Strasbourg

Strasbourg is in the historic region of Alsace-Lorraine. The unique thing about Alsace-Lorraine is that in the span of 100 years it has flipped back and forth multiple times between France and Germany as a result of three wars (the Franco-Prussian War, World War I, and World War II). As a result, the city shares cultures from both countries. This is super evident in a part of town called Petite France, most notably the timber framing around each building. The local dialect Alsatian, also has Germanic origins.

It’s also the home of the European Parliament. This is where over 700 democratically elected Members of European Parliament pass legislation.

Thus far, in France, I had been speaking my very limited French here and there whenever I needed it. As we waited for the tour, a Middle Eastern fellow struck up a conversation with me in French, kind of just asking us where we were from etc. It was kind of weird, but we went along with it anyway – it didn’t seem like he was a pickpocket or anything. I managed to get pretty far in the conversation in French actually, which surprised me quite a bit. He told me that he had moved to France from Afghanistan after working there as part of the local security forces, and even showed me his old Afghan ID, and a bomb scar he had.

The conversation got super weird when he started asking about our yearly salary, and it seemed like he was asking us for money (but it’s possible some of that was lost in translation). At that point, we totally understood why he started the conversation in the first place. We basically told him that we’re not that well off either and he tried to give ME money, and I still don’t understand what was going on there. When the tour started, it seemed like he was still staying within our general vicinity, which made it even weirder. Eventually he picked up on that and left us alone. We even checked if he followed us back to our car (just in case).

Strasbourg appears pretty proud of their cuisine – even their postcards have pictures of recipes of different Alsatian dishes. One that we had was called Flammekueche (in German it’s Flammkuchen, so it’s easy to see the German influence in the language here, at least in this word). I think the closest analogue that English speakers would know would be a flatbread pizza, but with more French style ingredients like fromage blanc, and uses crème fraîche as a base as opposed to tomatoes.

From Strasbourg, we began our journey to Switzerland. At the border, we bought our vignette (it’s a required sticker on the car for driving in the country). I spoke to the lady in German and I got a nice feeling speaking and listening to a language that I understood again.

Habsburg Castle

Our first destination in Switzerland was the Habsburg Castle. This is where the House of Habsburg began. This is THE Habsburgs that wielded enourmous power in Europe for centuries, most notably the Holy Roman Empire, and the Austro-Hungarian Empire.

The castle looks quite modest compared to other European castles like Neuschwanstein, but this is because it was originally constructed almost 1000 years ago.

Zürich

As we drove through Switzerland, we expected mountain passes full of snow, but there were actually very few mountains along that route! We probaly would have seen some in Zürich itself, but too bad it was nighttime.

We arrived in Zürich just in time for a fondue and raclette dinner, because that’s what the stereotypes say. Of all places we found though, we found the most touristy one. I’m pretty sure everybody in there was a tourist.

As we were chatting while eating, I was trolling my friend, saying he comes from China even though he’s actually from Taiwan, since Taiwanese people stereotypically like to assert that Taiwan is not the same as China. A lady at our neighbouring table heard us and actually confronted us about it. She seemed so pissed off! She seemed fine once we told her we were just messing around, and that I’m from Hong Kong (people from there generally side with Taiwan). But imagine travelling all the way to Switzerland and hearing someone trashtalking your country!

This concludes our fourth day. Stay tuned for day five!

• Strasbourg
• Habsburg Castle
• Zürich

By the mid 19th century, the power of the Qing Dynasty was waning. Once a proud empire, the Qing Dynasty suffered a series of humiliations through various wars against European powers and the Empire of Japan (known historically as the century of humiliation). The unequal treaties that the empire had no choice but to sign caused China to cede control of various ports to these foreign powers (hence the reason why Hong Kong became part of the British Empire).

As the Qing Empire continued to be bullied, resentment grew among the people. Out of this resentment, eventually resulted in revolution. Sun Yat-sen tried on many separate occasions to overthrow the empire. Even after a string of failures and exile, he persisted, and eventually achieved his goal of overthrowing the empire and founding a republic.

The republic however was short lived. Plagued by power struggles, the republic fell apart. Sun Yat-sen passed away before he could see his successor, Chiang Kai-shek reunify the nation. But even that was short lived, once Japan began invading China and then the resumption of the Chinese Civil War almost immediately after.

See more pictures of Taipei here

This is probably the most iconic area in Singapore – Marina Bay. Starting with the Merlion, we toured around the bay. I didn’t actually understand what a Merlion was until I saw the actual statue.

The placement of all the buildings and the water was so perfect for photos!! This area is a must-go.

There’s even a spot for an outdoor band to play.

And an outdoor street food market.

I ate my very first stingray. Another one off the list.

