There’s this famous restaurant in Hong Kong called Under Bridge Spicy Crab.

Obviously, the signature dish is the spicy crab. It’s very good but you will faint when you see the bill.

This unfortunate crab cost us HKD1080 (SGD180). That’s one crab.

Looks like this after it’s cooked.

I must say it’s really good and I would pay a premium price for it, but 180 buckaroos for one crab is a bit ridiculous, not?

The main attraction is the crispy stuff that the crab is buried under, of course. Without it, it’s just plain old steamed crab.

I don’t know what the stuff is made of, but I can taste garlic and salt and mysterious spices. It’s like nothing I’ve tasted so I’m not sure how to describe it except to say that it’s freaking awesome to eat it white rice.

The other dishes are also pretty impressive. Here’s a quick peek.

Clams. Really good. Infused with Chinese wine.

Shrimp mantis. Tastes like crayfish but is softer and sweeter.

Long beans. Normal. A bit too mushy.

Salt and pepper fried chicken wings. Not salty enough but still quite tasty.

We ordered seven dishes and the total bill was HKD1894 (SGD316). For five people.

Too expensive! I probably won’t go back there again unless you’re buying me dinner. =P

My cousin, Monster, brought her baby to meet us. He’s so adorable! But he refused to smile when I was posing for photos with him. Maybe he could sense my fear. I always fear that I will break babies when I hold them.

Can you see my fear?

And, see, he smiles so sweetly when Monster is holding him.

And he stuck his tongue out at me.

Lucky for him he’s cute!!

See, again, no smile, only drool!

Grrrr kids!

Anyway, to balance our oily dinner, we went for dessert at a dessert cafe called Honeymoon. This was with Elyxia.

Monster and baby had to go home because it was time for baby to have his milk or he would C-R-Y.

I suppose I should stop calling her Monster in public. It’s just an endearing nickname, though. Her name is Faith.

Oh, the desserts were sweeeet.

Grass jelly and durian in something that tastes like vanilla milk.

Mango and black glutinous rice in the same vanilla milk.

Durian pancake and mango pancake. (No, I don’t think they look like pancakes.)

On a totally different subject, it was rather cold yesterday. Well, because I was underdressed, wearing only a light jacket over two layers of very thin, almost-sleeveless tops.

It will be even colder today, supposedly 8°C | 5°C, so I think I’m gonna drop dead because I didn’t bring my winter battle gear. And we’re gonna have a long day of makaning and walking around.

If you don’t see an update from me tomorrow, you know what happened!

On my flight to Hong Kong yesterday, I wore shorts and boots.

It’s winter in Hong Kong. So, Kay said, “You’re wearing shorts? You’re going to freeze to death when we make our way to the hotel.”

In my defence, I said, “I have a coat!

“And furry long boots!

“Plus it isn’t all that cold in Hong Kong.

“And you won’t make me walk all the way to our hotel from the airport, right?”

I was right, almost.

It wasn’t too cold, about 14°C or thereabouts. But he made me walk about five minutes from the MTR station to the hotel as we dragged our suitcases along narrow, uneven pavements.

The exertion helped make the cold non-existent and Kay had to concede that I had worn the right outfit after all.

Well, except my boots with narrow platform heels, which aren’t too comfortable walking long distance in. Not that five minutes is any distance at all.

Anyway, we received a rude shock at our hotel, Mingle by the Park. It’s six storeys high and there are no elevators. Only stairs. And we were given a room on the topmost floor.

So, basically, we had to lug all 35kg of our luggage up six storeys worth of narrow steps.

By the time we arrived, I began to wish that I had worn a bikini.

Exercise is always good, though. So I’m not too put out by the climb we’re going to have to make all week.

Mingle by the Park, if we can even call it a hotel, is one of a chain of five or so hotels, and is decorated in 60s Chinese style.

Fortunately, because the decor and props are mildly amusing and quaint, they suitably distracted us from feeling claustrophobic in our pea-sized room.

Well, they’re not really props. For instance, the archaic telephone and the archaic teapot are actually functional.

But I should have said pseudo-archaic, instead.

The antique rotary phone is actually a push-button one.

And the antique-looking teapot is an electric one.

The chamber pot is very authentic, though.

But why we need a chamber pot escapes me.

The bathroom is, like, one step away from the bed, in case you’re in the mood for a midnight piddle.

