No more noodles, for the love of God!

If I never see another soupy noodle it will be too soon! Come on people, where is the fried rice, I thought I was going to China, but apparently the Italians all moved out here. Everything so far has been some sort of noodle dish, usually in a soup/broth of some kind. It has only been two days and I am already getting sick of eating Chinese food, which is surprising because I love Chinese food. Katie, you would be in absolute misery here, this is not like Chinese food from the States, we are talking hard-core stuff here. But I have been adventurous and am trying to eat everything—at least a little bit. Although i have not violated my ban on ‘swimmy’ things. Some lines are better left not crossed, don’t you agree?

The food has been an experience worth having all by itself though. We all talk about going to our favorite ‘hole in the wall’ restaurant to get the best food for cheap, but this morning I went to the ultimate in holes in the wall. It was a dingy area that looked like it was meant to be a public walkway, but a restaurant moved in instead. They serve other food I think, but we went to have ‘congee’ (pronounced ‘con’-artist ‘gee’-whiz) for breakfast. Congee is similar to porridge—us Norwegians can compare it to rice and green grut. It’s soupy and neutral tasting though. Then they add beef or pork or seafood to it as well as this fried bread (also tastless). It is really different, but tasty nontheless—and really filling.

Lunch yesterday was my favorite though, we had dim sum at a resturant on campus here at Hong Kong Baptist University, where we are staying. I had never had dim sum before but I had a vague idea of how it worked. Nothing could have prepared me for this though. It was incredible. We sat around a huge circular table with a large lazy susan in the middle and watched in awe as they brought in dish after dish after dish. Even the Chinese people that came on the trip were freaked out by how much food they brought out. There was no way we could possibly have finished it all, or even gotten close to trying. Eventually we had to ask them to stop bringing food, but they wouldn’t stop. It took our professor and his friend from the university 10 minutes to get them to stop. I am still not clear on exactly why they didn’t want to cut off the food flow. But it was yummy and I hope we get to have another go some time before we leave. I ate so much I had to be rolled out when we left, and I wasn’t interested in eating for the rest of the day.

Real Chinese food stick to your ribs, let me tell you. You all know how I like to eat… a lot. But for the last two days I have eaten twice a day and that is it, and I haven’t been really hungry for much more. It’s amazing, but my prediction that I would lose weight is most likely not going to come true after all. Oh well, I am going to enjoy myself anyway.

I have to go eat some of my newly-purchased Chinese breads now. I will have some more updates for you soon, and possibly some pictyures to show you as well. I know you are all dying to see me mugging in front of various places you don’t recognize. Pictures like that are always fun times for all.