Seoul-cialite (Part II - Modern day Seoul)

This is part two of my trip to Seoul, because I had such an amazing experience, I had to split it into two parts. In fact, I should have split it into three. If you would like to read part one, it is here.
Despite my previous post delving into much of Korea’s historical culture and development, Seoul is nothing if not synonymous with modernity.

This is definitely one of the first things that strikes you when arriving in South Korea. Of course, this is the land of the tech giant Samsung, etc, but I didn’t quite expect it to be on the scale that it was. Wherever you went, there was some technology around. Even most of the lifts contain TV screens playing some sort of adverts or shows, and there is WiFi EVERYWHERE. And when I mean Wifi, I don’t mean the crap kind where you have to stand in a corner to get just one bar of signal strength, and if you take a step in either direction, then you’ve lost it. I mean the good, four bars full kind of superfast Wifi, where gif downloads on your phone are almost instantaneous. Every single subway stop and many shops have WiFi, and although many are paid, most of them, such as one service called “Olleh” usually cost less than £2 for a whole day’s worth of WiFi, which can be used at one of their many points all around the city. The vouchers can be bought at many, convenient locations all over the city, such as any convenience store, just like phone top up vouchers. The telephone boxes in the street also have WiFi capability, and some places even have it for free, at familiar places like Starbucks, some other coffee shops and anywhere where you can pick up a network called “iptime”. The best WiFi was at the airport, where there were many points with really excellent signals (great when my filght was slightly delayed), and I managed to upload all my Facebook photos in a matter of minutes (I was taking full advantage of my precious few days of unadulterated Facebook access! And I finally managed to watch the infamous Paxman vs Brand interview!), although it wasn’t quite good enough for me to Skype my dad while I was waiting for my plane though!

Even at museums, such as Leeum Museum of Art built by the founder of Samsung near his former home, there was state of the art technology. The audio guides were essentially a modified form of a Samsung smartphone, with a retina display standard screen, and some technology inside meant that it detected when you got within a 1 m radius of any of the exhibits, and played an audio description of the item. This came in especially handy when we got to the modern art section, as that’s something that definitely needs explaining to me. I was surprised to find that there is actually a genuine explanation behind some of Rothko’s paintings (!) I was also glad when Aimee’s husband said he didn’t get modern art either. The Zaha Hadid structure still under construction at Dongdaemun is also met with similar confusion, and a touch of resentment at losing their old, beloved baseball stadium.

Staircase inside Leeum Museum of Art

Since it was an art museum, I don’t have any pictures from inside, just a few from outside:

My Korean friend Aimee and myself

Installation by Anish Kapoor outside the Samsung Leeum Museum of Art

Also, since my friend lives in Gangnam-gu (the region south of the river), which like in many major cities it seems in Asia, was the less productive part of the city until the era of skyscrapers, when many such buildings sprang up and it became a major business centre, bringing along with it all the economic benefits. This resulted in Gangnam becoming quite a rich area, what Aimee says might be considered a bit like Seoul’s equivalent of Chelsea (but with less history), or like Shanghai’s Pudong region. It also means that it has become the haunt of some rich, privileged types, of whom the infamous “Gangnam Style” song is making fun. Since I was staying in this area, I couldn’t resist a visit to Gangnam station, where there is a light-hearted structure erected to commemorate the surprise global success of this song:

Tribute to commemorate the crazy success of the "Gangnam Style" song

My Seoulite friends seem pretty nonplussed about the song though, I guess it’s a bit old for them and the craziness has died down now, but I still think it’s an amazing achievement - the most played video ever on YouTube – 1.8 billion (yes, billion) views at the time of writing, which would no doubt be much higher if YouTube was available in China! It has helped put Seoul on the map internationally, and I’m sure it will continue to do much for the economy for years to come, if only through tourism alone. But when I mention it, it’s met with comments like “oh, most of the video wasn’t even filmed in Gangnam, blah blah…..” But I guess it’s not exactly a piece of high-brow culture!

