We woke up relatively early and decided to get breakfast at the hotel's buffet. It was a real Chinese brekkies, nothing western in plain sight, turns out there were some items tucked away, mostly for a reason! There were fried eggs tucked into a corner and some cereals as well, other than that, only Chinese food.
I got some fried veggies, congee, some interesting steamed buns, wanton soup and coffee. Well, it had a sign over it stating it was coffee, but it poured out of the urn looking like tea. I added some milk, and took it to our table. Neither of us could drink it....absolutely disgusting, not in a lose your cookies way, but in the way that it tasted nothing like coffee, nor did the tea fare any better!
There is a lot to learn about Chinese breakfast. You can order some stuff, other stuff is out on the table for buffet taking, and other things you are allowed to doctor to flavor soups. There is an array of spicy things that you can add to your soup or congee and usually I do, but I couldn't find the "spice" bar right away and I was hungry. So I ate plain congee without any fixings...not nearly as tasty as with the fixings!
We decided to explore Old Town. This was after logging many miles in looking for a laundry. We went up this alley, down that alley, across the street, asked locals, and all we could find were dry cleaners that would dry clean my shorts for 16 yuan. We had to take the laundry home, and were told that there was a machine for guests on the 3rd floor. We checked it out but decided not to spend the day doing laundry, we would do it at night.
I'm glad we went to Old Town because there was not much there there. Restaurants were either fast food, or stalls near the water front, and further away, no English at all. We ended up in a strange place that had tables and service. There were 2 menus, one for food on sticks, and the other for classic offerings. Bill went with the stick food, some of which was organs, and some more identifiable as other cuts. I ordered hot and sour soup and dry fried green beans. The soup came out in an ENORMOUS bowl, enough for an army. The cost: 14 yuan, which is about 2 dollars. The string beans were about 22 yuan, or 3 dollars. The string beans were fabulous, spicy, salty, a little outside taste of sweet. Perfection!
I got some fried veggies, congee, some interesting steamed buns, wanton soup and coffee. Well, it had a sign over it stating it was coffee, but it poured out of the urn looking like tea. I added some milk, and took it to our table. Neither of us could drink it....absolutely disgusting, not in a lose your cookies way, but in the way that it tasted nothing like coffee, nor did the tea fare any better!
There is a lot to learn about Chinese breakfast. You can order some stuff, other stuff is out on the table for buffet taking, and other things you are allowed to doctor to flavor soups. There is an array of spicy things that you can add to your soup or congee and usually I do, but I couldn't find the "spice" bar right away and I was hungry. So I ate plain congee without any fixings...not nearly as tasty as with the fixings!
We decided to explore Old Town. This was after logging many miles in looking for a laundry. We went up this alley, down that alley, across the street, asked locals, and all we could find were dry cleaners that would dry clean my shorts for 16 yuan. We had to take the laundry home, and were told that there was a machine for guests on the 3rd floor. We checked it out but decided not to spend the day doing laundry, we would do it at night.
I'm glad we went to Old Town because there was not much there there. Restaurants were either fast food, or stalls near the water front, and further away, no English at all. We ended up in a strange place that had tables and service. There were 2 menus, one for food on sticks, and the other for classic offerings. Bill went with the stick food, some of which was organs, and some more identifiable as other cuts. I ordered hot and sour soup and dry fried green beans. The soup came out in an ENORMOUS bowl, enough for an army. The cost: 14 yuan, which is about 2 dollars. The string beans were about 22 yuan, or 3 dollars. The string beans were fabulous, spicy, salty, a little outside taste of sweet. Perfection!
After lunch we wandered around Old Town, and really saw that there was no there there. Bill felt much better about where we were staying and all of the options that are available to us in our current location. There were some interesting street and sights, but it was not the quaint old German town that Bill was expecting.
This explains much of how China works: We were looking for the historic Govenor's Mansion. We followed Google Maps, and ended up making the left turn into a hospital's parking lot and between the orderlies, people running around in scrubs, local Chinese rushing to loved ones, local Chinese escorting loved ones home, the historic Mansion was undergoing some kind of construction. We could not figure out if it was demolision or if it was renovation. But it is in a parking lot! China has a habit of tearing down historic buildings only to rebuild them to look like historic blogs. When your biggest resource is man or woman power, this does make sense. Especially, if you don't have to worry too much about the bottom line.
We cabbed home and Bill did laundry at a machine upstairs. I slept for a bit and blogged for a bit.
Perhaps our epic fail at finding one colored our entire day, but I did need a snooze before dinner. Eventually, we went out to get dinner and ended up at a Szechwan place. We got a cold beef dish, ma po tofu, and an eggplant dish. For me, the eggplant was the winner. It was spicy, sweet, sour, and salty all at the same time. Silky smooth and piping hot when it arrived, I burned my mouth on the first bite. The eggplant was a great foil to the spiciest of the tofu.
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