Yangshuo: One Week In

Here are a few more photos. I'm not sure which order they will load in.

Two pictures are of the Li River - both taken last week when I went on a bikeride to a village about 12 km away called Fu Li. There was a big market there the day we went - we had to take a ferry with the bikes to cross the river, so I took some shots of the scenery.

The other two pictures are at the cooking school - bowls of pork prepared for two different recipes: one involves chopped mint and another chopped spring onion. The other is a plate of veggies ready to be cooked, along w/ soy sauce, oil and water. In the background you can see the bike that I am using, parked next to two motorbikes owned by the women who work in the kitchen.

Yangshuo: BBQ in the Night Market

At night, the market becomes an eating area with several BBQ stands. I went last week with Kelly and Leo, and we ordered way too much stuff - they have a display and you choose what you want to BBQ - a lot of it is actually then deep fried first, then BBQd, so it's a bit greasy but some was pretty good. There was some fried pumpkin, and some good spicy chicken.

One picture here shows Kelly and Leo eating oysters, which were barbecued with lots of garlic in a tomatoey sauce. These were really good, and tasted almost like Italian food.

Another picture shows the display with various items - some more appealing than others.

The last picture is of me trying pig's penis. It didn't taste good at all - it actually just tasted like rubber. Kelly and Leo made me take this picture - they didn't eat any because they don't like it. We mostly got it for the novelty. I won't be having it again. In front of me though was a huge platter of BBQ fish - this was really good, the sauce was spicy and had cumin and lots of mint in it - this style is from the Southern part of Guanxi province, so there were definite Vietnamese influences here. Apparently there's another place in town that makes this type of BBQ fish even better, so I'll definitely try it at some point.

Yangshuo: Where I Live

Here are two pictures. One if of the house I am living in right now. The cooking school is in the front, then there's a courtyard, then the main part of the house which is in the picture.

The other picture is the swimming hole in the river which is close to the house. Sometimes there are rafts with Chinese tourists floating by, and they take pictures of me swimming - although I haven't been swimming for a few days since it's been raining.

Yangshuo: A Tour of the Market

Most of the people who take a class of the cooking school go on a tour of the main market before class, so they can see the different types of local produce, meats, and other items available. This is also where I help do the shopping for the school every morning - though I usually do this very early. I bike into town with a big basket, then do the shopping for the school, then send the basket back on a motorcycle taxi to the school so the women who work in the kitchen can wash and prepare everything before the students arrive.

 

So when the students are in the market, they are mostly just looking and everything has been bought already.

 

We enter the market on the far side, immediately passing people with water-filled trays of live frogs, eels and snails. There are lots of shapes of eels - some are as small as salamanders, while others are longer than my arm (and about the same thickness).

 

Next we enter the produce area, where we see all the different types of vegetables available. Pretty much everything in the market is grown locally. There are lots of different greens: chinese broccoli, water spinach, bok choi, pumpkin stems, etc. etc. There are also plenty of chilies in varying degrees of heat level, though nothing TOO spicy (no habanero here). Bell peppers are also common, as well as all sorts of leeks/chives/green onions. Then there are things like carrots, tomatoes, turnips, bamboo shoots, potatoes, celery, chinese lettuce (woseng), and other stalky type vegetables.

 

Right now pumpkin flowers are in season, and they are quite cheap here compared to in the US! I bought about 50 beautiful orange pumpkin flowers for about $1 today - we stuff them with a pork mixture and steam them.

 

Mushrooms are also common, both dried and fresh. Right now there is fresh black fungus, and also shiitake-like mushrooms.

 

There are approximately 50 stands in the market selling combinations of these things - also garlic, ginger, young ginger....and probably lots of other things I'm forgetting.

 

Next we pass by several stands selling pickled items which are usually slightly spicy - these are really popular here, and people put them in everything, from noodle soups to meat dishes. Most common are green beans, red chilies, and bamboo shoots, but there are others too, and in various flavors.

 

There are also lots of stands selling dried items. We buy dried ginseng, chinese dates and wolfberries for the school, but there are all the other Chinese dried foods, though mostly produce (and not seafood).

 

Next we pass by the BBQ stands where there are roasted geese and pieces of sweet roast pork, as well as things like pig tongue.

 

There are several stands selling tofu - fresh tofu, fried tofu, little tofu balls, and tofu like things made w/ rice and other non-soybean materials. I am not sure what everything is, but tofu prices are quite low compared to the US.

