Macau: For the Sake of Anthropological Research

You have spent the last hour wandering through the narrow streets of Macau. The sun is setting, and you arrive in a plaza near the southern tip of the peninsula, where there is a temple and a street lined with Macanese restaurants. Even though you just finished lunch at 3 PM, and you're not that hungry yet, you decide you should eat. You've heard that people tend to eat dinner on the early side in Macau, so it's better safe than sorry.

You choose a restaurant that was recommended in your guidebook, knowing that it might be pricier than the types of restaurants you normally go to. This is, after all, probably the only time you'll ever visit Macau, and this is your only dinner there. You open the door of the restaurant. You feel a bit silly because you are wearing a button down shirt that you bought yesterday at the market in Hong Kong - a "Nautica" shirt (doubtful) that still is creased from the plastic packaging that it came in. But then you see that someone else in the restaurant is wearing a t-shirt, so you feel better.

Next you feel awkward because at the entrance to the restaurant there are stairs going up, and then you have to go down again after passing over a small balcony, where everyone in the restaurant will look at you - it's like the grand entrance that you really would prefer to pass on, but have no choice. You briefly re-consider the whole thing, thinking back to the last time you dined alone in a semi fancy (read: cloth napkins) restaurant while traveling abroad - 6 years ago in Bolivia when you had Italian food in Santa Cruz and you paid with credit card but forgot to sign the receipt and then the waiter had to chase you down in the streets to get you to come back and sign it and you were very embarassed and felt like an idiot and vowed never to eat in a "fancy" restaurant by yourself again.

But then you decide that you are in Macau, and for the sake of anthropological research, you should get a table for 1. So you do.

The menu looks good, and you can't really decide what to order, and even though the dishes seem large, you decide you should probably try at least two things. You ask a waiter what he recommends, and he suggests the Portuguese style clams as an appetizer, and the African Chicken as a main dish. The table next to you has both of these and they look good, so you agree. Each costs 90 Hong Kong dollars, which you need to divide by 7.5 to figure out how much that costs in US dollars, which is too much math at the moment, but you decide it's fine.

They don't have glasses of wine, only bottles, and a half-bottle of Portuguese Vinho Verde is only 80 Hong Kong dollars, which is cheaper than the watered down drink you had in Hong Kong last night, so you get that too!

The clams arrive - there are approximately 50 small clams in a lovely broth with whole cloves of garlic, olives, chilies and plenty of butter and wine. Your waiter tells you that it's good to dip your bread in the sauce - which means you did a good job pretending to be interested in nibbling on your bread prior to the arrival of the clams so it wouldn't be too obvious that you CLEARLY were planning to do lots of bread dipping and never even CONSIDERED using any of the butter provided. Ha.

You take a picture of your clams.

You eat about 1/2 of the clams and you are already getting full. Your wine is chilling in an ice bucket (!) next to your table and the waiters refill your glass regularly. The African Chicken arrives - this is a Macanese specialty, which is a huge serving of chicken (1/2 of a chicken, in fact) in a creamy sauce that reminds you of a cross between tomato soup, chicken tikka masala and Indonesian gado gado - except not really any of those. That combination sounds gross, but this is really good. You are also served rice, which is good because the sauce is rather spicy.

You take a picture of the African Chicken and the rice.

You are asked if you'd like your plate for clams taken away, and you say 'no' because you still might want more clams. In fact, you do. You also want more bread, and get some, and dip it in the broth from the clams again. You are getting very full, and also a bit tipsy because you are hot and the wine is cool and refreshing and you keep drinking it. You start focusing on not being too drunk. You DON'T knock over your wine glass as you reach across the table to grab one more clam. You DON'T absentmindedly stare at people at other tables. You DON'T let your eyes start to close.

You are happy when a waiter asks if you'd like to take the leftovers home with you - you agree, figuring that at least someone will eat them, but you decide to just take the chicken because leftover clams wouldn't be that good. You are definitely tipsy but luckily you don't have to talk to anyone, you just have to sit at your table with your glass of wine and take deep breaths and enjoy the restaurant. You are probably too full for dessert. "The Rivers of Babylon" starts playing in the background, which you find funny.

