Random Pictures of Stuff in China

      I could put so many things into this blog post! I decided for this one I am going to focus on food and tsum tsums.You know, these days everybody is taking pictures of food, and, what can I say? It can sometimes be really fun. Of course, you'll never see me taking pictures of my starbucks or something like that, but if some food looks really beautiful, or if it tasted especially delicious, then I might take a picture.

For example, this one was really nice, but there isn't really anything special about the food, so I never posted it anywhere. It is just some really beautiful looking food served Japanese style in the separate little dishes.

This was just a lunch that I made, and on a whim I decided to make it look visually pleasing. One of my favorite foods to eat these days are a kind of dumpling with different kinds of sweet filling inside (usually black seseme)called 汤圆(tang yuan).  

I actually really love Chinese pizza. This one was not as good as some of the others, but it was still delicious. The best pizza I have had (and I haven't had that much pizza in China, so don't trust me too much) was at some cafe in the middle of nowhere nearby West Lake. I think it was called Homestead or something. I really want to try and find that cafe again!

 

 

Since I came to China, I have been eating a lot of seafood. That often includes hairy crabs, and spicy crawfish. They are soooooo delicious. However, one thing you have to be careful of when you eat seafood in China is that when you order fish you are getting the whole fish. That includes all the bones, so you have to be very careful, especially if it is a smaller fish.

 

At school every day they give us a fruit to eat after lunch. One day I got the stragest banana I have ever seen. I just had to take a picture of it. I honestly don't know how this happened, but it is so funny!

 

A picture of my now all time favorite fruit. They are called pipa, and they are only in season for about three weeks a year. I was very sad when I found that out, because they are just so delicious!

Hui and I really enjoy going to eat at Korean BBQ restaurants. This particular one was a hot pot/ bbq, and this was the first time we came up with the idea of ordering too much, then taking it back to make noodles the next day. It is a great way to save money!

I really enjoyed my time with my friends in Hangzhou. These two particular friends I was eating with were friends I made in college at Ball State University. We were eating at a restaurant I have been to a few times called She Want. It is nearby West Lake, right across from the musical fountain. I must say, a lot of the food I have ordered from there is very sweet, but very delicious. One interesting thing they had on the menu is these small durian pastries. Durian is the smelliest fruit in the world, and it definitely takes some time to get used to. The dish in this picture actually reminded me of some of the unhealthy Chinese food my family liked to eat in Muncie, but I rarely see anything like that in China.

This was the birthday cake I bought for Hui. I bought it from Starbucks (yes, I said I wasn't going to photograph my Starbucks, but this doesn't count), and it was supposed to be a Father's Day cake.

All of these items were steamed by me with my new steamer! I love it, and I love steaming things. Also, they look really pretty.

This was just a very visually pleasing meal from a chain restaurant in In Time. It was delicious!

On this day, Hui introduced me to a new friend, Li Chenlan. She is so great! We went shopping together, tried on some expensive qipaos, and studied together in the library at Zhejiang University. Then, we ate at one of the most amazing restaurants I have ever seen with our boyfriends. This restaurant had a hot pot and a bbq on the table, and a buffet about a mile long, with every type of food you could imagine. They even had beer and bottles of baijiu for no extra cost. Amazing Amazing Amazing!!!

This was amazingly delicious bread from a bakery near the Alipay building on 文三路(wensanlu), called 布拉提(Bratee?). Inside it has a French style chestnut paste filling, that is so delicious I found myself licking the bread. Totally worth it!

Hui and I found a great Korean restaurant near Walmart at the Hangzhou sports stadium, and I swear that was one of the best meals I have ever eaten in China. It really took me back to the time when a great restaurant in Muncie called Oh Fusion was still open. The only difference is this was better than Oh Fusion. Oh I want to go back soon. I can't remember the name of the restaurant, but I will try and remember to post it next time I go to eat there.

I have always loved the cute little Japanese creations that are tsum tsums. One day I bought a bunch of Big Hero 6 tsums, and I decided to have a little fun trying to reinact scenes from the movie. Actually, it didn't go so well, but I think this first one was pretty good.

 

In Shanghai Disney Store we found tsum tsum backpacks. That would be awesome to have!

Hope you enjoyed this blog. I might do more like this. I enjoy taking random pictures.

 

My Boyfriend is Captain America

      So, closer to the beginning of his time working for Alipay, there was some kind of special event, and everyone wrote on a paper their wishes. Apparently my silly boyfriend, Hui, wished that he could become Captain America, because he knows how much I love the star spangled man with a plan. Well, after that someone read his wish, and they gave him a Captain America shield. That evening I got this picture:

Pretty much perfect!

Suzhou- The Canals

      Even back in America I had heard of the mediocrity of Chinese tour groups, or 旅游团. Our Chinese teacher warned us that most tour groups waste a lot of time on shopping, but when a tour group advertiser approached us outside of the museum, we decided to take it just to see if it really was as bad as people say. Well, it was really that bad, or you could even say it was worse. The appeal was that it was a boat tour that would take us around the different waterways in Suzhou, showing off some of the famous gardens. They didn't mention the little fact that the windows were too short and too dirty to see anything good or take any good pictures.  Afterward they took us on a boat to a "silk museum," which was actually just a couple of rooms showing about the production of silk, and then a huge shopping area. Yes, the truth is, it is really better not to use a tour group. After that sidetrack, we escaped from the tour group, and headed to eat some food. We tried it, and we learned, never ever EVER take a tour group...if you don't have to.

      Disappointed by the results of taking a tour group, we continued on to walk the streets of Suzhou. Though it was cold and rainy, it was quite enjoyable. We found one of those tourist streets that you can find in probably most cities in China. You know, the ones where they sell a lot of cheap knick-knacks and street food, that are so full of people you have to push your way through them? I really enjoyed walking around this bustling street and seeing all of the interesting things they had to sell.

I asked Hui why Chinese people like to make jade cabbages, but I'm not sure he even knew why, so he just said "you don't think it looks beautiful?" He thought it was funny that I asked that, so he made me take a picture with all the jade cabbages.

      In the afternoon we went to this nice little Japanese style cafe. In many popular tourist cities in China, you can see little shops or cafes that sell postcards, and if you write it in the shop, they will send it for you. I decided to buy a few postcards for my family and friends.

      The last thing we did on our Suzhou trip was take a boat down the canal. This was loads better than the stupid tour group boat we took, and we really got a great look at some places around this part of the city. While I was looking at it, I was thinking of how beautiful this city is, but how it is different from Hangzhou. I thought of it as being kind of dirty, but not in a bad way. It was dirty in a way that just seemed lived in, that would possibly lose its beauty if it was cleaned. The guide for the tour group said that the best time to see the city was in the rain, and I feel like he was right.

 

On the way back to Hangzhou, we were not able to get a bullet train ticket, which meant we had a five hour train ride back. We were in different beds on the train, so we decided to go to the food car and sit for a while. Unfortunately, my legs were getting restless, so we went back to the bed car. We arrived back in Hangzhou at 2am. It was a really fun time!

Final thought: I had heard of these fruit before from an article on facebook, and I saw them for the first time in Suzhou. We decided to buy them to see what they were like. If you were wondering, they were grown like that, by putting a mold around the fruit while it is growing. I call them baby fruit, but I have seen some in the supermarket that are shaped like an old man with a big long beard too. In my opinion, they taste kind of like cucumbers.