Far East Update 26 - Message from Toronto - Nov 2012

Well, this is probably good bye for a while....we are back in Toronto. 

We did get our upgrade to business class which made for a very restful flight, which was quite quick...some good tailwinds got us from Hong Kong to Toronto in under 14 hours which meant that we arrived about 30 minutes early.

Zahava picked us up and we are now busy unpacking our suitcases, both old and new.

A brief story....standing in line with us last week, while we were waiting for our flight from Hanoi to 
Hong Kong, was a very nice gentleman originally from Scotland, who has lived in HK for many years. He was a policeman there until he retired. 

Once he retired, he got bored, so he began to look for a part time job. He is now an "on call courier" for DHL, which means that when hey have an important package that needs delivery quickly and reliably, a package that just has to each its destination quickly, they do not courier it via their regular channels, but they send it with people like the gentleman we met. 

So the day before we met him, they had a package that had to get to Hanoi. They call him and he immediately heads for the airport. They give him the package, he flies to the destination and hands it off to the recipient, and then either stays overnight or heads back on the next flight.

If he wishes to explore the city to which he flies, he simply pays for the extra nights out of his own pocket. 

He showed us his passport. There was not one clear spot where the authorities could stamp his passport. We asked him why he doesn't get a new one. He said that since he is a citizen of the UK, it takes 4 weeks from HK to get a new one and he would not be able to travel during that time. So he has asked DHL to find him a package that has to get to the UK and that way he could get his new passport while in the UK in under 6 hours. 

He says that he gets paid well, but the hidden benefit is the points that he gets for flying. He is super elite on Star alliance, super elite on Skyteam and super elite on Oneworld. Wow!

Fran has advised me to get the thought out of my head......

Oh well ......

See you next time we fly....it has been great!

All the best

Fran and David

Far East Update 25 - Back to Canada - Nov 2012

We are seated in the United Airlines Lounge in Hong Kong airport awaiting our flight to Toronto. We are still hoping for an upgrade to business class but will not know that for a while.

We got up this morning, went to shul next door and then met Nachum and Sandy in our room for breakfast. They were headed to the ladies market and the flower market this morning. 

We spent the morning walking around the area near the hotel and while we did not intend to shop, some of the deals were so good that we shopped some more. At noon, we headed to the Mul Hayam restaurant and had a great lunch of spring rolls and honey mustard salmon steak. Both were delicious. 

We returned to the hotel to pack up and check out.

Our bellhop was Kim, the same fellow who checked us in and again he amazed us by remembering our names and our room number. This is truly an amazing staff. Kim is also the fellow who helped us on Shabbat with doors etc and he impressed us with his knowledge of Hebrew, albeit Mandarin accented Hebrew. 

When we checked out we took a cab to the train station, checked our luggage thru to the airport and boarded the Airport Express Train to the airport, where all that remained was to go thru security and head for the lounge. We had our choice of the Thai Lounge or the United Lounge but since we had been in the Thai Lounge a few weeks ago on the way to Chiang Mai, we decided to try the United Lounge. Both were very bekovodik....so here we wait till our flight....

Hope to see all of you soon. We will certainly send our pictures once they are ready so that you can see some of what we saw on this wonderful journey. Hope you enjoyed travelling with us...it was a pleasure to have you along for the ride.

Hope all are well....all the best

Fran and David

Far East Update 24 - Last Day of the trip - Nov 2012

We arrived back in Hong Kong Sunday evening and rechecked into the Shangri La Kowloon to the greetings of "bruchim Haba'im" from the bellhops. 

In the morning we davened at Rav Meoded's shul next door and like previous days, there was a sizeable minyan. This is really a very good spot to locate yourself in Hong Kong. It's central Kowloon, great hotel and right next door to a shul and kosher restaurant. We also found a local supermarket with many kosher "western" products.

We went out to the Mul Hayam restaurant of Rav Meoded next door and had a very good meal. We then went out walking and did some more shopping (it is getting to be a habit:-))....

This morning we had breakfast in our room with Nachum and Sandy and today (our last full day in Hong Kong) we are just going to roam around the city. We will likely find our way up to the JCC for either lunch or dinner.