 

In the middle of the market there are stands selling live animals - chickens, black chickens, rabbits, geese. You can buy these live and carry them out with you. Or you can bring them to the back of the market where animals are slaughtered and sold. You can bypass the live section too and just go to the back of the market to buy a whole duck, rabbit, goose, chicken......or dog. I still haven't gone up close to see the dogs, but you can see some whole roasted dogs hanging in the back of the market. Apparently if you do go to those stands, you can see the live dogs in cages, and watch the whole process....I'm not sure if I'll be doing this.

 

Around the village there are lots of dogs, most of which will probably be eaten at New Years if not before - in Ecuador, all the dogs in the villages are very fierce and protective of their properties, but here most are afraid of humans or are very cute and nice. They definitely aren't the family pet. An exception is Pippy, Leo and Kelly's dog, who is a sweet (and slightly spoiled) poodle.

 

Back to the market: We walk through the butchering section, where there is pork of all sorts, and lots of people hacking away at bones and big cuts of meat with big knives, splashing bits of fat and blood all over the place. There is also some beef, and maybe lamb too...we buy pork for sliced pork dishes, and also another cut for minced pork. You can have the meat minced for a small fee right at the market, which is good for when we have a large group at the cooking school.

 

Finally we pass through the fish section, where there are a few types of live fish jumping around in small aquariums - sometimes they manage to jump out onto the pavement, and someone will scoop them back up and throw them back in the tank. There are also things like river crayfish, but not too much other seafood - a big difference from Guangzhou and Hong Kong where there was a lot.

 

There is very little fruit in the market itself - but there are lots of fruit vendors just outside the market, selling both local and tropical fruit (chinese bayberries, lychee, apples, peaches, plums, bananas, mangosteen, pineapple, etc). Mangosteen, though rather expensive in the opinion of most of my Chinese friends, are really delicious so I have been eating them a lot. In the US I don't think we can get them at all, so it's exciting to get to try them here. And they are certainly less expensive here than they would be in the US or UK - but not as cheap as they would be in more tropical areas like Malaysia, Thailand or Vietnam.

 

So that is the market! After the tour, the students get on the minibus and head to the school to cook many of the things they have seen!

 

I will hopefully be able to post some more pictures soon. Pam left yesterday, so I am in the house by myself now - so far so good. It has been raining a lot, but it's also cooled down a lot which is nice - I actually had to use a blanket in the night, which was unthinkable last week.

 

I can't see people's comments on my blog (since I can't view my blog anymore), so if you have anything to say, send me an email to let me know!

 

More soon I hope!

Yangshuo: Blog Problems

My blog doesn't seem to be loading anywhere in China now. So updates might not happen much more until I can figure out what the problem is. I can still email blog entries to the blog like this, but it will be harder to post pictures and stuff. But I'll look into the problem and hopefully figure something out soon. Things here are going great though - I love it here.

 

Can someone email me to let me now whether this post went to the blog or not?

 

Thanks！

Yangshuo: Living at a Cooking School

I've now been in Yangshuo for 48 hours. So far, things are pretty awesome.

I apparently have a talent for arranging internships for myself in the most beautiful and scenic locations in the WORLD - the village of Chaolong (which is about 6 km outside of Yangshuo), where I am staying, might be the best yet.

On Tuesday morning I left Guangzhou for the airport, after a breakfast of some mushroom dumplings (I didn't really understand how it worked, and I accidentally bought about 25 of them for about $1) The taxi to the airport was only ￥120, much less than i had expected, so that was nice - flight was right on time, and was quite quick (about 45 minutes in the air) and soon I was landing in Guilin! The pointed hills looked really cool from the airplane.

I was picked up by a female taxi driver who had a sign with my name. She spoke almost no English, so the hour long car ride was quite quiet, but nice. The highway between Guilin and Yangshuo is in very good condition - at parts it looked no different than the Merritt Parkway, except in gaps between the trees and hills there were rice paddies!

I met Pam when I arrived - I am staying at her house, which is attached to the original cooking school location in the village of Chaolong. She will only be here until Monday, when she leaves for Australia, so I will be taking over her tasks here once she is gone. This mainly includes doing the shopping for the school every morning at the market in town, but also includes helping book customers, organizing/coordinating and then just helping out in general. I am here to learn about Chinese food and also to learn the language, so my plan is to hang out at the school as much as possible to observe and learn as much as I can.

After settling in, Pam and I went to a nearby hostel where we rented a bicycle for me - for the next month it appears that I will mostly be traveling around by bicycle or on the back of someone's motorbike - either a friend's or a motor-taxi, which are quite common and cheap.

The Yangshuo Cooking School has been in Chaolong for over 5 years, but last year Pam and Kelly, one of the teachers, opened up a new branch of the school by the Li River in the main town. This location is quite nice too, and is convenient. Kelly is the primary teacher here, while Leo (her boyfriend) is one of the main teachers in Chaolong. Right now I am in Kelly and Leo's house using their computer, since Leo has a card reader. Both of them are about my age, are super nice, and speak great English.

