No Orange or General Tso's Chicken, Sorry

Ten pounds later, I somewhat regret my food experiences in China. Actually, I take that back. The delicious meals were well worth the excess chub. The Chinese love the banquet-style dining apparently, because that was pretty much all we came across while there. I thoroughly enjoyed the somewhat tacky, but communal setup.




The first night, we were taken to a restaurant by some westerners living in Beijing. No speaking for me, only eating:




Duck, pork, chicken, tofu, potatoes, an assortment of vegetables, it really doesn't get much better. I should also mention Baijo, the Chinese version of Soju...except 10x stronger. It tastes horrific and will do strange things to you. Oh, and costs like $0.50. Perfect for the new year.

The next day, when we were biking around Beijing, we went to a famous Peking duck restaurant. They cut the duck right in front of us:



It literally melted in my mouth. I'm salivating just thinking about this duck. They eat duck dishes similar to Korean bbq style; dip the duck in duck sauce, add some vegetables, and wrap everything in a thin rice pancake. Another opportunity to eat with my hands...yes.

That night we went to a restaurant where we were told we could get spicy dishes. The food in China is incredibly cheap, and the menus are endless, so it took us about 45 minutes to decide on what to get. In the end, we ordered 13 dishes (for 5 people mind you).




The above dish is actually a bull-frog stew. It was full of this strange seed-type substance that made your mouth really tingly and then almost go completely numb. It took a while to source what was actually making our mouths feel such a strange sensation, but once I ate the seed on it's own, it was like a shot of novocaine to my tongue.

Love the food in China, don't love the bathrooms. One upside is the fact that there are public bathrooms nearly every block, which is really convenient for someone with a bladder like my own. Although, considering the condition of the bathrooms, you may as well just go on the street. Toilet paper does not exist, not even in our hostel. Thankfully, some of the people I went with knew this little piece of information and brought some with. TP was definitely the least of my problems. Your typical Chinese bathroom:



This particular one was actually relatively clean. It's not hard to find a bathroom because you can smell one from 30 feet away. I think I mentioned earlier that it was freezing outside when I was there, and these are all outdoor. So the cold weather makes the experience that much more inviting. However, I cannot even imagine the stench in the summer...it's really a lose/lose situation.

The Great Wall

On our last day in Beijing, we hiked the Great Wall. The wall is almost 9,000 kilometers long, so there are a number of different paths tourists can take while hiking. We signed up for a tour through our hostel described as being less touristy and featured more of the older parts of the wall; somewhat of a "backroad." I was completely unprepared for what was to come. First of all, it was totally breathtaking. It seemed like it went on for eternity. Not to mention walking on something with so much history is somewhat overwhelming. Here are some pictures, they definitely do not capture the experience, though.







(Insert awkward tourist picture here)



Another aspect that really took me by surprise was the "hiking" part. I thought that walking the wall consisted of a long, but mostly leisurely, stroll on a path that had some rolling hills. Yeah, no. We began the journey with a climb and I knew I was in for a real treat for the next 6 hours. Many of the parts were almost completely vertical, with stairs coming up to my hips. This is no exaggeration. I was panting and sweating the majority of the time.







Did I mention that I fell? Because I did. I kept thinking that the path was a lawsuit waiting to happen because it was full of loose rocks, divets,steep ups and downs, basically anything conducive to injury. I don't really know if that applies in Communist China though...
I may have acquired permanent knee damage, but hey, at least I got a good glut workout in.

Beijing

I can't really write anything about my trip to Beijing, because anything that I say will just not do it justice. It was incredible. My prediction was correct, I am head over heels for the city. Something about the spirit of the place...it's indescribable. Anyway, here are some pictures of the adventure






Above is Tiananmen Square and the entrance to the Forbidden City, featuring a tacky picture of the Chairman Mao









The Forbidden City (above)







The Temple of Heaven (above)

Did I mention that our mode of transportation on this particular blistery day was bikes? Our hostel rented out bicycles for something like $3 for the entire day. We repped Korea by sporting the animal hats the majority of the day. My polar bear was the best, no doubt. Anyway, biking around was really fun until the sun went down and I lost all feeling in my toes.




This was only part of Sunday. Much more to come!

Cephalopods

As promised, I got access to the videos and pictures from the "octopus experience," i.e. eating it live. There really is not much to say about it other than the fact that I watched Andrew Zimmern do it, thought it was badass, and wanted to claim it as my own. Well, I talk a big game. First of all, there are apparently two ways to eat live octopus: baby octopus, in which you literally eat the entire creature in a bite, eyeballs and all. The other way is to eat a larger one's moving tentacles. We walked into the restaurant and were told the the only way this particular place served it was the tentacle way. I kept saying to my friends, "yea, yea...no, that's okay. That is fine with me...let's just do the tentacles," trying to play it cool as if I just didn't feel like going somewhere else. A full baby octopus? I just don't know about that. So if we're going to get technical here, what I ate had just been killed, but still moving.

Anyway, it came out and chills shot right up my spine. I did not expect to have the bodily reaction that I did. I felt like I was taking a final exam or something, I had butterflies just looking at these slimy things slithering around in front of me. In fact, you can hear me say "I'm seriously like, nervous" in the video. So the anticipation built even more as I could not pick one up. They are feisty little guys and suck to anything. I finally just picked one up with my hand. Eating it was no where near as bad as the buildup. It was chewy and tough, as expected. What was a really odd sensation, though, was having it move around in my mouth, sucking to my tongue or the side of my cheek. We had to be sure to chew it for a long time. Apparently people die from swallowing the tentacles too early, and they will suction right on to the throat, choking the person to death. What a way to go, eh?



After a while, the dish settles down. But once you agitate them such as poke the plate with a chopstick, or place it in sauce, they start wiggling around again. This is what it looked like swimming around in some gochugang. It looked "especially weird," to quote myself from the video, in that red thick sauce.



Anyway, I really did eat it, if that is hard to believe. Official photo documentation below:




Notice I only had to use one chopstick. It suctioned right on.

As mentioned before though, I am off to China in a day. I can only hope that I get to do things that are 100x weirder. We are ringin in a new (lunar) year, folks.

A Quick Stream of Consciousness....

Oh, it has been a while. Here are some reasons why. First, my students are driving me crazy, and it has caused my brain to malfunction. Therefore, I have consistently forgotten my camera any time I do anything, and a lack of pictures just makes these posts uninteresting. I don't blame you for skipping over this one due to a lack of imagery. Second, I have been extremely busy with testing, the end of the term, and these awful student reports that are being forced down my throat. They are due tomorrow...can you say procrastination? Third, my mind has been too busy obsessing over the enigma that is LOST. No one watches it here and it is killing me.

I ate live octopus this weekend but am without video/pics. I will steal a video and pictures and will have more on that later. It was an experience, to say the least. More importantly, I am headed to Beijing this weekend for Chinese New Year. We have a long weekend, so I will be jam-packing the ultimate Chinese experience in 4 days. When I fly into Korea from China I actually have to go almost straight to work. That should be a real treat. I'm trying not to think of that, though, and am focusing on falling head over heels for China (for some reason I have a strange feeling I am going to be obsessed). I know for sure that things are going to get weird....

Beijing, here I come! (If I can reattach my head and remember to document the trip, I'm sure I will have more than enough visuals to stimulate the senses)