I just got on and noticed that in my e-mail inbox I have a message that is about 3 or 4 days old. The message states that the most likely cause of all the students getting diarrhea has been all of the back alley local restaurants, mainly the smaller ones that may not be properly keeping meat. I think all of the Americans in the program have or are just getting over the Chinese version of Montezuma's revenge, which is interesting to me since I have been suspiciously immune. Don't think it is because I am careful, from the inordinate amount of peppers, vinegar, and other potentially havoc wreaking food items I put into my body at every meal you'd think I was in a race with to get acid reflux by age 25. Additionally, I have definitely been eating at those small local restaurants at least once a day for the last week and I will definitely not stop just because a few white people can't handle their spicy foods. Damned white people.
On the topic of food, I finally found - in one of those local restaurants ironically enough - the green bean dish I've been searching forever for. After leaving Beijing I last year I began a 6 month quest to find it in America that did not have the success I hoped for, and up until 3 days ago all the attempts at finding the delicious 干扁四季豆 (ganbiansijidou - aka ganbiandoujiao 干扁豆角) have been for naught. I finally found it though, and I have subsequently eaten it every day for the past 3 days. The man who runs the restaurant is a Chinese version of my Uncle Bubba because of the manner in which he takes control and makes sure everything is hospitable and perfect. Each time I go to this restaurant (probably 5 times in all so far) I bring new people, and each time he goes out of his way to come over and takes over the ordering and paying process. The new people always struggle with figuring out the menu or ordering at the front, so he lumbers out of the kitchen, shoos away the kitchen, and breaks the whole process down. He finds out what you want, and by god he is going to make sure you get it. That is how I've gotten to eat the green bean dish I like, this chicken and pepper dish I like, and a host of other things that aren't on the menu. The food here is out of control happiness in a bowl.
Opted not to travel this weekend, instead we went for massages and movies. The massage was the equivalent of $10 US for 75 minutes, and instantly recharged me so that I could continue to dominate the gym like the American bear that I am. I think the exact quote Bob used to describe me was, "The guys at the gym like Chris because he is big like a bear, I swear I am putting on 30 more pounds of muscle before I come back to China next time." In any case, the more important part of those two m's was the movie. We originally went intending to see Hancock, but Hancock cost 4 times more than any of the other movies at the theater and for some reason at this theater had no English audio. Thus we opted to instead go and see Red Cliff (赤壁 chibi), a movie I didn't know much about outside of a bad quality preview my teacher excitedly showed us in Chinese class last year. It - was - awesome. It was as if Hero, the 300, and a train filled with halberd wielding bad asses had collided on screen. I did not know this (JJ and Bob did), but the movie was basically the plot line of a series of popular games called Dynasty Warriors released in the US. The general idea is that it is the time of the 3 Warring States period, and there are a bunch of heroes leading armies to battle each other. With the exclusion of Jet Li and Jackie Chan, who at this point are pretty much American movie stars, I think every major Chinese action movie star was in this movie. The two guys from House of Flying Daggers, the emperor from Hero, the Japanese/Korean/Chinese/? guy from Fearless (with the excellent scowl), and a whole set of others. Every time a new person was revealed - which happened to be about every 5 or 10 minutes - the entire crowd would erupt into ooh's aah's and "No way him too!"'s. It was overwhelming, I was like a child in a medieval war shop. Or whatever. I cannot stress how awesome this movie was, and I guarantee it will come to America in some form or another.
Oh dear, the gym crew just walked in. It is time to go destroy. As a note for Dan, yesterday we mixed NOXplode and Black Powder. Casualties were high.
Sunday, July 13, 2008
Tuesday, July 8, 2008
Child Mob
The picture upload isn't working, so I can't show the evidence, but yesterday I experienced what it may be like to be annoyingly famous. The night before last our program director was scrambling around searching for 12 students to go to a nearby Middle/High School to participate in the school's research project. And since I'm telling this story I obviously opted to go.
