Ahhh... The food

Ok, people certainly don't come to Chongqing for the crisp, clear skyline view or fresh, green pastures - nope - they come for the food. It has a reputation in the foodie community as one of THE places to eat in Southern China.

One of my first dinners here was basic noodles with beef and it was delicious (left).                                 The little shrimps (right) were small and salty but you could eat them whole like they were a peanut or something.

I still consider beer a food so a tray of sampler beers is always fun! Places offering craft beer are few and far between here so it always a treat to find a neat spot.

Last weekend staff and students treated us to a group dining extravaganza at a restaurant near the school. We had poached fish soup, duck soup w. mushrooms, dumplings, duck fried rice, enoch mushrooms with salty beef, shrimp with rice noddles, unlimited white rice and pineapple chicken to name a few.

The salty beef and roasted cauliflower were a couple of items on the table.



Barry (below) kept the table active all evening long, as if it were an old record album spinning away. You grab a sample of whatever you like as it is passing by! 

 Great food, great conversation and great fun by all. It is a very common dining experience here.

   This rice cake is fried up on a grill near the sidewalk and served as street food. I tried, wasn't a real fan (left). 

This roast chicken appetizer was delicious but if you look closely at about 9 o'clock (right) the chicken head was included. My crazy cohort gave it a try!

This city is famous for its' hotpot restaurants - I'm sure 50% of all restaurants we walk past are hotpot. Again it is group dining whereby a soup base, peppers, chilis, more peppers HAHA is heated over a flame. Think fondue on steroids!

The cowboy hat looking object is a solid oil that gradually melts as the pot gets hotter. The lady then adds some water which forms the soup portion and before long it is a frothing, hotpot of goodness. There are more peppercorns, chilis and God knows what else in there - more than I would go through in a lifetime I'm sure. The Chinese lady who took us out said it was almost TOO SPICY for her.

You are served rice and the other bowl is your own personal mixed concoction whereby you add the contents of the can (I think it was an oil or sauce) and then you add your ginger,  soy sauce, chili oil, sesame seeds, etc. from bins on a shelf. This is to dip your food after coming out of the hot pot (left). Yummy stuff ready to eat(right).

Here I try sheeps intestine for the first time - not so bad actually. A little rubbery and crunchy consistency. We also had potatoes. mushrooms, lotus root, eggs, dumplings, pork and beef.

The other evening we had Mr. Fish (below) swim onto our plate right out of the river! No, it was fully cooked and so freakin' good - it just feel away from the bone and melted in your mouth.

We need to take a subway to find a decent cup of coffee. I tried Tom n' Toms this past weekend and it was good!

And finally there is nothing quite like enjoying a German beer, in an Irish pub, in downtown Chongqing while watching cycling on TV. I felt right at home!

Life in Chongqing,China

I am adjusting well to life here in China. The daily routine is breakfast at the hotel at 8:30am and then  prep lesson plans (drink coffee) for school until noon. Usually, a quick snack of oatmeal, fruit or granola bar and tea will do for lunch at the hotel. After cleanup, we head off to the college around 1PM which is about 25-30 minute easy walk. Not very exciting but here are a few sights of the scenery on the daily trek to school.

The school itself is surrounded by lots of deserted buildings as if a movie crew finished up and left town - it is like a ghost town! Weird! Not sure what is going on there! 

                                



Our school day ends at 5:30PM and we can grab some supper out around town. (I will dedicate an upcoming blog to just food as dining out has been a fun experience and the best part of our day :-) After dinner we'll drop by a shop or two, maybe pick up a drink or snack and go back and put in a few more hours of school work.

The past weekend was busy (not much work done!) . Some staff staff and students from the college took us Canucks out for dinner Friday night.  The two ladies in the photo below are my translators in class - Daisy and Tina - without them there would be no hope for me!!! I would be lost. They are teachers at the college and are really great people. 

                      

A common dining style here is family or communal dining where lots of dishes are ordered and shared on a revolving table.  You already have your rice so then you just grab a sample of something as it is passing by. We had a selection of pork, shrimp, chicken, veggies and a few 'mystery items' that you aren't totally sure about.
                                                              

On Saturday, a group of students invited us to join them on an outing to a section of the city called Ciqikou. It is very old, traditional city full of narrow alleyways with shops all the way along. To say it was crowded is an understatement and I thought the Halifax market was busy on Saturdays.

This gentleman is cooking up a batch of soup that will later be sold in packets to prepare at home.

I even take a crack at a little baking of my own. I really could have used my Kitchen Aid mixer!

We then got to tour several prisons in the town - one being Zhazidong Prison built into an actually very serene mountain location. Ironic considering the atrocities that were carried out there.

