Hong Kong, part 3

Here's something a bit more pleasant to contrast the previous entry.




Mongkok, Kowloon


We met my uncle, granduncle and their families for a fantastic dinner in New Territories. The granduncle purchased about 7kg of live seafood from the seafood market nearby, and brought it to the restaurant to be served.




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Clockwise from bottom left, roast goose, snails, clams, kangkung, bamboo mussels, and lobster noodles. Steamed fish in the middle. The lady on the far side is Michelle, who inadvertently provoked an analysis of conservative functions on the family tree.

Ok lunch break is over, back to work.

I stumbled out of the study heading for the washroom, my eyes fuzzy from a night of sleep. I see my aunt and cousin in the living room, so I greet them with an artificially crisp ‘good morning’ before turning into the loo.

Freshened up by the quick wash and my dragon breath banished, I join them in the living room. The night before, my aunt had just arrived back from the United States after some MBA-related classes.

She asked me how I found my work in Shanghai to be like.
“It’s ok, I suppose,” I reply vaguely.

She tells me that as I am starting out my career in China, I have to be particularly cautious as most standards of best-practice are not adhered-to. It’s important for me to develop a methodical, thorough approach and avoid picking up the bad habits.


She’s right. I have noticed a general approach that the Chinese workers seem to take: as long as it works, it’s ok. Never mind that the standards are not adhered to, as long as the equipment works (on the most basic level).


***

On my return from Hong Kong, I was faced with a shit-storm of sorts. It turns out that one of the projects I’m working on is a mess. The electrical engineer did not adhere to much of the basics of the electrical code, including using wrongly colour coded cables, lack of separation between cables of different voltage categories, insufficient documentation…

And he did try to wriggle out of the mess by saying we should try to talk to the end user to see if they will turn a blind eye to these violations. As long as the equipment works.

Gah.


***

After talking for a bit, I slipped away to get ready while my aunt fed her daughter breakfast. I, on the other hand, was going with Jean for some much-needed dim sum.

On the recommendation of my granduncle, we visited Dou Hiong. It was supposed to be a good balance between reasonable price¹ and excellent food², and we were not disappointed.




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Top: prawn dumplings
bottom: steamed lotus seed paste buns; chee cheong fun with char siew




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Top: ham sui kok
bottom: siew mai; char siew pau

Total damage: 156 HKD for the above and servings of prawn dumplings and siew mai.

Footnotes:
1. By Hong Kong standards. Doesn't help that cost of living in HK is a bit on the high side
2. Again, by Hong Kong standards. This is a good thing, as HK food standards are already high

Hong Kong

Hong Kong was great!

Before I get to the real content, I will note here for archival purposes that Jean and myself are mightily pleased with ourselves for a very accurately forecasted budget.

Before our trip, we had predicted a total expenditure of 6343 HKD (2899 MYR) inclusive of air tickets and transport to airports. At the end, we found that we had spent 6391 HKD, merely 0.76% more than the forecasted amount. *proud*


***




Lai King MTR Station
茘景

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The Lai King station has an attractive red/ black colour theme, nice for a few portraits.




Each station has a distinc colour theme to help distinguish the stops. For example, Tsim Sa Tsui is dark grey, Lai King is red, Kowloon is white and Tsing Yi is pale green. Helpful if you know your stop's colour, hence not requiring commuters to crane their necks to find the station signs.


Nathan Road is a busy 4 lane road lined with retail and commercial buildings. When the traffic lights turn green to release a cluster of large double-decker buses roaring down the narrow lanes, it can be quite a scene. The road is quite narrow, the pedestrian walkway is built right up next to the road (sometimes without the reassurance of guard rails), and tall shop fronts on both sides close in the scene. It feels like watching the wave from an uncorked dam gushing down a narrow pipe.




