Crab Roe Tofu 蟹粉豆腐, Shanghai Charms and a $60 CSN Giveaway

If you haven't noticed, China is getting rich. Even though more than 90% of the chinese population is still struggling to make ends meet, there is a very significant number of Chinese who are so cash rich that they can afford to swarm the Louis Vuitton boutique in Singapore and clear out the shelves in one single shopping spree. China is where one would find the newest and most avant garde architectures and ID today. Hotels and restaurants in Shanghai and Beijing are trying to outdo each other with visually breathtaking interior designs.(though quality is of secondary priority now, appearance is King.) I have always liked Chinese/Asian elements and seek to incorporate these into my living space. Though, with the generally small space we have here, one needs to be careful not to weigh down the interior with over-the-top designs. 6 years ago, when I moved into my apt, I had fun tearing down the whole apartment and building everything according to my very own 'vision'. My inspirations were basically gathered from the hotels and restaurants I have been to during my business travels. During my recent business trip to Shanghai, I did not have good food but found consolation in being stuck in a very nice hotel for the whole week. The bathroom at the Sofitel Shanghai delighted me immensely. I loved the way they had incorporated the Chinese elements into the bathroom.





I loved the simple lines of the Chinese Screen doors that separated the bathroom from the bedroom and thought the use of a traditional Chinese Chest as storage under the sink was quite brilliant. Yes, I would definitely file these away for future reference and I am bookmarking these beautiful bathroom sinks which I found on CSN's Just Vainities on-line bathroom store for the perfect finishing touch to the Asian theme bathroom!



Shanghainese food is not one of my favourite Chinese cuisine but there are a couple of dishes that I do look forward to having. Among them are the famous Xiaolong Bao(小笼包),Braised Lion Head Meat Ball(红烧狮子头) and Crab Roe Tofu (蟹粉豆腐). When I was using Taba Ng Talangka for my spaghetti dish last week, I realised I could totally work this into the Crab Roe Tofu. Braised with crab meat and tofu, the Taba Ng Talangka imparted the distinct sweet flavour that can only be associated with seafood. It was so flavourful that all you need is a bowl of steamed white rice and you will find yourself scraping at the very last rice grain at the bottom of the bowl.










Now that I've had an extremely satisfying dinner, it's time to go shopping! I have a US$60 CSN voucher to be given away to a lucky reader. Just leave a comment at my this post and let me know what item interests you. You can select from many CSN sites available. I know these giveaways are usually opened to US/Canandian residents only because CSN does not ship outside US and Canada.(Canadian readers have to pay for freight upon check out) However, I would like to exercise some flexibility here.For readers who are not based in US/Canada-if you are able to find a US based friend or forwarder whom you can send the item to, you will eligible for the giveaway as well. The mailing address needs to be an American address - that's the criteria-so be a good sport and abide by the rule. You can shop at any one of the CSN stores available.Some of their more popular sites have been www.cookware.com, http://www.toysandgamesonline.com/, www.luxebycsn.com and www.allmodern.com
Have fun shopping and good luck!

The Giveaway will be opened for a week and will end on 28th July US EST time.


Recipe :

Chinese Tofu                  1 square
Chicken Stock                2 cups
Cooked Crab Meat        1 small bowl
Ginger                             2 slices
Garlic                              2 cloves
Taba Ng Talangka           3 tsp
Salt & Pepper
Chinese Rice wine            1 tbsp
Tapioca Starch                 1 tsp
Water                               1 tbsp

Method :

1. In a hot wok add 1 tbsp of oil. Fry garlic and ginger until fragrant. Add crab meat and stir fry quickly. Add Chinese Rice wine.
2. Add Tofu and chicken stock. Cover to braise until stock boils again. Add Taba Ng Talangka and cover and braise again for 5 mins.
3. Add Salt and Pepper to season.
4. Mix starch with water in a bowl. Add starch mixture little by little into boiling tofu, checking for thickness.
5. Dish out and serve with steamed white rice.

Cherry Tea Cake

Jumping on the Cherry wagon again - with prices coming down as the cherry season peaks, they are hard to resist. Wendy, you will be envious to learn that these are now going at S$11/kg! Geez, I am sounding like an auntie now and I probably look the part of one as I continued to circle the crates of American cherries while clutching onto my kilo punnet of cherries. On the other side of the 'cherry island' at Carrefour, I overheard a Chinese Auntie telling the assistant that she wanted to buy 5kg of cherries.... judging from the way every shopper seems to be clutching onto a bag of cherries, I would say we are all going gaga over cherries.

