Macao Science Center field trip

This morning, we took a group of UM students to the Macao Science Center, a sleek semi-cone designed by I.M. Pei, jutting out into the Macau-Taipa strait near Fisherman’s Wharf.
The planetarium dome

The main building (still under semi-construction)

Susan and I got there a little early, so while we were waiting, we saw several busloads of younger students coming for their own field trips. We couldn’t help but smile at the youngest ones: girls had plaid jumpers (with pockets) and the boys had little bow ties!
So cute!

We first went to see a 3-D planetarium show entitled “Dawn of the Space Age,” which was quite technically impressive: the theater is dome-shaped so the 3-D images really popped out, plus the seats vibrated during every rocket launch, so I guess it’s what some places might consider a “4-D” experience. The narration was mainly broadcast in Cantonese, but we tried to get the students to use the headsets that provide the (original) English narration…not sure how successful we were, because it was too dark inside to see if they were using them!

After a group photo in the atrium, we all split up to go wandering around the main exhibition space. The main building is kind of like the Guggenheim Museum in New York: a huge spiral with halls around the outside, so it was easy to just walk up the ramp and poke our heads into whatever looked interesting. I should note here that the exhibits are primarily aimed toward the 10-and-under set, but we still found many things of interest/amusement. Central display in the atrium

This young man got very good at tossing the balls into the whirlpool

Chibi-Newton!

Susan and Austin playing a jumping game (they tied)

A robot that would scurry away from antennae touches (but move forward if the back one touched the wall)

One of the halls I found most interesting was tucked away on the ground floor behind the rocket in the middle of the atrium: an exhibit on ancient Chinese technology. It included classics like a dragon/frog seismograph and printing blocks, but also some things I hadn’t seen before like an odometer, bamboo paper-making, and a multi-jar clepsydra (aka water clock).
Dragon rocket (inspiration for Mulan?)

A rather clunky odometer (used only for keeping track of how far the emperor traveled on his tours around the country)

The multi-level water clock (design circa 1316)

We finished the trip with lunch at the “Café I Kuong Chiu Fok II,” a little noodle shop on the corner of the NAPE area. Clearest sign of a good restaurant: you see lots of locals eating there. The fare here was simple: rice or regular noodles with a variety of toppings such as beef tendon, meatballs, curry chicken, or even intestine. Medium-bowls are 16 MOP, large ones are 21 MOP, and you can add pepper/chili flakes to suit your own level of spiciness. Simple, but filling =)

UM Iron Chef...sort of

Last week, a student named Bryce came to the office asking for two ETAs to serve as judges for the Dormitory Students’ Association (DSA) cooking competition. Susan and I ended up going, which worked out well considering Susan is the biggest food critic and I am the most experienced chef among the four of us heh. We were joined by two UM students, Ben and Ian, who could also have been considered “impartial” since they were from Mozambique and the teams were mostly cooking Chinese dishes from various regions =P

Putting up the banner for DSA "Dormitory Week"

Originally, the roster included an intimidating twelve teams (I really didn’t think I had the patience/stomach capacity to try twelve different things), but there were enough no-shows that the final roster was whittled down to eight or so. The judging criteria were taste, presentation, creativity, and nutrition, each out of a possible 25 points. As the students were preparing their entries, Susan and I walked around to chat a little…

Semi-ironically, the dorm was having fire safety training in the courtyard right next to us

Stir-frying on a hot plate hehe

Kneading dough o_O

Two teams hard at work

To be honest, the whole thing was rather disorganized. There didn’t seem to be any preset rules about what kind of food the students were supposed to cook, or any pre-arranged focus ingredient as there is in the real Iron Chef. We had everything from appetizers (e.g. chicken wings) to main entrees (e.g. noodles or spare ribs) to dessert (e.g. cake covered in whipped cream), so it was clearly a bumpy playing field. Some photos of the entries below:

Spare rib pieces with sweet 'n sour sauce plus pineapple chunks
(sauce way too sweet, plus overcooked broccoli = yuck)

This won my top ratings for creativity (counting effort) and nutrition: hand-made noodles (that's what the aforementioned dough was for) plus veggies and tomato/egg sauce

A crock pot-made broth with carrot and red dates

The cake smothered in whipped cream (it was supposed to be chocolate but it wasn't the least bit chocolaty...at least the strawberries added flavor)

It doesn't look like much, but this got top ranked for taste: spare rib stewed in an anise-flavored broth

At the end of the night, we handed in our score sheets – Bryce would tally them up and announce the winner at the end of the “UM Dormitory Week” on April 10, so we actually don’t know who won =P We made some suggestions for improving next year’s competition, e.g. informing all contestants that they have to prepare a certain type of dish (e.g. an appetizer) or feature a specific ingredient (e.g. eggs), as well as simplifying the scoring (just rank the best to worst for each category). Still, it was a pretty fun way to spend a Wednesday night, and now I have more ideas for things to cook (or avoid cooking!) on my own =D

Last of LNY

In case you didn't know, Lunar New Year is actually supposed to be a 15-day celebration, although obviously mostly people don't take things that far (we all have to work, right?) However, most of Macau kept decorations up, so it was still fun to walk around and see what was there.

