Aussie Lobsters Sneak into China

Australian rock lobsters are being smuggled to China via HK

Australia and China have had long simmering disputes as of late, and this has led to the latter banning numerous food products from Down Under.

First it was wines, along with barley, log timber, copper, coal, and sugar, and recently it's rock lobsters.

But the red crustaceans are making their way to China via Hong Kong thanks to some daring smugglers.

Australian wines are banned from entering China

Back in 2015 when China-Australia Free Trade Agreement was signed, smuggling was brought to a halt and four years later, more than 90 percent of Australia's rock lobsters were exported to China, worth a staggering US$553.7 million a year, according to the Australian agriculture department.

However, the trade ban has resurrected smuggling operations. It's not just lobsters the smugglers are bringing over to China, but also frozen meats, cigarettes and other goods, possibly jewellery, bird's nest, or shark's fin.

In April, Hong Kong imported a whopping 157,978kg of Australian rock lobsters -- about 50 times the amount imported in October, just before the ban took effect.

Lobsters are packed in boxes and kept chilled

But none of the lobsters show up as cargo being re-exported to mainland China, said Hong Kong's Census and Statistics Department. Only 5 percent of the lobsters are re-exported to Macau.

"How could people in Hong Kong consume so many lobsters?" asks a local seafood trader. "Of course they must have ended up on the mainland."

Mainland e-commerce sites like Xianyu and Taobao have suppliers in Beijing, Guangzhou and Hangzhou selling rock lobsters for 300 yuan to 1,000 yuan (US$45-US$155) per kilogram.

How they get to China is, the lobsters are chilled -- not frozen -- to keep them alive and the cold temperatures put them to sleep. After an eight-hour flight from Perth to Hong Kong, and cleared customs, the crustaceans are put in water tanks for two or three days to freshen them up and then repacked again in boxes to make the illicit journey.

The lobsters end up on dining tables in China

Some are hidden in fishermens' boats together with their usual haul to get to the other side a few kilometres away, while others are taken by speedboat by smugglers. It's crucial to get the lobsters transported as quickly as possible because no one wants a dead lobster on arrival...

Picture of the Day: Pomegranate Tree

Spot the pomegranates growing on the tree in Fira, in Santorini

In Greece we saw a lot of olive trees, some with olives growing on them. But we were told in Italy that you can't eat them straight off the tree -- they are poisonous!

Driving around there are lots of "vineyards", which are actually small patches of land with what look like small bushes haphazardly planted. However, it turns out the vines cannot be propped up like they are France, Italy and elsewhere because it is too hot.

As a result, the vines are wrapped around themselves like a circle so that the leave can at least protect the grapes from the hot sun.

But what was very interesting was seeing pomegranates growing on trees. We saw at least two pomegranate trees and we wondered what the fruits would taste like.

Nevertheless it was fun to spot them, with bright red bulbous balls hanging from the branches.

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.

Don't Take the Peanuts

Cathay Pacific has found cabin crew have pilfered a lot of stuff over the years

Cathay Pacific is trying to continue to slash costs to save HK$4 billion (despite posting a HK$2.3 billion profit in 2018), but it looks like it may have found a reason why it's spending a lot of money too.

There seems to be a lot of pilfering going on, with flight attendants freely taking items on the plane, from cutlery and wine glasses, and even bread.

One of the more popular items are Haagen-Dazs ice creams

Apparently the theft of the items amount to "untold hundreds of millions" over the years, according to sources.

One of the more popular items is the pot of Haagen-Dazs ice cream served on flights. Some cabin crew are known to have freezers stocked with these ice creams.

"In view of an increasing number of reported losses of company property, we have informed our cabin crew that random inspections will be carried out," a company spokeswoman said.

Cathay had already warned staff in January in a memo about the "unfortunately increasing trend of company property discrepancies". Does everyone know what "company property discrepancies" mean?

Bottles of unopened wine and caviar have been taken too

The cabin crew will be inspected upon disembarking the plane, and they may only take with them cabin crew-designated meals, as well as fruit, water, and plastic-wrapped sandwiches.

That means they aren't even allowed to take the wet wipes or even peanuts.

"Zero tolerance means you are not permitted to take off the aircraft any item other than what the company has authorized as per the policy," said Ed Higgs, general manager of in-flight services.

