In case you're not too familiar with me, I have food issues. I'm a vegetarian who doesn't eat vegetables. Yep. Well I might have to adapt that line because recently leafy greens like spinach, kale, collards, chard etc have made their way into my daily diet in the form of blended green smoothies. But as for just plain steamed or fried vegetables, I ain't havin' it. So obviously there was a lot of concern on the part of Yujing's family regarding what I'm going to be eating. When we got to Yujing's home, her mom prepared more fresh fruit than I've ever eaten. Watermelon, honeydew, lichees, dragon's eyes (a bigger variety of lichee), a melon which I don't know the English translation of, etc. I'm used to eating fruit, but usually as part of a blended smoothie, but it tasted really good. Eating a fruit with seeds is a bit different than when they are all blended together in the Blendtec, but good nonetheless.
After eating fruit, Yujing's sister drove us to a hotel room, and her mom gave us a nice bag of lichees to snack on throughout the day. Driving through Foshan was remarkably similar to Taiwan, espescially Banchao City in the suburbs of Taipei. While there aren't as many scooters as in Taiwan, there are the familiar sights of large air conditioned luxury buses, and small scooter repair shops where the workers prefer to smoke and chat instead of repairing scooters. The sidewalks and shops have a similar layout, with a large overhead lip coming out from each building to protect those walking beneath it from the rain. Some of the buses here have really long rear view mirror on both sides that extend from the top of the bus out like antennae on a caterpillar. We got lucky, because while the forecast had predicted a cloudy rainy day, the sun was out in Guangzhou. The city has a lot more trees than I had expected, and Yujing's sister helped us check into a hotel.
We freshened up with a couple of showers, changed our clothes and managed to stay awake. In the evening Yujing's sister and mom picked us up and we went to dinner. We were ushered into a private room in a restaurant with Yujing's two uncles, three cousins and their wives and two kids. I was nervous about what I might be able to eat, but was able to eat some lotus root and peapods. They were prepared with black fungus, which I was unable to find the courage to try. Looking through the menu, I ordered two of the dishes that didn't contain meat; a plate of custard tarts and a bowl of bird's nest soup. If you've never heard of bird's nest soup, it's a soup that is made from the nest of the cave swallow, which builds it's nest using their spit. It's very sweet, and has small strands that are kind of halfway between jelly and a soft noodle. It might sound gross, but it's actually pretty good, and I didn't have to use chopsticks to eat it. I had never used chop sticks before, and was struggling with the vegetables, so the waitress brought out a very large serving fork. I was also quite lucky because the restaurant's specialty was a pastry that appeared kind of like a larger disc of shredded wheat, but tasted like a croissant. Yujing's extended family was very warm, and gave me a good welcome. Her cousin's son is 5 years old, and was so cute, he brought me several custard tarts, and refilled my cup with beer a couple of times. By the time that we got back to the hotel room, it was 11:00, and we were ready to sleep.
The following day, we took a trip to the Poly Canal Plaza, a new mall that is being built in the Nanhai district of Foshan after having breakfast at the hotel. I ate some toast, watermelon and took a bite of lotus root, but it was a little too spicy. The Poly Canal Plaza is a state of the art shopping mall, and the grocery store within the Jusco department store carries western food if I should ever need some. It's pretty hot here, and it has high humidity, but it's not as bad as Taiwan. The mall had a Jusco, a huge department store where we bought some pajamas, towels, and I got a few books that help Chinese kindergarteners learn Pinyin (a phonetic way of transcribing Chinese with our alphabet) and beginning Chinese characters. Yujing ate lunch at a Thai restaurant, and I practiced using my chopsticks. I'm no professional with them, but I'm getting better. After eating, we took a bus to Yujing's parents house. The buses here are really convenient. We didn't have to wait long, and the bus fare was only 33 cents. Just like in Taiwan, there are plenty of taxis available and they're cheap as well, usually about two or three dollars.
We got back to Yujing's parent's home at about 4PM and we went for a walk to a meat and vegetable market to buy some chicken for dinner. It was kind of cool because they had tons of live fish and even live chickens that you could choose from. The chicken being sold comes from live chickens on site, and for an extra fee you can choose the chicken that you want to eat and have it prepared while you wait. For those who do pick out a chicken, it is taken to a back room and killed, after which they bring it out for you. Sure there's blood and it's not a pretty sight, but it's more humane than the conditions in which chicken are prepared for the market back in the USA. You can also be assured that purchasing such a chicken is fresh and came from a healthy source. The chicken cages are bigger than the ones that store bought chickens in the US have a chance to live in, and before being brought to market, the chickens are raised on a farm where they are free to walk freely. It's admirable that the people have not tried to distance themselves from the actual act of butchering. US supermarkets have packaged things to the point where one might forget that what they are eating was once alive, and that isn't such a good thing. There was a small bakery just up the road, and luckily they sold plain bread. We had to look for a bit to find it, amidst the deceptive loaves that concealed ham or beef, or even worse deadly almonds or walnuts for me. I have a really bad allergy to nuts, especially walnuts and hazelnuts, and brought two Epipens in case I have a bad reaction. Yujing's mother purchased a toaster oven for my visit, and I prepared some toast with cheese for dinner, in addition to a ton of honeydew melon and lichees.
