Spring Festival in middle of the Middle Kingdom!

Two more days and I'm off to South Korea.  I've spent the last six days in small-town China with my girlfriend's family for Spring Festival..."Chinese New Year" to all you Westerners out there. Earsplitting firecrackers go off every 30 seconds!

I've been to Jingzhou before, but this time it was a more substantial stay. I've gotten to see Cathy's family in action during the most important celebration of the year here in the Middle Kingdom.  If I had to sum up the entire experience in a word, that word has to be "educational."  I'll leave it at that for now. If you have any questions about what I mean when I say "educational," shoot me a FB message.

Gong Xi Fa Cai!

Hankou NYE

Cathy and I planned to go to Shanghai for New Years Eve.  But her being a councilor meant that she had to work on our January 2nd day-off.  Instead, we opted to go to Hankou to hang out with some colleagues.

We started off by taking the bus to Wuhan Square, a big mall complex in Hankou. We had dinner with another counselor from the school.  I had the "American potato" appie (aka: fries) and lamb chops with red wine sauce.  Yum.

After dinner, we went to a DVD store with a massive English title collection.  It was pretty awesome.  The store front looked a lot like HMV, but on closer inspection (and through a questionably dangerous back-store hallway), there were tons of DVD and bluerays...every conceivable English movie and TV series and some Korean, French and Japanese movies too.  Needless to say, we stayed there for a while just browsing the stacks.

We wanted to get to Hankou's river front area to see some fireworks, but it was way too crowded.  Our taxi got us within 5 blocks of the river, but then stopped dead in its tracks because of the legions of people and cars.  We walked the rest of the way. The walk took a long time because we were baby-stepping it the whole way due to the wall of people and motorcycles in front of us. We met up with some more friends.

From there, we took the ferry across Chang Jiang (The Yangzi River) back into Wuchang. Walked around Simakou Food Street and had some xiao chi. One place we stopped had chou tofu...stinky tofu.  Cathy was into it.  The sign above the kiosk read "The cook's great grandfather served chou tofu to Mao Zedong here."  Apparently, on any regular day, the place would have a massive lineup, but on NYE it was surprisingly short.  I downed some of Cathy's.  Chou tofu from other kiosks smelled like week old sour milk, but Cathy's choice wasn't so bad.  No wonder the Chairman chose this place to eat!

Fattening up for winter

Cathy and I have made a hobby to cook awesome food and eat out at great restaurants around Wuchang.  I call it "fattening up for winter," but realistically, I suppose it has to do with my reaction to the cafeteria food getting worse and worse.

Ever since coming back from Sanya, Cathy and I have hosted a number of dinner parties and ate at pretty awesome restaurants.  So far, some highlights we've cooked are chicken pesto pasta, brownies, Chinese chestnut chicken, and a local favorite, Central Chinese hot pot.  I also have a routine of making crepes on Saturday morning.  I've managed to find unsalted pralines. Last week, I made pecan maple syrup crepes. Delicieux! Hao chi!

Some restaurant highlights include various hot pots, Italian, Thai, local spicy fish stew, countryside food, a revolving continental buffet restaurant (which Cathy and I ate at for our 1 year celebration of being together), and American Thanksgiving.

We plan to cook increasingly complex recipes each time we cook.  But before doing that, I should probably try to master my own fusion dish, Mr. P`s Scotch Whisky Flambe Stir Fry.

Eating at the revolving restaurant. Imagine the restaurant at the Four Seasons Hotel in Vancity, but make it cheaper and with more choices. Crazy delicious!

One of many Cathy`s turns at cooking dinner. Notice the Baron Phillipe de Rothschild Mouton Cadet Bordeaux on the right. Oddly enough, Wuhan is blessed with fine selections of wines.  Maybe it has to do with the fact Wuhan is Bordeaux`s sister city...

Meiguo de Gan En Jie (American Thanksgiving) gen wo de tongshi zai Hanyang de Aloha Restaurant.  Turkey, mash, and all the fixings.  I had 3 entree rounds, 1 eggnog steamer, 2 coffees, a slice of pumpkin pie, and some apple cider.  And Cathy came along for her first Thanksgiving!  It was American, but what the heck, eh?

Sunny Sanya!

Cathy (extremely worried): "Aaa!! Slow down!" Paul (maniacal laughter): "Hahaha! Wei shenme!?"