It is easy to be swept by the craze and over buy. Why, I was even contemplating to go back for more later this week...but then, it struck me that apart from eating them neat, I really don't know very much what else to do with them. I had tried making a cherry pie some time back and was pleased with the result . However,as  I flipped through my cookbook collection and searched online, it seems like the most common cherry recipes are essentially pies and tarts. Having been away from my kitchen for a week, I just wanted to work on something simple that could serve as fodder for this blog and be presentable enough to bring to the office. (so that I don't have to eat everything by myself !) 



This recipe is taken from Martha Stewart's Cupcakes. Essentially a Financier recipe that calls for the use of browned butter, this provides an interesting alternative to the standard yellow cupcake, vanilla cupcake or chocolate cupcake that form the basis of almost all cupcake recipe cookbook. The texture is deliciously springy and I only wish I had used more cherries to impart more tartness to the cupcake.


Recipe
Unsalted butter                141g
All purpose flour              114g
Ground Almond               1 cup
Sugar                               160g
Salt                                  1tsp
Egg White                        5
1 tbsp                              Kirsch

Method :
1. Preheat oven to 200C.
2. Sift flour into a mixing bowl. Add ground almond, sugar and salt. Wisk to mix well.
3. Heat and brown butter in a heavy saucepan. In the mean time, whisk egg white into (2).
4. When butter has turned brown, (be careful not to burn butter) whisk butter  into egg white and flour mixture. Add butter in a slow trickle to ensure homogenous mixing.Let batter stand for 1/2 hour.
5. Add 2 tbsp of batter into cup cake liners. Insert a cherry (with stem intact) in the middle of cup cake.
6. Bake at 200C for 12 mins - 15 mins.
7. Cool down.

Crab Fat Spaghetti - Taba ng Talangka

I first learnt about this wicked cholesterol inducing crab fat paste from Amy Ma's guest post at Chubby Hubby's blog. I first tasted it on my first visit to Manila, Philippinnes this January at Chef Laudico Bistro Filipino. I then bought it at a supermarket at Makati - determined to experiment with it when I got home. I remember coming home from that trip excited by some of the food I had eaten there. I first made Corned Hash Rice and I gushed to Trissa of Trissalicious about how I was inspired to make the Ensaimada. (a brioche bread topped with butter cream, granulated sugar and shredded cheese - sinfully rich)

I also remember being puzzled by the way most people define Taba ng Talangka as crab fat. I have eaten countless crabs but I have not seriously seen any fat under the crab shell. Crab Roe/ Paste on the other hand is a prized ingredient that even the Chinese would gladly use for their high brow delicacy dishes. When I googled this fascinating ingredient, a slew of flatteringly disturbing descriptions popped up  : wicked cholesterol hell, artery clogging, you-only-live-once - food descriptions which are almost always synonymous with comforting, deliciously orgasmic flavours... though an article suggests that it is may be a libido suppressant...

Popular dishes prepared with Taba ng Talangka are usually simple to make and include eating it with rice, (paella style) and cooking it with seafood pasta, to name just a couple. In Amy Ma's post, the chef had served the spaghetti with seared Hokkaido scallops, Chef Laudico served his linguini with calamari... and so it appears that this rich curd-like roe is best used to enhance the flavours of the sea.

When I finally got down to make this a couple of days ago, I decided to do it with vermecilli pasta and serve it with seared scallops. Feeling strangely sinful even before I started cooking, I felt oddly inhibited as I stared at the rich curd swimming in the even more oily fat ( the roe is prepared and preserved in copious amount of oil, salt, calamansi juice and what not).  Perhaps it was because I had been over eating on my last business trip or perhaps it was due to the stubborn 3kg weight I had put on after I started blogging.... but whatever it was, a little voice was nagging inside me telling me that  I SHOULDN'T eat this, that I have to be more disciplined in my food consumption.

I then modified Amy Ma's recipe and omitted the cream that was added to the pasta sauce to make it even richer and creamier. Without the cream, my pasta still retained the breezy flavour of the sea but it lacked the smooth, indulgent creaminess I had tasted at Chef Laudico's restaurant. The 'kick' was not there and I have to admit that despite all good senses and reasonings, some food are meant to be enjoyed in all its artery-clogging, cholesterol reeling, libido suppressing goodness - so, I will have to do this again the right way, without inhibitions and without regrets!