"If anyone removes company property, irrespective of the value or if you believe it will be thrown away, you will be subject to discipline which may include termination."

Don't say you haven't been warned.

But what is wrong with taking leftover food that will be binned or opened bottles of wine? Or do they donate the uneaten food to a charity, and have proper ways to re-cork the wine for later use? 

Staff shouldn't even think about taking peanuts or wet wipes

It has taken this long for Cathay to realize some cabin crew are pilfering items? There is some mismanagement here.

And what about the airline's huge mistake in 2016 when it lost a whopping HK$8.46 billion on bad fuel hedging bets? Heads rolled, but taking pots of Haagen-Dazs hardly compares to losing billions of dollars.

Nevertheless, this is the new reality for Cathay Pacific flight crew. So put down those company-branded pens, peanuts and ice cream. It's just not worth it.

Hong Kong's Pathetic Glass Recycling Efforts

There's still lots of glass that isn't recycled in Hong Kong

The Hong Kong government is really behind when it comes to recycling and we've mentioned it before. Last year over 13,000 tonnes of glass was collected, a more than 60 percent increase from the year before. While that's an impressive-sounding jump, consider there are 7 million people who live in the city, many of whom have some kind of glass bottle or container they should be recycling.

And now that Hong Kong has appointed two glass management contractors to recycle glass, the government claims they can't get collect enough glass. So now it wants its citizens to do that for them.

Groups like Green Glass Green started glass recycling in 2010

But it's very easy for the government to do this -- legislate all restaurants, bars and hotels to collect all the glass bottles and have them either sent to a collection centre or sent to a central location where the glass can be picked up. Anyone caught throwing glass in the garbage should be fined an exorbitant amount.

How difficult is that?

One wine importer even wrote a letter to the editor estimating that as the government has issued over 1,000 import licenses (many of them related to wine), there must be some 1 million glass bottles alone that could be recycled in a year.

The government makes it sound like a gargantuan task when really everyone wants to help out but the systems aren't really in place.

Put your glass in this container!

I'm lucky to have a glass collection bin downstairs from where I live; the glass bin filled up so fast that a second one had to be installed.

The same could be said for metal cans and paper products. Admittedly plastic is difficult to tackle with the various different grades, but it's not impossible. It's just that the authorities need to do more to educate residents about what can be recycled and how it's done.

Glass recycling and collecting was started by non profit green groups since at least 2010 and only now is the government seriously stepping up recycling efforts...
 

Picture of the Day: Temporary Bing Sutt

People at Vinexpo enjoying a bite to eat and a drink in a "bing sutt"

A large wine and spirits fair called Vinexpo is on right now in Hong Kong. It's a three-day event for people in the industry -- for wine producers to showcase their latest products, and for wholesalers, restaurants and hotels to see what will fit on their wine lists.

The show is being held at the Hong Kong Convention and Exhibition Centre and just outside the hall is a temporary "bing sutt" -- literally an "ice room", but is actually a traditional cold drinking house. They are the predecessor to the cha chaan teng, with its small tiled floors, hanging fans and folding chairs and menu items plastered on the walls.

Here the Hong Kong Tourism Board recreated one -- and it's a neat way to showcase local food culture for visitors overseas. They can have milk tea, a pineapple bun and a bowl of wonton noodles without having to go outside and deal with language issue.

The only fault here? The line was too long to even get a bite to eat -- which is the point of a bing sutt -- to be able to grab a quick snack and drink. That's because inside the exhibition hall there was no cafeteria to be found to buy a sandwich or even drinks.

When I was here yesterday I didn't have time (or the patience) to wait in line so I ate the power bar I happened to have with me and didn't eat some dumplings until I got back to the office at 4.30pm.

Maybe if I go early enough tomorrow I can finally try something in this "bing sutt"...

Wining and Dining

Enjoying the live musical entertainment under a giant white tent

Just got back from the second day of the Hong Kong Wine and Dine Festival at Central harbourfront.

It's the seventh year of the event, and this was my first time checking it out! Last year because of the Occupy protests it was hastily moved to Kai Tak cruise terminal but attendance was terrible so admission was waived and then hordes of people went -- if they could get in due to terrible logistics.

This year it's back at Central harbourfront, by Pier 10 and the giant ferris wheel and being a Friday night, the place was swarmed with mostly young people keen on sampling as much as possible and eating a few good bites in between.

