Completely THL'ed

It was not my first time to go to Tin Heung Lau (天香樓) but I was excited. Instead of going with friends, I took my in-laws there to celebrate the birthday of my sister-in-law and we invited couple friends to join us.

Changunnie had a rough day (see the previous post) and she fell asleep right before we got to the restaurant. Grandma, Gomo (my sister-in-law) and our niece from Seoul were late because they took the long route to the restaurant from TST. My friend was also stuck in the traffic and so we started our three appetizers without them. I don't know about other people but I love my Malantou (馬蘭頭 Indian aster with tofu). The taste is an acquired taste but I love it. It is different from ordinary vegetables and somehow recalls good memory from childhood. We also ordered the drunken pigeon (not the most popular dish of the night) and the country pate (肴肉). Changunnie ate ALL of the gelatine but not the meat. I suppose that tells you which part is the good part.





The one thing that I cannot vote for THL is the service, we told them to hold off but they decided to rush the dishes onto the table. First came the deep fried frog legs which was very juicy and yummy. Grandpa finished his frog leg before we told him it was frog and he said he wouldn't have eaten it if he knew but he said it was yummy, thinking it was very small spring chicken!



Then came the Shanghainese vegetable with salted pork (鹹肉塌窩菜). The vegetables has a bitter taste and again not something that average people love right away. I was happy that no one competed with me for the Winter specialty and I finished half of the veg all by myself. The salted bacon gave the bitterness of the veg a very nice tweak.



When I was still munching on the veg, the double fried bacon came. It's a dish that I loved as a kid. It's greasy but also very hearty. Some people wouldl probably say I shouldn't pay the price at THL for it but where else uses quality pork the way THL does? So often I get pieces of poorly executed fried fat.



Changunnie loves stir fried river shrimp and so I ordered the one without Longjing tea leaves. Whilst the tea leaves version is a famous dish at THL, I never really like it as the flavour of the THL version doesn't come out and I don't see why I should pay for it. To my disappointment, they put a dish of tea leaves version on our table. My face changed and the waiter said "Oh! It's famous at our restaurant. Try it!" Looking at Changunnie's hungry face, I didn't ask to exchange but was definitely unhappy as I stressed three times in different ways, "No tea leaves please"



More food came out, first the smoked yellow croaker. We ordered enough for each person to have more than a quarter of a fish and still all we saw within 10 minutes was the bone. When it comes to quality yellow croaker, we are like piranha. The yellow croaker at THL lived up to its reputation. Changunnie happily chowed down a quarter of a fish with skin!



I was quite full at that point despite the fact that I was busy feeding Changunnie. The fried mushroom and bamboo shoots arrived. It is another favourite of mine. The beggar's chicken arrived soon afterwards. Whilst everyone was impressed by the chicken. I thought it was a little on the dry side. My favourite has always been the stuffing though. I can eat that with a bowl of rice.




Finally, the highlight of the night arrived. The crab roe on a big plate was impressive. The waiter wanted to put the roe into our noodle but I insisted to let the guests to have the satisfaction of mixing their own noodle. To my surprise, Changunnie liked it and she ate half of my bowl.




At that point, we were done with the red wine and the Shaoxing wine. I asked for the fermented rice soup with rice dumplings but they told me that it was out of stock!?! I was so disappointed. We finished our dinner at a record 1.25 hours. When we were done, it wasn't 8:45 yet.

Will I go back to THL? Yes for the food. Will I say it's a great place? No because of the service.

By the way, I checked out their kitchen. It's a small place but the staff manage to install a TV for canto soap. No wonder they rushed everyone to finish the dinner as quickly as possible. They don't want to miss the prime time show! Four heads stove with the ring and you could hear the fire roaring. No wonder they can cook the bacon so nicely!

I've found some talent in Changunnie

I think my daughter can either be a diver, a marathon runner, an opera singer or play the clarinet or flute.

Changunnie is going through this princess stage which I don't approve of. She has very specific view on her clothes and more importantly what role she has at home. She wore this really cute and cool outfit to ice skating yesterday. She picked a black long sleeves tee-shirt with pink trimmings around the collar, a pair of tights with colour stripes and a mid-night blue velvet skirt. Somehow, she decided that's her perfect outfit and would not take them off. We were supposed to go to the Peak with her cousin visiting from Seoul this afternoon. Changunnie was all happy until we asked her to change into some clean clothes. The crying started and she would not stop. In fact, I'm sitting outside of her room right now whilst she's crying her eyes out in her room. It's been an hour and there's no sign of stopping.

