Xi'an Update 1

Xi'an is a nightmare. Upon arriving at the station and finding out that no one spoke english and no signs are in another language, we took to the street to find a taxi that could take us to where we were staying in Xi'an. We had the address written out for us by our host in Pinyin for us to show to the taxi drivers, but finding a taxi at Xi'an Railway Station proved to be a lot more difficult than expected. We finally managed to find a large hotel, similar to the Hilton for comparison sake, that had english speaking receptionists who were more than happy to call a cab for us. They warned us that it would be pricey however since the address we had given to them was well out of Xi'an and this is why some taxis refused to take us there.

When the taxi arrived, we agreed on a price of about 45 RMB, although most marked taxis have a meter going during the ride to show an accurate price per km/mile. We hopped in, being graciously taken care of by the bell boy who helped us with our bags and the security guard who told the cab driver where to take us. I passed out in the taxi since it seemed like we had had a short mind fuck going on the train from Beijing to Xi'an for 14 hours.

40 minutes later, we arrived in the middle of nowhere in front of an apartment block. We called up our host and waited for her outside the apartments before paying the taxi 35 RMB and leaving him to drive off. We met our host, we genuinely seemed nice, although the gap in translation was heavily apparent upon us first meeting. She told us we would have to unfortunately carry our bags up 6 flights of stairs since there were no elevators in China-more things were made difficult of course. After travelling for 14 hours on a cramped train with tons of shouting Chinese people (the volume is always loud by the way), we were in no way ready for these stairs.

We discovered that our room was a small balcony type area converted into a bedroom with two single beds lined against one another and two chairs representing a sort of shelf/seating area in the corners of the room. It was the cheapest we could get in Xi'an to be fair.

After settling in, we decided to head downstairs for some local cuisine at a restaurant we had passed before entering the apartment block. The servers tried their best to communicate with us and even though I somehow managed to order a mystery beef soup, we ended up with what we wanted; dumplings and beans. These two items we had loved in Beijing however, were far from similar since the further south you go in China, the hotter everything gets.

The beans were shuffled in with about 10 chili peppers, so every bite you had was indistinguishable in taste since your taste buds had inevitably been burnt off in the process of eating the prior bite. I gave up with my dumplings when each one of them tasted like detergent-or some sort of powdered floral soap. Disappointed by the cuisine, we headed home for a good sleep and a quick munch on some peanuts and pistachios.

Xi'an has already started wearing us down....continued update later since we are on our way to the hospital right now....

Goodbye Beijing Pt. 1

Beijing has been pretty kind to us the past 21 nights and I think it truly is a great city to be introduced to China in. You can still find people who speak even a tiny bit of English, the food isn't that scary, and we have found a few Western delights that spark familiarity such as Haagan Daas and Dairy Queen.

•  Dr. Milk Tea: The BEST bubble tea I have ever tried in my life is about 5 minutes away from our hostel. Dr. Milk Tea was a random shop we happened to stumble upon after being disappointed by the raved about Happy Lemon bubble tea franchise praised in China. The chains we have learned, even CoCo tea(highly recommended) are absolute crap in comparison. Dr. Milk Tea makes the perfect bubble milk tea with big chewy pearls and maple and brown sugar flavouring! I cannot wait to come back and have some.

• Biscuits with cream and chocolate: We found these from a local bakery after sampling all of the goodies inside. They are so filling and the cream is so soft! Probably one of our favourite snack foods in the local Hutongs.

Dr. Milk Tea and biscuits

They look like mini eclairs

• Veggie Burgers @ 365 Days Inn: I ordered these with Zach out of curiosity and discovered the best tasting comfort veggie burgers ever. They appear to be made of potatoes, cheese(we assume), carrots and some green onions and other veg, all served on a bun with mayo and ketchup and some fries. I cannot thank 365 Days Inn enough for such good food and cheap prices!

DUMPLINGS: We have tried a few and ran into the best kinds early in the morning where dumplings appear to be served as a breakfast with reduced prices and less than 10 in a bunch. There are a few different types worth noting, including ones that look like little volcanoes and have a lot of filling, some similar to Japanese gyoza with minimal filling and noodle like casing, and dumplings with exteriors resembling chicken balls! The last two are my favourite and can be found for 10-20 yuan across the street from our hostel. 

A Few Observations

Leeks at a nearby restaurant

I've been here for about a week, and already Zach and I have a list of "only in china" observations that have intrigued or often humoured us on a variety of occasions.

1. Everyone seems to constantly be mopping:
We have seen it at 8 am, 12 pm and 10 pm, people constantly mopping or sweeping. We have seen young, old, men, women and even children partaking in this strange obsessive phenomenon. Enough people participate that upon returning to the same store in one day we have seen the same person mopping the same area again. Whilst we walked along the street the other day, we actually saw a woman mopping the side of a building.....for China to have such an "unsanitary" reputation, we have seen people clean more than where both of us are from.