The school is for children from ages 14-18, though most of them were near the younger side, and they were doing some sort of function that involved bringing foreigners in to ask them questions. This school is out of control nice. It was in a gated compound with buildings that one of the guys from California said were directly out of Beverly Hills. I had no idea that this place existed in the middle of Hangzhou. Our teacher explained to us that these kids had to be among the smartest in Hangzhou to get to this nice school, but that it was also a private school with no government help, that is they had lots of money to spend on courtyards.
Only 7 of us could go, so we had to split up on our own and each of us went to a different classroom. There were other foreign students our age from other study abroad programs, mainly students from Italy and Spain, but none of them spoke Chinese. To be honest, I think for some of them their English was barely better than the students they were meeting with. Thus when I walked in and introduced myself in Chinese I became an instant celebrity and overshadowed the British guy and 3 Italian girls already in my class room. That's right, America wins again.
After a bunch of games and some question answer time, the teachers gave the students free time to take pictures. As soon as she declared this the students formed a line to take pictures with me, and after about 5 minutes of pictures they scrambled to get pens and paper. They tore the paper into squares and had my autograph them in English and Chinese. It was ridiculous. The best part of it was the shirt they gave me. I got a shirt with the name of their camp. The other foreigners put it on, but I opted to lay mine on the table and have the kids sign it. They swarmed all over it and left all these fun English/Chinese mix messages and pictures.
Tonight is Karaoke night with the whole program. WOOO
The school is for children from ages 14-18, though most of them were near the younger side, and they were doing some sort of function that involved bringing foreigners in to ask them questions. This school is out of control nice. It was in a gated compound with buildings that one of the guys from California said were directly out of Beverly Hills. I had no idea that this place existed in the middle of Hangzhou. Our teacher explained to us that these kids had to be among the smartest in Hangzhou to get to this nice school, but that it was also a private school with no government help, that is they had lots of money to spend on courtyards.
Only 7 of us could go, so we had to split up on our own and each of us went to a different classroom. There were other foreign students our age from other study abroad programs, mainly students from Italy and Spain, but none of them spoke Chinese. To be honest, I think for some of them their English was barely better than the students they were meeting with. Thus when I walked in and introduced myself in Chinese I became an instant celebrity and overshadowed the British guy and 3 Italian girls already in my class room. That's right, America wins again.
After a bunch of games and some question answer time, the teachers gave the students free time to take pictures. As soon as she declared this the students formed a line to take pictures with me, and after about 5 minutes of pictures they scrambled to get pens and paper. They tore the paper into squares and had my autograph them in English and Chinese. It was ridiculous. The best part of it was the shirt they gave me. I got a shirt with the name of their camp. The other foreigners put it on, but I opted to lay mine on the table and have the kids sign it. They swarmed all over it and left all these fun English/Chinese mix messages and pictures.
Tonight is Karaoke night with the whole program. WOOO
Monday, July 7, 2008
So beautiful a flower. It more need your love.
The fourth was relatively uneventful. We went to the West Lake, which at night was hot, crowded, and uneventful. I need to go back during the day when there are more things to see/do. We stood around for awhile waiting for these fountains with lights and water to start their show, and I have to say I wasn't impressed.
All the Americans wanted to go to a bar, and all the Chinese roommates and I wanted to go find lots of food, so we first took the Americans to a bar, dropped them off there with a roommate, and then we went and found lots of meats on sticks. I am a big fan of the kabob style food, though on the way I almost went and tried the Medival themed McDonald's. Check this thing out:
We got some more tea that night. It definitely wasn't anywhere near as tasty or weird as the tea I got on Thursday with the raw egg in it, but I guess that means it was also safer.
In any case, we went to bed relatively early on the night of the fourth since we wanted to leave early the next morning. JJ and Bob left for their destinations before us, but we ran into them at the bus station.
I think JJ is trying to build a house out of pens, or maybe just hammer that pen into the table. Whatever the case, things got very boring waiting for our respective buses to arrive. We eventually engaged in some arm wrestling competitions, doing our best to further any stereotypes the people around us had about Americans being competitive and/or violent. Oh yeah, we are those guys. Since we can't sing English, we are 'those guys' that sing the guitar riff of Back in Black or the Rocky theme song as we walk into the gym. Bus stops are no exception. JJ came to a draw with one guy's roommate, and I demolished my roommate in such a convincing way that no one else would arm wrestle me. I guess that makes me that champion of Chinese Bus Stop Arm Wrestling?
