Chris’s commentary on food has certainly evolved over the course of our relationship. While he’s always enjoyed food, as the years have gone on together, he’s become far more vocal when it comes to flavors, textures, and presentation. This has even extended itself into foods he feels okay about, but doesn’t necessarily love or gravitate towards, such as bubble tea/tapioca tea/boba, and loose leaf tea, like the ones we’ve been tasting throughout this China trip. Before this trip, Chris never had a strong opinion about any bubble tea or loose leaf tea I’ve tasted or bought and had him try. He would just say they were fine or good and say it was my choice whether I liked them enough to buy them, and leave it at that.

As far as I can recall this trip, we’ve had about five different bubble tea drinks, and he’s declared the Yu Cha outside of our Chengdu hotel his favorite: in the taro milk tea, there was a very generous portion of minced and stewed taro — creamy, slightly sweet, and very rich. Then, in the egg pudding milk tea, the egg pudding was also creamy and rich, eggy and custardy. He disliked one of the ubiquitous chains we went to for their milk tea, insisting it wasn’t that sweet or unique, that the tea flavor felt watered down. And he’s not a huge fan of the “cheese” top with the salty-sweet milk foam, even though I love it. “That’s not good… I don’t want that,” he thought out loud. “That’s just tea with some milky thing on top, and that is not milk tea. Milk tea is tea with milk incorporated into it.”

The worst tea tasting we had was of a few Sichuanese teas at a Tianfu tea shop in Beijing. I was unimpressed by all four of the teas we tried. Two of them tasted like vegetables in a cup. A third one tasted like… nothing. The fourth one was probably the most flavorful, but that was a sad comparison when holding it against the other three. Chris sat there, also unimpressed after sipping from his tasting cup, and insisted that two out of four of them were “grass in a bowl. This is like drinking grass. This is not good. But, you’re drinking it, so you decide.” Luckily, the shop assistant helping us knew zero English and understood nothing that Chris so vocally stated. When she asked our opinion, I simply said that we were not particularly fond of any of these, and left it at that. She seemed crushed knowing she wouldn’t get a commission off of us.

But while at Zhu Ye Qing and the tea tastings we did at the tea market in Shanghai and Beijing, Chris declared these tastings far, far superior to the one at Tianfu tea shop, which is a mid-tier tea chain throughout China. “Not even a single tea we tasted at this place (Tianfu) can compare to the quality of teas we had at these other places. They’re just charging you for grass,” he insisted.

Tastes evolve over time, even for things you don’t really think you like much. That’s why it’s good to keep an open mind when traveling to places you aren’t very familiar with and still tasting things when you previously thought you might not have enjoyed them. You might actually discover you like said food or drink because maybe, just maybe you will have a version of it that suits your tastes.

I’ve eaten quite a bit of Peking duck in my life. I’ve felt disappointed by duck experiences in cities other than San Francisco to date. In Boston, they were subpar. Here in New York, it took nearly ten years of living here before I was able to find a place that I could reliably go to and enjoy (and stomach the cost for, since here, it seems like you need to empty out your life savings just to have some version of a Peking duck… that isn’t even that great in the end). In Hong Kong, we had a delicious Peking duck experience, but for me, it was a bit tainted because the thin pancakes that were served seemed underdone and as though there was still flour on them… Were we being served raw pancakes…?

So when we were planning our trip to Beijing, I knew that we had to optimize our Peking duck experience, so I did pretty extensive research before I landed on one specific place that I knew we absolutely had to go to: Siji Minfu, which just happens to be a few blocks away from our hotel. They don’t seem to take reservations anymore, so after our half-day trip to the Great Wall, I asked our driver if he could drop us off there at around 1:30, which is considered “off-peak” hours for the place. I’d previously read that since they stopped taking reservations, diners, both local and tourist, can wait up to two hours for a table, and neither of us was interested in waiting that long for anything.

