Beijing to Shanghai

First thing in the morning it was off to the airport, so we just had breakfast there.

Buns, sour milk (yogurty... we didn't look at the label too closely when we grabbed it), faux chocolate muffin, some king of gruel and cold veggies.

Food on the airplane. Sandwich-strips, congee (rice porridge), apple juice, fruie, and packet of preserved vegetables.

After we got into Shanghai, we met up with my cousin Lester for some dim sum.

In this picture, roughly from left to right: chang/ fen~ yio/ tiao/ (chinese donut wrapped in long noodles), xia jiao (shrimp dumplings), xiao~ long/ bao (steamed dumplings), another long noodle dish hiding just behind the XLB, and then some other kind of steamed dumpling. There was also the chopped small pork rib pieces, fried tofu, and maybe a few other dishes.

We wandered around a little and then stopped for another snack. I got peanut soup, and Sue got some concoction of fresh mango, mango ice cream, shaved ice and condensed milk.

The group (L-to-R): Sue, Mike (Lester's friend from Canada), Lester, Teresa (Lester's G-friend).

Wandering around again later. Ducks for sale.

For dinner, we met up with Andrew, who is a long-time friend of our family. He's an American who grew up in the states, but then soon after college moved to Asia and has spent most of his time since on that side of the planet. Anyway, he took us out to dinner for some Shanghainese cuisine with his wife Hillary and their son Christopher.

Soft-shelled turtle with glutinous rice.

Almost whole fish. Fried. This had almost a sweet flavor to it. Very tasty.

Drunken chicken.

Fried chicken with just a few peppers. More of a Szechuan dish.

Dried tofu with black tree ear and bok choi (or one of the many similar vegetables).

Xiao~ long/ bao.

After dinner, Sue and I wandered around a bit and ended up at another Chamate.

(L) red bean soup with glutinous rice balls (xiao/ yuen/ zi) and (R) glutinous rice balls with black sesame filling (tang yuen/) in peach soup (we think).

We saw it in the menu at the Chamate in Beijing, but we didn't go for it. Now we saw it in the menu again, and we had to take on Jabba the Hutt...

Anyway, that's what it reminded us of. Giant pile of shaved ice totally covered in sweet red beans and condensed milk.

Trying to make it look a little more like Jabba... we're not going to quit our jobs to do ice sculptures anytime soon...

Defeat. Just when I thought we were going to make it, we found a bunch of pudding (!) buried in the bottom of the ice. That was just too much to handle... Jabba 1, Lohs 0. Bosco!