The trip is coming to an end....it has been one of the best that we have taken. We hope to be back to this part of the world before too long.

All the best

Fran and David 

Far East Update 23 - Shenzhen, China - Nov 2012

On Sunday morning, Fran and I hopped on the train for a 45 minute ride north into Shenzhen, China. Shenzhen is a city of nearly 12 million people and is one of the fastest growing cities and most densely populated cities in the world. To give you some idea as to the growth of this city, in the mid 1980s Shenzhen had only 350,000 people and in 1990 it had just over 1000000 people. 

It is a special economic zone and therefore attracts a lot of industry, and many north american business people will come here to meet their chinese business partners. 

But it is most known in the Hong Kong area to non business people for its shopping and low prices. So people like us, will board a train and cross the border (getting a Chinese visa) to go shopping. 

We arrived and with the help of a Vancouverite who was also on his way here, navigated the visa process quite easily. From there we walked the 5 minutes to our hotel, the Shangri La. Our room (much smaller than the one we had in Hong Kong....guess they did not know about our anniversary), was on the 21st floor of a 31 story hotel. The buildings all around our hotel are huge...guess you need height to accommodate the amazing population here.

After we got settled, we headed over to the famous LoWu shopping building. It is right across from our hotel and right at the border. It is 5 storeys tall and some floors are dedicated to specific items. 

We were looking for prescription glasses and some gift items. Before coming here you are advised not to buy at the first place and to remember to bargain fiercely!

We stopped at the first eye ware place we saw and after trying on a number of pairs and trying out different styles, we asked for pricing on five pairs; two for me, two for Fran and a pair of prescription sunglasses for Fran. Fran also wanted multifocals on one pair, but not wanting to confuse the issue, I decided that we first try to establish and isolate the base price for regular prescription glasses and then begin to speak about the multifocals. We settled on a price of about $35 a pair. She said these could all be ready in about an hour!!

When we asked her about multi focals, she said that they would take a week and when we said that we needed someone to check the prescription, she said that would have to be in another location somewhere else in the building. Therefore based on that and also on the warning not to buy at the first place, we decided to continue shopping for eyeglasses. Btw, the sales girl's opening price was about $100 a pair...and we had bargained her down to about $35, so we now knew the range that we would have to reach at another store. 

As far as multifocals, we knew from discussion in a few eye ware stores in Hong Kong that $200 would be a good price and so that was what we were aiming for in our future negotiations. 

First a word about LoWu shopping complex. each store or booth is about ten feet by eight feet, and packed with merchandise. If they do not have your size, color or item, there is no stockroom behind the store but they will get the item for you. They simply scurry off to a brother, friend or competitor somewhere else in the building and get it for you. Back in two minutes with the item and you can begin to negotiate. 

Btw, because of the negotiation process, you cannot shop quickly here. It is all about the give and take and it goes something like this. You walk toward a store and before you can get into the store, the person outside the store says something like "shop my store" or "you want good copy watch, purse, iPad whatever..." And tries to get you to make eye contact with an item. Once they know what you are looking at, they invite you in and the game begins. 

You pick an item you like....say a ladies purse (there are hundreds of ladies purse shops in the building). You say how much? They say 580. You must remember that they are not speaking in dollars or even in Hong Kong dollars but rather in Chinese RMBs which are now 20% more than Hong Kong dollars (we made the mistake the first store of thinking in Hong Kong currency and therefore we assumed the prices were cheaper than they actually were). So 580 RMBs is about 92 Canadian dollars which you know is way above what the going market should be. So you counter with 150 RMBs. They laugh at you, and say no way. If you are way too low, they will walk away, but generally, that is not the case. 

They will usually say you are way too low and counter with 550 at which point you walk away. At this point they thrust a calculator at you and ask you to key in your "final" best offer. You should then go to 160 or 170. If there is even a chance to conclude the deal at this point, they will drop significantly to about 400. You now know that there is a deal in play and you should end at about 200 or 220. This will likely require a walking away process where they run after you, grab your forearm and literally pull you back to their store. They know that your price was good and they also know that someone next door will make the deal if they miss it. That's the game but it takes time and energy. 

