Our Trip I The Food

We left for a trip to tour China on Sept 2. We wanted to visit the cities in which some of our children were born. I didn't blog much while we were gone because the internet was a bit funky even with Nord VPN and I really didn't think we needed to advertise that our house was empty for that period of time.  I wasn't sure how to blog about the trip...chronological, order of importance, or what?So lets do order of importance-

FOOD!

We arrived in Seattle when our bellies were telling us that it was lunch time.

The flight from JFK to Seattle was 5+ hours and the only food that was served was stuff you had to pay for. We had snacks. So the first McDs that we found sounded like the best place to eat.

We only hit McD's for ice cream one time on the entire trip.

Airplane food well, it is what it is.

We flew Hainan Airlines so the food was Asian for the most part.

 

The first morning in Beijing we thought about going to the buffet in the hotel, but it wasn't included in our room price and we figured we could find something for less than $7 per person.

We did.

Mr Lee's had a bunch of people slurping soup and we joined them.

The tables at most restaurants aren't big enough for six people.

No, Shekinah didn't have to stand, she just was grazing at Daddy's table to see what they had.

For kids who don't normally use chopsticks, I was impressed.

I still don't know what the thin green strips were, it was pickled and garlicky

I just wasn't sure if we should eat it( wasn't sure if it was raw or not). We steered clear of raw fruits and veggies if we didn't know if the water was clean at that establishment. We did however forget to tell them "no ice" here and had drank most of the juice before my jet-lagged brain remembered.

Shekinah managed to get soda with most meals.

Coke and Sprite were usually our choices.

We ate at quite a few round tables.

When our tour included a meal, our guides had restaurants that 

accommodated a larger group.

The room was usually separate from the main room.

Probably so our poor eating skills weren't so noticeable.

Sometimes you just spear the food, it doesn't fall off so quickly that way.

We didn't usually leave too many leftovers

We did surprise them at how much rice we consumed.

After our first meal when we cleaned out the bowl quite promptly,

he made sure he ordered more the next few times.

snow peas, celery and mushrooms (I  think tree ear?)

tomato and egg (bottom right) and the stringy things were potatoes this time. (Beijing)

Sometimes there were long stringy things that looked like pasta but were mushrooms.

The stand-by staple in this country...even for the locals apparently.

The selection was better than we have in the US.

Oh and the serving sizes were twice as large as at home.

Half-way through the trip we bought a pack of disposable bowls and disposable chopsticks.

Couldn't find any packs of  plastic spoons or forks.

We thought we could probably down-size our kitchen table at home and have more room in the kitchen.  Wonder how long they would eat just ramen noodles?

Actually I know the answer to that. ....about two weeks then they say

"We're hungry, just don't buy noodles!"

They sell applesauce in bags too!

The price is 29 RMB not dollars.

We got pretty good at dividing by 7 as the US dollar 

was worth about 7 RMB when we were there.

This stuff was about the same price or more than we pay at home.

We loved this market. We found it after our first breakfast and  found they had this 

deli/kitchen thing at the back. 

It was doing quite a bit of business in the morning and we ordered

"sun-gu" (3) and pointed at one kind

"liu-gu"(6) of another .

She cut one of those English muffin things in half and threw in an egg and some sauce

hoisin maybe? Whatever it was, I'd love to be able to copy.

The brown bread with green sprinkles (chives) was chopped into little squares and  put in a bag.

You ate it with a toothpick.

This one was full of chives/onions, it wasn't quite to our liking for breakfast.

but this one....ummm!

Cooling off and waiting for some of the best parts of the day

food delivered to my table while I wait!

Our dishes all came wrapped in plastic wrap.

Did they have a  dish-washing service?

Quite a few times we found evidence of broken cups.

Some places the guides rinsed our dishes and theirs with hot tea and dumped the "rinse water"

in a dish provided. They didn't do it everywhere I wasn't sure of the protocol.

Was it to clean the dishes or to warm them?

Some places we had two sets of chopsticks, one was to select your food from the dishes

the other was to eat with. A few places put serving spoons in the bowls on the lazy susan.

Some places you used one pair of chopsticks for both duties.

Here's a pretty bowl of 'shrooms. They had an interesting texture.

Flavor was good.

Rice!!  One place served only a tiny bit of rice close to the end of the meal.

That time we had many vegetables and not a lot of meat.

Kung Pao chicken

chicken or pork of some sort....just call it yummy

Hope's dish before she dug into it and filled her hollow leg.

More 'shrooms (not the same meal)

Tofu....actually was good

bok-choy

Not to mock our guide, but this is the fast way to consume a whole lot of food without putting most of it on the floor.

The place we found ice cream

We did break down and eat Burger King on one of our last nights.

Daddy complained that there was no "regular" chips

Breakfast!! Steamed buns, fried rice, noodles, home fries, 

steamed black bean something (center)

and many cups of tea.

We had breakfast included with some of our rooms

and it was sort of nice to just go downstairs for breakfast.

