Risotto and my kids!

With a pot of simmering risotto on the cooker I'm reminded that neither of my children actually like risotto. It's really such a shame, risotto is so expensive, so good when it is fresh and takes so long to make. Plus my husband and I really like mushroom risotto.

I once made asparagus risotto with the hope that it might be the mushrooms that they detest and not the risotto itself but alas I was wrong. I was in one of those cooking moods and I proudly told everyone they would be getting a fancy dinner. Dinner was eaten on the balcony on an evening of rare sunshine and warmth.

At least the kids liked the setting and enjoyed the desert, which was a chocolate mousse made per a recipe I got from my German friend Sylvia in San Francisco. I don't often make the mousse because it requires raw eggs and I'm never too sure about eating raw eggs. German's don't seem to have a problem with it but Asian's do. My husband who is of Chinese origin and I, of mainly Sri Lankan origin, worry about salmonella poisoning when we use raw eggs. Currently we have a solution to this problem. An old colleague of mine keeps hens and when the sun is out and they are laying (sometimes more than one egg a day) I get a message in my in box to come and pick up a box of fresh eggs laid on that very day. These are the only eggs that my oldest will eat without a fight and we all notice the difference to the store bought ones. I guess they are kind of like what we call "gam biththara" in Sri Lanka.

And the time pressure is on ... the risotto is simmering and I have to leave in 15 minutes to go to the store and then pick up my little one from her viola lesson. Can you half cook risotto and then start it over again once it has cooled, or will that kill the consistency of the rice? If mine doesn't hurry up and cook I'm going to find out the answer to this question at dinner time tonight!

Shanghai

Shanghai is certainly a huge city, so unless you stay right down town you’re going to lose a lot of time travelling. The public transport is good, but it can be packed and the stations are very far apart, meaning that you are always left with a long way to walk. In the end we ended up walking a lot more than we normally would have because it didn't make sense to take the subway. If you don’t like crowds you’re going to have a bit of a problem here. All the main attractions are swarming with people!
Since there are so many expats in Shanghai a lot of the people speak (or at least understand) some English.

Getting Around:

We arrived at the Shanghai Pudong Airport which is the one on the South-East side of the city. It’s connected to the city with the Maglev which we decided to take because a) we thought it would save us time and b) we wanted to ride the fast train!

Well the train was fast but the overall journey to the city center was not. Here’s the problem, you get on the train and it goes really fast but it only goes to the Longyang Road station. From there you have to get out of the train, walk a while, and catch the same subway you would have caught if you had decided to take the subway all the way from the airport. Okay, so that doesn't sound so bad but don’t forget all the other people who got off the train want to catch the same subway train that you do. Not to mention all the people who opted to get into the subway at the airport itself. So basically this means that the subway is packed. We had to wait in line to get in. Thank goodness that at least they had people there making everyone stand in line and assuring that there was no pushing. We managed to get into the second subway that arrived even though we were the first people in line. In retrospect I think it would have been less stressful to take the subway from the airport. That way we would have been able to sit and the crowds would not have bothered us. By the time we got to East Nanjing Road the subway had pretty much emptied out and it was not a problem to get off.

Once we were in Shanghai we bought a metro card but it’s not as easy to get the money back in mainland China as it is in Hong Kong so we lost the deposit and the left over money on it. Plus we ended up hardly using the subway. All in all I think we rode it twice. Once on the second day and then at the end to the get to the train station and zoo. If you travel outside of rush hour it might make more sense to buy single ride tickets since the card does not entitle you to any discounts.

If you stay at the hotel we did there is a ticket counter where you can buy train tickets right at the entrance of the building (on the right hand side as you come in). Mind you, you have to pay a commission (beats travelling to the train station, believe me) and if you get the wrong ticket you can't exchange it (although you can exchange it at the train station).

Hotel: 

After Hong Kong I didn’t book any expensive hotels. I wanted to stay down town and I wanted all 4 of us to sleep in one room. This kind of limited our choices. In Shanghai I found that the global chain hotels didn’t have any rooms in which 4 people could sleep. Two rooms would have been too expensive and I didn’t want the kids sleeping alone in an unconnected room. So I booked us into the Seventh Heaven Hotel. It is bam smack in the middle of East Nanjing Road and yes, bam smack in between two subway stations :(. And if you happen to use Expedia: the location of the hotel on their map is incorrect.

One of the disadvantages to this hotel is that it is LOUD. We had a room facing the back so we could not hear any street noise but we could hear everything from the adjoining rooms. Chinese can be very loud and let me tell you that the women can be very high pitched too!

The other not so nice thing was that, although the rooms were non-smoking it didn't stop people from doing just that. Since there were gaps under the room doors the smoke crept in. But cigarette smoke is just one of those things you’ll have to get used to if you are travelling in China. Then of course there was the staff who was not very friendly or helpful.