Back to shopping, we bought some gifts for the grandkids, some eyeglasses, some pashminas, a purse, a suitcase to lug it all back to Hong Kong. We also left one of Fran's existing pairs of glasses and had the fellow change the prescription to the new reading and replace the lens. He gave us 4 of the 5 pairs that we had ordered two hours earlier and they all looked great. The 5th pair, the multi vocals will be mailed to us via China Post....we are hopeful! We returned to the hotel tired but ready for more of the game in the morning.

In the morning, we slept in till about 8:00 am. Alas no Chabad here.

At 10 we were back in Lo Wu to pick up the glasses that the fellow had fixed and on the way Fran bought a pair of prescription reading glasses from a different store than the night earlier. The fellow spent about 20 minutes with very modern machinery testing and retesting Fran's vision to make sure that he got it right. By the time he finished, she had Bulgari frames (real 100% Bvlgari copy) and lenses for $39 ready in 30 minutes. Absolutely amazing. And she is very pleased with them. 

While waiting we bought some more "schmonses" and a few polo shirts for me. I have been named by some of the locals as "very good bargainer" which likely means that I paid through the nose and they are laughing their way to the bank. 

But it was a "chavaya" (an experience) as they say in Israel and we had a great time. 

We returned to the hotel, ate lunch (soup, smoked salmon fillet from a can that we bought in Alaska, an orange, coffee and chocolates), packed up and are now ready to check out of the hotel and head back to Hong Kong. It was a very busy and hectic 24 hours and we really enjoyed the energy expended in playing the game of shopping thru negotiations....no fixed prices.

I am attaching a couple of pics of Shenzhen

We are on our way back....more tomorrow

All the best

Fran and David

Far East Update 22 - Shabbat in Kowloon - Nov 2012

After an uneventful Friday flight from Hanoi to Hong Kong, we arrived at 2 pm (enough time to get to the hotel for Shabbat) and as we had done the time before, we breezed thru immigration, luggage collection and customs and were on the train to Kowloon within 30 minutes of landing. This airport's efficiency is just amazing. When we arrived in Kowloon, we decided to take a cab to the hotel (even tho the shuttle bus is free) to save time. We were in the Shangri La hotel in about ten minutes and began the check in process.

Nachum and Sandy's room was ready, but they said that our room would take another 15 minutes. So they invited us to have free drinks at the bar while we were waiting. In under 15 minutes, two of the customer relations staff approached us with roses and a camera and informed us that they wished to present us with a number of gifts for our anniversary.

Some of you know that our anniversary is in June, but when I had made all the bookings in Asia, I had informed all the hotels that this was a special trip for us; to celebrate 44 years of marriage, bli ayin hora. In both Chiang Mai and here, they gave us room upgrades and gifts for our celebration. 

Here they upgraded us to a harbour view room (which was amazing), gave Fran a bouquet of roses, placed a dozen red roses in our room, a box of chocolates, a bottle of champagne, and a number of personalized cards signed by each member of the customer relations staff. 







Now, in our room we began to prepare for Shabbat which was beginning at 5:20 pm. Oh, I forgot to mention, that as soon as we got out of the cab, our bellhop, Kim, said to us in Mandarin accented Hebrew, "shalom, mah shelomchem, hurry, Shabbat begins at about 5:30 pm" and Kim was the first of many of the lobby staff who greeted us in Hebrew, jumped to attention to take us to our rooms on Shabbat, opened doors, adjusted lights, reminded us that it was now "shavua tov" and to remember to buy "Chanukah presents and not Christmas presents" when we shop in the local markets. They have really been trained to cater to frum guests in this hotel and it is an easy hotel to stay in for Shabbat in Hong Kong. 

At 5:15 we were off on the very short walk (about 100 yards or less) next door to the Wing On Plaza which houses the Heichal Ezra Shul of Rav Meoded. He and his wife came here from Israel 17 years ago and have built a very fine Kehilla of locals and regular visitors. They run a restaurant called Mul Hayam and have a daily minyan, shiurim etc. They are considered the home away from home for many business travellers to Hong Kong and welcome a wide mix of Jews, dati, non dati, chassidic, litvish, Ashkenazi, sefaradi, etc. etc. Everyone is made to feel very welcome. There were about 50 or 60 guests for this Erev Shabbat (a non convention weekend in Hong Kong so a very small crowd) and a few less on Shabbat morning. 