Our ATV. It was tons of fun!

After quadding across the open expanse of Sanya Beach, we took pictures and went into the water.

In the evening, we decided to go back to the First Market.  The ingredients were good, but unfortunately we didn't pick as good of a restaurant to cook our food.

The next day, we went on a Chinese bus tour to a secluded beach past Yalong Bay.  It was well worth it.  The water was less turbid than the other beaches, and the weather was perfect.  A local family of beach bums ran the place.  They cooked us a barbecue lunch.

At the secluded beach, there were many activities - scuba diving, swimming, paddling, and jet skiing.  The banana boat dragged around by a jet ski was pretty awesome, but only if you let go when it flips over.  Alas, Cathy did not let go and got dragged through the water for about 30 meters. She emerged with bruises on her face and sore muscles all over.

Vacation with Cathy!

Yeeeeaaaah!!! My first vacation with Cathy!  Where was I off to this time?

We opted to go to the "Hawaii of China" - the beautiful beach town of Sanya in the Southern island province of Hainan.  Having gone to Hawaii many times in my youth (thank you Mom and Dad), I knew to be suspicious of Sanya's slogan. It wasn't really like Hawaii at all, and the in general the weather was terrible, but it was fun...especially since I got to spend some quality time with Cathy!

We wanted to cut costs for our vaycay, so we headed to Haikou first.  The plane ride was cheaper and Cathy got to see her old friend "Zepf."

Cathy and her high school friend.  I had to give him an English name. It sounded to me like he wanted a "Z" in his name, so I named him "Zepf."

Zepf is an aspiring lawyer. He just graduated from school, so he showed us around his university on a golf cart.  We also went to a beach because it was a clear day.  Rumor had it that Hainan was hit by a massive typhoon, but there almost no signs of it (except for some trees that were knocked down and sandy beach water that is usually really blue and clear).

The fruit in Haikou was cheap and delicious.  We bought 2 mangoes and 2 papayas that were the size of footballs!

The food in Haikou was great.  Fruit was cheap and very juicy.  Zepf brought Cathy and I to eat xiao chi, which was pretty different from the xiao chi in Wuhan.  The dessert that Zepf got us reminded me a lot of Filipino halo halo.

We took the bus because of inconstant security and this thing.

We wanted to go on the bullet train to Sanya, but they didn't allow me to take my Swiss Army Knife.  Cathy and I were disappointed with this rule because the security were inconsistent.  They didn't allow knives (to cut fruit), but allowed smokers to take their lighters (to stink up the air in the train) even though the rules clearly state no smoking, lighters and flammables?  We called bull but they didn't listen, so we took the 4 hour bus instead.  We made the most of it.  And besides, some of the scenery from the road going towards Sanya from Haikou was gorgeous.

Getting into town late, the first thing we did was to get to our hotel.  It was right next to the water on a small secluded beach in a small fishing village away from the major tourist beaches.  It was a perfect location.  It also had a nice soft bed, which was a huge plus!  It was the best bed I've slept on in all of China!

The rain didn't stop us from getting something to eat.  For dinner, we went to the First Market - a local seafood market.  Only the most adventurous foreigners were seen there.  The place was dirty.  It was filled with fish guts, squid water and rotten vegetables stained across the ground.  But the choices of seafood were endless: all kinds of fish, squid, clams, lobsters, eel, oysters, sponges, sea horses...you name it, they got it for cheap.  With a bag of different kinds of seafood, Cathy and I looked for a restaurant nearby.

The deal of the First Market is this: get your ingredients from the vendors and then go to a restaurant that you like.  The cook would then cook you up a meal and charge you a labor fee. We found one that uses a liberal amount of ginger and fish sauce.  Holy cow, the food was so good, it was the best Chinese food I've had in China so far.  I'm so glad I had it with Cathy.  It definitely beat Wuhan's Wuhang Yu.  It put the Beijing Kaoya I had to shame.  It was even better than the wonton noodle soup and Cantonese BBQ pork I had in HK and xiaolongbao from Shanghai .  And...dare I say...Hainan seafood was even better than Sichuan hot pot in Chengdu!

Great first day in sunny Sanya.  Okay, okay...it was sunny for only 3 of the 6 days we were there, but whatever.  We had fun.  More stories from Sanya are to follow!

This...

...turned into this!