One of the things the song makes fun of is people’s vanity. A major effect of the prosperity in Korea has been a spike in popularity for plastic surgery. In the Asian world where job applications can specify things like height or weight, image is a very important thing. And nowhere is this more noticeable, than South Korea, which has become the plastic surgery capital of the world, where eyelid surgery, jaw reshaping and nose jobs are very common. This has supposedly resulted in ridiculous situations such as the man who successfully sued his wife on the grounds of marrying him under false pretences, after she gave him ugly children (although now it is widely reported that this story was actually completely false). Nevertheless, you are bombarded with a large number of visual adverts showing before and after shots of a number of surgeries, plastered all throughout the subway and other parts of the city. The health care system as a whole seems to be very commercialised, as there were many shops around for different specialists, and there was even a urologist next to the 7 eleven at the base of where I was staying. On the whole though, I would say that Koreans are definitely the most image conscious of all the Asian people, and in China is it fairly easy to spot them – the men are much more likely to be wearing they hair long (like Beatles 1970s style), or dyed (blonde is quite common, but it just looks so bad!), which makes a contrast for the more traditional, conservative Chinese look. But many of the Chinese are aware of this, and are keen to imitate the trendy Korean style. One of the first questions I got asked when I got back was whether I bought some clothes, and other people have proudly said to be that they had their hair done in a “Korean style” for their wedding (I don’t know what this means either!).

 

                Another thing that was high on my priority during my visit to Seoul was to eat some proper Korean food. After arriving in China, many people said that Korean food was particularly delicious, and it was a special treat to go to a Korean restaurant. My DK guidebook also told me that it’s exceptionally healthy for Asia, partly because they use much less oil than the Chinese, but also because they eat a lot of vegetables and cook things very fresh. It seems to be standard in Korean restaurants to bring bowls of fresh ingredients, and cook it on a hob embedded in the table in front of you, which means you can cook it just the way you like, no over-cooking, leaving all the good vitamins and minerals intact, and it goes straight to your plate, so it’s very nutritious

So, Aimee and Bina took me to the Bulgogi Brothers restaurant (불고기브라더스) to have bulgogi, which is a kind of beef stew with sugar and lots of vegetables, and it also came in this way. Aimee said that foreigners always like this dish, and I was no exception!

 

As we sat with our food steaming away in front of us, we nibbled on an array of vegetable side-dishes, including kimchi, mashed pumpkin and many others, which were all unlimited, so there was no fighting over who had the last bit, because you could always ask for more! This really was one of the tastiest dishes I’ve ever had, and the girls told me that this place is so popular that there are now stores in America, Canada and Malaysia (wish they would open one in London!).

                After this delicious experience, I was feeling ready to try anything new, so when Bina suggested getting Ddeokbokki for lunch the next day, I figured I may as well try it out. It was mentioned in my DK book under “top ten Korean meals”, and although it was described as “rice-cake chunks (ddeok) in a thick, and very spicy red-pepper soup”, Bina assured me that she knew a place in a trendy part of town Garosu-gil (가로수 길) that made a more tolerable version. Bina ordered, and our delicious meal came in all its fresh, raw glory, piled high with minced beef, spring onions, rice-chunks, noodles and sauce, all sat on our own personal camping stove.

Bina, with our lunch just after it arrived, ready to cook

Before trying the ddeokbokki

Looking back on it, I probably should have seen the warning signs, as this place was called “Villa de Spicy”. As soon as we started eating it was quite obvious that it was going to be a rough ride. Apparently Bina had asked for a “medium” spice, but even she and Aimee had struggled with the dish, looking round at the others in the restaurant going “why is no one else suffering?!”. As some of you will know I have a very low tolerance to spice anyway, so this was a real effort for me. All the other ingredients in there I knew were very delicious, and I especially love the rice chunks, so I tried to battle my way through a small plate. In desperation, we ordered some extra rice and I got myself a beer, but to no avail. Even a San Muigel couldn’t wash away all this capsaicin. After a while, it was possible to ignore the spice, mainly because we had lost all feeling in our mouths. I can honestly say that I have never tasted anything like this before, but that would imply that I was able to taste anything. I gave up after a plate and a half, and though the girls bravely ate some more, they couldn’t finish the dish either, and we decided that our next stop had to be an ice-cream parlour. By this point I had succumbed to the pain and it made my eyes water just a little bit!

After trying the Ddeokbokki!

I also developed a sudden headache, started to wonder whether I would be experiencing capsaicin toxicity for the first time. It was either that or the beer had gone to my head! It was a really interesting experience though, and I’d love to repeat it, but first I’d learn how to say in Korean to the chef “stop torturing people by making delicious food completely inedible and painful!”

