A Feast of Seafood.....

17th December 2009

After the day's game at the Long Island Golf Club, the group decided that we go for dinner at a seafood restaurant in downtown Shenzen. It was quite a feast made merrier by the bottle of Balvennie 12-year old courtesy of Mr Goh Kee San. We had a spread of fresh and baked oysters, steamed fish, prawns, grilled scallops, giant-sized praying mantis prawns the size of 1-kg lobsters, abalone and many more dishes which pakdokter can no longer now recollect.

As pakdokter had earlier mentioned, based on the full-house bookings of the restaurant and the waiting for tables, China seemed to be in a state of prosperity with no sign of any recession at all......

choose your live and fresh seafood from the front of the shop...

the restaurant Captain jotted down the order....

and informed the kitchen of the order on her microphone..

almost like a security service operation....

the group had rounds of Balvenie single-malt..

with Snow beer from Shen Yang as chasers....

grilled scallops with garlic,rice noodles and spring onions..

so serious eating one ahhh......

deep fried praying mantis prawns...

the size of a 1-kg lobster

the shells so crunchy

but the flesh sooo little...

Long Island Country Club...

17th December 2009

The second day in Shenzen turned out to be colder than the day we arrived at this southern Chinese city. We left the hotel at about 8 am hoping to reach the Long Island Golf and Country Club by 9.30 am for the booked tee-off time of 10 am. Unfortunately the bus driver took a wrong turn and went into the traffic-jammed streets of Chang-An city. With directions from the club staff over the phone, the driver trekked back to the golf course only to arrive past our booked tee-off times.

The cold weather also made many golfers sufferred very 'irritable bladders'. Unfortunately there were no R & R stops for toilets and short of doing it into plastic bags in the bus, some of us forced the bus to stop by the highway and helped 'clean' the bus tyres.....

washing off mud from the tyres...


the arch at the entrance to the Long Island Golf Club...

pakdokter and Thomas Chun...

Thomas Chun, pakdokter, Goh Kee San...

the clubhouse was in Christmas spirits already...

this was on the wall above one of the urinals at the washroom..

pakdokter's golfing experience can be accurately summarised as such..

the Malaysian flag was strung out to mark our visit...

views of the clubhouse from the course...

pakAzizi, pakdokter and pakTgAzman...

Goh Kee San, Chong Kuet Yoon and Pong Kai See..

pakAzizi at the tee

pakAzizi getting out of the bunker..

pakTgAzman at tee No-10..

he pulled his drive to the left and hit the edge of the track..

causing the ball to be deflected to the other fairway on the right..

despite the cold and the stiff body....

it was quite a good drive.....

The Long Island Golf Course was designed by the JMP Golf Design Group ( J Micheal Poellot). The 27-hole course is located at the foot of Lotus Hill in Chang An County. And this is the only golf course in China with facilities for night-golfing.

Many Malaysian Golf Clubs have reciprocal arrangements with this club amongst them the RSGC, KGSAAS, Pulai Springs, the Tropicana and the Tg Puteri of Johore.

We played the West and East Courses which measured 6444 yards from the blue tee.

Pakdokter played in the second flight with pakAzizi (handicap 10) and pakTg Azman ( handicap 24). We agreed to play on a small bet of 30/10/10 against each other. PakAzizi played to his form and won full-house over pakdokter and squared against pakTgAzman. Pakdokter was the main casualty, luckily loosing to pakTgAzman by only 2 balls.......

Anyhow, the great golfing condition made up for the losses and the mug of Heineken after the game quenched away all frustrations from the missed shots.....

The restaurant at the club-house had a Malaysian chef and a Malaysian manager. So they had in their menu dishes like curry mee and mee mamak.......

Pakdokter had a helping of a big bowl of curry mee which was authentically Malaysian....

Shenzen, Here we Come...

16th December 2009

The Royal Selangor Golf Club was scheduled to play in the Annual Interport Game against The Hong Kong Golf Club at the latter's turf on Saturday, December 19th 2009. Originally a group of almost 20 RSGC members signed up to the planned pre-match Shenzen Golf Tour. However so many last minute cancellations reduced the group to just 9 golfers which unfortunately affected the average cost for each of the touring golfer.

The group left Kuala Lumpur on Airasia at 650 am which forced most of us to wake up at 4 am to check-in at the LCCT by 5 am that morning. Being a holiday period, the Airasia plane was full with holidaying Malaysians and returning mainland Chinese tourists.

Shenzen turned out to be colder than what the group had expected. Apparently a cold front had just swept through bringing with it temperatures of around 12 to single digit celcius. So many of us had to either resort to multi-layered outfits or invest in warmer winter clothes.

Shenzen is a typical monstrous Chinese industrial city. The mushrooming high-rise buildings and the big malls of the financial district reflected the current wealth and prosperity of the new China. There was not much evidence of the doom and gloom of an economy in recession we hear everyday on CNBC Business Channel that these days plagued the western economies.....

The group checked into the Days Inn Hotel, a tourist class hotel located near the Shenzen train station and not far from the immigration CIQ complex to go to Hong Kong. We walked to a nearby mall for lunch after which most of us chose to pamper our tired legs and body to the many outlets offering foot reflexology, foot massage, pedicure, manicure and even facial make-over if one was game for it! A 2-hour indulgence cost only about 75RMB ( about RM35 - quite a deal actually). A full facial treatment to rid facial blemishes, warts and moles using ?peroxide wash followed by laser/diathermy therapy can cost up to 2000RMB.

