Sweet snack

Hope everyone had a good Christmas.

This was taken at Erqi Square, close to the fabric market. I think this couple was mute, or deaf, or maybe both, but they sold the most delicious sticky rice snacks.

The guy would pack some special rice into the metal cylinder, and then the woman would put a lid on and let steam rise through it so that it would congeal (?). When it was finished, she would put a stick through a hole in the top, take the cylinder off, and coat it with sugar before handing it off to the customer.

At ten cents a piece, you better believe I bought in bulk.

Old and New

Outside a famous Peking duck restaurant in Beijing. Despite its fame, the restaurant was nestled deep in the hutongs, and you had to know it to find it- it wasn't a walk-past kind of  place. I love this picture because I find it hilarious that after going on this huge adventure through old alleys and hutongs, trying to locate this legendary duck resto, we find some business-y dude chatting away on a cell phone right outside its doors.

After all that, the place was so tiny it could barely accommodate our party of 30. (Okay, maybe we did have a large group.) Its walls were wallpapered with photos of all the famous dignitaries that had passed through, all of whom have this sort of, just-take-the-picture-and-let-me-eat-already look on their face.

I particularly enjoyed the photo of a chubby, post-vice presidency Al Gore. You go, Al, you get your duck on.

Beans, beans, the magical fruit

Legumes galore! A nondescript street stand in the French Concession, somewhere around Yongjia Lu.

Breakfast in Yinchuan

Forget about cereal. Like most meals in China, breakfast comes best cooked fresh from the street. If we notice here, the man rolls out the dough and places it in the hot oil while the woman twists it with her chopsticks. The girl (their daughter?) is the whole power behind the operation, hand-cranking the wheel that keeps the fire burning hot hot hot.

No matter what the weather, you can count on the breakfast vendors to be out. They're like the postal carriers of the street food industry. What I don't understand is why, with little competition and great demand, these vendors never charge more than a kuai or two for their delicious wares?

Steamy Night

The mildly famous 'top of the hill.' When I arrived in Dalian it was still winter, but as spring crept up the tiny restaurants set up their chuanr (like grilled kebabs) stands, all in a row. At night, in the chilly air, you could see the smoke from the chuanr as you walked up the Dawai hill, as crowds of people huddled for warmth around the coals.

How is this a selling point??

Seen in one of Dalian's Carrefours (French grocery chain in China). Then seen again in another Carrefour on the other side of town. They stayed on display year-round. I'm not sure what kind of subliminal messaging Carrefour is up to here.

Feeding Time at the (Student) Zoo

Taken at the middle/high school located beside my university (Dongcai). 

Every day, this couple would bring lunch to the students and pass it to them via the school gates. Because of the large amount of food and specificity of the orders, I believe the parties on both sides of the gates had an agreement in place for this daily routine. 

Admit it, with the iron bars and the frantic manner in which the students try to hand over money and get their food, you can't help but make the mental jump to "zoo".

Innocence

It looks like this little girl was eating noodles alone, but her grandparents were sitting next to her.

Taken over May Holiday in Chongqing, where we had disembarked from our ship after days on the Yangtze River. We were waiting in this area for someone to offer their services as our van driver; because it was the actual May Holiday (May 1st), free and willing drivers were scarce. So I took pictures of people while we waited.

Photo of the Day: Steamy Street Food

A common type of street vendor is the hot pot man (or woman, or family). They have a cart with multiple comparments filled with hot water, then sticks of meats and vegetables to boil. Oftentimes half the comparments would be for spicy sticks, and you could also add spices to your food after the boiling was complete. It usually cost 1 rmb for two sticks (0.15 USD) and while not filling enough to qualify as an entire meal, it was definitely a delicious snack.

Photo of the Day: Bamboo and Bananas

Erqi Square is known for its abundance of tailors, and lining the streets to those tailors are various food vendors. Some are focused on one product (apples, fried chicken, sweet potatoes) while others, like this man, have more to offer. This set-up provides for varying degrees of hunger, from snacks for the peckish to cheap meals on the go for the busy bee.

Of course, it was best to eat after you had visited the tailors and had your measurements taken.

Photo of the Day: More for Sale

In Kaifaqu, which is the Development Zone about half an hour's lightrail away from the city center of Dalian. Where this picture was taken, there were two giant shopping malls, and of course an endless number of vendors setting up shop in between the two.