You decide to go to the bathroom, which is upstairs, and you focus very hard on holding the handrail and not doing anything dumb on the way up or down the stairs. You are successful. You come back down, and you think that you are all alone, on the other side of the world, and you are drunk and you are a kilometer from your hotel, and you have never been in this situation before. You decide that maybe the best solution is dessert afterall.

You ask to see the dessert menu, at first thinking that you might not really order any, but then you decide that sitting in the restaurant longer is probably a good idea, so you ask which dessert is best, and the manager says to get the serradura - she says this without hesitation, so you decide to do it even though you don't always like creamy desserts. After you order, you turn to the waiter and ask him to not serve the dessert for another 5 minutes because you are still too full.

After a while your dessert is served - serradura is fresh whipped cream, topped with a cookie crumb powder, the texture of sawdust. You take a picture of it. It looks pretty, but you are unconvinced - until your first bite.

The serradura might be the best dessert ever. It reminds you of the ice cream pie that your aunt Betsy makes during the summer, except the chocolate crumb crust has become vanilla sawdust, and the ice cream has turned into 'just plain cream' and it's in a bowl. You finish the dessert in 1 minute. You strongly consider ordering another one, because it's only 30 HK dollars which is only about 4 US dollars, which is totally worth it because this dessert is ridiculously good. You scoff at the notion that at one point you actually considered NOT ordering dessert.

You sit for a while longer and you feel a bit more sober now and you ask for the bill. You look around and you notice that there are at least two other tables taking pictures of their food. You are glad that at least you have this in common with the Chinese tourists. It is not weird here to take pictures of your food in restaurants.

You go to the bathroom again. You forget to check whether or not your napkin has been folded for you when you are back at your seat, which your friend Thomas says is a mark of a 'fine restaurant.' You wish you had noticed. But you think they probably folded it.

You pay with a credit card, and you stay put in your seat and remember to sign the receipt before you leave. You have spent more on this meal than you will on your hotel room, but it was worth it - again, for the sake of anthropologcal research. You walk outside into the muggy night air and get ready for the walk back to your hotel.

In general, you don't love dining alone, but you realize that it isn't always so bad.

Macau: A Quick View of Macau

Macau is really interesting so far. I'm staying at a place in the heart of the old city, which is really nice - my room is MUCH bigger than the one I had in Hong Kong, for about the same price. I had lunch with two Colombian guys who are staying at my hotel, then went exploring.

The Portuguese influence is quite evident - it feels like I'm in South America, but everyone is Chinese! There are a ton of tourists, it seems like most are from mainland China. But the overall feeling here is much more relaxed than Hong Kong, with lots of European-style narrow streets to explore. So it's quite fun walking around.

Here are a few pictures:


Among other things, I had this roast pork noodle soup for lunch. Very good, the pork was very sweet.


A cathedral in Macau



View from the fort in Macau

Cannon in the fort in Macau

Ruins of another church in Macau. I didn't pay much attention to which church was which. Sorry.

Tourists in Macau

Macau is known for its egg custard tarts - here they are caramelized on the top, while in HK they usually aren't. This was easily the best egg custard tart I have ever had. Super flaky crust, and perfect texture/sweetness of custard. I will probably have a few more of these before leaving tomorrow.

Macau: Last Day in Hong Kong

I'm in Macau now, but I have a few more photos of Hong Kong. They are uploaded in a somewhat nonchronological order, so I will put descriptions beneath each one even though it's not sequential.


This is a typical street stand in Hong Kong. They sell all sorts of snacks, many involving squid or fish. Thanh (a friend from Tufts who lives in HK) recommended that I try the curry fishballs (the floating balls in the darker liquid). They were very good and spicy! The stand like this near my hostel also had stinky tofu, which wafted toward you every time you exited the elevator in my building. I am not a fan of stinky tofu.


A view of the market near my hostel.



Fruit stand in the market.

Dim sum with Thanh and Carine. We went to a restaurant that both of them had been to before. It was fun to get dim sum in Hong Kong, though it wasn't any better than what I've had in Boston and San Francisco.

Our table.

Xiao long bao at dim sum. These were quite good. I'm excited to eat a lot of these in Shanghai next month!

Broccoli from a restaurant in Temple Market. I came here with Shawn and with another guy who I met at my hostel. We sat next to two women who told us the place specialized in vegetables and seafood, especially snails. This broccoli was cooked perfectly, and was in fact some of the best broccoli I have ever had.