Another must-go destination in Singapore – The Supertrees! There is a whole grove of them and they constantly change colours. They’re powered by solar energy and capture rainwater for reuse.

In Chinatown, there is a famous Michelin 1-star place located in Chinatown called Hong Kong Soya Sauce Chicken Rice & Noodle. The lineup almost went out the door and it was next to impossible to find a seat.

The chicken was not dry at all, but rather juicy with all the flavours of the soy sauce, and every bite was tender.

The chili crab is also worth trying if you’re willing to splurge.

In Maxwell Centre, Tian Tian is the best place to go for Hainanese Chicken Rice. If this place existed where I live, I’d go there all the time.

There’s also Song Fa Bak Kut Teh. They serve a ribs cooked in a flavoured soup. The ribs are super tender and fall easily off the bone, and the soup is a complex soup with lots of strong spices (kind of savoury and peppery). The shop even sells their own flavouring powder so people can make the soup at home!

Chinatown is pretty much a place where tourists go and most of the street vendors are catering purely to tourists. But the food here, on the other hand, is terrific.

The Buddhist temple there looks incredible. Unlike the temples in Hong Kong, photography is allowed and look way cooler.

Next destination was Little India. It was amazing at how all of a sudden, the streets were no longer filled with Chinese Singaporeans, but rather Indian Singaporeans. Many shops sold fabric for saris, and jewelry.

This was my first time visiting a Hindu temple.

There’s also an Arab Quarter. It’s incredible how in one city there are so many visible ethnicities.

Sentosa is another great place to visit. It’s the home of many resorts, Universal Studios Singapore, and the aquarium. It’s also the most southern point of continental Asia! I always thought the Vancouver aquarium was pretty amazing, but the one in Singapore is SO much better.

This was the most impressive aquarium display I had ever seen. The picture doesn’t capture how absolutely massive this room was. The window itself has a thickness of 70cm!!

Singapore also has a world class zoo – except this one is open at night, just to show off nocturnal animals.

Gordon Ramsay recommends 328 Katong, for Singapore’s famous Laksa. The soup is slightly spicy and contains chili, coconut milk, and evaporated milk. THe fillings contain noodles, shrimp and mushrooms among other things. The other two dishes are Nasi Lemak, which is a rice dish with dried anchovies and a spicy sauce, while the other is Otah, which is a fish cake with spices inside (these two items were probably the only dishes I didn’t like).

Pretty much all the restaurants and places I went came from recommendations from friends who either grew up in Singapore or lived there. Thanks to them, I got a bit of a local’s perspective on the most awesome places to go!

Photo album: here

I had always known that Macau used to be a Portuguese colony, and I was impressed to see how much Portuguese architecture remained, considering that a lot of British architecture in Hong Kong no longer remains.

This is probably the most well known landmark in Macau.

Near the church is a hill that used to be an old Portuguese defense fortification. It’s now the Museum of Macau and offers a view of the surrounding area.

This is A-Ma Temple (媽閣廟) in Macau. In Cantonese, the pronunciation of the characters “媽閣” sounds like Macau, and it is believed to be the origin of the city’s name. Story goes that after the Portuguese sailors landed near the temple, they asked the natives what the name of the place was, and they were told “媽閣”.

The Mandarin’s House is a great example of a wealthy family’s residence during the late 19th century and early 20th century in China.

Food-wise, there is the Macanese pork chop bun that I mentioned in this post. On the left at plastic gloves so that people’s hands don’t get dirty. What an idea!

Next up is the deep fried bacalhau (Portuguese for cod). It’s a mixture of mashed up cod and potatoes with other seasonings all deep fried together.

Everywhere in the touristy parts of Macau, people keep trying to sell their almond cookies.

The Portuguese egg tart AKA the pastel de nata, is another famous food in Macau. It’s got a soft and crunchy outside and a sweet egg custard on the inside.

Not sure if this is a Portuguese or Macanese thing, but we were served super fresh shrimp that were cooked with super high temperatures over hot pebbles. The server showed us the shrimp to start and they were alive and kicking.

Then they turned into this.

I can’t say no to roasted pork.

While we were there, it just to happened to be the annual Macau Food Festival. Perfect for the seafood lovers out there.

Many people come to Macau for its casinos. It’s like the Las Vegas of Asia. Each of them set up grand, extravagant displays for their customers – like this giant fish tank at the MGM.

The Venetian is also in Macau and it’s quite similar in design to the one in Las Vegas. They even have the people singing for you on the rowboat too.

As is the Parisian with their mini Eiffel Tower and Versailles-like interiors.

At the Wynn Palace (I think), there’s a Ferris wheel made of real flowers. There’s even a free gondola ride to take customers into the casino!

