Food In China

In my last blog I mentioned a bit about the food here. But I mainly hit on the fast food, and food that is delivered to your door. So I am going to dedicate this blog to some of the food here in China that I have come to love, and eat quite frequently.

One of my major concerns when coming to China was if I would be able to find food that I would like. I always heard food poisoning stories and people told me horror stories. But so far I have been fine and haven't been sick once :)

I would also like to add that it is not hard to find good food here. It is not as cheap as the street food, but its still not expensive in comparison to the USA or Europe.

** Please note that I am a very picky eater. So the things I post here are not as adventurous as what my classmates might have. **

Real Ramen! It is noodles with meat, veggies and a hard-boiled egg. This is about $4.



An Irish coffee I indulged in when we were at M50 (Textile factories that they made into several art galleries)

At Hibachi (a Japanese style restaurant where they cook all food in front of you on a flat grill.) We paid a flat rate of about $20 for all you can eat and drink. We had sushi, shrimp, fish, lamb chops, pork chops, steak, chicken and so much more.



This is at a place called Xiabu Xiabu. Basically you get a pot in the middle of the table to cook your food yourself. You pick the broth you want (we had two kinds) and then what meat and veggies you wanted to put in. About a $5 meal.



I ate street food here. It was actually very good despite my original skepticism. I liked that I was able to watch him cook my food thoroughly. I paid less that a dollar for 3 skewers.



A fried rice dish that I sometimes get at the ramen restaurant. It comes with miso soup and is great! Costs about $4.

This is basically the same meal I get every time I go to the cafeteria on campus. It costs about $1 for everything you see here. And it is what they recommend for us to eat because it is safe food.

Week 3

I have officially made it into my third week of living in China!

Everything is falling into a routine, and I am amazed at how much I am learning and progressing in everyday life. I do not feel like I am in school over here. It's a weird feeling, but I guess I don't associate living abroad with school. Even though I go to class everyday, I guess I have just categorized that as part of the living abroad experience.

This blog is hard to write, because I feel that I haven't really done much of anything. But I realize that even the most mundane of things here is something completely different and new for everyone back at home. And then I realize that since even the small things count, I should include them here in the blog. But then I have no idea how to organize my thoughts, and what to include.

But here goes, this blog is going to concentrate mainly on the day-to-day things that I noticed are completely different than back at home.

1) Traffic: This includes everything when you consider driving. I have not once seen a speed limit sign. Not that it matters because the traffic is so bad that you never can go too fast. People have no fear when it comes to driving here. I haven't yet decided if this is incredibly brave, or incredibly stupid. People constantly cut each other off on the road. There is no such thing as taking turns. It is a fend for yourself situation. I hear cars honking all the time. But it does no good to honk your horn when you do it so often. People don't even bat an eyelash at the noise. Mopeds here are a very popular form of commuting. But these guys follow even fewer rules than the cars do. At least cars will stop at red lights, mopeds just keep right on. If I ever get run over, it will be because a moped driver didn't allow me to walk EVEN THOUGH I have the right of way. I would also like to mention that I have only seen like 5 police cars while here. And not one of them were patrolling traffic or trying to stop crime.

2) Food: Food here is completely different. But of course, you all probably know that. Just thought that I should mention here in case anyone had any doubts: Chinese food in America is not the same as Chinese food in China. And of course the same goes here. The American food here is completely different, and doesn't even taste, or have the same ingredients. This is simply because both places have different recipes and food availability. Don't forget that just because the food says "American" on it means that they want to appeal to the Americans in China. Overall, they still want to sell food, and as such, the Chinese people want it to be more similar to what they like.

Almost everything here can be delivered. This is so awesome! My friends and I have had McDonald's, Pizza Hut, and sushi delivered right to our door. I have also seen Subway deliver as well. Pizza Hut can also deliver a bottle of wine if you so choose with your pizza. But, the wine here in China is not a specialty, so not only will you pay more, chances are you will also not enjoy the wine you get. Pizza Hut here is also considered a "nice" restaurant. Literally, when we went in, it was like a nice Italian place, my friends and I were genuinely confused at first. We have also tried Carl's Jr. and Burger King. Both were near misses. Not the same thing as back home.

I also pay about $5 for a meal here. And that is if I go somewhere kind of expensive, i.e. when we go to eat sushi. Most of the time we can go to local places and find full meals, with all the works, for about $2. I foresee having issues when I go back home when it comes to meals because everything here is so cheap.

3) Beauty/Fashion: So here the ideal Chinese woman has big eyes, very pale skin, and looks like a doll. Because of this I have a very hard time trying to find lotion or moisturizer that won't try to make my skin lighter than it already is. Almost everything here has something that will make you "100% White" or something along those lines. I have also seen many Chinese women with orange looking hair because they want to dye it blond, but it doesn't work out that well.

As for fashion... everything is either very cute and little girl like, or edgy with rock undertones. And the clothing here runs super tiny because most of the women don't need huge sizes. Shoes sizes for women that are bigger than an 8 are very hard to find.


4) Animals: There are a ton of stray cats running out and about in Shanghai. They are everywhere. Dogs are not seen as much. Maybe because they are not as independent as cats... maybe because they are used as meat in street dishes. I do not know, and I do not want to think about it too much. I knew this was a part of China, but it is still hard to deal with.

Hmm... That's all I can think about for the moment. There are other things too that I want to talk about, but I don't want to put them all into one blog.

Hope this was interesting for those who read!