Hong Kong winter is really nice in the morning. Very crisp. I was feeling pretty good until I ended up waiting for a bus to Choi Hong for 20 minutes. Five empty buses to Hang Hau for every full bus to Choi Hong. I don’t know what the deal is, some failure in the system…

Anyway, finally got there. I had a lot of trouble staying awake, just because of my state. As for the content, it was all very beginner level stuff. It was like programming for iPhone 101. Granted, it was a two tier system and I only went to the lower tier stuff, but even the higher tier stuff looked pretty simple.

This wasn’t what I was expecting at all. I expected more small groups and breakout sessions with one on one time with engineers. There was none of this besides the 15 minutes between sessions.

Oh well, the “beginner level” stuff was actually exactly what I needed considering I had only toyed around with Xcode for about an hour. I think this may have been deliberate. After all, this is the first year of official iPhone in Hong Kong. Maybe next year, they can operate under the assumption that Hong Kong will have many “seasoned veterans” from the first year and they’ll have more of a developer discussion.

The Apple Asia team seemed really nice. It seemed like it would be a nice place to work.

I love the Apple details. They gave out t-shirts to all attendees, and the cardboard box that holds the t-shirt has more design and usability thought put into it than most OEM laptops.

Except the shortcut didn’t work. Basically, the shortcut “command-ctrl-D” to make the dictionary popup come up, doesn’t work at all. This problem seems to affect some preinstalled Leopard systems.

I ran across a few solutions, like making sure you were using the right key combination, making sure it was enabled, or making sure the dictionary app was in the applications folder. None of these worked for me.

After scrounging the internet forever, this simple solution worked for me.

I know the article doesn’t seem relevant, but it solved the problem, so maybe some random googler will find this helpful.

I should note, the tooltip for Chinese solution is still not ideal, but I haven’t found a free solution that works well, yet.

I think in this my opinion has been shaped mostly by my upbringing and by my exposure to Japanese culture. My mom kind of made us take off our shoes, but it was never a real serious rule. Grandma’s house, though, that is a place where shoes had to come off. There was a special entryway where you could take off shoes or boots in the winter time. Inside, the linoleum floors and soft carpets were always immaculate. You could just lay on the carpet if all of the chairs were taken by grownups, and the little kids always played on the carpet. This takes a lot of care and maintenance by my grandma, but it made us always feel super-comfortable at her house.

Japanese people have special shoe related customs for every situation. People always take off their shoes when visiting others. They have special shoes you put on when you get to the hot springs resort, but you still have to take these shoes off when you enter your room or eat dinner. There are still other shoes you put on when you enter the bathroom. When you use the scanning electron microscope you actually have to wear a suit with special shoes, though I think they do this in the US sometimes, too.

Come to think of it, my time in Japan has made me more sensitive to cultural differences. By this I mean that I am better able to detect when someone is doing something differently because of their culture and not because they don’t know how to do it the “right” way. I also acknowledge that some times there are two ways of doing something that have about equal merit, but which arbitrarily can be different in different cultures. This sounds really basic, but some people from my culture refuse to acknowledge this.

If it’s a tile floor, I don’t care about leaving shoes on that much. Tile feels dirty to me no matter what. But someday I’ll have a real house with carpet, and in that home I won’t care about other cultures. It’s going to be shoe-less.

The things I like about Japan are the little things:

The subway system. It actually lets you go anywhere you want to go. Sure, it is also more complex than any other system, but that gives you something to use that fancy cell phone for.

Breakfast. The Japanese do it better than any other country I have experienced. I’m speaking about “typical” breakfasts, here, something you might eat every morning from a local restaurant. Typical American breakfast items are too heavy with oil and there is too much focus on having a “hearty” breakfast (which actually means heart-clogging). Hong Kong breakfasts seem almost brain dead, like they didn’t know what else to eat so they just threw together random parts from other countries’ breakfasts. A traditional Japanese breakfast is light and healthy. About the only thing it is missing is some fruit, but that can be easily rectified.

Bathing. My morning experience (though I do this at night, too) here is so much better than any other place. Slip on the yukata, take the elevator to the bath in the basement, wash myself sitting down, then slip into the HOT bath for a few moments of peace. The hot bath really clinches it; the heat really gets your blood flowing. I can feel the tension of sleep flow out of my fingers and legs. As soon as I get out, I’m ready to start my day (or go to sleep, whichever time it is).

