Doing an online transaction, placing a classified ad.

I placed the ad.

I uploaded pictures.

I entered payment information.  Click on confirm.  Taken to HSBC “verified by Visa” web site.

“Sorry, we do not support the browser version that you are using.

Please download and install a correct version of browser before using Verified by Visa.”

I’m using FireFox 3.5.3 for fuck’s sake.

I’m 55 years old and I’ve never had an Xmas tree.  Not terribly surprising, I’m a Jewish atheist. And depending on my mood, symbols of Christianity, especially the Roman Catholic church, can serve as reminders of close to 2,000 years of Christians oppressing and murdering Jews.  Okay, that’s a bit heavy-handed on my part.  At any rate, while I no longer believe in the Jewish religion, Jewish culture is deeply ingrained within me.

Last year, my gf never mentioned putting up any Xmas decorations in the house.  This year, far more secure in the relationship, she’s demanding a Christmas tree.  And as much as I don’t care for the idea, if this is “our” house and not just mine, then I think I have to respect her wishes.   And maybe I can sneak a few Jewish ornaments onto the tree – if such things exist in Hong Kong.  (One year a relative actually installed one of these in her home and we decided we’d call it a Hanukkah Bush.)

She doesn’t want to wait until the week before Xmas to get the tree, she wants to get it ASAP – presumably so it can die long before the actual holiday.  (Unless we go for a fake one?)  But I have no idea where to get such a beast.  Where does one buy Xmas trees in HK?

While I have no interest in the Christian religion, I do enjoy good historical documentaries and the BBC makes some of the best.  So we’ve been watching A History of Christianity, presented by Oxford professor Diarmaid MacCulloch.  The first episode of this six-part series traces the development of Eastern churches, which apparently reached all the way into central China by the 7th century (and then all but disappeared by the 9th).   The second episode traces the rise of the Catholic church and how Rome, the center of the empire that killed the Christ and then proceeded to persecute and kill Christians for 300 years, ended up becoming the religious center of the world for more than a billion of them.

I like the facts and figures behind this, the demystification, the straight-forward presentation of historical events – actual events, not myths or fables.  MacCulloch, who to my eyes looks more than a bit like Randy Newman, gets to wander all over the world and you get that great BBC documentary photography, itself worth the price of admission.  But some of the info is quite dry and the editors attempt to jazz it up with all sorts of tricks – from MacCulloch sitting in a pub hoisting a pint while discussing a topic to quick cutting between lovely travelogue shots of people in markets or boats in harbors while he’s talking.   As a matter of opinion, the material presented isn’t merely dry, it’s presented in a somewhat disorganized, scattershot fashion.  I suspect it’s better presented in the accompanying book and I might be tempted to pick it up.

I don’t suppose the BBC would ever produce a “History of the Jews” series (or have they already done so?) but I think such a series would also make engrossing viewing – tracing the path of the Jewish people across Europe and Asia for almost 2,000 years, Israel, the Inquisition and so on.  By the time I’ve finished watching MacCulloch’s series I’ll probably know more about Christianity than I know about Judaism.

First, two bits of “meta.”  Maybe all of this should be sorted out into separate posts, it probably defies all SEO theory, but that’s me for ya.

Do you have a mobile phone?  Try Hongkietown on your phone’s browser.  I’ve installed a plugin that gives the blog a different interface on mobile phones – for each post the title, date, categories and number of comments.  It loads really fast.

Archives – some people in the past have mentioned to me that they archived my old blog.  I thought I had, too, but in going through things this weekend, I noticed there are some big gaps in the April – June 2006 period.  If any of you do have archives and would be willing to send to me, I’d be grateful.

Sitting here listening to The Complete Tony Bennett / Bill Evans Recordings. I’m sure there are other recordings of this caliber out there that aren’t coming to mind, but this remains a relatively unique experience – the pairing of one of the all-time best pop singers with one of the all-time best jazz pianists – and just voice and piano, no band, no orchestra, purity.  You can focus in on Bennett’s amazing tone and phrasing or Evans’ keyboards – not just succinct and meaningful solos but the way his accompaniment loops under and around Bennett, complementing the singing rather than distracting from it.  This collection features their two albums together (1973 and 1977) along with various alternate takes.

iTunes – sigh.  If you wanna buy something on iTunes or even download a free update for an iPhone app, of course you’ve gotta enter your account ID and password.  And there’s a check box for “remember my password.”  And it simply doesn’t work.  iTunes almost always asks for my password – even for the free stuff – even during the same session.  This used to work fine before Version 9.  I’m on 9.0.2.25 at the moment, still waiting for them to fix this.