We eventually got to Qiandaohu, I won't go into the length of the bus ride or any of that nonsense. The only thing worth mentioning is the fun process of getting a hotel. I would hide around the corner while my roommate went in to bargain. All the hotels write 500 yuan for a single room, but even if you are a foreigner you are expected to bargain and get it down to at least 300. I would hide because it would invariably be at least 100 yuan cheaper if they didn't know I was staying there, too.
I found heads of garlic in the store that I chose to buy for a snack. They were preserved in some type of vinegar to add taste and make them easy to peel. They were not good.
We couldn't do anything that afternoon since we got there too late to get on the last boat heading out, so we basically sat in our room eating KFC and watching the Chinese State Sponsored version of animal planet, namely a long program about dinosaurs. It - was -awesome. Probably the best part of the trip. We sat there teaching each other the names of the dinosaurs that came on screen in our respective language, and I'm pretty sure that KFC was the best thing I've ever tasted in my entire life. I guess you can say that in a culinary sense I very much miss home sometimes.
The next day was long, hot, and not rewarding. The Qiandaohu lake is advertised as some of the cleanest, prettiest water in all of China. The Nongfu Springs water and other famous companies all bottle their water here. The water, however, was anything but clean and pretty. I attached the pictures that didn't have pollution, but you can still see some of it in the monkey statue picture. The water was just full of trash. The tour guide said it was because it rained recently and lots of trash somehow got washed into the lake, but this was out of control. I've never seen so much random trash in water before. Hats, basketballs, shoes, bottles, cartons, styrofoam, everything was floating out there. There were probably just as many small islands of trash as actual islands, it was disgusting. I highly recommend not going there. The weather was also pretty hot, it got gross pretty fast.
The good part of the tour was the random Chinese people and the Chinese couple we encountered. As for Chinese people, there was one girl wearing a Viagra shirt just as happy as could be with no idea as the meaning. Actually, it was more like a Viagra baseball jersey. It blew the mind. Another girl was wearing these weird tennis shoe heel hybrids. But best of all was the family we sat with. It was a Chinese couple from America and a guy from Singapore traveling together. They at first tried speaking English to me, but eventually we spoke mostly in Chinese. It was odd, they alternated between English and Chinese a lot amongst each other. The husband was from East Malaysia originally, the wife Taiwan, and the traveling partner from Singapore. They talked about their children and how they don't want to travel to China with them or learn Chinese or about Chinese culture, and when my roommate and I opted not to eat food since it was too expensive they ordered extra and insisted we eat. On a side note, Chinese know how to stir fry a pumpkin and holy hot damn is it good. In any case, they basically treated my like their child on vacation with them the entire time, it was actually quite fun. We all road a cab together from the harbor back to the bus station, then we all rode the same bus back to Hangzhou. They said they lived in Houston, but I probably won't see them ever again. They were the bright part of what my roommate and I agree was an otherwise excessively hot and disappointing trip.
On the up side, I did get a picture of this sweet statue. The islands were all themed. We went to the monkey island, the ostrich island, and a bunch of other islands that don't really translate well.
Real monkeys. I have lots of videos of the monkeys just running around. The cutest was a mom hanging one handed from a tree, the kid hanging from its stomach, catching food that was tossed to it with one hand and eating it. The most entertaining, however, were the children that got scared by the monkeys running free. Only in China can you take a boat to an island where there are 20 monkeys running around feet from you. The children screamed and cried and I was extremely entertained. This was topped by the child who while trying to feed a peacock on one of the islands enraged it and got chased around for a good 2 minutes, which in turn was topped by the child who got tricked into riding on an Ostrich. His parents, in what I'm guessing was an attempt at a surprise they in some deranged state of mind decided a child would enjoy, made him cover his eyes then carried him around the fence, into the place where a tamed Ostrich sat for taking pictures, and then placed him on the Ostrich. He opened his eyes and looked around, slightly confused. The Ostrich turned its head backwards to look at him, and the child screamed as loud as I've ever heard any child scream right at its face. The ostrich didn't even flinch, that thing must have been drugged to the high heavens, but the child ran for dear life. That is years and years of therapy in the making right there. He will never trust his parents to surprise him again.
