Chap Goh Mei

Since it is the last day of the 15-day long Chinese New Year, a day known as Chap Goh Mei, I'm celebrating by putting up this picture of my favourite lunar new year snack: pineapple tarts. This are not just any pineapple tarts but tarts baked with love and skill by my sister-in-law and her maid. The pastry is slightly crisp with a glazed top and the pineapple jam is chockful of pineapple and not too sweet. This little tarts are, I am sure, a big cause of my expanding waistline this year.

The post-CNY diet starts tomorrow!

Hong Kong Lunar New Year Rice Cake

This is a traditional rice cake eaten in Hong Kong particularly during Chinese New Year. The decorative elements of stars and other shapes are made of ingredients such as watercress (for the green ones), beetroot (for the red), corn (for the yellow) etc. This particular one was made with no artificial colouring or preservatives. So it tasted very pure and simple but delicious. For me it tastes like agar-agar jelly with interesting textures and a far more natural set of flavours than usual. For those of you unfamiliar with agar-agar, think of a jello but with a far firmer texture so that it is slightly crunchy.

Ship Ahoy!

Anyone who likes boats should take a little visit to the Hong Kong Maritime Museum. It is a little gem of a museum in Stanley, Hong Kong. The section featuring the older period chronicling the early Chinese Voyages into the Far East and the Indian Subcontinent has to-scale models of the ships used. It dates all the way back to the early Chinese ships. The second gallery features the modern period, all steel and diesel engines. However it is the intricately carved wooden boats that really capture the imagination.

Hong Kong, at one stage, had its own ship-building industry, and the models were made by people in that industry, clearly with loving care. That era has now passed however so this museum is all that remains and Hong Kong is about to lose that too. The Murray House where these collections are kept is the perfect place for this as a colonial eara building of solid grey stone and the little jetty upfront and the tiny boats scattered like leaves in the bay outside.

Shanghai is about to take over these beautiful ships so fortunately they will find a good home there but it is sad that the Hong Kong Government could not find the funds or a suitable place to house these historic collections.

The Great Procastinator

I'm a great procastinator. I procastinate about getting out of bed, about doing my work, about tidying my desk, my drawer spilling out with clothes, my financial affairs etc. I have somehow found the resolve to start cleaning up my act and it feels good. So my motto for the week shall be, "Do It Now" as opposed to, "oh, let's just lie in bed for the next five minutes" (which inevitably stretches into at least half an hour if not more). I'm tired of feeling unproductive and the task-oriented me is now resurgent.

So let's just get on with it and I'll let you know how it goes.

The good news is that I have been much better about a couple of things in my life already since the end of last year and now it's time to take things a bit further.