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Published: October 1st 2009
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McDonalds!!!!
So. Beautiful. Tackling China
China. Unbelievably confusing, more then a little crazy, and infinitely complicated. I had fixed this country in my mind as the epitome of the challenging travel destination. Before I had begun this trip, I would never have dreamt of tackling this country on my own. The language was too difficult, the cities too vast. Even while successfully navigating through places like Nepal and Thailand, I still felt uneasy about my ability to slip into this complex and ancient culture. After 7 months of traveling, it was finally time to put this question to the test.
I boarded a bus in Hanoi which would take me all the way up to Nanning. Most of the people on board were either Vietnamese or Chinese, but I quickly made friends with a guy named James from the UK. He was studying the Vietnamese language, and so had been in the country for the past couple of weeks practicing. He was making a quick jaunt up to China to visit his mother before heading back to Britain. He was one of the most friendly, outgoing, and goofy guys that I’d met on this trip…a kindred spirit! And one of the best
...
...is it whale blubber? mutated jello? we have no idea... things about him was that he was fluent in Vietnamese, which meant that he could translate for me when I had to pee so badly that I thought that I would bust a kidney.
We decided to split a room in Nanning on account of the fact that there were no hostels in town and so had to splurge on an actual hotel room. After luxuriating in a real shower (sob!) we decided to hit the town in search of food. A few blocks from the hotel, I staggered to a stop, clutching my heart and uttering small whimpers of joy. One breathless word escaped my lips…“McDonalds”.
It had been 79 days since I had last frequented the golden arches. I had endured more cabbage, pork, and pepsi then I cared to recall. I was ready for some deliciously plastic hamburgers, insanely salty French fries, and ice cold Coke. James, despite wanting to hunt up some fried dog for dinner, good-naturedly waited while I got my McDonald’s fix. I almost wept in gratitude, and I confess that I did divulge in a ridiculously enthusiastic happy dance outside of the establishment.
Glutted in plasticky-goodness, we continued our stroll
Looking dubiously at our meal..
...sweaty tofu and fried morning glory...welcome to China to the Nanning night market. Other then the influx of undecipherable signs and the propensity to stumble over caged wildlife awaiting the frying pan, it was not much different then a night market in Thailand or Vietnam. Picking a restaurant at random, James and I went in and sat down. There was no English anywhere. Not on the signs, not on the menu, and certainly not from our waiter. James decided to take our lives in our hands and order random items from the menu. Selecting 2 rather pretty Chinese characters from the list, we sat back and waited impatiently to see what we got.
It wasn’t good.
I must say that I don’t recommend this technique for anyone else traveling to China. Get a phrasebook. Or better yet…get McDonalds. The waiter, with a smug twist of his lips, delivered a tray of what appeared to be whale blubber. It wiggled. It jiggled. It projected a less-then-appealing aroma. Poking at it with our forks we finally determined that it must be some form of tofu. It appeared to be sweating. I nibbled delicately on a few bites while James bravely dug in. He was able to intersperse his
The street vendors...
Time for some obscure meat valiant mouthfulls with the bitter taste of fried morning glory (the second item from our impromptu order). About halfway through the dish he declared his surrender. The meal had defeated him. We slunk out into the street with our tails between our legs.
Wandering up and down the aisles of strange and exotic food items, James decided that he wanted to give his dinner one last try. We sat down at an outdoor food vendor and ordered some fried meat. What type of meat you ask? We had no idea. James was rooting for dog, but I was quietly praying for pork. When our skewers were delivered we bravely dug in. Unfortunately (or maybe fortunately) the meat was so over-spiced that we were not able to determine what exactly we were eating.
After we had consumed our fill, we began the long walk back to the hotel. On the way, we stopped at a local park where a bunch of older couples were dancing the waltz. It was so romantic, and clearly the kind of thing that you just would never see back home. We stopped for a little while to watch them before continuing on our way.
Dig in!
James looking ridiculously excited about his possible fried dog... Crawling into bed that night I had to reflect that overall, despite the sweaty tofu, it was a fairly successful first day in China.
Signing off,
Jen
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