Last Minute Trip to Hong Kong

I've been meaning to post about so many things for the past...year.
Topics include:
- recent trip to Hong Kong
- the baker's market
- how Seoul was eerily clean and polite thanks to the G20
- Evaluations of late night food trucks in Itaewon
- Halloween
- getting a card for the public library
- Paju Book City
- the freaky butterfly museum that has haunted me for months
- ranting and raving about the bipolar weather
- getting nekkid in a Korean bath house
- the gentrification of Hannam-dong/Itaewon
- the Americanization of eMart
The list goes on...

Real life, however, keeps trumping virtual life. I know. Somebody needs to get her priorities straight. I probably won't get to most of the topics in my list, but I've decided to begin with the topic that boasts the most photos -- a last minute trip to Hong Kong!




















Earlier this month, when Cyndi realized that we had a long weekend off from school, she started scouring the web for a cheap last minutes deals to...anywhere out of Seoul. She managed to find a really good deal with Air India to Hong Kong.

In my experience, there are two reasons to visit Hong Kong: (1) high-end, duty free shopping or (2) eating. Since we've both done all the touristy stuff previously, this trip was all about the eats.

AIR INDIA: Is it weird that I love airplane food so much? I almost missed meal time, but the Air India flight attendant made sure I got my chicken meal. I was sound asleep, but the flight attendant persisted until I woke up. Then she brusquely thrusted the chicken meal in my face. I guess she assumed that small, drowsy Asian girls are not into vegetarian curry? The service on Air India may be casual in comparison to the Korean airlines (e.g., The flight attendant told Cyndi to place her coffee cup and tray on the seat next to her. The flight attended couldn't be bothered to put anything away given that the plane was landing), but Air India is still way more comfortable than most American planes.



















I am going to warn you. Most of the following photos will feature food or beverage. As I mentioned earlier, we came to Hong Kong to eat.


We had tea everyday!



















Hong Kong Street Food, i.e., Deep fried meats and vegetables on sticks. Mmm...


















Cyndi must have taken this lady's fish balls.


















Won Ton Noodles



















Dim Sum

















Many thanks to Dean for taking us around!


















Cyndi read about this temple in one of those free magazines from the airport. This is the place to do the shaking-stick-fortunetelling-thing.


















Step 1: Go to the guy in the tent and pick up a bamboo cup full of numbered sticks.


















Step 2: Kneel before the idol. Think of your question. Shake that cup until a stick falls loose onto the floor. The number on the stick corresponds with your fortune.


















Step 3: Exit the temple. Veer right towards the fortunetelling arcade. Choose from the several dozens of stalls. Give them the number of your stick, and for a fee, they will interpret the
meaning of your fortune.



















Afternoon Tea at the Peninsula Hotel


















Checked out the Hong Kong Walk of Fame (I don't think that's what it's called). Jackie Chan was one of the few names I recognized.


















One of the most peculiar things we ate in Hong Kong was something called "Affluent Aberdeen Prawns." We stopped for a bite at one of those open markets near Mongkok. The featured dish at this shop was garlic fried "Affluent Aberdeen Prawns."
"Garlic, fried prawns?" we thought. That sounds good. Boy were we suckered!




















These prawns are far from affluent. If you go to wikipedia, you'll find that another name for these prawns are "sea locusts" or "prawn killers". They're not shrimp at all. These are the beasts that kill shrimp! We had no idea.



















You may as well just eat garlic and salt, because there's hardly any meat in these "affluent prawns." At first we tried eating them as we would with normal shrimp. I broke off the head, then tried to peel off the rest of the shell. It was really annoying, and borderline futile.
It was difficult to pull out any "prawn" meat. We ended up asking a gentleman at the marketplace how to eat the prawns. He was pretty annoyed by my question, but he did show us to to shake and break the prawns. (I'm thinking he made up this technique for stupid foreigners who think that "Aberdeen Affluent Prawns" are actually edible.) Caught the technique on video in case you're curious. Look, Ma. It's shake and break!

How to Eat "Affluent Aberdeen Prawns" from Annalog on Vimeo.

By the way, did you know that San Miguel is a Hong Kong beer.


















We did a number of things in Hong Kong, but I sort of failed at taking photos this time around.