Good to be back in Hong Kong

Hello All,

Well after two weeks on the road Jill and I are back in Hong Kong.  It's still rainy and muggy...glad to see nothing changed from before we left weather-wise.

My work trip was successful.  We were conducting trainings, and I think they were well-received by all those that attended.  I visited 4 countries over the course of 2.5 weeks, so it was a bit of a whirlwind experience.  I didn't really have time to do much outside of the trainings, but I'll briefly summarize each stop the trip.  And I apologize for the size/quality of the pictures - these were all taken with my iPhone...

Bangkok, Thailand-Grand Hyatt Erawan Bangkok

I really liked Bangkok.  Definitely a place I would like to spend more time in.  The Sunday before the trainings started, I visited the biggest outdoor market I have ever seen in my life, and bought a pair of flip flops because I failed to pack my own...I think they were like 4 dollars US.  That afternoon I farted around the area near the hotel and saw a Buddhist temple and a huge mall.  I recently found out that Bangkok is the #1 tourist destination in the world this year...so that's cool.



Outside the Buddhist temple

 

Statue outside the mall...guaranteed to haunt your dreams

 

Bali, Indonesia - Grand Hyatt Bali

A week after being in Bali for vacation I was back there for work. It was tough to concentrate.  Had a little bit of time to spend on the beach. It was Bali...amazing.  Sorry, no pics.

 Shenzhen, China - Grand Hyatt Shenzhen

Shenzhen is just on the other side of the Chinese border (45 min train ride from Hong Kong).  I had probably the most interesting experience of the trip in Shenzhen. 

After the first day of training, a few people were getting together after dinner for a drink.  We all met in the lobby of the hotel, and started walking to what I thought was a bar.  Well, apparently I didn't get the memo that we were actually going to get foot massages.  Not really sure how we went from getting drinks to getting foot massages, but I went along with it anyway.  We arrived at this gigantic "spa" and had to wait about 15 minutes before we could go in. 

Luckily we were with someone that spoke Mandarin, because nobody that worked there spoke English.  I was informed that we were going to have to change from our clothes into a standard issue "uniform".  Things were starting to get weird.  We were taken to the locker room where we were each assigned a "helper".  This helper stood there while I changed (yes I had to get naked in front of this dude).  I then found out that we were required to shower.  Not sure why we had to take a full shower for a foot massage, but he gave me a towel and led me to a bank of showers with no doors.  After the most uncomfortable shower of my life, I was led to another area of the locker room to change into my uniform. The area to change had no doors-just had to lose my towel with the goods floppin' around and change in front of a bunch of Chinese dudes...not awkward at all.

I met back up with the guys I had gone there with and we were led up a couple of flights of stairs to a room where we could peruse a menu of the various services of the spa.  At this point I have no idea what's going on, so I just sit there and look at the menu while someone tries to upsell us (they were speaking to the guy that spoke Mandarin).  It became very clear that this was definitely a place where you could get a happy ending and probably a lot of other weird stuff.  The menu included things like "Fruity Additions", and the guy we were with said they alluded to "other types of massages" during their little sales pitch.  I mean, we were walking by rooms with loud hip hop music playing and all kinds of weird stuff going on.  The whole time me and another guy were just looking at each other going "WTF are we doing here?!?".

Me in my uniform reviewing all of the "services"

After insisting that we just wanted foot massages we were taken to a floor with about a hundred recliners.  The floor also had a restaurant in case we were hungry.  We got to our seats and the foot massages started (we all had masseurs).  We were able to order beers (so I guess technically we did get drinks on this little excursion).  Then someone came by and tried to upsell us again, and our Mandarin speaker gave in and ordered neck massages for us.  Luckily we didn't have to get out of our recliners and soon, some masseuses showed up and started going to work on our neck and shoulders.

I don't typically get massages...they're a bit uncomfortable for me...so this experience was unsettling to say the least.  After our massages were done, we were lead back to the locker room where I had to change in front of my helper again.  I would have liked to take another shower, but that didn't happen.  So I took one when I got back to the hotel.  Not surprisingly, 2 days later I came down with Bronchitis!