For about six straight weekends in the fall I taught English out here: Eight hours on Saturdays and six on Sundays. In the mornings I would go to that McDonald's for (horribly burnt) coffee then one of the side vendors for some fried dough strips filled with strawberry or red bean paste.

Photo of the Day: Street Harvest

In the fall, suddenly there were piles of green vegetables covering the streets. Mostly cabbage, but as you can see here, sometimes onions were collected too. Copious heads of cabbage were still lying about town, drying I assume, when I left in January.

Photo of the Day: Soup for sale, Xi'an

February 08; on Xi'an's Muslim Street- My relatives and I had stopped in Xi'an on our way home to Shanghai after spending Chinese New Year in Sichuan.

For about 50 US cents you'd get in a bowl the sweet date broth, as well as lemons, dates, kiwis, sweet fungus, etc. and a freshly cut up pear (though it tasted like a pear/apple hybrid). Sugary and warm, and perfect for a winter stroll.

(As an added bonus, but more because I find it hard to describe, here's what the final result looked like:)

Photo of the Day: Student Lunches

[The girl in the blue is the one I'm currently visiting in South Carolina for Spring Break.]

Eating lunch with my classmates (the two girls and guy in the foreground), all of them American. Class ended at 12 every day and there was an endless amount of choices for food around the Dongcai campus. They were all incredibly cheap too; usually costing 5 rmb for a bowl of noodles (~75 cents) or 7-10 rmb per person to share dishes 'family-style' as we're doing above.

Photo of the Day: Chuar!

Seriously, NOTHING beats eating chuar on a warm September night. I mean come on, it's food on a stick! Though perhaps the memories I associate with chuar, especially the night of this picture, can't really be described....Fall was a good season in Dalian.
(This particular stand is by Olympic Square, next to JD's)

Photo of the Day: Soup on the Street

Outside Taikang Lu, in Shanghai. You pick all your raw veggies, meats and noodles, then they cook them in the broth to make soup. Delicious!

Christmas week and the Harbin Ice Festival

It's hard feeling Christmasy in China. There aren't many decorations, and there certainly aren't Christmas carols. It's nice getting a break from the blatant commercialism but as Christmas came nearer it became a little sad for the expats here.

On Sunday I went to a house church. I'll write about that in detail when I'm back in the States.

On Tuesday I spent the whole day in Harbin. They have an Ice Festival every year, as well as a park that has giant snow sculptures. FK and I took the overnight train up and arrived at 6 am; we bought a map and got our bearings and first headed out for the snow park.

The park was across the Songhua River at Sun Island Park; by the time we arrived we were actually so cold we had to take a break in a McDonald's (never were we ever so happy to see the Golden Arches!). The river had frozen over completely, and there were horses and carriages as well as ice skating there.

We took the cable car over- it was 30 rmb for me, but 50 rmb for 'Foreign Visitors'...Fran wasn't terribly happy about that. The Snow Park seemed to have some Finnish bath theme, and it was only about half finished, but the giant centerpiece was completed and highly impressive.

The sculptures were still in progress while we were there- they made a giant box of wood planks, shoveled snow into it, then took down the wood which created a giant rectangle of snow to carve- but that made it cool without it being overwhelming. Plus, there were very few tourists around.

Then we went back over the river on one of the horse-drawn carriages, and slipped around on the ice for some fun. We thawed during lunch, meaning we spent about 15 minutes eating and 45 minutes chatting. We decided to head to the Japanese Germ Warfare Base of Unit 731, which is where the Japanese carried out gruesome medical experiments in WWII. We found a shady shared taxi there, since it was 20 km south of the city, and when we arrived we discovered Lonely Planet had their times wrong! The place closed at 3 and we arrived at 3:30! We were so disappointed, but had no choice but to take a bus back into the city. 

45 minutes later, we were back at the train station in the city center and it was completely dark outside. We decided to walk all the way to the Ice Park, since we'd passed it on the way to the River. On the way, we also went to the Church of St. Sophia, a gorgeous Russian church. Fran's picture doesn't really do it justice but I have yet to upload mine.

We finally arrived at the Ice Park; we could see the lights on from a couple blocks away.  This gave us hope because the Festival officially opens Jan 5, and the reason no one else wanted to come with us was because they were worried it wouldn't be open yet. Well IT WAS! It had actually opened the day before, on the 22nd. And, on top of that, it was a Disney theme this year!

