I
felt somewhat better and had just received a
rare round of positive and personal
emails from Cousin Barbara, Joe who tells me he is making me a Gift
Photo Website so I
can put up all my travel photos, and
a letter from a work person saying I am a Great Teacher.
I understand the Chinese sense
of humour by now,
and wonder if that means I am about to get fired!
Am dwelling heavily in personal
relationships as
feel Career and Home and Money are big flops.
Evening
appointment to see beauteous-located home
with two itsy bedrooms for my
non-existent visitors, and a long way from anywhere, a Chamma Tau type
scenario.
Chamma
Tau Vege-Cafe welcomed me warmly to Chamma
Tau last week when I went out to
potential business partners, and made me feel sad Joe had flown the
Couple coop.
I
am working at computer room where not one but
two Octopus cards have disappeared
from the computer tray, after Helpful Worker helped me to print.
Sarah
from New Zealand, an elegant traveller reminiscent of
an updated young Audrey Hepburn,
told me yesterday she had accidentally happened upon real workers in
that trade scampering
up and down narrow flights of stairs
somewhere on Central Side.
I
thought this must be Wan Chai, where I had seen pairs of
bar-girls sitting on folding chairs
outside taverns, with a Chinese guy hovering by them to watch the money.
I
grilled her, trying to locate what she had seen, for our
pictures did not merge, she said
they were quite young girls with grandmother types watching over them.
Well, those types of grandmas
are not the types of grandmas
we grew up with in Canada, hhmmmmm.
We
had a wonderful outing and walked along the road bordering
Kowloon Park - Haiphong Road? - to
Canton Road and turned to the right and walked up a few doorways to the
Taiwan Beef Noodle
House.
*******************************
The
Taiwan Beef Noodle House is full of round glass-topped
tables and heavy wood carved stools, and has great reasonably-priced food.
I
noted the menu outside the door a few weeks and saw many
things I liked, or just the sound
of, garlic green beans, brown thick noodles Shanghai style, mango
pancakes, and quasi-desserts
that you could have for breakfast if
you dislike meaty soups.
It
is a purely Chinese place, without coarse HK snacks and
forties British stuff, like Horlicks, oatmeal, and pig knuckles.
There
is the tea and peanuts as in Shenzhen with a small charge
of 2 and 3 HK for these extras.
They will re-fill your tea endlessly for you, even when you have
finished dinner and
just want to talk to your friend a
while.
Sarah
is new to Hong Kong, and can't wait to get into China,
where she plans to have her real
adventures. She finds the streets crushing, and the prices steep here.
I
told her how hospitable and thoughtful the people of
China are to guests. She
entertained me with a hilarious imitation of Hong Kong merchants, and
variable prices.
For
you - Special Price!
For you - Special Price! - Double the local price!
For you - New Zealand - one million HK!
For you - Canadian - one million HK!
We
really liked the ambience of the restaurant, sometimes it
is quite empty - mid-mornings for mango pancakes - though at night it is packed.
They
play Chinese music which is more audible when it is less
full, and a black-suited manager has even come to my table to take my order himself.
Almost
all of the foods are palatable to those bewginning Chinese
food - such as rice, noodles, with
chicken and vegetables - though one horribly interesting fish caught my
eye.
This
began with Fish Ovuducts - or something to that
affect - and made me thing of Fish Ovaries. You don't mean to
tell me that Chinese would eat Fish Ovaries?
There are many wonderful things to eat in China,
I reminded Sarah, and mentioned
freshly made soy milk, pineapples, walnuts, boneless chicken, prawns,
shrimps, noodles, rice,
eggplants, coconuts, freshly made
coffee, real duran fruit pastries, Shanghai style cuisine, beer made
with fewer chemicals,
green tea and a million other items.
