Hotpotting
My last meal in Taizhou before heading off on holidays was one of Stef and my favourites, a simple hotpot at friend Gary's local restaurant. Here Stef is loading up her basket with a variety of skewers loaded with local vegetables. Each table has a metal bowl inset into the table attached to a gas supply. A flavoursome stock is then quickly heated up and you simply unload the contents of the skewers into the boiling liquid for a few minutes. All that is left to do is to retrieve the contents and add them to some spicy sauce in your own bowl and there you are, a really cheap easy meal. At the end of the meal, you simply count up the number of skewers you ate and calculate the price (they're 0.5RMB each- that's A$0.08!) You can eat your heart out for less than A$1! That's what I call value!
For centuries China stood as a leading civilization, outpacing the rest of the world in the arts and sciences, but in the 19th and early 20th centuries, the country was beset by civil unrest, major famines, military defeats, and foreign occupation. A... ... read more 