We were in luck: the hostess told us that only eight parties were ahead of us, and it would be anywhere from a 15-20-minute wait. I was already salivating, thinking about how glorious this meal could be that was just half an hour away.

Oftentimes, the uninitiated ask, what makes Peking duck different from the average roast duck? Isn’t duck just duck? Well, no, it isn’t, and it’s an extremely laborious and time intensive process that no average home cook with an average kitchen could replicate. Peking duck, from a historical standpoint, has existed for several hundred years, but it wasn’t until the mid 1800s when someone decided to open a restaurant here in Beijing that publicized this duck making process to the everyday Beijinger: chefs would hang the ducks upright in an oven heated with fruitwood fire. This hanging technique allows for more space for the duck’s endless rendered fat to properly drain, which results in a crispier, drier skin: the pride and joy of Peking duck. In a good Peking duck, the skin and the meat is fully and completely separated so that the skin can render out fat from both the top and the bottom, and also bastes the meat as it cooks.

We waited a long time for our duck after ordering.. it felt like at least an hour. It was so long that Chris started getting cranky as he saw other tables being served their ducks and having them butchered for them alongside their tables. Once the duck is taken out of the oven, it is hung and rested, then the chef wipes off any excess fat from the skin, and puts the duck on a serving tray and gives it to one of a handful of butchers who will present this glory to you, the diner. You have the option of ordering freshly made, paper-thin pancakes for wrapping, as well as little condiment trays that are filled with crushed garlic, various pickled vegetables, batons of thinly sliced cucumber and scallion, and the most savory and complex hoisin sauce I’d ever tasted in my life. It was very obviously fermented and made of beans… When I think about it now, maybe it wasn’t even “hoisin sauce” as I know it here. But regardless, it was the most delicious sauce I’ve ever had served with Peking duck. Chris was in love with this.

The skill with which the butcher exercised as he cut through this duck was so impressive; each cut was quick and swift, and not a single piece of skin or meat was wasted or left on the bone, unlike in the States, when I oftentimes am lamenting how much meat is left on the bone and sent back to the kitchen after slicing. I couldn’t believe how quickly he cut up this entire duck for us. When it arrived, beautifully laid out and presented on three different serving platters on our table, it was still hot and steamy. The duck was finally ready for us… even though we had been ready for the duck ages ago.

One bite of the skin and the meat, and I was in heaven: the meat, despite being fatty duck meat, was not even in the least bit fatty or greasy. It had the perfect soft texture and taste, and actually felt lean! And the skin is a completely different story: it was crispy without being crunchy, if that makes any sense. It literally just shattered in my mouth. And when I left it to linger on my tongue, it would dissolve within seconds, pretty much melting away. The flavor was so sweet, rich, savory, smoky, and deep; there’s truly no other duck experience I’ve had that is even a fraction of what this was to me.

When I’ve spoken with people who have traveled around China, most often say that Beijing is not one of their favorite places. Whether that is related to the food, the constant feeling of the government watching you everywhere given that it is China’s capital, to the sense of arrogance one can encounter from Beijingers, it seems to generally be agreed upon.

So, I wasn’t that surprised when we arrived, and I immediately felt irritated not only by the level of heat and humidity, but also by the constant stream of cabbies who either tried to lie and tell me that their meter wasn’t working and that they’d have to offer me a fixed fare, or they’d tell me that they’d only take me if I’d pay them 100 yuan (for a ride that probably shouldn’t cost more than 15-20). It was never like this in Shanghai, in 2006 or a few days ago. It was absolutely nothing like this in Chengdu or Leshan. So this was just infuriating. I would yell at them and tell them I wouldn’t accept it, that they were trying to cheat me and that they were con men. I’d then walk away in a huff. Chris, more aggressively, would yell at them, leave their cab doors open, and even kick their cars (to which they seemed genuinely frightened. I mean, he’s a brown man in a yellow country, after all… and they can never quite predict what the brown man would do, right?).

