Maximum Octopus
Hmm, Hong Kong was a little while ago- let’s see what I can dig up from the old brain bucket.
I remember my foot hurting a lot. That was kind of a leitmotif of my personal experience. At one point I attempted to remedy the situation by shopping for shoes, but that apparently wasn’t enough as it turns out I had to buy them to enjoy any lasting benefits. And that certainly wasn’t going to happen as they averaged $600 Hong Kong Dollars, which, if I bothered to do the conversion, would no doubt be exorbitant.
Lucky for me and my right foot, Hong Kong is one of the easiest towns/ former British Protectorates to get around. The underground system is cheap and well integrated with an even cheaper boat and ferry system and you can pay for everything effortlessly with a little bit of magic they call the Octopus Card. It’s a refundable charge card that you touch anywhere that has a little Octopus Card scanner (sadly, not really all that octopus-shaped) and it lets you do whatever you wanted to do, be it ride a ferry, ride the subway, or blow your transportation allowance on iced tea and souvenir lighters at 7-11. With the Octopus card, the world is your oyster… being ripped apart by an octopus so you can eat it. “But Ezra, what if I don’t like oysters?” you ask. Ah, then you should’ve come with us to dim sum at Maxim’s (unaffiliated both with the mostly non-pornographic men’s interests magazine and the concept of inspirational aphorisms stuck to cubicles to keep office workers from killing themselves).
Ah dim sum, roughly translated from Chinese as “a light meal for an anorexic bird.” Lunch at Maxim’s in HK City Hall was my first successful dim sum meal, but after talking with Fay and Peter we agreed that a large part of having dim sum was in fact not being able to have dim sum. The restaurant is often closed, or no longer serving, or too expensive, or on fire. It’s always something. But at Maxim’s everything was perfect. The four of us were seated promptly and we put in our drink orders. Since I always shoot for the weirdest beverage on the menu I got a hot cup of longan and red date juice. It was kind of like drinking steaming honey with chewy pieces on the bottom. Surprisingly satisfying. Then for the next hour or so we get asked if we want to eat something from one of the servers’ smoking cart. But the best thing is how the server will reinitiate the conversation after we say no. The dialogue goes something like this:
Server: Hello. You want shrimp?
Us: No, thank you.
Server: Okay. (Pause) Hello. You want pork?
It turns out this was a great tactic, since as you may or may not already know, Sarah now loves pork, largely because she can’t get it where we’re living in Malaysia. Through the same effect, I now love women who aren’t covering their hair and being able to drive on the right side of the road (haven’t been able to do much about that last one… the British carved out an impressive chunk of the world on which to plant their road signs). Of course, while my loves may be fleeting, Sarah was completely justified in her obsession with the other white meat. BBQ Pork Buns= delicious and we fill up on several orders of them, along with spring rolls, dumplings, and other things with things in ‘em. Dim sum gets the job if you want to eat a lot of different things and have people say hello to you several hundred times. Thumbs up.
Continuing the reviews, I give a palm up, thumb and forefinger touching to the giant metal Buddha at Tan Tian. It was really, really big. Maybe the biggest giant metal Buddha I’ve ever seen. Top 10 at least.
Top 10 other things I saw, did, and heard in Hong Kong:
10. On the urinal “Please enjoy your drink!” I don’t know who(m) it was talking to or what kind of drink it was. I hope it wasn’t for me, since I don’t remember any drink nor any enjoyment.
9. There was this great hard hat area sign that looked like this. I think it meant “the things that hit us in the head tell us where to go.”
8. From a menu: “Food can be light, medium, burning, very burning, or non-spicy.” I had the burning and it was. I also like that the last option has the possibility to transcend spicy.
7. There was a legal movie store near the place where we stayed. I didn’t know it was legal until after I went in there and the merchandise was shrink wrapped instead of photo-copied. The store was also notable for its choice of video showing on the street. The first three times we walked by they were playing Madonna in concert singing “Isla Bonita.” Why? Did they not know that she had other songs? Did they not realize that as a movie store they had access to several other videos? Did they not understand that their DVD player could show other things if given the chance?
6. Fay’s friend (and Hong Kong native) Lara brought us to a BBQ on the beach. One of the friend of a friends there was an Indian studying in Ireland, so he had a wicked Irish lilt. He… um… talked about seeing some things in Bangkok that I’m pretty sure I’m not going to try to see, let alone pay money for.
5. Everything was really expensive compared to Thailand, where we are now.
4. That last point shouldn’t really belong on the list, as it wasn’t a good thing. Definitely not top 10 material.
3. That last point shouldn’t really be there either, since it was a clarification. And this point probably doesn’t belong either.
