I loved the Chinese food! Part of the reason is because my parents know what to order having spent so much time in China. I am so grateful I can benefit from their having already learned by trial and error.
This is biaozi (prounced bow-za), a specialty dish that Tianjin is known for. It is a breaded dumpling with all sorts of wonderful things inside of it. I also loved jiaozi (pronounced jow-za) which is a fried dumpling or pot sticker, and which you can order at PF Chang's.
Unfortunately I have zero tolerance for hot stuff. This dish was about $1.00 which is fairly typical at small cafes, but WAY TOO HOT to eat!
Boiled peanuts - delicious!
And this is a dish of lily bulbs, celery and cashews. It was unbelievably good...one of my most favorite dishes ever. Do you see how good these vegetables look? Chinese cooks really know how to cook their vegetables.
And this is fried eggplant, which is also one of my favorite dishes. Oh my gosh, it was soooo good!
Ordering from the menu
After our walk on the Great Wall, we had a "Farmer's Lunch" at a restaurant on the premises.
This was some sort of green vegetable and although it looks terrible, it was very good.
Fried sparrow or dove, we never confirmed which and I didn't really want to know.
Fried fish - as in whole little fish fried. Can you see it? Reportedly tasted like Fritos.
This is a fancy dinner we had with my parents' colleagues. It was an elaborate 4-course meal, meaning we went through at least 4 table-laden rounds. The Lazy Susan spins around, and you take whatever you want with your chopsticks. Not the most sanitary, and also very difficult if you are as bad at using chopsticks as I am.
This is from the fancy dinner. A Cantonese tradition, an whole fish is brought out in the middle of the courses. It was also really good.
At this fancy restaurant, you could pick your food out... Giant fish heads anyone?
Or perhaps some bullfrog legs...
This is from a local grocery store called Carrefour. Blueberry flavored Lay's.
Or perhaps you'd like the cucumber flavor.
The oil aisle at Carrefour.
And last but not least, KFC. No, we never ate there, but seriously KFC has taken over China. I have never seen so many KFC stores, signs, or delivery bicycles. It used to be McDonald's, but now it's definitely KFC.
These are very popular ice cream bars. You can get them in Corn, Peas, and I believe there's a Green Bean one as well. People were eating these everywhere we went. Since I can't eat ice cream, I never got to try one.
Or perhaps you'd like the cucumber flavor.
The oil aisle at Carrefour.
And last but not least, KFC. No, we never ate there, but seriously KFC has taken over China. I have never seen so many KFC stores, signs, or delivery bicycles. It used to be McDonald's, but now it's definitely KFC.
These are very popular ice cream bars. You can get them in Corn, Peas, and I believe there's a Green Bean one as well. People were eating these everywhere we went. Since I can't eat ice cream, I never got to try one. But I did try Corn Juice at one restaurant. It was a hot drink, and tasted like custard. It was excellent!
I attempted to eat a little bit of everything that was given to me and was pleasantly surprised by a lot of food items. The fried creatures with crunchy bones though...just couldn't do it. Maybe next time.
This is the Women's restroom at a university. Yes, those are squatties, and no, there are no doors. My dad reports that he once saw a man squatting on the toilet while his friend stood at the open doorway chatting with him, face to face. Not something that would happen in America.
There is no toilet paper in any of the stalls. In a really nice public restroom (such as this one), you will have a toilet paper dispenser in the common area where the men and women share sinks. The dispenser in this picture is above the radiator, and you can grab the free toilet paper and take it in with you. The really interesting thing is that the toilet paper also doubles as paper towels, and is even labeled as such. Have you ever tried drying your hands with 1-ply toilet paper? Not a good idea.