I was lucky that I had a friend take me around Macau that day, otherwise I definitely wouldn’t have been able to visit so many places!

Photo album: here

Breakfast

Hong Kong breakfast is what I crave, and a lot of it is simple enough to make at home without too much effort with the exception of Dim Sum.

These are all Dim Sum dishes, typically cooked by steaming. On the bottom left, there is Shaomai, which is a dumpling containing pork and shrimp. This particular variety is what is most well known in English speaking countries, and actually has its roots in Inner Mongolia. Clockwise (ignoring the half eaten dish) is steamed ribs in black bean sauce. Top right is either a Chiu Chow dumpling or a chive dumpling, but they are both similar in that they both contain vegetables, fungus, and sometimes pork. Bottom right is a shrimp dumpling. Bottom middle is a steamed meatball. It contains beef and water chestnut and other seasonings and is served with Worcestershire sauce.

Another classic in Dim Sum – this are steamed rice rolls. The white part is made of a wide strip of rice noodle usually with filling from shrimp, pork, or beef, and the sauce on top is soy sauce.

The sight of chicken feet as something edible frequently scares foreigners. Rather than just calling it chicken feet, it’s commonly known as Phoenix Claw. It’s prepared via a complicated process of frying, braising, simmering, and steaming – one of the most difficult Dim Sum dishes to make.

The top left is the usual eggs, ham, and bread (in this case garlic bread).  The middle is Satay Beef Noodles.  Satay refers to cooking meat with a spicy, sweet, peanut sauce that originated from Indonesia.  The noodles in the picture are just rice noodles, but it doesn’t have to be.  The top right drink is Hong Kong style milk tea.  It’s similar to the British style of black tea with milk and sugar except that the Hong Kong variant uses condensed or evaporated milk – I would drink this over coffee any day of the week.

This is a pineapple bun with a slab of butter inside it (the bun is served warm so the butter slowly melts inside of it). The bun doesn’t actually contain pineapple, but it the crunchy top can sometimes resemble a pineapple. The bun itself tastes like a regular bun, but the top adds a slight sweet flavour, and of course there’s the flavour of melted butter.

The bowl of noodles is just regular instant ramen noodles (typically Nissin 出前一丁 noodles) in the restaurant’s own soup with a deboned chicken drumstick. This dish is often served with fried eggs and Spam instead of chicken.  The drink to the right is Horlicks, a malted milk drink. It’s often associated as a kid’s drink, but still enjoyed by adults.

The dish on the left is macaroni in chicken broth with ham slices. I ate this a lot growing up and for some strange reason a lot of non-Asian people I’ve explained this dish to think it’s gross. The dish on the right is the typical egg, sausage, and toast, and the drink up top is milk tea.

Congee is a popular breakfast dish and it’s common to add all sorts of different ingredients like fish, chicken, pork, Chinese doughnut, etc. The one above is congee with Chinese doughnut, fish balls, beef balls, and peanuts. Another popular one has lean pork and century egg.

Lunch/dinner

Food is cheap enough in Hong Kong such that people are okay with buying food everyday rather than cooking at home!

Hotpot is probably my favourite. Take a broth (beef, chicken, fish, spicy, or whatever) and just cook whatever you want inside it. Traditionally, the entire table all share one giant pot and everyone cooks their food inside it, but in recent times, having one small hotpot per person is becoming more popular.

These two dishes are classics in Hong Kong “Cha Chaan Teng” (茶餐廳) establishments. The one on the left is Baked Portuguese Chicken Rice. It’s not actually Portuguese and has its origins in Macau (just a ferry ride away from Hong Kong!), which was a Portuguese colony at the time. It’s essentially chicken and potatoes on top of fried rice in a creamy sauce with spices (e.g. turmeric, cumin, etc.), coconut milk, and chicken broth. The one on the right is Baked Pork Chop Rice. It’s baked in the same way as the previous one, but it’s fried pork chop and tomatoes on rice with a slightly sweet, cheesy, tomato sauce – one of my favourites. The drink is a lemon tea, which in this case it’s black tea with lemon slices and sugar.

The dish on the left is a roasted goose. It has the consistency of chicken, but has all dark meat and a more intense flavour than chicken. The dish on the right is poached chicken and roast pork belly on rice. Poached chicken might sound strange to some people, but it is actually quite flavourful if the brine is made well and the chicken is of high quality. The poached chicken is typically eaten with a sauce made of minced green onion, ginger, and oil. Roast pork belly is special mainly because of its thick crusty skin.

This is poached chicken and barbecue pork on rice. The poached chicken is the same as before and the barbecue pork is the same that is available in North America.

