Yoga and Vegetarian

I am always blunt about my Vegetarian friends, I told them "look, I don't really want to hang out with you because you are no fun. You don't enjoy the same food as I do and you don't drink. Because of you, we have to eat at some wooshy washy expensive Vegetarian restaurants, in which the food I don't even like!?!? Please don't expect to see me in any dinner party that you are planning to join." After practicing yoga, I am eating less and less meat (they smell). I ran into this yoga instructor who is strongly against animal killing - he advised us to try. I was pondering about the possibility and decided to give it a go. It is greener, more environmental friendly and cheaper. My shopping basket is filled with fresh veggies and tofu. Some cheese and beans (to make sure I get enough protein and calcium). It is indeed cheaper!! Though I allow myself to eat small amount of fish, I can still go out hanging out with friends thank god alcohol is not made of animal protein. I decide not to make my friends' life difficult, I can eat in any restaurant but just not much meat. It seems like being a yogi and vegetarian is always part of 30 something woman's life...

2 bad movies

On my way from Tokyo to Hong Kong, showing 2 movies in the 4 and half hour flight. Ok, I really hate them and I think I should record my resentment and despice. "We bought a Zoo" might be a real story, but, com'on. The 7-year old girl who behaves like a 27 year old sensible woman? Making peanut butter sandwiches, slided them into ziplog bag and labeled them? The script writer is either doing too much drug or has never met a devil like 7-year old (that's what they really are). I dislike that little girl the most, her innocent demeanors seem insincere and fake. I basically don't like anyone in the film, they are just too nice and too far away from reality. The 14 year old rebelious son turned around to be the good friend of the dad? Oh, give me a break. This is indeed a feeling-good movie, but it would be great if we are viewing it as if it is a carton, I think it works pretty well for teenages or anyone younger. "Hugo" is another bad movie. Viewing it as if it is an anima won't even work. There is no logic to the story. A 10 year old boy lives in the train station without food and any form of care. That's totally just too fictionary. It is unclear why the great movie producer gave up his career - he is not making great movies anyways as far as I can see from the clips. I gave up the 20 minutes before the end, I think I would be better off by spacing out, otherwise my brain cells would die if keep staring at the screen. One question to ask (BBC also asked that before), why the French kids speak English with British Accent?

Being in Hong Kong

Um, 80% of my pictures are about drinking and eating... Maybe I should seriously thinking about getting a new camera. My new boss from Sydney, Taro-san is obviously not giving him any break.
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Hong Kong amazes me in may ways. People live in a way not like Japanese or Westerners, they bravely and courageously show their true selves. Not trying to cover up being a Chinese, for example. Not trying to be "White". Funny thing is that I think this is one of the few places where girls do not prefer western guys (belive me you see many of those in Tokyo or Taipei). I guess the reason is complex, Hong Kong has been a British colony for almost hundred of years, long history of communication with English speaking world. Nothing is really too fancy in Hong Kong girls' eyes. They are also very practical, these English official or expats hang around in the maid serviced high-end apartment all because they are expats. When they return home, the living standard is very questionable. What's so cool to marry a foreigner and move away from the convenient, exciting and volatile Hong Kong? Find a rich local guy is their first priority. One thing I cannot understand is that Hong Kong ladies are trendy and very fashionable before certain age. But after that threshold, their taste or fashion sense are just like some wire snapping. Seeing many middle age ladies wearing tights (ok, tights that you cannot see thru, but they are still tights) walking on the streets as if that's just normal casual dress. I almost want to shake them into their sense, tights are called tights because they are designed to be worn inside something!!!

Angry Bird

I went grocery shopping without shopping bag, I ended up putting the cabbage and carrots to my handbag. When returning back to the office, before emptying my bag, mobile phone rang and I had to empty the bag to fish out my phone (women spend half of their life trying to find things from the hang bags) - my colleagues made fun of me by taking photo of the contents
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My second nephew is a kid with a lot of characters. He came back from school, dressed as angry bird - with 2 thick black eye browses painted on his face and refused to let anyone touch it. It just so happened that he came down with flu after school. We suspected it was the serious stomach flu virus infection, hence hurried him to the pediatrician's clinic.

