A Day of Hong Kong Pineapple Buns, Hanwoo BBQ, and Hairy Fig Soup. [Jiumei's Delicious Diary]

I arrived in Hong Kong the other day, and that same day, I went to my usual tailor in Central to order a cheongsam, and booked a fitting for ten days later. The classic qipao that I have been having made since my first visit to Hong Kong in 2010 might be the first thing in my life that I have ever felt a physical desire to collect. Generally, I prefer throwing things away over collecting them; I’m the type to wear out shoes one after another, and I don’t collect bags, watches, or accessories. Even when I go to concerts, I don’t buy merchandise, I don’t replace my cosmetics for years, and I have no interest in knick-knacks or ornaments. The only thing I have been ordering and collecting little by little every time I come to Hong Kong is dresses from 'LINVA TAILOR'.

They are in the old-fashioned style with no zipper on the back, but instead fastened with snap buttons from the shoulder to the side. Of course, they are 100% silk and the fabric doesn't stretch, so it requires a lot of care both when putting them on and taking them off. However, I am usually incredibly careless, so I find it a rather precious time that I am forced to become an elegant person just for the moment I change into that dress, and I try to wear them occasionally. When I went to Paris recently, a stylist friend who lives there asked me, 'By the way, don't you have any clothes that fall between men's wear and a cheongsam?' It really feels like the fact that there is 'no middle ground' represents the choices I've made in my life itself.

This morning, after dropping off my accumulated laundry at a nearby dry cleaner, I had breakfast at 'Red Tea Cafe' with a pineapple bun, which is like a Japanese melon pan, and Hong Kong's famous milk tea with evaporated milk. My husband and I spent the morning reading books and working, and for lunch, we went to a Korean BBQ restaurant recently opened by the Korean Hanwoo Association. The capital strength required to run a restaurant of this size in such a prime location in Tsim Sha Tsui, where rent is incredibly high, is terrifying. The staff were likely Malay and didn't speak Korean, but the Korean manager followed up thoroughly, so it was no problem. The meat itself was comparable to what you eat in Seoul, and perhaps because we had been eating Chinese food for a while, my husband enjoyed it even more than I had imagined.

I think my husband, who is a very typical middle-aged Japanese man in his 70s with no roots in Korea, loves Korean food quite a lot. Of course, the influence of marrying me, a huge fan of Korean food, seems to be quite strong, but I think it's also because his late father had a foundation of respect for Korean food and Korean culture itself from back then, which was rare for a Japanese person during the war. My father-in-law did business with Korean companies after the war and frequently went on business trips to Seoul, and it seems my husband was eating Korean seaweed brushed with sesame oil—something most people in Tokyo didn't know about at the time—on a daily basis.

We went to 'City Super,' a supermarket where you can get anything from Japan that I used to frequent every day when I lived here, so my husband could buy yogurt to eat in the hotel room in the morning. I also bought him a hoodie at a shopping mall so he wouldn't catch a cold, since he ignored my advice and only brought short-sleeved shirts. After taking a stroll through places that brought back memories, we returned to our room to lounge around for a bit. This break is essential for our travels, and I think by taking a lazy rest every day from about 3:00 PM to 6:00 PM, we are able to return home with almost no travel fatigue, no matter how much we walk or eat. I always do this even when I travel alone.

In the evening, we went to a dim sum specialty restaurant in Sham Shui Po that is popular with locals and is one of my favorites. As soon as we sat down, we were asked what kind of tea we wanted, and when I replied Pu-erh, a set for washing the cups was brought over immediately. This dim sum ritual of washing the tableware with tea, even though it isn't dirty at all. Every time I do this, I feel like I'm playing house. In addition to standard dim sum like shrimp dumplings, Teochew-style dumplings, and chicken feet, we ordered Hairy Fig soup, which supplements lung function, and duck soup to improve water drainage. Hairy Fig is a medicinal herb that is rarely seen in Japan but is particularly famous in Guangdong Province and Hong Kong. A friend's mother in Beijing apparently asks farmers in Guangdong to grow Hairy Fig without pesticides and send it to her. Impressive.