Cake cake cake cake cake cake cake

So I have to make a confession. I have an obsession. With desserts. Yum. So when I found out that the cakes at the Mandarin Oriental hotel in Central were absolutely fabulous, I would not rest until my foodie friend came with me to the fancypants hotel (which was intimidating to my proletarian soul) to try it.

All I can say is yum. I got a lychee raspberry mousse. The flavours were amazing and fresh and the texture was creamy but light.



My friend got a chocolate cake which I took a bite of. Also very delectable.


Here were some cakes on display. Yum.

Can you believe this teddy bear was made of cake?



I love this rose pattern. This could appear in the Sunday Sweets section of Cakewrecks.


So adorable!



A cake modeled after their famous rose-petal jam.


I plan on trying every single cake they make before I go home.

Christmas in Hong Kong

So Christmas has passed but Hong Kong is still in Christmas mode. For a region that's not particularly Christian but very consumerist, let's just say that Christmas is just another excuse to shop and take pictures with cool stuff. There's no snow in Hong Kong but there's a ton of "Christmas" decorations. Well... ostentatious sparkly stuff that's somewhat related to Christmas.

Exhibit A:


The Christmas Tree at the New Town Plaza in Shatin.

Then there are Christmas trees that are blatant displays of the commercial side of the holidays.

A tree made of fake Ferrero Rochers in Tsim Sha Tsui.


A Toy Story-related Christmas tree in Ocean Terminal in Tsim Sha Tsui. A huge ad for HK Disneyland's new Toy Storyland was outside.

Some Christmas decorations were kind of simple, classy and pretty, like these twinkle lights, at Lane Crawford in TST.


Other times, it was kind of random...


Times Square in Causeway Bay.

And then sometimes, you had no clue what the hell is going on...


Megabox in Kowloon Bay.

Sometimes you had some decorations that were really gorgeous...


This is right under the super long escalator at Langham Place.

... Only to have it marred by some random Hello Kitty stuff that's somehow related to Christmas.


(I didn't take either of the Hello Kitty pictures, they were taken from the internet.)

Sigh. I'm literally dreaming of my white Christmases, though there wasn't one this year in Toronto.

Well, on a brighter note, at least the only Hannukah display I could find was not a moment of sensory overload!


At the statue garden in Central.

Happy holidays, everyone and happy new year!!!

Breaking News: Occupy Hong Kong takes to the streets for Halloween

I was doing some errands when I suddenly heard a whole lot of shouting. Upon further investigation, I found out that the heavier than normal police presence on Nathan Road today was caused by a protest staged by Occupy Hong Kong. (See my last post when I visited about two weeks ago here.) I joined the protesters for a bit as they were walking down the street.

Coincidentally, I was at the HSBC building yesterday, waiting for a friend who was going to the Michaelmas fair at St. John's church (I'll post something about this soon). I was surprised that two weeks after Occupy Hong Kong started, there were more or bigger tents, a common area with couches and bookshelves, a cooking area and a bulletin board with a schedule of activities and events. (Sadly, I couldn't decipher all the characters. If I did, I think the writing in black for the 30th of October is about the protest today.) Also coincidentally, the friend who was with me had mentioned that media interest was waning though I guess that statement will be thrown out the window in light of today's protests as there were many reporters, photographers and cameras running around.

Here are some pictures from yesterday:







Pictures from the protest today:

I think the people on that sign are candidates for Chief Executive in the upcoming elections.



This guy was "eating" the hand. I couldn't help but think of Lu Xun's "A Madman's Diary" (you can click the title to read the story).


I'm not exactly sure why there are pictures of people dressed as buildings but an educated guess would be because Hong Kong has a huge housing issue and it also happens to have the highest real estate prices for housing, especially when one considers low-income housing in cage houses.


V for Vendetta masks are a part of Occupy Hong Kong as well. There are other pictures of the mask wearers but I find this one poetic for some reason.


More V for Vendetta masks.


The mask wearers at the front of the protest were throwing spirit money that's burned for dead people.


At this point, a girl at the front was shouting about how they're young people who decided to do this because it's Halloween and they can take this time to dress up and show everyone the horrors that are happening in Hong Kong society today. Protesters were distributing these pamphlets and stickers. I wish I was more apt to read it.


The media was there as well. At one point, a chunk of protestors behind the white ifc thing stopped en route because they were being interviewed by reporters. There were also journalists walking with the protesters, tablets and recorders on hand. I couldn't quite get pictures of this while in the fray but I got this:


I wonder if this will come up on the news tonight. The protest was too late to be broadcast on the evening news.

Multiculturalism in Hong Kong

Last Wednesday was double 9s day, where it was the 9th day of the 9th month on the lunar calendar. The day is supposed to be full of yang and whatnot and for some reason, it's a national holiday so woot! Some friends and I went to Central for lunch and when we were walking around, we happened upon a cultural festival.

Hong Kong likes to boast that it's multicultural and even though it's definitely not as multicultural as Toronto, it still has a vibrant Filipino, Indian and West Asian population as seen here. I'll let the pictures speak for themselves.


Cute little girls doing a Nepalese folk dance.


They ladies on stage were singing and dancing to disco. Awesome.


Such bright and colourful costumes!

Transformers in the sky... and stuff

Here's a typical postcard of Hong Kong which shows the skyline at Victoria Harbour. It looks cool as a totality but when you approach each and every one of these buildings individually, you can't help but feel awed by their epicness. I'll leave the pictures to do the talking for this blog post.

The Lippo Building (My mind was blown when I saw this thing, it looks like a transformer!)

The Bank of China building (A story that's floating around is that it's all pointy unlike all the other buildings because the bank wanted to shoot bad feng shui at the British to make them leave.)


The Legislative Council building. (It's a very historical building so it's not a skyscraper like everything else.)


HSBC Headquarters

Here's a link to a full picture of it on wikipedia.

Jardine House


I haven't seen all the cool buildings in Central on Hong Kong Island but stay tuned for more pictures in the future!