This Advertisement suits Abby

This is a recent advertisement from a free newspaper. It suits Abby perfectly.

1. Abby loves ice-cream very much. The feeling of sweetness and coldness suits her.

She does not mind the flavor, whether it is vanilla, strawberry, chocolate, mango or pineapple. I guess she loves the softness and creamy feeling of this milk product. She really feels very satisfied even if she is given a small cup of ice-cream. The latest taste of ice-cream Abby gets is strawberry.

Here in this advertisement, the ice-cream ball on the spoon above the pink cell-phone is strawberry flavour too.

It was interesting that Abby asked Grandma for ice-cream using her gestures during our recent chats through Skype. Grandma showed Abby that her bowl was empty and that she could not have any ice-cream then.

2. Abby owns two toy cell-phones, one pink and one orange. She loves the pink one most because she loves pressing the different buttons on the panel and they give different sounds. Not only sounds are emitted. The red light indicator at the top of the phone blinks at the same time.

The day before yesterday, Philip told us that once Abby used her toy cell-phone, most probably the pink one, to make a call for grandma in Hong Kong. Philip picked up her phone and pretended he had called me too and told her that I was on the line.

The advertisement here is really attractive and colourful. It creates sweetness through the sweet voices from the other side of the line using the cell-phones suggested.

Answer to Mr. Bean (2)

Look at Mr. Bean’s forehead. He successfully stuck up a stamp from the album on the table.

This is the answer to my question in one of my articles, Mr. Bean (2), on October 20th.

Lucky Draw

Abby looked as if she was drawing something out of her bag at KFC on Oct 13th before breakfast arrived.

Abby drew out two things from the bag (like a lucky draw).
What do you think she wanted to see or use with at that moment? The choices can be found from the article I wrote on October 17th. The answers are very obvious.

A Mirror in front of a road

Along the Kwun Tong By-pass(官塘繞道), this is the tall building that the road bends to avoid it.

I don’t know why it is built so close to this highway or vice versa. Many cars run on this by-pass every day. What I worry most is that when sunlight shines on its glass-walls, the reflection of light can be hazardous to the lives of the drivers on this road.

At the time I took this photo from the upper deck of a cross-harbour tunnel-bus, the mirror-like surfaces of the building reflected a greater part of the sky with clouds, a hill and tall and short buildings underneath.

One thing I have to mention here is that this building is not leaning at an angle like the Leaning Tower of Pisa. It might be the fact that I could not keep my camera at a horizontal level at the moment of taking photos.

Beautiful Ceramics

I found these beautiful ceramics this June when I passed a shop selling clothes at Ma On Shan. My eyes widened when I see them in the shop-window because they were so lovely to see. They ought to be displayed in an Art Museum or Gallery instead.

The green one was a lion’s head like those people played on their heads during Chinese New Year or during celebrations. It looked so real, full of life.

The one in orange red was a cute short soldier wearing a helmet and holding a rod.

The yellow one was a short dragon with an interesting funny head.

A Lecture Room?

Erecting a hospital building is more complicated than a school.

What a school building needs are empty classrooms, a few special rooms, basketball or football grounds and a hall. That was all.

What a hospital needs are function rooms such as Operating theatres, X-ray rooms, laboratories, rooms for pharmacies, Intensive care unit, physiotherapy rooms, different wards for women, men, elderly and children, isolation rooms, secret passageway (to avoid the press) and even rooms for storing corpses…….

Today when I look at the building site of the extension block of Prince of Wales Hospital, I noticed an interesting room with 2 big slides. I guess it will be used as a lecture room for medical students to attend lessons since this hospital is the teaching school of the Faculty of Medicine of Chinese University Hong Kong. The two slides (the foreground of the photo) are probably the sloping structure of a lecture room so that students can sit at different levels and may see the lecturer(s) teaching on the platform in front.

A New Maruko doll from McDonald's

Since last Friday, this Maruko doll can be redeemed for 8 dollars from McDonald's .

The doll is placed at the centre of a yellow platform. If we turn the wheel at the side of the platform, a piece of music is played.

I bought it because I thought Abby might like it. To my expectation, when I turned the blue wheel of the platform to create the song of music, Abby began to turn it by herself. She found some interest in this little toy. When the wheel was turned, Maruko also turned. This little mechanism really brought a moment of joy to Abby.

We decided to put it into Abby’s rucksack as well so that she might look at it or play it in Canada.

Bad news came the next morning that Connie reported that she had left the music platform at a fast food restaurant. Only Maruko doll "survived".

At one time at the airport, I told three families that I would buy another set of this set of toys for Abby, but they disagreed.

