Making an Effort

As I've mentioned, I don't cook here in Hong Kong, and that's a bit of a shame. As a result, I also don't eat in a healthy way. It's hard. Hong Kong is not known for an abundance of either greens or fruits in the diet, and I have to make an effort. And these are foods I do, indeed, like to eat.

While there is Chinese broccoli available with Chinese food, and mushrooms, I wonder how many vitamins are actually left after it's been cooked. And the only salad I've seen in the stores is iceberg, and while that's a nice taste, it isn't terribly nutritious. It's true you can get fancier salad, but it runs about $6 a bag, so it's a bit of a splurge. Not many nutritious-type veggies in Thai or Indian food, either. And those three make up most of my diet.

And as for fruit ... surprisingly, a bit of a dead end. I eat a lot of bananas. A ton of bananas. To no one's surprise, I'm a bit picky about my bananas. They have a window of about two days before they're inedible, as far as I'm concerned. But since we always live within steps of a grocery, I can have perfect bananas all the time. And they're very good.

I would have guessed that Hong Kong, tropical as it is, would be rife with fruit. I was envisioning papayas and mangoes and exotic fruit like I had in Thailand -- rambutan and mangosteens. But not so much. Perhaps it's the fact this is an island. Or that the bulk of the affordable produce comes from China. I see a lot of apples and pears and neither is very interesting or very good, and I'm usually a big fan of apples. I keep waiting to see tangerines, but haven't. The peaches over the summer, in Beijing, were big and gorgeous and tasted awful. And we've now pretty much exhausted the choices of fruit.

To be fair, there are melons for sale, and occasionally I see halved papayas in the street stalls. But not often.

So I have turned to dragon fruit. This luscious, exotic fruit is, supposedly, very high in Vitamin C and dietary fiber. The perfect fruit. It is shocking pink on the outside, with soft spikes. Inside, it is white with kiwi-like seeds. To my mind, it also has the consistency of kiwi, a fruit I like very much but am allergic to.

It turns out they are easy to eat, too. One only has to slice it in half, and then scoop it out with a spoon. Like eating a kiwi. But in fact, it isn't at all related to kiwi, despite the similarities. The meat is slightly sweet, and not at all strong. It's very pleasant. I'm going to make a point of eating several a week.

But I'm not sure how to tell when one is ripe, or overripe. And I don't know how long they keep. So I'll have to do some research and keep experimenting.

Meanwhile, I worry if I should start to take vitamins?

It's Always an Adventure ...

It's hard not to have an interesting day here, at least when I leave the house. I imagine at some point, soon, the novelty will wear off, but it hasn't yet.

Today I had to make myself scarce for a few hours this afternoon so I decided to go to the movies. It is, in fact, fairly easy to get there and back, as I discovered on my way back.

I thought I'd take the bus down the hill and see where I landed. The schedule said the bus would stop at the Central MTR and I wanted to go to the IFC mall so that worked out nicely. But it's a bit difficult to gauge where you are in this city because everywhere, especially in the Central district, you are at the bottom of many very tall buildings.

Through a maze of skyways and walkways and mall-insides I found myself at the IFC mall, an expansive, expensive shopping center with luxury stores aplenty. I haven't experienced a movie here, but had been told by a colleague the experience was first-rate.

The theater isn't exactly your regular mall theater. There is a cafe adjacent to the ticket sellers (they aren't secluded by a booth, but are behind a counter) and the whole atmosphere feels like an art-house theater. There are books for sale, film books perhaps? and posters advertising the upcoming films and film festivals.

I decided to see Quantum of Solace, the new Bond movie. It was playing in more than one "house" as they are called here. The "house" I was in was quite small, perhaps 8o seats. Eighty leather, comfortable, wide, spacious first-class airplane-like seats. With cup holders. It was luxe.
Plus, when you buy your ticket you buy a specific seat. This is mostly good but a little bad. There is something to be said for walking into the theater, assessing it, and then choosing a seat. Especially if it's crowded and you don't want to sit next to someone.

But I digress.

The lights dimmed promptly at 3:25, the time that was listed. There was a preview and then the usual ads. What amused me about the ads was that there were the usual admonitions not to talk or use your cell phone, but they added one for no recording. As if, I started to think to myself. Then I remembered the pirated DVD we watched the other day and said, oh, yeah.

The experience was grand. The sound was too loud for my tastes, but it was a Bond movie. I had a perfect sight line, and even if the theater had been full, nobody would have been in my way. And if someone had wanted to walk past me with their popcorn, that would have been fine, too, because there was an enormous amount of leg room, and even some very large Westerner would have fit by easily.

There was no matinee price: Tickets were 75 Hong Kong, or about $10. There is a senior price for those over 60 and a discount for Tuesdays, at 50 Hong Kong. As it happens, the next few times I will have to clear out are, in fact, Tuesdays so it looks like more movies for me.

After the film I wended my way through the mall, stopping to look at this or that, and finding a very nice bakery in the fancy CitySuper grocery store. That shop is much like a Bon Marche, filled with very pricey imported goods. The bakery is Western and I had a just-out-of-the oven garlic bread.

