Shopping Around Town

During one of our trips around town, we had to cross a bridge that was no longer than 30 ft. and it was lined with vendor after vendor. Here now is a pictorial blog of what I saw.

The cell phone stylus shop.

The sock shop.

The handbag boutique,

The homemade bracelet stale.

The jewlrey stand.

The kids play station.

The watch booth.

The sandel mart.

The wallet depot.

The tattoo parlor.

The knife outlet store.

The sunglasses hut (with nail clippers)

The Jewlery stand

The t-shirt table.

The cigarette holder guy.

The fruit market.

It's like a real walmart of Asia!

Frustrated At The Theatre

Things can get a little intense around the theatre. Here is Nicole tring to explain to her locals how to push scenary around the stage. They love to push things into the drops. In this photo we see the "added" pieces of rope they had to put on most of the electrics. They tied on 2-4 extra ropes to help pull the battons out. Very stupid and very frustrating.

To get the battons in the air, they had about 10 guys on the ground lifting up the batton... to help it fly out. Who wants to tour in China yet!!!!

And when the electrics came crashing to the ground you end up breaking lots of equipment. Guess who gets to repair all this gear? To watch all your lights collide into the deck, thats fun right?!?!?!

Daytime Cab Video In Nanning

Here is a video of a Nanning cab ride. A little long, but i talk alot.

Taco Bell here I Come

Thought i would post the awesome news about the taco bell i will experiance in less than 24 hours.


Taco Bell goes Grande in Shenzhen
Latest Updated by 2005-03-01 09:23:13
Sonbreros can be seen, mariachis can be heard and tacos can be eaten. And all this can now happen in Shenzhen at Taco Bell Grande in the MIXc mall. The complimentary bowl of chips and salsa alone make it worth a visit.
"We are confident our exotic food will delight any hungry person," said Theresa Zhang, public affairs supervisor for Yum! Restaurants China.
She said Yum! food brands opened Shenzhen's first Mexican restaurant about a month ago and has seen busy crowds since. She said it's their third location in China, after opening two in Shanghai.
Zhang said their confidence comes from having more than 7,000 Taco Bell restuarants worldwide and they are really looking forward to finding a recipe for success in China with their upscale version of Taco Bell.
For the average American, Taco Bell is a fast-food restaurant. Low-grade, though rather tasty, food is perfect for when you don't have a lot of time or a lot of money.
In China, a world away, Taco Bell Grande is aiming high for the chain. It is a full-service, sit-down restaurant with a beautifully detailed, bilingual menu, comfy booths, and ornately Hispanic decorations. The waitstaff is attentive and nice, and the hats they wear will surely put a smile on your face throughout meal.
With the Gypsy Kings playing softly in the background, munching on your chips and salsa, you can order old-time Mexican favorites, like nachos and fajitas, or try new Grande items, like smoked salmon salad with dill dressing or braised ox tail with a red wine sauce.
"Yum! understands that Chinese have different tastes, so we have adjusted the recipes to try to appeal more to the Chinese palate," said Zhang.
She said they have used more local spices, though in general the food is less spicy, and there are less onions. Unfortunately, catering to Chinese tastes means downplaying the role of dairy products and at the Grande this results in not an ounce of sour cream to be found in the restaurant.
Zhang said the Grande was the first restaurant to offer refried beans in china. Also, she said they added two Spanish items, albondigas and sangria, to the menu in order to widen the restaurant's geographical variety and cultural appeal.
"For an exotic impression of Mexico, there's no need to fly half way around the world," said Zhang. "Just come to Taco Bell Grande."
Indeed, all the melted cheese on the enchiladas and that familiar, fried crispiness of a grilled quesadilla are two classic items featuring on Grande's menu that no Mexican restaurant would be complete without.

Of course, it would also be hard to have a complete, authentic Mexican meal without a magarita and the Grande fills that need, too. Their Original Margarita has it all, from the slushed ice, to the salted rim, to the tequila kick.
"My taste for Mexican food has grown immensely since working so closely with it," said Zhang, who has worked for Yum! for eight years, as she took a share of the nachos. "The tastes and textures are all just so different from typical Chinese food. From the crunch of a corn chip to the ooze of the melted cheese, it all makes for a great break from normality."
For appetizers, there's jalapeno poppers and pineapple skewers with your choice of beef or chicken, on which the black pepper sensation followed closely by a tropical fruit sweetness made for a good combination. But, the best appetizer was the chicken taquitos. A tortilla, rolled around a spicy chicken filling, deep-fried and then put on a plate for you to dip in the salsa at your leisure. Yum, indeed.
Sour cream or no, Taco Bell Grande has planted its seeds in Shenzhen. And with a little luck, perhaps Yum! will have as much success as jalapeno seeds are spicy.