Healthy drinking water -- new concept?

There was either a line to pay cash (HK$30/$3.87) to get into the grounds or Octopus; we chose the latter and literally walked in no problem. However, there was a massive line to get drink tokens.

Nevertheless, once this was sorted, we wandered around to see what we could try. There are over 300 booths, mostly organized into countries with Bordeaux having a huge presence, followed by the Italians, Germans, and then every other country like the United States, Chile and even Georgia.

Some booths focused on food, everything from slices of proscuitto, cheese, and popcorn, to yogurt and hamburgers. With the drink tokens we received a wine glass and a book of coupons, some of which could be redeemed for free stuff, like a bag of nuts (only about 10 nuts in there), and a bottle of water that even had the tagline, "Healthy drinking water" -- really?

Most of the wines we tasted were pretty good -- red, white, rose, port and dessert wine. I can't tell you which ones they were because my uncle just went to get some in his wine glass and shared it with us.

So many booths to wander and try, not enough time!

There were also talks on wine and an opportunity to buy wine accessories like glasses and wine fridges, and of course lots of bottles. But most enjoyable was the live entertainment, Chinese singers who sang both Cantonese and English songs, some in a jazzy style, others more pop and rock.

After two hours of wandering around and sipping different wines, I'd had my alcohol quota and made my way home...

Hotel in the Clouds

Looking up at The Shard which houses the Shangri-La London

The last documentary I watched on the way back to Hong Kong from Paris was The Shard -- Hotel in the Clouds, which followed the opening of the Shangri-La London in February 2014.

While the building itself looks totally amazing -- and it reminds me to visit London sometime soon! -- the documentary focuses more on how the hotel hires the staff, trains them and how they fare in the first few weeks after opening.

Construction was delayed for about a year, and when things were finally moving ahead, the management decided to up the ante and set an opening date so that there was a definite deadline.

Looking at the view of London from the tallest hotel in Europe

The Shard is not located in the city centre, making it a bit of a trek for guests to stay in, but the floor-to-ceiling views seem to be well worth it, as the hotel floors are from 34 to 52. There are stunning views of Tower Bridge, Canary Wharf, St Paul's Cathedral, Tower Bridge, the Houses of Parliament and Tate Modern.

Apparently the Shangri-La's policy is to hire local staff, and for many of them who come in for interviews have never stepped inside a five-star hotel, let alone worked in one. There are two men who have been friends for a long time and apply to be bellboys. They are gobsmacked by the place.

It's funny watching them hold plans of the building and see how many elevators they have to go to because the building gets narrower and narrower towards the top.

There's also a server called Angela who previously worked in pubs but is now being trained to be one of the wait staff in the fine dining restaurant. She thinks she isn't cut out for it, but her attitude -- that she loves serving people and it makes her happy to do so -- is the reason why she was hired.

The wine sommelier explains that logistically wine needs to be constantly moved from the basement of the building to the top otherwise it's embarrassing for guests to have to wait so long for their favourite bottle to arrive, similarly clean glasses need to be constantly ready.

Luxurious rooms at the five-star hotel

Staff get a quick lesson in Chinese hospitality -- how to hold chopsticks, and that Asian guests may slurp their soup, which is not a sign of rudeness like it is in Western culture, but that of satisfaction. The staff are also taught a few words in Mandarin, like the name of the hotel. But are they really going to remember that?

A 19-year-old straight from culinary school who was the top student, gets a job in the restaurant as the lowliest member of the kitchen staff. He has to pick out all the leaves for decoration, but he learns fast  and soon moves on to sauces.

Just before the hotel opens, they have a trial run with some staff acting as guests in the hotel. The two bellboys get to stay in the hotel and are chuffed at being treated like VIPs.

But when it comes to dinner, they waited a very long time for their dishes to arrive, though they weren't complaining with the free drinks they got in return for their patience.

The next day the general manager holds an emergency meeting and criticizes his managers for the poor performance overall -- it's very interesting that the Hong Kong-based hotel group allowed this scene to be shot, but it is a crucial part of the story.

Finally the hotel opens to much fanfare, with Mayor Boris Johnson giving a speech and looking puzzled as the lion dance seems to go on forever. The actual banquet that day seems to go off without much of a hitch and then the guests start checking in.