Recipe From http://chubbyhubby.net/blog/?p=584

Musk Melon Jelly - Will You Pay $200 For a Musk Melon?

The Japanese are a strange group of people. Their obsession with perfection can be so infuriatingly intense that very often it creates a whole new set of market values for seemingly simple things - the worst case of which spoils the market and makes it difficult for simple mortals like most of us to partake in some of the most wonderful experiences available.

When I was in Tokyo for a business trip in April, my Japanese colleague had introduced me to the most expensive fruit shop in Japan when we were switching trains at Nihonbashi. Having been established for 120 years, Senbikiya is not your ordinary fruit shop. It prides itself in offering the most popular, the highest quality, the most exotic and last but not least, the most expensive fruits in Japan (and possibly in the world !). Fueled by the unique Japanese fruit gifting culture, Senbikiya continues to thrive and has become the emblematic brand in luxury fruit gifting for the wealthy and powerful. The musk melon pointed out to me by my colleague was perched on a pedestal. A perfect round Melon with the price tag resting boldly at the foot of the pedestal that read 21,000Yen - which was roughly equivalent to US$200. My eyes widened in disbelief and I remembered I had immediately snapped a photo with my Black Berry and messaged it to L.
I have never really liked honey dews,  or similar melons. I would normally give them a miss at breakfast buffet tables for I feel that these fruits are tasteless and has a sickly funny smell. L, however seems to appreciate it more. He had told me he used to make it a point to lug a couple of musk melons home from Tokyo whenever he was there for business meetings - whatever for? I could never understand. He had urged me to try the fruit at least once, suggesting that I look for the US$50 varieties which are already very good. Then, at least I would have earned the right to brag about it - he continued to cajole. Of course I didn't listen to him!  So silly to lug a big melon home - I prefer to use that luggage weight allowance to get a couple more baking trays!

Anyway, that was in April. Then, recently, as I was shopping at the local Japanese supermarket, Isetan here, I spotted some imported musk melons, normally priced at S$79 (about USD50) on 30% discount. I supposed these had already ripened hence the supermarket was in a hurry to sell them off... I hesitated just a little, before I decided that this would be a good opportunity to try it and find out what all the fuss was about.

The symmetrically round melon with a lovely mesh-like pattern and a singular horizontal stalk was a picture of perfection. L had told me that the denser and the more defined the mesh-like pattern is, the more costly the fruit would be. I cut the fruit in half to expose a tender green colour in the flesh. As I had suspected, this was getting ripe hence some part of the flesh was already showing some transparency. However, what caught my attention first was the sweet elegant fragrance of the fruit. The flesh was so juicy that I had to hover over the sink when I bite into it. (the Japanese would faint if they knew  that I had dug into the prized fruit in such an uncivilised manner!) The sweet flavour was totally unlike the honeydew and rock melon that we usually get here! The copious amount of juice makes this an extremely cooling fruit to eat - as cooling as a watermelon. In addition, the sweet floral perfume of the fruit indicates that it has been preferentially nourished by mother nature. I had read somewhere that one of the reasons why this was so expensive is because each tree would only produce one fruit. During cultivation, the farmers, apparently would trim the vines of the tree to only allow 3 fruits to blossom. When these baby melons grow to about fist size, the farmers would select the most promising melon and cut off the other 2 in order to channel and lavish all the nutrients on the one singular melon that would be nurtured to eventually become the $200 Prized Musk Melon. Such is the Japanese's fixation on perfection!

It wouldn't be right if I don't blog about this rare possession. However, it is after all, to the Japanese, the King of the Fruits - hence as much as I would like to work with it, I couldn't bear to detract the carefully cultivated taste with excesses such as cream or milk. I found a simple Japanese dessert recipe that requires the fruit puree to be mixed with gelatine and a little sugar and a dash of lemon juice and whipped to a foamy jelly. I used about 1/8 of the melon for 2 little cups of this dessert and saved the rest for pure enjoyment.... and yes, I can now brag that I have eaten the prized Japanese Musk Melon and I would even dare to go to the extent to say that the Japanese Musk Melon would be the only type of honeydew melon I would eat from now onwards! (no, I am not being snooty - remember I don't touch honeydew or rock melons to start with.) If you have the opportunity, indulge at least once and, as L had said, you would then have earned the rights to brag about it!