There aren’t many steps you can take in this little hole of a room.

I’ve saved the best for last.

The closet is literally the size of my coat.

LOL.

Still, the room serves its purpose. After all, when you’re on a holiday, all you need is a reasonably comfortable bed without bed bugs to sleep on at night, right?

I’m only worried that my luggage is going to grow from 20kg to 30kg by the time I’m done with my holiday and I’d have to lug that down 12 flights of steps.

It’s in a good location, though. Five minutes’ walk from Wan Chai MTR Station, which is smack in the middle of wherever’s worth visiting in Hong Kong. Fewer minutes if you’re a fast walker.

Our first meal was in a Hong Kong cafe (what they call cha chan teng here). Neither Kay nor I are big fans of Hong Kong food, to be honest, but he insisted on having local food on our first night.

He ordered roast goose rice, which he said was sucky and not worth eating but didn’t regret ordering because it’s just a thing you have to do, make your first meal local.

I love dim sum, but I don’t like the ricey, noodley stuff in Hong Kong. They don’t pour any yummy sauce over the meats and the rice is always bland, and the noodles always have that disgusting processed taste which is almost like ammonia but not quite.

Most of the time when I go to a Hong Kong cafe, I order sandwiches or french toast. (But I love the Hong Kong cafes in Singapore. They have food there more catered to my taste.)

So, my first dinner in Hong Kong was a luncheon meat with egg sandwich, which was mildly disappointing because Hong Kongers boil their luncheon meat instead of fry them. Why, I don’t understand. What a waste of luncheon meat.

But don’t y’all worry. We will definitely have some good food here before we’re done. The main purpose of my trip is to visit my dearest friend, Elyxia, who works here, and also my dearest cousin, Monster, who also works here.

(Her name is really Faith, but we have been calling each other Monster since we were kids.)

We’ll also be meeting up with Kay’s niece, who is studying here on exchange.

With three “local” hosts taking care of us, I’m sure our meals will get better!

There’s a 24-hour McDonald’s just across the street from our hotel!

Okay fine I won’t eat at McDonald’s. It’s not the same without our garlic chilli sauce, anyway.

Oh dear. I miss Singapore food already.

I’ll be going for my first Operation Smile mission in about a week’s time. I’ve waited about a year for this.

It’s hard to get a place in a mission unless you’re a surgeon or nurse or something useful like that. For this upcoming mission, I’m fulfilling the role of mission blogger, which isn’t really a required position in missions at all. Not even remotely as useful as a nurse, but better than nothing, I guess.

I’m just glad for this chance to do my part.

Operation Smile travels all over the world to help underprivileged children born with cleft lips and palates, giving them the ability to smile and a chance at a normal life.

This upcoming mission will be held in Dhaka, Bangledesh. We’ll be there for 8-9 days, spending five of them operating on a target number of 100 children. Well, the surgeons will be operating, anyway. The rest of the team take on other support roles such as administrators and child experts (to comfort the patients).

Let me share some more photos taken at a recent mission in Cambodia so you have an idea what the missions are like.

(All photos courtesy of Justyn Olby and Operation Smile.)

Of course, I’ll be sharing photos from on-site and blogging about the experience once I arrive at Dhaka with the team. So, please support the mission by checking back for updates!

You can also support by liking the Operation Smile Singapore Student Chapter Facebook page.

The Dhaka mission will be the first mission involving student volunteers from Singapore, so it’s going to be exciting. I’m sure they’re all very excited, just as I am.

All the students have worked tirelessly since the Student Chapter was founded about a year or so back, organising events in Singapore to help raise funds or awareness for Operation Smile. They’ve done a really great job so far so do support them by joining their page!

And check back here soon for more updates.

Actually, I’m flying to Hong Kong today to visit with my friends for a week before going to Dhaka, so come back for Hong Kong updates first. :P

Happy New Year! (Again.)

Once upon a time, I had a friend who said she loved me and that she would be true to me no matter what.

But I guess she didn’t mean it because, to her, being popular turned out to be more important than friendship.

Some of her friends didn’t like me, and she wanted to be in their favour, so she started to turn against me.

She thought of ways to hurt me, maybe because she couldn’t possess me anymore, maybe because she was jealous of me, maybe because she wanted to impress her friends.

She told people nasty things about me, some true, some not.

