Pork Buns, Dumplings and Other Beautiful Details

Ok, here we go with my first attempt at a published vacation log.

I'll try to skip the stereotypical shots of The Eiffel Tower, Big Ben, and The Great Wall, like you can see anywhere...there's way more better photos of all that then I can produce!

OK, first off, I respect any culture that sees and appreciates the beauty in all the details. I mean really, if you don't cherish the little stuff, the details that make the difference, then there's a lot of life that is just glossed over...There is no such thing as too small a detail to the Chinese people.

First, check out these dumplings:

Yes, those are froggies on the left and a wonderfully posed pic of what we ate on the right...The green one was a leaf shape, there's a little baggy looking one, a walnut shaped one, and a duck one. Not only were these amazing. Wonderful, borderline-chocolate level goodness. Man, I can't get dumplings to even be uniformally round! There's love in there, man.

And, another unlikely place to find beauty:

This was under our feet in The Forbidden City. You can't see it really clear now that I downsized the pic for viewing ease, but it's a scene of leaves and flowers and branches made out of stones set in the pavement. There was also one of a bicycle, but you can't make it out at all when the pic is downsized. I know this was for the Emperor and all, but there's still someone's soul in this art. And I saw pavings like this all over China.

(Yes, it was China. And no, H is not here with us.)

And, back to food, cause I'm all about the food, especially when it comes to piggy. The pork buns. The steamed, bbq-porky pigish ooeey gooey yummy insides wrapped up in a spongy squishy carb-gasmic outside. I could live on these things. Seriously. There's a bit of onion or one of the lesser veggies in there. All major food groups are therefore covered. I don't have a picture though, cause, well, every last one went into my belly before I could get a pic. But I'll swear on whatever book you want me to that each and every one was beautiful.

Just a note on the rice "wine" (a bit off topic here)...yeah, ok, love ya China. Love ya a lot. But, seriously folks, anything that is between 90-108 proof is not "wine." It's moonshine mixed with some rocket fuel. Yeah, I drank it. Had 2.5 shots of it after I found out about the 11/25 cutoff (see the bottle in the dumpling shot? Yeah, they make it pretty so you aren't aware of the danger lurking within!), but "wine?" Har. That stuff burns folks. Burns good.

Next post, I'll tell you my favorite story about hanging out with some locals. Wish I had spent more time, but I was afraid of being left behind. For now, I'll leave you with the knowledge that not only did I eat the most wonderful food for 11 days to my hearts content, but I also managed to lose 3.50lbs somehow while doing it!