Changunnie has to learn her boundary and discipline. Her piercing screams of "mummy mummy" hurts a lot but I am not going to give in till she's calm and willing to say "I'm sorry"

It sounds cruel for now but it's only good for her. Changunnie, mummy is doing it to you because I love you!

====25 minutes later after the original posting====

Changunnie came out of her room saying "Mummy, I am not crying now." When asked whether we can change into clean clothes, she took her the clothes herself. It's heartbreaking but I think it's the right thing to do.

Top Gear - my must watch show

For those who live in the US, Top Gear is a car show produced by the BBC. Lots of female dislike it and couple female columnists are very critical about the three hosts of the show. Political correctness doesn't exist in the show. The three hosts are kids trapped in an adult's body but they are very articulate about what the like: cars.

Why do I like it? They talk about cars without getting too much into the technical details in a boring way. They do crazy stunts that I would love to try but can't afford to do so. The political incorrectness puts a big smile on my face. It's funny beyond description. In a way, it's like why I like watching Curb Your Enthusiasm.

I guess what I really want to ask is how far can this political correctness go? I agree we should be considerate. I totally disagree with racism. However, to a point when you have to talk about things in a clumsy way and leave people with excuses to sue each other? No wonder America is the land of millions of lawyers. Where's the good sense of humour that people used to have? I really cannot imagine a world without a good sense of humour.!

Christmas party

We were invited by a friend to go to her Christmas dinner/party on boxing day. I met this friend through work. We were on opposite sides of a deal in our first encounter, I was impressed by her telling off a not-too-smart colleague of mine in front of everyone and then four years later, we became colleagues. We are as different as you can imagine. She's all about looking bling bling whilst I am happy to wear the same black fleece jacket for the entire winter. There's one thing in common though, we are both labelled as "feisty woman".

Anyway, my friend didn't invite anyone from work or in fact from the same industry. It was a very pleasant change of scenary. Most people in my particular line of business cannot talk about anything other than work. I spent at least 12 hours at work on most days too but talking about work off hours is simply too suffocating as our line of work isn't particularly interesting. Drinks started at 6:30pm and we were a little late as Changunnie and I took a very long nap. To our surprise, most guests were there already. Daddy immediately realized that he and the husband of the caterer (who's also a guest) represented the 10% male population at the party. Hmmm.... interesting.

The people were very nice and interesting. One of them is a private tutor for kids studying for their IB diploma. She also teaches AP and SAT (remember it was 1600 during our time?? Now is three papers and 2400. Apparently, 2400 won't get you into Harvard these days! My preference of Cal Tech for Changunnie remains the "right" path. Kekeke). Another one is a marketer turned interior designer/real estate agent. The profile varies but there is one common theme: lots of them are either single or having a new life post divorce.

It really makes me wonder what guys want in women. Smart and interesting women are available whilst lots of guys prefer someone completely the opposite. Look at Tiger Woods! Elin was a swimsuit model and supposedly not brainless and Tiger went for....

Parallel processing

I have a habit of reading or writing about something completely unrelated when I'm on those never ending pointless conference call. I manage to do that and comment/answer questions. Thought I was pretty good at parallel processing until today, I met the master who happens to be my own daughter.

We went to Grandma and Grandpa's church's Christmas gathering today. It started with dinner (Korean church style buffet), followed by a very short service and then shows. We knew that Changunnie had to wear the pink frilly dress that her Sunday school prepares and a white top but we weren't sure what Changunnie was supposed to perform. The toddler class was the second group to go. We took Changunnie to the stage ( parents are required to go with them). The teacher started playing songs that the children sing every week and the children were supposed to follow the dance move.

Changunnie was in the front row and I was prepared to hold her hands from behind to do the moves. Changunnie has never once paid any attention in her Sunday school class. She either paces around and occasionally leaves the room or she clings to my back and talks to me as if we are alone at home.

Music started and Changunnie's classmates who are usually very good in class started to have stage fright. Then one little voice started to sing and did all the dance move and it was Changunnie! She did so well that it was a surprise.

On the way back to the parking lot, we asked Changunnie to sing the song for us again and she said "I only know Jingle Bell."

When did she learn the songs and dance? I don't know and the only explanation is she has mastered the art of parallel processing. Well, looks like I will have lots of meeting with her teachers as she moves on in school....

The Flea and the Rice Ball

糯米治木蚤，一物治一物

Literally: Glutinous rice is the key to catch a flea. There's always a solution to everything

Guess who's the rice ball and who's the flea....

