Book Review: 1421, The Year China Discovered the World

It's been a while since my last book review. (Omg, it was in May!) I took far too long to read this book despite one fifth of it being appendices and post scripts. Why? Because it was too chunky to carry around! The free London papers made adequate company for the daily commute.

I made a mental note to read this book after one of my patients mentioned that it was fascinating. I admit, I'd seen it in the stores but never bothered to read the blurb so I had assumed that it was a silly, fancy medieval Chinese love story. How wrong I was. This book is essentially a thesis choc-full of evidence to support the theory that Chinese explorers navigated the globe well before their European counterparts. It goes further to say that the European 'discoverers' of the new land actually had a map to guide them.

I admit, being a lay-person in cartography and marine navigation, it took a bit of effort to immerse myself in the book. I could feel myself zoning out when there was a mention of 'knots', 'longitude' and the like. I have a loose grasp on such concepts (I'm sure which can be taught), however it is something that I have minimal interest.

It will help to have a desire to learn and this book will definitely appeal to those who enjoy documentaries. Being born a geek, I have always wondered why the hell do Eskimos and Native Americans look Chinese. This book sheds me the (possible) light! There is evidence in the form of linguistics and DNA analysis to suggest that the Chinese had settled (fairly recently in evolutionary terms) amongst natives in parts all over the world.

Are you telling me this Eskimo couldn't pass for Chinese? Actually, I think Eskimo is non-PC. I think I should be saying Inuit.

Or this "Native" American? Hey, I had cousin who was mistaken for one.

Ok, I'm going off on a tangent here. I gotta remember this is a book review, not whether or not I am swayed by the content. There's even an official website whereby members of the public can advise of further evidence to support the underlying claim.

Despite finding the content of this book engrossing, reading it was somewhat of a chore. I couldn't deny the feeling that I was reading someone's VERY LONG (and over the word limit) assignment.

If I am to stick to my Yes/No grading, it's a No for the general public. However, it's a Yes for those who are expressly interested!

I think I have to find another way to grade books which blur the Yes/No grading scale.

Mooey's here!

With Spuey leaving Euroland (in the hope of fattening himself up - Bai Spu), that can only mean one thing - Mooey is here! Hai Moo.

I waited fricken nearly two hours at Heathrow, ate three biscuits (never eat the cherry ones from Millie's cookies, they taste like bleah artificial cherries - I really didn't know what I was thinking), finished reading my book and then Mooey finally appeared. Damn Heathrow and their delays. Ruined my plan of stopping by Borough to get some Portuguese tarts.

Anyway, my post lies. It's back-dated and Mooey got her post up before mine. Mooey insisted that she wasn't tired and we popped out for drinks and dinner with the girls. Oh yeah, and Munabuna ate some chips.

Drinking games are good games.

Dinner at a Thai restaurant. No happy faces here.

Mooey and her Pad Thai.

At about 11pm, I got a tap on the arm and a Mooey saying "Can we go home?"

A familiar face

Ahoy hoy? Who's this I see? JSia!! I haven't seen him since ummm sometime during Feb 2006. He was dropping by London (hold on, he might still be in Europe) and of course catch-up drinks were a must. After a bit of a kerfuffle - he was in transit in Singapore for two days and I confused the dates of drinks - we finally managed to get together in Moose Bar. Drinks weren't bad and I quite liked the touch of burning cinnamon dust over my cocktail.

L-poo, JSia and I. I decided not to post the giant group photo as it resembled a bad primary school shot.

Dinner was at a Viet restaurant. I won't bother bitching about the quality.

Milan, Lost Baggage, Gelati and MacDonalds

Smee and I left our trip to the last minute, originally hoping to go to Madrid. However, we left it so late that all the good packages were booked out, hence we decided to go to Milan instead. I just wanted to go somewhere sunny, where I could finally wear summer clothes and wouldn't need to worry about carrying a cardigan or umbrella. Thirty degree days were a-ok for me!

I can't decide if this is tacky or not. Where else in the world can an airport put "Emporio Armani" above one of it's hangars? For some reason, seeing this made me feel I was looking at a fake aircraft hangar in China.

We stayed near the Duomo cathedral which in hindsight was probably worth exploring, however we were too busy eating gelati. We had a mishap and our luggage missed our flight! We spent two hours waiting and claiming our lost baggage and didn't make it into the city until fairly late. As a result, most the shops were closing and we had very little choice but to buy designer underwear. Woe is me.