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Shanghai, part I

There’s this little street called Qipu Road in Shanghai that has several complexes cramped with little shops all selling clothes, accessories, hair extensions, shoes and bags. The shops are generally tiny lots not more than 3 m by 3m, packed with wares all along the walls. On each floor, there would be easily 1000 stalls (lots of narrow aisles, each aisle having more than 30 stalls).



While not actually correct, ‘voracious’ seems to describe the economy well enough. The entire area was packed with shoppers, as visible in a closer up of the bridge and the building foyer.



There’s plenty of good deals inside, but at this time of the year, they are almost exclusively winter wear.



The Shanghai South railway station is probably the new face of China. The old face but prevalent face can be found at the Shanghai railway station – filthy, crowded, no waiting spaces (waiting rooms are only for trains arriving soon; people waiting for other connecting trains have to wait outside in the miserable cold).




On New Year’s Eve we went for xiao long bao at Ding Tai Feng, a highly recommended place. Not cheap – a basket of 10 pieces costs 52 RMB. However, they were heavenly. The skin was thin, and the soup within was a rich flavourful broth.



Another famous xiao long bao shop is Nanxiang, but this one relies on low price and massive volume for its profits. The queue at the take away window is approximately half an hour long, and the workers buzz through the motions remarkably quickly. Pay up at the first window, and get a receipt. Hand the receipt over at the second window, and watch the woman grab a basket of steamed dumplings, give the basket a strong whack on the side to loosen the dumplings, and then tumble the things into a paper box. Drizzle it with vinegar from a large jug, and there is your xiao long bao.

It was not quite worth the wait: the dumpling skin was tough and slightly chewy (to withstand the rough handling), and the filling were just short of being good.

It was cheap, at 11 RMB for 16 pieces, but with my unwell stomach and the unpleasant doughy texture, we finally dumped the last 5 pieces.


On New Year’s day, the public holiday unleashed endless crowds everywhere. The trains were crowded at stations near economic attractions like shopping districts or tourist spots. Despite continuous reminders to let passengers disembark before getting into the train, there is always a proportion of commuters too stupid to understand the rationale. Instead, they crowd the train doors and try to push their way in.

At our stop, someone tried to rush in against the flow disembarking passengers. Not intending to let him in easily, I forcibly marched ahead. He did not see my substantial camera bag I slung in front of me, and when that ploughed into his gut he let out a surprised “ouff.” That was satisfying :)



The Bund was similarly packed with people milling about snapping photos and crowded up 3-deep against the embankment. While the buildings located near The Bund are supposed to be well known for being historical, most people flock to The Bund to watch the Pudong city skyline.



Part II can be found here

Jean was over in Shanghai at the turn of the year, thus explaining my complete absence for the past 10 days.

Today’s discourse will be limited to one aspect of our adventures: trains


The journey from Shanghai city to the airport by taxi can take anywhere between 30 to 90 minutes. However, the airport train service uses magnetically levitated trains that whiz along at an awesome 430 km/h, reducing the travel time to a mere 7 minutes. And at 50 RMB per person, it is also far cheaper than the 150 - 200 RMB taxi fare.

The ride is exhilarating. An LED text display shows the current speed (most trains use this to indicate the next station), and the numbers steadily blink from zero up to 430 as the scenery whizzes by at increasingly fun speeds.

The elevated track is gently banked at curves, so that when the train whizzes into the curve, the view on one side will be mostly sky and clouds, while the other side will be dominated by a dizzying view of motor vehicles slowly puttering along on the highways.

Very soon, the speedometer begins to blink downward as the train approaches the station. The train must have been travelling at top speed for not more than 2 minutes; the rest of the time is spent gently accelerating from rest, and slowing down on approach into the station.

And the ride is over. Too fast.


***

Shanghai has two railway stations – the Shanghai Railway Station and Shanghai South Railway Station. For our trip to Suzhou, we went to Shanghai South to take a train Suzhou. Shanghai South is a new facility, clean, spacious and aesthetically pleasing – unlike most train stations in China.

