Normal posting (and by that I mean sporadic posting where I try to forget that I’ve been ignoring this blog so I don’t feel so guilty) will resume shortly. After the last post, it took me all the way until two days ago before my MBP was in any shape to use, and I’m pleased to report that (no thanks to CASE – the utterly and wholly ineffectual Authorized Apple Service Provider in HK) she’s finally alive and well, and one of the things I was up last night doing was going through the backlog of photos that need to be slotted into these draft posts that are Ready and Waiting. (So hopefully the posting won’t be quite so sporadic.)

But in the meantime, I hope you like that picture of Toby. :) Two of my closest friends back home made me that shirt (in regular human size) and made this ridiculously cute tiny version, which we didn’t think about stuffing Rufus into until he was too fat. Toby’s just malleable enough to tolerate us, and looked quite fetching in it. Plus, if you ask me, his expression has a rather appropriate amount of blasé, I do think. In case you can’t quite make it out, the teeshirt reads, “There is no charge for AWSUMNESS” – a quote from the movie Kung Fu Panda. And yes, the spelling was intended. :D

I spent the past weekend in Hangzhou, capital of the Zhejiang Province in China, visiting a friend who’s working there for a couple of months. Hangzhou is probably best known as home to West Lake – one of the most picturesque places in China, and purportedly one of the few places where the hyperbole of Chinese poets did not overstate its beauty.

Now, as famous as West Lake may be for it’s beauty, it’s a good thing that I wasn’t actually there for the scenery, seeing as I went at probably The Least Picturesque time of the year. It was kind of sad – you could see the potential for how pretty a splash of colour would have made it, whether in the form of springtime flowers, with a general lake-wide hue in autumn, or blanketed in winter.

But the hordes of (domestic) tourists jostling all around the narrow causeways, hurtling through the crowds on rickety bicycles and speeding around on electric golf carts just didn’t help. Even on a very pleasant, breezy, and quiet boatride through the lake, we managed to encounter a slight traffic jam (everyone was stopped to take pictures of the Three Ponds Mirroring The Moon scene).

Still, we ate (Lou Wai Lou definitely deserves its reputation), we walked around the scenic West Lake area, trawled the streets looking a bunch of recommendations that Did Not Exist, but happened across a gem of a find, known as Me Too Cafe. Located on Jin Hua Road, it’s a comfortable, gorgeous loft-space set in a converted warehouse. With free Wifi, fantastic service, pretty decent food (go for the ham & cheese sandwich or salmon salad, but skip the apple and pear tart), and great coffee at affordable prices, it’s the sort of place I’d love to park at with some friends, or my laptop.

But most of all, it was beyond incredible to have an entire weekend with you: laughing at ourselves, feeling old, smoking way too much, spotting imaginary squirrels, eating ourselves silly (and being so amazed when we managed to show the barest sliver of restraint!), and simply being able to reach out and touch you.

Now, if only I just didn’t have to miss you quite this much when we’re apart.

With something like 15 flights per day from Hong Kong, Taipei is really the perfect place to travel to for a quick weekend getaway. Add to that the number of friends who rave about Taiwanese food (though, admittedly, not so much the sights), and I think it becomes pretty obvious why I was itching so badly to see and taste the city’s offerings for myself.

For my first foray into this gastronomic wonderland, it was only appropriate that I begged J – a close friend who has lived in Taipei – to come with me. Only, it really didn’t take a lot of begging, since if anyone knows what delicious treats Taipei has in store for its hungry visitors, it’s J. She very kindly compiled a list addresses and contact details for the places we visited, which I’ve posted below.

