Hong Kong Diary 3b: Temple Street Night Market

Tuesday, February 23, 2010

The Temple Street Night Market is an icon of Hong Kong, a mecca for hardcore shoppers and foodies alike – and as the name says, it only opens at night.  Good news for us, as we wanted to shoot the night lights and atmosphere.  Arriving at our hotel from Shau Kei Wan, we spent a while at the harborside promenade shooting the Symphony of Lights again, then took an hour’s much-needed rest; not only had we walked all day, we had to come back during the rush hour and so spent the entire train ride on our feet. 

Did I mention we were tigerishly hungry?  No?  Well, whatever the condition of your appetite when you enter the Night Market, be assured that it will be in excruciatingly hyperactive mode within minutes of wandering in!  A whole section of the market is devoted to streetside dining, where just about anything edible seems available in just about any Chinese style of cuisine.  Soy-basted ducks and geese hung on racks everywhere, live groupers and other fish swam in aquariums, pails or basins along with lobsters and fat crabs, and there were plates of beautiful shellfish everywhere.  Unless you totally hate Chinese cuisine, it’d be impossible not to find something to your taste here.

Cat and I finally decided on a place to eat, not so much by the menu as by the fact that the waiter spoke English.  One thing about dining here: have an idea already what you want to eat! There’s a great throng of people waiting to be seated, and any hesitation is taken as a sinful waste of time by the busy restaurateurs.  I took matters into my own hands and ordered something I thought we’d both like, as well as feeding my spice addiction: a dish of crispy Szechuan-style chicken.  The dish arrived smothered with crunchy bits of fried garlic and dried red chilies, steaming hot and with a fragrance that might’ve been detected by the wolves in Mongolia.  And yes, it was that good.

Dining at the Temple Street restaurants as a couple however is not the optimal way to do things.  Far better to come here as a family or troop of friends, for only thus can you order a wider variety of dishes.  We discovered the table beside ours was occupied by a Filipino extended family; at first we had no idea, as they were just so busy munching on a profusion of seafoods that I couldn’t make out what they were saying.  Then a waiter walked between our tables carrying a crab dish that made both me and the guy nearest me on that table exclaim in Tagalog.  Voila! Instead friends!  And yes, they did call the waiter over on his way back to order the same crab dish for themselves.  Another nod to Pinoy pride: a lot of diners, including many Caucasians, were washing down their vittles with golden San Miguel beer.  What can I say? Good food deserves good beer.

The Night Market is also a great place to shop for Chinese handicrafts as well as toys, watches, jewelry and other gewgaws, provided you’re prepared to wade through a crowd and haggle aggressively.  I was prepared to do neither, having in fact not an iota of inclination for shopping, but I did want photos of the merchandise.  It was challenging to squeeze in and find a space to shoot, and even more challenging to get a stable shot what with people bumping me from every direction, but I did manage a few.   It was near midnight when we got back to our hotel, tired, but very happy with our experience.

Hong Kong Diary 2: Meditations at the Nan Lian Gardens

Monday, February 22, 2010

I had high hopes for our shoot in the Nan Lian Gardens, and I was not to be disappointed.  This despite waking up to a cold, foggy morning, so hazy I couldn’t even see the top of the building next to ours.  As we ate breakfast, though, I was treated to a wildlife drama right out of Nat Geo right outside our window; a falcon making a kill!  I’d noted the raptors patrolling over our hotel since our arrival, but never saw one up close.  Now as I sipped my morning coffee my eye was drawn to a flicker of rapid movement outside. 

I looked out just in time to see a panicked pigeon swerve into a window bay, zooming up inches from the glass, with a falcon in hot pursuit.  But the pigeon made a fatal mistake, underestimating the falcon’s climb – it zoomed above the pigeon, folded its wings, then dropped like an avenging angel.  I of course was hooting and cheering like an English football fan, while Cat, still without her contacts, saw nothing but brown blurs.  Ah well.  I took the sight as an omen for the rest of the day, and I was right.

The Nan Lian Gardens, we found, were located right beside the Chi Lin Nunnery, and was easily reached by taking the MTR from Tsimshatsui Station to Diamond Hill, with a change of train along the way.  I lost a few dollars here though, as I failed to realize that you could change train without having to exit the station; we bought a ticket to Mong Kok, planning to buy tickets again to get to Diamond Hill, but as it turned out we could’ve gotten a ticket for the whole trip several dollars cheaper.  Oh well, it’s called learning. 

