I was sitting in the plane, looking out through the window. The street lights were a sea of golden orange dots, like stars plucked from the sky and attracted by a certain allure on the ground. Once we landed, I was greeted by colours - the yellow signs, the blue signs, the purple carpet, the clothes, the food. My mum said, "I feel so shiok, finally. I'm so proud of our airport."
Indeed.
I was at Shanghai and Busan the past week and the dullness that lurked in the stale air at both "confluences of air travel" was stunningly bad. It marked a trip filled with surprises and shocks.
The food (of course, the biggest indicator of good travel/leisure/enjoyment) is phenomenal. I had at least 50 xiaolongbaos in Shanghai. I remember vividly queueing up for a good half an hour for the famous NANXIANG xiaolongbao situated in a temple, to realise it tasted only as good as the ones which I had for my previous meal for half the price. You need to eat the bao whole to savour the goodness, because when the juice oozes and hits the walls of your oral cavity, it culminates to a sort of culinary orgasm. Then there's tangbao, which is a giant xiaolongbao, big enough that a straw is inserted into the top opening for uninhibited splurping. The soup/gravy within just rocks your socks. Baby lobsters by the street for S$4 and they tasted firm and fresh, spicy and with the kind of unpretentious, intense flavour that only roadside stalls have. Beijing Roasted Duck skin washed in plum sauce, with slices of leek, rolled in a small prata of sorts, made for absolute heaven. And who can forget the soups! Shanghainese soups, perhaps for the province's cold weather and a population not known to be particularly diet-conscious, are mostly thin broths or stocks with thick oil, served in huge pots for bowl-after-bowl of relishing. You musn't give Shanghai a miss. I had the most unbelieveably delicious Turkish turkey roll with its tender meat and crispy greens dressed with sprinklings of freshly ground black pepper, the heart-fluttering boluobaos with that golden shine and the most sugary fruit ice drenched in sugary sugar.
Some call Shanghai a city tht has "lost its past", "rising from the ruins of history", I kind of agree, it shows in the food. Other than xialongbaos, tangbaos and dumplings which the locals boast, the rest of what people usually eat are simply meat splashed with some combination of sauce and vegetable. That's it. Or perhaps, that's Shanghai, was and is and still will. Shanghai's development is amazing, just imagine the CBD area in Singapore - just 50 times bigger. And that's only a scratch on the surface. Just like how hidden treasures like Siew Mai, stuffed with sticky rice rather than meat, Milk tea, with its inexplicably silky texture, and various boils of Porridges, Daoxiaomian and liangmian that dot the metropolis are merely an introduction to a culinary scene where tradition fades to give way to pizza joints and fast food outlets. A character gives way to a personna, a mere vehicle of characteristics.
The food in Busan is immaculate. Prior to every meal, a variety of kimchi is served in small dishes. IT IS a religion that permeates Korean cuisine and I wish I was a devout follower much like many Korean families which prepare their own kimchi and purchase a separate refrigerator just to store their preserved vegetables!
You look at most Koreans and you will realise how rosy their cheeks are, how smooth their skins appear to be and how generally they look so darn healthy! You can owe it to their frequent mountain-climbing (they are avid outdoor enthusiasts!) combined with a diet that is both tasty and healthy. Ginseng chicken soup is easily my favourite. With rice stuffed in the chicken that is boiled in a clear stock with the herbs you can imagine DaChangJin collecting from the hills, it is very filling and just bursting with protein goodness. You get a warmth from within as you sip the soup. The meat is so damn very tender, thank you. (for such a creation, lord!) Then, there is the BBQ. Quite uninteresting la. Then there is shobu shobu, which is essentially Korean steamboat. I leave it to your imagination how sweet the soup tasted at the end, combining the essence of mushrooms (again the DaChangJin kind), lettuce, spinach, golden mushroom, prawns, dumplings and beef (the Yoshinoya kind) in a superconcentration.
There is a kimchi rice culture that exists among Koreans, not quite like how burgers are to the Americans. Or sushi is to the Japanese. It's quite hard to put it. It's so prevalent that every restaurant sells kimchi rice and you see the exact same picture of it plastered on the glass walls. It has the signature Korean/Japanese rice as base, with an egg yolk nestled at the centre surrounded by a variety of sliced vegtables. I don't know what is so exceptional about its taste or why people love it so much, but it just sits well with every Korean.
The shopping's really expensive in both Shanghai and Busan so screw it. Yea, we walked around, but for the same price or lower, we can get the same thing in Singapore. So I reckon, after returning home, that some of our purchases were made on impulse and on compulsion to HAVE to buy something when you are overseas be it an overpriced shirt or awful-tasting ginseng sweets.