We got a pair of tickets from Shanghai to Suzhou on a fast train, and had a long wait ahead of us. While in the toilet, I had a sudden horrible flash of insight. The ticket says Shanghai to Suzhou, not Shaghai South. It doesn’t really make sense for this railway station to sell tickets for departures from the other station, but strange things do happen in China…

A bit of asking around revealed that we make our way to the older station, located about 20 minutes away by subway. MCH.

The train stations are generally dingy places, with huge crowds, filthy toilets, smoky halls and not quite enough seats to go round (which is not surprising, seeing that each train can hold thousands of passengers). This was indeed the case in the Shanghai Station.

The train, however, was a completely different story. A bullet train with well a finished interior that is better trimmed than an airplane cabin and seats with more room than in a bus, it was entirely comfortable.

This being the fast train, it was really fast. At 200 km/h, the 75 km trip was done in 30 minutes.

Not bad.

Of course, that was the fast (and expensive) train. The slow trains can take up to 100 minutes, where the fares are much cheaper and the seats being hard benches.

Orgasms

In the form of ice cream and tiramisu.

Honey, I’m home! Hence the long spell of silence.



Yet another photo of the Beijing Airport

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***

I dropped by at Singapore for visit over the weekend, and one of the highlights of the weekend was sampling some Movenpick ice cream. Yes I hear it’s available in Malaysia; I’m sorry if I sound like I come from a kampung – I just returned from China.

It’s mind blowingly awesome. The strawberry ice cream was absurdly smooth, and the flavour was light and refreshingly sour. Fruity. And there were generous blobs of frozen strawberry chunks in the ice cream.

If you were to let the crystal-free ice cream melt in your mouth, the fruity sourness melts away leaving an occasional frozen bit of fruit. Let that thaw and it regains its strawberry-ness.

The cappuccino ice cream was another case study in orgasm-inducing food. It consists of mostly of coffee ice cream with some swirls of vanilla. And dispersed everywhere are fine chocolate chips. The coffee and vanilla ice cream melts first, leaving a residue of chocolate sediment in the mouth. This then quickly dissolves into a happy, chocolaty nothingness.

I suppose the appropriate thing to say now would be “I <3 Movenpick ice cream.”


***

We made tiramisu some days ago. It came out a little short of a whole tiramisu due to a minor misjudgement, but was still fantastic. The gratuitously generous quantity of strong coffee and Tia Maria helped save the day.

With a naked cake in the fridge, I scribbled something on a sheet of paper and cut it out into a stencil for sprinkling cocoa on the cake.

It’s one of THE most remarkable equation in complex mathematics, e^iπ=-1

The first was a mess because I hand-held the stencil; the last one was incomplete because I had to try the tiramisu.




e^iπ=-1

Random images from Guangzhou

The Chen Clan Academy is a very well preserved home of a well-to-do family bearing the same surname as myself.

It's a huge place, with elaborately sculpted architectural features, large halls, long corridors and spacious courtyards.

A huge rock carving with fantastic 3D detailing was set in the front wall of the mansion.








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There were many long corridors and doorways:







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The weather was terrible in Guangzhou. With daytime temperatures of 30 - 36 degrees C and relative humidity of 60 - 90%, we felt like fishes being steamed in a clear, sweaty broth.



Do not be deceived by the pretty rays of sunlight, tufts of clouds and clear blue sky; this is far from heaven.



We got our nails manicured for 20 RMB each. I was extremely disappointed with it. The nails were trimmed, filed and rounded. The cuticles were pushed back and trimmed with a cuticle cutter. A layer of polish was then applied (which I did not opt for).



So I paid 20 RMB to get my nails trimmed. Pfft. Where's the emery board and multi-stage buffing? Why aren't my nails ground smooth and then polished to the shine of a brand new PVC bottle?

