Saturday, July 10, 2010

Saturday, changing gears

This morning when I got up it was actually cool outside, so I opened up all the windows to let some fresh air in. Since the apartment is long and narrow with windows just at one end, it's hard to get the air to circulate. I bought a second little fan today, that should help.

Summer classes begin on Monday (which is what the "changing gears" in the post title refers to), so I got my lesson templates for the summer copied to the laptop and one lesson prepped before going out to meet a Chinese friend for lunch. Turns out his idea of lunch is to take me to a major food street downtown that all the locals know about... AWESOME. There are restaurants of varying price ranges all down both sides of this little narrow street, and food vendors on a side alley. We ate spicy barbecued mutton on a stick, and drank some juice that is apparently an appetite stimulant and which tasted sort of like grape juice but was dark brown like strong coffee. Then we headed down the food vendor alley and I got some kind of funnel shaped open topped dumpling that had a big chunk of smoked duck in it, yum, and a sandwich with what my friend told me was donkey meat, I prefer the pork version as this was rather dry. Finished all that off with a small flat salty bread that is a local specialty, what I thought was so special was the oven. It was a cylinder with heat down in the middle, and a round flat griddle lid over the top that swung to the side, so that the bread rounds could be put down inside the oven against the slanted sides after browning on the griddle. Will have to go back with my camera as this street was full of wonderful and weird things... dumplings with squid tentacles sticking out, crabs and crawdads on sticks, bread that looked like balls of noodles...

Lastly we headed back to Spring Square in time to see the Lotus Fountain's choreographed water/music show. It was surreal when it played "Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas" with everyone standing in the hot sun in July. Kids and even some adults were all over the fountain playing in the water. I'm told that the fountain show is more beautiful at night, so will have to make sure I get over there at night one of these times.

And now I'm home, showered, and need to settle down and work on some lessons before I crash. I feel like if I lay down right now I would fall right to sleep...

6 comments:

  1. That is the best way to find the good food! It is wonderful to try and find new things. I always tried to keep an open mind about what I ate when I was abroad. Usually I ate first and asked questions later, lol.

    I am glad its cooler for you now, the East has had quite the heat wave here and it has been extremely hot.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Dmom: I agree, usually it's better NOT to know what things are. I would probably have enjoyed my sandwich more without knowing what the meat was, although I still think it was kind of dry compared to the pork I usually get.

    The best part of the street food day is that it's now the next day and I have no upset tummy whatsoever. People are always warning me about getting food that is spoiled, but I have been lucky so far. I'm happy to have a Chinese friend who likes it as much as I do!

    ReplyDelete
  3. Just got back from a roadtrip myself. 84 year old aunt decided she wanted to go visit my sister and when an 84 year old says come, you go.... We had a great trip but oh the heat and humidity....Eastern heat wave was in full swing so air conditioned car was a blessing. I went from Ohio to Indiana to pick aunt up and then to North Carolina to see sister and then back again. Definitely great way to see the country though I wish we had train travel which would have been fun too.

    Everyone at Karaoke says hi today. We all miss you and can't wait till you can come back and sing. Donahoo played some of your songs. Hugses

    ReplyDelete
  4. Glad you enjoyed your road trip, DMom. Sounds like a blast.

    We are now into a week of rain, so it's still humid, but a bit cooler.

    Hi to everyone back!

    ReplyDelete
  5. STREET FOOD!!! Yum! I love street food! Please post pics!

    ReplyDelete
  6. More pics under Qingdao Street Market. :)

    ReplyDelete