Whelks from the restaurant in Temple Market. I didn't like these that much, but I was glad I tried them. The sauce had a lot of chinese five spice and I got tired of it after a while - my dining companions did not help eat very many, so I was left with a lot!

Hong Kong: Blogging from the Metro Station

It's 11:30 PM and the metro station is busy with hundreds of people. I'm on my way home after some drinks on Hong Kong Island with Keith, and lo and behold, I have found free internet inside the metro station. Crazy. Hong Kong is quite the place...I'm off tomorrow to Macau, so more updates once I'm there.

Hong Kong: Dragon's Back

On Thursday, I met up with Keith at 10:30 AM at a metro station near the east end of Hong Kong Island. Our plan was to go on a hike up Dragon's Back, on the eastern-most end of the island, then continue on to Shek O, a small town next to a beach. Overall, the day was a great success.

Before I get to the hike though, I will post some pictures of my breakfast - rice noodles wrapped around fried donut, some sliced fish congee, and a bowl of warm soymilk. This was a lot of food to start my day.

We caught a bus from the MTR (metro) toward Shek O - this was easy, as Keith had arrived before me and had scoped it all out. This bus took us up into the hills, and we got off the bus at a trailhead. A Canadian guy named Shawn was on the bus with us, and did the same hike, though we didn't really talk to him much till later.

At first the trail was shady, walking along a mostly flat ridge through some jungle-like vegetation. Eventually this trail rose above the treeline onto Dragon's Back, which provide views both east and west. Up at the top, it was very windy, but as soon as we were protected from the wind, the sun was really hot!

The whole hike only took us about 1.5 hours, and soon we were back at the road (further down it) where we caught the bus again for the rest of the trip to Shek O. When we got to Shek O, we explored a bit, took a peak at the beach (which looked awesome), then decided to eat lunch first. There are a lot of Thai restaurants in Shek O, so we chose one that was crowded and close to the beach. Shawn ended up there as well, so he joined us at our table - we ordered from a lunch special menu. Keith and I had pork chops and Shawn had green curry - all were HUGE servings atop huge servings of rice - a ton of food for about $5 US each.

After lunch we went to the beach, where we stayed most of the afternoon - we swam, we lay in the sun, we swam some more. There were some rafts in the water that you could swim to, and the waves were kind of big as well, so they were fun to play in. Keith and I threw a frisbee for a while, despite announcements made in Cantonese, Mandarin and English that said "No dogs, ball playing, saucer throwing or kiteflying allowed." Nobody seemed to care about these rules though, since there were plenty of dogs, frisbees and soccer balls on the beach.

The water at the beach had a bit of garbage floating in it, but for the most part seemed very clean, and the sand on the beach was great. We rented an umbrella too, so we had some nice shade. The three of us met a woman named Meghan, who grew up and lives in Hong Kong - and we chatted with her for a while before we all left to go back to the city.

One last anecdote: when we got off the bus at the metro station, I really had to pee. There were no toilets right at the metro station, but there was a sign that says "toilets" with an arrow pointing a street with lots of stalls. Keith, Shawn and Meghan waited for me as I followed the sign...which led me two blocks to another sign, and then to another sign....and soon I was four blocks away. But sure enough, I was eventually led to a public bathroom. I was quite impressed with signage...I can't think of anywhere else I've been where the bathroom signs are so clear, especially when the bathroom itself is blocks away.

That's enough for this post...more later perhaps. Here are pictures!

Keith at the trailead.


The trail on Dragon's Back

David and Keith on Dragon's Back

View of Shek O Beach from above


Pork chop rice plate at Thai restaurant in Shek O




Keith eating lunch.

Shek O Beach

Shek O Beach

Peal, Play, Win! Shir Appeal makes it all the way to the South China Sea!

Hong Kong: Green Lasers and Rice Noodles

Hong Kong is a very busy city - exciting, but a bit overwhelming. I am staying in Mong Kok, which according to Guiness Book of World Records, has the highest population density in the world, at 130,000 people per square kilometer.

Over the past few days, I've been walking all over the place. On my first night here, I went exploring with Willa - we took the metro down to the Temple Street Market, then walked back to Mong Kok from there, stopping for dumplings and coconut juice on the way. On Wednesday I did more exploring - after a delicious breakfast of rice noodles, I headed into Hong Kong Island proper, where I rode the tram, then met up with Keith.