Soon after the opening, the communications team has to deal with the fact there are design flaws in the hotel -- some guests can look directly into the bathroom of adjacent ones, and so blinds have to be quickly installed. They also try to spin it, saying the English aren't prudes either...

It's because of this major design fault that members of Luxury Travel Intelligence voted the Shangri-La London as the worst hotel opening in 2014.

Nevertheless, other guests seem not only impressed by the amenities, but service too, with one wealthy couple so charmed by Angela's service that they are willing to pay for her to stay one night so that she realizes she deserves to be working in the five-star hotel.

The young culinary graduate invites his parents to lunch and he gets to plate their dishes. It's obvious they are beaming with pride and tell him so, which is touching. One would probably not get the same reaction from parents in Hong Kong...

At the end, a Frenchman enters the hotel room and is in awe of the view. Then he looks over to his right and observes with amusement he can look into the next door's bathroom...

Last Thoughts en France

Capturing the morning sun rays through the clouds over the Rhone River

After our tour of France, we reflected on what we saw and experienced, and it was quite a lot! We walked through many chateaus, visited a number of cathedrals and churches, saw lots of art work and hunted around for grocery stores.

Finding these stores were tough, particularly in small towns, where everything was shut -- except for restaurants -- by 7pm. We also liked to look for and buy the cheapest water we could get, and a 1.5 litre bottle could be had for 0.20 euros.

Looking out over Paris from Centre Pompidou

In general though, the people were quite nice to us, perhaps knowing full well the country is dependent on tourism to keep the economy relatively afloat. Wait staff were friendly for the most part, sometimes aloof rather than attentive -- in Hong Kong this would be an outrage, but we were on holiday so we didn't mind -- so much.

Only one or two people we encountered had snobbish attitudes, including a guy who hosted us as a winery museum and assumed we knew nothing about wines or tasting them.

He proudly demonstrated how to first smell the wine, swirl it in the glass and then smell it again, sip the wine and swish it around the mouth with sucking sounds and then politely spit it out into a bucket.

His mostly American guests were too keen to drink the wine, or too self-conscious to spit. But he made it sound like it was such an art form, but really it's an industry thing, not a consumer practice.

A lot of the French women we saw had some kind of style. They were not too practical when it came to dressing, but not too outlandish either, no matter what age. They seem to have an innate sense of style, or is it because the shops there sell more stylish clothes?

A colourful set of umbrellas -- Hong Kong?! -- in Les Baux

On our last day in Nice I noticed an elderly couple on the street, a woman in her 70s wearing a sleeveless dress, and had obviously put some effort into dressing up with a matching handbag and wore a gold necklace around her neck.

The elderly man she was with was more straight forward in his outfit, but it made me realize that men in France do appreciate and notice what their partner is wearing. It seems to be a given that a French woman will dress up, and men innately know to appreciate her style.

In Nice in particular, but also in Paris, women dress nonchalantly, even if bra straps are showing, or tops and bottoms are see-through. Perhaps in Hong Kong most people are keen to present a professional image, as most people here look proper, wearing suits and dresses without revealing too much.

It's not unusual to find women wearing short skirts or dresses with hems way above the knee. We didn't see too many wearing heels, most wearing flats or sandals because they walk so much.

The French will buy baguettes almost on a daily basis and carry it half covered in one hand and the rest of the shopping or their briefcase in the other. It seems bread is a crucial staple here, much like rice and noodles are to the Chinese, though we wouldn't carry them around so easily.

The food we ate was mid-priced in touristy areas and value for money. Almost all the dishes we ate came with very large salads, or the salads on menus were large enough to be a meal in itself. Perhaps another reason the French stay relatively slim?

We were also quite impressed with the truck rest stops. One of them had a grocery section on one side, a cafeteria-style eatery on the other, and there were large washrooms and even showers for people to use. However to keep things moving along, the women's toilets did not have seats...!

On the whole though we were very happy with the overall experience in France (minus the taxi strike on the first day!) and with the weak euro we took advantage of the sales of up to 50 percent off! Interestingly at the airport, there were some mark downs there too, but the selection and the discounts weren't able to entice travelers to spend the last of their euros...