The gardens were a revelation.  Only the tall buildings peeking above the garden’s surrounding trees betrayed the presence of modern Hong Kong outside.  Within, winding paths led around a tranquil little artificial lake with pagodas, artfully arranged rocks, and enormous, languid koi.  All around were exquisitely shaped and trimmed pine trees, flowering plants, and bamboos.  There were no sounds of street traffic to be heard, only the calls of birds, the gentle gurgle of falling water, and soft instrumental Chinese music. 

The sensation of entering the garden was exactly like that of plunging into the waters over a coral reef – from a world of noise and chaos into a welcoming blanket of utter harmony.  The incredible Zen of the place seeped through the very soles of my feet and through my hands into my camera.  I soon lost sight of Cat as I went into a kind of meditative trance, walking, absorbing, shooting. I found this waterwheel that reminded me of the scene from Kurosawa’s Seven Samurai, moving me to set my camera to Monochrome mode.  From there I wandered into an enclosure housing some rock-and-sand arrangements reminiscent of the Ryoan-ji in Kyoto (which I swear to visit someday).  More black and white, naturally, and I found my light lying prone on the floor to get my shot.  A guard spoke to me in Cantonese, which of course I couldn’t understand, so he told me in English I wasn’t allowed to do that.  He was very courteous, far from the brusqueness I’d been told to expect from the Hong Kong Chinese. 

After shooting the sand gardens, I got very absorbed studying the ancient textures of the bonsai outside.  Rather than shoot the bonsai as a whole, I dug into the textures and the way the light was playing on them for my subject matter.  I had the luck to have the sun coming out at just this time – the only time I’d see the sun on the whole 4-day trip. 

With the sun out, I decided to see if I could get another shot of the golden pagoda. I ran out just in time to catch the sun’s glints on the gilded surface, after which the cloud cover closed again, and stayed that way the rest of the day.  There was still no sign of Cathy; I was sure she was lost in the same blissful state as I.  I found I was now at the bridge leading to the Chi Lin temple complex itself, so I went in and took some shots of the architecture.  Then, feeling hungry, I went to look for Cat.

Cat of course wanted to shoot in the temple too, so we decided to delay lunch in favor of doing a few more shots.  That eventually took another two hours, during which I rested a bit and shot a few more details of the temple’s architecture.  Sadly, photography was forbidden inside the main temple.  Too bad, as I’d seen a beautifully lighted statue of Sakyamuni within, and the sounds of chanting betrayed the presence of monks that I also would’ve wanted to shoot.  Well, this was their place, and if they say no shoot, I’ll respect that.  

We headed back for the train station, which was fortuitously located right by the Hollywood Plaza mall.  Cat and I were both absolutely ravenous by then, so it was into the mall first for lunch. I could tell Cat was really hungry – normally it’s her role to steer me away from expensive-looking places, but now she would stop at every restaurant we saw and ask if I thought it was a good place to eat.  Good thing the Zen harmony I’d absorbed in the gardens was still with me, as I was able to resist and coax her into the food court.  Cat got a Japanese curry, while I, recalling the dumplings from the previous night, got myself some more Shanghai noodles and xiao long bao.

We’d originally planned to do the Nan Lian and the Yuen Po Bird Garden in the same day, but by the time we finished eating it was 4pm and getting even more darkly overcast.   We finally decided to postpone the birds, and instead shopped in the Hollywood Plaza for digital photo frames for our parents.  We caught the train back to Tsimshatsui Station at 5pm, and found Cat’s brother Martin resting at the hotel.  After a brief rest ourselves, we all trooped out to the harborside to shoot the signature night skyline on the Hong Kong side and await the Symphony of Lights show.

The fog never let up, so thick that we couldn’t see the top quarter of the famous Bank of China building.  I also saw that it would greatly diffuse and brighten the lights, so I made sure to underexpose a bit.  I liked the golden cast I got using a Cloudy white balance setting, then switched to Sunny and a faster shutter speed for the laser show. 

It was cold, almost Europe-cold to me thanks to the wind chill factor, and damp.  I could only imagine what Cat was feeling, as Cat doesn’t have a high tolerance for cold.  I found out soon enough; as soon as the light show was over, Cat clapped her icy hands over my ears.  I yelped.  No, I shrieked.  Like a little goosed girl.  Laughing, we headed back to the commercial district for hot noodles.  Lots of hot noodles.

