A VERY GREEN ISLAND

There are some parts of the world I need to revisit, not having been there in over two decades. And that statement alone qualifies me as having "Anglo priviledge". Seeing as most of the rest of the world does not travel as much, or as widely, or with such devil-may-care wild abandon. Europe right now is forlorn and despairing of ever going to the Costa Del Sol, Morocco, or South East Asia with its fabulous beaches and luxury tourist resorts again.
"Was sollen wir tun" they wail disconsolately, "was sollen wir tun?"
Frankly, Fraulein Scarlett, there's always Bavaria.
So sunny at this time of year.
Und exotisch!

Some parts of the world are more commonly overcast. Which can be very pleasant.

Or grey, drizzly, only slightly too warm for comfort. As a long-time San Francisco resident, I'll gladly put up with that, along with beef noodle soup and sticky rice packets, provided there aren't any Americans nearby complaining about anything at all, Englishmen or Australians getting riotously drunk, Europeans looking for sex and sunlight, or my fellow Dutch speakers belly-aching about the lack of patat friet, frikandellen, or beer. Or why don't the natives make tea like we do? Here, we brought a packet of Douwe Egberts teabags. Just in case.


The beef noodle soup (牛肉麵 local pronunciation: 'gu bah mi') is actually quite delicious, and the sticky rice packets (粽 local pronunciation: 'tsang') hit the spot. There's also oyster omelette (蚵仔煎 local pronunciation: 'o ah chien'). Bah oan (肉圓) are good too. If having the noodle soup, ask for half brisket half tendon (半筋半肉麵 'poaŋ kiṇ poaŋ bah mi'), avoid the three treasures version which also has tripe.

[NOTE: The place isn't entirely ruled by the 黑手黨 ('hei tsiu taŋ') or 竹聯幫 ('tsu lien pang'). So it represents one of the more democratic and enlightened societies in it's area.]



LU GANG SHIM-MI?

Bear in mind that the local people swear frightfully by HK standards, and those horrible tapioca balls in your tea are a fact of life. You might want to bring along a box of Rickshaw brand teabags (車仔紅茶包 'gu-kia ang-tê pow') to show them how it's done.




AFTERWORD

This post is for Adrian F. somewhere near Oxford, and Jerome O. south of Muddy Estuary, both of whom probably visited the place. And may have had language issues there.
Shi hok-tsap (是複雜).




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