And this is but one of the many excellent Engrish photos I am gathering. So beautiful a flower. It more need your love.
There is so much more I feel I should probably be writing, but I am getting tired rapidly. Thus, to distract you and let me bring this to a close, here is a picture of the fish on one of the islands whom, after what must be years of tourist visits, follow tourists around expecting food.
All the Americans wanted to go to a bar, and all the Chinese roommates and I wanted to go find lots of food, so we first took the Americans to a bar, dropped them off there with a roommate, and then we went and found lots of meats on sticks. I am a big fan of the kabob style food, though on the way I almost went and tried the Medival themed McDonald's. Check this thing out:
We got some more tea that night. It definitely wasn't anywhere near as tasty or weird as the tea I got on Thursday with the raw egg in it, but I guess that means it was also safer.In any case, we went to bed relatively early on the night of the fourth since we wanted to leave early the next morning. JJ and Bob left for their destinations before us, but we ran into them at the bus station.
I think JJ is trying to build a house out of pens, or maybe just hammer that pen into the table. Whatever the case, things got very boring waiting for our respective buses to arrive. We eventually engaged in some arm wrestling competitions, doing our best to further any stereotypes the people around us had about Americans being competitive and/or violent. Oh yeah, we are those guys. Since we can't sing English, we are 'those guys' that sing the guitar riff of Back in Black or the Rocky theme song as we walk into the gym. Bus stops are no exception. JJ came to a draw with one guy's roommate, and I demolished my roommate in such a convincing way that no one else would arm wrestle me. I guess that makes me that champion of Chinese Bus Stop Arm Wrestling?We eventually got to Qiandaohu, I won't go into the length of the bus ride or any of that nonsense. The only thing worth mentioning is the fun process of getting a hotel. I would hide around the corner while my roommate went in to bargain. All the hotels write 500 yuan for a single room, but even if you are a foreigner you are expected to bargain and get it down to at least 300. I would hide because it would invariably be at least 100 yuan cheaper if they didn't know I was staying there, too.
I found heads of garlic in the store that I chose to buy for a snack. They were preserved in some type of vinegar to add taste and make them easy to peel. They were not good.
We couldn't do anything that afternoon since we got there too late to get on the last boat heading out, so we basically sat in our room eating KFC and watching the Chinese State Sponsored version of animal planet, namely a long program about dinosaurs. It - was -awesome. Probably the best part of the trip. We sat there teaching each other the names of the dinosaurs that came on screen in our respective language, and I'm pretty sure that KFC was the best thing I've ever tasted in my entire life. I guess you can say that in a culinary sense I very much miss home sometimes.
The next day was long, hot, and not rewarding. The Qiandaohu lake is advertised as some of the cleanest, prettiest water in all of China. The Nongfu Springs water and other famous companies all bottle their water here. The water, however, was anything but clean and pretty. I attached the pictures that didn't have pollution, but you can still see some of it in the monkey statue picture. The water was just full of trash. The tour guide said it was because it rained recently and lots of trash somehow got washed into the lake, but this was out of control. I've never seen so much random trash in water before. Hats, basketballs, shoes, bottles, cartons, styrofoam, everything was floating out there. There were probably just as many small islands of trash as actual islands, it was disgusting. I highly recommend not going there. The weather was also pretty hot, it got gross pretty fast.
