Food Blog: Part One

I knew the second my first bite of authentic Chinese cuisine touched my lips that I was going to need to save my food blog for the end of the trip. I needed to spend the two months we had really figuring out my favorite foods to share with you guys, because I love food and I think it’s been a very important part of this trip.

I’ve decided to divide my holy findings into two posts: food I ate during the travel portion of the trip (this post!), and food I ate in Hangzhou.

I did not take nearly enough photos of food during this trip as I should have!

Steamed Scallion Bun

Our hotel breakfast buffets were my first real experience of Chinese food where I could simply try what I thought looked good. On our first morning in Hong Kong, having eaten nothing since landing, I opened a steaming basket to reveal scallion buns; rice buns in a sort of layered, spiral roll, with pieces of scallion sprinkled throughout. A safe choice for the first morning, but seriously really delicious. So soft, warm, and with a very soft spring-oniony flavor.

The Mountain Terraces (written March 6)

This post is a belated one, about our day hiking through the rice terraces on the top of the mountains in Xin Jie, Yuanyang county, Yunnan. Yunnan province is almost as far south as you can get in China, and we spent a lot of our travel time in different places in the diverse and gorgeous area. Xin Jie, however, the old town on the peak of a mountain, surrounded by terraces and distant peaks and clouds, proved to be my favorite of all the places we went. Our arrival to this town itself would have stood on its own as a tourism event- riding in the back of our van for hours and it wound up and around switchbacks carved into the side of the mountain, steadily climbing ever higher, the drop offs on the edge of each turn growing steeper and steeper. Each hairpin turn was too sharp to see who was coming around the other side, the road had no lines or markings, and it wasn't wide enough for two cars to comfortably pass each other. The safest method of avoiding a crash was to honk your horn loudly at each turn so anyone nearby would hear you coming. (Car horns in China are generally used more as a method of alerting other cars to your arrival than as a last resort to warn a car or as an expression of frustration. They don’t ask a question, they simply tell other cars “Here I come, no matter whether you move or not” as the driver does just that.)

Happy Birthday to Me!!

What a wonderful couple of days!! Though I usually enjoy my birthday I was overwhelmed by the outpouring of warm greetings from the students, staff and teachers here in Hangzhou. (And of course by my three great DSHS students!) 

This was due in part, of course, to the information in my presentations to the Chinese English classes. In my presentation to the Chinese students I introduced myself, my family, favorite activities plus my educational and work background. I also included my birthdate in one of the slides partly to help them practice saying dates in English and also so that they’d realize that I was still working at an age when most Chinese women are expected to have retired and be at home with grandchildren (or dancing in the streets - but more about that later.). 

Anyhow, what I hadn't really contemplated was that in teaching over 1200 students that meant that they were all aware that my birthday was on Saturday! All over campus I received birthday greetings and at English Corner a group of students arrived with hand-written cards. The biggest treat was arriving for our Friday afternoon cooking class to find that the school had arranged a surprise party for me complete with balloons, a Birthday Girl crown and a beautiful cake made of a sort of angel food cake, cream filling, mangoes, pineapples and another fruit like a small tart apple.