Avignon and Chateauneuf du Pape

The Roman aqueduct carried water to Nimes 2,000 years ago

This morning we woke up very early to get the TGV train from Paris to Avignon. The double-decker train went an average of 290km/hr and we got to Avignon within two hours and 40 minutes.

The Pont du Gard is the span of three A380 plans nose to tail

Once we arrived we were met with a heat wave, dry and hot, 34 degrees. It was oppressive hot, but not as physically sapping as Hong Kong humid summer heat, which is probably why I fared better than most of the other travelers on our tour.

We didn't waste any time and made our way to Pont du Gard, an aqueduct that was constructed in 1st century BC by the Romans.

The bridge, known as Guard Bridge, is part of the Nimes aqueduct, a 50km long structure to carry water from Uzes to Nimes. The incline is only 17m which probably explains why it took 27 hours for water to travel from one end to another.

Many locals beat the heat by playing in the river below

What's so amazing is that Roman engineers were so precise with their measurements using simple technology. Some 1,000 workers constructed the aqueduct that took 15 years to build, and in the end carried 200,000 cubic metres of water a day that were then disseminated to various districts.

The bridge span is the length of thee A380 planes nose to tail, and is the same height as the Statue of Liberty.

However, by the 5th century the aqueduct was not well maintained and mineral deposits accumulated on structure, making it eventually impossible for water to make its way to Nimes.

The red wine from Brotte is in a funny bottle

In the 18th century, a road was added on the second of the three levels of the aqueduct, mostly for transportation purposes, and later on it became a tourist destination.

This year marks the 30th anniversary of Pont du Gard being named a Unesco world heritage site.

An interesting factoid is that denim for Levis Strauss came from Nimes, where the material for sails were made for boats. Hence the strong blue material became known as denim, or de Nimes.

We then visited the wine region of Chateauneuf du Pape, a winery called Brotte. We were told that the area is the second largest wine region in Cote du Rhone, known for making fruity, easy-drinking mostly red wines.

Practically every piece of land that was not inhabited was used to grow grapes -- not a single garden was seen. Mostly grenache is grown here, a long with some 13 other varietals.

Posters advertising various theatre shows in Avignon

We tried Brotte wines, with the red in a distinctive wobbly-looking bottle. It is a soft, fruity, round wine that's best drunk young. There's no vintage because the wine is blended in order to keep the taste consistent.

The founder of the winery was the first to develop a way to bottle wines, which changed the wine business here, as the wine was originally sold in batches and then bottled.

Afterwards we headed to our hotel, which is next to the Pope's Palace in Avignon. We'll find out more about the palace tomorrow, but in the meantime we had a great time having dinner and watching the various street performers who are here as part of Festival D'Avignon 2015.

Mrs Doubtfire was a funny entertainer

Most were in crazy costumes or tried to literally drum up interest to get people interested in actually buying tickets to their shows, while others handed out leaflets. One of our favourite performers was a guy who was a spitting image of Mrs Doubtfire -- who sat on a senior's scooter offering to promote shows -- for a price!

Visiting Chartres and Chambord

The facade of the cathedral in Chartres

This morning we set off early from Paris to Chartres, southwest of Paris. It is best known for its cathedral, considered to be the best example of French Gothic architecture, and has been a Unesco World Heritage site since 2003.

We were one of the first groups in the cathedral, that was built in the 12th and 13th centuries and is also known for its stained glass windows from the Middle Ages. There are 172 stained glass windows depicting scenes from the Bible.

The Blue Virgin stained glass window

One of them depicts the "Blue Virgin" in a sky blue against a dark blue background. Blue is not a common colour used in stained glass, but here at Chartres it seems to be the norm. The cathedral also houses a piece of the veil of the Virgin Mary... there's a letter in calligraphy that claims it is from the days of Charlemagne...

The stained glass windows are tall and rectangular, and there are two round rose windows as well. The colours are so vivid, but perhaps this is due to the restoration happening at the moment, as there was scaffolding in the cathedral; it also prevented us from seeing the large labyrinth on the floor, which pilgrims used to walk on their knees while praying, as a pilgrimage to Jerusalem.

Behind the cathedral is a small garden and below it is a small garden maze and beyond it a panoramic view of the town.

