The more observant among you may have noticed a new tab up at the top there. Of course, the more observant among you may also be using an RSS reader and have no earthly idea what I'm talking about. There's a new section, off-blog, for food/dishes/meals I think people might be particularly interested in, but for which I don't want to take up excessive amounts of blog space. More info if you're interested, or you can click on the Food tab at the top of the homepage.
The winner of the cracker-flavor poll, if not the overall tasting, is Ma La Tang (it was close for a while, but I got another offline vote that put the result beyond doubt). Tasting has begun, but has been suspended for a few days as I have more family members in town keeping me fed like a paté-bound goose. No room for crackers right now. Thanks to all of those who cast a vote, and hopefully I won't be keeping you in suspense too long! [By the way, I really wanted to title this post, "Yes, I have an addiction" but I was afraid there weren't enough Dexter fans out there to get the reference.] The good thing about getting to book sales late in the day is that they tend to slash the prices. In this case, the sign outside the book-sale room said things were 50% off. When I got inside, I was told that actually, they were at the "fill a [shopping] basket for RMB20" stage. RMB20! That's less than US$3, even with the falling exchange rate! I probably would have paid RMB20 for just two of the books I picked up -- (Jonathan Franzen's The Corrections and Jon Stewart's Naked Pictures of Famous People), so really, it was like everything else was free. Talk about being enabled! Almost a full month later, video of the New Year's madness is finally up. I didn't mean to keep everyone in suspense for so long, but it was taking me hours to upload each video (most of which will play for you in under two minutes!). Also, I have to apologize for the video quality, but will explain/forewarn you that: (a) I shot this with my dinky point-and-shoot camera, (b) it was the first time I'd used the video function on said camera, and (c) as you'll see, I had a hard time breaking the still-photography habit of being able to switch from portrait to landscape (vertical/horiz) and back, but (d) attempting to edit nearly crashed my computer. So sorry about that. It shouldn't make you dizzy or anything... :) No, I don't; I just think it would be really fun to be able to say that. So I can't, but thousands of people in Hong Kong can. See, Shanghai is flat, flat, flat, but Hong Kong... Hong Kong has some steep hills. To explain: the south side of Hong Kong Island features mountains, the most prominent (and developed) of which is Victoria Peak. Some very rich people live at the top of the Peak. A number of moderately rich people live about halfway down the Peak, in what's called Mid-Levels. Many of these people work in downtown Hong Kong, on the north side of the island, near the harbor, meaning where things are flat. The subway travels mostly east-west on this flat part, so the north-south (or high-low) commuters have a different mode of transportation: escalator (that's it to the right of the guardrail in the photo below). A handful of escalators -- some of them are actually inclined travellators (no stairs) -- cover major routes from Mid-Levels to downtown (they're not on every street, just a few). The escalators have regular breaks at the cross streets, so you can get on or off at almost any intersection. Stairs and/or sloped pavement run alongside, for people going the opposite direction or those who like to step off the electric path (or, as in at least one case that I saw, the extraordinarily fitness-crazed). In the morning, the escalators run downhill. From about 10 or 11am on (I forget exactly), they run uphill. Which basically means that if you have a reverse commute, you're getting some good exercise. Well, it's been a while since the Mr Chips fiasco, and I've decided that in the name of frivolous and possibly masochistic blogging, it's time to continue my search for a good packaged salty snack. This "vegetable snack" cracker seems to be both ubiquitous and cheap, so I've assembled the following flavors for sampling: (clockwise from top left) Pizza, Cherry Tomato, Tomato, Hot Welsh Onion, Cumin, and Shrimp Salad. Why don't we have these in the States? Wait, do we have them in the States? I've never seen one. It's a coin-operated mobile-phone recharger, with all different kinds of jacks provided. I saw this one at the Shanghai airport. I can't tell you how many times I've been away from home (and charger) and just needed an extra half hour of juice (OK, so I don't always practice proper phone care - but I know I'm not the only one!). After all of my moaning and groaning about winter and snow, it only seemed fair to share with you that Shanghai is now sunny, snow-free, and, dare I say it, almost warm! I haven't shelved my winter coat entirely, as it's still down in the low 30s at night, but my daytime walks are far more pleasant these days. |
Huh?No, I haven't seen the movie, and yes, I chose the name anyway. I'm told an Asian woman with green eyes is a plot point. Archives
July 2011
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