Life's a Stitch

China Chapter 2 - the food

There are so many ways to approach the subject of food, it may have to be in two posts. I could do it by the meal: brekkie, snacks, lunch and dinner, by the odd signage translations, or unusual offerings. How about we start with breakfast and snacks.

Our accommodation, no matter luxury or basic, included wonderful breakfasts. All buffets, there were traditional western choices and a wide variety of local items: congee (rice porridge), noodles, stir fries, steam buns and pastries. An example:

The steam bun pictured was filled with delicious rich, eggy, coconut custard. Didn’t see those again after leaving Beijing. The absolutely best thing to pass these lips in China, possibly anywhere in the world, were these “Net Red Dirty Bags” in Hongzhou. 

It’s a croissant made of chocolate pastry, slathered with ganache, rolled in cocoa powder. Once the word got out, our group wiped out their supply. Sometimes called dirty bread, I am determined to find these in Vancouver.

Snacks. How about frog on a stick? Or fresh market frogs?

I’ve eaten frog legs in my past, and yes, they taste like chicken, but silk worm pupae don’t. 

I got brave and popped one in. They taste like dirty wood. I chewed and chewed then it struck me, I should just swallow and get it over with. So I did. Silk worm pupa? Been there, done that, don’t need to do it again.

Variations on the familiar, zoom in to read the flavours:

And the unfamiliar:

Yangtze on the Go - you get what you pay for, plus more

That was the name of our China tour sold by UTO Vacations, based in Ontario, Canada.

Background: These are super low cost trips, subsidized by government and businesses, requiring visits to factory “museums” to hear a sales pitch, followed by a shopping visit in their showroom. There is no obligation to buy, and travellers are asked to consider it an educational cultural experience. We visited manufacturers of pearls, jade, tea, teapots, silk, And traditional Chinese medicines  It was a small price to pay, considering the cost of the trip, 15 days for $1300CDN including airfare, accommodation (hotels and four nights on a river boat) and amazing breakfasts. There were additional excursions available at a cost. 

Reading reviews in advance, there were a fair share of negatives from people whose expectations indicated they should have taken a higher priced tour. These trips require a sense of adventure and humour and we were lucky to be in a group of 36 like-minded travellers.

China, so filled with people, history and culture, it’s difficult to know where to start. Maybe with the stereotypes:

Yes, Beijing is smoggy. Yes, there are a lot of people. We rode for a hundred Kilometers (60 miles) on a train and passed high rise apartment complex after high rise apartment complex. We were amused when our guide announced we were entering a small city with a population of ten million.

Yes, they are technically advanced. We rode the Maglev train (Magnetic Levitation) in Shanghai, that floats above a track at 430 kilometres per hour (267mph). 

And this huge country’s entire highway system and accompanying bridges were all built in the last 15 years.

Yes, cheap things made in China cost even less there. We laughed that the things we didn’t buy in Spain, because they were made in China, we ended up buying in China. We did find something made in North America - western style Köhler toilets. 

The government is a socialist capitalist people’s system, figure that one out. But for your average wage earner it seemed sort of like life in a unionized environment. Someone I met said he didn’t care about who his leader was, he just cared about what was in it for him, what he’d get out of the deal.

Overall it was a wonderful culturally educational trip, thanks to our passionate and knowledgeable English speaking guides. The scenery ranged from huge cities, to the countryside, to the Three Gorges area of the Yangtze River. It is a paradox of ancient and modern.

Lots more to come, including the food, where this blogger bravely eats a deep fried insect pupa.

65th Birthday x 2

65?! Making it to this official marker of old age, in numbers of years  I’ve  successfully  outlived two grandparents and one parent. Beating the family averages, I was lucky to celebrate it twice, thanks to crossing the international dateline. This was taken on Birthday #1 in Chongqing China, at an airport Burger King.

Lots more to come on our great China adventure, the highlight pictured here on the Great Wall.