This is Claypot Rice. It’s essentially rice, meat, and soy sauce among other things all steamed together, but it doesn’t count unless there are crusty bits of rice on the side of the bowl formed from the steaming.

This is Wonton Noodles. The Wonton is the dumpling with shrimp and vegetables (one could argue that the above isn’t an actual wonton due to the shape of the dumpling, but let’s not get into technicalities), the noodles themselves are egg noodles cooked al dente, and the soup is usually derived from fish. The soup itself has flavour, but not so much so that it doesn’t overpower everything else.

These are also typical noodle dishes. The one of the left is beef brisket in a beef soup and the other is fish balls and fish tofu in a fish soup.

This is wonton noodles with beef balls. Good for a quick meal.

Some might tell you that the dirtier the place looks, the tastier it is.

Snacks

These are the street food style snacks. Huge ones that I’m missing here are bubble waffles and egg tarts unfortunately!

The bun on the right is the Pork Chop Bun, originally from Macau. It’s essentially a pork chop sandwiched in a Brazilian style bun (so-called piggy bun).

This looks like a dessert, but it’s actually served at some Cha Chaan Tengs. The white one is steamed milk pudding and the yellow one is steamed egg custard. It’s essentially milk or eggs with sweet flavouring (e.g. sugar, vanilla extract, etc.) that is steamed. It’s almost like a Hong Kong style crème brûlée.

This toast with butter and condensed milk. Very simple, but also very delicious.

These are fish balls. A lot of times they are made from processed fish, but can be made from fresh fish as well. Generally they are served a curry sauce, but they are also available in other types of sauces for people who can’t handle the spice.

The bowl of soup on the left is Imitation Shark Fin Soup. This has no actual shark fin in it, and instead the shark fin is replaced by clear rice noodles, since actual shark fin can sometimes have a similar consistency to it (to be honest, actual shark fin is rather tasteless). The key ingredients in the soup itself is chicken stock, chicken, various types of fungus, and dried scallops, and soy sauce. The dish on the right is Shaomai. Not to be confused with the kind at Dim Sum – this is the street food version, which is made of similar ingredients as the fish balls above.

Photo album: here

Last time I visited, the hot and humid summer made it quite unbearable to do anything outside and I spent most of my time in air conditioned malls. But this time I went in November, where one could just go outside comfortably in summer clothes. Good visibility this time around allowed me to take photos like this:

Touristy places

For touristy things, people visit the Big Buddha – pretty much Asia’s equivalent of Christ the Redeemer in Rio de Janeiro.

Visiting the Big Buddha requires taking a 30-minute gondola ride up a mountain. The entire area also contains a collection of temples and animals wandering about.

Visitors can even see Buddhist scriptures inscribed onto large wooden posts.

In the nearby fishing village of Tai O, people sell all sorts of parts from dried seafood like swim bladders, stomachs, starfish, and the like for people to make soup with. Notice the giant dried shark center left.

Tourists often visit The Peak as well. On a clear day, visitors can see all the way across the harbour into Kowloon (the northern part of Hong Kong). I took the light bus directly up to the top thinking I boarded the bus that would take passengers to the tram station that would go up the mountain. Without realizing I already arrived at The Peak, I walked further up the mountain just to walk back down. The views from up there didn’t compare to the actual touristy part of The Peak.

Old school culture

Since my grandparents lived in Hong Kong before they passed away, I will always visit them at the cemetery. In Chinese culture, people often burn fake money or other things as offerings for the deceased family member in the afterlife. Depending on who is selling the offerings, they will often ask questions about one’s family history so that they can write the information on the offerings for burning such that it will go to the right people in the afterlife.

Such cultural things may seem old fashioned for such a modern city like Hong Kong, but Hong Kong still to this day retains a mixture of the old and the new.

People still continue to place immense importance on worshipping mythological dieties and figures. Because Buddishm, Taoism, and Confucianism all have had great influence in Asia for thousands of years, many temples contain elements from all of these religions.

Europe has lots of churches, but Asia has temples.

From big city life to quiet gardens.

Day to day life

The MTR serves as the mass transit system in Hong Kong. In Vancouver, attendants will tell you not to board a packed train, but in Hong Kong, it’s normal to try to get yourself in the full train.

Shopping malls in Hong Kong don’t just consist of shops, but rather show extravagance.

From shopping malls to street markets

Live chickens anyone? In North America, some people raise chickens for their eggs, but in Hong Kong people, many buy live chickens to eat – but over time more and more people now prefer buying their chickens at the supermarket.

Visitors can feel the on-the-go culture in Hong Kong. People speedwalk everywhere, and they fill the streets. Some visitors, especially those from places with less people, like to take a moment to people watch.