So, it was a welcome break to spend half a day with Zhang Feng, our driver, who took us to Huanghuacheng, or the “yellow flower” section of the Great Wall, about 90 minutes outside of Beijing. I’d read previously that this section of the Great Wall had previously been closed to the public, but two years ago, they’d opened it back up. It is not maintained and restored at all, and the section where you actually enter is technically on private land that is owned by some local people, who Feng paid via WeChat (seems sketchy, but I’m okay with that… but if you think about it, this is private land for a public landmark… what…?!). I asked him how much the admission was that these people were charging, and I think he said it was only 30 yuan, which is crazy to me.

Zhang was a bit relieved when he found out that I could speak some Chinese. I knew when I booked this that the company I was interfacing with had run out of English guides, but given I was desperate to a) go to a section of the wall that would be less crowded and more unpreserved and b) not do a big group tour, I told the person I was corresponding with that a driver who speaks limited English would be fine… since that was all that was available. If he was just our driver, he could just be that. And if he would be willing to chat, I could always translate to Chris. And through chatting with Feng, I realized “limited” English really just meant that he could say hello, goodbye, and thank you. But he was smart in that he used his mobile device’s translation app when he wanted to convey things he couldn’t do with language. In the end it was fine because it meant I could practice my Chinese and work on my listening skills. He was extremely chatty, asking about everything from our trip to what the U.S. was like to my family, even asking me when I was planning to have kids (I expected this when I told him how old I was. Chinese people don’t seem to think any topic is off limits, especially when they are talking to people of their “own kind”).

So he took us to this section of the wall, which is also known as being the only section of the 13,000+ mile-long wall that has a body of water. The wall stretches from Gansu province in the west all the way to Liaoning in the east — if you take a look at a map of the wall laid out over China — that’s pretty darn long. It was a bit ominous given that we could see that an entire section had broken off. He kept yelling from afar not to get too close to the break-off point at the end, otherwise we’d literally fall into the lake. And it was even more ominous given that it was grey and raining, so it was extremely wet and slippery everywhere. In many sections of the wall, there are no steps; it’s just a steep incline that you’re supposed to navigate on your own. Going up is fine… coming down might be a concern. With the slippery surfaces, many times, we were forced to use our hands to actually climb up. I understand why now, the description on their website suggested that anyone who is elderly or pregnant not visit this section.

The greatest part of coming here, though, was that there was almost no one there. At most, we probably saw 16-20 other people total, but most of the time, we were together for a few minutes in passing, and they’d leave. The rain eventually stopped, and given the heat and humidity, the bricks from the wall started slowly but surely drying up, so when it was time for us to climb back down, it wasn’t so bad. We kept looking out into this endlessly long wall and fortress that would keep going and going, and see absolutely no one. It was the eeriest feeling standing along the wall and looking out to see no one. There were many moments when I didn’t take any photos and just kept looking out into the mountains and the zigzagging wall, wondering… how strange it is to literally be standing in the most populous country on earth… in what feels like its most deserted area, all by ourselves. We’re alone here, and no one else is here. It almost felt like an echo in my head. It was a very strange feeling, but so peaceful and calm. I smiled to myself. This is really amazing.

Feng was extremely enthusiastic and took endless photos of us in all different angles. He got worried about my photo quality, especially when I was wearing the poncho he gave me to stay dry. “That won’t look good in your photos at home when you frame them and show them to family and friends!” he kept saying. And as we passed through for him to pay the locals our entrance fare, the women fussed over Chris, insisting he either use an umbrella or buy a poncho, otherwise he’d catch a cold and get really sick. Chris was unamused by the mothering.

This was Chris’s second time visiting the Great Wall, and he said that the last section he visited definitely had far more people, and this was an altogether very different experience from his first time.