On the flip side the room was really nice. We had free water, a fridge, soft mattresses and plenty of room. Most of all I enjoyed the decor of the room. It was a very old building and there were moldings on the ceiling and hardwood floors. It reminded me of the old buildings from the colonial period in Sri Lanka. This is the exact room that we stayed in and yes, those are two double beds!

Day 4:

The day we arrived we didn't get to do anything other than have dinner. I initially thought we'd see the Bund and have some dinner around there. Unfortunately getting from the airport to the hotel took much longer than we had expected. Add on to that they changed our initial flight time twice which meant we were arriving around 2 hours later than I had originally planned. We were so tired after our trip into Shanghai that we had dinner in a mall (Hongyi Plaza) that is joined to the East Nanjing Road subway station. Here we experienced the first difference between Hong Kong and mainland China... no toilet paper or soap in the bathrooms and mainly squatting toilets! We were okay with the squatting toilets being used to them from Sri Lanka but we had to stock up on toilet paper and carry it around with us. As for soap, I just took a small bar from the hotel and stuck it in a small zip lock bag. It came in very handy.  We had dinner at a Chinese restaurant that was reasonably priced, quick, had pretty good food and whose name I cannot remember. We then headed to the hotel and crashed for the night.

East Nanjing Road by night

Day 5: 

We tried out the breakfast at the hotel which was nowhere near stellar but we had 6 breakfast coupons so we figured we should use them up. The restaurant was dingy and badly lit, the tea was terribly weak and the bread was like fluff. The kids enjoyed the strawberry jam on toast and there were boiled eggs to go with it. If you are a meat eater things probably are a bit better and if you enjoy eating oily, hot food for breakfast you would be fine too. Oh yes! The other thing we enjoyed was the rice soup which my in-laws frequently make us for breakfast so we were used to it.

After eating we headed out to the East Nanjing Road subway station and caught the #2 to the Yuyuan Gardens. We were rather unlucky because it was pouring with rain! We used this as an excuse to duck into the shops in the Yuyuan Bazaar. We watched them making European style hard boiled sweets in one shop. It seemed to be the rage in China. We really should have bit the bullet and bought some with the panda face in them.

Thanks to the weather we wanted to have tea at the famous Huxinting Teahouse but after sitting down and perusing the menu we decided this was just too much to pay for a cup of tea. We seriously wondered if they had a tourist menu because they seemed to have big pots of tea for locals that were not on the menu. I don't have a photo of this place because of the rain but you can follow the link above and see some on trip advisor. Looking at their pictures I'm realizing that we must have been really lucky that it was raining because there were way fewer people!

We were not too impressed with the gardens. I think we got off on a bad foot because the first area we visited looked just like the Chinese tea garden in the botanical gardens of the Ruhr University which is about 10 minutes walk from our house in Germany! But it could have also been the rain or that we were expecting more green and less concrete and stone.








We exited through the southern entrance and went in search of the Temple of the Town God. That was also a bit difficult to find. But once we hit the road at the southern side of the "block" we turned left and it was right there. I think the trick is you have to enter the temple from the main road and although there is an exit back into the bazaar you can't get in through there. The temple is much like the Man Mo Temple just bigger. Lots of people, lots of incense, the kids were totally saturated with this type of temple.

We wanted to eat some vegetarian food here but the teahouse seemed deserted so we opted to go back outside to find something. We walked west on the main road, turned right on the next main street and on the junction of this road and a road that headed back into the bazaar we found a vegetarian restaurant called Songyuelou which turns out to be one of Shanghai's oldest vegetarian restaurants. The downstairs serves quick, hot food like noodle soup and the upstairs serves regular vegetarian food. We opted for upstairs because they had an English menu. It was fine upstairs except that the other guests ignored the no smoking signs :(

After lunch we wondered past the Chenxiangge Nunnery. We decided not to go in and walked over to the Shanghai Museum. The walk was rather long but on the street that we walked down every other store sold either pianos or violins. This kept our kids occupied since the older one plays the piano and the younger one the viola. It was quite amazing to see every brand under the sun all on one street, all in spotlessly clean, modern showrooms.

Eventually we got to the museum only to find a long line outside. But we needn't have worried, lines in China tend to move very fast and this one was just a security line so it was super fast. We were inside in a jiffy, in the foyer of the museum:

We were too tired to do the whole museum so we just focused on a couple of galleries that interested us. The museum was quite packed and it closed rather early so even if we had been fit enough to go through the whole museum I doubt we would have had time. This piece was my favourite. I love how the cats are trying to attack the buffalo!

We exited through the northern entrance and walked through People's Square back down Nanjing Road. If I remember correctly we had Mac Donald's for dinner!

Day 6:

We finally walked down East Nanjing Road to the Bund! It was amazing how many people there were on the road and how few there were in the shops, with the one exception being the Apple store!

My husband remembers walking down the street before it was a pedestrian zone and we got a bit of a feeling how it must have been when the pedestrian zone ended. It was quite difficult to walk along the pavement with the kids. We finally reached the Bund and crossed over to stand on the Bund itself, which was again packed with people.