Toilets. This seems like a strange topic to bring up, but it must be said: Using the toilet is as fundamental a human activity as eating or sleeping, but for all the care put into food preparation and comfortable beds, most of the world is still in the dark ages when it comes to toilets. Even in my home country, the richest (well, at least for now) country in the world, a “luxury” bathroom is one with triple-ply toilet paper. The toilet at my hotel in Japan has a place to set my backpack, privacy curtains that go down to the floor, heated seat, control panel, and bidet. I’ve seen some models that have driers. That the toilet technology here has not become commonplace in other countries either means they don’t care enough or don’t like it. In either case it makes me feel a special kinship with the Japanese.

Ramen. As far as I’m concerned, the only decent soup the west has is Chicken Noodle. Vietnam has pho and China has cross the bridge noodle, but Japan has one of the best: ramen. It comes in many varieties to suit any taste. The noodles perfectly al dente, the broth sublime, and with extras like pork, hard-boiled egg, bamboo shoots, and nori. I know some of you might be saying “but ramen comes from China.” Well, the Japanese perfected it. I’ve never been satisfied with Chinese beef noodle soup, but good ramen is a world class taste.

So those are all the little daily life things that I like about Japan. Of course, there are many other areas in which I can feel some connection to Japan: aquariums, design aesthetic in general, the beautiful natural places, emphasis on technology, and, of course, my favorite anime. But these little things are what make living in Japan more comfortable than other places.

I had a friend who said that it was quite different from the experience in Korea, where the set meal is less common. I can say it was also quite different from the all you can eat  (吃到飽) I had in Taiwan that was all self-service and you could choose any meat you wanted. However, it met my expectations of Korean barbeque as an American, providing an almost equivalent experience to the Korean barbeque I had in Houston.

I give it a thumbs up. So if you are in the mood for Korean BBQ near Causeway Bay, I recommend it.

Name: Korea Restaurant
Location: 58, Leighton Rd, G/F, Causeway Bay, H.K.
Phone: 25779893, 25779876

We didn’t have my rice cooker, so I had to make rice in a pot. I was a little unsure about doing that, but the rice turned out pretty well. I used fake crab, which was only okay and was apparently not as high quality as the fake crab I usually have.

The whole “meal” consisted of fruit juice, hummus and pita for an appetizer, and then the main course of California rolls. My mom, my brother, and I had four rolls in all It was pretty delicious, and I got better after making each one.

Here is the result:

Itadakimasu!!!

I was always a “picky” eater. Even at my grandma’s house for Thanksgiving or Christmas, where everyone agrees that the cooking is great, I usually ended up eating only the meat and bread. I’ve since expanded, now I can eat the dumplings and mashed potatoes, but the classics like corn, pies, green bean casserole, or fruit salad I will never eat. Most friends would say I’m pretty picky all around.

That is, of course, until I went to Asia. It seems I love lots of different kinds of Asian foods, especially Japanese food. When I came back to America I thought I was cured of my pickiness, but now I’ve come to realize that in general I much prefer Asian foods over European foods.

It seems like every summer, when usually I’m alone, I consider learning to cook things. Most times these attempts have been aborted. I try to make something from a recipe, but because of my inexperience I can’t follow the incomplete instructions. A couple of years ago I learned to make onigiri, but that isn’t really cooking and it isn’t something I did regularly. At last, this summer I helped my roommate cook a basic salmon dish, but I still hadn’t cooked something by myself. What finally pushed me to do it was the discovery of the game “Cooking Guide.” The reason the game is so exciting to me is that it has videos and clear instructions for each step of the preparation. This is what finally made it easy enough for me to try cooking.

I think cooking is important for a lot of reasons. There is a time for a quick sandwich, but sometimes it is really worth it to spend an hour preparing food. Another reason is I can imagine living with someone in the future. I believe sharing and switching off cooking duties is important for a healthy relationship.

I’m starting to develop a nascent “cooking philosophy.” I like cooking simple things. At this point it has more to do with my skills than my preferences, but I prefer “simple” things to eat, also. What I mean is that I like a strong emphasis on slightly changed individual ingredients (like salmon fillets) rather than large mixed dishes (like lasagna). This emphasis on ingredients also demands a huge value placed on fresh ingredients. I’m also interested in Asian dishes, but not just Asian. I like Asian-Western fusion sorts of dishes.