Apart from the street food which I’ve photographed and posted here, the other two places of note which we ate at were the New York Bagel Cafe – we both bought a few unsliced, untoasted bagels on the last night to bring back with us to Hong Kong, as well as Man Tang Hong. I don’t normally expect a huge return when I spend the equivalent of 550 TWD (a little over 15 USD) for a hot pot buffet, but this place boasts a delicious selection of meats, dumplings and vegetables sliced and plated to order, as well as free flow of bottled soft drinks. (To get fruit juice, you just have to top up an additional 100 TWD per 1L carton of juice.) If you still need more convincing, an all-you-can-eat ice cream buffet is also included in the price, and it’s not just any cheapo no-frills supermarket type ice cream – there were 8 flavours each of Haagen Dazs and Meiji ice cream (two of my favourite commercial brands)! Just be sure to book, as it’s always packed, and for good reason.

Anyway, considering this was my first visit to Taipei, I’m not professing to be an expert on the food there, but here are some pictures of what we ate. Almost all of it was pretty darn awesome, and it was – as you can imagine – a fantastically delightful weekend, which I hope to repeat again soon!

Day 1: Tonghua Jie Night Market

Day 2: NY Bagel Cafe, Xiao Nan Men dessert, Shilin Night Market

Day 3: Ba Fang Shui Jiao, custard cake-buns and jian-bing at Tong Hua Jie, Yong Kang Beef Noodles, Man Tang Hong hot pot buffet

Contact Details:
New York Bagel Cafe: 122 Xinyi Road Sec 5 (T:2723 7977),
and 147 Ren Ai Road Sec 4 (T: 2752 1669)
Xiao Nan Men: dessert stall in Taipei 101 Food Court, 45 Shifu Road, B1
Yong He Soy Milk King: 102 Fu Xing South Road (T: 2703 5051)
Ba Fang Shui Jiao: Off Tunhwa South Road Sec 2
Xiao Nan Men: dessert stall in Taipei Metro Food Court
Yong Kang Beef Noodle: 17, Lane 31, Jinshan South Road Sec 2 (T: 2351 1051)
Man Tang Hong: 228-4 Ren Ai Road Sec 4, 2 Floor (T: 2701 6669)

Anyway, since there’s nothing on the food front to report on, I figured I’d leave you guys with a photo taken last week in Koh Samui. (When I say “you guys”, I’m really referring to the 5 imaginary people who still read this blog, considering how often I’ve done these disappearing things.) Hope you like it.

Some suppose that New South Wales is so named because it’s the new, southern hemispheric version of Wales. These are probably the same people who describe much of Australia as “England with better food, weather and quality of life” – and of the three, I can personally vouch for the first two. British food has often gotten quite some flack for being generally overcooked, dry, stodgy, and only existing to be washed down by that pint of beer, and while I am actually a fan of quite a few British dishes, the food in Australia is certainly something else.

Bunny and I spent a week in Sydney scoffing down as much food as we could find. Generally ignoring the touristy sights (though we didn’t really have much else to see, considering how our room at the Shangri-La had quite the view), we made a beeline for as many restaurants as we could fit into our trip.

Many would say that a culinary tour around Sydney is not complete without a visit to legendary restaurant Tetsuya’s, by the time we’d decided to make the trip to NSW, there wasn’t an available lunch or dinner reservation in sight. Lucky for us, we managed to get seats at a dozen other establishments, one of which being Yoshii, which is rumoured to be better than Tet’s, on the first night we arrived. Of course, I’m in no position to cast any opinion on that, but I can say that our dinner at Yoshii was nothing short of phenomenal. The next day, we headed off to the Sydney Fish Market and had the best fish and chips I’ve ever tasted, along with our first whiff of oysters for the holiday at Doyles. We were so impressed with the food here that we also decided to head back on the last night of our trip to their original location on Watsons Bay.

For dinner on my birthday (Tuesday), we got ourselves a cosy little table at Rockpool – a two hat establishment right on The Rocks helmed by prominent Australian chef, Neil Perry. Having already snacked on macarons at Lindt in Darling Harbour, we decided not to overwork our stomachs and stick to the five course fixed price menu, instead of the chef’s tasting menu which had twice as many courses.