And this...

...turned into THIS!

One of these guys...

...became this guy!

And the juice inside of that there coconut...

...soon ended up in my belly!

And some of these...

Soon became my favorite!  Our first dinner in Sanya = hao chi!!!

Di da di da di da Lijiaaang!

Lijiang Old Town by night

Stayed in a really quiet and contemplative hotel called Zen Garden.

Dad dancing with a bunch of grandmas next to a mountainside temple.

Some of the more "adventurous" cuisine in Lijiang Old Town.  Jim tried the roasted grasshoppers.  I tried one.  Feels like eating shell-on shrimp.

Chilling out in an expat haunt.

Some beautiful Naxi artwork

Mom and I at a Naxi minority shrine and heritage museum. Somehow it reminded me of the Burnaby Village Museum.

All photos on this post courtesy of my mom.

Kunming

I'm finally back in the furnace that is Wuhan.  This heat is killing me!  It's about 30 degrees here, and it's not even lunch time.  Better to have stayed in Kunming.  It's a really clean city and the weather is very temperate.

Relaxing at the hostel with a free beer after a rough (and late) flight from Hong Kong.

Vendors from ethnic minorities sell dried snacks all around Green Lake.

A Buddhist temple on the hills surrounding Kunming

Our black cab driver suggested we try this local Kunming noodle dish. Dad was nervous about it because it involved raw meat, but it was delicious and I didn't get the runs.

Mr. Wang, the blind masseur, massaging Mom.

Dad looking at photography in an art gallery.

Wine bar in the art district.

We planned to go to Shilin (The Stone Forest) in the evening of day two.  The hostel front desk offered a driver for 700Y.  There were 4 of us.  Mom reduced the cost per person by managing to get two other people to join us, a young German man and a young Colombian woman.  Both lived in China for a while. Our trip to Shilin proved to be quite the adventure, but that's another story...

Egg Tarts

I got this problem with my friends from Hong Kong.  Don't get me wrong!  I like my friends from Hong Kong! But there's this one issue that we just cannot agree upon. I am inflexible on the subject. They are inflexible too.

I'll just come out and say it.  Macau egg tarts are better than Hong Kong egg tarts.

Macau Egg Tarts are delicious.

HK ones are just meh...compared to Macau ones.

Sure, I like HK egg tarts.  I suppose they taste good.  And to be honest, I consciously go out of the way to find good ones when in HK.  But Macau egg tarts are just straight-up f--king awesome.


In Macau, I showed my parents and Jim around during our day trip.  It was more or less like my last visit to Macau, minus the gambling.  I focused on eating and sampling snack food. 

Our last day in Hong Kong included typical commoner Cantonese fare: wonton, barbecued meats, white bread with condensed milk (???) and the like.  I pigged out because it would be the last time I have Canto food for a few months, if not an entire year.

Starting Year 2: HK and Macau with the 'Rents

I'm back in Asia!  Back on the road of living another exciting year as a Canadian expat!  Starting Year Two off in Hong Kong with my family friend Jim and my parents. About a week ago, we landed in HK in the morning and went directly to our hotel at Causeway Bay.

Causeway Bay area

If you know me, you'll know that Hong Kong is one of my favorite cities the world over.  I love eating there.  I love the organization and cleanliness.  I love their subway.  I even love reading the business news every morning in HK...and this time it was really REALLY interesting with Asian markets plummeting.  I guess the only downside to HK is that it's a shopping city that's really expensive.

At the Star Ferry in  Central

Anyways, to sum up (since I'm writing this from Kunming, Yunnan and don't have time to linger on blogging), I showed my parents and Jim around the city from Lantau to Kowloon, Wanchai to SoHo.  For my own sanity, however, I demanded to go to the part of HK that I've never seen before: HK Island South.

The 'rents on a sampan in Aberdeen.

Aberdeen

St. Stephen's Beach in Stanley

That's more or less it in a nutshell.  Tomorrow, I relocate to Lijiang.  If I can get wi-fi at the place I'm staying at, then I might tell you about my travels to Macau with my parents. 

Year Two has started! I look forward to the next few weeks.  So many exciting things happening...travelling Yunnan province, going to Shanghai to see friends, and going back to Wuhan with wo de mama so she can meet Cathy.

I'll leave you with pictures of some dishes I've had in Hong Kong.