Bunga Raya

Bunga raya is the national flower of Malaysia, more commonly known as hibiscus. It is also the name of the resort in Borneo that we stayed at during our quick weekend getaway before my exam (and where this picture was taken). Borneo is the third largest island in the world and is divided amongst three countries: Brunei, Indonesia and Malaysia. We flew into Kota Kinabalu, which is a Malaysian city located on the northwest coast of Borneo facing the South China Sea. Off the coast of KK (as it is often referred to) is a small island called Palau Gaya, uninhabited with the exception of two sister resorts, Gayana Eco and Bunga Raya.

Our lodge was nestled in the jungles of the island.


In the mornings, two muffins and fresh juice were delivered at 7 am, which we enjoyed on our outdoor patio facing the ocean.


We spent the days lounging by the infinity pool, taking swims when it got too hot, snorkeling and kayaking. There were about a total of ten guests staying at the resort even though there were 40 lodges, so we often had the pool to ourselves.



Our last full day at the resort, we went on a jungle trekking trip. This was no ordinary hike on some marked trails in the forest. Our guide told us that the trail had just been made earlier in the morning, and that his buddy had taken it in the morning but had not yet returned. That was very reassuring, especially in light of the waivers of liability we both signed before we stepped into the jungle. The jungle was incredibly dense and humid, and as far as we could tell there really was no trail. Our guide, albeit friendly, got lost more than once and told us to take a break a couple times while he looked for the trail. Finally, it appeared that he figured out where he was going, and we ended up at a newly constructed canopy, built by him and his team. It would not be opened to the hotel guests for another couple of months (and the hotel would be charging a bit of money for people to go on it) but since he seemed to take a liking to us and did not seem concerned about our safety, he allowed us to climb up a rickety ladder up to the canopy platform and walk around the canopy. He informed us that it is the widest canopy in Malaysia (the wider you make it, the more likely it is to flip over). He also informed us (of course after we had already walked around the canopy) that when the resort opens the canopy, all guests will be attached by carabiners to the canopy for safety reasons. From the canopy, it was maybe another five minutes before we emerged from the jungle.

Three days at the resort was just enough time, as, to be quite honest, it gets a little bit boring when you are on an uninhabited island essentially by yourself. Plus, I had to get back and get ready for my exam!

JT's Second Job

Pictures speak louder than words:

Mid-Autumn Festival

Yesterday was Mid-Autumn Festival. Mid-Autumn Festival is on the 15th day of the eighth month in the Chinese (lunar) calendar and one of the most important Chinese holidays. It parallels the autumnal equinox of the solar calendar, when the moon is at its fullest and roundest. Traditionally on this day, Chinese family members and friends will gather to admire the bright mid-autumn harvest moon and eat moon cakes under the moon together. Carrying brightly lit lanterns is also a custom.

Since JT had a last minute business trip to India (leaving me all alone for Mid-Autumn Festival), a couple friends and I had some moon cakes and then headed out to Victoria Park for the Mid-Autumn Celebration. The park was full of lanterns of all shapes and sizes:

The wall of lanterns:


Closeup of lanterns:


Dragon and phoenix lanterns:


Chinese chess board lanterns:


Closeup of chess piece (the character is pronounced "ma," which means horse and is also my mother's maiden name):


There were also many people in the park carrying their own lanterns. It was very crowded, so we didn't stay very long. We grabbed a drink at a pub and then to end the evening we had a late-night snack at the famous 24-hour establishment of Tsui Wah. It wasn't the same with JT not around, but I saved him a moon cake so that we can celebrate together when he gets back to Hong Kong on Friday.

新加坡 (Singapore)

JT had to travel to Singapore last week for work, so I took Friday off and joined him for the long weekend. It's a short flight from Hong Kong, only three and a half hours. We stayed in the city at the Fullerton Hotel Friday night and moved to a resort on Sentosa Island Saturday night. (Sentosa is a small island off the coast of Singapore.) Singapore lived up to everything we had heard about it - clean (the city is almost entirely litter free), well-planned, very friendly people and diverse. Singapore has four official languages: English, Malaysian, Mandarin and Tamil.

After I arrived on Friday, I took a walk around the area near the hotel while JT was finishing up work. I got a little bit hungry so decided to have a snack at the food court in a mall I had wandered into. I came upon a stand that had a picture of a small bowl of noodles for 4 Singapore dollars (3 US dollars), so I figured that it would be a nice light snack. When I walked up, the woman told me I could pick out seven items from the following:


There were vegetables, tofu, fish balls, crab meet, hot dogs, eggs and a couple other items I didn't quite recognize. After you pick your seven items, the woman behind the counter puts them into a pot of boiling water, throws some noodles in there and voila, your meal is ready. A pretty good deal for three bucks.

