It is quite bad that after taking 1g dose of anti-biotics twice a day for a week, I am still having heavy cough and no real relief, and doctor prescribe another anti-biotics, honestly I tend to rely on Chinese herbal medication more but some pressure forced me to western medicine, well, somehow I feel that managers may feel that employees should see western doctor to get well faster, even if they would not think Chinese herbal medicine does not work, at least it must be slower.

I am not saying Western Medication does not work, but it is not the first time that I have to try another anti-biotics (last time I took 3 and followed by another anti-viral drug) in an attempt to kill "another kind" of bacteria, I am indeed worried.

But as a consolation, I got a chance to visit Dim Sum 譽滿坊 again, as it is close to the hospital I went to, and I had the HK$80 酥皮龍蝦湯 - Chinese style Lobster Bisque, which I have been wanting to have, I am not sure though if this soup is good or bad for my symptom.

Dim Sum 譽滿坊 is indeed offering great dim sum, but one thing that I need to point out is that they used Shark's fin quite a lot in their dim sum, I cannot blame them but to be frank, I think that can be unnecessary, their dim sum can still be great even without it.

My previous blog entry on Dim Sum 譽滿坊

The past week is a very difficult time for most of us here in Hong Kong, I was planning a family trip during Autumn but now  I have to seriously reconsider, not much because of the probability of any real threat during travelling, but it is more a psycho effect thing. General sentiment among friends is to appreciate how lucky we are to be living in Hong Kong, although not saying that nothing would happen here, most of us feel safe when moving around most parts of the city.

I was in New York last month and I was kind of concern with safety, but honestly there were not a single incident or sights of anything that made me feel unsafe, so a lot of cities in the world may be suffering from an image problem, indeed, it is always easy to create bad image but a good reputation takes a long time to build up, I hope our local authorities can keep up the good work and prepare for the worst.

At August, the yellow oil crabs (黃油蟹) are available again, I had 2 meals already and like to share my experiences here, but instead of East Ocean (東海) vs SuperStar (鴻星) (which I did a comparison last year), I tried East Ocean and Wu Kong Shanghai Restaurant (滬江大飯店) instead. I'll explain why I have not tried Superstar later.

The price of the crabs seems to be even more expensive this year, Yellow Oil Crab is indeed an expensive delicacies, but is it worth it? Personally I think at such price range, it is becoming a concern.

The set at East Ocean (http://www.eastocean.com.hk/) is relatively economic, at HKD 438 (inclusive of service charge), you get a lot of goodies beyond the crab, the crab quality is ok, not bad but not as good as that from Wu Kong, and they can't give me a male crab, which I prefer over female.

The set at Wu Kong (滬江) is expensive, you need to pay over HKD 800 including service charge, the crab is nice, although they said they can't allow customer to specify a male crab, I think the one I got is male, with the kind of crab paste that I like most. They also cooked the crab using wine (make it drunk first I think), but the wine taste is not really that appealing for me, I think I would prefer simple steaming better, so if you are not really into wine tastes in food, you need to check that out before ordering.

A good crab would have rich yellow oil even at limbs!

Wu Kong's set does not include a lot of stuffs, but the soup is a very expensive one, the noodle is not very good, and the crab used in the soup and noodle are hairy crabs and not yellow oil crabs.

I like this dessert very much

I would not recommend either set if you live in Hong Kong, as buying a crab and cook it at home can be a better choice, and at such price range, I would even question if eating Yellow Oil Crab is really worth the money, but if money is not a big concern, and you really want the taste, I think finding a good crab dealer can be a good option. Cooking crabs at home can allow one to choose what you want in a meal without being forced or lured to have something in the set which is not what you really need, or having some ingredients that is against your belief.

But if you are a tourist, or picking/cooking a crab is too much hassle for you, I think the East Ocean set is a good deal, the set can be too much for an average single person, so having a party of few person can better consume the set with some combinations of other dishes, so costing wise it is more economical, for the same reason I haven't tried Superstar's set because it is relatively more expensive, though the 10% off at some branches would reduce the gap (http://www.superstargroup.com.hk/setmenu/10_rcrab_AB/10_rcrab1b.jpg).

If you do plan to buy an iPad Dock Connector to VGA Adapter for projecting stuffs to monitor or projectors, you better read this first to make sure that it can fulfill your needs.

http://support.apple.com/kb/HT4108

I got one today, and it can work with Photos slideshow, and slide presentation using Keynote, in Keynote and when projecting to external display, the iPad screen would show some sort of control panel and not a dual display like what would happen with Windows.