Shanghai, China - Grand Hyatt Shanghai

I was not feeling so hot when we got to Shanghai.   There was a pharmacy near the hotel, so I went to get some medication.  The ladies working there didn't speak English, so I had to play charades to try and explain what was wrong with me.  They handed me what was probably the only medication in the joint that had any English on the package.  Here's a few excerpts from the description of the medication on the package:

Name: Loquat Cough Syrup
Properties: The product is brown liquid; with fragrant smell sweet and slightly bitter and pungent flavor.
Functions and indications: Ventilating the lung and resolving phlegm, relieving cough and asthma, used for treatment of common cold and cough.
Bad Interaction: still indefinite

Well, I definitely needed some lung ventilation, and I just kept my fingers crossed that the nothing would interact negatively with the Loquat Cough Syrup. It actually didn't taste that bad.  No worse than the cough syrup in the US.  Unfortunately, it didn't seem to help much because I had to skip the second day of the training and go to a nearby clinic to get some antibiotics.  Luckily, I was able to see a Western doctor (he was from Delaware) and get some real drugs. 

Being sick in Shanghai was no fun, but I started feeling better by the time we got to Busan.

Busan, S. Korea - Park Hyatt Busan

The hotel was located right on the water which was great because we had Sunday to ourselves.  What was even cooler was that there was an air show going on literally right outside the hotel.  It was just like the air and water show in Chicago, and I got to catch the grand finale (instead of the Blue Angels, it was the Korean Black Eagles).

Korean Black Eagles....I know these photos really suck

 

Jets in Korea are just as cool as they are in America.  Jets rock.

So that was my trip in a nutshell.  Each hotel we stayed at was great, and we got to eat a ton of great food (couldn't blog without mentioning food).  My favorite was probably the Korean BBQ we had in Busan. We had Kobe beef cooked at the table with a bunch of other great side dishes.  Awesome.

Jill was able to meet up with Diana in Cambodia while I was on the first leg of my trip.  She doesn't have any photos from there, but she did say that she had an awesome time.  She just got back from Tokyo for work and said that trip went well too.  I told her if she had anything more to share from her trips to post it!

Sorry for the long one this time. 

Til Next Time,
Luke and Jill

It Don't Matter if You're Black or White

Jill left for Cambodia last night to meet up with our friend Diana and her sister, and I am leaving tomorrow for the first leg of a two week road trip.  I had all day Saturday to bach' it out, so naturally I went to McDonald's for lunch.  Now, you might remember my experience with the McCurry a while back....well McD's threw down the gauntlet again. This time, it's the Black and White burgers.

I ordered the Black burger without knowing what was on it.  Here's the description from the box the burger was served in:

Who says dark is dangerous?
Discover the dark side of flavor with our new mashed potato base burger smothered in truffle sauce, topped by two 100% beef patties and wrapped in a deep black squid ink bun and bacon.  Taste the black and unveil dark.

Besides the squid ink bun, this burger has a ton of great ingredients.  Mashed potatoes, bacon, truffle sauce...sign me up (I realize that none of the ingredients are actually what they say they are, but it sounds good).  Minus the bun this sounds like something that would do great in America.  Are they doing this in America?  Doesn't get much more 'Merican than bacon and mashed potatoes...

Anyway, the burger itself basically tasted like any other McDonald's burger.  And the bun was a normal bun with black food coloring.

So, I have tasted the black and luckily have not unveiled the dark in the bathroom....yet (it's only been about 15 minutes since I finished it though, so I better be careful).  Not going out of my way to try the white burger...

Hope everyone has a fun and safe Memorial Day weekend in the states.  I'm sure Jill will have lots to report from her trip to Cambodia, and hopefully I will after my trip as well!

Til Next Time,
Luke & Jill

Bali

Jill and I just spent an awesome 3 day weekend in Bali (last Friday was Buddha's birthday which is a public Holiday in Hong Kong).  I'll keep the details of our trip short and sweet...we were in paradise...not much else to say.

Friday: Our flight down there was delayed, so we didn't get to the Grand Hyatt Bali until about 1:30 AM Friday morning.  The whole day Friday was spent relaxing by the pool/ocean.  We stayed on the property and had a great sushi dinner, followed by drinks at the Persona Lounge with some live music.

Saturday:  After breakfast we played some tennis (they had courts on the property), and then went to the Kriya Spa for some relaxment.  I got an exfoliating body scrub followed by a 20 min back, 20 minute scalp, and 20 minute foot massage.  Yes I seriously did this, and I don't care what anyone says about it.  I'm not usually one for spas/massages, but it was good.  Jill got a 1.5 hour full body massage.  We enjoyed it.

