China wasn’t all multi-dish meals and dumplings, contrary to how it must seem from the previous post. Oh, no. There were also breakfasts. And snacks. Many, many snacks…
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I always forget to take a notebook with me when I go on holidays. This means that one of the first essentials once a destination is reached is to find a stationery shop (the others being eat and find some tonic. The latter proved difficult for the second time in as many holidays – we need to rethink our duty free purchases). Travelling in Korea, Japan and Malaysia has raised my expectations of stationery but it soon became clear that I wasn’t going to find anything as cute as “Pochi and Mongi together forever, happiness always” in Shanghai (try a Morning Glory shop near you). After the supermarket in the basement at Times Square managed to achieve the ultimate disappointment – instead of not stocking tonic, it only stocked diet tonic – I realised I was going to have to settle compromise and bought a serviceable but mostly unremarkable exercise book1. Flipping through my notes from the trip, I am struck by the contrast in detail. Each dish in every meal is recorded, but a whole morning in the Forbidden City is noted in two lines:
Clearly the most important aspect of our visit to the Forbidden City was the breakfast en route. No wonder Mao didn’t care to visit2. So the highs, and not-so-highs, of the food in China… Continue reading Shanghai and Beijing – one mouthful at a time I’m slowly working through the photos. Digital photography has made life much easier, in some respects – knowing that there won’t be horrendous processing costs for potentially dodgy pics frees you up to snap away. The downside? Over 200 photos from a two week holiday. My Picasa account now has sets from Shanghai and Suzhou. Given that China is a heavily populated country, I was quite surprised by how many shots we have with no people in them. I was not surprised by how many photographs we have of buildings – that’s par for the course when the travelling companion is an architect and takes possession of the camera. I will write more about the trip soon when I 1. find a minute and 2. get to a point where I feel I can articulate my thoughts properly. I am, however, constantly remembering amazing dishes and meals we ate while we were there, so perhaps food might be my starting point (who’d have guessed?!). Having arrived back home on Saturday, I was sure I’d be well and truly blogged up on the trip by now. The past four days have disappeared in a catching-up (on sleep, washing, giving-cats-attention) frenzy and it’s back to work tomorrow with no post yet written. So… why not cannibalise an email in the interim? The following, therefore, is adapted from some possibly inarticulate thoughts scrambled together after a couple of days in Shanghai. Improve the web with Nofollow Reciprocity. |
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