Night around Nanning

So Jake and I decided we would head out for a night on the town. We decided we would meet in the lobby and i headed down a few min's early to discuss with the front desk on finding a restaurant. We find a guy at the front desk that speaks partial English, and I tell him we are looking for a place to have dinner. He says, "oh the hotel has great food 2nd floor" Well no, we didn't want to eat hotel food, so i ask what all is around a short cab ride away. "Oh McDonald's." And i am like.... How about something Chinese, maybe Szechuan. And at this point he hands us a travelers guide in Chinese. Well that is great, i don't expect everything to be in English, but he then walks away. So here i am staring at this travelers guide.



I call him back over and say. Hey, can you point out which ones are your favorite. And he points out about 3 places. Great. so i take the guide and head down to the cab stand. We get into a cab and the driver immediately nods his head like he has been to this place 20 times today. Sure enough, 20 mins later, 2 phone calls to the restaurant, and asking another cab driver we arrive at our destination.


And this is a funny moment in a foreign country. The cab driver could go anywhere and say. "OK" and who are you to argue. You look around and except your destination, but you have no idea where you are. You kinda say to yourself "well i guess this is ok. people are eating. how bad can it be?"



So we get out and head into the restaurant. And sure enough we get a menu with no English.




So what's next? Have Jake call his girlfriend. Such a novel idea.

She ends up ordering for us. 2 beef dishes and a veggie dish. Some beers and we are good. Honestly, when you go into a restaurant in China. 1 Don't get your hopes up. 2 Just expect that your dish will contain meat normally with some sort of bone or cartilage or organ. 3 Don't plan on getting what you "think" you ordered on the menu. 4 Don't bother arguing about your meal, you are always wrong. 5 Order lots of rice. It may not have a flavor, but it will fill you up.

And should you find that any of these rules DON't apply, enjoy!!! And so our dishes arrived

And i have to be honest, i was pleasantly surprised (Thanks April!). Though we did find out one minor difference. We were in a Hunan restaurant, not a Szechuan restaurant. Now i know all of you are saying... Oh well that can't be bad "Szechuan" means spicy food right? Yea well "Hunan" means YOUR MOUTH IS GOING TO CATCH ON FIRE INSTANTLY!!!! Half the dish was beef and half of it was peppers. I was able to enjoy the beef cause i love spicy things, but i ate 3 peppers and had to finish my beer.

Really we had a wonderful time and then went to a bakery across the street. I am really loving Chinese bakery's each one is a different style. And you can find some fun treats in them.

I then went for a walk around town and took a few photo's. As i was passing one of the buildings they were having night yoga outside. As i have said this is very common and it is neat to see people exercising on the street.

As i have said, everything in this town is lit up. Here is a picture out our hotel window of the interstate.
All of the interstates are this way and alot of them change colors like it is a disco or something. Here is a picture of the roof of the arena in Nanning. This is the flower of the local providence.

Here is a shot of 1 of about 4 downtown areas i have seen. I love all the neon lights. (Sorry for the glare) FYI, my camera's display screen broke so hopefully i can get it repaired.
Last up for the evening we made a stop at Walmart. Nothing all that exciting here, except we found the imported food aisle. AWESOME. They had things like Snapple (cause when i am in China i wanna snapple), Cocao Puffs, Frosted Flakes, Dried Prunes, Mac N Cheese, Pasta, Tomatoe Sauce, and Tabasco sauce. Oh course i got a picture. DUH!

Heading to Nanning

So we finished our load out in Harbin around 4:00 in the morning. I was very sad, cause I was really hoping for a 5 hour load out. Needless to say you can hope and pray all you want, but the Chinese will always have the last word. Our load out is suppose to be 100 people and we only had 60 guys show up to the call. And on top of that, about 20 of the locals decided that they didn’t give a damn about our show and loaded out there own crap of the theatre. Much of which was in our way the entire run we were in Harbin. So we finished load out and got a nice day off. Notice in the picture it is daylight, that’s because the sun started to rise at 3:15.

Tuesday: Tuesday was our travel day and we had a 11:40 departure bus trip to the airport to fly to Nanning. Unfortunately after loading our luggage and getting everyone on the bus, the bus began to pull out of the parking lot and the driver stopped. Come to find out that we had blown a tire. So we got to spend the next half hour waiting on another bus to show up. And if you aren’t familiar with tour life, this is what happens when you are forced to wait….
When flying in China, it is actually a very simple process at the airport. They have a “group” check in and it is the most amazing thing in the world. They check us all in at once and pass out the tickets to the company manager. The baggage part is the best, because they don’t weight your bag. They weight the ENTIRE groups weight!!! So in order to get us on the plane our company mgr. has to put a little money down to pay for the overweight baggage. Today’s grand total was 8500 yuan. Silly China, they don’t except American Express, so she had to pay in cash.
I loved this sign. No kindling allowed!!!
I am still shocked I got this next photo but it is a classic. I walk up to go through the security, and there is a security guy inspecting a gun!!! Turns out it was a toy gun, but the security guy was not amused. Very funny.
Now, just before boarding my plane I thought I would take a walk through the convenient store in the terminal and came across some more awesome snacks. Below we have sliced deer antlers. To me this brings an entirely new meaning to eating every part of an animal.

