China 3--food

On this crowded pedestrian way you can get all sorts of food, in all sorts of forms.

Most of which comes dried

or cooked...

but all of which smelled pretty heinous.

All around town are restaurants like this, my local. There all pretty much the same. $1-3/meal.

As I've said before, ordering food is no easy task. The places without pictures on the wall often have these sorta menus, where, as an illiterate foreigner, it's pick your price!

These are something of my staples...

And the 30 cent 1/2 liter beers are nice too...

At this place, where by now i've made friends, i tried to order a dish of tofu, vegetables and rice. which i know as "dofu, shutsei, er mee fan". the frist time i said it, i got the above. not bad, but i didn't get any vegetables nor was it prepared as a dish as i had hoped. the next time i got all three, still prepared seperatly. so i tried to ask for 'shutsei, shutsei, shutsei, dofu, meefan' rolling my hands over eachother trying to demonstrate that i wanted them made together. i resorted to going into the kitchen and pointing to few vegetables to prove my point, but ended up with 5 dishes--tofu, rice, and three differente vegies in different plates.... I threw i tall together and showed them that's how i wanted it--as one dish.

Not willing to put up another fight where I was basically trying to tell them what and how to cook--which I did not want to do--the last time I showed up willing to eat whatever they would give me for 10RMB. They threw all the ingredients I had the last time into a dysjointed concoction of the ingredients preperad differently and slopped together into a big bowl. It was edible, but a sign that I should try another approach...

So when I returned to the same place a couple nights later (I liked the deaf/mute guy there) I tried pointing to the food of other people eating there. I pointed to what I thought was a tofu dish, a chicken dish, and a bok choy dish. What I got was a dish of bok choy, pork (with bones of course) and a dish of intestines (not tofu skin, as i thought it was)...blah!

I love how they roll out the noodles right in front of you, stringing 'em up into small strands by hand and throwing them right through the window, outside into an awaiting boiling pot.

A little restaurant near the hospital where you choose your own soup contents... Yes those are brains on the bottom left corner. I don't think I'd dare. This is an easier option to get what I want, except that they dunk everyone's stuff in the same big pot of broth, mixin all the juices...

I rode my bike and crossed over the Qiantangjiang bridge to the other side of the Hangzhou. Saw some of the barges moving the hoards of materials they use to carry out the immense amount of construction going on here. The barges were so full of materials they were submerged so that water was almost pouring in. I would have taken a photo, but, on a bike, I had to ride on the side walk part of the bridge where there were crowds of people on bikes and scooters, so I couldn't stop lest I have everyone behind crash into me. On the otherside, where new buildings are growing like flowers in spring, I visited a translator/friend of mine at the Zhejiang University. Here in the cafteria,

I had a hard time getting down my first taste of prawns. They don't exactly clean up 'em for ya like I've seen in the west. Head, legs, tail and all, creepy little things.

The local fruit shop.

Notice that all the bulbs are long life flourscents. They are the norm, as is energy efficiency everywhere. All the glitzy lights on buildings and pagodas are turned off after 10 or so. While there are many people and they certainly do consume a lot of energy, I think they are more conscious of their consumption than we in the states.

A fruit whose name I don't know and which I wouldn't care to try again--more looks than taste, this one.

This is the big shopping place nearby-- the Walmartization of China.


With everything from eletronics to sporting goods to food, it looks a lot like a store you'd see in America--but a bit different:
Fish and other meats in some petrified form.

Thankfully I haven't yet gotten sick. The food is pretty good. Hard to get anything without meat in it--one reason I have conceded my vegetarianism for the trip. Vegetable and even tofu dishes come with meat. Especially because I've eaten little meat in my life, I often don't know what meat I'm eating--often pork, I think, hopefully no non-farm animals....

p.s.- I've finally been able to get the video i wanted of a guy playing the 'hong' in barcelona, check out that blog to have a look/listen.