Blogs are not blocked in Macau! I have quick, easy access without a VPN that disconnects irrationally. Yea.
After the kids had Chinese class this morning, we took the 1:30 ferry from Shekou Port in Shenzhen to Macau. Our hotel is called Pousada de Mong Ha. It's about half way up a hill towards the Fortress of Mong Ha which was built in anticipation of a Chinese invasion after the Anglo-Chinese War in 1841. The Pousada is run by the Institute for Tourism Studies which trains students in the tourism industry. All the students eagerly help. We ate dinner tonight in the Educational Restaurant. Sofia was a little nervous for the students when the teachers kept intervening to make sure they placed the napkins just so on our laps, and served the water just right, and cleared away the silverware that we wouldn't use for our particular dishes.
The food at the Educational Restaurant was excellent: homemade fettucine with truffles and parmesan (guess who got that?); African chicken with courgettes; roasted quail; bacalhao with potatoes and cream, a Portuguese dish made from dried cod fish; and baked sole. The good food almost made up for Jacek's three strikes last night at a western restaurant on campus in Shenzhen. He's going to blog about that, but suffice it to say that, in his words, his meat "tasted like sandpaper with disinfectant." I tried it too. Bad. Very, very bad. Inedible.
Nothing, absolutely nothing, however, could taste as bad as the poison candy our neighbor gave Sofia on Monday at Lakefront Fairyland's celebration of the 60th anniversary of the founding of the Chinese Republic and the mid-autumn festival all rolled into one. (Lakefront Fairyland is the name of our apartment complex.) Sofia warned Stirling the candy was bad, but he tasted it anyway. Then I did. We didn't vomit, but I wanted too. Rat poison could not be worse. Just now, in a neighborhood market here in Macau, we saw some candy wrappers with the same fruit on them. Do not ever eat durian fruit candy. Not even to save your life. Jon Winokur in a travel book described the odor of durian fruit -- and I would add taste -- as “pig-@*%#, turpentine and onions, garnished with a gym sock." The Oxford Companion to Food analogizes the smell to "civet, sewage, stale vomit, skunk spray and used surgical swabs." Just think, they make a candy out of that.
UTAH here we come
16 years ago
Yes, why do they make a candy that tastes like that? Do people buy it to actually eat, or do they buy it just to show other people how terrible it is?
ReplyDeleteDid you visit any architectural sites in Macau? Do they look like 16th-17th-century Portuguese buildings with lots of decoration on the façade (Manueline-style)? I've always wished there were a convent (with existing manuscripts, please) in Macau, so that I would have a really good excuse to do research there.
ReplyDeleteWe visited the ruins of St. Paul's Cathedral which is just the elaborate front facade now. We also went to St. Augustine's Church where I tried to interview 97-year old Father Luis Ruiz about the Mexican community in Macao in the 1940s and 1950s, but "Nina, eso fue en un tiempo lejisimo" (Child, that was so long ago). The Macao municipal archives were closed for the national holidays.
ReplyDeleteThe real question is why would God make a fruit that smells and tastes so bad? And why would people eat it? Maybe it is an acquired taste, but not one that I want to acquire.
ReplyDeleteSome markets refuse to sell durian fruit and the Hotel Sintra where we stayed banned it from the premises. Glutton for punishment that he is, Stirling tasted durian fruit ice cream at a gelato place right by the Lou Kou Mansion. Why? To see if it was as bad as the candy? Help me understand this.
Hi Kif,
ReplyDeleteWe love reading about your adventures in China!
Give our love to the family.
Collin