The Duomo cathedral.

Me doing a little happy dance in the gelati store.

Another food battle with Smee.

Starting off the next day inside the shopping arcade near the piazza. Something that surprises me about Europe is that shops are closed on Sundays in a lot of the major cities! Poo.

With few shopping options, I had no choice but to buy more gelati.

Choices, choices. Although this could easily be confused for a photo on Lygon St.

Smee in the queue with the all important gelati ticket.

Mmmmmm, cinnamon and yoghurt.

Watermelon and coconut.

Uh oh. Dropped some gelati.

The Duomo by day.

Wandering the empty shopping streets was no joy but it made us hungry. There were Spizzicos everywhere, which is the equivalent of an Italian Macdonalds but pizza instead of hamburgers. Meh, it was so-so. I won't ever crave it again.

Arancini balls are offered as an alternative to fries. Not bad, I say.

We wanted dinner at the "Raw Fish Cafe" but it was closed! Dammit. We decided that Armenian was a little on the unfamiliar side so rustic italian it was. Placing our order was a bit difficult because the first waiter didn't speak English and the second waiter was Romanian. He offered us a meat dish with 'lots of meat, different meat - pig, chicken, horse (?!?)'. We opted to not try the 'horse' dish. I am convinced that he meant 'cow'.

Spaghetti Vongole. A little oily.

A pizza. Like you haven't seen one before.

I was so full yet insisted on having more gelati. Here's me and my Baci and pistachio gelati.

Yum, yum, yum.

Smee felt a bit ripped off with his squished up gelati.

Our late baggage finally arrived on Monday 2am which was of little relief as we were leaving that same afternoon.

While waiting in the queue to check in, I decided to impersonate a gift, complete with a British Airways tag. Smee added the tag, just in case I got lost like our baggage.

Milan's major airport is 50km away from the city centre. As per usual, we were running late thus, I didn't get my last gelati kick :(. We needed something quick and Maccas was our only option.

It didn't end up being so fast as we had a trainee kid take our order. We didn't have time to sit down to eat our meal and instead took our food through immigration pretending it was our duty free shopping. I could feel people watching us down our fries in the immigration queue. We had no option but to eat it on the plane!! I was so embarrassed. Smee had the window seat and wolfed down his (surprisingly) tasty burger (it had pancetta in it) while I dilly-dallied until the flight attendants sat down and no one was in the aisle to see what I was doing.

The two Baos sitting pretty.

Me and my Bao. Very embarrassed. You know what? I still ate the aeroplane food too.

Long Weekend/Bai Spu, Hai Moo/Flumps

London has been exceptionally deserted over the past few weeks because this is the traditional time that everyone takes their holidays. I'm not complaining cos that means I get to sit down on the normally-squashy-but-not-as-squashy-as-the-Tube DLR. Woohoo!

Spuey also got back in last night - blacker and skinnier than ever and desperately needing a haircut. I greeted him at the Eurostar terminal and I may as well have collected a homeless guy off the street.

With Spuey departing on Monday, it can only mean that Mooey arrives on Friday! Hai Moo.

Oh here's a picture of a 'Flumps' marshmallow bar. It's just a marshmallow plait but I like the word. It's kinda cute, in an 'I'm feeling Flumpy' way.

Bak Kut Teh

This London "summer" is doing nothing for my desire to wear summery clothes, however it is making me content with sitting around home in my disgusting pjs. Cold(er) weather makes hot, soupy foods taste all the better and nothing goes down better on a cold day than Smee's Bak Kut Teh.

I'd never heard nor eaten Bak Kut Teh until about three/four years ago but it goes down a treat. It is a little herby/medicinal but nothing off-putting (for me anyway). I was a little tipsy after a quick pit stop for a drink with the girls and although I managed to prepare all the foods before Smee got home, he still complained I stunk of alcohol. Hee hee!

Here's Smee doing his duty. The street vendor/hawker stall blood just runs through his veins.

Mushies, porkies, garlic, goji berries, soy sauce and herbies.

In goes the tofu puffs and beancurd skin.

The finished product complete with coriander and straw mushrooms. I forgot to take a photo of butter/garlic rice and yau ja gwai which we dipped into the soup.

Mmmmmmmmmmm warming.