January | 2016 | xiaohua

群芳，Festiva，Galaxy， Macau January 29, 2016

Posted by hslu in China, Food, Restaurants, Travel.
Tags: Buffet, Galaxy Macau, Macau, Middle Eastern Food Festival
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Whenever we visit a casino, we will find out how good its buffet is. Galaxy Macau is a beautiful casino in Macau and we believe its buffet is also a beautiful one.

Galaxy’s buffet restaurant is called Festiva (群芳.) It is huge, it is beautiful and it is filled with delicious food and inviting desserts.

Very high ceiling. Bright and vibrant interior.

Front door.

There is so much to eat and so many to choose from, it is hard to decide what we want to try.

Goose liver station.

Goose liver pan fried.

Skipped。

Salad station。

Somewhat dry.

Salmon and sauteed lamb shank. I take a pass on these.

I am going to guess that they don’t get too many Japanese tourists. Sushi is ordinary at best.

I skipped this.

Endless supply of snow crab legs.

Can I have a small piece of that 紅燒肉？

Good quality salad and tasty cheeses。

I take one of each, please.

I am too full to try all of them. What shall I do?

I skip bread, cold cuts, Sushi, salmon, lamb shank, sauteed vegetables, deep fried stuff, Malay, and roast beef. I go for some Indian, goose liver, 佛跳牆，紅燒肉，roasted duck，some seafood and a lot of desserts.

Some Indian is okay. Rice was dry though.

This is very good and very rich. Tender and warm goose liver goes very well with chilled, sweet and sour pear.

My wife did that for me. I am not good at eating blue crab or snow crab.

Rich chicken broth with chicken breast meat, a small piece of abalone （鮑魚）， bamboo fungus （竹笙）and Chinese mushroom。

I ask for a very small piece of roasted beef and some trimmings too。

Fresh and chilled just to the right temperature.

Japan is going negative, except January 29, 2016

Posted by hslu in Economics, Global Affair, Japan.
Tags: Bank of Japan, Haruhiko Kuroda, Japan, Negative interest rate, Quantitative and Qualitative Easing
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Negative population growth.

Negative GDP growth.

Negative wage growth.

Negative foreign currency reserves growth rate.

Negative loan growth rate.

Negative foreign direct investment growth rate.

Negative current account growth rate.

The 10-year Bond rate is declining and may go into negative soon.

The list goes on.

And today, we have another negative added to the growing list:

Negative interest rate on some deposits.

It appears that the massive Quantitative and Qualitative Easing (QQE) implemented initially by BoJ’s Haruhiko Kuroda on April 4, 2013 and followed by a series of others are not working to pop the inflation rate to 2% target.

Something in Japan is positive though: BoJ’s balance sheet and Japan’s national debt.

Japanese central bank balance sheet. Source: http://www.tradingeconomics.com/

Japanese national debt as a percentage of GDP. Source: http://www.tradingeconomics.com/

Source: Bloomberg

But, the picture isn’t very pretty.

Japan is moving on a slippery slope heading into the land of no return.

Shilla, Tysons Corner I January 29, 2016

Posted by hslu in Food, Restaurants, Travel.
Tags: Shilla, Tysons Corner, Vienna VA
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We often go to Shilla in Annandale or Centerville after we enjoy a meal of Korean tofu, bulgogi and seafood pancake. Shilla is a Korean bakery chain store serving illy coffee, bubble teas, shaved ice, cold sandwiches and fancy and wonderful Asian bakeries.

Tysons Corner I Shopping Center has a side wing on the second level right above the 1st floor food court. It used to have a hamberger joint/sports bar but it closed its door about 2 years ago because of competition and less than ideal location. The empty space sat behind a section of 15 feet tall construction panels for at least a year and few people walked down to the corridor to see what’s going on there.

One day after New Years holiday, my wife told me that Shilla came to Tysons Corner and it was busy with happy customers when she stopped by to pick up some soft and fluffy red bean bread, 3-colored pound cake, sponge cake, coconut buns, mongbean bread and raisin bread.

Now that we have been there twice in two weeks, we like it as much as we like the other Shillas. May be a little more because it is only 3.5 miles away.

Is there a correlation here？ January 28, 2016

Posted by hslu in Economics, jobs.
Tags: Eighth grader reading grades, U.S. real median income
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I talked about lousy test results of American‘s eighth graders in a previous post：

More than 2/3

Here is the chart from that post：

https://www.americanprogress.org/issues/education/report/2016/01/26/129547/a-look-at-the-education-crisis/

Allow me to give you another chart and you can tell me whether there is a correlation between the two.

As you can see, the U.S. real median income peaked at around 2000 right about the time of Y2K and internet bubble.

Of course the correlation isn’t so straight forward and many other factors were at play.