I was a little concerned about getting back. It had gotten dark, and I was sure the commuters would be packing the streets and escalators. As it turns out, the IFC is exactly at the bottom of the escalators, so you only need to make your way across the main road by skyway, turn left and you're at the base of the escalator. Amazingly easy.

I can't wait to do it again next week.

Hard to Get to?! That's a Fact

So we're in the latest apartment: A lovely, three-room place in Mid-Levels. We are in one of the more desirable neighborhoods in Hong Kong. We are also in one of the most inconvenient neighborhoods in Hong Kong, as far as I can tell.

On Sunday I went to run a simple errand, and as easy as it was to do in Tin Hau it was as difficult in Mid-Levels.

Our neighborhood is largely residential. Sort of the 7th arrondissement of Hong Kong. There are few shops along the street, and they are limited, largely, to hair dressers, pet shops and real estate agencies.

So what's a girl gotta do to get a computer cable? Glad you asked. First, I walk about a kilometer to get to the Mid-Levels escalator, which is about 800 meters long with a vertical climb of 135 meters. The total travel time is twenty minutes, but some people walk while the system moves to shorten their trip. This is a bit misleading, though, because the escalator only goes up during the day. So actually, you have to make a vertical descent, via stairs and steep pavement.

Along the sides there are dozens of restaurants and bars; it's very cool.

At the bottom is the Central business district, and while this isn't necessarily the closest commercial district, as the crow flies, it's the only way to get somewhere that has a way back up that isn't hundreds of stairs.

Anyway, I went to the Fortress appliance and electronics store next to the Central MTR station looking for a WLAN cable. It took me about 30 minutes to get there. Easy, i thought.

Not so easy.

The guy at Fortress, which sells TVs and phones and computers and printers, says they don't have one. I ask where I might find one. He suggests the computer shop up one flight of stairs in the same shopping mall. I find the computer shop and it's one of the few shops closed on a Sunday. I start to contemplate my options. As I'm walking back to the street I see a sign for another computer shop in another mall. I go up to the second level to find that shop and it, too, is closed.

Now I have to figure this out. I don't know the area well and I'm not sure what sort of shop I need to find. I think perhaps the Fortress was just too small. Maybe the shop guy meant they didn't have them at his shop. So I get on the MTR and go to Times Square, in Causeway Bay. If you read Paul's blog a while back, he describes the madness that is Times Square, and we both vowed never to go back on a weekend. But I needed the cable to work Sunday night.

So I make my way through the gigantic MTR station and finally get to the Times Square mall and go up seven flights of elevators to get to the Fortress and another identical shop, Broadway. The guy at Broadway says nope, no cable. I ask him where I might find one. He suggests the computer mall in Wan Chai. Ack. I desperately don't want to do that. It's another metro ride (the easy part) but it will take me 15 minutes, at least, to get to the train and then I still have to find the Wan Chai computer mall.

So I go over to the Fortress, and ask the guy there if he has a cable. I know he doesn't, but I ask anyway. He tells me if I go down the street to the department store Sogo there is another computer mall nearby. The instructions are very vague.

Mind you it took me what, 10 minutes, the other day to hit the florist, the laundry and the key shop. I'm now into my second hour and I still can't even find a shop that sells what I want.

I go back down seven flights of escalators and realize I have no idea where Sogo is. I end up asking three more people before I find it. Meanwhile, I see a PCCW shop on the street. And since that is the company that provides the internet service and modem that I'm using, I think maybe they have a WLAN cable. Ha. That guy sends me to the same computer mall, and I'm still not clear where it is.

Wading through the hordes of people (see my flickr site) I find the shopping mall. It's called Windsor House. The computer mall is on the 10th floor, and they don't have escalators, so I find the elevators that are designated 5-16. And now this story is about as long and tedious as my search for the cable. Which I found, finally, two hours and four malls after I started looking.

The prospect of a three-stop metro ride and 20-minute escalator ride (did I mention that the previous night we walked up the stairs because we got there after the escalators were turned off?) and a 1K walk to get back was too daunting. I hopped in a cab.

So the point is, I won't be running many errands the next month. And we probably won't live in this neighborhood, as nice as it is, if we stay in Hong Kong.

But until then I'm going to enjoy the space and the killer views and errands be damned.

Penny-wise and Pound Foolish

We checked into the Ibis North Point hotel this afternoon. We're using it as a bridge between one apartment and another.

And we discovered that for a mere $88, we could be transported back to Europe in the blink of an eye.

The Ibis is a French-owned hotel; part of the Accor chain. It's known as a budget hotel, to be sure. Probably comparable to Motel 6, but Euro-style. We have perhaps 180 square feet of space -- two thirds the size of my childhood bedroom -- with a bed and a desk built into the window. I have a fabulous view of Victoria Harbour.

But all those perks of Hong Kong I was talking about yesterday? Not so much here. There is French-style check in (slow and uninformative) and an almost French-sized elevator. It took me as long to get internet service, today, as it did for me to run three errands yesterday.

