Cycling on a lazy Sunday afternoon

While I was doing nothing last Sunday afternoon, Beatriz posted a message on our IASP Facebook group asking if anyone wanted to join her for a bike ride to Tai Po. So, an hour later we met at the MTR. (That's just how things happen around here!)

You can hire bikes at Sha Tin - go through the mall, through Snoopy's World, and to the waterfront. Exit the shopping mall near Shakey's Pizza.

I hadn't ever ventured outside the sparkly-sparkly New Town Plaza (except to go to Sha Tin Town Hall, but more on that later), but I highly recommend it! Right outside is Snoopy's World - a large, Snoopy-themed, children's playground. Apparently, on occasion, you might also see a wedding or two held there...

Here's my fun photo of the day.

Moving on. There are several bike shops down at the waterfront, and expect to pay about $20-$30 per hour. When we arrived it was 4:30pm, and as the ride to Tai Po takes about 1.5 hours, we decided to take the option of returning the bikes at the shop Tai Po. We paid $60 for bike hire and $10 for helmet hire. Helmets are not compulsory in HK, but if you come from a country like Australia where you just grow up with helmets bring normal, it feels unsafe to ride without one. 

So, we set out!

The bike track is in really good condition, and it follows the river the entire way. At times, the bike track is shared with pedestrians. Sometimes the bike track is wide enough for two people to ride side-by-side and sometimes the bike track is wide enough to only ride singe file. At times people's bikes will have speakers attached, blaring music, powered by their cycling. At times you will come up behind a family with the little kid on a tricycle going all over the track, and the parents barely giving the other cyclists a glace of apology.

And at the entire time the view is amazing.

Veggie Dinners - Bangkok Thai Restaurant

We haven't had an official Veggie Dinner for a few weeks due to most of us being away for the two Fridays either end of Lunar New Year, and then several people were away in Taiwan last week for the Lantern Festival. I am yet to make it to Taiwan, but flights are cheap and frequent, and it takes only about 1.5 hours to get there.

On Friday we had planned to go to Shanghai Vegetarian in Sha Tin because their food is excellent - noodles,  stews, and the best assortment of vegetarian dumplings and dim sum I have found so far in Hong Kong. Unfortunately, there were eight of us for dinner that night and we hadn't made a reservation, so we had to wait. The host recommended (in Cantonese, Victoria translated for us) that we split into two tables of four, then the wait would be shorter. Note that the wait for restaurants, especially in places like Sha Tin's New Town Plaza, can be anywhere between 5 minutes and an hour. However, I am yet to have a disappointing meal (except for when I ordered a margherita pizza from Shakey's Pizza - thin dry crust, tasteless cheese, just THREE cherry tomatoes that had been halved and randomly scattered, and a sprinking of chopped dried basil that looked like it came straight out of a Masterfoods shaker). I hate cooking, there are very few vegetarian options available for dinner on campus (outside the meal plans for places like Morningside College and S.H. Ho College) so eating at restaurants is my best bet for a stress-free meal.

So in the end, we made the executive decision not to be split up, so we investigated a few other places (the 7th floor of New Town Plaza is ALL restaurants) and ended up at Bangkok Thai Restaurant at a huge table with a lazy susan. We had lovely Victoria (from Georgetown University I think....) order for us because the menu doesn't necessarily tell you if the meal or the stock is beef or fish based - bad for the vegetarians and bad for Vero, who is highly allergic to seafood and dairy. 

I will say this: It is not difficult being vegetarian, vegan, or having special dietary requirements in Hong Kong, its just that when you go to restaurants, you ABSOLUTELY MUST have someone who speaks Cantonese to be able to talk with the waiters about what is in the meals.

Basically, the food was excellent. We had two kinds of curries, a vegetable stew, a papaya salad, vegetarian pad thai, and each of us had a bowl of rice - six dishes was just perfect to fill the bellies of 8 hungry girls.

Most of us also had drinks. In the picture I had the Iced Coconut Juice, and Vero had the (very gingery) Lemongrass Ginger Tea. Splitting the bill meant that we each paid $112 - definitely worth it for the delicious dinner we had!

Back soon!

Look what I bought at New Town Plaza today! Very excited...



So, I didn't intend to buy a computer today, but I'm glad I did. Today I planned to meet my friend Aimee (we did Japanese together at the beginning of the semester before I got politely kicked-out) for lunch. So we went to Sha Tin and had takoyaki and omraisu, and talked about how she wants to transfer out of Bachelor of Business Administration (pretty much the most popular degree at CUHK) into.... Bachelor of Lingustics!

Anyway, after we had a good chat, we went window shopping and I came across this little Vaio in Fortress (kinda like the Hong Kong version of Harvey Norman or Dick Smith) for $3,980 (just under $500AUD). Although it just has a 1.75GHz AMD processor and a smaller-size keyboard, I was pretty sold on the other features: the 1-Year International warranty, 500GB HDD, the fact it is pink, the fact it is Sony and therefore durable/reliable, and the fact that the main reason for buying a laptop is for me to write essays and watch drama - nothing more. By going with a local, Aimee also helped me to get two document holders (why they are 'The Little Prince' themed I don't know), a laptop sleeve, an 8GB USB, and a set of speakers - just casually THROWN IN FOR FREE! So I'm glad I didn't end up shelling out over $1000AUD for a replacement MacBook, and after my little Vaio is up and running, I'll get back to posting regularly.


Veggie Dinners - Herbivores

On Friday night Emilia, Maria, Rebecca and myself had dinner at The Herbivores, a small vegetarian/vegan place in Central.

It was realtively easy to find, but note that walking from Central Station to Herbivores will take you up several hills at a 45 to 55 degree angle. If you are wearing shoes like this:

make sure to bring someone to hold on to for the walk.

(I swear I actually saw a lady wearing these shoes the other day!  They could have been imitation Louboutins, but with two concept stores and 11 retailers in Hong Kong, I'm inclined to believe they were real).

This review notes that Herbivores is small - and it is. When we arrived at about 8:30pm, the inside table (tables? I didn't venture inside, but the shop is quite narrow and I only saw one long table in the middle of the shop with about 10 people) were full, so the four of us sat at the single outdoor table.

The food was good, but the prices for a main meal started at $148. When you live on campus and a meal and dessert and a drink doesn't even total $50, you forget what the price of a 'normal' dinner is.

I ordered a rice omelette, made with mushrooms and served with a pasta-style tomato sauce. The parsley belonged back on the tree though, not on my plate.

We spent dinner talking about the finer points of second language acquisition in bilingual environments (like Sweden) as opposed to monolingual environments (like the US or Australia), and about how burnt Emilia got on her hike that day.

Although the dessert options were tempting, we walked back down the hill to one of my new favourite places - Yoppi - for make-it-mix-it-yourself frozen yoghurt.

Closing remarks: I had bought the bag earlier that day from H&M. I would like to revise my earlier comments on shopping - if you go to the H&M at Sha Tin on a weekday as soon as it opens (at 10:30), you won't have to wait for a changeroom. I bought two dresses and a bag within an hour. Excellent.