They put on an amazing spread of food for both Friday night and Shabbat morning. It is plentiful, lots of salads, different fishes, chicken soup, chicken, schnitzel, roast, etc. etc. and it is delicious. 

No charge, just leave an anonymous donation in a sealed envelope before you leave town. One of the regulars (the president), stands up on both Friday night and Shabbat morning and makes an appeal. The Friday Night appeal is simple....would you like to join in sponsoring this week's Shabbat meals with a gift of $500 (us$) and a number of individuals offered their support and then on Shabbat morning a similar appeal of bidding for the aliyot...they went for anywhere between $200 and $600 per Aliyah (a lot less than the last time that we were here which was a convention Shabbat when the aliyot went for a minimum of $1500 per Aliyah).

A lot of the people were regular visitors to Hong Kong who come here a number of times per year for business; 3 or 4 times a year from the USA or Israel or panama, all over the world. They all know the Rav and revere him. 

There were two couples who were on their way to the Emunah tour of Thailand, Vietnam and Cambodia which begins on Sunday in Hanoi. We sat with one of the couples and enjoyed meeting them, playing Jewish Geography and sharing some of our experiences in Thailand and Vietnam with them.

The itinerary of Emunah Women is very similar to ours, staying in the same class of hotels, with the addition of a few days in Singapore and in Cambodia....but surprise of surprises, no Halong Bay on their itinerary. What is significant I guess is that the cost of that trip is more than double our cost and their trip is 15 days while ours was 23 days...gee, maybe that is a business idea :-)

In the afternoon, we walked thru downtown Hong Kong and were approached by someone looking for Chabad of Kowloon. We helped him find the place and then some of the men at Chabad asked us to join them to ensure that there would be a minyan, as someone was saying Kaddish. We did and it was good to see another community mainly of Israelis working or doing business here at Chabad. We stayed for Mincha (Nachum davened and I lained), Seudat shlishit, and Maariv/havdala. It is about 5 minutes from the Shangrila hotel.

In the evening, we joined the crowds on the boardwalk for the famous sound and light show which was not as good as it was last time. A bit disappointing. We then took a cab to the Ladies Night Market and did some market shopping. We met a number of other people who were on their way to the Emunah Women trip including old friends of ours who went with us to Russia on an OU mission in 1989. It was good to catch up with old friends. 

It is now morning and we are getting ready to go to Shenzhen in mainland China. It is about 30 minutes by train and we will stay there overnight returning to Hong Kong on Monday night. Nachum and Sandy are staying here to explore Hong Kong. 

Hope you all had a great Shabbat....
Shavua tov....

Fran and David

Far East Update 21 - Finally a short update - Nov 2012

Nothing much doing today....we are up early to catch our flight to Hong Kong for Shabbat. We will be there for the next 5 days with one day across the border in Shenzhen, China. So today is mostly a travel day.

We are sorry that we are not providing you with Shabbat reading material...have a great Shabbat

All the best

Fran and David= 

Far East Update 20 - Halong Bay Part 3 - Nov 2012

It is now Thursday morning at 6 am and I am on the upper deck of our boat. It is quite dark outside. We have been anchored overnight in the middle of a secluded bay that is almost totally surrounded by these karsts. Together with our boat in the bay are another 6 or 7 boats similarly anchored. Last night we only saw their lights but now that it is becoming light, you can see them clearly.

I got up to witness and photograph sunrise but we are totally covered in clouds. Daylight is breaking but the perfect cloudless sky that we had last evening is gone....guess I will have to try some shots of overcast vistas this morning. It is totally quiet and peaceful here. The crew and my fellow passengers are all still sleeping. On occasion you can hear a fishing boat passing by in the distance and every now and then you hear the boat's generator humming. You definitely hear the chirping of birds from every direction. The sea is still totally calm. There is a gentle movement of the boat as it moves back and forth while still tethered to its anchor.

