipei 101 about an hour before it closed, and didn’t realize there was an outdoor observatory until they were ushering people out. We begged the security guy to let us go up for 2 minutes, and he gave us exactly 2 minutes.
• We were late in leaving for the airport on our way back, and had to taxi it for a ridiculous TWD 1000. Though if you think about it, it’s actually only about CAD 18 per person. But still. If we left earlier, we could’ve taken an airport shuttle for 1/5 of the price.
• After this trip, I would definitely not ever go on a multi-day trip with only one other person whom I don’t know very well. We did have a lot of fun, but constantly had conflicting opinions of what to do.
• I thought I got about 13 mosquito bites. Turns out I missed some small ones and I have around 20. I’m pretty sure I got all of them during the night. Must’ve been a few bugs hiding in our room.
• Yangminshan was a big letdown. We MRT’ed, bussed, bussed more, and walked a lot to get to the “flower sea” which was supposed to be really pretty. It was just a bunch of calla-lilies, half of which were dead/wilting, in a small area that wasn’t even nice to look at. On the other hand, the area we went to was maybe 10% of the entire park. It’s gigantic.

To summarize, Taiwan as a place was amazing, but due to some unfortunate circumstances and events, I felt like I wasn’t able to enjoy it fully. I will definitely be going back there to explore and eat more (and hopefully take some photos!), but probably not anytime soon.

Lamb chops with baked penne @ Red Ant

Dude. I love lamb meat. I think I only recently became conscious of this fact. It’s just so good however you prepare it. So far in HK I’ve had lamb chops, lamb in hot pot, lamb in KBBQ, lamb dumplings, lamb skewers, lamb in stew… I am instantly drawn to anything on any menu if it has lamb in it. SO GOOD.

That is all I have to say. Yes, this entry is a scheduled post because I currently do not have Internet access in Thailand, and I know that my lack of online presence has left a void in your life. In the meanwhile, feel free to drool over and discuss the glory that is lamb meat. Back on Tuesday!

GOOD, not great.

They had about 5-6 dishes that were very very popular. We decided to split 3 of them: the Hainanese Chicken, assorted satay meat skewers, and the fried turnip cake.

Hainanese chicken (top), assorted meat skewers with satay sauce (bottom)

The chicken and skewers were both pretty good. The chicken was tender, and the satay sauce was flavourful. However, I was rather disappointed in the serving sizes – I thought one dish could eat like a meal for one person, but it wouldn’t be nearly enough.

Fried turnip cake

The fried turnip cake was good at first bite. After you eat about 2 chunks, it became kind of disgusting and feels akin to shoving over-seasoned glue in your mouth. Ironically, this dish was rather large, and can really fill you up. So basically the restaurant’s name is a fairly accurate description of their food: good but not great. After dinner we just wandered around TST for some shopping.

The Charlie Brown Café. Need to check it out some time.

I don't know what this was (hotel? club?) but it was pretty. And had reindeer decorations.

Hong Kong: Keepin' it classy

The next day we were off to Macau for a Gary Cao concert at the Venetian. If you don’t know who Gary Cao is, don’t feel bad, because 80% of people here didn’t know who he was either. But then they usually have an ‘OOOHHHHHH THAT GUY’ moment when you hum this song. Or this one. The concert and return ferry tickets were only HKD368 so I think we got a pretty good deal, considering ferry alone is around HKD300. After finding the terminal, which was a feat on its own, we hopped on the CotaiJet ferry and arrived in exactly one hour.

Off to Macau!

Ferry was impressive; had airplane-like seating

All of the Macau ferry terminals have complimentary shuttle buses run by the casinos, to their respective venues. The local economy is supported very heavily by the Cotai Strip, and features many of the same hotel/casino chains as the Las Vegas Strip. We took a shuttle bus to the Sands, and started our journey from there. First we explored the Fisherman’s Wharf, which had mini-replicas of recognizable international locations. It was strangely deserted, but it was nice that way.

The Sands casino is situated right next to Fisherman's Wharf

Mini Roman Colesium

Mini Potala Palace - the Dalai Lama's residence

And a bit of Beijing. They had a lot of colourful koi in the moat.

We then taxied to Senate Square and apparently that’s where all the people were. It was insanely crowded, even more so than I had ever seen Hong Kong (until the Flower Market, but more on that later).

Senate Square, decorated for the Lunar New Year, and PEOPLE!!

Pork chop bun for lunch - popular Macanese fare

We made our way to the remains of St. Paul’s church – the famous Jesuit church that burnt down, leaving only its front frame.

St. Paul's church

You can explore a bit behind the church, where you’ll find a mini museum, and I kid you not, a crypt. They actually call it a crypt. Beside the attraction, there was also a park we walked around. Of course, you can’t go to Macau without having one of their famous Portuguese egg tarts. It’s important to note that you should only buy them fresh from Kui Kee bakery. We bought one elsewhere and it tasted like the dry, powdery ones we have back home.

*Cue angel chorus*

After that we went around to more casinos. First stop, the Lisboa.

It looks like a gigantic shiny pomegranate

Lisboa Hotel lobby. This is what my future house will look like, thanks for asking.

Next up, the Wynn

It had a weak, cheesy fountain show, as a tribute to the one at Bellagio Las Vegas

There was a sweeeeeet outdoor pool area which we weren't baller enough to access. (The ceiling lights are a reflection from inside.)

After the Wynn, it was almost concert time, so we headed to the Venetian.

Picked up tickets for GARRRYYYYY!

Grabbing a quick dinner at the Venetian food court. The ceiling/'sky' is synthetic.

Pork chop & spaghetti in broth or something? It was YUMMY.

Anticipating GARRRYYYYY

Pumped up GARRRYYYYY

Subdued GARRRYYYYY

Gary’s concert was really just “meh” for me. He didn’t really do many memorable things, but then again I didn’t really pay much for the concert ticket. He sang all his hits, fake-cried during emotional parts, invited the most random chick as a guest performer whose name I don’t remember, had a sexy dance where two girls made out for a ballad which made no sense, did some impersonations of Andy Lau, and talked in Cantonese most of the time so I couldn’t really understand what he was saying.

Some bar in the Venetian casino area. Curved escalators on the sides!! WHEEE!!!

The Venetian's canal with gondolas, much like the one in Vegas. The juxtaposition of an Italian theme with Chinese shops all decorated for the Lunar New Year kind of throws you off.

After exploring the Venetian thoroughly, we came across this dude who was stacking cards. He’s apparently made many famous structures with cards, and was currently working on one of the Venetian. He was in a glass display that couldn’t have been more than 15′ x 10′, which I thought was rather inhumane.

Bryan Berg's work-in-process

We had about another hour to burn before catching our ferry back, so we swung by an Irish pub to grab some snacks and drinks, then headed back to Hong Kong. It was then that I noticed how much HK smells. You get used to it, but when you come from Macau (which doesn’t smell at all), the odour is rather noticeable. Pooped from a fulfilling day, we cabbed back from the terminal because it was 2am and no buses were running.

Finally, I’d like to wish everyone a (somewhat belated) Happy Valentine’s Day, Happy Chinese New Year, and GO TEAM CANADA!

Update (3/12/10): Dude finished the card structure!