Tuesday, May 29, 2007

Trip to Xi'an

Last week we took a short vacation and headed to Xi'an, once the capital of China. Now the city is capital of the Shanxi province. It is west of Shanghai, it lies in the central part of the Guanzhong Plain and between the Wei River to the North and the Qinling Mountains to the south. Also home to the Terracotta warriors. We flew out from Shanghai on Wednesday and back on Saturday. The flight, on China Airlines, was nice. A meal was served even though it was only a two-hour flight. Decent for airline food! The hotel is about a 45 minute taxi ride to the north. The first thing we saw was the City Walls which is a large square which surrounded the original city. The walls are about 40 feet high, are about 8.5 miles, and were built originally We stayed at the ANA Grand Castle Hotel which is right outside of the South Gate, Yongning, of the City Walls. The hotel lobby was nice (as we hear they all are), but it was not a five-star. We went for a decent price and location. The only thing was that they only had rooms with two single beds and they had no cots. Luckily the beds were bigger than a normal single, though not as large a full-size in the states. So, Tom got to spend the holiday sleeping with the rubber band kid (she ends up on top of you in the weirdest positions!). We didn't do much after we arrived. We walked through the city gate and just looked around. We ate at Pizza Hut for dinner and headed back early to the Hotel to ensure we all got a good night of sleep.

Thursday morning we got up and Natalie and I had breakfast in the "Cafe". I fixed her a plate of pancakes and then went to get an omelet for myself. All of a sudden she was tugging on my shorts, "Mom, there is a man sitting with us! C'mon!". I thought she meant 'near her', but peeked around the corner anyway. Low and behold, there was a man sitting and eating at our table. Turns out he was French. I asked him why he was sitting there and he said "This is where they sat me". I looked around at the numerous empty tables and said "Interesting." I went and found the manager and asked if there was a reason they had sat a strange man with us. He said "Oh, he is not with you?" "No, he is no" I replied. And then they moved him to another table. After breakfast we headed to the City Walls. The first challenge was crossing the large, 6 lane round-a-bout that was in front of the entrance and between the hotel and the entrance to the walls. I never thought I would willingly place my child in front of traffic that was within 3 inches of her toes, but we did! Once we navigated across, we headed up to tour around the city walls. We were going to rent bicycles, but alas, no child carriers and Natalie was afraid to ride on the "bicycle build for two". So we paid for a trip on a small tram that travels around the whole thing. Of course it stopped at all of the key shopping areas. That is one thing here, you can be sure you will be lots of opportunities to buy all sorts of things at the tourist sites! The trip around took about an hour an a half with the stops. From the city walls, we headed to the Bell Tower, which is right in the center of town. There was a nice music show there, you can check out the You Tube video we uploaded. After the Bell Tower, we headed to the drum tower, just a few hundred meters away. We did not wait for the drum show as there was no sign, and we weren't sure how long it would take. And we broke down and ate at McDonald's for lunch, which was our first time eating there since we moved here. Then back to the hotel for naps and showers. We ate dinner that evening at the hotel next door, the Howard Johnson's, as they had a really nice international buffet. It was nicer than our hotel's buffet and cost less! Natalie loved the piano player in the lobby of the Howard Johnson's, and ended up spending about 30 minutes watching her play. Natalie spends quite a few hours at home playing on her battery operated piano which can play both songs that are recorded and real music with keys that work, so we know she loves pianos. She did say one funny thing. She said "That lady has to use music that it is written on paper, but I don't have to." Guess she feels she plays better! That night after dinner, we headed to the Big Wild Goose Pagoda, which was build int 652, for a musical and water show that night. In the video I uploaded, you can hear us say "Better stand up" as it turns out we were sitting right in front of a nozzle that shot out water as a part of the show. It was only about an inch from leg. Funny! The water area was huge (110,000 square meters) and it was packed with people, many locals who probably come 1-2 times per week. It was a really nice park, I wish had had time to go back to it.