Shekinah decided pumpkin congee wasn't the best, but I actually 

liked it with some pickled vegetables. 

Oh and fried spring rolls.  They were similar to what I make.

This was the meal with little meat. The white loaf stuff close to the center was 

fish of some sort. The two dishes in the front had mushrooms in them. The breaded-fried sweet potatoes to the right of center were very good. This meal was described a "very local"

The setting was different than most of the places we visited, it was outside of the city and probably 

has more of a story behind the Mao  memorabilia museum that was also there.

The tea making set up....but the nice bags of tea cost extra...so we stuck with Lipton.

Now I'm hungry !

This meal was served at the Chenzhou Orphanage

Chicken wings, steamed egg, beef with hot peppers, corn with peppers, shrimp...

There were deep fried green beans and I think there was brown butter on the steamed eggs

Very tasty.

We didn't read the packaging very well....oops

Shekinah thought it was meat packages....like tuna

She was gnawing away and said, "How do you eat this ! It's mostly bone!"

First chicken foot that I ever bought. 

Elvin our wonderful guide in Guangzhou.

He made sure we all ate plenty.

Guangzhou noodles. I still need to find a good recipe.

Now walnut steamed buns...I think we have those 

figured out...except the bread, what makes it brown?

walnut, sugar, and butter?

One fail....meat on a stick

I figured that as crazy busy as they were, we hit a good spot

Well....no

We ate one meal at a dim sum restaurant.

Faith sat beside the tea making station and we needed to figure out how to make it

Thank goodness for photo menus and Google translate.

We got this, but not the piece below

that was ordered by one of the guides....the rest of the bird was good.

Then when they said "no MORE noodles" we bought oatmeal and bananas.

Classy restaurant...same as here, you can tell by the number of pieces in your place setting.

scallion pancakes....mine never looked like that

We splurged and ate the raw fruit.

watermelon and pomegranate before the seeds developed.

Oh and Italian cuisine in China.

"red" fries and burger with goose liver

Some kind of pasta that included an egg on top...it was good

whatever it was called.

Faith ordered the last chicken sandwich they called it a

"mama burger" and was huge. Shekinah had ordered the same thing, but they came back and said they only have one. Shekinah reluctantly ordered a burger, we didn't spend a lot of time reading the description.

She waited and waited....some of us were finished eating till her food came.

Then it came!!!

HUGE and  with red bread

Not sure yet what the red was...beet juice?

Two burgers and an egg, bacon, lettuce, tomato, and cucumber

with fries.

Thankfully they had thoughtfully cut it in half.

It was an excellent burger, we all got a piece of it. 

A grapefruit on steroids?

We weren't sure what it was when we bought it at the grocery,

Google translate didn't help.

We knew it needed to be peeled so it was probably safe.

It was indeed a grapefruit...not quite like the ones we have here but pretty good.

  Hmm, what is next in importance?  Gotta think about it.

QOTD:  "No it's teal and raspberry, NOT red and green."

Anniversary in China...Again

People and city living, I think I like the country a bit better, but for and occasional two weeks I can love the city.

I really wonder how many people he was planning to feed with all that rice.

No, I didn't bargain with him to get a few plates full.

Guangzhou--Shamain Island

Shekinah posing in the middle of  the Chen clan family academy.

Discussing some of the architect...or maybe politics with our guide.

I love when God pulls strings and we get the same guide three different times in Guangzhou.

We used different agencies and different reasons to be in this city in 2010, 2012, and 2019, but we had the same guide for this city each time.

He doesn't look any older!

Not sure how he does it.

Even though the White Swan is totally renovated they saved one red sofa for 

memory's sake. We almost didn't fit on one anymore....did they shrink the sofas?

With Mid-Autumn festival and National Day approaching, the 

cities are well decorated.

Happy 33rd Anniversary dear! 

Maybe next year we'll go somewhere alone.

Nine years ago, we were in this country celebrating our anniversary 

and the addition of a son.

Mr Chun came to our hotel today and painted some scrolls

for us, he does hand /finger painting and brush painting.

The fingerpainting he does isn't anything like they teach in kindergarten.

Shekinah is thinking longingly of chicken corn noodle soup and hot dogs.

I got a compliment today from Faith, my dumplings are better than the ones we had here.

Hope is probably the only one that isn't thinking longingly of the food at home....I declare that girl has a hollow leg.

I'm sort of ready to get back into a larger house, but there is something about this minimalistic lifestyle that I like...or maybe the idea of not cooking and having a maid come in to take out a portion of the washing every day...and swiffing around with the mop or vacuum....

yeah that part is pretty nice.

We do miss some little people from home pretty bad and Shekinah and Faith miss the dog too.

Heritage Trip?