Keith and I had lunch, then took the escalators up to the hills and then walked around the botanical gardens and the zoo before heading back down through another street market.

I took the ferry to Hong Kong Island and back - it's quite cheap and takes about 5 minutes, and the view of the harbor and the skyline on Hong Kong is pretty amazing. I'm glad the guidebooks recommended that I take the ferry, since I might have otherwise taken the metro.

It was dusk by the time I crossed back to Kowloon on the ferry, and from the waterfront walkway in Tsim Sha Tsui, I watched as the lights of the skyscrapers came on, and the sky grew darker.

At 8 PM, the nightly light show started - music blared out from speakers all across the waterfront, and about 20 different skyscrapers on the other side of the harbor participated in the big event - choreographed lights and lasers shooting up to the sky. I guess it was pretty cool to see, but it's also kind of crazy that this show happens every night. Overall though, I think the general skyline is impressive on its own.

After this, I headed to a wonton place I had read about on chowhound. I posted a picture of this in my last post too. The wontons were really good, and I had another kind of dumpling there as well, which had shrimp and some other vegetables in it too.

Being here is funny - it actually doesn't feel that foreign to me. I have found myself sitting by myself in restaurants here, surrounded by Cantonese with no English spoken...but it's also the kind of experience I seek out all the time in the US. In San Francisco, Boston and New York I've put myself in similar situations, so the sounds and tastes here - as well as the lack of English - is actually quite familiar. Markets on the streets are similar to what I've seen in South America, India and even the US, and the busy streets are reminiscent of Times Square in New York - except here the busy streets continue on for blocks and blocks.

The food here has been good so far, and there's a lot of it - but I don't get the sense that it's as much of a food city as Kuala Lumpur, or from what I hear, Singapore. It will be interesting to see how food here compares to Macau and Guangzhou, where there will be some big similarities but some differences as well I think.

That's enough for this post...I will now try to upload some pictures if I can navigate the Chinese on the computer.

Hong Kong: Escalators, Mangosteens, Wontons, Skyscrapers

I am going to post some photos with brief descriptions....I will write more in the blog later, but I'll spend my time now uploading photos since they are already on this computer.

So here it goes:

This is my small hostel room near Mong Kok in Hong Kong.

On my first night in Hong Kong, I went with Willa to Temple Street Night Market. On the way back, we had a midnight snack of fried dumplings!

My first breakfast consisted of two orders of rice noodle rolls - from a place directly across from my hotel. I was proud that I figured out how to say these in Cantonese and ordered them even though there was no English spoken and no English menu. I had an order with pork, and an order with shrimp. The shrimp ones were better.

Breakfast part II consisted of coffee, an egg custard tart and some tea.

I took the ferry over to Hong Kong Island and rode a double-decker tram (pictured here)

There are some familiar restaurants near this market.

Eggs and Chinese Sausage at the market.

I met up with Keith for lunch in Central, and we ended up at a place that had rice noodle soups. Mine had ground pork, pickled vegetables and meatballs. Keith had wontons. I also had a lemon tea.

Keith and I rode the escalators up the hills of Hong Kong.

Keith went home, but I continued up the tram to go up to The Peak. This is the view from The Peak.

Amherst Pride on the Peak

I bought some mangosteens, which are delicious. The white flesh is very sweet.

The Hong Kong skyline at dusk.

The Hong Kong skyline just before the 8 PM laser light show. This was fun to see - I watched from the Kowloon side of the harbor.

After the light show, I went to a wonton noodle soup place recommended on chowhound. While the noodles and soup were just okay, these were some of the best shrimp wontons I have ever had.

Hong Kong: Travel Pictures

I am at an internet cafe in Hong Kong now. It's close to my hostel. 

I managed to download a bunch of photos onto this computer, which is impressive because everything is in Chinese, so I have to guess which answers are which when things pop up on the screen. But here are the first few:

My plane in London before taking off

View from a restaurant in Terminal 5, London Heathrow

The bridge from Lantau to Kowloon, on the way into the city from the airport

Hong Kong: The Flight

I am in Hong Kong! I'm using the internet at my hostel now - everything went quite smoothly on my trip.