It felt so strange to be at a tiny section of the Great Wall today, something that was put into production beginning in the seventh century; it’s hard to even fathom anything still standing from them. I was standing on the longest man-made construction in the world, of all time. How crazy, I kept thinking. And it’s far more beautiful in person than I’d imagined from the photos I’d seen before. It’s so famous, something that everyone knows and recognizes, yet not everyone actually goes to see. But then if you think about it, given how long it is, no one ever really goes to see the very beginning or the very end of the wall; the majority of the people who come to see it are like us, visiting from Beijing and doing a half-day or day trip there. I would really love to see what this wall is like at the ends, whether it is in Gansu or in Liaoning.

Last night after we got back from Leshan, we decided to jump right into a must-do on our list, which was having the infamous hot pot in Chengdu. We went to one of the many branches of Lao Ma Tou and ordered some lamb, beef, vegetables, and mushrooms, along with the spicy hot pot. While reviewing the menu on our server’s mobile phone (since we didn’t have WeChat), I went over the different hot pot options. All the prices were the same across the hot pots for the same sizes, but the main difference seemed to be that some options offered a plain broth pot plus a spicy hot pot, while the others offered just the spicy hot pot. I told Chris that we might want to consider the dual option, but he insisted, “Yeah, but we came here for the spicy one, so let’s just get that.” I hesitated when he said this, unsure of exactly how hot this would be, but I thought.. oh, what the heck. Let’s just get the spicy pot!

The server came by to double check on the order after retrieving her phone, and she looked at both of us and gestured to me, speaking in Chinese. “Are you sure you want this spicy pot? It’s really, really hot,” she said to me, skeptically.

“Yes, we’re sure. We like spicy,” I said to her, smiling.

Our server didn’t believe me and nodded over to Chris. “Is he going to be able to handle it?”

“Yes, we’ll be good! Thanks!” I said back.

Huge mistake. And she certainly ended up calling my bluff. The food was so hot and spicy after just the first few bites of dipping in to cook some basic celtus leaves, beef, and lamb, that we were downing soy milk faster than we ever imagined. And the more that red hot pot bubbled and gurgled, the spicier and more ferocious the broth became. I alternated between water and soy milk. I was definitely hitting my heat limit. And Chris finally got to a point where he was sweating so much that he said that he couldn’t eat anymore unless we got a hot water pot to cook the rest of the meat and vegetables.

I sheepishly asked the server if we could get a plain broth pot, and she smiled knowingly at me, remembering our previous exchange, and said she’d take care of it. She ended up bringing over not a plain broth pot, but instead multiple bowls of boiling hot water. I didn’t fully understand why she did this, so we both started adding raw meat to the hot water and eating it. She came by and chuckled a little bit when she saw what we were doing. She then demonstrated to me that she wanted us to add the food to the spicy pot to cook, and then to dunk and soak them in the hot water to remove the excess spice and peppers. “You don’t want to get your stomach sick; don’t just add the meat to the hot water!” she said. She was so empathetic to how ridiculous and overly confident we originally were.

In the end, we survived. We didn’t eat as much of our food as we would have liked since our taste buds got scorched, even after our server brought over the hot water to help us. But we certainly had a memorable Chengdu hot pot experience. And just in case, we both took antacids before going to sleep.

I read that while most tourists who come to Chengdu do a day-trip to Leshan to see the famous Leshan Giant Buddha, locals tend to do a day-trip to Leshan to eat. So, we went to Leshan today to see the giant buddha… and to eat!

The Leshan Giant Buddha is supposedly the largest carved stone Buddha in the world, built sometime between 713 and 803 during the Tang Dynasty, and carved out of a cliff face along the Min and Dadu Rivers. The Buddha faces Mount Emei, famous for its tea and strenuous hike (which we didn’t have time to do).

When you first arrive at the top of the Buddha after a short walk, you don’t really get a sense of exactly how big it is until you decide a lot of stairs and get to its feet at the very bottom where the river is, and you look up. It’s kind of amazing to think that so long ago, people worked so hard (and very likely died) trying to carve this buddha out of a cliff face along a river. We are literally just tiny dots in comparison to this crazy structure.