On the next night, we ventured out by ferry from Circular Quay to Rose Bay, where we had my favourite dinner of the entire trip at Pier. A tiny little 55 seater that juts out over the marina, this restaurant had been awarded three chefs hats, and rightfully so. Every single dish of our (restrained) three course meal that night was thoughtfully put together, with bunny and I – for a change – without words to describe the gastronomical heaven. My favourite of the night was my dessert, which was a green apple ‘cloud’ served with pistachio ‘soil’.

On our last full day in the city, we finally managed (after 3 days of wrangling) to procure a table at The Tea Room at Gunners Barracks. With beautiful china and an even more delectable view, it really was a pleasant end to our stay in Sydney.

The one thing about Sydney – besides the food – that really stuck with me was the level of service we received wherever we dined. I once read a post about a top restaurant in Singapore where an Indian waiter calmly accepted rude behaviour when a white man insisted on addressing him as “Brownie”. Instead of being praised for his professionalism, the writer went on to indicate that such tolerance of racism is what allows it to permeate society. An incident at Pier reminded me of this, when a local couple – clearly drunk from too many bottles of wine – started making a ruckus by screeching waitstaff who’d pass by their table. One of them even ended up being called all manner of inappropriate names, and while I, as a paying customer, would have preferred that the management evict the twosome, said waiter calmly attended to them as if the insults and shrieks of laughter were merely a figment of my imagination.

Being someone who loves food as much as I do photography, I often carry my camera around in hopes of documenting all the food I consume (in nice restaurants, at least) digitally. Unfortunately, in Singapore, I’m often not allowed to take photographs of the food – or sometimes even the interior of the restaurant. As a result, whenever I’ve got my camera with me, I now make a habit of checking with a waiter to make sure that it’s fine. Another thing that took me by (pleasant) surprise was how the waiters A) were all surprised that there was a need to ask at all, and B) effusively urged me to do so. So far, Singapore is the only city in which I’ve ever encountered an issue with taking photographs in restaurants, and I hope that our local restauranteurs will take a page from cities far more established in the world-wide culinary scene, especially if we want to advance to the same level.

All in all, the past week was probably the best holiday I’ve had this year. I may be a good 5 kilos heavier from all the crustaceans I’ve imbibed, but all the better to tide me through the work-day. For those of you who have a death wish, feel free to take a look at my (finally) complete Sydney Photoset on an empty stomach, but consider yourselves warned. My personal recommendation would be to browse through it after lunch while you’re combating the food-coma and about to get cracking on an afternoon of work ahead.

The biggest problem that I’ve found with this photography hobby of mine is that whenever I travel, I spend about 15 minutes packing the clothes and other amenities but about 3 days deciding on what camera gear to bring with me. Do I bring my 30D or can I bear to just fly with the film camera? How many rolls of film do I bring if I’m going film? How many less can I bring if I’m bringing both? Which film camera should I bring – one of the little ancient ones or my 1V which has the added benefit of sharing lenses with my 30D. Or do I just focus on the travelling and screw the cameras…….. nah. Maybe just the Ricoh. Flash, tripod, which bag can fit all? It never ends.

Now that my camera (body) collection has hit 6 – and will increase to 7 on Saturday, also bringing the total number of brands with interchangeable lenses to 4, which is the biggest problem I forsee – my shoulders are getting tired in anticipation of where my indecision usually leads me: bring as many as I can heft around. (Let’s not even talk about whether or not to bring my laptop, which I do on longer trips.)

Come August, I’ll be bidding goodbye (for a while at least) to my Asahi Pentax ME, which I’m permaloaning to a dear friend who flies off to Hong Kong for the foreseeable future. I’m flying on the 14th on a short pre-Vietnam trip to Hong Kong, and will be bringing the Pentax up with me to permaloan to her. It’s also just occurred to me that I should probably fly up with the Pentax (and its 2 lenses), the Ricoh, and a couple of rolls of film, which would mean that for the first time in my multiple-camera-owner life, I’ll be travelling with my Crumpler 4 million dollar home, instead of the 7. My shoulders rejoice!