The four of us had dinner on Tuesday, then went out to a local bar, then to a 6-year anniversary party of a friend's massage parlor. So there was lots of food.

I can't even remember everything I've eaten here so far, but some highlights have been an AMAZING mushroom soup, cold salad of local ferns (similar to fiddleheads!), crispy pork (much like chicharron), pumpkin stems w/ garlic, and a pig's stomach soup (sounds not-so-great, but was in fact delicious). This doesn't include the things we have cooked at the school, which I will get to later hopefully.

On Wednesday I got thrown right into helping at the school, since there was a very large group of 8th graders in town from the International School in Hong Kong. I stayed in Chaolong and helped out as both Leo and Sally (another teacher) taught in the two classrooms, about 17 people in each one - in both morning, and then again in the afternoon.

The kids did a pretty good job, but it was a bit stressful at times since the kids often forgot the directions - but I definitely felt useful, as there was a lot to help out with.

This morning was much calmer - I went to Kelly's class and got to cook along with four others - this time adults - we tried out a new menu which included steamed dumplings, sweet and sour pork, tofu w/ mixed vegetables, greens with garlic and spicy chicken w/ star anise.

Hopefully I am going to be good at cooking some Chinese dishes by the time I'm back in the US!
I've learned a lot already, so that's good.

There are swimming holes in the river about a 5 minute bike ride from where I'm staying - it's really hot here, so I went for a swim with Pam yesterday and it was really great - and in just about the most scenic location possible, next to rice paddies and with views of the pointed hills jutting out of the valley.

Oh, and I have gone to the market in the morning twice now with Pam, and I am attempting to learn which stalls she goes to, how much things cost, how much of what to get, and how to say things in Chinese. The language part might be tricky, but hopefully I'll be okay.

The local market is great - small enough to be manageable, but big enough to have a good variety, mostly local ingredients. I'll eventually be able to take some pictures.

After the market, we go to a small stall next door for breakfast of rice noodle soup w/ a delicious pork broth - you get to choose which pickled condiments you want to add to your soup, and you can also choose a meat. They also throw in some crunchy soybeans. Very good and tasty breakfast for about $0.40

That's all I have time for now....I've included some pictures.

If anyone has questions, post them in the "Comments" section and then I can answer them. Also, leave a comment if you read this. Aside from my parents, I dunno if anyone is even reading this, so it would be nice to know my audience so I can try to customize the posts to fit your interests :)



View of the garden from the entrance of the cooking school.


Pam's house, which is where I'm staying. The cooking school is actually part of the house too.


A small road between the house/school and the swimming hole.



Countryside near Chaolong.


View of the valley from nearby the swimming hole (about 5 minute walk from where I am living)


View of the Li River from the cooking school in town. This is the river that many boats sail down from Guilin. The swimming hole is on a smaller river.


A meal that was cooked by one of the 8th grade teachers. The table is in front of the garden.


A better look at the meal from the cooking school. Counter clockwise: rice, steamed chicken w/ ginseng and chinese dates, eggplant Yangshuo style, pork w/ mixed vegetable, green veggie w/ garlic, and then something else (I don't know who made that or what it is - it might have been made for the staff)


8th graders cooking!


More 8th graders cooking!



Leo and Pippy (his and Kelly's dog) on his motorbike. This was just before I hopped on to come over here to write the blog entry!

Guangzhou: Dim Sum in the City Where It All Began

Willa told me that dim sum would be good in Guangzhou, and it didn't disappoint. We ate at Guangzhou Restaurant, and here are a few pictures.


The second floor of the restaurant.


Fried milk.



Saltwater fried dumplings, turnip cakes.


Willa pouring tea - we shared a table with three older ladies, including the lady in this picture.

Waitress preparing the tea.

Looking down from the third floor of the restaurant.

Third floor view again.

Guangzhou: The China Adventure Begins

I can't believe I'm really in China. I'm already glad I decided to come here - there is a lot to see, observe and attempt to understand, though I already feel that on this trip I'll only scratch the surface.



I didn't really know what Guangzhou would be like, but I pictured it as a big, polluted, dirty city with crowds of people and chaos. In reality, this city (formerly known as Canton) is quite different than how I pictured it.



The first thing I noticed here is how green it is. In Hong Kong, and even in cities like New York and Boston, you see lots of brick and steel, but not a lot of green (unless you are in a park). Here there are nice parks and gardens, but there are also hundreds of tree lined streets - oftentimes, the trees are so tall and big that the street is completely shaded. Here is an example:





These streets aren't necessarily residential side streets - they are often main roads with shops, restaurants, apartments, etc. So it's really quite a beautiful city.