Afterwards, we took a quick cab ride into the town, where we ate at a place known for its hot pot, though we only got a non-spicy pot and a hot side dish.. of some part of the cow stomach. This area is also known for eating all parts of the animal, and while I wasn’t 100 percent certain what I was ordering, we were pretty much eating all parts of the cow stomach during this meal. The server was really friendly, explaining to me how important it is not to waste any part of the animal and to eat everything, and also served us a special side soup. “This is a very, very special soup,” she said to me, smiling. “It’s very good for your health and we spend hours and hours simmering it!”

I had one sip of the soup and was sold immediately. That was probably one of the richest and most complex clear Chinese soups I’ve ever had. And I’ve had endless delicious herbal/medicinal Cantonese soups in my life made by both family and family friends.

So far, getting around Chengdu and Leshan has been really enjoyable. Even though our Didi app still isn’t working, all the people we’ve interacted with have been so kind and friendly, and the cab drivers have been friendly, chatting me up about where we are visiting from, what we’ve seen and done in China, and asking me about the U.S. and my family. Not even once have I felt like anyone has wanted or tried to rip us off or cheat us in any way. I know times have changed quite a bit since the ’90s when Fuchsia Dunlop lived in Chengdu and studied at the local culinary academy, but I can completely understand why someone would learn to love this general city and area as much as she did. Chengdu is certainly a large city, but it is small when compared to places like Shanghai and Chengdu, and people are just all around kind, friendly, laid-back, and honest: no assumptions, no stereotypes. Things move slower here, and people just go with the flow. I love it here.

Chengdu, the capital of Sichuan, also known as the “land of abundance” or the “land of plenty,” has been on my list of places I’ve really wanted to visit since I first came to China in 2006. As I’ve always loved spicy cuisine and pandas, Sichuan province has been historically famous for both, so what could possibly be better? Sichuan is home not just to pandas, which are native to this part of China, but also to the infamous Sichuanese peppercorn, otherwise known in Chinese as ‘hua jiao,’ which translates in English to “flower pepper.” It’s not the stereotypically “spicy” pepper you’d imagine from something like a jalapeño or a Thai chili pepper, but rather a “hot and numbing” sensation that is full of fury and certainly awakens your entire tongue, mouth, and throat. To date, I’ve never quite had the same sensation (and thrill) from eating almost anything else. It’s incredibly unique and intensely delicious. As far as I am aware, to this date, these peppercorns are still only grown here in Sichuan province.

So of course, the first thing we did when we arrived in Chengdu after a night’s rest was to wake up as early as possible to take a cab to visit the Giant Panda Research Base, which is about 40 minutes outside of Chengdu. The panda base is home to about 50 different giant pandas, including babies that are as small as just two inches long. We waited in quite a long line just to get a 3-second glimpse of them. I barely had enough time to snap a photo while a clearly bored and irritated security guard kept yelling at us in Chinese to keep it moving and not to stop and linger.

I’m not really sure what it is that attracts us to pandas. Yes, it’s great to see them because they are endangered, and it’s great to support a research base that is trying to help panda conservancy. But like koalas, pandas are some of the laziest animals that probably exist. All they really do is eat, sleep, play, have sex, and that’s really it. But there is something so endearing and human-like about their movements, their affectionate touches and interactions with other pandas, that always makes my heart feel gushy. They are just so cute; there’s no other explanation for my obsession with them. Before arriving, I read that in the summer time, the pandas are probably at their peak of laziness (in their natural habit out in the wild, they are at their most content at temperatures under 19 C, or 66 F). So if visiting in the summer time, it is best to visit first thing in the morning since they will be most active… as that is when they expect to be fed endless cut and trimmed bamboo. And given Sichuan can get excruciatingly hot and humid in the summers, when the temperature is too high, the pandas retreat indoors at the Panda Base to their cushy air-conditioned indoor environments. What a life!