For RM5 (~10 RMB), I can get myself a nail buffing kit and do it for everyone.

:(

Beijing Capital International Airport/ Dinner with Jolene Lai/ Guilin photographs

I'm back online!

My absence over the past three weeks can be attributed to a fortnight-long visit back home (to sort out my working visa, not a holiday) and then a week-long holiday in Guangzhou and Guilin with Jean.

From Tianjin, I flew to Kuala Lumpur via Beijing. The new Terminal Three of the Beijing Capital International Airport is mind boggling, jaw droppingly huge. I have seen images and articles about the new terminal, but nothing can prepare one for the shock of actually entering that structure.









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These two photos were taken about midway along the length of the departure hall.

\

Gate E09 within the satellite building.
I was trying to be cute and hoped to get a photo of E6, but it was E06 so that was not as fun
ps. E-6 is the process used to develop colour slide film.


To get to the boarding gates, passangers take a short train ride to a satellite building (just like in the KLIA). This building is another exercise in collosality.


In the klang valley, I finally met Jolene! She is every bit as interesting as her blogging persona. We took a drive to Klang for some seafood (deep fried butter prawns and peppered clam soup).


For my brother's 21st birthday, mom made some strawberry tarts. A light buttery cup, with a bit of dark chocolate spread around the bottom, then filled with frech custard (home made- not stirred from milk and custard powder; the real stuff is GOOD), and topped with sliced strawberries. The shiny liquid on top is a bit of strawberry jam just to give it a bit of a sheen.



They were heavenly... *swoons*


Last Thursday on the 12th, I took a bus to Singapore (where I managed to persuade a 2 year old with a fearsome reputation for not letting strangers touch him to let me carry him *prouds*), then took a flight to Guangzhou. After a few days in Guangzhou, it was a 45-minute trip in the air and we were in Guilin.



Look at the mountains!

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Guilin is beautiful. The air is clean, there is lush greenery everywhere (even the grass on the kerbs are beautifully green). Guilin is also famous for its karst landscape, the stuff you see in paintings. It is a little like our own Ipoh (clean and surrounded by lumpy mountains), but much, much more beautiful.



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Guilin has plenty of fantastic scenery due to the abundence of mountains, greenery and rivers. Unfortunately, it was drizzly and rainy while we were there so we missed out on a lot of those sights. In a way we were fortunate- if we were there one or two days earlier it would not be mere drizzles but torrential downpours. The river's water level rose a good 1.5 m or so those days.

One of the rock formations within Guilin town resembles an elephant dipping its trunk into the river. Not surprisingly, it's named Elephant Trunk Rock.




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A large, fantastically maintained park surrounds the rock, and the theme of the park is elephant (duh!). There are cute elephant statues you can do all manner of things with:




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Steps are cut into the rock to allow tourists a safe climb up that thing:





There were a few other attractions in Guilin, but with no photographs and a lazy brain (i've lost my muse), we'll just skip those.




Plane(s) of symmetry

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When we left for Guangzhou, the flight was delayed by about 2 hours due to bad weather in Guangzhou.

The Forbidden City, Beijing

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Super-Takumar 50mm/1.4




Copper Lions

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Jupiter 9 85mm/2.0
These are the mounting points for the handles on a huge copper vessel. Used to hold water, fires were lit under the vessel throughout winters to prevent the water from freezing




Tunnel Vision

Super-Takumar 50mm/1.4




The size of the gate is absurd. Note the size difference between the people and the doors.




Lovers

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Jupiter 9 85mm/2.0

Beijing - a brief summary in photographs

Wangfujin is a commercial street located East of Tiananmen Square. Along a portion of the street, various food stalls are set up selling a strange assortment of food.




Starfish and Bee Cocoons

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Starfish and bee cocoons (on skewers located in trays behind the starfish tray) are available...




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...together with disturbingly large centipedes.




