Monday, January 02, 2012

Deck the Halls with Roasting Ducks

Christmas is not exactly something one would associate with the pulsating city-state of Hong Kong. Steaming dim sum and roast duck, yes. But Christmas lights and mistletoe? Surely that's New York's domain? Well, it turns out NY has some competition on its hands, and we're not just talking IPO volumes here. In the best traditions of an island that embraces anything that will make a buck, or even better a renmenbi, HK goes all in for Christmas in such a commercialized, over-the-top way that even the Walmart festive aisle would cower with inadequacy.


The Michelin guide has long been accused of being a bit snooty when it comes to dishing out their coveted stars; if you don't make ironing out imperceptible wrinkles in the tablecloth right in front of the diner a grandiose paegent (yes, you 11 Madison Park) then you might as well shoot for Zagat instead. But with the expansion of the guide to HK, things had to change. Out here the best food is served on formica, slapped down with a grunt by a grizzled old lady the moment it leaves the wok. And so it is that some obscure, hole-in-the-wall dim sum joint deep in tangled alleys of Kowloon suddenly has a line around the block, and a minimum three hour wait.


Fortunately, with a touch of practicality that would put many a starred restaurant in NY to shame, they give you a time so you don't have to spend your whole day camped on the pavement watching the endless cycle of dejection or elation as each new number is called.


It takes more than tall buildings and a glittering skyline to earn World City status, although those sure do help.


Here comes the reason Louis Vuitton, Chanel, Gucci et al. set up shop in HK.



HK is changing so fast, the skyline is noticeably different every visit. But the oldies still hold their own. We're talking the Lego-esque Lippo Center here, not Mei's mother.


There's something more than a little incongruous about a Michelin star taped up along with the hastily scrawled Chinglish menus.


And the surrounds are a long way from Rue Rivioli or Madison Avenue.


Worth the wait? To be honest, probably not. It's excellent, some dishes superb even, but all it all it's not noticeably better than the countless other dim sum outlets that can be found on any given Kowloon block. That's no slight on HK dim sum - without a shadow of doubt it can hold its own with the very finest cuisines in the world - it's just that one gets the feeling that this one was somewhat randomly picked once the powers that be at Michelin decided it was time to diversify beyond starched tablecloths.



What did we say about over-the-top? Why string up Christmas lights when you can build an entire Christmas palace, complete with a rotating holiday carriage?


How do you say "show me the money" in Cantonese? The brilliance of pushing Christmas is that by the time the decorations come down, it's time to hang the lanterns for Chinese New Year. Capitalism never looked so good.


This is what they call peering into the future.


At 20 cents a ride, the legendary Star Ferry is hands down the best value for your tourist dollar anywhere in the world.


Is there any doubt this is the iAsia century? Even their Apple stores are bigger.


Rock has the dubious honor of hitting the sack early in two Cities that Never Sleep.


There may be no snow, but don't let that stop you, all those piles of mainland renminbi will make some very nice drifts in no time.


Who needs Christmas lights when you've got the mighty Bank of China tower twinkling behind you.



Just in case it suddenly hits you at 1am that you don't have enough handbags...


The legendary Lan Kwai Fong comes alive as the office towers disgorge masses of Suits looking for something a bit stronger than watching yet another Canto-pop talent quest on tv in their exorbitantly priced shoeboxes.




Forget those stupid livability indexes, for a true measure of a city's worth one only needs to check the vital arteries - if they're still pumping after midnight you know you've arrived. If they're not, you know you're in the Midwest. Probably Des Moines.



It's hard to tell if this is a big chair, or a normal sized chair with Mei sitting in it.


Times Square, this way. Bootleg DVDs aren't the only rip-offs you'll find on the HK streets.


It's something of a high school reunion in HK this weekend. Apparently it's not all life and death exams and endless memorization in the Chinese school system. Or more likely Mei was just slacking off.


Each shopping mall tries to outdo the competition with ludicrously extravagant holiday displays. A case in point is this bizarre "Xmas Featherland" installation that would look more at home in the Guggenheim.


One Peking Place is HK's answer to Time Warner Center. Each floor boasts a restaurant, and at the top is a bar that can legitimately claim one of the best views in the world, looking straight back to the sparkling skyline of HK island.


Mei's friend Rain must be cool; like Rock she has a noun for a name.


Great view. Oh and the skyline is pretty decent too.