In the evening, we met up with my friend from college who is now a professor at the National University of Singapore. He grew up in Malaysia but is originally from India, so he took us out to an area called "Little India." We had some authentic Indian food at The Banana Leaf restaurant, which not coincidentally you eat your food off banana leaves. We checked out the night life in Singapore and eventually wandered back to our hotel, which looks amazing at night:


The next day (Saturday), we spent the day exploring the city. Across the Singapore River from our hotel, a large monstrosity of a recently built casino/hotel took up much of the skyline. Personally, I think it looks like a long cruise ship on top of three buildings:


After wandering around Singapore and getting some lunch in yet another food court located in yet another mall, we packed up and headed to our hotel on Sentosa Island. The hotel itself was very nice, but the beaches were a little bit disappointing, mainly because there were about twenty freighters spewing toxic fumes a stone's throw away. This is the hotel:


And this is the view from the beach:


As you have probably guessed, we didn't spend much time at the beach and instead lounged around by the pool for the rest of the afternoon. The resort is overrun by peacocks, and I was able to get close enough to one to take a photo:


In the evening, we left our hotel to expore the rest of Sentosa Island, which is like a spread out Disney World with a little bit more to do. There is, among other things, a Universal Studios, a marine life park and a Hard Rock hotel. We found a nice restaurant to remind us of home called the "Big Easy." We were tempted by the offerings of jambalaya and gumbo, which turned out not only to be the same dish, but essentially chicken fried rice with some cajun spices. At least there was a live jazz band. After dinner we headed to the casino. Interestingly enough, Singapore charges its own citizens a fee to enter the casinos because they want to discourage them from gambling. However, if you're not a Singapore citizen, you get in for free and should try to lose as much money as possible. Therefore, before entering the casino, you have to show ID that you're not a Singapore citizen. After the casino, we were a little bit hungry, so we stopped by a bakery to get a snack and also breakfast for the next day. JT picked out a "potato bun", which is a bun shaped like a potato. I thought it was pretty interesting, so I took a picture. Because of the lighting, however, it looked like it was glowing, so we coined it the "jack-o-potato":


When we woke up the next day (Sunday), it was raining, so we couldn't really do much. We lazed around, had a snack at the hotel and headed to the airport. All in all, Singapore wasn't the most interesting place I've been too, but I'm glad I went as the country and its people have a lot to offer.

Anniversary Trip to Macau / Taipa

As many of you know (since you were there for it), we got married on a very hot day in New York City on August 15th last year. We decided to celebrate our first-year anniversary with a weekend getaway to Macau / Taipa. Macau is an island 65 km west of Hong Kong, which started off as a Portuguese trading hub in the 1500s. Macau was handed over to China on December 20, 1999 and became a Special Administrative Region (SAR) of China (similar to Hong Kong). Macau is now most famous for its gambling and casinos. The easiest way to get there from Hong Kong is by ferry.

Because I had class until 4 pm on Saturday, we took the 5:30 pm to Taipa. Taipa is the smaller and lesser developed (for now) island of the Macau SAR. The ferry terminal is only a 10-minute walk from our apartment, and the views of Kowloon outside the terminal are pretty nice:


We took the "Cotai Jet," which is a fancy blue catamaran that leaves every half hour from Hong Kong to the Taipa Ferry Terminal:


JT splurged and spent an additional HK $100 (approximately US $13) for first-class tickets for our 60-minute ferry ride over. Thirteen dollars gets you a MSG-laden instant cup of noodles and a beer (the value of which is actually $3 from the local 7-Eleven):


Our ferry ride was fairly uneventful, and we made it there, as promised, in 60 minutes. Once we got off the ferry, it was about a ten-minute walk to immigration. Because Macau is a separate SAR of China, which is essentially a different country, you have to fill out an immigration form and hand up your passport to get stamped. After we passed through immigration, we boarded a shuttle bus to our hotel. We stayed at the Grand Hyatt Macau, which is part of a bigger development called the "City of Dreams." The hotel upgraded us to a corner suite (which was bigger than our current apartment and our apartment back home), and it had great views of the "Cotai Strip" which is where all the new casinos are being built (the Venetian is on the left-hand side of the photo):