Kublai’s Rock

Monday, November 23, 2009

Once upon a time, the great warlord Genghis Khan asked his generals, ‘What is best in life?’

One hulking northern barbarian said, ‘To crush your enemies, drive them before you, and hear the lamentation of their women!’

But wise Kublai, grandson of Genghis, said, ‘Wrong! What is best in life is a mug of ice-cold beer in the hand, great food in the belly, and rock music in the ear!’  And Genghis had to say, ‘That is good.’

That hulking barbarian is some kind of Governator now, with all the woes of California sitting heavy on his troubled brow, but wise old Kublai rocks on at Kublai’s Rock, a hip and cozy restaurant and bar at the Magallanes commercial center in Makati.  Kublai’s Rock offers a well-stocked bar, an equally well-stocked Mongolian barbecue buffet – which is what Cat and I always have when we’re there – and a new discovery for us, some great ala carte dishes as well.

What can I say about the food? As soon as the dishes started coming out, Cat practically had to beat me off them with a stick to make me shoot them instead of tucking in right away! We got to shoot and sample five of Kublai’s signature dishes; the best-selling Barbarian Burger, excellent beer companions in the Spicy Chorizo Sisig and Seafood Combo, the very filling and tender KR Kababs, and even one for the health in the form of bite-size Laing.

The Barbarian Burger is huge, easily the equivalent of three or four burgers from the major fastfood chains, and much beefier – in all senses of the word!  Truly something to satisfy an appetite gone berserk, by Crom! As if the burger wasn’t hefty enough, it comes with a side of thick-cut fries and crunchy onion rings.

The Chorizo Sisig was a sweet-and-spicy dish, basically skinless sausage in the Fil-Hispanic style – garlicky and peppery, just the way I like it – served on a sizzling plate with a topping of onion rings and sliced chilies.  Classic beer food, but I could have this for breakfast!

The sisig also went well with the Seafood Combo, another sizzling plate dish, this time of squid rings, shrimps and I believe clams, fried in tomato paste and spices then served topped with melted cheese.  Really rich and filling!

With all these treats, the Laing made a very welcome side of vegetables.  Kublais’ Rock presents this classic Pinoy dish in an intriguingly new way, as bite-size rolls of taro leaves cooked in and topped with a rich, thick coconut cream sauce and garnished with red chilies.  My tastebuds having suffered permanent damage in India (grin), I would’ve welcomed even more of the chili garnish here. 

For Cat and I, the great star of the evening was the Kublai’s Rock Kababs.  Thick chunks of beef, pork and chicken grilled on skewers with mushrooms, green bell peppers, onions and tomatoes, and served with a sort of rice pilaf, this dish alone could easily satisfy two rather light eaters.  The meat was very tender and with a light, herby-peppery-smokey flavor that’ll make you scream for either of two things: Rice! or Beer! Me, I would’ve wanted both …

As the Governator said: I’ll be back.

Kublais’ Rock is open from 5:00pm to 2:00am every day, and frequently hosts viewings of major sports events where patrons can watch the action on their three widescreen plasma TVs.  Belgian beers are now also available at the bar.

Mutton Rogan Josh @ New Bombay

Saturday, September 12, 2009

It’s a bad thing when I leave home without a proper breakfast, if you ask my wife Cat. Because when I do it, I get ravenous – and we can end up a spending quite a bit eating out. But I was not to be denied, as I’d just finished an article and fixing my computer in an all-nighter, had a major meat craving, and I knew the original branch of New Bombay was literally a hop skip and jump away from our meeting.

So we end our meeting late in the afternoon, and I tell Cat I’m hungry.  We wrangle over where to eat, then I pop my secret weapon – the word “kabab.”  Instant yes!  

Well, we didn’t order kabab as originally intended, as I got fixated on the mutton rogan josh while Cat went for a dish of paneer tikka. I ordered chapatis to go with it, which in hindsight was a mistake – hungry as I was, rice would’ve been more filling.

But the food was incredible – never mind that New Bombay at De La Costa looks rather dingy, the food is real North Indian and there’s no cuisine I like better! The mutton was very flavorful, and there was a nice added crunch from the generous amount of chopped almonds thrown in. The only complaint I had with it was the presence of many small sharp bones – the price I guess of eating the bonier cuts of mutton.  The paneer tikka was also great, especially with coriander chutney as dip.  Hungry as I was, I ended up ordering a side of samosas too – and again, those were great. Definitely eating there again!

