3 days in Shantou/Swatow (汕頭）

I have to go to my dad's home town to reconfirm the details of Dad's funeral in Early August. Dad's ash has traveled with me back to Hong Kong last year. I promised dad I am going to take him back to his homedown. Hence, we planed a 3 day trip to Shangtou, which is only 156 km away from Meizhou. The high speed railway in China is pretty easy to take. Shangtou is the trading port for a few hundred years, it has developed a special food culture. It is also close to the sea, seafoods are the important source of protein. Locals pays special attentions to the freshness and umami taste of fishes and prawns. The most straightforward way is to marinate the fresh seafood in raw garlic, soy sauce and chillies. Any seafood you can imagine can be put into the marinate, clams, prawns, cray fishes, crabs. The marinated meats are transparent and juicy. Unlike the shashimi type of raw fish, it doesn't require aging to tenderize the fiberous connective tissues and to concentrate the flavour, it is purely the freshness of the seafood. Of course you taste the soy sauce and condiments at the beginning, but at the end, the more you chew, the more of the sweetness and seafood taste appear. Marinated seafood is one thing, there is another type of raw fish which is just fresh water fish, thin sliced up and mixed with finely chopped lemon leave, ginger, corianders, thin-sliced garlic and pickled radish. Suprisingly you can still taste the fish at the end. In lots of south east China provinces, eating beef is normally frown upon because of the farming culture (cattles are the main source of the prowing power in farming) and religion. Not in Shangtou. Shangtou developed this beef hotpot culture to the extreme. First of all, the beef was extremely fresh, some shops proud themselves by having meat delivered from the slaughter house to your table within 4 hours. Secondly, Shangtou chef cut away or select the best part of the beef, such that the meat are tender and juicy after 2-3 seconds in the light broth. They are so confident the meat can be so tender that they even cut the meat slice with the grain rather than against it. You can almost just eat the meat without any saurce. Apart from the famous beef hotpot and raw marinated, there are so many different other choices for breakfasts and lunches. Fresh pig entrails to make the soup in the morning, steam rice rolls for lunch. It is not a problem to eat non-stop for 3 days in Shangtou.

Birds peck through my worm farm netting

I suspect the black-collared starling helped themselves with the black soldier flies from the bucket, they broke the insect net to get to the worms. I thought they are my friends!

The maggots are getting bigger and fatter, the birds love them. I fed them with the rubbish local restaurants or fruit stale throw away. This is the bread skin collected from the sandwich shop. These need to be soaked in water or any liquid to turn into the mushy mud.

Dogs on the island

Fei Fei insists to come to our flat, she considers our place is her territory and needs to visit once in a while. She always waits in front of our door, patiently waiting for us to unlock the door, then running up stairs making sure she is the first one getting in. Dogs with owners are sometimes no on leash, just like Fei Fei, they are free to roam around the island. Fei Fei is the princess and is pretty famous on the island. There are lots of stray dogs on the island. Many Cheung Chau residents are dog lovers, hence, the strays normally got some volunteers to feed them regularly. Some grand moms would even chase the dogs asking "why you did not finish the food today? I will cook you some fish tomorrow for a change". Some people routinely having doggie treats in their pocket when walking around, just in case seeing some dog friends. Slowly I am joining this army of pack-some-doggie-treats. There is no cars or motorcycles on the island, the strays are pretty safe. Government run program "trap-neuter-release" was a big success in the south end of the island. These dogs were tracked monthly and have pretty long life span comparing to other TNR program dogs in other areas.

Color me beautiful

I am very against hair dye for a long time because of the smell, and the sensation of weird chemical burning the skin. I had to backdown these days since white hairs are coming out like mad. I dreamt about living with it and getting old gracefully, but it is easier said then done. The problem with white hair is that 1. they came out unevenly only at certain spots and 2. they are very unhealthy, weaker and dryer. Hence they make me look untidy and, worse of all, very old. So I had to have a conversation with my beauty advisor, deepseek suggested to use Hanna powder which is all natural and only colors the white hair, it has no impact on the black hair. I am pretty happy with the results despite I smell like old tea bag for a few hours.

