During my time in China, I did/saw/visited/ate some pretty cool things/places that didn’t fit into any of my other blog posts. I don’t want to forget them so I came up with a little list of some of the more random things from my time in China.
Guangzhou Marathon – The Guangzhou Marathon was actually on my last day in China, and I had seen the city getting set up for it during the upcoming week. I woke up on my last day in China and could hear the crowds outside my 16th story window cheering on the runners. I later passed a giant group of them on my walk to work.
Typhoon – In the middle of September, there was a really bad typhoon that hit Hong Kong, and Guangzhou was under warning for it as well. Everything shut down for 2 days because the rain was supposed to be so bad. The sewage system in Guangzhou isn’t that great, so when it rains (which it did a ton when I first got there during the rainy season) the streets flood really easily. Nearly all stores, restaurants, and businesses (including the gym) closed as a precaution. It ended up not being bad at all near us, and it barely rained. We got an extra day to our weekend though, so I was totally okay with it!
Aerial Yoga & Grand Opening – Shortly after I got to China, a brand new yoga studio opened up in the mall right next to my apartment. Li Yen had gotten a flyer on the walk home one day for their grand opening event, which offered a free trial yoga class. We went together and decided to book ourselves a spot at their grand opening in hopes of getting a package deal. Grand openings are a big deal in China. You can always tell when a business is having their grand opening because they have flower stands outside with giant signature bouquets. They’re a whole event! At the Fine Yoga grand opening, they had transformed one of the yoga studios into a consultation room. They had tons of little tables and chairs set up, and they were decorated like you might see at a wedding. China does not mess around with their grand openings. Li Yen and I were offered free dessert and fruit, while we looked into signing up. If you did sign up, you could go up to the front table and crack open a golden egg in hopes of winning a prize. It’s what they call a Lucky Draw, and it is common at grand openings and other big events. Neither of us signed up for a class package (it was CRAZY expensive), but with the pre-registration fee we had paid, we got three more free classes (in addition to the free trial class we had already taken). So we ended up taking four classes for about $30 USD, which we were totally okay with. You could mix and match your classes however you wanted. I took one regular yoga class (the trial class), a hot yoga class, and Li Yen and I took two aerial yoga classes together – we had way too much fun. The aerial yoga classes were SO fun and SO hard. I’m so glad Li Yen and I did that together. We did a ton of strength exercises with the silks, and we got to learn all kinds of ways to tangle ourselves up in the silks and hang upside down, which just made us crack up laughing. I couldn’t take Li Yen seriously when she was trying to talk to me while hanging upside down wrapped in her silk like a bat. As if aerial yoga isn’t hard enough, taking it in Chinese was even harder – but it was so much fun.
Beijing Road – On one of our days off, Li Yen and I went to Beijing Road, which is a famous street in Guangzhou that has tons of shopping and history. On parts of the pedestrian street, there is a glass overlay where you can look down and see the original road from the Song Dynasty (960-1279 A.D.). We hung out in this area for a while just exploring and eating. I got tornado potatoes (those fried, spiralized potatoes on a stick) and milk tea with boba. We also stopped in a chinchilla pet store!
Halloween Party – We threw a Halloween party at the gym! All of the staff and the kids dressed up. Li Yen and I got matching Minion costumes. Clint wore one of those blow up sumo wrestler suits. He was a hit with all the kids, and his line of the night was, “stop poking me!” Harry, one of the part-time Chinese coaches, dressed up as “The Scream”, and the rest of the staff dressed up as pirates. All of the kids came dressed up in their costumes too, so they looked even more adorable than usual. We played tons of games, did an obstacle course, jumped in the bouncy house, ate pizza, and took photos in our home-made photo booth. It was a fun night for all of us, the kids, the siblings, and the parents.
Books – I had so much free time while I was in China, so I plowed through a bunch of the books that were on my list. I borrowed ebooks through the library at home, so I always had a book with me. Since I needed a VPN to use the internet, I didn’t always have internet connection because a lot of the time my VPN didn’t work. So I spent a lot of time reading because I was disconnected 🙂 I read 25 books during my 4 months China, including a re-read of all 7 Harry Potter books!
Metro friend – Clint, Li Yen, and I ended up meeting this guy on the metro that we saw most Sunday mornings. He noticed Clint’s Kansas City Royal’s shirt one day and struck up a conversation. He was from South Dakota. I told him I was from Chicago, and it turns out that he has friends from the Chicagoland area – more specifically, Arlington Heights and Wheeling! What the heck! How crazy is that?! It really is a small world!
Chicago the Musical – I saw Chicago for the first time during my last week in China! I had been out and about near the Guangzhou Opera House, which was not far from my apartment, and had seen huge posters advertising that Chicago would be touring for 10 days in GZ starting that night. I bought myself a ticket for the following week! It was performed in English with Chinese subtitles on screens on either side of the stage. It was so good! The opera house was GORGEOUS, and the staging of the show itself was so interesting. The entire orchestra was onstage in this giant staircase/prop that acted not only as the orchestra “pit”, but also as the entire set. This took up almost the entire stage so there was only about 10 ft. in depth of usable stage in front of it. It was cool to see how the show was staged with so little space, especially the big production numbers like “All That Jazz”, “Cell Block Tango”, and “Razzle Dazzle”. I’m so glad I finally got to see this classic show, and it’s even cooler that I got to see it in China!