Korean “ice flake” after the fiery meal to soothe our tongues

And the toilets! I could write a whole separate blog post about South Korean toilets! After some horrific experiences in both Beijing and Shanghai, you realise what a luxury it is to have a good, clean toilet. Before you wonder whether if I’m a few meatballs short of a dumpling, toilets in Korea are note worthy because even in most public places, they were so clean and were electronically controlled to within an inch of their life. I was so surprised to find that many seats are heated, even at my friend’s home and at the airport. The electronic seats have so many buttons at the side to spray water in this or that direction, you don’t really know what to do with them. Almost everywhere the remaining facilities were touchless motion sensors, but what really surprised me was that the airport even had a map of the cubicles when you first walked in, with red and green lights to indicate which places were free! I was so astonished, I wanted to take a picture, but I thought this was probably too much, and anyway, the facilities were so well designed that I would have been in full view of a group of women at the specially designated area with floor length mirrors for adjusting your looks (cleverly thought out to avoid having people blocking the way to the hand-wash basins – is there nothing they don’t think of?!). So, apologies, but no pictures here of coloured toilet maps and heated seats.

 

Getting back to more serious issues, as we sat at our trendy dessert parlour recovering from our experience and discussing the passage of time, as well as agreeing on when we should meet up next (the girls want a 10 year reunion with all the guys from our halls in Hong Kong!), I suddenly felt very lucky to be there, and the realisation dawned on me I thought that barely a stone’s throw away (about 50 miles to be exact) was a country at the complete opposite end of the scale of living standards in Asia. At the end of World War II, as the Japanese surrendered, they also had to give up Korea, which they were then occupying. The US, who had previously maintained troops there during the war did not really acknowledge the temporary government set up to rule Korea. At the same time, Soviet tanks entered North Korea from Siberia. The division was meant to be temporary, but during the years that followed, which precipitated the Cold War, each side began to be suspicious of the other, and would not yield their half of Korea. Each side felt that they had a right to govern the other, and in 1950, the Korean War broke out, when the North side decided to take forceful action to take back the Southern half and create a unified communist country. Of course, the Americans would not tolerate this, so they boosted their military presence by hundreds of thousands of soldiers, as well as from the help of other UN countries. Meanwhile, China got involved on the North Korean side. The conflict reached a stalemate, and eventually, an armistice was signed in 1953, which means that neither side has won, and technically, the war isn't over. It is frightening to think that earlier this year, North Korea had claimed that this armistice was now finished (a decision it made all by itself) and that North Korea "is not restrained by the North-South declaration on non-aggression." Despite this, people seem to be carrying on as normal for the time being.

           The net result of all the conflict mainly caused by North Korea is that it forced America to evaluate the importance of this country in Asia, and it decided that South Korea was valuable enough to protect and keep friendly, so in the subsequent years has maintained a steady presence with much aid in assistance from town planning and businesses, which has benefited the country enormously and is probably ultimately responsible for South Korea's current thriving economy. This small Asian country seems in infinitely better shape than China, a country with much more resources and a larger workforce. I have to admit that I naively believed that this is what all of China would be like before I came, but definitely, China is not there yet. South Korea is clearly one of the most comfortable Asian countries, which others look up to, to some extents. The American influence can be seen very clearly, from the naming of blocks as numbers on very long streets (as in New York), to the omnipresent "Dunkin' Donuts" stores. Never before has such a political experiment produced such staggeringly different results. The closest similarity that comes to mind is the chapter in “Collapse” by Jared Diamond, in which he compares how one Caribbean island split into two countries – Haiti and the Dominican Republic - has similarly massive chasms in prosperity. Although some have criticised his review of this situation, it would be interesting to see what he has to say on the Korean issue. The conflict is technically still ongoing, but apparently trips out to the Demilitarized Zone are very popular, and that’s definitely one trip out of the city I’d like to do next time I go back.

  Despite the political conflicts, Seoul has the luxury to indulge in some really nice renovations within the city. One night, after we came back early from dinner on account of Aimee’s baby and because Bina lives outside the city, I just couldn’t help myself, and I snuck back out to take a look at the lantern festival at Cheonggyecheon. This is a part of the old city that used to have a small tributary of the main river. However, due to overcrowding by the poorer communities, it became very polluted and unsightly and was filled in and turned into a highway by the authorities during a 20 year renovation of the city starting in 1958.