In the next hour, there will be a flurry of activity as the crew on this boat and all the other boats in the bay awake and begin preparing their boats for the day ahead. Breakfast will be prepared and served and then we will set sail for the rest of our journey. I had thought of davening on the upper deck, but I think that if any of the crew awoke and saw me they would freak out...they think we are strange as it is, but this would be over the top....so even tho it would be very spiritual to daven in this amazing setting, I think I will head down to our room in the next few minutes and daven there.

After davening, Sandy went into the kitchen to supervise breakfast. The menu is fresh watermelon juice, plain egg omelette, egg omelette with tomatoes and onions, and stir fried cabbage with tomatoes, onion and garlic.

By the time we finished breakfast, we had arrived at the fishing village.

We transferred by tender to a small bamboo boat (one for each couple) that was being rowed by a local female villager. She must have rowed us thru the calm waters for about 45 minutes. She was a very small woman but she must have been quite strong. We asked Zhee how much we should tip her and he said 15000 dong or 75 cents would be sufficient.

This picture is upside down...shows you how clear and calm the waters were

There are 70 people living in this village. Each family lives on a floating  house. They used to live on an actual floating boat, but now they have small homes of 100 square feet built on a raft. All electrical power is by battery and they run their tv off the battery. There is cell reception so they all have cell phones.

They have a local floating makolet where they do their shopping and the 30 or 40 children in the village go to school in the two room floating schoolhouse. Teachers come from the mainland and stay there for a week at a time.

Our next stop in the bamboo boat was at the cultured pearl farm which is part of the fishing village. They demonstrated how they take the oysters out of the water, open them up, insert a mother of pearl and then return them to pools where they sit for 2 years, after which a full size pearl has been formed in the oyster. It was fascinating.

Obviously attached was a pearl shop displaying many types of pearl necklaces and earrings and other jewellery. We were now on our way back to the boat.

By this time the weather had turned partly sunny and very pleasant. We returned to the boat and were asked to pack our bags and vacate our rooms so that they could prepare the rooms for the next set of guests.

Fran and I were now invited down to the kitchen to help prepare the farewell lunch. When we asked what we would be having, they told us we would have whole steamed fish as the main course with sides of rice, finely cut veggies and stir fried morning glory. We asked which pot would be used for steaming the fish and they pointed to this very large pot, which was definitely not ours. We told them they could not use it and would have to use the smaller one that we had brought. This meant that they could not steam it whole and that is what they used.

It is good to have a mashgiach around and for them to understand that they can do nothing without us present. The result was very good.

Their seasonings consist of chilli, garlic, ginger, and salt. The veggies that they used today were soy root, seasoned with lime sugar and salt. The stuffing in the fish was shiitake mushrooms, ginger, green onion, shallots and garlic and onion. It was cooked with water which was thickened at the end with flour. It was all very delicious. Again he sculpted a flower out of a red chilli pepper which decorated the fish platter.

We had now arrived in port and the crew once again collected to thank us for coming. We gave them the recommended tip and thanked them for a very fine experience.

This was truly a "do not miss" kind of experience. Highly recommended if you can make it to this part of the world. We were blessed with good weather...not sure what it would look like in total fog, clouds, or heavy rains...

The kosher experiment worked out well. Our recommendations if we were to ever do this again would be to have more cooking oil, more disposable plates, and a couple of mixing bowls.
Other than that, it was a very successful experiment.

We then boarded our van and are now heading back to Hanoi for last night in Vietnam.

Hope all are well...all the best

Fran and David

Far East Update 19 - Halong Bay Part 2 - Nov 2012

So lunch was now ready....

Here is what we had: we began with pumpkin soup, followed by a small cut up salad of carrots, cukes, onions, red and green peppers all julienned with a dressing of fresh lime juice, soy sauce and sugar. We then had fish patties (finely chopped carp which he chopped using two knives) stuffed with carrots, shiitake mushrooms and shallots, which was pan fried. Following that came pieces of fish fried in olive oil, with ginger, chilli peppers, soy sauce and sugar, with a side dish of steamed rice. And to end it off, he brought out a large plate of egg omelette. For dessert, we had fresh tangerines. We ate on the outside deck (there is a protected inner dining room on the lower deck) and it was delicious. You could not have had fresher or tastier fish. So far so good...Halevai vaiter. 

