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Archive for March, 2009

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Scorpions, sea horses, silkworms!

Saturday, March 28th, 2009

Bizarre delicacies – Oh how I love thee! Literally. My eyes light up each time I come close to sampling such dishes. Tarantulas in Cambodia, crickets & worms in Thailand, balut (duck embryo) in the Philippines, you name it, I’ll probably eat it. Here’s a small insight of things delicious to the Chinese and, well interesting to Americans…

Fried insects, aquatic creatures (poor sea horses) -Beijing

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Oh the choices! I passed on the cute sea horses and went straight for the daunting scorpions. How did it taste? Quite nice – just like chicken, but what doesn’t, right? Cambodian tarantula -like chicken! Thai Crickets & Worms -like chicken! Filipino Balut – like chicken!

Chinese Silkworms – like salted chicken! My favorite Chinese dish so far… tasty little things! -Dalian

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For the record, these delicacies come from the southern part of China, so not all Chinese eat this.

In nearly every country, there are various delicacies, that may seem unusual for many but all the norm for its local people. We do eat snails, frog legs and snakes back home, so how bad can a scorpion be?

When in Rome….  it’ll only makes your adventure/experience all the better 🙂 

Posted in China | 2 Comments »

Biggest purchase thus far

Monday, March 23rd, 2009

With the help of a friend (Thanks Echo!) I was able to find a decent gym conveniently located a minute walk (literally) from my building. So no more “it’s too far, I’m too lazy to drive” excuses for me. Surprisingly, it cost me Y2,600 for a one-year membership. That’s about $375! Back home, I was paying half the cost at 24 Fitness! Why it cost more in China? I have no frickin’ clue. And Y2,600 is towards the cheap end of the stick. Other gyms here can run up to Y3,800. You can bet your ass off that I’ll be dragging my butt to the gym making my moneys worth. As a matter of fact, I’ll probably be going right after I write this blog!

I’ve had a busy busy week. So busy I haven’t had the time to write. Plus, I had minimal access to the Internet so that didn’t help. After a wearisome two weeks of trying to get the Internet set up at home – it finally got done this morning! Thank goodness!

Anyway, so in addition to my students, I’ll be teaching adults as well. I started my first class last Friday. All the adults are women in their forties. Some of them even have their kids enrolled at the school. In spite of knowing that a few of the adults in my class are the proud parents of some of my students (oh the pressure), I felt pretty lax. I found the class to be more conversational in comparison to my other classes. To add to my work schedule, I started tutoring on the side. And in two weeks I plan on enrolling for some Chinese lessons.

Yep, I’m sensing a hectic schedule in my future. No worries though, because then I can 86 “Tiem bu dong”(I don’t know any Chinese) from my vocabulary.

Posted in China | 2 Comments »

Got China Milk?

Saturday, March 14th, 2009
I’m not a milk drinker at all. Sure I’ll have it with my cereal/oatmeal in the morning but besides that you wouldn’t catch me with a glass of milk, not even with cookies.  So there I was at the dairy ... [Continue reading this entry]

Posted in China | 4 Comments »

So far so good

Wednesday, March 11th, 2009
Four classes so far…. and I think they all went pretty well. I’m going to be honest and say that I was a bit nervous going in. Wait. Hold on. Minor correction. I was extremely nervous! I was “what if my students ... [Continue reading this entry]

Posted in China | 3 Comments »

It’s official

Tuesday, March 3rd, 2009
I'm trading in my beloved California burrito caburrito.jpg For some dim sum! dimsum1.jpg dimsum2.jpg I accepted a job in Dalian, a coastal city northeast of Beijing, for a school called ... [Continue reading this entry]

Posted in China | 5 Comments »