Pandas, from what I have read, seem to encompass the “Chengdu way of life,” as Chengdu and perhaps all of Sichuan is known for its laziness, or rather its laid-back culture and general daily life. It’s common practice for people from all walks of life, whether it’s restaurant workers, white-collar and businessmen, to retreat in the afternoon for a few hours for their version of a siesta, into the endless tea houses across the city to drink tea, play games, and even talk business, but in a far more casual setting. Chris and I went from one area to the next at the Panda Base, and once, while I was watching a panda eat a generous portion of bamboo, he looked over at me and asked when I wanted to head to the next area.

Me: I don’t know… maybe in two hours?

Chris: WHAT?

Okay, so we didn’t actually stay in that exact area for two hours, but we did spend about half the day just watching these lazy, adorable creatures play, splash in water, climb trees, and eat bamboo. I can’t even count the number of photos and videos I got of these cute little things, and I kept playing the videos over and over again when we got back to our hotel. I’m so happy that China is doing its part to conserve its native wildlife so that everyone around the world who comes to Sichuan can enjoy these beautiful animals. I feel so lucky to have come here today and seen these guys in real life.

Before leaving for our flight heading down to Chengdu tonight, one of the last things that we did in Shanghai was go to the rooftop bar/restaurant at the Bvlgari hotel, which I actually learned about because I follow Fuchsia Dunlop on Instagram. She had visited Shanghai earlier this year and marveled at the view of the city from this bar. It was definitely a unique view overlooking the city, with of course, the Oriental Pearl tower and the Huangpu River, one that I hadn’t previously seen before, so I was intent on visiting when we came. We ordered drinks and sat at the bar during the fully booked afternoon tea hour. And as Chris noted, we were literally the only two people in the entire restaurant/bar who were actually having alcoholic drinks. Everyone else was having afternoon tea, tea sandwiches, and sweets.

The view was spectacular from the roof of this hotel, with both indoor and outdoor areas. It was late afternoon, and just a little cloudy, but still clear enough to fully see the entire skyline, as well as the Huangpu wrap around us. From this view, you can see a mix of apartment buildings as well as skyscrapers: cosmopolitan Shanghai — a little mix of everything. I spent a while staring out at this view and had a hard time thinking about anyone who could possibly look at this city and think it was not an attractive one, especially given the river running through it. It’s still special to me since it’s the first international city I’ve visited, and this view will be emblazoned in my mind for quite some time after we leave; I’m pretty sure of it.

The last time I was in China, I lamented not being able to visit Hangzhou. Everyone, from my local teachers to tutors to other local students I would befriend on campus, insisted that Hangzhou was one of the most beautiful places in China to come to. It is known for being a popular holiday and honeymoon spot, and because then, it was only about four hours by bus, it wasn’t too far from Shanghai to get away to for a long weekend. Hangzhou is famous for its large and stunning West Lake, Longjing (“dragon well”) green tea, and for having a good balance of both urban life and gorgeous nature flanking it.

Well, fast forward a few years, and a high-speed train system has been built that can take you from Shanghai to Hangzhou comfortably in just under 50 minutes. We took advantage of this during our trip and did a day trip to Hangzhou today. While the city was beautiful, with lots of nature, hiking, and yes, a stunning West Lake, what I took away from the day had mostly to do with our transportation.

Chris is usually a very easy-going traveler. “Keep it moving” is one of his favorite phrases to say during our trips. He doesn’t love it when I insist on taking five different food shots of the same dish, nor does he enjoy it when I linger and take about 10 different landscape shots of the exact same angle of a scene. But when it comes to little mishaps and things that can go wrong, he’s usually very relaxed… until today. His Didi app (similar to the Uber app here, but made for China) decided to randomly flag his account for “malicious” behavior, and so we were banned from using the app to call cars to pick us up. A sea of cuss words followed, plus very obvious frustration on his face. I figured, it couldn’t be that hard to hail a cab here… I mean, everyone else uses them, right? And my Chinese is decent enough, so as long as I know the Chinese name of where we’re going, I think we should be okay, more or less.