Splurging

The tallest bar in the world, situated on the 118th floor of the International Commerce Centre, the Ozone Bar provides a view of Tsim Sha Tsui and Hong Kong Island. A drink up there costs at least $30 USD – pretty much paying for the view.

Museums on the road less travelled

For those interested in Hong Kong’s history in the context of finance, The Hong Kong Monetary Authority has a small museum for this, near the top of the International Finance Centre.

Those interested in trains can visit the Hong Kong Railway Museum in Tai Po. It talks about the history of rail travel within Hong Kong and lets visitors see the inside of old trains that used to run in the city.

Photo album here

The weirdest part about boarding the plane: all the flight attendants just assumed I was Korean and spoke Korean to me, but changed to English for anyone that didn’t look Chinese/Japanese/Korean. I guess better to do that than to wrongly assume and speak English to actual Koreans. What’s cool about a Korean airline is that they serve Korean food like Bibimbap too. Oh, and they also asked me if I had a Samsung Galaxy Note 7. I guess that makes sense. Exploding plane… not good…

I arrived in Hanoi at night, and after a terrible night of jet lagged sleep, my adventure began.

Crossing the street on busy streets without traffic lights

Probably the biggest WTF moment I had was when I noticed that there are exactly zero traffic lights at intersections and there’s like a hundred people on mopeds crossing these intersections. People here are somehow magically able to weave through each other while crossing the intersection. People crossing the street just walk at a constant pace and just let the drivers drive around them.

The first time I crossed the street, it was like a giant leap of faith. As I’m crossing the street, I’m thinking “I wonder if this is what it feels like to know your life is about to end”. After I crossed, I thought, “Oh that wasn’t so bad”. But then there are like a dozen more intersections to cross before getting to the destination. After a while though, it definitely got easier.

There’s so many people here and the air pollution is epic

I thought I was used to large Asian cities (e.g. Hong Kong, Tokyo, etc.), but Hanoi is on a different level. The average population density of Hong Kong is about 6000 people/square km, but in Hanoi, it’s about 15000. For some reason though, it doesn’t seem like there are as many people walking around as in Hong Kong or Tokyo. Maybe it’s because they’re all driving their mopeds. It’s so crowded here that some people live in front of an unused railway track.

The streets are way less spacious too. People are always selling stuff on the side of the street, or people are parking their mopeds everywhere, so it makes it really hard to just walk in a straight line along the sidewalk. And as you’re walking, you’re constantly smelling exhaust.

Lots of cheap stuff

The street markets are often selling cheap knockoffs of things. People on the street were selling tons of North Face jackets. Apparently, they are made in Vietnam, but I have no idea whether or not the jackets here are real though, but they sure felt real. And they only cost $35 USD. I picked up two football jerseys for Bayern München and Borussia Dortmund for about $5 USD each. Dong Xuan market is another place selling tons of cheap stuff. Stores are tiny, but full of merchandise stacked up and the walkways are super narrow, but to our western standards, everything is super cheap. This is a city where a regular guy like me can walk into a Louis Vuitton store without being judged by all the people working there.

I almost bought this “Lepin” Millenium Falcon for $40 USD. The lady wouldn’t budge on her price =/.

On weekends, there’s a night market selling more cheap stuff.

They’ve got a really cool lake in the middle of the city

It was definitely the most scenic part of Hanoi that I went to.

On weekends afternoons and nights, everybody is going to Hoan Kiem Lake to hang out with their family and friends. At night, the lake lights up real good.

Of course, there’s the food

A while ago, there was a story about Barack Obama and Anthony Bourdain eating dinner in Hanoi. Since that happened, the restaurant they went to, Bún chả Hương Liên, became famous and tons of people went there to eat the “Obama Special” – Bún chả and spring rolls. A local guide we met later in the trip told us that this restaurant is overrated, but I thought it was good. Thanks Obama!

There was also this barbecue place. There’s a giant selection of meats with different cuts and you pick which ones you want and it all gets cooked on a giant barbecue platter. Aside from the usual beef, chicken, pork, they had an entire frog. Looking back, I should have ordered it. Frog is definitely up there on my list of delicious exotic meats. If I knew Vietnamese, I would have asked them if they had dog meat because I would have ordered that for sure. We ended up picking up a few things that looked good, but had no idea what they were. One of them tasted like beef and was kind of chewy and reminded me of beef intestines that I ate in Osaka.

At one point in the trip, we got a volunteer tour guide to take us around the city to eat stuff. We help them practice their English and pay for their food, and they show us around – it’s a pretty cool idea. Our guide took us to try some fried eel in a salad and some eel soup.

Our guide also took us to eat this Vietnamese version of a steamed rice roll. Not as good as the kind I eat at Dim Sum.

