Tuesday, November 2, 2010

How are people not fat in Hong Kong?

IMG_0356_s
Dim sum.

Seriously. People are eating at all hours of the day/night here. The above image is from dim sum yesterday. We met up with my mom's brother who lives in Kowloon and my aunt Dennies from San Francisco (she is here on business). This was around 2pm in a giant restaurant in Kowloon. The entire place was packed when we got there at 1.30pm. We stayed til around 3pm and there was a never ending revolution of people coming in and out. Don't anyone have to work in Hong Kong? The joke about Hong Kong is that there is nothing to do but eat and go shopping. Which is so true. There are so many malls in Hong Kong it's not even funny.

I don't know how people can eat congee and noodles for breakfast. I mean, I do. I use to be able to when I was younger. I wouldn't eat American breakfast. Then I went to college and started eating more American breakfast (like I had a choice in Alfred, NY!). Now I can't eat Chinese breakfast anymore.

IMG_0367_s
Typical Hong Kong breakfast- congee and a side of (I don't know what it's called in English).

The breakfast in all the hotels we stayed at in China had food similar to this, but also- fried rice, choy, noodles, etc. HOW IS THIS BREAKFAST? It's too heavy.

IMG_0344_s
Rice noodles with beef and fried fish skin.

We can't get fried fish skin in the states (the plate on the right). I don't think the type of fish they use can be found in the states. It's really good. This is the brunch I had the morning after the day we arrived in Hong Kong.

IMG_0472_s
Macaroni in soup is also a popular breakfast item in HK.

A breakfast combo at a place we just ate at. Main, side, coffee or tea. There were 5 different combos with similar things. I got a....Chinese style steak sandwich. Honestly, I don't know how people aren't fat here eating all this food. It's a lot of food too. I haven't seen any fat people in Hong Kong. Everyone is pretty normal, or skinny.

These types of places are "extremely" cheap too. The above combo costs $22 HKD which comes out to around $3 USD. My steak sandwich/coffee combo was $20 HKD.

Man, people live relaxed lives here.

Monday, November 1, 2010

China!

20101025_changsha008

China was amazing. Spent 6 days traveling in Hunan Provence between the cities of Changsha, Fenghaung and Zhangjaijie. I took +700 plus photos. It's going to take a bit to edit them and post. I would like to host a few slide show parties to show the photos to my friends when I get back so I will not be posting the majority of the photos until after I do that.



Somewhere between Changsha and Fenghuang.



A foot massage place in Zhangjaijie. A literal translation to English gone horribly wrong.


HOLY FUCK
The mountains of Zhangjaijie. The inspiration for the world in the movie Avatar. Spectacular. One of the most amazing things I've seen with my eyes. Expect a lot of photos of this place in the near future.


far away
Zhangjaijie day 1. This is a natural hole in the rock.

close up
Up close, they built a stairway to the top. This is way more massive than the photo shows. Honestly, the scope of this place is hard to imagine unless you are there in person.


skillful dodger
Zhangjaijie day 2. Even more spectacular views this day. There are girls dressed in traditional outfits at certain viewing points that will allow you to take photos of/with them if you pay them 10 yuan. As you can tell, the girls are very perspective of people with cameras. She expertly dodged my shot. I wasn't even that close to her but she knew instinctively when I pressed my shutter. Amazing.

Trip was great. Went with my mom and dad and a group of like 18 of my mom's friends so everyone was happy and joking around. There were only 4 people in our tour group that were strangers to us.

I have so much to say about China- they will be put into words after the slideshows to my friends.