DimSumDolly* - the different morsels of the life of a foodie

Dragon's Back and Cape D'Aguilar

I had to work the first half of Saturday over the weekend and was really bummed out that I couldn't go hiking because of it. Thankfully I managed to get my hiking fix on Sunday. The slightly warm weather was also perfect for hiking. I didn't have to go far to get to the meeting point for Sunday's hike - I only had to make my way to Chai Wan MTR station which is only a few stops away from where I live in HK Island.

From Chai Wan MTR station, we walked across to the cemeteries. There are several cemeteries for different religious groups in Chai Wan. There's a Buddhist, Muslim and Christian cemetery. This coming weekend is the Qing Ming Festival weekend but many people were already going to pay their respects to their ancestors a week before. There were traffic police around to marshall traffic because of the crowds. This particular cemetery in the photo above, though, was a picture of calm and serenity. Mainly because the people buried there were British soldiers who had died in World War II. They were all men who had their candle snuffed out too early.

From the back of the cemetery, we walked through the hills to get to the trail leading to Dragon's Back, one of Hong Kong Island's most popular hiking trails. The view from Dragon's Back is one that allows you to appreciate the beauty of Hong Kong Island's south side.

A paraglider hovering above Dragon's Back after taking off from there. I have never paraglided before but I'd imagine it's heaps of fun to be soaring above everyone else and having some quiet time to yourself.

From Dragon's Back, we made our way to Cape D'Aguilar. We hiked up to its peak and then made our way around it and landed back down at Shek O beach which was the end point of our hike. This is a shot taken by a fellow hiker and I'm the person on the left admiring the lovely view before me at a spot not far down from the peak, at about 300 metres above sea level.

Anyway, I'm off to the Land of the Rising Sun for a holiday!

Konnichiwa Nippon!

Strawberry Picking

The thing I love about Hong Kong is that it's easy to get away from the urban sprawl to get some air and space. I need to get out on the weekends as it's where I find my balance. When I don't get to do that on the weekends, I feel like something's wrong and that I've been deprived of my time outdoors. Seeing all the mountains and the greenery around me is so therapeutic and good for the soul.

Last Sunday I went strawberry picking with three other friends at Rainbow Organic Strawberry Farm, located in Fanling.

This sign warns you that if you're caught eating a strawberry without paying for it first, you'll be charged HKD60 for it, i.e. the same price as one pound (approx 450g) of strawberries.

Pick up a basket and a pair of scissors and you're set to go!

The strawberry fields nestled in front of the surrounding mountains in Fanling.

Strawberries waiting to be plucked.

My loot cost me HKD48. I ate two straight away and they were really sweet!

You can also pick the tomatoes which go for HKD20 per pound.

There are also vegetable plots where cabbage, lettuce, carrots and sweet corn are grown. However you aren't allowed to pick these.

The Rainbow Organic Strawberry Farm is located within Lavender Garden. You'll have to go through Lavender Garden to get to the strawberry farm. The entrance fee is HKD5 per person.

The lavender flowers that give the garden its name.

Lavender Garden is a good place for a family outing as the children can feed the few goats that are here.

Or they could feed the koi.

You can also book a pit for a BBQ.

Before reaching Lavender Garden, you'll see these letter boxes belonging to the villagers at the village entrance. Very cute, isn't it?

Getting there: From Fanling train station take the 52B (Hok Tau) minibus, which runs at 20 minute intervals. Alight the minibus before it turns right at the entry to Hok Tau Village. Walk straight along Hok Tau Road for a few minutes and you will see Lavender Garden on your left.

Lavender Garden
Tel: +852 2674 7822
Address: DD76 Lot 655 Hok Tau Road, Fanling, New T.
Opening hours : Monday-Friday 10 am - 6 pm
Sat,Sun & Holidays: 10 am - 10 pm

Lantau's Hidden Beauty

Some scenes from the hike I did on Saturday 30 January in Lantau Island. It's the toughest yet most beautiful hike to date. No pain, no gain. :) The pain was worth it though - the views were magnificent but I didn't take that many photos as it was hard to whip my camera out as I was climbing around the various precarious slopes that dropped down a few hundred metres.

From Tung Chung station, we took Bus 11 to Shek Pik Reservoir where we started our hike.