The good part of the tour was the random Chinese people and the Chinese couple we encountered. As for Chinese people, there was one girl wearing a Viagra shirt just as happy as could be with no idea as the meaning. Actually, it was more like a Viagra baseball jersey. It blew the mind. Another girl was wearing these weird tennis shoe heel hybrids. But best of all was the family we sat with. It was a Chinese couple from America and a guy from Singapore traveling together. They at first tried speaking English to me, but eventually we spoke mostly in Chinese. It was odd, they alternated between English and Chinese a lot amongst each other. The husband was from East Malaysia originally, the wife Taiwan, and the traveling partner from Singapore. They talked about their children and how they don't want to travel to China with them or learn Chinese or about Chinese culture, and when my roommate and I opted not to eat food since it was too expensive they ordered extra and insisted we eat. On a side note, Chinese know how to stir fry a pumpkin and holy hot damn is it good. In any case, they basically treated my like their child on vacation with them the entire time, it was actually quite fun. We all road a cab together from the harbor back to the bus station, then we all rode the same bus back to Hangzhou. They said they lived in Houston, but I probably won't see them ever again. They were the bright part of what my roommate and I agree was an otherwise excessively hot and disappointing trip.
On the up side, I did get a picture of this sweet statue. The islands were all themed. We went to the monkey island, the ostrich island, and a bunch of other islands that don't really translate well.
Real monkeys. I have lots of videos of the monkeys just running around. The cutest was a mom hanging one handed from a tree, the kid hanging from its stomach, catching food that was tossed to it with one hand and eating it. The most entertaining, however, were the children that got scared by the monkeys running free. Only in China can you take a boat to an island where there are 20 monkeys running around feet from you. The children screamed and cried and I was extremely entertained. This was topped by the child who while trying to feed a peacock on one of the islands enraged it and got chased around for a good 2 minutes, which in turn was topped by the child who got tricked into riding on an Ostrich. His parents, in what I'm guessing was an attempt at a surprise they in some deranged state of mind decided a child would enjoy, made him cover his eyes then carried him around the fence, into the place where a tamed Ostrich sat for taking pictures, and then placed him on the Ostrich. He opened his eyes and looked around, slightly confused. The Ostrich turned its head backwards to look at him, and the child screamed as loud as I've ever heard any child scream right at its face. The ostrich didn't even flinch, that thing must have been drugged to the high heavens, but the child ran for dear life. That is years and years of therapy in the making right there. He will never trust his parents to surprise him again.
And this is but one of the many excellent Engrish photos I am gathering. So beautiful a flower. It more need your love.
There is so much more I feel I should probably be writing, but I am getting tired rapidly. Thus, to distract you and let me bring this to a close, here is a picture of the fish on one of the islands whom, after what must be years of tourist visits, follow tourists around expecting food.Friday, July 4, 2008
Thousand Islands Without the Dressing
About to get on a bus to head the Thousand Island Lake. Stories of that and the 4th on Sunday upon return.
The weather is so hot and there is no wind. I sweat through 3 shirts a day.
The weather is so hot and there is no wind. I sweat through 3 shirts a day.
Thursday, July 3, 2008
明天考试
Tomorrow is my first test. We'll see how I do, I have a 500 character essay to turn in tomorrow, I write another essay during the test, and I have another essay to turn in on Monday. All on the same topic. My writing feels so redundant, but I know it is for the best to help me remember.
So I asked my roommate if a few of these red dots on my hands were normal, I had 1 on each hand yesterday and today I had about 2 or 3 on each hand. They looked like bites but they didn't itch and there was no bump, just a small small red circle. He said they were fly/mosquito bites, and asked if I had others. I said I didn't think so, but as I said it I was inspecting my arms and discovered my underarms were covered with them. I have like 20 or 30 of these 'bites' on my arms and hands, and a few others on my leg. Bob says he has something like them on his back, but I'm a bit worried as to what they are. It looks more like a rash to me.
In following with the list of things that concerns me, we had a dinner with our teachers and students tonight, and after dinner some of us went to get Milk Tea. My teacher ordered a drink for me since I wasn't really familiar with and didn't really like Milk Tea, and she ordered this drink that among other ingredients featured orange juice and a raw egg. The raw egg part concerned me. But I drank it, and damn it was good.
