Australia says NO to Mooncakes
So preparing for the trip, I bought some mooncakes for my relatives, colleagues and friends. Fresh from Hong Kong, I wanted to send them the vibe of the Mid-Autumn Festival this coming Sunday. I was all set with my “pasalubong” for each of them when I learned earlier today that the Australian Customs is a bit strict when it comes to goods bringing in to their country. The Australian Quarantine and Inspection Service (AQIS) would not allow the following:
- Foods that are commercially prepared, cooked and raw food and ingredients
- Dairy and egg products
- Animal products
- Seeds and nuts
- Fresh fruit or vegetables
- Live animals and animal products
- Plant materials
- Used freshwater watercraft, sporting or fishing equipment
Unfortunately, mooncakes belong to second category as they have whole egg yolks inside. You can learn more details by visiting the AQIS site.
So just making really sure that I can’t bring them even though they are packed and sealed, I Googled if there were incidents where mooncakes were confiscated by the Australian customs. I found out from forums that these festivity cakes are, indeed, banned from the land down under.
Crap. Now I’ll have a feast of mooncake myself. I tried giving some to my officemate, however, most of them had already bought one for their families. Anyways, its better I learned earlier than being dumbfounded in AU. Now I am getting my travel jitters (is there even such a thing?!). My first trip outside Asia. Yay!
The Pig Cage Cake (Chu Lung Beng)
In five days, the Chinese people will be observing the Mid-Autumn Festival – a celebration of abundance and togetherness. The festivity falls on the 15th day of the 8th lunar month of the Chinese calendar, usually around mid or late September in the Gregorian calendar. During this event, it has been a custom to eat Mooncakes hence the event can also be called as the Mooncake Festival.
Aside from Mooncakes, there is another form of cake, more like a biscuit, that is being sold around this season. They are called Pig Cage Cakes which is a literal translation of its Chinese name “Chu Lung Beng”. Pig Cage Cakes are not as popular as the Mooncakes and are only sold by traditional bakeshops. These biscuits are enclosed in a sort of “cage” with colorful ornaments. The biscuits itself are made of plain dough shaped into pigs.
Unknown to many Chinese, the Pig Cage Cakes originally was created to recycle the dough used to test oven temperature for making the actual mooncakes. Today, with modern ovens and advanced technology, they have become more of a traditional food than a test dough.
Pattaya Experience Continued
Third and final day in Pattaya was full of activities. We had breakfast at the beach, bought some food at a 7-Eleven store and a noodle from a street vendor. As usual, the noodle was prepared with the vendor’s bare hands.
At around 8:30am, a taxi service arrived and took us to Nong Nooch Village. We watched some Thai cultural and elephant shows which both were entertaining. Only, it was surprising that their cultural show involves the Philippine’s national dance, Tinikling. I am not sure what they call it, but it sure did look like our folk dance Tinikling. It was just sad that Thailand does better in tourism than the Philippines; and with this kind of show, people would assume it’s of Thai origin, not the Philippines.
Sayaw ng Maglalatik was also part of their show. I am not sure if it’s of Philippine origin, too, but I just felt like it was also our own. See, I had always been part of my school’s cultural shows since elementary and Sayaw ng Maglalatik was one of the dances we get to perform. Watching these Philippine folk dances performed by a different nation on their own land, it just felt like taking away a part of our identity. 
So anyway, after the shows, we took the elephant tour which costs THD 800 per person for 30 minutes. It was a fun experience and we got to tour a little of the village. The master of the elephant offered to take some photos of us. Later, he had asked for his tip for taking those photos. We really planned to give him some tip, we’re just surprised he had asked for it first. 
After our Nong Nooch experience, we headed back to the hotel and had our lunch at a local shop called Choke-D. Once again, we ordered the Phad Thai – only this time, it was really good, not to mention cheaper.
We decided to head to the beach since the weather was better – it was already sunny. However, there were still strong waves and the beach was not so clean. We did not really get to swim. We rented a Jet Ski instead which was also quite cheaper compared to the Philippines. The initial price was THB 800 but we managed to bargain it down to THB 600 for a 30-minute ride. After the Jet Ski experience, we continued our swimming at the hotel’s pool. Then we prepared for the night’s activity.