I’m feeling a bit frustrated today.  My car has now been for sale for two months and no serious nibbles at all.  Ads are currently on European Motors’ web site (and they’ve put some text ads in the SCMP), GeoXpat and Car8.com.  Good photos (and it’s a sharp looking car, convertible with 19 inch wheels, front back & side body kits) and an asking price well within the current market range.  Conventional wisdom has it that no one’s interested because the car is white.   Actually I didn’t want a white car either, but when I was shopping this was the only BMW 330 convertible I could find within my price range.  Any suggestions for other web sites to try?  If there’s no movement by the end of the year, I’m going to have to start taking it around to used car dealers and will have to settle for significantly less than I’d get via private sale.   Yes, I’ve had my share of problems with it, but it’s running well these days, been recently serviced, lots of parts replaced, etc.   As I said, feeling frustrated.

Someone sent me an invite for Google Wave and I accepted.  But I confess, I haven’t paid any attention to it up till now and I have no idea what to do with it.

The SCMP reports today that a new study by scientists in Norway has determined that Hong Kong’s per capita carbon footprint is the 2nd highest in the world (Luxembourg “wins”).  28 percent of HK’s 29 tons per capita comes from clothing, especially leather goods, imported from the mainland – much of which is simply passing through Hong Kong on its way to some other place.  The fact that Hong Kong is relatively small and that most goods used here are imported also factors in heavily.  One of the authors of the paper says that a key way that Hong Kong could reduce emissions would be to “ensure that it is supplied by clean power sources.”

In a related article, a survey finds that 70% of HK people believe that the government lacks commitment to improving air quality.  The big question is, who are those other 30% and what drugs are they taking?   And 90% of those polled thought that Hong Kong’s air quality is “poor” – again, who are those other 10%?

What’s a “snakehead”?  Another article in the SCMP today notes that, “police detained eight South Asian illegal immigrants off Sai Kung yesterday,” and then goes on to say, “they raced after the speedboat that had dumped the immigrants there, nabbing a 26-year-old mainland snakehead.”  No definition of the term is given in the article. Ah, Wikipedia says it’s a type of Chinese gang involved in human smuggling.  Guess I should have known that.

Here’s a really nice video that someone put together from Friday night’s photo-shoot at PASM:

We don’t know anything about Sri Lankan food but we’ve seen it on TV.  Bourdain did one episode from Sri Lanka and like most good food travel shows, this made us want to taste the dishes we saw.

So when a friend told me that a new Sri Lankan restaurant had opened for business right in Sai Kung town, we were eager to give it a try.  The name of the restaurant is AJ’s Sri Lankan Cuisine.  The map on Open Rice isn’t quite accurate here – walk to the end of Sai Kung Hoi Pong Street, make a left and it’s right next to the Sai Kung Wholesale Fish Market and the very popular Sweetheart Dessert.

You can glimpse owner RJ standing in the doorway (the restaurant is named for his son).  RJ used to work at both Anthony’s Catch and Anthony’s Ranch and struck out on his own with his native food about a month ago.  And the restaurant is already a hit – he told us that on Friday and Saturday nights, he’s full.  There’s a couple of tables outside, the main restaurant inside has about 8 tables and out back there’s an outdoor patio with room for 30.

We told RJ that we’d never had Sri Lankan food and would go 100% on his recommendations and he was happy to oblige.  Even better – aside from the 3 dishes we ordered, he brought us 2 extra dishes on the house!

Our first dish was one of the free ones, called Fish Cutlets on the menu, it was minced fish meat and spices covered in flour or batter and deep fried.  Not at all greasy and a nice bit of spice.

(Sadly, the photos to follow won’t be as nice as this one.  Still getting used to the new camera and still dealing with pink eye.)

We followed that up with a dish called String Hoppers.  The menu explained that it’s a popular street food in Sri Lanka, a local variant on pasta mixed with spices, onion, egg and a choice of meat (we went for pork, $69 I think). 

Sorry that the photo’s so crappy, but at least you get some idea of what it looked like – it looks like fried rice, right?  Again, not heavy on the spice but nice flavor as a side dish.

Here’s one of the rotis on the menu, recommended as the best choice with a curry.  Very different from a Malaysian roti, it was light and fluffy and indeed went well with the curry.

We went for a beef curry ($49) – just a curry in a bowl, nothing special worth photographing.  We’d asked for medium spice and I found it was well within the limit of what I could handle (might be brave and ask him to go all the way next time).  The curry itself was thinner than Indian curries I’ve had but quite nice and the beef was tender.

To go with it, we had Elephant brand cream soda, imported from Sri Lanka. 

RJ explained to us that he doesn’t have coke or other regular soft drinks yet, so we could feel free to bring our own along next time.