Then, in 2003, then mayor of Seoul, Lee Myung-bak (who subsequently became president of South Korea) decided that it would be a great project to restore the stream, creating jobs and also re-introducing more of nature into the heart of the capital (again, this seems to be a common theme that it held in high importance by forward-thinking South Koreans). It probably seemed like a good idea at the time, but the mounting costs to remove the highway, and then the pumping of water artificially to the site to replenish the now dried-up stream, coupled with some safety issues, meant that the total cost of the project reached around $900 million. This left a lot of Korean tax-payers very unhappy, as they felt that this was a pointless vanity exercise.

However, I couldn’t disagree more! I really like the idea, and I really loved it when I got there. I think bringing the natural elements back into the city gives a really nice atmosphere and a very pleasant walk along major part of the city, since the stream stretches over 8.4 km. The removal of the highway improved the air quality in the city centre, although the air is already infinitely better than the major Chinese cities, which made me laugh when I saw the odd Seoulite with face masks.

Also, since I’m a lover of lights and night photography, I simply couldn’t resist the lantern festival, and took as many photos as I could before it closed at 11 pm. I only just made it back to the last subway home, but I think it was worth it (even if I had to walk the last stop or two back to the hotel!). Each lantern tells a story and there are full explanations next to them. There was everything from a traditional Korean wedding scene, complete with guests; to mythical creatures, flying fish and even something resembling a Christmas tree. These are some of my favourites:

Seoul Lantern Festival

It was also raining that evening, but there were still plenty of people about who, like me, were undeterred, and many left only once all the lights went out. So, this popularity, combined with the positive effect on the environment means it doesn’t seem like such a failure after all! But then, I could be speaking as a naïve tourist here, who just likes pretty lights!

Overall though, my main reason for coming to visit this city was to see an old friend, and I was pleasantly surprised to discover and fall in love with a beautiful city which has such a diversity of things to offer. I would definitely recommend it to others, especially in the autumn.

This trip was my main reason for getting my Chinese visa changed, but the new one they gave me gives me two entries, so now I have done one, perhaps I’ll do another before my time runs out…..

Seoul Survivor (Part I – Reunions, origins and histories)

Apologies for the lack of posts recently, I've been quite busy with work (I promise I have been doing some, and there’ll be a science post soon!) but also because I went on a long weekend trip to Seoul last week.

                I think most people have known that this was one trip I have been planning ever since I found out I was going to Shanghai. In fact, my friend Aimee (Korean name Boram) has been asking me to come and visit her ever since we left our undergraduate halls in Nottingham back in 2007 (Sherwood Hall! Woo!). I had the very good fortune of having Aimee as my neighbour during my time there, who was a really bubbly and friendly girl and we had some fun times in halls that year with her friend Bina, another Korean girl at our halls from a different building. We did fun things like going to hall formals:

After one of our hall formals: L- R Jade, Sarah, me, Aimee, Nina and Bina

…and we also bravely tried to make kimbap (김밥) which are basically the Korean version of sushi (taken on during one of the spells of Japanese occupation) using our very rudimentary halls kitchen (sticky rice boiled in the microwave anyone?) and whatever ingredients and equipment we could get our hands on at the local “Fresh Asia” Chinese supermarket in Beeston.

Lol, priceless look on Aimee’s face as she takes a first try of our creation!

Bina, busy creating the kimbap, while I’m busy posing with it! Lol. Note the awesome 2007 fashions and hair cut I was trying to rock! (I was trying to work the "Pob" at the time)

For health and safety reasons we only made tinned tuna, cucumber and cheese versions, but they turned out really delicious, and it was great fun!

It was so nice to catch up with Aimee and Bina after six years, and seeing how much our lives had changed.

Aimee at Changdeokgunk Palace (창덕궁)

With Bina during our dinner at the world famous Bulgogi Brothers restaurant (불고기브라더스)

Aimee is now almost 30 and has settled down and after a beautiful wedding, had an adorable baby girl:

Aimee with her baby girl

When you haven’t seen somebody for six years, the realisation of how much time has passed suddenly hits you and you feel very old! But it was so nice to be able to catch up, and try to recreate our kimbap night!

