Panem et circenses! ~ Cukraus

Photo credit: Andrada Coos

“Bread and circuses” once said Julius Caesar and he was right. Good food and entertainment can make your days peculiar and memorable. This weekend, an opportunity to see, smell, hear, touch and taste new things was already the opportunity to learn about another culture and embrace its best sides.

Friday - Hotpot and Mahjong

We gathered all after work for hotpot dinner. I didn't know about it before, but it involved food, bunch of old and new people though already sounded really tasty.

If I try to explain hot pot in simple words, I would say, it looks like fondue, but it’s not a fondue at all. You need to boil water with some spice and soup base. And then - put everything you have into it - meat slices, vegetables, fish, shrimps, Japanese tofu, etc. Boil them for couple of minutes and grab with chop sticks to your bowl. Very easy, super tasty and really entertaining. Moreover, hotpot is a social mean, you can have it alone, it won’t be so fun and tasty (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hot_pot)

After a good food comes a time for fun. For this, our friends introduced Mahjong to us.

Mahjong is a game comparatively similar to poker, because it involves strategy, orientation, some calculations as well. But instead of cards, you play with tiles and the game itself has some different rules. Extremely fun when you master it enough and even start playing for a real money. Well, we didn't reach that level yet, played twice with open tiles and once with closed. Would be difficult because our friends simply were too good at it.

More about game: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mahjong

Saturday - Bruce Lee exhibition

Saturday didn't sound good because of bad weather forecast, although it appeared to be a good chance to visit an exhibition of Bruce Lee.

Bruce Lee is one of the all times famoust celebrity from Hong Kong. Another one would be Jackie Chan, but because of this political statements and active support of Chinese Communist party isn’t so loved as Bruce Lee. Saturday I have attended an exhibition with a showcase of his life, career in film industry and mastery in martial arts.

I didn't know much about him, but have to say, this video with ping pong and matches leaves an impression.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SncapPrTusA

Sunday - Anime Convention

Candy Candy

I never was an active fan of Japanese style cartoons and animation, neither computer games. But somehow Anime Convention in HK with expected .. wait for it... 700,000 visitors somehow becomes interesting. Anyways, my expectation wasn't very big - take a picture with my little transformer and, maybe, see some familiar superheroes, like long long time ago loved Son Goku from Dragon ball Z or Teenage mutant ninja turtles. And they were there! With friends. World Craft, Iron man, Transformers, Lara Croft, Candy Candy and other unknown creatures were all around us and welcomed to take any pictures. I loved when they saw us grabbing cameras, froze for a moment and posed with such a deep look and confidence. Exactly like they idols - animated superheroes. Moreover, we saw cos-play shows with amazing costumes and went on stage for a picture with Leonardo, Donatello, Michelangelo and Raphael.

Dear lovers of anime and strategy games, I know you will be jealous, and to enhance it I've tried to take as many pictures as possible until my camera died from too many colours, action and people around. In the end, it was fun!