Although we were quite full at this point, he insisted we try the one dessert on the menu, sorry I can’t recall the name but here’s a pink-eyed photo of what it looks like:

The main taste was cinnamon but a mix of other flavors as well.   Very nice.  (If you’re wondering how we managed to get two free courses, no, I didn’t mention BC Magazine.  He was just responding to our curiosity and also our enthusiasm for what we’d eaten.  He seems to be a very friendly guy and I think has a good idea of how to create a base of loyal customers.)

The price of the dinner was $240 (not counting the two free courses, of course).  Never having had Sri Lankan food before, I can’t say how authentic this might have been but everything seemed really well prepared and tasty.  We’ll gladly go back there again and want to work our way through the curries, rotis and other dishes on the menu.

Later on, down by the Sai Kung waterfront, quite busy on a Sunday evening, to be expected with this gorgeous weather, I had to stop and look at these two displays:

Not knowing enough Chinese characters, the first sign seems to be saying stop drugs and bombs – I wasn’t aware that bombs are an issue here but I suppose an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure?  The second sign, peace all?  I can get behind that.

(image nabbed from here)

The NY Times food section today has an article, The Latest Entrepreneurial Fantasy is Selling Cupcakes.   The article is about how cupcake shops have become the new answer for people looking to own their own business, how it’s spreading beyond NY and LA to the rest of the country.  There’s at least one in Hong Kong and judging from his URL, which has “Asia” in it and not “Hong Kong,” he’s got definite future expansion plans.

The article looks at four different kinds of cupcake businesses.  In the 4th type, “the sole bakery,” there’s an interesting economics lesson there.  I think people have this habit of eating out, seeing a restaurant charge $300 for a steak and wonder why the mark-up is so high when they can buy that same steak in the supermarket for $50.  They tend to forget that food cost is just one of many costs that an establishment has to deal with and build into the price of their goods.

Lovely Confections Bakery in Denver charges US$3 per cupcake.  The cost of the ingredients in that cupcake comes out to 60 cents.  So does that mean $2.40 profit on each one?  Hardly.  Add to that, “57 cents on mortgage payments and utilities, 48 cents on labor, 18 cents on packaging and merchant fees, 16 cents on loan repayment, 24 cents for marketing, 18 cents for miscellaneous expenses and 4 cents for insurance. That totals $2.45, leaving a potential profit of 55 cents on each $3 cupcake.”

I’m sure that the exact breakdown wouldn’t work for Hong Kong – rent would be higher, labor lower – but the totals would be pretty darned similar.

I wish that cupcake shops would take off here but they probably won’t for a variety of reasons.  Cupcakes are fondly remembered childhood treats for many westerners, not for locals.  And local taste doesn’t run to very sweet stuff, as the demise of Krispy Kreme in Hong Kong shows.  As far as I’m concerned, all of the local bakery chains in HK suck big wet ones (my helper recently brought back some chocolate cakes from one that has a branch in Sai Kung and to my taste it was very salty and the cake part was too airy) but their on-going success would seem to be proof that they suit local tastes just fine.

Even so, I get frustrated by the fact that other cities in Asia – Tokyo, Singapore, Taipei – offer a far wider variety of western baked goods (and western bakery chains) than Hong Kong.  The few decent (IMHO) bakeries and bread shops we have seem to be limited to the 5 star hotels and expat-heavy districts.   We have two “foreign” bakeries in Sai Kung, Ali-Oli and Mushroom, and to be honest, I like their breads but think their cakes fall pretty far short of the mark as well.

Then again, in terms of keeping my waist-line where it is, in terms of me continuing to fit into the slimmer jeans that I bought on my US trip, it’s probably not a bad thing that I don’t like Hong Kong bakeries.  Less temptation, less weight.

Which reminds me, time to get some dinner soon!

UPDATE:  Just been informed by a shy emailer that there are several cupcake shops in HK.  They’re certainly not in any of the areas that I generally get to.  But maybe there’s one near you – let me know if it’s any good!

I’ve added a new gallery to the Photography page, a selection of my photos from Friday night’s “A Dice of Lesbian Touch” party/photo-shoot at PASM Workshop.  Hope you’ll take a look!

My eyes have been bothering me for more than a week and rather than get better, things have been getting worse.  About half way through last night’s photo shoot, I could barely see through the viewfinder.  I could see how things were framed but was 100% reliant on auto-focus to get things right.  (More photos from the shoot to be posted within a day or so.)  And then, driving home last night, I could make out shapes and lights, I could make out the white lines on the highway, but things were so blurry that I couldn’t read the road signs.

So today, off to Central to see my eye doctor, who told me I’ve got conjunctivitis, or pink eye as it’s sometimes known.  While the antibiotic & steroid eyedrop concoction that he gave me offered some relief immediately, it’s going to take around a week for this to go away.