Everybody knows Pho. It’s a lot different than the ones I eat in Vancouver and not very comparable. The ones I ate in Hanoi were generally plainer and was less savoury. It also costs about $2.50 USD. Some people prefer this taste over the kind we get in the western world, but I would disagree.

By far the best meal of the whole trip was at “The Hung Snake Restaurant“. Yep, I got to eat an entire snake – a bamboo snake. A guy came with a sack with a snake inside. He took it out and let me hold onto it to “play” with it before eating. Sure, okay, playing with a snake is great and all, but that thing was frickin poisonous and the entire time, I was just kind of freaked out and hoped that thing didn’t bite me.

The next thing you know, the guy takes out a platter with scissors and knives like in a surgery and cuts open the snake. As it bleeds to death, he drains its blood into a glass, THEN takes out its beating heart and puts it into another glass. FINALLY, he cuts out part of the stomach and drains its stomach bile into another glass. He hands me the glass with the still beating heart and tells me to eat it. It was exactly what I came here for and it was amazing. I only wish I had chewed the heart before swallowing it instead of swallowing it whole like he told me to.

The blood and bile were mixed with some sort of alcohol and I drank those too. My friend on the other hand, could not bear to watch the snake get murdered like that and barely ate any of it when the food actually came. More for me :). All sorts of snake bits were used with different cooking styles: grilled meat, deep fried bones, deep fried skin, snake tail boiled into a soup, sauteed meat, spring rolls, steamed meat, the stomach, etc. Everything was GREAT. A++, would eat again – the king cobra next time.

In addition to snake, I also wanted to try cat meat. I asked the staff at our hostel and he told me that he knew that people did eat that sort of stuff, but wasn’t able to tell me where. Too bad. I also missed out on this silkworm omelette that they only serve in the mornings. Everywhere I saw a cat or a dog, I’d wonder if people would kidnap them and cook them =/

As usual, I drank the local beer. The Beer Corner is a popular place. It was weird to see a kid who looked about 12 pour my beer. Apparently that’s allowed around here.

Their way of life can be very simple

Just some kids playing Tug of War.

Let’s cut some hair on the side of the street.

Unique history and culture

This is a country where for so much of their history, they were conquered by someone: China, France, Japan, etc. The French left behind some of their architecture too.

Since Vietnam is a communist country, of course there has to be a statue of Lenin.

There was also an influence from Confucianism here. Enough for there to be a Confucian temple, which is also the site of the Imperial Academy, the first national university of Vietnam.

How fitting that when we were there, there were groups of students posing for pictures for graduation.

They’re really proud about going up against their enemies and winning

From going to museums there, they are really happy about finally having their own country back again. There were so many exhibits about their triumphs against the colonialists, against the Japanese, and eventually against the Americans. They even claim that the Americans fabricated the Gulf of Tonkin Incident as an excuse to fight in Vietnam. That could very well have been true, but everything just seemed super biased. During the war, the North Vietnamese shot down a B-52, which they proudly display.

There’s even a bit of a B-52 in the water where it crashed. The buidings in the back are also super narrow, which was because buildings were taxed on their width (not sure if this is still the case though).

They also like to point out all the terrible things that their French conquerors did to them at the Prison Museum.

The body of Ho Chi Minh is preserved and displayed in the mausoleum. When we were there though, his body had been transported to Russia for some work, and so it wasn’t on display.

At their military museum, they went on about how they fought a war against American imperialism and showed off the weapons they used. And of course, every time I see a tank, I think “cuz baby you’re a firreeeworkkkkk” and drinking margaritas.

I think that sums up the visit to Hanoi real good!

Link to photo album: here

At Frankfurt Airport, when Edward and I lined up to check in, we were the only two Chinese people in line.  We seemed very out of place.  Some of the people gave us these stares that seemed to ask “why are you flying to Kiev?” We wanted to visit Chernobyl and shoot AK-47’s.

Our experience on the plane was dreadful.  Four crying babies/toddlers plus jet lag plus one hour delay was not a good combination. No sleep for me I guess.  Worst flight ever.

Awkward Car Ride

The hostel arranged transportation for us and so when we arrived, I looked for someone holding a sign with my name on it (first time ever!).  The driver was not happy at how we were late (not that we could do anything about it).

Probably since he was late, he drove like a maniac.  He drove way faster than the posted limits and passed every car on the highway.  The expected 45 min ride was reduced to almost 20 minutes.  The driver didn’t speak English.  No one said a word during the entire ride.  Awkward.

I had read before that people sometimes get driven to random places by taxi drivers before they get mugged.  By getting the hostel transportation, we minimized that risk.  Despite that, I was at peak alertness the whole time, making sure he was going the right general direction (I vaguely remembered the directions from the airport to the hostel).