Recipe
Gelatine Powder              8g
Water                              50cc

Sugar                               30g
Water                              100cc
Lemon Juice                     1 tbsp
Melon                              300g

Method
1. Blend the melon in a blender to form a puree.
2. Heat puree to warm to break down enzyme and cool down.
3. Mix gelatine with 50cc of water. Set aside.
4. In a heavy pot, add water and sugar and heat to dissolve. Remove from heat and add (3) and ensure gelatine is completely dissolved. Add lemon juice.
5. Add (4) to (2) , mix well and refrigerate for 1 hour. Whip the refrigerated mixture with an electric mixer over a bowl of ice water until fine foam is formed.
6. Spoon into cups and refrigerate till set.

Black Glutinous Rice With Durian

Among the rice eating community here in Asia, the Japanese are possibly the ones who pays the most attention and dedication to the types and quality of rice they consume. The myriad of Japanese rice varieties available at the Japanese supermarkets fascinates me. A couple of months ago, I bought 3kg of Japanese short grain brown rice at the Japanese supermarket just so that I could use the rice polishing machine there. By turning the knob on the machine, I was able to select the different degree to which I would like my rice to be polished. Last month, during the Chinese dumpling Festival, someone was raving to me how the Japanese short grain glutinous rice makes really tasty sweet dumpling. During my last trip to Japan in April, my Taiwanese colleague had the gall to ask me to help him lug back the latest electric rice cooker that cost US$400! The latest model by Zojiroshi (the elephant brand) , it came with vaccumm and high pressure features that cook each rice grain to the core (including the harder brown rice) in a shorter time to yield a more fluffy and bouncy texture. I was intrigued, ...I was...but alas the voltage setting does not work in Singapore. Sigh, yes, almost all things made in Japan are good, (I hear protests over the recent Toyota debacle). Their dedication to and appreciation for quality and perfection are almost always reflected in the things produced in Japan.

2 weeks ago when I was on my business trip in China, I had the opportunity to spend 2 days in Hong Kong while I was running between southern China and Shanghai. One of my favourite haunts in Hong Kong is the City Super Fine Food super market. This time, I must have spent close to 45mins, lingering over the Rice and Grain Section, peering at the different types of Jasmine rice, Arboria rice, Taiwanese short grain rice (these are also becoming really good) and the huge selection of Japanese rice stored specially like good wine in a dedicated refrigerator. I was particularly drawn to the short grain white glutinous rice and black glutinous rice. The Japanese short grain glutinous rice grains were snow white with a lovely luminescence while the black glutinous rice were jet black, plump and looked more like black sesame than rice. I had really wanted to get both but that would add weight to my luggage and I still have more than a week's travel to manage. In the end I chose to only get the black glutinous rice and for the rest of trip, I was contemplating about what to do with them when I get home.

I am not very familiar with black glutinous rice recipes. The last black glutinous rice dish I had was 2 months ago in Taiwan when they served a black glutinous rice meat dumpling (紫米粽). It was really delicious (I think I still have 2 dumplings in my freezer!) and it did not make me feel bloated as normal glutinous rice would. Then there is the popular SE Asian dessert Pulut Hitam - which is Black Glutinous Porridge with Coconut Milk. It is a relatively simple dessert to prepare but is also rather uninteresting. It was only after poring over Forest Leong's Thai dessert, Mango sticky rice that I had my inspiration. Instead of water, I chose to cook the black glutinous rice in clear coconut juice. This imparts a refreshing, natural fragrant sweetness to the the porridge. When the rice was cooked, I stirred in minimal qty of coconut cream and served it with a dollop of seasonal durian pulp. As the durian season is at its peak, the fruit is very sweet and complimented the black glutinous rice rather well.

So, if you know of other black glutinous rice recipes, please do enlighten -I am looking forward to experiment with the rest of my short grain black glutinous rice.

Recipe :

100g  Black Glutinous Rice, washed

3 Cups Coconut Juice
Sugar  To taste.
Salt     Pinch
2 Pandanus Leaves, knotted

20ml Coconut cream

Method :

1. Soak black glutinous rice over night and wash until water is clear. (water will purple in colour but should be clear)
2. In a pot place drained black glutinous rice, coconut juice, pinch of salt and sugar (I did not add sugar as I was happy with the natural sweetness of coconut juice) and pandan leaves. Bring to boil, lower heat to medium and continue simmer for 45 mins. I did this without covering the pot. If the water dries up, add more coconut juice or water.
3. When rice is cooked, (I cooked to soften with an al dante bite - some may prefer this to be more 'mushy') stir in coconut cream at low heat. Bring to low simmer for 2 mins. Remove from heat and cool down a little if preferred and serve with a dollop of durian pulp.

