Dispatch from Maryland

Beautiful pictures L! My friend L met up with my friend Y and her family (Little W and Little A are just adorable!) and went blueberry picking in Maryland this weekend! Oh how I wish I was there... haha, I bet they all left the orchard with big blue smiles at the end!

Big fat blueberries, hmmm, blueberry muffins, blueberry pie, blueberry on top of pinkberry, blueberry sorbet....the possibilities are endless...drooolll..

The before picture...big fat blueberries, you have nowhere to run but our baskets!

Here is little W picking berries (she is such a smart and vivacious little girl!)

And Little A (can't believe he is such a big boy now, when we first met Y, he wasn't even born yet!)

Humans descending on the blueberry field, attention attention, little blueberries, run for your lives! Haha, it's such a nice and healthy way to spend a day with family and friends! Just read an article that blueberries are one of the healthiest fruits out there!

And a ladybuggy joining in the action too!

Tada! Harvest! Mmmm, all the blue goodness...

Alcoholic Congee

Pop quiz: what is this? Congee? Noooo, congee is for babies, for us grownups, we eat alcoholic congee or Jiu Niang (酒釀 or wine fermentation, think that's the translation). It's basically fermented rice (kind of like sake, but not as fermentated I suppose, and sweet too, so it's typically eaten as a dessert).

Oh P, that's your tea, meant to mail out yesterday but overslept and missed post office hours (even worse today, slept from 6am - 5pm, ooopsie, not helping my jetlag)... and L, I got some Asian fashion mags for you at the HK airport, be forewarned, they are almost exactly like the one you read before, even the models are the same, and of course they are all in this perpetual cutsy pose!

Cathay's First Class Review

I got a free upgrade to Cathay's all new first class on my flight from Hong Kong to LA. It was an awesome experience. Here is a tour:

The seat is humongous, I measured, it was like the size of my butt times six! And if you want to have some zzzzs, just press a button, and the seat converts into a roomy flat bed, sooo comfortable!

There is a little flower vase too... awwww... very nice wood trimmings...

If you travel with a companion, they can sit on the spare seat, and you two can chat away!

Each first class cubicle is incredibly roomy and affords great privacy. That's how far the passenger next to me is. I felt kind of guilty sitting there thinking of all the people in coach, it was pretty decadent...Oh yeah, the TV is also enormous and each person gets a personal closet too!

Each passenger also gets a set of pajamas by Shanghai Tang and a set of pretty toiletries! I loved it!

BTW, not shown is the bathroom, much bigger than the typical lavatory and it even has windows! The flight attendant reminded me to close the blinds if I use the restroom while the aircraft is on the ground! Hehe, don't want to get arrested for mooning passengers on other airplanes :-P

In transit in HK...

Ok, I am digressing a little here... let's turn back the clock 24 hours and imagine we are on the other side of the globe...after leaving the airport lounge with the questionable choice of decor, I arrived in HK in the midst of a typhoon and wearing a plastic poncho cuz we didn't have a gate and had to disembark on one of those mobile staircase thingy (with no cover!)... Anyway, afterwards, I decided to shake off the indignation and treat myself to something decidedly classier: sushi and wine at a bar in the HK airport... here my fellow travellers waiting for their flights...

and the chef hard at work...

Tada, my sushi/sashimi combo platter, hmmm, somehow this picture looks fake... like I took a picture of a sushi menu or something... anyway

While eating sushi and sipping on a glass of wine, I played a game of where are they from? Sometimes I like to guess whether a person is Mainland Chinese or HKer or Taiwanese or others... I thought she was Japanese, she had this funky hat on and really funky bangs...usually Chinese people aren't that edgy in terms of their style... and her travel companion looked Japanese through and through... but alas, when she opened her mouth, she had a thick northern Chinese accent!

I thought this family was from Mainland China. But the mom in the group pronounced Mama and Baba in the distinct Taiwanese way, so I was wrong two for two.

After sushi, I went to Cathay's lounge... and had more food... wonton noodle soup...and did some intellectual reading on the latest fashion trends in Asia!

Round the World in 2 1/2 Weeks!

What a day... it started with instant noodles and Chinese herbal drink in an airport lounge with rather questionable choice of decor...

...and ended with champagne caviar and crab salad onboard Cathay Pacific's new first class back to LA. All I have to say is wow, wow, wow, it was awesome! It was the first time I felt better after a flight and I wished it had continued onto NYC so that I could stay onboard a little longer!