I love travelling.
Indeed.
I was at Shanghai and Busan the past week and the dullness that lurked in the stale air at both "confluences of air travel" was stunningly bad. It marked a trip filled with surprises and shocks.
The food (of course, the biggest indicator of good travel/leisure/enjoyment) is phenomenal. I had at least 50 xiaolongbaos in Shanghai. I remember vividly queueing up for a good half an hour for the famous NANXIANG xiaolongbao situated in a temple, to realise it tasted only as good as the ones which I had for my previous meal for half the price. You need to eat the bao whole to savour the goodness, because when the juice oozes and hits the walls of your oral cavity, it culminates to a sort of culinary orgasm. Then there's tangbao, which is a giant xiaolongbao, big enough that a straw is inserted into the top opening for uninhibited splurping. The soup/gravy within just rocks your socks. Baby lobsters by the street for S$4 and they tasted firm and fresh, spicy and with the kind of unpretentious, intense flavour that only roadside stalls have. Beijing Roasted Duck skin washed in plum sauce, with slices of leek, rolled in a small prata of sorts, made for absolute heaven. And who can forget the soups! Shanghainese soups, perhaps for the province's cold weather and a population not known to be particularly diet-conscious, are mostly thin broths or stocks with thick oil, served in huge pots for bowl-after-bowl of relishing. You musn't give Shanghai a miss. I had the most unbelieveably delicious Turkish turkey roll with its tender meat and crispy greens dressed with sprinklings of freshly ground black pepper, the heart-fluttering boluobaos with that golden shine and the most sugary fruit ice drenched in sugary sugar.
Some call Shanghai a city tht has "lost its past", "rising from the ruins of history", I kind of agree, it shows in the food. Other than xialongbaos, tangbaos and dumplings which the locals boast, the rest of what people usually eat are simply meat splashed with some combination of sauce and vegetable. That's it. Or perhaps, that's Shanghai, was and is and still will. Shanghai's development is amazing, just imagine the CBD area in Singapore - just 50 times bigger. And that's only a scratch on the surface. Just like how hidden treasures like Siew Mai, stuffed with sticky rice rather than meat, Milk tea, with its inexplicably silky texture, and various boils of Porridges, Daoxiaomian and liangmian that dot the metropolis are merely an introduction to a culinary scene where tradition fades to give way to pizza joints and fast food outlets. A character gives way to a personna, a mere vehicle of characteristics.
The food in Busan is immaculate. Prior to every meal, a variety of kimchi is served in small dishes. IT IS a religion that permeates Korean cuisine and I wish I was a devout follower much like many Korean families which prepare their own kimchi and purchase a separate refrigerator just to store their preserved vegetables!
You look at most Koreans and you will realise how rosy their cheeks are, how smooth their skins appear to be and how generally they look so darn healthy! You can owe it to their frequent mountain-climbing (they are avid outdoor enthusiasts!) combined with a diet that is both tasty and healthy. Ginseng chicken soup is easily my favourite. With rice stuffed in the chicken that is boiled in a clear stock with the herbs you can imagine DaChangJin collecting from the hills, it is very filling and just bursting with protein goodness. You get a warmth from within as you sip the soup. The meat is so damn very tender, thank you. (for such a creation, lord!) Then, there is the BBQ. Quite uninteresting la. Then there is shobu shobu, which is essentially Korean steamboat. I leave it to your imagination how sweet the soup tasted at the end, combining the essence of mushrooms (again the DaChangJin kind), lettuce, spinach, golden mushroom, prawns, dumplings and beef (the Yoshinoya kind) in a superconcentration.
There is a kimchi rice culture that exists among Koreans, not quite like how burgers are to the Americans. Or sushi is to the Japanese. It's quite hard to put it. It's so prevalent that every restaurant sells kimchi rice and you see the exact same picture of it plastered on the glass walls. It has the signature Korean/Japanese rice as base, with an egg yolk nestled at the centre surrounded by a variety of sliced vegtables. I don't know what is so exceptional about its taste or why people love it so much, but it just sits well with every Korean.
The shopping's really expensive in both Shanghai and Busan so screw it. Yea, we walked around, but for the same price or lower, we can get the same thing in Singapore. So I reckon, after returning home, that some of our purchases were made on impulse and on compulsion to HAVE to buy something when you are overseas be it an overpriced shirt or awful-tasting ginseng sweets.
I love travelling.