I think it would also work with Video content, but those are not my main imterest, I just want to use iPad to help in work productivity.

Little disappointed with the way Apple limits the iPad capabilities, not only that you pay for overpriced accessories, the restrictions come in very offensive way, I think they should make the capabilities more explicit in the Apple Store page. 

I saw this in this year's Hong Kong Ani-Com, somehow I regret not buying it....

I applied the Capdase IMAG screen protector today on my iPad, in general, putting the thing on is quite smooth, and the quality seems to be ok, it reduces reflections and does not affect the display quality, only caveat is the feeling at finger tip is a little "unnatural", as the surface is now little rough.

A lot of people does not like to apply screen protector, but I have seen how greasy an ipad screen would look like after a few folks checked it out enthusiastically, so I think a screen protector would allow you to wipe on it regularly and as much as you want too, or as rough as you want to.

I dropped by at Wan Chai today to purchase a portable hard drive, and found out that the original iPad case and Camera Connection Kit I purchased at New York are also available locally, but the price....

This is a price comparison:

iPad Case
- US Pricing USD 39
- Hong Kong Pricing HKD 550 = USD 70

iPad Camera Connection Kit
- US Pricing USD 29
- Hong Kong Pricing HKD 780 = USD 100

These are prices quoted by a shop, I believe the prices vary greatly among vendors, but since the official iPad pricing in Hong Kong is basically the same as US Pricing, why can shops set such aggressive pricing for the accessories? One possible explanation is the lack of supply through official channel, in fact, in my last visit to Apple Store during my US trip, the  Camera Connection Kit could not be found on shelf any more, so there is probably a shortage of supply even in US.

So I was lucky to have a presence of mind to get that while I was in US (while I was not able to purchase an iPad there at that time).

As of this moment, the apple online store in Hong Kong is not offering iPad yet, it is interesting to speculate if there are problems behind the production line, especially with the wierd news in recent months about the manufacturer of Apple products...

By the way, if you are checking on where you can buy iPad 行貨 in Hong Kong, the official list of sellers are here:

iPad 經銷商 resellers in Hong Kong
http://www.apple.com/hk/reseller/shop-ipad/list.php 

I would not suggest buying from unofficial channels, aside from paying much extra, there can be risk on support and warranty, you can call the official sellers for more information. Broadway is where I usually purchase electronics product from.

My earlier iPad related post with pictures (not a review exactly) : http://www.biginhongkong.com/2010/07/25/AppleIPadAvailableInHongKongNow.aspx

It is totally unexpected but I have not been able to find time to update this blog for months, well, it is not exactly about time, the workload is just too heavy that I have to frequently work over the weekend and late night, and updating blog is something luxurious for me to do.

But today I really have to write something, as I am finally able to grab an 蘋果 Apple iPad on Friday, I just came back from a trip to New York, and even the US has no supply of iPad at Apple Store, being able to get one (official stock with warranty - 行貨) locally is quite exciting indeed.

The New York Apple store, quite a landmark!

The competition to purchase was expected to be tough, as local news revealed that many failed to get one, I was lucky to be at the right place (there is an outlet close to my home) and right time (I did not get there too early nor too late), so I did not have a hard time queuing up, and in fact, the line at the outlet I went to, which is in the busy district of Causeway Bay, was not really that long, perhaps a lot of people were expecting stocks to be available abundantly soon, but since I failed to grab one in several Apple Stores in US Eastern coast, I am afraid that stock availability would still be tight in the upcoming time in Hong Kong, considering a lot of visitors from China would also come to buy iPad in Hong Kong.

One trick when queuing up is to show intent to buy accessories, although the accessories available at these outlet are not interesting at all (only third party hard plastic case and screen protector), buying a Capdase IMAG screen protector (like what I did) would give you a priority to get in, thus saving time and have the assurance of getting an unit (limited to 1 unit per person, which makes sense). I have not applied the screen guard yet, as I plan to use the iPad for a few days to be sure that this unit is ok before putting the screen guard on. And I am also wondering if I need to use one at all.

So what is inside the box? You get a Hong Kong/UK style plug, a cable and a small pack containing some simple documents a pin for pulling out the sim card bay, please note that the black iPad plastic case was purchased in US and not included.

