This post was from Sept. 24 my internet access was down so is only being posted now... I have since returned from the trip to DanDong and have stepped into N. Korea territory.... I'll write a post about this later - have to study now.
In less than an hour I will be taking an overnight train to DanDong which is a stones through away from North Korea. We're spending our 4 day break there and will be visiting some nature sites (a forest) and some small beach resorts. Apparently the bridge that was used to ship military equipment from China to North Korea during the Korean war is still partly intact - half of it was destroyed by an American bomb....
I'm looking forward to the break from class and student life and will hopefully get to enjoy a bit of the outdoors before it because frigid. Haerbin is only getting colder from here on out. Today was a nice day but still colder than I'm used to for the end of summer.
Today after class a friend and I decided to break from tradition and skipped the cafeteria lunch and found a small restaurant with a large stream of people flowing in and out, shouting orders, prices and comments. We got caught up in the stream and decided to stay. Turned out to be a good decision because the food was excellent. Usually if there is a large crowd in/around a restaurant in China it means that either the food is excellent or extremely cheap.
We order two plates of xiaolongbao - which turned out to be the only thing they were making and selling. Xiaolongbao is basically stuffed dough that is steamed, kind of like Runza (if you've had one) but steamed, and there are different types of stuffing (rarely do you find the original xiaolongbao which is from Shanghai and stuffed with crab meat! and is very pricey). We ordered two different plates one with shitake mushrooms with pork and one with shitake mushrooms with a lovely leafy vegetable. You can then make your own small sauce of chillies, vinegar (yes Catherine vinegar is the key here!!) and soy sauce and dip the small dumplings in the sauce. It's delicious, but only if they're being made in front of you... They have nearly the same thing at the cafeteria and it tastes like a combination of soggy cereal and overcooked ground round. I still think the Chinese cafeteria's are a slight step up from those in America (although Tom would probably disagree).
We're about ready to leave now and I have not yet packed!!
I'm not pretending to have the literary capabilities that Steinbeck has shown in this book.
Nor do I pretend to be a dog accompanying you or anyone else through this journey. I just hope to be as good of a companion as was Charlie. And I hope you will join me in my travels.
1 comment:
Follow the crowd - hm... well, the mushroom and green leafy runza-like dish sounds great!
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