Visiting the 2010 Hong Kong Flower Show

The end of March brings the Hong Kong Flower Show to Causeway Bay's Victoria Park, and we've made visiting it a yearly ritual (2008, 2009)...

"Grandmother, what big eyes you have!"

Making like wallflowers

Buying many orchids (among other flowers)

After a few hours at the show, we had lunch at the Causeway Bay branch of Din Tai Fung (鼎泰豐), a Taiwanese-Shanghainese restaurant that has quickly become one of my favorites (exhibit A, exhibit B)...

Hot and sour soup

Stir-fried string beans

Dried beef shank

Smoked fish

"Little steamer dumplings" (小籠包)

Sesame-peanut noodles

紅油抄手 (literally "red oil dipped hands")

A very satisfying Saturday!

Happy Birthday, King Monkey!

This week we attended a gigantic celebration for the 80th birthday of Dr Lawrence Hou (aka "猴子" / "Monkey"). Dr Hou is an active alumnus of our residence hall and, if the guest list to his birthday party is any indication, quite a prominent figure in Hong Kong. The party was held in the Grand Hall of Hong Kong's Convention and Exhibition Centre, a place we visited a little over a year ago for a similarly astonishing event.

Top billing on the Convention Centre's event board

Entering the reception area of Grand Hall...

...where the 1200+ guests mingled while waiting for the dinner call...

...and where the guest of honor (in bow tie and boutonnière) was patiently posing for pictures

Entering the Grand Hall

The motley crew of table 9

Seven of our hall residents (for whom Dr Hou is a mentor) were also in attendance

A standing ovation for King Monkey's entrance

Dr Hou receiving gifts from his family on-stage

Even with Dr Hou deservedly garnering so much attention, one of his guests might have been an equal amount (particularly from the younger females in attendance)...

Alex Fong (standing on the right), an Olympic swimmer turned actor/singer, gracefully receiving wave after wave of adoring fans

The whole event lasted a little under six hours, included a nine-course meal, and was chock-full of speeches and singing performances given by a host of Hong Kong celebrities. Truly a night to remember for King Monkey and his guests, and I'm so glad we could be a part of it.

Happy Birthday, King Monkey!

Surprise: some new food!

(...at least, new to me. :>)

Some highlights from a delicious meal we had last night in Prince Edward...

Caterpillar fungus (冬蟲夏草) served in double-steamed soup (燉湯)

The dark half (that I'm holding with my mouth) is the fungus, the other half is the caterpillar

Quail, also in double-steamed soup

Stewed duck (with taro, though that isn't pictured)

Stir-fried sweet potato shoots

It is becoming increasingly more difficult to find things that I haven't yet eaten here, but I know they're out there, so my quest continues.

Administrative note: After a little over two years of living in Hong Kong (and 220 blog posts), life has settled into a fairly stable routine, so the frequency of blog-worthy events (that aren't just slight variations of earlier events) has slowed down considerably. I'll still have eruptions of posts from time to time (during unique events, like when we have visitors), but the weekly posts will probably continue to taper off. The easiest way to keep up with them would be to plug the blog's RSS URL into an RSS reader/aggregator (like Google Reader). That way you don't have to continually check the blog for new posts, the posts will be pushed to you whenever they are made.