Dessert: 芒果芝麻腸粉

One of the most amazing desserts we had in Hong Kong was while on Cheung Chau island for their Bun Festival  which is held once a year in April or May. We had the pleasure of experiencing it first hand. The humble island of Cheung Chau, literally named long island (長洲), is best known for their dessert specialties. One of the our favourites was a variant on the cheung fan noodles that is made with sesame and has mango fruit and sauce on it. My canto friends call it "manguo jima cheung" in Cantonese, so the literal Chinese would supposedly be 芒果芝麻腸粉. Delicious!

Hong Kong is Humid

I know there are many real posts that are still needing to be published - I keep telling myself that I'll work on them after exams are done! This year I'll have about a week off before Christmas that I can spend doing my Christmas shopping and working on this blog :)

Anyways, Hong Kong is a crazy humid place so if you're going to be there for a long time, get some of this stuff. It will stop your clothes from getting moldy :S

Thailand - Part 4: Chiang Mai

The next morning was yet another early day; the four of us had to pack our bags, check out of the hotel, and get aboard the bus to take us to our first tour destination. The transportation was not exactly what I in mind - somehow, I thought there would be a cushy small tour van that would take us to place to place, but instead, we find ourselves in the back of a truck-like taxi vehicle, where we sat on benches along with 6 other people. I didn't mind it though (until one of the benches broke down...but we'll get to that later) :P

Our first stop was a butterfly/orchid farm. In my opinion, it was kind of disappointing. The orchids were indeed pretty and fragrant, but I didn't really know enough about orchids to tell the difference between this one and the other :S. The butterfly farm appeared to have only 1 butterfly. To our horror, the facility used heavy metal chains in the doorway to brutally stop (and kill) any butterfly that attempts to fly though through the "door". It really wasn't very pleasant stepping through the killer metal chains.

Jordan sniffing the orchids.

Another type of orchids

Jean and I posing with the beautiful flowers!

A nice lady took a picture for the two of us

Some of the tourists were more enthralled with the cat

Nan Lian Garden

Nan Lian Garden is a beautiful little green getaway in the middle of the city, close to the Diamond Hill MTR station. I found it as I was researching online for a nice outdoorsy adventure to give Melody a break from her midterms. For anyone with quick access to the MTR, Diamond Hill is each to reach and it is quite easy to find the garden with the standard directions posted at the MTR exits. The garden is open to the public and has a general area where you can walk unrestricted into the evening hours. Along the paths, there are these special exhibit areas that you have to pay to access and they have less frequent opening hours. I believe these paid areas have either reduced fare or free entrance on Wednesday, but we never found our way back to try this out.

 Entrance area of Nan Lian Garden

 Chinese people have a thing for building gates

 Little trees are also popular here

This garden trip was where I first learned to use bokeh with my Canon point-and-shoot

Nan Lian Garden is a gently meandering series of walkways that have small ponds, trees and pagodas scattered aesthetically about. All around the garden are the towering skyscrapers and the immovable mountains. On our visit, it was populated mainly with older folks who were strolling about, or sitting by the larger pond, watching the giant Koi swim peacefully about. Throughout the park, small birds sing and call to each other, helping to remove the drone of the city traffic.

Map of Nan Lian Garden

 The views are like something from a post card, but more urban, due to the skyscrapers

 Some of these buildings house information guides about the ancient wood construction techniques

Eventually, the sun began to set in the garden. Due to how it is deeply entrenched against the highways and skyscrapers, we were quickly being left in a small garden pit of darkness. Climbing up to higher ground, we noticed that there was a walkway across a highway that was actually a crossing to the Chi Lin Nunnery that we had visited on the first city tour that we were taken on. With a few more pictures, we concluded our adventures and went in search of dinner!

 Sunset in the garden

 Chi Lin Nunnery Courtyard

This is one of my favourite HK pictures: The contrast of these ancient temples and the tower mountains and skyscrapers is a peculiar urban beauty to me

Japanese Curry Beef udon 

 Soup noodle dinner set thing

Melody bought a Snoopy shirt at Uniqlo

Whampoa Adventures

Thursday was a day right in the thick of Melody's studying. She was exhausted from days on the books so we decided to take an evening off and go in search of a restaurant that I heard about. We started our adventure by heading to Hung Hom station.

