Dim sum is a traditional Chinese meal. Very much like Spanish tapas whereby dishes are served in small portion, best to share with friends and family. Here in Hong Kong, we can have dim sum for breakfast, dim sum for lunch, dim sum as brunch and dim sum as afternoon tea. Never have I seen dim sum for dinner though. Our plan this morning was to leave our hotel at nine and meet my parents for breakfast. Dim sum style.
All was well except a tiny bit of issue with our hotel room. It was right next to the lifts. As hotel guests travel up and down throughout the night, we could hear the machinery at work and the opening of the lift doors at various levels. Opposite our room was a service lift and much activity started in the early morning. Now, I was stoned last night, oblivious to all the noises around us, including the noisy water pipe above. I was just too tired. My wife who usually is the deep sleeper of the house could not sleep well. So in the morning, we have requested for a room change, stating our reason, and the hotel manager obliged. This is great news. However, packing up our stuffs took time. And we were late for our meet-my-parents session.
What I love about Hong Kong dim sum is that there is a constant innovation in creating new dishes. Like those “flowing” black sesame buns. Or similar dishes in different shapes. Like those star-shaped green vegetable dumplings. For around HK$50 per person (S$8.50 or US$6.50), we can have a dim sum meal in a restaurant setting. Of course it was during off-peak hours and with discount. Still, it is good meal with a good price.
After our breakfast, my mother took us to visit a Chinese doctor who also owns a Chinese herbal store. Not that my wife and I are sick or something. My mother believes that Chinese medicine can enhance health. My wife and I have not seen a Chinese doctor before and I approached the entire episode with a curious mind, and later as I found out, a deep wallet.
As it turns out, the experience is extremely interesting. First, the doctor measured our blood pressure like a Western doctor does. Then he listened to our pulses by placing three fingers on first our left wrists followed by our right. It appears that by listening to our pulses, the doctor was able to diagnose our health status. The 60 years old doctor looks healthy. Rosy cheeks, great skin complexion (for his age), and he wore short sleeves on a winter. What a great living testimony that whatever he does seem to work for him too.
After the diagnosis, he proceeded to mixing herbs for my wife and I. Initially I attempted to count the number of ingredients used. I gave up in the end as it seemed to have taken forever. Perhaps up to thirty different types of herbs were use for each portion. These medicines don’t come cheap either. It was close to HK$2,000 in total (S$340 or US$260) for the two of us, five dosage each.
At one, we met my old friend Alex. Alex and I came from the same school in Hong Kong. By coincidence, we have attended the same university in UK, even the very same college. He was a few years of my senior.
Our first stop was Art Centre for lunch. The view was stunning, overlooking the harbor we could see the skyscrapers on the Kowloon side. We could even see the brand new Hong Kong Observation Wheel opened just yesterday. Alex had a full meal while Cynthia and I still feeling full thanks to our dim sum breakfast, we had scones in rose strawberry jam and cream instead. That was divine in a sinful kind of way.
Knowing our intend to shop for souvenirs for our friends in Singapore, Alex took us around to help pushing the local economy (kidding). We ended up in PMQ, which was used to be a quarter for married police and now, repurposed as art shops and local food outlets. In Singapore, we mostly import handicrafts for sales. Here, artists are using the store area as workshops to create works of art. The atmosphere is phenomenon. For the more successful ones, they open a bigger store nearby, creating art for sales. This reminds me of some artists we have met in Tasmania.
We have walked so much today and by five thirty in the afternoon, all we wanted was to be home. And home we were, waiting for my sister and family to arrive from the airport. Dinner was sumptuous. But that’s a story for another day.