The students here are encouraged to interact with the instructors as part of their English studies, as they can learn about Canada or just practice speaking outside the classroom. It is a different culture for sure as I don't remember hanging out with my teachers - EVER!

After the kids left, we stopped at another section of town called Shapingba for some well deserved refreshments and bite to eat after lots of walking all day. We actually wore out the students - they don't get any exercise and stay up all night playing video games.

First stop Starbucks where a large latte $8CDN costs more than a full meal of noodles and dumplings about $5-6 at most restaurants. It is a treat after all as there are limited coffee shops around our hotel - I get by on my instant packets OK.

Sunday afternoon we took an epic subway ride to the curling rink here to see the Brad Gushue and Jennifer Jones' teams compete at the 2018 China Open. It is hard to belief that in the time it would take to drive from Halifax to the PEI ferry, we took a subway ride for 1 and a half hours and were still here in the same city!

I wore my T-shirt with the Canada flag on it and it caught the eye of an official who came over chatting to us. She mentioned it to Brad and they came over after the game and thanked us for coming out to watch. It was nice!

Chongqing at Night

It is Day 6 for me in China so I will try my first night's sleep without any melatonin tonight. Hopefully, goodbye to jet lag! Spending time in Chongqing and teaching at the college has been a blast for sure. A real adventure so far!  The students in my class, though varying in age, are all kind, quiet and genuinely respectful. Some try harder than other's, I'll leave it at that haha.

Our school and hotel is on the outer ring of the city so we spent last Sunday afternoon and evening around the downtown core of Chongqing. Who needs fireworks when you can show off your city so spectacularly with lights.

Below is Hongya Cave, not far from where the Yangtze (brown river) and Jialing (green river) merge. It was a military fortress in the day, but today it is a crowded, 11-floor complex with shops, bars (yes we stopped for a brewski or 2) and restaurants built into a cliff. At night, we walked out onto the bridge and got a great view looking back.

We walked part way out on this bridge - it was very crowded!

The large brightly lit building is their Grand Theatre. 

Nicely lit towers line the river on the opposite side.

The cool 'match stick' like building is the Arts Center 

People's Liberation Monument and Pedestrian Square. It brings to mind Times Square in NYC!

Can you believe the Men's and Women's China Open 2018 (Curling) is here in Chongqing and both Brad Gushue and Jennifer Jones are competing. If they progress to the finals, we may try to take in a game or two on the weekend. Crazy!

Everything is going very well here and hi to everyone.

Chongqing, China

Greetings from China! It was a long haul to get here but all is good. The trek was about 32 hours in total with the route being Halifax - Montreal - Shanghai - Chongqing. This city has a crazy population of 34 million people (Canada has approx. 37 million). I am staying in the outer ring of the city, it takes about an hour on the subway to get to the downtown core.

The temp is about 15-20C so very mild; the air is usually hazy and grey. I saw a patch of blue sky the other day for a few minutes! The air quality today is 144 which means it falls into the 'Unhealthy for Sensitive Groups' category. Those in the general public may not notice anything unless we were out running or something like that. Since we are surrounded by mountains, it also gets very foggy so it usually is foggy/hazy or it is the pollution making everything grey-ISH.

It is Day 3 here and my sleep is slowly getting better - a solid six hours last night so hopefully it will continue to improve. The food has been interesting - nothing too crazy (yet!). Breakfast is usually boiled eggs, dumplings, fried potatoes, steamed buns and hot vegetables. I discovered a new vegetable I like called lotus root that sort of looks like a thinly sliced mushroom but is a bit crunchy. Rice, soups and noodle dishes are the norm here and the food in restaurants is very cheap - no tax or tipping. A delicious bowl of beef noodles and a beer cost me $4.50 CDN dollars the other day.

I am here to teaching at a community college under the China - Canada Educational Joint Venture Program managed by Holland College in Charlottetown. My school is about a fifteen walk from the hotel here so very convenient (you can click picture on left to expand). The kids are great, I had my first teaching day yesterday. I had some 'jitters' in the morning but everything went well.  My class runs from 1:40PM - 5:30PM, which gives me the morning to get some extra prep time in. The students age can be anything from 16 to 22, some very young as they can choose to skip high school and go right to community college. I have two 16-year  old in my class.

I am fortunate enough to have another instructor with me here in Chongqing who taught at the school last year and is showing me the ropes! Devin is in the blue jacket below along with some students who kindly escorted us downtown on Sunday to take in the sights.

I have a translator with me in the classroom named Daisy and she is awesome. She is another teacher at the college and her English is excellent. She also knows the kids really well and is not scared to bang on the desk when a student falls asleep (just one yesterday so it was a good day). Most students live in a dorm with no parental supervision and they stay up all night playing video games!

Next post I'll show the downtown in daytime and nighttime. Downtown is where you really get to see a slice of those 34 million people LOL!