Emerging at ground level, we meet the large mall and slowly find our bearings. We start walking in the direction of the coast, looking for our mystery restaurant. Along the way, we old dark streets with small stores. The majority of these stores are selling elaborate wreathes of tropical flowers, which we later learned were all funeral wreathes :S

The general lack of large billboards and lights, the little old ladies pushing carts of cardboard, and the old men chatting and smoking in small store alcoves gave us a feel for the old Hong Kong. It was not the new, flashy, bright, 24/7 711 feel of Hong Kong Island.

Most of the stalls in this area sell the funeral flower wreaths

All the while that we are walking, we still do not know what Whampoa refers to. It is this mythical existence that we do not fully understand. Finally, as we wander the dark streets, we find large lit up signs announcing that we are entering the "Wonderful world of Whampoa".

With a bit more wandering we find the area where our restaurant is and we finally understand Whampoa: it is like a housing community, complete with grocery stores and restaurants. One of the most noticeable and distinguishing parts of Whampoa is the mammoth boat that was built there and houses restaurants and various stores. Walking up on the boat, we find a local community group doing Wing Chun practice and Tai Chi.

 It's all one big community

 Up on the boat, Wing Chun practitioners behind us 

 View from up on the boat

Melody admiring the view and spying on locals

The dinner it self was in a building across the street, and is heartily recommended by us. Wang Jia Sha's (王家沙) food is primarily Shanghai cuisine is primarily known for their interesting use of sugar, according to wikipedia, but this is not something that I noticed in many of the dishes. What I noticed in general was rich flavour and very saucy food. My favourite dish that we ordered was called 擔擔麵 (Dan Dan Mian, aka Dan Dan noodles) which is a saucy noodle dish with a strong peanut flavour. We ordered another soup type dish that I was not particularly fond of, mainly because it was full of this slimy rice-cake type material that I didn't really enjoy. We also ordered wonton's that were very tasty. In summary, we had a great meal and I felt that it was quite affordable for two adventuresome students!

 擔擔麵 (Dan Dan Mian) - very recommended! 

Departure

The constant rumbling of the plane's engine, the distant chatter of other passengers, the announcement from the cabin crew to buckle up was the first few signs that told me, in a few moments, I was really leaving Hong Kong.

I looked out the window and saw the building that I just came out of - a large structure with glass windows that housed many departing people, whether they are tearful, happy, or excited. Jordan was still there, probably en route to his own gate, to board his flight to Toronto. The mountains, so close to us, provided a impressive backdrop against the many waiting planes in the vast lot. Beyond the mountains was the rest of Hong Kong, which had been my home for the past 4 months...

The plane ride was quite relaxing and enjoyable. I spent the first 4 hours eating, watching a movie (Limitless) and a few episodes of shows that I fell behind on. The next half an hour consisted of me disturbing my sleeping neighbour so I could go to the washroom, then struggling to find a comfortable spot for me to fall asleep. Once that position was discovered, I snoozed for the next 5 hours and woke up to find we were only an hour away from our destination!

My first thought as the plane was descending towards the runway of Vancouver airport was how far the mountains looked. It looked hundreds of kilometers away! It was a great change from Hong Kong, where the nearby mountain was simply a few kilometers hike or an MTR stop away...

It was quite sad to be leaving Hong Kong. I have such an incredible 4 months full of great adventures, fantastic people and delicious food! However, I am glad to be back home, to see my family and friends here, and to enjoy the beautiful and dry Vancouver weather. I will definitely be back in Hong Kong sometime, to enjoy the rest of the amazing places I never got to visit. It's not goodbye, but 再見 - see you again!


P.S. We will still be updating the blog and posting about our past adventures! Sta tuned :)

Minor Update!

Hello everyone! As you can see, we have fallen behind with updates on this blog. Apologies! The term is coming to an end so soon, and there are way too many things happening all at once!

We are currently in final exam period, so if we are not holing up in the library studying, we are outside enjoying the last bit of Hong Kong. Both Jordan and I have our flights on May 27th to return to Canada. My dad is actually coming to visit on May 25th, so we'll be spending our last days in Hong Kong with him!

The blog updates will probably come when I return home :P It is so weird to think I will be home in about 1 week. I will definitely miss it here!