Our next stop was Chambord, to the famous chateau -- or rather a hunting lodge -- that was commissioned by Francis I. He apparently hired Italian architects, one of which may have been Leonardo da Vinci, to create this place that has 440 rooms, 282 fireplaces and 84 staircases. One of them may have been designed by Leonardo, a double helix staircase that goes up three flights, but never meet.

The back of the chateau, or hunting lodge in Chambord

Apparently Francis I wanted the roof of the hunting lodge to look like the skyline of Constantinople. But he didn't spend much time here -- during his 32-year reign (28 years of which were spent on building the lodge), he only spent seven weeks here. Whenever he wanted to visit this home, his 2,000 household staff had to bring all the furniture, clothes and provisions for him to stay here.

Francis I came here to go hunting, and these days people come here to hunt one day a year in November.

Louis XIV spent some time here afterwards and before the outbreak of World War II, the works of art in the Louvre were moved to Chambord for safe keeping from the Germans.

Another interesting factoid is that the chateau was the inspiration for the palace in Disney's animation feature Beauty and the Beast.

The entrance to the chateau a la Constantinople

I have to come back here again to spend more time -- we had to quickly grab lunch before getting on the tour bus again to head toward Tours, but not before we sampled some wines at Montlouis.

It's located inside a limestone quarry, where the rock was quarried for the chateaus in the area. As a result it's a cool place to store wines. However there's no vineyards here -- it's a production area where grapes are processed, blended, fermented, bottled and distributed.

The Loire Valley is known for its Chenin Blanc and sparkling wines. The latter are produced by adding sugar and yeast twice. However the dead yeast leaves a cloudy mixture at the bottom of the bottle and so the bottles are placed on an angle facing down and turned periodically.

See the dead yeast in the bottle that needs to be removed?

Then once the dead yeast has collected at the mouth of the bottle, and because the caves are so cool, the sediment freezes and pops out much easier without losing too much of the sparkling wine.

We got to sample three of the wines, a sparkling wine, a rosee and a white wine, but none of them really impressed us which was strange considering we're in wine country.

By dinnertime we arrived at Tours and had dinner at a fun restaurant called Leonardo da Vinci and were entertained by a guitarist who encouraged us to sing songs either in French or English.

The very grand City Hall in Tours

After dinner we walked around the area, passing by City Hall, the shopping street nearby and saw the modern-looking streetcars. But everything was closed after we finished dinner so we could only window shop!

Catering to the Chinese...

The reading material available in Hongcouver, or Vancouver these days

You know you're in Hongcouver or should I say Chinouver? when the magazines you peruse at your local bank branch are in Chinese.

The publications are about luxury lifestyles or Vancouver homes, introducing the latest fashions or accessories from brand names, or the best tips on decorating homes to make them look sophisticated, with wine fridges and gorgeous-looking bathrooms.

The best part is that the writers are non-Chinese and yet the magazines are published in traditional Chinese characters.

Hmmm.... wonder which readers they are targeting?

There must also be a small army of Chinese translators keeping busy here too, as the magazines are either bilingual or completely in Chinese.

Wonder how the writers feel, having their stories translated into a language they can't read or speak, but guess it's all in a day's work?

Another sign you're in Chinouver is at Metrotown in Burnaby, where a good percentage of the customers are mainland Chinese. I passed by one store and the young gweilo standing in front said, "Lai kan kan" (come take a look). And you couldn't help but turn around to see who said that.

While the intonation was only slightly off, he was desperate to pull in the Chinese demographic into his shop. I didn't stop long enough to turn around and investigate, partly because I didn't want him to think I heard him!

And in the shopping mall washrooms -- doesn't matter where -- you can hear horking in the stalls... which means a Chinese person isn't far away.

But perhaps the best sign of Chinouver is when I was at Target in Metrotown and I heard the distinctive wailing tones of Chinese opera played loudly and they were coming from an old man bundled up looking at merchandise as if nothing was the matter... has he not heard of earphones?!

Tuscan Trails: Cooking, Dining and Wining

Some ripe sangiovese grapes on the vine waiting to be harvested

After our short visit to Pisa, we were taken to a Tuscan farm that grows grapes for wines, olives for olive oil and also makes balsamic vinegar.

It's called Fattoria il Poggio and it's definitely set up for tourists to visit, sample the food with wine and hopefully they'll purchase some of the above food products, as well as dried porcini mushrooms, sun-dried tomatoes, honey, and even the farm's own cookbook to take home.