The doctor said no words about his obviously artificial painted eye browses but carried out normal examination as if there are tons of kids coming to her clinic with them every day.

Godsend

Taken last year summer only received it just now... The dinner with my Japanese bank clients and San Francisco Colleagues.
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Traveled to and from Toronto within 3 days. I barely slept since Thursday morning due to the stress and jetlag. I flew back on the red eye flight, departing from Toronton at 1:40am. Somehow I got upgraded to premium economic class and had a good space to relax. After a meal and movie, I popped a sleeping pill and passed out for 12 hours, woke up just few minutes before landing. A 15 hour journey is not too bad, I am in a reasonable state to work.

barefoot running

looking for barefoot running gear and saw the poster saying "200000 years ago, people who didn't belive in barefoot running, got eaten".

Dislocated

Living in Hong Kong for almost 4 months by now, it is a surprisingly familiar yet foreign land to me. Living around central Hong Kong, you can get by with English almost everywhere - not until you venture to the alley ways behind the highrise. I can still get around with my broken Cantonese and had proper conversation with my hair dresser.

Going hiking every weekend (both Saturday and Sunday) becomes my weekend ritual, plus daily yoga lessons. Everything is within arm's reach. The hike to the peak (450m above sea level) takes about 1 hours from the time I leave the apartment. Continuing walking uphill, 20 minutes later I am in the tropical forest. Yoga studio is 10 minutes away, post office 3 minutes, bank 2 minutes.

Never mention the food, I quite enjoy exploring the small restaurants that ghost people would not dare to set their foot in. I can read the menu and order properly - many thanks to my extensive foodie blog reading.

This part of Hong Kong is almost like any big English speaking cities, New York, London or San Francisco (the hills, baby!). Yet the old, doggy, slizzy Chinese influences are everywhere. The office ladies dress in Chanel drinking the bitter herbal tea or fresh fruit juice from the street vendors (that's good for the skin, they said). 4-inch heels in the dirty congee shops.

A friend used to say that Tokyo is perfect for dislocated souls - for those people who cannot find their places in their own countries, they flee to Tokyo and the city has provided a quite place for them - no question asked (Japanese is too polite to ask). He thinks Tokyo is perfect fit for me but I am having a second thought now.

No bras & contacts

Relaxing in Taipei has a lot of implication, no one really cares if you don't put in any effort to make yourself presentable. For example, I can do around town in my pajama (the thing is I was only planning to go eat the rice noodles with my mom for breakfast, but Grace called and we had to go to the mountains for hotspring visit and lunch). I was in my sleeping wear,no bras and glasses. But I was around and about for the whole day. No issues.

From Hong Kong to Tokyo

Party...

More party...

And the season finale...

Hannibal

Lousy movie in a way that there are many absure plots, they seem meaningless but to bring out the cruelty and violence of Lecter. Many of the scenes should not be shown but being shown for the purpose of displaying the gruesome nature and disguisting thoughts. How professor Lecter's victim disfigured himself was a blur, why the wild boars want to attack human beings is not clear - why they didn't attack Lecter holding the uncounscious Agent Starling is also not clear. How Starling found Lecter after he was kidnapped is not explained. Starling woke up from comma and wore the sexy dress into the dinner table to see Paul eat his own brain. How the hell did she manage to carry the handcuff with which she used on Lector.

I am very surprised this movie can sell - but Lector is probably secretly in love with Starling. From that viewpoint, it is quite romantic.

Shoes

I found a very nice shoe shop just next to where I live in Sheung Wan. Finally bought a pair of boots for thiw winter. While I was browsing other shoes, I found a small sticker in the sole of a pair of nice lady shoes - "Made of real leather, colour black - please do not wear light colour socks". It is rather considerate since I have seen many light colour (or skin tone) stockings, ankle length, with black heels in China.

