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Tianjin: A City of Glorious Food Experiences

February 28, 2011 Travel
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Glorious food days are hard to come by in China. This is mainly because by now, at roughly six months into my year in Beijing, glorious food days have come to be defined as days that involve eating copious amounts of cheese. Obviously, these are hard to come by unless I want to fork over hundreds of RMB for small blocks of cheese. But my day of exploring Tianjin was a glorious food day beyond all glorious food days, largely in part due to visiting Little Italy.

Breakfast

  • Two pork 包子 (steamed stuffed buns)
  • White grape juice with aloe

Lunch

  • Fried mozzarella on toast
  • Gnocchi alla sorrentina1

Teatime

  • Chocolate cream mochi

Dinner

  • Korean barbecue (pork, lamb, assorted veggies, etc)

Dessert

  • Cheesecake ice cream with graham cracker crumbs and Heath bars2

Needless to say, I had an excellent day traipsing around Tianjin. While one full day is ample time to see the city, for the food alone, I would definitely consider going back again. And again. And again. And again…

(No pictures, because it was snowing and there was more smog/cloud in the sky than sky. Sorry.)

  1. This was positively smothered in cheese. Not to mention the restaurant we went to gave us a dish of grated Parmesan in case we needed to add more cheese to our food. I have not seen a plate of grated Parmesan since leaving the States last August! [↩]
  2. This was from COLDSTONE! Something else I haven’t seen since leaving the States, although there are several Coldstone locations in China. [↩]

人人网：A Leap In Becoming a True Chinese

February 23, 2011 Life
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I’ve been in China since late August. Needless to say, I’ve come a long ways in terms of adjusting to Chinese daily life and social norms. Nowadays, I get asked for directions, I drink bubble tea on an almost daily basis, I am spoken to solely in Chinese by everyone around me that isn’t foreign… the list goes on, but essentially, I’m feeling more and more Chinese as the days go by.

Yesterday, I took a major leap in becoming a true Chinese.

I made a 人人网 account.

人人网 (Renren Wang, or just Renren), is China’s version of Facebook. And just like how practically everyone in the US has a Facebook, practically everyone in China has a Renren. It was only a matter of time before I signed up for one.

(Sidenote: My signing up for Renren may or may not have been motivated by an experiment to see if I would be granted “star status.” From what I understand, “star status” is given to active users of Renren. One of my [American] friends uses Renren regularly and has been rejected for this status on the grounds that he has a fake account; that is, his profile picture is not really of him. So, I may or may not want to see if I am more successful than he is at becoming a star user… ahem.)

It’s been a struggle trying to navigate the site, as I can’t fully understand how it works. It’s a lot like Facebook in terms of set up and function, but it’s different enough that, combined with the fact that the site is not in English, it has me wondering whether or not I’m ever going to be able to use the site properly. Still, it’s been fun trying to figure it out. Right now, I only have one friend on Renren – but hopefully that number will grow…

Now, all I gotta do is sign up for a QQ account and then I’ll really be able to get new 关系 going!

Bitten by the (Chinese) Travel Bug

February 21, 2011 Travel
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It has come to my realization that I have not done any traveling since arriving in Beijing this semester. I might have been in Beijing for only a month so far, but in study abroad speak, that’s a long time. Hell, I didn’t even manage to go to Pingyao during Chinese New Year (or anywhere else, for that matter). Unlike my friends studying abroad in Europe, who seem to be planning glamorous vacations to places like Italy, Portugal, and Austria, I have been spending my days in Beijing, doing the same old thing day in, day out.

Well, no more. I have spent the majority of today browsing good places to travel to in China that are affordable and can be done in a weekend, as my class schedule doesn’t allow me to travel on week days. It’s surprisingly hard to find places that are affordable to travel to, interesting, and that I haven’t been to already, but I did manage to come up with a small list of cities I absolutely must visit before my time in China is up.

  • Tianjin
  • Fuzhou
  • Qingdao
  • Yantai
  • Dalian
  • Dali
  • Kunming
  • Lijiang
  • Lhasa
  • Urumqi
  • Nanjing
  • Harbin
  • Hohhot
  • Chongqing

Now that I have a list of places I want to go, it’s time to figure out when is the best time to travel. Then comes buying cheap plane/train tickets, booking hostels… oh, and finding friends to travel with! Any takers?

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