Food, Glorious Food

When we were preparing for our trip to China, we were all worried about what the food would be like, how the bathrooms would be, and if we would have drinking water readily available.

So when we actually landed in China, we drank all the water we could hold whenever we could, used every bathroom in sight, and began eating like each meal was our last one on earth. In general I think of ourselves as a pretty clever bunch, but it took us almost until we were ready to come home to realize that we always had enough water, there were bathrooms whenever we felt the urge (which was often, because of the water consumption), and so much food we nearly exploded.

Each meal we had a very small plate - usually 4 to 5 inches in diameter, a small bowl (not even 8 oz.), and small glass for our drink, and chopsticks. In Guilin they would fill your glass twice, then it cost more. In Xi'An you only got one fill for your glass. In Beijing they allowed multiple fills. It seemed like once they started serving food, it never ended. The food was delicious - very American style Chinese food for the most part.

I also learned that they eat rice in the south, and noodles and dumplings in the north. I don't know what I'd do if I lived there - I preferred the south to live, but liked the noodles and dumplings in the north to eat.

But I'm still not ready to go out for Chinese food yet. Maybe in July.

Here are some random pictures of our eating experiences:

Lunch at the Buddhist Monastery in Hong Kong

These were not the actual dumplings that we ate, but these are what they looked like (rabbit).

More sample dumplings - fish

These are some of our actual, more nondescript dumplings (or what's left of them)

Slicing noodles straight into the pot. So delicious!