(even though they insisted that kimbap wasn’t really that cool, and that it’s more of a snack than anything else). 

              I originally planned to have my visit during the “Golden week” which is only in China, and is a good time to leave the country, on account of the huge crowds (see my earlier post about this). Unfortunately, even though I handed in my passport at the Exit-Entry Bureau as soon as I could, I couldn’t get my passport back in time. But now, I’m so glad that my trip was slightly delayed, because I caught the last of the mild autumn weather, and the wonderful colour show of the leaves as they change for the season!

A building in Gilsangsa temple (길상사) behind the foliage

It’s a little bit out of the way, but definitely worth going for! Much more quiet, secluded and ambient than some other temples

          The colours in the October-November season are known to be a popular tourist attraction, and I can definitely confirm that it's worth it. The colours are really so vibrant in real life, and my camera doesn’t have the quality to really capture the beauty, so a few photos have had a bit of autocontrast. Seoul has a really good amount of greenery in the city, and is one of the few capitals to have an actual National Park within its bounds (also worth a visit). So many places were awash with different shades of green, yellow, amber and red, which allowed me to take photos like this:

At Namsangol Hanok Village

Outside Changdeokgung Palace. No photo doctoring – this is really what it looked like!

           One of the first things that struck me about South Korea is that Korean, really is literally nothing like Chinese, which meant that all the words I’d learnt in the past few weeks were suddenly useless (although there are many signs and announcements in Chinese, on account of the large number of Chinese tourists – which is hardly surprising given the proximity, and how great it is here. People in the west have yet to discover how really awesome Seoul is as a tourist destination). Yes, the writing is different, but also none of the words sound the same, and the language structure and grammar isn't similar either. For starters, Korean is not tonal (phew!), and there are sounds that are hard for westerners to pronounce, since they are part way in between b and p, or g and k, or ch and j, and there is only one letter for r and l (hence the stereotypical joke of Asians mixing the two up frequently when they speak English, although I’m told it’s much worse in the Japanese). Despite the lack of tones, it’s quite a melodic language, and it sounds much more pleasant to the ear than the harsh clashing sounds of all the Chinese tones. (I once asked the people in my lab how Chinese people express feelings with speech, since all the usual inflections used in English are used in Chinese tones to give meaning. They told me that they simply adjust the volume!) I especially love the way people say goodbye in Korean (annyeonghi gaseyo -안녕히 가세요), like a little song with a bow at the end, as if you’ve just given a farewell performance.

The fact that Korean has an alphabet (called Hangeul) of only 28 letters, rather than ideographic characters (as in Chinese) is a blessing, since it’s possible to guess how to pronounce new words. In actual fact, Korea also used to employ the Chinese characters for writing, much like the other Chinese dialects and languages, which means that almost any Chinese person should be able to read the same text, even if they pronounce completely different words (this is thought to have partly contributed to China’s success at keeping diverse communities cohesive throughout its vast territories and time).  However, in the 15^th century, a Joseon King known as Sejong the Great (세종), a very forward-thinking king who, despite opposition, introduced the new alphabet with the explicit goal that Koreans from all classes could read and write, not just the nobility. The Hangeul letters were loosely based on patterns made by the mouth, tongue and teeth when making the sound related to the character. With this new, simplified system it was possible for someone to learn how to read in a matter of days. It gave the people a new identity, and the now instantaneously recognisable text was born.

Nevertheless, some historical sites still show the remnants of times gone by, when the Chinese characters were still in use, such as at the Changdeokgung palace.

The Concubine's quarters. Note the Chinese characters on the window frame, remnants from the old style of writing

And generally, the Chinese theme is very much apparent throughout the historic sites, as can be noted from the general architectural and decorative styles. Changdeokgung is basically one of Korea’s answers to Beijing’s Forbidden City.

Roof detail at Changdeokgung Palace

             But I think this one is prettier and has more character. Perhaps this is partly because the Forbidden City is just so vast it seems unyielding, and less of a welcoming or comfortable place. Seoul has several smaller, but charming, palaces spread throughout the city, rather than just one, big, imposing one.

             Unfortunately, we didn’t get into the Secret Garden attached to this palace, because we didn’t book ahead in time (visitors are limited to protect the garden and heighten the enjoyment), but I heard it was amazing, and a must-see, so be sure to book your time in advance.