I’m not sure how far I will take this, but in the next few years I will try to learn to cook some more dishes. I’m excited about Hong Kong, because I think I will have much more access to fresh ingredients. I don’t know that I’ll have much time to cook, but I will have to make an effort to try cooking a few times. I will keep this blog updated with new dishes I learn to prepare.

It had to be a salmon dish, that was the plan. The disagreement was over the seasoning: my mom wanted to use some off-the-shelf “salmon seasoning” that I knew I wouldn’t like.

The options for salmon in my cooking game were very limited, and we were missing ingredients for all of them. I had to turn to the internet, searching for different combinations of ingredients that we had. We would usually end up missing some critical ingredient, or if we weren’t the recipe would seem to taste too “rustic” or “earthy” for me.

Finally, I found a recipe that matched my requirements, but I was missing a critical ingredient: Miso paste. Of course, our kitchen didn’t have any. What we did have, however, were a few packets of instant miso soup powder that I’d brought back from Houston Chinatown last Christmas. Low on options, I took the risk of switching the powder for the paste. I used one packet, which usually makes one bowl, because the amount of miso paste (2 TBSP) they used is the same used for one bowl of miso. I would have been missing many more ingredients, but because I had bought ingredients for California rolls a few days earlier I had mirin and rice vinegar.

The cooking went well, if a little frantic. I had never cooked salmon myself, so my mom did help me in determining when it was done.

The entire meal consisted of Miso glazed salmon, steamed rice with nori, and green beans with cheese (my mom made this). For dessert, we had rice krispies bars. It turned out very nice, and the salmon was delicious. I was quite relieved, because I was concerned I would screw up and ruin dinner.

A picture of the completed meal:

Okay, it doesn’t look like much when all is said and done, but check out the satisfied customer:

and all it cost him was paying for four years of college education…

Here is the text of the recipe, in case the site ever goes down. A big thank you to “The Savory Notebook”!

Oven-Roasted Miso Sesame Salmon

4 serving-sized pieces of salmon fillet (about 6 ounces each)
2 tablespoons light miso
1 1/2 tablespoons mirin
1 1/2 tablespoons brown sugar
2 tablespoons rice vinegar or cider vinegar
2 tablespoons toasted sesame seeds
chopped scallions

Preheat the oven to 450. Rinse the salmon and place it skin-side down on an oiled baking sheet. With a sharp knife, make about 4 slashes across each fillet, taking care not to cut all the way through. In a small bowl, combine the miso, mirin, brown sugar and vinegar.

Roast the salmon for 5 minutes. Remove it from the oven, spoon the miso-mirin glaze onto the fillets and return to the oven until the fish flakes easily with a fork but is still moist, 3 to 5 minutes, depending on the thickness of the fillets. Serve sprinkled with toasted sesame seeds and scallions.

Rather than describe it, I’ll point you to a slide I made for a presentation I gave on Taiwan.

There are a lot of places you can get decent milk ice. A chain called 3 Brothers (三兄弟) makes a decent bowl, but my favorite place is a place near Gongguan station 公館站).

The way to get there is to take the station exit across from the main National Taiwan University entrance. After that, you head northwest, pass a couple alleys, and then turn left at alley 316. Walk a couple blocks and on your right you’ll see this:

Here is a map if it helps.

Here, some random Asian person who also likes this place:
Note: You can get flavors other than mango if you like.

My recommendation is to go to Gongguan, wander around the neighborhood and find a place to eat (there are a ton of places), then go to the ice place afterwards for dessert.

As an aside, across the street is my favorite milk boba tea place, called 青蛙. It’s just a little stand, but in the afternoon there is always a line. I can honestly say it’s the most delicious 珍珠奶茶 I’ve ever had. Unfortunately, I would usually be so full after dessert that I rarely went there. Still, check it out sometime.

I commend the efforts of the Aquamacs group in making an emacs that can integrate with OS X in a relatively painless fashion, as well as look much nicer than something using X11.

However, I question the UI design choices that led to the creation of this dialog box that popped up when I tried closing out of the program:

Powerful, maybe, but elegant? Not to mention the fact that, despite being familiar with all of the options, it took me a good thirty seconds to finally choose the appropriate response.