Last beach day of season...

Two taxis, a boat, an hour's steep hike. Lovely breezy 25C sunny weather. It is indeed quite a trek (four hours to be exact) to the most lovely beach in Hong Kong: Tai Long Wan (big wave bay) located in Sai Kung.  We took a taxi to Sai Kung ($200HKD) then a New Territories Green Taxi to Wong Shek Pier ($90HKD). Then paid an old po-po/grandma $20hkd each to drive 6 of us on a small boat for 15 mins to Chek Keng, the hike start.  From there we walked a very steep 2km towards Ham Tin beach including a stop for instant noodles, fried eggs, vermicelli and fresh organic peppers. Oily but tasty. Their toilet was a dungeon literally though. From Ham Tin, this time around it was PACKED of tourists. Then another 15-20 mins hike up rocks with climbing ropes, then down to Tai Long Wan, where we played in the big waves, slept on the clean beach and just relaxed before the trek backwards home... long day!  Usually there are old ladies driving their boats directly to Sai Kung to Ham Tin but the waves were just too big.


Upon returning to Sai Kung (mad traffic) Stephen and I ate at Paisano's which was rammed with foreigners.  Their crust is nice but toppings sparse except oddly for too much cheese (typically costly in Asia), and far too little tomato sauce.  I'm sore!  Our new mattress was a welcome retreat once home.


Now today - another week at work. But i'm glad to be in town and not traveling for once. Have a great week everybody!

Din Tai Fung in Taipei 101 = so so

There are tons of Din Tai Fung xiao long bao (steamed bun with soup) restaurants around Asia, Australia and in Toronto also.  But I went to one location in its native city of Taipei, and supposedly the newest location tonight with a few colleagues - in the B1 basement of Taipei 101. To be honest - it was average. I think thus far the best tasting location is in Hong Kong Causeway Bay. On the topic of soup dumplings that originate in Shanghai, they were the worst there actually (stomach aches yuck).  At least on the 'plus' side the tung choi (water spinach) is back in season!  In general Taipei restaurants are cleaner with better service than in Hong Kong or China (but maybe only in the Xinyi modern area).

This week is the last week of business travel for some time (I hope!).  Can't wait to breathe easy this weekend and next week :)

it was my grandma's birthday this week and soon my grandpa's birthday too. I wish I was home to celebrate with them :(

Have a nice Wednesday everyone!

Homemade wonton and gyozas... took the plunge with the mattress!!

We did it. Spent a fortune on king sized brand name mattress. Stephen is convinced the top 3 mattress vendors mix up all the brand names and model numbers so you can't read reviews; but there are globally only a handful of different models. Oh well. We're knowing suckers. Now onto the expensive sheet sets, mattress covers, bedframe and re-organizing our home to accommodate this new king(dom).


Anyway also found wonderful non frozen locally made wonton and gyoza wrappers at Wellcome Superstore (24 hours, Causeway Bay near Ikea). They taste better than they look the photos - steamed was way better this time; last time the wrappers were thinner so fried gyozas rocked. Unfortunately the won ton wrappers were gigantic so some were envelope-like!  All in all, I really enjoy making wontons and gyozas from scratch!


To add to our shopping misery, we caved and bought an air cleaner which is totally needed given the bad air and non stop air con in HK.

Now... off to Taipei and Beijing this week again.  But our guests shall be more comfortable enjoying our current double bed!  Have a great week everyone!

Mattresses in Hong Kong are so expensive!

Ikea cannot be the ONLY place in town for beds. So we were convinced that normal branded mattresses were available in Hong Kong. Yes they are (Simmons, Sealy, and King Koil, plus some more Asian local brands like Slumberland).  But man - these mattresses cost a fortune!  Plus there is usually the Japanese and U.S. models. The Japanese styles are shorter (like 190cm length) and bed is too firm for me.  And they're into space saving, non-pillow top thickness.  Like 8" height.  Does it really save that much more space? Are ceilings lower in Japan too?  The U.S. models can be much longer but the prices are easily 3x the North American prices.  Now the big jump from our Full/Double sized bed to Queen seems not worth it; we should have upgraded before shipping our furniture over to Asia.  That said, no chance in hell a King sized bed will fit into our elevator or flat (actually we didn't measure).  But the more elbowing in bed, the more we'll have to pinch pennies and jump take the plunge.  A ten year investment in a good mattress seems worth it, no?  We got so disillusioned that the hydraulic storage leather bed/headboard seemed very interesting...