Arrived in Hong Kong

In mid November, The temperature is 28C and humidity is 80%. The air doesn't flow and my throat felt funny after 1 hour run along the harbor. The humidity is really the killer, you feel like swimming in hotwater most of the time when jogging.

I ran uphill yesterday just to try a route suggested by other runner, the air miraculously got much lighter and cooler as I passed the mid level. Pretty good workout, though running is not possible (I am still not strong enough to run all the way), just walking uphill in fast pace is enough to make me out of breath. Pretty nice.

Chinese Women

Coming back from Bejing for a final presentation to company's pitch to the biggest bank in China, I had some conversation with my colleague about Chinese women (the topic came about because of his first encounter with Chinese women in Beijing - he was very puzzled). I remember I had written something about it before but perhaps it is worth another go after a few years.

How do you describe Chinese women? I think you cannot categorize them as a women in a normal sense. Chinese Women (I am refering to those born and raised in Mainland China) do not considered female as a gender that are inferior to male, it is just a second gender. Being a female just means you are physically weaker than man yet at the same time possessing the power as a female. Of course this might be different in the country side but, in the city, the well-educated women are totally in control. You see them as government officials, successful business women, energetic real estate agents or shop owners.

You might be wondering how this is different from western women who are well respected and go about doing their career (I think glass ceiling is still there, that's another topic). I think the difference is that Chinese women can really forgo the fact that they are female and let go of the sense of being a woman or mothering duties very easily. Remorse and guilt do not bother them too much - or they are forced to ignore them. Living example is my aunt from my father's side - She was going thru a very rough time during great culture revolution. She had to marry a guy much older just to survive (for food). But when opportunity presented itself for her to flee to Hong Kong, she abandoned her 2 young children without hesitation.

My aunt's case might be caused by the distored environment but somehow I think the mentality somehow is rooted in modern Chinese women. Definitely no offense but I think they have to arm themselves with such level of brutality in order to survive. I suppose it is not common in women from other culture/region. Nevertheless, I think Mao Tse Tung had really achieved the gender eqaulity miles ahead of anywhere else in the world 50 years ago.

What is on your Dinner Table

Chatting with Cathy, who was really surprised with the dinner arrangement with Micheal's family who are originally from Taiwan and live in US for decades. Mother would order take-out or pizza as dinner. When they return to Micheal's parent's house, the parents were sitting in front of the TV and said "Dinner is on the table, help yourself". What she found is the cold frozen pizza!!!! Hong Kong origin, this scene chilled her spine and was really confused if the parents were making a joke or something.

My family had a dinner ritual that there must be a least 3 or 4 dishes and a hot soup for dinner. Kids were instructed to set up the table, chopsticks and soup spoons would be laid for each member's usual location on the dinner table. Of course, guests would join our dinner (don't ask me why, but there were always some sort of uncles living with us whether they were just visiting or even stayed for months for work). I needed to help my mom to cook, clean and serve fruits while everyone sat down in front of TV. After moving to Taiwan for ages, my mom didn't have the time or habit to cook the Cantonese soup which requires hours of cooking. But that's very common in average Cantonese families. Everyone would sit on the table, sharing the food together is the official end-of-day. My family has simplified the dinner - comparing to family in Hong Kong. Rice has to be freshly cooked, all ingredients would be purchased from the market on the day (frozen food? Out of question!). That's the reason many Hong Kong housewives busy themselves in the market every morning, thinking what to make for dinner. They can even tell whether the fish is male or female.

Food is so heavily related to Hong Kong/Cantonese culture. The typical way of a Cantonese girl to signal her love and caringness is to say to her boy friend "Would you like to taste the soup I made?". God knows how many hours she spent on the soup. When I explained this to Grace, she was totoally lost.