Freshly made crostini with mushrooms that was delicious

Apparently this farm hosts some 5,000 visitors a week and with some guests taking tins of olive oil and bottles of wine back home, surely this is a profitable business...

But before we could sip the wine and dig into some rustic dishes, we first had a cooking demonstration of how to make basic Bolognese sauce by one of the chefs there, a female chef who didn't speak English, but had a translator.

She chopped up a carrot, celery, half an onion, half a garlic clove, and then sauteed them in a pan with salt and pepper. Of course olive oil was used -- and she used a lot. We all gasped when she didn't stop pouring...

Playing with our dough to make all kinds of pasta

After about 10 minutes you add ground beef, and when the meat is dry, then take the pan off the heat to add some dry white wine. If you use red wine, it changes the colour of the sauce, and dry is preferred, and no sparkling wine.

Put the pan back on the heat and let the alcohol evaporate which will take another 10 minutes before adding tomatoes. Of course fresh, ripe tomatoes are preferred but canned ones are fine (depending on what kind of texture you want, it can be diced or pureed).

At this point add herbs and spices and then let it simmer for two hours. Intermittently add water, but best to add as little as possible to retain the flavour.

The real pasta of pappardelle with bolognese sauce

If making risotto, use olive oil to saute garlic and vegetables, like porcini, and then add rice and water. The general rule is one handful of rice per person. Then keep stirring and adding water. We asked about using chicken stock, but the chef said no, because the chicken flavour overpowers the other flavours, which contradicts what many other chefs have told me previously...

In any event, she also showed us how to make crostini out of leftover bread. Slice up some mushrooms and garlic and then saute them with olive oil, sage or parsley and then add salt and pepper. Then spoon it onto the bread.

Another is to chop up fresh tomatoes and mix them together with basil, oregano, garlic, salt and pepper and olive oil and then spoon this concoction on top of bread slices. Yum.

A pretty good red wine...

Following the demonstration, we were instructed to get up from our seats and do some work. We were already wearing aprons and on the table in front of each of us was a bowl with some flour and a raw egg in it.

We were told to break the egg and then mix it into the flour with a fork. Once it was mixed well, we could start kneading it on the table, adding more and more flour to it. And then we were instructed to roll it out as thinly as possible. Some of ours came out great, others had to be rescued by the chef, who quickly added more flour and water to fix the dough.

Once it was rolled out, we could create pasta, by cutting thick lines to make pappardelle, or cut a rectangular shape, stuff something in the middle, fold it in half and then use the ridged cutter to make ravioli. The same concept could be used to make half moon dumplings too called agnolotti. Also using the ridge cut to make farfalle or bow-tie pasta, and tortellini, similar to wontons.

The best white of the evening...

After we cleaned ourselves of flour and washed our hands, we had a tour of the vineyards and olive groves. For olives, they were picked by hand -- shaking the tree apparently affects the roots and is not good. The olives are harvested and then put in a machine where everything is crushed -- including the seeds. This first pressing is the cold press, and is considered the best extra virgin olive oil. This means no chemicals were used to extract it.

Fattoria il Poggio then sells this left over crushed olives to olive oil producers, will further extract oil from it using chemicals and so it may still be called virgin olive oil but not extra virgin, nor cold pressed.

A word of advice -- never eat olives straight from the tree -- apparently it's a taste you will never forget. The olives have to be put in brine before they are edible!

The farm also makes wine from sangiovese and trebbiano toscano grapes. We tried some of the latter straight from the vine, and they were very sweet, hence they were busy harvesting the grapes when we were there.

Martha the dog gets a lot of attention from visitors

Our dinner was held in the "cellar", which was probably a barn on the ground floor that was remodelled to look like a cellar with barrels hung from the walls. After a meal of cold cuts, followed by pappardelle with bolognaise sauce, and then grilled chicken and beef. Lots of wine was drunk and impromptu toasts made. Following the meal some people got into the dance groove with music playing outside and no one else for miles around.

Also, the farm's relatively new mascot, a six-month old shepherd dog named Martha was too cute to pass up for a pat on the head. Everyone had a good time!

Dancing the night (and calories) away!

Fattoria il Poggio

Via S. Piero, 39
Montecarlo
+39 0583 22088

fattoriailpoggio.net/en