2. They handle vegetables differently:
We have seen leeks on street floors, melons on the ground, cabbage and leafy greens attached to bikes and even live chickens attached to fences all over Beijing...we question the sanitation heavily. These foods by the way, are the ones actually used for selling and not just abandoned foods on the street. The leeks were from a restaurant and the giant melon(?) is from outside a grocery store.

3. You get run over:
Street signs and stop lights can not even be compared to a suggestion of rules. Seriously, even the locals run across the street when they have the chance and so far we have seen a woman get backed up into, and a man on a bike get hit by an SUV. It is terrifying crossing the roads at first, but the longer you stay here the more confident you are when crossing which we think tends to help you cross...almost like a little prove yourself game to the taxi cars (who are the worst). The more meek you are about crossing the less likely they are to stop for you. We understand now too that crossing with a local helps since they study the flow of traffic a bit more than we have had to back at home.


4. You will get stared at:
You get three looks here in Beijing: curiosity, neutral and condescending. I am very very blonde so for the most part Zach and I get stared at because of this, but people in Beijing cast certain looks at western people. The first look is harmless, you get people just staring and smiling at you or looking at you in awe. The other day when we visited Tiananmen Square we had about 5 people ask to take photographs with us because we were Western and they had never seen a non-Chinese person!

The second look is neutral, mostly given out at tourist spots such as the Pearl market where they are so used to selling things to western people they don't care about how you look.

The third look is almost condescending, and we tend to get this a lot from elderly people and 40+ men. This look can sometimes be a bit weird, but we just smile or ignore it. It isn't meant to be offensive and we really just class the look as a "they are foreign and weird" experience.

5. They can come off as cold:
We have had the idea of waiting in a line, holding open doors, saying please and thank you and basic etiquette stripped from us while here. While most Chinese seem to be polite when in shops, riding the subway calls for you to be just as pushy as the Chinese. I haven't heard a single excuse me or pardon me while here, and you are simply expected to push your way through waves of people on the trains to get out to your stop. Lines at tills are a free for all and you have to edge up close to the glass when people start wanting to get in front of you. We don't know if this behaviour is really a cultural thing(we think the no lines policy is) or is simply an attitude towards us because we are western. When we use some of the Mandarin we have picked we seem to garner a little more smiles and politeness from the locals.... but it is very difficult to adjust to a place where etiquette seems to have to be earned!

Beijing Walmart Experience

Tired of living off of McDonald's, fear and fried dough twists, Zach and I headed off to Walmart to pick up some dried fruit and nuts to keep our stomach's happy. If you are ever in China, check out Walmart. We saw live turtles for sale, dead stingrays, all sorts of packaged and dried fish and shrimp(normal in China), chicken feet and all sorts of oddities. I have to admit that Zach and I couldn't stomach watching people stick their bare hands into the piles of shrimp and chicken legs and toss the limbs and bodies about as if sifting through apples, but what disturbed us even more was the fact that live turtles were being kept for purchase (fair enough in a foreign country) but in inadequate conditions...The water was dirty, the tanks too small, and there were dead bodies of fish in the fish tanks themselves next to the LIVE fish. For Walmart to pull that off even though the company makes billions every year  is disgusting.

But not all of Beijing Walmart was bad, in fact we managed to grab a hold of some imported dried fruit such as raisins, mangoes and cranberries-pretty much what we needed instead of carbs and sweets.


So here are a few photos of our experience to Walmart....and Zach with weird stuffed animals we found including a bunch of bananas and a pumpkin:

Oreo cookie flavours are different here ! We found fruit flavoured ones finally. More photos of china sweets for my family's enjoyment.

 

The chinse seem to be obsessed with snack sized everything including this mini pancake we found in a pile of treats and these mini waffles in the background:

 

 

They are OBSSESSED with oil here. Seriously, there was an entire row dedicated to different kinds:

We also managed to find the biggest thermos for who knows what....I wonder about the practicality....

The meat sections was really different from ours. Within seconds we found pigs feet, chicken's feet(a favourite apparently), liver, hearts and other goods from every type of meat. We also found people rummaging through the meat piles with bare hands collecting their goods. It was strange seeing butchers not wiping down their meat cutting sections and leaving blood all over chopping block surfaces in the middle of the store, not even behind the comfort of a counter.

The bloody, unclean chopping block right in the middle of Walmart was pretty gross....

 

Pigs ears....

 

 

 

 

 

 The Chinese have big sweet tooths and show a huge love affair towards bread. We found tons of twists and bread rolls along with cheesecake like desserts and little goodies to grab and go.

 

 

 Some indistinguishable fruits and veggies.....

 

Giant peppers:

 

 

A variety of eggs...

 

 

Finally the seafood section...

Frozen stingrays: