Ohh Boy, This Food...

The food here is like nothing I have ever had. Growing up in the Midwest part of the US, I never really became the type of kid who would adventure into trying new foods, especially ethnically diverse foods, but that has all changed since my recent travels. Yesterday I ate ox's tongue, moving/half-alive shaved clam, turtle tail, seaweed, fried banana, and monkfish liver. Some of you may read this list and say, 'ohh I've had these foods, it's no big deal,' and some may not, but for me they were all firsts. Most of that stuff was pretty delicious, while some of it I hope to never eat again :-) I believe that the majority of these dishes were Japanese, not Chinese, but it was nonetheless a personal adventure. The not-quite-dead shaved clam was probably my least favorite thing out of the many foods that I tried yesterday, it was tough, chewy, and bland...not the best.

The cuisine of Shanghai is quite interesting to me. It is not the standard 'Chinese Food' that you'll find at your local Panda Express, that's for sure, and I have been told that Shanghainese food is quite different than the food of different parts of the country.

Fried noodles, dumplings, hot tea, soup, cold chicken, tofu, crawfish, frog, duck, and pork are the most popular foods that I have come across at local restaurants...fried rice dishes don't seem to be quite as popular as I had hoped, but you can commonly find a side of rice at most places. Vinegar, ginger, and red chilies are often used in the preparation of many dishes, and almost always come on the side of every main entree.

I recently got sick, which I do not attribute to the food that I've been eating as most people around here tend to do. It was not fun. Being sick back home, where you can easily find medicine and have no difficulties communicating your problems to the people who can help you makes being sick a simple task to handle, usually. But here, it's not easy. I picked up some sort of cold, likely from a roommate, and I also contracted 'fever blisters' on my lips. I made an attempt at trying to go to a nearby pharmacy, after researching some of the ingredients in the medicine that I needed, but I found very little success. Imagine me standing there acting out my symptoms with my hands and some noises, while the pharmacist hands me boxes of medicines that I can't read. So I decided it was never going to work out and I had better take a translator with me at a future date. I did that, and it worked out much better. I got the right medicine, and my lip problem vanished after 3 days of meds. As for the cold, I'm still battling it, but I think it's going away. It often amazes me how difficult seemingly simple tasks can become when you add a language barrier into the equation. It always makes for a good story, though. =)

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PMM