As you can see although it wasn't raining there were quite a few clouds, so we couldn't see the tops of the two tallest buildings in Pudong. But the most interesting part was on the side we were on where the old buildings still survive. Hardly anyone seemed to turn around and look at these historical buildings.

From a European point of view none of the buildings are very old. None of them are much older than 110 years, but in China this is rather old. Chinese have a love for new things and do not find anything old worth keeping. Hence, there are hardly any old buildings, they are all ripped down (or left to decay) and new ones are built in their place. You can see this everywhere in China. Of course they do preserve the very old and very large places e.g. the forbidden city, the great wall.
We popped into one of the buildings that now houses a small, but fancy, shopping mall. The lobby was so nice and they had good British tea, Twinnings to be exact. But at 10 Euro a cup we were not going to stop for a cuppa.

I particularly liked the old moldings and these wonderful lampshades. I contemplated buying them for our new house but realized that they were probably as tall as our whole building. Not to mention that they would probably cost more than our whole house does!!

We then pottered along and had lunch at a place called "Shanghai Laolao". They had plenty of vegetarian options and the food was cheap and good and the atmosphere was also nice. We then headed back home down E Nanjing Rd my husband making a stop at the Apple store, to verify rumors that i-phones were cheaper in China (cheaper but not by much), and me at Gap which was directly opposite. We didn't plan on doing any shopping but I really wanted to check out the Gap store since we don't have Gap in Germany. My husband usually buys my pants from Gap when he's on conferences in the USA!! Unfortunately they don't sell the same style of jeans in China as they do in the USA. But I bought my kids their first pairs of jeans for just 10 Euro. I always love Gap sales :)

After a short break at our hotel we met up with an old friend from San Francisco and my cousin who works somewhere in China. Our travels took us down West Nanjing Rd. towards People's Park where, according to my friend, parents show up on a Sunday with their children's resumes with the hope of finding a suitable spouse for them. Along the way we stumbled on this:

which we decided to call "big sculpture out of metal and concrete" because none of us could read the Chinese characters describing what it was. We took a break from the long walk at the Wooden Box Cafe where they play jazz in the evenings and serve tea and milkshakes (among other things). The shakes were gooooood and welcome on the hot afternoon. After doing a bit of window shopping we ate at Vegetarian Lifestyle, which was a bit upscale with excellent vegetarian food. Even our meat eating companions liked it!
After dinner we took a cab back to the hotel but not before we took in the Bund by night. A lovely spectacle if you like skylines. I actually preferred this one to the one in Hong Kong.

Day 7:

After "enjoying" the breakfast buffet at our hotel we headed off to the Shanghai Zoo. I'd promised my youngest that by hook or by crook she would see a real live panda in China, since there aren't any in Germany. She was totally hooked on them after watching the live cam at the San Diego Zoo. Getting there was easy enough because the subway (line 10) stops right at the zoo, but of course we had other issues. We had bought train tickets to Hangzhou that left in the afternoon from the Shanghai Hongqiao train station. This station is two stops away from the zoo which was very convenient. The problem was our luggage! So instead of going straight to the zoo we first went to the train station to find the left luggage counter so that we could store our packs. The train station is HUGE! We had a time finding the counter, it is not sign-boarded, at least not in English, and it turned out to be a bit larger than a walk-in cupboard with a couple of young ladies looking after it. I wish I could find a plan of the place so I could show you where it is. Oh and I almost forgot to mention, it was not cheap!

Well once we had taken care of our bags we headed back to the zoo, which was by this time packed with the ticket counter line making Disney Land lines look short! But, again, we were pleasantly surprised how fast the lines moved. Make sure you know how tall your kids are before you get in line. In fact make sure you measure your kids before you leave home so that you know if they are under 120 cm, 130 cm or 140 cm, for these are the typical cut offs in China when buying tickets.

We'd heard a lot about how bad the zoo was, and how disturbing it was, but all I can say is that if you want disturbing you should have visited the Dehiwala Zoo in Sri Lanka in the 1980's. Then you would know what disturbing is! The zoo was almost spotlessly clean. I'm not sure you could keep it much cleaner with so many people visiting which ever country you were in (okay maybe it's possible in Japan).
We headed straight for the panda's because the zoo was much larger than we had thought it was and we had a train to catch at around 3 pm. The paths were shady and the lakes/ ponds were pleasing, the only thing that annoyed me was the cicada's. Oh my, they were so loud it was almost deafening! And it was non-stop. I was reminded of the metal cicada's they sell in China Town in SF, if you know which ones I mean just imagine 1,000 of them singing at the same time. Within an hour I had a headache and after spending some time staring at the panda's I just wanted to get out of there!

Turns out that my little panda fan changed her mind about her second favourite animal (her first is the penguin) it is now the red panda, also known as the lesser panda, and I could not agree with her more.

We checked out a few more animals, whose enclosures were on par with European ones, saw no more people knocking at the glass than we do in Germany (percentage wise) and left to catch our train. All in all it was a good experience but if ever I find myself there again I'll invest in a pair of noise reduction headphones!!