Will fill you guys in on the in betweens later... must sleep now... yawn... purrr...

Golf Cart Ride, Wedding Pics and Teppanyaki...

After having dinner at the same restaurant in the hotel for like five nights in a row, we decided to venture out to a Japanese restaurant at the hotel next door...yay, we are so adventurous! Our very kind hotel staff gave us lazy butts a golf cart ride next door... actually to our credit it was like 200 degrees outside, they use celsius here so don't know how to convert, anyhoo, it was a fun ride!

We passed some fellow lazy ass westerners chillin' on the beach...

and two wedding parties getting their wedding pictures taken...

... and finally we reached our destination -- Teppanyaki! Our chef chop chopped and we ate ate...

Cat's Secret Ingredients for her Abs of Steel

L - this post is dedicated to you! Haha! Told ya, I am gonna visit the lipo doc after this trip and I am sure gonna win our "Abs of Steel" contest!

Boiled pork with garlic sauce

Cucumber Salad

Fuchi Fei Pian

Fish soup with Chinese cabbage -- this was a really good dish, doesn't have that fishiness at all, just yumminess, ah, want more!

Steamed Fish, this has to be the most un-photogenic steamed fish there is, looks much more appetizing in person...

Beef with Shredded Green and Red Bell Pepper

Water Boiled Beef -- I love this dish, the beef is so tender, and rests on a bed of bean sprouts, I also like the touch of paprika on top...

Boiled pears with frog ovary... just your average dessert...

Mangosteens!

I went to a local supermarket in Hainan today... see the abundance of food in China...

And found my favorite fruit in the whole world -- mangosteens! I wanted to dive into this pile and eat them all!

This is what it looks like inside... hmmmm...juicy and sweet and yummy!

The bags on my pants...

Sigh, it's so hard to be bilingual, especially when the two languages are English and Chinese, sometimes I can't simply switch from one to the other, it takes like a few minutes of adjustment... the other day, I forgot how to say pockets in Chinese so I loudly proclaimed "the bags on my pants"... and the Chinese were like -- what an idiot... oh well, a very wimpering meow... anyway, hello to you all from Hainan Island.

Took a morning stroll on the grounds of the hotel....

HK to Mainland

About to leave HK airport... they even named a runway after me... awww...

Take off... bye bye HK, woooo, they have a putt putt next to the airport

What is this island? Hmmm, I hereby name you Salamander Island!

We flew through some clouds...

and landed in Mainland China just in time for an approaching rain storm!

Who is the fairest kitty of them all?

Saw this at a jewelry store at the Hong Kong airport, its theme is Hello Kitty around the world. Dammit, I should have been the model for this kitty gold nugget spread, I am much cuter and I am actually going around the wold! Aarrgh, Hello Kitty, my sworn enemy, need to give her a taste of kitty mafia when I see her next!

-- signed Cat Corleone

Food... yumm....

Chinese breakfast at Cafe de Coral, the local equivalent of McDoanld's...there is the turnip cake, Chinese tamale with chicken, sausage, shitake mushroom, congee with shredded pork and thousand year old egg, and milk tea... all for less than three bucks!

Later on I went to probably the only Sichuanese restaurant in Hong Kong. Hong Kongers are (in)famous for being complete sissies when it comes to spicy foods so this was a rare find! The water boiled fish sort of took up the entire table!

My own tolerance has gone down a bit since an episode of spiciness overdose... but I still crave all foods Sichuanese so I had a bowl of soup (see below) on my left side, and a bowl of plain congee on my right, and I would eat a piece of Husband Wife Lung Slices (ewe, this dish sounds so morbid in English), then a spoonful of soup and a spoonful of congee to relieve the heat!

While we waited outside the restaurant, which is in a rather obscure part of Mid-Levels, a game of basketball went on next door...

Then we went up an alley road and went to a cute little pastry shop...

See the chef in action...

Young professionals enjoying a night's out, the Napoleon that the chef was making (see the plate on the chef's left) went to this table and it was the last serving... so I had to settle for Chocolate Fantasie.

Eh, this is not Chocolate Fantasie, but close. My picture turned out too dark so I am putting up this adorable little box of chocolate compliment of the hotel instead. It was so cute I didn't want to eat the chocolates!