So is the iPad good? I think so, the form factor is optimized for what it is supposed to do, fast and efficient viewing of photos and multimedia content, using two fingers to quickly zoom in and out on contents effectively would give people with poor eyesight a pleasant viewing experiences, I would also suggest people getting a model with 3G (3G版) and not just Wi-fi, as mobile efficiency is what iPad works best for, being able to browse the web for real time information anywhere while on the road with this device will be very helpful.

At present I think the accessory supply for ipad in Hong Kong is still limited, fortunately I purchased the important ones during my trip to New York last week.

The official iPad case from Apple is expensive at USD 40 but it does look good, the hard plastic case being sold at the local outlet is a ridiculous thing to buy as it would offset the value of iPad, which is being stylish and lightweight.

Although you can sync content to iPad using iTune from your computer, but if you are travelling for fun, having the camera kit (USD 30) will allow you to quickly import and view your photos either through a USB connection to the camera, or through a SD Card reader (USB纜線或直接從SD卡輸入), without this, you would need to carry a computer with you, this can even be true if you are just using the iPad in daily use, ipad can be a netbook/Notebook replacement and be the sole device you need for casual daily travel. Although for work, I would still need to use a powerful notebook running Windows.

The iPad Camera Connection Kit

Apple iPad Accessories (iPad 配件) link for Hong Kong: http://www.apple.com/hk/ipad/accessories/ 

By the way, you get this nice bag if you purchase Apple stuffs in US Apple Store.

iPad is great, I used it yesterday on the road and it was a pleasant experience, with 3G + wifi, connectivity is key, and the extra money for getting a 64GB version can easily be justified, I think with the way we consume information, 16GB is way too little to be practically useful.

But is iPad without fault? I think there are a few negative things that I would point out:

- The language support is a strange thing, I can't understand why Simplified Chinese (简体字) input is supported but not traditional Chinese (繁體字), it seems to be a sign of pure financial calculation with no regards to culture and community factors!

- iPad is great for content consumption, but poor at content creation except that you can post things online, I still yet to figure out what I can do on this pad for rich content authoring, which can be for the purpose of instant online sharing or work collaboration, especially when Apple is trying to use iPad to penetrate into Enterprise market.

Anyway, iPad is a very helpful tool, and it may help to bring the Apple stock price soaring if the market goes fine as well, my next interest would be to see what the next generation of iPad is going to be.

It is a bad news to me that Shark's Fin City Restaurant (魚翅城) in Times Square Causeway Bay (時代廣場) will be closing down and today is their last business day.

With the growing awareness of the risk of driving the Sharks to extinction, eating Shark's fin is not a good thing to talk about, the restaurant's name could be hurting them, though to be fair, they offer many good food that has nothing to do with Shark's fin. But perhaps what's hurting them is something else.

The high real estate cost (thus rental costs) in Hong Kong is a well known fact, many business simply cannot sustain the constant hike in rental rates demanded by real estate owners, in good times the pressure can still be tolerated, but this makes the business so vulnerable, I think this is what is forcing the restaurant to close down the Causeway Bay branch.

Well, they do have branches at Kowloon side, I know there is one in New World Centre (新世界中心) in TST near the Avenue of Stars, and it is interesting to see how this restaurant will evolve in the coming years.

Being one of the restaurants that I would rate as very good, as well as one that I blogged about in my first few posts, I am glad to see them opening a new branch in Causeway Bay, I actually found out about it when I ate at Din Tai Fung (鼎泰豐) more than two months ago, but I forgot to mention that in my blog. Well, this new branch is not really very far away from the old one but it added some convenience for me. It is located at Regal Hotel, near Victoria Park, and walking distance from Sogo.

Address in Chinese: 銅鑼灣怡和街68號1樓
Address in English: 1/F, 68 Yee Woo Street, Causeway Bay
Tel: 2504 4228

^All three are good!

Excellent shrimp springroll

I feel that the quality in terms of food is as good as the original branch, and the service is ok too, for me this location saves me some walking, so I would try to eat there more often now.

My previous blog posts on Fu Sing (around an year ago)
http://www.biginhongkong.com/2009/03/01/FuSingSharkFinSeafoodRestaurant.aspx
http://www.biginhongkong.com/2009/03/07/FuSingSharkFinSeafoodRestaurantPartII.aspx