Back at the train station we found our waiting area, took a seat on the ground, and waited. Given that there were so many seats you might think that you would find one but that was not the case. The whole waiting area was packed. Good thing the floor was spotless.

We got our first, train boarding experience here. Quite different from anywhere else in the world that I've been. Probably because of the huge amount of people boarding the trains. Everyone waits in the waiting area until their train starts boarding. Then you have to proceed through the gate and down the stairs (the waiting area is always on the floor above the platforms) to get to your train. Don't be surprised when your train is boarded 30 minutes before departure. The trains are so long that you need this time to get downstairs, walk the length of the train and find your seat.
The train was very comfortable. We chose a fast train which got us to Hangzhou East Railway Station in a little under one hour. Fantastic ride with great views of urban and rural China. If you are staying in down town Hangzhou (which I highly recommend) then you should catch a train to the Hangzhou Main Station. It takes around 5 - 10 minutes longer with the trains running every hour.

We were picked up here by my father-in-law and went back to his place for dinner and a good nights sleep. 

Eggplant Curry

After feeling down all day (another job application rejected) I decided it was time to indulge and make a nice rice and curry for dinner. I've also been totally inspired by the Facebook group "SRI LANKAN FOOD LOVERS ACROSS THE WORLD" they post the most delicious pictures of the food they make. I have days when my mouth just waters and I have to go to the kitchen and grab a cookie and a cup of tea. But even that is sad because the cookie's are store bought and the tea is made via a tea bag :(

The recipe I'm going to post here is one that I came up with all alone! I was inspired by my aunt's eggplant curry, which was delicious, and I was trying to replicate it. It took me a long while to realize that, no, I was not going to be able to replicate it, but what I had come up with was pretty okay. In fact its terribly annoying when I make it because however much I make it gets all eaten up. Frying eggplant takes forEVER and then to see it being consumed within one meal is a bit depressing. I wish it would last for at least two meals!

This recipe serves 6 - 8 people when served together with a couple of other curries. How long it takes will depend totally on how you deep fry your eggplant!

So you'll find a detailed description of how to make it and then a link to a pdf with the recipe.

Ingredients:

1 kg	Eggplant (preferably the Asian or Japanese variety)
	Salt
1-2 L	Oil, for deep frying
125 g	Onion, finely sliced
1 sprig	Curry leaves
1/2 tsp	Dill seeds
250 g	Tomato, diced
1/2 tsp	Turmeric
1/2 - 1 tsp	Chili pieces
1/2 tsp	Salt
3 heaped tbsp	Maggie coconut milk powder mixed with 2 tbsp water (or 5 tbsp coconut cream)
2 tbsp	Vinegar
1 tsp	Roasted curry powder

Method:

First cut the eggplant into wedges as shown in the picture. Unfortunately, it's really difficult for me to get proper Sri Lankan eggplants. Mostly all that is available is the Italian variety. It's so much easier to cut the thin Asian eggplants. If each piece has a bit of the skin on it, it stops the vegetable from turning to mush. But one has to make do with what is available, sigh...

Once you've chopped up all the eggplant put it in a colander and liberally sprinkle salt over it. Mix it well so that all the veggie has some salt on it. If you remember, have the time, do this well in advance and let the eggplant sit for about an hour. This will remove all the yucky stuff from it. Now if you are like me and have only just decided that you want to cook eggplant for dinner, don't sweat. Most eggplants don't have the "kahata" that has to be removed and taste fine even if you don't let them sit in salt.

Once they've sat for long enough rinse them and then pat them dry with paper towels. If you don't remove the water they will just take longer to deep fry and the oil will spit. Now heat up your oil to around the temperature you use to make fries. On my deep fryer (which broke recently, aarrgghh!) I used the hottest setting and but since I had to do this in a saucepan I put my stove top onto it's highest setting. I used about a liter of oil and it took forever (I'm guessing about 60 to 90 minutes) for me to get all the eggplant fried to the desired crispiness. It ended up looking like this.

So while my eggplant was doing all it's sitting in salt and it's frying I got the other things ready. (I also cooked a pot of dahl, a potato curry and fried some papadum. My little angel made the rice for me. It took her forever but I didn't care those eggplant took forever too.)

I finely chopped the onion and stuck it in a bowl together with the curry leaves and the dill seeds (since I was going to fry these three things together anyway).

Next I diced my tomatoes. If you don't have nice fresh red ones you can also use canned ones (or if you are in a real pinch ketchup!).

I then took the biggest wok I have and heated up a tablespoon of oil on very high heat. Into that went the onions, curry leaves and dill seeds and I cooked it until the onions were soft. Once they were done in went the diced tomatoes, salt, turmeric and chili pieces. I stirred it all up and left it to cook until it turned into a nice paste. Some times I don't cook it so long, but today I had time because the eggplant took so long to fry without a deep-fryer.

