The Last Lecture

If you haven't heard of or listened to this lecture, it is well worth it... and not in a Tuesdays with Morrie, cloying kind of way.

The background is this: "The Last Lecture" is a university tradition. A professor will be asked to deliver a talk as if it were the last lecture she/he would ever give - an opportunity to reflect on a life lived, pass on advice and speculate on what it all means. Randy Pausch, a professor at Carnegie Mellon was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer last fall and delivered his own last lecture, Really Achieving Your Childhood Dreams, one month later. A longer book version is about to be published.

Asia VI: Final Days

Hong Kong Skyline at night

We spent the last two days of our trip back in Hong Kong. Usually by the end of a 2 week vacation I am starting to think of home and ready take the pace down a notch. But our last two days in Hong Kong were actually tremendously fun. This was thanks in part to our discovery of the Temple Street Night Market, or rather, the awesome food at the night market. Fried fish, spicy clams, clay pot rice, roast duck, fried squid, cold beer.... it was awesome. We ate there two nights in a row.

Our other excellent experience was going to Happy Valley Racecourse. Oddly enough, Hong Kong has a racetrack right in the middle of the city, surrounded by skyscrapers and all. We went to the mid-week evening race and it turned out to be $1 admission night (about 12 cents US). It was a ton of fun, even though our horses lost.

The optimistically named Happy Valley Racecourse

I think this will be the first of many trips to Asia for me. This adventure really opened my eyes to this side of the world and the delights in traveling there. Dr Kiang says that next time I need to get myself to the mainland, so that is a goal for the not-too-distant future.

Asia V: Macao or Macau or however you spell it.

Macao was as hot as San Juan in July

The two days we spent in Macao were like a chapter out of a different vacation or, really, two different vacations. Macao was a Portuguese colony until the handover in 1999 and is regarded as the Monte Carlo or Las Vegas of Asia. The preserved Portuguese section of the town is a Unesco World Heritage sight and reminded me of Old San Juan.

Since we were in the largest bastion of Mediterranean culture in Asia, we traded in our dinners of rice, roast duck and cups of tea for salt cod, chourico and potatoes, washed down with slightly effervescent vinho verde. This was a welcome break. It had been over a week since I had seen a potato; I was desperate.

We spent a day wandering through the old part of town: past the preserved colonial buildings; up to Mount Fortress, a fortified hill which is now a museum; past the ruins of St. Paul's, a former Jesuit church which burned down in a kitchen fire; and finally down to the 15th century A-Ma temple overlooking the harbor, the one sight that was culturally Chinese in origin. The more tourist areas definitely play up the colonial heritage of Macau.

In the evening we hit the casinos. The strip in Macau looks just like Vegas, with it's very own Wynn which really could have been beamed directly from its Nevada locale. The most famous casino in Macau is the Lisboa, which has overcome Macau's seedy past by building the new Grand Lisboa Casino and Hotel adjacent to the original property. However, the striking difference between Vegas and Macau is that the average table bet is five times what it is in Vegas. Minimum bets at Roulette and Black Jack were roughly $40 and $70 respectively - and that was on a Tuesday night! We decided NOT to gamble.

Macau really only warrants a day or two stop over on any Asian vacation, but it was well worth it. A day later we were off to Hong Kong for last two days of our Asia vacation.

Pizza Friday

Pizza with sausage and broccoli rabe

I've been meaning to write this post pretty much since I launched my blog. But every Friday evening as Phineas and I make pizza, uncork a bottle of wine and pop in a dvd, I somehow forget to document this weekend ritual. Perhaps my brain gets all fuzzy as I power down and ease into the weekend.

Fed up with the sub-par pizza in our neighborhood, we started making our own about a year or so ago. Initially, we made our own dough, but quickly realized that the raw dough at the supermarket was just as tasty and infinitely easier. Phineas is in charge of stretching the dough and I am in charge of topping and cooking. Twelve minutes in a 450 degree over produces a crispy crust and gooey toppings. This week, I was especially happy for Pizza Friday. I didn't quite realize how much I missed eating cheese while we were in Asia until midway thru my second slice when that feeling that all is right in the world overtook me.

Asia IV: Sinying/The Resort

The Lee Family

Mandie grew up in Sinying, a town outside of Tainan. We arrived the day before the wedding and didn't really get to see much of the town outside of the resort. The weather was incredibly hot and humid and, aside from a morning walk around the large grounds, we stayed indoors. It was a very good break from all the walking.

Mandie's parents hosted a dinner for out-of-town guests the night before the wedding. The highlight for me was the best sesame bun I have ever tasted. There was something in addition to sesame in the paste filling. It was rich and earthy; almost like dark chocolate. After a multi-course banquet, I somehow managed to eat two of the buns.

