i don't like the food.

So, here I am, blogging and eating down "expensive food" simultaneously. If you had actually bothered to guess, I am munching down bird's nest. It's not the fern.
I don't understand why everyone likes this stuff. Yes, this statement is going to raise some eye-brows. But seriously, why is this gooey, yellowish-white solid almost liquid thing so expensive? Let me tell you why.
Number 1. People risked their lives to do extract this nest from the poor bird. And they do it with home-made flimsy ladders. It's is already extremely dangerous considering the heights they have to scale, literally so. What makes it more life-threatening is that you got the birds swooping about defending their nest for alls' worth. If I were the bird, I would be mighty pissed and I seriously would give that "robber" a peck or two on the eye or any other part sensitive.
To give you an idea how high the place is:
Yes, that is rather high now isn't it?

I think I am the odd-ball of my family. Why the rest yearn for this delectable delicacy, I would rather trade it for a packet of Lays'. Seriously. Since young, I have never liked the stuff. Yeah, some of you all may be loading your shotgun right now when you read this. Do not get me wrong; I am not trying to brandish my family's wealth -We don't even have a car- but really, I just don't like the stuff.
Reading books didn't alleviate the matter in anyway.
The Bird Nest is actually really the bird's saliva. The bird is some species of Swallow which has some ridiculously long name named by some freak biologist. So, when I read about this, I nearly regurgitated out the 200 bucks of saliva out that Mum just painstakingly forced down my oesophagus. I failed.
I have since given up on trying to convert Mum. She is still bent on buying this stuff and I guess I have to eat it. Yes, I could rebel and leave it on the table for the entire week. But Mum will be damn pissed and when she's pissed, I am no happy child.
So I made a decision. If I were to be a Dad, I will not make my child eat bird's nest. Unless he asks. If he does, I will tell him what I know about this and perhaps, through reverse psychology, he will see things my way.

Then there are the other 2 delicacies. The Buddha Jump Over the Wall (the name is grammatically wrong already) and Shark's Fin. Since this year, I have stopped eating the latter all together. My aunts and uncles were touching my forehead when I turned down the bowl of Shark's Fin that was served at the Chinese Restaurant at Eu Tong Street. And the waitress was looking at me; seemingly saying "Are you mad?". Yes, I am mad. Mad at the way people just saw of the fins of the shark and dump them, still alive, back into the ocean waiting for Reaper. How about someone saw off your limbs and dump you on the road. You feel happy?
The Shark's Fin is really just cartilage. Cut off your ear and marinate it with some secret recipe and serve it to the next passer-by and he will say that it tastes like a 100 dollars worth of Shark's Fin. Seriously. It is of the same chemical structure, same compound, same element, same everything. Except, it's your ear and that poor shark's fin.
As for the Buddha Jump Over the Wall; I have no personal vendetta against it. Cause it has been ages since I last chowed down on that thing. But if I remember things correctly, it just some herbs with dried mushroom and all that. Quite expensive for a bowl of autotrophs and saprophytes.