The 4th of July is approaching, and before my roommate leave for the Thousand Island Lake trip I am in charge of figuring out what we are gonna do for our celebration. I have to figure out whether I want to go to a BBQ place nearby and see how American it is, or perhaps go to the Papa John's I saw when I went to the bank yesterday and see how it is. Either way, we are definitely going out to do something.
So I asked my roommate if a few of these red dots on my hands were normal, I had 1 on each hand yesterday and today I had about 2 or 3 on each hand. They looked like bites but they didn't itch and there was no bump, just a small small red circle. He said they were fly/mosquito bites, and asked if I had others. I said I didn't think so, but as I said it I was inspecting my arms and discovered my underarms were covered with them. I have like 20 or 30 of these 'bites' on my arms and hands, and a few others on my leg. Bob says he has something like them on his back, but I'm a bit worried as to what they are. It looks more like a rash to me.
In following with the list of things that concerns me, we had a dinner with our teachers and students tonight, and after dinner some of us went to get Milk Tea. My teacher ordered a drink for me since I wasn't really familiar with and didn't really like Milk Tea, and she ordered this drink that among other ingredients featured orange juice and a raw egg. The raw egg part concerned me. But I drank it, and damn it was good.
The 4th of July is approaching, and before my roommate leave for the Thousand Island Lake trip I am in charge of figuring out what we are gonna do for our celebration. I have to figure out whether I want to go to a BBQ place nearby and see how American it is, or perhaps go to the Papa John's I saw when I went to the bank yesterday and see how it is. Either way, we are definitely going out to do something.
Wednesday, July 2, 2008
It Rains Every Day
I bought a Charmander toothbrush in the Campus Store today. I saw it and immediately had to have it, it was my big achievement for the day.
The other large achievement was finally going to the big Bank of China (literally translated) to get my traveler's checks changed. You have to go to the big (main) Bank of China to get them changed now, the small ones stopped changing them about a week before I arrived, something about wanting to be more safe with the influx of travelers for the Olympics. In any case, the person assigned to help me was in training, which made for a fun bank experience for all of us. Each sentence had to be spoken twice, once in the formal mode required and then again in normal terms. He had to say it all formal first since his supervisor was there, then when I stared blankly at him he would glance at his supervisor, then tell me what he had said in Chinese I could understand. The vocabulary differnce would be the equivalent of "This T-39 Form indicates that the undersigned is in agreeance with the aforementioned terms and your subsequent signature discloses..." and so on, and then he would say "Sign there to say that you are you." It was a fantastic waste of time. And the thing is it wasn't legal jargon he was using, there is just a very formal way of speaking Chinese involving the choice of certain verbs and terms over others and I just can't be bothered to learn customer service Chinese used for other Chinese, though I was flattered he was attempting to use it on me.
Now I will indulge how to upset your stomach in China. Step 1, when eating noodles, take your friends up on the dare to drink the broth solely for the sake of taking a picture. The first few sips are tasty, but remember that the key to step 1 is to ignore the fact that the broth is spicy and very likely going to ruin your digestive tract.
Step 2, celebrate your victory with your friends. This involves downing lots of the carbonated beverages seen in the pictures, this in no way encourages the war that has begun to rage in your stomach.
Step 3 is not pictured, but I can say with confidence that chugging the broth is probably a bad idea.
I have to conduct some research now, this weekend my roommate and I are going on a trip. We are getting reimbursed for the travel costs as long as we leave the city, so we have to choose somewhere fun to go. The winning idea right now is the "Thousand Island Lake". Each island apparently has a different theme. There is a bird island with lots of birds, and a cow island with lots of cows, and a flower island with lots of flowers, then there are interesting ones like lock island and such. I've seen the pictures, lock island and some of the weirder ones look really fun. No idea yet though, we are pressed for time as we can't leave until he is out of class on Saturday at 11 and have to be back for his class at 8am Sunday.