After our massages we had a late lunch then decided to take a ride to Kuta, which is a popular tourist destination with shops/restaurants/markets along the beach.  It was supposed to be a short drive from the hotel, but with traffic and massive amounts of people on motorbikes it took us about an hour to get there.  We honestly weren't impressed with Kuta...if I had to describe it, I would say it's the Jersey Shore of Bali...we only spent about an hour walking around before heading back to the hotel to call it a night.

Sunday:  We brought our snorkel gear, and luckily the hotel had a boat that will take you out for an hour for a quick snorkel excursion.  It was nice because it was just Jill and I and the "guide" on the trip.  The coral was not very impressive, but we got to see a lot of fish including a sting ray and a puffer fish.

After about 30 mins in the water Jill and I started feeling little stings all over our arms...and we could see little jellyfish in the water, so we started making our way back to the boat.  We both developed little red welts all over our arms, but they weren't very painful and went away after a few hours. We both thought that being stung by a jellyfish would be a lot more painful, but it really wasn't that bad...so maybe it wasn't jellyfish...don't know what else it would be though.  Regardless, we learned our lesson to always go snorkeling with a rash guard.

After the snorkeling it was a couple more hours by the pool, and then back to the airport.  We definitely want to go back and see more of the island.  It's nice it's only a 4 hour flight away...so I am sure we will be back that way again soon.  Being there this weekend really made Jill and I realize how incredibly lucky we are to be able to take trips like this...

After downloading the pics from the weekend I realized that I didn't take that many at all...and the pics I did take were not that great....so sorry about that! 

View of the walk from transportation drop off to the front desk...not too shabby.  Many parts of the property were open-air, like the front desk, and the Grand Club, which was pretty cool.

View looking back to the front desk/lounge area.  The entire property is dotted with little koi ponds and waterfalls.  The property was much, much bigger and spread out than I expected.

My attempt at being a photographer.  Just a flower on some rocks...

Jill enjoying fresh coconut water.  You could literally just order a coconut and they would cut it open and stick a straw in it.  It was really hot (the weather, not the coconut water) so it was a great way to stay hydrated.

And yes...you really do put da lime in da coconut

In other news we got to see the newlyweds, David and Amanda, on the tail-end of their honeymoon. We had lunch with them today and it was great to see some familiar faces on this side of the world!

That's all for now.

Til Next Time,
Luke and Jill

What do you know? Another post about food

So just a quick one here, but today I had my first experience with some really authentic Chinese food.  I was visiting the property that Jill and I stayed at when we first arrived here in Hong Kong for a presentation, and they invited me to stay for lunch afterward.

When we sat down, my lovely hosts started looking at the menu, and asked me if there was anything I didn't eat.  I told them no - I'm up for anything.  Well, they brought the noise.

This is a picture of me eating chicken feet and beef intestine.

We also had chicken with fish maw (which I found out is an internal organ of larger fish that helps them with their buoyancy) and beef tendon.  They took a picture for me so I would have proof at my office that I ate this stuff.

You probably can't tell from picture, but I actually enjoyed the meal.  There were a lot of seasonings in each dish which I am sure helped, but all in all it was quite good!

Now I know that this meal isn't super, insane Indiana Jones monkey brain-type stuff, but I feel I really came full circle at the Hyatt Regency Sha Tin food-wise.  This was the place I had my first meal in Hong Kong, and if you recall I ordered room service and had pasta.  Now, I can say I've sampled a fish's internal flotation regulator.  Big thanks to Hyatt Regency Sha Tin for helping me broaden my culinary horizons!

Jill and I are off to Bali tomorrow. Vitamin D, here we come.

Til Next Time,

Luke & Jill



Fish Market

Jill and I had some friends over for drinks on Saturday evening, and before they arrived we did a pretty thorough cleaning of our apartment.  During that whole process we came across a glass bowl with some rocks in it, and came to the conclusion that it was a fish bowl.  We immediately thought it would be a good idea to get a fish.  We can't have a dog here, so why not, right?