Happy 3 year anniversary and 25th birthday to Stephen

Forgot to mention in my last mad 'diary'- like blog that we celebrated our 3 year wedding anniversary and Stephen's 25th birthday in late Sept. Good times although suburbia isn't really my thing :)

Good bye Steve Jobs, Hello Yangshuo, Cebu, Hillary and joint Toronto visit

Dear Friends - I have been terrible at keeping up with my blog. First and foremost, Steve Jobs, the legendary innovator behind Apple's amazing story, Pixar and disruption of the music industry, passed away from pancreatic cancer a day after the IPhone 4S was announced. He told Stanford Grads in 2005 to Stay Hungry, Stay Foolish, and with our careers, Don't Settle.  The world shed so many tears and so did I. What a loss and in time to stick it to Bill Gates for copying Apple's OS decades ago.

Two months have passed since we headed off to Cebu Philippines for a one-night two day trip to Mactan Resort in Lapu Lapu for my birthday.  Awful beaches and mediocre food, but a great nearby getaway with spa, pool, jetskiing and snorkeling!  Great weather too; not too hot. Wifi and lazy lounge chairs as well. Only 2 hours by flight away, we managed to have a great b-day dinner with friends then scoot off on Sat morning until Sunday night!

https://picasaweb.google.com/118026906425264328225/CebuPhilippinesAug2011

Somewhere in between the stock markets crashed again. Sad for our new investments in HSBC.

Anyway the rest of August my two close friends Claire and Domina moved to Hong Kong. And we got did fabulous hikes to Sai Kung beach which was surprisingly far better than in Cebu! And the stream of visitors continued with my MBA classmate Alice and her sister, Stephen's cousins from France, my cousin Lily from Toronto, his uncle from Toronto, etc. Fun times!

In September, we took a weekend trip to Yangshuo, a gorgeous karst mountain range in Guangxi province near Guilin (this is the home province of my father's family). Local tour guide (Mulan) was hired and we rode bikes about 50km (flat) through rural areas. The weather was humid but we enjoyed wonderful locally chilis and food, rice picking hats, outstanding views cormorant fishing and random local shops for snacks.

https://picasaweb.google.com/118026906425264328225/YangshuoGuilinAreaGuangxiChinaSept2011

For the rest of the month, I was in North America, first in LA for work then San Francisco as an APEC delegate with Hong Kong for the Women & the Economy Summit. At this amazing conference, we got to hear Hillary Clinton and Sheryl Sanberg (Facebook) and Christine Lagarde and Yang Lan speak how Women's full participation is good for economic recovery.  Met a lot of great people from public and private sector from all around the world!  Then it was all work after that before meeting Stephen in Toronto.

It was our first trip back to Toronto together since moving to Hong Kong. A lot of babies and family events which is nice but totally different from Hong Kong life. Seems too short. I am so glad to finally be back at home in HK after an immediate trip to Taipei to speak at a work conference. Then getting really sick after throwing up from a fancy Hakka lunch meal. Thankfully I recovered quickly!

Miss everyone and sorry that my blogs are becoming more factual and less insightful.

Typed from my new mac book air!!! thanks Stephen!

11th month in HK...Service Economy!

Hi Everyone!  Oh my gosh, its been a busy 1.5 months and no time to blog.  I've been living in HK for 11 months now... time sure flies... i've renewed my work visa for 2 years

Key findings
- people still walk inconsistently here. Some very fast and others.... sooo slow! Geez.
- i hate the Tung Chung MTR orange subway line - it sits at Hong Kong Station for 5+ mins and only comes every 7 mins :(.  compared with the 2-3 mins wait on Island Line, its brutal (and I only go ONE stop to work)
- there are many cockroaches on the streets of Hong Kong.  Yuck!  Cleanliness is not nearly as high as Taipei for instance. Ironically there are washroom and street cleaning people everywhere, yet it is still dirty
- seafood and dim sum remains the best food in HK.  However the Kowloon side has better tasting restaurants compared with HK Island (especially we don't fancy Central or Soho as much!). Its worth the trip across the harbour!
- its DAMN hot and humid in summer.  We need to use lots of dehumidifying boxes and machines.  Our energy bill for air conditioning is very costly, as is running washer / dryer at home. 
- Therefore its really a 'Service Economy' here... better to be served in restaurants and have clothes washed by someone else!   Don't put away your trays in the food courts or you'll be threatening people's jobs
- Hong Kong is a convenient location to travel within Asia.  The airport is kind of far but flying in the region is very convenient and affordable
- still loving our home's location. easy walk to Central, IFC or MTR station. Come visit!
- they don't sell certain Cereals here, for example, Shreddies must be brought in by suitcase for Stephen from Canada, as does Quaker Oats with Apple/Cinnamon oatmeal
- still haven't been to all the fabulous roof top lounges / bars. Recently tried The Upper House at Pacific Place, and Ozone at 118th floor Ritz Carlton ICC... many more to try apparently
- HK is definitely not mainland China (not yet anyway).  In Mainland, there was a train wreck whereby two high speed trains crashed.  The government censored all negative commentary on the accident!  And buried the rail cars on site before a full investigation could start. Shady... and very scary!  Most people reckon the rail development in China was too rushed with poor training and oversight. Corrupt! Read: http://www.facebook.com/l.php?u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.cnbc.com%2Fid%2F43965730%2FChina_Imposes_Blackout_on_Train_Wreck_Coverage&h=RAQBv70RR