I think Sinying is where I felt the most foreign during our trip. The resort was a local destination and not used to hosting foreigners. I was met with polite curiosity by the other guests - a few small children openly gawked. The wedding, too, was a unique experience. Mandie's three outfits were beautiful and Dr. Colin looked dashing in tails. However, as formal as the bride and groom were, the guests were equally casual. They pretty much came "as is" - t-shirts, shorts, jeans, etc., and this is completely normal. Also, there was no dancing - the reception was a banquet. The event concluded with a private tea ceremony for the family.

The following day we headed to Macao, the Las Vegas of Asia.

Asia III: Kaohsiung

We arrived on a high speed train that traversed Taiwan - far north to far south - in under 2 hours. And let me say: it is HOT in the south of Taiwan. Kaohsiung is Taiwan's second largest city and one of the 5 largest container ship ports in the world (ie: if it says "Made in Taiwan", it came thru this port).

We met up with Mandie's sister Carry, their dad and some family friends who live in Kaohsiung and we going to show us the town. So, more walking and more eating. We started by walking thru a mountain (via a tunnel) and onto the campus of the National Sun Yat Sen University. From there we walked along the coast and climbed said mountain (via a staircase) to the former British Embassy.

After descending, we walked to a dock and took a ferry across the harbor to the old section of town which has a 3oo year old temple and a row of seafood restaurants. Our hosts picked out the one with the freshest catch and we feasted on whole sweet n sour fish, clams with thai basil, bird chili and 5 spice powder, head-on shrimp, fried oysters, asparagus with clams, ferns with glass eel, steamed crabs, fish miso soup, fried rice and noodles. The meal ended with ripe cherry tomatoes that we dipped in a sweet flavored sugar that I was told was "plum powder". This was one of the most memorable evenings on the trip - fun companions, excellent food and good spirits all around.

The next morning we walked around downtown Kaohsiung, just taking in the city before once again boarding a train to Tainan and the resort where the wedding would take place. Here is a Phineas' eye view of Kaohsiung:

The park and school across from our hotel.
Parking

Typical City Street Scene

Supporting local businesses

Asia II: Taipei, Taiwan

Taipei 101: Stalk of bamboo or Chinese take out cartons?

We only had about 36 hours in Taipei, but we made it a very packed 36 hours, hitting most of the major sights and continuing with our theme of walking our a**es off and eating.

We arrived late in the day and only had time for dinner the first night. Mandie took us to a juk bar for dinner - a real late night, post-clubbing spot where you get your bowl of juk and order (by pointing) any number of meat, veg or fish add-ins which are heated and brought to your table. Comfort food at its best.

The next day:
9am - The National Palace Museum
We were in time for an English tour of this largest collection of Chinese art and artifact in theworld. The collection was basically brought from the Forbidden City to Taiwan because of war and then the communist revoluion. My favorite item, "The Meat Shaped Stone", is a piece of agate carved to look like a hunk of fatty pork - exactly like something Phineas' family cooks!



11.30am - Baoan Temple - Built in 1805, this Taoist temple is one of the leading religious sites in Taipei. The temple's main deitiy id the emperor Baosheng, the god of medicine.



1pm - Taipei 101 - The tallest building in the world. It was supposed to look like a stalk of bamboo, but the running joke is that it looks like a stack of Chinese take-out boxes. The locals have created a hero called the Damper Baby in honor of the 4 story concrete damper that allows the building to withstand typhoons and earthquakes.

Me and Damper Baby

3pm - Sun Yat Sen Memorial - eh. Its a building that looks like a hat with a large statue inside.

A hat, no?

5pm - Back at our hotel for some relaxation. That might seem odd since we had so little time in Taipe, but it would have been a shame not to enjoy the 32 inch plasma tv in the jacuzzi , which had its own lighting and sound system too. The funniest part of our ultra-modern room, was the "hands free" toilet, which had a hydraulic lid and seat, so you never had to lift it yourself.

8.30pm - Chang Kai Check Memorial and Dinner - Excellent view of another building that looked like a hat, and then excellent soup dumplings. (Sorry, none of my photos came out since it was night.)

11pm - Shilin Night Market - This is one enormous night bazaar with vendors selling all kinds of gadgets and baubles. There are also tons of food vendors selling all manner of fried nibbles. Mandie wasn't kidding when she said we would recognize the Taiwanese delicacy, "Stinky tofu", by it's potent smell. We could smell it for blocks, but never actually found anyone selling it.

The next morning we visited Longshan Temple, dedicated to Guanyin (the Buddhist representation of compassion), and then left Taipei for the south of Taiwan.