Good news came when Connie was inside the plane with Abby and the former took out the toys from inside Abby’s bag, she found the musical base. At that moment Connie, on the plane, phoned us at once that the “musical base” was found at last.

Today, through Skype, we could see Maruko (with its base of course) together with Abby in front of the viewcam. I captured a photo of Abby and the little toy from McDonald. Does Abby look like Maruko?

In Search of Kaya (咖吔)

My wife said to me today that we might try to find Gaya from the second Park-n-shop at City One.

We began to search this kind of spread the day before yesterday, but failed. Today was different. After a minute searching with eyes, my wife found it in small cans.

We found that it was a product of Malaysia with a net-weight of 170 grams.

Let us look at the ingredients first:
Sugar (白沙糖), water (水), coconut extract (椰漿), egg (雞蛋), wheat flour (麵粉), modified starch E1442 (改性麵粉), flavours and flavourings (調味料及調味劑), Colours E102, E110, E129 (食用色素).

I find two descriptions here, one about the history and tradition and the other advertisement:

Simple legacy
In the past, our Ancient forefathers enjoyed simple fulfilling fares. One of them the famous Kaya, the egg coconut spread, the breakfast delight of our forefathers. This humble Kaya tradition has been carried down from generations. Today, the Kaya coconut spread is still a favourite among families.

Serving Suggestions
Yeo’s Kaya coconut spread can be served with breakfast or as a day or night time snack. It is just as delicious hot or cold and makes a delicious spread. A scrumptious way to top just about anything from your spread to pancakes, muffins, waffles and more.

My observation:
The taste of Kaya is something like sweet paste of pudding with a combination of coconut and flour. More or less it looks like our lemon curd in bottles and its colour is orange. The one served at CHIN MEE CHIN Coffee and Cake Shop appeared to be yellow in colour. I believe the magic (difference) came from the colours added.

Ugh! We are eating colours.

Recent Structures made from credit cards (1)

As if magic, the Cathay Pacific credit cards have once more been stacked up to make structures that we find in famous cities of the world.

Last Saturday, I took the top photo at Hong Kong International Airport.
When I look at the structure, I can immediately tell you where it is.
Do you know where? Tell me if you can.

The bottom photo shows the real one I recently captured from HKTVB. Compare the structure made from cards with the real one. Do you think they look much the same?

Local breakfast at Chin Mee Chin, Singapore

The breakfasts that Chin Me Chin Coffee and Cake shop on East Coast Road, Singapore provides are mainly:
1. bread, cakes, buns and tarts (egg or coconut)
2. coffee and milk tea
3. boiled eggs
4. toasts (all kinds)- the most special ones are those with “Kaya”, a sweet paste which tastes like lemon curd.

Here are the photos of some of them.

The top photo shows a cup of milk tea on the right and two cups of black coffee on the leftand behind. A dish of cut-up buns with “Gar Yang” and butter placed on top.

The bottom photo shows the half-boiled eggs. The spoons are for eating or rather, drinking the egg white and yolk. The bottles of salt, pepper, soya sauce (and one unknown) are place at the centre of the table for adding flavours to the eggs. There is a mysterious glass on the right hand side of the photo. I guess if it contains the “bill“ for the breakfast.

Aerial Photos of San Francisco City (Downtown)

This is a nice photo of San Francisco from air. It shows part of the Bay Area.

There are so many houses and buildings below. Felix has kindly labeled some of the famous places here. For myself, I can only supply a map of this part of the Bay Area.

If I call my photos I took on the ground as A, B, C, D, E ,F, G and H (From left to right and top to bottom), can you match them with the following names of places?
(1) Financial District
(2) City Hall Civic Centre
(3) Golden Gate Park
(4) Fisherman’s Wharf
(5) China Town
(6) Pier 39
(7) Alcatraz Island
(8) Maritime Park

動物餅 (Animal-shaped biscuits)

婆婆在超級市場買了一些經典的動物餅乾給Abby食。










十月十五日是Abby首次嘗試這些餅乾。她毫不思索地從包裝袋拿起一塊。未放進口裏面之前， Abby告訴Connie她拿著的是魚魚餅乾。轉過頭來，她用牙齒大力地咬下去，可想而知，那塊餅仔是那麼乾，是那麼硬。












Abby頗聰明，知道飲水是可以幫助把餅乾從口中送下去的，於是大喝一口。這些餅乾始終對Abby來講沒有絲毫吸引力，於是Abby吃了半塊就放棄了。Abby其實已經給了婆婆面子了。
所謂食豬有豬味，食雞有雞味。這些動物餅，吃任何一樣動物，都是同一味道！

究竟大家有沒有能力分辨出所有的動物來呢? 我可以八樣中認出七樣,，除了上排右邊橫向的那一隻。我只可猜牠作大象，你們是否同意呢？

Mr. Bean (2)

Mr. Bean chanced to see some stamps in display in an exhibition. The page of the album was full of the classic Austrian stamps. Mr. Bean bent down his head and touched the stamps.