Since we were in Central and since I knew that Nha Trang had re-opened following their renovation, it was the obvious choice for lunch.  We got there at ten minutes before noon, they don’t open till noon, and by 11:55 there was a sizable line out front.  The doors opened promptly at noon and within 10 minutes, the place was 90% full.   Here’s the new look:

We went for our usual prawn rice noodle roll, I had the banh mi I’ve been dreaming about for weeks and my gf had a dish called “broken rice” that included a perfectly cooked grilled lemongrass porkchop as well as two pieces of a steamed frittata made from eggs and veggies.  I’m quite relieved to report that following the renovation, the food is just as good as it was before.

If you’ve been on Wellington Street, have you ever checked out this building?

Trying to imagine a city filled with buildings that look like this.

Walking around afterwards, we saw that the shops along Pottinger Street were fully stocked with all your Xmas decorating needs.

Walking a bit further west, we came across this loud protest in front of DBS Bank.  Not sure but I think it’s a continuation of the Lehman mini-bond mush.

I discovered that the protesters were eager to be photographed, though almost all of the people happy to pose for me insisted on covering their faces with their protest signs.

And then they all very politely thanked me for taking their photos – perhaps guessing that they’d end up on the internet somewhere.

And then back home, resting my eyes by sitting in front of the PC editing photos and blogging?

Had a lot of fun as always at last night’s party/shoot at PASM.  I’ll be going through the photos later today and making a gallery on my Photography page.  For now, here’s what looks to be my favorite shot from last night.

One of the things I’m grateful about is that there are so many restaurant choices in Sai Kung.  We especially enjoy Cru, Jaspa’s, Anthony’s Ranch.  I think the food at Firenze isn’t bad.  We are saddened by the loss of Indian restaurant Dia, replaced by some sort of “Japanese fusion” thingie.  We’ll do seafood on the waterfront for special occasions.  And there’s lots of tiny, hole in the wall joints that provide nice Asian fare.   There’s still dozens of places we haven’t tried after a year and a half!

But without a doubt, our favorite restaurant can be found a few kilometers down the road at Pak Sha Wan aka Hebe Haven.  It’s called Hebe 101.  It has been there for about a year and a half, occupying the village house that used to be home to the Portuguese restaurant Pousada.   We’ve eaten here many times and have never once been disappointed.

Last night I wanted to go out for a Thanksgiving dinner and decided to ignore my current HK$100 per person budget.  Since I had to be up at 7 the next morning, I wanted something close by.  So we went to Hebe 101.  (There are some nice photos on their web site that show how the ground floor bar area has these huge over-stuffed leather sofas and what seem to be antique steamer trunks for tables.  It’s an incredibly welcoming and relaxing set-up.)

Got there, asked if they were doing a special Thanksgiving menu and was greeted with a blank stare.  Okay, no problems with the regular menu.

We shared a salad as a starter and the salad was terrific.  A prawn salad that cost HK$128 but was the size of a main course, it included about a dozen boiled small-to-medium sized prawns.  And also roasted zucchini and aubergine, fennel, sun-dried tomato, 3 or 4 different bits of lettuce and crumbled goat’s cheese.  The cheese had a strong, creamy flavor that more than made up for the lack of any dressing.

At 8 PM, they were out of roast pork loin so my gf went with her second choice, a seafood pasta ($128).  Several kinds of seafood, cream sauce (“the cream is sooo nice!” she said) and a broad noodle.   Me, on the other hand, I splurged and went for the Australian ribeye steak ($228) – which may not be turkey but was perfectly grilled and full of the kind of flavor you’ll never find in those $100 local steak specials.  I also ordered their herb mashed potatoes (sorry, forgot the price – either $28 or $38?) and don’t ask me what kind of herbs they put in but it was nice, and even better when I dipped a forkful into the mushroom gravy that I got on the side.

We were way too full to even think about dessert – we almost always get their apple crumble, which is a proper crumble and big enough for a family of 4.  Luckily for  my diet, they haven’t worked out a way to do this to go, since it’s baked and served in the same dish, otherwise we’d probably stop there every time we pass by and get one for later.

It was nice to sit at a table outside because the weather was clear and beautiful last night.  Unfortunately, while they’re only a couple of dozen yards away from the water, the “spectacular views” they mention on the web site are only really seen from the rooftop bar.  Our view was limited to the carpark and the cars passing along the main road.   But it was still relaxing to sit there and we agreed that this was the best dinner we’d had in a week or more.

So among the things I had to be thankful for yesterday was the company of my gf and a really nice dinner in a comfortable place.

I hope all of you had an enjoyable Thanksgiving as well!