Thin Skin, Beautiful Filling

After reading about it in a couple of articles, I went to Family One (一家人) for dinner. It's a small Shanghai cuisine restaurant in Tsim Sha Tsui. Wow, definitely worth the visit. Their trademark Xiao Long Bao ("Little Dragon Bun" dumpling) is the epitome of 皮薄餡靚 (thin yet firm skin, totally juicy filling).

I love that they served small portions because that meant I could order more dishes

The proper way to eat these it to nibble off the top and then drink the soup inside first. Damn, I want to find out the recipe for that soup. Not only tasty, but remarkably un-oily.

Seeing how it was 30C + 70% humid today, I ordered some summer feeling stuff. Like this deep fried rice with shrimp and tomato sauce:

YES!!! Finally found another place that serves pickled vegetables buns. One of my favorite lunch places at work used to serve these but they stopped a while back. There's such a fantastic complementary thing going on between the rich flavor of the marinated and pickled vegetables and the simple, steamed bun.

And what Shanghai meal would be complete (at least for me) without fried "pot sticker" dumplings? Another aromatic hit. The top of the dumpling was nice and thin and the bottom was fried to just the right amount of crispness.

Lots of other stuff on the menu I didn't get around to trying ('coz I ordered a second serving of the Xiao Long Bao) so I'm definitely going to visit this place again in the near future.

Culture Vulture

Seems that most people view HK as someone lacking in cultural knowledge, but the fact is that we have quite a few interesting museums, so I've made it a goal to visit each one by the end of this summer.

Today's target: The HK Heritage Museum

I chose this one first because it's currenly showing a Cameras Inside-out exhibit.

Gee, I wonder if this guy has a Superiority Complex:

A neat demonstration of 3D photography

An expensive piece of gear, but I still wouldn't want to carry something like this around. You know what they say about guys who drive expensive cars or carry around huge canons like this...

Most of the photos on display were pre-digital, B&W high grain stuff. Although my personal preference is color, there's no denying the impact that B&W is capable of delivering. There were a few that really moved me.

Chan Fou Li - War and Peace, 1951

A barbed wire fence juxtaposed with a pair of doves. Two simple yet strong symbols that come together in such a perfect way.

Chan Fou Li - Struggling, 1967

This photo represents the height of photography. Technique, timing and luck. The framing and exposure are dead-on, a sign of great technique, but having the V-shaped clouds positioned at just the right spot and having the parallel surf lines; that's the perfect example of being at the right place at the right time.

Francis Wu - Twisting and Turning, 1964

Nowadays an image like this is easy to come across. Basically anyone with a simple set of PhotoShop skill can produce an effect like this. But this shot was made in 1964. I can't even begin to imaging all the film manipulation that was involved to produce this snake-like blur.

There were some other exhibits, like the Tibetan artwork hall.

I saw this dragon was engraved on a vase. LOL, he's so pathetic looking! I thought Dragons were supposed to be Royal and Majectic. This poor sap looks like some kind of neurotic cartoon character.

The tag next to this pottery was labelled Tiger Shaped Urinal. You know, I don't think I'd be comfortable placing anything inside the gapping mouth of a tiger...

There was also a Chinese Opera Hall. Pretty standard stuff, but there was a booth called Virtual Make-Up that was pretty cool. After a quick photocapture, the program imports your face it into any template you choose from the main menu. My first attempt was off center and didn't go so well:

Got the hang of it on the next few tries:

Well, I guess that's anothe career choice I can know off my list.

A cat with big ears

I saw a report on the news last night that was just too ridiculous to ignore. There's an attraction in Beijing called the Shijingshan Amusement Park that looks preposterously similar to Disney Land:



Not only does it have a Cinderella castle, it's even populated with blatant knock-off characters:


When interviewed about the similarities between the characters, the founder said "Oh, they look a bit like the Disney characters, but they are actually local designs. For example, that's not Mickey Mouse, it's Big Eared Cat"

Big Eared Cat?! Are you kidding me? I'm so amazed that he was able to say that with a straight face. So does that mean this is a painting of Big Eared Cat with his friend Flat Billed Chicken?