View from a rest stop

Hiking up a ridge

Going up the West Dog's Teeth Ridge. We went up to about 800 metres and were literally in the clouds.

The Big Buddha sitting at Ngong Ping with its back to us.

One of many rock climbs we had to do. Lantau has some of most scenic hiking trails in Hong Kong and it's one of my favourite places to hike. It's definitely worth hiking in if you're an avid hiker.

Yellow Door Kitchen 黃色門廚房

Mel, a friend from university days, was visiting Hong Kong with her husband on the last weekend of February and the couple suggested eating at Yellow Door, a private kitchen in Central that they knew of. Dinner at this private kitchen comprised these dishes.

There were a total of eight appetisers that came to the table all at once.

蒜泥白肉 Sliced pork with spiced garlic sauce.

甜酸小王瓜 Pickled cucumber

凉拌鲜腐竹 Fresh soya bean sheets with spicy garlic sauce

凉拌三丝 Salad with potato, carrot and seaweed

葱油灵芝菇 Shimeiji mushrooms with oil infused with spring onions

麻香皮蛋 Century egg in sesame sauce

香辣鸡丁 Stir-fried dice chicken with dried chilli

松脆虾球 Deep-fried prawns with bread

The first of the main courses was the scallop and Chinese cabbage soup 翡翠元贝汤.

鲜山椒焖冬瓜 Winter melon braised with picked chilli

宫保虾球 Fried prawn in Sichuan sour and spicy sauce

口水鸡 Chicken and shredded leek with spicy sauce

烟熏普洱蜂蜜焖腩排 Smoked pork rib with honey and pu-er tea leaves

八宝鸭 Shanghai stuffed duck

京葱捞米 Rice noodles with minced pork and fried onions

芝麻汤圆 Sesame glutinous rice balls

To find it, look for this 7-Eleven at the Mid-levels escalator. It's the small building next to the right of this 7-Eleven. It's a three-minute walk from H&M.

Though Yellow Door Kitchen is mentioned in the Hong Kong edition of the Michelin guide, I wasn't bowled over by their food. Most of the food was mediocre and nothing to rave about. The stir-fried diced chicken was way too dry and hard. The biggest disappointments were the rice noodles and the fried prawns. The noodles were too bland and I didn't bother finishing the bowl after taking a bite. I made it a point to mention its lack of flavour to the waiter. He only apologised but didn't bother to follow up with the complaint. The prawn batter was too soggy and thick and the prawns didn't taste fresh. Dessert was also very uninspiring and boring. I mean, even if you wanted to serve a traditional dessert, at least attempt to put a spin on it! I wasn't impressed by the lack of imagination.

Only two dishes were good - the Shanghai stuffed duck and the smoked pork rib with honey and pu-er tea leaves. The Shanghai duck was stuffed with glutinous rice and the pork rib was very tender. There's nothing like a delicious piece of pork ribs!

Service was pretty good but not exceptional and the dinner cost us HKD298 each. It's not a place I would return to, and for the same amount of money I think there are better places to go to for a meal.

Yellow Door Kitchen
6/F Cheung Hing Commercial Building
37 Cochrane Street, Central.
Hong Kong
Nearest MTR exit：D2 Central MTR Station
Tel: +852 2858 6555

The Spark Within You

As you grow older you will realise you are unique. When you are little, all kids want ice cream and Spiderman. As you grow older to college, you still are a lot like your friends. But ten years later and you realise you are unique. What you want, what you believe in, what makes you feel, may be different from even the people closest to you. This can create conflict as your goals may not match with others. And you may drop some of them. Basketball captains in college invariably stop playing basketball by the time they have their second child. They give up something that meant so much to them. They do it for their family. But in doing that, the spark dies. Never, ever make that compromise. Love yourself first, and then others.

~ Chetan Bhagat

I've been thinking a lot about dreams lately. No, not the ones you have in the deep of sleep, but the ones you have when you're wide awake. The ones where you picture yourself living a different life, travelling and wandering in faraway places, meeting people you'd never meet in your everyday humdrum life. About two months ago, a friend sent me the transcript of a speech given by Indian author Chetan Bhagat at the orientation programme for a new batch of MBA students at an Indian university. The quote above is an excerpt of it.

