Let's try this again
May. 18th, 2010 09:32 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ximenLivejournal is loading, but the update page isn't, which makes me think the problem isn't China, but LJ. So I'm resorting to Dreamwidth for the time being, and hoping the cross-posting works.
Yesterday I went to the tourist bus station with the vague intention of visiting on of the old towns. Unfortunately, I'd gotten a slow start that morning and missed all the buses to Pingle, so I figured I'd try the nearby Luodai Old Town, which also had the advantage of being the second-cheapest ticket available. Unfortunately, Luodai turned out to be less "Old Town" and more "theme park." But I did get some entertaining wandering in, along with the obligatory photo ops (one with a college student and his friend, the other with a four year-old boy). Half the food places seemed to be selling some kind of "stone (character I don't know) tofu" so I decided to try some for lunch. It turned out to be a ceramic bowl large enough for my entire head to fit in, with room left over, and filled with chunks of soft tofu, mushrooms, green vegetables, a various meats. The bowl was placed on a burner and I was told to leave it alone until it boiled. In the meantime I contented myself with my bottomless cup of soymilk.
When I got back I lay down and rested for a while, until my Chinese roommates came in. They gave me some spicy chicken feet and strawberries to snack on, and we talked about the importance of eating and how no one should ever lose weight on vacation. By that point I was getting hungry, and chicken feet and strawberries do not a dinner make, so I wandered off in search of food. Since I had no idea what I wanted to eat, I wandered aimlessly for a while, then finding myself back near the hostel and no better off, I finally just walked into a little restaurant and asked what their specialty was. "Rice or noodles?" "Noodles" "Dandan Noodles" "Okay, I'll have one of those." It turned out to be amazingly good. The noodles were perfectly chewy, mixed in with tiny crumbles of pork and ribbons of cabbage, all coated in a rich spicy sauce with garlic and ginger and green onion. Delicious!
Overall, yesterday was a tourism failure but a culinary success. And really, for all that I am enjoying visiting temples and museums and sacred mountains, any trip to China is first and foremost about the food.
Tomorrow: the sacred mountain, two long bus rides, and the piece of tofu that nearly defeated me.
Yesterday I went to the tourist bus station with the vague intention of visiting on of the old towns. Unfortunately, I'd gotten a slow start that morning and missed all the buses to Pingle, so I figured I'd try the nearby Luodai Old Town, which also had the advantage of being the second-cheapest ticket available. Unfortunately, Luodai turned out to be less "Old Town" and more "theme park." But I did get some entertaining wandering in, along with the obligatory photo ops (one with a college student and his friend, the other with a four year-old boy). Half the food places seemed to be selling some kind of "stone (character I don't know) tofu" so I decided to try some for lunch. It turned out to be a ceramic bowl large enough for my entire head to fit in, with room left over, and filled with chunks of soft tofu, mushrooms, green vegetables, a various meats. The bowl was placed on a burner and I was told to leave it alone until it boiled. In the meantime I contented myself with my bottomless cup of soymilk.
When I got back I lay down and rested for a while, until my Chinese roommates came in. They gave me some spicy chicken feet and strawberries to snack on, and we talked about the importance of eating and how no one should ever lose weight on vacation. By that point I was getting hungry, and chicken feet and strawberries do not a dinner make, so I wandered off in search of food. Since I had no idea what I wanted to eat, I wandered aimlessly for a while, then finding myself back near the hostel and no better off, I finally just walked into a little restaurant and asked what their specialty was. "Rice or noodles?" "Noodles" "Dandan Noodles" "Okay, I'll have one of those." It turned out to be amazingly good. The noodles were perfectly chewy, mixed in with tiny crumbles of pork and ribbons of cabbage, all coated in a rich spicy sauce with garlic and ginger and green onion. Delicious!
Overall, yesterday was a tourism failure but a culinary success. And really, for all that I am enjoying visiting temples and museums and sacred mountains, any trip to China is first and foremost about the food.
Tomorrow: the sacred mountain, two long bus rides, and the piece of tofu that nearly defeated me.