Manipulative Fei Fei

Fei Fei is the windsurfing center dog, she was the youngest and the prettiest, knows how to behave such as standing quietly next to you, looking at you while you are eating. No one is going to resist sharing a bit of the food with a quietly begging pretty dog. She likes to wonder around the island and cleverly knows that she, as a female and the youngest, need protection along the way. She thus started to follow windsurfing members home. We were quite an easy pick, we love dogs, always bring treats to the windsurfing center dogs, and volunteer to take them for a walk. Fei Fei loves to walk with us, her goal is to follow us to our home where she thinks she is running the house - we figured it out because she always wants to get into the door before us. She sits at her favorite spot, drinking the water that was freshly poured for her, and gets a bit of treats from me. We enjoy Fei Fei's company, and we walked around the hiking trails, through the town center. Fei Fei likes to hang out in Town, she will wait patiently outside of the supermarket while I shop, she will hang out with us in the pub, waiting for us to take her for next walk. Sometimes she gets bored, she will walk home by herself, she is pretty famous on the island. Some islanders' dogs or cats are left along, they wonder around freely. These dogs are very socialized and never cause issues. Fei Fei is one of them, and has many friends. She hangs out with the stray dogs or visits her human friends to get treats. Fei Fei is very manipulative, she knows how to get out of the windsurfing center while it is locked up (there is a short fence that Fei Fei can always climb out), but we have never seem her climbing out of the fence. The only evident is that we see her strolling down the main beach after the center is closed. She sort of understands that if human knows how she gets out of the center, her only route of escaping might be blocked. She is the princess in the center until the new puppy arrived. The new puppy, Tiger, is energetic, playful and naive, caught everyone's attention right away. Fei Fei started to feel threatened and almost look depressed. She refused to go for a walk with us if Tiger is tagging along; even if she came for a walk with us, she always ran away half way through and ended up in our door step. We stopped taking the dogs for a walk, Fei Fei is getting lower in mood and lighter in weight after confirming that she is no longer the favorite dog in the center. She refused our doggy treats, and didn't want to eat any treats given by others in front of us. She knows how to emotional blackmail human!

Where is the windsurfing board (2)

Dragon boat festival - need to make some rice dumplings.

Jon left 30 mins before me, carrying a brand new 7.2 meter sail and walking to the no-man beach with bare feet. I arrived at the windsurfing center around 10:40, the rainstorm hit around 10 mins later. The storm was so strong that there is no visibility within 10 meters. The sky cleared up after quarter of an hour, I saw a little black dot showing up from the tip of the pennisula. Checking it out with the binocular, that's the orange Gaastra sail. Jon had sailed out the bay, thanks for the strong guts came with the rainstorm otherwise the litle bay was really sheltered from the southly wind. After a short break, I can feel another storm is coming up. I see Jon's sail was stuck by the cliff, pushing up by the offshore wind. I pulled out a kayak, setting out for a rescue. But I don't think there is a problem I just want to do a bit of exercise and join in the great windy day. As I have guessed, the rainstorm hit again, I was paddling so hard in the rain and wind, heading to the cliff to meet up with Jon. The rain and wind subsided as we both heading back to the shore, and it turned out sunny at the end.

Where is the windsurfing board? (1)

Jon came back to the center, and had the silly idea that we can go to that no-man beach and fetched his windsurfing gears back. We walked for about an hour to get to the beach with the trolley, hiking up the hill and down, I wisely advised that we are not able to get the 20kg steel trolley up to the hill, through the jungle and down the 500 steps stairs to the little beach to get the windsurfing gear. We should go down to the beach, make sure the gears are in the safe place so that the high tie doesn't wash it away, and we can come back here with a proper sail tomorrow. We can rig up and sail from the little beach back to our windsurfing center. He agreed with me finally, but we already spent 2 hours hiking after a half day of trauma. We were both sweaty and exhausted, walking back home for another 40 mins. showered, ate dinner, and rested up. The next day, we went out again at 10 am despite the weather is still very unstable. It is always like this when moonsoon is happening the low pressure brings in patches of rains and thunder storms. Strong gust and heavy rain fall comes within 1 minute in a sunndy day.