Dream House Hostel

This is by far one of the hostels I’ve ever stayed at.  The staff were extremely helpful.  We asked them like a thousand questions and they happily answered them every time.  They treated security very seriously.  Kiev might not be safe, but I felt safe leaving my passport and cash in the locker in the room.

Security Measures

During our trip planning, we had read about the potential dangers in going to Kiev from the Canadian travel report about Ukraine.

The report tells travelers to “exercise a high degree of caution”.  It warns of dangers such as pickpockets, passport scams, armed robbery, racially motivated violence, muggings, etc.

Seeing how the hostel’s security was pretty good, we left our valuables in the room.  We each carried a decoy wallet with nothing in it except a scan of our passports and the cash we needed for the day.  No credit cards, no real ID, no cards at all.

If anybody steals a wallet, no big.  Better to lose $30 than all our money.  Nobody can scam us for our passports if we aren’t carrying it.  I didn’t even put on a hidden money belt.  The less I brought the better.  We felt pretty prepared, and luckily nothing happened.

Language

People in Kiev generally speak Ukranian or Russian.  I know neither.  I also don’t know the Cryllic writing system.  Even if I wanted to ask in English how to get somewhere, I can’t even pronounce the name of the place.  When I went to Greece, I could at least pick out the greek alphabet (side effect of studying math and physics), but in Kiev, I can’t even read anything.  Too bad.

Food

The first night we arrived in Kiev, we had no idea what kind of food was around here.  We couldn’t even read the menus anyway.  Picking a restaurant was a matter of randomly walking into a restaurant.  To our surprise, our random pick turned out to be Japanese food.  Interesting.  No pictures needed.  Vancouver has an abundance of Japanese restaurants.  Beer is worth taking a picture of though.  I can’t even read the label.

One of the hostel staff had recommended to us the Golden Dukat Coffee House.  I wish I took more pictures here, but I found someone else’s travel blog with good pictures of it!  Good coffee, good dessert.  And they have an English menu!

We were told that Borscht is one of the traditional soups in Ukraine.  When I tried it, its taste was so familiar and I had to think about where I had tried it before.  It tasted a lot like the vegetable soup that people can get at Hong Kong style cafes (羅宋湯).  I Googled it later, and apparently the Hong Kong recipe (while a little bit different) is a derivative of it.  What a coincidence.

Independence Square

By far the largest city square I have been to.  For me this was the place to see in Kiev.  The pictures here don’t do justice to how epic it was.

At the square, there would always be these people carrying pigeons around.  They kept coming up to me with me and I had no idea what they wanted.  Later I found out that apparently they’re trying to get tourists to take a picture with them holding a bird.  Not sure why that’s cool but okay.

There were also people dressed up like Mickey Mouse or Shrek trying to get little kids to take pictures with them for money.  They did this even when the temperature was above 30 degrees Celsius.

St. Andrew’s Church

Nearby our hostel, there was a nice church.  It’s architecture was quite different from anything I’d seen before.

Friendship Arch

This arch was built to commemorate the unification of Ukraine and Russia when Ukraine was still part of the Soviet Union.

Street Market

On the way from our hostel to Independence Square, we walked along a long stretch of road with many street vendors selling souvenirs, trinkets and other random stuff.  People there even sold gas masks, replica German WWII medals, and fake guns.

Trip Ideas for Next Time

After we came back to Vancouver, we found out that the hostel started offering tours to abandoned missile silos, helicopter rides, and Yak plane acrobatics!  If only the hostel were offering those tours.  We would have totally gone to those.  There’s always next time.

Links to photo albums:

• Kiev
• Kiev (Edward’s Photos)

The tour bus left at around 5 in the morning from Montreal and by the time we got to the Big Apple it was about 2pm.  At first I thought it would suck a lot being cramped in a tour bus for eight hours, but it really wasn’t that bad since I pretty much slept the whole time.

As the tour bus drove along, lo and behold, there was a ton of those yellow cabs on the road.  I guess what people say about NYC cabs is true.

The tour bus dropped us off at the Madame Tussaud’s Wax Museum and from there we walked around the city on our own.  Man, NYC is busy.  Reminded me of Hong Kong.  The temperature that day was at about 35 degrees Celsius, hardly a good temperature for walking around.  Apparently, we happened to be right in the middle of a heat wave.

Eventually, we hit Times Square.

And also found some other interesting places.  I found it strange that there was a recruiting station right in the middle of Times Square.  And also, I had no idea somebody actually created a shrimp company named after the one in the movie Forrest Gump.

We also ran into where David Letterman does his show.  Not exactly the best late night talk show host, but I would have gone to check that out if I had time.

