I love to get immersed in the countries I’m visiting. This means getting as far away from any English speaking folks or signs as I can.

As a vegetarian, this can be pretty tough. I break out a few words in Mandarin (or Thai, or Cantonese) and ask for something with no meat. I almost always end up with pork or fish, because most people assume vegetarian means only avoiding red meat. Vegetarian is a concept that just doesn’t translate well.

After seemingly countless meals trying to order vegetarian food, I was getting frustrated. And hungry.

And then I found the bakeries.

Beautiful cases of delicious rolls, breads and pastries. Perfect for a vegetarian, right? Charles, who’s not a vegetarian, sure wasn’t arguing. And it turns out that almost all of the countries across Southeast Asia share these wonderful bakeries.

So I’ve spent most of our travels eating my way through the bakeries of Southeast Asia. It’s been wonderful. It’s the perfect excuse to scarf down delicious buns with cotton candy like floss on top, savoury cheese buns and baked treats.

Not knowing the language really hasn’t mattered, since it’s usually easy to spot and avoid the meat.

I thought I had been doing well… until I found a sign like this in Hong Kong, a few months into our last trip to Asia.

Dammit. Yeah, you read that right. Pork floss. It seems all that delicious cotton candy type floss I had been enjoying was actually meat based.

Yep, that’s right:  I’m a vegetarian, and I’ve traveled the world unintentionally fueled by meat floss.

Now for anyone of Asian descent, this is probably not a revelation. But I grew up in rural Alberta, Canada. The most worldly thing in our spice rack was labelled oregano. Meat floss was definitely not on the menu.

More about Meat Floss

I may be the rare vegetarian able to tell you this from personal experience:  Meat floss is sweet like cotton candy, but salty at the same time. It looks a little like brown dryer lint, and dissolves in your mouth.

Wikipedia tells me that meat floss is made by stewing pork in sweet soy sauce until the meat falls apart. The muscle fibres are teased apart, and then it’s dried in the oven and a dry cooked in a large wok where flavors are added.

Sometimes it’s called rousong, meat floss, pork floss, meat wool (mmm…. meat wool… who wouldn’t want to eat that?). There are two common kinds of pork floss: pork sung (the lyrical kind?) and pork fu (I guess that’s the badass kind).

What crazy things have you eaten (intentionally or unintentionally) on the road? Let us know in the comments below – we’d love to hear about it.

Victoria Harbour, in beautiful Hong Kong, is a perfect juxtaposition of old world charm meets rampant 21st century commercialism. There aren’t that many places in the world where a 19th century style Chinese junk boat (the Duk Ling) could sail through a crowded harbour backdropped by giant skyscrapers topped with monomental brand names and yet look so perfectly in it’s element. It’s striking, yet works.

As beautiful as Victoria Harbour is during the day, at night it really shines with its dazzling A Symphony of Lights where more than 40 of Hong Kong’s skyscrapers light up the night in a music and light show. The show takes place on both sides of the harbour and is a joy to see.

From the waterfront you can take a ride up The Peak or jump on a ferry and head to the Tsim Sha Tsui Promenade and check out the Avenue of Stars (home to a life size bronze Bruce Lee statue and hand prints of Hong Kong natives Jackie Chan, John Woo and Chow Yun-fat just to name a few).

Here’s a travel tip: Hong Kong is easy to get around and fairly cheap as well. They have double decker buses that tour the majority of the city (it’s basically just a regular bus) and you can get off and on at numerous locations around the city. The ferry system is a quick and cheap way to see the harbour from the water and if you time your ride correctly, you can see the Symphony of Lights from the water without having to pay extra for one of their “specialty cruises”. The MTR (Mass Transit Railway) is fast and cheap however the walk between stations can get a little taxing. Taking a historic tram (double decker street car) in the Western District and North Point is a lot of fun just make sure you keep your hands in the cars at all times. Some of those trams can get a little close to each other.

If you’re feeling brave you can tackle all of them in one run depending on where you’re starting from. Jump on the MTR to East Tsim Sha Tsui. Jump on a double decker bus or simply walk to the Star Ferry Pier and climb aboard a ferry bound for Central then when you get off jump on a bus (15C) that will take you to The Peak. Take the tram up The Peak and get yourself an ice cream and a couple of photos of the breath taking views from the top (come on, you deserve it). Take a bus back down (15 or 1) to Central Station and either jump on the MTR back to your place or jump on a tram and go do a little shopping in one of the many malls in that area.