Cantonese Cuisine

Yes, I know I should be studying for my Bioanalytical Chemistry mid-term now; however, it's getting kinda boring and so I decide to write something irrelevant. Let me write on cantonese cuisine to entice whoever read this blog to come to HK for holiday so that I won't feel so bore.

So what's the hype about cantonese cuisine? Basically, Cantonese cuisine is one of the top 8 series of cuisine in China. The top 8 series of cuisine are as follow (in no order of superiority): Shandong, Sichuan, Jiangsu, Zhejiang, Guangdong (Cantonese), Hunan, Fujian and Anhui. Cantonese cuisine focues a lot on the freshness of the ingredients being used as it tends to add less flavour enhancer. Cultlery skills include steam, fry, boil, deep-fried, roast etc. Signature series of dishes include dim sum, steamed seafood, roasted meat (include duck, goose, pork etc), hotpot, soup etc.

In my opinion, Cantonese cuisine is the best and for me, the most enjoyable way to catch up with friends is to find a good restaurant for yum cha (aka savour dim sum with a cup of good tea). Yum cha is my number one favourite. Since most of the dishes are steamed, yum cha is also a good way to taste the freshness of the food and also to marvel the skill of the chef as those dim sum looks simply wonderful.

Vivid description is kinda useless without photos as a picture speaks a thousand words. The photos of dim sum are as follow (try naming them ;)):

TA Duty & Ivan's Trip to HK

30mins to my TA duty and I am taking the time off to update my blog, which has not been updated for quite some time.

Talking about TA duty in the lab, I begin to enjoy it more as I understand HK students' mentality more and more. They are not as unfriendly to non-cantonese speaking TAs as I thought and as the guys here didn't go through the Army, they tend to be a little immature at times (not to say that all Singapore guys are mature of course). In fact, 2 groups of students thanked me for being such a wonderful TA; was kinda touched when I heard that.

Nothing very significant happened for the past 2 weeks except Ivan's bunking into my hostel. He came on Friday 16th Mar and departed on 25th Mar. It's a good 10 days but how time flies - he seems to be here for less than 3 days. We did some "crazy" things together and the first part of his time here was describe to him more as In-Camp Training than holiday. Lol.

For the first weekend, I wanted to bring him Shenzhen in my initial plan. However, after he heard of my description of the wondering dim sum (especially the durian puff) that Da Tong Restaurant in Guangzhou offers (he saw the video of Jia Hao and Liling eating it as well, courtesy of the Canadians), he asked if we could make a trip to Guangzhou as well. I said why not and off we went over to Guangzhou on Sunday morning and there he tasted the most wonderful dim sum in his life. Following that, we checked into a nearby hotel and brought him to Haizhu Square. He bought a lava lamp and I bought a Titanium series Columbia jacket for only RMB$300 after bargaining! That's really cheap and I have checked its quality - 99% authentic after my inspection.

I went for my haircut and he continued his shopping in Haizhu Square. Following that, we met up and went over to the Book Center and then to Sun Yat Sen Memorial Hall. That is when we realized that we don't have enough RMB$! Apparently, Guangzhou don't accept HK$ and we are in deep shit as we won't be able to go back. And, I have group meeting on Monday afternoon! We rushed to a bank on time and queued for 1 hour to exchange currency, only to realize that they don't exchange currency on Sunday! Out of desperation, I rang up my Guangzhou friend and changed RMB$500 with her. So the moral of the story is, keep enough local currency for your whole trip; it doesn't matter how much US$ or S$ or Eu$ you have since if the local don't accept them, you are reduce to nothing. We were even thinking of buying a bowl and carpet to beg on the street (just kidding). Lol.

Due to the lack of sleep, Ivan was sick for the next 3 days and he rested in my room half the time. I was busy for most of the week and he was on his own most of the time, with Wed and Thu spent at his aunt's place. I met him on Friday in TST to get the ferry ticket to Macau the next day. In addiiton, he went to buy cosmetics for his colleagues (heard that it's cheap as it's tax-free) and then to Temple street to buy the green laser pointer for Yuan-Ting. We had Hui Lai Shan's Mango dessert again, for the 3rd time! I guess he really like it for if not, he wouldn't keep asking me to go there and eat.

The following day, we went to Macau and a mainland friend of mine tagged along. It was a so-so trip, probably because I have been there before and so don't feel much. The new Lisboa is up and it doesn't give me a nice feeling upon witnessing its extravagant artchitecture.

Ok that's about it I guess. His trip ended with a dim sum with me in Commonwealth restaurant in Jordan. At the end of the day, his verdict was that the dim sum in Da Tong in Guangzhou is the best among the one he has tasted in the 3 cities. These 2 are unforgetable:

健康榄仁卷

泰国榴莲酥

And, I don't eat the durian puff, of course! But thus far, no one who likes durian fail to praise the durian puff in Da Tong.

Off to TA duty and I've a mid-term on Thu. In the meantime, still need to look for a research direction to venture into. Cyclic peptide is trashy and hydrosilylation is kinda saturated. What's next?

Research direction/s?

Stayed in the lab today to finish up some work. Had 2 simultaneous yum cha session yesterday. Lol. The first one was a farewell yum cha in school for a Beijing lab mate who will be returning to Beijing after his 3 months stint here. The second one was with the Canadians in the Commonwealth restaurant near Jordan. This one was really good and it still taste this good after so many months. Its signature dish "this is not a spring roll" still fascinates me (and the Canadians even more).