We are by far not expert travelers, but  we have traveled en mass a few times and maybe I can pass on a few tips.
When we started planning for this trip. The idea of traveling with seven people  by plane and train and fourteen suitcases sounded a bit daunting. Then I posed the possibility of traveling carry-on-only. Could we?  When I mentioned it to others, some opened their eyes wide and laughed, other said it was the only way to go.
We did it...at least to get here.  We will most likely need to buy a suitcase to bring home the treasures that have been heaped upon us. Shekinah was gifted one of those gourd flutes from her orphanage and I can't see it fitting in our current bags. We also ended up with two bags of moon cakes for Mid-Autumn Festival.
Anyway, back to the packing thing....Travel knit!!  If you notice on posted photos we are mostly in black or gray dresses. I bought travel knit from Hobby Lobby, I don't know if it is a certain brand for only their store,but it is a totally comfortable knit...and this from a "cotton-only" girl. It washes in the sink and hangs to dry almost overnight...if you really need it in the morning, only the bottom few inches will be wet and the hair dryer takes care of that.  The new synthetic undies don't do bad with sink washing and bathroom-line drying. The best thing is that you can squoosh them up in a very small package. We added easy dry t-shirts to go over our "sack dresses". The only complaint I have about knit dresses is that pockets don't work well with this fabric.

The other thing I like that I did on the last few trips is to make a travel binder. I printed out our itinerary, all our hotels reservations- with the addresses, copies of our passports and the kids' certificates of citizenship.

The thing we are learning this time with visiting the orphanages is that none of them do things the same, even tho they supposedly receive the same orders from above. One did not allow us to take photos of some of the paperwork, one did not allow us to even see her file, another walked out of the room and left us and our guide look at every scrap.   Be flexible and remember that you are a guest.

Practice using chopsticks!  :)  So far we've not resorted to forks, but I will say that I've lifted the dish to my mouth and shoveled it in like I see some of the locals do...for those last bits of "yumminess" on the plate.
Use Duolingo and learn some Mandarin!  I'm glad for every bit that I can remember.  Also download the offline version of Google Translate.  Don't count on your VPN always working or the internet at the hotels being all that prompt.  Everyone here uses their phones for everything, but we got Google Fi for using on our phones and it works so-so.  It has worked when we needed it, so I guess that's all that mattered.

The Things You See

OK, this one should be at the bottom.This is arrival in our next major city.

The things Zeke will pick up...some of the bystanders were a little amazed when he told them it wasn't poisonous.

They made it here too!

If you just want a decorative English book.

Cool table knives that sit like that when you lay them down.

What I really wish is that I could take pics of all the English t-shirts..the one third from left on the bottom row really took the cake.

All The Landmarks

Well I don't actually have many pictures on the computer right now for a post. Our guide is very good at telling us all about Chinese history it is really an educational trip. We learned all about the Ming and Qing dynasty   14 emperors that lived in the Forbidden City from the Ming Dynasty and 10 from the Qing.  The Qing  Dynasty had the longest living emperor, an interesting lady who was "the Power behind the Throne" and spent lots of the empire's money on things like fresh fruit brought in each day so she could simply smell it. 

Learned today about the Alter of Heaven, otherwise known as the Temple of Heaven  actually had sacrifices and rituals that seem like some Biblical influence.  Also learned that there is a "Big Celebration" brewing in Tiananmen Square for the country's 70th birthday party. We couldn't walk around in the square like other visits. The prep was impressive. The PD was out in force and very much on edge.  Did you know that there is an old dead guy in a crystal sarcophagas in one of those buildings? He only receives visitors in the morning and then needs to go back in the fridge. Don't mean to be disrespectful, but that is just a bit creepy.

The thing the girls will probably remember the most about the last 2 days is that it was HOT. I'm hoping the south isn't too much warmer. Shekinah was a trooper and kept up with all of us, but she is pretty tired by afternoon and all of us were more prickly than necessary.

Lunch with the guide continues to be a highlight of the day...well maybe breakfast...just can't beat the food we've been getting.

Oh and we did visit an orphanage yesterday, it held memories for me. I was glad we went but the things we learned were hard to hear.

One more day in this bustling city where we figured out the best place for breakfast and found the nearest Wumart (yes that is spelled correctly). Tomorrow we move on to another city ...by high-speed train.  140 mph our guide Kai informs us. Six hours should be a breeze---right?

Land of Hard Beds and Chopsticks

Hopefully I can do this post with the internet that we have. We are still figuring out the new things  like using Google Fi for phone service. It works sometimes and then other times What'sApp actually works.

We arrived in Beijing safely. The flight was a bit shorter than I had been led to believe. We needed to wait on our guide, then on our driver because of it. 

Since breakfast was not included with our rooms we set out this morning looking for breakfast. After a couple of false leads we found a local restaurant chain called Mr Lee. We were served steamed buns and dumplings. Then decided to order beef noodle soup and won ton soup since the neigboring table's food looked so tasty.

This first day is an empty day so we can sleep and grouch to our heart's content.We did a quick shopping trip to the WuMart--If you think SharpShopper is crazy on a Friday....

Actually most of us are in a decent mood, the last long flight tested Shekinah's endurance. Hopefully I gave her some tools to be able to handle the longer coming-home flight.