I felt like such a child again; apparently I just had a look of "sheer delight and joy" for the longest time. There were even fireworks a few minutes after we walked into the park! I have pictures of that too, on my card....

We spent a couple hours there, going down the ice slides and taking funny photos and running around the park. I can honestly say there is only one experience in China that topped this, and it just barely wins- when I cruised through the Three Gorges. I had an absolutely fantastic, spectacular, amazing time; even despite the obvious parts of the park that were not ready yet (like the food shops and the random blocks of ice sitting around waiting to be carved up). In fact, we liked it better because again, there were very few visitors. Our pictures look so deadly because there weren't loads of people in them!  Aladdin's palace

 the giant ice castle (the ice slide wasn't ready yet- but yes, those are escalators and elevators!)

Finally we walked down the main cobblestone pedestrian street searching for a Russian restaurant. We found one after about an hour, and even though it wasn't that good, our legs were so tired from all the trekking of the day that it was wonderful just to sit. 

We took the overnight train back, and while the first night we played cards until lights out, that night we climbed straight into bed and fell asleep until we pulled into the Dalian station, at 7:30 am Christmas Eve.

That night Leanna came over, and we went to Tesco and bought a load of snacks and sweets and the tiniest bit of substantial food for dinner. Tropicana made this new fruit juice blend of pomegranates and peaches and whatnot and since we couldn't find cranberry juice, we settled on that instead. We splurged 16 rmb (~2 USD) on a cheese wheel and bought a baguette, then grabbed Korean takeout at the bottom of my development. We came home with our load and ate while watching the Santa Clause- the only Christmas movie I watched all season :( 

I met everyone else out at the clubs close to midnight- I decided not to drink though and let me tell you, watching everyone else be out off their face while techno is playing in a crowded club and you're bone dry sober...after a while, it actually gets tedious.

Christmas day I went for a massage with Carol- half an hour for 30 rmb (~4 USD) and it was amazing. The masseuse I had was a young guy, and he was really nice to me too, really interested yet not nosy about me being Chinese American. Then I watched a bit of The Godfather II and had Christmas dinner at 6. 

I had to choose between 160 rmb buffet at I-55, one of the first Western restaurants in Dalian, or a 200 rmb buffet at the Swissotel. I chose the former because certain people I thought would make me feel awkward were at the latter...but I regret my decision now. Though honestly, I think either one I went to would've made me feel awkward and out of place and wishing I was at the other, but at least at Swissotel the food would have compensated for it. Then everyone came over to my place afterwards (keeping in mind I only knew four of them, the rest I'd just met that night) and we watched Definitely Maybe until midnight.

So Christmas and the entire holiday season really had not gone at all like I'd planned it. The 26th is really hard too because it's the one year anniversary of when my grandmother died and I felt really alone without my family or any friends around...everyone was too busy working to come over. If there's any bright side at all to this month, it's that Harbin was absolutely magical and that I am now definitely ready to come home.

Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving, Chinese style, involved all the expats getting together at the Swissotel for the all-you-can-eat 180 rmb Thanksgiving Buffet (26 USD). It was expensive, yes, but absolutely tasty. Tom turkeys, lamb chops, giant hams, cheese, breads, fresh seafood, authentic sushi, dessert table, chocolate fountain...the only thing missing was pumpkin pie. On top of it all, I had nearly all my friends with me. Though mostly American this term, we of course brought the Irish, Brits, South Africans, etc. They loved it- though, who wouldn't love all that food?
It was a bit difficult to maneuver at first because I fractured a bone in my foot three weeks ago playing gaelic football and have been on crutches ever since. However, everyone helped me get food and because of the crutching about, I never got too full and kept eating plate after plate. After a while, people would leave the table when I sat down with more food because they couldn't stand the sight of more Thanksgiving dinner.

Afterwards, we decided to do the really American thing and go bowling at the 24 hour, three floors underground bowling alley. Obviously since I can't bowl on one foot, I played pool on my one foot instead. The games also became only 10 kuai ($1.50) after midnight, so we all killed time playing doubles pool until midnight. Fran came extremely close to bowling a 200, and for his fourth or fifth time bowling (apparently it's not big in Ireland) we were quite impressed. About one am we went home and slept off everything we ate, without the hassle of Black Friday the next morning. Though it was a great Thanksgiving on my own, living abroad, my only complaint would be that I do kind of miss the holiday buzz.