It's no contest, the Shanghainese restaurant on the 10th floor of One Peking claims the coveted Best Meal of the Trip title before the third dish has even arrived.


The dim sum comes on these cute little hangers. Try doing that with butter chicken.


India Part 7: Simply Marbleous!

The long road from Jaipur to Agra is even longer when the snacks there were supposed to last the whole trip  run out on the first day. Plus, playing Count the Tata isn't all that fun when you need to switch to scientific notation after just a few kilometers of bumper to bumper truck-jams. Luckily the mighty Akbar the Great decided to plonk down a temple cum palace cum tomb complex just off the main highway. Rest stops don't come much better than this. Although rest stop toilets certainly do.


The Fatehpur Sikri palace and adjacent mosque are awe-inspiring for their epic scale. The main gate towers 54 meters over a long set of steps that lead to the vast courtyard where the actual worship takes place.


"The search for the grail is the search for the divine in all of us", Marcus Brody. Uhm, I think you have the wrong movie there chief, save that one for Team J00ster's 2012 Petra odyssey.


Mei decides to go for a more stylish option for her requisite head covering.


Back before you could show off your wealth by owning an IPL team and importing a host of offshore superstars, the only way to beat the Singh's down the road was to have a bigger palace.



The spacious grounds host a variety of carefully manicured gardens, made all the more refreshing through their contrast with the dusty surrounds. And the absence of itinerate cows.


Mei is just glad she's not the one who has to clean this place. If you can't keep a shoebox NY apartment clean, your odds here aren't so great.


Finally, just when the prospect of another manically-piloted, horn-blaring Tata is about to push Mei, not to mention the driver, over the edge, an oasis appears on the horizon. And this is not your ordinary, run-of-the-mill oasis with a couple palm trees and a tepid puddle of muddy water. No, the five star ITC Mughal comes complete with cable tv showing something other than B-grade Bollywood reruns, a massage-enabled la-z-boy, and even... wait for it... a hot water tap where hot water actually comes out when you turn it on. Hitch up the camels folks, we've arrived.


A window in the bathroom looks good in Architectural Digest, but do you really want to watch Rock... uhm... lightening the load for tonight's curry feast? Nope, didn't think so. You didn't really even want to read about it, did you?


Mei raids the tea chest. This place is so upmarket, the tea is imported from Britain. Which makes about as much sense as the hordes of Chinese that come to buy iPads on 5th Avenue when they're made down the road in Guangzhou.


With a hotel this posh, it takes a monumental effort to be up in time for sunrise. But after 10 days of anticipation, nothing could hold the eager J00sters back...


...except of course for a closed ticket office. It seems when they say the doors open at sunrise, they don't exactly mean the crack of dawn.


But all the hassles of a long wait melt away as the Taj Mahal is bathed in the pink light of a new day.


Mei doesn't see the point of having such salubrious digs once you're dead; she'd quite like a Central Park West penthouse right now, thank you very much.



The nice thing about coming early is one can engage in annoying tourist antics without having to fight through all those tourists and their annoying antics.


Fortunately the government found a bit of time between counting bribes to set up a clean-air zone around the Taj Mahal. Which means the glorious white marble should stay like that for future generations.


Apparently the falling water level of the river behind the Taj is causing some instability in the foundations. So Mei's landing can't really have helped things.


Pictures don't really do justice to the epic scale of the mausoleum. Apparently the wife whom the tomb commemorates died giving birth to her 14th child with the king, so one could argue she probably deserved such large-scale recognition.


Even Mei is willing to grudgingly admit that for once getting up early was worth it.


Circumnavigating this thing is harder than it looks.


Mei reckons the best thing about the sun coming up is now she can pull out her shades.



The Yamuna River is still shrouded in a mysterious blanket of morning mist and the faint call to morning prayer drifts through the crisp morning air. Kings come and go, empires rise and fall, but the creamy white marble stands unblinking as the centuries slip inexorably by.



They just don't make doors like they used too.


The locals add a nice touch of color, and are a lot more photogenic than yet another off white GAP t-shirt and fanny pack combo.


Marbleous!


The sun is fully up now, and in a couple more hours Mei will be too.


And with that fitting finale, we wrap up 10 incredible days in India. From here it's a long, painful drive back to Delhi, then a long, painful flight to Wuhan, then a long, painful train ride to Hong Kong, and then an even longer, even more painful flight back to the Big Apple. And since reading these posts have been long and painful enough for the readers who made it this far, we'll leave it at that.