We did not really plan to watch a cabaret show. It was our taxi driver earlier at the Nong Nooch Village who had recommended it. She had arranged the tickets and had picked us up at the hotel that evening. She was a really nice lady.
She had recommended for us to watch at Tiffany’s since it’s the oldest and most original of all. Performers were mostly gay – or all gay, I was not certain. But they sure looked like girls - with boobies and hourly figures.
The show costs THB 800 for each person. It’s a VIP seat and the show lasted for an hour and a half. It was an entertaining show, I must say – reminded me of the movie Moulin Rouge. The performers lip synch the songs matched with some dance numbers. Costumes and stage were both extravagant. There were lights all over, movements everywhere and colors were all vibrant. As for the performance itself, call me bias but Filipino gays are much better performers. 
After the show, our taxi driver dropped us off to the Royal Garden Plaza. We had our dinner at The Pizza Company where we met an Australian stranger who was also a tourist. Our tables were close to each other and our orders got mixed up so that started the conversation. He had been staying in Pattaya for a month already. He mentioned our orders got mixed up since Thais are not as good in English as Filipinos do. He had been to the Philippines long time ago. Too bad we did not get the chance to exchange contacts or take photos with one another.
That was the end of our Pattaya spree. Next stop, Bangkok!
Birthday Celebration - Hong Kong Style
I had no idea how I will be spending my first birthday in Hong Kong. I don’t have any plans; I don’t know what I’ll do for that day. I actually thought no one would know as I am barely new to the company. I was originally thinking of just having lunch with a few friends but not telling them about the occasion.
To make the long story short, my instincts were wrong because they knew it was my day. Joyce arranged for a birthday lunch and there were 12 of us who went for a traditional Yum cha meal at Asiana Restaurant. We were supposed to go to another restaurant but due to heavy rain, we went to Asiana, which is just behind our office building.
Yum cha, in Cantonese, literary means “drink tea”. Basically, people drink tea while eating small portions of meal. For an average Filipino, the serving may not be enough for one meal. There is no rice (at least for the foods I have experienced eating) which is the basic food eaten by Filipinos. There may be a lot of food varieties but the servings are usually small. For instance, a dim sum has only 3 pieces per tray. Of course, you can order 2 or more trays but as I have observed, Chinese people do not get more than 2 trays to allow everyone to taste each kind. The most they would get is around 2 or maybe 3 trays for one kind of food. The rest should be different ranging from stir fried vegetables to an assortment of glutinous desserts.
The food is ordered either at the counter or you can get it to a food servant passing by your table. For each table, there is a card given and every time you order a meal, they will put a stamp on it so they can keep track of your orders. Of course, as the most important part of this meal, everyone sips tea occasionally while eating. It is important that the cups are always full of tea. Every once in a while, my officemates would pour more tea on my cup and everyone else’s within their reach. Once the teapot is out of tea, you need to take its lead off so the food servants would know you need to have a refill.
In contrast to the Philippine tradition that the celebrant would be treating his/her friends, I was the one being treated for this meal. How cool is that?!
The celebration continued on Friday as 5 of us went for a night out. The celebration was a bit more Western this time – something closer to what I had been used to for celebrating birthdays. We had dinner at Al Dente’s in SOHO which is an Italian Restaurant. We had the usual salad, pasta and pizza. The pizza is superb, I must say. It has a salmon for its topping and although I am not a big fan of thin crust, the one we had was really good. The place was also nice, very cozy although it has low ceilings and narrow passage (very typical in HK as space is always conserved).
After dinner, we hang out at a bar nearby. The place was a bit busy but still okay. It was embarrassing though, as when they serve the menu, they had everything but non-alcoholic beverages. See, I don’t drink so there is nothing I can choose from. It’s a good thing V knew we could order some juice so I had punch.
So there yah go. That’s pretty much everything I had for my day. Nothing really special or fancy but it’s a much better way of celebrating my day than what I had originally thought. Until next year! 
djong here. thanks for stopping by i gotta go! and happy anniversary! enjoy your bangkok trip!