And sure enough, you gotta have more beef. I mean what is China without meat!

The flight to Nanning was great. It was 6 hours of flight time, but because we were such a large group we were able to stay on the plane at our layover city. And when we had 20 mins in Haifa they told us to stay in our seats because there was a storm and they wanted to get us on our way. Awesome. Below, a common theme. So nice to be welcomed.

We travel by bus to our hotel in Nanning and I have to say that this may be one of the nicest hotels I have EVER stayed at. And you will never believe who owns it. Best Western. Surprisingly Best Westerns, Howard Johnson's, and Ramada’s are some of the nicest hotels in China. And they are top of the line. My room is HUGE, with 10’ vaulted ceilings, huge bar area, 2 queen size beds together to make a super king bed, full floor to ceiling window, an amazing 12” shower head, and a separate bath. This hotel is so awesome, there is a button right next to the toilet that you push and it tells anyone outside the door you are taking a shit. Ok ok. It says “wait a minute”. But really, that is class.

One of the coolest features of the hotel, was a very western menu. However, as we are beginning to find out they don’t quite grasp some of the food. For lunch today I ordered a Caesar Salad and french onion soup. You have no idea how ready I was for a Caesar salad. And this is what I got.

With a dressing that I swear to god was tarter sauce! Oh well, the French onion soup was good. Here is a final picture looking out my window at nighttime and daytime. Driving through the city, it makes you think of the emerald city. EVERYTHING has lights on it.

Vegetarianism In China

I found this online and instead of para-phrasing just thought i would post the whole thing. I wanted to post it in regards to all my friends and family that think eating lesser meat and more vegetables is easy to do here in China. I thought this blog entry rang very true for my experiences. Enjoy.

It's Hard Out Here Being a Vegetarian
"As locals are quick to point out, life is tough in China for a vegetarian. Most of the best dishes are made with meat, and vegetables are often used only to compliment the main attractions. Announcing that you do not eat meat is usually met with a combination of disbelief and pity.
A life without meat is a sad life indeed to most Chinese. In a country where famine and mismanagement of agriculture are bitter memories for most middle-age people, it is hard to fathom why someone would voluntarily give up a luxury that is finally so plentiful. Aside from that, many Chinese equate eating a strong appetite for meat with a healthy sex drive. Over the years more than one man here has made a point of making it clear that even if I don’t eat meat he surely does, winking and nudging his friends on the assumption that I fail to grasp the underlying implication.
Explaining to people why I don’t eat meat is not an easy thing, but it is much more difficult in China. Each answer begs another question, usually leading us down a path that ends up with a diagnosis that I am either nuts or silly. In the beginning I used to say vegetarianism was “my personal philosophy”, which was probably the most useless rationale I could have given. Later I changed it to “It is a little like Buddhism”. This was somewhat more helpful, although people frequently tell me either that most Buddhists now eat meat, or the cheekier types like to debate over whether eggs are in fact animals.
When I was living in Sichuan I did not eat fish at all, which at least gave me some cover from hypocrisy, although it led to terrible confusion. Wait staff would insist that there was no meat in a dish and it would arrive with seafood in it. That did not bother me so much because it seemed like a logical mistake. Now that I eat fish I am stuck in the same quandary of trying to tell people that I am a pseudo-vegetarian. However not all mixed up make sense to me.
The one that always baffled me was when people brought me “meat-free” dishes that were chock full ‘o ham. After a while it occurred to me that the problem was not one of stubbornness, but rather linguistics. In Chinese ham is huotui (火腿) or roughly “smoked leg”. It is missing the key character for meat rou (肉) that is used for beef, pork, and chicken. The dishes were not rou, but tui? And leg is not meat.
Finally, there are two other tricks of logic that people try to pull on me from time to time. The first is bringing primarily vegetable dishes with generous bits of meat. In their eyes the dishes were vegetable dishes, which was indistinguishable from vegetarian. The second, and my personal favorite, was that no matter how clear I made it that I did not want even a little bit of meat, sometimes a dish would come that was mostly animal.
The answer that I would get when I asked about it? “It tastes better that way.”"


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