Taiwanese families are not so pain-stakingly aggressive about dinner - part of the reasons is that most moms work during the day and, I think, the main reason is that Taiwan has not yet developed into the state to appreciate food - think about it, Taiwan was still a agriculture society in the 70s. Hong Kong has long been the hub of business since British government cultivated the humid fish village in mid 19th century.

National Geographic

The problem of living in Japan for too long is that you develop a fine taste in white shinny fish. Agi 鯵（アジ）, Saba 鯖（サバ） or Iwaji 鰯（イワシ）are all my favorite. If you want to assess whether a sushi restaurant is good at what it does, order these type of shinny white fish sashimi. They are very tricky to handle because the fish meat deterioate very quickly (faster than others). If raw fish can be served, that means this restaurant has good channel to get the best fish out of market and knows how to keep them fresh. These fishes are normally not expensive to buy from market, but the restaurant will charge you almost the same price as other expensive fish for the complexity of storage and logistic. Autumn is the best time - they are fattened up preparing for winter (sorry fish, I really like you so much that I eat you).

I was flipping thru the national geographic magazine which shows a rare photos of white shark near Papua Ginea. The sharks filter sea waters to extract whatever eatible. In one of the photos, the shark was about to catch up a large quantity of shinny white little fish with its gigantic mouth - all I can think of is the little white fish must be delicious.

Seoul of Asiao (4)

I bought 2 packs of chilly flakes for my mom a couple days ago. But when we took our stroll to Namdamum, I found a shop selling the same chilly flakes. I asked the clerk (who changed channel to Chinese after knowing that I can speak Mandarin - I found out that I can communicate with Older generation Koreans with Japanese, and younger Mandarin in Seoul most of the time, interesting!) how much it is, the reply is much cheaper than what I have paid for before. I was a bit upset and he said "Lady, you should buy another pack from me such that, averagely, you don't lose
out too much".

I went back to the nice tofu shop next to my client's office alone. I randomly selected a Tofu Kimchi soup with rice. As Korean restaurant normally does, 4 delicious appetitizers were sent to me. I like each one of them but the raw garlic chives salad is going to make me smell. I don't want the nice food to go to the bin, so I dumped them all into the boiling hot tofu soup - the smell is not that bad if the chives are cooked.

As I was eating happily, the waiter walked past me and saw my empty plate. I know the Korean emotion, I immediately signal him that this is good, no more (I cross my fore arm in front of my chest and said "no more, thank you"). He smiled back and brought back another plate of raw garlic chive salad. Much obliged, I smiled to him but said again "Thank you very much, but this is the last one I hope".

I felt bad if it goes to the bin if I don't eat it and my tofu soup is still hot. There is no reason for me not to eat it - it is very delicious, too. I put all of them into my soup and happily started eating. The waiter came by and saw me smiling - he came back with another 2 dishes of garic chive salad!

Seoul of Asiao (3)

Don't remember where we are, it is dark anyways.
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The next day we moved to another hotel in Itaewon, we walked around the area and felt (at least for me) that I am back to New York. I think this area is where the US soldiers hang out, hence, it is filled of western restaurants and pubs. I am not too happy with the hotel, it is too old and not clean (sorry I am really picky, I found disgusiting dirt and trash under the bed after I pushed aside the other bed to place my yoga mat).

I have no problem with old hotel, but a lot of fixtures are desparately in need of replacement. The fan in the bathroom doesn't work and the dressing table surface is broken. The most annoying bit is hotel is right above the pub area, the music normally blasting until 4am.

The only good thing about this hotel is there is a private spa in the basement, we almost went every day after our jog and whole day of walking. Hot water bath is really amazing - funny that you feel really tired after the hot bath as if all the energy is drained in the pool.

The cold water pool was my favorite, it is really great just dive into the pool after a couple minutes in the steam room (the Korean steam room temperature is 81C - you can almost cook something inside). The massage current is so strong, I swim against the current and stay in the same position, ha ha ha. There are not many people using the facility, it is
great!

