Greece Explained

A Greek Orthodox church in Emborio village

After we visited the excavation site of Akrotiri, we had some lunch at Perivolos Beach, where the sand is black, and then headed to an old Greek village called Emborio. Our guide told us the Venetians occupied Santorini from the 13th to 16th centuries and the biggest threat to the residents were pirates in the Aegean Sea.

Checking out the black sand at Perivolos Beach

There aren't many traditional villages intact these days because of the massive earthquake in 1956. It destroyed a lot of buildings in the area, which explains why there is still a lot of rubble and not a lot of development.

However Emborio is one of the few villages that is still pretty much the same as it was before, and some families still live in the compound.

At the entrance to the village we were shown a church with a dome on top, which indicates it is a Greek Orthodox church. They always have a picture of Jesus Christ on the ceiling of the dome. The exterior of the dome is usually either blue or white, but there is no particular reason why a dome is white or blue; it is just the decision made at the time of repainting it.

A dog met us inside Emborio village

There are also very tiny-looking churches, and our guide explained people would build them once in their lifetime in the name of a saint in the hopes of getting protection from them.  The most popular saint is St Nicholas, who protects sailors and merchants.

The village also looks like a maze, much like Oia where we are staying. The passageways are very narrow. Why? To counteract the strong winds which have been recorded as high as 90km/h. When the winds get that strong, even large ferries like the one we took to Santorini, and even planes are grounded.

Mules were used to transport building materials and food supplies, though they aren't used now -- humans have replaced them. We've seen them to do the laborious work of transporting boxes of ingredients, water and wine to restaurants.

Every family would build vaults in their home using rocks mixed with crude cement to hold them together. so the bottom was thicker than the top. Then the homes would be white washed with lime in it. Lime has disinfecting properties, so it was put in the family cisterns that collected rainwater in the winter.

The view from Santorini Winery for a wine tasting

We wandered around Emborio and found some places that looked deserted, others had people living in them. We even spotted a dog looking down at us! It was so interesting to see such a small community bound together by this fortress-like compound.

I don't think I can live in Greece because there's a lot of dust like sand and pumice that is blown in Santorini, or Greece in general. This is why residents hardly wash their cars. Our guide says she will have a bottle of water to periodically clean the windshield, but other than that people only wash their cars three or four times a year.

The cars that look nice are the ones catering the tourists. Very easy to distinguish.

Later in the afternoon we tried some Greek wine from Santorini Winery. The Santorini white wine 2018 was light, fruity, slightly dry but easy drinking, but another white we tried which was a blend was musty, like ripe cheese, and acidic in finish. Finally we tried vinsanto, a dessert wine that tasted like sweet raisin juice. Would have been better chilled.

An overview of Santorini from Profitis Ilias Mountain

Our second last stop on the tour was to Profitis Ilias Mountain the highest point in Santorini at 567 metres. We had a pretty good view of the place, and at the very top is an office that collects data for earthquakes and volcanic activity.

There is an active volcano still in Santorini, and apparently there are many small earthquakes here. The land mass of the islands apparently increase a centimetre or two every year, showing the volcanoes are still active, and no one knows when it will blow.

The last stop is back at Oia for the sunset... we had seen it already, but we thought we'd have a chance to sit down and enjoy the view but we were wrong. The seats were already taken up and so we stood behind people on a rooftop terrace for over an hour, waiting for the sunset to happen.

We had to take the obligatory sunset shot in Oia again...

And like before, once the sun goes down everyone claps excitedly. Why is that? Nevertheless it's nice to stop and admire the view and appreciate nature for its beauty.

Traditional HK Desserts

Clockwise from top left: Almond cream, steamed egg, black sesame, walnut

Tonight my relatives and I had dinner in Sai Ying Pun and then we walked over to Centre Street for some Chinese desserts at Yuen Kee Dessert.

It's a small shop, about the size of typical noodle establishments, and at 9.30pm was still busy with customers.

We managed to get a table for the four of us and had to quickly peruse the menu, as the waiter was already hovering over us with his pen and pad at the ready.

Finally we decided, made our orders and within minutes our desserts arrived.

Our absolute favourite has to be the signature steamed egg. It had the consistency of tofu, silky smooth, and a light custard flavour that wasn't sweet at all, nor savoury.

Second is the almond cream, full of flavour and even better with lotus seeds that have been simmering for a while so they were soft and added more texture and taste to the dessert.

We also liked the ground walnut soup, with its slightly roasted smell, and the walnuts weren't ground too finely, so it had a nice grainy texture.

The black sesame soup is supposed to be quite well known here, but we only thought it was so-so, very thick thanks to lots of corn starch, which meant it didn't have as much of the nutty black sesame flavour.