We adopted a puppy from the Hong Kong Dog Rescue over the weekend. He's a cute little thing and everyone was happy. The one thing that I noticed was Grandpa was particularly emotional about the dog. By the time we were done with errands, he downed a bottle of Soju plus two shots of whisky already. Grandpa started to talk about the first dog he had as a child (and our new puppy looks exactly like THE dog and thus the emotion) and the speech turned a bit more heated after 20 minutes. Grandpa is not a happy drunk. He's the type who stays quite most of the time and only let his thoughts out and not necessarily in the nicest way when he's drunk.

Grandma took Changunnie to the sofa to watch TV. Grandpa sat down with Daddy on the other side and an argument started. I was in the shower and didn't know about the subject matter. What I know is:

Changunnie climbed out of the sofa and said to Grandma, "Halmoni, wait a second". Changunnie proceeded to lead Grandpa and Daddy to the two pink plastic chair in front of the fireplace. "Daddy you sit in this thinking chair. Grandpa you sit in the other one". When the two men are settled, Changunnie had one hand on her waist, one hand held out in the "read my hand, sister" position and said "From now, no more fighting!"

As if that's not funny enough, Changunnie walked back to the sofa and told Grandma, "now I can watch my TV"

No one said anything from that point on.....

My food and me

Changunnie's school is having a Christmas party tomorrow and everyone has to bring a snack to share. It's a very challenging job. Unlike an adult party for which I can simply inject vodka into a watermelon and freeze before serving, I need to consider if the food is healthy yet tasty. Whether the food may post health hazard... Etc. Don't know what I mean? Lots of people think cookies would have been a good one. However, you have to rule out peanut butter cookies, chocolate and nuts cookies because some kids may have allergy. If I make meat balls, the vegetarians parents won't be impressed. It took me couple days to think, plan and shop and finally settle for chocolate dipped apricot and jelly fruit candy.

All these makes me wonder how much thought people put in their food. You know how the mattress sales keep telling you how one third of your life is spent in bed (I wish!) and it's important to get a good bed. We only get to eat that much subject to the constraint of out stomach and metabolism but people keep putting junk into their system.

I want to eat well and at the same time don't sacrifice my health. I want to eat food which is in season because that's how nature is telling me the taste of the food is only in it's prime at a particular point in the year. Off season means either taste isn't good or there're lots of chemicals. I want to know what's being put in my food and how it may affect my health as a result. All these means I should cook more!

Nativity Play

Nativity Play at Changunnie's school on Tuesday. In fact, I am not going to talk about that. It was a precious moment for me as Changunnie was being on stage for the first time and she's been practicing her singing at home for three weeks. All nice but don't think anyone outside of the immediate family will be interested. What I want to talk about was all the work leading up to it. I said "Holy crap" each time my email went "ting".

The play was scheduled for Tuesday mid morning. Lots of parents (especially the fathers) were trying to wrap up their work in the office so that the family can take off on Friday for two weeks back home. Couple mothers decided that it'd be good to have a video made so that parents and families could share the moment. We circulated emails, found a professional photographer, no one objected to the cost of about HKD 200 per family....

Just when we thought we did a sterling job organising in a short period of time, one family wrote back and said "I know of a film student who can do it at about HKD 170 per family". Everyone else ignored that and sent thank you note to confirm order with the pro. The offensive struck again, "I have a HD camera".

On the fateful day, the pro set up all the cameras and took the before and after clips as well as the play itself. The offensive? They got in the same time everyone else did which is 3 minutes before the play and was stuck in the corner with some 8 to 9 relatives when the school said 3 people from each family. They were loud to a point parents sitting in front of them turned around to "Shh" them.

What I don't get is they have expensive watches, handbags. The diaper bag that Mrs Offensive used was a Gucci! The cameras they have? Things that I have only seen around the goal pole in a NFL game. Why is spending HKD 200 that difficult and required them to send multiple emails to object and yet the video that they took will likely come out like the Blair Witch Project?

Merry Christmas!

Underground Patriots and Two Koreas

I haven't been paying much attention to the East Asian Game despite the fact that Hong Kong is the host city and some of the highest profile games are actually held at the sports field in my boonies. You blame me? There's a general lack of coordination by the present HK government. Anyway, I found out on Friday that South Korea would play DPR Korea in the bronze medal match on Saturday and I got tickets to take Grandpa and Grandma to the game.

