As I let Shanghai swoosh around me, and prepare to settle back into the rhythm of this place (much the way one might settle into a plush piece of 1920s furniture mouldering in the back of a pub), let me allow myself the luxury of posting some pictures and words about the morsels we ate in Sichuan province.

Here's the first offering: two types of Edible Squooshy Things.

Andrew is eating Pumpkin Dumplings at a Buddhist temple in Chengdu. The tiny packets arrive fragrant and hot. They're deeply coloured; a tom-cat hue of orange. Their piping hot bodies are lightly studded with sesame seeds, and their sticky interiors house a secret stash of molten redbean.

The orange and the red are like a sunset breaking open in your mouth. Seeds scatter to the four winds, and everywhere is gooey, unctuous sweetness.

The second experience with Squooshiness involves a skewer. We stop at the window of a small snack canteen, and I'm instantly attracted by the big Christmas baubles on a stick. 'One of those, please!' flies out of my mouth.

The baubles-on-stick are bought, and I bite in. The effect is ... weird. Slightly sweet, but mostly flavourless. The kind of item that just makes you want to ask, 'Why?' in a whiny tone of voice.

Their outsides are somewhat hard and sweetly toffied, but the insides are soft and bland - like some kind of extruded rice product. Not unpleasant, but definitely puzzling to a western palate. Just reinforces Andrew's and my long-held suspicion that unfamiliar sweets are much harder for foreign tastebuds to appreciate than savoury snacks.

ps: yeah, yeah, the photos are both pre-haircut ... bear with me!