We had an 8 pm dinner reservation for Antonio, which was recommended to us as the best place in Macau for Portuguese food. Although it didn't appear that they actually had a reservation under our name, we were seated promptly by the very friendly but sometimes disorganized staff in the very cozy dining room. We had the traditional Portuguese cabbage soup and goat cheese served with olive oil and honey on toast, lettuce and balsamic vinegar to start. Both starters were delicious, but we could have had two more servings of the goat cheese, which was just amazing. We shared two entrees, the Shredded Dried Codfish Baked in the Oven with Creamy Sauce and Cheese and the Tenderloin Steak "Portuguese” Style, Fried with Garlic and White Wine Served with Portuguese Smoked Ham, Fried Egg, Potatoes and Pickles. Again, both dishes were very good, but so much for healthy eating! The great thing about Antonio is that Antonio himself was in the restaurant chatting with all the diners and helping to serve the dishes. So with Antonio buzzing about and the traditional Portuguese decor, we felt like if we were in some local restaurant in the back alleys of Portugal and not in China. After dinner, we walked about Taipa Village, which is where the restaurant is located. The village is a mix of quaint European-style cobblestone streets and colonial architecture with modern-day bars and Chinese restaurants.

We returned to the "City of Dreams," played some roulette and slots and called it a night. The next day (Sunday), we took a shuttle bus to Macau island and had lunch there. Macau is where all the casinos (like MGM, Wynn and Sands) were originally built before the developers decided to descend upon Taipa. The streets of Macau reminded me much of Hong Kong and lacked the charm of Taipa (at least the village). The only noticeable difference between Hong Kong and Macau is that all the store names and street signs are both in Chinese and Portuguese. It's unclear to me how many Portuguese people still live on the island because as far as I could tell everyone was Chinese. After lunch, we returned back to Taipa to catch our 3 pm ferry back to Hong Kong. We played some last-minute roulette before heading home. All in all, it was an excellent trip to celebrate our one-year anniversary.

Black rainstorms a dime a dozen

Last week, we experienced our first black rainstorm warning in Hong Kong and thought it was quite exciting and novel, until another one was issued today. During the rainy season here (April through September), they are a dime a dozen apparently. There are three levels of rainstorm warnings, amber, red and black, black obviously being the worst. In contracts drafted in Hong Kong, you often find clauses excluding days on which a typhoon signal 8 (or above) or black rainstorm warning is raised from the definition of "business days." Below is the official announcement:

Black Rainstorm Warning Signal Special Announcement issued by the Hong Kong Observatory at 3:35 p.m.

The Rainstorm Warning Signal is now Black. This means that heavy rain has fallen or is expected to fall generally over Hong Kong, exceeding 70 millimetres in an hour, and is likely to continue.

Because of seriously flooded roads and inclement weather conditions, you are advised to take shelter in a safe place and stay there. Parents, students, school authorities and school-bus drivers should listen to radio or television announcements on schools. Do not attempt to travel until the Black Rainstorm Warning Signal is no longer in force and traffic conditions have improved.

We also got a landslip, a/k/a landslide warning this afternoon:

Landslip Special Announcement issued by the Hong Kong
Observatory at 4:30 p.m. on 28 July 2010:

The Hong Kong Observatory has issued the Landslip Warning.
Keep away from steep slopes or retaining walls.

Motorists should avoid driving in hilly areas or on roads
with landslip warning signs.

Cancel non-essential appointments, stay at home or remain in
a safe shelter.

If you see signs of landslip danger, keep away from the area
and report to the Police.

Temporary shelters provided by District Offices are now
open. If you receive a notice to evacuate because of
landslip danger, or believe that your home is endangered,
you should make immediate arrangements to move to a safe
shelter.

Hopefully, as long as we stay away from retaining walls and steep slopes and arm ourselves with a strong umbrella, we'll make it home from work today.

Come and get your ExpresSlim in HK!

We are kicking off our blog with a story from this past weekend. Last Saturday night we went into a Sasa store on Queens Road Central near our apartment. Sasa stores sell all types of beauty and health care products, and they are ubiquitous in Hong Kong. While perusing the wide selection of products, JT stumbled upon this very interesting product: ExpresSlim. The words are a bit blurred (which shall be explained later) but it says: "Specific slimming gel for love handles -8 days." On the bottom, it says "Up to -5 cm." Wow! In eight days, you could lose 5 cm off your love handles and look like the man pictured on the packaging.

I was so impressed by the results that I decided to take a picture of the product, at which point in time, an angry employee started yelling in Cantonese. When I played dumb (well, I actually didn't have to play dumb because I don't understand any Cantonese), the woman said, "Ma'am, no pictures!" Hmm... query as to why Sasa has a no-picture policy. One has to wonder. I got the picture anyway, albeit a bit blurred since I was trying to but failed to steady the camera as the woman was yelling at me.

Now that we've probably been black-listed from that Sasa store, we hope to visit some more in the future and introduce additional one-of-a-kind products like ExpresSlim. And if anyone is interested in trying out ExpresSlim, just let us know, and we'll bring some back next time we are home.