South West Offshore Wind

Spent a week in Taipei to sort out Mom's to sort out the newly arrived helper, Wulan. Wulan is very young, and a great cook. She is patient and quiet, always standing by Mom when she needs help. I just think sometimes she gets bored because there is not much too do. But she seems fne with it. We are so luckly to have her around. We tried to go to the north shoreline to do some surfing practice but the weather was not working for us. The first day it has no waves and the second day the waves are huge, 1.8-2m waves, but wind is too strong - perfect for windsurfing but we have no gear. Finally came back to Cheung Chau, Jon thinks I am more relaxed at home comparing to at my mom's. We wait for a few days for the good wind day, the moonsoon brings strong south westly wind, which is offshore from the beach we normally launch from. It is always tricky to get back to the beach with offshore wind, but we have been windsurfing for years, nothing too bad to worry about. We rigged up and dived into the strong wind, I got into the footstraps, whizzing across the bay planing. Later I checked my heart rate went up to 185 per minute in those andreline filled moments. While I was enjoying the strong wind I saw Jon on his board for a while, it sometimes means equipment failure or injuries. But I can see that he is packing up and started to paddle back to the beach, he is in the middle of the bay, it might take him a while to get to the shore, nothing to worry about. But after 15 mins, I see that he is still around where he was, no progress was made. I realized he was in trouble so I sailed back to the center, changed into a Kayak after confirming his whereabout with binoculars, I went out to find him -he is already drifted to the end of the pennisula, the tie-out current and offshore wind have both pushed him out of the bay in that 20 minutes. I paddled as fast as I can to the tip of the pennisula, but I cannot see him. A windsurfer came by told me that Jon has drifted out beyond the pennisula, i.e., he is out of the bay, he might be in the container shipping channel. I need to report to the marine police ASAP otherwise he might be in danger. I paddled back to the center, ran to the life guard hut by the beach and we agreed we should call the emergency right away. Marine police, Firefighter brigade and life saver units were all out looking for Jon. My guess was Jon must be swimming/paddling to the little beach behind the pennisula where there is no road access. Because it is a sheltered location, there should be no strong current and offshore wind to push him out into the channel. I explained this to the marine police but they cannot see his windsurfing gears on the beach. it is not 1 hours passed after Jon disappeared from the bay, no sight of him on the water, but I belive he is safe because worse comes to worse, he will hold on to the board, it is just a matter of time to fine out where he is. 1 hour 15 mins after he walked back to the center, as I have guessed, he landed in the beach and walked back. I had to make a number of phone calls to cancel the search and thank all the people involved.

Air BnB

Family gathering for Aiden's wedding. It is hard to believe the speed of food disappearing from the fridge, also the number of washing up. Countless number of tea cups and plates, we are eating supermarket bread and self made sandwiches!

Bush Pee

Went out for a Cooroora walk, it was very challenging because near the submit, a little bit of climbing was required on the rocks. It is almost 1/3 of the walk, though it is not very high, the walk is scary. We turned back when the safety chains run out. Later we found that it is only 30 meters away from the top. On the way back to pick up the car, I really need to use the bathroom hence the little detour/spike from the walk.

About Food

I want to say something more about my observation regarding the Aussie foods. I think it is very similar to any North American western food/restaurants. Unless the meal costs you an arm and leg, it is very hard to have a hearty meal where the ingredients are fresh and the dishes taste amazingly interesting (if you have one of those in your neighborhood in these English speaking regions, go there as much as you can because they will close down soon - just heard about the burger joints, Five Guys, are closing down in Hong Kong. They sell junk food, no doubt, but they make junk food from very good ingredients, good grade beef and sinister cream for milkshakes). What is the reason that people are ok with the food standard - it is not bad after all, just average for those restaurants in the high street. My theory is that there is no reference to judge what is good. At home, modern life has squeezed all housewives/househusbands time and energy to prepare for good hearty meal, industrialization of meat productions, packaging and logicstic makes it impossible for people to taste fresh beef/poultry/pork. Just got some feedback regarding the eggs in Australia, we asked why the eggs taste so blend and old in the algriculture giant country? Especially they came from the biggest supermarket chain, which should have very strong barganning power. It is explained that the government culted all egg-laying chicken few years back due to birdflu scare, what's left in the farm are not egg chicken. I guess if the kids who never taste great fresh eggs will think that's what the eggs should be. I belive a good dish came from good ingredient, so it is not likely to have great meal at home, will it be possible to get it from the street? My observation is not likely, either. It is very expensive to dine out, typical high street restaurant will put much more effort in creating the good ambience, good services and providing good drinks rather than good dishes. It pays to be nice, because no customers will give you bad review, especially when the whole street's restaurants tastes the same. supplement after a day away from Noosa:

Recommended by our Air BNB hostess, we drove 45 mins away from the posh Noosa into the less well-to-do farming county. The restaurant is sitting next to the old hotel recently renovated, food is good. The beef short ribs is from the bred of Wagyu X Jersey, smoked then slow cooked. Tender, but a bit too salty to my taste.

