Anyways, we left off last time after the electronics hunting trip. I did some work that afternoon, and then supper time came along. Looks like Autumn is my food partner for the trip, she's discovered some food that she likes, so that's pretty cool. We hooked up with Peter (his real name sounds nothing like Peter, but right now I can't remember it) and Lu Ye. Both these guys are on Autumn's team, and they both kinda speak English, bonus!
We head out to yet another very fancy very new restaurant. I don't think anyone will ever take me to their favourite (still U for Trish) restaurant. Probably because they see us as an opportunity to try some really fancy restaurants. Actually I don't blame them... if you had some moneybags guy ask you "Wanna go for food? The company is paying and money is no object." would you take them to the place you eat at all the time? Obviously not, you'd take em to the fanciest place you can think of. So that's what these guys do.
Off to another Sichuan restaurant. I know I've been spelling Sichuan differently depending on what day it is and where my fingers hit the keyboard that day, but really it doesn't matter... it's always the same place, no matter how I spell it. The name isn't originally English, so I can spell it however I want and it's never a mistake. If you disagree, prove me wrong! Oh that's right, you can't, cus every third Chinese person who can spell words in English spells it differently. I win.
So back to my story, Sichuan restaurant. We had some awesome food, and I even took pictures! We had a bowl of fish drowned in some oily sauce, some spicy frog legs, peanut butter lettuce, some strange cucumber style veggie, some cabbage, and a cool pumpkin thing (it was cool looking, but kinda bland) all in all a good meal. We also had some beer, Tsing Dao and Steinlagger both Chinese, though I think the Steinlagger people want to be German. They're not though, Germans don't make weak beer. So we split 4 bottles, 2 of each kind. This is how it worked: First everyone gets a half glass of beer, then my glass is topped up. Then as I drink, my glass is continuously topped up. Maybe they were trying to get me drunk. But I swear that Peter's face slowly turning red was the only indication that there was any alcohol in this beer. Real beer would flatline these people easy I think.
So as we leave the restaurant, Peter was very red in the face. He laughed when he saw his reflection in the mirror, I think he was a little embarrassed. Anyways, he got to the subway ok, he said he was sober enough for that... he better have been sober enough, he only had about half a bottle. Lu Ye walked us the rest of the way to the Hotel, he seemed to be handling the booze much better than Peter.
After a quick stop at the Hotel, and an attempt to find George (he told us he would take us visiting places, but he bailed) Autumn and I decided to go to the Bund. Now I no longer feel bad about not finding the Bund. To be honest, there's not much to find. About 3/4 of the Bund is under construction. We walked along the last quarter of it while being harassed with salesman and their "bagwatch". There a couple new things to add to the list now "laser" and "jazz mean" aka. jasmine. I now have a new hatred of beggars. The Chinese beggars are quite different than their North American counterparts. They don't speak English for one, they don't even try. At least the vendors learn the word for what they're trying to sell. These beggars could learn "Please help" or something like that, instead they make gestures like they want to eat something and then shake a bowl or cup at you. The first beggar walked up to Autumn and I then started making these gestures. I thought she wanted to sell us food because we had been harassed by vendors already. I told her no thanks, there's no way I wanted food that touched this old lady anyways. Clearly "no thanks" was not an acceptable response because she stayed there, shaking her coin bowl at me. I didn't even know it was a coin bowl yet, I still thought she wanted to sell me food, maybe candy from her bowl. So I just turned around and ignored her. She tapped my arm a couple times and then left.
Some more hate for the beggars. Many of them will actually try to stop you from walking by them. And if you do make it past them they will follow you as far as they can, for as long as they can keep up with you. And the whole time they will push against your arm with their cup of change. It's only once you've passed the cup that they will leave you be. It's probably the first time I was happy that someone had difficulty walking and couldn't keep up with me. One guy was sitting on a board with wheels, some sort of wheelchair type thing, and he almost tripped us when he tried to cut us off to get money. I mean sure, feel free to beg, but don't go trying to bully people out of their money. I felt like punching some of them. There was quite a selection to pick from.
Anyways, the beggars didn't really ruin the evening, we had lots of fun walking around and seeing the sights. But I was happy to get back to my hotel so I could shower and sleep. It's crazy hot, so I end up taking two showers a day, just to keep cool. No wake up call this morning, so that was good!
I did have a breakfast date with Xu ZiPing, she's a really nice girl. She showed me the street vendor that made breakfast for Kevin and Emily. A really nice couple, and they seemed pretty skilled at making the breakfast. A couple of things to note when buying street food:
1) If you're picky about cleanliness, give up now, go to a restaurant
2) If you're not with a local, you will end up getting the LauWei discount, things cost %50 more when you're a foreigner
3) Eggs are brown, they have a dark yellow yolk, and the shells should be throw at your feet in the street
4) If you drop your utensil that you use to flip food, scramble eggs and do whatever else needs done, simply pick it up from the street, bang it on the side of the cart a couple of times and you're good to go, it's as good as new
5) Always use a lot of oil! Oil is good for you!
6) You don't need napkins, just eat your food out of the tiny plastic bag they gave you, be careful not to burn yourself, that stuff is hot
7) Enjoy your tiny piece of Chinese heritage, it's more authentic than anything served in the fancy restaurants
So breakfast cost 3 RMB normally it's 2 RMB but an extra egg is 1 RMB. It's a rice dough pancake with eggs and green onion cooked into it with some brown sauce. The sauce is something I've had before, it's sweet and kinda like gelatin consistency. I can't remember what it is. Anyways, it's delicious.
Then I went to work... I had to do a phone interview with someone in the US... what the hell?! Anyways, I did the interview, the connection sucked, it was a pain. But it's done. Then lunch... Autumn, Ed (he's Chinese but from the US office), Cheng Hua, DongBing and I went to a fancy restaurant. Autumn's been there before.
The first thing I noticed on the menu was that something really strange was shown on the cover. So I ask "What's that", nobody knew what it was in English, but DongBing noticed that the menu was written in English and Chinese. So he finds the dish in the menu... Sea Cucumber!!! So I tell him that I have to try it. He tells me it's 118 RMB per person... ok... that's like $18 or whatever. Done, I want it for lunch. Then he tells me it's very small. Still not caring, must have. So then he says ok, we'll only order for one person. Why they have the price per person is still beyond me. It's one whole sea cucumber, the price should be per sea cucumber. For those of you who don't know, a sea cucumber is actually an animal, it's not a veggie. We also ordered a meat platter that turned out looking like a butterfly when they served it. We got some veggies, some chicken, some smoked fish, some noodles, and some pork. The pork said "pork ribs" in the menu, and the picture made them look small, but you ordered per piece. I was expecting chicken wing sized pieces, as was DongBing. To our surprise it was pork hauks! And we ordered 5... one each! Oops! In the pictures, the butterfly is made of sliced cured meat and the gross looking thing in the orange sauce is very delicious and tender sea cucumber. It's kinda like jello in texture and uh... nothing else tastes like this, you'll just have to try it... or not.
There we have it folks, Sea Cucumber has made it off the to-eat list! And I found a friend to eat dog with!!! Chu WenJiang will take me to a Korean place where they serve dog.
Also to note, George bought us some train tickets to Hangzhou, we leave Friday evening and get back Sunday. Sounds like a blast to me. I should still be able to blog from there, if I have time.
steinies are from new zealand. it's the local beer when i was in aukland.
ReplyDeleteand sea cucumber had an odd texture and that's why i don't eat it but glad to know you liked it.