Yeah, more or less.

The first guy I hailed who accepted us charged us about 10 yuan, or $1.50USD, for a trip outside of the hiking area to the national tea museum… or what was supposed to be. He was friendly and chatty, eager to make conversation with his American-born Chinese passenger and her brown husband… and then decided to drop us off at a tea shop that does free tastings about ten minutes-walk away from where he should have dropped us off. The more I listened to the people around me, the more I realized that cabbies were just set up this way in the area. They weren’t going to take you to the tea museum because they were getting kickbacks from these tea shops to take you there to taste and buy tea instead.

The tea museum ended up being a total dud when we did walk to and find it, though. The area where they usually do tastings was closed. Half the exhibits looked like they were in progress of being installed. And the remaining ones didn’t really mean much to me or to actual tea, but were more about art work that captured how beautiful tea leaves are supposed to look. Okay… pass.

Then, we hailed our second cab. Perhaps it was a mistake, but I accepted a ride from a cabbie who already had a passenger and his toddler child with him. He asked where I was going, I told him, and he seemed to indicate it was in the same direction, so I figured, why not just jump in? The meter was already going, and I could tell when the passenger got out of the car that this was bad. The passenger told the driver, “This isn’t where I wanted to be dropped off,” and in rushed and impatient and rough Chinese, the cabbie responds back that it’s a short walk and straight ahead, so don’t make a big fuss and just get out of the car. And, when the passenger and his son did get out of the car, the cabbie did not reset the meter…. I wanted to tell him to, but I didn’t know the word for “meter” and didn’t want him to stop the car. He tried to get us to get out at the same time, but Chris insisted we were far, far away from where we were supposed to go. So I went back and forth with the driver, insisted this wasn’t the right spot, and he finally drove us to where we wanted him to get us… but then he ended by trying to make us pay 25 yuan, which would have been the fare for our segment of the trip, plus whatever trip he had going with the previous passenger. I immediately refused.

And this is when the real fun began. We started raising our voices at each other. I yelled at him and told him I wasn’t going to pay double what the other passenger paid because he already had someone in the car when I got in. He yelled and said a ride is a ride, pay up. I told him he was trying to rip me off and I wouldn’t tolerate it. He yelled back and said I had to pay him 25 yuan. Chris yelled in English at a far higher volume than either of us and kept repeating “No! No! No!” The cabbie didn’t even know basic English and kept freaking out, as was obvious from his eyes every time he looked at Chris while Chris was yelling, asking me in Chinese repeatedly, “What is he saying? Translate it!” I ignored him and never responded. I told him I’d pay him 15 yuan. He yelled that I was crazy, and frankly, the only reason he even took me was because he thought I was a real Chinese person and not a foreign tourist. He gestured to Chris — “foreign.” Racist slime, but hey, what did I expect?

In the end, I had little leverage because I didn’t have any small enough bills, so I had to have him break my 100-yuan note. He handed me back 80, which in the end, meant that he made me pay what was halfway between what I wanted and what he wanted. I still got ripped off and did not like it, but there was little for me to do. I called him a cheap skate and got out of the car while slamming the door.

Well, I guess all those Taiwanese soap operas I watched to procrastinate on my economics homework in college paid off. I had a real fight in Mandarin with a cabbie. And I’m pretty certain that I wouldn’t have had the same vocabulary to leverage had I just used what I learned in my Chinese classes.

Hangzhou was fun and beautiful. But I think I will always look back and remember the cab experiences there.

