Yunnan - Jianshui

Yunnan Trip

DAY 3 (Monday, February 4th, 2008): Jianshui
Jianshui is a lovely place. Our hotel was a former temple converted into a hotel, if you can imagine that, and the town itself is quaint, with cobblestone streets and decorative archways at the end of each side street – a picturesque Chinese town. We walked around and people shamelessly stared at us, as per usual, but here I could understand why – this place is truly Chinese in character, not a bit of touristy feel to it. We searched for food for what seemed like forever and ended up at the 2^nd largest Confucius temple in China – it was quite the sight to behold. After photographing the temple and its surroundings, we continued our wanderings until we finally found a restaurant on a side street, and low and behold, other TBC people were there as well. It must have been one of the only restaurants around, or perhaps one of the only ones open at that time. See, in China, restaurants close between meals oftentimes, and you can’t even tell what places are restaurants because they pull down those metal security things that look like garage doors or the things they use to close mall stores at the end of the day. Fortunately, the restaurant strangely had an English menu, and we got to sit outside on the balcony and watch the people walking in the street below. It was like a brisk summer night, and it felt good to be outside in the fresh air in considerably warmer weather. I got some chao mian and gongbao jiding because I hadn’t eaten in a long time and it was great. I love gongbao jiding, except they put cardamom in it and when it touches your tongue it gives a bad taste and a numbing feeling. I’ve learned to pick it out of the food because trust me, you don’t want that in your mouth. I eat a lot of gongbao jiding here in China – it’s chicken with these little dried red peppers that are super hot, peanuts, onions, and some others spices in a sauce, and yucky cardamom. I love it over mi fan (rice), but it can’t be too sweet, or else it tastes like maple syrup or something… I’ve had both great and awful gongbao jiding, but in Jianshui it was AWESOME. Speaking of awesomeness, we tried hami melon ice cream – I’m in love. It’s pale green and tastes like an unidentifiable tropical fruit (hami melon, obviously), and it’s basically the best fruity ice cream flavor. Period.