Gosh, now the rest is pretty simple. Add the fried eggplant and stir it up. Get everything coated with the sauce and then add the vinegar. I use white vinegar but you can use which ever you like, the taste will just be a little bit different. Be careful if you are using concentrated vinegar, best to try a little at a time until you get the desired sourness. Stir everything up and then add the coconut milk. The coconut milk has to be really thick. I really like to use the top part of canned coconut milk but I'm not having any luck getting my favourite canned coconut milk. Which is surprisingly a local supermarket brand which has no additional chemicals and is 80% coconut fat. With that I only need about 3 tablespoons of milk. So I'm back to using Maggie piti kala pol kiri (coconut milk powder). I make sure I dissolve it in luke warm water otherwise it gets lumpy.

My, I'm just remembering how it was when that stuff first hit the market in SL. It was a total uproar. The housewives loved it and the husbands hated it. I remember not being able to tell the difference back then. I also remember one of my colleagues, who was my mothers age, telling us all proudly how her husband could not tell the difference although he claimed he could. She just kept the pack hidden from him!! Now I can tell the difference but unfortunately I'm not up for scrapping coconut every time I need a rice and curry fix.

Add the coconut milk into the curry, stir quickly bringing to the boil and then take off the heat. Sprinkle over the roasted curry powder and it's ready to serve. (We always mix in the curry powder because the kids don't like getting lumps of it.)

When this baby cools down all the oil comes to the surface so make sure it's served hot. And please beware this is a very oily curry.

Hong Kong

Wow! Hong Kong was amazing!! It's so compact, so clean and there is so much to do. I had a really hard time choosing which sites to see and where our time would be best spent. What with Disney, aquariums, beaches, boat rides, culture, hiking, shopping, etc. all at my fingertips ... My final decision was that we should just see the cultural side of HK and take it easy because with over 20 hours of travelling things were not going to be easy. It would be a sheer miracle if all four of us didn't suffer from any jet lag and as we all know miracles rarely happen!

Getting Around:

Getting around in HK is pretty simple but you do have to consider the options. Since we arrived and left via the Hong Kong airport we invested in two "airport express travel pass" for 300 HK$. Unfortunately they only have these for adults so we had to buy regular tickets for the kids. We ended up buying them "child tourist day passes" (25 HK$) on the days when we traveled a lot and then we bought them an Octopus card for the other days. 

One thing I missed was that the with the airport express travel pass you can only travel on the MTR, which basically means you can't take the buses, the trams or the trolleys. However, the card can be used as an octopus card so once you get "down town" load up some money onto the card so that you can pay for your bus rides. It's also really useful to pay for other things like the ride up to Victoria peak and you can get the remaining balance refunded before you leave. 

Hotel:

We stayed in the Harbour Plaza North Point Hotel. I chose this particular hotel because it was close to a subway station, it had a swimming pool and because they had rooms for four people at a "reasonable" price. It turned out to be better than we had imagined :) For one, when you take the subway and get out at Quarry Bay and take exit C as soon as you come out you see a building right ahead of you. This is the hotel. 2 small blocks away from the exit.
Then there were the rooms. The picture below is exactly what I had seen:

What I didn't realize is that that sofa is a double sofa bed and that there is another room (a bit along from the yellow flowers) with a double bed in it! To have the extra room was a real luxury especially when dealing with jet lag. The kitchen has a stove top, fridge, freezer and kettle. That was just perfect for us. And yes the place looks exactly as in the picture except for the flowers on the table and the table setting!! Of course you might not be lucky enough to get the view as seen above. You might just look out onto some sky scrapers! This is what it looked like out of our room, which was not bad at all.

Day 1:

Victoria Peak Gardens: We tried to leave as early as possible so that we would not have to stand in line for the Peak tram! Of course on the first day this is not as easy as it sounds!! We decided that around 20 Euro per person was a bit too much for us to pay for breakfast at the hotel so we followed the Mac Donald's signs to pick something up a bit less healthy and a whole heap cheaper. It was farther than we expected but not that far away. We had some American pancakes with American syrup. I really hate syrup and never ate it while in the US, but oh well ... it hit the spot with the kids!!

Then we took the subway to Admiralty and then walked up to the Garden Road Peak Tram Terminus. As usual we were totally confused when we got out of the subway station. But this time I had prepared myself by downloading a compass app on to my phone (yes, of course, one that works without a network connection!). The hardest part was crossing the road.

We must have gotten to the station around 9:10 and I was amazed that there was absolutely no one there. I'd read all kinds of horror stories online about how long it takes to actually catch the tram, how you never get a seat, how you can't see any of the view if you are on the wrong side etc. I was totally paranoid about it and wanted to get there at 7 am when the tram started service! So we got the most wonderful seats and could see all the views, although they were not as good as I thought they might be. 