Oscar, one of my senior who graduated last year and is currently doing her postdoc in Japan now, came back to campus last night. We had a short talk and he gave me some ideas on what is hot now. Sad to say, according to his and Xin Hao, traditional organic chemistry is no longer hot as most of what needs to be discovered has already been discovered. Somehow a small corner of my heart tells me that there must be something out there that has not been discovered. It's time for me to sit down and work thing s out and see what is the field that I should go into in this area. However, I am being heavily burdened by the cyclic peptide project. Whenever I think of it, I don't feel like doing anything. It's not healthy and if this goes on, I'll be wasting 2 years here.

School pace for the next one month or so will accelerate. Mid-term for Bioanalytical Chemistry is coming and I gotta do something about it. Ivan, a primary and high school friend of mine, will be coming to HK for holiday this Friday and he'll be bunking into my room. I'll be bringing him around as and when I have the time. There is a short Spring break coming and I'll be going to Inner Mongolia for a short holiday. I was considering between Tibet and Inner Mongolia; chose the latter in the end due to budget constraint. I think it'll be a wonderful trip as I'll be seeing some of China's most beautiful scenaries such as the vast grassland and desert.

Home

Wrote this on 7 Oct 2005; felt the same way now as well.

"Anyway being away from home really made you fully understand this song (not only in terms of lyrics, which may be superficial, but in terms of the waves of feelings generated):

Whenever I am feeling low, I look around me and I know. There's a place that will stay within me; wherever I may choose to go. I will always recall the city, know every street and shore; sail down the river which brings us life, winding through my Singapore.

This is home truly, where I know I must be; where my dreams wait for me, where that river always flows. This is home surely, as my senses tell me; this is where I won't be alone, for this is where I know it's home"

Old tale - Organic is so tough?

Went over to Shenzhen to meet up with mom and dad yesterday. They went over to Guangzhou for a short holiday and dropped by Shenzhen to see me. It's so nice meeting up with them, given the fact that I miss home.

I think it's time to do something about my life as I have not achieve much for the past 1.5 months. I wanted to write an education article on pericyclic reaction but it has not started. Sigh. Maybe, as usual, I live in the past too much and thus find it hard to return to reality at times. The feeling is similar to that when I just returned to Singapore from exchange in Jan 2006. However, 2006 was a really good year for me and though I felt blue and at the beginning, I managed to pull through and achieve greater heights. Well, it's not only my effort of course; I have to thank Emily for her encouragement and support. Not to forget, friends like Teck Loon, Chee Siong and Yuan-Ting who are always by my side. Though I had some misunderstandings with Yuan-Ting in the last semester, it has not affect our decade-long friendship. True enough, friends whom you met in Primary and Secondary school tend to last for life.

Tu di remarked that she's not going to do well in her organic test. Of course, the usual remarks (from many other juniors as well) was that memorization is required and there always seem to be an ever-growing no. of reactions to remember. Honestly, I don't have a solution to that as well (coz most people don't seem to understand/appreciate how Eugene and I learn organic). I have taught organic since 1999 on and off and till this day, I have to say I still don't know how to teach it well. I am still exploring and it is indeed not an easy subject for people to master and appreciate. I am still learning and we just gotta keep reading to keep it alive.

So how to do well and appreciate it at greater depth? I have written 2 article in it and basically, it can be summarized it as follow:

Experience: Read, discuss, debate among friends etc. The more one does it, the more one will get in tune with the subject. There is a reason why old organic chemist always like to say "I feel that this reaction will not work" before they perform an experiment. Gaining experience means improving on your data base of knowledge.

Intuition: Developing a chemical sense is very important. It can only be gained from experience and allows you to predict many things (if not, people will end up memorizing a series of seemingly similar facts). Why electrons move this way, that way all comes from intuition (and experience)

Creativity: It is always good to go beyond the status quo to explore new possibilities. Be daring and not be afraid to make mistakes. The more mistakes one make, the more one will learn and on his way to become a better chemist.

Feeling: It is always important to have a feel for molecule. How will the molecule arrange itself in space when they react? How does the transition state and intermediate look like? MO Theory is of uttermost important here.

Yah, time for me to work on some really nice things as well.

Disgusted

On Sat, towards the end of the lesson in CUHK, I felt really disgusted lor. We were given a quiz and everyone around me were basically discussion, copying and reading from the notes. The guy to my right was like peeping into my answers. Not that I will do well (coz the first part of the course is mainly Math), but at least, if I don't know, I will just let it be. Sigh. HK students are really too much.

I remembered after one of my TA lab session, a group of students were telling me that they find uni life really tough. They said that during their "A" levels, they have at least 8 hours of sleep. Now, they don't even have 5 hours. Please lor, I was telling them, if they find their stuff here tough, then they will suffer even more in NUS lor.

I had a great meal in Shenzhen that night. Not cantonese dishes this time round; it's shaoxing dishes. Shaoxing is a town in China famous for their shaoxing wine. I ate this chicken that is soaked in the wine for a couple of days and then put into the fridge. The taste is really heavenly.

On Sunday, I dropped by Macau for a short visit and catch up with Suzana. Gotta know her bf and realized his striking similarities (in terms of behaviour and gesture) with Jack. Lol. I finally get to try the authentic Macau prok bun. It tastes really good and it's one of the few dishes that will make me remember Macau. Dinner was at Sands International buffet. It was a little disappointing as they downsize the buffet area and now, there aren't as many choices as before.