Category: 2006-11: SIN, HKG & TPE

Thanks to two friends, I got to try Shanghai Hairy Crabs for the first time. Homemade no less! So, yes, this was my first time sucking (out the meat) and licking (the gold out of) hairy crabs. You may stop laughing now…I’m talking about food here!
Shanghai hairy crabs (technically the Chinese mitten crab) are a delicacy during the autumn months. When I was in Hong Kong in November, that happened to be toward the end of the season and when I was asked if I’d like to have hairy crab for dinner at a fren’s house, I said, “you betcha!”

Food porn. Bound. Restrained. Steamy. I’m stopping now.
Now, mind you, prior to this, I’ve never had hairy crabs before. I was told there’d be a lot of licking and sucking involved. And they were right! There’s a ritual in cracking open one of these hairy buggers. First, you twist off the legs and use your chopstick to poke the meat through, like typical crab legs. Then you take the crab body, flip open the nose (like a coke can tab), peel the shell off and lick and suck your way through. If you’re good at dismembering your hairy crab, the shell should come off in one piece, forming a bowl. The gold part (the roe) lining the inside is especially decadent. I think I fulfilled my cholesterol quota for the rest of the year devouring that golden stuff. Don’t eat the intestines, lungs or brains cuz it’s bad.

If you do it right, this is how it winds up looking like.
And it was so good, I had another! That’s right, I had two at once! So that would be like a threesome! WAHAHAHAH!
That’s enough innuendo for the year. But wait, the year begins anew next week! Talk about planning!

When you make it here and you wind up on the Tram, make sure to go upstairs and sit at the very front of the car. You get to see views like this.

Somewhere in Wan Chai…

So fast fast

Orchard Road in Singapore gets all blinky and bright during the Christmas season.

Lots o’ lights here!


People always in a hurry…

You can make a tree lidat with cocktail glasses, vodka and some food colouring!
It’s one of the few places I’ve been recently where they still say “Merry Christmas”. However, snowmen and trees in 30+ degree weather is, for me, odd. That’s 30 degrees CELSIUS!
Then I think of Australians and their Xmas summer…

On 1 December, between my flights arriving from Taipei and going out to San Francisco, I paid the old Star Ferry Central Piers a final visit. They’re being demolished to make way for reclaimed land. Their replacement, the new Central Piers are a good 300 meters and 15 minutes away (I timed it!). They shouldn’t even call it “Central” as the out of the way location of the piers will deter many regular commuters from riding the Star Ferry. For the longest time, the Star Ferry was the only way across the harbour. I’ll bet that most of the people in Hong Kong have ridden the Star Ferry and more than a few have a story or two about it.

Remembering an old friend…

Continue reading “Memories of an icon”

This has been a hard travel day so far.
Of course, this day will involve close to 20 hours of flying/flying related time and involves time travel (arriving earlier than I left on the same day!), that makes it even more difficult.
So here is how the first leg of this latest “Longest Day” began:
First off, I had to cross the street to catch the “express basi” that goes to Taipei Taoyuan Airport (the airport formerly known as CKS). Dun sound too bad, right? Wrong! Signage is scarce, but after 20 minutes of stress and searching, I find the exit from the Taipei Railway Station MRT that brings me to the basi terminal (it’s exit 9 out of the mall, in case any of you were wondering). Take the lift to the surface before you hit exit 9 because it’s all stairs.
And then I promptly pass out on the basi, waking up in time when we arrive at Terminal 1. Check in, passport control and duty free shopping pass as usual. Then I walk onto the plane and take my seat. Routine flight, right?
WRONG AGAIN. Our departure time comes and goes while we have the flight crew AND the ground staff running up and down the aisles with clickers, noting seats and clicking away. It seems that we have a missing passenger who checked bags.

You may now begin paranoid thoughts about bad guys and explosions.
The CX crew does a head count again. One missing. They identify the missing passenger and pull its bags off the plane. Sure enough the moment they finish that, the cow shows up, claiming that she got “lost” on her way to the gate.
Now a clarification on my use of the word “cow” in the last sentence. Imagine a taai-taai gone bad. Very bad. In both taste and in weight. Well, that’s how our errant passenger looked like. And as she hustled on the plane, escorted by three CX staff, the amount of dirty looks she got from the now-delayed passengers who were staring daggers would have seriously wounded her. I think the CX staff were there to protect her; if she strolled in by herself, she would have been beaten up by most of the plane.
We finally go wheels up enroute to HKG 1.5 hours late. In other words, we leave TPE when we were supposed to be landing in HKG. I’ve got stuff to do on my layover and losing close to two hours ain’t gonna help!

Christine and I, after our adventures in the country (which ended with me drinking a lot of moonshine, passing out and snoring loudly) made it back safely to Taipei straight to the open doors of Din Tai Fung #1. This is THE original shop which, due to a very busy November with lots of guests, Christine has been to FIVE times this month.

“This is the fifth time I’ve been here this month”
Because of the late lunch (or early dinner because of the quantity of food), we had supper as I tried to snap out of my moonshine induced blurness. We found out that we could order half servings which fit us perfectly.

Gotta have xiaolongbao! And I even remembered how to eat it correctly!
What else can I say? This is a Din Tai Fung, the soup inside was at just the right temperature, the skins were not too thick and had the prerequisite number of folds on them. In short, heaven!

Christine ordered dumplings with greens inside. Healthy…

These are itty bitty red bean dessert-type dumplings.
Unlike the Din Tai Fung branches I’ve run into in Singapore, which are more fancy and swish, Din Tai Fung #1 feels more like a modern yum cha place. Seems appropriate considering the cuisine served which is unpretentious and down to earth.

This is where the good xiaolongbaos are!
Of course, after eating various dumplings and downing at least a liter’s worth of tea, it was now time for dessert. Down the street from Din Tai Fung is a neat little place called Ice Monster.