A word about our rooms....they are all teak wood with a double bed and with fine cotton sheets. Each room has a private bathroom and shower and the rooms are very nice. The rooms have kimonos and slippers. There are bathroom amenities as well as air conditioning.

While we were having lunch, we were heading deeper into the bay. The size of the bay is over 1500 square kms. The view is amazing and the karsts are everywhere. Some are 300 feet high. And as the day wore on, the weather became sunnier and clearer...it could not have been more ideal. This is clearly a photographer's dream!!!! At every turn in the sea you come across another amazing vista and with every change in the hour, the sun and the shadows and eventually dusk present new colours of rock and sky and sea. Thankfully I have a camera and extra digital photo cards. 

As lunch ended we came to an area which had a large sandy beach (the sand was Imported for people like us and every time there is a typhoon, it gets washed away) where we docked. We  went kayaking in the absolutely calm waters, with each couple in a two person kayak, and Zhee leading in his kayak. 

We circled one of the large limestone karsts as eagles soared overhead. When we finished kayaking, we climbed the steps carved into the side of the karst and were led to a large stalagmite cave in the mountain. 

By the time we emerged from the cave and still halfway up the mountain, it was almost sunset and we seized the opportunity to daven Mincha and to say "oseh Maaseh bereishis" because of the awesome sight. 

While we were davening, Sandy explained to Zhee that this was a most appropriate place to pray because of the awesome beauty of the place. When we returned down to the beach, he gave us some time to spend on the beach and then we boarded the tender to return to the junk. 

We would sail for another hour where we were to drop anchor for the night and have dinner. We reminded Zhee that preparations for dinner could not proceed without us there.

At 6:30 Fran and I went down to the kitchen to assist and supervise the staff in the preparation of dinner. They had decided to prepare fish in two different ways...one was to steam a whole carp triple wrapped in aluminum foil and the second was to pan fry pieces of carp. 

They seasoned the whole carp that was to be steamed with lemongrass, ginger, shallot and a bit of soy sauce, olive oil and butter. We then watched the chef clean and gut the whole fish that was to be cut into cubes and pan fried. The pan fried pieces were seasoned with chilli, ginger, onion, tomatoes and pineapple with Smirnoff vodka, salt and pepper. We also had julienned kohlrabi with lime, soy sauce and sugar; a kohlrabi soup, and steamed rice. 

It was interesting to watch them prepare an entire meal with few utensils; with nothing more than knives and pots/pans. There was no food processor or blender, no mixers...in fact no electric items were used at all. They used chopsticks to transfer the fish to the pan. 

What was most interesting with the preparation of the food, was that the chef would cut everything on the new cutting board that we provided. At one time when he was cutting the kohlrabi, a few pieces fell off the cutting board on to his stainless steel counter. He immediately threw these pieces away, because we had told him that none of our food must touch his counters.

We again ate on the upper outside deck. Everything was delicious and presented very nicely.

With two of the courses, the waiters brought out amazing vegetable sculptures that the chef had made. The first was two storks made from carrots, and radish and the second was a model of a junk made from watermelon, squash and carrots. These cannot be described in words....you will have to see the pictures.  We ended with a dessert of sliced fresh dragon fruit. 






At the end of the meal, the entire crew of 8 people, came out to meet us, and to thank us for giving them the chance to serve us. They made speeches in vietnamese which our guide translated. They then sang a song in Vietnamese; the guide then thanked us for allowing them to 
learn a new way of preparing food for Jewish people. 

Our tour operator Ruby Le had told us that morning that he had had Jewish religious travellers before but they had simply brought their food with...there had never been people who tried to find a way to cook with the staff....so for this crew this is definitely a first and they have been great. 

If we thought we would lose weight on this trip we were mistaken. Lots of fresh tasty and healthy food. 

The entire day was a pleasure. The weather was perfect, the views were amazing and the service and attention to detail by the crew all combined to make this a very memorable experience. 

Very tired, we went to our room and fell asleep quite quickly and quite early. On Thursday morning we lift anchor and head toward a local fishing village where we will visit a floating market (seems to be lots of those around) and a local primary school.

Part 3 of Halong Bay will follow....

All the best from the middle of the sea

Fran and David