Once we got to the top it didn't look at all like I had imagined. It was actually kind of tacky. But we didn't plan on staying at the stop, we wanted to go to the gardens near to the peak. So we started climbing up the hill. Just take the steepest path, that's the correct one :( The kids spent a bit of time at the playground along the way, where there were toilets and a drinking fountain. A blessing because it was quite hot and we were already out of water. It must have been the jet lag because I remember being really tiered and not interested in the gardens anymore and it couldn't have been more than 10 o'clock. But we were tough and continued the climb up to the gardens. Unfortunately we met a menace that we were not prepared for MOSQUITOES. Now these mosquitoes must see no blood at all because they just started swarming around us. I usually don't get bitten so when they started attacking me I decided it was time to get the kids and hubby out of there. I still highly recommend going to the gardens, it's all tropical up there and the foliage is really nice but if you go in the summer don't forget the mosquito repellent else you will be eaten alive. During the 10 minutes or so that we were on the road my beloved got over 50 mosquito bites that plagued him for at least another two weeks!

We strolled down the Old Peak Road which was terribly steep so I don't recommend it if you have weak knees. Some people were even carrying their dogs, it was that steep. But we had a treat waiting for us at the bottom (and through some skyscrapers, across some busy roads, etc.) and that was lunch at a vegetarian dim sum restaurant called Pure Veggie House @ 3F Coda Plaza, 51 Garden Road. The atmosphere and the food were both great. I don't know if you need a reservation but they asked us if we had one when we walked in but since it was still early they had space for us. It started filling up around 12:30. You can find more info about this place on my Google map, in the lonely planet or on trip adviser. It's really weird though, it's in what looks like a residential block of flats and the name somehow didn't match up. But once you get out of the elevator on the third floor it's pretty clear that you are in the right place.

After lunch we popped into the super market next door and bought some fruit. I bought myself some durian and pigged out! No one else in our family likes the fruit, which I think is a shame. The best part of eating durian is fighting with others to get your share. I grew up fighting for durian with my cousins and the fruit just did not taste the same without them.

We then walked down to the Hong Kong Park and walked through the aviary which was really, really nice. It's absolutely spotless and they have tones of birds. The girls wanted to pick up some feathers but there was no chance of that because they kept it so clean. So instead they just braided their chain link curtains. I don't think they would have been too happy about that. Don't worry there was no chance that the birds could have gotten out! We then walked down to the tea ware museum because we are really tea fanatics. We had a good time there looking at all the fancy tea pots and learning how the different types of Chinese tea were brewed. There was a kids room which ours were a bit too old for and unfortunately there was a big sign saying that children should not be left unattended. We thought the visit was worth it although I would have liked somewhere to have a cuppa and a better gift store.

Here are some photos at the Hong Kong Park:

The fountain was fantastic! It's made so you can go in without getting wet. The only disadvantage is that you are not allowed to touch the water. There is a person standing there and they will shout at you if you try. My girls and I would have loved to have taken a shower.

We then caught the subway from Admiralty back to the hotel and spent the afternoon relaxing (i.e. napping) at the pool. But we headed out again in the evening to have another delicious meal. We went to a place called Sing Kee (10 Stanley St.) which is apparently one of the last surviving open-air food stalls. I can't seem to find a link that will give you more info but believe me the food and the atmosphere are great. It's on my china map and it's a good idea to find the name written in Chinese script so you make sure you are at the right place. Don't expect it to be clean!

Day 2:

On day 2 we actually went to see Ping Shan Heritage Trail but it was such a let down that I would not recommend it. Especially if you are travelling on to main land China. I expected to see a park but instead it was a residential area with a few old, not well maintained, buildings scattered around. The information center at the end of the trail (or the beginning depending on how you look at it) was quite nice, but on the top of a hill that I really didn't want to climb. The climb was not in vain, the toilets were clean and the building air-conditioned, but as I said I would not recommend it. Goodness we don't even have a photo's from this place!! And if you think that travelling out there might be a good opportunity to try one of the cheapest Michelin restaurants on Earth, don't waste your time. We tried it out and they were the most disgusting noodles we've ever tasted. My husband said that the noodles usually taste dry so that was normal but the broth the noodles were in was utterly tasteless.  

Instead take a walking tour down town (we did a shorter version of it). If you've ever been to China town in San Francisco you basically can imagine what it will look like. However, it is much, much bigger! I'll let you discover the walking tour on my Google map it starts at Sutherland St. and can be found in the lonely planet on p. 483. Some points of interest though: On the top floor of Western Market you will find the most amazing fabric stores. Not necessarily cheap, but fabric from all over the world and absolutely beautiful. I bought this to make dresses for my girls:

I spent so much time in this place we didn't get to see much else! I had to be dragged away before I spent my whole vacation budget!
Don't miss the Man Mo Temple. It may be small but it has a really cool interior. The coils on the ceiling are incense.

We had planned to go to the Luk Yu Tea House for lunch but it was fully booked so we went to another dim sum place instead called Lin Heung Kui. Not as fancy, not as expensive, totally packed and, be warned, they stop making new dim sum at around 1400. We nearly missed it.

Now get back to that pool. You sure will have earned it. It might not seem like much but walking around for hours absorbing all that new culture (plus the lingering jet lag) can really make you tired and grumpy.