Between the big streets, there are lots of neighborhoods, many with alleys and pedestrian-only walkways like this one:



These neighborhoods are really neat - on my first afternoon here, I wandered around near my hotel into a neighborhood like this one, and ended up at a local wet market, where local residents were buying raw and roasted meats, vegetables and fruit. I took a picture of some dragonfruit.







And here's a picture of the street outside the market.






The other main thing I noticed right away here is that there are almost no other foreigners. Not very many people speak English, although many street signs (and signs and announcements in the metro) are in Chinese and English.



Before meeting up with Willa yesterday evening, I managed to buy a jasmine milk tea with tapioca. In order to do this, I had to whip out the Cantonese phrasebook and look up 'jasmine' in the dictionary. Once I figured this out, the kids working at the tea stand understood what I wanted. Everyone had a good laugh about the lack of understanding - but at least the phrase "bye-bye" is the same in both Cantonese and English, so even if I can't talk to people, I can at least say goodbye.



Here's a picture of my bubble tea.



Last night Willa came and met up with me at my hotel at 5:30. We walked around a bit through some more random neighborhoods, then eventually took the metro to a Hakka restaurant she had picked out for us to eat at - we met up with a few of her friends, who brought along others, so we were a party of six for the meal. Hakka food isn't too common outside of southeastern China - here's a link to the wikipedia article:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hakka_cuisine

My favorites included a braised stuffed tofu, salt-baked chicken and steamed loofa with garlic. After a leisurly dinner, four of us went to another place by the Pearl River for dessert. We sat on a balcony overlooking the river, as river cruise boats floated by, and ate two orders of banana pancakes. Willa's friends are regulars at this place and they always come for the panckes, which are fried in butter - they are much like Chinese scallion pancakes, but with banana instead of scallions. Yum.

Today was a day of exploring Guangzhou. Willa and I met up at 11 and walked from my hotel to a big pedestrian street in the center of the city.

For some reason this picture makes it look dark, but it was actually quite hot and sunny out.

We walked through a big square (sorry I don't remember names of any squares or streets)

We also walked through a jade market, and through a street with lots of food stands - including some more interesting items, like scorpions, baby squids and larvae:

I did not try any of these, since I was saving room for dim sum! :)

Willa took me to a place called Guangzhou Restaurant, a popular tea house founded in 1935. This was a true dim sum palace - multiple floors, an internal courtyard, dozens (hundreds?) of waiters and waitresses. We ordered some items from the menu, and I also went down to the 2nd floor (we were seated on the 3rd floor) where you could choose out items yourself.

I will post dim sum pictures in a separate post - but this dim sum easily beat out what I ate in Hong Kong and Macau - we had full tea service too, about 6 dim sum dishes, and also ordered an item off the menu: fried milk.

Here's a NYT article about fried milk: http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9D03EEDB1F3EF93AA35754C0A96E9C8B63

This version had shrimp and scallops, and was topped with a crunchy nut that tasted somewhat like pistachios.

The meal was a lot of fun, and the place was completely full (despite being Monday. Willa said the wait is usually quite long on weekends)

After a nice lunch, we walked around some more. Some streets have traditional gates at the start of the street.

We walked through several markets. I didn't take many photos since many people in the market didn't want us taking photos of them, or their products. But I did take a few.

We passed this stand that was selling turtles, frogs, toads and snakes. They were not being sold as pets.

We went to a market with lots of medicinal herbs and spices. I took this picture of star anise (below) and dried tangerine peel (above).

Another market we went to had dozens of stalls selling dried seafood: abalone, shrimp, scallops, seahorse, mussels, and sharks fin (shown in this picture)

Here are some guys with bicycle carts near the dried seafood market.


There's a lot of construction going on Guangzhou - huge buildings (malls, apartments, shopping centers) are going up right next to small alleyways filled with tiny shops and apartments. It's an interesting contrast. There are lots of big roads cutting through the city as well, many with pedestrian walkways to cross over.

In the afternoon we walked around Shamian Island, which had very nice gardens and a beautiful looking Starbucks. The US Consulate is here, and this is the only neighborhood in the city where I have seen other Americans visitors.

In the evening, Willa and I headed toward the eastern side of the city for dinner (see my previous post). It was really nice that Willa was able to show me around the city today - I learned a lot and she was an excellent guide! So Willa, if you're reading this, thanks!!!

I was very impressed with Guangzhou, and I'd definitely consider returning here someday.