Laksa Curry Rice (叻沙加哩泡饭) - The Shanghainese Experience

There are a couple of regrets about this Shanghai Business Trip -all related to food. We were grounded in a remote albeit beautiful hotel situated 1 hour away from downtown Shanghai. Meetings generally started at 8:45am in the morning and ran until 5:30- 6pm. The hotel's F&B capability was utterly disappointing. Buffet lunch spread was exactly the same everyday and the food did not taste good. The only Chinese restaurant in the vicinity served a mix of Spicy Sichuan food and Shanghainese cuisine but again it was just sub-standard stuff. I could tell that we were in for a disappointment when the Xiaolongbao (shanghainese dumplings) had a pastry skin that was thick and tough and that the Crab Roe Tofu (蟹粉豆腐) had a fishy stench.

On the one rare evening when I took my customer out to town for dinner, I had looked forward to revisit Justin Quek's creative French restaurant at Xintiandi. Justin Quek, for those who are not familiar is a Singaporean chef who struck out on his own after working at Les Amis. He opened his very first French restuarant in Taipei and was amazingly successful. He then went on to open some 3-4 restaurants at Shanghai's XinTianDi , a cluster of old Shanghainese style residencial buildings,石库门 (like the brownstones in New York) which has been preserved and converted to restaurants and bars. This is where foreigners come to find a slice of old Shanghai and Shanghainese go to connect with the Western world. I still remember my first visit to Quek's highly recommended La Platane restuarant, 梧桐 at Xintiandi. I had the Xiaolongbao with Foie Gras which was just amazing. This time,as I led my customer through  Xintiandi, I noticed something was wrong.Quek's bistro at the main restaurant aisle was missing and when I finally got to the site where La Platane used to sit,we saw that it had been replaced by a Spanish Restaurant. Needless to say, I was extremely disappointed. I was really suprised because I had thought it was a really successful and popular restaurant. Then, something spooky happened the next morning, my customer showed me a news article on his Iphone - Justin Quek apparently just got sentenced to jail and fined in Singapore for drunk driving.

So by the end of the 'food deprived' week, I became too weary to do anymore food hunting. After my last appointment in Nanjing, I checked into a hotel that was closer to the shanghai airport and it was when I was strolling in the food court next door that a stall selling Laksa Curry caught my eye. Calling themselves LaksaCurry, they were selling various dishes served with the Laksa gravy. Laksa apparently, has really become well received in Shanghai - the eatery stall at the Singapore World Expo Pavillion was selling among other things, Laksa, Kueh Pai Ti and Satay.

Business was brisk at LaksaCurry but one look at the gravy, I knew it would not be spectacular. Still, it was an irrestible option for me at that point. Their best selling item was apparently the Laksa Curry Rice served with Fish Cake (叻沙加哩鱼饼泡饭). We normally take Laksa with vermecilli noodles and I have also eaten laksa served with Rice Drops (Mi Tai Mak/ Louxu Fan老鼠粉). It has never occurred to me to eat Laksa gravy with rice... and I was fairly intrigued. As I tucked into the bowl of Laksa rice, I was strangely satisfied. The gravy, as I had suspected was not spectacular, it was watered down and not as fragrant as what we would have in Singapore. However, the familiar and comforting spiciness was exactly what I needed after a week of sub-par Xiaolong Bao, Giant Meat Ball (狮子头) and Crab Roe Tofu.


Intent on recreating this with a more authentic Laksa Curry gravy, I decided that this would be the first thing to cook when I get back. For those who are too lazy to prepare the Laksa paste from scratch, there are many ready made paste in the supermarket but I have always been partial to Prima Taste's products. They are my crave saviour when I was stationed in China a few years ago.