We walked all the way to the entrance of Central Park.  If it felt nicer outside, I think we would have taken the time to walk around inside the park too.

After resting for a bit, the walking continued.  As we walked on the sidewalk, we’d pass by these grates in the ground with hot air coming out of them.  Occasionally, we’d hear a subway pass by.  Must be the subway system’s ventilation.  That led us to see what the NYC metro was all about.  Not exactly the most beautiful metro, but it works for the millions of people who use it everyday.

One thing I noticed about NYC is that there are ads everywhere.  Wherever there’s space, someone will always pay money to put up an ad.

The next destination was the famous Empire State Building. Not sure why it’s so famous other than that it’s tall and that King Kong climbed to the top of it in the movie.

Somewhat nearby was Madison Square Garden, where the New York Knicks and New York Rangers play.

By then, it was almost time to go, so we walked back to the wax museum where the tour bus would pick us up again.  That ended the first day of our NYC tour.

More photos here

This year’s competition problem involved the following scenario: normally solar panels are able to rotate toward the sun, but sometimes they get stuck, therefore it requires people to go out there and rotate them manually.  Also, undersea transmission lines sometimes get severed and also require manual repairs.  Our task was to build an autonomous vehicle using a VeX Robotics Kit in about 5 hours to use in a small scale arena emulating similar conditions.  A wooden pole represented the solar panel, that we had to rotate and a plastic pipe represented the transmission line.  To “repair” the transmission line, we had to build a repair module using newspaper and popsicle sticks that could physically cover up the pipe.  Additionally, in order to reach the transmission line, the vehicle would have to cross a rice field (represented by uncooked rice) and cross a river (ensuring that no electronics get damaged, they had to be above the “water line” at all times – represented by the dip in the arena).  After designing our vehicle, we would also have to present our design to the judges.

When I heard what the problem was, I thought to myself, “this is an impossible problem given the time we have to build it ands lots of teams aren’t going to be able to perform the task”.  I guess it was supposed to be like that.  The problem couldn’t be too easy or otherwise everyone would be able to do it.  Despite the difficult task, we approached it with a super chill attitude throughout the entire competition.

As a group, we planned out what we wanted to do.  We thought that it would be straightforward to go across the river, but it turned out that it wasn’t that straightforward.  We had trouble keeping our electronics above the “water”.  The line follower kit we used could follow the black line quite accurately, but it had to be about an inch above the ground.

To make matters worse, the wheels kept falling out.  Normally, one should just have to insert the shaft into the motor clutch and connect the clutch to the motor, but the connection was quite loose. 

One of our teammates spent about 3 and a half hours trying to fix the wheels and he succeeded. It took up a lot of time that we needed for the other design tasks, but we couldn’t leave that alone since movement along the ground was a critical function.

In the meantime, we brainstormed how we would rotate the vehicle to face different directions when needed, how we would pick up the repair module, and how we would rotate the solar panel, and how to protect the line followers while crossing the river.    We also had to think of what we were going to say for the presentation.

We couldn’t really get the rotation to be accurate without using an encoder (which would increase our product cost), so we tried to see what we could do without being able to rotate the vehicle.  We could drive straight toward the solar panel, rotate it, and return to the base.  If we focused on just this task, we didn’t have to figure out how to figure out the other tasks.  We figured that most teams wouldn’t be able to perform that task anyway.  With that in mind we modified our design drastically and came up with something that kind of worked.

The end reached high enough such that we could just bump into the top of the solar panel and rotate it and then go back to the base.  We didn’t need to worry about the other task of repairing the underwater transmission line.  There wasn’t enough time for that.

When it came to the presentation, we talked about our design and answered the questions quite well, but one of the competitors asked us a question that a lot of people seemed to feel was a very jerk question to ask.  He asked “how would the client feel that we delivered a product that could not meet all the stated requirements?”  I guess he was bitter that my team beat his team last year and felt threatened by me this time around.  We answered the question by saying that it’s better to do one task well, than to fail at both. 

In the competition, a lot of teams did in fact fail the tasks and did absolutely nothing.  When it came time for our device to compete, we did what we could.  It did reach the solar panel and rotate it a bit, but not enough to rotate it all the way.   It couldn’t even complete one task, although we had tested it before and saw that it did work.

The winning team (the same team as the guy who asked us that terrible question), used a design that would travel align the walls, past the river and to the broken line.  It picked up the repair module (shaped like a table) using a flat pad to slide underneath to pick it up.  It managed to do a 90 degree turn by following the wall (push sensors would tell the vehicle that it had in fact touched a wall).  It was clear that their design won out over everyone else’s, and they totally deserved the win.