Surf Lessons in Noosa Qreensland

Started our Aussie holidays by 3-day surfing lessons. All other people in our group are half of my ages. The instructor, James, is very patient and pays attention to all 7 of us. We took turns to try to catch the waves (at the same time, battling with the rough broken waves and currents at the chest deep sea water in Noosa beach), of course the most important thing is to pop up on the board. Pop up involves doing a cobra, plank, then move the smart leg in the center of the board, and finally, the dumb leg to the front of the smart leg. That was not too difficcult because it is pretty much the same as Ashtanga yoga practice I have been doing for almost 8 years - we generally do 40 to 50 combination of cobra and plank in every practice. The most difficult bit is to catch the right timing when waves come, and paddle to speed up to catch the front side of the wave. Today is the second day of daily 2 hour surfing lesson, from 9 to 11am. We figured it is a bit too much to do it 3 days in a row, we asked for a break, resume the last class on Monday. Noosa head is the traditional East coast Aussie's holiday destination. Clean street, warmish weather (it is close to the winter now, early morning and evening are still cold), lots of nice tree, green bushes on the side walk, fancy restaurants and cafe, fashion shops (people always want to shop). But however fancy the restaurants, the food all tastes average. The ingredients might all come from the same supermarkets we bought our foods from. No comparison and no requirement, everyone is happy with the average food. Where is the food culture (crying)?

BSF Larvae

My original thought was to have the black soldier fly larvae, the maggots, to eat away the beer brewing waste, the spent grain. But they are eating so much when growing up, finishing about 5 kg of wasted grains within 2 weeks. I had to go around town to collect rotten veggies and uneaten foods to feed them. The most surprising thing is that although they eat the hops, Chaff, but the beer hops are keeping everything from rotting which makes them unable to feed on the foor, they do like the rotting matter, fresh food is not so popular. Also, the hops were very wet after fishing them out of the mash brewing pot. That's the easy bit to deal with. I just mixed those with the grains which is not so bad. But the sediment of fermentation is hard to deal with (I think it is just a waste to throw them away). I had to cook the remaining dead yeast, protein and hop remain into the slush. The smell of hops lingered in my apartment for 2 days to a point I start to dislike the IPA beers or any hoppy beer, oops. But the slush is still too wet, because of its anti-bacterial nature, they are keeping the raw chicken head and other fruit matter fresh! It is too strong the sterilizer, I wonder how the frass, the left over from BSFL farm, is going to work with the plants. Without bacterial colonies in soils, it is hard to create a healthy soil. They are turning into pupa, they stop feeding. I have the next project to dry up the worm farm from the slush, the smell was not so good.

Raining Day in Cheung Chau

We moved to the island Cheung Chau about 5 years ago. It started with the weekly weekend visit for windsurfing practice and end up living on the island. The apartment was far away from the pier, there is no vehicles allowed, it takes 10 mins to walk uphill to our complex. The complex is only half occupied, some of our neighours only use the property as holiday home. The landlord gave us the key before we officially signed the contract, we knocked out the old kitchen and put in the new one ourselves. Fixed the leaky roof and flooding balcony. Picked up many funitures from the rubbhish bin nearby, having great roof top to fix the sails, boards and I can finally doing some proper gardening (still on my way to become the gardener, not yet killing thousands of plants). It is 5 minutes walk to the windsurfing beach, birds like to hang out and windsurfing center dog, Fei Fei, likes to visit us. It is raining hard today, nothing to do, we can only wait for the rain to stop and winds to pick up hopefully in the afternoon.

New Puppy

New puppy, Tiger, is joinning the windsurfing center family. Fei Fei is not very impressed.

Prisoners of Anger

April 30th, after hanging in my pass and work computer, said goodbye to my colleagues, wrapping up my contract with AIA for 2 years, and rushed to the 12:45pm ferry back to Cheung Chau. It is getting hot, tourists started to crowd the street of town center. Because this is the starting of the long weekend. We decided to go for a walk while it is still sunny, maybe play with the dogs in Windsurfing center a bit then do some shopping afterwards. Walking back from the windsurfing center, passing the Garden, the pub ran by Melissa and Peter, we were about to stop to chat to Melissa about Fei Fei. Fei Fei is in a habbit to patrol the town center, visiting people she knows (and know her), waiting for treats. As getting closer to the Garden, an old lady and a young girl were shouting at each other, an old guy on the bicycle trying to separate them. With the old guy as the center, the 2 women chased each other in circle, and eventually one caught on and slapped the other. Being slapped and dumbfounded one woke up and chased the other. It sounds like the young girl walked while reading her phone, bumped into the old lady and thus the conflict. While 2 ladies escalated the action, a young man ran over and shouted at the young girl "get your hand off my mother". He then pushed her hard and she fell flat on the floor, drink spilled and the back of her head hit the floor. Things are out of control. Why the anger has controlled the situation? Animal instinct has takent the driver seat, trivial incidents escalate into a serious insult, grudges beared for life. Relationship destroyed and cannot be repaired. I have a few family members are the prisoners of Anger, speaking out of personal experience.