Another dessert we tried was the green bean soup which was thinned out, while the signature steamed sponge cake was nothing spectacular -- in fact it was rather bland and not that fluffy. Maybe it would have been better straight out of the steamer.

The total bill came to HK$158. It was a nice sampling of desserts, but we know for sure what to order next time!

Yuen Kee Dessert

G/F, 32 Centre Street

Sai Ying Pun
2548 8687

China-Hong Kong Metaphors

Thousands protested during the Umbrella Movement, but to what end?

Tonight a friend of mine was telling me some visiting journalists asked her how things had changed since the Occupy protests last fall and she replied, "Everything and nothing".

And that really does sum up what happened after the protest sites were cleared away in mid-December.

For 79 days we ranted and raved, occupied four districts, forcing traffic in these areas to a trickle, but when the protests were over, nothing happened.

Beijing remained as aloof as ever, proving to us that it had no patience for temper tantrums, and nor did it care to have a dialogue with us.

In fact, China suggested nationalistic education should be further enforced because the protest indicated Hong Kong people had no understanding of the mainland, blaming the education system.

But there will come a time one day in Hong Kong where no one will know traditional Chinese characters, which is a frightening prospect. Will people still speak Cantonese? The city will become like every other mainland Chinese metropolis, but not without us being dragged, kicking and screaming.

Or should we just save our energy?

My friend also said the mainland-Hong Kong relationship has been coined as one between a mother-in-law and daughter-in-law: We mutually dislike each other but we have to live under the same house, whether we like it or not.

Hong Kong's lawmakers will vote on the political reform package next Wednesday and we already know the outcome.

So why wait for it to play out in slow motion and instead figure out what the next step is?

It seems either way we're playing the losing side of the game and Beijing is keen to keep it that way, as it is the mother-in-law in the relationship...

Old School Feast

Lin Heung Tea House is decorated with birdcages and fake birds in them

Tonight I had a taste of some traditional Chinese dishes at the famous Lin Heung Tea House on Wellington Street. My relatives invited me to come along and as the restaurant is known for serving large portions, the more the merrier.

The (large and) healthful pig lung soup!

Our reservation was for 8.15pm and the place was bustling, with every table occupied. There are bird cages hung around with fake birds in them; makes you wonder why they bother, but perhaps they think empty ones are even more depressing?

No one seemed to notice and preferred focusing on their dining companions and of course the food.

Lin Heung is known for preparing dishes that many other places in town don't make any more, mostly because they are labour intensive, not because they are expensive ingredients.

We started off with the pig lung soup that was served in a giant tureen -- so large that nine of us almost had three bowls each. This soup is tedious to prepare, mostly because the lung needs to be cleaned thoroughly before it is put in the soup otherwise it spoils the taste.

The fried crispy chicken was quickly devoured...

The soup also has lots of ground almond, making it milky white, with lots powdery residue, and enhances the taste, along with lean pork. The lung was cut into chunks and dipped in soy sauce had a soft texture.

It's said that drinking this soup helps get rid of coughs, or any respiratory ailments, so we made sure we each had an extra bowl.

Next came deep-fried chicken and it had a gorgeous dark crispy skin, juicy meat underneath. This was no lean bird either, with lots of meat that was very tender.

Another highlight dish was braised pork knuckle that arrived in a massive deep platter, with large chunks of lotus root. The pork knuckle was chopped into large pieces and quite a bit to chew on, but we all loved the sauce and started thinking of how it could be used in leftovers as a sauce with noodles, and adding dried tofu to it to soak up the flavour.

Another excellent dish of pork knuckle with lotus root

This dish was impossible to finish and luckily relatives brought some food containers to take the rest home.

The stir-fried glutinous rice was very good too, just the right stickiness and softness, and included chopped lap cheung, mushrooms dried shrimps topped with stringy fried egg and scallions.

Another highlight was a very large, relatively flat fish that was smoked with tea leaves and served with mayonnaise. Fish this large are hard to find in the markets these days and so this was a treat.

The server removes the bones of the tea-smoked fish

It was cooked perfectly, and had the lingering smoky flavour. It was a big portion, but since it was so good, we managed to polish it off literally from head to tail.

There were also two vegetable dishes, one of pea shoots with Chinese ham, another of Chinese cabbage braised with mushrooms and goose webs.

Finally it was time for dessert, the restaurant's signature baked pudding -- sago with lotus seed paste, that came out more runny than thick. It was very much on the sweet side, but the taste was comforting and old school.

By the time we waddled out at 10pm more than half the place had already cleared out. Another memorable meal sitting comfortably in our stomachs!

Baked sago pudding with lotus seed paste inside

Lin Heung Tea House

160-164 Wellington Street

Central
2544 4556

www.linheung.com.hk