Epilogue: got to chatting with my old friend Vimla, and she’s a fan of the rogan josh and korma mixes from Santi’s, and she gets her yogurt supply from New Bombay itself.  Gotta try those!

From Batangas to Davao and Back

Saturday, May 30, 2009

This May has been one of the most hectic, fun, and adventure-packed months I’ve ever had.  I can hardly believe it – in the span of a mere thirty days Cat and I have gone to some great places in Davao, then to Iba, Zambales, and ended the month with a bang, or should I say a splash, in Anilao, Batangas.  Whee! 

We started the month with an overnight trip to Batangas city to give a workshop for the Batangas City Camera Club, which they sponsored to recruit new members.  Cat and I had great fun with that group, and just a few days ago I received a YM from their president Bhoyet that all the participants from the workshop ended up joining the club. 

Even better, one of my students from the club told me she got my lecture, and found it better than the class offered by another photography center here.  That was really heart-warming for me, as it validated the course Cat and I designed and my decision to switch the normal sequence of teaching photography.  Most photo instructors teach the camera first, but I decided I’d give my students a ‘softer’ entry by teaching light and composition first, then teach them how to use their cameras only after they had an idea what they were trying to achieve.

Mere days later, we were flying off to visit Cat’s parents in Davao, a visit made even more fun by the presence of Cat’s sisters, Jerrie with her family and Arlene, with her boyfriend, Leo.  Cat’s mom really rolled out the red carpet for us, or should I say, the red tablecloth – there seems to be no word for ‘meal’ in Davao, as every time we sat at her table there was a feast! 

We missed the durian harvest from the family farm (darn!), and it seems global warming has altered the weather in Davao from the usual sunny mornings and rainy afternoons to all-day rain for days at a time, but we still got to check out some good places.  Cat and I did a ‘bridal shoot’ with a white peacock in Eden Park; I got to shoot an injured but very dignified looking Brahmin Kite at the Philippine Eagle Sanctuary; and the day after we did the 380 meter long zipline at Camp Sabros. 

The night after doing the zipline we had a great lechon dinner with Cat’s cousin, Nena, and the Palma Gils – a very large clan indeed! – but had to eat and run so we could interview Rhonson Ng for a DPP article.  Rhon gave us compli tickets to a concert by The Dawn at Matina Town Square, but as the night was running late and the opening acts were not quite to our taste (Viva Hot Babes singing – not hot, and no good singing either) we wandered off and found this nice reggae band doing their thing in another part of the mall.  I really liked the expressions of their lead singer, and he didn’t have a bad voice either.  ISO 3200 on my Nikon, and damn the noise we’re going monochrome!

There was a fortunate break in the weather when we visited Chema’s resort on Samal Island, where Cat’s cousin-in-law, Quincho, treated us to his Kapampangan cuisine and a virtual river of beer.  The weather was less kind when we visited Samal Island again a few days later to shoot Hagimit Falls and the Monfort Bat Caves, with intermittent cloudbursts throughout the day – but I’m now convinced the gods like photographers, for every time we took out our cameras the rain would stop! 

We were joined on our Samal odyssey by Cat’s adventurer cousin, Raymond, his sister Josie who was our guide around the island, and very very luckily by another cousin, Chubby, who manages the Sonriza resort.  Had Chubby not volunteered to drive us to the falls and caves in his van, we’d never have gotten there – Cat’s old Mazda would not have been up to the steep dirt roads to the falls.  We ended the day with a feast of grilled fish at Sonriza – nice, simple, Filipino fare, eaten with a tasty dip of soy sauce, native lemon and chilies.  (I say ‘native’ lemon to differentiate it from the yellow American lemon, but what we had was more like the Indonesian jeruk nipis than the dayap.)

We capped our stay in Davao with a visit to the Crocodile Farm, where again Cat and I shot some wildlife – I got a nice one of a sleepy binturong, a very Jurassic Park-ish portrait of a Philippine Sailfin Lizard, and two crocs having a territorial tussle.  My only quibble with the croc experience was the failure of the damn things to jump when baited – seems it was mating season, and they had their minds on other things.  I also had a huge surprise when I ran into Ron Rocero, who I shot about to do something unspeakable to a poor innocent yellow python.  I also got a shot of Cat holding a Burmese Python some four Cathys long and almost one Cathy wide.  We capped our visit to the farm with a lunch of spicy Crocodile Sisig.  Yep, croc sisig! Crunchy, spicy, sizzling hot – and yes, it kinda tastes like chicken. 