I’m not perfect. But she forgot that she isn’t perfect herself.

Today, we’re going to visit the War Memorial of Korea!

I meant that metaphorically. As in, I’m going to show you pictures I took and you’re going to see them. =P

I can imagine some of you going yawwwwwn, so I promise not to post all 250 photos I have.

Some of the stuff are quite cool, really.

Like all these military vehicles that had once seen actual wars, although they’ve been repaired and repainted since, which I think makes them look less authentic, therefore less exciting.

This is so cute, right? I didn’t believe they would actually make cutesy paintings on war vehicles, but apparently they did, although it wasn’t a common sight.

Landing Vehicle Tracked-P7 (USA)

I thought this was also cute, so tiny and ancient looking. The name of the aircraft, Buwhalho, means Restoration, which is what the Chinese words on the body say.

Buwhalho (ROK)

This is big guns!

M110 8-inch Self-Propelled Howitzer (USA)

More big guns!

SU-100 Self-Propelled Gun (Soviet)

It was really cold that day. I didn’t take many photos myself because it was too cold to take my hands out of my pocket (hadn’t bought gloves yet that day) so Kay had to take most of the photos for me.

He has thicker skin so his hand can tahan the cold better. Haha.

K-1 Tank (ROK)

After a while, I got really tired of taking photos cos it settled into a routine of: Stand in front of vehicle. Snap. Stand in front of another vehicle. Snap. Yet Another Vehicle. Snap.

There were, like, endless rows of them.

So I had to do something a bit different.

F-51 Fighter (USA)

This is my favourite vehicle in the whole collection because it’s all black and looks fierce.

Okay it doesn’t look all that fierce from this angle. Nor all that black.

AH-1J Cobra Helicopter

More big guns!

20mm Vulcan Anti-Aircraft Gun M167 A1 (ROK)

Can you imagine manning one of these big boys at war, your task being to shoot down fighter planes? And it’s not like playing a game. You’re shooting down real people with real lives.

Maybe you will quickly get desensitized to the barbarity of it when you’re thrown into the thick of the fighting.

20mm Anti-Aircraft Cannon (USA)

Last of the guns for now! Although this isn’t technically a gun but a plane.

F-4C Fighter-Bomber (USA)

The museum-cum-memorial commemorates and documents all the wars that Korea has fought in, not just in Korea itself but all over the world, although most of it is concentrated on the Korean War in the 1950s.

At the museum, I was more interested in civilian life than military activity during the war. Looking at the dioramas and videos depicting people’s sufferings was very heartbreaking.

Well, okay, the military activity stuff was also very heartbreaking.

Did you watch 71 Into The Fire, a Korean movie that was shown in Singapore cinemas in October 2010?

It’s very sad. These 71 student volunteers were tasked to defend a crucial South Korean border, with scant supplies, because there was no one left. Their “tower of defence” was a small school. They were basically massacred by the North Korean forces.

The tragedy known as the Battle of Pohang Girl’s Middle School

Only two survived to tell the tale.

Visiting the museum after watching the movie made it all the more poignant for me.

There’s one room in the museum dedicated to civillians. It’s a whole gallery of life-size dioramas showing how people lived during those times. I feel really bad for all those people, even if many of them have passed on by now.

The Korean War brought misery to all Koreans without exception even to the old, women and children. Against the harsh wind, rain and cold, refugees contrived shelters with pieces of planks, cans, straw bags, C-ration boxes, or straw, sustained by rice porridge with dried cabbage leaves, or just a mixture of whatever food (was) available, or even tree bark.

A large number of refugees had to be satisfied with only a spoonful of food.

I love looking at artifacts from the past to understand how people lived. Like, what they used, what they ate, where they lived. I like imagining myself in their shoes. In a way, I feel like I’ve been transported in time to experience a different era.

(I love our Sentosa Wax Museum, even if it’s pretty small.)

Here are some artifacts I found interesting at this museum, which is incidentally the largest war museum in the world.

Cigarettes

Textbooks

Food

More food

K-Ration

C-Ration

Okay, that’s enough photos for today!

We visited the war memorial twice (about 3-4 hours each time) but didn’t finish seeing everything.

We didn’t get a chance to check out the Combat Experience Room, which uses multi-sensual effects to simulate a battlefield so that visitors can have an idea what soldiers had to go through during the Korean War.

Need a third visit!