This is the original shop…
They have a silly website (watch with the sound on) but the mango was very fresh and the desserts were hella refreshing. It was a perfect end to a busy day, sitting with dessert while watching the people walk/drive/ride scooters by. After this, it was time to head home. One of us had to work at 0800 the next day and the other had to leave for TPE for a long flight back to SFO via HKG. You figure out who had to do what the next day…

Mmmmm…dessert!
Din Tai Fung
194 Xinyi Road Sec. 2
Da-an District
Taipei City, Taiwan
(02) 2321-8928
Ice Monster
15 Yongkang Street
Da-an District
Taipei City, Taiwan
(02) 2394-8279

On my last day in Taipei, my friend and Taipei native Christine invited me for a drive outside of the city for lunch at a “bed and breakfast near the beach”. I thought, sure why not? It would be nice to see how the countryside looks since Taiwan is supposed to be pretty scenic. And from what “scenery” I saw in Taipei, I thought that outside should be just as amazing.
So we drove up with a bunch of Christine’s friends, one of who was a magazine writer and our contact with the establishment that we were driving up to. We were the third car in a three car convoy that wound up driving out of Taipei and (eventually) up a mountain. The people in front were using the Force to navigate instead of one of those handy dandy GPS units, which would had been more appropriate, I think.
Eventually we found the place. It wasn’t really a bed and breakfast, but rather an organic farm/restaurant in the countryside. Of course, Christine came dressed for a “bed and breakfast” meal and I came in sandals appropriate for the beach.

Stylish but not really weather wise
Of course, all this was moot, since it was RAINING! Clouds all around. Wind whipped storm. And the like. And lunch wasn’t ready. So the owner of the restaurant suggested that we check out the nearby peak where you could get a view of the ocean. Keep in mind that it’s raining and a storm front was going through quickly. So we drove up single lane roads. Scary drops and no guardrails. Before we reached the end of the road and hiked up a hill, umbrellas in tow to the top.

The clouds broke just enough for us to catch a glimpse of the ocean

It almost looks like a painting. It was hella windy and wet, I tell ya!

This is how it looks like when you remove the rain and clouds
Eventually it was time to go back because lunch was ready. So how to go back? Naturally, you go back the way you came. On one lane roads.
Right click here for 13 MB video because it won’t upload right to YouTube (not ready yet)

Imagine 25 minutes of this. And this was coming DOWN the mountain. In the rain. In some spots, the rain cleared up enough so that some of the local wildlife came out. We drove past this big fellas’ friend so we slowed down, rolled down the window and took his picture.

Bloody tourists…
Eventually, we made it back to the compound where, at 1545 or so, we sat down to a full Chinese banquet, although we didn’t know it at the time. We thought it would just be “lunch”. The meal began with toasts and drinking of wine coolers, beer and some homemade witches’ brew that was allegedly “good for you”.
Last time I heard an explanation like that, my grandmother was trying to get me to drink some mystery soup that was black like an oil spill and had mysterious bits in it.
Christine theorized that it was a liquor (yup) with a rice base, like sake. However, what gave it its amber color? What else was in it? No one was telling. I can tell you that we went through (in no particular order): two veggie dishes, a very fresh chicken, little crispy shrimp, fish cakes and a fresh fish. Also more beer and moonshine. A lot more. When the part of the meal came for KTV, Christine and I beat retreat by pointing to the sky (it was dark now) and telling our hosts that we had to head back to the city.
Now I do remember climbing into Christine’s truck and her lowering the seat back for me. I don’t remember the next 90 minutes as we drove back to Taipei. She said I was out like a light, snoring all the way back. I don’t recall that…but I do remember waking up about 6 minutes out from Din Tai Fung. Wah, what timing!

Generally, I dislike advertising, unless it’s done right, like in Taipei. Like this!

Now what are they selling? Some hair product, I think.
UPDATE: Here’s a site featuring Moe, the model in the advert! Just click on the kana in the middle of the page! And here’s her official website! Waaaaah…

Back in August, I visited the Petronas Towers which was the tallest building in the world prior to the completion of Taipei 101 in 2004.

It doesn’t look tall but it really is!
Unlike Petronas, which only takes you up to the skybridge midway up, Taipei 101 takes you up to the 89th floor which is closer to the top. 89 stories is hella high! From that height, everything looks like small landscape models.

People live down there…
There’s also a recently opened outdoor observation deck on the 91st floor. When I went up there, it was hella windy and there was a storm moving in. But it was neat to be up that high and outside.

Floors 92-101 are for VIP events. Not VI yet so couldn’t go up…

I thought Singapore had all the rules!
Taipei 101 also has the world’s fastest elevators which are pressurized because they get you to the top in under 40 seconds going 37.5 MPH. If they weren’t pressurized, your ears would really pop. And you’d probably get sick too…

Everything you’ve ever wanted to know about fast elevators
Like Petronas, Taipei 101 has about six floors of mall at the base filled with high end stores, so you can spend a lot of time (and money) here. The food court here is very good and the prices are decent. One difference between these two landmarks is that going up to the Petronas skybridge is free and there’s no outdoor deck. Taipei 101 charges NT$350 to the main observation deck and another NT$100 to go up to the outdoor deck. But it was worth it! From the observation deck, you get a commanding view of the entire city. Cool!

So there I was in Taipei last night, waiting for a cross-town basi to get me back to the hostel since the MRT shuts down at midnight.
Waiting 35 minutes in the rain.
Then the 203 Basi comes into view…
and ROARS by at full speed, right past me and the basi stop. Frakkin’ basi!!!
Wound up taking a taxi back, NT$220 I could have spent on drinks and food!!
I dun like basi…!