Jia you! 加油！
The other large achievement was finally going to the big Bank of China (literally translated) to get my traveler's checks changed. You have to go to the big (main) Bank of China to get them changed now, the small ones stopped changing them about a week before I arrived, something about wanting to be more safe with the influx of travelers for the Olympics. In any case, the person assigned to help me was in training, which made for a fun bank experience for all of us. Each sentence had to be spoken twice, once in the formal mode required and then again in normal terms. He had to say it all formal first since his supervisor was there, then when I stared blankly at him he would glance at his supervisor, then tell me what he had said in Chinese I could understand. The vocabulary differnce would be the equivalent of "This T-39 Form indicates that the undersigned is in agreeance with the aforementioned terms and your subsequent signature discloses..." and so on, and then he would say "Sign there to say that you are you." It was a fantastic waste of time. And the thing is it wasn't legal jargon he was using, there is just a very formal way of speaking Chinese involving the choice of certain verbs and terms over others and I just can't be bothered to learn customer service Chinese used for other Chinese, though I was flattered he was attempting to use it on me.
Now I will indulge how to upset your stomach in China. Step 1, when eating noodles, take your friends up on the dare to drink the broth solely for the sake of taking a picture. The first few sips are tasty, but remember that the key to step 1 is to ignore the fact that the broth is spicy and very likely going to ruin your digestive tract.
Step 2, celebrate your victory with your friends. This involves downing lots of the carbonated beverages seen in the pictures, this in no way encourages the war that has begun to rage in your stomach.
Step 3 is not pictured, but I can say with confidence that chugging the broth is probably a bad idea.
I have to conduct some research now, this weekend my roommate and I are going on a trip. We are getting reimbursed for the travel costs as long as we leave the city, so we have to choose somewhere fun to go. The winning idea right now is the "Thousand Island Lake". Each island apparently has a different theme. There is a bird island with lots of birds, and a cow island with lots of cows, and a flower island with lots of flowers, then there are interesting ones like lock island and such. I've seen the pictures, lock island and some of the weirder ones look really fun. No idea yet though, we are pressed for time as we can't leave until he is out of class on Saturday at 11 and have to be back for his class at 8am Sunday.
Jia you! 加油！
Tuesday, July 1, 2008
Hot Pot
One wall of my room has large glass doors leading out to the balcony, which was cool until this morning when I discovered that the sun rises really early in China. I hadn't heard my alarm go off, but rushed out of bed when I saw it was light outside. I rushed over to check my phone and discovered it was 5:30. I would have gone back to sleep, but the adrenaline from a fear of being late was already rushing through me. Curtains are not enough, I need something more intense.
Tonight was a night of hot pot. The general idea is you order the type of what I guess is best described as soup you want, then they place the giant pot into a hole in the middle of the table that has a burner underneath it. While it heats up you order all your things you want to place in fondue style, the sauces you want for dipping, and away you go. It was fantastic, the only problem was I had never personally been in charge of ordering before, I always had a Chinese friend or roommate to do it for me. Tonight was my night to be tested. I asked lots of questions and figured a lot out, but ultimately I still had to guess on a few things since Hangzhou's hot pot is different from the types I've eaten in America and Beijing. It was amazingly good, and I ordered all the right vegetables. The meat was a bit weird, some of it came out in large singular mound form that we had to shave apart with our spoons, and I'm not sure when or how but I managed to order some seaweed like vegetable. It was good though once you fondue'd it in the broth and then covered it in the sauce of your choice.
Pictures later, must prepare for class.
Tonight was a night of hot pot. The general idea is you order the type of what I guess is best described as soup you want, then they place the giant pot into a hole in the middle of the table that has a burner underneath it. While it heats up you order all your things you want to place in fondue style, the sauces you want for dipping, and away you go. It was fantastic, the only problem was I had never personally been in charge of ordering before, I always had a Chinese friend or roommate to do it for me. Tonight was my night to be tested. I asked lots of questions and figured a lot out, but ultimately I still had to guess on a few things since Hangzhou's hot pot is different from the types I've eaten in America and Beijing. It was amazingly good, and I ordered all the right vegetables. The meat was a bit weird, some of it came out in large singular mound form that we had to shave apart with our spoons, and I'm not sure when or how but I managed to order some seaweed like vegetable. It was good though once you fondue'd it in the broth and then covered it in the sauce of your choice.
Pictures later, must prepare for class.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