             History is also easily engaged with in other parts of the city, such as the Namsangol Hanok Village, at the base of the Namsan mountain. This area is home to several traditional wooden buildings (hanoks) which regular people lived in (I guess the equivalent of hutongs in China).

Traditional Hanok housing at Namsangol

               This area is really cute, as although it has been a little bit touristified, there is a real emphasis on interaction with the past, and getting involved. Here you can watch traditional straw-craft, play ancient games, try on traditional clothes, and even do a spot of toy archery!

A straw-crafter, making shoes, bags and baskets

Cute kids on a school trip, trying out traditional games (pre- iPad entertainment!)

                 There is usually a small fee for trying out some of these extras, but it's not more than a few pounds each, and I think it's good because it means you can pick and choose which activities you want to take part in, rather than pay for all with an entrance fee, and it means that entrance to the park for people like me who just want to wander around and take photos, is completely free.

The Namsangol Hanok village is also where the Seoul Time Capsule lies:

Seoul time capsule, created in 1994, to celebrate the city’s 6^thcentenary

Inscribed with well-wishing messages from mayors of cities Seoul is twinned with, from all over the world, including Paris, São Paolo, Jakarta and many others, the time capsule was set up in 1994 as part of celebrations for the 600^th anniversary of the setting up of Seoul. It contains an array of objects including plants, technology (who would be able to play the tape or disks in 400 years time when it’s finally due to be opened?!), everyday objects as well as 90s fashion items and traditional Korean clothing. I wonder how much of it will have survived properly and what future Seoulites would make of the selection of objects! It’s nice to see that there’s a real awareness and value of heritage, the passage of time and this effort is a reflection of that; a gift to the future generations giving them insights into their past – a glimpse of our current present.

Have you been to Seoul? What was your favourite part? I loved Seoul so much, I had lots more to write about it, so check out part II as well

"What do you eat?" - Part III - Restaurants in Shanghai City

             I haven’t written much more about food since I’ve been told off for talking too much about food – but what else can you expect from someone that’s normally a food blogger with an interest in foreign cuisines, in a land of such diverse dishes? I’ve also had a few people asking me recently – “Have you eaten any weird things yet?”

I have to say, the honest answer to this is no. Whilst lab people have done their best to give me a whirlwind tour of Asian cuisine, to show off their varied and interesting diet, they are not pushy in making me try anything I’m not comfortable with, and understand that the western diet is very different to theirs. The most I have had to do is eat some prawns, scallops and some other seafood (everyone that knows me knows I can’t stand it) out of politeness, because they had already been ordered. This is because the traditional method of dining in China is that the host orders a range of dishes which all the guests share (this is good for me anyway, because I can’t tell what half these dishes are, and the sharing of many dishes means that even if I don’t like one dish, there are still others to choose from, so I don’t have to go hungry!). You should at least try each dish, otherwise I think it’s considered quite rude. But my guidebook also says don’t finish all the food, because then it looks like the host is too poor to lay on enough of a spread! I have definitely found that a lot of food is left in restaurants, and this twinges on my hatred of waste of food, but hey, when in Rome….

The normal theme from the lab group about choosing a restaurant seems to be “Let’s go have Hong Kong/Taiwanese/Japanese/Thai/Korean food” - I can’t much discern anything between the meals as at the moment they are all variations of meat, weird veg, rice or noodles with or without soup to me. But I imagine it must be like when we’re in the UK saying “Let’s go to that French/Italian/Spanish restaurant”.

This suggestion is closely followed by ones for restaurants focusing on a specific ingredient. Usually these ingredients are not really my cup of tea! One of the funniest suggestions came when they beckoned me over to a computer screen to ask what something was called in English, as they were debating how to pronounce it. I duly came over and saw a picture of a snail, and after telling them how to say it, I naively asked why they were interested to know about snails, and burst out with laughter as the obvious dawned on me that they wanted to go eat it. I thought it was hilarious that they were pushing my boundaries without realising it, but after memories of Sardinia where even my mum couldn’t eat more than one snail from a large bowl she’d ordered, I just knew I couldn’t force myself, so I politely declined. You should have seen how their faces fell when I broke the bad news. They seemed so disappointed and some tried to convince me saying that the way it is prepared is actually surprisingly tasty. I replied saying that I know some people even in Europe really relish snails (I know from Rick Stein that parts of Spain have snail-eating festivals, where thousands gather to feast on them), and that it was just a personal taste issue for me.