Friday we went to see the Terracotta warriors. We rented a car from the hotel, which cost about the same as taking a taxi, and headed out. Once there, we hired a guide, Bobby. He used to be an English teacher and now does the tour guide thing all of the time. It costs 15o RMB (~$20) for 2 1/2 hours. It was very interesting. The first building, which houses most of the main part of the soldiers, was very impressive. Just the shear size of the undertaking takes your breath away. We had heard lots of complaints about the crowds, but we didn't think it was too bad. Bobby did a nice job of explaining, and that helped a lot. We ended up purchasing 3/4 size replicas for ourselves. I would have settled for the 1/2 size, but Tom thought we should go all out! I am surprised we didn't end up with full-size! Also, one of the farmers who originally found the warriors while digging a well, was there and signed our guide book. On the way back we stopped at the Hauqing Hot Springs, summer home of the Emporer Xuanzong (685-762) and his concubine Yang Guifei in the Tang Dynasty (618-907). That was ok, but not great. We were pretty tired by the time we stopped. Plus we bought a ticket for a tram service that runs through, but every time we go on after stopping, we seemed to go right back to where we started. But we had enough history for the day anyway. Back to the hotel for our naps and showers. Then back to buffet at HoJo's. That night we headed right across the street to see the musical, dancing, and carnival like show that takes place every night on the square outside of the South Gate. Every night we could hear the drumming and we had seen some bits of dancing, so we decided to check it out. It was very interesting. The video we uploaded shows that most of the dancers were women over 40. A few men and younger women, but mostly the women. They were out there for HOURS! The drummers too. There was dancing and music at both ends of the square. In between there were all sorts of of carnival like games. I sort of got chided in Chinese for videotaping some of the gambling ones. It was a very interesting look into what life is really like living in one of the huge Chinese cities. We hung out until Natalie almost fell asleep.

Saturday we walked on the inside of the wall and shopped a bit and then headed to the airport. [A note to future travelers: Xi'an has primarly Chinese toilets. They do have western-style toilets but the stalls were locked. Take something with you into the bathroom to jimmy the stall opens! We didn't do that so Natalie had to forgo the potty before the trip back. Luckily Shanghai has all western!] In all, we all agreed we had a good time, but that we missed Shanghai. The smog and pollution were a lot worse in Xi'an. And there was a lot of dirt and sand which make it sometimes hard to breathe. There were other differences too. The local food is pretty bland. Nothing exciting and certainly nothing international. There was decent street food in the Muslim section of town, but Shanghai's selection was much better. I did notice the noodles were much wider than Shanghai. Apparently each region has it's own style. The traditional singing that they do Xi'an is also not what you would call "relaxing". For some reason their opera style sounds more like howling wolves than beautiful warriors singing. And the final difference was the people. Xi'an has a very high Muslim population. I am not sure if that is the explanation, but generally the clothing and general look of the people is a lot less sophisticated. It did not appear to me that there was any "middle-class" to speak of in Xi'an. This is probably due to the fact that the industry that Xi'an attracts is more along the raw materials processing side as opposed to manufacturing. All I know is that we all missed Shanghai!

Tuesday, May 8, 2007

Hooters Anyone?


OK, now that all the men are reading... This past weekend we let Natalie pick the restaurant we ate at. One guess what she picked. Yes, Hooters. And as you can see in the picture, her father and she decided to BOTH wear their Hooter shirts. Of course Tom is smart, he knew the novelty of a father and daughter both showing their allegiance to their favorite restaurants was worthy of extra attention. We also got some decent pictures from outside the Super Brand Mall where this Hooters is located, of the Pearl tower at night. I will admit that Shanghai at night is really beautiful. That is until we got in the car and headed into the kilometers of traffic!!!

Sunday, May 6, 2007

Cooking with Pork Belly

Last night I cooked my first recipe using pork belly. Well, if you don't count using sliced bacon which is technically pork belly! This was Pork Belly I purchased in large chunks! Tom really wanted me to figure out how to make this dish he buys from the local 'fast food' Chinese place which is basically pork and pork fat. I found a dish on the February issue of Sauveur magazine I still get and adapted to what I could find here. I was not sure what to expect, but it wasn't as bad as I expected. I did have to spend a few minutes ensuring that the pork belly was in fact skinless! It turned out pretty good as a matter of fact. Despite my initial set back of figuring out half way through the process that my conversion from lbs to kilograms was off! I should have paid more attention during our 2 day high school education on the metric system. It was pretty time consuming this first time, though I think I could go a little faster next time. The most time consuming think ended being the shopping for the rice wine. In the use, you can buy the Chinese Rice Wine in the food section. Here, you buy it in the alcohol section as a lot Chinese drink this very potent alcohol. I went to the store thinking naively that I would just pick up a bottle like you buy cooking sherry in the US. I had to read labels on bottles for almost 15 minutes! I ended up buying a brand or type named kuaijishanhuadiaojiu. It was aged 3 years (who knew?) and tastes like Everlclear (190 proof grain alcohol) with sesame hints to it. Interesting. It did give the recipes an interesting flavor. Not sure if you substituted something other than rice wine if it would end up exactly the same, but if you use anything else I would think something along a dry sherry would be OK.