C'est la vie.

I'm told the IHT puts its tryout editors here. Ack. I can't imagine spending two nights here, much less a week. We were fortunate enough to stay in the Harbour View when we first arrived, and it's head and shoulders above this hotel. (And, not to put too fine a point on it, only $40 more at this time.)

But we're here just for 24 hours. Not enough time to worry about space, and I'm working days, too, so Paul and I only have to co-exist to sleep.

Another in a series of adventures, right?

Next stop: Mid-Levels West

And the Living is Easy

There is no disputing that life here (my life, anyway) is pretty easy. I have no chores and my errands are easy to accomplish.

I was a little concerned that moving back to a city would mean that daily life is a little more complicated. That certainly was the case in Paris. But not here. My goodness ... you can get anything you want everywhere. The shops don't close early and they seem to be open seven days a week.

This morning I needed to run some errands before work. I managed to go to drop off the laundry, get keys made and buy an orchid at the florist, all in under 20 minutes. Beat that!

The laundry is across the street from our current apartment (and yes, we are moving again this weekend) so that was a piece of cake. In at 12:45 p.m., out at 5 p.m.. 36 hong kong dollars. The I crossed back to the apartment and cut across the alleyway, past the always-crowded hot pot restaurant and over to the hardware store. (see photo).

The hardware store is probably the size of my sister-in-law's sewing room, nee walk-in closet. It offers faucets and light bulbs on the outside, and switches and keys and all sorts of other things. It cost me 20 hong kong and 5 minutes to get 4 keys made. Granted, getting keys made in SoCal isn't difficult, time-consuming, or expensive. But it isn't always easy to find a place that will make them for you.

And in Paris, it's worse. They don't really do keys there ... Keys are proprietary and expensive. You must prove you are the owner or legal resident of an apartment before you can get copies made, and then they take 10 days and cost upward of $50.

Then, I went looking for a plant. I went to two florists, actually, before I decided on a lovely pale green orchid as a gift for the guy whose apartment we're borrowing.

Total time, about 15 minutes.

It's amazing to have everything at my fingertips, so to speak. Supermarket, laundry, restaurants galore, stationery shop, framers, florists, butchers, green grocers, bakeries ... everything in one square block.

I could get used to this.

No Place for a Gweilo

I was wandering around the neighborhood today and thought I'd check out the Causeway Bay Market. It's an indoor market filled with stalls, not unlike an outdoor market.

The signs outside suggest all sorts of interesting things inside, so in I went.

Things were a little too interesting. I don't think there are many Westerners in there; I got almost as many stares as I offered back. At first I thought it was just the usual fare: fish and meat and vegetables.

But no.

There was a cage at one of the fish stalls, and I glanced at it, thinking the shellfish was an odd size. Then I realized it wasn't shellfish at all, but frogs! The look on my face said it all, and then the vendor started to look at me, so I bugged out.

Moseyed around the vegetables and produce; nothing out of the ordinary up there. Although I think I saw some hundred-year-old eggs. These are eggs preserved in a mixture of clay, ash, salt, lime and rice straw. Anyway, I certainly smelled them. They are, I understand, an acquired taste.

Went back downstairs just in time to see the live birds. Ack! I'd been avoiding this. I looked over and the stall owner had a chicken by the neck, and was measuring it with the knife. Ack again! I looked away.

I didn't think I was squeamish like this. I'm OK with my meat hanging in the open air, although I do prefer refrigeration, yes. I'm OK with my fish laid out on ice. And in Paris, especially during game season, they hang dead animals all over the place. Recently dead. With fur and feathers.

Who knew my limit would be frogs and live chickens?

Baked Goods, Cont.

So Paul wrote earlier about his encounter with Chinese bread and just after reading it I passed by a bakery on my way back from running errands.

This was a different bakery, around the corner from the Indian restaurant. As I passed, I could smell the fresh-out-of the oven baked goods. Normally, I'm not a bakery kind of girl. I like cookies, but pastries not so much. And I'm a little wary of Chinese baked goods. They often have sesame or bean pastes hidden in the middle, and that often surprises me.

Anyway, the smell was tempting. I actually passed the bakery, then went back half a block. In the open window were apricot jam sticks, like croissant twists with raisins in them, and, presumably apricot jam. There also were pineapple buns, which I'd heard of and marshmallow buns, which I had not heard of.

Apparently pineapple buns contain no pineapple, but instead have a cross-hatch pattern on top that makes it look like a pineapple. I have no idea if the marshmallow buns have marshmallow in them, or just have the consistency of a marshmallow.

So I bought one of the apricot sticks, and it was hot and fresh. They use plastic bags here, instead of paper, which don't lend themselves to hot steaming things -- just makes them soggy. When I got it back to the apartment it was sort of falling apart.

But that's not what's important. Was it good? It was. Was it apricot? Sort of. Not slathered in apricot, but there was definitely some there. It was warm, and moist and tasty. A perfect bakery food.

Maybe the trick is to stay away from the proper bread?