Head out again in the evening to ride the star ferry to Kowloon and watch the light show. You've got to see the light show and it's best seen from between the Kowloon Public Pier and the Avenue of Stars. For a fancy meal we picked the Serenade Chinese Restaurant which was recommended to us by our sister-in-law who is a Hongkonger. If you are lucky you can get a table over looking the bay. If you are like us you'll think this is a great place to watch the light show from, but the light show is choreographed to music which you probably would not hear inside.

We were rather disappointed by the light show. We had a good spot to view it from and we could hear the music but lights blinking on the buildings across the bay just didn't do it for us. I thought all the buildings would participate but they don't and the kids didn't always catch where the lights were blinking (heck, even I didn't sometimes!!).

Day 3: 

Today is the day to see my favourite attraction the Chi Lin Nunnery, but before you get there visit the Pak Tai Temple, Wanchai and then ride up to the top of the Bank of China tower to take in yet another aerial view of Hong Kong. You walked past the Bank of China tower when walking from the subway station to catch the Peak View Tram. Then hop back on that subway and travel all the way to Diamond Hill station. We came out into something that looked like a mall but instead of going inside we walked around the building. You'll see the gardens on the other side of the road. Cross the road and walk along and you will soon see the Chi Lin Nunnery looming in front of you (probably on the left hand side, (sigh) across the road AGAIN!). 

This place is awesome. Spend your time quietly and peacefully walking around admiring all the architecture, statues, gardens and if you are lucky, a nun or two. What got my hubby about this place was the fruit that was offered to the gods. It was immaculate, not a blemish on it, he initially thought that they were all plastic!

The gift shop is not great but they do have toilets. No pictures are allowed inside so I don't have anything to show. But believe me this place is worth the look, plus you can't see it on photo's anyway!

Once you are done with the nunnery cross the road using the bridge at the front entrance and it will bring you down into the gardens. At least I'm pretty sure it will. We walked all the way around but exited by the nunnery. Spend your time investigating these wonderfully manicured gardens. There is a little picnic area which is the only place you can sit and eat your own food. You can't go in the pagoda in the middle but it is beautiful to look at. 

There is a super expensive tea house in the middle of the gardens. They were way above our budget (35 Euro for a cup of tea!) but I'm guessing they made tea properly (as described in the tea ware museum). For those of us less well off the cafeteria just across the path is a good stop. We were hot and needed something to drink and we bought something that looked like a slushy but it wasn't from a machine. They took ice and put it in the blender and added some syrup and some blueberries. It was the most amazing slushy we have ever tasted. Not too sweet, amazingly cold and (if you have kids) fun to eat. And you know how once you suck on most slushy's you are just left with ice? Well that didn't happen here. I wish I could remember what it was called. It wasn't called a slushy but there was a description and I remember it was at the end of the menu.

Next to the cafe is a building with an exhibit of petrified wood. Totally weird to have it there, but it's there so you should not miss out on it.

Given that it's now pretty late head on over to the Temple Street night market. It starts at around 6 pm. We bought fancy USB sticks (yes, they work) for the girls (one was a minion) and a band loom with heaps of rubber bands. This was the best buy ever because it kept the kids occupied for at least another 2 weeks. Every time we sat down at a restaurant to eat or where waiting for a train they would pull out there loom and bands and start crafting. 

At the night market there are plenty of places to eat. They just open up on to the street. I can't tell you where we ate but I can tell you it was yummy. 

Day 4: 

As to what you do today, it will depend totally on what time your flight/train/boat leaves. We had a midday flight to Shanghai so I spent the morning packing while the rest of them went down to the pool. Our hotel had a free shuttle bus to the Hong Kong station which we wish we'd found out about earlier! We took this to the station and we could check our baggage in right at the station. It was great not to have to carry our bags around with us and I'm guessing the lines were shorter at the train station than they would have been at the airport. I think you can check your bags 3 hours earlier which means you have time to do some last minute shopping if you so wish. To take advantage of this service you have to have a ticket for the airport express train. 

Bye, bye Hong Kong. I hope that we get to see you again!

Pad Thai Recipe

After 3 weeks in China everyone's been craving their favourite, non-Chinese, foods and been literally begging for them. I caved in to the craving for Pad Thai today and thought I'd share the recipe. It does take a while to make (1 hour from start to finish) but we find it delicious. Full of protein which is perfect for our vegetarian table. Although I do put some fish sauce into this recipe but that's because I've never been able to figure out what the original recipe meant by "Asian bean sauce". Actually if anyone knows what this is please be so kind as to help me find it.

After this description you'll find a pdf with the recipe in black and white. This is the best thing to use when you are actually cooking the Pad Thai. I'm never very good with a recipe which has pictures in the middle :(

This recipe serves 4 - 6 hungry adults (depending on the extent of hunger!) and is made with a whole pack of rice noodles. It makes things much easier to use a whole pack because halving a pack of rice noodles is a nightmare. 