Recipe :
Laksa Paste
Lemon Grass        2 stalks
Blue ginger           40 slices
Candlenut            12
Dried Chilli          15 pieces
Shallots               25 pieces
Belachan             2 thumb sized knobs
Coriander powder 2 tbsp

Others
Dried Shrimps                 30g (soaked to soften and pound to coarse paste)
Chilli oil                           80g
Thick coconut milk          125ml
Water                             400ml
Bean sprouts                   As you like. Blanched in boiling water.
Cooked Rice                  1 bowl
Fried Fish Cake              Sliced and you can put as much as you like
Tofu Puff                         5-6 pieces
Laksa leaf                       2-3 leaves (cut into fine shreds)
Quails Eggs                     Hard boiled. Peeled.
Salt                                 To season
Coriander leaf                 To garnish
Cooked Scallops             As you like. (alternatively, you can replace with shredded chicken)

Method :
Laksa Paste
1. Soak dried chillie in warm water until softened. Blend all ingredients in Laksa Paste except coriander powder in a blender. Add coriander powder last.
2. In a heated wok, add chillie oil and fry (1) until fragrant. Add pounded dried shrimps and continue to fry for 2 mins.
3. Increase heat and add coconut milk and water. Continue to stir. Add Tofu Puff and cooked scallops.
4. In another wok heat a little oil and add 2 cloves of garlic. Fry cooked rice until fragrant.
5. Dish fried rice into a bowl. Add Laksa gravy (3) over the rice.
6. Garnish with Laksa leaves, fish cake, quail's egg, bean sprouts and coriander leaf. Serve hot.

World Expo In Shanghai

Singapore Pavillion

Malaysia Pavillion

Australia Pavillion
I don't think I have ever stayed so long in Shanghai - over a week. Shanghai is decidedly my favourite city in China. I like it because it is more cosmopolitan and it showcases the rich and colourful chinese culture in a manner that I can relate to - where I can pick out the charms and richness of chinese elements and still make them relevant to my lifestyle. Unlike the polluted industrial zone in Guangdong where factories seem to run 24 hours a day, Shanghai, though, also polluted, exudes a unique refined grace. Despite its modern skyscrapers, Shanghai is the Chinese city where I feel a well coiffed, cheongsam clad chinese lady would belong. She would look grossly out of place e.g. in Shenzhen or Guangzhou.

Grounded in Shanghai for meetings, it was only inevitable that I joined my other colleagues for an excursion to the Shanghai World Expo. I really didn't want to go, expecially during a weekend, because I know it would be sardine packed with people but my colleagues, including my boss from the US were all determined to check it out. We chose to go to the Expo on a Saturday evening at 5pm to avoid the crowd. By 4pm, the news on TV reported that they had clocked in 520,000 visitors for the day. The area was massive and the crowd was even more massive. The first cluster we hit was the SE Asian Pavillions - yes, I admit I had steered the group towards that general direction because I had wanted to see the Singapore Pavillion which had received alot of flak from fellow Singaporeans, ourselves. I didn't stand a chance to get into the Singapore Pavillion or for that matter, any pavillions. The queues were still windingly long and I estimated that if I had queued for the Singapore Pavillion, I would have to stay in line for at least 2 hours. I had heard that for the popular pavillions like Saudi Arabia, Japanese and Chinese Pavillions, visitors have to queue for 4-5 hours to get in. It sounds so silly to be wasting time in the lines but there were hundreds of thousands of visitors doing just that - they came prepared with food, drinks, umbrellas, fans and little stools to wait in line. I, on the other hand, just walked around, half-heartedly snapping photos of pavillions nestled in a sea of dark haired crowd.


Netherland Pavillion

Germany Pavillion

French Pavillion

Spain Pavillion

China Pavillion with the Bunny Macau Pavillion next to it.

English Pavillion

Among the Pavillions I had seen, I was most impressed by the Spanish and the English Pavillion. I was a little awe struck when the Spanish Pavillion came into my view. The facade was  built with wavy sheets of wicker structure. I thought I could vaguely make out the shape of a bull's horn from the construction. The English Pavillion caught my eye from afar. From a distance, it looked like a fuzzy oval shaped dome, appearing somewhat surreal and out of focus. The intriguing structure is made of steel rods poking out of the the dome, the different distribution density of the rods, created a halo like effect around it. Utterly cool and very very fashionable.
It was a shame that I had not been able to get into any of the Pavillions - I only wish that the Chinese government would limit the number of visitors per day. They are now targeting at around half a million visitors per day. For those of you who intend to visit the Expo during the month of July and August, good luck to you for school holidays have started in China and apparently many schools have made it compulsory for students to submit an essay on their visit to the World Expo.....Perhaps I will try to revisit the expo in September...fingers crossed.