Yeah, so, still having trouble finding the time for this blog. But that’s good, I guess, because when I’m not blogging it’s probably because I’m studying our out having an adventure. It really is a shame about the pictures refusing to upload; if I could post pictures I wouldn’t feel compelled to write such long posts!
Just like they said in Pulp Fiction, some of the coolest things you encounter while travelling are the little differences. Obviously, in China, a lot of the differences aren’t so little, but the little ones are no less fascinating. Yesterday the roommate and I took our Chinese friends Benson and Paul to Chongqing’s hip, urban Shapingba district to introduce them to some of the Western novelties that can be found there and to see how they translated into Chinese. The main mission for the day was to find an authentic slice of pizza, but we ended up spending the whole afternoon cruising the shops and restaurants for a taste of home. The first place we found after we got off the bus was a Dairy Queen and we rushed in to get our friends their first Blizzard. I opted instead for something that I’m pretty sure has never graced the menu of a North American Dairy Queen – a strawberry and red bean Iced Cap. We weren’t disappointed - the Blizzard was served upside down, just like at home, and our friends told us it was the best ice cream they’d ever had. At over 30 Yuan (five dollars) per ice cream, which is shockingly expensive over here, the prices were authentic as well.
Wandering through Shapingba, we were beckoned by a KFC, a McDonald’s and a Starbucks, but as we’d already set our hearts on pizza, we didn’t stop till we saw Shapingba’s fabled Pizza Hut. Pizza Hut in China is not the tacky family pit stop it is back home. Servers in headsets and smart uniforms opened the glass double doors for us as we approached and ushered us up the curving, purple-carpeted staircase to a window seat in the upper dining room overlooking the boulevard below. The enormous menu was in both Chinese and English and included appetizers, salads, pizzas, pastas, and rice dishes, as well as a selection of bubble tea, milk tea, wine, cake, and ice cream. The one thing it didn’t have was a vegetarian pizza, so I ordered a miniature seafood pizza for myself and the rest of the table shared a Hawaiian. My seafood pizza was generously piled with squid, shrimp, crab sticks and real mozzarella – I actually forgot I was in China for a second as I ate it. My roommate declared the Hawaiian pizza authentic and it seemed to be a hit with our friends, as well. Again, the prices were insane by Chinese standards, although at about 100 Yuan for a large and a small pizza, it was probably a little cheaper than a Pizza Hut back home.
After the pizza I debated taking everyone to the Starbucks around the corner, but decided as I’d already experienced the Chinese Starbucks I should really try something new. We ended up going to Holiland (好利来, Hao3 li4 lai2), a Chinese coffee and bakery chain that I’d heard had decent coffee for a fraction of the prices in Western places. Sadly, my Americano was burned to crap. Oh well.
Next we spotted Watson’s, a British drugstore, and went to check it out. Apparently they were having some kind of huge sale, because the place was packed to the rafters and it was nearly impossible to move. We elbowed our way through the shampoo and cosmetic aisles and were about to leave in fear for our lives when we spotted the snacks at the other end of the store – Walker’s shortbread cookies! Lindt chocolates! And…oh my god…Kinder Surprises. We snatched a couple of choice items, braved the line to the cash register, and got the hell out. Benson, for some reason, was particularly excited about the little Lindt chocolate balls. I was really excited about the Kinder Surprises, which were wrapped in an extremely curious kind of bubble packaging I’d never seen before. When we got them home and opened them up I was shocked to discover that there was no cleverly layered hollow chocolate egg, no little plastic yellow capsule stuffed with dismantled toy parts. The plastic bubble-egg separated into two plastic-covered halves, one containing the toy and the other containing what appeared to be a couple blobs of chocolate and cookie crumbs suspended in a pool of white chocolate, which was apparently meant to be spooned out with the little plastic spatula-thing that came sandwiched in between the halves. In my childish anticipation of cracking open that familiar chocolate egg, I was kind of disappointed for a moment, and then I remembered that I was in China, dammit, and that this really weird Kinder Surprise was actually a cultural experience. So we put the toys together, played with them for a bit, and then ate the weird chocolate puddle thing. The blobs turned out to be delicate chocolate-covered wafers filled with chocolate hazelnut cream, a lot like Ferrero Rocher, and the puddle turned out to be some kind of fudgy white chocolate hazelnut concoction. It was amazing. You’re all getting some for Christmas.
Chinese word of the day:
好吃
Hao3 chi1
Delicious (literally, good eat)
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