2. Nope, it didn’t. Crap. Okay, finish strong.
1. I really miss my Octopus card.
I remember my foot hurting a lot. That was kind of a leitmotif of my personal experience. At one point I attempted to remedy the situation by shopping for shoes, but that apparently wasn’t enough as it turns out I had to buy them to enjoy any lasting benefits. And that certainly wasn’t going to happen as they averaged $600 Hong Kong Dollars, which, if I bothered to do the conversion, would no doubt be exorbitant.
Lucky for me and my right foot, Hong Kong is one of the easiest towns/ former British Protectorates to get around. The underground system is cheap and well integrated with an even cheaper boat and ferry system and you can pay for everything effortlessly with a little bit of magic they call the Octopus Card. It’s a refundable charge card that you touch anywhere that has a little Octopus Card scanner (sadly, not really all that octopus-shaped) and it lets you do whatever you wanted to do, be it ride a ferry, ride the subway, or blow your transportation allowance on iced tea and souvenir lighters at 7-11. With the Octopus card, the world is your oyster… being ripped apart by an octopus so you can eat it. “But Ezra, what if I don’t like oysters?” you ask. Ah, then you should’ve come with us to dim sum at Maxim’s (unaffiliated both with the mostly non-pornographic men’s interests magazine and the concept of inspirational aphorisms stuck to cubicles to keep office workers from killing themselves).
Ah dim sum, roughly translated from Chinese as “a light meal for an anorexic bird.” Lunch at Maxim’s in HK City Hall was my first successful dim sum meal, but after talking with Fay and Peter we agreed that a large part of having dim sum was in fact not being able to have dim sum. The restaurant is often closed, or no longer serving, or too expensive, or on fire. It’s always something. But at Maxim’s everything was perfect. The four of us were seated promptly and we put in our drink orders. Since I always shoot for the weirdest beverage on the menu I got a hot cup of longan and red date juice. It was kind of like drinking steaming honey with chewy pieces on the bottom. Surprisingly satisfying. Then for the next hour or so we get asked if we want to eat something from one of the servers’ smoking cart. But the best thing is how the server will reinitiate the conversation after we say no. The dialogue goes something like this:
Server: Hello. You want shrimp?
Us: No, thank you.
Server: Okay. (Pause) Hello. You want pork?
It turns out this was a great tactic, since as you may or may not already know, Sarah now loves pork, largely because she can’t get it where we’re living in Malaysia. Through the same effect, I now love women who aren’t covering their hair and being able to drive on the right side of the road (haven’t been able to do much about that last one… the British carved out an impressive chunk of the world on which to plant their road signs). Of course, while my loves may be fleeting, Sarah was completely justified in her obsession with the other white meat. BBQ Pork Buns= delicious and we fill up on several orders of them, along with spring rolls, dumplings, and other things with things in ‘em. Dim sum gets the job if you want to eat a lot of different things and have people say hello to you several hundred times. Thumbs up.
Continuing the reviews, I give a palm up, thumb and forefinger touching to the giant metal Buddha at Tan Tian. It was really, really big. Maybe the biggest giant metal Buddha I’ve ever seen. Top 10 at least.
Top 10 other things I saw, did, and heard in Hong Kong:
10. On the urinal “Please enjoy your drink!” I don’t know who(m) it was talking to or what kind of drink it was. I hope it wasn’t for me, since I don’t remember any drink nor any enjoyment.
9. There was this great hard hat area sign that looked like this. I think it meant “the things that hit us in the head tell us where to go.”
8. From a menu: “Food can be light, medium, burning, very burning, or non-spicy.” I had the burning and it was. I also like that the last option has the possibility to transcend spicy.
7. There was a legal movie store near the place where we stayed. I didn’t know it was legal until after I went in there and the merchandise was shrink wrapped instead of photo-copied. The store was also notable for its choice of video showing on the street. The first three times we walked by they were playing Madonna in concert singing “Isla Bonita.” Why? Did they not know that she had other songs? Did they not realize that as a movie store they had access to several other videos? Did they not understand that their DVD player could show other things if given the chance?
6. Fay’s friend (and Hong Kong native) Lara brought us to a BBQ on the beach. One of the friend of a friends there was an Indian studying in Ireland, so he had a wicked Irish lilt. He… um… talked about seeing some things in Bangkok that I’m pretty sure I’m not going to try to see, let alone pay money for.
5. Everything was really expensive compared to Thailand, where we are now.
4. That last point shouldn’t really belong on the list, as it wasn’t a good thing. Definitely not top 10 material.
3. That last point shouldn’t really be there either, since it was a clarification. And this point probably doesn’t belong either.
2. Nope, it didn’t. Crap. Okay, finish strong.
1. I really miss my Octopus card.
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