Tomorrow I am off to Guilin - I leave for the airport in the morning, and I'm excited. I will miss Cantonese food though - it's been delicious. But I'm excited to see what other great meals I'll have in the rest of China.

Guangzhou: Hunan Food and Dry Cleaned Socks!

I am kind of going in reverse order here with my blogging, starting with the most recent event: Monday night's dinner.

Willa and I headed on the metro to the eastern side of Guangzhou, which generally is a newer part of the city. We walked through a huge mall, and saw some big skyscrapers....then decided to eat dinner at a Hunan Restaurant across from the mall called Xiangcunguan Restaurant. It seemed a bit trendy, but it looked popular.



The menu was a big picture book, and everything looked good. I considered asking the restaurant if I could take a menu home with me - it would have made a lovely coffee table book. There were certainly some more exotic items on the menu (frog, snake, etc) but we ended up with dishes that weren't too different than things I have had before in the U.S. Overall, our meal was excellent - lots of strong flavors, though perhaps they dumbed down the spiciness for us a bit, since nothing was too hot.

Part way through the meal, we were asked to put away our cameras, so I only got a few food photos here.


Eggplant and string beans.


Willa in the restaurant.



A hot skillet with smoked tofu, slivers of fatty pork, with lots of chilies and scallions.

We also had a beef dish, where the beef was also smoked, and tasted a lot like hickory smoked bacon. And a sauteed cabbage dish with black vinegar - a bit oily, but very tasty. I also had a watermelon juice with the meal - it was very good.

Back at my hotel this evening, I found that the laundry I dropped off yesterday had been hung up in my closet - it was a bit expensive because everything (even the socks!) was dry cleaned!

I promised Willa I'd take a picture of this, so here it is.

Here's another picture of my room. I'm staying at the Hua Tian Hotel. It's quite a nice room in general - the bed is quite hard (apparently this is common in China - Willa says it's good for my back). But for the money, you get a LOT more here than you do in Hong Kong.

Guangzhou: Entering China

This morning in Macau, I changed some money and then needed breakfast before departing for China. Since it was Sunday, dim sum seemed like a good choice, so I chose a place very close to my hotel which was crowded with people. No one spoke English, and it was hard to figure out where I could sit - none of the hostesses seemed to care that I was there. Eventually I went to a table near the entrance and sat with an elderly man (seemed like a local) who was dining alone.

Ordering was done on a card here, which was all in Chinese, but the man across from me helped me check off 'har gau' and 'char siu cheung fan' which were the two best things I knew how to say (other than shumai, but I didn't want shumai). Then when the waitress came I walked over to a neighboring table and pointed to some translucent rice dumplings that they had, so I could get those too.

The dim sum was good - the char siu cheung fan had pieces of sweet roast pork, cilantro and chives wrapped in rice noodles, and the dumplings had bits of pork, celery, bamboo shoot and pinenuts! The har gau had big chunks of shrimp - quite good. This was plenty of food.

I packed up, checked out of my hotel and went to the bus ticket office to buy my ticket to Guangzhou. The woman here didn't speak any English either, but managed to communicate that I'd be picked up at 10:50, then brought to customs for Macau, walk through, enter customs in China, then get a bus again on the other side which would leave at 12:15 and arrive in Guangzhou at 2:45.

The woman knew exactly what she was talking about - the bus to the border was quick, but customs had long lines (Chinese tourists going home after a weekend in Macau) and then there were forms to fill out for entering China (no, I have not been in contact with a pig in the past week) I got through just in time to get my 12:15 bus, which sure enough DID arrive exactly at 2:45 in Guangzhou.

The ride was nice - I had a front seat in the bus, which provided nice views - the Pearl River Delta is very green, with lots of small gardens and banana trees, with pockets of development all over the place. Approaching Guangzhou was like approaching NYC - it looks massive, and it is: more than 10 million people.

I got dropped off at the big Marriot, which was good because I was able to go inside and speak to someone in English. I got a map of the city, and then caught a cab to my hotel.

My hotel is very nice - paying less here than I paid for my tiny room in HK, and here I have a queen sized bed, huge bathroom, big TV, AC, desk, etc. It's a 3 star business class hotel, and my room costs about 24 us dollars a night - i decided to go this route because the youth hostel was $20 per night! There are tons of business hotels here, and hardly ANY western travelers, so I guess this makes sense.

So I arrived safe and sound in Guangzhou! It's a very interesting city, I like it a lot so far. I'm off to bed now, so I'll be back with more updates tomorrow! There is a huge computer gaming hall on the 2nd floor of my hotel (about 250 computers) so internet access will be easy for the next day while I'm here.

So, more soon!