Did he feel sick? Obviously not!

What do you think he planned to do in this way?

Glass-Air-Glass

Yesterday Abby and family had to return to Canada. After the Check-in process and taking some afternoon snacks, we strolled about the Departure Hall at the Airport.

By the side of a shop selling toys, Abby saw a toy-tortoise in a glass-box. "龜龜", she told us her discovery.

Abby had never experienced looking at things through two pieces of glass. Instead of looking at the tortoise and the shining diamond-like glasses, she found the people behind the glass-box more interesting. Her bright eyes and light smile on face could tell us that it was great fun for her to peep people in this manner.

I was really happy to see Abby enjoy life in her own ways!

Gifts from Grand-uncles and Grand-aunts

Before Abby left Hong Kong for Canada, she had dinner with her Grand-uncles and Grand-aunts.

At the table, Grand-uncle 1 and Grand-aunt 1 gave her a cute doll. See the top photo.

Grand-uncle 2 and Grand-aunt 2 gave her a small lovely bag (rather say a rucksack, 背囊).

This time when she comes back to Hong Kong, she forgets to put in the cute doll, but remembers to carry her bag along.

Here I empty her bag so that you know what she treasures inside:
1. two plastic cell-phones, one pink,. one orange
2. a fluffy dog called Cinamon,
3. a Hello-Kitty drummer
4. a small packet of learning cards from Cathay Pacific
5. M & M chocolate beans
6. a book from Cathay Pacific
7. a pair of sun-glasses
8. a Doramon-box of a tiny towel
9. a pink rounded-edged square plastic bag
10. a stuffed Hello-Kitty doll

Do you believe that the bag can hold all these?
The last photo shows the moment she carried her bag before she boarded my car.

Areas north of Golden Gate Bridge

Here is a beautiful aerial photo showing the areas north of Golden Gate Bridge (land to the left of the photo), which is much less populated.

At the northern end of the bridge, there is a vista point for tourists to stop their cars to rest or look back at the bridge and the city of San Francisco.

Further on from this vista point, through a short tunnel, the road leads to a small fishing village called Sausalito. There are shops, cafés and piers. At the waterfront there is a small park with parking spaces at its roadside. Houses here are normally built on the hillside except those fringing the main road.

To the northwest of Sausalito is the famous national park called the Muir Woods where very old and tall trees grow.

白天遙望天空

一星期前，在十月九日那天接近下午六時，天色仍然很亮。 抬頭一望，我竟然發現月球在南方的上空正反射著太陽的光，顯得非常明亮。

今天十月十六日五時三十九分左右, 我發現正在西面下山的太陽變成紅色。之前的一分鐘，太陽的邊緣帶有一些橙色的餘光。這一刻真令我難忘，立即找相機把景色拍下來，留作日後欣賞之用。

The first breakfast in Singapore

Towards midnight on January 16th, 2007, out of Changi Airport we took a taxi to my nephew’s home on East Coast.

After a very uncomfortable sleep on a single bed (my wife and I squeezed on it), we woke up five hours later and got ready for a morning walk and a breakfast on East Coast Road.

Looking out of the window on this very first morning, we saw the low houses near by and the clear blue sky.

The feeling of walking on a new distant land was good. Unlike Hong Kong, the morning air in Singapore was fresh. On the way we saw very beautiful houses. I guess the people inside must be rich to some extent. This was Still Road.










After about thirteen minutes, we arrived at a small coffee and cake shop called Chin Mee Chin Coffee and Cake shop, in Chinese “真美珍咖啡及西菓店”. My brother told me that he had been there several times for breakfast.

The shop had tiles on both its walls and floor. The chairs and tables were wooden, old, but still in use. It was not air-conditioned. The hanging fan was the only luxurious electric appliance in the shop. The cakes and bread were placed inside a Glass + Aluminium show-case.

From the outlook, I believed it was a family-operated cake + coffee shop because the ground floor and its first floor were both painted in light blue. My brother told me that it opened business only in the morning.

The photos of the shop were taken recently by my brother. The shop is still there. Thanks to my brother, sister-in-law and other faithful customers.