Hong Kong

Had a good and restful night on the ship. It seems that the longer we are away, the more the MVExplorer feels like home ; ) It's very comforting to see our cabin steward, Sotero, greet us in the morning as we go off to breakfast. When we return, our cabins have been cleaned, the beds made, fresh linens and towels, laundry has been picked up and everything put back in its place. Ahhhh.... ; )

Chris had a field lab today with his Economics class. It's like a field trip but for the college students, it counts for 20% of their grade. Anyway, he was gone all day. I'll let him fill you in on those details. Very interesting stuff. We certainly are having conversations during this voyage that we've never had before!

The boys and I signed for a Dim Sum cooking class. Hong Kong, unlike Beijing and the majority of mainland China, is Cantonese as opposed to Mandarine. Dim Sum is Cantonese. Ask anyone in Hong Kong and they will proudly claim it as their cuisine.

Dim Sum is a culinary tradition much like afternoon tea for the British, Merenda for the Europeans or Merienda for Latin Americans and the Filipinos. It is typically a light snack that occurs during the hours between lunch and dinner. Dim Sum is the same although it can be found served in restaurants between the hours of 7am-3pm.

The English translation for Dim Sum is "a touch of the heart". It is a small bite usually made of a steamed bun with a savory or sweet filling. But like every cuisine, the deep fryer seems to make things better so it is not uncommon to find fried Dim Sum!

We were taken to a cooking school where 3 types of Dim Sum were explained and demonstrated for us.
- A wonton wrapper filled with squid and assembled to look like one,
- a sweet steamed rice creation put together to look like a penguin
- and a rice wrapper folded in traditional dumpling fashion and filled with shrimp.
Ben was definitely the most artful with his dumplings, I was second and Jeremy...well, he's really good at eating them! ; )

Afterward, we ate our dim sum and were served about 6 other varieties. Stuffed from our "light" snack, the 3 of us decided to walk back to the port instead of going back on the bus with the group.

Our Chinese guide was very impressed that Jeremy and Ben wanted to participate in the dim sum class. She said, in her very frank English, "The Chinese children are very spoiled. They go to school, play computer games and do homework. They are not allowed in the kitchen so they are not interested in how to cook." We got similar information from our guide in Beijing. Ben asked her where we might go to watch ping pong and she said that those places don't exist anymore. The government has taken away all emphasis on physical education and pushes the kids to study more. Both ladies seemed concerned about the future of the Chinese children and were in disagreement with the added academic pressure they are receiving these days.

We got back to the ship in plenty of time. I ran into Chris giving a tour of the Explorer to some of the Chinese students he met on his field trip.

Later, the 4 of us met on deck 7. It was dark and Hong Kong was lit up like a like the flames from a Chinese dragon. The boys were playing Knock Out on the basketball court, students were sporting their new kimono robes, everyone was taking one last picture of the Hong Kong skyline and with 3 long blasts from the bridge, we shoved off into the South China Sea.