Proposal – One night I was walking home from the gym and noticed a bunch of lights through the bushes. I got a closer look and realized that on the other side of the bushes in the front yard of a fancy restaurant, someone had set up a display of lights that said “Marry me? I love you!” There were tons of flowers set up nearby and music was playing. It totally made my night. I sat and waited for like 5 minutes to see if the couple was going to come outside. They didn’t, so I went on my way back home, but it had made me so happy. I love love!! And as if that wasn’t cute enough already, I had been listening to Enchanted by Taylor Swift when I spotted the proposal setup, so I was really in a lovey-dovey mood. So many people were walking on the sidewalk and no one else stopped to look. I was standing there in awe like !!! “are you people not seeing this?!” I didn’t see the actual proposal, but I hope she said yes 🙂
Food – Just like in all the places I travel, I had such good food in Guangzhou. My absolute favorite food that I had in China was hot pot, which isn’t one specific food but more like how you prepare it (think like hibachi or fondue). I love that hot pot isn’t just a meal, but it’s really a whole event. Any time we went out for hot pot was when we were out to dinner with investors or owners of the gym, so it was a long meal. We’d sit at a huge round table with a giant pot of broth in the middle. We always got a pot split in middle for half mild broth and half spicy broth. You get a paper menu with tons of meats, fish, and veggies to choose from that you tally off and give to your server. They bring everything out, and like fondue, you just dump things in the broth as they arrive and let them cook. Then you scoop out what you want. You also get your own little sauce container and you can make your own sauce. Some places have a “sauce bar” and others just pass things around the table. I always made mine with lots of soy sauce, vinegar, and garlic. Then you can dip your food in the sauce. It doesn’t sound that fancy, but it is the best thing ever. My favorite things to get at hot pot were tofu skins (one of my favorite food discoveries from China – I couldn’t get enough of it), tofu, lotus root, quail eggs, potato, mushrooms, and corn. We’d sit around refilling our hot pot, eating, drinking, and talking for HOURS. It was great.
Clint, Li Yen, and I also had a favorite meal that we got every Sunday that we called “dry hot pot”. It was basically what you would be eating if you went out for hot pot, except it was prepared for you and delivered in a takeout container. It was the best Sunday night meal EVER. I miss it so much. I always loaded mine up, tried to convince myself to save some leftovers for my day off, and failed every single time because I couldn’t resist. My favorite thing about dry hot pot that they never had at sit-down hot pot was the fried bread… I MEAN COME ON… FRIED BREAD!! That’s only everything I’ve ever wanted in life. It was the best thing ever ever ever. I’m so hungry now.
We also out for dim sum a few times, which was SO GOOD TOO. I’d always get tons of steamed vegetables. I would also get rolled rice noodles, which you can dip in soy sauce. These are so good. They don’t look like noodles at all, but they are very tasty. Li Yen and I once shared a turnip cake, which you could easily break off pieces of with chopsticks and dip into a bunch of sauces. Also, SO good. I’m pretty sure we got a second serving. I also loved getting egg cake, which was basically just a spongy piece of cake that didn’t have much flavor, but was still so tasty. My favorite thing we ever got at dim sum was the dessert buns. They were basically just buns with a sweet, caramel-cinnamon-esque filling inside, and HOLY MOLY! These are the best things ever. I would think about them for DAYS after.
Another favorite meal of mine was this cabbage noodle dish that I got one time when one of our investors took us out to dinner. The three of us loved that restaurant so much that it ended up becoming a place that we ordered delivery from regularly. I always got this dish, and it was unreal. I really have no idea what it is, but there are noodles and cabbage in it… that’s all I know. This one reminds me so much of the okonomiyaki that Kyle and I had in Miyajima, Japan, which I think was the all-time best meal I’ve ever had in my life. So that’s saying something.
We had a tradition every Saturday night after a long day of teaching 9am-6pm. We would always come back to the apartment, order pizza, and watch a cooking show (either Master Chef or Hell’s Kitchen). I loved our Saturday night routine, but I loved the pizza even more. I always got the veggie pizza, and it was the best pizza ever. I’m so sad that I can’t have it anymore. I miss it 😦
I also became obsessed with a few snacks that I just got from the grocery store while I was over there. I fell in love with yam chips, which sound super weird but are basically just really thin baked chips. I always got the seaweed flavor and they were FANTASTIC. I would buy them all the time, and only once did I not eat the entire bag in one sitting… oops. I also loved these Chex snacks that were seaweed flavored. There are tons of crazy Lay’s flavors in China, and my favorite was definitely the cucumber flavor. It sounds weird, but they’re so good. McDonald’s in China also has waffle fries, and they are objectively way better than the normal McDonald’s fries. I also had an intense obsession with pomegranate juice infused dried cranberries. I’d eat those things like candy. It was really not okay.
So you could say I ate pretty well in China.
That’s my list of obscure fun things I did/saw/visited/ate while in China!
Eva Around the World 