(View from hotel room in the morning.) I had no problem with jetlag whatsoever and slept like a log from 10:30 PM to 7 AM. Still full from yesterday, a cup of tea in the hotel room was sufficient for breakfast. We took the bus to Uncle L and Aunt A’s place. On mom’s request, I took some portraits of them. Then it was off for dim sum at Maxim’s Palace—THE place for dim sum.
The restaurant is donut shaped to facilitate the counter-clockwise flow if the dim sum carts. The restaurant can seat 3000 people, yet there was a line already when we got there at 10:30. They don’t take reservations, but they recognized Uncle L and lead us directly to a table that was still being cleared. I noticed that at about ¼ of the tables, there sat only one or two people drinking tea and reading newspapers. I guess it’s a tradition that somebody has to get there early and claim a table. As always, Aunty A’s servant was there, but it really surprised me when the first thing she did was to gather up all the dishes and utensils and rinse them one by one with tea in a small bowl. Apparently this tradition developed because people are uncertain how clean these items are and like to reassure themselves. Now I must point out that this is a very fancy restaurant, and it’s unlikely that the dishes sit around getting dusty. It seemed very odd that they would provide the tea and washing bowl so that customers can splash tea all over their white tablecloths. Even odder, there were no napkins provided at this restaurant even though dim sum includes several items that are usually eaten as finger food. All the places we ate yesterday provided prepackaged moist towelettes along with the napkins so that one could wash their hands before eating (something I really appreciated in the absence of my Purell), but this restaurant did not.
Aunt R was to meet us there, but I can’t imagine how she could have found us if the servant hadn’t gone to the entrance to wait for her. As anyone who’s ever been to a dim sum restaurant can probably imagine, the noise level here was nearly deafening. It didn’t really matter to me though since the conversation and the explanation of the various dishes was in Cantonese, and they didn’t pick up the baskets to show off the contents, so I had pretty much no idea what was being ordered. I would have liked to try some new things, though not necessarily the things that were ordered (like sea cucumber, black eggs, and chicken feet). I filled up on barbecue pork buns, red bean buns, a few other dumplings, and noodles with mushrooms.
After lunch, I went with mom and Aunt R to the flower market to buy flowers to take to the family grave sites on Monday. I questioned buying flowers on Valentines day, but I was told that they needed so much prep in order to be suitable for the graves that her servant would need the time. On the way to the flower market, we walked through a regular market with a wide variety of stalls selling everything from underwear to fruit. My attempts at bargaining were met with “we don’t bargain here,” yet my mom and Aunt didn’t pay full price for anything.
The flower market was overwhelming. The variety of flowers was impressive to say the least, but even more impressive were the hundreds of mostly young men buying Valentines bouquets. Roses were the most common, in every imaginable color (though I doubt the blue ones exist in nature), but the orchids and unusual flowers were the most interesting to me. I’d never seen long-stemmed decorative cabbages before. (If roses say "I love you," what do cabbages say?)
Mom and Aunt R bought so many flowers that R’s servant had to come to carry the flowers home for her.
After the flower market, we went to the Bird garden. I was expecting an aviary, but instead it was more of a marketplace where people sold caged birds and their accessories. It was also a place for bird people to socialize, and they bring their caged birds to interact with their friend’s caged birds. Even the restaurants in the area have hooks for people to hang their birdcages. While I felt sorry for the birds, I was glad they’d taken me here because I never would have gone their otherwise.
Then it was back to Aunt R’s apartment for a while. The school my mom went to was right next door, and she wanted me to take her picture there. There was some sort of festival going on, so we walked right in. A minute later we were chased down because we didn’t pay admission, but after some negotiation, my mom got her picture and we left. I teased my mom about being in trouble with the nuns again, but she said it was okay since the security people weren’t nuns.
Like Uncle L’s apartment, the centerpiece of Aunt R’s apartment was a gigantic built-in knick-knack shelf stuffed full. Once again, we were asked to each choose something from their knick-knack shelves to bring home with us. I thought that was pretty weird, but my mom thought it was normal. For me, it was a test in Chineseness. If I picked something too valuable, that would be greedy. If I picked something too cheap, I might insult them. If I picked something with sentimental value, I might put them in an awkward position. Balance that with the thought that I’d have to get it home, so it shouldn’t be too fragile, large, or heavy, and then I’d have to store it in my own knick-knack shelf until faced with my own mortality I felt compelled to pass it on to the next generation.
In the evening, we took the bus back to the hotel for a nap/a little blog time. It wasn’t until around 7 that I started to get hungry enough to think that I actually wanted dinner. Being Valentines night I figured all the restaurants would be packed, but the guidebook mentioned a deli in the area, so we went there. It turns out it was a pretty fancy restaurant with American food, but we arrived during the nightly 8 PM light show that they do at the waterfront, so we were able to get a table. After dinner we walked along the waterfront which was lovely but very crowded. I’ll probably go back some other day to catch the light show.
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