In addition to the Hung Shao Rou (Red Cooked Pork Belly) I also made a simple beef with broccoli stir-fry and sauteed mushrooms with garlic. Always good to have a backup in case the main entree flops. To be honest, cleaning the beef "flank" was a lot more difficult than preparing the pork belly. All meat here is sold with as much fat as the butcher can leave on it. so the flank had a whole wrapping of fat on it. That wasn't the hard part, it was the membrane underneath that attached the fat to the meat. Yuk. Anyway, it was a nice meal. We all three ate together with candles. Natalie loved the beef, but was so-so with the pork. Tom like both. Here are the recipes below. Note that I adjusted to serve 2-3 only. If you are serving more, you might want to double. Of course we served with rice!

Hong Shao Rou - Red Cooked Pork Belly
1/2 kg Pork Belly
1/2" piece of Ginger, peeled
6 Scallions
1/4 cup shaoxing jiu (Chinese rice wine)
2 Tbs Dark Mushroom Soy Sauce [note that this is much richer and thicker than regular soy sauce. if you substitute, I would think you would use a little bit more!]
2 1/2 cups water
1/4 tsp salt
2 tsp sugar
olive oil / vegetable / corn oil (use what you prefer!)

Slice ginger into thin "coins". Clean and cut scallions into 2" pieces. Cut pork belly into 1 1/2" chunks.. Place pork into a pot and cover with water. Bring to boil, covered. Once boiling, uncover and cook for 2 minutes, stirring once or twice. Drain and rinse pork. Heat 2 Tbs oil in a flat-bottomed wok over high heat. Add ginger and scallions and stir-fry for 10 seconds. Add pork to wok and stir-fry for 1 minute. Add rice wine and stir-fry until pork begins to brown, 2-3 minutes. Add soy sauce and cook until absorbed, 1-2 minutes. Add half of water and salt, bring to boil. Cover and reduce heat to simmer, cooking pork until tender, about an hour total. Add the remaining part of the water around the edges of the wok as water is absorbed. [note: The amount of water needed may vary depending on the cut of pork belly. Adding 1/2 cup at a time will help ensure you don't add to much.]. Stir occasionally when adding water. There should be about 1/2 cup of liquid in pan when pork is tender. Add sugar and cook, uncovered until sauce is slightly thickened, 8-10 minutes.

Beef & Broccoli Stir-Fry
1/2 kg Broccoli
2 cloves broccoli, pressed or chopped fine
1/2 kg beef flank (or sirloin)
1 Tbs soy sauce
1/4 cup olive oil
3 Tbs water
Cooking sauce:
1 Tbs cornstarch
1/4 tsp ground ginger
1/4 tsp cayenne pepper
1/2 cup chicken broth
1 Tbs shoaxing jiu (Chinese rice wine)

Slice broccoli into small florets. Cut beef into 1 1/2 inch strips (with the grain) and then cut into 1/4" diagonal slices against the grain. In a bowl, mix the soy sauce and garlic. Add sliced beef and mix well. Let marinade for 15-30 minutes. Prepare cooking sauce by mixing ingredients in small bowl and whisking with fork. Set aside. Heat a few tsp oil in wok over high heat. Add half of beef and cook until brown, 2-3 minutes. Remove from pan. Heat an additional 2 tsp oil and remaining beef when hot. Cook and add to other beef. Reduce heat to medium and add remaining oil in wok. When hot, add broccoli, stir-frying briefly, 1 minute. Add water to wok and cover. Cook until broccoli is fork tender, 3-4 minutes. [note that this may require a bit more water, go ahead and add a Tbs at a time until broccoli is cooked to desired level]. Add beef back to wok and pour cooking sauce around edges of wok. Bring to a boil and let sauce thicken. Enjoy!

Saturday, May 5, 2007

Books Read

I have had so much fun spending some of my free time reading that I thought I would share some books that Tom and I have read. yes, I said TOM! He reads more when I am not here, but he has been known to devour a book in 48 hours or less!!! As I finish a book I will try to remember to put a small review out on the web page. I hope you enjoy it! Please use the comments section to add comments!!!

I have toyed with the idea of creating a seperate book club page on the website. If anyone is interested in participating in that, let me know.

Friday, May 4, 2007

Where does the Time Go?