The second instance was just this week when Lu meekly came to my desk with a smile on her face saying “do you like to eat intestines and blood?” She’s so cute, it’s hard to say no, but I couldn’t help but laugh and go “what?!” and then she went away saying “Maybe I don’t translate very well” before coming back with “Food like duck intestines and duck gizzard”. I managed to stretch to “I’ll eat blood if it’s cooked” – since I quite like black pudding – “but it’s okay, you guys go get gizzard and I’ll just go to the canteen”. It turned out they were just suggesting it for my benefit so that I can try more types of Chinese food! I managed to politely wriggle out of it after some attempts by others in the lab to convince me, saying that the way the gizzard is prepared you can’t actually tell what kind of meat it is. How reassuring, I thought. Maybe in that case, I’ve already had some without realising it!

Part of me felt a little guilty, because I was partly here to try different foods and push my boundaries a little, and I felt a bit like a chicken (pardon the poultry pun) for not wanting to go. Especially so when duck gizzard is fairly bog-standard food in the country where I’m from. My dad regularly likes to buy packets of chicken hearts from Hungary, and it is also available in Austria, and he puts it in his soup. Like a good Hungarian man, one of his favourite foods is also tripe. So duck gizzard soup wouldn’t really be much different to things found in the traditional Hungarian kitchen. I think soups made from internal organs hark back to nomadic times in both the Hungarian and Chinese history, where people couldn’t really afford to let any part of the animals go to waste. But I think my theories on the links between Chinese and Hungarian origins are a topic for a separate post.....

Back to the food. So the previous two are examples of what I haven’t eaten, what follows is a summary of what I have successfully eaten outside of the campus, with varying degrees of stomach upsets after (!)

The meals that arrive for me when I’m out with the lab are pretty much hit and miss. Most restaurants don’t have English versions of menus, or if they do, the Chinglish is pretty bad. My lab mates try their best to translate the foods I ask about, even if it’s via the translating app, and they also warn me if something I like the look of is hot, since they know that I don’t like too spicy food.

So most time I explain to them roughly what I fancy based on the pictures showing what is offered, and they do the ordering. The two don’t always match though, like one time when I said I fancied noodles as a break from all the rice at the canteen, and they asked “with or without soup?” and I said “without” but something must have gotten lost in translation, because I got this really vile soup that was basically just noodles, hot water and bits of beef. Vile.

It seems to be really difficult to get noodles without at least some kind of liquid being in it, and the other British girl I’ve met in the dorms, Miranda, thinks that it’s probably something to do with adding some of the cooking water of the noodles. There was even liquid at the bottom of this tasty Taiwanese take-away we got:

Taiwanese take-away

It was so tasty though, so I’ve decided I now really like Taiwanese food.

 The liquid seems very counter-productive to me though because this just makes the noodles much more slippery and harder to pick up! We went for some noodles made out of potatoes, and even the lab guys struggled to pick up the slippery strips with chopsticks:

Slippery potato-flour noodle soup with pork dumplings and two quail’s eggs

At least this one was a very tastier experience. The dumplings were very nice (despite the need for liquid in them too) and the soup was very hearty, full of different vegetables and even the mushrooms were tasty. Although there was a special mushroom in it which is apparently hard to digest, and for this reason, it is sometimes called “see you tomorrow”. Lol, I don’t think I need to say any more! But this seems to be quite a common ingredient, and I think why is it included if it’s so hard to digest? But hey, extra fibre is always good, I figured.

Not sure what the two quails eggs added to this meal, but I figured since they are a delicacy in some places, I may as well try them. They were a bit of an anticlimax, because they tasted pretty much the same as a boiled chicken’s egg. Boiled eggs seem to be quite a common garnish on dishes, and there is even a version of boiled chicken’s eggs that they like, boiled in tea which comes out brown (why????).

            Another great experience was also when we went to this Japanese restaurant:

             I had some rice, beef and sweet corn come on a hot plate with a knob of butter and you had to mix it up yourself to spread the freshly melted butter round. It also came with a small bowl of miso soup and is probably one of the best meals out I’ve had!

