Food

This week has mostly been spent eating. Tuesday's excursion was to a Beijing Peking duck restaurant that was rather tasty. They'd aimed for a traditional looking restaurant but spoiled it by having the first thing you saw be a tank full of frogs. And by having plastic orange chopsticks. But our waiter was very sweet bless him. He had to very patiently explain, several times, what the slices for duck skin were for although he did crack at the end wailing "just eat them whenever you want!!!!". There were quite a few of us- a real mix of Koreans, Chinese and the odd sprinkling of German, American, English and Scottish. I realised that day that a good number of these guys I won't see very often, if at all, after I leave Qingdao. That was not a happy thought. I love that this year abroad has enabled me to meet so many different people from such different cultures, not just Chinese. But not that I have to go home at the end...

Wednesday was off to hotpot to welcome a friend's boyfriend home. The friend is from Tokyo studying in Qingdao and the boyfriend is from Qingdao studying in Tokyo. I feel they got it the wrong way round... Hotpot was again delicious and was washed down with a comfortable amount of beer. Which paled into insignificance as the 5 men next to us had an entire crate full of empty bottles.

Poor Sara, flatmate, ate a mango for the first time on Tuesday and has since discovered she is allergic to it. Her face has swollen up all red and angry. Our reading teacher was very concerned and at first tried to blame it on the fact that they were imported mangoes (they weren't- Chinese born and bred I believe) before telling Sara to be very careful about what she eats. She has also told us never to drink water from the tap in Qingdao, even if it's boiled, which made Boram, Sara and I go very quiet.

I also have finally managed to make apple crumble in the microwave. It is not perfect but close enough :D (See the Chinese attitude seeping in there :P).

What else about food? After teaching Edward, fellow teacher, took me to a traditional mutton soup restaurant for lunch. It's starting to become a regular thing after teaching on Thursday to go find lunch- which suits me as he knows nice places to go. Not to mention he is always a gentleman and pays for mine, despite my protestations. Oh well, the point of mutton soup is that it is dirt cheap (invented in the early 20th century when noone had anything to eat in China. No one not a warlord anyway).