Wild Wild West Day ONE: Tombs, Movies Sets, and Helan Mountain

Right so I've been home about a week now. Time is really flying by, somehow I've managed to fall behind yet again.

Our first day in Yinchuan was freezing. The day started off on a great note when our driver, not even two minutes out on the road, accidentally rolled backwards into another car. There was a great deal of arguing between the two drivers over fault, and I got out of the van even to take pictures of the bystanders.

Our first stop was the Xi Xia Mausoleum, which were tombs from the Xi (Western) Xia Dynasty. Honestly, they just looked like giant anthills. The gloomy weather didn't help our lack of excitement either. But because there were four of us camera-happy girls, we took loads of funny pictures.

  Our next stop was a giant movie set where numerous films have been shot. Danny, our director, told us a whole generation of filmmakers who grew up during the Cultural Revolution used this set, because they would make films about the Sent Down Youth or the Re-education movement of the 60s and 70s. One of my favorite movies I recognized as having taken place there! To Live, which is from 1994 and stars Gong Li. Highly recommended. Anyway, we ended up exploring and taking more funny photos. There were also two tied up monkeys in the complex, they looked like they were going to bite my nose when I got close to them. The set is obviously just a tourist attraction now, but we could have spent half the day there if Danny let us, just taking pictures. My favorite part of the whole trip there might've been when a group of tourists kept trying to take photos of Brittney and Leanna just because they were white, and I started making funny faces whilst standing in between them. Imagine looking at a picture of two white girls with me in the middle scrunching my nose and sticking out my tongue...brilliant.

Our last stop of the day was Helan Mountain, which looked to be just giant rock formations but they actually had ancient carvings and drawings. I couldn't see a single one without having to stare at the same boulder for ages, but some of the others could really pick them out. It started to drizzle while we were there, and by the end of our walk through it, we were all just wet and cold. I ended up holding everyone up though because I was bargaining for some souveniers to bring home. I think the matter of contention was five kuai? So less than a dollar...but really, it was a matter of pride.  I ended up winning. Dinner that night was on Danny's contact in Yinchuan, who is the sister of a coworker in Dalian and whom Danny had never actually met. She's a professional singer, or was, and now gives voice lessons while her daughter is a news anchor on the local television station. Her husband turned out to be Shanghai born and raised, so we had a conversation in Shanghai dialect, which made me very happy, as it always does. The dishes at dinner were all fantastic, and kept coming even when we were stuffed. Because we were in the Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region, where a good majority of the people (the Hui minority) are Muslims, lamb is a staple meat. One dish was lamb raised so as not to taste gamey, and it was so tasty, the meat seemed to melt off the bone. Even the tea we had -ba bao, or Eight Treasure tea- was delicious. The dinner was definitely a good experience not just for the culinary satisfaction, but also because through Danny's polite conversation and the way he acted towards these three, it was a perfect demonstration of how Chinese people form and maintain guanxi as well.

New Year's Eve

I'm tired so I'll make this quick....

Today was New Year's Eve so we went to my cousin's grandfather's grave (on her mother's side, not related to me) and set off fireworks and burned paper money and offered food, etc- the reason why, I didn't quite catch, but I figure it was because it's the last day of the calendar year....?

Then we skipped lunch in order to really feast at dinner that night- we went to a restaurant, 16 of us, and had about 30 dishes total, including an endangered fish that is toxic if cooked improperly...

...There was also much wine and warm Coke (that's right. they served us heated coke.) and bai jiu -a very concentrated liquor. People were standing and making toasts about every five-ten minutes but it was fun. It was loud. Eveyone's faces were already red after the first couple toasts were made! I actually felt comfortable and welcome, for this little while.

We went back home and watched soccer- Iraq vs. China (they tied 1-1) and then around 11:45 the fireworks started- it's not like Fourth of July fireworks here; it's every man for himself fireworks- I came thisclose to getting my feet blown off by a firework set by a 14 year old when it turned on its side at the last minute and flew towards the wall instead of the sky.
I did set off a couple by myself though- about five or six, evenly timed, came out of what seemed like an enormous spitball shooter. For being a whole bunch of fire and gunpowder, it was enormously exciting.

It reminded me very much of American New Year; there's much anticipation (and a spectacular tv special) and it seems as if the Eve is much more fun than the actual day- although I know tomorrow we're going clothes shopping (of course, per tradition) and we're going to be doing Karaoke after dinner. Things are looking better here in Sichuan, but I'm still not sure how we're going to pass six more days.