But if a U.S. high school student can’t comprehend 8th grade English and if a U. S. high school student don’t have the basic math skills, it is reasonable to assume that his or her earning potential won’t be very promising.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/videos/2016-01-21/how-alarming-is-the-decline-in-u-s-real-median-income-

Bento Box, Reston, Virginia January 27, 2016

Posted by hslu in Food, Restaurants.
Tags: bento box, reston Town center
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Bento Box is a cheap Japanese restaurant serving popular Japanese dishes such as teriyaki, sushi, sashimi, ramen, salad and appetizers. Selections are limited: 5 teriyakis, 2 ramens and no more than 10 varieties of sushi and sashimi. Appetizers include gyoza, edamame, tempura and takoyaki.

Service is McDonald’s style with orders taken at the counter and served in disposable containers, plastic utensils and chopsticks. It opens at 10 in the morning, earlier than most fast food joints.

Chicken teriyaki delux （with spring roll and California rolls）was okay. Rice was a bit dry and it needed more teriyaki sauce. The non-spicy ramen was only so-so and the broth wasn’t impressive either. I won’t order it again because it wasn’t worth the $11 price tag.

The restaurant is located at the Home Depot Shopping Center. This location has changed hands many times. Hope Bento Box can survive at this location.

We got in before 11 am on a Wednesday morning and we didn’t see any other customer except a cop ordering his teriyaki takeout.

Yes, Ma Ying-jeou, makes U.S. disappoint January 27, 2016

Posted by hslu in China, Cold War, Global Affair, Middle East, Military, Politics, Taiwan.
Tags: 馬英九, Ma Ying-jeou, Taiping Island, 太平島
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According to AIT, America is ‘’disappointed‘’ because President Ma Ying-jeou plans to travel to Taiping Island in South China Sea.

Ma Ying-jeou should make his trip to Taiping Island （太平島）a very big deal and bring as many officials with him as he can. Make sure that he brings all members of the presidential press corp with him as well. Give them a tour, treat them with a good meal and let them see the military base too. Make a statement about the history of the island and tell the U.S. to take its nation building business to somewhere else: like the Middle East.

America has been, and still is, messing around into other people’s business all over the world, politically, economically, and, worse, militarily, and many countries are suffering from the hegemony.

Someone has to stand up against the encroachment.

It is Ma Ying-jeor’s turn this time.

Galaxy Casino， Macau January 25, 2016

Posted by hslu in China, Travel.
Tags: Galaxy Macau, Macau
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It must have been more than 10 years ago when we visited Macau for the first time. We stayed at Venetian and had a good time then. However, I didn’t like Macau back then because there weren’t too many casinos and Macau was no Las Vegas in terms of types of table games and the vibe. In addition, those casinos were further apart; not like Las Vegas Strip where so many casinos are within walking distance.

We all knew that, in the 21st century, Macau has gone through a complete transformation with many world class casinos; Sands, Galaxy, Wynn, Grand Lisboa, MGM Macau, etc., calling Macau home and the gambling revenue at Macau was several times that of Las Vegas.

This time, we stayed at Galaxy because it was big, had more slot machines, had nice restaurants and looked so much more beautiful than all other casinos.

There is a special area off the main entrance just for the big spenders.

There are three buikdings just like this. Very majestic. Very beautiful.

There is no price tag for these golden statues.

I am not sure that we have visited all areas of this beautiful casino.

The buildings change colors in the night.

兩人相親相愛。

Beautiful interior like this are everywhere。

Off the main entrance is this area where one can take shuttle buses to other casinos and other areas of Macau。The wait time is no more than 20 minutes。

This is the entrance of one of the buildings。Not sure where the main entrance is。

Look at that majestic chandeliers。

Once we checked in and settled down, we walked around the huge complex, admired the beautiful interior of this modern casino and checked out different restaurants spreading out at various locations inside the casino.

再臨閣 The Salisbury January 25, 2016

Posted by hslu in Food, Restaurants, Travel.
Tags: 西式自助餐, The Salisbury, 再臨閣, 尖沙咀, 九龍
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我們去九龍看朋友，只能留一個晚上。朋友熱情，帶我們去尖沙咀吃西式的海鮮自助餐。餐廳的名字是再臨閣（The Salisbury），在尖沙咀香港基督教青年會4樓。

餐廳的環境不錯，佈置優美。是西式的佈置。餐廳裏看得到香港的建築物，也看得到維多利亞海港迷人的景色。自助餐的地方不大，東西好吃精細，都是貴東西，像大螃蟹，冷凍蝦，翡翠螺，壽司，（刺身）生鱼片，手卷，精美的小點，各國佳餚和漂亮的甜點。餐館人多，服務非常周到，我們自己拿自己喜歡的東西。我生的海鮮吃的不多，可是對那些漂亮的小點心欣賞的很。甜點做的漂亮也非常可口，是不可多得的享受。八點左右香港的摩天大樓有鐳射燈展，不過看的不清楚也不怎麼精彩。鐳射表演的時間也不長，不看也罷了。我們是客人，所以我也不知道要多少錢。不過我相信所費不貲啊。