Nancy, Chris and Anna dropped me off at Caledonian Road Station on the Piccadilly Line so that I'd have a direct train to the airport. This worked very well - the train took a while (1 hr) but brought me right to Terminal 5.

Terminal 5 is the new British Airways terminal, and it was very impressive looking. Possibly the nicest airport terminal I've ever been in, with the possible exception of Kuala Lumpur. Check in and security were a breeze (took a total of 5 minutes), and soon I was inside security with plenty of time to eat dinner. I ate at Wagamama, which is a British noodle chain - I had some sort of udon noodle stir fry, which was fine but nothing special - but better than typical airport food. At the table next to me I observed 3 Chinese businessmen trying to figure out the menu - they spoke no English, but luckily one of the waitresses had limited Chinese. It was interesting to watch them figure it all out, since they were clearly familiar with most of the foods themselves, but not with the format of the menu or the restaurant processes.

My flight boarded on-time, and I observed before we even boarded that there weren't enough people to fill a 747. I was right - the plane was probably less than 1/2 full. Not only did I have a seat with extra legroom (emergency exit), but I also had the entire row to myself - only drawback was that my seat's screen and tray table popped up from the armrest, so that meant I couldn't lie flat across my aisle like other people could. But it was still really really nice to have all this space...in fact, I switched between different seats.

I had ordered the Hindu meal for myself, and sure enough, the flight attendant brought it out to me - he looked a bit confused at first that I was getting a Hindu meal, but he didn't say anything. For dinner, the main dish was: Fried chicken pieces, some grayish/green peas and mashed potatoes! I thought this was pretty funny - definitely not very special, but not bad either. On the side were some more Indian-type things: raita, lime pickle, a side of onion/lentil salad (this was good)....but I was kinda bummed about the main dish.

I managed to sleep for about 4-5 hours, and also watched Zoolander and Ferris Bueller's Day Off. They kept the lights off on the plane, and all the windows shut, to allow people to sleep up until 2 hrs before landing - I thought this was a bit ridiculous because in Hong Kong it was already late afternoon when we landed!

Breakfast was better: Some Indian flat bread, a spicy paneer curry, and some spiced potatoes. Definitely more Indian in style and quite good. I am pretty sure this was the same as the Asian Veg option, so I might just go that route next time.

Arrival in Hong Kong was great - views coming in were nice, landing went well, customs and baggage claim were a breeze - no questions asked. It was sunny and 82 degrees when I got outside, and I quickly caught my double decker bus into Kowloon. I got the top front seat, which provided more great views of the city as we drove in - especially crossing the bridge from Lantau into Kowloon.

My hostel seems pretty good - not very cheap at HK240 per night, but I have my own room and bathroom w/ AC - though it's very small! Free internet though, so that's good. And Willa is staying in a hostel just 4 floors above mine while she is here this week!

After checking in, I went to go to the ATM and explore. Walking around, I couldn't stop smiling - this place is HUGE and bustling, with amazing food and a million people everywhere. And I haven't even traveled more than 5 blocks from my hostel. I ate dinner at a restaurant where I had a claypot w/ rice and chinese sausage - very good. Then I roamed around a bit more - saw lots of fresh fruit, which I'll probably buy some of tomorrow - fresh durian, jackfruit, rambutan, lychee, mangoes, mangosteen, plums, cherries, oranges, papaya, etc....and again, this was just in a small market in my neighborhood, not even in an official produce market. So there will be lots to see.

I think that's about all for now....hopefully next post I'll be able to add some pictures too but i still need to figure out how that works. Goodnight from Hong Kong!

London: Playing Tag in Tate Modern

It was sunny this morning, but then it got rainy. Anna enjoyed a book as she drank her coffee.

Later I went with Nancy, Chris and Anna to meet up with their family friends for a short walking tour around Monument/London Bridge. We did a loop from Monument, across the bridge, along the river past the Tate Modern, then back across the Millennium Bridge and over to Monument again. Then we climbed up the monument. 

The Tate Modern's main hall didn't have any exhibit in it - it was completely empty. We went down into the open space to investigate, and Shifra (age 5) started a game of tag with everyone. 

Later, from the Monument, we had a good view of the Tower Bridge.

I leave for Hong Kong in less than 5 hours. It's almost time to go to the airport!