Seoul of Asiao (2)

We finally had some decent Korean style BBQ.
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Seoul is beautiful in this season, the weather is just mild and you can see the beautiful change of leaves, thus, I have no luck in any hotels nearby my client's office. I was put to some hotel that requires 30 minute commute, fortunately, the subway system in Seoul is very efficient. Still, walking 10 minutes is not very fun with heels. But this makes us live more like locals - my last trip in Seoul was all Taxi rides, I learnt to say "straight, left turn, right turn, P turn (a way to turn left if direct left turn is not allowed)" in Korean, ha ha ha.

We went to experience the famous Korean Spa treatment - Teamiri, which is roughly translated to body scrub in English. Cathy's description was so vivid and fun, I cannot refuse to try it. She said you are basically just like the fish in the market, lying on the board being scaled.

We followed the advise from the tourist information center to the cheaper Spa place (which is 2 stops away from Myong-dong) the next day. Amazingly my broken Japanese works better than English. We were all very confused about how things work but it turned out one of our scrub ladies is from China. Communication is not a problem! The scrub ladies were all middle-age women, who dressed in torn down panties and old granny bra. You can even see the birth mark on their bellies. Before we walked into the body scrub area - which is right inside the spa/bath house, I can see them sitting there, almost naked and chatting happily away with each other. No offense but this scene does strike me as if we are going to the low class brothel.

Everyone in the bath house is of course naked, Cathy and I were asked to lay on the thick plastic sheet covered massage bed. I was thinking if the serial killer wants to cut open his/her victims, this is a great place to do it. The scrub lady scrub us with a rough srubbing cloth, with a great pressure. Quite embarrassingly she almost touched every piece of my body surface. This is very strange.

There are really brown things coming out, I start to wonder if I have showered myself properly every day. After the throughout scrubbing, she poured a bucket of hot water all over me to rinse away the dirt, really just like how fish monger does after they gut the fish.

Seoul of Asiao (1)

Walking out of the hotel eating breakfast, thinking we are just going to have a casual walk but it turned out a 3 hour hike/walk. We reached the top in Nansam Tower.
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Coming back to Seoul after 1 year, the city doesn't change much but I have changed a lot. Thick skinned I walked into any shops and smiled like an idiot to get what I want (sometimes not very accurate, since I don't really know what I was pointing at - they are all in Hangku). Cathy came to visit me and I had to be brave to overcome the language barrier, hence, I walked into all stores and do all kind of stupid things.

It is interesting that we ran into quite a few Chinese speaking ladies in restaurants and SPA, of course, I am the main point of communication. We also ran to the English speaking tourist information center for help sometimes, but inevitably, these ladies in the hub always advise us to take the cheaper option. For example, when we were in the restaurant, the Chinese dish washing lady (judging from her gloved and aproned outfit - being dragged out by the front desk after he saw us non Korean speaking), recommended us to drink Coke because it is cheaper, despite the fact that I have explicitly asked for alcohol.

We want to experience the authetica body scrub (Cathy's description was so interesting, she said, you were scrubed like the fish being scaled in a market), how can I resisted? We went to the tourist information center trying to find a good srub place (TeaMiri in Korean) near Myong-Dong. The tourist information center lady told us not to get to any shop in Miyong-Dong, it is too expensive. She then recommended us to go somewhere 2 subway stops away, according to her, it is cheaper.

It is really funny that people are still looking at me and Cathy as if we were still in graduation school and want to help us to save money.

Rollerblading B.B.Q.

We rollerbladed under the scorching sun for 3 hours, going thru the uneven, definitely not smooth road, from Shinagawa station all the way to almost like Haneda airport. These is my rollerblade group's tradition to have the mid summer B.B.Q. party every year. There we go.

It was so hot that I took the lead to dive into the not so clean water. Everyone then followed. There is not much damage in water fight this year because all crazy kids were in the water soaking wet anyways. Somehow it is not exciting or mischevious enough to pour a bucket of cold water over someone's head.