It's a paragraph that stands out because it reminded me to never let that spark within me die. The spark referred to in Bhagat's speech is that something that makes you excited and happy about life. That spark also has to do with one's goals and dreams. The friend who sent it to me is a bit of a dreamer herself. We've written to each other about our dreams and our musings about life. I've been thinking about my dreams and how to pursue the life I want. I'm not one of those fortunate people who could figure out early in life what is that they wanted to do. Actually I think most people are not doing what they REALLY want to do in life. Nine out of ten people I meet are not happy in their jobs. To most of us, a job is just a job. It's a means to an end - a means to put food in our stomachs and shelter over our heads.

I mean I could just be contented with doing what I'm doing now. I get a steady (though not fantastic) income and I don't really HATE what I'm doing. I mean it's OK, but I'm just not feeling fulfilled. There's always this tiny voice saying 'Surely there's more to life than this?? This can't be IT.' There's been a lot of self-reflection and self-questioning in the past couple of months. I don't want to be one of those people who moans and moans but not do anything about the situation. I've always been an 'action' person - I don't sit around waiting for things to happen. Friends sometimes say 'You're so lucky to have been able to work in London and Hong Kong. I wished I could do it too.' To which I answer, 'Well you could do it too. It's just that you're not willing to give up whatever you have in Singapore and take a leap of faith.'

It's not easy leaving one's comfort zone and the only difference is that I dared to do so. I actively pursued what I had always wanted, i.e. to work in another country apart from Singapore. The fact that it happened for me in London and Hong Kong wasn't due to chance. It didn't just fall from the sky and into my lap. It's something I chased and sought after, thus it's not something I'd attribute to luck. I've been thinking 'What next?' after Hong Kong. I have some ideas and I hope things will work out for me. It'll be another leap of faith which many others will find crazy and ridiculous. But heck, life's too short to care too much about what other people think. It's my life after all and I live the way I want it.

I've kind of made up my mind on my next step but it has to be said that it was not without a lot of wavering and considerations. However, I've been inspired by a few friends and acquaintances lately. One friend who used to be a programme executive dealing with the buying and selling of TV programmes is now a shiatsu massage therapist in the Netherlands. She's Singaporean Chinese but relocated to the Netherlands with her partner. Her partner is also pursuing his own dream of becoming a mountain bike guide by going for an instructor course in Scotland. How cool's that? On my most recent trip home, a friend announced that she intends to quit her job and go to Toronto to pursue a bachelor's degree in psychology. Her job as an engineer pays well but she admits that engineering was the 'safe' option for her when she was choosing what to study in university. Now she feels that she really wants to pursue something she's always been interested in, something that excites her. I was really happy to learn of her decision. I just hope she doesn't back down from it because of naysayers.

I have still yet another friend who's probably the bravest of all - she and her partner will be embarking on a cycling journey around the world, two Singaporean Chinese women out to pursue their dream on bicycles with video equipment in tow. Their dream is to chronicle, on video, the people around the world who have pursued or are pursuing their dreams. Follow my friend Tay and her partner Val on their journey here:

http://www.ibelievethatdreamscancometrue.com/

Their website address is really apt and what they're doing is very inspiring and brave. They'll probably be away for five to seven years and they'll be leaving in 14 days. In doing so, they'll be leaving behind family, friends and everything familiar. What they're about to do is the dream of many a person, but not many of us are brave enough to pursue it. Tay is a professional documentary producer and I'm sure whatever footage she gets at the end of her long journey will make for an extremely good story and programme. All the best to the both of them and kudos to them for their guts!

Anyway, I hope you, dear reader, can remember what your spark is. If you don't, perhaps it's time to reignite it.

Access the full transcript of Chetan Bhagat's speech here.

Eat, Pray, Love

I was over at a friend's place when I spotted Eat Pray Love and asked to borrow it because (1) I suffer from a lack of English reading material here in Hong Kong, and (2) it seems the whole world has read it so I decided to be a lemming and do likewise just to see what the fuss is about.

For the unbeknownst, Eat Pray Love in a nutshell is an autobiography by writer Elizabeth Gilbert who was on a year-long journey to three countries - Italy, India and Indonesia - during which she indulges in gastronomic pleasures in Italy, 'finds' herself and comes to terms with her own spiritual being in India, and seeks the balance between the pleasurable and spiritual in Indonesia.