As usual, the Venetian had one of the more impressive displays, although the mix of Italian and Chinese was a little strange. The columns at the main entrance were wrapped in red paper with extra detailing between, and decorations inside were all...extra large. They also had some poor guy walking around in an emperor outfit and ridiculously fake beard so tourists could take photos with him.

An example of the columns

Giant cherry blossom (plum blossom?) tree

3-D "fortune" (福) character in the middle of the casino floor

Bow yes/no?

This last photo isn't a decoration, exactly, but it caught my eye with its clever modification of the "tiger" character (虎)
For our apartment, I managed to pick up a mini-tangerine tree that someone else was throwing out. I remembered that Emily had wanted to buy one at the Tap Seac festival (toward the end of the entry), and I was still personally curious to find out if the fruits were edible or not. Unfortunately, after a couple days we realized the leaves were sporting quite an impressive layer of fuzziness, so we had to dispose of it as well. I did try one of the fruits, concluding that it was edible (at least it didn't make me sick) but rather sour.

The ill-fated shrub

Friday night, UM hosted a dinner at the Macau Tower: a 13-course meal for just 88 MOP (Ming managed to finagle it so we only had to pay the full-time staff price instead of the part-time staff price, which was considerably more). The menu included standards like fried rice and fresh steamed fish, but also some more unusual items.

"Barbecued whole suckling pig" (more like crispy-roasted)

Deep-fried shrimp mousse balls and taro rolls with almond (yum!)

Braised pig's tongue with sea moss and dried oyster (interesting texture...)

A "Chinese petit four" with red bean soup (and a GRB!)

More dessert: another "petit four" and fresh fruit

We ETAs and the Grinnell fellows ended LNY in proper fashion by celebrating the Lantern Festival (元 宵節) with a group gathering for GRBs (湯 圓) at our apartment. After looking up recipes, we decided it would be too much trouble to attempt making our own, but the grocery stores conveniently sell frozen packs =P

A freezer-ful of GRBs

I think we left them in a bit too long...still yummy!

Throw in a couple games of Apples to Apples, and it was both a fun and filling way to end the Lunar New Year vacation =)

Covert Ops

Yesterday was the birthday of Amy, undeniably the most pixie/leprechaun-ish of us Fulbrighters. She’s tiny (in terms of physical height), perpetually cheerful, and a consummate prankster (e.g. putting a fake cockroach in Susan’s bag of chestnuts). So, we decided to pay her back in turn…

The Plan
1) Buy lots of balloons (and an air pump to make things easier).
2) Wait until she leaves for work.
3) Blow up aforementioned balloons.

I started working solo around 10 AM upstairs in our apartment, figuring it would take a while. The first problem I ran into: how to store/carry lots of blown-up balloons? Not having a large garbage bag, I thought for a while, then remembered my poncho from Malaysia…which is essentially a large plastic bag =P It made an admirable balloon carry-sack.

Around noon, Emily called to say the coast was clear, so we moved everything downstairs and continued blowing up more balloons. Sam and Mari came to help, which made things go more quickly…by 1:30 PM, we had a few balloon-related injuries but a very impressive result:

Emily had to go to work and Mari had to run errands in Zhuhai, so Sam/Susan/I took turns apartment-sitting until Amy got home. The super-nice security guard downstairs was in on the trick, so (as requested), he told Amy that her room was flooded. When she and Emily came upstairs, we were waiting outside, pretending that Emily had called us to ask for help cleaning up. Amy figured something was up because Emily had apparently started laughing at the security guard’s claim, but she certainly wasn’t expecting the flood she saw in her room =P

Ahhh!

Fwoomph!

We completed the celebrations with a big dinner at Mexicana (expensive but yummy) and a brief stop at Ladies’ Night in the Venetian. I normally wouldn’t go to something like Ladies’ Night, especially since I had to teach on Thursdays last semester, but this time was actually nice because we got a lot of comfy seats in the corner for our big group and the music wasn’t overly loud, so we could actually carry on normal conversation. My first vodka-and-cranberry was weak enough to be palatable (my dislike for the taste of alcohol equals my sensitivity to it), so we passed a couple hours pleasantly before catching a late-night bus home.