     Another time we went to a Japanese fast-food diner place, and I was recommended to have this other beef and rice dish which came with cheese on top and which also had to be mixed up with the hot rice to melt the cheese:

First bit of cheese I've had since I arrived, on a Japanese beef rice dish

              It tasted pretty much like the plastic-y, waxy, pre-grated cheese you can get in packs at supermarkets back home, but hey, this was my first cheese for three weeks, so I couldn’t complain!

              My incessant photo-taking of all my meals was always found to be hilarious by the guys in the lab, and they now remind me to get my camera out every time we eat a meal out:

“Western people taking photos of our food are so funny!”

               I also went to a slightly more up market place to meet up with Phoebe again (the lady who saved my phone from sinking into the oblivion of taxi land a few weeks ago), a place called Cotton’s that she recommended, which seemed quite western, and even had a Hungarian style beef stew on the menu! I didn’t try it because I didn’t come to China to eat Hungarian food, but it’s good to know it’s there if I ever get cravings for a taste of home!

With Phoebe, the kind lady who helped me track down my phone!

             This place also have buy one get one free happy hour on cocktails while we were there, so I got a little bit merry on some melon and vodka mixes!

            One of the cooler restaurants we’ve been to with the lab is a Korean restaurant where each table is equipped with what is basically like a sunken hob, where a hot plate can be put on top of it for people to fry their own food exactly the way they like it and have it fresh off the plate, or in our case, a large hot pot can be placed on top and your food bubbles away in front of you:

Amazing tasting Korean dish!

Here you can see a big pile of those long, thin, white “see you tomorrow” mushroom just above the green stuff here. The basic premise of the hot-pot is that you eat whatever you can fish out. Chinese eating occasions are very social, and whilst sharing food for Western people seems a little unhygienic, it is a sign of trust and friendliness here.

            They also had an unlimited free supply of pumpkin goo as a starter:

It tasted pretty much like pureed baby food to me, but the boys, loving food and anything that’s free ordered plates and plates of this stuff and guzzled it away like there was no tomorrow.

            I’ve also been out with the people from the dorms, like this time for Miranda’s birthday:

Dorm dinner out for a birthday

            Her roommate had organized a trip to a nearby Thai restaurant, and we walked through the heavy rain during when the typhoon was passing Shanghai in order to get to this place.

 It was one of the weirdest food experiences I've ever had! You can see from the photo that at this point only I and two other people actually had any food. (people were bored waiting for the food, so they started taking photos). I somehow got lucky and got served almost first, while others had to wait two hours to get their food! And the joke of it was that the restaurant was almost completely empty apart from us, on account of the rain, so it’s not like they were run off their feet. The guy on the extreme right was particularly pissed off, because he’d already got his dish, but had to send it back because the staff didn't understand the meaning of vegetarian and had served it with two prawns on top. In the end, he had to send his food back no less than three times, as each time there were bits of meat in it despite very clear requests to the contrary. One of the girls had to literally spell it out to them in Chinese “chicken is meat!”. I think they didn't cook his food from scratch, just picked out the chicken more successfully each time. Even on the menu, an appetiser labelled as “vegetarian spring rolls” after further probing had turned out to have “a little meat” in it. This just made me think of Hungary even more, where most people are perplexed by the notion of not eating meat, and it’s only recently that vegetarian options are expanding beyond fried cheese in restaurants. (again, this harks back to the traditional nomadic diet, where you simply would not survive as a vegetarian).

  Ironically, I got a perfectly acceptable vegetarian dish, as I just ordered fried rice with vegetables (I decided to play it safe, as I know Thai food isn't really to my taste and can be quite spicy).

             With regards to the waiting, the others also told me that they had similar experiences about waiting times for the food, and said that there had been occasions when some people were just getting their food as others were finishing theirs. This happened here also. The people that ordered various forms of Thai curry also got their rice about two hours after the curry! It made me think of this photo which went viral a few months back:

I’m sure if there had been condiments at this Thai restaurant some people would have been driven to do this!

            The food I got was quite good, and this guy Matthias had even managed to get a cake for Miranda:

It was a really nice cake, quite similar to the Hungarian style cakes, with layers of very light sponge and whipped cream. Lovely.

            So generally, eating out is fine, and although I’ve not tried anything really crazy yet, there are plenty of choices for people playing things safe, and I’m getting a bit braver, so hopefully in future posts there will be some actual crazy stuff.