It is in the first part of the book that we learn of her depression and the lack of happiness in her life even though she seemed to have the perfect life - doing what she loves and getting paid good money for being a writer, two apartments in New York, a loving husband and a great social life. But Gilbert whines and whines and whines, to the point of being self-absorbed and self-indulgent in my opinion. There were many times, especially in the first 150 pages or so, that I wanted to throw the book against the wall and just give it up altogether. It's like woman, give it up already! The worst is when she whines about David, the man she hooks up with after leaving her husband. The usual crap about how he's her soul mate but yet they're also bad for each other, so what should she do??? There are a few gems in the text, one of which is the piece of advice below given to her by Richard, her good friend at the Ashram in India. He said,

'People think a soul mate is your perfect fit, and that's what everyone wants. But a true soul mate is a mirror, the person who shows you everything that is holding you back, the person who brings you to your own attention so you can change your life.

A true soul mate is probably the most important person you'll ever meet, because they tear down your walls and smack you awake. But to live with a soul mate forever? Nah. Too painful. Soul mates, they come into your life just to reveal another layer of yourself to you, and then leave.

A soul mate's purpose is to shake you up, tear apart your ego a little bit, show you your obstacles and addictions, break your heart open so new light can get in, make you so desperate and out of control that you have to transform your life, then introduce you to your spiritual master..."

In the first few pages, she writes that she wished the hot Italian 26-year-old (a decade younger than her) would kiss her and then take it further. But she had taken a vow of year-long celibacy because she said she needed time to just be alone and get in touch with herself. To add to that, she writes 'I have finally arrived at that age where a woman starts to question whether the wisest way to get over the loss of one beautiful brown-eyed young man is indeed to promptly invite another one into her bed.'

Obviously not very wise. I had to stifle a laugh when I read about her conscious decision to stay celibate for a year. I, on the other hand, seem to have sub-consciously taken that vow for, let's just say, too long. Anyway, Gilbert reneges on her vow with some Brazilian dude she meets in Bali. The fairy-tale ending is all a bit too saccharine sweet really. Even she admits so herself.

The only thing that made me press on with the book was the fact that I wanted to read more about the cultural aspects of the countries she visited. There are interesting nuggets of information about the people she meets and the places she visits. When Gilbert is less whiny, her words make for a more pleasant read and there are a few nuggets of wisdom.

Here are some of my favourite quotes from the book:

This is a good sign, having a broken heart. It means we have tried for something.

You were given life; it is your duty (and also your entitlement as a human being) to find something beautiful within life, no matter how slight.

[My guru] says that people universally tend to think that happiness is a stroke of luck, something that will maybe descend upon you like fine weather if you are fortunate enough. But that's not how happiness works. Happiness is the consequence of personal effort. You fight for it, strive for it, insist upon it, and sometimes even travel around the world looking for it. You have to participate relentlessly in the manifestations of your own blessings. And once you have achieved a state of happiness, you must never become lax about maintaining it...

There is so much about my fate that I cannot control, but other things do fall under the jurisdiction. I can decide how I spend my time, whom I interact with, whom I share my body and life and money and energy with. I can select what I can read and eat and study. I can choose how I'm going to regard unfortunate circumstances in my life - whether I will see them as curses or opportunities. I can choose my words and the tone of voice in which I speak to others. And most of all, I can choose my thoughts.

Reading Eat, Pray, Love stirred up some wanderlust in me again...not that the dust has ever really settled. It got me thinking to where I'd choose to go if I were to do an Eat Pray Love. I thought, maybe France for all that wonderful food. I already know some very basic French so that bit of knowledge could help. France also seems to be the place for decadence. As for Pray, I thought either in some Buddhist getaway in Japan or China. The vegetarian food will be good, right? Heehee. And Love, where art thou? The place for Love to Gilbert had to be somewhere with a balance between the pleasurable and spiritual. Maybe I would choose Hawaii for that. It has lovely beaches and there's also something very spiritual about it, what with Hawaiian beliefs in their gods that exist even in outrigger canoes. OK, I just really want to go there to paddle and lie on the beach all day. I'd like to visit some country in South America which could fit any one of these categories. But I don't know much about South America so I can't really say which country would be good.

If you were to embark on your own Eat Pray Love, where would you go?