I have been thinking about explanations around why I am so busy, but I am not working. I have come to the realization that I now allocate time to things I never had time for before. Here are some examples:

  • Making my bed. I have talked about that before, how I never used to make our bed unless we had company. Now I make it every day. Well except sometimes on the weekend. With a King-size bed and all the stuff, that can take 7 minutes!
  • Washing my face before bed. Those of you who have spent the night with me know that I RARELY ever washed my face before going to bed. I don't know why since most women are practically religious about their night time rituals, but now some nights I do. I even bought facial cleansing lotion! I didn't that existed!!! That can take 10 minutes including the cleaning up part.
  • Applying lotion after showers. Here in Shanghai that is a must. Between the water and the weather, your skin takes a beating. I used to lotion up only when my legs were actually going to show and even then only part of the time. Now I spend 10 minutes using good Vaseline Intensive Care (not available here so I am using stuff I brought!).
  • Reading two books at the same time. What a luxury! I have always loved reading but when I was working I was really limited to reading at night before bed or during travel. Now I have enough time to be reading two books. I have one book downstairs that I pick up in the morning or when I have a few free minutes. The other is on my nightstand and usually just read it at night. Though I will admit to going to bed at 8pm so I have extra time to read I probably spend on average 90 minutes a day reading.
  • Experimenting with cooking. Some people might say I experiment all the time, but now I am taking to extreme. I have been making my own spaghetti sauce as it is hard to just buy here, so I took the time to see what tasted better in it: sliced garlic or chopped garlic. I spend a lot of time doing this. Probably 30 minutes a day, though it tends to come more in big chunks of time.

So, you see? here goes 2:27 minutes every day! I sleep about 9 hours a day. Hmmm... Where do the other 12 hours and 33 minutes go??? I will keep looking....

Mandarin Lessons

Last night was our third Mandarin language lesson. We decided to go with iMandarin as I had talked to several other folks who were taking lessons from them. Our teacher comes to our house on Thursdays at 5:30 p.m. and Sundays at 10:00 a.m. The class length is two hours. Our teacher's name is Sammie. I will refrain from writing her Chinese name, though her surname is Chen. The first night was pretty rough. Pronouncing some of the characters is pretty rough and both Tom and I were pretty overwhelmed with the uphill journey we realized we had embarked upon. The 2nd class was a little frustrating as sounds I could pronounce the week before now seemed to come out completely wrong. And I seemed to get confused trying to remember simple things like My Name Is Shelly. By the third class now, I have started to feel a little more comfortable. The teacher keeps telling us how "clever" we are. Which must be how the Chinese describe people who ask lots of questions. Tom had a clarifying question for each exercise. Last night she got stuck on telling Tom that she "know his type" and that he is really focused on "success" and must "do everything as perfect". She told him he must be "clever" to ask such questions. She is right, Tom feels compelled to do this well. He studied for two hours yesterday morning, rewriting the exercises and words, typing them up unto a nice little cheat sheet for himself. I guess I had forgotten what Tom was like in school. We have been together for so long you would not think that his determination would ever catch me by surprise, but it does. He got so frustrated by his inability to correctly pronounce a particular sound correctly, he practiced and practiced until now, the teacher says "yes, good job". I on the other hand find myself chuckling and have decided I am going to enjoy the learning process as opposed to going in head first. I guess that is what happens when you take some time to smell the roses!

Many of you have enjoyed watching Natalie's Ballet Recital videos on YouTube. It was pretty interesting for me to see. Granted she only attended for part of the session, so really she had three classes before this day. But it is interesting to see a lot of Tom's personality coming out in her! She just doesn't like doing something if she can't do it perfectly! I guess this didn't really hit home until the language lessons showed me that side of Tom again. She also really wants to the teacher to be focused on her as opposed to other students in the class. She seems disinterested in the videos, but part of that was due to her annoyance that the teacher paid some attention to the other students! Anyway, we had to move Natalie's class from Thursday to Tuesday and I guess the new class has a lot more students in it. It will be interesting to see what happens next. She still wants to continue, but she may get more frustrated with even less of the teachers time available to her.

This week in China is the annual Labor Holiday. Most workers are supposed to be off work 1-3 days this week. If they do work, they are compensated 2-3 times their normal pay. So it is pretty quiet around here. Tom has been off since Tuesday, though he had to work last Saturday and Sunday to make up for it. Tom let our driver have off Tue-Thur, so it has been pretty quiet here. We have limited our excursions to bike-riding distances, so we haven't ventured too far. We did head down to the Yatai Xinyang fashion and gift market near the Science & Technology Museum to do some shopping. It is a crazy market where everyone tries to get you to buy from their choice stall. And being western makes you quite the target for the hawkers! They will grab your shirt sleeves and physically try to pull you into their shop. Yuk. I made Tom go with me as it is much easier to cower behind him and let him take on the brunt of the assault. We didn't buy anything, but I got a few stalls that I want to go back to. It just takes me a few visits to feel comfortable walking around in it. More to come on that...