The real kicker is the amusement park's slogan:

"Disney is too far, so please come to Shijingshan."

That has got to be the best slogan ever...

I've got to hand it to them though. Went it comes to bootlegging, they really go all the way. Why settle for just Disney characters when you can also cash in on other popular characters like Doraemon and Hello Kitty?

Of course, the characters above are probably called Blue Earless Mouse and Goodbye Doggie.

Browsing through the photos, it noticed that some of the design choices were rather strange. Take this ticket booth for instance. What were they thinking?

"Hey, we're out of tickets, let's go over to that hole in Snow White's crotch and buy some more."

Oh wait, silly me. That's not Snow White, it's Chinese Country Girl.

You can read more at:
http://www.japanprobe.com/?p=1678

Third time's not the charm

Spiderman's not the only one who feels let down

Went to see "Spiderman 3" today. What a disappointment. I know, I know; it's a comic book movie not some deep For Your Oscar Consideration fare. But actually, that's the one of the main problems. I mean, I'm all for character development but let's face it; you don't go into a Spiderman movie to focus on the emotional struggle of the protagonist's inner demons. At 139 minutes, this was definitely WAY longer than it needed to be. Sam Raimi (the director) tried to cover too much material and ended up making the movie bloated where it didn't need to be at the sacrifice of the real good stuff (i.e. the action scenes). Peter Parker has a dark side, yeah we get it. Can we get a move on? Hell, Venom was one of the key attractions of this movie and he ended up being onscreen for all of 10 minutes. And what's the deal with Sandman? One moment he wants to kill Spiderman and then minutes later he's standing there apologizing and acting all "oh, I'm not a bad guy, I just do bad things because I have to." If he wanted to make Sandman a complex character, Raimi should have focused more on him instead of wasting all that time on Peter Parker going Dark. And it's not just Sandman, lots of other issues magically resolved themselves without any good reason. Harry suddenly forgives Peter (just based on the speech by the butler?) and MJ sudden forgets all her problems at the end and goes back with Peter. Why spend all that time throught the movie setting up these issues between Peter and MJ only to dismiss them at the end? Again, instead of wasting the time on the drama, I'd rather have seen more action.

Plus, what was the deal with that damn Jazz Club scene? Raimi must be a big Jim Carrey fan 'coz that entire thing was just a cheap immitation of "The Mask." And the stupid hand waving gag in the French restaurant? Dude, on one hand you've got all this dark serious stuff and on the other you've got silly slapstick? Just pick a tone and stick with it Raimi.

Oh, and one minor niggle. At the beginning of the movie, we learn that NY loves Spiderman and Peter Parker is doing well all around (happy with MJ, doing great at school, etc.). So what changed between S2 and S3? In S2, being Spiderman prevented Peter from doing his normal life routine so much that he had to quit the superhero business. But somehow between S2 and S3 he finds some magical solution that lets him go to school, date MJ and still fight crime? Some explanation would have been nice.

Look, as entertainment I guess it's a (barely) acceptable entry but trust me, if you're a fan of the series and you want to keep a good memory, just leave it with Spiderman 2 and pretend this one never happened.

Chi Lin Nunnery

Yesterday was a public holiday so I took the opportunity to visit Chi Lin Nunnery. The last time I went (I think it was way back in 2000) the Nan Lian Garden wasn't open yet.

As expected there were lots of tourists yesterday.



Wow, a shot with no one in the frame! Well, almost no one; you can see a few heads if you really look for them.

This is the Nan Lian Garden:

Too bad I already had dinner plans, because there was a quiet vegetarian restaurant inside the garden. Look at how serene the setting is:

Took the chance to snap some slow shutter/fast shutter running water shots. Just for fun (I'll probably add them to my Tips and Tricks album later)

1/8s

1/1000s

Anyways, seeing how it was crowded, I focused on the abstract non-people areas:

Good thing the nunnery also had some lovely Lotus Ponds.