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The last time we visited, this river was still frozen solid. A few of the younger cousins looked for large rocks to throw on the ice in hopes of breaking it. They were not the first ones to try- several chunks of stones, concrete and bricks indicate previous failed attempts.



A surprising number of people were on a bridge taking photos of the Bird Nest. However, with the number of street lights and wires in the way, i decided to screw it.




The Water Cube

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We came back at night to find the the National Aquatics Centre illuminated. While the buildings are completed, work is going on for the landscaping around the stadiums.




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Attempting to exercise my long-neglected linguistic abilities

While all my photographic equipment (10 lenses and 2 SLR bodies *hides face*) are with my brother


I had just cleared passport control. Fancy backlit shelves filled with tax-free alcohol, cigarettes, perfume and power-plug adapters clamoured for attention. Modern, groovy music leaked from the neon-lit doorway of a record store while across the mall, an employee in the Starbucks stood with a bored look.

Most travellers hustled on, ignoring the merchandise, their trolley bags’ wheels rattling and rumbling, the ladies’ high heels ticking on the tiled floor. Which was uncharacteristic in an airport; most areas in the airside of aerodromes are layered with carpet so thick and dense you could feel the gooey silence after the carpet soaks up all superfluous noises.

I had an hour before the flight was scheduled to depart. Deeming it wise to take a Brownian/Markovian random-walk instead of starting on my books, I wandered around looking at the pre-tax price of hard liqueur and staring absently at turbojet engines wind-milling lazily on idle.

I walked down a passageway between two overpriced retail outlets, turned a corner and was greeted by an empty boarding lounge. This was Gate 1, conveniently tucked away from the contrasting lights, chattering travellers and endless footfalls. In the lounge were rows and rows of seats, enough to hold the hundreds waiting to board a Boeing 747-400, all of them empty.

Making my way to the furthest end of the lounge where it was the quietest and where I could watch the door, I opened my book. In many ways, it was a classic text- The Classical Theory of Fields, by the noted physicist Lev Landau. As a photocopied classic text, it was also a copyright infringement.



***

Emirates Airlines was a completely different experience from the likes of Malaysian Airlines. For one, the food was actually enjoyable, not borderline edible. Well only the appetisers, side dishes and desserts; the main course, as in most in-flight meals, has the consistency of an over-steamed bowl of leftovers.

The entertainment system has a touch-screen system- passengers can jab at the monitor to command it to start showing Ratatoulle or play the 1988 UK chart toppers. Amazingly, the music albums had UK top singles listed in chronological order from 1952 to 2007. I, of course, was well and truly stuck in the late 80s to early 90s.


***

The 8-hour flight did not seem as dreadful as feared. I read a bit more of Landau, got distracted by dinner and started on a novel. After being deprived of novels for a year, it was a pleasure to read something that does not demand strenuous mental activity. (See this statement. Now it naturally follows that this is also true. And then if we allow the egg to rot, the Thunder Lizard will get angry. Follow? Good. Then when we use gravitational lensing to observe the passing of an n-brane, we will find the result. Correct?)

And when the brain got addled by this light reading, I turned on the video and watched The Matrix.

Trinity (Carrie-Ann Moss) is beautiful. Stop sniggering, it’s not the leather.

Wilson's Promontory- birds

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Super-Takumar 135mm f/3.5 with a short extension tube, uncropped
Subject to lens distance: ~2m





The bulu-test

100% crop from the preceding image

"Albert mentioned that the test for a lens' sharpness would be the bulu-test, where you see if the sensor is capable of resolving the individual strands of pubic/facial or head hair." - from tanyeehou.blogspot.com

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Super-Takumar 135mm f/3.5





"Shit in my camera bag, and you'd wish I was never born."

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Super-Takumar 135mm f/3.5

Interestingly, we are starting to see some JPEG compression artefacts. The sharp boundary between the subject in focus and the bland, defocused background causes a boundary layer of stray pixels to adopt the colours of the subject.