Food-an' University - Part II

As requested, here's the latest update of my epicurean adventures.

 

I have now discovered something else to add to my short list of food stuffs that I really REALLY don't like. There's a really popular drink here called "Bubble Tea" or "Pearl Tea" and for any self-respecting tea drinker it's just the wrongest of the wrong! Bubble tea is sweet, very weak, very milky tea that comes in a plastic cup with one of those plastic covers that you pop with a straw over the top. You can drink it cold, or the shop/stall with microwave it for you to heat it up - I can hear my Mum's disgust at the thought of microwaved tea - drinkers are then armed with a very wide straw - about the thickness of a marker pen - with which to burst the plastic lid with. Now, why would you need such a wide straw to drink a cup of cha? Because the bottom of the cup is filled with marrow fat pea sized globs of tapioca. Yes, that's what I said - TAPIOCA. These jelly like balls slip up the wide straw and pop into the unsuspecting drinkers' mouth as a "surprise". I must thank my friend Mrs Spink for providing me with by far the most suitable word to describe this beverage - GOPPING!

 

Writing about tea has made me shudder. I need to think about things that are more delicious so let's move on to pineapple. I am becoming an addict. It's pineapple season here so for around 25 pence I can buy a fantastically sweet and fresh, cleaned and ready to eat pineapple. Soo Ah (my roomie) has developed this addiction with me - the small shop attached to our dorm sells a brand of pineapple juice that we're both hooked on. It doesn't seem to be available anywhere else so we're going to have to find a new dealer, I mean supplier, sometime soon.

 

Lots of people are asking me what I am missing - and top of my list is hummous. I am even dreaming about Middle Eastern food - someone told me that there's a supermarket on the other side of the city that sells chick peas so I may have to go on a special mission to find them. The other obvious things are bread (most Chinese bread is sweet and tastes faintly of coconut), cheese, and red wine. Thankfully Mrs Spink also armed me with a jar of Marmite so I'm not missing that - just missing the toast to put it on!

Trips to Venice

It never takes long for a toilet story to emerge when you are overseas....

 

I have to share the loos in my classroom with you. There are two tiled troughs that run along either side of the room, partitions divide the troughs into individual cubicles but becuase the troughs are deep the partition stops around a foot before the ground. This means that you can see (and other fellow pee-ers) can see you go about your business. Some of the girls in my class have taken to calling the toilets the canal, so my Swedish friend and I have taken it one step further "I'm off to Venice".

 

Two weeks ago I was happily straddling the grand canal when I heard someone shout my Chinese name - I looked down to find my teacher excitedly waving at me in the reflection of our combined pee. An odd experience. Wang Laoshi (teacher Wang) told me that she had been looking for me....I didn't expect her to look for me that hard! She wanted me to take part in a competition - I could understand this much - but couldn't understand the sport she was describing. It turned out to be tug-of-war! Yes, if I were putting together a team of tuggers, I'd be my first choice too with my superb balance, exra strong muscles, and sporting reputation!

 

I could not refuse Wang Laoshi...so I dutifully donned my sports kit and went to lead the ladies' foreign students' tug team. We were told to meet at one of the uni's sports grounds, and arrived to quite large crowds of people - each team was allowed 4 women (and around 16 men) and thankfully our team had 16 REALLY big men in it so we won! Photographs of my first Chinese sporting achievement will be posted shortly - I couldn't take any as I was too busy pulling on a rope!