I was actually reluctant to return from Davao, but Cat had already committed to go with her choirmates to Zambales, and there was work to be done for the magazine (DPP).  So back to Manila, two days’ rest, and then we’re off to Iba, Zambales via the new SCTEX highway.   Cut through the hills of Zambales only last year, the highway goes through some very scenic country – Cat and I are now planning to go there again by ourselves, stopping to shoot landscapes wherever we find a good spot.  The place we stayed at in Iba, Tammy’s, was a letdown however – the resort’s owners were not taking care of their beach at all, and the shore was littered with plastic debris – a lot of it from careless guests.  I’ll not record my rant here about the masa losing their rights to the sea in my eyes, but suffice to say I was mad.  Would we take better care of our environment had we remained animist instead of converting to Christianity? I wonder. 

The morning after we arrived in Iba, however, we hired a boat to take us to a snorkeling spot farther south, and here at least I got to see some living things (there were none by the shore of Tammy’s).  In fact, we got to see a beautiful reef in very shallow water, but I also saw a sight that filled me with foreboding: there were hordes of crown of thorns starfish crawling over the corals.  We also noted that the reef contained no large fish – in fact I saw nothing more than a foot long.  All the fish seemed to be juveniles, even those of species I could identify being smaller than what I usually see in Batangas.  Is there a correlation between the scarcity of mature fish and the proliferation of the crown of thorns starfish? Again, I wonder. 

On the road to Iba, I found that Cat’s choirmates John and Jong were about to complete their scuba course (I think I got Jong hooked on the sea after introducing him to snorkeling last year), and they invited us to go with them to the Outrigger resort in Anilao for their checkout dive.  Could I refuse?  Turns out I could, but not Cat.  Before I knew it Cat was tempting Arlene with the prospect of a dive, and the lure of the sea being what it is, Saturday morning found us all driving down the Star tollway again, this time to Anilao. 

It had rained dire wolves and sabertooth kittycats Friday night, but breaks in the clouds had led us to hope the skies would clear in time for our dip.  No such luck!  A squall caught us just as our boat was approaching the designated dive site. I was soaked before I’d even seen a single fish!  The only remedy to the situation, of course, was to jump overboard.  Oh glory!  There beneath the rain-stippled water was a paradise of soft and hard corals and hordes of varicolored fish.  Schools of sergeant-majors, apparently used to being fed by divers, rose to greet us, and all around grazing on the corals were several kinds of parrotfish, triggerfish, Moorish idols, and  surgeonfish.  I also spotted some javelin-slim cornetfish, several cleaning stations with their cunning wrasse attendants, and some electric blue bird wrasses. 

(Photos of fish below not mine – follow the links to the source sites; species shown also not necessarily the same as what you find in Anilao)

The sight just brought me back to my childhood days learning to snorkel in the rich waters off Puerto Galera, and I was in bliss.  I was actually following John, Jong and Arlene as they descended, and if it would’ve been all right to bum some air off them I think I would’ve followed them down all the way to the deepest spot they reached, some 40 or so feet down.  Hi there! See the friendly drunken dugong?  Or is it the Philippine Giant Albino Puffer?  Alas, though, I had to stay near the surface with my snorkel. Now I’m really determined to get certified as a diver!

Our snorkeling however was cut short as the waves began to pick up, and we were called back to the boat before conditions got even worse.  We were riding a substantial chop on our way back to Outrigger, and I just had to ask Cat how many Hail Marys the water would rate from her mom (she’s been known to take to her rosary when the water gets a little rough).  Getting off the boat however was an ordeal, as the rising surf made the light craft bob and weave like a Pacquiao.  I eventually opted to jump into the water than chance the wildly weaving ladder, but badly miscalculated my ascent to shore.  A wave took me by surprise and my knee slammed into a rock with force enough to break the skin – but fortunately, not the bone.  So there I was with my knee running with blood, stinging with the seawater wash I’d given it and ringing like a gong, but … I wasn’t even cussing as I normally would.  That’s how happy I was.  Damn, I love the sea.

And that is how I’m ending the month of May.  Not bad, eh?