Ingredients:

14 oz     Rice noodles (with the width of linguine)

12 oz     Firm tofu (1 pack in the USA or one block in Germany)

2 tbsp    Minced garlic

4            Eggs, lightly beaten

200 ml   Water

1/2         A vegetable cube

3 tbsp    Tamarind liquid or 7 tbsp freshly squeezed lime/lemon juice

4 tbsp    Water

3.5 tbsp Fish sauce (or Asian bean sauce)

3.5 tbsp Sugar

7 tsp      Soya sauce

1/2 tsp   Ground red chili pepper flakes (optional)

1/2 cup  Non-sweetened peanut butter (optional)

3 cups   Bean sprouts

6           Green onions

1           Lemon or Lime
Approx. 5 tbsp oil

Method:

First take your pack of rice noodles and dump the noodles into a bowl of very hot, but not boiling water. Boiling water makes the noodles all soggy. I just use hot water from the tap but our hot water is usually too hot to put your hands under.

Next comes the tofu. How much you actually use will depend on your taste. Sometimes I use one block, sometimes two. It's not a very exact science. When I use two my wok tends to overflow a bit!

Next the tofu needs to cut and then pan fried. Now if you have extra time (ha, ha, who are we kidding!) you can elevate one side of your chopping board slightly and then put a weight on the block of tofu to remove any extra water. Your tofu will fry better and be crispy on the outside and soft on the inside.

Cut your tofu into cubes (or any other bite sized shape that you like).

Put about 3 tablespoons of oil into a frying pan, heat it up over medium high heat and fry the tofu. Make sure you have a pan that doesn't stick. It doesn't have to be a non-stick pan, actually it's better if it's not. The tofu needs to be occasionally turned.
While the tofu is doing it's thing take your eggs and beat them lightly (or not so lightly if you need to relieve some stress). Peel your garlic and pulverize it.

Now mix the garlic and the egg together.
By the time you've done this your tofu is probably looking like this:

and it's time to remove it from the stove. I just flip it into a bowl add a few more tablespoons of oil to the pan and then throw the egg right in there. All you need to do is prepare scrambled eggs and in your hot pan this should take no time at all.

Now is a good time to drain your noodles and fill up the bowl with some new hot water.
Once you've done this it's time for the sauce. Now as you can see below I've put all the ingredients for the sauce into separate bowls but this is purely for the photograph. I never do this when I am not photographing my food (which really saves time). All you need is a one pint/ 2 cup/ 500 ml measuring jug and you can just pour everything into it.

So for the sauce mix together the water, veggie cube, tamarind paste, water, fish sauce, sugar, soy sauce, chili pepper and peanuts.

So here's the deal. The water is actually supposed to be vegetable stock, so if you have that great. Go ahead and use it. I never have veggie stock around because 1. I can't be bothered making it and 2. if I buy it I end up using 200 ml and having to trash the rest because it rots in my fridge. Veggie cubes work fine for me.
The tamarind paste I buy in a jar and I have to add the extra water because if there is not enough sauce the noodles tend to be too dry. Here is a picture of the type of paste I buy. It's pretty thick which is why I dilute it with water. I'll try and post how to make tamarind liquid from scratch for my wonderful Sri Lankan friends who have access to the most delicious tamarind ever. But if you use tamarind liquid you should use 7 tablespoons of it and no extra water.

Again, the fish sauce should be Asian bean sauce and I'd love to find it but have been unsuccessful in the USA, Germany and Sri Lanka (well the last is only to be expected, no?)
I never put chili in my Pad Thai and I really cannot be bothered to grind my own peanuts thus the peanut butter. The ingredients of your peanut butter should be "peanuts" and "salt" and nothing else. If you have sugar in there you might compensate by reducing the amount of sugar that you add into the sauce. If you have no access to peanut butter you probably can take roasted peanuts and grind them up (this might actually taste better!). When I don't have peanut butter, or I don't have enough, I still go ahead and make the noodles. It's just a matter of taste.
Now mix up your sauce and don't worry too much about the bits you can mix them in better once the sauce is hot in the pan.

Next get those noodles out of the water and drain them. Put a largish wok on the cooker add in a couple of tablespoons of oil and heat up the oil on medium high. A non-stick wok is a good idea! Add the noodles to the pan and fry them until they become transparent. Something like this:

Then add the sauce and watch it sizzle! Mix it all up nicely and let it cook. In the mean time wash and chop your green onions. Thinly slice the white parts and chop the green parts to about 1 inch in length.

Now add the tofu and the egg to the noodles and mix it all up. While the egg and tofu are absorbing all that wonderful sauce wash your bean sprouts and cut up some lime (or lemon).
Add 2 cups of the bean sprouts and all the green onion into the wok and mix it up again and after a few minutes you should have something that looks like this:

Yummy, yummy Pad Thai.
To serve, put the rest of the bean sprouts in a bowl together with the lime slices and have your gourmets sprinkle fresh sprouts over their noodles, add a squeeze of lime, mix and enjoy.