In 2006 when I spent a month in Shanghai, we did two day trips over the weekend to famous cities that were within driving distance of the city: Suzhou and Zhouzhuang, both in neighboring Jiangsu province, and both famous water towns that are well known within China. Suzhou is oftentimes nicknamed “the Venice of the East” or the “Venice of China” because of its many canals that make up the city. That, plus it is famous in Chinese history and culture for being one of the most scenic and idyllic towns. 

There’s this saying in Chinese that goes, “Shang you tian tang, xia you Su Hang – 上有天堂, 下有苏杭.” That roughly translates to, “In heaven, there is paradise, while on earth, we have Suzhou and Hangzhou.” In other words, Suzhou and Hangzhou are the beautiful places we have to enjoy on this earth; to the Chinese, these two towns are like paradise on earth. During my day trip here in 2006, we visited a number of famous, gorgeous gardens in Suzhou, and this time around, Chris and I also did. But for me this trip, the highlight was certainly the two noodle dishes we enjoyed at two different restaurants on the same block in Suzhou. 

The first place we went to was well known for its san xia mian, or “three shrimp noodles.” “Three shrimp” does not reference three different types of shrimp, but rather three different parts of the same shrimp that are separated and then put back together for your consumption while eating this dish. These local shrimps, which are seasonal for a very short period during the spring to early summer, are teeny tiny, just a bit smaller than my thumb nail, and are manually cleaned with an instrument that looks just like a little toothbrush, deshelled, scrubbed of its little shrimp eggs, and then degutted. As the final step, the shrimp bodies, eggs, and guts are all put back together and cooked, then served on a small serving plate for you. Alongside it is a bowl of dry, toothy wheat noodles that are perfectly straight and al dente, slightly salted with a few spoonfuls of broth to keep the noodles moist. Then, there is an accompanying bowl of plain chicken broth for you to enjoy, plus a plate of simply seasoned bok choy and a side plate of finely shredded ginger. 

The shrimp tasted like the ocean – briny, salty like the sea, with a good bite indicating that they were cooked perfectly. To me, the noodles were the biggest highlight – each strand of noodle was long and firm, and the flavor was just pure wheat with a hint of salt. Each bite required a good, long chew. This was so satisfying and worth the cost. At this point in our trip, this bowl cost the equivalent of about $15USD, which was quite expensive for China. When I looked at the cost breakdown, the real cost was in the shrimp; the bowl of noodles barely cost a dollar. 

Chris and I shared this bowl, finished, and went a few store fronts down to the second noodle spot on my list that is well known for noodle soup, with the broth being a “gao tang,” or “high soup,” meaning it is a superior stock made with the finest ingredients available. Unlike stocks made in the West, this soup was made from all fresh ingredients, meat, bones, vegetables, even rice wine, and simmered for over 10 hours. If the stock is no good, the dish would be no good. 

This dish lived up to his reputation. The soup was infinitely layered, extremely rich, with so many different flavor elements. You could tell right away that it was made from rich pork bones, but there were also flavor notes of seafood, perhaps dried shrimp and scallop, and even a bit of rice wine, onions, and other fragrant herbs. We ordered the soup with a topping of one piece of “big pork,” which mean that a massive slice of hours-long-simmered pork laid on top of the noodle soup bowl. We took a bite into this and realized right away what a treat it was: it was so tender, not even needing any chew. It was intensely rich, fatty, and delicious. The noodles were quite similar to the noodles of the first restaurant, but given they were soaking in the soup, were not as toothy as that first bowl. But clearly here, the soup was the main star, and the pork slice, as Chris noted, was extremely rich, “maybe too rich,” he admitted. It wouldn’t look like much from its photo, but this is one of the best bowls of noodle soup I’ve probably ever enjoyed. It is deceptively simple looking, but fails to be judged merely based on its humble appearance. 

While most people come to Suzhou for its immaculate gardens and historical architecture, I hope they do not overlook the delicate and refined cuisine that this city has to offer. It doesn’t look like much at first, but don’t judge its dishes by its cover.