We spent the morning at the HK Dog Rescue (this is another story and the ending is to be unfold later today. Right now, I'm writing this one at a supposed to be serene coffee shop that is in disarray because of a kiddie birthday party). We rushed to the stadium in the end because we spent too much time thinking if we should foster a pretty sick puppy. The stadium wasn't full and we managed to get a pretty good seat. Not sure if it's because of the teams (people in HK care more about shopping in Myung Dong than anything else in Korea) or it's a lack of advertisement. Regardless of what the Dear Leader from the North does to freak people out, it was quite nice to see the players understood sportsmanship. They helped each other to get up. Each side tried hard at the game but there was no cursing or throwing things around. (check out videos of the PRC football team on YouTube if you want to see more barbaric moves). In the shoot out, the Southerners won but the Northerners were graceful.

Since the tickets were full day tickets and we got pretty good seat, we stayed on for the gold medal match. It was HK vs Japan. Frankly, I don't know anything about either team but I found it quite appalling that people around us kept booing at the Japanese team even when it's the Japanese goalie trying to kick the ball after HK's fail attempt at scoring.

We left half time and when I read about HK's victory, I didn't feel proud. The booing, the annoyance the audience created for the Japanese team was a total lack of sportsmanship.

What really frightened me was to see all these underground patriots. When was the last time they stood up to push the government to do the right thing? Shouldn't that passion be channeled into something that does more for the people or we are all regressing to cavemen?

Ditch that nappy!

Changunnie is at school right now and I am waiting anxiously to pick her up at noon. I want to know if she can keep her pants dry for the third day straight.

Changunnie has been doing alright in most of her development milestone except potty training. She has been unwilling to use the toilet. I have a strong suspicion that it's not that she can't control her bladder. She simply doesn't want to do it. Want me to quote some evidence?

- She has a series of very specific moves when she wants to go to the toilet and if we are home, she keeps going back to the same corner behind the arm chair
- She will not sit down (even when she was very little) after the deed is done
- She wants us to change her immediately after a poop

I hate to see the smirk on those very smug parents when we encounter each other in the toilet in shopping malls. Just because their kids wear underpants instead of nappy doesn't make them any better! My Changunnie mastered three languages at the age of 2 and has been translating for Grandma and Grandpa (and these days to correct their pronunciation and grammar).

Suddenly, after Thanksgiving, this concept of "I am a big sister" got engraved in her head. I don't know where she got it from but I am quite happy to see her making the decision herself to use the toilet like a big girl.

Grandpa's theory that "Genius are too busy with more important things in life and cannot care less about potty training" no longer holds true. I don't really care if Changunnie is a genius or not but I am very happy to see her saying good bye to her nappy. Now I can spend the HKD 300 we save each month on buying quality ingredients for some real baking!

Exercise - by other people

I woke up on Tuesday morning with a nasty pain in my shoulder and I knew it would be a rough week. It happened couple times before. It's almost always the case that one or two days into my holiday, I get a stiff neck/shoulder or a cold (and this time I get both). My theory is when I am not stressed, my self-defense system is not on guard. Sounds pathetic, doesn't it? I am only in good shape when I am stressed. However, if you think how quickly retirees ages, you know what I mean. We need to be busy to stay sharp both physically and mentally. It doesn't need to be work but we need to be moving constantly.

Anyway, I didn't want to get medicine for my stiff shoulder. Fast relieve means the doctor will give me a steroid injection, not something that I fancy. Plus, exercise is the only way to ensure proper recovery. I tried to move my arm but I couldn't even raise it. Relying on my record of no painkiller after my Cesarean, I struggled for another 10 hours before I gave in. Grandma called a Chinese Korean masseur to my rescue. The pain didn't go away completely after the 3 hours massage but the pain wasn't as nasty. I was told to do some exercise to assist the recovery and should be fine in 3 to 4 days.

Lying in bed without anything else better to do (since I couldn't turn or move my arms), I started to think about the massage and noticed similarities between Yoga and Massage. I do everything myself in Yoga while the masseur helps me to do it in a massage but effectively, I went through a pretty intensive session of yoga (cobra, pigeon...etc). Should I go back to Yoga or should I get massage regularly?

Yoga - I need to go to the studio and some of them took way too many members. I left the last studio because I could see someone else's undies in class (who in their right mind would wear the old style loose football shorts???) and her sweat dropped on my feet.

Massage - I could do it at the comfort of home and I know there is no need for me to worry about "no see, no smell, no contact".

Cost-wise, the two are similar. (If you need the number of the Chinese Korean masseur, call me. He speaks mainly Korean though). The decision is an easy one, of course I am going to keep up with a good exercise regime except it'll be someone else to help me with my exercise!!