"Supreme Nachos" made us realize how much we all missed salsa/guacamole

Soft beef tacos with rice =D

Happy birthday!

December birthday bash

A few weeks ago, Sam, Susan, and I realized that no fewer than five of our friends in Macau all had birthdays in mid-to-late December: ETAs Austin and Holly, Grinnell fellow Brian, UM GA Karen, and UM student Henry. (Actually, we later realized there were a couple more, but those were the main ones we were celebrating). Unfortunately, late December is exactly the time that we will all be split up traveling with different family members/friends, so we decided to plan a preemptive surprise joint birthday party, aka big family-style dinner + cake, then go out for drinks afterward.

The evening started off at Azita's parents' restaurant, a small place near the border gate with 7-8 tables, and we took up two of them! Susan and I went early to sneak in the cake (a 1-pound fruit and cream confection from St. Honore's), then the others came in dribs and drabs, eventually totaling 17 people. Azita's parents were super-nice...her dad is apparently the only chef in the kitchen, so we felt bad about getting so much food, but I guess it wasn't any more than that number of ordinary customers would have ordered. We even tried to help by pre-ordering some things so he could prepare them earlier, but then we realized that wasn't going to be nearly enough food...we ended up getting about 15 different dishes ^^;

Some of the many delicious things

The devious part of the night was that we had told all the birthday people that it was a "big holiday gathering" to celebrate the end of the semester before we all split up to travel, but once everyone was there, we whipped out the birthday crowns!

Karen and Brian putting on their crowns

Niko (an exchange student from Finland), Austin, and Emily

The second part of the birthday surprise was the cake, and also this massive card that St. Honore's had thrown in for free. All the birthday people took photos with the card, but we eventually decided to save it and all sign it for Holly, since she wasn't at the dinner (she was busy at debate team). After we looked like we couldn't eat any more dinner, Azita's mom brought out the cake, with just enough candles so each of the birthday people got one to blow out.

Happy birthday...

Dinly and Henry with their candles

Karen taking a stab at cutting the cake (pun intended)

Azita insisting that Henry "read" the card

With many thanks to Azita's parents, we departed for NAPE, the "party zone" of Macau near the statue of Kun Iam, on the waterfront of the channel between Macau and Taipa. We ended up spending most of the night (until we went home around 1 AM) at this relatively new bar called House Cafe, which was shiny and white and clean, but the drinks were only ok (for the price) and the smell of perfumed potpourri inside was overpowering. Luckily, it wasn't that chilly out, so we put a bunch of tables together and basically took over half the patio area. Perhaps the most amusing thing was a big screen that was playing fairly old/awkward music videos...it would have been a lot more fun if there was karaoke to go with it heh.

I didn't get much sleep once I got home because I had to proctor the ACT this morning, but no time for a nap now because I have to get some gift-shopping done before my friend Matt flies in to HK tomorrow. I know I've failed at blogging catch-up so far (I thought I was doing pretty well to have at least one post a week) but I'll definitely be working on it over break, between baking cookies and doing all that other holiday stuff back at home =D

Cooking for myself part 3

Tonight, I arrived home with three big bags of groceries, and Sam asks, "Oo, cooking something elaborate tonight?" My answer was no, because the groceries were meant to last me the whole week. I initially didn't have plans to make anything fancy because I was just plain hungry, but I guess it did turn into quite an undertaking. The result, however, was quite yummy =D

Yet another characteristically colorful plate

In case you can't see what's there, the plate has chewy udon-like noodles (they're a little thin to be real udon), pepper-marinated steak buried under slightly caramelized onions, lightly broiled Chinese vegetables (the name on the label is just 菜 心, literally meaning vegetable hearts, but I think think the English name is Chinese broccoli), topped with some stir-fried yellow pepper slices and sweet pea pods. In the bowl is a salad of lettuce, cherry tomatoes, more yellow pepper slices, pumpkin seeds, raisins, and slices of dried apricot, all in a light Italian herb vinaigrette.

I've gotten pretty good at the make-everything-in-one-pan approach...tonight I fried the meat, adding the onions about halfway through, then cooked the noodles, then finally the vegetables, so both the noodles and the veggies had a bit of the savory beef flavor. Working in this order, it was also much easier to clean the pan heh.

However, one of the frustrating things about cooking in Macau is that it's not that much cheaper than eating out. All things considered, this meal probably cost me about 25 MOP (about $3 USD) to buy the ingredients, plus at least half an hour of prep/cooking time, whereas I could have gotten a big bowl of noodles with meat/veggies or 20+ dumplings for the same amount. On the plus side, cooking for myself is admittedly infinitely healthier, so I guess I'll keep working on it =P