After a bit of research I discovered that there is actually a street in Kowloon dedicated to fish and aquariums called the goldfish market.  So, on Sunday Jill and I set out an a little adventure to check this market out.  I figured it would be a few shops with some fish and aquariums, and that would be about it.  Now, I have slowly come to the realization that my assumptions about Hong Kong are wrong...because this market was literally an entire street probably 4 blocks long dedicated to fish and aquariums (like both sides of the street contain nothing but shops for fish).  You can't really tell from the picture below, but this is a snapshot of the street...everything you see at the street level in this picture is dedicated to fish/aquariums.  If anything I think it's just a good depiction of the congestion of humanity that exists here.  The market was crowded.  The smart people avoid the sidewalks and take their chances against oncoming traffic (I'm looking at you purple).

It wasn't for lack of selection, but we ultimately decided not to get a fish. We've got some trips coming up, and don't know how we would feed the fish while we're away.  Besides, if we ever want to see fish in a tank we now know where to go.

After the fish market, we decided to go look for some furniture to put in our guest room.  Jill found a cool day bed at a furniture store here, but their location in Central didn't have it so we had to go to Aberdeen on the south side of the island to look at it.  We saw it and it looks great, but we didn't have the measurements of the guest room, so we'll have to get those before we do anything else. 

Below are just some random photos I took between the fish market and the furniture store.  All these pics were taken in Central.

 

View of the street below from the escalators

 

 

Me trying to be artsy with our new camera.  Just a random stray cat...not the same one that the lady was enthusiastically petting that I mentioned in a previous post.  Notice the top of one ear that's missing...this cat's got character.

 

Waiting for the bus and there was a music video rehearsal going on across the street.  Not really...there was just a group of women dancing...don't know exactly what for, but it was definitely choreographed.


 

Just a friendly reminder from Winky and Pinky to practice safe sex.  I don't know if these two condoms are actually named Winky and Pinky...if they aren't they should be.

 

 

Jill and I are pumped for next weekend.  Friday's a holiday here (Buddha's birth day) so we're doing three days in Bali.  Cannot wait.  The sun has been nonexistent here so were are looking forward to some sun. 

 

Happy Mother's Day to all the Mother's out there! 

 

Til Next Time,

Luke & Jill

This Big Duck

So this inflatable duck showed up in Victoria Harbor last week.  I guess it's a traveling piece of art and it will be here for about a month.  People here in Hong Kong are freaking out about it, but I don't really get what the big deal is.  I mean...it's just a big inflatable duck...looks like something you'd see out in front of a car dealership on the weekend.  But they have barricades set up to help direct the foot traffic around where people are crowding around to get a picture of this thing...I don't even get how it's art. 

If all it takes is an inflatable bath toy to get people this amped up, I would love to see what would happen if I set up one of these guys...it would blow their mind!

Brickhouse

So I know I write about food a lot...but I am going to do it again.  Before arriving I was convinced that I was not going to be able to get good Mexican food in Hong Kong, and I am happy to report that I was wrong.  I want to give big props to our new friend, Anne, for taking us to this place on Tuesday night because there is no way in a million years Jill and I would have found it. 

The name of the place is Brickhouse (I know...a bit of weird name for a Mexican food joint).  There is no sign.  It's located down a dark, creepy alley, and had Anne not been with us, Jill and I would not have gone down this alley.  Like, when Anne started taking us down this alley I felt like the cowardly lion meeting the Wizard of Oz for the first time.  I was half-expecting to start walking by some cock fights, or see something similar to the scene in The Deer Hunter where Robert DeNiro and Christopher Walken play Russian Roulette.  But luckily none of that happened.  We put our names in (it was an hour and a half wait - they don't take reservations), and went and grabbed a few drinks at a bar down the street

After finally getting seated, we just let Anne order for us. We got these drinks called Diablas which were delicious...it was some sort of raspberry cocktail with jalapeno in it.  Sounds weird, but it was awesome.  Then the food started coming.  We had street corn (roasted corn on the cob with melted cheese and seasonings) that was unbelievable, amazing queso fundido that you had to cut with scissors (seriously, they gave us a pair of scissors), 4 different kinds of delicious tacos (pork, fish, beef and chicken), and a shrimp and cucumber ceviche.  Smack yo' mama good.

I was shocked at how good this stuff was.  To this point, the only Mexican food we've had here was on par with the kind of "Mexican" food you get at Chili's.  But this food was legit....too legit to quit. And the place had a really fun atmosphere.  It was small, cramped, and loud (they played great music too, by the way), but you can just tell everyone is having a good time.  Needless to say, Jill and I have found our place when we need a Mexican food fix....I just hope we'll be able to find it again!

Til Next Time,
Luke & Jill