What struck pakdokter the most was how aggressive the shop attendants were in trying to sell their goods or services. When persuasions did not achieve the desired sales after much haggling and bargaining, they can become quite hostile and intimidating.......

walking to the mall near the Shenzen train station...

modern metropolis that Shenzen is...

manicure, pedicure and foot massage....

pakAzizi to pakdokter's left did a facial makeover......wow!....

waiting for the feet to be pampered while enjoying sweet sweet little mandarins...

Mr Chong Kuet Yoon and Pong Kai See...

see the satisfied look on Goh Kee San's face after a foot treatment...

For dinner the group chose to go to a Muslim Restaurant specialising in lamb dishes. Apart from the tasty grilled lamb on skewers, the outlet also served lamb slices from various cuts to be cooked a a boiling broth - very much like the steamboat. It was quite a delicious spread......And the bottle of Glenmorangie Nectar d'Or helped keep everybody happy....

the Little Sheep Restaurant,

a famous chain of about 200 restaurants all over China

served spicy lamb cubes grilled on skewers

and different cuts lamb slices for dipping in a boiling spicy soup

steamboat style from the Muslim ?Sichuan/XinChiang regions....

we had to queue in the cold outside the restaurant for our table....

what recession?.....

Devindran, TgAzman,KY Chong, Thomas Chun,KS Goh....

Alex Hwang, Devindran, pakdokter, TgAzman...

KS Pong, Tony, Alex Hwang, Devindran..

TGAzman, KY Chong, Thomas Chun, KS GOh, Captain TS Lee..

Year-End Golf....

This weekend pakdokter played in two of pakdokter's club's golf competitions. On Saturday pakdokter played in the monthly medal competition and came out second in the category C division group. Pakdokter returned a respectable score of 45 strokes on the 1st Nine and a score of 52 on the in-coming Nine, playing to a handicap of 24!

On Sunday, pakdokter partnered regular golfing buddy, pakTengku Azman and played in the club's year-end golf competition. Played on a best-ball stroke-play partnership format, pakdokter returned home with a gross score of 49/45 and with pakTengku Azman's few pars and one birdie at the holes where pakdokter played less well, we both managed to achieve a net score of -9 which gave us the overall second prize!

Pakdokter had indeed played a lot of golf this year. Unfortunately, pakdokter did not manage to achieve the year's objective of reducing pakdokter's handicap to below 20. The lowest handicap achieved in the middle of the year was 22. And towards the end of the year, the handicap crept up to 24 again when pakdokter's game deteriorated with less frequent play made worse by poor course condition due to very rainy weather.

Never mind. Pakdokter will try to do better in 2010!......

The Edinburgh Farmers' Market....

Saturday 28th November 2009

The Edinburgh Farmers' Market is a regular event every Saturday morning from 10am to 2 pm at the Castle Terrace, just across the street from Raena's flat. Everything from food to farm products were available at the many stalls there. The angus-beef burgers were very delicious. So was the fish and sea-food soup! You would be spoilt for choice for various types of cheese and freshly-baked bread was also a popular buy.

At one of the stalls we made friends with one Mr (Mac)Alan? - he was in the British Navy based in Sembawang in Singapore - in 1950. He said he was 19 then, so he is almost 80 now. He was sent there to fight the communists during the "Emergency". He spoke to us with nostalgia about his time in Malaya, Singapore, Guam and later Japan, where he fell madly in love with a Japanese girl.

The morning that was sunny at the beginning suddenly became very cold with freezing wind that brought along a layer of mist which covered the view of the Edinburgh Castle. So pakdokter ran back to the flat with a cup of hot fish soup and an angus beef burger for breakfast. At 1 pm the pre-arranged cab picked pakdokter up to the airport for the return journey home with fond memories of Edinburgh......

pakdokter's partner with Mr (Mac)Alan?....

and his stall sold savoury and fruit pies,carrot cakes, etc etc......

Eating Out in Edinburgh.....

Pakdokter and company only had 5 full days in Edinburgh. Before leaving KL Dollah had asked relatives and friends for recommendation of restaurants in Edinburgh. Edinburgh tourism websites were also checked for eating places.

We managed to make full use of all the nights here to dine at the recommended places.

Pakdokter had reported our nights out at the Dome and the Cafe Royal. On the third night we tried out the '4th Floor' at the Harvey Nichols - a modern fusion restaurant atop this upmarket shopping mall.We could not get a booking for 'the Witchery' - a restaurant which has served stars like Catherine Zeta Jones and Sean Connery. The only time offerred to us was for 11.30 pm!

So we settled for the Cave du Vin - a French restaurant at a boutique hotel lcated near the Edinburgh University. And on the last night we tried out the "Tower" - a great restaurant located at the National Museum of Scotland.

Dollah ( who trained to be a surgeon at the Royal College of Surgeons, Edinburgh) and Sandra, who had lived in Edinburgh for 2 years, some 26 years ago, did not remember the city to be having so many fine restaurants then. They were very happy to rediscover the city during this pilgrimage.

The pictures below were taken at the Cave du Vin.