On a personal front,

So besides a few overseas trips to see our 3 new nephews/nieces (Welcome Joven Lau, Adam Herrera and Kristin Yang)... and luckily being able to catch up with some MBA friends in San Fran, honestly, June/July has been all about work for both Stephen and me. 

Shanghai was a pleasant yet rainy trip. Stephen also went for work.  We look forward to going back again soon.  Beijing is the same polluted, political and dreary biweekly trek for me.  We even flew together on a business trip to Beijing...but traveling for work really is not fun!  The only 'new' place I went was Yantai Shandong Province, which is a few hours from Qingdao (Tsingtao beer home). The beaches are nice, seafood is great but 'best' hotels are kind of dirty. Nonetheless new places are good to try.

On the plus side, two of my best friends Domina and Claire have separately moved here to Hong Kong, from New York and London UK respectively!  They are both still househunting but it will be great to have some time together finally in the same city.

I'll write more after our Cebu Philippines trip next weekend!

9 months & counting... finally bought a dehumidifier

Its June already... wow time flies! Its almost time to renew my annual work permit in HK! 


Sorry for the delayed blog. This past few weeks has been busy for both Stephen and me. He's been up at 6am daily for the workweek, and between relatives and parents visits and various biz trips, I've also been busy.  


Let's see hmm.. I've been in Taipei the past two weeks for Computex Conference (2011 is the year of the 'copycat' tablet/slate machines... chasing iPads... there are 100+ variants whoa) and also visiting AMD's Manufacturing partners. On a more interesting note, the weather has been lovely -- if not a bit TOO humid.


My parents spent a few weeks touring China including Shanghai, Beijing, Chengdu, Guangzhou and then finally HK. We took them to Macau (brand new Galaxy hotel has a wavepool - wow!), ate meals with my HK relatives, enjoyed some shopping and dim sum. I also took them to the Peak which was a nice view and breeze compared with in-town. 


Daily life continues... and we finally caved and bought a dehumidifier.  This is a right of passage if you live in very tropical or humid places to avoid your clothes smelling or molding. Its amazing how much moisture is in the home!


bye!

Recent photos to accompany blog

Beijing food:), Oysters in Shenzhen, Yunnan bamboo wine, Stephen in Toronto

 i finally spent a week in Hong Kong renewing my China visa, hiking, cleaning, cleaning, cleaning and napping.  Its been a shockingly good week this week in China for food.  Monday in Shenzhen I ate the BEST meal ever eaten in Mainland.  Simple but great dishes in an outdoor oyster restaurant. I wasn't an oyster fan until these garlic flavoured plump ones, AND I didn't feel sick thereafter!  Then in Beijing I had Yunnan meal where they served rice wine from a tall bamboo stick, yummy soup noodles and some egg thing.  On the same night, I went to a going away dinner at Quanjude Tsinghua beijing duck. I was totally full and barely ate a thing.  At lunch, I had a stone hot pot with unagi (i still avoid raw fish in China) downstairs at work. Tonight a Muslim colleague was in town meeting Lenovo so I joined them for lamb (x3 various dishes) at a halal restaurant.  I better stop eating or will get fat and probably food poisoning on the way.  All in all, the food in China has improved in the past decade since coming here!

Stephen is back in Toronto for this week then off to work next week! ;) He enjoyed setting fireworks off with his cousins, meeting his new nephew Joven, spending quality family time, breathing fresh air, eating good food and getting mentally prepared for the crazy HK work hours...miss you!

have a great Wed everybody!  The weather in Beijing has been fabulous and I hear its great in Toronto too!

May - dragon boat, hiking, new nephew and homesickness

Stephen and I are getting homesick... his sister just had a new baby boy Joven and we're excited to meet him.  Also managed to get some hiking done; this time on HK Trail Section #5 and I competed in my second Dragon Boat race of the season at Deepwater Bay beach.  Yesterday we hosted my aunt/uncle's visit from TorontoHowever skipped my team's races in Borocay Philippines and in Lamma since cannot make it often.  Life is becoming a little less 'new' and more 'settled' in HK these days.  But look forward to a trip home in June/July to catch up with the family and new babies... work life is kind of a drag so I'll skip writing about this for now.  Mandarin lessons in full force so that's a bright light...:)  Happy Monday!