After eating fruit, Yujing's sister drove us to a hotel room, and her mom gave us a nice bag of lichees to snack on throughout the day. Driving through Foshan was remarkably similar to Taiwan, espescially Banchao City in the suburbs of Taipei. While there aren't as many scooters as in Taiwan, there are the familiar sights of large air conditioned luxury buses, and small scooter repair shops where the workers prefer to smoke and chat instead of repairing scooters. The sidewalks and shops have a similar layout, with a large overhead lip coming out from each building to protect those walking beneath it from the rain. Some of the buses here have really long rear view mirror on both sides that extend from the top of the bus out like antennae on a caterpillar. We got lucky, because while the forecast had predicted a cloudy rainy day, the sun was out in Guangzhou. The city has a lot more trees than I had expected, and Yujing's sister helped us check into a hotel.
We freshened up with a couple of showers, changed our clothes and managed to stay awake. In the evening Yujing's sister and mom picked us up and we went to dinner. We were ushered into a private room in a restaurant with Yujing's two uncles, three cousins and their wives and two kids. I was nervous about what I might be able to eat, but was able to eat some lotus root and peapods. They were prepared with black fungus, which I was unable to find the courage to try. Looking through the menu, I ordered two of the dishes that didn't contain meat; a plate of custard tarts and a bowl of bird's nest soup. If you've never heard of bird's nest soup, it's a soup that is made from the nest of the cave swallow, which builds it's nest using their spit. It's very sweet, and has small strands that are kind of halfway between jelly and a soft noodle. It might sound gross, but it's actually pretty good, and I didn't have to use chopsticks to eat it. I had never used chop sticks before, and was struggling with the vegetables, so the waitress brought out a very large serving fork. I was also quite lucky because the restaurant's specialty was a pastry that appeared kind of like a larger disc of shredded wheat, but tasted like a croissant. Yujing's extended family was very warm, and gave me a good welcome. Her cousin's son is 5 years old, and was so cute, he brought me several custard tarts, and refilled my cup with beer a couple of times. By the time that we got back to the hotel room, it was 11:00, and we were ready to sleep.
The following day, we took a trip to the Poly Canal Plaza, a new mall that is being built in the Nanhai district of Foshan after having breakfast at the hotel. I ate some toast, watermelon and took a bite of lotus root, but it was a little too spicy. The Poly Canal Plaza is a state of the art shopping mall, and the grocery store within the Jusco department store carries western food if I should ever need some. It's pretty hot here, and it has high humidity, but it's not as bad as Taiwan. The mall had a Jusco, a huge department store where we bought some pajamas, towels, and I got a few books that help Chinese kindergarteners learn Pinyin (a phonetic way of transcribing Chinese with our alphabet) and beginning Chinese characters. Yujing ate lunch at a Thai restaurant, and I practiced using my chopsticks. I'm no professional with them, but I'm getting better. After eating, we took a bus to Yujing's parents house. The buses here are really convenient. We didn't have to wait long, and the bus fare was only 33 cents. Just like in Taiwan, there are plenty of taxis available and they're cheap as well, usually about two or three dollars.
We got back to Yujing's parent's home at about 4PM and we went for a walk to a meat and vegetable market to buy some chicken for dinner. It was kind of cool because they had tons of live fish and even live chickens that you could choose from. The chicken being sold comes from live chickens on site, and for an extra fee you can choose the chicken that you want to eat and have it prepared while you wait. For those who do pick out a chicken, it is taken to a back room and killed, after which they bring it out for you. Sure there's blood and it's not a pretty sight, but it's more humane than the conditions in which chicken are prepared for the market back in the USA. You can also be assured that purchasing such a chicken is fresh and came from a healthy source. The chicken cages are bigger than the ones that store bought chickens in the US have a chance to live in, and before being brought to market, the chickens are raised on a farm where they are free to walk freely. It's admirable that the people have not tried to distance themselves from the actual act of butchering. US supermarkets have packaged things to the point where one might forget that what they are eating was once alive, and that isn't such a good thing. There was a small bakery just up the road, and luckily they sold plain bread. We had to look for a bit to find it, amidst the deceptive loaves that concealed ham or beef, or even worse deadly almonds or walnuts for me. I have a really bad allergy to nuts, especially walnuts and hazelnuts, and brought two Epipens in case I have a bad reaction. Yujing's mother purchased a toaster oven for my visit, and I prepared some toast with cheese for dinner, in addition to a ton of honeydew melon and lichees.
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