Vietnam: Wifi, coffee, honking, pho

Stephen organized a short but fun trip to Hanoi and Halong Bay (north Vietnam) over Easter weekend.  To our surprise, despite relatively low living standards, high pollution with scooters/cars - most of their cafe's have wifi! Wow! Pleasant.  Additionally unlike their tea obsessed Asian neighbours, coffee is the drink of choice in this former French colony.  Sadly development is clearly sub-par with scooters and pot-hole filled roads. Additionally the drivers HONK every other minute - even if there are no cars around. Needless to say the main streets are very loud.  Pho noodle soup is fabulous, cheap and readily available.  Not much vermicelli (bun) to be found (maybe that's in Ho Chi Minh / south?).  We loved the people and the food. Final observation - their architecture is TALL narrow multi story homes. Anyone know why?

I don't miss traveling in the US

Air travel is inconvenient already (relative to rail, which I LOVE).  But the insane security, queues, crappy airport food, rude staff and countless delays makes me really hate traveling to the US (sorry to my American friends).

I am in Chicago after spending 5 days on a business trip to Austin.  The stay was fine due to sunny 85F weather, 'gas station' Texas BBQ restaurant, great PHO and good sleep.  Getting there via Houston was another insane headache and now on way back to Toronto - drizzling rain and 3 hours delay. ARGH!

I really miss Stephen and being in Asia.  Been gone for about 1.5 weeks and itching to get back home. He was lucky to have gone to Phuket and Bangkok with his cousin (although I still haven't seen his photos... hmm.).

Have a great rainy weekend everyone!

Qing ming holiday, Beautiful weather; but snowy Toronto

Tuesday is tomb sweeping holiday ('qing ming').  We only get Tuesday off, which is wierd because I had a bunch of meetings on Monday. Anyway China and Taiwan get Mon-Tues which makes more sense for a long weekend.

This past weekend we had perfect weather.  On Friday I spent a gorgeous day in Taipei, taking a 30 mins break for a coffee in private in a patio in Beitou. 24C and sunny. On Saturday woke up VERY early for erg trials on a rowing machine then dragon boat practice in Tai Tam Tuk. Thereafter a group of us headed to Lamma Island for the 'family hike' (about an hour past a few nice beaches, some hilly sections) then seafood before the ferry home. It was a great day!

On the flip side its snowing again in Toronto... heading there this Wednesday and to the U.S. for some meetings.

Can't wait for a day off tomorrow in town.  Stephen is off to Phuket. so jealous!

See everyone soon!

Fresh seafood, Rugby 7's means packed bars

This weekend was crazy busy at first then extremely relaxing.  Overall so quite good!  Last Thursday evening we had a nice dinner of dumplings, ribs and veggies at Shanghai Lane with Jean Pierre before he left for Malaysia, and then attended a bar fundraiser at Joyce is not Here pub; 50% of proceeds went to the Earthquake via Red Cross. 

Then on Friday evening after a long day of customer meetings and conference calls, we went to Prive - a club that was packed 10x over!  Its the Hong Kong Rugby 7's where hundreds of thousands of british colonies expats are drinking like mad and dressed up like characters (I saw Angry Birds and SpongeBob - its practically hallowe'en... heard that may be 10% of people watch the sport match!)

Luckily my friends got us past the line to a private table. 4am rolled around, we ate McDonalds and surprise surprise, I couldn't wake up for my 8am dragon boat practice. Rough week needed a relaxing end on Fri/Sat!

The rest of Saturday was spent in Cheung Chau island, a seafood island with a pretty beach and nice hiking trails. Its known for their bun festival in April. We had a 4 course dinner for $188 HK (great deal, approx $25 USD) of fresh oysters, crab, fish and veggies then headed back to Hong Kong by ferry boat.  Worked out at the gym and watched two pretty good movies downloaded at home. Nice and relaxing.

As with our typical Sundays, we usually brunch with friends. Of course after the previous evening of gym workouts, we stuff our faces - this time at Wagyu Lounge, where my big breakfast of sausages/bacon/eggs is in a bun sat in my stomach ALL DAY!

Now... back at work after a busy morning of conference calls with customers, and lunch at Simply Life IFC with Domina.  Brown rice and fish and pumpkin soup. Not bad, but not great.

This week...off to Beijing and Taipei. Back on Friday. See you soon!